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mariacallous · 4 months

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In our turbulent and divided world, there is one unifying constant: Women and girls bear the brunt of conflict. Across most of the globe, they are excluded from war and peace–level decisions. And yet, they suffer disproportionately when things fall apart. They are at home with small children and elderly relatives when bombs start to fall. Their bodies are instrumentalized as weapons of terror. They scramble for food, water, and fuel when male relatives are called up for fighting. And they pick up the pieces when their communities become collateral damage.

It is in part because of these experiences that women are often among those most committed to dialogue and bringing an end to violence. This year showcased women’s vulnerabilities—and their unique peacemaking powers. Here are five ways women made a difference in 2023.

Women on the Front Lines in Ukraine

The women of Ukraine have remained steadfast since Russia invaded their country nearly two years ago. More than 60,000 women serve in the military, while millions more ensure social cohesion and spearhead the humanitarian response on the home front.

Two days after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Ukrainian Women’s Fund pivoted from an organization dedicated to preventing gender discrimination and promoting equal opportunities for women into a wartime relief agency. The fund issued rapid response grants and mobilized its vast network of Ukrainian women’s organizations to provide emergency assistance to families fleeing the war. Between March and November of 2022, the fund’s grants to coalitions, partnerships, and civil society organizations totaled almost $750,000, according to its website. These female-led organizations arranged transit to evacuate families from areas of hostility, created shelters for displaced people, distributed humanitarian aid, and organized medical and psychological support for people traumatized by the horrors of war.

The Ukrainian Women’s Fund is currently engaging women’s rights organizations in discussions and planning for Ukraine’s recovery strategy. “Women who are protecting the country from inside, they know how to be crisis managers now,” Natalia Karbowska, the fund’s director of strategic development, said in an interview with the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security. That skill will be needed for the country when it starts its recovery, she said.

The Ukrainian National Action Plan to implement the U.N. Security Council’s “Women, Peace and Security” resolution, first adopted in 2016 and updated in 2022 to focus on amplifying women’s leadership in post-conflict recovery and transitional justice initiatives, received a boost from the Biden administration in October with $2 million in supplemental funding.

Sudanese Women Fighting for Survival

Despite being sidelined by the gender constraints of Islamic law, in which women are legally required to obey their husbands, women have actively helped keep other women alive amid the conflict in Sudan.

After fighting broke out in April between forces loyal to two rival generals, women were targeted for sexual assault and rape. Their homes were occupied. They struggled to find places to safely give birth as the country’s health care system collapsed. And they—and their children—surged to the nation’s borders, eager to seek refuge in neighboring countries.

Even before the most recent civil strife, Sudanese women had been embattled. Women’s groups had consistently been excluded from power—despite the fact that they played a key role in the grassroots movement that toppled the country’s former military dictator, Omar al-Bashir, in 2019. Back then, female protestors reported that they were beaten; had their heads shaved; and were forced to undress, photographed, and blackmailed. But although the groups of protestors hoped to have a say in reconstructing Sudanese civil society, al-Bashir’s oppressive regime gave way to renewed gender oppression by military commanders.

This year, more than 49 female-led organizations and initiatives formed the Peace for Sudan Platform to support humanitarian aid as well as female-led collective advocacy for an end to the conflict. Women became key providers of support services and emergency relief, operating in the shadows and expanding the margin of possibility through the smart use of technology. Women’s groups in this network organized on the ground through WhatsApp. They launched campaigns to provide health care to displaced pregnant women and distributed hygiene kits.

From abroad, female Sudanese doctors used WhatsApp to provide telehealth services in online clinics. Other women helped high-profile Sudanese activists escape their home country, setting them up with papers and support overseas. “Sudan’s women’s movement has morphed from fighting for rights to fighting for lives,” Neha Wadeker wrote in Foreign Policy.

A Pen and a Prize for Peace

On Oct. 6, in the midst of a massive crackdown on female activists by Tehran’s rulers, Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Recognizing her “fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all,” the Nobel committee lauded Mohammadi’s more than 30 years of activism, despite “tremendous personal costs,” which have included 13 arrests, five convictions, and a total of 31 years of prison sentences and 154 lashes. At the time of the Nobel announcement, Mohammadi was serving a 10-year sentence in Tehran’s Evin prison, where she continued to document and share stories of state-sponsored sexual assault and battery of female activists and prisoners. In August and October the criminal court found Mohammadi guilty in new trials, adding over two years to her sentence. She reported that new charges were once again brought against her in November.

Outside the walls of her captivity, Mohammadi’s work has been resonant. A brutal campaign of official repression put an end to the massive street protests that erupted in 2022 after a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, died in the custody of the country’s morality police. Yet resistance continues online and through acts of civil disobedience, with some women still refusing to wear a headscarf. The regime has responded to perceived threats with added police patrols, hardened warnings, a stricter headscarf law, and mass arrests.

On the day Mohammadi’s family received the Nobel Prize on her behalf, Mohammadi began a hunger strike in prison in solidarity with Iran’s Baha’i religious minority. In her Nobel Prize lecture, delivered by her children, Ali and Kiana Rahmani in Oslo on Dec. 10, Mohammadi wrote she was just one among “the millions of proud and resilient Iranian women who have risen up against oppression, repression, discrimination, and tyranny.”

Dialogue for an End to Bloodshed

One day after Mohammadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, terrorists affiliated with Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that rules the Gaza Strip, carried out a surprise attack within Israel, killing approximately 1,200 people and taking about 240 hostages. Vivian Silver, the 74-year-old co-founder of Women Wage Peace, Israel’s largest grassroots peace movement that was founded in the embers of the 2014 Gaza war, was originally believed to be among the hostages. On Nov. 13, her family learned that she was among the dead.

Silver, a Canadian Israeli feminist, had dedicated decades of her life to Israel-Palestine peace. She opposed the Israeli blockade of Gaza, in place since 2007, and regularly traveled to the border to pick up sick Palestinians and drive them to Israeli hospitals for treatment. She brought Israeli and Palestinian artisans together to collaborate.

Just three days before the Oct. 7 attack, Silver gathered in Jerusalem with hundreds of other activists from Women Wage Peace and its Palestinian partner group, Women of the Sun. They marched to a rally at the Tolerance Museum, then traveled to the shore of the Dead Sea, where they pulled up seats to a symbolic negotiating table. Together, they called for a peaceful, political agreement to the region’s longstanding conflict—a “Mothers’ Call” for an end to “the vicious cycle of bloodshed.”

“We are not pro-Israel or pro-Palestine,” Yael Braudo-Bahat, the co-director of Women Wage Peace, said to Foreign Policy. “We are pro-peace.”

Women of the Sun, founded by Reem Hajajreh, sent aid to women in Gaza until the banks closed. Even while its own movement in the West Bank is increasingly restricted due to rising settler violence, the group works for an inclusive and sustainable peace.

Marwa Hammad, Women of the Sun’s fundraising coordinator and one of the cofounders, works actively with Women Wage Peace to train women to run in local elections, and she plans to restart her group’s trauma healing program after the war. Before Oct. 7, she held Zoom workshops with women from the West Bank and Gaza. The war interrupted those conversations, but not the organization’s dedication to building peace.

“I think that the presence of the woman should be [in negotiations],” Hammad told Foreign Policy. “I think no woman would choose the war. It would be the last that they would choose.”

Women of the Sun and Women Waging Peace were recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Awakening Humanity Amid Rampant Brutality

For nearly two decades, the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo have been awash in violence as more than 130 non-state armed militias clash with the Congolese army in a fight over land and critical resources including cobalt and gold. The war has displaced 6.9 million people and increasing lawlessness has left women and girls vulnerable to sexual violence, leading to what the U.N.’s refugee agency called a shocking “epidemic” of gender-based violence.

Yet women have emerged as the country’s most promising agents of peace. Activists such as Liberata Buratwa, who runs a network of female peace monitors, have demanded accountability and security from the Congolese army even as women are excluded from political life and official peacebuilding efforts.

“We want peace, and we’ll keep fighting for it,” said Buratwa in a recent interview. “We are continuing to contact the authorities so that peace can return and we can go home.”

Others, such as Pétronille Vaweka, senior mediator for Engaged Women for Peace in Africa (FEPA), have ventured into rebel-held areas to plead with leaders for dialogue. “I know what [the rebels] do, but we have no other choice than to approach them,” Vaweka told U.N. Peacekeeping this month. “I try to awaken humanity in every person.” FEPA has trained a network of 100 women in negotiation, mediation, and conflict resolution.

These grassroots movements are driving real change. Women represented 40 percent of civil society and community representatives and 30 percent of facilitation teams at a round of regional peace talks last year.

As 2024 dawns, Mohammadi’s words continue to ring true: “Women will not give up. We are fueled by a will to survive, whether we are inside prison or outside.”

