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spaceclefairy · 2 years

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The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, Ch. 16

Pairing: Michael de Santa/ OFC; Trevor Philips/OFC; Michael de Santa/OFC/Trevor Philips; Michael de Santa/Trevor Philips

Summary: Los Santos is a hellscape, but if you’ve got brains and a little determination, it can be a real hell of a playground. Michael needs money, Trevor needs whatever Trevor wants, and Franklin’s moving up in Los Santos. Jen’s just along for the ride.

This is gonna be fun.

Author’s Note: I’ve been writing this beast of a thing since 2013. It’s been through a thousand different incarnations, but it’s been in my drafts for the last six years. I realize this fandom isn’t as popular as it used to be, but I might as well have a little fun and finally start posting it.

Also, not to be that bitch, but this is on Ao3. I would very much appreciate kudos/comments, if you’re so inclined!

Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3 || Part 4 || Part 5 || Part 6 || Part 7 || Part 8 || Part 9 || Part 10 || Part 11 || Part 12 || Part 13 || Part 14 || Part 15

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

Lester’s contacts came through beautifully.

When Jen arrived at her office the next morning, the only people in the office were her own employees, peacefully doing their jobs. There were no IAA interns rummaging through her files, no IAA agents stalking her employees through the halls, no IAA agents sniffing and smirking or lauding their hierarchy. Possibly better still, absolutely no sign of an FIB agent could be found.

Jen grinned as she strode through the office, clicking away in her tall, tall heels - there would be silence today, for at least a brief little while. Mary at the front desk handed Jen a stack of mail as she entered the office, smiling politely. She’d seen the news that morning, pleased that she no longer had to keep tentatively looking for a new job. The rest of Jen’s employees waved and greeted her as she walked by each office heading to her own.

Absolutely beautiful.

Wonderful, beautiful silence for a brief little while. Brief, being the operative word.

Jen had no sooner sat down to begin her day when her phone started ringing. She grinned as she looked at the glass screen - Dave Norton, right on time.

She answered. "Howdy, Dave."

Dave's voice crackled out as a scandalized huff. "What did you do?"

Jen stifled a chuckle. All the years of maintaining decorum despite immense displeasure had given her a stellar poker face. "What are you talking about, Dave?"

"The shitstorm going down on Weazel News? Breakdown of election results being published? Covers blown? Ring a bell?"

"I haven't turned on Weazel this morning, so that’s news to me. Come to think of it, though, it's awfully quiet in the office for once," Jen observed. "Look, Dave. I've got a massive murder trial in a few weeks. It’s all I can do to get out of bed in the morning some days. Where would I find the time to do all that? Or get the resources?"

"Oh, stop. I know who you know," Dave snapped. "Good Lord, Jen! We told you we would handle it!"

“Well, it’s been handled now,” Jen replied simply, stifling a giggle with the back of her hand. "What are you complaining about anyway? I’m watching Weazel now. Looks like it was only IAA info that got leaked, not FIB."

"Be that as it may," Dave huffed, "But now the higher-ups are talking about a government-wide review of all personnel."

"Wouldn't hurt, I'm sure."

"Need I remind you that if I get tapped, so does your boyfriend?" Dave grumbled.

To be fair, Dave had a point. His career-making takedown of one Michael Townley hadn’t come without a price.

"More threats, Dave? Come on, we’re on the same side. That’s not your style."

Dave sighed. “It’s a warning, Jen. You should have let me handle it."

"I had nothing to do with it,” Jen lied. “Check your sources."

"I will,” Dave snapped. "Now, I’m going to go clean up this mess. You better pray Steve doesn’t start snooping around in my files. And be careful, please."

"I'm always careful."

Jen hung up the phone and cackled while she dialed Lester’s number. She really liked Dave, truly. If he put half as much work into actually being a good agent as he put into pretending to be a good agent, he might have had a shot at being director once upon a time. But Dave, deep down, wanted glory without putting the work in. And that mindset, in Jen’s experience, was easily exploitable.

Lester picked up on the first ring. Jen could hear the crackle of Weazel News in the background. No doubt the nefarious little nerd was enjoying the spectacle that was the product of his handiwork.

"Lester, I could kiss you!"

He snorted. "Keep it to yourself. I don't want your boyfriends beating down my door."

"You'd let me if I tried."

"Probably,” Lester conceded, “Oh, and you’re welcome."

“As always, my friend, I appreciate our time together,” Jen replied in her sweetest voice. "Also, I'm sending you the recording of the call Dave Norton made just now in case we need a little… insurance. Thanks again."

Jen hung up and tossed her phone onto her desk. The pleasure of silence was golden. She could focus on actually doing her job now rather than monitoring agents and babysitting her staff. She could get ready for all the cases coming up, get this mess of a murder trial off the ground… She might even get to go home on time today.

Huh. Now, there’s an idea. Getting home on time meant Jen might be able to get Michael to come over, maybe even spend the night. He had been back in Los Santos for a week, having successfully gotten the price on his head rescinded. He hadn’t come over yet for want of a little relaxation.

Jen grabbed her phone and texted him, asking him to come over tonight. To her surprise, he responded in short order with a quick sure (Michael wasn’t known for his texting skills).

Excellent. Jen could get everything ready for tonight. A little wine, some candles… She could get that whiskey Michael likes and order some movies, relax for a while. Wonderful.

MaryAnn threw open Jen’s office door, yanking Jen out of her euphoria. Never let it be said that MaryAnn practiced proper work etiquette.

MaryAnn’s manic grin was contagious. “What did you do? How did you get them out of here?”

Jen shrugged, matching her grin. “I had nothing to do with it.”

“Bullshit,” MaryAnn laughed, taking a seat in one of Jen’s cushy office chairs. “I know you better than that. Did your creepy old boyfriend have someone killed?”

“There are so many things wrong with what you just said.” Jen shook her head, but the grin never left her face. “Wasn’t me - pinky swear. Some internet do-gooder pulled the records and leaked them last night. Check Weazel.”

“And you didn’t even point them in the right direction?”

Jen shook her head. “Nope.”

“Well, I’ll be,” MaryAnn said, crossing her arms. “Someone really likes you.”

Thanks, Lester.

Jen snorted. “As much shit as I get on the daily, I’ll take any win I can get.”

“Well, that means we can get down to business prepping for this trial.”

Jen eyed her whiteboard over in the corner. It was covered in notes and crime scene photos - a gruesome collage of a trial plan. “Finally. I’ll be glad when it’s over.”

“You and me both,” MaryAnn agreed. “Well, as much as I’d love to let you bask in your victory, we need to get started.”

“You pull the file, I’ll start calling witnesses.”

“Done.”

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

Michael spent most of the week following the fertility idol debacle moping in his sedan. A week after yelling he loves Jen, he sat in the Burger Shot drive-thru, moping in his sedan. One full week of Burger Shot Depression Specials, blitzed out of his mind at 11AM on the good cognac, while Franklin shakes his head at him from the driver’s seat of the sedan.

Michael had texted Franklin maybe an hour before requesting Burger Shot, not for the first time this week, after downing about a hundred dollars’ worth of good cognac for breakfast. He was resolutely ashamed of himself, but too depressed to stop. Franklin, bless his soul, agreed to drive him, if only to ensure Michael wouldn’t drunk-drive himself to Burger Shot in Los Santos lunch traffic.

“Jen calls the sedan the Saggy Balls,” Michael hiccuped from the passenger seat while Franklin contemplated his life choices. “She says it makes me look old.”

“You are old, dude,” Franklin replied, accepting the reeking, greasy bag of double-doubles that will surely incite The Widowmaker, the final heart attack that will send Michael to an early grave, from the window cashier. “Why don’t you just call her?”

Trevor had already given Franklin the run-down of what happened on the beach, from the fertility idol right down to Michael’s duh-moment revelation. Therefore, he already knew why Michael wouldn’t willingly call Jen. It’s not like the man was an expert at dealing with his feelings in a healthy, sensible fashion.

“I’d rather fuckin’ die, Frank,” Michael moaned, taking a bite of his double-double cheeseburger with bacon. Grease beaded up in shiny specks on the bun, and Franklin wished Michael would eat a salad, for his own sake. “I got a plan. I’m trying to get my life back. I want my kids back. I want Amanda back.”

“You sure about that last one, man?” Franklin asked. He really shouldn’t complain about what Michael eats (why was he even concerned about it in the first place?). He was chowing down on greasy ass fries while idling at the red light.

“I want my life back.”

“Whatever you say, bro.”

Not a moment later, Michael’s phone vibrated. He groaned and laid his head against the headrest. “It’s from Jen.”

“Why are you complaining? Don’t you love her?”

“Yes,” Michael said flatly. That much has been established. He flicked through his text messages. “She wants me to come over tonight.”

“Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t understand what the problem is.”

“I can’t keep seeing her if I want to get my life back.”

“Ain’t you been seeing her for, like years? Just go-” Franklin stopped, huffing. “You know what - you’re not gonna listen to whatever I tell you. You’re gonna drunk dial me at 2AM and ask me to come get you from Tequila-la’s and take you to Cluckin’ Bell.”

Michael was lost in his own thoughts. “You know what, I’m gonna go see Jen tonight. I’m gonna go tell her I can’t keep doing this.”

Franklin shook his head. “You’re gonna be diggin’ your own grave…”

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

Jen answered the door dressed in a black button-down and her underwear, a glass of wine clutched in her hand and a grin on her face. Her cheeks were flushed pink, and she'd tied her mass of puffy orange hair up out of the way. An empty bottle of wine rested next to another full bottle, belying that she’d already started enjoying her night.

She had to be drunk. She wouldn’t have answered the door in a button-down (his button-down, one he’d left here before) and her underwear if she wasn’t at least tipsy. He’d surprisingly never seen her drunk before. Or, at least, she never let on that she was drunk.

It was… nice. She looked happy, kind of like the morning after the first night he’d stayed here, like she’d actually been able to let loose and relax. She wasn’t often this happy, always stressed about everything and exhausted and even more harried and harassed than usual with the election issues hanging over her. And that trial she’d mentioned - the serial killer one. He’d followed that story himself - seen some of the crime scene photos on her computer once, too - and it looked like a doozy.

Looking at her made Michael’s heart ache. He was going to ruin a perfectly good night by just being himself.

Or, at least he was, until she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. Oh, fuck him. Michael’s hands were latched onto her waist in half a second, kneading her soft flesh with the tips of his fingers. She tasted like bad decisions, like he was about to really fuck up his life if he stayed here any longer.

The button-down was a stupid idea; she should have just answered the door naked and put him out of his misery. He’s got it so fucking bad for her, and there’s not a thing he can do about it.

Jen pulled back with that wicked grin on her face that let Michael know, in no uncertain terms, that she had his number. Guiding him over to the couch, she sat him down and shoved a drink in his hand. "I bought that good whiskey you like, the entire Richard's Majestic catalog, and snacks, Mike. Snacks. So, get cozy because we're celebrating!"

Michael reclined back against the couch, crossing his legs. The glass of whiskey in his hand was cold and sweating lightly. "What are we celebrating?"

Jen flopped down onto the couch next to him and slung a muscled leg across his lap before curling up against his side. "The death of my IAA annoyances - not literally, of course. Lester leaked the election results and blew all their covers."

He instinctively wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Good enough reason to celebrate, I guess."

Jen tipped her glass in salute. “Any reason to celebrate is a good reason. But this reason is an especially good one.”

Michael had to agree - any reason to celebrate was good enough for him. He’d never been one to turn down a good time, for whatever good it did him.

Jen snuggled closer into his side. "Plus, it's your first night back here since Madrazo called off the hit. Figured we could have a night to ourselves."

That’s what was killing him. Michael knew he shouldn’t have come over. No matter what the situation, no matter what time it was, any time he walked into Jen’s apartment, he didn't want to be anywhere else. He should have asked her to meet him for dinner or something - made it easier for both of them. He could have called things off, let her blow up and leave, gotten drunk and forgotten all about the past… seven years.

Yeah, that totally would have worked… He totally, under no circumstances, would have ended up right back here in Jen’s apartment, in exactly the same position, completely brought to his metaphorical fucking knees.

There was no scenario in which Michael wouldn’t fuck this up in some way or another. He’s just gotta do it. He’s just got to open his mouth and do it.

Twenty years ago, this wouldn’t have been a problem. He’d never had a problem telling a girl to get lost (except for his wife, Amanda, who he married because he got her pregnant, in some chivalrous attempt to own up to his choices). Never had a problem being the asshole, the bad guy, the jerk… He could sweet talk right up to the point where he wasn’t interested anymore, when he got what he wanted (ass), and would tell them to get lost.

Not this girl. Not Jen. Michael knew good and well he couldn’t do it because Jen was Jen, and she was his. He just didn’t want to acknowledge he knew it.

Before Michael could blink, they’d finished the first movie. He couldn’t even remember which one they’d watched - he’d been lost in his own thoughts. One of the shitty action movies, probably, that comprised most of the Richards Majestic catalog. Jen crawled out of his grasp to grab the remote and press play on whatever movie was queued up next. The loss of heat next to him was jarring after being so comfortable for so long.

The next movie in the queue was a romance. Michael preferred action movies all day long, but he wouldn’t turn his nose up at a decent romance. Especially not a Richards Majestic romance - they had just the right formula of hot and cheesy.

Jen crawled back up under his arm, another full glass of wine in one hand and a refill of his whiskey glass in the other hand. “I remembered you like Some Like it Hot - figured you wouldn’t mind watching this one next.”

“It’s one of the best, as far as rom-coms go.”

“Rom-coms aren’t so bad,” Jen teased, taking a healthy sip of her drink.

“Says the woman who almost exclusively watches mafia movies and B-horror.”

“I don’t want to hear shit from you, Mr. Action Movie.”

Michael pinched her side, earning him a gentle slap on the thigh. He shouldn’t be encouraging this, shouldn’t be playing with her and teasing her like he always does, but he wants to. And her lips are so soft when she kisses him, and she feels so warm against his chest, he just can’t make himself stop.

The minute Jen straddles his lap, he's done. Lost. No hope of holding out. She tastes like liquor and a lost cause when she kisses him, like communion at church, and he's the damned sinner clinging to the hope of salvation.

Michael damn near rips the buttons off of the shirt she's wearing - his shirt his shirt his shirt - just to get it open. He doesn't care to push over her shoulders or even try to get it off of her completely. He lets it hang open while he grabs her tits, pinching and pulling blindly while she kisses him. Fuck he loves these tits, these soft, heavy tits that make him forget how to think-

She didn’t have underwear on - how had he been sitting here half the night and not noticed?

Jen takes him by the throat. He fucking loves when she does that. She doesn't put pressure on his windpipe, it's just to force his head back so she can leave deep purple bruises on his neck that won't even be close to hidden by his shirt collar. He groans deep in his chest, and he swears he feels her smirk against his skin. He’d never admit out loud he likes being handled like this, loves when she leaves those dark bruises where everyone can see, loves when she puts him in his place. He can’t function like this, reduced to a groaning mess with every kiss and lick and touch.

She grinds down in his lap, stroking her naked pussy along his still-clothed cock. He could scream, he really could, but he doesn't. He lets her use him to work herself up, use him to get herself wet for him.

Michael’s searching fingers find her wet little cunt grinding down in his lap, and he wastes no time plunging his fingers into her. He crooks his fingers against the spot that makes her shake, and she howls against his neck. He can feel the muscles in her legs tense from the effort of hovering over his lap. Her nails dig into his shoulders, and it’s only the thin barrier of his shirt that saves him from red little half-moon bites in his skin.

Jen pulls at the buttons of his shirt with shaking hands while he fingers her. “Get- get this off.”

“Get it off me, then.”

The way her eyes flash at him, that dangerous little warning of don’t test me, makes Michael’s cock twitch. He twists his fingers, adding a third finger to stuff her full, and the shaky whimper she lets out makes him grin. She works faster, though, almost ripping a couple of his shirt buttons right off.

“That’s right, princess - you don’t want to be the only one naked, do you?”

Jen yanks his shirt open so she can get her hands on him, and Michael just lets her rake her nails down his chest. He loves testing her like this, loves when she gets rough with him. It doesn’t matter how much he likes to be in charge. Jen is Jen, and he wants this any way she’ll give it to him.

Michael can feel her starting to tense around his fingers. "Come on, princess, you know you wanna come for me."

Jen stops him with a hand on his bicep. "Don’t get mouthy. Stand up."

Michael is damn near bewildered, but he does as she commands and stands. His jaw hits the floor when she turns toward the back of the couch, knees in the cushions, hands resting on the top of the couch.

Jen doesn't do this. Hasn't done it, not once, in the seven years they've been seeing each other. She likes the dominant role, and Michael is more than happy to take the lazy route and let her use him any way she wants. Vulnerability and submission are not her preference - she likes to be in control, and getting fucked from behind isn't enough control.

And, for a long moment, Michael finally forgets himself. Forgets he wants Amanda back, forgets he tried to keep himself from getting in this position in the first place. This vulnerability throws him for a goddamn loop.

And Jen is impatient. "You gonna stand there all night or are you gonna fuck me, Mike?"

Michael’s pants hit the goddamn floor like they're on fire. He lines his hard, leaking cock up with her cunt and thrusts, and thank god he fingered her for as long as he did because she's tight and dripping wet and rocking back against him and-

He squeezes her ass and gives it a sharp swat before pulling her back onto his cock as hard as he dares. He's not gonna last like this - not by a long shot, but damn if he's not gonna get her to scream his name before he does. He leans over her, chest to her back, and guides her upright, knees buried into the couch cushions, with one arm wrapped around her waist and the other hand squeezing her tits.

Michael's teeth nip at Jen’s earlobe, his tongue tracing the outer shell of her ear. He thrusts up hard, pinching her nipples. "Gonna come for me, princess? Gonna come for Daddy?"

Oh, he knows she wants to sass him, wants to fight him, wants to shove him back down on the couch and take back control for that comment, and he fucking wants her to, but he can feel her hot cunt start to tighten and flutter around him. No, she’s not going to fight him for control. She wants him to fuck her stupid, take her like he wants to take her.

"That's it, let Daddy make you come."

“Don’t-” Jen jerks the hand squeezing her tits down to her clit, where he circles her presses and dips his fingers between her folds. Her nails dig into his forearms, searching for stability and balance while she falls apart in his hands. "Fuck, Mike-"

"Try again."

And Jen plays his game. To his amazement, she plays his game. "Come on, Daddy, make me come-"

He does. With quick, rough strokes, and his fingers pressing down and circling and teasing her swollen clit, he makes her come. Long, and hard, and slow, until Jen is howling his name like he’s never heard her do. It breaks him, and he comes in hard spurts, twitching and rocking up into her.

“That’s it, princess,” Michael groans into her neck, “love your cunt, love you, baby-”

Michael grabs Jen’s chin, twisting around so he can kiss her. She’s still fluttering around him, still coming all over his cock, and he feels like he’s never going to be able to stop.

And when Michael finally softens enough to pull out, Jen collapses down on the couch in a sweaty, satisfied little heap.

From that moment, it takes approximately five seconds for Michael to freak the fuck out.

Because he said it.

Michael had never gotten dressed so fast in his life. His hand is on the front doorknob before Jen even really realizes he’s leaving. He doesn’t know if she comprehended what he said, and he’s not sticking around to find out.

“Michael, where the fuck are you going-”

The door slammed behind him, and he could hear her yelling. He’s in the elevator and on the way down to his car before Jen can even grab a robe.

He let his phone ring and ring as he climbed into his car, and he ignored every call.

#grand theft auto #Grand Theft Auto 5 #Grand Theft Auto V #gta #GTAV #GTA5 #michael de santa #michael de santa x oc

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myafterlifeisbetterthenyours · 3 years

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Stolas and Blitzø with an Imp overlord S/O

Blitzø

Blitzø never liked being looked down apon simply for being an Imp.

As far as he was concerned, Imps were just as good as any sinner.

So meeting you. An Imp that broke all expectations and became an Overlord, it was natural he'd find himself gravitating towards you.

The fact you were hot as fuck, was also a big factor.

Blitzø was already a maverick. And having you besides him made him feel invincible.

Almost dangerously so, and you'll often have to remind him that just because the two of you are a couple doesn't mean he's untouchable.

Blitzø adores you, so getting him to calm down a little won't be too difficult, you'll probably just have to remind him a few times.

He absolutely loves you and spending time with you. Doing anything really, just watching you walk down the Street is like a full Broadway production for him.

He especially loves getting to do things with you.

From the turf wars, to the day to day tasks of governing your little empire.

Blitzø loves showing you off, often to his employees and daughter.

Hell walk in, arm in arm and proudly proclaim 'Look at me and sexy Overlord BOYFRIEND!'

Of course Millie and Moxxie would honoured to meet you, and would be happy there boss had someone who could keep him in line.

Loona would be a difficult part in your relationship. She's a moody teenage girl, so she pretty much despises anything she doesn't think is "cool".

Getting respect from her would be too difficult, you are an overlord after all, but actually getting her to like you was a whole other question.

So you did the only thing one can with there spouses teenage child.

You bribed her.

New clothes, new phone, tickets to see boy bands, with supervision. Basically just make her feel special to you.

But your careful not to spoil her and you do try to spend some time with her, get to know her likes and hobies, even if she doesn't make it easy.

You'll be particularly strict if she's given Blitzø a hard time or being rude in general.

Blitzø loves pushing your buttons and you usually love pushing his, but if he does it infront of someone important, or your does something to make you look weak, you need to shut that shit down immediately.

You'll sometimes have to berate him, telling him how he can't look weak infront of his enemies.

Blitzø will usually end up apologising, promising not to do it again.

Sex between the two of you is amazing.

Blitzø loves being dominated by you in both bed and in the relationship. It just feels natural.

Stolas would be a mountain size issue in your relationship.

If you met before Blitzø made the arrangement with Stolas, you could simply use your power and status to get access to his Grimoire.

However, If you'd met after they made there agreement on the other hand... it would be a difficult situation.

You of course wouldn't like the arrangement, and Blitzø would be terrified you take it badly, but understood the relationship was purely business.

Youd probably have to threaten to completely dismantle I.M.P, saying that you could always just hire him and his employees and Stolas would never see Blitzø again.

Not wanting to lose Blitzø, Stolas would conced. Letting Blitzø use his Grimoire. But now under understand condition that I was Blitzø's choice to have sex or not.

Now Blitzø gets to run I.M.P, under your watchful protection, just good old times, now without Stolas constantly over his shoulder... for the most part.

Although after the negotiations Stolas seemed to become as interested with you as he was with Blitzø.

Which depending on your perspective, is either a very uncomfortable situation, or a very enjoyable one, as you could probably get him completely wrapped around your finger.

Stolas

Imps are the lowest lifeforms in hell.

So for you, an Imp, to gain the rank of Overlord, sent wripples through hell.

Especially amongst the royalty.

The fact that an Imp could attain such a prestigious rank was very disconcerting for the nobility.

Hell, even Stolas didn't believe you actually existed until he saw you.

And by Lucifer, when he saw you, he was in awe.

You looked like something from mythos.

The attire that managed to look both regal and all business.

The way you carried yourself with such elegant determination.

And the air of authority and dominance that followed in your wake, it was all so... Intoxicating!

So he did everything he could to meet you, and when he did, he was taken aback by just how domineering your presence was.

He had no idea there were Imps like you, he had to admit, it sparked something in him.

The way you looked at him with such calculating eyes, as though you knew everything he would say before he'd said it, sent a shiver down his spine.

You effortlessly took command of the conversation, Stolas just nodding and giggling along like a school girl.

It was on your second metting, after a few drinks, that the two of you really hit it off.

And by hit it off, he means rough, passionate sex.

You initially kept the relationships on the down-low, for both your sakes.

Stolas not wanting his family to know

And you don't want people to think your some royal pet.

So under the guise of business, the two of you would spend many a night together.

Dinners, movie nights, the two of you curled up infront of the fire and of course, lots and lots of rough, dirty sex.

As you know, Stolas is a total Impophile, so having a confident, capable and domineering Imp dominate him in bed.

He'd be in heaven.

Figuratively speaking.

And that arrangement would work marvellously, for the first year.

But Stolas would get cocky. He'd do something when he shouldn't have and get you both caught.

Probably by his wife.

Ultimately, it would damage your reputation more then his.

After all, you advertise yourself as this Imp who doesn't answer to anyone, especially not the Blue Bloods.

And suddenly your in bed with the same nobility that kept Imps down for there entire history.

Not a good image.

Of course you wouldn't let these thoughts lie.

You and Stolas were equil in your relationship, for the most part and you would be damned, again, if you were gonna let a bunch of nobodies ruin your reputation with there slanderous filth.

Stolas on the other hand wouldn't be impacted nearly as bad.

It would be expected for a noble take a lover once in a while.

Domestically on the other hand, Stolas would heavily rely on you for support.

He could handle his wife, but his daughter being so distant really got to him.

You acted as sort of an emotional crutch for him while he tried to patch up there relationship.

He'd eventually introduce you to her, and youd used the chance to there fullest, showing her the utmost respect.

Octavia certainly wouldn't like you, but by the end of it, she'd have a begrudging respect for you after you showed her just how much you genuinely loved her father.

Even if she wouldnt say as much.

Eventually thing would settle down, you and Stolas becoming an official couple and Octavia coming around to you, even if it would take a few years.

#helluva boss headcanon #helluva boss #headcanon #x reader #helluva stolas #helluva blitzo #stolas x reader #stolas #blitzø #blitzo #oc roleplay

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girlactionfigure · 3 years

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How BDS can be Totally Ineffective and yet Extremely Dangerous

You scream, I scream, we all scream for ice cream – 1927 popular song

The decision of Ben and Jerry’s to stop selling ice cream in Judea and Samaria has galvanized diverse pro- and anti-Israel groups and individuals. The best reaction came from the Israeli lawfare group Shurat HaDin, which says that it will begin using B&J’s copyrighted trademark to sell ice cream in the areas that B&J will boycott, and invites the company to challenge it in court. The stupidest statement was made by B&J Board Chair Anuradha Mittal, who said (in reference to a disagreement with the parent company about the precise wording of the boycott announcement), “I can’t stop thinking that this is what happens when you have a board with all women and people of color who have been pushing to do the right thing.” Of course.

