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generic-sonic-fan · 7 months

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Transcendence

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

Seek all seven, and your conviction can reshape reality.

Word count: 4257

Metal Sonic remembers the first time he touched an Emerald.

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

Metal Sonic remembers how it thrummed against his palm plating.

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

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

(Metal Sonic remembers a whisper.)

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

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

—

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

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

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

—

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

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

“You don’t have the sensors for it.”

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

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

A guess, Metal Sonic replies over the data cable.

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s calling him. Ahead. Ahead.

He brings it into his palm and it thrums.

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

And the energy beckons.

(A whisper.)

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

Metal Sonic points to the Emerald.

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

He lowers his hand.

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

He shakes his head.

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

—

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

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

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

The plane waits before him.

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

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

(As if he is singing.)

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

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

He presses the Emerald against his forehead.

(He presses the Emerald against his forehead.)

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

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

—

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

—

“A chaos control.”

Metal Sonic awakens.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yes, he affirms.

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

—

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

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

—

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

—

“I expected results.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

He looks at the Emerald.

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

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

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

(And he burns back.)

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

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

A bright flash.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

(And he is humming along.)

Sonic charges.

(A crescendo.)

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was not your development, Metal Sonic thinks.

Dr Ivo Robotnik’s smile does not waver.

—

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

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

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

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

The blue Emerald lies on the seafloor.

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

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

—

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

Something is different with this one. Something is wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Is that who you are?)

Metal Sonic pauses.

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

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

Neo, the Emerald whispers.

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

A hand clamps around her forearm.

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

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

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

A question she doesn’t know the answer to.

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

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

“Come on, up you go!” He smiles.

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

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

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

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

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

“Put those down!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(She)

(opens)

(her)

(eyes.)

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

#metal sonic #trans girl metal sonic #sth #have a trans metal fic in these trying times! this one's very experimental. tell me how you like it.#tl;dr: the emeralds can trans your gender because I said so #tw dysphoria #tw body issues #(some nebulous self-talk resembling an eating disorder)#oh and #bad dad eggdad #like SERIOUS bad dad eggdad. like not-a-dad-at-all eggdad. sorry

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goginaporter · 11 months

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

#hsmtmts #ej caswell #ej hsmtmts #idk how to tag I never talk about him lol #I have mixed feelings about ej because he was one of my favorite characters in s1 and 2 #but he kinda fell flat in s3 for me idk #but I feel like I understand him on a deep psychological level #this post is also looking to push back on the babying done by ej stans #they refuse to let him be held accountable and place the onus of ALLLLLL his problems on the shoulders of others #sometimes it is other people’s fault #most of the time it’s not #I just wanna understand the reasoning a bit #bc I truly feel there was not much his friends could do but make the musical good in their own ways #and this is not blaming ej #but it’s hard to help someone when they don’t tell you anything #and he’s notorious for bottling his feelings up #and no one can read your mind if you don’t want them to #but anyways #pls share your explanations!!!

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overgrownmoon · 1 month

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#clownponderings #rain world #rain world headcanons #art #look at my robot bugs !!! look!!!

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larkandkatydid · 6 months

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The amount of public health work that gets outsourced to my father, an air conditioning salesman, simply because he’s in a cult whose teachings are that he has to do volunteer social service work for the most stigmatized populations or the Demons Will Return would absolutely astound people. I’ll start by saying that he has a template for the letters he writes to help people be allowed to have organ transplants and is on a text chain with a group of cops whose partner sometimes barricades himself in motel rooms and has to be negotiated out…this being the part my father, a wealthy air conditioning executive who is in a cult, is called in for. It saves the public a fortune but is not advisable!

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zaebeecee · 10 days

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To Sever a Loveless Bond

••RadioDust Soulmate AU••

Part 9/?

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•••

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

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

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

•••

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

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

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

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

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

“Why is that?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What— um. Yes. Of course.”

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

“Told you. Nobody whose death would matter.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“VAL!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

•••

“Has anybody seen Alastor?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Positive.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I don’t see how that’s any—”

“It was in a shop.”

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

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

“Hmm? Yes, Niffty, what is it?”