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hoursofreading · 11 months

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The GOP's only policy position is that of 'what will hurt people most?' There is no reason why Republicans even have a chance of taking back the majority. In 2022 alone, Biden and Dems have done the following:

passed the Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest investment in fighting climate change in history

passed the bipartisan infrastructure bill, the largest investment in infrastructure since Eisenhower

passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, breaking a 30-year streak of federal inaction on gun violence legislation

signed the CHIPS and Science Act into law

took out the leader of al Qaeda

ended America's longest war

reauthorized and strengthened the Violence Against Women Act

signed the PACT Act, a bill to address veteran burn pit exposure

signed the NATO accession protocols for Sweden and Finland

issued executive order to protect reproductive rights

canceled $10,000 of student loan debt for borrowers making less than $125,000 and canceled $20,000 in debt for Pell Grant recipients

canceled billions in student loan debt for borrowers who were defrauded

nominated now-Supreme Court Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to replace Justice Breyer

brought COVID under control in the U.S. (e.g., COVID deaths down 90% and over 220 million vaccinated)

formed Monkeypox response team to reach communities at highest risk of contracting the virus

unemployment at a 50-year low

on track to cut deficit by $1.3 trillion, largest one-year reduction in U.S. history

limited the release of mercury from coal-burning power plants

$5 billion for electric vehicle chargers- $119 billion budget surplus in January 2022, first in over two years

united world against Russia’s war in Ukraine

ended forced arbitration in workplace sexual assault cases

reinstated California authority to set pollution standards for cars

ended asylum restrictions for children traveling alone

signed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, the first federal ban on lynching after 200 failed attempts

Initiated “use it or lose it" policy for drilling on public lands to force oil companies to increase production

released 1 million barrels of oil a day for 6 months from strategic reserves to ease gas prices

rescinded Trump-era policy allowing rapid expulsion of migrants

expunged student loan defaults

overhauled USPS finances to allow the agency to modernize its service

required federal dollars spent on infrastructure to use materials made in America

restored environmental reviews for major infrastructure projects

Launched $6 billion effort to save distressed nuclear plants

provided $385 million to help families and individuals with home energy costs through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. (This is in addition to $4.5 billion provided in the American Rescue Plan.)

national registry of police officers who are fired for misconduct

tightened restrictions on chokeholds, no-knock warrants, and transfer of military equipment to police departments

required all federal law enforcement officers to wear body cameras

$265 million for South Florida reservoir, key component of Everglades restoration

major wind farm project off West coast to provide electricity for 1.5 million homes

continued Obama administration's practice of posting log records of visitors to White House

devoted $2.1 billion to strengthen US food supply chain

invoked Defense Production Act to rapidly expand domestic production of critical clean energy technologies

enacted two-year pause of anti-circumvention tariffs on solar

allocated funds to federal agencies to counter 300-plus anti-LGBTQ laws by state lawmakers in 2022

relaunched cancer 'moonshot' initiative to help cut death rate

expanded access to emergency contraception and long-acting reversible contraception

prevented states from banning Mifepristone, a medication used to end early pregnancy that has FDA approval

21 executive actions to reduce gun violence

Climate Smart Buildings Initiative: Creates public-private partnerships to modernize Federal buildings to meet agencies’ missions, create good-paying jobs, and cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions

Paying for today’s needed renovations with tomorrow’s energy savings without requiring upfront taxpayer funding

ended Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy

Operation Fly-Formula, bringing needed baby formula (19 missions to date)

executive order protecting travel for abortion

invested more in crime control and prevention than any president in history

provided death, disability, and education benefits to public safety officers and survivors who are killed or injured in the line of duty

Reunited 500 migrant families separated under Trump

$1.66 billion in grants to transit agencies, territories, and states to invest in 150 bus fleets and facilities

brokered joint US/Mexico infrastructure project; Mexico to pay $1.5 billion for US border security

blocked 4 hospital mergers that would've driven up prices and is poised to thwart more anti-competition consolidation attempts

10 million jobs—more than ever created before at this point of a presidency

record small business creation

banned paywalls on taxpayer-funded research

best economic growth record since Clinton

struck deal between major U.S. railroads and unions representing tens of thousands of workers after about 20 hours of talks, averting rail strike

eliminated civil statute of limitations for child abuse victims

announced $156 million for America's first-of-its-kind critical minerals refinery, demonstrating the commercial viability of turning mine waste into clean energy technology.

started process of reclassifying Marijuana away from being a Schedule 1 substance and pardoning all federal prisoners with possession offenses

Note: This list only reflects 2022 accomplishments. Click here for 2021 accomplishments.

#quote

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swldx · 3 months

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Voice of America 0406 31 Jan 2024

9775Khz 0357 31 JAN 2024 - VOICE OF AMERICA (UNITED STATES OF AMERICA) in ENGLISH from MOPENG HILL. SINPO = 55434. English, Official Editorial opinion in progress focusing on UNRRA. Even though they are by far the largest organization aiding the Palestinians civilians in Gaza, and Israel has been accused them of aiding Terrorists in the past, they must respond to allegations of staff participating in the Oct. 7 attack. The UN must lead an investigation. @0400z VoA News read by Tommy McNeil. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, U.S. President Joe Biden said he has decided on a military course of action in response to the attack on a U.S. base in Jordan near the border of Iraq and Syria that killed three American soldiers and wounded more than 40 others. Neither Biden nor his officials provided details. But speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said the goal is to ensure the U.S. degrades the groups’ capabilities to attack American troops and facilities, while sending a “strong signal to their backers” in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, without widening the Palestinian conflict in the Middle East. The Pentagon says the drone strike has the “footprints” of Iran-backed Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah, although the U.S. has not given final attribution of who is responsible. Kataib Hezbollah’s statement to cease hostilities is unlikely to sway Washington from planning its response. Pentagon press secretary Major General Pat Ryder told reporters Tuesday that “actions speak louder than words,” and vowed “consequences.” Biden has been aiming to calibrate his retaliation to contain the growing risk of a regional war. “I don’t think we need a wider war in the Middle East,” he said. “That’s not what I’m looking for.” Israeli forces disguised as civilian women and medics stormed a hospital Tuesday in the occupied West Bank, killing three Palestinian militants in a dramatic raid that underscored how deadly violence has spilled into the territory from the war in Gaza. The Palestinian Health Ministry said Israeli forces opened fire inside the Ibn Sina Hospital in the West Bank town of Jenin. A hospital spokesperson said there was no exchange of fire, indicating it was a targeted killing. Israel’s military said the militants were using the hospital as a hideout, without providing evidence. It alleged that one of those targeted had transferred weapons and ammunition to others for a planned attack, purportedly inspired by Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza. North Korea said Wednesday it conducted a test-firing of long-range cruise missiles with an aim to sharpen its counterattack and strategic strike capabilities, in its latest display of weapons threatening South Korea and Japan. The U.S. syphilis epidemic isn't abating, with the rate of infectious cases rising 9% in 2022, according to a new federal government report on sexually transmitted diseases in adults. But there's some unexpected good news: The rate of new gonorrhea cases fell for the first time in a decade. A Delaware judge struck down Elon Musk’s multibillion-dollar pay package at Tesla after finding the process for securing its approval “deeply flawed,” a major setback for the chief executive of the world’s most valuable automaker. @0405z “Daybreak Africa” anchored by male announcer (w/African accent). Backyard fence antenna, Etón e1XM. 100kW, BeamAz 350°, bearing 84°. Received at Plymouth, United States, 14087KM from transmitter at Mopeng Hill. Local time: 2157.

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globalinsightsservices · 1 year

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Medical Alert Systems Market – Latest Scenario and Future Aspect Analysis 2022-2031

New York, Global Medical Alert Systems Market from Global Insight Services is the only authoritative source for intelligence on the Medical Alert Systems Market . The report will provide you with an analysis of the impact of the latest market disruptions such as the Russo-Ukrainian War and Covid-19 on the market. The report provides a qualitative analysis of the market using various frameworks such as Porters Analysis and PESTLE. The report includes in-depth segmentation and market size data by categories, product types, applications, and geographic regions. The report also includes a comprehensive analysis of key issues, trends and drivers, restraints and challenges, competitive landscape, as well as recent events such as mergers and acquisitions activities in the market.

Download a Free PDF Sample Copy of Report – https://www.globalinsightservices.com/request-sample/GIS20250/

A medical alert system is a device that is worn by a person with a medical condition, such as a heart condition, that requires immediate medical attention. The device is usually worn around the neck or wrist, and it is connected to a monitoring center. When the person wearing the device needs medical assistance, they can push a button on the device, which will send a signal to the monitoring center. The monitoring center will then contact the person’s emergency contacts, such as their family or friends, and provide them with the person’s location.

Key Market Players

Bay Alarm Medical

MobileHelp

Ascom Wireless Solutions

ADT Corporation

LifeFone

Hill-Rom Holdings Inc.

Key Trends

There are several key trends in Medical Alert Systems technology. One is the development of mobile medical alert systems. These systems allow users to carry a small, portable device with them at all times. The device can be used to call for help in an emergency situation, even if the user is unable to speak. The other trend is the development of systems that can be integrated with other medical devices. For example, some systems now include a fall detection feature. If the system detects a fall, it will automatically call for help.

The development of systems that can be used in conjunction with GPS is one of the other trends in the market. This allows the system to send help to the user’s location in an emergency. Finally, there is a trend toward systems that are more user-friendly. Many systems now include features such as voice-activated call buttons and large, easy-to-read displays.

Key Drivers

There are several key drivers of the medical alert systems market. One of the most important drivers is the aging population. As people live longer, they are more likely to experience chronic health conditions that can benefit from having a medical alert system in place. Another key driver is the increasing prevalence of chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. This is leading to a greater need for people to have access to medical help in case of an emergency. The other driver of the medical alert systems market is the increasing cost of healthcare. As healthcare costs continue to rise, more people are looking for ways to reduce their costs. This is leading to a greater demand for medical alert systems.