If this boycott is actually carried out, it will have absolutely zero effect on Israel’s economy. The present manufacturer of B&J’s ice cream in Israel, Avi Singer, refused to honor the boycott and will have his license terminated in a year and a half; he will have to scramble to rebrand and reformulate his products, which are made a few miles down the road from here in Beer Tuvia, within the pre-1967 boundaries of Israel by Jewish and Arab employees. It will cost him something, but Israelis have responded by buying a lot of ice cream from him and the company will survive.

But the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions movement is not really an attempt to wage economic warfare. Rather, it is another weapon in the cognitive war that is being pressed against Israel by her enemies worldwide. And in the cognitive theater of operations it is having a great deal of success.

The function of the BDS movement is to frame the antisemitic worldwide Arab/Muslim/European/Leftist campaign to erase the Jewish state (and for some, the Jewish people) as a struggle for human rights for an endangered minority, the “Palestinians.” It is to change a large-scale ongoing pogrom into a cause that right-thinking, moral, caring people can get behind, with their money and their votes. The Palestinian Arabs, the point of the spear aimed at the Jewish state, are transformed by BDS into a plucky band of “natives” who are oppressed and even mass-murdered by technologically advanced (but morally deficient) Zionists.

The BDS movement takes the false Palestinian narrative as a given, muvan m’eilav, and moves on to motivating its adherents to take action on their behalf. The debates on college campuses and corporate boards do not deal with the question of who has aboriginal rights to Eretz Yisrael or whether Jewish communities east of the Green Line are legal under international law, or whether the land is actually “occupied” by Israel. Nobody asks about the Jordanian occupation of Judea and Samaria from 1948-1967. Everybody knows, it is implied, the answers to these questions.

This is a trick known to every good car salesman, who wants his customer to argue over the size of the monthly payments rather than the total amount he will end up paying.

There is also what I call “the argument from South Africa:” apartheid South Africa was guilty of crimes against an oppressed group which were inseparable from the regime; only replacing the regime by one dominated by the oppressed group could fix it. This was accelerated by international pressure (combined with terrorism, but never mind). The boycotters are calling for the same kind of pressure against Israel, and so therefore Israel must be as evil as apartheid South Africa – and the same remedy applied. I don’t think I need to explain why this argument is fallacious!

Once it’s established that “Palestine” is a good cause, then the more that a person aspires to moral goodness, the more anti-Israel they become. It doesn’t hurt that preexisting antisemitic conditioning, subliminally present in both non-Jews and Jews, makes it easy to see Israel as evil.

Every time there is such a debate, the basic premises are restated, and never challenged. And that, in my opinion, is the raison d’être of the BDS movement: its actions themselves are of little consequence; it’s the injection of the false narrative into the collective consciousness that is significant.

This implies that the passage of various anti-BDS laws, with the debates and court fights that are entailed by them, is actually counterproductive. And there will be more legal battles coming. BDSnik Lara Friedman, of the misnamed Foundation for Middle East Peace, says that court tests of these laws so far have been resolved on technical issues, and their constitutionality hasn’t been decided.

This also implies that the proper strategy to fight BDS is not to challenge it on the enemy’s terms, that is, not to argue that boycotts are illegal, or that BDS hurts Arabs as much as Jews. Rather, we should attack the premises that it rests on: the supposed aboriginal rights of the Palestinian Arabs, the denial of Jewish sovereignty on either side of the Green Line (the Palestinian Narrative denies the legitimacy of a Jewish state of any size anywhere in Eretz Yisrael), and the allegations of oppression, apartheid, and other crimes.

Finally, we should expose the moral failings of the Palestinian culture, its misogyny, homophobia, and obsessive violence. We should draw attention to the viciousness of Palestinian terrorism. We should note that where Palestinian Arabs govern themselves, there is endemic corruption and oppression of the population. And of course we should point out that the accusations of Israeli atrocities and war crimes are mostly false, exaggerated, or lacking relevant context.

So, although I applaud the legal action of Shurat HaDin to create overwhelmingly negative consequences for the boycotters, this isn’t the solution to BDS. The real answer is for the State of Israel to very publicly make the case for the sovereign right of the Jewish state to all of Eretz Yisrael,including a direct refutation of the poisonous Palestinian Narrative.

Abu Yehuda

#Information War

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hermitcraftheadcanons · 3 years

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Hermitopia AU Masterpost 1 [COMPLETE]

This is a gathering place for the events of the Hermitopia AU, as well as art and writing resulting from it (art and writing listed at the bottom). Please read the AU introduction and rules here before submitting! Feel free to join the discussions on the HCHC discord server!

(Disclaimer/PSA: All points are asks contributed by the community, the mods take no credit for the ideas within them)

If you would like specific credit in the masterpost, please sign within the text of the ask! (A dash and a signature at the end should do.) Asks not signed will be treated as anonymous.

Summary posts:

Not all elements of plot and character will be summarized, but here are a few basic things you may want to be familiar with before submitting an ask! (Unless you are purposely aiming to create an [ALTERNATE] idea for a Hermit)

1 - Starting positions and each Hermit's powers (based on the submissions from Day 1)

Summary post 2 - Interpersonal connections (based on Day 1 and 2 submissions)

Make sure to check out the second masterpost here for more up to date information, including newer art and writing!

Asks:

- (copied ask) [summarized mod comment]

- Hermitopia | Scar was experimented on by Cub. He gained dangerous powers and wings that resemble a dragon’s, but he keeps both hidden. Unless someone makes him angry. He has no idea who gave him his powers. Eventually he and Cub decided that they wanted to control things beyond their corporation, so Scar ran for mayor. (there are things to fill in but im lazy) [Scar assumes he got the powers in an accident during research. He enjoys having them but has no idea that they were intentional.]

- Hermitopia AU team ZIT is a superpowered crime-fighting trio!

- owing to a very particular set of guidelines he put in place, Joe can now copy powers if he sees them in use and can reverse-engineer how those powers are used. needless to say, this is massively overpowered in the right hands.but it got worse. at some point, there was an... incident... on ConCorp grounds, something to do with a mass amount of entities causing time dilation -- and Joe was caught in the thick of it, unable to be rescued for a while.the problem is, he got out by piecing together how the time dilation worked.needless to say, Joe... has a ridiculous powerset. so he chooses largely not to use his powers anymore unless it's absolutely dire or petty enough to shrug off as a random occurrence. nobody needs to know that one of the most powerful Unaffiliated in the city is standing right in front of them... especially not ConCorp.

- doc was a former high ranking employee of concorp before he volunteered for an experiment and it went horribly wrong. since then, the company has tried to erase any evidence of his existence. doc is now seeking revenge for all that the company did to him and is determined to tear it apart

- HI ok follow up asks will be sent later when my thoughts are coherent but concept: cleo has like super messed up healing powers where she can make healing go Too Far. also i pin her as unbound, considering, like, everything - shovel-shuffle

- So, his power was meant to be super-regen, right? except things don't always quite go to plan. Someone volunteered for the powers surgeries and is arguably dead. Etho is a name shared by the many many clones that developed themselves out of the leftovers. They're not quite individuals, not quite a hivemind. Any one of them has no fear of death because the others will continue, but they all act independently around their overarching goal. (which I won't snitch about) - DragonKay

- Bdubs was a hero. Key word? Was. He climbed the ranks through the government, he was a loyal and dutiful member of society, and he used his plant manipulation powers to subdue evil-doers without hurting them. But he’s always been a friendly guy, and he couldn’t help himself—talking to the Unrestrained, especially those in custody, was interesting! ...but it’s a slippery slope to walk, being friendly with the enemy and not sympathizing to their cause. Nobody knows where he is now, but there are rumours of a vigilante with similar abilities, and his three compatriots, two of whom he helped escape from ConCorp... They call themselves the nHo. - slimetek [Bdubs deserted Concorp while helping Doc escape after his experiment went wrong]

- Concorp managed to make a device that allows animals to speak or translate their thoughts into writing. This means that the good old mayor Scar has a certain cat giving some advice on how to run the city.

- Iskall is an assasin/mercenary against their own volition. An accident they'd rather forget almost killed them, and in exchange for their freedom and free will they got to live as a cyborg. Though its hard to forget with the implant that covers their eye and the limb of cool metal hanging at their side - @ghastly-ghostie [Iskall works for Concorp off-books, bound by the debt owed to them for the life saving experimental modifications]

- so I think grians original powers could be like cloning, but something goes wrong and the clones are different people. as a result of the duplication process, some funky magic rocks are made. the clones decide to take most of the funky rocks and run off, leaving grian with one rock that gives him some new abilities and the clones' rocks give him others. also uhh mechanical wings bc yes. so grians plot is him trying to find them while also causing problems on purpose. infinity stones. update to my grian ask from earlier, I had better ideas: the rocks are old like magic things that grian finds before the cloning and ends up collecting, but his clones snatch them - simplyskipper [some of the alternate Grians are aligned with different factions in Hermitopia, while the locations of others are farther or unknown]

- Hermitopia- Impulse has solid-light powers. He has golden crystals implanted in his hands, which he can reflect light through to solidify it into all sorts of shapes. This can be used to make barriers, projectiles, and much more, though more detailed constructs take more time.- @mleemwyvern

- Hermitopia AU Poultry man is a well-known chaotic neutral leaning towards good, as a one of the unrestrained.

- I think Team ZIT should be a little be wild card-y, that's how they act after all! [they are employed by the government for standard crimefighting, but they don't always take Scar's word at its intended meaning and often play a bit on the chaotic side when given instructions]

- [Hermitopia AU] False is an antihero/vigilante type who's specialty is not defined by powers or the such, but just... the absolute skill of being able to dual wield two (more sci-fi era) short swords. Maybe someone upgrades them to be "enchanted" (electrical, fire, etc. something that tech could do well probably). She's willing to be paid-for-hire, but if you go past her moral line she's also willin' to backstab you. -- @cheshire-vex [she's a free agent who sort of drifts between Concorp, the government, and whoever else will pay her on a job-by-job basis]

- Hermitopia impulse has more connections then one may think. He has ties to people pretty much everywhere, for reasons unknown. There is a 100% someone will come and greet him wherever he goes. [the greetings are usually friendly]

- Hermitopia Au! Keralis is a hero who most people wouldn't expect to be too skilled at fighting. His power is similar to hypnosis so he has no need to get very physical. Yeah, that changed when some bastard villain decided to attack his friends shop. [that incident caused his employer Scar to realize his untapped potential for protecting people and assign him to a few more high-stakes jobs]

- Hermittopia!TFC was one of ConCorp’s first experiments and as such his powers are a bit less...refined then the others. He has geokinetic powers, allowing him to psychically control rocks and other earthen materials. He used to be one of the VEX programs top graduates, but has since parted ways with them for unknown reasons and now operates his own plans of keep crime in Hermitopia under control. -lechairpourriedegrianri [he is considered Unaffiliated and both Concorp and the government largely leave him to his own devices, since he is helping to keep the city together]

-Wels doesn't have powers. He does have a super-suit made of fire and heat resistant carbon fibre (like the material used for the space shuttle) and has a built in hologram projector. One time, he used the hologram projector to project an image of himself, which everyone thought was a clone. He didn't have the heart to tell them otherwise. (AKA everyone thinks Wels has powers but he doesn't) -Silverwolf53 [he got the suit in Project VEX]

- To follow up on the Impulse ask- Team ZIT are a space-themed superhero team. Government-aligned, at least for now.Tango has meteor-like powers, he can shoot fire from his hands and feet and often uses this to propel himself at high speeds. Zed has gravity powers! He can increase or decrease the density of any object, to the point of making small black holes. They all have space-themed costumes, and it was probably Zed's idea. - @mleemwyvern

- TFC was the first participant in project VEX

- Grian was an attempted success. It fixed some problems with Etho's unintended cloning, but at the same time created some problems of its own, seeing as the clones appeared to have a life of their own.It's fine, though. It's probably fine

- I would say Grian is unrestrained, a bit like Etho, Chaotic in his own way. Does not activily Try to hurt people, but does mostly what he wants for fun.-Ciara

- Xisuma is a civilian- he has hero friends, but despite all their teasing he’s never wanted to go through VEX training. But in the night, the unrestrained Void walks the streets [Void is a symbiotic creature made of nothingness that uses Xisuma's body as a substitute physical form]

- Bdubs was such a good man... he could be trusted to look after Doc, couldn’t he? Somebody had to oversee him, somebody who was reliable and would never, ever consider betraying the mayor and ConCorp...They let their guard down, and Bdubs got curious. Bdubs made a friend.And then they lost him.- Slimetek

- The hels hermits are considered evil by default. How do you spot these clones, how could you protect yourself? Well in the past it was a lot easier, just look for their red eyesNowadays contacts exist but that doesn't stop people trying to call the police on tango, calling him a hels. Hes netherian, they have unnatural eye colours and their iris fills the entire eye, hes not evil but if people keep doing this hes gonna be!

- Beef woke up from his brain surgery to receive telepathy powers, took one look into the mind of the overseer, and noped put of there as fast as he could go.He's on very public record. After all, the mind control he may be capable of is a very convenient explanation for anyone who turns against concorp... ~DragonKay

- Hypno can’t control minds.They say he does. It’s why he’s named Hypno, after all.In reality, he can’t control people like that... but he can control what they see.Your best friend might look like your greatest enemy. A pit of lava might look like solid ground. A 100-foot drop might look like a step down.It’s a good thing he’s a hero, and a good thing he keeps his true powers hidden beneath a guise of low-level hypnotism. There’s no telling what he could do if they let him go. [he works for Concorp, helping to protect VEX trainees from people trying to harm them before they get a chance to finish the program, as well as keeping other resources safe]

- The 9th Street Incident [referring to an earlier Impulse comment] was a friendly greeting. That particular version of Etho just thought that drawing weapons would be a friendly greeting for Impulse, but Tango and Zed seem to disagree

- They still don’t trust Bdubs. He was with the government for a long time, and things are hard out there on the run. Besides, they don’t know what he got up to there. ConCorp could have any sort of information on him, something that might scare him back.Bdubs understands this. He doesn’t want to go back. He’d hate to go back....but they think he will, and maybe there’s something he’s not telling them. An ace that ConCorp has yet to play.- Slimetek

- Mumbo works for concorp as an engineer specialising in robotics, most recently taking on the task of maintaining Iskall's cybernetics that somehow they just keep damaging. Iskall assures him they're just.. very clumsy. So far Mumbo hasn't caught on.

- Ren's power is that hes a werewolf, but he only found out when he was in his late teens with his childhood friend Iskall. He still feels guilty about it, he did kill his best friend afterall. Or so he thinks.He's lived off grid ever since, too overwhelmed with grief and guilt to rejoin society. Most assume he's dead too - @ghastly-ghostie [Ren dropped Iskall off to Concorp as a last ditch effort, running away before he could see whether they took his friend in or not. They did, starting Iskall's plotline. Iskall told Concorp about Ren's abilities, triggering a panic in the Concorp ranks at the fact that Ren is a superhuman being created by some force other than their own project]

- Where does Void come from? The same place all powers come from.Little did they know, something survived the crash and has taken a human host. Maybe it's not the only one...No, that place is not Concorp. Concorp's original goal was to develop technology by reverse-engineering from a crashed alien spaceship. These aliens did gene-editing the way some people do nose jobs, so they adapted that technology, too.~DragonKay

- i've already said a bit about it in the discord but i have hermitopia cleo brainrot. joe being there was able to save her by giving her the regen powers along with her puppeteering telekinesis power. anyways cleo is presumed dead, sent by concorp into a mission as fodder basically until zit could arrive. but now there's is one (1) bitter undead vigilante against concorp that is presumed dead

- Stress’s name has a few meanings in relation to her. Whenever she gets too angry or /stressed/, she transforms into the StressMonster, a monster that feeds off of other people’s stress to become more powerful. Luckily, the monster is rarely seen, but does terrible things when she is. She’s one of the most feared creatures in Hermitopia. Stress hates her and tries her best to hide her from her friends, but it can backfire sometimes. - @guster-animations

- to follow-up on Joe being presumed dead: remember the time dilation incident he was stuck in? ConCorp figured it was best to cut their losses and not try to send anyone in to rescue him -- it would be a pointless mission. so they abandoned him, quietly announced that he had died in the line of duty, and put the affected area under high security clearance in order to prevent any future accidents. they figured he was already dead. and Joe figures, given that they up and abandoned him, maybe it's for the best that they continue to figure just that. he changed his last name to "Hills" -- a joke about the biome containing the time anomaly -- and otherwise proceeded to stay under the radar. he still uses the time dilation area as a base of operations, sometimes; it's very useful to have a hideout that people physically cannot get into/out of without his direct assistance. is he nursing a grudge, coming up with some convoluted scheme to get back at the paramilitary group for abandoning him? or does he just want to live a relatively normal life off the grid? who knows. that's the Joe [REDACTED] Hills difference. -@betweenlands

- False has some big scary power that is almost Eldritch she just happens to prefer a sword and doesn’t really care for who she works for as long as they’re paying... (they don’t need to know of the power that had harmed the ones she loves the most)

- Keralis once encountered Void sulking around where Xisuma worked. So fearful for his friend’s safety, he used his power on Void and told him to go away. Apparently the charm is still active, because if Void spots Keralis anywhere, he’ll turn tail and run. No, it’s not because he’s scared. Absolutely not.

- Grumbot serves as a sentient supercomputer created by Mumbo for Grian. Grian is using Grumbot for... various activities, all of which harmless, but a certain evil clone [Helsknight] has reverse engineered the technology. Concorp would like for Mumbo to give them the tech, but mumbo stuck some eyes to the computer, got emotionally attached, and refuses to give up his baby boy.

- When Impulse hears his friend/colleague Bdubs has been "taken over" by the mind-controller [Beef], he wants to go on an off-the-books mission to rescue him! Just giving up like they were told to isn't in his nature.Of course the rest of ZIT are with him. Heroes save people! It's what they do!~DragonKay

- Hermitopia is a mixture of sleek futuristic and cyberpunk in terms of style. It really depends on where you live and work (ik this doesnt include any hermits but whatever) - @ghastly-ghostie

- I wonder if Cleo's overactive healing powers affect herself and if any injuries she receives immediately heal over like wolverine or deadpool

- Ren used to be friends with Cleo too, but then she died. Strangely enough, she died on the same day that Ren killed Iskall. Ren’s lost all his friends. It’s hard living in isolation when there’s no one left that even cares about you. (Unless— no, that’s impossible.)

- I was thinking about Biffa, like you do. And Biffa would totally be some robot that was created by Project VEX in its early stages, however they realised fast that it was easier to use humans and give them powers, maybe its not their strong suit with robots. But Biff went sentient and glitched and was scrapped so hes just out there doing his thing. Hes a wildcard and plays for which side he wants at the time, sometimes he'll help or sometimes hes the one causing trouble. He looks pretty similar to a android like in Detroit:Become human but hes a bit uncanny and eerie, maybe its the eyes or the blood red armour. Powerwise, he's got more strength than a human does, mainly because he isn't limited like others are. try not to get punched by him, it'll hurt! [He's convinced Concorp will destroy him if they find out he's alive and Unaffiliated] -lucodak

- Going off of my thing about hermotopia impulse having friends everywhere....this may include the nho. Okay, they beat him to a pulp on one of his solo patrols once, but theey felt bad n patched him up! He has to keep it a secret. He brings them dinner alot. And checks in on them.

- Beef is the perfect cover-up for Bdubs’ desertion. ConCorp doesn’t want any other employees getting bright ideas, now, do they? Nor do they want employees getting nosy and trying to figure out where Bdubs went. They don’t have to tell people what Beef’s powers are. They just release that he developed powers after brain surgery, and a rumour that he was spotted lurking around before Bdubs suddenly betrayed ConCorp... and people draw their own conclusions. -Slimetek

- xB is pretty sure he’s supposed to be evil.I mean, that’s what sentient AIs usually end up being, according to a quick internet search. And yet he’s... not. Or maybe he’s just on the wrong side. - Slimetek

- Yes impulse is friends with the nho....what he doesn't know? He's....easily susceptible to hypnosis. Very easily.......Of course, after impulse is basically a very tired n warm cuddle bug, so, cuddle piles tend to happen after all information is spilled. He must've fallen asleep at their apartment again! Whoops! But it's okay.....they take good care of him if he does! [Beef is using his mind reading ability on Impulse without his knowledge, to make sure that he hasn't spilled their location and to predict the government's next moves. He feels slightly bad about it but feels that it is necessary for the nHo's survival.]

- So far, Grian has only ever encountered two of his clones, NPC Grian and Robot Grian. Technically three, if one were to count Ariana Griande. Grian doesn't really, but some do. [Ariana Griande is a popular musician in Hermitopia who is building a career using the magical stone of voice enhancement she recieved through the cloning process]

- To handle the two Grumbot issue: the one working with Helsknight can be Jrumbot, a legion of robot drones meant to work as Grumbot’s physical form that ended up being hijacked by Helsknight and turned against ConCorp

- There...aren’t a lot of “normal” animals left in Hermittopia. ConCorp took one look at the animals populating the city and decided that, hey, they could make some improvements. Species after species, they modified their behavior, appearance, internal structure, whatever they could fix, tweak, or add. They were just improving their lives and the lives of the citizens of Hermittopia, after all, but the new animals quickly outcompeted the old for resources and habitats. And if it makes it easier for ConCorp to stick a camera in one or two of them, or set up robotic animals to keep a better eye on the city, no harm, no foul, right?(Bonus: there is one (1) singular cat left in Hermittopia, resulting in a spy movie-style heist where two teams of Hermits attempt to “rescue” the cat simultaneously. The cat keeps wandering away from both teams. Shenanigans ensue)- Adonis [the cat is Jellie, who orchestrated the competition between Team ZIT and Cleo and Joe for her own entertainment, getting away from both parties in the end]

- The Leak:Not all mutations are the result of controlled experiments! If some alien tech got away from the crash site, concorp never would have picked it up. It might have got into nature, not as refined as they made it in the labs but causing little changes here and there. Ren may have become a werewolf from being bitten by a mutant wolf~DragonKay

- Impulse is able to use his powers to create illusions or male things appear invisible! Sort of. After all, light dictates what we see. It takes a lot of focus, though, so it's not that practical. -@rayveewrites

- The one thing Hels wasn't able to steal was the cloning technology, hence his hostility with Concorp -- he needs the cloning device, because how else is the void going to get a body of their own? - SilverWolf53

- *glances at the hermitopia werewolf ask* okay but what if the same mystery people who made ren into a werewolf also created jevin, and maybe Etho? idk if either of them have been given any hermitopia headcanons yet lol. but im sure the same people who made a werewolf could make a sentient slime (or perhaps rescue one) or make... whatever etho is. [Since the "second organization" is an incorrect assumption believed by Concorp, Jevin was created when he came in contact with a waterway contaminated by The Leak. Concorp assumes he was created by an opposing organization and not by accident, and therefore would like to bring him in along with Ren.]

- hermitopia - mumbo and grian were friends back when cloning experiments were still happening (or . as friendly as you can be with someone who's treating you like a lab rat), but after everything went wrong and grian escaped, mumbo has his memories wiped nd thats why he's trusted w iskall's stuff? bc he inherently remembers working on high-level things without knowing where he learnt it - muscle memory, yk?anyway massive angst with grian maybe recognising mumbo, but not the other way round, and trying to rekindle their friendship? and that's where grumbot comes in? -gin [Mumbo's memory was wiped so that he would forget the deadly purpose of Iskall's cybernetics, which he was working on at the same time as the Grian project in the background. Mumbo does not remember creating Grian's mechanical wings or Iskall's arm and eye, and he has no memory of either individual previous to "meeting" Iskall as the person assigned to his repair and upkeep.]

- Etho doesn't so much have powers as he is powers. All the powers the ‘original’ had went into creating him; now he just exists, as whatever sort of being he is. Not a human one, that much is obvious. ~DragonKay [Etho has no powers beyond the hivemind and his training, due to the error in the experiment that caused the clones]

- Mumbo started the button as a joke. A nonsense social expirement to see how much people want worthless signs of status. Unfortunately things got out of hand, and violent too. But hey! It's not his fault that the five special anomalous stones were misplaced into the prize dispenser! It was just chance that they fell into the hands of the clone of the worst gremlin in the city! Don't fire him! [He was not fired, but Cub was Decidedly Unhappy with him for a good long while]

- Void mostly trashes ConCorp facilities- trying to figure out if any of his siblings survived the spaceship crash, but occasionally he’ll pilfer from a bakery, because X is a health nut and Void just wants a gods damned cookie [Void very much dislikes unseasoned chicken]

- If the Stress Monster gets too big, too dangerous, Cleo is sworn under oath to Stress to zap her with her healing powers. Cleo doesn’t like to do it, overhealing a stressed Stress makes her so calm she gets knocked out for a couple of days, but Stress can take a small comfort in the fact that at least one person out there can stop her

- Ooh with the self healing Cleo she'd be able to develop a small amount of super strength, with how the mind keeps from going full throttle because it would destroy the body once she gets over it it's hysterical strength whenever she wants [it is quite painful, but a good backup plan]

- Being a hive mind of disposable clones that can spawn new copies at will, it can sometimes be hard for the Etho Entity to remember that it is indeed a big deal for other people when they get hurt. This can make him come off as callous to those around him, placing him firmly in the "villain" category in most citizen's books, but he really doesn't intend any harm!