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

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

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

“Oodles.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Uh, sure, Alastor. That’s fine.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“…what?”

•••

“There he is get the fuck down!”

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

“Ow, fuck, sir…!”

“Blitzø!”

“Shh!”

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

That must be the Radio Demon.

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

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

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

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

“Tiny,” Blitzø said.

“Yeah.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Hey!”

“Nope,” Millie said with a bright smile.

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

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

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

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

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

“Blitzø…”

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

•••

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

…it was fun.

He thought Alastor had fun, too.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Holy fuck!!”

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

“What. The fuck.”

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

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

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

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

“Worth a shot, I suppose!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Forties.”

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

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

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

“…okay. So… what’d you do?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“…what other use?”

“Hm?”

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

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

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

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

Angel tilted his head. “…whaddya mean?”

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

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

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

“Are you alright, sha?”

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

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

…radio equipment.

He was in Alastor’s radio tower.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What’s that?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Uh… y…yeah. I would.”

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

“Where are you goin’ with this…?”

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

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

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

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

“No,” Angel answered, matching his tone.

“Are you afraid of me right now?”

Angel swallowed. “…no.”

“You should be.”

“I know.”

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

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

Perfect.

Somehow, it was perfect.

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

“He hates being touched.”

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

How long has it been since anyone even hugged you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That’s true.”

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

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

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

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

“Okay, Al. I’ll stay.”

•••

#my writing #hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor #hazbin angel dust #radiodust #alastor x angel dust #hazbin charlie #hazbin vaggie #hazbin niffty #hazbin husk #hazbin vox #hazbin valentino #hazbin velvette #helluva blitzo #helluva moxxie #helluva millie #helluva loona

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utilitycaster · 1 year

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Something I've noticed, and that I'd be curious to get your thoughts on, is that there's a subset of fans who were perfectly cool with FCG when they didn't follow a deity, but as soon as they decided that religion was something they wanted to have as a part of their life, these fans did a 180. As you said, it's fine if someone doesn't enjoy how FCG is exploring religion, but it seems to me like some people were a lot more attached to the idea of a goddless cleric than they were to him as a character who had the potential to grow and change

Oh absolutely I think this is the case, which is funny, because I initially could not stand that FCG was a cleric with no apparent source of power (and, to be clear, I am not bothered by clerics who have mixed or even negative feelings about their deities like Deanna and FRIDA, nor would I be mad about a cleric devoted to a concept rather than a god).

Like...this is also touching on what I want to talk about later but there are a lot of fans who just...hate that the characters (and, uh, by extension, the cast) have free will and are not just puppets to play out and validate their (the fans) own personal beliefs, but are instead here to tell a story, which is why they hate change (because they fixate on the characters most appropriate as these puppets in the first few episodes and so change obviously fucks with that perception and forces them to have to think).

I think it's just people who, as I said, haven't gone to therapy about their religious trauma or at least learned the basics of "how I feel about religion is not necessarily how other people feel, nor is it directly applicable to a fictional magical world" and who are mad that a character they believed would prove that they are right is instead exploring religion. Which already didn't make sense because even if FCG did remain godless, they probably would still have rushed in here. Not to tap the Brennan Lee Mulligan "personality pre-dates ideology" sign yet again but the martyr complex and the altruism both came well before the interest in the Changebringer for FCG. FCG already did not really trust himself to make decisions; he just now has a way to outsource it to someone else. Which makes their speech on the Grand Disc fascinating, because it is essentially FCG asserting that in the absence of a god, one must aspire to goodness on one's own. I mean...folks, that's literally humanism, in a world where gods objectively exist.

Speaking of Brennan, he told a great story on the WBN fireside chat this week. He said it was a Hindu parable although I haven't tbh been able to find it, but anyway, it's about an atheist who meditated constantly, with the mantra that the gods weren't real. Upon their death, they were taken to the side of one of the gods, upon which they said, essentially, "what the fuck is going on" to which the god replied "you never allowed the gods out of your mind. You are one of the most devout people who ever existed." I think about this a lot when it comes to people who are desperate to overlay their own atheism (which, I should note, is fully valid in the real world, just not in Exandria) because, truly, they are constantly thinking of the divine and trying to make stories about the gods being wrong instead of just hanging out and watching the story.

