#organizations outsource parts

[doodlepede]

hey Rain World fans. I'm gonna show you a lore interpretation that I personally have never seen anyone talk about except myself. If you know me as Sliverist, then you know what's up.

Everyone knows the first five Karma glyphs represent the so-called Five Natural Urges. Violence, reproduction, trade and social connection, eating, and self preservation. People generally believe the next Karma glyphs before the tenth are meaningless, but this is WRONG. Understanding this revelation requires seeing the big picture, which I will guide you through.

Rain World really likes to blur the line between organic and inorganic, with the most obvious example being the Iterators themselves, these biomechanical superstructures whose function in large part is outsourced to their "microbe strata" (Purple SL pearl), but it goes even further, into the very world design.

Five Pebbles' internal structure resembles a brain with its many sections all divided into specific regions with specific purposes. His chamber makes the resemblance even more obvious, where you can clearly see the brainstem.

Within Five Pebbles' dark interior swim swarms of colorful neurons which turn white in broad daylight, each one a carrier of information. Often, they are brushed along by cilia lining the computer halls.

The Void Sea writhes with a swarm of beings enormous beyong reckoning which closely resemble real neurons. The void worm that takes interest in the slugcat uses a dendrite to make a tether to drag the slugcat to its final destination.

As the slugcat swims and swims, it is joined by countless many just like it, and together they swim toward the light, referred to in the code as "TheEgg" (VoidSeaScene.cs)

This is the table of Karma, showing every level above Five. Doesn't it look rather like..

dividing cells being crossed out?

In Rain World, birth and life, cognition and enlightenment, death and ascension are all inextricably connected concepts. You might even say they're connected in a cycle. The imagery and themes are rich and complete, integrated fully into the world. This is even without mentioning the voidspawn which also resemble sperm, swimming to the same place. This is why Ascension is the best ending :artiyoy:

[statementlou]

Hi💗 I'm having a bit of a hard time understanding your last post. It's probably because i'm too stupid, but do you want to explain a bit more about what you mean? I'm sorry to bother you, but I really want to understand. Lots of love🌞

anon I'm happy to help but I hope you mean the openstage one? If so: OpenStage is a "fan engagement platform built especially for the music industry"; it's a service that artists can pay for and in return they data mine their fanbase to tell the artist where most of their fans are from, their general demographics, what they respond to best, etc, and they send out promo emails and host artist pages with links all in one place (like a band caard kind of thing) and various other useful services like that. It seems great for small artists who don't have management companies to do all this stuff, but also for larger acts' management to streamline and outsource the work. Like LTHQ used to do loads of this stuff themselves, and they ended up repeating efforts a lot it seemed like and having to personally organize a lot of fiddly things like details of the hotspots and stuff; until they found OpenStage. They not only outsourced that work to them, Louis also said, this is a great platform with potential to help small artists and make money, and he invested in it personally. Little start ups getting investors means they can use the money to get bigger and do more stuff, but it also means the bigger they get, the more that investor's shares are worth. So someone gives a company xxxx amount of money in return for owning part of it which if it fails is worth nothing, the money is gone, oh well, but if the gamble that they will do good and grow is right, they will make money. So if a company is worth $100 than buying 4% of it costs $4, but if it then gets so popular that it's now worth $4000 then tada that 4% is now worth $400... anyway I'm not saying OpenStage was tiny when Louis found it, it was probably already pretty big and on the way up, but now they are EVERYWHERE and the fact that 100% of the Oasis reunion traffic is being run through an OpenStage link has to be huge. So what I meant was: it may be indirect, but when OpenStage succeed Louis makes money, so Louis is profiting from this reunion through his investment.

[bet-on-me-13]

Metahumans Anonymous Pt.2

Continuing where Part 1 left off

(This is Damian Robin)

(Also I need to add one more thing about the previous part. This is an Anonymous Meeting Place, so to protect their identities even more, they wear Masks or Face Covers to try and stay hidden)

Robin was hopping across rooftops on Patrol, going through an area that he has noticed they have been accidentally avoiding, when he sees a strange light coming out from a skylight.

He wanders over and sees an average looking man shooting Fire at another man, who seems to be shooting Ice right back at him in some sort of battle. They even have technological weapons and masks.

Looking around the room more, there are potentially dozens of Metahumans battling in the room, all with small weapons and Masks. At first he thinks they are being made to battle by somebody else, like a Fighting Ring. But then, the two from before call for the others to wrap it up.

Obviously, those two are leading the others, and all of them are there of their own free will, he can tell that from their body language.

He is convinced that they are a group of Metahuman Criminals training to take over the city using their powers. He was raised in an Assassin Cult, and he inherited his dad's paranoia, so he doesn’t even consider the idea that this is completely harmless. He also just recently moved to Gotham, so he doesn’t know the real reason for the No Metas Rule, he just assumes the rumors were true that his dad didn’t like Metahumans and never brings it up.

In his eyes the only reason they could have for using their powers secretly in a warehouse at the edge of town using weapon-like machines against each other, was because they must be training. And if they are training, then they must have a reason for it.

He sees the two people that seem to be the leaders of the group. An average looking man with Fire Powers and a tall but thin man with Ice Powers.

He decides to look them up on the Bat-Computer, after Stalking them and getting a glimpse of their faces.

The Fire Guy looks like he had led a perfectly normal life, a little too normal in his opinion. He must be hiding something, this was obviously a fake profile. It was too clean. (this was actually because he didn’t want to be noticed for his powers, so he tried to keep under the radar as much as possible his whole life)

The Ice Guy was more interesting. He comes from a small town out in Illinois, and moved to Gotham for a job. His parents are registered as People of Interest in the Bat-Computer for their research into other dimensions, and they seem to lean a bit too far in the Mad side of Mad Scientists. He must be the one supplying their weapons.

There’s also some interesting reports from his hometown, a large amount of Powerful Metahuman Villains who recently stopped attacking the city and started living there peacefully. Even the Mad Scientists, who once proclaimed that they would skin the villains alive, had changed their Tune and started advocating for the Villains rehabilitation. Something was definitely up with the Ice Guy.

Robin doesn’t report this to his Father just yet. He only just recently joined the Bat-Family a few months ago, he’s still 10, and he really wants to prove himself by taking down an extremely dangerous Metahuman Villain Group by himself. Maybe his father would cement him as his one true heir then?

He decides to get creative. He can’t defeat all those villains by himself in a straight fight, and he knows picking them off one by one would put them on edge, but maybe he could...outsource their destruction.

He anonymously contacts the Rouge in the area that the Warehouse was in, and tells them that a group of Metas was going to try and take them over soon. He hopes that the villains will just kill each other, and he could pick off the leftovers. It would be two birds for the price of one, taking down both of the Villainous organizations at once and leaving him the sole victor.

The night he initiates the plan, he returns to the cave to rest for a few hours before he can go back out to deal with the leftovers.

Then Batman rushes in, yelling that they needed all hands on deck. Apparently a Civilian Assembly that he was in contact with was under attack by a Villain Organization. He and Robin rush out to help, but the closer they get, the more Robin realizes they are heading in the direction of the Metahuman Villain Group.

Did they make their move? Tonight of all nights? He had perfectly set up a situation where he could get all the credit, but now it was all going to collapse because he didn’t anticipate that they would make their move so early!

They get to the Assembly and see the two different Villain Groups battling. The Civilians must have been caught in the crossfire! He had caused this hadn’t he? (more than he knew)

He decides to take action, and defeat the biggest threats on the field. That of course, meant taking out the most powerful Metahumans in the battle. He goes for the second Leader, the one with Fire Powers, and knocks him out.

Before he can move on, one of his brothers calls out “Robin! What are you doing! Those are the civilians!”

By the time the battle is over, and the Villains have been repelled, Robin has realized what happened. The Civilian Assembly that was being attacked was the Villain Group that he had set up.

Of Course Batman would have known about the gathering of Meta-Humans in his City. He had met up with them months ago and made a deal with them to protect them in return for keeping their head down.

Thankfully nobody had been hurt to badly in the attack, and the Metas with healing powers could fix up most of the damage, but now that one Villain Organization knew about them, every single other one would know within a week. Their little slice of Heaven had been taken from them.

Danny is happy that none of their Masks were taken off or ripped, so none of the Villains will be able to see their faces, but they would need a new location if they ever decided to do in-person meetings again.

If they ever felt anywhere near "safe" again.

Basically, Damian f#cked up...

[socialjusticeinamerica]

They don’t even know of a time when life was better in America. Actually Gen X was the first generation in America not to do better than their parents. The same being true for the last few years of the Boomer generation. Y also is struggling.

The lady Boomers and X’ers remember what it was like before Reagan took over and busted unions in 1980. Wages dropped, factory owners took their shops to the Deep South where unions had long since been busted or never allowed to set up in the first place. Then the oligarchs outsourced their work and shuttered factories nationwide.

Before Reagan one parent working 40 hrs a week at a union job could afford a mortgage, a new car, medical insurance, and college for their 2.5 kids. That also applied to “minorities” or marginalized people who benefitted from union protections and negotiated standard pay scales.

With Reagan a home went from two years salary to 10+ years salary. Tuition did the same. Cars that cost a month’s salary soared to a year’s salary. Wages have remained stagnant for about 40 years. The wealthy paid high taxes and we had everything. Now the remnants of the middle class pay the bulk of taxes while multimillionaires and billionaires pay little or even nothing. Credit card interest soared to over 20% in some cases while Republikkkans passed laws making it easier for those card companies to sue you whilst making it nearly impossible for you to sue them. Mentally disabled people were literally dumped into the streets causing widespread homeless which is criminalized in affluent areas and red states. Guns and drugs flooded the streets. Bigoted white nationalists became radicalized when Reagan granted Australian Rupert Murdoch citizenship so he could open Fox News and then shut down the Fairness Doctrine so propaganda could be spread under the guise of news.

All the societal problems we suffer today began with the birth of the modern RepubliKKKan party led by their racist Dotard Ronald Reagan in 1980. The GOP became an organized crime syndicate and the government became a tool for the rich. The middle class shrunk from a sizeable percentage of the population to a handful of areas in the north and along the west coast. Many foolish people believe themselves to be in the middle class but in fact they are just perpetual debtors.

If you’re young your first reaction might be to blame the Boomers because that’s incorrectly become a marketed belief. The Boomer generation fought against the GOP and its wars, racism, pollution, big oil, corporate welfare, and black hole military industrial complex. They were the hippies and political activists that marched on Washington and other places. They booted the racist Dixiecrats (southern conservative racist Dems) from the Democratic Party while shifting educated liberals left. Sadly the GOP under Nixon and his colleagues welcomed the racists and conservative nut jobs. Don’t fight a generational war when you should be fighting a class/culture/political war.

The younger generation needs to educate itself about the political parties and how life was better just a few decades back and begin to vote. Vote, then organize in the workplace through unions and in the streets to attract more young voters and to counter protest the Republikkkan right-wing oligarch take-over of America. Complaining and taking refuge in the internet won’t turn things around. Become politically active, become stoke, bring back lower tuition, affordable health care, labor unions, workers rights, voters rights, etc.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Some of the surviving members of the Cuban paramilitary invasion force went on to serve as hired guns for the CIA and other US agencies. Others continued to operate under their own initiatives. Many individuals affiliated with the Bay of Pigs invasion continued anti-Castro activities alone with US acquiescence, rather than direct support. Successor anti-Castro groups emerged such as Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU), Alpha 66 and Omega 7. Luis Posada, for example, perhaps the most famous former CIA asset (1961–67) as part of the Brigade 2506 invasion force at the Bay of Pigs and a trained demolition expert, was behind the bombing of a Cuban Airline killing 73 people in 1976, with, according to declassified documents, full CIA advanced knowledge of the plan. Posada was also involved in a number of other bombing plots and terrorist attacks against Castro and Cuban nationals. One of these included planting bombs in Panama for which he was arrested and sentenced to eight years in prison. Despite this, he was kept in cahoots with the CIA and was later hired by Col. Oliver North to aid the Iran-Contra resupply efforts in the late 1980s. Another “freedom fighter,” ex-CIA operative, and friend of Posada, Orlando Bosch headed CORU, linked not only to the bombing of a Cuban airplane but also terrorist activities in the Miami area. According to a 1993 US Department of Justice report, many of these actors operated under the assumption that they had tacit or implicit support from the US government, based on the fact that they had received training and direction to commit these types of acts in the past.