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Key Market Segments

By System Type

Nurse Calling System (NCS)

Personal Emergency Response Systems (PERS)

Smart Belt

By Technology

IP-based Systems

Medical Alert Alarm (Button) System

Two-Way Voice System

Unmonitored Medical Alert Systems

By Application

Assisted Living Facilities

Home-Based User

Hospitals and Clinics

Senior Living Facilities

Others

By Distribution Channel

Offline

Online

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In-depth segmentation which can be customized as per your requirements

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Robust and transparent research methodology

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Global Insight Services (GIS) is a leading multi-industry market research firm headquartered in Delaware, US. We are committed to providing our clients with highest quality data, analysis, and tools to meet all their market research needs. With GIS, you can be assured of the quality of the deliverables, robust & transparent research methodology, and superior service.

Contact Us: Global Insight Services LLC 16192, Coastal Highway, Lewes DE 19958 E-mail: [email protected] Phone: +1-833-761-1700

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newstfionline · 2 years

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Thursday, September 15, 2022

US inflation still stubbornly high despite August slowdown (AP) Lower gas costs slowed U.S. inflation for a second straight month in August, but most other prices across the economy kept rising—evidence that inflation remains a heavy burden for American households. Consumer prices rose 8.3% from a year earlier and 0.1% from July. But the jump in “core” prices, which exclude volatile food and energy costs, was especially worrisome. It outpaced expectations and ignited fear that the Federal Reserve will boost interest rates more aggressively and raise the risk of a recession. Fueled by high rents, medical care and new cars, core prices leaped 6.3% for the year ending in August and 0.6% from July to August, the government said Tuesday. Furniture and sports gear, among many other items, also got costlier, suggesting that businesses are still raising prices in response to robust consumer demand.

Soaring Food Prices in Brazil Lead Many to Take Up Urban Farming (WSJ) As a teenager in the Manguinhos slum community in northern Rio de Janeiro, Leonardo Ferreira said he used to spend his mornings packaging cocaine between shootouts with the police. Now, he tends to his lettuce in the favela’s vast vegetable garden, one of thousands of urban farms that have sprung up across Brazil’s poorest communities, as residents from grandmothers to drug traffickers resort to growing their own food amid soaring prices. “People are desperate. We sell the vegetables cheap to the locals at a fair on Fridays—it’s normally all gone within 30 minutes,” said Mr. Ferreira, 26, who swapped his assault rifle for a garden hose under pressure from his wife. Wedged between makeshift homes on a strip of land the size of four soccer fields, the Manguinhos garden provides enough vegetables for as many as 800 families, say city officials, who assert it is the biggest in Latin America. Urban agriculture is growing across many of the world’s megacities. Rampant inflation and bottlenecks of supplies like fertilizer, which began during the Covid-19 pandemic and were made worse by war in Ukraine, are leading ordinary people to grow more of their own food.

In Reclaimed Towns, Ukrainians Recount a Frantic Russian Retreat (NYT) The signs of desperation were everywhere. Abandoned military vehicles. Cans of food and dishes left on tables. Mail scattered on office floors. Clothes left hanging on lines. This is how the Russian army left the town of Balakliya in northeastern Ukraine, in a sign of a frantic, chaotic withdrawal as the Ukrainian Army closed in during a fast-moving counteroffensive over the last few days. The lightning assaults allowed Ukraine’s military to recapture hundreds of square miles of territory, strategic towns and abandoned weapons. As the Russian defenses around the town collapsed, residents said, soldiers ran for whatever transport they could, leaving behind ammunition and weapons along with personal items in apartments where they had quartered. “Trucks drove through the city honking, and they climbed on and left,” said Igor Levchenko, a retiree, describing the Russian Army’s withdrawal after more than six months of occupation. “They didn’t have a fighting spirit. They were afraid.” The testimony of the town’s residents aligned with reports from other recently retaken villages in the Kharkiv region, where Ukraine has routed Russian forces, and towns that are still occupied in the south. The accounts shed a harsh light on apparent morale and communications breakdowns within Russian occupying forces that could have broad implications for the course of the war, should units elsewhere be afflicted with similar problems.

Pope, opening Kazakh visit, blasts ‘senseless’ Ukraine war (AP) Pope Francis begged for an end to Russia’s “senseless and tragic war” in Ukraine as he arrived Tuesday in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan to join faith leaders from around the world in praying for peace. The 85-year-old Francis made the trip despite what appeared to be an aggravation of the strained knee ligaments that have greatly reduced his mobility all year. Francis struggled to walk through the aisle of the aircraft during the 6.5-hour flight from Rome, and he appeared tired and in pain as he limped heavily with his cane, ceding to a wheelchair for most events once in town. Doctors have told him that for the time being, any further travel—to Kyiv, for example—is out of the question. Recalling that St. John Paul II visited Kazakhstan just days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S., Francis said he was visiting “in the course of the senseless and tragic war that broke out with the invasion of Ukraine.” “I have come to echo the plea of all those who cry out for peace, which is the essential path to development for our globalized world,” he said.

Caucasus Conflict Reignites (1440) Fighting along the border of Armenia and Azerbaijan erupted early Tuesday, leaving close to 100 combatants dead in the worst violence of the decadeslong conflict since a 2020 war. Azerbaijan acknowledged it launched artillery strikes in the south through the day, with reports claiming Azerbaijani soldiers were advancing into Armenia despite a morning cease-fire brokered by Russia. The latest friction is a continuation of a conflict over borders since the Soviet collapse in the 1980s, with each nation looking to control the majority-Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh region located within the UN-recognized borders of Azerbaijan. Russia, Armenia's formal ally, has effectively mediated the conflict before, but with its preoccupation with recent losses in Ukraine, some analysts argue Azerbaijan currently has a strong advantage. Both Russia and the European Union have upped their dependence on Azerbaijan as a result of the war in Ukraine, possibly emboldening Azerbaijan to further chip away at Armenian boundaries.

U.S. to redirect Afghanistan’s frozen assets (Washington Post) The Biden administration on Wednesday announced it will create a new fund out of some of Afghanistan’s frozen central bank reserves, aiming to alleviate the country’s mounting humanitarian crisis without enriching the Taliban, which rejected previous attempts at a compromise deal earlier this year. In a statement, the Treasury Department said a new oversight body will deploy $3.5 billion of Afghanistan’s central bank reserves to help stabilize the country’s ravaged economy. The fund—which will be run in part by Swiss government officials and Afghan economic experts—can be used to help the country pay for critical imports, such as electricity, and will not be accessible to Taliban officials, according to the department. The announcement follows more than a year of fighting over whether the Biden administration should return the $7 billion in Afghan assets that became inaccessible to the country’s leaders after the Taliban’s rise to power in August 2021. Economists say the freezing of these funds has fueled the collapse of Afghanistan’s economy and its hunger crisis, but the Biden administration and other analysts have said the Taliban cannot be trusted to administer such substantial amounts of money. Biden officials also announced in February that half of the $7 billion in funds would be separately earmarked for litigation filed by the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

‘Humour over rumour’: Taiwan eyes Ukraine messaging model if China attacks (Reuters) Taiwan is looking at Ukraine’s ways of communicating its message to the outside world at a time of conflict, by making use of tools such as satellites and deploying humour, the digital minister said on Wednesday. “We look at the experience of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February. We found that the whole world can know what is happening there in real time,” Audrey Tang, head of Taiwan’s new digital affairs ministry, told Reuters. Ukraine had effectively conveyed its message to the world, said Tang, adding that keeping up high-quality communication in real time was critical to its effort. Among Tang’s plans to preserve communications if China attacks are a satellite trial programme worth T$550 million ($18 million) over the next two years to ensure internet services across Taiwan. Tang helped craft Taiwan’s public messaging for the COVID-19 pandemic, using memes and humour to fight disinformation, much of which the government accused China of spreading, although Beijing denied it. “We say very publicly that our playbook is ‘humour over rumour,’” she said.

Tribal spies in Syria help U.S. win drone war against Islamic State (Reuters) When the U.S. military targeted Islamic State commander Maher al-Agal with a drone strike in northern Syria in July, there was little chance it would miss. The reason? Revenge. With Islamic State’s last battle-hardened forces holed up in remote areas, the United States is turning to the aid of tribesmen burning to exact revenge for the atrocities unleashed by the group when it ruled over swathes of Syria and Iraq. Still thirsty for vengeance eight years after the group, which is also known as Daesh, massacred hundreds of their clan, Sheitaat tribesmen in Syria had planted a tracking device on the motorbike Agal was riding when he was killed, one of the people who tracked him down said. The tribesman, whose account was confirmed by a Western intelligence officer in the region, said tribal relatives in contact with the Islamic State commander’s immediate family had secretly been keeping tabs on him for months in northern Syria. The Arab tribesmen in Syria seeking vengeance are now part of a growing network of tribal spies playing a significant role in the U.S. military’s campaign to further degrade the group, three Western intelligence sources and six tribal sources said.

Famine Fears (WSJ) Higher global food prices caused by weather disruptions and the ongoing war in Ukraine have pushed parts of Africa to the brink of famine, report Michael M. Phillips and Gabriele Steinhauser. Meteorologists say East Africa could suffer its fifth disappointing rainy season this year and aid organizations say they don’t have the resources to to stop people from starving. Global food prices have come off their recent peak but remain about 8% higher than a year ago. The World Meteorological Organization said last week that climate change is hitting Africa particularly hard.