When we look at people who are taking out their religious trauma, they are often recreating many of the same harmful group dynamics of organized religion, just dedicated to ideals other than a deity. It's that old discussion of how ex-fundamentalists still practice so many of the same thought patterns unless they put in a lot of active work to relearn it; they think removing the religion will fix them when the problem was always the behavior that people used the religion to justify. It's why (for example), and this is getting rather harsh, people who would rightfully be horrified by conversion therapy will, without blinking, remark things like "wow, I hope Jester nearly getting killed will make her realize she's a lesbian". The problem is not a belief in god; it's the belief that one's sexuality can be changed; that only some sexualities are correct to have; and that it's completely reasonable to say that a way to change a woman's behavior to what you want it to be is to threaten her life. They have not unlearned any of those beliefs, and instead of making the slightest effort themselves to grow and change and heal they look for fictional characters to prove their own rightness in perpetuating the same harm that was visited upon them, just in a different direction. So yeah, a character like FCG, who is growing and changing and exploring religion in a nuanced and neutral manner is a fucking threat to them.

#answered #kerosene-in-a-blender #critical role spoilers

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liatkolink · 4 months

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On Friday, January 26, 2024, the International Court of Justice declares that Israel must take measures to prevent genocide in Gaza; and what Israel has done in return is both disgusting and brilliant.

The next day, Israel released a report stating that 12 UNRWA workers participated in the October 7 attack. 12 of the 30,000 (0.04%) UNRWA workers, by the way. UNRWA is part of the UN, and is dedicated to providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the form of food, shelter, fuel, and many other basic necessities of life. Things that Israel constantly prevents and destroys.

Because of this, the UN fired, rather than suspended, those 12 people without even fully investigating whether Israel's allegations are actually true, since that report is entirely based on testimonies extracted through torture by Israel. The UN is stricter with its own employees with possibly false allegations than the US police when there is video evidence of police committing crimes. The UN did this to maintain a good image, to avoid future incidents like this, and mainly, to avoid precisely what happened next.

That same day, Western countries took it as an excuse to defund UNRWA. The countries that did this are the United States, Australia, Canada, Italy, Germany, Finland, Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Scotland (although Scotland is part of the United Kingdom, I don't know why it is listed twice in the AlJazeera report). Instead, Ireland and Norway expressed that UNRWA does very important work supporting Palestinians who need help today more than ever to withdraw their funds from this organization.

The reason I initially said it's brilliant is because in this way, Israel gives its allies an excuse to defund UNRWA so they can pretend they are genuinely concerned about the allegations when everyone knows perfectly well that Israel constantly lies, and this report is probably false too. But the truth doesn't matter at the end of the day when your geopolitical ends are met. In this way Israel can "outsource" its genocide without being directly linked to it. After all, it's not Israel that defunded UNRWA, it was other countries.

The ICJ, which is a subsidiary of the UN, has declared that Israel must stop any instances that could constitute genocide, and the Western countries' response is, instead of condemning Israel and providing more support to Palestine, they defund UNRWA, undermining the reputation of the ICJ, and openly declaring that the international rules they themselves claim are important only apply to enemies of the West.

UNRWA will not be able to operate in Gaza after February because 60% of its funds have disappeared and thousands more people will die because of this. The blood of Palestinians is on the hands not only of Israel, but also on the hands of the United States, Australia, Canada, Italy, Germany, Finland, Holland, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, and we must never forget that at the most decisive moment to stop genocide, they decided to support said genocide.

And to top it all off, several Israeli politicians have declared their plans to set up settlements in Gaza, going against the requests of the ICJ and what the United States reiterated time and again were not Israel's plans.

Israel releasing that report is a clear attempt to destroy UNRWA and the Palestinians it helps, discredit the UN, and the UN firing its employees is taking those allegations seriously when it is clear that Israel is trying to discredit the UN as it has done. since ever. This is the most false and cynical controversy I have ever seen.