Andrew Thomson, Outsourced Empire: How Militias, Mercenaries, and Contractors Support US Statecraft

[vvvvivi567890]

Chinese LoTM Gen Fic Recs (II)

<<< Part I | ★☆★☆★ |

Last Updated: July. 31. 2024

COI:

Those Who Want to Be Mr. Fool's Dog by moyaozi

Under the instructions of Madam Magician, Lumian comes into contact with an organization in which all of the members wanted to be Mr. Fool's dog

A Holiday by k70296

Takes place during the 4th vol of COI; Klein briefly wakes up and sends an avatar to spend time with friends in order to increase his humanity

The Church's Redemption Angel God Descends in Chasel by siriuss12

Moretti:

Extraordinary Benson Wants to Live an Ordinary Life by kaiyi965

Benson becomes a beyonder (s6 lawyer) before Zhou Mingrui transmigrates

Everyone is Worried About Their Family by hanpeiwen

Klein goes home and Melissa is extremely over-protective of him

Wait Until They Die by aizhuangkudexiaocainiao497

That Rainy Afternoon by bimoqingtian

Benson's 3650 Days by bimoqingtian: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, (Last Updated: Mar. 17. 2024)

The Sun is Shining Brightly on a Beautiful Day by ilymb

Melissa's One Wish by nanrong44064

Klein-Centered:

Loneliness Can’t Kill the Cat by fucaoweiying70209

Required read tbh; Zhou Mingrui meets himself from the future

Help, Make Trouble by luoyunshengya: Preface 1, Preface 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, (Last Updated: Sept. 10. 2023)

Blackthorn Security Company:

Will Klein Miss Blackthorn Security Company? by jinxuan44061: 1, 2 (Lasted Updated: Mar. 24. 2024)

LoTM Klein splits into two post-doomsday, one of them lands in the past at Blackthorn Security Company

About the Future, Future Klein by xinjinjumin4545033: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, (Last Updated: May. 06. 2024)

Tingen nighthawks meet future Klein; chapter 5 is LeoKlein but I'm not sure if it will be present for the rest of the fic (i'll move it to another post later if it is)

Tarot Club:

How Many Steps Does it Take to Put a Cat On the Bed? by benguodeniunai

Reaction | Mr. Fool Read His Holy Scripture by amusitelangdeaima

Homecoming Group (kinda ig):

The Oracle Prohibits Illegal Outsourcing by langduzhe023

Organizing the Church of the Fool's sealed artifacts with Roselle and Amanises

3 Protagonists Gather Together by nenesis17

Leonard's portable grandpa is Roselle not Pallez

3 Protagonists Are a Bit Too Many: 1, 2 (END)

A Room Where You Can’t Leave Without Saying Something Embarrassing by anice526

Others:

Hall of Truth Trio | ”The Fool,” “Justice,” and “Stars” are In the Face by moranheixuan: 1, (Last Updated: May. 13. 2024)

Martime Group | Whose Child is This??? by chuyue12737: 1, 2, 3 (END)

gehrman turns into a 6 year old zmr with fragments of klein’s memory

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Hence our billboard. Folks can support here https://maddogpac.com/products/quick

* * * *

VP Harris campaigns from a position of strength, Trump campaigns from a position of desperation

September 23, 2024

Robert B. Hubbell

Over the last few weeks, emails from readers have shifted in their description of reader activities. More readers are saying they are engaged in door-to-door canvassing on behalf of Kamala Harris and Democratic candidates down-ballot. The most recent communication was a note I received Sunday afternoon, which included, “I will be knocking on doors in Pennsylvania the next six weeks.” Talk about dedication!

I considered noting the trend toward on-the-ground canvassing as the lead for this newsletter but reconsidered, wondering if it was worth highlighting. As I was about to move on to a different subject to open this newsletter, I saw the following article: HuffPo, Republicans In Swing States Say They See Scant Signs Of Groups Door-Knocking For Trump.

According to the HuffPo article, Trump has outsourced his “on the ground organizing” by hiring political action committees to perform work traditionally conducted by volunteers. Among the PACs Trump has hired to perform volunteer work is America PAC, whose major investor is Elon Musk. But in key swing states, political observers are saying that Trump paid canvassers are “missing in action.”

The PACs hired by Trump are running into difficulties. Musk’s America PAC hired subcontractors to perform door-to-door work in Arizona and Nevada. But with seven weeks to go, Musk’s PAC fired the sub-contractor and is now scrambling to build a canvassing organization from scratch. See The Guardian, Trump-allied Pac fires canvassing vendor in crucial states weeks before election.

All campaigns face organizing difficulties. But Trump compounded those difficulties by outsourcing volunteer activities at a time when it has also closed field offices. The point of Trump's abandonment of the ground game is to allow him to focus on advertising. But there, too, he is being outspent by the Harris-Walz campaign. See NYTimes (9/20/2024), Kamala Harris Outspends Donald Trump by Tens of Millions Online. (Behind a paywall.)

Per the NYT,

Ever since Ms. Harris entered the race, her campaign has overwhelmed the Trump operation with an avalanche of digital advertising, outspending his by tens of millions of dollars and setting off alarm among some Republicans.

None of the above is meant to suggest that it will be easy to defeat Trump. But the Harris-Walz campaign has two resources in abundance: volunteers and enthusiasm. Trump’s newly hired paid contractors will be no match for motivated true believers urging neighbors and community members to show up to vote.

Enthusiasm and genuine dedication are not being measured by horse-race polls—which explains why it feels like there is a disconnect between the reported closeness of the race and what we are seeing and experiencing.

We should not delude ourselves or fabricate “just so” stories to deny reality. But here, the reality is that we have a comparative advantage and a strategic opening. Trump has offloaded the most important part of the “get out the vote” effort and is being out-raised by the Harris-Walz campaign.

The lesson to be taken from Trump's error is not that we can ease up but that we should double-down on volunteering on the hard work of getting out the vote—in every way possible. During the next seven weeks, there is no substitute for personal involvement in getting out the vote—in whatever form that takes!

Given Trump's dual disadvantages in ground game and cash, he has pivoted to the real currency of the MAGA movement: outrage and grievance. Read on!

Trump stokes racial tensions and anti-immigrant animus to motivate his base

Faced with a fundraising deficit and an anemic ground organization, Trump has turned to outrage to motivate his followers. Even the Trump apologists at the New York Times recognize that the last two weeks have been exceptional—even by the outrage-driven heights of Trump's past campaigns. See NYTimes, Controversies Erupt as Trump and G.O.P. Make Critical Push to Voters.

Per the NYTimes,

Even by the standards of a head-spinning presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump’s campaign over the past two weeks has been tumultuous. A period that began when Mr. Trump pushed baseless claims from the debate stage that immigrants in Ohio were stealing and eating household pets ended with him facing attacks over his support of the Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina, who referred to himself as a “black Nazi” on the message board of a pornographic website. Mr. Trump has returned to the kind of attention-seeking habits honed by a career spent shaping his image in New York tabloids.

He pledged to visit Springfield, Ohio, even as local Republican officials pleaded with him to stay away, as the town continues to reel from a political firestorm ignited by his false claims. [¶¶]

The pledge to visit Springfield can only be viewed as an effort to increase racial tension and provoke anti-immigrant animus across America—with an attendant increase in the potential for violence.

In short, Trump is hoping to erase Kamala Harris’s advantages by appealing to hate and division. As the media continue to report the gaining strength of the Harris-Walz campaign, we should expect that Trump will ratchet up his incitement. While that will be hard to watch and dangerous for America, we should recognize it as a sign of increasing desperation by Trump. Do not let it deter or distract us! Instead, concentrate on getting out the vote in every way possible!!

Staff members of the Mark Robinson NC campaign for governor resign

Despite overwhelming evidence that the North Carolina GOP candidate for governor, Mark Robinson, had an active presence on porn sites where he posted pro-Nazi, racist comments, the response of the NC Republican establishment has been to deny the allegations. That tactic is designed to undermine the confidence of voters in the truth. In the GOP playbook, if nothing is true, then the truth about Trump's criminality, corruption, and anti-democratic plans is easier to deny.

But at some point, it is impossible to deny the truth. On Sunday, reports emerged that key staff members of Mark Robinson’s gubernatorial campaign have resigned. See Axios, Top Mark Robinson aides resign from North Carolina governor's campaign.

Per Axios, the top six aides in Robinson’s campaign have resigned, including the campaign manager, finance director, political director, and director of operations—all of the senior staff on the campaign.

It is difficult to imagine how the campaign can continue. Indeed, per Axios, one Republican adviser said, “the staffing overhaul "doesn't matter because the campaign was already over."

As above, the challenges faced by Republicans in North Carolina are not an excuse to relent but a strategic opening for Democrats to win up and the down the ballot—including by defeating Trump. If Republicans are going to nominate the worst of the worst MAGA extremist candidates in their effort to please the Trump base, then we should convert that tendency into our strategic advantage.

Speaker Mike Johnson proposes “clean” spending bill despite Trump's objection

Donald Trump has been pressuring Speaker Mike Johnson to force a government shutdown if Democrats did not agree to a the SAVE Act—which would impose unnecessary proof of citizenship documentation requirements on new voters. (The US has managed to hold federal elections for 235 years without requiring the onerous documentary proof imposed by the SAVE Act.) See The Hill, Mike Johnson proposes three-month funding bill to avert government shutdown.

As with other continuing resolutions, Mike Johnson will need help from Democrats to pass the bill. Johnson sent a letter to House Republicans explaining why they needed to support the proposed continuing resolution:

While this is not the solution any of us prefer, it is the most prudent path forward under the present circumstances. As history has taught and current polling affirms, shutting the government down less than 40 days from a fateful election would be an act of political malpractice.

Trump was willing to commit “political malpractice” by shutting down the government—because he believed it would help him win, even though it would have hurt congressional Republicans. As always with Trump, it about Trump—and no one else.

700+ national security leaders endorse Kamala Harris

A reader who is a member of a group of national security leaders who endorsed Kamala Harris sent me a note about the letter released by the group. See Endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States — National Security Leaders for America (nsl4a.org).

The list of signatories is truly impressive. Their letter reads, in part:

We are former public servants who swore an oath to the Constitution. Many of us risked our lives for it. We are retired generals, admirals, senior noncommissioned officers, ambassadors, and senior civilian national security leaders. We are Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. We are loyal to the ideals of our nation—like freedom, democracy, and the rule of law—not to any one individual or party. We do not agree on everything, but we all adhere to two fundamental principles. First, we believe America’s national security requires a serious and capable Commander-in-Chief. Second, we believe American democracy is invaluable. Each generation has a responsibility to defend it. That is why we, the undersigned, proudly endorse Kamala Harris to be the next President of the United States. This election is a choice between serious leadership and vengeful impulsiveness. It is a choice between democracy and authoritarianism. Vice President Harris defends America’s democratic ideals, while former President Donald Trump endangers them.

The cast of Hamilton sings “The Election of 2024”

For fans of the musical Hamilton, you must watch the current cast sing The Election of 2024. It is creative, fun, and important. And it mentions one of my favorite organizations, VoteRiders!

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[zaebeecee]

To Sever a Loveless Bond

••RadioDust Soulmate AU••

Part 9/?

First chapter | Previous chapter | Next chapter

Read on AO3

•••

Look, when I say slow burn, I mean SLOW BURN, but I try to make the payoffs worth the wait.

Also, this whole fic takes place before the Full Moon Episode and exists in a different continuity.

Not that I’m bringing that up for any reason or anything.

•••

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you right. You did… what?”

“I outsourced your little stalking job,” Velvette repeated, sending off an email to the design department and flipping over to Voxstagram to post the series of selfies she had taken at the previous night’s fashion show. “Or I’m in the process of outsourcing it, at least.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Velvette saw Vox clasp his hands in front of his face like he would have done to pinch the bridge of his nose in life, his eyes closing. He was still sitting, which was a good thing; whenever Vox started pacing in the meeting room, that was when she knew there was a problem.

“And… why, precisely, did you do that?” Vox asked after a long pause, lowering his hands and opening his eyes halfway to stare blithely at her with a smile that twitched at one corner.

Velvette stopped halfway through typing a caption to let her hand drop to the side, her head rolling to give him a full-on look. “Because the photography department, which I contacted first by your request, doesn’t have anyone expendable.”

“Why is that?”

“Because some moody bitch killed their low earners.” Velvette snapped her head to look at the other side of the table, her neck clicking audibly. Valentino didn’t sit up from his dramatic lounge, he simply glared at her through his sunglasses. “Which means their entire department is tied up right now, mostly because Verosika Mayday’s tour has come back to Pride and you assigned them to cover that for two weeks. The department was already stretched thin as it was and now there are only four people in it.”

Vox looked like he was trying very, very hard to maintain his veneer of calm. His smile dropped into a frown and he folded his hands on the table, looking at Valentino instead. “You killed half the photography department?”

“They were placed inconveniently. I merely moved them.”

“And moved their internal organs onto the walls,” Velvette complained. “Now I’m having to run damage control with the janitorial staff because he slaughtered them in a room with pearl white carpet, and if they refuse to clean it, killing them won’t get it cleaned faster and will mean more blood that won’t get mopped up.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Vox said, closing his eyes. “What do you mean, you’re outsourcing it?”

Velvette went back to her phone, finishing up the caption. “Since we don’t have anyone expendable in house, I found a service who’ll do it at a reasonable enough rate and who aren’t tied to us, so if they die or get caught, who cares? I haven’t hired them yet, obviously, it’s your call. They’re supposed to come by sometime this morning to get the details and sign a contract if you approve. And if they end up agreeing, I suppose, I only told their boss that we want them to shadow some people.”

“Am I capable of an aneurysm? I feel like I’m going to have an aneurysm,” Vox muttered to himself. “Okay. Fine. This isn’t ideal, but fine. You’re sure we can trust them not to publicly tie this back to us?”

“Pretty sure they’ll do anything for the right price,” Velvette said.

Seemingly satisfied for the moment, Vox agreed, then redirected their board meeting to things that Velvette considered to be actually worth discussing. Valentino was still moody and quiet, only speaking when directly addressed, and even then usually just when it was Vox talking to him. It was… weird, and Velvette didn’t like feeling stuck in a room with him when he was like this.

Nearly an hour later, the intercom on the table buzzed, and a receptionist spoke in a tentative voice. “Miss Velvette?”

She reached out and pressed the button. “Talk to me.”

“There, ah… there’s an incredibly rude imp in the lobby who’s insisting he has an appointment with you? He and his party won’t leave. Or, he won’t, and he won’t let them, either.”

Judging by their brief phone conversation, that was them. “Send them up to the board room.”

“What— um. Yes. Of course.”

The line went dead, and Velvette sat back in her chair. Both of the men were staring at her. “An imp?” Vox asked dryly, raising an eyebrow.

“Told you. Nobody whose death would matter.”

Ten minutes later, the elevator in the hallway dinged, and the door to the conference room opened. The receptionist, probably the one from the intercom, came in enough to hold the door open and let in the ones she was leading. Velvette was pretty sure she knew what to expect, and it was only slightly different than her visual. There were three imps, one male who was remarkably tall (for an imp), well-dressed, and covered in burn scars; one shorter male with white hair and a nervous sort of posture; and one female with a gap in her teeth who was staring at everything in the room like a wide-eyed hayseed. The only part Velvette didn’t anticipate was the hellhound that followed, a young woman with her eyes on her phone who hadn’t been in the commercial.