- Grian used to be tall, but then the cloning happened. With each clone they stole a little bit of his height making him the short man he is today. He needs to capture those clones and get his height back. [Grian isn't entirely sure how to accomplish this, but he's dead set on trying! He misses being tall!]

- While Grian was perfectly fine with Ariana Griande living her own life, he did insist on one thing.Her "older brother" getting backstage access whenever she was on tour. He's very proud and supportive of her and her music career.

- Mumbo is perfectly content working in tech, watching the other hermits get up to crazy shenanigans. Except of course, there was that one time he was out testing some new gear and accidentally saved a crowd from some villains... and there were all those times after too...But hey! It’s not his fault that people like him, and he certainly isn’t going to get caught by Concorp during his after hours activities. [Mumbo considers himself an accidental hobbyist, not thinking he has the nerve or the skill for proper hero work. Time will tell if he's right about that or not...but unfortunately, he probably is. This should be fun.]

- There’s still some people overseeing VEX, even over Cub. They��re the ones that push Cub to do certain experiments or to scrap one. They’re the ones to give Cub the decision for Iskall’s life debt. Scar was under them too for the longest time, but eventually he wanted out. Cub still wanted in. They were still in the right, right? That’s what they tell him. He’s starting to doubt it. [Cub is way too invested in everything he's built to even think about going rogue now, but he does resent and occasionally question the judgement of his superiors increasingly as his project begins to fail more and more often. He also fears that Scar's shift in career will be seen as a betrayal, rather than as a tactical attempt to gain the company influence in the government.]

- Been thinking about the impulse + nho asks and just,,, what would happen if concorp/the government found out? It cant be good with interrogation/hypnosis on both sides (incase you cant tell,, the brainrot got me as well) (apologies if this is a mess im excited) [Hypno is assigned to set up an illusionary conversation to make Impulse reveal nHo location to Concorp and government agents while thinking that he's actually talking to the nHo in a random encounter]

- The one mind Beef can't read is Etho's. Their hivemind is just too weird for him to comprehend. If he ever tries to listen in, it sounds like just a bunch of static from an old TV.

- for hermitopia au!: Out of most of the heros, the most reckless may be team zit. sure they tell themselves they'll plan out missions but it's hard when they share a braincell and tango just runs in. impulse and zed share a look everytime and have to run after him to make sure he doesn't get too hurt or overwhelmed by the enemy. in their defence its hard to plan ahead against an enemy when you dont know what they are thinking.-lucodak ["You might not have known what they were thinking, Tango, but we'd generally like you to know what you're thinking!"]

- i bet ConCorp really wants to make it out like theres some secret shady organization creating all these people with mutations, rather than their own operatives deserting and their own failure to contain dangerous chemicals... whether its malicious coverups or just ignorance to the fact they messed up, wonder what would happen if that sort of thing came to light...? [If they found out that the unintentional superhumans were a result of the poorly-contained crash site? Cub would lose his job...maybe worse. If Cub found out (and he hasn't, yet) he would do everything in his power to keep that information from his superiors.]

- (paraphrased) Impulse accidentally walks in on heroes and agents breaking down the doors of the nHo's hideout and confronting them. Scar claims that they did so on information Impulse himself provided and thanks him for his service. Impulse, feeling confused and betrayed, resists Hypno's attempts to illusion him back to Scar's side and flees the scene with the nHo, knowing very little other than the fact that he doesn't want to be manipulated by the government any more (and still not knowing that Beef has been reading his mind)

- Impulse may have been labeled a traitor. But do you really think that Impulse, secret rebel, starting to learn how dangerous and corrupted Concorp really is, wouldn't let his best friends know about the danger they might be in? I think Team ZIT is more loyal to each other than to the government. - @mleemwyvern [ Impulse's first stop after escaping with the nHo is to find a place to secretly meet Tango and Zedaph and tell them about the way he was tricked. It takes a lot of explaining and a lot of trust, but they eventually decide to believe his claims and are left with a choice: will they openly go rogue and become a target along with Impulse and the rest of the nHo, or are they better off using their established image and reputation to keep an eye on the government heros' movements from the inside?]

- (two asks combined, paraphrased) Ren runs out of supplies and decides to head back into the city, confident in his ability to stay off the grid after so many years of experience and such a long time away. Once there, he runs into Doc, and they hit it off quite quickly. However, the more Ren talks the more Doc realizes - with his ex-Concorp knowledge - that Ren matches the description of Iskall's main target exactly. He warns Ren, who is then faced with the knowledge that Iskall is alive and assigned to kill him...so many questions and so many tears to follow...

- Why did Hermitopia start needing heroes? When the Unrestrained started to appear, if course. Why did the Unrestrained start to appear? A question asked a little less. When did the VEX program start? When did they start taking more risks? When did they stop caring about certainty and safety and shift towards trying to push boundaries they weren't ready to? People can be so enamoured with the concept of superhuman abilities, something bright and glorious and good- and perhaps they could have that too- they don't ask all the right questions. It's all an elaborate game of damage control, don't let the flashy heroics fool you, they've made mistakes, terrible, terrible mistakes, and now there are villains running loose with powers they fooled ConCorp into giving them. Are they villains? Are they victims? Does it matter? They're causing problems. [Project VEX has developed into a solution to its own problems, a self perpetuating cycle...one that Cub, as a businessman, is very familiar with. It's what keeps the wheels of industry turning. It's what keeps innovation creeping forward. It wasn't intentional, not this time...but if it keeps his project alive, he'll take it.]

- One time, Jevin had narrowly dodged being captured by Concorp. He was laying low in the forest out of town, when he had a run-in with some sort of wolf creature. Thankfully, claws and teeth couldn't exactly hurt him anymore, so he just played dead until it gave up.When the moon set, the wolf-thing slowly transformed into a human being. Ren was horrified at the thought he'd lost control and hurt someone- again- but Jevin assured him he was fine. Jevin got the feeling that the werewolf needed a friend, and Jevin himself needed a place to stay for a while... -RayveeWrites [Ren and Jevin are not currently in the same location, but they each have a means of contacting each other for help if needed]

- Worm Man wasn't a well- known super, but plenty of people have noticed that he seemed to vanish at the same time Team ZIT first started active duty. Those people have also noticed that one of the members has a very similar power set to WM.Officially, that's just a coincidence. Officially.-RayveeWrites [Zedaph was trying to get some unofficial practice while still in training in the VEX program]

- A common misconception is that Bdubs conjures up his vines from nowhere. He can't.Like any plant, his vines grow from seeds. They grow unnaturally fast, when Bdubs wills it, but they have to come from seeds. Where do these seeds come from, you may ask?Well, a long time ago, Bdubs ingested some strange fruits. Somehow, in wild defiance of human biology, the seeds contained in those fruits worked their way into his muscles and germinated. Some of the roots worked their way into his brain and fused into it; the rest spread through his muscles, grew beneath his skin, coiled around his bones. Thanks to the way the vines connected to his brain, Bdubs is able to command the vines, and their magic, at will.The vines produce seeds; some stay in his body to replace the old ones when they die, and most work their way into a pair of 'seed pods' in his wrists. Bdubs provides the nutrients, the energy; the vines provide the seeds, the magic. As an extra bonus: if the vines were to be totally removed from Bdubs' body, he would be at best extremely weak, and at worst dead. The vines have grown into his muscles, to the point where they've essentially replaced them in some areas. It's fortunate that they connected with his mind so early on, otherwise he'd be dead. -RayveeWrites [Concorp developed the fruit, and the fact that Bdubs is evidence of the unlikely success of that experiment makes them all the more angry at his betrayal]

- A lot of excellent xB information (it's too long to copy but please read it it's very good)

- Iskall has exactly one (1) failed assignment. That assignment? The kill or capture of Stress. Stress and Iskall have been, or should it be were now, friends for a very long time, since before Iskall even met Ren. So one can imagine the stress this causes Iskall, to be told to kill his one remaining friend that he knows is alive. Of course, this stress is quite enough to to Stress's Stress Monster into one it's strongest yet seen forms, allowing for Stress to then get away. (1/2)(2/2) Of course, Con Corp doesn't- and can never- know the true reason that Iskall cannot kill or capture Stress. If they knew, if they subjected Stress to the same hell he's in- no, that cannot happen. So Iskall hires False to protect Stress, to interfere whenever they send him on a mission for her. Luckily, False is good at keeping secrets when she wants to, and this one she'll keep. But as far as Con Corp knows, Iskall has severe stress and trauma from being a cyborg, and that's why he fails. [This all adds up to a monumental waste of Concorp's time and money, which also results in False getting payed, so all parties involved are happy except for Concorp >:)]

- Impulse would take a bullet for his teammates, and he knows they might be about to take one for him, keeping him updated on what's going on government side of this... slander. Still, Tango and Zed are great actors, and if he didn't know better, he might be a little worried they would *actually* be hunting him down in the name of justice [Tango and Zed are now being sent on missions to retrieve Impulse, which they must pretend to lose believably. They occasionally overestimate their friend's abilities and give him a few more close calls than he'd like, but overall the ruse is holding up.]

Writing:

- Wels, Hels, TFC, and Grumbot

- Bdubs Concorp promotion and desertion

- Joe Hills in his time dilation hideout

- Etho clones, ZIT, and the nHo

- Keralis and Void

- [ALTERNATE] Reveal of Impulse's situation with the nHo

Art:

- Impulse suit design

#hermitcraft #hermitblr #hcraft #Hermitopia AU #masterpost #long post #mod Shade

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stillness-in-green · 3 years

Text

Ahistorical, Absurd, and Unsustainable (Part Three)

An Examination of the Mass Arrest of the Paranormal Liberation Front

Introduction and Part One Part Two

PART THREE: Ethical Problems

Law Enforcement Conduct

The first thing that jumps out—the thing everyone talks about first and foremost about the raid—was Hawks’ murder of Twice. Murder is a controversial word in this context, I know, but I stand by it: regardless of his guilt or his intent, Bubaigawara Jin was a fleeing man who Hawks made a cold, rational decision to quite literally stab in the back. In that moment, Hawks appointed himself as an executioner of the state and murdered a man without due process—no trial, no judge, no nothing. It was an extrajudicial killing,[26] and while I know many people in the U.S. have gotten kind of jaded about that sort of thing, let me assure you that police brutality is still police brutality even when it’s being exercised against people who have committed crimes.

To illustrate this, allow me to share a few more excerpts from the Penal Code:

Assault and Cruelty by Specialized Public Employees: When a person performing or assisting in judicial, prosecutorial or police duties commits, in the performance of their duties, an act of assault or physical or mental cruelty upon the accused, suspect or any other person, imprisonment or imprisonment without work for not more than 7 years is imposed.

Abuse of Authority Causing Death or Injury by Specialized Public Employees: A person who commits a crime prescribed under the preceding Article and thereby causes the death or injury of another person is dealt with by the punishment for the crimes of injury or the punishment prescribed in the preceding Article, whichever is severer.

The punishments for Criminal Injury are imprisonment for not more than fifteen years or a fine of not more than 500,000 yen or, if the injury results in death, imprisonment for not less than three years. That’s really what Hawks ought to be looking at for Twice's murder, save that apparently heroes just aren't liable for this stuff, otherwise they'd be up against it all the time in the course of “fighting villains.” Certainly, Hawks doesn’t seem to have faced any repercussions thus far, beyond having to apologize in a press conference.

Now, again, many American readers of My Hero Academia are deeply embedded in a culture that normalizes police violence, and so there is a lot of callous handwaving about how Hawks did the right thing because Jin was a significant threat. In response to such dismissal, let me provide a few more numbers:

In the U.S. in 2019, law enforcement killed over a thousand people.

In the same year in Japan, law enforcement killed two. Two people.

In the U.S., a major factor in how police keep skating on these deaths is the legal doctrine of qualified immunity, which is nominally intended to protect officers from frivolous lawsuits in cases where they’re ruled to be acting in “good faith,” a vague ruling which has made successful prosecution of police brutality and negligence all but impossible.

Japan, and I cannot stress this enough, does not have this doctrine. The significance of law enforcement taking a life is not so casually brushed aside in other places in the world, so please don’t try to tell me that Horikoshi was trying to get across the idea that Hawks did the right thing, easy as that. The critical depiction of heroes and Hero Society dehumanizing their enemies is all over the manga.

When the Tartarus guards discuss what the government is doing about Gigantomachia, one of them complains that the higher-ups can’t use missiles—missiles!—on him because he’s quote-unquote-human.[27] During their battle at Kamino, All Might tells All For One that this time, he’s going to put him in a prison cell—he characterizes his attempt to kill All For One six years ago as a mistake. Even in the spin-off manga, Vigilantes, designated police representative Tsukauchi[28] looks absolutely aghast at Endeavor’s willingness to use lethal force against Pop Step, an innocent-until-proven-guilty minor, even though, at that time, they have all the evidence in the world that she is actively engaged in setting off bombs in populated areas.

Most prominent is the series’ treatment of the High End Noumu. The heroes rationalize them as corpses, monsters, inhuman, all in order to kill them guilt-free,[29] and this rationalization spills over to Shigaraki during the War Arc, as the chasm of understanding between heroes and villains reaches its most stark. Yet, that same arc was proceeded by the reveal of the truth about Kurogiri, which had Tsukauchi directly acknowledge that they may have misunderstood the Noumu as the series dangled the possibility that Kurogiri possesses lingering awareness from Shirakumo Oboro. Earlier, we had Ending, a man who wanted Endeavor to kill him and thought Endeavor would do it specifically because Endeavor killed the High End, and this act set him decisively apart from the non-murdery heroic norm. Even into the War Arc itself, we were getting new information on the Noumu: to wit, we were shown incontrovertible proof—in the form of Woman’s internal monologue in Chapter 268—that the High End Noumu do think.

Even if we assume the government has relaxed its prohibitions about public servants assaulting people in the course of carrying out their duty, it does not follow that Hawks’ extrajudicial execution was totally fine. Heroes are not supposed to kill because police are not supposed to kill, and in Japan, it isn’t assumed that they will the moment they run into resistance.

And look, this is not to say that Japanese police never get away with police brutality. Obviously, the country has its own problems with the issue, typically involving racism and ethnocentrism. But the way that some people in the fandom just brush off Jin’s death does a disservice to the way the series frames Hawks’ actions and what that framing is communicating to a Japanese reader.

Also, even putting aside the matter of his death, openly taunting a mentally ill man about how easy it was to fool him definitely pings me as an act of mental cruelty, though of course there’s no one to sue Hawks over that one, seeing as he murdered the victim and only witness. (Chapter 264)

That all said, there are other issues with the heroes’ actions during the raid. One is called out right in the text: Midnight acknowledges that the use of chemical agents is illegal, but calls upon Momo to engineer knock-out drugs to use against Gigantomachia anyway. Is that an action Momo will face any repercussions for at all? And if not, what does it imply about the setting that she won’t?

Here’s another big one: what’s the legality of heroes using their quirks against civilians? Because that’s what the vast majority of the PLF are, civilians. Oh, they’re suspects, sure, but throughout the manga, “heroes” aren’t set up as people who just fight any and every tiny crime they come across. From the very first chapter, heroes are set up as a specific counter to “evildoers” designated as “villains”—legally defined as people who use their quirks illegally two or more times.[30]

There is a very illuminating scene in the second chapter of Vigilantes in which Aizawa confronts Knuckleduster for his assault of a random businessman and, the moment he realizes Knuckleduster is quirkless, apologizes for the misunderstanding and walks away. If Knuckleduster doesn’t have a quirk, Knuckleduster by definition cannot be a villain, and thus, Aizawa is not authorized to throw down with him.[31] It’s somewhat unclear, not least because a lot of the evidence is in the more-interested-in-systemic-worldbuilding Vigilantes, but there is reason to believe that heroes are not allowed to use their quirks against people who are committing mundane crimes.[32] If anything, I should think that heroes only using their quirks on people who are using their quirks illegally is part of the philosophical scaffolding that gives heroes their moral authority—you see this argument from the first bearer of One For All, who loudly espouses that people not only should not use their quirks selfishly, but that quirks should only be used to help others. This kind of supposed selflessness is what MHA’s current society is built on.

To see the relevance here, consider Trumpet. Oh, he absolutely was using his quirk illegally, but can the system prove that?[33] After all, he only ever used it on allies—do you think they're in a big hurry to snitch on him? Do you think Mr. Compress is going to? And if the police can't prove Trumpet used his quirk illegally, then is he even a capital-V Villain? What about all those other rank and file types? Certainly we saw the ones at the villa fighting back with quirks, but what about those supporters at bases scattered around the country? Did they fight back, and if so, did they do it with quirks? If not, was it legal for them to be targeted by heroes?

More importantly, can they mount an argument on that, be it a legal or a moral one?

The Scope of the Operation

The next big ethical problem actually predates the raid itself, and it’s this: how did the Commission know where to target their raids? How did they obtain that information? Specifically, how many privacy violations were involved? It strains credulity well past my personal breaking point to imagine that Hawks and the Commission were able to get every name, every base of operations, especially given the limitations they were under—the fact that Hawks couldn’t communicate openly, the hard time limit before the PLF put their plan in motion, making sure they didn’t tip off someone in the massive secret organization that had people working in heroics, the government, the infrastructure, etc.—but let’s consider the sorts of avenues the HPSC did have available to them.

So to start with, they send in Hawks, who’s specifically trained to extract information from people without raising suspicion about his motives. Doubtlessly, he’s able to get all sorts of names,[34] starting with the higher-ups—not just Re-Destro and his inner circle, but also any of the advisors that e.g. run businesses that they invite him to patronize, MLA heroes, and so on. And with a decent crop of names in hand—let us assume for the sake of argument that Hawks had some way to communicate those names to his handlers—the HPSC can start doing background checks and digging in.

Where do these people come from? Where were they born, and, if they moved, where did they settle? Where do they work? What are their social pastimes? Trace the commonalities, look into publicly available records, use wiretaps…

Yes, the police in Japan can totally use wiretaps if they suspect organized criminal activity—it was one of the powers expanded significantly under that controversial 2017 law I footnoted earlier. One thing to note is that this does require a warrant, or at least the expectation that a judge will grant a warrant.[35] But how far does that go? Can they get a warrant for financial records? How about phone records? E-mail accounts?

Can they wiretap people for no reason save their association with a name Hawks provided? If a PLF member attends a Jazzercize class on Thursday mornings, does every member of that class start noticing a weird little reverb on their phone calls for a week? Does Re-Destro’s hometown have an influx of people poking around evaluating its potential as a place to live? If Slidin’ Go once snatched your dog out of traffic and you subsequently bought a Slidin’ Go keychain, are you and your family now under investigation?

Getting details on people like the CEO of Detnerat and the head of the Hearts & Minds Party is probably pretty straightforward; heck, investigating Kizuki Chitose’s publication history was probably a goldmine in and of itself. That sort of surveillance gets more complicated and difficult to justify—and to make credible to the reader—the further down the chain of command you go, though. Sooner or later, the HPSC would have had to make a call: knowing that they don’t have the time, freedom, and resources to perfectly get only and exactly everyone that’s a real threat, do they overcompensate or do they undercompensate?

You only have to look at Hero Society to know which answer they were going to go with.[36]

To be fair, undercompensating, while it clearly would have been easier on their strained resources, ran the risk of leaving threats out there to come back to bite them later. They likely thought that they’d done enough undercompensating for Shigaraki Tomura, compounded by the fact that apparently there hadn’t been enough done about Destro’s followers back in the day, either. I mean, better to grab everyone and then let the courts sort it out, right? Rather than risk innocents getting hurt?

Well, let’s talk about innocents. Innocents, and the costs of overcompensating.

Pictured: a man who was in daily close contact with the leader of the movement and who was at one point in time in possession of a copy of the movement's manifesto. (Chapter 218)

The problem with grabbing everyone in a group, even the most obviously PLF-aligned groups, is that there are always going to be both people who don’t seem to know anything because they’re very good at living double lives and aren’t particularly active on the recruitment front, and people who don’t seem to know anything because they legitimately don’t know anything.

The Gunga Villa is straightforward enough—on paper, it was probably reserved for a business retreat for four months, because you certainly wouldn’t want some random newlywed couple booked for a nice mountain honeymoon recognizing Shigaraki Tomura wandering around. Same story for the employees; the MLA wouldn’t have put the League up at the villa if there was a chance that anyone there would rat them out. So I think we can assume relatively fairly that anyone in the building the day of the conference is solidly implicated, whatever their claims might be otherwise.

Of course, plenty might well try to claim that they were just there for the vacation, or just started work last week and had no idea the place was a nest for conspiracy, but that was where Hawks spent most of his time, and most of the people at the villa presumably fought back against the heroes. It might be a complicated process, matching hero eyewitness testimony to every person there, but you can at least sort of see the path to it.

Other groups, however, are a lot less straightforward. Consider the following categories:

The Liberated Districts

As I discussed earlier, Deika was presumably a high watermark on societal saturation, but Deika still only counted 90% of the population as “Liberation Warriors, lying in wait.” That leaves 10% unaccounted for. So who are those 10%? Are they children?[37] Some children too young to know anything about the PLF, and some old enough to know but not yet old enough to be considered warriors for the cause? Are they instead elderly people, maybe remnants from when the MLA first started to infiltrate the town that have just never had enough close family or social life to get pulled into the Liberation Army by the usual vectors?

By far the worst option is if Trumpet’s 90% accounts for anyone even remotely connected to the MLA—that would mean one out of every ten people in Deika is legitimately completely ignorant of what the powers that be had brought in. How on earth are you supposed to tell those people apart from the other 90% when the heroes sweep in and arrest absolutely everyone? Or are we to believe that the HPSC had time to get in an agent to flash a covert L-sign at everyone in town and they only arrested people who visibly acknowledged it?

These problems only get worse for our hypothetical town that’s 70% PLF. That opens you up to far more people who have only recently started getting drawn in. Consider the disaffected twenty-something whose family has no idea what’s been keeping him out so late in the evenings. The young mother who met the nicest and most convincing people via the daycare, but whose husband is always out of town on business trips so she hasn’t had time to introduce him to anyone. The working parents who just joined up and whose kid, away at hero school, doesn’t know anything—yet.[38]

Evaluating these peoples’ social circles and financial history for other PLF attachments is going to turn up a ludicrous number of false positives unless the Commission can narrow down exactly when and where such people crossed paths with the ideology of Liberation. So many people would have been raised to it, people whose entire lives are suspect, but mistaking even one new recruit for a lifelong loyalist gives you exponentially more avenues to baselessly suspect people—and as established, the Commission just doesn’t have the time to be overly discerning.

Detnerat, Shoowaysha, and Feel Good Inc.

This is another line of attack that seems like it should be a bullseye, but is actually quite the opposite. Detnerat is a business that is run by the leader of the entire movement, yet the fact that not everyone who works there is a member of the MLA is one of the very first things we find out about them! Miyashita was something akin to a personal aide or secretary to Rikiya, someone Rikiya liked well enough that he was on the verge of introducing Miyashita to his other friends—and Miyashita didn’t know the first thing about his boss’s true affiliations. It’s patently obvious from that alone that not everyone at Detnerat is PLF, and it's likely that the numbers of the faithful are even thinner at Curious and Skeptic's outfits, where they're high-ranked executives but, crucially, not actually in charge.

This is, of course, complicated further by the fact that people who work at e.g. a publishing house are probably there because they agree with that publishing house’s politics, whether or not they know what’s going on behind the scenes. Ditto with Detnerat—certainly there would be people there who just needed a job and could charm their way through an interview without an inner passion for the work, but loads of people probably work there because they legitimately believe in the company’s ethos. So how do you tell people who have relatively radical personal politics without having any idea about the terrorism apart from the people who are absolutely PLF/ex-MLA but who are now lying about it because their organization's cover is blown and the response to that is, “Well, time to go back underground!”

The Hearts & Minds Party

Membership of this party would seem to be a good indicator, but using it that way too unquestioningly is also very flawed. This is because the HMP particularly is probably an excellent recruitment tool for the MLA/PLF. The note above about having radical political beliefs but still being ignorant about the planned acts of terror is especially true for the HMP. The Commission cannot just pull the voting records and arrest all of them because plenty of them are going to be totally ignorant of what was really going on with the heart of the party, only joining up because they believed in the kinds of things the HMP was platforming on—less repressive quirk use laws, prison reform, very possibly issues like the abolishment of the legal category “villain” or greater social safety nets. Just because someone votes for those things, doesn’t mean they know about or would support the MLA’s violent extremism or the PLF’s anarchic goals.

So at what level of initiation does the Commission call a cut-off? How long does someone have to have been voting straight-ticket HMP for them to be considered condemned by that association?

Over and over again, the question arises: how did the heroes and the police distinguish the initiated from the uninitiated? And given that Japan’s legal system at least nominally requires that guilt be proven, what are they going to do when huge numbers of those people claim innocence?

The Presupposition of Guilt

Let’s take a few minutes to circle back to what I talked about earlier, the presumption of guilt and how it relates to arrests, convictions, and the perception of arrestees in Japan. This is going to swerve hard back towards real-life Japan issues for a bit, but it is exceptionally relevant when examining what’s likely to happen to the people arrested in the raids, innocent and guilty alike, so thanks in advance for bearing with me.

In Japan, the rate of conviction is extraordinarily high—if you’re in anime fandom and active in social justice circles, you may have seen the tumblr posts about the country’s famed 99.9% conviction rate.[39] There are a range of explanations for this. Defenders argue that, compared to police in many other countries, police in Japan are very cautious and don't move to prosecute unless a case is all but airtight; thus, many who are arrested may well be released without charge if there is even the slightest doubt that the case will hold up in court. One can easily see truth to this by looking at the numbers on how many people are arrested in Japan versus how many are actually charged: Wikipedia notes (albeit without citation) that in the U.S., roughly 42% of arrests in felony cases result in prosecution, while in Japan the figure is only 17.5%.