Long live Palestine, ceasefire now, reparations for all Palestinians, and peace for both Palestinians and Israelis.

#UNRWA #unrwafunding #UN #Palestine #free palestine #gaza #Israel

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socialjusticeinamerica · 1 year

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

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

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

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

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

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outofangband · 10 months

Text

Items taken from prisoners upon capture part one

Angband World Building and Aftermath of Captivity Masterlist

Awhile ago I made a quick version of this but here is one with even more detail

(I spent way too much time on this)

The running of Angband requires huge amounts of supplies and materials, not all of which can be made within the fortress

As I’ve talked about, Angband and later, strongholds of the enemy in the Second Age and Beyond, acquire supplies and resources in a number of ways from extremely tenuous “trading agreements”, to outsourcing (unwilling) labor in the surrounding areas, to raids and pillaging, and from items taken from killed and captured enemies. This last category is a small percentage of supplies, items and materials but it is an interesting one!

Different fortresses have different methods of cataloging and distributing these items as well as keeping records (though not all do this last part). In Angband, one role of the guards of the fortress is the intake and sorting of prisoners who arrive as well as of their items.

Here are a selection of examples of items recovered from prisoners upon their capture in the first age where records were kept (I maintain that Angband kept records as I’ve talked about here and a few other places. Why? In part because it’s practical and Sauron oversees a lot of the organization of the fortress and would demand it

. In a much smaller part because I enjoy making fake Angband paperwork :)

I really enjoy world building so please feel free to ask more! This is mostly a silly way of exploring some actual thoughts I have

Maedhros: double bladed sword (steel, engraved, crucible, yet unknown alloys), Tunic, breeches, leggings/stockings and sash (mixed textiles primarily silk), leather strip for hair, vambraces and gauntlets (leather and steel), breastplate (steel), boots (leather, stitches from identified textile) Small satchel (leather, woven string, glass beads) containing a damaged metal representation of familial house, a small pearl bladed knife wrapped in parchment, and a silk ribbon.

All items save for the pearl blade are accounted for upon arrival. Prisoner arrived wearing only leggings.

Gwindor: Clothes made from seeded plant not identified by acquisition member (tunic, leggings, shifts), Boots (leather, clay, beads), helm (steel, leather), vambraces, gauntlets, (steel, leather), shield (unidentified wood, steel)

(My note: Gwindor had lost his sword in the final struggle in Angband where the cavern collapsed. It was later recovered though not linked to him) Second note: His clothes are made from flax and milkweed seed, the shield was made from oak wood

Húrin: One boot (leather, wool), not worn by prisoner upon arrival, leggings, tunic (flax), vambraces (leather), not worn by prisoner upon arrival

Prisoner arrived wearing bandages made from cotton and flax, originating with a healer of Angband. Lord Gothmog has accounted for these with the claim that the hands of the prisoner were severely burned by a caustic substance upon capture and that they required bandaging to mitigate further damage until arrival. Lord Gothmog has also stated that the prisoner was willing to worsen his injury by using any remaining substance to attempt to injure those involved in acquisition Much of prisoner’s personal items were lost in struggle upon capture. A further few items were destroyed upon journey here. Lord Gothmog has accounted for several pieces of armor that sustained severe damage and were discarded

Translated Note from Gothmog: you are lucky that there is a prisoner at all. this wretch better be worth the trouble it caused

Note from me:

-normally Gothmog would be reprimanded for damaging potentially valuable items let alone discarding them as even scrap metal is useful. But really, who is going to reprimand Gothmog especially after he has received such honors for slaying the Noldorin High King and securing the capture of a valuable prisoner.

-many captains choose trophies from prisoners or victims. Sometimes these are gifts they are allowed but not always

-when Morgoth’s allies invade or occupy a place they get supplies from this too

Feel free to ask about any others, the fate of any of these objects or anything else! I thought about including Celebrían and Frodo but I’ll probably save them for another post

#the silmarillion #maedhros #the children of húrin #Húrin #gwindor #in the iron hell #musing and meta

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yoannlossel · 1 year

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#SupportHumanArtists

Here is a translation of three posts about the arrival of AI in art, originally written in French, that I wrote three months ago. The debate has continued since then, but the basis of my thinking remains the same. What has changed the most since I wrote these posts is the widespread use of this technology. What was once a fear is becoming more and more tangible.