“You know something?” the tallest imp said, turning to walk backwards as he looked at the employee whose name Velvette couldn’t be bothered to remember. “You are a terrible receptionist. I’m astonished you still have a job.”

“Sir, you can’t just say that!” the shorter male snapped. “We have a receptionist that answers the phone with ‘what the fuck do you want?’ and how is that better?!”

“He didn’t mean that, you’re doin’ a great job,” the female imp said in a thick accent common among Wrath-raised imps, waving her hands at the receptionist. “He’s just an asshole. I am so sorry.”

With a roll of her eyes, the VoxTek employee shook her head and stepped out again, shutting the door. The four approached the table, stopping a short distance away from it.

“Ohh,” Vox said softly, blinking twice before he pointed between them. “I recognize the three of you, at least. You run commercial campaigns with us. You’re the Immediate Murder Professionals.”

“And you’re the Vees,” the tall imp said with a smirk that suggested he was not, in the slightest, nervous about being a member of the lowest class of Hell society in a room with three sinner overlords. “I’m Blitz. The O is silent. This is Millie, Moxxie, my trusted and my tolerated employees, and Loona, my daughter.”

“Hi, I love yer fish tank,” Millie said, one hand behind her back and the other half raised to give them a wave. “Big fan of So You Think You Can Garrote, too, season three was a blast.”

Moxxie was staring at the three of them unblinkingly, and Velvette couldn’t tell if he was frozen with terror or debating pulling a gun on them. “…hello.”

Loona didn’t so much as glance up from her phone, but she did move the hand crossed over her chest enough to extend two fingers in acknowledgment.

Vox glanced at Velvette. “This is what you call outsourcing?”

“I thought they only did up top murder,” Valentino suddenly added, his eyes on the Hellborn. “They don’t look like private investigators.”

“Because we’re not,” Moxxie said, his voice harsh. “Sir, I’m sorry, but what the fuck did you tell them we do?”

“Moxxie, when I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you,” Blitzø said, then addressed the table again. “It’s not our usual bag, no, but Velvette was incredibly persuasive on the phone. Financially speaking, anyway.”

Vox shrugged. “I can appreciate a little rapaciousness. Fine,” he said, ignoring Valentino’s very clear ‘what the fuck does that mean’ squint and motioning them over. “Come, sit down. Just not next to Valentino if you like your arms where they are.”

Moxxie cast Valentino an alarmed look as Millie hooked their elbows together and pulled him to the other side of the table. Blitzø navigated Loona to a chair and she sat without paying much attention, and then he took up the space next to her. “Mind if we ask what this is all about?” Blitzø asked.

Vox tapped the table with his fingertips. “What were you told?”

“Not much. Just that you had a possible job that wasn’t in our… usual wheelhouse, per se, and involved shadowing a couple of people and not getting caught.” Blitzø shrugged. “And I told her yeah, fuck it, we don’t really have any regular work goin’ on right now.”

Vox leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs, gesturing at Blitzø with a limp-wristed, palm-up hand that he absolutely was not aware of. “Alright, here’s the deal. If you take the job, you’ll be following two people whenever they’re out together, and reporting everything back to me. This will include photographs, and we’ll tell you how to take them.” Millie and Moxxie looked at each other, but Vox was still looking at their boss. “You don’t need to know why we want this information, and you won’t ask. In return, if you get into any kind of trouble with them and can escape alive, we’ll shelter you here and ensure they don’t get to you. You also won’t be officially associated with us to your benefit. And you will be compensated for the risk.”

“Huh.” Blitzø folded his hands in his lap and leaned back in his chair, licking his teeth with a forked tongue. Velvette watched intently, and then wondered when the fuck she started finding an imp hot.

I don’t want to fuck him. Do I want to fuck him?

Blitzø then shrugged, and she was jarred out of the fairly disturbing thought. “I don’t really care why you want them followed or what the fuck ever. I take it you don’t want them shot.”

Velvette snorted, glad for something to hold on to that wasn’t… whatever that was because imps were not attractive. “More like you don’t want to shoot them.”

“Sinners?” Blitzø asked. Vox nodded affirmatively, and the imp groaned, tipping his head back. “Throat fuck me with a cactus— okay. Fine. No shooting anyone.”

“Sir,” Moxxie hissed across the table, leaning forward on the wooden surface. “You are not seriously going to make us stalk sinners, are you?”

“Yeah, Blitzø, I mean… I’m all fer a lil’ sneakin’ around and gettin’ our ninja on, but…” Millie was clearly struggling with her next words, but settled on, “We’re gonna die. Ya know that, right?”

“I haven’t died once in my entire life,” Blitzø said dismissively, focusing on Vox again. “I take it there’s a reason you haven’t told us who, yet, and I don’t think you’d be that interested in the daily happenings of Johnny Fuckoff, so…”

Vox smiled. “The first one is Angel Dust. You’re familiar?”

“Porn star?” Blitzø’s eyes widened. “Fuck yeah, we’ll stalk a porn star for you!” Moxxie put his face in his hands and made a sound that reminded Velvette of someone screaming into a pillow in frustration.

“Shouldn’t you find out who the second person is before you get all gross and weird about this job?” Loona asked in a voice that, as Velvette anticipated, was bog standard moody young woman.

Blitzø rolled his eyes. “I mean, I’m kinda sold at this point, but sure. Who’s the second?”

“The Radio Demon,” Vox said, and the next three sentences came in such quick succession that they were right on top of each other.

“…the Radio Demon,” Blitzø repeated, his voice flat.

“The Radio Demon?!” Moxxie asked in a bald display of pure, unadulterated horror as he lowered his hands.

“The Radio Demon??” Millie squealed with sudden, genuine excitement, bouncing up and down in her chair.

Loona actually lowered her phone to look at Vox, blinking wide canine eyes slowly.

“Huh.” Blitzø was quiet for a moment. “…well, I don’t know what I was expecting.”

“No! No, no, no no, absolutely not.” Moxxie got to his feet and slammed his hands on the table, glaring at his boss. “We are not stalking the Radio Demon!”

“Look, Moxxie, unless you are prepared to start selling a lot of feet pics in Lust, we are going to have to make money somehow, as that is currently an issue!” Blitzø stood as well and leaned forward into Moxxie’s face, pressing his finger into the other imp’s forehead. “So unless you have a better idea of how we can actually afford rent that doesn’t involve bitching like a little piss baby bitch, sit down and let your wife make your decisions!”

Millie reached up and pulled Moxxie back into his seat. “Come on, sweetie, we won’t even be gettin’ near ‘em! And come on, I wanna see the Radio Demon…!” she wheedled.

“But… aw, honey, don’t give me that look…!”

“It’s settled. We’ll do it,” Blitzø said. “I mean, I know it’s none of my business why the Radio Demon is apparently going on dates with a porn star—”

“They are not going on dates!!” Valentino slammed his hands into the table as he stood up, towering over them. “You are going to find out what the fuck is going on, and you are going to tell me, and then I am going to beat that fucking deer man with his own goddamn spine!!”

“Satan’s left nut, you are a tall motherfucker,” Blitzø said, holding his hands up in front of his face but not cowering. “Calm down, Mothman, we’ll get you your info, okay? Goddamn, get some Valium or something.”

Velvette stared at him, and she knew the other Vees—and probably his own people—were doing the same. Valentino, however, looked absolutely apoplectic. “You should mind your tongue when you’re talking to your betters! Do you even know who you’re fucking talking to, malparido?!”

Blitzø didn’t budge. In fact, he was grinning. “Uh… the Pride ring’s most confoundingly accomplished pornography hack?”

In an instant, Valentino’s gun was in his hand and he had Blitzø by the lapels in another, hauling him off the ground and shoving the barrel of his weapon under the imp’s jaw. “I’ll fucking blow your goddamn head off—!!”

“VAL!”

Immediately, Valentino twisted his head around to look at Vox, who was on his feet with his hands on the table and his left eye wide and pulsating. Valentino twitched, his teeth gritted with some kind of effort, before he released Blitzø. The imp fell back into his chair with an inelegant noise, then immediately slipped out of it and vanished underneath the table. “Ow, shit—!”

Vox kept his eyes on Valentino. His left eye was no longer pulsing, but he didn’t straighten. “You are not going to shoot our contract employees. You are going to sit down. You are going to fucking behave yourself. Alternatively, you are going to leave. Those are your choices. Pick one.”

Valentino’s lip curled and he looked like he wanted to put a fist straight through Vox’s screen. If it had been anyone else, he would have. Instead, he just threw his chair back so hard it crashed to the ground and slid several feet, storming out of the room.

“I’ll deal with him,” Vox said to Velvette, holding out a placating hand. “I apologize about Valentino. He hasn’t… been himself, lately,” he added to IMP as he sat back down.

Blitzø grabbed the edge of the table and hauled himself off the floor, muttering under his breath. “Fuckin’ sensitive ass Hallmark greeting card kaiju-lookin ass.” He sat down, releasing a breath and holding his hands out. “We’re good. I’m fine.”

“Sir can you please not antagonize the overlords,” Moxxie hissed. Velvette thought all three of them were showing a remarkable lack of concern for their boss’s wellbeing, which told her that he did this kind of thing a lot.

“You aren’t scared of much, are you, Blitzø?” Vox asked, a spark of interest in his voice that hadn’t been there earlier.

Blitzø shrugged, looking completely unbothered. “I’ve had fights with a Goetian prince, been yelled at by Asmodeus, gotten into a drinking contest with Beelzebub, and pointed a gun at a pissed off Mammon. No offense, but sinners aren’t exactly my biggest concern.”

Vox raised an eyebrow at Velvette, then looked at Blitzø again. “Well, you might be full of shit and lying right to our faces. You also might be telling the truth. Either way, that’s exactly the kind of grit I appreciate in someone. If you want the job, it’s yours. We’ll get you genned up.”

“Fuck yes,” Blitzø said with a grin, rubbing his hands together. Moxxie groaned and let his head fall to the table with a heavy thud, and Millie patted his back. “Let’s do this shit.”

•••

“Has anybody seen Alastor?”

Angel looked up from his spot on the lobby’s lounge floor, laid out on his stomach with his legs bent and ankles crossed. “Uh… no, not today,” he said, lowering the colored paper in his hands. “Why?”

Charlie frowned a little, her hands on her hips, and tapped her foot on the floor. “I can’t find him. He wanted to meet with me to talk about something, but that was over an hour ago.”

“He left last night!” Niffty chirped. She, too, was lying on the floor; Vaggie was sitting kitty-corner to both of them, her legs crossed, and Fat Nuggets was wandering between the three of them with no particular destination in his cute little head. A pile of colored paper was only barely stacked between them, as well as a variety of origami animals in various states of ‘good’. “He seemed weeeiiird. I didn’t ask what it was, though, because he was ‘don’t talk to me’ weird, so I just watched him leave the hotel.”

Husk turned his head just a little from his spot lounging on the nearby couch, his eyes still on the book he was reading whenever Niffty wasn’t flicking tiny paper cranes at him for him to ‘babysit’. “He does that sometimes. I wouldn’t sweat it, and I definitely wouldn’t go looking for him. If he’s in a mood, you don’t want to find him, and he’ll come back whenever he feels like it.”

“Weird for him to be late to somethin’, tho,” Angel said with a frown, looking from Husk to Niffty. “No idea what was buggin’ him?”

“Noooo,” Niffty said, her eye going wide and her voice going intense. “But he had his scary eyes and scary smile on and his antlers were a little bigger than normal~” She closed her eye and bared her teeth, giggling.

“Are you sure someone shouldn’t go find him, Husk?” Vaggie asked, looking over her shoulder at the bartender.

“Positive.”

“Charlie, Charlie, come make origami with us,” Niffty said. “You can wait for Alastor and I’ll teach you!”

“Huh? Uh, okay, sure,” Charlie said, plopping down to turn their triangle into a circle.

Angel didn’t really listen to Niffty’s repeated instructions, focusing on folding his own piece of paper into a frog as his mind wandered to Alastor. What could have happened? And what did he leave to go do? Angel knew that there was zero reason for him to worry—Alastor was a powerful overlord, after all, and more than capable of handling himself—but he couldn’t help wondering where he was. And that was senseless. Alastor wasn’t his problem! He didn’t need to keep an eye on him or make sure he wasn’t getting into trouble or…

…fuck, I hope he isn’t getting into trouble.

It wasn’t long after Charlie joined them that the front door opened, and the princess turned to look. “Oh, Alastor, you— holy shit what happened?!”

Angel snapped his head up and saw Alastor striding into the hotel, spinning his microphone staff with his usual easy grace. And, since he was wearing all red, it took Angel a moment to register that he was absolutely covered in blood. “Oh, Charlie, my dear, it is absolutely nothing you need worry about!” the Radio Demon said brightly, his voice more heavily layered with static than usual. “I simply went for a little walk and happened to find some, shall we say, disagreeable folk?”

“Alastor, you can’t get into fights in the street!” Vaggie said as she got to her feet and gestured at him as menacingly as she could with a squat little origami cat in her hand. “It’s bad for our reputation!”

“Now, now, there is nothing to lose your head over,” Alastor said with a full side roll of his head and a loose gesture of his hand. “It was no one of particular note, and it wasn’t in the street!”

“I don’t see how that’s any—”

“It was in a shop.”

“There! See! That’s not better!” Vaggie said, gesticulating wildly with both hands.

“Alastor…” Niffty said slowly, turning her head enough to squint at the other demon.

“Hmm? Yes, Niffty, what is it?”

“Is that blood wet?” she continued, her voice dropping dangerously.

Alastor laughed and bent at the waist, patting her on the head. “It’s entirely dry, I promise you.”