Floppy Disks (AIGA Eye on Design) While floppy disks are not being manufactured any more, they’re still needed, and when they are people will turn to companies that refurbish and resell the antiquated memory format. The most in-demand are the 3.5-inch blank floppy disks, which have a capacity of 1.44 megabytes, and they’ve gone from about 10 cents apiece to a dollar apiece as supply dwindles and the machinery to make them simply stops existing. Among the unused disks that survive to today, about 30 percent don’t work, and it’s turned out that the best disks are the ones made during the era of mass production from 1985 to 2000. The biggest buyers outside of hobbyists are the airline industry—if the plane is more than 20 years old it probably still uses floppy disks in the avionics—the medical equipment business and the embroidery business, which uses thousands of machines that need floppy disks to operate. Basically, if the industry still has a ton of valuable equipment from the 1990s, they’re buying secondhand floppies to keep the lights on. And the next time you fly in an older jet, there’s a decent chance a floppy disk is keeping the bird in the air.

#headlines #news

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balrajgis · 2 years

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Antimicrobial Textile Market Overview, Trends, Growth, Demand, Key Players Analysis and Forecast to 2031 | Aditya Birla Group, Fuji Chemical Industries Ltd, Herculite Inc

Global Antimicrobial Textile Market report from Global Insight Services is the single authoritative source of intelligence on Antimicrobial Textile Market. The report will provide you with analysis of impact of latest market disruptions such as Russia-Ukraine war and Covid-19 on the market. Report provides qualitative analysis of the market using various frameworks such as Porters’ and PESTLE analysis. Report includes in-depth segmentation and market size data by categories, product types, applications, and geographies. Report also includes comprehensive analysis of key issues, trends and drivers, restraints and challenges, competitive landscape, as well as recent events such as M&A activities in the market.

Antimicrobial textile is a type of fabric that is treated with an antimicrobial agent in order to protect it from microbial growth. The most common types of microbes that are prevented from growing on antimicrobial textile include bacteria, fungi, and viruses. Antimicrobial textile is used in a variety of applications, including medical, industrial, and consumer products.

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Key Trends

The key trends in antimicrobial textile technology are the development of more effective and longer lasting treatments, the use of nanotechnology to create self-cleaning fabrics, and the incorporation of antimicrobial properties into the fabric itself.

One of the most important trends is the development of more effective and longer lasting treatments. In the past, antimicrobial textile treatments were only effective for a short period of time and had to be reapplied frequently.

Key Drivers

The key drivers of the antimicrobial textile market are the increasing awareness about hygiene, the growing health concerns, and the changing lifestyle of people.

The other drivers include the increasing demand for antimicrobial textile products from the healthcare and hospitality industries, and the growing demand for sportswear and activewear.

Market Segmentation

By Active Agents

Synthetic Organic Agents

Bio-based Agents

By Fibers

Cotton

Polyester

By Application

Medical Textiles

Apparel

Home Textiles

By Region

North America

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key Players

Aditya Birla Group

Fuji Chemical Industries Ltd

Herculite Inc

Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited

Kolon Industries Inc

Response Fabrics Pvt. Ltd

SANITIZED AG

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#Antimicrobial Textile Market

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gohyuck · 3 years

Text

pairing: head knight!jeno x monarch!reader (reader has genitals attributed to those considered biologically female but no pronouns are actually used)

genre: fluff, mild angst (they discuss an oncoming battle they must prepare for), smut (it’s mostly smut)

word count: 6.5k

warnings & notes (nonsexual): mentions of war/battle, mentions of injuries retained from past skirmishes, jeno is as tall as you need him to be in order to rest your head against his chest without leaning down, it’s kind of cheesy tbh they are disgustingly head-over-heels in love with each other, also a peryton is a fantasy creature that’s essentially a stag + a bird, also i know y’all must be tired of royalty aus but i swear this is almost pwp (except there’s context so there’s plot) so give it a chance (if you’re legal) i guess

warnings & notes (sexual): oral (giving and receiving for both parties), fingering (reader receives), spit kink (lmao sorry), general messiness honestly, mild knife kink (no blood drawn, he just uses a dagger to tear apart clothing), gratuitous usage of the name ‘lionheart’, jeno has a big dick because i cannot stop myself from doing that to y’all for some reason, some choking

special thanks to @moonlit-jeno @domjaehyun @waithyuck for reading parts of it/all of it beforehand!

the soft hours of twilight have their holds on you, chilling you to your bones even as you pull the heavy fur cape tighter around your body. you should’ve pulled something over your thin nightgown, you suppose, something to act as a middle layer between silk and skin and peryton fur, but it’s too late for that. you’re already out on your private balcony, overlooking a kingdom you’d do anything to see the sun rise on day after day.

far, far past the outskirts of your humble realm, barely visible to your own eye, an unsettlingly large camp of soldiers is finishing setting up camp for the night. you watch as tiny, tiny orange pinpricks - no doubt the fires they’d set to make food, to alert you of their presence - begin to get snuffed out. finally, they sleep.

if you were any worse of a person, of a ruler, you would send your army after them now, hours before the battle is set. perhaps, if you were any less selfish, you would do so regardless of keeping your status as a good and just monarch. if you were any less selfish, you would shake awake the love of your life and hand him his cape after shedding it from your shoulders. you would tell him to rouse his men and women, to arm them to their teeth, and to fight for what is right using means that are entirely wrong.

as if privy to your thoughts, your head knight stirs in the too-large bed behind you. you turn just in time to see him sit up and twist his body left, right, left as he stretches to rid himself of sleep. it’s too late - or maybe too early - for either of you to be awake. maybe you should have stayed within his warm embrace rather than gotten out of bed to size up the army of the kingdom of crithage.

even now, you can’t help but strategize, at least on a basic level. crithagians are unused to the cold of your beautiful - but often frigid - ekoria. they won’t expect your people to fall upon them from the icy cliffs that surround their camp, nor will they be able to see over the oncoming blizzard your royal sky-reader has predicted. she has not been incorrect in many, many years. ekorians have, over the years, grown accustomed to heavy snows, among other weather phenomenon, so your army’s visual acuity is not to be questioned.

that, and your troops are in the hands of the best warrior ekoria has ever had.

jeno. your jeno. your lionheart. you rein your thoughts in just as he pulls open the balcony door, closing it behind him with a soft click as he steps over the threshold separating in from out and warm from cold. goosebumps rise across his bare flesh the moment his skin meets air, and you don’t hesitate to slide his cape off and thrust it towards him, knowing full well that his arms will provide more than enough heat for you. he fastens it with ease, seeming slightly amused at how you’d been using it as a blanket, and gently grabs ahold of your wrist before pulling you into his chest and wrapping an arm around your waist. with his other hand, he takes a corner of his cape and wraps it around you, leaving you enveloped in both his hot-to-touch skin and the comforting fur.

“they’re out in the valley, aren’t they?” he finally murmurs, leaning to place his mouth against your ear. jeno’s voice is thick and sleep-ridden, still raspy in a way that settles around you, inside you, within you. you lean back slightly, raising a cold hand to rest against the tattoo of a lion that adorns his left pectoral, mane stretching up to his collarbone and encroaching on his bicep. the lion has a scar on its right cheek. you pull away more, eyes landing on the thin discolored line underneath your lover’s same eye.

it had been a longsword, meant to slash across your throat. jeno, with the speed of a star falling from grace and enough adrenaline to fuel a hundred men, had leapt across you in order to take it across the face. for crown and for country, bard’s songs later regaled of him. for you, he’d whispered to you that same night as you’d stitched him up, using the threading tactics you’d learned from the castle medic as a child. for you. always for you.

“my love?” jeno prods, and you realize you haven’t given his rhetorical question any acknowledgement. you hum, meeting his eyes with your own, and watch as he allows one corner of his mouth to turn up.

“they only just put out their fires.” you finally respond, moving to be against his chest again. you rest your head against the intricate ink against jeno’s skin, finally letting out a breath of what one might consider worry. the air that leaves your lungs manifests into wisps out in the cold world that surrounds you. your lionheart pulls you ever closer.

“you need not stress.” he says simply, and an outsider to your relationship would see no cohesion between your statement and his. still, you know precisely what jeno means, why he’s said what he’s said. you turn, pressing your lips against the lion’s forehead. above you, your own lion brushes his lips against your temple.

“i have an army, a kingdom, even, to worry about, and yet i only fear tomorrow for whatever outcome befalls one man.” you whisper, and even you are surprised to find tears catching in your throat. you do not cry easily, not when you know firsthand how cruel the world can be.

you only reign because your parents no longer breathe.

tomorrow’s battle could easily bleed into next year’s war, and while your kingdom is prepared for such a thing, your heart may not be. your people are not belligerent, and neither are you. crithage had been the one to throw the first stone, had sent word that if you refused to relinquish your throne and bow your head, they would aim the first arrow, draw the first blood. no tears had been shed then, not even when you’d paced around your bedchambers, reading and rereading the note signed with blood red ink until jeno had physically pulled it out of your tight grasp. you hadn’t cried, not even when he’d said that he was willing to die if it meant keeping crithage out of ekoria, out of the kingdom you’d both built from ground up after the war that had taken your parents, out of the home you’d created together.