Conversely, critics note that a major feature of convictions in Japan is the confession, and confessions can be coerced, particularly in the sorts of conditions that those imprisoned in pre-trial detention are kept—no legal representation, no contact with their families, loved ones or employers, no requirement that they be informed about what they’re being charged with, potential weeks upon weeks kept in isolation, sessions of questioning that can extend for most of the day.

There have also been cases in which confessions have been found to be falsified, for example by having the suspect sign a paper and then filling in or altering other details after the fact.

There are some other factors about confessions to be aware of here:

In Japan, it is not legally permissible for a suspect to be convicted solely based on their confession. The constitutional provision in this regard is something called himitsu no bakuro, the “revelation of secret.” The revelation of secret is something in the confession that is factually verifiable and which, at the time of the confession, only the suspect could have known. Common examples are things like the location of a previously undiscovered body or the time and location where a weapon used in the crime was purchased. The majority of verdicts that are overturned in Japan are overturned because of issues with a confession.

Sentencing is also very lenient compared to the U.S., particularly if the suspect was cooperative with police and admitted guilt (seen as showing remorse). Thus you wind up with a situation in which suspects believe that they’ll lose a case if they go to trial (because practically everyone does) and prosecutors—rather more aware of the weaknesses in a case than a confused and vulnerable layman—don’t want to bring a shaky case to trial, and thus both parties are invested in whatever will get the suspect out with a minimum of effort. The result of this is a high number of people released on “suspended prosecution,” which is an admission of guilt, but with a prosecutor's decision to show lenience while still establishing precedent for possible later offenses warranting more severe punishment. This is a particularly common result for first-time offenders, especially in non-violent crimes.

Note that suspended prosecution is not at all the same thing as being released for lack of evidence; a suspect is conceding their guilt by accepting the arrangement. However, many suspects who the police might not be confident in convicting are known to sign confessions and accept the arrangement regardless, because, along with fear for their livelihoods, it’s known that judges tend to view extended time in detention as a sign of guilt. Also too, if admitting guilt is seen as showing remorse, then maintaining one’s innocence is often perceived as a lack of remorse—leading to fears that fighting the charges will result not only in defeat, but also in harsher sentencing!

All of these factors combine into a problem with perception of guilt that feeds on itself endlessly at all levels. Let me use a run-on sentence to summarize: the general public views anyone who is even arrested as probably guilty, because the police are seen as generally only moving on those who are guilty, because police specifically only prosecute those who they can all but prove are guilty, but guilt can be “proven” by a sufficiently detailed confession, and while confessions are required to have some corroborating evidence, they can easily be falsified and may well be offered up with minimal resistance because the suspect is also convinced that judges will only be harsher on them if they put up a fight because suspects also believe that they will be convicted at trial because everyone knows the conviction rate is unbelievably high.

Japan likes to think of itself as a “safe” country, which is in large part why its deeply concerning arrest and detainment procedures have held up repeatedly in court. These things help keep people safe, after all, and who wouldn't want people to be safe?

Returning, then, to the matter of My Hero Academia and the Paranormal Liberation Front mass arrest, I don’t think it’s overstating things to claim that the dehumanization of villains and the glamorization of heroes has probably exacerbated these problems.

Cruel punishments are illegal under Article 36 of the Japanese constitution? But what if someone really, really deserves it, though? (Chapter 94)

You can see that willingness to shrug off civil rights violations as long as it means safety in the symbol All Might represents, a hero who is there to beat up baddies, not ask questions about why they're being bad. Ditto Tartarus, where the Bad People get put, regardless of whether their Bad really warrants so awful a punishment or whether the severity of such a punishment serves as an effective deterrent.[40]

As to the presupposition of guilt, if a hero thinks they saw someone Doing A Bad, and confidently testifies to that effect, who’s going to doubt them? It’s blunt to the point of headache-inducing that Midoriya Izuku, the boy who will be the greatest hero, who’s treated by the story as if he’s the first person in history to think about “saving” a “villain,” doesn’t even start to think about such a thing until he literally experiences a psychic impression of a five-year-old crying within the heart of Shigaraki Tomura.

At the press conference in Chapter 306, it’s illustrated numerous times that huge portions of society don’t particularly care about Dabi’s accusations. They don’t ask for Hawks to face justice for the murder he openly admits to committing; they don’t ask for apologies for the heroes’ wrongdoings. They ask for heroes to make them feel safe. Even if it means lying to them; even if it means asking Endeavor to go out there and “take down” his firstborn son. People are uneasy about the accusations, certainly, but what they want is not for heroes to take responsibility for their actions, to atone for them, but rather to deny that there’s any truth to the accusations at all.

This is not a society that, in the wake of Gigantomachia’s rampage, is going to be open to the possibility that some people caught up in the mass arrest are legitimately innocent and that everyone, even villains, deserves to be afforded the full extent of their rights.

The Dissolution of the HMP

Speaking of rights, let’s go over one that we can immediately see has been flagrantly violated in the manga compared to the state of real-life Japanese law—the overnight dissolution of the Hearts & Minds Party.

As discussed earlier, it's unlikely that every member is a dyed-in-the-wool terrorist. There are bound to be perfectly innocent people in the country who just so happen to agree with the HMP’s campaign platforms. Now, all of those people are going to turn on the evening news[41] and be blindsided with the news that their political party has just been dissolved and some enormous percentage of its membership arrested. This was not publicized or forewarned; it just happened, in a matter of hours. Do you think those people—people who are members of a party that specifically opposes the current status quo—are just going to nod and say, “Oh, wow, that sucks, but who am I to question the wisdom of the government and its agents? Time to find a new political party, I guess!” Would you?

I can assure you that you wouldn’t, because let me be clear: under current Japanese law, what we’re told happened to the HMP is unbelievably illegal—not only because they were dissolved at all, but particularly the speed with which that dissolution was carried out.

I mentioned earlier, in the section “Japan and Illegal Organizations,” that there were methods by which organizations can be dissolved. Now I’d like to look at that in more detail.

Any organization that’s been flagged as a potential threat—that “terroristic subversive activity” designation—can come under investigation from the Public Security Intelligence Agency. Their recommendations are then passed up for evaluation by a member of the Public Security Examination Commission,[42] who can pass a variety of prohibitions—the bans I mentioned earlier on printing activities, public assembly, and a few others. These prohibitions are issued in periods lasting up to six months, at which point they are re-evaluated and can be dismissed or renewed.

If the Public Security Examination Commission decides that the comparatively soft-pedal restrictions on freedom of the press or freedom of assembly are not sufficient to deter the organization in question from committing terroristic subversive activity continuously/repeatedly in the future, the Commission can elect to order the organization dissolved. This revokes their rights mentioned above entirely, and further stipulates that they liquidate their assets,[42] and that no member of or representative for the organization can take actions in the organization’s interest (e.g. things like opening bank accounts or buying property). The only exception to the latter restriction is a designated representative for the organization who is granted the right to manage its assets in the process of overseeing the dissolution.

Any of the designations above can be appealed, but dissolution is permanent until specifically overturned.

Now, it might well seem that the HMP could be targeted under the “advocating for subversive terroristic activity” criteria, but here’s the problem with that: that criteria is based on the organization engaging in/advocating for such terroristic subversiveness as an organizational activity—that is, the activity in question is a foundational, core aspect of the organization’s endeavors. And I simply don’t think that’s how the HMP operates. To reiterate, I believe they’re a recruitment tool, meant to siphon people into the MLA (later the PLF) proper, but otherwise a perfectly legitimate political party with real political aims, outreach, goals, and so on.

Of course, I can easily see the anger over all the destruction leading the Ministry of Justice to being heavy-handed in its response to the Paranormal Liberation Front and any organization even suspected of being associated with it, of which the HMP is the most prominent. I could also simply be wrong about what the HMP says at their rallies. Regardless of either of those possibilities, however, there is still the matter of the timetable.

There was a period in Japanese history that organizations—political parties especially—could be dissolved on the spot. The Meiji Constitution granted that right to the Minister of Home Affairs, a Cabinet position appointed by the Emperor, and indeed, any number of socialist, communist, or labor-oriented parties were banned and dissolved within scant months of their establishment for their alleged leftist or subversive leanings.[44] The Farmer-Labor Party of 1925 was dissolved three hours after its establishment! So clearly there’s some precedent—or at least, there was. Like many things, the power to summarily dissolve organizations did not survive the Meiji Constitution’s transformation into its modern-day incarnation after World War II.

The Subversive Activities Prevention Act, the same one that lays out the causes for dissolving an organization, also details a legally mandated process by which this dissolution is carried out. Most prominently, organizations cannot just be dissolved with no notice, no chance to defend themselves. Any disposition curtailing an organization's activities, from the bans on their printed material to complete dissolution, is required to be announced both via the government's official gazette[45] and, if the residence of a chief officer or representative of the organization is known, also via written notification. These notifications must be sent at least seven days before the hearing date—a hearing which, further, the organization has the legal right to send agents to in order to present statements and evidence in their own favor, as well as examine the evidence being presented against them.

This clearly did not happen. Bare minimum, Hanabata Koku, as leader of the Hearts & Minds Party, should have had an address the Commission could get ahold of, especially given all the snooping they so obviously must have been doing to unearth the extent of the PLF’s reach.

It’s instructive, in this regard, to look to history. To wit, I’ve said a lot about how gun-shy Japan is to dissolve organizations outright, thanks to its history of governmental repression—but how true is that really? If the government really wanted to, couldn’t it just decide to crack down on something and ride out the controversy? Has it done as much before?

To put all this into proper perspective: no. It hasn’t. The government has invoked the Subversive Activities Prevention Act against a group rather than individuals only once in all the time since the act was passed in 1952.

It was against Aum Shinrikyo, and it didn’t happen until seven months after the subway attacks. Even with nearly unanimous desire to prosecute, even though Aum had been under police surveillance prior to the attacks, even though lawsuits against them were and had been ongoing, meaning at least some measure of investigation was being done openly, it still took seven months to gather the evidence, submit it to the Public Safety Examination Commission, allow Aum their appeal, and enact the ruling. That’s because, in a society ordered by democratic processes, these things take time.[46]

But the HMP? No one who wasn’t a member knew about their affiliation with the League of Villains—much less an underground army!—until Hawks got the word out, and the Hero Public Safety Commission had to be rigorously careful that news of their investigations not leak because they knew they had their own moles to deal with. So far as we know, the Hearts & Minds Party remained a legit organization right up until the day of the raid. It is functionally impossible under current Japanese law for them to have been dissolved in the scant few hours between the commencement of the raid and the attack on Tartarus in which the two guards mention the dissolution.

Even if the relevant agency in the Ministry of Justice submitted their paperwork the absolute minimum of time in advance, there is no way the HMP and Trumpet—and therefore Re-Destro and the League and everyone else—shouldn’t have known that the government was moving against them. The only answer is that the Ministry of Justice was evading its legal obligation to notify both the public[47] and the HMP itself, or that the Japanese government, in the wake of the Advent of the Exceptional, throttled back on constitutionally guaranteed freedoms exactly the way human rights activists today are always warning about.

Stigma and Recidivism

In the same way that In Custody is not (or shouldn't be) a magic status effect preventing villains from escaping from police, In Jail is not an endgame state. Most people in prison are not there for life (or death) sentences, particularly not in Japan. Even if the majority of the PLF gets stuck in prison for decades, there will, eventually, be an “after” for them. So what happens “after”?

Well, like many countries, Japan has made efforts in the modern day to offer training classes and parole officers to help reacclimate ex-convicts into society once they’ve done their time, but it remains a difficult process, and the country has a relatively high recidivism rate. Given the stigma against criminals—present to a degree in all countries, but particularly exacerbated in Japan—it is frequently difficult for released prisoners to find stable housing or employment—both key factors helping to prevent recidivism.

So does MHA’s Japan have similar programs? Well, it’s hard to say, given that the only prison we’ve actually seen is Tartarus, which is obviously a poor model to base a lot of judgement on—save, of course, that any country that could develop a place like Tartarus is a country with an appalling deficit of care for criminals’ human rights, which doesn’t bode well for their other prisons.

Speaking of things that don’t bode well, though, we have two obvious examples in the canon of how convicted criminals fare: both Gentle Criminal and Twice are, it’s suggested, prosecuted for their foundational fuck-ups—Tobita for obstructing public duties[48] and Jin for his traffic infraction. It’s unclear whether they went to prison or not—given the relative lenience shown to first-time offenders, I’m inclined to think probably not—but even given these very mild offenses, their lives were turned completely upside-down, and no apparent efforts were made to help them through chaotic periods that saw Tobita apparently disowned and Jin losing his job.

Consider the harsh reactions they garnered and the apparent lack of assistance from any social structure despite the relative mildness of their wrongs, and things start to look very bad indeed for the PLF. Will there be any steps taken at all to deradicalize them? Does taking such steps seem likely, given what we've seen of MHA’s legal and carceral systems thus far? Further, if there is no plan for deradicalization, how exactly do the heroes propose to stop this from happening again (and again, and again and again and again)?

Here’s another alarming thought: what will be done with the children? There’s no way around the fact that the MLA, and therefore the PLF, included children[49]—and I don’t mean it in the tumblr sense of describing a sixteen-year-old as “a literal child,” though there would be some of those, too. No, I mean the grade-schoolers, the toddlers, the babies. Maybe some of them will have non-PLF family they could hypothetically go to, but as I have written about in the past, there’s a very real bias about orphans and other children separated from their parents in Japan, and even blood ties are not always enough to overcome that stigma. Alternative care is in a woefully sorry state as it is in Japan, and this would only be compounded for PLF kids—damned first for their criminal associations and again for being the children society doesn’t want.

However many thousands of them that may be.[50]

So here again, a question recurs. Where before it was, “How do you tell the guilty from the innocent?” here it’s, “How do you stop the societal backlash from ruining countless peoples’ lives both now and for decades into the future?” What kind of stigma will all these people—rank and file who come out of prison deradicalized and ready to rejoin society, children who were too young to understand why heroes took their parents away, ignorant family and friends who just lost loved ones to a massive government sweep, innocents swept up in the net and imprisoned for crimes they didn't commit—going to be facing? How long, then, before that stigma sees them radicalized in turn?

You cannot sweep 115,000 people under the rug and not expect there to be a stain—and given the narrative themes of the rest of My Hero Academia thus far, it’s absurd to think that’s even an option.

Next time: how scrapping the ex-MLA portions of the PLF undermines MHA's narrative integrity.

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

Footnotes (Part Three)

[26] And in the legal sense, murder in the second degree.

[27] For the monstrous callousness of his comments in that conversation, said guard is immediately murdered by karma All For One. I very much hope we ever get Shishikura’s opinion on this, because I’m pretty sure the guard was his dad.

[28] Who, in Chapter 35 of that series, leads a group of police firing rubber bullets at an active villain, emphasizing that the police are trained in non-lethal tactics, and any escalation from that is not to be taken lightly.

[29] Indeed, you could make a fair argument that that’s exactly why the manga included the Noumu to begin with, though the lower-tier ones wind up captured as often as not.

[30] Vigilantes, Chapter 74.

[31] This sidesteps the matter of “rescue heroes,” those who focus on disaster response and evacuation. Note, however, that this is not a categorization that pits those heroes against non-quirk-abusing civilians. Non-quirk-abusing civilians are criminals for police to deal with, not heroes of any stripe.

[32] This would be in keeping with real-world de-escalation tactics. So for e.g. the purse-snatcher in Chapter 1, where we’re told he didn’t use his quirk until he’d been backed into a corner, I would bet that Kamuy Woods or whoever confronted the thief didn’t start actually using their quirk on the man until he went into giant mode. That is anyway a kinder interpretation than noting that he was a heteromorph and would have been using his quirk automatically just by virtue of existing in public.

[33] After digging him out from under the stairway it had a teenager drop on top of him, I mean. Did he even have much of a chance to use Incite at the villa, do you think?

[34] Though given that literally every member of the MLA we’ve met is addressed solely by their code name, I don’t for a second believe he could have gotten real names out of everyone he talked to.

[35] And judges virtually always grant warrants. It’s that presumption of guilt thing again.

[36] But that panel of the normally taciturn Edgeshot shouting at a bunch of high schoolers not to let a single person escape is pretty damn telling too.

[37] 14% of the Japanese populace is under 14 years old, so that’s not too far off, though I’d be inclined to think, based on everything we know about them, that the MLA was having more kids than Japan at large, not fewer.

[38] This should have been Uraraka, by the way.

[39] An exaggeration, but only by a handful of tenths of a percentage point.

[40] Though until recently, it’s served as a great check on recidivism, clearly.

[41] You know, assuming that they weren't all arrested in the middle of their workday or cleaning house or going to university or what have you.

[42] Both are among the agencies that make up the Ministry of Justice. I’d be willing to bet that, in-universe, the Hero Public Safety Commission is also under the Ministry of Justice umbrella.

[43] The funds are then remitted to the National Treasury.

[44] Though one thing to note for our current context is that, even when those parties were dissolved, it did not automatically follow that any duly elected representatives were expelled from office. Unless there was legal reason to remove them, any elected officials were simply rendered “Independents” rather than being affiliated with a political party. The constitution stipulates that Diet members can only be expelled by a two-thirds majority vote, though in such circumstances, most politicians choose to step down from their positions before it comes to such drastic measures.

[45] A newspaper or other bulletin officially authorized by the government to publish public and legal notices—in Japan these days, it’s an online site/newsletter.

[46] And they’re often still controversial with progressive activists, as the invocation against Aum was even contemporaneously! Incidentally, Aum’s dissolution lasted for a mere two years before the government panel ultimately declined to make it permanent.

[47] And if you don’t think the HMP had someone watching the official Japanese government website, you’re clearly not taking them seriously.

[48] And possibly more besides; the dialogue in question trails off in a way that suggests that the obstruction charge is only the first in a list.

[49] Start at Yotsubashi Rikiya being inducted when he was still in schoolboy shorts and continue right on up through the people we see in school uniforms in various mass battle scenes involving the MLA rank and file.

[50] And it easily could be thousands. If, say, even 10% of the PLF are minors, that’d be well over 10,000 kids, and thus we’re right back to overcrowding problems, except this time they’re about Japan’s child services programs, and the last thing they need is a new group of kids that numbers a full third of the number of children already in their care in real-life Japan. Naturally, the number only climbs if you think Re-Destro wasn’t counting kids in his initial reckoning of the MLA’s membership.

#bnha analysis #bnha meta #paranormal liberation front #meta liberation army #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha #bnha spoilers #my writing #plf arrests #stillness has salt

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noszkass · 3 years

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garrison "grady" oliver knox jr.

thirty two. podcast host. amateur sleuth. casey deidrick.

grady: [looks deeply into your eyes; pats your knee, sympathetically.] grady: “i don’t care.”

content warnings: mentions child neglect, parental abandonment, missing parent, (suspected) death of a parent, alcoholism.

dominant traits. opinionated, surface level arrogant, judgmental, creative, sarcastic, invasive, blunt/crass, antisocial, stubborn, self-aware, unyielding, grudge-holding, mouthy (read as: "brutally honest"), insensitive, protective, intuitive, reactive, self-reliant, observant, adaptable, impulsive.

fictional parallels. connor welsh (htgawm); jess mariano (gilmore girls); jughead jones (riverdale); stiles stilinski (teen wolf); nancy drew (cw nd); veronica mars (vm).

○ his name is grady. no one calls him garrison, not anymore. not since his mother was around. i say around, and not alive, because she isn't dead. just missing. a town native who moved away when she was pregnant with him, but brought a lot of the darker parts of miriam's well with her. he was raised on unfinished stories and embellished half truths about the place his mother grew up in─the place he eventually called home at fourteen─and, ultimately, is probably responsible for his interest in all things unexplained. and his father, well... his father is around georgia, somewhere, he supposes. they haven't spoken for a while. believe it of not, a relationship with your son doesn't cure at the bottom of a bottle.

○ his life pretty much always baseline sucks and his attitude and demeanor mirrors that. which is fine since grads is the type of guy who makes more acquaintances than he does friends. and even more enemies than that. he will casually put his nose in your business because "that’s my job" and he makes no apologies for who he is.

○ when he was younger he wanted to be a journalist, a photographer, and novelist and you can tell. too curious for his own good and heavily believes in not only checking his sources, but questioning everything. he's not afraid to stand up for the things he believes in or for the people he finds deserving of it, and has very little issue or care to what what consequences these actions might breed. he also may or may not be a coffee addict.

the corner booth at the local diner; twilight zone background noise; the smell of coffee seeping from moist skin; sweeping honesty; not only is the truth out there, but it also probably sucks; ring around the rosie was about the black plague; anti-social social club; dry sarcasm over milkshakes; swear jar that has his name on it; the company misery loves; mean nerd aesthetic; late nights in the studio with great music and a constant opinion.

plot hooks.

○ his family. well, his mother's family. the people she left behind, whatever's left of them. possibly an aunt (preferably his mother's twin, who he had no idea existed, so imagine that shock) who took him in when she went missing at fourteen and any potential children she might have? because cousin relationships are great and no one has your back or will kick your ass quite like family. can't imagine them being well off, more like town trash and maybe this aunt was the best of them. ○ veronica mars needs clients. ACAB indeed, but sometimes people need solutions to problems that a corrupted small-town government isn't capable (or willing) to get them. what does that mean? for the low price of [insert negotiation here] this knox boy will go out of his way to find the answers you need. husband fucking the secretary? photos will hold up nicely in divorce court─not to mention i'm a ~fantastic photographer. you get the idea. sure, it's not the prettiest (or cleanest) job, but it's easier to make money off liars, thieves, and cheating spouses than you might realize. especially in a small town with such an ugly history. ○ the unlucky barista/cashier/counter girl. it'd be nice to have a little back-and-forth relationship with someone who might work for his aunt? i imagined [his aunt] owns a coffee shop or cafe (or something of the sort) and he's always in there helping himself to free coffee and snacks and likes to poke and prod this person when he's bored via asking a million intrusive questions or just being his curious, obnoxious self. taken by noor ♡ ○ co-hosts of the night shift. well, it's not the doomsday podcast, certainly not with their following, but like a lot of people who find their way to miriam's well, they share the same basic general interest (unsolved mysteries, serial killers/true crime, paranormal/ghost hunting, lore, extraterrestrial, etc.) except, grady also likes to use his platform to bitch and moan about other things that happen in town. some topics more pointed than others, and often about public officials he has no business putting on the air and his fellow casters probably hate him doing. no one likes a target on their back. ○ pizza buddy + longtime friend. someone (preferably someone he considers close/from when he first moved to mw) who will go with him to flying saucers at two am for "out of stock" garlic knots (and/or an employee he bribes with🍃for said knots 👀) because he's an actual human garbage disposal and he hates himself just enough to like the aesthetic and that entire plot sounds fucking awesome?? bonus points if they both used to work there when they were younger, and now this shit is habit/a bastard tradition at this point. ○ doomsday descendants. characters who are part of the families who have abduction histories that he can interview and broadcast on his podcast─also pick their brain about every little detail and absolutely get on their nerves in some way or another.

#halfmoonrp #ch: garrison knox #type: blurb #this is a mess

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linkspooky · 5 years

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Gogol the Clown

A member of the decay of angels, one of the few characters in the story we have seen follow Fyodor willingly rather than being mind controlled or a sycophant, an immediately loud and attention grabbing character. Nikolai Gogol has an incredible impact on the plot, despite only being around for a short time. There is a lot of deeper themes and philosophy to unravel in this engimatic character. So let’s answer Gogol’s question, just who is he?

1. The Overcoat

As an ally of all clowns I am obligated to give a more in depth look at Gogol’s character. The first clue to his true nature is the author of his namesake, Nikolai Gogol. The author Gogol had a reptuation of a dramatist and a satirist, and blended humorous and tragic elements in his story to make critiques of society therefore we have Gogol, the laughing and yet tragic clown.

His ability is named after The Overcoat a short story that had great influence in Russian Literature, as said by Dostoyevsky as “We all come from Gogols’ Overcoat.”

The story narrates the life and death of Akaky Akakievich, an impoverished government clerk and copyist. He lives as nothing more than a tool of the bureaucracy, until he decides to save up for a new stylish overcoat which soon becomes the center of his life. Akaky after fasting for months finally can afford it, and is praised for the first time for the quality of his coat, only to be robbed the next day. When he speaks with a government official and meekly asks for help in cooperating with the police to retrieve the coat, the general scolds him so fiercely for interrupting his time with an unimportant matter. Soon afterwards, Akaky falls deathly ill with fever. In his last hours, delirious, imagining himself again sitting before the general and he pleads for forgiveness, before finally cursing the general.

While Gogol, a clown who cooperates with terrorists and tries to drag down society has almost nothing in common with a punch-clock bureaucrat who has no life outside of his work, there’s an interesting comparison on how different their stories are. Almost as if Akakay is what Gogol is terrified of being, so much so he runs in the opposite direction.

Both of their stories are primarily about their own deaths, but the way they die is opposite, Gogol chooses death, whereas Akaky meets his death soon after he deviates just a little bit from the social order of his humdrum life.

If Gogol is a deviant of society, a dangerous terrorist, then Akaky is the living definition of a normal person. He has absolutely no life outisde of doing what others tell him to do His name Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin, in russian means Akaky Bashmachkin the son of Akaky Bashmachkin. Which basically makes it the equivalent of John Johnson. It communicates his role as an everyman. He begins at the story a introverted, and hopeless but otherwise functioning non-entity with no expectations of social or material success.

He basically acts like he was born to fit in a slot. His entire life consists of copying down documents, he does not do anything for himself other than what he is told.