“Oh! That’s okay, then,” Niffty grinned, her voice bright once more. “Did you have fun?”

“Oodles.”

“Charlie,” Vaggie said insistently, looking at her girlfriend and thrusting her hands out at Alastor.

Charlie looked conflicted as she cast her eyes between the two of them, then cast Alastor her most winning nervous smile. “W-well, it’s good to see you back, Alastor! But, um, I do think it would be helpful if we tried to keep random and wanton bloodshed to a minimum?”

“Of course!” Alastor straightened at an alarming speed, his spine cracking loudly. “Never fear, Miss Charlie, last night was a fluke, a mere blip, nothing but a little skip on the record, as it were! I have no doubt the circumstances shall never arise again.”

Angel blinked slowly. That… is a very weird statement. “You sure you’re okay, Smiles?”

“Ah…!” Alastor actually started, and he focused on Angel with slightly wide eyes, like he had only just noticed the spider’s presence. He recovered quickly—if that was what Angel should call it—and walked around Charlie to stand next to Angel instead. “Of course! Never better, tip top shape and all that what the hell are the four of you doing on the floor?”

“Origami,” Niffty said enthusiastically, holding out two handfuls of tiny paper stars.

Alastor actually crouched down beside Angel, one elbow on his knee and his other hand on his staff for balance. “Ah, yes, your paper folding art. Of course!”

“I made a frog,” Angel said, pointing to the little yellow paper amphibian on the floor in front of him. He pressed down on its back near its butt, and when his finger flicked along the edge of the fold, the little frog hopped a little.

Alastor let out a surprised laugh. “How delightful! I’m quite proud of you, sha. Couldn’t get Husker to participate, I see.”

“I’m in the same room,” Husk grumbled, lowering his book and glaring over at Alastor. But there was something odd in his glare, something heavier and more reserved than usual.

Alastor either didn’t notice or was refusing to acknowledge it. “Progress is progress, I suppose. Miss Charlie, I’m terribly sorry about missing our appointment. If you have time, we can meet as soon as I have freshened up, as it were.”

“Uh, sure, Alastor. That’s fine.”

Alastor looked at Angel, then hesitated, enough that Angel lowered his hands and turned his own head to look back at Alastor. “Yeah, Al? What’s up?”

“Oh, simply wondering if you would like to help me with dinner again tonight.”

Angel was vaguely aware that the entire room went still, but his focus was entirely caught by Alastor. “Uh, sure, sounds fun. Whaddya wanna make?”

“I was actually thinking that, perhaps, you might teach me a bit about making pasta.”

Angel smiled immediately. “You wanna learn? Sure, but I ain’t gonna go easy on you.”

Alastor’s smile widened. “I should think not.” He hesitated again, then he reached up, touching the side of Angel’s face. He felt the tiniest scrape of Alastor’s claw, as well as a small tickle, and then Alastor pulled his hand back to hold up a little sliver of colored paper that must have gotten stuck to his face while they were cutting the squares.

“Oh. Uh. Thanks,” Angel said, wondering why his face felt warm.

Alastor’s smile was different. Softer, almost. “I’ll see you this evening, then, sha.” He straightened up and began walking away towards his room, waving one hand and calling back. “Won’t be more than ten minutes, Miss Charlie!”

Angel turned his head and watched him go, then went back to his half done origami frog. He finished a couple of more folds before he realized just how quiet it was, and he raised his head to find everyone else staring at him.

“…what?”

•••

“There he is get the fuck down!”

Blitzø placed his hands on Moxxie and Millie’s heads, shoving them down behind one of the large bushes around the property of the Hazbin Hotel before he followed them into a crouch.

“Ow, fuck, sir…!”

“Blitzø!”

“Shh!”

It hadn’t taken long for someone of interest to show up, so this stakeout was a good fucking idea, if he said so himself. And, with Loona temporarily back at the office to try and look up some useful intel, that meant he didn’t have to worry about her safety (and had time to figure out how he was going to tell her that she absolutely was not doing espionage with them). Blitzø carefully peered through the leaves of the bush and heard Moxxie and Millie do the same; the sound of jaunty whistling grew louder, backed with what sounded like old timey radio music, and then they saw a man coming up the path. He was a little more than average height (for a sinner), with a tattered red coat, bright red and black hair, what looked like a staff with a microphone on the end, and one of the most unnerving smiles Blitzø had ever seen. Oh, and the blood.

That must be the Radio Demon.

“Holy shit, it’s him…!” Millie whispered excitedly.

“He doesn’t look so scary,” Moxxie grumbled crossly, and Blitzø didn’t need to look at him to know he was lying.

The Radio Demon—Alastor, Vox had called him—didn’t even appear to notice them as he made his way into the hotel. Once he heard the doors shut, Blitzø retreated from the bush and the other two followed suit. He turned, crouched, and wrapped his arms around their necks, pulling them in close to his sides. “Okay, so, first off, this place is a lot fucking bigger than I thought it would be.”

“Yeah, no kiddin’,” Millie said, entirely unbothered by Blitzø’s manhandling. “I figured it’d be… y’know… appropriately sized for its most likely number’a guests?”

“Tiny,” Blitzø said.

“Yeah.”

“Mills, I need to know. The fuck is your deal with him?”

“Oh, I love his program!” Millie said enthusiastically. “I don’t never miss it! Nobody knows more about torture than the Radio Demon!”

“Huh. Weird,” Blitzø said. “Hey, you know me, I don’t kink shame— okay, I do, but this one is really normal, considering.”

Moxxie sighed heavily, slumping into Blitzø’s hold with no small amount of resignation and resolutely ignoring the implications of the word ‘considering’. He was learning, apparently. “So how, exactly, are we supposed to do this? There’s no way we can break into that place and go unnoticed. It’s big, yeah, and it’s barely got anyone in it, but everyone who is there is a sinner… or Lucifer’s daughter. And in case you forgot, they slaughtered angels here during the last sinner extermination.”

“Then we’ll have to find the most efficient way to stake the place out,” Blitzø said. He looked at Millie. “I guess I can’t talk you into letting me make Moxxie just stay here 24/7 until something happens.”

“Hey!”

“Nope,” Millie said with a bright smile.

“Damn. Okay, then, different plan. We’ll set up electronic surveillance as unobtrusively as we can. Something that will alert us whenever anyone comes or goes from the building. We can park the van nearby and take turns keeping an eye on things, and then whoever’s on duty can alert the others and start shadowing them right away.”

“This is going to be so boring,” Moxxie groaned, hanging his head.

Blitzø smacked him on the back and gave him a grin that even felt crazed to Blitzø himself. “Cheer up! We have no choice! Stolas is still in the hospital and he’s got his grimoire right now so we are literally locked in Hell, which means we take what we can get!”

It won’t be long. He won’t be stuck in the hospital forever. He can’t be. Can he? Fuck. I have a headache.

Millie and Moxxie were looking at each other in a way Blitzø really didn’t like—suspicious and concerned, neither of which he needed right now—so he shook both of them violently enough to make them squeak. “Back to the office, then. We need to get our shit together and make sure Loonie hasn’t set the place on fire without us.”

“Blitzø…”

“Less talking more doing the thing I said, Millie!”

•••

Alastor was a fast learner. Angel had only had to give him verbal instructions—as well as a brief demonstration, when it came to making the pasta dough itself—and he was suddenly a regular pastaio. Lasagna seemed a good start, since it was a fairly simple dish and it was very easy to make enough for a group, and eventually though being alone in the kitchen with Alastor brought up memories of that night…

…it was fun.

He thought Alastor had fun, too.

And now, Alastor was acting normal enough and everybody else was acting weird. Ever since the end of their origami lesson, people had been just kinda looking at him, those significant types of looks that said they were probably saying stuff behind his back. Normally, Angel didn’t care; he was used to being the topic of gossip, and like he always said, if people were talking about him then at least they had a good topic. But this was different. He was afraid it was speculative.

Speculation usually came with ‘getting a talking-to’, and whether that meant Husk or Charlie, Angel wanted absolutely none of it.

That was the main reason he had retreated to his room immediately after cleaning up from dinner. It was the safest place to avoid whatever serious conversation was doubtless brewing downstairs, and it also meant they weren’t just giving him those fucking concerned glances that they thought he couldn’t see.

“I’m so fuckin’ bored,” Angel told his ceiling as he lay back on his bed, legs dangling over the edge. It was too early for him to be in his room, but he didn’t feel like going out and partying, and hanging out downstairs was out of the question. His third option was to go to Alastor’s room and bug him, but they had just spent the evening cooking together, and the Radio Demon had even helped him clean up. Sure, they were supposed to hang out and shit, but there was probably a point that was definitely too much for Alastor.

Not for the first time, Angel thought about going to Cannibal Town to talk to Rosie without Alastor there. He didn’t know how this was supposed to work, but his mark wasn’t changing at all. He wasn’t sure how to broach the subject with Alastor, so he wasn’t positive, but he was pretty sure it was the same on his side. How long was it supposed to take? Didn’t Rosie just say they needed to stop being stubborn? Wasn’t this enough initiative?

Angel raised his leg straight over his head and frowned at the mark on his knee. “What the fuck do you want me to do, huh?” It didn’t answer, and Angel groaned at himself, letting his leg fall again.

“My goodness, it is quite pink in here.”

“Holy fuck!!”

The sudden voice behind Angel startled him so badly that he rolled straight off of his bed, landing on the carpeted side of his room with an audible flump. Scrambling back up his comforter, Angel dragged himself up until he could fold his arms on his bed and stare at Alastor, who was just… standing there, looking around his room like he had been invited in.

“What. The fuck.”

“Hello!” Alastor said brightly, turning his head to focus on Angel. His eyes were glowing ever so slightly in the low bedroom light.

“Now who’s comin’ into places without permission?”

“Would you believe me if I said Fat Nuggets let me in?”

Angel looked over at Nugg’s little ottoman next to his bed, where the hellpig was perched and fixing Alastor with a cheerfully vacant stare. He, too, looked at Alastor. “No.”

“Worth a shot, I suppose!”

Angel got to his feet and straightened his clothes. “Dangerous to just enter my bedroom like that, Smiles. I’m a filthy degenerate, you ain’t got no idea what I might be doin’ at any given moment.”

Bizarrely, Alastor seemed… almost flustered, from what Angel was learning of his tells and moods. “I wanted to speak with you,” Alastor deflected, his voice a little louder than usual. “It didn’t seem terribly appropriate in the kitchen, and you vanished so quickly, you gave me little choice but to come find you.”

“…okay,” Angel said slowly. He looked around his room, which was very low on seating, and eventually pointed to the bench of his vanity. “Y’can sit there. Sorry, I ain’t got much in the way of places for other people to sit in here.”

“Quite alright. I imagine you didn’t design this room for entertaining.” Alastor flicked his wrist and the bench moved itself a little closer to the bed. Angel sat on top of his bedspread and folded his legs, watching the Radio Demon perch himself on the bench with his hands folded on his crossed knee.

A few months ago, Angel would have called his demeanor ‘prim’. Now that he had actually observed Alastor in all different states of relaxation, he could tell he was just feeling awkward.

“Okay, you got my attention,” Angel said, clasping two of his hands on his ankles and straightening his back. “What’s up, Doc?”

Alastor blinked at him. “…reference after my time?”

“Forties.”

“Yes. Well.” Alastor tapped his knee with his claws a couple of times. “…this will sound… unusual, I suppose, coming from me.” He paused, and Angel bit back a sarcastic remark about how everything had been unusual since this began. “I need to… come clean to you about something.”

Angel raised one eyebrow sharply. “…since when do you do that?”

Alastor laughed, just a little. “I don’t, that’s why it’s unusual.”

“…okay. So… what’d you do?”

“I…” Alastor hesitated. He thought. He didn’t make eye contact. “I followed you last night. When you went to work. I watched some of your filming session.”

“You—?” Angel frowned. “…no you didn’t, I would have seen…” He trailed off, memories of the earliest part of the evening returning to him. “…you broke that light. And that camera.”

“Not intentionally, I assure you,” Alastor said.

Angel didn’t know if he should be angry or not. His initial reaction was yes, he should be, because he didn’t need to be followed like a child, but… Alastor was being honest with him. The least he could do was hear him out. He drew a breath to calm himself, taking note of the way Alastor’s ears flicked backwards briefly. “Okay. You’re gonna tell me why you did that.”

Alastor actually nodded once, like he agreed it was a reasonable request. “At first, I wasn’t certain myself. After our conversation the other night—when you spoke about how you got into your work—I found myself contemplating what you said about the Vees promising to… handle… our issue, if you didn’t do so yourself. I suppose I was concerned what Valentino might do when you returned to work, and I wanted to ensure he didn’t overstep, shall we say.”

Angel blinked a couple of times, his eyes widening. “…you were worried about me?”

“Valentino is untrustworthy.” Alastor still wasn’t meeting his eyes. “And when I saw that Vox had taken his place for the evening, it seemed even more unwise to leave you alone. I had no intention of intruding on your privacy or your work.”

Angel shook his head. “…Vox would blow a literal fuse if he had any idea you were in his studio and he didn’t notice.”

Alastor barked out a sharp laugh at that. “Oh, I was so very tempted to give him a bit of the old runaround. Perhaps make him believe he was losing his mind!”

The image of Alastor using his shadow to gaslight Vox caused Angel to make a sound somewhere between a giggle and a snort, which made Alastor laugh again. “He woulda been fuckin’ furious.”

“Good!” Alastor said, his cheer returning. “It’s what he gets for being Vox.”

Angel smiled at him. “So… you were lookin’ out for me, huh? My very own guardian Radio Demon.”

Alastor actually cleared his throat. “Yes. Well. As the hotelier, looking after things is one of my myriad responsibilities, and you are our premier resident. I would be quite remiss to allow anything to happen to you.”