“wherever you take us, i will follow. wherever you need me, i will lead.” he’d murmured the words against the lobe of your ear, standing beside and slightly behind your throne as you’d written out your reply to crithage in a room full of your advisors. nobody else had moved a muscle then, not even as you closed the envelope with hot wax and the royal seal.

you’d sent back a much, much shorter letter than their own in response.

a time and date for battle. nothing more and nothing less.

that had been so many months ago, so far away that the concept of time dissipates when you attempt to organize it in your harried mind. with a hostile army on your doorstep, everything suddenly feels far more real than it has before. your people have been evacuated, your troops have been trained. your lionheart is unafraid to the world, standing tall and proud at your side as he always has.

a sigh that starts from deep in jeno’s chest brings you back to the present. tomorrow is it, you’re reminded. crithage has seiged almost every other state between themselves and your beloved ekoria. if they get to you, they’ll have your head, raised high on a stake they’ll erect outside of the gates they’ll install to the place you call home. if they get to you, it means they’ll have gotten through jeno.

you can’t live in a world without him. it’s a dangerous attachment for a ruler to have, you’re well aware. if other kingdoms find out that your weakness is a person, one that lives and breathes, you’re not likely to ever see your love again.

it’s little comfort that jeno can’t live in a world without you, either.

“i worry about not being here, at the castle, to protect you,” he mumbles into your hair. “i know that you are perfectly capable, and that you’ll have your own faction of our knights with you, but i- it feels as if i’m about to open my chest and leave my naked heart unguarded, right there for any arrows to pierce.”

jeno’s confession is simple, beautiful in the way the most ornate of daggers are: that is, you feel as if he’s just dragged a sharp edge down the length of your sternum, taking you apart piece by piece. his words cage you in, force you deeper into your own head in a way you can’t afford, not right now.

“eloquent,” you hum, unable to resist teasing him even as the moment does not call for it. it’s to save yourself from your heavily beating heart. “it isn’t too late to make you my poet laureate, you know. no need to wield a sword tomorrow then.”

“and who would be your head knight then, hm? the current laureate? you want renjun to lead the charge against the crithagians? to be your lionheart?” your lover draws back to ensure that you can see his eyes, glimmering with mirth. renjun is an able man, and one of your best friends, but he is not the warrior jeno is.

nobody is the warrior that jeno is.

“such a foolish thing to say,” you smile up at him, lips folding from joking to earnest within moments. the merriment fades a little from jeno’s eyes at recognizing the change in your expressions. “you’re my only lionheart. always have been and always will be, even when you’re too old and gray and slow to be my head knight.”

“someone seems confident of that happening.” he says quietly, raising the hand at your waist to come up and rest over your own hand that lies against his chest. you swallow, your own spit feeling too heavy for you to stomach, your throat dry and scratchy.

“who else can have confidence of a victory rather than a monarch?” you ask, a smile that isn’t quite sad - but isn’t quite self-assured either - resting on your lips. jeno raises your hand to his lips, pressing one, two, three chaste kisses to the back and then repeating the pattern against your palm. he does not let go.

the two of you stand there for a stolen moment. you lay your head back against his chest, listening to the thundering of his heartbeat below the ink and skin and muscle and bone. he is real, and he is here.

he is real. he is here.

“the monarch’s lionheart, of course,” he murmurs, finally dropping your hand to reach back and push open the balcony door. “we only have four more strokes of time until i must go, my love. is this truly how you want to spend it?”

it’s evident that jeno no longer wants to mull over the what-ifs, not when he prefers living in the present more than anyone you’ve ever known. unsurprising, you suppose, for someone whose livelihood involves strategizing away his own mortality. you allow him to pull you back into your bedroom, immediately more comfortable when the door closes behind you, keeping you in with the body heat of your lover and the warmth of the crackling fire on the hearth in the corner of your room. jeno sheds the cape, draping it over the nearest chair, before bringing you back to his chest by placing his large hands against your waist.

it takes feeling his fingers against your skin through the thin silk of your slip to remember that jeno has nothing on. he’s always preferred to sleep naked, unlike you. though you hardly have any undergarments on, you at least wear a sheer gown most nights.

you’d ridden him passionately before bed, tiring both of you out in order to get any semblance of sleep. as your lionheart pulls you flush against him, though, it’s difficult to avoid the way his cock hardens against your hip once more. you want to quip about how jeno’s insatiable, but he trails a hand up, up over your body to swipe a thumb over one of your hardened nipples, and you can’t help the sigh that escapes through your prettily parted lips.

“will you get on the bed for me, love?” jeno’s voice is smoother now that he’s more awake, though you can’t help but miss the low growl that had come with the earlier rasp. he may be asking you a question, but you know that it’s an order in disguise. wordlessly, you step back, back, back until the wood of your bedframe presses against the soft plushness of the back of your thighs. jeno has not moved, choosing to stay put and appraise you instead. his eyes are hooded now, and as his gaze trails from your neck - he’d marked it up earlier, the kiss-bitten bruises not yet having faded from your skin - down to the curve of your chest, over the expanse of your thighs, he can’t help but reach one hand down to his dick, swiping two fingers over its head to collect his precum on his skin.

jeno says nothing else, makes no other move. it’s to give you an illusion of control, you suppose. not that you need one.

“should i rid myself of this, lionheart?” you ask, the words coming out breathier than intended. the nightgown leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination, and you’re sure he can even see the slick wetness that’s pooling against your inner thighs. jeno adores seeing your body more than anything, but the gown does not inhibit that.

it’s no surprise, then, when he shakes his head no, instead finally moving to stand at the edge of the bed, slotting himself between your thighs as they naturally move apart to fit him in. his clean hand slides up under your gown, resting just above your cunt, as he raises his other hand to your face.

“lie back, and open.” jeno states, no air of leniency about him anymore. you oblige, and your love leans over you, his dark gaze centered on your parted lips.

he lays his two precum-coated fingertips against your tongue, pressing in and then down and revelling when you don’t gag but instead run your tongue over his fingers, cleaning them off for him. you haven’t gagged in a long time, your reflexes getting used to him in the way the rest of you is. when he withdraws his hand, your mouth stays open, and jeno can’t help himself as he leans over you and, after gathering it in his own mouth for a moment, allows his own spit to fall from his own tongue and onto yours.

your eyes go wide at the action, and you know that he notices it even as he does not acknowledge it. even so, you don’t miss the smirk that crosses his face upon hearing your breath hitch. jeno has you in his palm.

satisfied, he stands, and you close your mouth and swallow a part of him with a part of you. jeno’s no longer looking at your face, but you can’t bring yourself to care, not when he’s ruching up your nightgown with growing hunger, not when he’s kneeling on the stone ground just to make himself eye-level with your pretty, pretty pussy.

“i took you hardly any time ago,” he murmurs, breath hot against your skin as his mouth nears where you so desperately need him. “and yet here you are, laid open once more, all for me. only for me.”

“always you, jeno, please - ” you can’t get any more words out, the air being pulled out of you as he dives in and circles your clit with his tongue, bringing his two spit-soaked fingers up to press into you with almost no resistance. your reaction is instantaneous, walls clenching like a vice around his fingers as he lays a filthy kiss against your bundle of nerves, hips jumping up only to be kept down by jeno’s other hand, pressing down against the bottom of your stomach.

“patience.” he pulls off of your clit just to growl the word out against the skin of your inner thigh, and the wet heat of his mouth directly against your flesh has you practically gasping out. when jeno sinks his teeth into your thigh as he’s often wont to do, you let out a full-bodied whine, the kind that starts in the back of your throat and rises up through the inner column of your neck, meant only for your lover’s ears. jeno laves his tongue over the marks he’s just created, as if to wash the pleasurable pain from your body.

he does not reattach his mouth to your core, choosing instead to fall back and watch, eyes trained, as he scissors you open. with hardly any warning rather than his gaze jumping up to meet your own momentarily, jeno presses his thumb into your clit, using your slick wetness to eliminate any raw friction as he rubs slow circles against your nerve endings. he’s never failed to bring you to the edge with ease, and now is no different. you’d be embarrassed at how easily you fall apart just from his simple simultaneous motions, in and on you, but it’s jeno, and he knows your body maybe even better than he knows his own.

keening, a loud, gasping wail, falls from your lips only for jeno to rise from his place in between your thighs and swallow your sounds with his open mouth, his clean hand coming up to cage you in against your sheets. the way you raise your arms to loop them around his neck is akin to the way a drowning man would grab on to a lifeline, and once he rises you pull him back into a longer, filthier kiss, where your teeth click against his and his tongue opens up your mouth the same way it feels like his touch opens up your body.

you feel as if you’re being flayed, as if hellfire is the only thing comparable to the heat against your skin. jeno steps closer, just by the tiniest bit, and you feel his hand - the one shining with your arousal - brush past your hip before he uses it to wet his cock with one, two, three firm strokes. copious amounts of precum arise from the tip before being pulled down against his flesh with expert downstrokes. your mouth waters as you watch.

“my mouth, lionheart, please?” you finally gain the courage to ask what is on your mind, sitting up on your elbows as you begin to slowly find your strength. your love raises an eyebrow, and not without reason: jeno is a big man, making even you - a literal monarch - feel small at times, and this does not end with his personality or his person: you have never been able to take all of him into your mouth. the ache borders on painful, frankly, and jeno himself refuses to harm you in that way.

“this, now, is about you.” he responds, and your heart cracks as you register that as a ‘no’. still, you speak again. you need him in your mouth, suddenly. it isn’t just a want. something has to anchor you to the here and now, it may as well be the head of his cock, heavy against your tongue.