“It would be difficult to find another man who lived so entirely for his duties. It is not enough to say that Akakiy laboured with zeal: no, he laboured with love. In his copying, he found a varied and agreeable employment. Outside this copying, it appeared that nothing existed for him. He gave no thought to his clothes.”

He ‘enjoys’ his life so to speak, but he basically lives without living. He never makes any choices for himself, or desires anything for his life. He is satisfied but only because he wants for nothing. He has no thoughts of disatisfaction, but only because he never thinks. He lives without worries, because he never takes on the burden of his own free will.

In other words as a bureaucrat he is not a person. He is a tool in the system. Not only that, but despite the fact that he is a completely harmless existence lacking any evil or bad intention at all, he is almost constantly bullied. He causes no trouble for others, keeps his head down, and does not even retaliate when he is jeered at and yet people continue to constantly push him down. Even when he is on the absolute bottom of society, he’s pushed. The only time he retaliates is when their jeers start to get into his work, at which point the mocking of him turns from humorous to tragic.

How little humane feeling after all was to be found in men's hearts; how much coarseness and cruelty was to be found even in the educated and those who were everywhere regarded as good and honorable men."

When he is asked to think for himself and change just a few words on a document, Akaky is completely unable to do it. He’s unable to have a self.

This caused him so much toil that he broke into a perspiration, rubbed his forehead, and finally said, "No, give me rather something to copy." After that they let him copy on forever.

When he starts to desire a coat for the first time, something outside of his work, Akaky develops as a person. His self-esteem is raised and his expectations towards lief are raised as well by the overcoat. Which is why, when it is finally stolen, and Akaky is put back in his place so to speak by a much more important general he crashes back down.

"Do you know to whom you speak? Do you realise who stands before you? Do you realise it? do you realise it? I ask you!"

In the end it’s a story of someone who dies without ever living, and only ever really making one choice for himself which was immediately taken away from him as he was ordered to go back to fitting in his slot. It shows that there’s more to life than simply obeying every single order given to you. Akaky by all means lived what society might call a good life, he never caused harm, he was never greedy, he never missed a day or work and yet we see the only result of that is people continuing to beat him down without any consideration. It’s an argument of what fitting into a society entails, and how absolutely mundane human cruelty can be.

And St. Petersburg was left without Akakiy Akakievitch, as though he had never lived there. A being disappeared who was protected by none, dear to none, interesting to none, and who never even attracted to himself the attention of those students of human nature who omit no opportunity of thrusting a pin through a common fly, and examining it under the microscope.

A being who bore meekly the jibes of the department, and went to his grave without having done one unusual deed, but to whom, nevertheless, at the close of his life appeared a bright visitant in the form of a cloak, which momentarily cheered his poor life, and upon whom, thereafter, an intolerable misfortune descended, just as it descends upon the mighty of this world!

If you imagine Gogol as someone who exists in complete opposition to Akaky, trying to live a life where he makes every single choice in the opposite manner than the clown’s character becomes quite clear.

Akaky is someone with really no free will, no free thought of his own, and no uniqueness. He is always the punch line to the jokers of other people. He is so plain what you see is basically what you get with him. He has no internal world whatsoever, and no designs of life.

Gogol is a character based entirely around the concept of freedom, where freedom and his own identity, his uniqueness are the most important things to him. Which is why he dresses himself up as loudly as possible, plays the role of an eccentric, and becomes the clown.

He is a terrorist, an outsider to society because for him that is the best method of being free.

Society in Bungo Stray Dogs is after all, a lot like the one depicted in the Overcoat. A stagnant, uncaring thing, almost like a force of its own bearing down on others. Characters cannot easily move their position. Akutagawa is a stray dog, an orphan who is expected to die in the slums without ever receiving a helping hand, and the only way for him to escape that life is to become a murderer for the mafia. The poor stay poor, the weak are taken from, more orphans are not saved, the people in power stay in power in the name of an uneasy peace.

The decay of angels is a group to hasten the destruction of a society that in their eyes, is already slowly decaying away. Not much is known on Gogol’s backstory, but if the alternative choice is for him to become downtrodden on like the man in the Overcoat it’s understandable why he would be so desperate for freedom he would flip the switch and go in the exact opposite, try to destroy anything that might hinder him, break any chain that might slow him down, run away from society so fast that running away and pursuing freedom became his only true identity.

Gogol’s plan also shows how quickly society as a whole, but more importantly government bureacracy can turn on people the moment they stop fitting in a slot, the moment they ceae to be useful, no matter how much service they have given before that point. If the employees willingly give up their own humanity, the bureacracy will stop seeing them as people, as we see how quickly the government turns on the Armed Detective Agency despite all of their work before this point.

The agency is the heart of the country, the nation’s pride, and then suddenly they are not. As easy as that. Which is a good existential conundrum showing that the rules you believe in, the securirty you believe you have, the structures in place are not as solid as you think they are. The foundation can crumble at any moment, and you are not a significant loss, because you are not a person to them in the first place.

Gogol is someone who wants to be free to the point of radicalism. He deliberately disrupts the status quo, not just for his enemies but even the people he’s manipulating. He leaves the corrupt government agent alive because he does not want him to die until he realizes that he never wanted his seat in society, his power, his role in society in the first place.

“As I grew up, I opened my eyes and saw the real world and I began to laugh and I haven’t stopped since. I saw that the meaning of life was to get a livelihood, that the goal of life was to be a high court judge, that the brighest joy of life was to marry a well off girl. That wisdom was what the majority said it was, that passion was to give a speech, that courage was to risk being fined ten dollar, that cordiality was to say ‘you’re welcome’ after a meal. And that the fear of god was to go to communion once a year. That’s what I saw, and I laughed.” - Soren Kierkegaard.

If Akaky is the joke, then Gogol is so determined not to become a joke that he becomes the clown instead and makes others the joke. That society for him is not something that people live in as themselves, but rather repress themselves so they can mindlessly repeat society better.

2. The Only Philosophical Question is Suicide

“Marry, and you will regret it; don’t marry, you will also regret it; marry or don’t marry, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the world’s foolishness, you will regret it; weep over it, you will regret that too; laugh at the world’s foolishness or weep over it, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it; believe her not, you will also regret it… Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will regret that too; hang yourself or don’t hang yourself, you’ll regret it either way; whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the essence of all philosophy.” - Soren Kierkegaard

Then, what is the center of Gogol’s philosophy? If he sees society as something inherently meaningless that he longs to be free from, if the values of others are just empty ideas to him, if he acnkowledges that every role others might assume, everything they think is important is not, everything they want to hold onto forever was never theirs in the first place: If it is all meaningless to him one way or the other then why are Gogol’s ideals so strong he would die for them in the first place?

Gogol is someone who tightly controls information. He makes others play guessing games so they can think for themselves. His goal is to make others fall from their roles, and to make them regret the roles they assigned to themselves in the first place. Once again though, this is an objective, this is a goal, there is motivation behind his actions. He acts like everything is meaningless to him, that he is flippant to the world’s woes, and yet he is sharply making these critiques and satires of the society around them with a purpose. That in itself is the central question of his character. His philosophy as confusing and contradictory as it is, is easy to understand once you unravel the central question of his character.

“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide... Judging whether life is or is not worth living. That is the fundamental question of philosophy.” Albert Camus, Myth of Sisyphus

Everything is a choice, and the first choice everyone makes is whether or not to kill themselves. Camus judged existence to be one that is entirely meaningless, but rather than that negating the meaning of choice rather it makes choices matter more as they define who you are. A life that has no inherent meaning is therefore, defined by the actions it entails.

“If the universe is meaningless, so is the statement that it is so… The meaning and purpose of dancing is the dance.”

Therefore a lack of meaning, of outside validation, ironically gives people more freedom to dictate their own meaning.

If the fundamental question of all philosophy is whether or not one should commit suicide, then what Gogol aims for himself is radical freedom.

Sartre's notion of 'radical freedom' said that everyone always has a choice, and every act is a free act. When people say they have 'no choice' but to do something, they are lying to themselves.

“We are left alone, without excuse. This is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free” (Sartre).

Sartre’s view of the world is that everyone, everyone, is utterly free. Existence precedes essence. Human beings first come into existence, then they determine their own essence by the choices they make.

There is no essence to any thing that exists. There is no pre-existent essence that makes a thing what it is. There is no essence to a human being that preexists the human and makes a human what that human is. There is no essence to being a male or a female. There are no predetermined roles. NOTHING is predetermined. There is NO fate or destiny. Humans make themselves what they are. Humans choose to believe what they do about themselves. Humans choose to believe in something called a human nature. But humans make that nature what it is by choosing to be what they are. There is no God that predetermines what humans are and even if there is a God, God made humans free to determine their own natures. Humans are freedom. I am what I choose.

Therefore if everything is free, then everything is a choice which you bear responsibility for. The cost of Sartre’s absolute freedom m of realizing our own freedom is Angoisse, or the anguish of existence. Everything is terrifyingly possible because humans are just making it up as they go along, and are free to toss aside their shackles at any time.

Because suicide is a choice, that means that choosing to live is also a continued choice that people make. If a gun is put to your head, you are still responsible for your actions, because the choice to die was still a choice available to you. It is something that emphasizes an incredibly harsh respsonsibility on the ideal of freedom, as people are no longer able to blame outside their circumstances for their own choices, it is at the same time liberating but heavy. This is the same philosophy which Gogol holds.

This idea of freedom is reflected in Gogol’s ability as well, it’s one that allows him to tranvserse space with almost absolute freedom. He can move things around at his will, as even dimmensions bend to his choices.

During their fight, Atsushi assigns him the predetermined role of a villain. As if he was a character cast in a play, rather than a real person. Atsushi himself like a striped tiger, sees things in blakc and white, often loses control of himself and blames the tiger rather than his own free will and emotions when his ability went crazy and lashed out. He is in a way the opposite of Gogol, someone who rties to chain himself down because it gives him a purpose, rather than soemone who liberates himself. Atsushi clings onto his past pain, his obligation to save others even to harm himself, and repeats those actions without analyzing their true meaning or even taking full responsibility for them.

Gogol then plays to Atsushi’s expectations of the world. His black and white, regimented story roles. In Atsushi’s mind people can only cause hurt to other people, because they’re bad people who feel nothing. He has a hard time grasping complexity, because he himself does not want to take responsibility for his negative emotions, his resentment, his anger, so he completely fails to see it in other people.

Gogol confronts Atsushi with the reality that society is not rational and acceptable to him, but rather it is fundamentally irrational and something unacceptable.

Gogol kills people, he acts as a terrorist, but his pursuit of freedom is the real deal. For Gogol, complete freedom also means the freedom to lose others, the freedom to hurt other people, the freedom to live also means the freedom to die. He accepts the anguish of existence, and the responsbility of all of his choices because to him that is what it means to be free.

He does not take orders, he chooses to cooperate with Fyodor fully as an equal, because if he took orders he would no longer be responsible for his own essence, and no longer free. He does bad things of his own free will and does not attempt to hide from the guilt, and instead frees it and takes responsibility for the kind of person he is because that is what it emans to be radically free.

He is someone completely honest with himself, because decieving himself, or lying, is something that would once again make him untrue to his own essence which he wishes to set out to define.

Which is why Gogol is honest to Atsushi, but also tells him not to listen to the words of a clown too seriously. Because what GOgol says is a heavy revelation. The extreme freedom he exists for is almost too much of a burden, because it means accountability in every single one of your actions in every single circumstance.

Atsushi can choose to live free of the stories of good and evil he thinks is meaningful, or he could continue to live bound to those stories trying to seek out meaning in them. If Atsushi let go of what other people told was meaningful, than Atsushi would have to define it for himself, which is hard for someone so desperate in validation from others they are almost entirely lacking in a sense of self. It would mean him acknowledging that the validation they constantly risk their life to seek means absolutely nothing.

He might be happier not having that revelation, to think there is still value to his pointless struggles. Camus argues that after the revelation of an empty life, our search for meaning and happiness is a moral obligation, even though in the end it is as futile as siyphus pushing a boulder up a stone. It’s labor for labor’s purpose that will amount to nothing in the end. Existence is a search for meaning in Camus’ view. A search we must undertake even though we are certain there will be no reward.

Gogol’s ultimate trick is to switch the roles that the detective agency thought were so fixed in place. They were the heroes one moment, and the villains the next, because the meaning and security they thought they had never existed in the first place.

He sets them adrift from meaning the same way that he is. He frees them from obligation of protecting others, and makes them have to survive for themselves. He presents them with the same moral dilemna that he awakened to.

Are the armed detective agency the good guys because they want to be? Or are they obligated? The same way Atsushi believes he is obligated to save others because he believes it is the only thing that will give his life worth. The detective agnecy are in a trap they 100% could have avoided if they simply made the choice for themselves to avoided it instead of acting out of thoughtless obligation.

There is one truly seriously philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Gogol appears as a careless clown, but he is actually the most responsible character in the story. He lives with his choices, and then dies with them as well to live a life perfectly defined by his own choices, himself. His death therefore, awakens the characters to the fact that they are also responsible for their own choices.

#nikolai gogol #nikolai gogol bsd #bsd meta #bungo stray dogs meta #bungo stray dogs literary analysis #bungou stray dogs meta #bungou stray dogs literary analysis #decay of angels #bungou stray dogs

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ofheroesandvillains · 5 years

Text

To Catch A Ghost 2 - B.Russo

Words: 2.5k Warnings: None Summary: You find a way in.

Hi everyone! Thank you so much for reading and commenting on part 1. It’s a bit of a slow start - bear with me. I did some research for this chapter and it was super underwhelming. Reader is a sniper in this story and the US military doesn't have much info on them so...creative licence and all that. The squad mentioned is not real (to my knowledge).

(Not my gif, credit to the creator!)

“He got any family? Friends?”

“Grew up in the system. Surrogate family was gunned down in broad daylight.”

“The Castles.”

You remembered hearing about that particular tragedy on the news. Your eyes travelled to the black and white photo paperclipped to Russo’s profile. They both looked like hell, covered in dirt and sweat-soaked clothes, but their smiles were blinding.

“That’s right. Castle’s skipped town until this mess with the CIA dies down, so he shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Alright. Anyone else I should know about?”

“Curtis Hoyle. Former Navy SARC.”

“Connection?”

“They served together. Hoyle runs group therapy sessions at St. John’s for vets - sessions funded by Russo.”

---------

3 months later...

Most assumed that Billy Russo was a man of fine taste - he had enough money, good-looks, and charm to ensure that people swiftly forgot that he was the product of a broken and abusive system. That was Billy Russo the businessman, and while he took his job very seriously, that man would never be who he really was.

Billy Russo was a soldier. A man who was happy to get his hands dirty if it meant getting the job done. And his hands had been covered in so much blood lately, he could barely recognise them. It was all worth it, of course. He’d do anything for Frank, and if that meant putting his benefactor six feet under, then he’d do it with a smile on his face. And he did.

Thinking about Rawlins put a bad taste in his mouth. To know that he’d been reliant on the bastard responsible for tearing Frankie’s family apart, his family apart…if he could kill him again, he would.

Unfortunately, killing Rawlins had left ANVIL in a precarious position. The company had been slowly gaining a reputation, but he knew these things took time.

Not only was his biggest investor gone, but he’d also lost a lot of Rawlins’ contacts and personnel. Recruitment was slow. Though ANVIL was kept out of the papers after all that went down with Rawlins, his employees knew about the investigation and many had jumped off what they believed was a sinking ship. His credibility had gone down and building it back up was costing him money he didn’t have.

Money he wasn’t sure he’d make without that elusive government contract he’d been chasing.

“Goddamn it.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose with a thumb and forefinger. The numbers in his excel spreadsheet were starting to blur together, and he wasn’t sure how much more he could take on two hours of sleep. He wanted to hit something. He wanted to see Frank. He wanted to talk to Curtis.

He wanted to do anything but what he was doing.

---------

“My cover?”

“Will have to be military - Keres Squad. You have the training, and the confidentiality will allow minimal exposure when he inevitably starts snooping. I’ve called in a favour with the DoD, we’re working on making this air-tight.”

“Why does it feel like you’re turning me into a female version of Russo?”

“He’ll be more sympathetic if you share similarities. The more of himself he sees in you, the more likely he’ll be to take you on.”

“Which fortune teller told you that crap? The more we have in common, the more he’ll dig.”

Coulson’s lips twitched into a barely-there smile.

“Yes, and you’re going to let him.”

---------

After months of watching him, you’d come to learn that ANVIL was pretty much Billy Russo’s entire life. He worked hard, you’d give him that, but that was pretty much all he did. Some nights he’d go out and find himself a distraction, others would be spent away on a job. But there was one day each fortnight that was untouchable.

Every second Thursday would see him out of ANVIL by midday, cheque in hand, and a small smile on his face. Today was one of those days, and the wait was finally over.

“You don’t have to do that, Ri.”

You shooed Curtis away when he tried to take the chair off your hands.

“And you don’t have to sit here listening to our crap every week, but you do. ‘Cause you’re a good guy.”

Curtis smiled wide and his eyes narrowed.

“That your roundabout way of complimenting yourself?”

“Hey, you’re the one always preaching about acknowledging the good inside each of us,” you recited with a pointed look.

He shoved your shoulder in good humour.

“Alright, smartass.”

You smiled. Curtis was a damn good guy, one of the most likeable people you’d met so far. But damn, as soon as he considered someone a friend, or worse, his responsibility, there was no chance of getting out of some serious talking. So when you turned around after stacking the last chair, you weren’t surprised to see him studying you as he so often did.

“Can I ask you something?” He crossed his arms, that appraising look in his eyes.

Of all the tough nuts he’d had to crack in his life, you’d been one of the toughest. He wasn’t quite sure he’d cracked you at all, to be honest.

“And don’t get me wrong, I’m happy you’re here - hell, I’m proud of you. You got a good head on your shoulders.”

“So do you, Curt.” You huffed a laugh. “What’s the question?”

Curtis shrugged, and you could see his discomfort plain as day - he wasn’t one to hide his feelings. You knew there was a question he was dying to ask, one he never wanted to ask one of his people - why are you here?

Or at least a variation of it...you gave Curtis Hoyle credit, he was sharper than you thought he’d be. That was a problem for another day.

“Do these sessions help you?”

He’d never drive anyone who needed help away, and he knew better than most that some people hid their scars better than others - especially those trained to do so.

But you were something he’d never be able to understand, not really.

Soldiers...they were used to an enemy they could see, one they could fire at. Most of your life was spent killing ghosts stuck in the shadows - people like yourself. There came a point where feeling no longer came into question. Desensitisation was a blessing in your line of work.

You couldn’t tell Curtis that, because no matter how much it felt like it, he wasn’t your friend. He was just another person who knew the woman you were pretending to be - Sergeant Riley Jameson, Keres Squad Sniper, doesn’t talk much about what happened over there. And he was absolutely vital to your investigation.

That didn’t mean there wasn’t truth in your answer, a truth you’d never thought to confront before. On those days you spent alone in the cabin with nothing but time, you refused to admit to yourself that maybe you missed your old life a little more than you let on.

Sometimes you hoped for a knock on the door, a familiar face to try and rope you into a familiar situation.

You might even thank Coulson for this opportunity in the end.

“I just...sometimes I miss it, y’know? I mean, yeah, some of the things I’ve done…” you shook your head. “But there’s that familiarity to it all, that routine that kinda becomes the new normal after a while - a place to belong, a family you become a part of. It never really leaves you.”

He didn’t say a word, and you were grateful. It was the first time you spoke about something like this in the month you’d been attending his sessions. You’d admit that things were easier around Curtis though. They needed to be or you’d get nowhere.

“So maybe I deal with it better, but I think I do need to be here...just to feel that familiarity without itching for a gun in my hand again, y’know?”

A beat passed where he just stared at you, and then he smiled one of the softest smiles you’d seen him wear. It looked a lot like the one Clint had given you when you’d hit your first bullseye.

“Did that- did that make sense?”

“Absolutely.”

Surprisingly, it wasn’t Curtis who replied. William Russo, you recalled, had a voice like velvet. And his steps were annoyingly silent.

Right on time.

“Well, well,” Curtis teased with a grin. “Look who it is.”

They met each other halfway, sharing genuine smiles and a hug for good measure.

“How you doin’, man?”

“Gettin’ out of bed is a bastard, but I’m still kickin’.”

“Damn right, you are.” Russo smiled.

“Oh,” Curtis shot you an inviting smile and waved you over. “Billy Russo, meet Riley Jameson. Ri, this is that hotshot CEO I was tellin’ you about the other week.”

Billy’s brows arched. His suit was immaculate, his hair and beard groomed to perfection, and not for the first time since you started this assignment did you wonder just how someone got that lucky.

There was a spark of recognition in his eyes when Curtis introduced you, but ‘Billy the friend’ quickly slipped back into ‘Billy the CEO’. It was one of the reasons you hated espionage - no one was ever themselves. Everyone had a different face to show each person they knew, and you didn’t have the time or patience to figure out which one was real.

Come to think of it, that was why you hated human interaction in general.

“Well, damn. It is a small world,” Billy said with a smile.

As small as I need it to be, you thought with a smile of your own. Curtis’ gaze darted between you in a mix of curiosity and confusion.

“You two know each other?”

“In passing,” you answered. “It’s nice to see you again, Marine.”

Russo laughed, flashing those pearly whites with a contagious smile.

“Likewise.” His smile died down and he jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I’m uh, I’m sorry about that, by the way. Couldn’t help but overhear…”

You waved him off.

“It’s no problem, Mr Russo.”

“Billy, please.” His tongue darted out to wet his lips, and there was a sudden intensity in his dark eyes. “Y’know, if you find yourself missing it very often, you’re more than welcome to come by ANVIL and see how things work.”

“Billy,” Curtis warned.

Billy held his hands up in surrender, lips quirking into a bashful smile. “I’m just sayin’. The offer’s always there.”

You cocked a brow. “ANVIL? That’s the security company, right?”

He seemed to perk up at your interest, and you heard Curtis sigh quietly.

“We focus on reintegrating ex-soldiers like yourself back into the world in an environment more suited to their skill set.”

“Sounds like hard work.”

“It can be,” he nodded. “But it’s worth it.”

His lithe fingers plucked a card from the inner pocket of his suit.

“Here, feel free to call or swing by sometime. I could give you a tour of the facility.”

You took the sleek card with a nod.

“Thanks, I might take you up on that.” You smiled and looked to an unusually silent Curtis. He wasn’t quick enough to wipe the frown off his face.

“Well, I should probably head off. I’ll see you next week, Curt.”

“Yeah, of course.” Curtis clapped a hand onto your shoulder. “Thanks again for helping out.”

“No problem. It was nice seeing you, Mr Russo.”

“And you, Miss Jameson.” He smiled politely, the words rolling off his tongue like a purr.

“Riley.” You called out from the doorway, and he responded in kind.

“Billy.”

He watched you disappear for the second time, this time with a satisfied smile. Your first encounter had left him intrigued, and he’d even admit to hoping for a second whenever he went to his little bar after a particularly rough day. It hadn’t happened, and he’d almost forgotten that one night entirely.

“Don’t even think about it, Russo,” Curtis said with an amused shake of his head.

“It’s nothing.”

Curtis rolled his eyes. Billy would have been a lot more convincing if he wasn’t still staring at the doorway. “I’m serious, man. She’d hand you your own ass on a silver platter.”

He turned his stare to Curtis with a devious smirk.

“My kind of girl then?”

Curtis glowered at him, but it only earned him a chuckle.

“I’m just messing with you, man. After all that shit with Madani...” Billy shook his head and ignored the sympathetic look Curtis shot his way. “What’s her story, anyway?”

“Who, Riley? She doesn’t like talking about it.”

Yeah, no kidding, Billy thought. He couldn’t even get a name out of you, and it was clear that Curtis was going to respect that.

“Nothin’ at all?”

“Look, I know that thing with Rawlins hit ANVIL hard. You need new recruits, I get that. But I don’t know about this one, man. You have no idea how hard it is to get a read on that woman. The shit she had to do...something tells me I don’t wanna know about it.”

Billy’s eyes darkened and Curtis should have known that that would be the wrong thing to say.

“Spec Ops?”

He hesitated, and Billy could almost see the conflict play out in his head. The confidentiality between his group pitted against the trust he had in his friends. His friends would always win, and they both knew that. But something else was at play here that Billy didn’t know about.

There was a wariness in his old friend. He didn’t blame Billy for working with Rawlins, he hadn’t known about the man’s role in the death of the Castles, after all. But Billy had always wanted more. As someone who’d grown up with nothing, the prospect of having the best, of earning it and affording it, was something that fueled a lot of his choices.

He wanted ANVIL to thrive and that meant having the best employees. He’d listened when warned about Lewis, but these were desperate times and Curtis worried about his friend’s judgement. Someone like Riley could be a great asset, but she was far too closed off to be entirely trustworthy.

His shoulders slumped and he sighed.

“Keres Squad.”

“No shit?” Billy’s brows arched. They’d all heard the rumours: an elite squad of female snipers. The theory was that they were easier to overlook, and physiologically more suited to the position, but the military never seemed to give that much thought.

Curtis shook his head. “That’s all I’m saying. Just...promise me you’ll be careful.”

A genuine seriousness settled over them both and Billy nodded. “You know I will.”

Between Rawlins and Madani, he had learned a valuable lesson in trust. That was something he wouldn’t be giving away so freely. He was done with those games, the next person that came for him or for his company would be leaving in a body-bag.

“Enough about that, it’s not why I’m here anyway.”

“If you’re offering me a job again, you can forget about that too!”

Billy laughed.

---------

“You rang?”

“Where were you?”

“Getting that therapy you keep telling me I need. Don't worry, he hasn’t found me out yet.”

“Is it done?”

“Of course. You have any news for me?”