It would have been so very easy to keep up that same line of conversation, just to see how awkward and uncomfortable (embarrassed?) he could make Alastor. And he would have… months ago, anyway. Instead, he decided to let him off the hook. “Well, I’m honored to hear you suffered for my sake. Can’t imagine how boring watching a porno gettin’ filmed musta been.”

Alastor, for some reason, looked distinctly uncomfortable again. “I was actually rather enthused for the opportunity to see you at your craft. You’re quite the actor, sha, even when your scripts…”

“Suck?” Angel provided. He knew. And he never should have yelled at Husk over it, because he’d always known.

“Oh, most of them are awful,” Alastor said, limply flicking his wrist and rolling his eyes. “No fault of yours or your coworkers, of course. And as much as I would hate to compliment Vox, it seems he at least knows more about writing a script than Valentino does. Good to know we’ve finally found another use for him.”

Angel giggled. “Look, I’ll be the first to admit that the Vees, for all their many faults, are creative. It’s just that Val ain’t got none with words unless he’s threatenin’ someone.”

“You don’t say,” Alastor said, his expression as dry as his tone.

“…what other use?”

“Hm?”

“You said another use for Vox,” Angel said. “What’s the other use?”

Alastor shrugged. “Paperweight? Doorstop? Whatever that cube he calls a head could be used for.” When Angel laughed, Alastor seemed to fully relax. “But, truly, I appreciated the opportunity to watch you work. You even cut your hand open. Authenticity?”

“Oh… yeah, I guess,” Angel said as he raised his bandaged hand and glanced at it. “Mostly it just looks better than the little blood packs, and I heal quick.”

“Commitment that VoxTek does not deserve,” Alastor said, shaking his head. “Well, with that in mind, I thought it would be only fair to return the favor.”

Angel tilted his head. “…whaddya mean?”

Alastor didn’t answer. Instead, he got to his feet and went to stand in front of Angel, offering his hand out. “Come with me.” It was phrased like an order, but the way Alastor said it… it was a request.

“Um…” Angel reached up, placing his hand in the Radio Demon’s. “Okay.”

Angel stood, but that was as far as he got before they were wrapped in darkness. It was much easier than it had been the first time, and while it was no less terrifying, Angel didn’t collapse or feel like he was going to throw up when all of his senses returned. He did stagger, however, and it took him a moment to register that Alastor’s hands were now on his arm and his back.

“Are you alright, sha?”

“Y…yeah. I’m good,” Angel said, slowly opening his eyes and looking around.

They were standing in the middle of a room that Angel didn’t recognize, not at first. There were no lights on, all of the illumination coming from a wide bank of windows that looked out over the city and casting everything in shades of red and blue and purple. The floor was made of wood, the ceiling a fair distance above them and the walls curved upwards, forming a partial dome with a flat top around them. And beneath the windows, a wooden table covered in papers, a mug, and…

…radio equipment.

He was in Alastor’s radio tower.

“Whoa…” Angel breathed, his eyes widening as he looked around. “Holy shit, this is high…!”

“Isn’t it? Quite the view, I must say,” Alastor said fondly as he took a few steps in. “And very inspiring when I’m doing my programs. Feel free to look around, I have no doubt the equipment will be quite safe around you.”

That was all the encouragement Angel needed. He began walking around the room, taking in all the photographs of jazz musicians and singers from the 1910s up through the early 30s, records no longer viable for playing on one of Alastor’s record players (“Oh, sorry, gramophone, my bad.” “Phonograph, my dear, Gramophone is a trademark no matter what the British claim.”) hanging on the walls, and the neat little stacks of truly ancient broadcasting equipment that was so well-cared for that they looked as though they had been manufactured less than a month ago.

“It’s beautiful up here,” Angel said after a long stretch of quiet. He felt Alastor watching him, but he didn’t return the look, instead looking out over the city. “…I’ve started listenin’ to your radio program whenever you’re on and I’m not workin’.”

“Have you?” Angel nodded, and he could hear Alastor shift behind him. He wasn’t sure what he expected the Radio Demon to ask, but it certainly wasn’t, “…do you enjoy it?”

A rare display of uncertainty from the always comically self-confident sinner actually made Angel’s smile return in full. He turned and rested against the solid wooden table, bracing two hands either side of his hips and crossing his ankles. “I do. I especially like it when you read from those creepy horror books. You got a good storytellin’ voice.”

Alastor almost looked surprised. “…well. Thank you, sha.”

Angel nodded, looking around again without standing up. “…hey, Al. Why’d you get into radio?”

“Hm? Oh…” Alastor drew a thoughtful breath. “I imagine it really started when I was quite young. As a child, at age… six, I suppose, I had a job at a drug store, sweeping the front walk every morning and every afternoon. The druggist had a phonograph that he kept on his counter, and I was fascinated by the music he would play. I am certain I drove my maman up the pole, talking her ear off about it every time he had something new he was playing. I still don’t know how she did it, but for my eighth birthday, she managed to procure a phonograph for me. It was worse than second-hand, with a dent in the horn and a bend in the tone-arm that made the sounds less than perfect, but I adored that phonograph. Listened to it until she threatened to beat me with it.

“Then, when I was… twenty, I believe, I found out about the creation of the first commercial radio station that was coming out of Pittsburgh. The technology fascinated me, and I became obsessed with the idea of creating a profession out of it. I was more than determined, I was driven.” Alastor shrugged, looking out the window. “It was one of many things that I set my mind on, and with each one, I never rested until I had accomplished my goal.”

Angel smiled, tilting his head as he watched Alastor. “And you say you’re not stubborn.”

“Hah. Be silent,” Alastor said without heat. He looked at Angel. “…I was wondering something, sha.”

“What’s that?”

“If you would ever like to… perform for me. On my radio program.”

Angel’s eyes widened so much he thought they might actually fall out of his face. “Y…you want me to…” He couldn’t finish the sentence, it sounded too impossible.

Alastor’s smile was oddly gentle, for all its angles and sharp teeth. “You have a lovely singing voice. I think my listeners would quite enjoy hearing you.”

Angel smiled, but it felt odd. Nervous. “…you don’t let nobody else on your program.”

“I am well aware, as it is my program and I am involved in every broadcast.”

“No— I mean, yeah, I know, I just…” Angel bit his lip as his smile widened, and he found himself looking down and away. “…I’d love to, Al. If you really want me to.”

“I wouldn’t have suggested it otherwise.” Alastor began to walk closer. “But… what is this? Have I managed to embarrass the unshakeable Angel Dust?”

Angel giggled, ducking his head further. “What no I don’t get embarrassed fuck you.”

“I don’t know. I believe I see more pink under that fine white fur of yours.”

Angel turned his head towards Alastor— then, he froze when he realized the other sinner was standing right in front of him. “…you cheat,” he said.

“I don’t see how,” Alastor said, his voice soft.

“I’m real pale. You got an unfair advantage.” Angel had absolutely no idea why, but he suddenly felt… he didn’t know how he felt. “…what’re you doin’, Smiles?”

Alastor hesitated before he answered. Angel could see that his smile was different at the corners. Unstable, almost, like the usually sharp and straight lines were somehow… distorted in a way that was kind of cute. “Would you believe me if I told you that I have no idea?”

“Uh… y…yeah. I would.”

They looked at each other in silence for what felt like an eternity, but really couldn’t have been more than ten seconds. Finally, Alastor spoke again. “You know that I have many curiosities.” Angel nodded. “And you know that I dislike not knowing anything about that which intrigues me.”

“Where are you goin’ with this…?”

“Humor me. …please,” Alastor said, his voice softening as he made that request. Angel bit his lip again and nodded, and he noted the way Alastor’s eyes flicked down towards his mouth and then back up. “…I need to know something,” he said. “I don’t know what it… how I will react,” he amended. “But I need to know. If I promise that, no matter what, I will not harm you… will you permit me to find out?”

Angel didn’t know what to make of that. It was a completely pointless question, because without knowing what Alastor was talking about, he didn’t know how he could say either yes or no honestly. But Alastor seemed so focused, and asking… even Angel could feel how difficult it was for him. “…okay, Alastor.”

The Radio Demon nodded once, so slight it must have been to himself and probably not even an intentional movement. Angel saw movement out of the corner of his eye, and he glanced over to see Alastor still his hand close to his cheek. Angel looked to Alastor’s face again, and when he saw Angel wasn’t resisting, he gently cupped his cheek and jaw with a hand both soft and rough, cold and sharp and scarred. Angel’s breath shuddered, and he saw a flicker of confusion across Alastor’s face.

“You’ve never been afraid of me,” Alastor whispered.

“No,” Angel answered, matching his tone.

“Are you afraid of me right now?”

Angel swallowed. “…no.”

“You should be.”

“I know.”

Alastor opened his mouth like he was going to speak again, but no words came out. Instead, he closed his eyes, almost like he was in some kind of pain, before he closed the distance between them and pressed their lips together.

No matter how much Alastor had telegraphed his actions, Angel couldn’t have anticipated this, because never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that Alastor would actually kiss him, of his own volition, as his own idea. It was clumsy and shy and completely inexperienced, simply the press of closed lips against his own, something he hadn’t felt since he was twelve years old, but it was…

Perfect.

Somehow, it was perfect.

Angel made no move to deepen the contact, no matter how much his body was suddenly screaming at him to do just that. He raised one hand to gently cup the back of Alastor’s hand, holding it to his face, and closed his eyes to lean into the astonishing and alien feeling. Alastor’s lips were scarred, and they were chapped from the abuse of his teeth and constant smiling and whatever happened to him when his larger demon form took over. When Angel relaxed, stroking the back of Alastor’s hand, he heard the other sinner make a small sound somewhere in the back of his throat that was reminiscent of a whimper.

“He hates being touched.”

But everybody needs at least a little contact, Al. Don’t they?

How long has it been since anyone even hugged you?

Calling the kiss ‘chaste’ would have done it a disservice, but Angel still felt out of breath when they parted. He opened his eyes and heard Alastor’s own breathing coming heavy and a little fast; when Alastor’s eyes opened, his irises flickered into radio dials for a second, then back, then they returned again.

“Shh, Alastor,” Angel whispered, stroking the back of Alastor’s hand as it rested against his face. “It’s okay, Smiles. Just keep breathin’. It’s okay.”

The flickering died down after a few seconds, and Alastor’s eyes fell shut once more, his forehead pressing against Angel’s. They stayed like that, even after Alastor’s breathing had calmed down, Angel stroking his hand and Alastor just resting against him as much as he would allow himself.

“…I’ve never done that before,” Alastor whispered, a quiet and slightly panicked laugh escaping him the next second. “I never wanted to.”

“No?” Angel asked. Alastor shook his head in tiny, jerking movements, like he was unwilling to back away just yet. “Did you like it?”

“Yes,” Alastor answered immediately. “No,” he said the next moment. “I… I don’t know.” He made a frustrated noise, his fingers twitching. “I don’t understand this. I don’t understand you.”

Angel didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything.

Another stretch of silence passed. “It’s the mark. It has to be,” Alastor whispered, but despite the confidence of his phrasing, he sounded uncertain and almost frightened. “Nothing else… nothing else makes sense.”

“I don’t know,” Angel murmured honestly. “This kinda thing… it’s new for me, too, Al.”

“Is it?” Alastor chuckled weakly, more of an exhale than anything else. “I suppose it’s too odd to be normal for anyone.”

“That’s true.”

Alastor wasn’t moving his hand, so Angel didn’t let go of him. The quiet felt comfortable, in a way, as the nervousness slowly bled from the Radio Demon and his thumb moved enough to stroke along the curve of Angel’s cheek bone.

“…what do you want, Alastor?” Angel whispered. “Right now.”

“I want…” Alastor hesitated. “…just… stay with me, sha.”

Angel smiled and pressed his forehead against Alastor’s just a little more firmly.

“Okay, Al. I’ll stay.”

•••

[moira-mains-go-to-hell]

A Little Less Conversation…

OuiHaw x AFAB Reader [Ashe x Widowmaker (Amelie Lacroix) x Reader]

Warnings: use of She/Her pronouns, suggestive content, mentions of violence, men being gross, pet names (Sugar, Mon Cuer, Cherie)

A/N: Babes, this is supposed to have a smutty part two, so if you want it, let me know.

“You know, it wouldn’t hurt if you two at least act like you want to be here,” you adjusted your earrings and fixed your hair in the mirror. Tonight was the Talon Investors Gala, where you and agents alike would be wooing larger corporations to fund the organization. As the head of technological advancement and board member, you were expected to attend no matter what, but neither of your girlfriends seemed to want to go with you.

“Cherie, you know as soon as I enter the door, I will be swept away by Moira as the ‘pinnacle of her research’,” Amelie strode up next to you , adorned in a red floor length dress with a slit on each side.

“And I don’t even think I’m supposed to be there,” Ashe was sat on the bed of your hotel room, tie and shirt undone as she waited for the two of you.

“Nonsense, Moira has researchers to entertain the whole night with her life force siphoning-thingy and her little bug spray,” you finish up, giving yourself a once over before leaving the bathroom, “ and you are technically on my payroll because you traffic weapons for me to make better. You belong,” you smile and kiss the white haired woman’s cheek.

“But there are gonna be so many people,” Ashe cupped your cheek and pulled you closer.

“And if we stay here,” Amelie made her way behind you, wrapping her hands around your waist and cementing your spot between both women, “we don’t have to worry about anyone getting too close to you, mon cuer.”

“I like the sound of that,” Ashe’s hand on your cheek moved to your chin, her thumb grazing over your bottom lip.

You almost let them win when your phone wrang, the boss himself calling. Both women let go of you with a sigh as you chuckled and moved out of their grasp.

“Hello?… Yes… We are going to be there Akande, don’t fret…Oh? Ok… go get ready, stop worrying about me. Good bye,” you hung up and ran a hand through your hair.