“what is about me is about you as well,” you respond, and before he can lay his refusal down out flat, you slide onto the floor - warmer than expected - and tuck your heels behind your bare ass. “i need this. please.”

you’re directly in front of him now, face parallel to his strong thighs. jeno strokes up, squeezes tighter just below his frenulum, and you watch, struck, as precum beads at the tip and then splits into two streams, half sliding down his hard dick and the other slowly-but-surely falling to the ground, hardly a quarter of a step from one of your knees.

“give me your hand, then,” your knight murmurs from above you, drawing your gaze from his leaking cock up past the dainty curve of his lip to his hard eyes. “now.”

when you raise your hand up, you only put it up limply, unsure of what he means to do with the limb he’s asked for. your eyes must be swimming with questions, because jeno gives you a hint of a sweet, reassuring smile before allowing his expression to become stoic again… right before he grasps your given hand and straightens it out, gentler than expected from such a great warrior but harsher than he truly ever treats you.

he’s passionate. this demonstrates it.

before you can react, your body following your hand up off of your heels, though only slightly, as he yanks up your hand, jeno leans down and licks up your hand, from the bottom of your palm to the top, all while maintaining eye contact with you. he lets go, though you keep your hand raised, your gaze obviously dumbfounded.

“a dry hand would rub me raw,” he explains, though the smirk that’s tugging at one corner of his mouth shows that he finds your wide-eyed expression at least mildly amusing. “we do not want that, do we?”

it’s amazing how easily he can get you under his thumb when you give out orders that hold his life in the balance on a day-to-day basis. maybe that’s why he finds taking charge in private so easy. maybe it’s his way of evening your dynamic out. even now, as he asks you an innocent question with no hidden meaning or reaction, you find yourself shaking your head along enthusiastically. no, of course you don’t want to rub him raw. of course you and him don’t want that.

you raise the hand now deemed ‘not dry’ up as jeno watches, finally, finally wrapping your hand around it. your thumb and middle finger do not meet, no matter how tight you squeeze. your lover lets out a fulfilled groan at finally feeling a touch other than his own on his hard cock, and it’s a beautiful sound. you want more of it. you want more of him.

as if mesmerized, you lean closer, darting out your tongue to lick experimentally at his slit. he holds his breath, a large hand coming to rest lightly against the back of your head and base of your skull, waiting. you take this as a sign to stretch your lips wider, engulfing the entire tip of his cock in your hot mouth. his grip tightens in your hair, and, in return, you clench around nothing.

as you struggle to take more of jeno in your mouth, you do your best to stroke the rest of his cock with a tight enough grip to make him feel everything, but not tight to the point where you’re hurting him. regardless of how little you can take on your tongue - not your fault, by any means - jeno seems happy, barely able to stop himself from bucking up into the back of your throat. at this point, you’re essentially just warming his cock, so you pull off with a slick pop to look at him with slightly watery eyes. a string of precum and saliva connects your bottom lip and his tip, and when it breaks, you’re acutely aware of the mixture dripping down your chin and onto your nightgown. it’s no matter.

jeno’s thumb runs over your scalp, just above the bottom of your skull. you close your eyes momentarily to take in a deep breath.

“you can force yourself down my throat, you know,” your voice is raspy when you speak, eyes fluttering open almost drearily. “i’m not too delicate for it.”

there’s something simultaneously raw and pure about the way you speak, and jeno recognizes that your headspace has changed, just a little. your need truly is all-encompassing now. he must tread more delicately than usual.

there’s so much love, so much adoration in your wide-eyed gaze. he only wishes to return it with the same intensity and double the care.

“i know, love,” jeno responds, finally moving his hand in order to place two fingers under your chin. he tilts your face up, taking note of the way your eyes run over his tattoo before looking at his chin, then his jaw, then his nose, then his forehead, until, finally, you land on his eyes. you’re a tad bit unfocused, full of need, but that’s okay. you’ll always come back to him. he continues speaking. “you’re so strong. always so strong for me. that’s why you deserve to be rewarded, yes?”

“rewarded?” you’re confused, to say the least, though you do not dislike the direction jeno is suddenly moving towards. he only smiles, gentle and kind and good and yours. all yours.

“on the bed, (name).” he tilts his own head, jutting his chin towards the bed you’d slid off of earlier. you don’t hesitate to follow, pushing yourself up onto your feet and all but scrambling backwards to be seated against the soft mattress. the blankets are all haphazard and the pillows aren’t straight, but that’s the least of your worries right now. jeno gives no other orders, only stepping closer and, without warning, winding his arms underneath your thighs and propelling you backwards, causing you to land, back flat, in the center of your bed.

it had always felt inescapably large when you’d slept in it alone. now, it feels welcoming. safe.

“you’re ready for me, yes?” the tone of voice jeno uses is soft, even as his rough palms push apart your thighs. you nod, murmuring a small ‘yes’ once you realize he’s waiting for you to verbalize your thoughts. this is all jeno needs to climb onto the bed and move in between your spread legs, settling back on his calves as his hands smooth over your hip bones and waist. it’s evident that he’s bent on taking his time with you tonight, likely under the illusion that that is what you want.

it is not what you want. it is most definitely not what you need.

“i need you within me, lionheart,” one of your hands clutches at the sheets beneath you while you stretch the other towards your lover, imploring. “soon. now. please.”

“absolutely impatient,” jeno only chuckles in return, drawing an indignant whine forth from the base of your throat. he looks over your barely covered body once more before finally - almost in slowed motions as if to tease you further - rising up onto his knees. his hands stop moving against your skin, finally circling around the soft meat of your upper thighs. swiftly and fluidly, jeno pulls your body towards his, wrapping your legs around his own waist. his wet cock lies heavy against your pelvis, leaving slick precum against the apex of your thighs and the bottom of your stomach. he smirks. “is this what you wanted?”

the motion of being pulled into your knight had forced the air from your lungs in a surprised yelp, and the feeling of his warm skin - he’s always supplied so much heat, it baffles you to no end - against your own momentarily blanks your mind. jeno repeats his question twice, cocky grin growing with each utterance, before you nod vigorously and sputter out something vaguely affirmative. yes. yes, this is exactly what you wanted, exactly what you want.

you’ve been growing steadily wetter the longer your foreplay had drawn out, but jeno, ever-caring, still pulls back - his cock sliding against your thigh has you moaning - to slip two thick fingers into you, adding a third when he’s absolutely sure that you can take it. in no time at all, you’re grinding your clit against his rough palm, the friction absolutely heavenly. jeno makes no move to stop you, only gently forcing his fingers in deeper.

a fourth finger is added just as your abused clit can’t take anymore, and you spasm on his hand as you fall past the point of no return. your second orgasm of the night washes over you, and you can’t help the muted but harried gasps you let out as your hips buck up, driving your head back into the mattress. jeno draws his fingers out slowly, licking your essence off of them with practiced ease. once your body has calmed down, you can only let out a small whimper, still basking in the intensity you’ve just experienced.

jeno knows your limit, and knows damn well that you haven’t reached it yet. it’s because of this that, even as your walls are still clenching around nothing due to aftershocks that wrack your body, he places the fat head of his cock against your hole and slowly but surely slides in. the hands on your thighs move up to wrap around the sides of your waist, and his grip is bruising as he pushes deeper and deeper. even as he goes at a snail’s pace, you feel as if you’re being pulled apart only to be pieced back together again. you hold your breath.

jeno is halfway in when he realizes you still aren’t quite wet enough. he shifts slightly, carefully moving one of your legs up just a little bit higher, before swiping over your raw clit with a thumb he’s wetted with his own tongue. a moan flies forth from your mouth immediately, and a gush of wetness coats jeno’s cock anew as he circles over your bud with abandon. he’s finally free to surge forward and bury himself within your warm walls without fear of repercussions on your own body… so he does. the breath you’d been holding in is punched out of you, replaced with an honest-to-god wail. tears bud at the corners of your eyes at the stretch, falling as he pulls out almost entirely and slams into you again.

jeno does everything in his life in order to live up to the name you’ve given him: lionheart. he is just and loyal and thoughtful as an advisor, and analytical and fearsome and ruthless as a warrior. sex is where both sides of him meet. it is where he is not just the kingdom’s bravest knight, or the crown’s right-hand man. it is where he is your lionheart, and yours alone, where your souls intertwine at the place your bodies meet.

he notices how your hands come up to reach for him, leaning down so you can place one hand against his heart - against his tattoo - and throw the other one over his other shoulder. jeno’s nose is almost touching yours, though your bodies shift continuously as he keeps drawing back and driving his hips into yours with force.

he never ceases to make you feel full.

your walls grip his cock tightly, amplifying every movement jeno indulges you in. the slide is slick and wet and perfect, but it is not easy. the head of his dick catches on your clenched walls every time he pulls out just to slam back in, forcing you to feel him with everything you have. it’s exactly what you want.

he slows down his thrusting for a moment as he moves forward slightly, leaning closer still as he places one forearm against your head and raises his other hand to fondle your chest over your sheer clothing. somehow, this is no longer enough for you. jeno’s cock is fully sheathed within you as he swipes a thumb over one of your nipples, and the feeling of his skin pushing the cloth against one of your most sensitive areas has you shuddering in a way that causes you to squeeze even tighter around him. his hips stutter slightly, driving him impossibly deeper into you.