Midjourney / AI in art Part 1 : First impressions.

What questions me the most, concerning Midjourney and the arrival of AI in the field of graphic arts, is not so much the capacity of AI to execute scripts, with renderings as bluff as they are, but our capacity to delegate even our imagination. We read here and there that it's just another tool, like the arrival of photography or Photoshop (developped in Part 2⇊ ). But Midjourney is not a simple medium that produces stylistic effects, it's a scripted artist-bot that composes on demand by relying on a database that is itself fed by our artistic productions. It's not only a tool, it's a paradigm shift in the world of graphic creation.

Midjourney (+AI art) will not impact everyone in the same way. As a spectator, one can observe the adventure with an amused eye or even let oneself be carried away by the strange and dark creations very directly evocative of Beksinski's work, the organic visuals taken from Mucha's work (a bit blended), the disproportionate landscapes largely evoking the concept art of famous video games and other more or less strange creations.

But as an artist, we know the sinuous path of creation, the one on which Midjourney relies. This path that inspires, that pushes us to surpass ourselves, to imagine what doesn't exist or to try to remember what does exist in order to transcribe it. It is a force that pulls upwards, that imposes a dynamic, an energy, to take decisions and a direction. Art is not only an object of pleasure to satisfy a spectator, it is a complete step which implies to put in movement its intellect, its senses, its emotions and to constitute a coherent corpus by gathering this whole. Not everyone is capable of constituting this coherent corpus - which like all work requires experience - but everyone, one day, tries and has fun creating. This is a life-saving dynamic, which is often a good sign of mental health for both the individual and society.

Midjourney imposes a much more passive role and I fear that instead of expanding our creative potential it will only weaken it. I feel that if we delegate our ability to imagine, we take away the great tool that art is to develop our human genius and at the same time the possibility to constitute a creative and flourishing civilization.

We can be happy with the visual festival that is taking place at the moment, or not. But, in my opinion, we should not simply think in terms of achievements but in terms of consequences on the development of the individual in a broad sense.

Not to mention the multiple questions and reflections of all kinds that this raises:

How will we classify the artists who will use MJ's productions to constitute a body of work? Art competitions are already affected by this phenomenon.

A large part of the works used by the database to train MJ are not free of rights and have nevertheless participated in its development, but it is a lucrative application. The full version of MJ is not free.

Once again, the means of production are being accelerated, at a lower cost, at the service of a private company and at the expense of a potentially gigantic number of people.

One day, hypothetically, AI will have in its database more self-generated images than all the human productions put together and will start to compose self-referenced visuals. I would be curious to have your opinions, as diverse as they are?

Midjourney / AI in art Part 2 : On the human genius.

Short version: When we outsource a skill, one of those that contribute to our development as an individual from a psychic point of view, we add proportionally as much comfort to our lives as we potentially weaken ourselves. I am not questioning the tools that take over our most thankless and physical tasks, those that allow us to eliminate the drudgery and repetitiveness of work, in which case they are saving technologies. I am talking about the outsourcing of our intellectual forces, of our creativity, of our inventiveness. What I defend is not my status as an artist, I will adapt. What I defend is the psychic development, the human genius.

Long version: One must characterize the tools and not confuse them. All the tools do not fit in the same category, even if they belong to the same class, they are not the intermediaries of the same forces and one does not delegate the same tasks. A pencil and a computer are tools, but they do not have the same impact on our civilizations.

Comparing the arrival of AI in art to the arrival of photography is a tempting parallel - and even interesting because we have precise documentation on the period, a testimony to take a step back - but it doesn't seem relevant to me. The camera has upset a figurative approach in search of hyperrealism, but we are talking about a stylistic revolution. A camera is not a tool for producing works of art, it has not been thought in this sense. The camera is a medium in the strict sense, which can be used to produce a work of art. A tool that has no database to draw on, does not compose itself by having ingested the different rules of composition, has no subject matter (MJ has, in a way, subject matter. He organizes it according to your request). Once the camera is at the end of your arm, you have to use your imagination and give intention to that moment until you reach your ideal mental representation.