“Stark fundraiser in Manhattan next week. I’ll have Vivian make contact. If he goes for it, it’ll give you time to bug the place.”

“Oh, he’ll go for it. He can’t afford not to.”

“Good. Keep me-”

“Updated, yeah. I got it.”

“And, Nine?”

“Yeah?”

“...be careful.”

---------

Not sure how I feel about this one.

TAGS: @its-my-little-dumpster-fire, @sylphene, @ariminiria, @gollyderek

#billy russo #billy russo x reader #billy russo fic #billy russo imagine #billy russo fanfiction #the punisher #the punisher fanfiction

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itsclownhours · 4 years

Conversation

merlin as tumblr posts again because when i edited a typo in the original it fucked up the formatting

everyone: you have to make time for yourself

morgana: *stays up until 1 am every night crying* me time

morgana: ohhhh so the pain is forever and endless i get it now

young!mordred: once i learn how to read and write it’s over for you hoes

lancelot, in cursive: i can’t read cursive handwriting

gwaine: what does this say

elyan: i can’t read cursive handwriting

gwaine: bitch me neither that’s why i asked

arthur, to merlin, about lancelot: is he...y’know…*gestures downard to super hell*

uther, straight: hey what’s up guys do you want to go get some food

arthur and morgana, gay: ??????

uther: oh sorry i mean asgdhjdhs guys do you??? want some food??? lmao ashdjdjhs

arthur and morgana: oh! agshdjjshsj yeah lmao agshdj

morgana: do you ever associate the word “girlfriend” with wlw so much that you forget straight boys have girlfriends

gwen: am taking care of a tiny kitten. have given it an excellent name. dad thinks i’m calling her “minty” but this is actually short for The Government

gwen: The Government bit my finger and pooped on the floor

gwaine: peak art is when you were like six and you scribbled all over ms paint and then carefully paintbucketed in all the different shapes in the scribbles to make “stained glass”

morgause: forcing my car to commit sins so it goes to hell with me when i die

leon, after arthur gives the knights a pep talk: so motivational...time to drill a hole in my skull

morgana: i want to be a she really did that!! kind of girl but i don’t do anything

arthur: pros and cons of being my friend:

arthur: pro: you have a friend

arthur: con: it’s me

gwaine, to lancelot: bro let’s watch a horror movie together...bro you look scared do you wanna share a blanket dude? if you wanna hold hands it’s ok. if you wanna rest your head on my shoulder it’s alright bro...bro if you wanna kiss that’s understandable that was a scary movie...we can keep cuddling after the movie is over it’s alright dude…

lancelot: old town road but he just keeps listing all the places he has horses

gwaine: i got the horses in the back

gwaine: horses on the track

gwaine: horses in the shack and i got horses fetching snacks

gwaine: i got the horses in earth’s core

gwaine: down under the floor

gwaine: horses in the store and i got horses on the moor

gwaine: died and came back as a cowboy i call that reintarnation

morgana: *shows up at college* excuse me will someone please direct me to the leftist brainwashing class? i’m here for the leftist brainwashing class

merlin: finally found someone i was more disappointed in that myself: the entirety of america camelot

morgause: customer (derogatory)

arthur: business major (derogatory)

leon: leonardo dicaprio date a woman over 25 challenge

gwaine: thought that said “leonardo da vinci” and was confused since da vinci was gay and also since you were calling out someone who’s been dead for well over 7 years

leon: well. da vinci has been well over 7 years, i’ll give you that

morgana: the retirement age needs to be lowered to 25. i’ve had enough

gwaine: i’m fucking in luigi’s mansion

leon: who?

gwaine: some italian freak

gwaine: oh you meant who am i fucking. your mom

leon: stop setting things on fire because you’re curious about what will happen. what will happen is fire

gwaine: but what if...something else happens. just this 1 time

morgause: bored? burn an orphan. who’re they gonna tell? their parents?

morgana: due to personal reasons i will be a serial arsonist

mithian: fruit (affectionate)

arthur: going to the fruit (derogatory) store do you want anything

gwen: fruit (salad, yummy yummy)

morgana, to gwen: i’m allergic to hookup culture and too weird to participate anyway. die in my arms

kilgharrah: i am fast and full of teeth. i will die in a barn fire

morgana: not evil anymore i want to be loved now

morgana: evil again

morgause: every day i put on my evil little clothes and do my evil little tasks

percival: megan thee stallion and timothee chalamet are the same age

gwaine: megan thee stallion 🤝 timo thee chalamet

morgana: hey how many swords do you have

morgause: sword of a lot

morgana: blocked

morgause: parried

morgana and gwen simultaneously in 1x10: *chanting* girls with swords girls with swords

morgana: the more knives you have the more valid you are

kilgharrah: blocked. blocked. blocked. you’re all blocked. none of you are free from sin.

morgana: seven deadly sins speedrun

gwaine: i want 6 pet sloths so i can name them after every sin except for sloth

merlin: the eighth deadly sin is networking

arthur: online school culture is constantly wondering if there’s a sneaky little assignment you missed...is it tucked under modules or assignments or heaven forbid, announcements? who’s to say?

gaius: asynchronous learning

merlin, a clown: mmmnaptime

arthur: have you ever just cried because you’re you

elyan, to percival: bro, we are teens . it’s ok to cry around me . i’m your best friend . i love you … bro we are kissing now … no don’t stop bro … bro …

morgana: mad bc i was told as the bride my wedding would be “my day” but actually where will be a whole other bride there and we will have to share it

leon: i’m disgusted every time someone does a gender reveal and it’s about a gender i already know about, what kind of reveal is that

leon: gender reveal party??? no, this is a gender repeal party. we out here revoking genders

gwaine: you’re laughing. i asked you who sings party rock anthem and you’re laughing

gwaine: make no mistake not only am i party rocking but i’m also in the house tonight

elyan: are you shuffling?

gwaine: everyday

morgana: lung extensions

morgana: with extended lungs you can: scream longer, breathe harder, brag about extended lungs

morgana: this procedure is not legal but i will do it for you

morgana: do not tell the police or morgause

morgana: i’m so sick of dna, i’m going to have all mine removed

morgause: good news! this is a real thing that can happen to you

morgana: perfect, sign me up

morgana: if YOU die because i poisoned you...how is that MY fault like i’m sorry you aren’t immune to my poisons i think that’s genuinely something you need to work on. fix yourself before blaming others

arthur: my body is NOT a “temple”...it is a CLOWN CAR and NONE OF THESE BITCHES KNOW HOW TO DRIVE

morgause: live

morgause: laugh

morgause: l u r k

mcdonald’s employee: please sir get off the table

gwaine: I ASKED FOR TWO LARGE FRIES *dumping bag of fried out onto the floor* BUT INSTEAD GOT A HUNDRED FUCKEN LITTLE ONES

merlin: i relate to vampires because i too must be clearly and specifically invited in before i have the audacity to try to participate in anything

gwaine: it can’t be september, just yesterday is was marchgustuary

lancelot: today’s date: [REDACTED]/[REDACTED]/20

gwaine: why are internet friends not normalized. it’s 2020 they’re probably making robots that will wipe your ass for you and i can’t text grace in the uk and tell her to have a good day? fuck you

percival: imagine if halsey was in beauty and the beast

elyan: are you insane like gaston. been in pain like gaston. bought a hundred dollar bottle of champagne like gaston

arthur: my dad is learning about pronouns/gender identity and he called me in the middle of the night to tell me he is cis

merlin: ough. those first 400 bites of dirt were not so good. maybe the next one will be better

morgana: i’m at the dark candy store, buying sorrowful ranchers

merlin: i’m surprised no one has ever punched me in the face

gwen: i want a gf so i can send her memes about loving my gf

morgause: oh to cook with my wife and stand directly in front of cabinets and drawers she needs to open

morgause: decided i will no longer be paying taxes. what are they gonna do, tax me more? go ahead. i won’t pay those either. oh i’m going to prison? the one paid for by my tax dollars? sorry, didn’t pay em. now there is no prison. i am at least 3 steps ahead of the government at all times

merlin: lab safety but the teacher just wants to you die

merlin: lab safety: 1. drink whatever’s in that beaker. i know you fucking want to

morgause: my therapist is selling her house so i’m gonna find the listing online and make her living room my zoom backgrounds before our next session. you wanna get in my head? ok well i’m in your home babe. i’m in charge now

morgana: yeah i see why you’re in therapy

morgana: i hate it when people ask me to “explain my thought process” like hell if i know

morgana: what’s going on in that head of yours?” nothing i want to be a part of

mordred: hey girls what’s the hot gossip what’s new what’s the 411

morgana and morgause: everything is bad and getting worse by the day

morgause: common letter greetings from 1889

morgause: dearest my-soon-to-be-enemy

morgause: salutations and i hope you enjoy contact prison

morgause: i hope this letter finds you in a ditch

arthur: *highlights all the wrong and unimportant stuff with full confidence*

merlin: i’ve tried opening my mouth and saying words before and i’ve gotta say, i’m not a fan

morgana: a large group of humans is called a fuck that

website: synonyms for blood: juice

mithian: thank you thesaurus.com, that is absolutely not what i was looking for

gwaine: gen z humor was single-handedly cultivated by the zoo wee mama comic and you can’t convince me otherwise

morgana: screw this it’s halloween now *turns into a swarm of bats them consumes the moon*

morgana: i can’t believe the heterosexuals are gone. they’re gone

uther: we’re still here

arthur: who said that

gwaine: no more france

gwaine: society has progressed passed the need for france

morgause: girls night out (of body experience)

morgana, to morgause: what do you mean “what have i been up to”...i’m out here ruining my own life as always bitch

merlin: stop complaining about your life. there are literally people living in camelot

arthur, trying to find new knights: oh so you’re a human? name three pictures with traffic lights in them

gwaine: we mcfreaking lost her doctor

morgause: looking for a wife in the walmart

morgause: arrested for visiting www.killing.com/murder

gwaine, to merlin: no bro this isn’t a date listen bro

gwaine: it’s bruhnch

morgause, to cenred: if you think i’m not interested, you’re right

gwen: put a pancake on a girl’s head when she’s asleep to keep her warm and safe

morgana: idk what mad scientist needs to hear this today but your goggles and lab coat are incredibly flattering and all your experiments will block away the scientific community who called you a fool

morgause: i’m gonna fucking die disease

morgause: symptoms: back hurts a bit too much for a bit too long

arthur: if you think i’m annoying now wait until i get over my fear of being perceived as annoying

merlin: sorry if i’m bothering you

surgeon: how do you keep waking up and saying that

gwaine: home depot needs more small tunnels for me to crawl through tbh

percival: hot tip: soup is customizable! go wild but know your limits

morgana: brains say “i know a spot” and take you to a traumatic memory from 2011

mithian: “can you multitask” yes actually i am losing my mind and chilling at the same time

morgana: quarantine schedule to keep you on track

morgana: wake up

morgana: neglect online school

morgana: yearn (ongoing project)

morgana: again!

mithian: if cats don’t want to be held like little babies maybe they shouldn’t be roughly the size and shape of little babies

morgause: fuck this pandemic i could’ve ruined 2020 on my own

morgana: a cute girl told me she has lots of plants in her house and i told her for some fucking reason “damn the oxygen at your place must be mad crisp” and somehow still got her number so. chase your dreams. nothing is impossible apparently

morgana: oh to wear a knife strapped against my thigh beneath a silk dress

morgana, running off with morgause at the end of season 2: i hate this place i want to go to build a bear

morgana, at work: i’m evil

morgana, 1 second after clocking out: not evil anymore i want to be loved now

morgana, the next day at work: evil again

season 2 morgana: i am fine thank you for asking! though recently there has been a darkness growing within me

morgause: *thinks about love* okay well i am just losing my mind and being insane now

arthur: you think you can hurt my feelings? i’ve been the least favorite in every single friendship group i’ve had since i was 8

morgana, staring out the window at arthur and merlin: look at them plotting my downfall

mithian: i wanna buy clown noses in bulk and start sticking them on every person i see whose mask is pulled too low

mithian: oh to be a tiny cat whose biggest concern is the looming threat of being gently picked up and kissed on the head

morgana: i deserve to be kissed

morgana: did you have a homoerotic friendship with a girl in high school that ended in tragedy and you two are never talking again or are you normal?

mithian: just diagnosed with forehead kiss deficiency :/

morgana: i think i’ll continue to wear a mask when this shit’s all over, and huge sunglasses. my face is none of your business

morgause: my therapist told me that sometimes when a person consumes the same piece of media over and over they may be unconsciously coping with a mental block so now i’m trying to figure out what the fuck i was going through that made me watch ratatouille 8 times a day for a solid month in middle school

morgause: opposite of depression nap. depression awakeness. refreshing the same three websites over and over. there’s nothing new on any of them. eight seconds have passed and it feels like a century

morgana: very homophobic that my head is not laying on the chest of my maidservant as i am drifting off to sleep

merlin: no no, it’s fine, i’ll text myself back

morgana: *pines* *longs* *yearns* *pines* *longs* *yearns* *pines* *longs* *yearns* *pines* *longs* *yearns* *pines* *longs* *yearns* *pines* *longs* *yearns* *pines* *longs* *yearns* *pines* *longs* *yearns*

arthur: i’d have to be a fool not to? being a fool and not doing things are my top two activities

gwaine: you think it’s easy to be me? you think it’s easy to get up every. single. day. and be an industrial grade dumbass? well it’s not. but that’s what i do. and i’ll never stop.

morgana: ah shit i’m sorry man, my schedule for the week is all booked

sunday: yearn

monday: pine

tuesday: long

wednesday: ache

thursday: sigh

friday: lament

saturday: crave

morgana: talents include: being a public menace, denying God’s will, petting dogs, yearning, being dramatic, witchcraft, quoting classic literature when no one asked, napping, befriending a murder of crows, being gay, covering up my emotions by being “the funny friend” when in reality i’m really going through it, wistfully staring out the car window

merlin: *doesn’t even do the bare minimum* all in a day’s work

cenred: a “period” is not an excuse to have an attitude

morgause: i miss the times when men would go to war and die

morgana: the cheap halloween vampire fangs stay ON during sex

gwen: maybe i pspspspsp’ed you because i love you. did you think of that? huh?

morgana: mom said it’s my turn to hand out the ominous and vague warnings

arthur: that wasn’t mom

uther: she JUST SAID it was her turn

morgause: i’m a chill person but if my back doesn’t stop hurting i’m going to take out my spine and beat God with it

mithian: one of these days i’m going to say the f word

mithian: then you’ll all be sorry

morgause: 3 words every girl wants to hear

morgause: club penguin membership

morgana: hmm, yes.

morgana: time to s i p

morgana: some *~crispy~*

morgana: d i h y d r o g e n m o n o x i d e

morgause: roll call! raise your hand if you’re in the following fandoms:

morgause: 1. suffering 2. the pain of living

morgana: *raises both hands and a leg*

leon: it’s so hard being a single mom when you have no kids and are a male teenager

merlin: yeah bro hit me up and we’ll cancel some plans sometime

morgana: my brain, or as i like to call it, the suffer contraption

morgause: my circle so small i almost cut myself off

morgause hyping herself up before entering any public area: i’m normal i’m normal i’m normal i’m normal i’m normal i’m normal i’m normal i’m normal i’m normal i’m normal i’m normal i’m normal i’m normal i’m normal i’m normal

arthur: today in french we learned how to say “what’s in the bag” and i couldn’t stop laughing because

arthur: swaggity swag qu’est-ce qui dans le sac

merlin: even when i am not speaking, know that horrible sentences are raging within me

mithian in 5x04: sorry bro i can’t go out tonight. i’m stuck in an eternal state of melancholy

morgause: shower gel label: immerse yourself in this new “Me Time” luxury frooty tooty. abandon all sense of identity and dissolve your memories into this soothing chemical broth. one billion melons are in this tube...use them wisely

leon, writing a headline about the most recent knights’ mission: local dumbasses knew that what they were getting themselves into and did it anyways

morgana: *feels random pain in body*

morgana: kill me

mithian: *slowly inches closer to your pet*

morgause: *refuses to look at texts* i love conversation and communication

arthur: cute gender neutral things to call your partner

arthur: significant annoyance

leon: the most unrealistic fantasy trope is the one where half of the pair works in some sort of shop and one is a customer because i have literally never thought about a customer with anything other than contempt

gwaine: why is everyone talking about 1d all of a sudden did one of them die

elyan: they’re 10 years old now

gwaine: i wish them luck 4th grade is tough!!

gwaine: must i pursue a career? is it not enough to be passionate about tv shows and snack foods?

leon, aroace: cool date idea: me eating oatmeal by myself

morgana: i have no self of steam

gwaine: i hate wearing a mask. i miss being able to gently kiss my trader joe’s cashier on the lips after they ring up my $8 box of blueberries

morgana: committing acts of violence today…*pushes morgause’s glass of water off the counter*

gwaine: mario will do anything to put a smile on your face

morgana: haha we get along so well...our brains just work the same way

morgause, after changing her entire personality to match morgana’s after analyzing the way she talks and texts: haha yeah it’s incredible

gwaine: covered in sauce, trembling

arthur: *says the vaguest most incoherent shit ever*

arthur: you know what i mean :/

[online]

morgana: *screenshots things her girlfriend said to her so she can read it again later* yeah i’m not gay

uther: dude no offence i don’t want to sound like an sjw or anything but if you have a girlfriend you’re straight. that’s just how it works

morgana: i’m a girl

uther: what the fuck

morgana: the second you say “family group chat” i know we are not the same

gwen: what if early in the morning after buying groceries we got caught in the rain and i used my jacket to cover your head ut we still got soaked and we made a fire at home and brewed tea and sat together watching the rain as our cats hid under our feets at each sound of thunder and we ate stew for dinner and watched tv until we fell asleep on the couch with your head resting on my shoulder

gwaine, to percival: hold my hand bro we’re crossing the street

percival: imageine if we all just started ignoring celebrities though

percival: i can’t stop thinking about how funny this would be. imagine kyie jenner posting a selfie and it gets 12 likes

morgana: this isn’t fun anymore i need a kiss

morgause at 1159 pm: life’s great lol

morgause at 1201 am: does anyone really know me? most importantly do i really know me? what if life doesn’t get better than this?

merlin: king i needbfjdjgnjfg qldkr snmsmdjgjt ….. .. i need--fjrjkrhgphpqn dd

arthur: huh *dunks merlin’s head back underwater*

morgana: i don’t go to therapy or take any pills i just rawdog life and let my brain turn into soup

mordred: dark emails

morgause: to whom it WILL concern

morgana: now that this email has found you

gwaine: hi waiter could i get the spaghetti i promise i’ll behave this time

merlin: the sexiest thing about me? everything hurts my feelings

gwaine: how is sex fun if i have to remove my crocs to have it

elyan: if he makes you remove your crocs for sex he isn’t the one

morgause: a motherfucker could use an embrace

morgana: every night after 10pm my feelings start crawling out, starved, as i beat them with a moderately large stick vigorously hissing “stay back” until i inevitably fall asleep

fanfiction: there’s only one room available…

morgause, who specifically chose a rated m and explicit story: oh my gosh there’s only one room they’re gonna share a bed what’s gonna happen next

morgana: i can have a little unrealistic romantic fantasy. as a treat

arthur: some of y’all weren’t asked out as a joke in middle school and it shows

morgana: how is everyone doing. i’ll go first i’m doing badly

morgana: being a kid was so fucking funny we’d just go around lying to each other’s faces constantly to impress each other one of the knights told me he was the first person to visit the sun and when i asked him what it was like to prove he was lying he said he didn’t remember because they sent him there when he was a baby and to this day the mental image of nasa launching an unsupervised baby into the sun still makes me crack up

elyan: do you wish you were seeing somebody

leon: a therapist

morgause: when you see someone from high school and they don’t recognize you that’s the exact opposite of the mortifying ordeal of being known. the gratifying relief of being forgotten

[texting]

morgana: you seem hard to kill

morgause: aw thank you

morgause: i haven’t been killed yet

morgana: to your knowledge

morgause: what

morgana: just truly bonkers how much i love lying down……..like being horizontal? Unparalleled

arthur: when i was younger i really thought that piranhas were going to be a bigger issue for me than they’ve turned out to be

morgause: filling out the depression and anxiety checkboxes at the doctors is always so sad but also very very funny

morgause: i am handed a piece of paper. i check off a box that says “every day i wish i were dead”. i hand back the paper. the paper and its contents are never again discussed.

morgana: unfortunately, due to several experiences in my youth, i cannot just “walk up and join the circle of people talking”, but it does sound lovely thank you

morgana: if california is so expensive why don’t you move to somewhere like ohio

morgause: full offense but i’d rather be dead in california than alive in ohio

morgause: ugly and uninspiring--review of ohio

morgana: staying up late not even fun anymore it’s just sad

morgause: everyone should be comfortable in their own skin :)

morgause’s brain: except for you

morgause: except for me :)

mithian: please peer pressure me into finishing projects

merlin: do it or you’re straight

mithian: i said peer pressure not threaten

morgause: the year is 2030. bakery art is so realistic, literally anything could be cake. the uncertainty has gripped the world in fear. i go to hug my wife for comfort. she is cake.

morgause: i sob in despair as i eat my cake wife. she is delicious

gwen: do ladies love stupid men or do they just love men who don’t exhaust every opportunity to feel smart

gwen: “i used to think that melancholy was a vegetable” that’s incredible, let’s hang out more

morgause: basically i accidentally listened to a song a few years ago and it led to this

morgana: *desperately tries to romanticise her homework*

uther: do i have to be pretty? is it not enough to simply be the loudest person in the room with the worst opinions

morgana: oh i can’t possibly study, i have allotted the next six hours to yearning vaguely

morgause: allow me to de-introduce myself

morgause: my name is [redacted]

arthur: i have no good posts today i’m sorry guys

merlin: haha “today”

mordred: “do we perhaps use magic because we were bullied and needed blah blah special interest blah blah” shut the FUCK up i use magic to see my anime husband’s big fucking honkers. sorry you got pantsed in front of your crush

morgana: i came here to bully people

mordred: is it because you got pantsed in front of your crush

morgana: no it’s because i’m deranged

mithian: pretty sure seven deadly sins is a bit excessive

mithian: just combine wrath and gluttony and make hangry

mithian: sloth and pride make Bottoming

morgana: despicable me ruined the word minion whenever i become a supervillain i’m just going to have to call them my homies or whatever

gwen: as a bisexual i am attracted to lanky boys with dark hair, girls who look like they could kill me, and anyone wearing vampire teeth

morgana: if someone tried to assassinate me that would make me feel so important and valued and beloved

gwaine: turn down for whom?

mithian: fact: usage of the word “the” has begun to decline. this is because as more and more people become educated, usage of the word “thoum’st” has become more common.

morgana, kidnapping mithian in 5x04: truth or dare? uhhh i dare you to………………………………..fall in love with me. haha i’m just joking bro………………..unless…………………………?

gwaine: my thoughts are like a clearance sale

gwaine: once it’s gone it’s gone

morgana: *pronounces “hors d’oeuvres” as “horse divorce” specifically to piss off morgause*

gwaine: do you prefer women or men?

leon: death

morgause: honestly no offense but i love falling asleep and sleeping. it’s like. ok goodnight

morgause: ngl it’s kinda difficult to be the moody and mysterious background character in everyone’s life when you’re quarantined at home

morgause: i need to get laid

morgause: --to rest. put me in a coffin, let my soul ascend

gwaine: it takes a lot of heart to be this stupid

gwaine: it takes real strength not to know shit about fuck

elyan: what’s your favorite anime?

leon: i’m a christian

arthur: just bought this tapeworm from etsy!

lancelot: where are you gonna keep it

arthur: :)

merlin: i don’t like this conversion very much

gwaine: i’m home alone with the tv repair man

gwaine: i’m no fool, there are only two possible outcomes of this scenario

gwaine: porn or murder

gwaine, an hour later: apparently there was an unforeseen third outcome where he fixes the tv and then leaves

morgause: well tomorrow fucking sucked

morgana: dark brunch

morgana: *mixes a mimosa with evil intent*

morgause: this is just what being gay is like

gwaine: movie idea: guy finds a stone tablet engraved with a mysterious alien language and gets caught up in a national treasure-esque adventure to decipher its meaning, only to learn that it’s just an alien “live laugh love” decoration

arthur: sorry i didn’t mean to open your ig story 20 seconds after you posted i’m just unemployed

arthur: why do you say men are objects? that’s not true and hurtful

morgana: men are on sale at the grocery store for a few dollars

cenred: why do you say men are objects? that’s not true and hurtful

morgause: men are on sale at the grocery store for a few dollars

morgana: wow would you look at that. it’s already that time of the night where i move the stuff on my bed to my chair. can’t wait until tomorrow when i move the stuff from my chair back onto my bed

gwaine: hi i’m bethany with girl defined ministry and today we are going to be talking about how to stan my chemical romance in a God-honoring way

morgana: bottom: ,,, !!! ;;; vers: …. top: no punctuation whatsoever

morgause: tops are illiterate

morgause: i slept for almost 12 hours but i might still be tired so let’s go for 12 more just in case

morgana: morgause that’s a coma

morgause: sounds festive

mithian: i am a simple woman. i enter the kitchen. i eat four servings of bread products. i leave.