“jeno,” you rasp out, tongue heavy and dry. “my pillow. beneath my pillow.”

his eyes go wide as he processes what you’ve just said, his shallow thrusts slowing down. jeno gulps audibly.

“your- love, your dagger?”

“need you to touch me.” you respond, holding his gaze and watching it clear up from confused to comprehending you entirely. he pushes himself up from his forearm to his hand, sliding out of you in the same movement. you whine sadly at the loss of contact, but jeno mutters a good-natured ‘be quiet’ almost immediately.

“you know,” he starts, voice teasing, even as he pulls your dagger - black steel, quillions and hilt encrusted with blue jewels, black tempered glass at the pommel - out from beneath your pillow using the hand that had been fondling you earlier. he moves back down to his prior position, and your breath hitches as he presses the apex of the knife against the collar of your nightgown. “i’m already touching you.”

“more,” you moan out, the end of your word coming out almost breathlessly. one of your hands slides against his tattoo once more, as if feeling the lion will make it roar to life. “touch me more.”

jeno chuckles, albeit darker than he had been earlier, and digs the dagger into the cloth in front of it without any further ado. you hold your breath willfully this time, not wanting to actually nick yourself on the blade, as he moves down your body, cutting the sheer gown open down its direct center. your lionheart dots his lips against your flesh in a trail in his wake, scraping his teeth against your skin as he sees fit.

he leaves a quick, but filthy, kiss against your clit for good measure, eyes lighting up as you attempt to close your legs around his head on impulse, only to have them pushed apart even farther than before by his strong hands. once he gets to the hem of the slip, he throws your dagger somewhere on the stone floor - neither of you pay any heed to where it clatters - and rips it apart with his bare hands, hardly able to bear not feeling you around him for much longer.

before you can do anything or say anything or even think anything at all, your lover surges forward and presses himself back into you with a grunt that sounds almost like a growl. his hands knead at your thighs as he finds his rhythm with ease, pounding into you with practice as if you’re an art medium and he’s a skilled master. he’s everywhere, all around you and inside of you and in the air and in your skin, and it’s all you’ve ever wanted.

“touching - ha - touching you enough now?” he asks, resolve crumbling bit by bit as he fights to keep himself from tumbling over the cliff’s edge before you do. you can’t dignify him with a response, unable to do anything but claw at his back and pin yourself further against his chest as if it’ll make even more room for you in his heart than there already is. he doesn’t need a response, anyways. jeno already knows.

he knows just how close you are, too. just as close as he is. it’s because of this that jeno moves a hand up to curl around your throat just as he circles your clit with two fingers of the other hand, continuing to fuck into you at the same rate as best he can. with a sharp cry and the arching of your back off the bed, you clench around him for one final time before he comes to a halt, barely holding himself up over you as he releases within you with a shuddering, gasping groan.

moments pass, stretching into longer than they typically are. jeno takes care as he slides out of you, climbing onto the bed and flopping down next to you right after. the feeling of his release, sticky and wet against your inner thighs, is unpleasant at best, but you can’t bring yourself to clean up just yet. instead, you turn your head to your side, your nose immediately brushing against jeno’s sternum as you realize that he’s turned his entire body towards your own. he lets out an airy laugh at the sensation, pushing half of the sliced cloth off of your body in order to run a wide open palm down your naked side.

“good?” he speaks first, asking an arbitrary question. ‘good enough to make you forget?’ is what he means, knowing full well that you could never lose thought of what awaits the two of you. the sentiment is what’s important, though, and you let out an agreeable hum as a reply. the sex itself was great, of course. he’s well aware.

“sleep, lionheart,” you say just as silence attempts to cloak the two of you. “we must be ready soon, as it is.”

jeno gives you no response, and you do not require one from him. instead, he pulls you even closer into his chest as if doing so will protect you from the crithagians across your kingdom. his entire world rests between his arms. you are both tired enough that sleep forces your eyelids closed swifter than expected, and as you fall asleep to your lover’s slowed breathing and muted heartbeat, you can’t help but, just this once, allow your worries to slip off your body as your torn nightgown does.

just before the rise of the sun, jeno will have to get out of bed and clean you up as best he can before donning his clothing, his armor, and his cape. you’ll put his helmet upon his head, pull his visor down over his face after sharing a kiss that could be your last. it is always like this. jeno will rouse the army, you will dress and arm yourself, and meet with your own private troops.

as the sun begins to take its place in the morning sky, luckily opposite your gaze, jeno will lead his people into battle, riding his steed far, far from you. you will watch him go, but he will not look back. doing so is unfortunate luck at best. you’ve ingrained this into his mind.

you do not know whether he will be back or not.

you desperately need him to come back.

all of that will happen in due time, but now, you drift to dreamland, safe in the arms of the man you’ve sworn to be with until the end. he tightens his hold around you, and that is how you spend the night before battle, in total comfort and full of love. no matter what tomorrow brings, at least you have this now. at least you will always have this moment.

the lionheart and his liege. your lionheart and his love.

for now, you are at peace in the calm before the storm.

#first #five #tags #dont #work #jeno #jeno smut #jeno fluff #jeno angst #jeno x reader #nct jeno #nct smut #nct fluff #nct angst #nct dream smut #nct dream angst #nct dream fluff #nct dream

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terzos-edibles · 3 years

Text

Silver Linings

1. Gotta Keep On, Keepin' On

Summary: No kid, no tribe, and avoiding his responsibilities, Din Djarin has gone back to bounty hunting and mercenary work under the watchful eye of Boba Fett. After a job on Ibaar goes very wrong in more ways than Din would like to count, he is forced to flee with a very peculiar New Republic doctor. He is determined to get enough credits and fuel to drop the doctor off on her home planet and be done with it. But will he be able to part ways with her after she finds all the right and wrong ways to push his buttons?

Words: 1.8k

Rated Mature: language, canonical violence, depression, mentions of suicidal behavior.

“I don't know if I'm scared of dying But I'm scared of living too fast, too slow Regret, remorse, hold on, oh no I've got to go There’s no starting over No new beginnings time races on.” - My Silver Lining, First Aid Kit

Ibaar-

The fist of the Empire reached far, sweeping across the farthest reaches of the Galaxy; the deepest corners seemed to have felt its influences. Even the smallest, poorest planets had Stormtroopers deployed to them - a formality to further oppress the planets’ occupants and show their might - and dissuade any sort of rebellion from sparking. The destruction of the second Death Star and subsequent death of Emperor Palpatine at the hands of the Rebellion had shown that plan hadn’t, well, panned out. Still, in the five years or so after the fall of the Empire, the New Republic was just now starting to finally make its way into the Outer Rim Territories after ensuring that the more strategically essential planets were well taken care of. Remnants of the Empire still clung to those planets, holding out hope that the Empire would somehow revive itself and their loyalty would be rewarded. Many felt that the New Republic had abandoned them, that things hadn’t gotten any better since the Empire had fallen. It would be the same as it had always been. The Outer Rim would continue to be forgotten, continued to be terrorized by Remnant Stormtroopers, continued to be terrorized by pirates, and continued to be terrorized by gangsters. People had given up hope once again.

But, aid was coming. Slowly, but it was coming. New Republic troops were starting to make their way back out towards planets that needed them, bringing with them much-needed supplies and rations. Marshals were installed in the major cities and villages to help keep the peace and bring a sense of law to an otherwise lawless territory. Medical teams were dispatched to provide much-needed tautology assistance to planets that were unable to get the care they needed.

Doctor Gertrude Ásketill was the first in line to sign up for those peace operations. She was coming hot off of her time as a rebel medic. She was bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and full of hope as they deployed her to the first assignment. She had an entire team - plenty of assistants and droids to ensure that everyone got the proper care they needed. They were able to start a proper clinic, train the locals, and establish a line to the core planets to ensure they could get all the medicine and vaccines they would need. Trudy felt good when she left that planet for the second.

The second planet saw fewer supplies and resources. She thought maybe it might have been a mistake. This planet had a bigger population than the last. Perhaps they didn't realize they needed to send more supplies, but then the third and fourth planets came. Supplies and resources were stripped as funding got cut, and slowly her team was redistributed to other projects.

And that left Trudy on the fifth planet - Ibaar.

It was just her and a few other doctors spread across the Outer Rim that was left of the program. She was sure that they would be recalled back to Chandrila - the capital of the Republic, but that had been almost a year ago. She had been on Ibaar for about as long. She was alone; at least, it felt that way. The only other two in her clinic with her was an older model R4-7 droid named A9-C that had been reprogrammed to help in the medical field. The humanoid-shaped, bug-eyed droid was built in the early days of the Empire and complained more than he assisted. The other was a teenager named Max, who had taken an interest in medicine. Whether it was because he liked Trudy or wanted to become a medic was to be answered. He was a good assistant and listened.

The only other Republic representative on Ibaar with Trudy was the Marshal: Baxley Morgan. How that man ever got the job of Republic Marshal was beyond her. It was probably why he ended up out here. He had a good heart, but the boy was dumb as a brick, and while she was no fighter - she could at least shoot a blaster well enough to hit whatever she was pointing at. It might not have been where she wanted it to go, but at least it’d hit its target.

The Empire had put blockades up to punish the Ibaarians for being sympathetic to the rebel cause. The aid that had been promised to the Ibaarians had finally come, and it was a little lackluster. The locals were friendly enough, but they felt a little betrayed. Trudy couldn’t blame them.