You can fumble and refine a MJ-generated image for hours, it's true. But you can also not do that and achieve a result, and that is the huge chasm between these two technologies. Comparing photography and MJ is like comparing a map and a GPS. If you never learned how to find your way in space before using a GPS, you don't develop skills that can be useful in many aspects of life: understanding distances, managing space and time. These are skills that make you autonomous, that offer a little more freedom and that help by extension to develop your critical mind. Delegating your imagination or your creativity to an AI, without having learned to develop them, is the same problem, the same weakening of your potential.

Of course, MJ can be an interesting tool to pursue one's artistic path. But it is still necessary to have made an artistic journey before using it. One can quickly obtain a very beautiful result by using this tool, and even obtain recognition by this means, without asking all these questions. But the important thing is the path that leads us to the result, that is what elevates us as individuals. And that which elevates us as individuals participates in elevating us as a society.

Everything that allows us to delegate, everything that allows us to go faster, is and will be used. It is not a question of "if", it is a question of "when". So the question is not whether or not we accept the arrival of this technology. The question is (especially for professional artists): how does one develop one's opinion on this topic, with what sources and what basis of reflection? And then, for the artists, how do we talk about it to the public?

Midjourney / AI in art part 3 : On Arts and Crafts, William Morris and the Avant-Garde of Art.

I read here and there that one must question one's artistic approach, and adopt an avant-garde approach in reaction to the arrival of AI in art.

The function of a large number of craftsmen was radically transformed following industrialization, so much so that they have never found equivalent positions. A cabinetmaker, a jeweler, a dressmaker or a carpenter no longer does the same work as before the advent of industrial production. Either these craftsmen have accepted the evolution of their trade and their work has lost its meaning, or they try to continue their artisanal approach with all the economic problems they have to face (accompanied by the incessant justifications necessary to legitimize their approaches to a public that continues to compare their production to an industrial mode of production). When asked to reinvent themselves, they ended up machining furniture at Ikea, fitting out industrial-style bookcases in plywood, enlarging rings in supermarkets and patterning coats for the luxury industry in cold sheds. The quality of craftsmanship is declining, know-how tends to be lost and finishes are less meticulous, being alienated to a mode of production that optimizes and simplifies to produce faster in greater numbers.

The taste of the public has become accustomed by impregnation to this industrial style which has become the aesthetic culture of our time, and we ask for more. The common mistake being to think that we have developed an attraction for this style by taste, but it is not a style, it is a mode of production which has flooded the world and for which we have developed the affection that we have for what has accompanied us for a long time. A poisoned comforter.

The artist thought he was preserved by his status, detached from his brothers and sisters of the Crafts. But the separation has not always been so clear-cut - in the past, artists and craftsmen walked the same paths, as all our European cities attest - the evolution of the culture we constitute together can choose to downgrade or reclassify the craftsman and the artist according to changing criteria. When we are invited to change our approach to adopt the avant-garde approach to art, we are downgraded from our current function as artists and invited to join the history of artisans.

If one asks the question of whether or not to change one's artistic approach towards an avant-garde approach to art, in order to maintain one's function as an artist, in reaction to a technological evolution, one postulates that one must accept to survive in an ultra-competitive environment and run after the evolution of technologies (evolution of technology is supposed to serve the human being, isn't it?).

Is this really the way we want to think, what we aspire to?

Is it not more interesting to build a civilization by asking questions in order to offer a function that makes sense to everyone, including craftsmen, artists who do not claim to be at the avant-garde of art and "artisans of art" (and we can extend to multiple sectors)? William Morris already addressed the question in these terms more than a century ago. Everyone should be able to access dignity through their work, to find meaning in it by having the feeling of working on something useful and beautiful (useful and beautiful being contextualized in Morris' words). I am convinced that there will always be avant-garde artistic productions and so much the better, but I will always keep in mind the reflection around Arts&Crafts which offered such an interesting glimpse of what could be offered by the union and diversity of talents.

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