gwaine: it’s one serving if you serve all of it to yourself

mithian: i like the way you think, friend

gwaine: spencer from icarly and rodrick from diary of a wimpy kid are on the opposite ends of the same spectrum

elyan: the gay older brother scale

merlin: i found a rock :)

merlin: my troubles will soon be over

gwaine: parasite (2019) dir. bong joon ho

percival: uncut gems (2019) dir. josh and benny safdie

elyan: cain

morgana: social distancing is okay for me bc i’ve been touch starved since the 15th century. i’m used to it

mithian: fanfiction hits different when you’re gay and yearning and haven’t experienced an ounce of romance in your life

morgause: callout for rude baby seen at grocery store

morgause: i’m calling out a baby (approximately 12-14 months old) from the grocery store due to its rudeness. i’m guessing its age based on appearance, motor skills (atrocious) and whatnot. anyway, i smiled at this baby and it just stared at me. as soon as i began to move on, though, the baby said “no!” and started giggling when i turned back around. this happened multiple times. the baby’s actions were toxic and manipulative. the baby was also manhandling a package of dried fruit which wasn’t yet paid for (quite minor) and was just generally sitting around and not helping

gwen: we need to melt down all the pennies and make the statue of liberty a girlfriend

morgause: had a realization in a dream i just had that this isn’t real and i can just do whatever i want and so i started shrinking the face of this guy that was talking to me and then once it got real small i woke up sleep paralyzed

morgause: i was given godlike powers over the universe by realizing it’s all in my head and the first thing i did was use them to torment the nearest man

morgause: and the actual God woke me up and put be into a 5 minute timeout to lay frozen and think about what i’ve done

morgana: does anyone else feel an awkward tension whenever you see another person your age in the grocery store

gwaine: the number 87 kinda looks like a plague doctor

percival: you’ve just changed the fucking game

elyan: [|87

morgana: a lonely bitch...a loner...i love isolation AND detachment

gwaine: i will not call the judges “your honor”. in america we don’t have titles of nobility. they will get a simple “yes dude” from me

gwaine: calling big bird just “bird” because i do not respect him

morgause: *photo of a pizza in a bad* caught the bae sleepin

mordred: now why would you waste a perfectly good pizza :(

morgause: that “waste” happens to be my wife getting her beauty sleep. think before you speak

gwaine: *finishes wedding vows* don’t forget to like and subscribe

morgana: *is bitter but is also right*

morgana: how dare you not notice me when i’m ignoring you

morgause, killing cenred: men be like i’m bilingual i speak english and over women

gwaine: after i move i really wanna get a used roomba

percival: i love that you’re adopting instead of buying from a breeder

mordred: joking about a kink is a gateway drug into developing said kink

morgana: my kink is mental, emotional, and financial stability

morgause: unrealistic, settle for choking like normal people

gaius: gay people use halloween props as home decor year round

morgana: shut up shut up this black jar with a raven painted on it is holiday-neutral

[texting]

morgause: can you come out?

morgana: yeah gimme a minute

morgana: morgause, i’m gay

morgause: i know that. come out to the car

morgana: car, i’m gay

morgause: God FUCKING damnit i’m such a hopeless romantic one day someone’s gonna say “i love you” and i’m just going to let out an agonized scream so horrible that they immediately change their mind

gaius: i’m not wearing glasses anymore i’ve seen enough

morgause: sorry my battery’s on 96% i gtg

morgause: you hate me? wow you think you’re hot shit and original huh well i hated me first so you can go grab a number and wait your turn

morgana: don’t ignore me ?? i despise being ignored ?? i mean i’m ignoring like 8 people right now but still ???

morgana: shoutout to my favorite coping mechanism, isolation

morgana: the concept of physical beauty is a scam unless you’re calling me cute in which case it is valid, actually

merlin: oh, so when other people go outside it’s “good for their health” and “highly recommended”, it’s only when i do it that it’s a “containment breach” and a “high-level threat to public safety and security”, huh?

gwaine: a charming photo of young john mulaney, seemingly celebrating the kennedy assassination

merlin: princess diana wasn’t john mulaney’s first kill

morgause: hate when i got out in public and the public is there

morgana: it seems the public is no longer in the public

morgause: i’ve won...but at what cost?

morgana: girls will see a chance to commit arson and be like “sorry, i have to take this”

morgause: girls will see a building that’s not on fire and say “is anyone gonna burn that” and not wait for an answer

#puff does things #long post

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betabites · 4 years

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Ramblings on the Atlesian Military and Remnant Warfighters in General

I swear, I was just trying to get inside Winter's head for a fic, and things got out of hand. I have no idea if RWBY's writers know or care how the various military and paramilitary organizations of Remnant are structured. But I, woe to my creative process, have to figure this out, at least in broad strokes.

I'm basing all of this in what shows up in RWBY itself, and in the World of Remnant shorts. And while we don't have tons of details on military organization specifically, militaries reflect their parent culture, and we know a good amount about Remnant culture in general, and several Kingdoms in specific. And, RWBY being a show about awesome ladies kicking tremendous amounts of butt, we have a decent idea of military and paramilitary hardware.

Unlike Terra, Remnant suffers the constant threat of the Grimm. Which has implications for military actions. First of all, since Grimm are drawn to outpourings of negative emotions, anyone who wants to win a battle has to be prepared to win two in a row - first, against the actual enemy, and the second against the Grimm. Second, any long-term battlezone is going to be swarming with Grimm. If an army lays siege, they're going to have to be able to fight off both the Grimm and the defenders.

The bandit clan solution to this is lighting raids - get in, get the loot, get out before the Grimm (or local military) arrives. I'm not convinced that Remnant military operations look much different. Which explains why the Great War took place over so much of the world, as opposed to bogging down in a trench network outside Vale.

As far as the Great War specifically - Mantle and Mistral emphasized the society, Vale and Vacuo the individual. I'm imagining Mantle and Mistral just landing huge armies under tight command, and trying to perform a grand, sweeping, brilliant strategy, and it just keeps bogging down because field commanders have to keep calling back to command to ask for orders. Meanwhile smaller Vale & Vacuo forces, under independent commanders (many of whom are probably partisan guerrillas) are just tearing their opponents to pieces... to a point. Eventually, Mantle and Mistral forces are reduced to a point where they can be effectively coordinated, and they can defeat their smaller opponents in detail. Repeat a few times, with one side having an operational advantage, and the other a strategic advantage. By the end of the war, they've learned a lot from the other side, and everyone bets everything on one last gambit - trying to eliminate Vacuo.

Unlike Terra's Great War, Remnant's Great War doesn't end in humiliation and starvation for one faction. And (so far as we know) it also isn't followed by a world-wide plague and economic downturn. For whatever reason, the conflict post-Great War isn't socio-economic (capitalism, communism, socialism, fascism, conservatism, anarchism), but human/Faunus. And while there is fighting, it doesn't reignite a global conflict. Probably because every Kingdom has Faunus populations, and they try (however poorly) to resolve the issue politically with the foundation of Menagerie.

An aside: this is a history that draws a lot from the US experience. The USA came out of the WW1 fairly well, and wasn't really a participant in the interwar 'political debate via street-fights' that resulted in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. They were insulated from the actual causes of WW2, and were brought in because of an incredibly ill-conceived sneak attack (Not that the US wasn't heavily economically involved earlier, via the lend-lease act, and alliances to Entente powers. But that's complicated, and the actual flashpoint for USA entry into the war is a lot easier to teach to young children). So it's not surprising that the Faunus Rights Revolution looks a lot like the Civil Rights Movement, because that's also taught heavily in US schools. With the founding of Menagerie paralleling some of the post-Great War map redrawing in the Middle East, or possibly one of the proposed 'carve out an African diaspora state' ideas.

And that's a lot of words on history - so what are the implications for modern Remnant? First of all, we only see the Atlesian military. Including their deployment in Vale itself. The degree to which this is, by Terran standards, utterly insane, is difficult to overstate. Sure, Ozpin expresses reservations to Ironwood, but I mean - this is like if a USMC rifle company camped out in Olympic Village. The Vytal Festival is a celebration of Remnant's unity, and the only way this is even slightly acceptable by anyone's standards is if the Atlas military is essentially, UN Peacekeepers.

We know that everyone uses Atlesian robots. Not just the Schnee Dust Company, but Atlas hosts what is either an advertisement or a meet-and-greet for their newest model of robots. Which means that Atlas robots, are, effectively, the 7.62x51mm NATO rifle round. Atlas tech, from their robots to CCTS, is a result and perpetrator of Kingdom unity. I suspect that everyone's military forces are based on Atlas patterns, if only because they're probably reliant on Atlas tech.

But first, the weird thing about Atlas. Their Huntress Academy feeds directly into their military. No one else does this. ...At least, not directly. See, Huntresses are licensed by governments. They're not government employees, but they are absolutely state sanctioned to fight the existential war against Grimm. And hunting contracts/bounty boards are almost certainly government-run. Private citizens can absolutely issue contracts (see Jaune's crossing-guard duties), but like a post office, there's no one other than the state that could effectively run a national bounty board. Which is why Lionheart was able to send so many of Mistral's Huntresses to their deaths - he had access, as a Mistral Council member.

Ultimately, Huntresses exist within a government frame-work, but so long as they're hunting Grimm, oversight seems minimal. But, of course, there are dangers other than Grimm. The governments are probably mostly willing to look the other way if a Huntress accepts a contract to deal with some bandits. But someone like Raven, or Ilia, or Tock? Folks with an active Aura who aren't fighting Grimm? Those are a problem. And Atlas' answer to them seems to be the Ace-Ops.

So what does Atlas do with all their military Huntresses? I suspect that they're being used much like Cordovin - anchor points defending Atlesian interests. Which probably includes SDC assets. That's the less idealistic reason for the CCTS - it allows Atlas to co-ordinate their far-flung forces. That it also acts as a show of goodwill is just gravy. Atlas' widely scattered forces also mean that they can reinforce any of the other Kingdoms in the event of a disaster.

Aside - look, all of the Kingdoms are the US in some aspect. Atlas is 'the World's Policeman,' and an exploration of national corruption, fears of a surveillance state, and economic stratification. Vale is how the US wants to be seen, 'the Nation that Won the War,' containing both metropolises and tiny towns, fiercely individualistic. Mistral may be wearing a silk robe, but it's still the US in character. More economic stratification, and a giant sweep of frontier. And mercy, does the US still want to think of itself in frontier terms. Vacuo, I don't think we have enough information to really comment on, but I'd suggest that it's an aspirational combination of more frontier and actual equality.

Getting to the actual military. We kind of have to go off of Atlas' alone here, because we haven't seen anyone else. In accordance with the 'lightning raid' idea, it seems to be heavily vehicular. And honestly? Without an active Aura, I'd want a foot of armor between me and the Grimm. We've seen gunships, armed transports, and mecha. The non-robotic infantry seem to be limited to pairs of guards, with no actual presence of true Huntresses within the ranks.

My theory is that Atlesians who don't qualify for Atlas Academy still serve in the military, but as rank-and-file members - which very likely includes the Air Corps. Their combat academies, unlike Signal, don't have students make their own weapon but instead provide something a lot more recognizable to us as a military academy - sure, there's range time, and plenty of unarmed combat, but also a lot more actual schooling. But fairly early on, the teachers put students on a particular track - so this person will graduate as a combat engineer, that one as a commander, this one as a logistics officer, and that one will actually attend Atlas Academy and receive personalized combat training, but in the meantime, they're going to be studying small unit tactics and intensified general combat training.

Ultimately, Atlas Academy just produces special operatives for the Atlesian military. Very, very useful special operatives, but no more vital than the Air Corps, ultimately. Huntresses are specialists, not an entire military.

I can theorize about the militaries of the other Kingdoms, but we've never seen them, so it probably wouldn't be very effective theorizing. But we do see some other state-controlled violent actors: Mistral and Vale police, and the Menagerie Militia.

The police, by and large, seem to either be your standard law enforcement (supplemented by the standard Atlesian robots), or something more like search-and-rescue, as per the Volume 4 finale. Their ability to wield force is theoretical, not something we've actually seen on screen (apart from some RWBY Chibi gags, which I'm comfortable calling non-canonical). Given the Grimm attraction to negative emotions, focusing law enforcement on de-escalation makes sense. I don't know if there would actually be a paramilitary branch of the police (a la SWAT) or whether that would just fall under military jurisdiction. It probably varies from Kingdom to Kingdom.

The Menagerie Militia is really interesting. Largely because Kali does liaise with Mistral Police, and turns the stand-off with the White Fang into, not a clash between two rival non-state actors (Taurus' White Fang and the Belladonnas' White Fang), but a multi-national anti-terrorist police action. The Mistral Police provide dramatic spotlights, implicit fire support, and, probably most importantly, legitimacy, and the Menagerie Militia operates as a unit against the individual White Fang members. I don't think we can really take the Militia as an example of anything but itself, though. It's in Mistral to deal a morale hit to the White Fang, and, if that doesn't prompt flight or surrender, to use minimal force to disarm their fellow Faunus. Despite the name, they're not really a militia, so much as a posse. They're engaged in police action, they're drawn from the common citizenry, and RWBY deals pretty heavily in Western tropes.

Actually, that's another side note. Standard fantasy settings owe a good bit to the influence of D&D nowadays - mostly indirectly, via various video game franchises. But the medievalism of D&D doesn't look much like actual medieval times, despite the kings. It does look a lot like Westerns, with weak governments relying on parties of roving miscreants to beat back the hordes of savages from the frontiers. I'm well aware of how problematic the last part is. RWBY tries to avoid those particular racist bits by making the threat to civilization be literal hate-seeking monsters. And then, try to show that Remnant culture is full of all kinds of people, with different material cultures and appearances, all more or less co-operating. And then they use the Faunus to try to talk about racism - not always well, but making a better attempt to engage with the material than most fantasy. I mean, Blake has passing privilege - she can pretend to be human, and struggles with that idea. A lot of fantasy is still stuck on Lovecraft and Howard, in terms of race.

To summarize - Atlas is our only model for a modern Remnant army, but we can make some pretty good guessing about them. They're heavily invested in vehicle combat and robotic infantry, because Huntresses are rare, and no one else wants to get into melee with a Grimm. Atlas is heavily invested in a top-down organization, but since the Great War, has been allowing local commanders more initiative. Atlesian military Huntresses are specialists, not necessarily commanders in their own right. Until recently, the Atlesian military has been serving as a sort of global reserve, deploying units to hot spots to assist local forces against the Grimm.

And Salem's finally deployed an army of her own.

#RWBY #Atlas #Huntresses #military history #Beta rambles #with digressions into how very American RWBY is from a historical perspective #how Kali is awesome #racism in D&D

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arsnovacadenza · 5 years

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So I finally played The Wolf Among Us

Being the big bad wolf fan that I am, I’d been dying to get my hands on the game after seeing images of Bigby floating around pinterest. Then I found out it was discounted around 50% yesterday and I knew I GOTTA have it.

Here’s a not-so-short rundown of my thoughts since no one’d read my full review anyway. Also, bear in mind that I never read the graphic novels so I’ll be judging the characters and plot solely on the first and (currently) only game. Spoilers under the cut!

The good:

Bigby. God I ENJOYED playing as him. There was great satisfaction being able to play this rough, potentially dangerous character and see him grow into this person that Fabletown finally grows to accept. During my first playthrough, I wasn’t able to play him as a brutal, full blown anti-hero because I need to keep him on the community’s good side. I’m definitely gonna replay the chapters and choose the more violent options and see him go full badass wolf on everyone. Speaking of badass, I constantly kept thinking to myself “Wow, I’d LOVE to play as him in an action game.” That one big fight scene against Bloody Mary made me go “You’re doing great, sweetie! Keep it up!”

The story definitely got me hooked. There wasn’t a time when I wished a speed button was available unlike Hashihime in the Old Book Town where I got bored during a sex scene.

It didn’t remind me of Happily N’ever After and its forced self-awareness that borders on annoying. Mini rant: I love when stories are set in a world where fairy tale characters meet and interact with each other, but that doesn’t mean every work that does it interests me because the handling of the theme may not quite work (for me at least). I haven’t rewatched Shrek, but I never rolled my eyes every time they make a joke about a fairytale character. I never watched Once Upon a Time but I feel it’s gonna be a pretty mixed bag? It’s just weird seeing all these adult characters taking the whole thing seriously and not in an endearingly self-aware kind of way. The Wolf Among Us kinda did it nicely in that yeah, these were fairy tale characters. Let’s see them work their way as poor people living in New York. I like how they take on the poverty angle because it kinda reminds me of my country, sorta.

To my surprise, the fight scenes DID IT for me. It’s satisfying to be able to beat the shit outta people I wanted to punch from the very beginning of the game (the Tweedles and Mary. Boy I wanted to see them banged up real badly). To be honest, I never played these Telltale games and I had my doubts about the combat mechanics. Turns out they were done pretty well. Also, I can’t shut up about the final brawl against Mary because....Big Bad Boi.

The meh:

Most of the character designs didn’t wow me. I could name the characters whose design I liked: Bigby, Georgie, Flycatcher, Bluebeard. The rest? Not so much. Some characters like Nerissa were a hit-or-miss while the rest are predictable (Bufkin, Crane, etc) or completely forgettable (Faith and Vivian’s design. Faith’s was at least memorable because her introduction was). The worst one, to me, was Bloody freakin’ Mary. Her design was simply underwhelming. I absolutely adored her true form, but her glamored form was simply...not there. I understand they don’t want to play the edgy up to eleven which was probably why they didn’t make her tattoo-ed up like Georgie (which is a shame because her emblem has a cool design. Imagine the cool tattoos she could’ve had), but her design was just half-assed (to me anyway). Not gonna lie, I actually was hooked up by her first appearance —a tough looking enemy with big butch energy —and then she opened her mouth and she sounds like fucking Bayonetta. This is probably just my personal taste, but I hate the femme fatale villain trope to death and I hate seeing this masculine lady sounding like a generic seductive villainess. Plus, I didn’t see her much during my playthrough so she ended up NOT coming across a real threat or a worthy opponent to Bigby, just a violent bully I need to get through.

The love interest character’s development was a mixed bag. I didn’t hate Snow White (like some people seem to do), but I was disappointed that she drifted away from Bigby before she gets the chance to solidify herself as his equal and partner. I know she marries him in the graphic novels, but I didn’t quite root for them to be together in the game. Mostly because of the boss-employee dynamic they had towards the end of the game, but it’s also because I also started to see how she didn’t grow to be somebody who understands Bigby and the plight of the non-human characters of Fabletown (case in point being Mr. Toad and TJ). She keeps saying that she does understand what life is like for people like Holly and I did sympathize with her when she talks to Bigby about her wanting to make Fabletown a better place, but the plot cuts her development once she has to act as Deputy Major in Crane’s place. She eventually becomes affixed as a cog in the machine. Sure, she’s needed to keep the system running, but her insisting on going by the (outdated) book just didn’t work I kept getting reminded of Louis from Beastars and how got his character development was. In Louis’ case, he started out as an covert bigot who strongarms his way to obtain authority, thinking he’d be able to make the world a better place. He does make good out of it, but we also see him coming to terms with his vulnerability which leads him to reach out towards other people with the same goals. Simply put, he changed from a know-it-all who wants to change the world so they’d suit his own views better to someone who genuinely wants to make a difference for other people. This....kinda doesn’t happen with Snow White. It’s probably because the POV (who stays on Bigby the entire time) or they’re saving her character development for the sequel; we can’t really tell until Season 2 comes out.

Speaking of which, how does being a giant, fearsome wolf in disguise reflect on Bigby’s relationship with other animal characters like Mr. Toad? I thought there was some potential in contrasting Mr Toad’s inability to afford glamor and Bigby having his lycantrophy knife handed to him by Snow. I imagine the animal townsfolk would take jabs at him having the privilege to remain constantly human without having to constantly return to the 13th floor but it never happened.

The resolution of the Crooked Man’s plot felt rushed and I was disappointed with how they handled the organized crime plot. It was built to be a grand scheme beyond Crane and the murder of the girls, but they resolved it way too quickly. It’s probably just me, but when you have organized crime and financial exploitation by (persumedly) a mafia, do you expect the villain to have their ass handed back to them in two chapters after their buildup?I mean, during Bigby and Crooked Man’s confrontation at the factory, I kept expecting the Crooked Man to make his escape after the battle against Mary — him being immediately dragged to court was anti-climatic. Does it really take that short a time to take down a big, magical mafia boss? Shouldn’t he have other witches at his beck and call (the secret lab at Johann’s place definitely hinted at that!)

I won’t refute if somebody brings up the lack of diversity in the entire cast. As far as I know, there was only one black person and they didn’t do anything with her character. I thought It would be nice if we get to see POC characters like Aladdin or Yeh-Shen (or replace Aladdin with Sinbad or Ali Baba if we want to go for total accuracy). It doesn’t help that the predominantly white characters look generic. Heck, some of the girls could have some variety in body shapes. For example, why not make Holly be a big beautiful woman? If you don’t want to make her morbidly obese, at least make her look heavier. You know, because she’s a troll. No, her wanting to look beautiful by concealing her troll form doesn’t work. Her wanting to be her own kind of beautiful (especially according to Troll standards) can be contrasted nicely to Lily having to wear her human skin because she needs to cater to her clientele, thus further emphasizing her lack of choice in her employment to Guido (and by extent the Crooked Man).

How long has it been since the exodus? Why is the Fabletown government still this terrible? I really want to be able to see the demographic at a bigger scope. For example, I’d like to see more of the dynamic between people like Bluebeard and the people at the Business Office. Also, what’s up with people with various problems going straight up to the Business Office? Do they not have accountants? How do they handle the legal stuff with the mundies? Who’s handling legal? The organization at the Business Office is just...weird. I thought they’d have some sort of higher council since I thought they’d need a bigger power to keep more powerful magic beings (like the witches) in place. Are things done better in the graphic novel?

Some of the animation lagged/look really janky on my Envy 13 laptop. Also, I encountered a bug at the beginning of some chapters where choices show up when they don’t need to, as well as some weird cuts during scene. Had to exit and reboot the game to proceed.

That’s all I can think of now. Feel free to send an ask so we can gush about the husbando material that is Bigby Wolf if you have other opinions!

#the wolf among us #snow white (twau)#bigby wolf #the crooked man (twau)#twau spoilers #the wolf among us spoilers #by the way hashihime isn't that bad check it out if you like lgbtq+ visual novels #or just yaoi #because it still handles stuff like consent issues wrong #also #where is red riding hood #is she going to be a boss or something #like jeanne was to bayonetta in the first game?

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robert-c · 4 years

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Forty Years In The (Un)Making

The de-evolution of the Republican Party into principally a bunch of blindly loyal sycophants didn’t happen overnight, and it didn’t happen just under Donald Trump’s watch. It actually began with Ronald Reagan in 1980 and has been on a steady trend in this direction ever since.

The political landscape of 1980 was complicated. President Jimmy Carter was widely regarded as having mishandled the Iran Hostage crisis, and Democrats were heavily split between him and other challengers like Ted Kennedy. It was one of those rare elections in which there was significant third party challenge. Pat Robertson, making noises on the religious right (which would ultimately result in his run for office in 1988), also threatened to weaken the Republican base at a time when the Democrats were vulnerable.

Reagan’s response was to invite the religious right into the upper ranks of the party. How much of this was his personal belief, and how much calculated strategy we’ll probably never know. Nevertheless, this gave a significant role to people who believe regardless of facts, and for whom personal steadfastness of belief is more important than anything else. Reagan also introduced the major fostering of falsehoods that satisfied the personal myths of his supporters. Most notable was the “welfare queen” story. He alleged that there was a woman in Chicago living the high life, driving a late model Cadillac, and doing it all on welfare. Good investigative reporting and persistent demands for facts ultimately exposed this as a fabrication. And yet even today, some right wing people believe this story as true because it matches all of their fears and prejudices about public assistance. [As someone who has known people on public assistance I can assure you it is difficult enough to get a minimum of what you need, let alone become ‘well off’.]

Since then it has been a fairly steady trend of presumptions, assumptions, myths and outright lies. All with the intent of fostering the following ideas:

people getting public assistance are liars and cheats,

regulation of businesses kills jobs or drives them out of the country,

businesses are ‘good guys’ and don’t need to be regulated because they never do anything wrong, and “profit above all else” is the American ideal

immigrants are criminals (if they are people of color),

a medical system that supports the profits of drug and insurance companies is the best way to ensure health care coverage choices,

despite the first amendment of the Constitution, this is a “Christian country”,

the second amendment of the Constitution guarantees unregulated access to any weapon a citizen may want, and somehow intends that citizens take up arms against the government when they think their rights are being violated, and

many more on a smaller scale, but all with the idea that anyone not stuck in the 1950’s is somehow an enemy.

LIES! All lies!

The truth is that people on public assistance don’t get what they need because rules supposedly to prevent fraud end up preventing them from finding and keeping most gainful employment by requiring visits during normal work hours, and other reviews of their situation. All of this while the largest potential for fraud exists in government defense contracts, just based on the amount of money that flows through the programs.

Businesses move jobs overseas because of low wages and lack of regulation. But let’s keep in mind what those regulations do. Most of them were initiated and designed to stop unsafe practices in the business; practices that endangered employees, consumers and/or the public at large. Evading such restrictions shouldn’t be praised as a great avoidance of “socialist” control, but should be seen as the callous disregard of the safety and security of others for the sake of a few dollars more profit.

Profit above all else could hardly be called a moral philosophy but that is exactly what this myth would have us believe. It rests on a couple of myths we all want to believe; that success in this country is because of “building a better mousetrap” and that gaining wealth is somehow proof of superior intellect or work ethic, while neither could be farther from the truth about how real wealth is acquired and kept.

Casting immigrants as criminals (if they are people of color) is right in line with centuries old racial prejudices. Little more should need to be said to explain their sick justification for these ideas. Anyone even tempted to believe it should be suspect. Any sweeping generalization based on something someone can’t control (like their ethnicity) is automatically racist.