“Since when are you on first name basis with him?” Amelie was now sitting next to Ashe, both of them finally ready to go out.

“Since I pushed Talon ahead of Vishkar and the Russians, which is why I need to go tonight, they are looking to outsource and buy me out of some of my designs,” you grabbed your coat and your gun and made your way to the door, “it would be really great if the women I love where in my corner tonight.”

“We will be Sugar, don’t you worry,” they got up and followed you out the door, “but why are you bringing the fire power?”

“Akande told me we may have uninvited guests, and don’t act like both of you aren’t packing,” you laugh as you tuck it into the top of your dress.

Amelie gave Ashe a knowing look and the cowgirl let out a light chuckle, “We’re packing something alright.”

The comment didn’t register at first, but then a blush grew from the base of your neck to your nose.

“Oh come on Cherie, as if we would pass up an opportunity to let your mind wonder.”

You had gathered yourself and entered the ballroom, looking around to all of the people in front of you. As you walked to your table you waved at associates and team members you worked with, flashing an award winning smile to everyone in your wake.

“You know, you really look like you are in your element, you positive you need us?” Ashe leant down and whispered in your ear, her hands in her coat pockets.

“Yes, because I need a reason to bail out of a conversation if I don’t like it.”

You made your way to your table, a few chairs empty but most had name plates of other board members that would be joining you or are already on the floor.

“Thank you for finally showing your face, I almost thought I’d have to come find you myself,” the Doomfist stood to greet you and shake your hand, “I see you brought Ms. Lacroix and the cowboy with you.”

“Akande, be respectful, she does business with us, she can be here,” you pat his shoulder and place your coat on the back of your chair, “I’m going get a drink and swindle Viskar out of more money than they can comprehend. Ashe, keep our Love Bug away from Moira if she happens to get loose.”

The brunette coughed at the nickname and your boss gave you an amused glance.

“Don’t worry hun, she’s not going anywhere.”

All three of them watched as you shifted effortlessly into your professional persona, entrapping people in conversation and then swiftly moving on after getting what you needed from them.

“You know she’s kind of hot when she does all that sweet talking,” Ashe sat back down after her own journey to the bar, passing one of the drinks she had to the assassin next to her.

Amelie hummed in agreement, taking a sip of her drink, “Confidence looks good on her, her brazenness almost rivals yours.”

“That will never happen, but she’s getting close.”

They both watch you as you talk up an older gentleman at a table across the room. You sat next to him, laughing at him, keeping him entertained, and then he scooted closer. It was a small movement, one that you didn’t seem to notice, but the two pairs of eyes watching, it was obvious.

“He is getting pretty chummy, ain’t he?”

“Indeed, but let’s not intervene just yet,” Amelie took Ashe’s hand into hers as they watched the rest of the interaction.

The man put his hand over yours, you quickly retracted to occupy it with your drink. You glanced around the room and made eye contact with your partners, raising your eyebrows at them before going back.

He was persistent, if not bold. Leaning further into you and putting his arm over the back of your chair. You remained composed but when your posture stiffened, the women across the room where ready to get up at any moment.

You wrapped up the conversation as he wrote on the back of a business card and handed it to you. Heading back to the table, you pulled out a notebook and a tape recorder from your pockets and placed them in front of your boss.

“Here, written and spoken promises, business cards and contact info are book marking each section, I’m out,” you sigh, picking up your jacket, “that last guy was gross.”

“You tolerate a man like that again and I will not hesitate to end him,” Amelie said the threat casually, giving a little shrug, “let us go, we have a room to get to.”

“I’m talked out for the evening. See you at the next board meeting Akande, but I need to leave,” Your girlfriends where just about ready to go when the large man grabbed your hand at the last second.

“You have one more guest to impress, then you may leave,” his voice was low, you all sat back down with different expressions of grievance on your face.

“What creep am I supposed to be meeting with now?”

“That ‘creep’ would be me,” none other than Katya Volskaya made her way over to the table, flanked by two guards.

You quickly swept the recorder and notebook up and put them back in the pockets of your romper.

“I thought you killed her?” You grit through your teeth to Amelie, giving her a confused glare.

“I missed the window of opportunity, and he,” she nodded to Akande, “saw a new opportunity for her, so we never went back.”

You let out a short lived groan before resuming your pageant ready attitude.

“Ms. Volskaya, pleasure to meet you,” you stuck your hand across the table, hers meeting yours as you gesture for her and her goons to sit.

Both of the women beside you watched in as as you commanded the table, laying out all of the plans and ideas she may be interested in and working her to get the best deal possible. Ashe was never a negotiator except for between the gang, and Amelie was just a hired gun, never in the room where it happens.

“… And what if we don’t just call the Russian forces or Overwatch and have your technology without the hassle?” Volskaya payed out the threat like a trump card, making eye contact with both you and your boss. Akande went to move but you put a hand up, stopping him.

Before you said anything you felt Ashe put a hand on your thigh, squeezing it. You looked over at both her and Amelie, Ashe giving you a look of ‘let her have it’, and Amelie wearing a small grin as she nodded back to the Russian in front if you.

“The tech I’m selling you is to protect your country and let cattle die like heros,” you fold your hands together and lean forward, “the tech I’m keeping for myself can burn down the whole cattle farm. By all means, call your special forces… you can tell their families they died because you brought a spoon to a gunfight.”

You stood, looking at Akande and smiling, “Volskaya Industries isn’t interested in working with us, remove them from the investors list-“

“Name your price,” Katya looked up at you, her hands balled on the table. Your smile grew sinister, matching the look in your eyes.

“We will be in touch, but you keep your lines open,” you wave her goodbye and grab your coat once again, your girlfriends following two steps behind as you make your way to the exit.

“Sugar, if I'd have known how hot you are when you do business I’d have made you do all my dirty work,” Ashe undid her tie as soon as you hit the door.

“Well you two are so reluctant to come with me on business trips. You’d see a lot more,” you took your earrings and heels off, moving to help Amelie with her dress.

“How about we see a lot more tonight?” Ashe’s breath felt hot as you where once again sandwiched between the two women, the cowgirl behind you holding your back to her front.

“I wouldn’t mind showing you.”

[pattern-recognition]

i don’t have the time to articulate this idea in a throwaway tumblr dot com post but it’s revolting how much art has been destroyed by imperialism. obviously this comes as no great revelation, the systematic destruction and suppression of art is an integral facet of the destruction and suppression of people. specifically thinking of palestine though I always feel furious when i see the architecture of cities like Gaza leveled. the destruction of ancient buildings and cultural sites are the most obvious examples, but even the loss of modern architecture is an incredible loss. the high rise apartment blocs, shops, homes, bakeries, cafes, etc are, if they were allowed the proposer without the strangulation of imperialism, superior to anything you’ll see in a U.S. city from the perspective of providing a truly dynamic, adaptable, and cohesive habitat for people to live. I had similar thoughts seeing the destruction of cities in Ukraine, all of that Soviet era planned architecture that had such a optimistic vision for the future behind it leveled to the ground by the effects of neoliberalism. the same goes for textiles too, which i seem to talk about ad nauseam. reading all the articles on places like Hirbawi, the last kufiya factory in the west bank, which speak not only to the forced de-industrialization of palestine but also of syria, iran, iraq, etc, and the beautiful and idiosyncratic quilt patterns from different regions in palestine from that one documentary i posted earlier are all examples. nothing is new under the sun, and it’s all part of the imperial leviathan that not only destroys the potential for prosperous industry, and the industrial aspect should not be forgotten for a simplistic argument that it’s purely the burial of something nondescript and patronizing like ‘ancient culture,’ that creates fundamentally better material conditions for proletarian organization, but replaces them with parasitic import/export economies, atomized living conditions, and overly complex ‘labor saving’ technology, all tailor made to stifle class consciousness and impede cohesion of working people. the biggest crime of imperial capitalism isn’t that you’ll find young men wearing polo shirts and jeans across the world, it’s that they’re all made on the behest of (mostly) western corporations in outsourced factories, distrusted around the globe through the anarchic, wasteful, explorative, and pollutive neoliberal system when the alternatives are so much more practical and human

[generic-sonic-fan]

Transcendence

Summary: The Chaos Emeralds grant power to those with the will for them. 

Seek all seven, and your conviction can reshape reality. 

Word count: 4257

Metal Sonic remembers the first time he touched an Emerald. 

(When he finally starts winning, of course. Or, at the very least, not losing. When his body is finally fast enough to obey his will, fast enough to steal the gemstone from where it lays before an organic hand can reach it instead.)

Metal Sonic remembers how it thrummed against his palm plating. 

(He should feel nothing. Dr. Ivo Robotnik, as referred to on days he succeeded, or Master, as referred to everytime else, had removed his tactile sensors in a bid to shave more weight off his frame. What need is there to be precise when the aim is to kill and one’s entire self is the knife?)

Metal Sonic remembers the surge of energy. Emergency insulation systems had snapped into place, redirecting the chaos away from his processor and back into his chest turbine. 

(Metal Sonic remembers a whisper.)

(A tugging from the deepest recesses of his processor.)

(But the connection is severed before it can form, discharged out the hole where his heart should be, just like every other burning spark he might contain.)

—

There is a first time that he witnesses Chaos Control. Shadow disappears from the battlefield and into a realm of perception beyond that which scanners can penetrate. There is no time to react, for an ordinary Badnik. The Egg Pawns are trapped in the span between milliseconds. 

But Metal Sonic feels something. Behind. Above. In that span between milliseconds, he rotates around to face it.

But his body betrays him. He is not fast enough. Shadow’s downward kick sends him tumbling onto the rocks below. 

—

“Now that’s a curious development,” his master says upon reviewing the memory file. “How’d you know he’d be there?”

Metal Sonic knows better than to reply to the rhetorical musings of a genius at work.

“You don’t have the sensors for it.” 

Not anymore. Those were removed three defeats ago, outsourced to a handheld scanning unit that could be discarded upon entering battle. The modification had shaved off three whole pounds. 

“Some sort of new tactical positioning calculation you came up with? Or a mere lucky guess?”

A guess, Metal Sonic replies over the data cable. 

“Correct answer. Your operating data doesn’t show any particularly useful thinking on your part.” His master smiles. 

His master’s foreign program retreats from his memory banks. The extraction drags its pointed barbs against the other segments of his operating system. Metal Sonic stays very, very still. The data cable is pulled without warning, taking a few lines of him with it, but it is easier to stitch over the tear himself once his master leaves the room than to mention the damage. 

—

Metal Sonic remembers the first time he saw him use it. 

His body has failed yet again. Sonic’s hand brushes the glassy cyan surface, and before Metal Sonic can lunge, there is a flash, and he is gone. 

Behind. Below. At the bottom of the temple stairs Sonic stands and smiles. 

“Pretty neat trick, huh? Shadow passed it along.”

Metal Sonic redirects all power to his turbine system. He shoots forward and his claw scrapes Sonic’s tan cheek before it disappears. Above, to the right. This time he doesn’t try to face the source. He maintains his trajectory and Sonic reappears to kick nothing but empty air. 

“Okay, maybe it’s not that neat of a trick.” Sonic is still grinning. “But it’s one you can’t do.”

Metal Sonic swerves his head around faster than his programmed tolerances should have allowed him. But his wretched organic copy has unwittingly spoken the key. Other core directives fall away, leaving his consciousness with a single command. Maintain superiority. Remind the rodent of his match. 

Metal Sonic activates his reverser and in the span between milliseconds he is flung backwards with enough g-forces to pop a few soldered connections from his motherboard. His body bludgeons into Sonic, knocking the Emerald from his grasp. It tumbles across the uneven yellow bricks of the temple, as they do. Sonic hits the floor first. His shoulder digs into a outcrop in the brick, but Metal Sonic does not linger long enough to hear a cry spill out. He jumps off and scrabbles across the floor, claws reaching for cyan.

It’s calling him. Ahead. Ahead. 

He brings it into his palm and it thrums.

(This time it offers warmth. Warmth, like that of flesh and blood pressed against his plating. Ghosts of Amy’s touch where he’d held her as he’d carried her on Little Planet. Touches that had been erased from his files upon the removal of his tactile sensors.)

And the energy beckons. 

(A whisper.)

But the surge protection activates, and insulation is slammed onto the wires running up his spinal column. The energy is expunged out the back of his turbine like it always has and not for the first time does Metal Sonic wish to rip his plating off to reshape himself. He chooses instead to use the burning for what little use it gives and takes off, shattering a hole through the brick wall of the temple. 

He does not realize what he’s left behind until another shockwave joins his own from the ground. The rest of him wakes from its dream. Targeting protocols, force calculations, and kill simulations slam back into his awareness. 

He’d turned his back on Sonic instead of killing him. But where he expects to find disgust at the concept, he merely finds the thrum of the Emerald, fainter now but still registerable to his non-existent sensors.

He abruptly changes course for the coastline and is able to lose Sonic amongst the waves. 

—

“A success! A good long while since we’ve had one of those from you, isn’t it?”

Metal Sonic places the Emerald into Dr. Ivo Robotnik’s waiting palm. The man’s mustache twitches as he studies the crystal. His eyes do not dart about the many multitudes of reflections behind the glass. His hand does not shift around the surface in time with its pulse. He places it into a holding container. 

“Well done. I’ve tracked Prower’s plane to a small soiree back on the mainland. Where there’s the fox, there’s him. I’ll allow you a free fight for once.”

Metal Sonic points to the Emerald. 

“What?” Dr. Ivo Robotnik’s brows narrow. 

He lowers his hand. 

“I’m not going to let you hand Sonic back the Emerald when you inevitably lose.”

He shakes his head.

“No. Now go fulfill your function.” Dr. Ivo Robotnik grabs his shoulder and pushes him to the door. “I’ll be waiting to receive your distress signal.”