Portraying “socialized medicine” as a situation where patient choices are limited and/or unavailable is, at best, a recollection of old, failed implementations OR the fears that the rich cannot use their wealth and influence to jump to the head of the line, past real life or death cases just to be sure that their headaches aren’t brain tumors. Oddly enough, the insurance companies, who are somehow cast as the “heroes” in these tales, would if they could limit choices even more. In their best profit interests people with pre-existing conditions (which is all of us, eventually) get no coverage at all, or if they do it is at a premium designed to cover all of their likely expenses in the year, which amounts to no insurance at all and just paying everything out of pocket. Ultimately, they would like to sell their coverage to people who will never use it, or use it sparingly if at all, while at the same time, if they must, charging others with a premium that will at least cover what they expect to payout in claims. This is a perfect example of where capitalistic, free market enterprise does NOT result in the best product or service at the best price. Attempts by competitive insurance companies who want to balance the premium and risk over the largest possible group, will have higher rates for the young who are less likely to use or need insurance and so will be uncompetitive in that group. The so called “free market” system is biased in favor of this ridiculous, anti-competitive arrangement.

Likewise, drug companies make more money selling treatments, than cures. There doesn’t have to be a cover up or secret directive; budget allocations for research and development will naturally favor the most likely profitable drug or approach and that will always be treatment. Cures are more likely the accidental byproduct of researching treatments. The scientists at work in the labs won’t even suspect, they will think they are working toward cures by learning how to develop treatments. Again, think about the idea that the “sacred” profit motive produces only good, and think it out for yourself as to which is the most profitable approach.

At the founding of this country, the mother country, England, had just been through several centuries of warfare and persecutions based on people’s religion. The new country of the United States of America wished to avoid such a situation, and so the first amendment to the Constitution establishes a separation of church and state. It doesn’t matter that most of the Founders could never have imagined how far this separation would have to go; great ideas usually far exceed their originators’ imaginations. Whether it is not lending support to one Christian sect over another, or Christianity versus Islam, or even total disbelief in religion, the concept of separation is the only way to ensure that everyone has the broadest freedom to believe as their conscience dictates. While things like the motto “In God We Trust” on the money are small issues, generally not worthy of a major effort to remove them at this time, they are part of the disinformation that portrays the USA as some sort of religious government or society.

By creating the impression that there has to be (or ought to be) some “general” religion of the US, they have already won half the battle, because the various Christian sects still make up a majority of the populace. BUT the principle of freedom and liberty of belief means that a person should have equal rights to believe as they wish even if they are the only one in the world who believes as they do. This is not abstract, but relates directly to people’s ability to choose abortion, end of life choices, how their remains are to be disposed of (did you know that cremation used to be illegal if anyone of your relatives objected? This was due to the religious notion that at the “end of days” people would be raised up from the cemeteries), and a host of other restrictions including what could be sold at stores on Sundays.

As for the second amendment, it begins with the phrase “well regulated” so any idea that it meant unrestricted access to weapons is stupidly at odds with the actual language of the amendment. There is also absolutely nothing in the Constitution, or its development, that suggests the point of this amendment was to provide a mechanism for people to overthrow the government. In addition to laws against taking up arms against the government (and the definition of treason in the Constitution itself), the Founders thought that the representational nature of the republic would prevent the need for such an uprising. To the extent that the second amendment had anything to do with the preservation of a free government it was that armed forces would be recruited from the citizenry. It NEVER was intended to ensure that criminals, and those with the intent to overthrow the government of the United States (if and when they think it has strayed from its proper role) had access to any and all weapons available.

The other issues are everything from abortion to Sunday closing laws, from consensual prostitution to adult book and movie stores. Once again, it doesn’t matter that you or I wouldn’t want to participate, it’s that as long as there is no coercion involved it is none of our business and if you think it is a sin against God, then God can take care of it – He/She/It doesn’t need our help.

BTW, this is where I should share an experience I had with one of these religious fanatics. Her belief was that the USA had never had a famine because of the “In God We Trust” motto on the money. I will spend no time dismantling the obvious idiocy of this idea. What was significant about her unhinged belief, was that she used the principles of “externalities” to justify her position. To refresh, the principle of externalities is why you cannot drive drunk or without insurance. Your actions that can affect others are rightly regulated under this principle. Her idea, clearly given to her by someone else as she was nowhere near smart enough to have thought this on her own, was that to avoid the retribution of God (as she understood Him) we all had to adhere to at least a minimum of His instructions (again conveniently interpreted for us by self-appointed ‘experts’ in these matters).

It is past time to reject these superficial and self-serving myths.

#Republican lies #conservative myths

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petersmoan · 5 years

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Peter is an incubus and he gets bought by mob boss, tony stark! 😍 request

I absolutely love this idea. Thank you anon.

TW: mentions of torture, bruises, scars.

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As a boss of the most dangerous mob organization in the world, Tony Stark was, indeed, the most dangerous man. His single action could destroy one’s entire life and family, his single order could make the government turn upside down. That’s why not everybody is right for this job; it must be someone who’s stable, assertive, disgustingly intelligent, self-confident and charismatic.

Tony Stark was the right man for this position.

It seemed like he was unbreakable, strong both emotionally and physically. Loyal to his friends and employees, caring for them and their families.

When the day of his trip to Afghanistan came, it was safe to say he was ready for any other occurrence than planned. Anything could go wrong, but he trusted his instinct and spontaneity enough to relax in the private plane he shared with James Rhodes, best friend and right hand.

Shaking hands with the enemy was always his favorite part. He knew the Guardians despised him and his humor, especially the head of the group, Peter Quill. Tony always felt superior to the younger man, wittier and smarter in general. And Quill was painfully aware of that.

The demonstration of the brand new missile of Tony’s invention, “Jericho”, went well. Quill was impressed, listening to the instructions carefully, and Stark was sure he got them.

Suddenly he felt his wrists being pulled behind his back and handcuffed. The same went for Rhodes, who tried to break free, but failed miserably, knocked down to his knees. It was a fucking ambush. Business had always been difficult with the Guardians, Quill being unpredictable and sometimes unbelievably stubborn, but this time they’ve outdone themselves. Tony and James were threatened to be killed unless they gave the missile for free, and let Quill claim it as their own idea. Great way to achieve anything.

While he was speaking, pointing all options they had left, there could be heard a scowl and a louder growl from the other room. That made Tony curious. Was that another failed experiment of their own, or something worse Quill hadn’t thought through?

“It’s just our little treasure we’ve stolen from those bastards in Queens. Pain in the ass, believe me. I actually regret getting this piece of garbage out of there.”

The thing started panting, with a roaring sound growing with each exhale.

“Let me see”, Tony asked politely, “Please, Quill. Let me see it.”

Quill shrugged and nodded at his men to give him what he wants. They brought a big cage that could hold two adult German shepherds at least. There was a young man imprisoned, on his knees and elbows, tied in chains all over his half naked body. He wore a piece of clothing that was supposed to be underwear, probably. His skin was bruised and scarred, and he had a fresh blood stain under his nose. Tony noticed a couple of piercings in both of his ears. But they weren’t as vibrant as the beautiful big brown eyes, sparkling a reddish color in the light.

When he saw Tony, he grabbed the bars in front of him and from now on, he never stopped looking at the man. With a devilish gaze, he kept his mouth open, his tongue licking them.

Tony felt like he was hit with a tank. Like he forgot about his purpose of being there and the dangerous situation he had found himself in. The boy’s eyes were cutting through his body like a knife.

“Is that... Is that an incubus?” He heard Rhodes’ voice as if from behind a wall.

“Indeed, it’s the fucking demon. Literally.” Apparently Quill’s men liked this kind of jokes, because they exchanged a few small giggles. “He seduces every one of my guys I put in charge to guard him. So we mostly torture him, so that he don’t have the opportunity.”

“Does it work?” Rhodes asked sceptically.

“... Sometimes.”

James shook his head and examined briefly the demon’s thin body. “You’ve cut his wings and tail off. He’s too... humanoid, more than I’ve ever seen.”

“You’ve ever seen?” Tony woke up from the short spell he fell under, and interjected.

“I have a history with these. Used to run tests on them. Dangerous, they are very dangerous.” He frowned, deep in thought, remembering all those long hours spent with the incubuses. All the nightmares. How many times did he risk his life for the sake of those tests?

Tony turned his gaze back to the demon, who seemed to beg him with his pitiful face and eyes. But beg for what? For help?

“I have an offer you cannot reject, Quill” Tony’s voice spoke before his brain could have comprehended. When Quill was all ears, he continued, “I’m gonna take this demonic beauty home, and you’re gonna let us go. The missile stays mine, and you’re gonna buy it, like a good boy.”

The Guardian’s face changed. He wanted to get rid of this god-forsaken creature that was killing his men one by one, more than he wanted the missile. They were short on people since he’s brought the incubus to his base.

“Fuck you, Stark. Take this hellish garbage and get the fuck outta here.”

Tony smirked victoriously, glanced at his new acquisition and waited for the Guardians to let his wrists free. The demon started shaking his cage impatiently, exposing pure white teeth, sharp at the edges.

At the Stark Tower, the incubus was transported into a big cell separated with bulletproof glass. Doctor Banner wasn’t happy with his boss’ decision, claiming it’s reckless to put such an unknown to the humanity entity to this place. They didn’t even know how to fight it, if it decided to slaughter them all.

Bruce resisted mentioning his fear about Tony’s common sense. It was untypical for him to make a decision so stupid and unbeneficial. At the same time though, he didn’t want to lose his job, that could lead to him being dead and buried somewhere in Alaska within days.

“I never caught your name. Do you have one?” Tony asked the creature, who’d been wandering around his cell, then approached the glass and touched it. Bruce Banner was in the back, taking notes.

“Peter. Peter Parker, sir.”

His voice vibrated in Tony’s ears. It took him a while to keep calm. Grunting, he crossed his arms and asked another question.

“Are you really an incubus? A demon? I never really wanted to believe in this kind of stuff.”

Peter grinned, his teeth like pearls, put both of his hands on the glass and hummed, “I am, Mr. Stark, sir.”

Tony felt nauseous for a second, a sharp ache attacking his head suddenly. Losing focus a little, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Are you alright, Tony?” It was Bruce, speaking in a delicate, caring tone.

“What, yeah, I’m fine”, the man assured his doctor and close friend. When Bruce backed off, he asked, “You just messed with my head, is that right?”

All Peter Parker did in response was arching his back and licking the glass in front of Tony’s face.

The only person that Peter listened to, was, obviously, Tony. He was obedient, didn’t cause any trouble seducing anyone and behaved well, locked in his big cell, mostly reading books and meditating.

Tony gained a lot of confidence towards the creature, talking to him every day, asking about his history and personal things. He had experience with a lot of non-human entities, but as stated before, he never wanted to believe in demons or ghosts.

He also didn’t want to believe in his complete fall for Peter Parker. Waking up in sweat every morning was odd, but he wasn’t willing to connect it in any way to the boy. Until that one night.

Feeling something weighing on his chest, he opened his eyes immediately. Sleep paralysis was unlikely, because he could move all his limps and head. But there was this unholy nightmare, haunting Tony ever since he laid his eyes on it, sitting on his chest and staring.

“I missed you, Mr. Stark. I don’t like spending nights alone.”

This must be a dream, crossed Tony’s mind, but Peter was quick to read it and respond.

“You’re not dreaming, Mr. Stark. Did you really think that wall of glass could stop me?” His great force stopped Tony from getting up, holding him by the neck, with one hand, caressing his cheek with the other. “It’s okay, sir. I’m here to take all your stress away.”

Nothing has ever turned out to be such a mistake in Tony Stark’s life. Once their lips smashed together, there was no salvation. He forgot about Rhodes’ warnings, Dr. Banner’s advices, and his common sense was sent straight to hell by this demon, who tasted like the sweetest dessert, moaned so beautifully, rode Tony’s dick so gracefully and made him come so many times that night, that his load was almost dry.

Peter didn’t pay attention to any of the guards, to any of Tony’s friends and employees. All he wanted was the boss himself. The moment he saw him, he wanted to taste him, he wanted to drag him through the darkest path of sexual arousal and hell itself.

“I promise, Mr. Stark, I won’t hurt any of your men. Don’t tell them that wall is useless. I want you and only you.”

Tony was in great danger, and was fully aware of that. But he couldn’t say no to these devilish eyes, these tempting moves and the softest skin he’s ever touched. Peter was bruised and had a lot of scars, but that didn’t stop him from demanding to be spanked and bitten during their nights together. As cruel as it sounds, Tony was his favorite victim of them all. The most handsome, the smartest, the best in general. He’s never been this satisfied in his entire existence.

They weren’t monotonous in their sexual voyage. Sometimes Tony was too exhausted, so he made love to Peter, fucking him slowly and caringly. He’d always clean them up after finished, taking shower together or just using wet piece of cloth. Peter didn’t sleep, so he just lied there, cuddling his Mr. Stark and watching him dreaming. He knew their intercourses were depriving Tony of his health and stamina, he knew they weren’t meant for the happy ending. But how could he stop loving this perfectly sinful human? Even on Tony’s deathbed, he promised himself he’d be there, holding his hand, waiting for his last breath to leave the cancer-eaten lungs, as the man would whisper to him slowly,

“Oh my god, Peter. I knew you were gonna be the death of me.”

#my works #starker #starker au #incubus #tony stark #peter parker #request

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lordeasriel · 5 years

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oakley street during his dark materials

let’s talk about oakley street. as if I needed a reason to do that, but it’s mostly curiosity plus some headcanons, you’re welcome to add your thoughts to it. BEWARE SPOILERS FOR THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY, LA BELLE SAUVAGE & THE SECRET COMMONWEALTH. there is no way I can write this without spoilers, so, sorry about that.

What we know of Oakley Street is fragmented at best, but there are some facts that we can use to pinpoint their moves during the events of His Dark Materials. For that I am using some basic concepts that we learn from both books of The Book of Dust.

They have members all around the globe, from different social classes and careers. Some of these members aren’t even British, despite the official sanction that Oakley Street is part of their secret service (which would be weird in different circumstances; can’t have a foreigner in your secret service). Examples of this are Bud Schlesinger and his wife, Anita; they’re both New Dane (essentially Americans, according to maps and their accent in the audiobook, but I’m bad with accents, so take this with a pinch of salt) and Bud states to Lyra he isn’t a full time Oakley Street agent. He is a diplomat, a position that is quite beneficial to their practice and he helps them under this banner; during La Belle Sauvage, it is known he visited the witches of the North to learn more about the prophecy surrounding Lyra. In Smyrna, he mostly works as a diplomat and reports his findings to Oakley Street. We do not know for sure that Anita is a member, but she is a journalist and she is aware of their work.

A great deal of their members consists of scholars, academics and free speech advocates. Hannah Relf and Malcolm Polstead are just two of the many members that belong in Academia. As a government agency, though, Oakley Street is often headed by a member of the Privy Council, as Nugent used to be and they have plenty of government employees, because once they’re dismantled in The Secret Commonwealth, most of its official members will be reassigned to other departments. We also know they do employ people without connecting them to the agency, like they did with Malcolm when he was young. They also have agents amongst the Gyptians, which is a natural thing, given that the gyptians suffer the most under the CCD. It’s unclear whether Asriel was a full-member or an ally like Bud Schlesinger, but he did have ties to them, enough that Nugent was in charge of protecting Lyra and had contact with Asriel. His address was also in Chelsea, the same place where the actual Oakley Street is. (This isn’t exactly an argument, but I thought it was cool fun fact).

Their efficiency depended on the current government. When they were first founded, they were meant to be a direct opposition to the Magisterium forces during the Swiss War, with full backing from the King; during The Secret Commonwealth, Oakley Street was struggling because the current king wasn’t happy with them and eventually they were officially dismantled. Their funding came from the Defense department, meaning they could be concealed from public knowledge as most Defense fundings go with no disclosure.

Their operations are mostly from the shadows or happening in the background. We know that they’re acting because we have their POVs, sometimes, but essentially their work is from the shadows or behind the scenes. Malcolm and Alice are never aware that they are being sought after by Oakley Street and if not for their intervention, Lyra would have been captured or killed. That means whenever something important is happening, Oakley Street is likely countering it or promoting it.

With that in mind, the first thing we need to remember is that His Dark Materials is the original story and Oakley Street’s first appearance is on the new trilogy. That means we have absolutely no hard facts when it comes to them, but it’s possible to guess and theorise and that’s what I am doing now.

Lyra in Oxford: We know that the gyptians, according to Ma Costa, watched Lyra as a favour for Lord Asriel - they even had a half-gyptian man, Bernie Johansen, reporting on Lyra from inside Jordan. I don’t think the reports on Lyra reached only Asriel, in fact, I think the reports went through Oakley Street to get to him. Given the gyptians quarrel with the CCD, it’s easy to assume they might have spies with Oakley Street (other than Coram, of course) - we know they had spies of their own - and those spies mostly reported what the gyptians knew about Lyra. Asriel is often abroad too, so learning about Lyra’s welfare through Oakley Street agents is much more suitable and reliable. They had agents everywhere, people that could give him telegrams and the photograms he required. We need also to remember he forbade Marisa from getting anywhere near Lyra, so I imagine any time she set foot in Oxford, Asriel was quickly warned.

Oakley Street’s interest in Lyra was beyond appeasing Asriel, though; she was a target of the Magisterium, so protecting her was in their best interest. During her youth, stuck at Jordan and protected by Scholastic Sanctuary, they didn’t have to bother themselves, but as soon as Mrs. Coulter takes her away, they now have to find Lyra and protect her.

Adèle Starminster: This is probably the easiest thing to guess. Adèle infiltrates Mrs. Coulter’s cocktail party and is in the company of an unnamed scholar, who has some sort of interest in her. She is approached by Lyra, who then speaks of the gobblers and catch her attention. Adèle even questions if Lyra is Marisa’s daughter, before being interrupted by Marisa herself and quickly leaves the party. There are some possible scenarios here:

Adèle is just a journalist trying to write a piece on Mrs. Coulter. Marisa has a social life, but in general, she is quite the mysterious figure. Ignoring inconsistencies, most people don’t even know she had an affair with Asriel; she’s also known to be the director of the Oblation Board, it’s public knowledge, at least in some circles. So, if Adèle wanted to write a piece on Marisa, infiltrating the party would make sense. A good way of knowing Mrs. Coulter, by talking to friends, associates and of course, her young child assistant. This scenario is, without the second trilogy, essentially the original scenario.

Adèle is a journalist who was paid by Oakley Street to investigate Marisa and act as an informant. Oakley Street had dozens of agents and they also used informants, like Malcolm, to reach places a formal agent couldn’t go for various reasons. In Mrs. Coulter’s case, her guests were unlikely to be related to Oakley Street; the members are often recognisable people from academia, people Marisa would be familiar with; so Adèle is a good pick because she is unknown. She might do this for various reasons: interest in writing a good piece about this unreadable figure, doing for noble reasons or simply because she needs the money.

Adèle is actually part of Oakley Street. She’s either a member or an ally, like Bud. As a journalist, she probably had to deal with the Magisterium’s censorship and everything, so people in her profession had cause to fight them, they fit the profile. She was probably assigned there, officially, so Oakley Street could find out more about Lyra (maybe even rescue her) and about Marisa. A quick reminder that, despite fighting the Magisterium, Oakley Street prioritised the CCD given that they were one of the most violent of the groups, but they certainly kept tabs on Marisa, especially because Lord Nugent knew who she was, at least, as Lyra’s mother and a threat to her. Adèle asks Lyra several questions about Marisa and before that, she asks if Lyra is related to Marisa. This could be Adèle trying to figure out what exactly Lyra knew about herself. Had Mrs. Coulter told her the truth or not? Then she asks about Marisa’s nature, to know how Lyra feels and if she’s being well cared for. This was information valuable to Oakley Street, given the nature of Marisa’s business and Lyra being the Magisterium’s enemy number 1. (There is some plot holes in this scenario because this book can’t have possibly guessed the existence of Oakley Street, but I like it, so I’m keeping it.)

Adèle is forced to leave the party early, but the impression I have is that Marisa eavesdropped on the conversation or was tipped off, because she knows Adèle is a journalist, yet she does not know her name. And Lyra’s first impression of her is that she might be a student, so there is nothing on Adèle that shows she is a journalist. The scholar with her is escorted out as well, as Lyra sees it happening. The implication is that the man brought Adèle with him; he doesn’t look like he has a secret agenda, so I suppose Adèle convinced him to take her to the party or she was picked for that infiltration based on an invitation she already had.

On the run: After Lyra escapes Mrs. Coulter and ends up with the gyptians, she’s back on the Oakley Street radar. Marisa and the CCD have pretty much every authority in England looking for Lyra, but the gyptians evade them by hiding Lyra. To pull that off, they had to have help from Oakley Street, and probably needed it, because the gyptians suffered a lot under the Magisterium rule and had almost no rights when it came to the CCD. Oakley Street could have helped them by interfering in multiple ways, such as misinformation or obstructing their messengers in land, while the gyptians did their best to avoid docks and ports on their way to the Fens, where a treaty protected them from the Church.

When Lyra is with the gyptians, Oakley Street can worry about other matters. The gyptians use their own men to spy on the Gobblers; it makes sense for Oakley Street not to care so much about the GOB because their sole focus was to disrupt the Magisterium and the GOB was privately funded, and it wasn’t tied to the Church publicly. My guess is that they had their eyes there, mostly because Marisa was responsible for it, and the rest of their efforts were elsewhere. Other agencies of the Church were rushing against time to learn about Lyra and capture her, so it makes sense that Oakley Street would stick to tailing the College of Bishops and the violent CCD.

It’s possible that Oakley Street was aware of what was happening during Bolvangar and Svalbard thanks to Farder Coram. So, 1) They knew Lyra had gotten capture and likely brought to Bolvangar and 2) They also knew Lyra escaped Mrs. Coulter again by going to Svalbard in an air balloon. That is where their information source pretty much dies. Lyra is left with Serafina and Lee Scoresby, and Iorek, and as far as I know, Serafina and Lee stick together after the events of NL, so no one goes back to warn Oakley Street; it’s possible neither of them knew about it to begin with.

However, we know Marisa had alerted the CCD or at best, she forgot to hid her tracks, so they knew where she was headed and assumed there was where Lyra was too. It’s safe to assume Oakley Street had eyes in Magisterium ruled places, so when the Muscovite Army was assembled and sent to the North, they probably knew Lyra was there with Asriel too. It’s also possible that they knew that before it happened, given that spywork is mostly about avoiding things rather than actively countering them.

They likely knew Asriel had been captured way before Lyra went to him, so the fact Asriel remained in prison is intriguing. Main scenarios for this:

Oakley Street knew about Asriel’s plan. They kept him there because even if he failed, the chaos he would cause was enough to disrupt the Magisterium for a while, the sort of moment Oakley Street could use to cause a lot of damage, even take down important agencies of the Church. If they knew exactly what he planned or not, it’s difficult to say, but Asriel at some point said to Lyra “I did not send for you.” That means he had means to communicate outside of Svalbard and that he had someone to contact when he needed a child. We know it’s not Marisa, she clearly wouldn’t give him a child because she was trying to stop him from doing his thing. So, his most solid allies have to be Oakley Street. At the time of Northern Lights, Thomas Nugent was director, and he is ruthless, so if Asriel came to him with a proposition that could shake the very core of the Magisterium, he wouldn’t hesitate to allow it or even help him.

Oakley Street couldn’t help Asriel. Going to Svalbard would be a challenge, let alone break him out of an armored bear prison, especially because Iofur was supporting Marisa, and by association, the Church. They also had better things to work on, and Asriel was not captured on a mission here, he maybe wasn’t even an actual member of Oakley Street to begin with. There is also the chance they contacted him and he was like “No, I’m good. I even have a fireplace here.”

As a spy agency, Oakley Street wouldn’t have exactly frowned upon Asriel’s handiwork. He was a man of greater good aspects and the agency was used to work from the shadows and resorting to not-so-noble means to achieve their ends. They were small in numbers, weak by the ageing of the members and very desperate, each day struggling against the massive force of the Church, so I wouldn’t put it past them to help Asriel. However, whether they knew about it or not, they definitely took advantage of whatever chaos came from Asriel’s deeds.

After the Bridge to the Stars, we know that Asriel eventually builds an Army and a fortress, but we know that no one in Lyra’s world is aware of what happened. They know he fucked up the sky and the weather and that he was on some sort of heretic rampage but that is all. His fate isn’t even known by Lyra and many others; people think he and Marisa disappeared, including Oakley Street, who at TSC has very little knowledge of Lyra’s importance or so it seemed based on Godwin’s request to hear more about it. That probably indicates that the agency took no part in Asriel’s war, but they likely kept fighting the Magisterium as they began to build an army themselves to follow Asriel.

There isn’t much happening in the Subtle Knife for any speculation, I think they’ll mostly stick to doing their average procedures, investigating the Magisterium’s army, checking what they’re doing and why they’re doing and sabotaging what they can. If anything, I think Grumman could have been associated with them, he was a Scholar and then as a shaman, he could provide valuable information about the state of where he was living. They also probably kept tabs on Marisa, but maybe lost track of her when she went to another world; Lyra was still a person of interest for the CCD, and Oakley Street was likely looking for her, but there is also the chance that they assumed she was with Asriel, so they chose to focus on the other matters.

The thing about Asriel’s war is that it was very focused in one point; the world still kept on existing after he went to fight the Kingdom, it continued to exist normally. The weather was crazy, but that was about how people perceived the change. So, saying Oakley Street still maintained their objectives is appropriate I think. Under the chaos, there was room for a lot of damage to be done.

In the Amber Spyglass, Asriel has his own spies, so Oakley Street’s work here is a bit more clouded. I haven’t read this book enough to actually break it down to this level, but maybe when I do, I will do it in another post.

This was fun! If you guys have any theories or corrections, feel free to add them!

#his dark materials #tsc spoilers #hdm meta #oakley street #did someone ask for an unecessary spy meta? i thought so #asjsjkahsjhjsa #meta by effie

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