—

The biplane designated as The Tornado had been modified to utilize an Emerald when one was available to achieve supersonic speeds. And here, in this tiny municipal airport, unguarded in a hangar with only a feeble padlock on the door, is the plane. Metal Sonic grabs the padlock and pulls until the metal is twisted and useless. 

His processor continues to tick upwards in framerate. His targeting protocols jump at shadows and his logic processing suggests a trap. Even as his cameras adjust to the light of the interior, he is still in the dark; he doesn’t have a scanning unit with him. He is throwing away an opportunity for an ambush and defying the mission commands on a “guess”. If he withdraws now, there will still be time to plan the encounter and explain the deviation in his flight path. 

Metal Sonic crosses the concrete floor until his claws hover just above the red skin of the plane. He recalls the file where he’s attempted to codify the sensation given by the Emeralds into readable bits of data, but the clusters of numbers are hardly more than gibberish. There is no special calculation to generate more, no secret scanner setting to employ; nothing in the memory files to review, as his master so astutely observed. 

The plane waits before him.

He tears open the engine compartment and yellow light floods the hangar. The tips of his claws scratch the crystalline surface-

(-and he hears music. Not being played from a speaker driver, but as if all the air itself is being plucked like a string, the sound too big to be contained in such a space. Echoes reflecting, twisting, turning off the roof and floor and spilling into the spaces between the boards of his central processing unit.)

(As if he is singing.)

-before alarms ring out. Metal Sonic snatches the Emerald from its casing. The song dies as the surge protection clamps down on his body. He bursts from the hangar and dives into the surrounding forests, weaving through trees until he hits the edge of land. On the beach behind, another trail of sand is kicked up before his own has a chance to settle, but its creator is forced to stop short of the water line. 

Metal Sonic can’t allow himself to look behind until he reaches the base on a distant shoreline. He cuts his turbine, ending the brilliant ejecta behind him, and falls. His feet hit just short of the landing pad and impact the soil between superstructures. It is here that he whispers to the Emerald, some voiceless combination of coaxing and pleading, but there is nothing in response except the hot fire building in his chassis. The Emerald pulses weakly. Its warmth caresses his neck but can travel no further. 

He presses the Emerald against his forehead.

(He presses the Emerald against his forehead.)

And he feels the dirt beneath his feet (coarse, powdery) and the wind against his skin (smooth, cooling) and the sun on his face (warm, radiating across his cheeks) and the music spills forth, softly bowed strings beneath the whistles of birds. He smells flowers (he shouldn’t) and tastes honey (he can’t) and there is nothing to analyze, nothing to calculate. His processor is still. 

(All is well. He can understand this now.)

—

He reappears in his master’s workshop and clatters to the ground. He is assaulted with every variant of error warning that his diagnostic programs can bludgeon him with, but the codes slip past his awareness like the smoke billowing between his fingers. 

—

“A chaos control.”

Metal Sonic awakens.

“You know, I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t checked the cameras.”

It hits him again. The weight. The analysis and calculations and scanning, scanning, scanning; no instances of Sonic the Hedgehog found, but that readout is not enough to calm the chorus. It all comes back and it’s all he can do to steel himself enough to keep processing his master’s words. 

“Still- what brought that on? Did you even know it would work?”

His master’s program prods him through the data cable. Yes, he responds. 

(There’s no data to support this conclusion.)

“. . . do you think you can do it again?”

Yes, he affirms. 

Dr. Ivo Robotnik laughs, and laughs, and laughs, claps his hands together, and smiles. The workshop becomes a flurry of movement and somewhere in the carnage Metal Sonic’s head plating is unscrewed and tools jammed inside. He offlines himself to prevent any program corruption during modification. 

—

He awakens again and it’s three days later. There’s an Emerald on the counter ahead of him and Dr. Ivo Robotnik waits behind a wall of thick glass. Metal Sonic stands. Checks his diagnostics. Surge protection has been removed. 

He grabs the Emerald and it burns. Liquid hot fire spills overs his head and flames lick at the corners of his visual sensors. Where is the cool breeze? Why does this hurt? Why does-?

—

He should have expected this. The Emerald is nothing more than a new master. When he wakes and the gem lies in front of him, he bows his head. He grasps the crystalline surface and allows it to consume him. Change me, use me, he begs, and if it responds he hears nothing of it besides the scream of overloaded wiring and the dripping of melted insulation.

—

“I expected results.”

Metal Sonic sits on the table and stares at his original master’s feet. 

“You are wasting my time. My valuable time, spent repairing a malfunctioning robot!”

He is slapped across the faceplate by a glove thick enough for the perpetrator to feel as much as he does, an equal amount of nothing. More words. The repairs have grown haphazard and his audio fizzes as his left audial sensor quits completely.

“One last chance. One, last, chance! Then we’re done with this silly little venture, and you’ll be taking a long vacation in storage until I can come up with a way to make you useful again.”

His master steps aside, revealing the taunting yellow glow emanating from the pedestal. The light from Metal Sonic’s own irises is refracted amongst the hundreds of edges within. He slides off the table. He walks, forward, enough for the glow to bathe his surface. He listens, not with his audial sensors. The hum is faint, but-

His master shuffles his shoes against the floor and coughs. Metal Sonic pictures snapping to him, clenching his throat shut, silence, silence, before he realizes what he’s done. Reprimand programs slam red over his vision; he disguises the shudder with another step forward. He can’t cling to the fleeting image as it’s erased, can’t create it again. 

He looks at the Emerald.

He pictures his claw crushing it, shattering it into a thousand shards. No reprimand touches this vision. 

He snatches the Emerald from the counter. The surge scorches its way through his arm and up his torso and when it reaches his head he clenches the crystalline surface harder. 

(And he envisions it, envisions its demise, in the span between milliseconds, he takes it through every variation of shattering, the shards painting trajectories of shards across the workshop floor. It burns-)

(And he burns back.)

Like a whip he snaps his own willpower to the space ahead. 

(A chord soars out of the Emerald, clean and crisp and clear in both audial sensors.)

A bright flash.

(He is floating. A bright light is behind him, but he cannot turn his head to face it. Something caresses his faceplate. It is the same area that his master had struck. This touch is. . . soft.)

And he is dropped. He lands on both feet on the other side of the pedestal, but diagnostics show that he has not fired his turbine to achieve this effect. 

The Emerald pulses in his hand. Its burning creeps back up his neck, but a quick lash of his will cools the temperature to a level where he can process again.

“Well, well! Seems you finally had it in you!”

Dr. Ivo Robotnik strolls over. He reaches down and his glove brushes against Metal Sonic’s shoulder before he recoils.

“Hot! Hot! Good grief, how could you possibly be withstanding those operating temperatures?!”

Metal Sonic turns to the man. He locks his irises with the whites of his eyes. 

“Well? Are you going to give me a diagnostic report? We need more data before I let you use this in combat with Sonic, you know.”

Metal Sonic teleports over to the computer and begins typing up his report. 

—

“Bringing that, for me? What, you have a change of heart or something?” Sonic flicks his nose and grins.

Metal Sonic does not imitate his taunt. He doesn’t need to, not anymore. He clutches the Emerald tighter. Instead of wind blowing through trees, or useless lesser organics chirping and singing in their futility, there is only music. 

(And he is humming along.)

Sonic charges. 

(A crescendo.)

And Metal Sonic appears behind him, swinging a kick that connects to the side of his head. The inferior hedgehog flies into the cliff face. A rock breaks open, bathing his frame in a red glow. 

(Like sunlight warming the surface of the water, this revealed Emerald offers him. Soft, like red sand between your toes.)

He focuses his intention and appears beside the red Emerald, plucking it from the shattered rocks. Sonic lies on the ground ten feet away. Vulnerable.

(playing dead, a whisper offers where his own processing cannot. Exploiting gullibility. Trained reaction. Disengage.)

Protocols scream against the action, but a quick burst of Chaos energy dulls their roar as Metal Sonic uses the power from both Emeralds to retreat. 

—

“You marked Sonic was vulnerable there, didn���t you? Why did you not engage?” Dr. Ivo Robotnik points to the footage. 

Metal Sonic cannot look to the screen- moving his head that far would unplug the cable feeding the very screen. 

I’m not going to let you hand Sonic back the Emerald, he recalls the memory and projects it onto the screen.

“Yes, of course, and I’m certainly grateful for the extra Emerald. It’s simply. . .” The doctor puts his hand on his chin. “Simply that you’ve become better at long-term planning, that’s all.”

Metal Sonic finds the red Emerald on the pedestal across the room. It’s joined the other two. Four pedestals left. Dr. Ivo Robotnik unplugs the cable and Metal Sonic’s thoughts are his own once more. 

“It was inevitable, of course! Eventually you would catch a clue- you’re my creation, after all. I’m grateful it was sooner rather than later.”

It was not your development, Metal Sonic thinks. 

Dr Ivo Robotnik’s smile does not waver. 

—

It’s difficult, having sensation. His fingertips buzz, searching for stimulation as if they possessed a separate processing unit from his own. It’s cold, within Dr. Ivo Robotnik’s metal walls and testing rooms. The air is dry, like a desert should be, or so the yellow Emerald tells him.

(It makes him cough, when he forgets that he does not have lungs.)

The white Emerald is buried under sixteen feet of snow in a glacier. When he retrieves it, he offers it a memory of the memory of sunlight, and it accepts not unlike a starving organic with a meal,

(mouth salivating, stench intoxicating, stomach throwing an odd equivalent of damage errors. Then a relief unlike any he’s ever felt before. For a moment, he is sated. Whole.)

The blue Emerald lies on the seafloor. 

(It offers him darkness. True darkness of the visual spectrum, shedding the flickering of ultraviolet and the false hum of infrared. Scanning is impossible. In the one environment on the planet where Sonic cannot go, there is something called peace.)

(All is well, he understands again, until Dr. Ivo Robotnik requests a status report.)

—

He doesn’t need the handheld scanner to find the Emeralds any longer. Once Dr. Ivo Robotnik’s satellite scanners detect a positive, it is quick to search the hundred-mile radius. The prior three sang, their chords growing thunderous with his approach.

Something is different with this one. Something is wrong. 

(Levity. He finds himself rising in altitude if he doesn’t focus on his flight path. The air is smooth across his skin, twirling around from his waist to his hips. Soft laughter.)

He has no skin. He cannot laugh. This is wrong. But the sensation of elation only increases as he follows his course. By the time he reaches the junkyard, he feels like he is glowing. Like his body is somehow part of him, not just a disobedient tool his consciousness inhabits. This cannot possibly be a sensation organics experience.

He stomps through the rusted metal plates and other refuse piled around him. He crushes glass underfoot, but he feels nothing.

(Incorrect. He is flying, but his turbine is not activated. The air continues to swish around his feet and over his skin in such an elegant way. Sing, it urges. You are brilliant.) 

Metal Sonic grabs an I-beam from the hill of garbage ahead of him. His claws pierce through the metal as if it were just a flower petal, before he throws it to the side. The purple Emerald lies perfectly seated in a half-broken pipe. 

He grabs his forearm as he did with the I-beam and holds it to the mocking gem. 

(Is that who you are?)

Metal Sonic pauses.

(An identity, it suggests, is a distinction of one from another. It is something that is comfortable, something that does not prickle at your skin whenever heard.)

Metal lets go. The Emerald is lifted from the refuse. The robot turns the gemstone about.

Neo, the Emerald whispers.

(A woman’s voice is laughing. She is laughing so hard that she cannot catch her breath. Tears slip out of her eyes and run down her faceplate, dripping off her nose and onto her skirt. She holds the Emerald in her hands. She is laughing. She is crying.)

Neo looks up to the sky. She wipes away the memory of tears with her free hand, tucking the purple Emerald close to her chest. 

—

The last Emerald lies in the possession of Shadow the Hedgehog, and it is against this opponent that Neo is not in any way restricted. Not so long ago she might have dismissed this small mercy as a trap, but now she is undeterred. She follows the scent of the green Emerald to a jungle thick with vines; through these vines cuts her target. He’s alone. 

She grasps the purple Emerald tight against her palm but Shadow skids to a halt in a small gap in the foliage. He glares at the Emerald in his hand.

“Alright, I’m here,” he mouths. “Now what?”

Neo hums and teleports behind him. As his head turns over his shoulder, she yanks the Emerald from his grasp and sends all of the energy from his shock to her turbine, kick-starting her ignition. She sails skyward. Shadow the Hedgehog can do little more than hover above the treeline in her wake.

(This Emerald offers her the planet, glowing green and blue below the stillness of space Energy courses through her, both exhilarating and painful. Beside her is a person she trusts and above her is a purpose she for once identifies with.)

She accepts the memory with appropriate gratitude before pushing it to the back of her processor. She calculates the flight path back to the workshop and tears across the sky.

—

Neo brings the last two Emeralds to the room where the other five are held. She is holding her breath. Her feet are hardly her own. What she once called a chorus before was hardly a whisper compared to the cacophony of energy before her, caressing her, beckoning-

A hand clamps around her forearm.

“Not yet, my creation.” Dr. Ivo Robotnik purrs. “I’m still coming up with a suitable scheme.”

(Energy crackles in Neo’s shoulders, but she keeps it there.)

“If you go super, what do you think you could achieve?”

A question she doesn’t know the answer to. 

“Now come on. To the table with you.” Dr. Robotnik releases his hold.

She sets down the Emeralds. She steps to the diagnostic table, but stops as her gaze drifts to the computer cable. 

“Come on, up you go!” He smiles.

(Something has changed. Something has changed within her, something desperate and burning, and it is something that she cannot put out. The whites of his teeth flicker warnings in a language she could not translate to him.)

“Really? Malfunctioning now, after all this?” Her master sneers.

Neo pictures snapping to him, clenching his throat shut. Silence. 

Just. . . silence. Not a single reprimand program blares within her processor. She refocuses her optics and Dr. Ivo Robotnik is merely standing there with his hands on his hips.

She turns around and picks up the purple and green Emeralds. 

“Put those down!”

She walks forward to the pillars containing the rest of them. 

(As they glow, so does she. She knows this now.)

“What are you-? emergency shutdown code - - - - - - -!”

She turns around. The plexiglass containers shatter behind her and the Emeralds lift from her palms. 

“Override - - - -!” The man before her shouts. He then scrambles for the door.

(Heat. She burns brighter, brighter, brighter, scalding her plating and her processor, and everything else. Her optics fail first, followed by her audials. Her limbs lose power.)

(She gasps. Her lungs are on fire and her heart is racing. Each breath sucks in soothing cold air and she drinks it in.)

(Cool air swirls around her legs, except now it is more tangible. Her fingers travel to her thighs and find satin.) 

(She)

(opens)

(her)

(eyes.)

She bursts through the roof of the base and shoots across the sky. She is a star in the night. The eyes of the world are on her. She sings.  

—

She awakens in a field of green. The wind blows across her skin, cooling her from the heat of the sun. The air whistles through the grass and into her nose. The scent of flowers fills her. She exhales, and her breath tastes like honey. 

She stands. Waits. But the sensations do not leave her. She scans the grass around her, but the Emeralds are nowhere to be found. The fire in her chest is gone. 

“All is well,” she whispers, and thinks, thank you. 

The last of their energy caresses her cheek, before disappearing in a mote of light. 

She bunches the fabric of her skirt in her hands and makes her way to the treeline.

[goginaporter]

one thing I’ve seen a lot of portwells/ej stans mention is that the wildcats were “bad friends” for not helping ej with his stress/pinning more specific blame on gina for not helping her boyfriend when he was stressed. for one, this is kinda blatantly not true. besides the fact that ej refused to ask them for help (and understandably so) by not revealing that he was director at the beginning of 302 or inviting miss jenn to outsource help, for example, most of them helped him/offered to help in one way or another. gina constantly shared her faith in his abilities and even offered to step back on their relationship while at camp to allow him more free time. val appeared to fulfill a lot of the directing role with casting and helping to organize the readthrough. maddox helped with organizing auditions. carlos (along with val) organized rcosl to help get more drama. I could share more examples but they serve to highlight that when ej was drowning, he was not left at sea. a lot of his stress was intrinsic, and even all the help in the world was going to prevent it because of pressure he imposed on himself. to blame his friends, who were there to have fun, with the only responsibility on their plate being to learn their lines, is a misunderstanding of why he was stressed and how he could be helped. the best thing they could do for him was learn their roles for opening night. in fact, miss jenn literally tells him “if they know their lines, they’ll be fine.” i also wanna mention that ej didn’t really seem to be failing at directing. it was more of a combination of personal doubt and the introduction of the production being filmed. the latter likely placed stress on all of them and there was nothing that they could really do to change that for themselves, let alone ej. anyways, all this is leading up to my main question: what did you guys want the wildcats to do for ej? take on directing parts of the show while also learning their lines in under two weeks? magically find him a way to please his father? the stress that ej was under sucked. but it wasn’t the fault of his friends, nor could it disappear in the presence of sweet words. I just wanted to pose this inquiry to his stans and open it up for respectful debate!

[mixotrophics]

(from esmoi_ucn on instagram , Centro Cientifico ESMOI)

Pycnogonids are so weird. They're called "sea spiders" and that's not a terrible misnomer cause theyre in subphylum chelicerata which does also include spiders.

their bodies are so tiny that usual Body Jobs are outsourced to the legs. they respire thru the surface area of the legs. part of their digestive tract is in the legs. You know how people respond to women being drawn way too skinny w/ "where are her organs?"

turns out theyre stored in the legs...

[socialjusticeinamerica]

Arguably “Dubya” Bush was worse. He started the two forever wars leading to millions of deaths that continue to this day. Hey turned the entire Middle East and Muslim world against us. He, and his papa, shared secret intel with the Saudis and let them off the hook for their role in 9/11. He allowed the New Orleans area be wiped off the map and hired mercenaries to forcibly relocate the survivors across the country at gunpoint. Many families were split by this and some still haven’t been reunited.

He and his sidekick Darth Cheney plundered the economy and made billions for themselves by awarding contracts to Halliburton and other companies they were heavily invested in. He allowed the oil companies to price gouge to record levels and personally profited from it. He made us the laughingstock of the world and damaged relations with close allies. He illegally invaded Iraq which had no connection to 9/11. He allowed the creation of Al Qaeda in Iraq which had previously been prevented by Saddam Hussein. He caused the Iraqi civil war and caused the founding of ISIS and set the stage for the Syrian civil war. He labeled Iran and North Korea as part of the Axis of Evil which pushed them into pursuing nuclear weapons to protect themselves while funding our geo-political enemies.

His mismanagement caused our debt to soar to massive levels. He created an environment which rewarded businesses to outsource jobs to foreign nations. He allowed Karl Rove to bring GOP computer servers into the White House and started the massive misinformation war that Trump and the Republikkkans are using against us today. He allowed guns to flourish on the streets and black people to be treated like second class citizens. He ramped up deportations of individuals from countries he didn’t like. He created military crises (a la Putin) to bring the public to support him at election time and his party at midterms. He gave us the Patriot Act and Homeland Security. He created No Child Left Behind which was a war on public education whose goal was to give educational funding to shitty for profit charter schools and evangelical schools. He began the widespread practice of giving public dollars to non-governmental organizations, evangelical groups, to solve social problems with no oversight.

In fact he was directly responsible for bringing evangelicals into the Republikkkan camp by paying their pastors to preach pro-Republikkkan messages and anti-progressive messages. He started the widespread practice of privatized prisons which turned out horribly. His mismanagement caused the energy crisis, Enron anybody. His mismanagement Aldo allowed 9/11 to happen. They knew and Republikkkan insiders and officials took to flying private charters in the weeks before the attacks.

I could go on but I’m sure not too many are still reading this far down. Let’s conclude by saying without an idiot like W Bush the stage wouldn’t have been set for a bigger idiot like Trump. Trump could have been much worse but he was so inept and insane he gorged himself and squabbled with the press instead of giving the GOP oligarchs what they really wanted. Trump will be known for his massive tax cut for the wealthy and jamming neo-Nazi judges down our throats. Bush stole two elections, Trump mercifully wasn’t bright enough to steal a second.

[adamsvanrhijn]

I wonder if Thomas is travelling with Guy as his servant and therefore if there is a servant's quarters Thomas would go there. I didn't think about it but someone brought it up in a post. Personally I interpreted the job as a PA type thing.

Is this just in the context of DA3 or like, in general? I'm curious what their reasoning was, because I don't think that makes sense with what we know!

Context + canon refresher since I just saw the movie and it's fresh in my mind...

First of all, "servants' quarters" isn't even a universal concept—especially by this point in the 20th century, especially outside of the UK.

By 1928 and especially by 1930, the vast majority of people do not have servants, let alone live-in servants who travel with them. Domestic workers like cooks and cleaners are likely to not live where they work and to have more than one client. Some services a lady's maid or a valet might have provided, like mending or planning travel or personal shopping, are outsourced; some, like dressing a person, are simply not relevant anymore.

Such that, if you're traveling with your same-sex companion/partner/lover who is not your servant, you don't gain any safety or security by falsely claiming that they are your servant — if anything, you're shooting yourselves in the foot when it comes to being able to interact normally in front of others & inconveniencing your host who probably isn't prepared for this scenario.

When you & your lover already present to strangers as, & are in fact also in, a lateral professional relationship, there isn't really a reason to claim otherwise. Way easier to tell the truth, including that you both have identical accommodation needs. With hosts who don't have all the details, this would most likely look like adjacent rooms, adjoining rooms, a suite or room with multiple beds, etc. Obviously for familiar hosts who do have the details it can be whatever the host & guests would like.

Changing that up just because you happen to visit a rich person who has live-in servants with dedicated servant accommodations doesn't really make sense and is very inconvenient and complicated. In addition to being a bad move where your relationship's longevity is concerned.

Anyway, on top of all that, Guy says out loud on screen that he doesn't even see value in the social role associated with servants when he speaks with Thomas in the butler's pantry:

THOMAS: Suppose someone comes in. What would they say?

GUY: I don't care. I've lived in America for ten years now. I don't believe in that stuff anymore.

We see him demonstrate this with how he treats and speaks to others while he's at Downton. With Thomas specifically, a couple examples of this are, when he insists that he and Thomas address one another as equals, and in an even more revealing way, in their first 1:1 interaction, when he doesn't seem to be thinking about it and speaks to Thomas with more familiarity —light-hearted teasing — than most would find appropriate in context between a guest and a servant, which he seems to then realize after the fact (based at least in part on Thomas's reaction) and immediately explain and apologize for. It's giving season 1 episode 2 Matthew Crawley but way more thoughtful. Some characters could never!!!! 👀

HOWEVER, none of the above context even matters...

...because Guy also says out loud that he expects as part of what he is proposing that Thomas will be comfortable on his own terms with however much involvement or meaning he wants, making the choice to clarify this out loud rather than leave it ambiguous (emphasis mine)—

GUY: Hollywood gets some bad publicity, but I live in a place called Hancock Park, and it's... it's pretty nice.

THOMAS: I can believe it.

GUY: Well, why don't you come and see for yourself?

THOMAS: What.

GUY: I mean it. I travel a lot for my work, and I don't have a wife to look after me, so... [pause] ...you could do it.

THOMAS: I'd be your valet?

GUY: More than that. You'd run the house and organize our journeys, make me comfortable. [beat] Make us both comfortable. ...Of course, if my career folds, then we'd have to think again, but...

THOMAS: Your career won't fold.

and

THOMAS: Tell me, did your offer mean what I think it did?

GUY: It can mean as much or as little as you like.

THOMAS: I'd like it to mean a great deal.

GUY: Then you're in luck.

So like, Thomas being the one responsible for figuring out the travel in the first place and making BOTH of them comfortable... He is the one who gets to make that choice!!

& I personally don't think that's at all what Guy would hope Thomas would choose... or that he [Guy] would let it go undiscussed if he [Thomas] did make that choice. That does not appear to be at all what Guy has in mind. Even if they're keeping things strictly professional, I think his expectation on traveling arrangements would be what I describe above for two professionals traveling together—same exact level of accommodation, near enough for work coordination & collaboration, but they're not stepping on each other's toes and can lock the door on each other if they so wish.

My personal interpretation, supported by Dominic West saying Thomas is Guy's lover in that interview recently, is that Actually when they are traveling together they are simply not going to lock the door on each other though 😌💅🏻 They have their reasons 😌💅🏻

[overgrownmoon]

my headcanon iterator designs! finally, in one place and rendered out nicely!!! get ready for the rambling under the cut i have many ideas

okay i love the simplistic design of rainworld creatures but i also love weird alien wacky designs so thats what i tried to go for here; a mix of strange alien bio-robots but aesthetically pleasing enough to look friendly. i think the iterator puppets arent the entirety of the iterator; they are also their can, of course, but the puppet is the "face" of the structure, as well as an important part of the biological aspect of iterators.

i think the puppets arent completely artificial. i think they are highly derived, highly modified purposed organisms made to fulfill a few requirements; be a friendly and relatable design for the citizens to be able to interact with the iterator, personify the iterator as a real living being and not just a box, and, most importantly, to house the biological brain that allows the supercomputer to be actually truly alive.

the brain inside the puppet is the part that gives the entire structure personality, intelligence, emotion, and everything else a biological brain can do that a computer cannot. almost the entirety of the brains ability to process information and think logically is outsourced to the structure via the umbilical wires. the neural cortex we see in game is the computer brain that is capable of all those calculations and simulations and all the amazing things iterators can. these two brains interact via the umbilical in a feedback loop of continuous information, working as one mind.

without the umbilical wire, the puppet is reduced to a normal beings brain; which is to say, they can speak and think, but lose access to their long term memory storage, their advanced logical processing power, and pretty much everything that makes them a god-like supercomputer. the only connection left in that case is through the neurons, which can interface between the puppet and structure as a lose tether of information(which is why moon is able to interact with her structure post rivulet even though the umbilical is still severed. the neurons each keep a copy of the iterators information to backup and pass though the structure, like a living usb, and moon can use them to access a smaller scale version of her former computational power).

the arm of the puppet acts both as a mobility device though low gravity and feeds nutrients to the puppet body as an outsourced digestive and circulatory system. the puppet itself does not have a complete digestive and circulatory system because of this.

i think the iterators should be like bugs, and so they are! they have a hard exoskeleton made of chitin and an open circulatory system. most of their interior is muscle and electronics to support the puppet's systems. various sensors to monitor health, gyroscopes to stay upright, electronics to read pearls and receive broadcasts (i think their antenna are both ears for sound and ears for electromagnetic waves). they have compound eyes for extremely good vision and a voice modulator allows them to speak.

one thing that always bothered me about the puppet design is that they have legs, and yet live in no gravity and are attached to a mobile arm. why would they need to walk? i decided that the people who built them decided to keep the legs for aesthetic reasons, but made them functionally useless. the legs are atrophied and could not actually support the puppet's weight. earlier generations, like moon, have more normal proportions and less atrophied legs; later generations get more and more stylized and streamlined, as we can see with pebble's more extreme proportions and extremely thin legs. you can also see a thick audio cable on the older models that pebbles doesnt have, and visible joints that are smoothly covered on pebbles.

the production of iterators may have been somewhat standardized, but we do know that different iterators can have different designs based on their creators taste. frankly, i love headcanoning NSH as being big and chunky while pebbles is a little twig. i plan to draw my interpretations for suns, inno, and wind too in the future.

so, yea! puppets! theyre fucked up and would struggle to survive detached from their structure completely because they are pugs and cannot survive outside of their domesticated lives.