Trudy had become jaded herself; things were back to the status quo. There weren’t any more Imperial blockades, but with the lack of resources and supplies coming in - there might as well have been.

Ibaar, all-in-all, wasn’t a bad planet. It was a mountainous, temperate planet. The capital village, and the one that Trudy was in, was nestled in a valley - built into the side of the mountain while the rest of the land in the valley was used for farming. The natural cliffs that reached their stony fingertips to the sky provided a natural defense for the village, and the hundreds of waterfalls that cascaded down their sides gave the village and farms much-needed water. On a clear day, you could see for miles around. Though for all of Ibaar’s beauty, the weather was the worst. They could be lucky to see the sun one, maybe twice, per month. The rest of the month was plagued with overcast clouds, fog, daily rain, and nightly thunderstorms. It took some getting used to, and Trudy had ordered extra vitamins to help with the lack of sun.

Despite being the capital village of Ibaar, Laakso Village didn’t even have its own docking bay within the village’s boundaries, especially - making already scarce supplies harder to get. Luckily speeders made that journey a bit less complicated, though it was still rough going. A local warlord and his gang - a former Imperial commander and his troopers - had taken it upon themselves to decide that the Ibaarian Mountains were a great place to hide and run their smuggling business out of, using the old rebel tunnels from the war.

It made things dangerous.

Unsuspecting travelers going to and from the port or any of the other smaller villages in the mountains would be ambushed. Those lucky to survive had their property stolen. The bandits would look for anything from blasters, food, credits, various forms of technology they could get their hands on, and medical supplies. Trudy didn’t know how many villagers and travelers she had patched up in her time there, injured by ambushes. While the gang kept the locals terrified, they still hadn’t been bold enough to make their way into Laasko Village, choosing instead to raid the smaller outer villages - ones not protected by a marshal.

Baxley was having a hell of a time dealing with it himself and had brought up hiring some extra help. Trudy had nipped that in the bud; hiding behind hired mercenaries wasn’t going to do anyone any good - that he really needed to call in support from the Republic. The conversation tapered off after that, and the emergency seemed to have died down. However, as it always did, there was no downtime. The newest crisis cropped up - the report of the flu on a neighboring planet in the same system. A planet Ibaar happened to trade with. Which meant Trudy had to work to get vaccines to Ibaar before everyone was sick. She had ordered them about a month ago. Thank the stars someone was on her side, and the vaccines only took a month to get to her. Someone had made the shipment hastily, and they were currently waiting for someone to pick them up. Trudy couldn’t pull her boots on fast enough when the docking attendant called her to report they had been dropped off. Within fifteen minutes, she was in a speeder with a blaster and Max in the passenger seat. They would get there by nightfall - if they were lucky. Trudy just hoped to the stars above that nothing happened on their way.

----

It seemed as though Trudy’s silent prayers were answered. She pulled the speeder around to the docking bay and left it idling as Max hopped out of it, striding up to the attendant’s office and rapping his knuckles on the glass. He had grown like a sprout since Trudy had been there, now easily towering over her - though that wasn’t exactly hard to do. Brownish red shaggy hair constantly fell into his eyes, much to his mother’s dismay, and he was a lot less intimidating than he liked to think he was, especially with those freckles. Trudy waited as they exchanged words, waving a hand as the attendant poked his head out of his office and motioned to where the vaccines were - clearly annoyed he had been interrupted from his dinner and whatever wrestling match was on the holo. Trudy moved towards the vaccines, scanning them in with the datapad she pulled from her pack and happy to see that they didn’t have to quite rush back with them. Their cooling system had enough charge to allow them to rest a little bit - though they would still have to make the trip back by night. Max helped her load the crates into the back of the speeder and went out front to buy them both some roasted tip-yip and drinks from the food cart out front. Trudy turned around, eyeing the gunship docked in the bay the vaccines had been stored in. Annoyance twisted in her stomach that the valuable vaccines were stored where some random visitor to the planet could just poke through them. Though, the presence of the gunship made her raise an eyebrow. Not many ships like this made their way out here; either the owner was here for a quick refuel, or they were up to something no good. She scowled at it as Max returned with the tip-yip on a stick and a couple of cool bottles of water. “We didn’t get harassed today,” Max observed as he sat down on the roof of the speeder, and Trudy took a seat inside. “You think somethin’ is goin’ on?”

She nibbled at the meat on the stick and offered a shrug, turning to look back at the gunship. “Who knows. I just hope they keep whatever they’ve got going on out of the village. I want to sleep peacefully when we get back.”

You know the phrase famous last words? Those were Trudy’s.

--- Miles away, a Mandalorian clad in beskar armor was about to attempt to take down a stronghold of bandits and remnant stormtroopers all on his own. Maybe Fennec Shand was right. Maybe he was suicidal. ** Chapter 2: But I Ain't Dead Yet Taglist: @novemberrain221, @blackdogdesignuk, @mistyfur5, @thepoisonofgod

#din djarin fanfiction #din djarin fic #the mandalorian #din djarin #the mandalorian fanfic #the mandalorian fic #din djarin x oc #boba fett #fennec shand #din djarin x female oc #oc characters #oc character #grogu #the mandalorian x female oc #let me know if you want to be added to the taglist!

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doctorslippery · 3 years

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Shea Longshanks – A human drug lord who has taken control of a wing of the prison and requires rent from others in his wing. He has a group of henchmen and acts as if he is a guard/warden.

Malcer Holden – A well-dressed half-elf necromancer who will not state why he is here. In return for information, he requires spoons, which he provides to his army of undead in hopes of digging his way out.

Zenbis Axor – A yellow dragonborn who will not speak to anyone she encounters. She possesses immense magical power but chooses to spend her days solitarily in her cell. Nobody knows the story behind her.

Durgar Steely – This dwarf holds an infinitely refilling beer glass and nobody in the prison has ever seen him sober. He is very friendly and can just about speak and walk normally.

Naroxius – The source of annoyance for much of the prison, Naroxius always manages to find a way to vandalize the prison. He has made clear that he will stop at nothing to escape, however all that he has managed to do is anger other inmates and staff. His current cell now consists of a wooden slab in the corner, after he fireballed his previous one

Argus Shatterhorn – A goliath and zealous follower of a crazed war god. He’s seemingly possesses an infinite trove of energy and vitality, laughing and preaching loudly despite being literally skewered to a wall in his cell. Nothing can shut him up short of magical silence, which he doesn’t seem to notice.

The Witch of Cretchreaver – A very polite sounding woman behind a foot of concrete and a metal door. She requests that you open the tiny hole so that she can get a look at you. She’s a medusa with her eyes pressed against the other side.

Slobfoot the Eloquent – An educated, well spoke goblin who tried to incite a political revolution. He gives a very deep, loquacious philosophical speech to the party.

Thaddeus Null – A blue dragonborn and self-proclaimed God. He doesn’t seem arrogant beside that, just comfortable and quiet. His followers are magically capable, morally bankrupt people who are trying to break him out as they speak.

The Rat – A wood elf who ratted out his bandit gangmates. Can’t be trusted, would sell their own brother for half a smoke. Nonetheless, they keep their eyes and ears open and know a lot about what’s happening in the prison.

Randy Shackleford- human, assailed a government agent with sand and authorities now cannot find his name on any records.

The Smuggler – A male gnome. He is the prison supplier who can find almost anything and smuggle it in the prison in exchange for the prison’s currency (smokes, food, etc.)

Daloriz – A blind vampire who overcame his sunlight sensitivity. He has blindsense, and his power is to the point where he can overwhelm most enemies. When spoken to, he is polite and mentions he has seen the future and knows he must wait here for the right time. Why is this vampire in prison? What is he waiting for? Who is coming? Up to the DM to decide.

Takaar ‘Two shields’ Alzurini – small time dwarf mob boss locked up for extortion and racketeering. He has boys on the outside planning to break him out.

Voracious Veronica – A cannibalistic human who is soft spoken. She claims she was a knight who resorted to ‘the worst sin of all’ when her position was under siege for months. Her skin is pale, her eyes are dull, and her gaze sends shivers up your spine. You’re almost certain she’s lying.

Gregor Brutalous – An imposing half-giant with jet black braided hair, dressed in clean formal clothing. He was a psychotic and incredibly powerful warlord, but years after his arrest insists he is trying to atone for his actions. He can easily escape (or so he claims) but refuses to leave as penance.

Marros Tarmikos – A merchant who was caught up in a bar fight with some religious fanatics. He knows a few secrets about the prison and seems to be a law-abiding citizen for the most part.

Gorgeous Gnurl – An orc pit fighter that lost his champion title to *insert NPC* and in a violent rage murders him and his entire team right there in front of the entire crowd.

Mordekai – Leader of a gang of wererats, he used his rats or ‘little friends’ to spy on people, and to blackmail them, or to sell their secrets to the highest buyer.

Torun Sacanti – This ex-palace guard was thrown in prison after he gave his friend a tour of the duke’s apartments. When asked why he is in prison, he will do whatever he can to distract the party from the question.

Tharon Ash – A Tiefling man who was kidnapped for a part in an infernal ritual but was arrested along with the cult when city guards caught them all. He will do anything short of murder to prove his innocence or escape.

Resh – This culinary master in orcish cuisine can barely speak a few sentences in common. Employed in the kitchen, he is known to sometimes get rowdy and confiscate the fingers of anyone who looks at him the wrong way.

Myrca Faro – Quiet and keeps to herself. She seems capable in many skills, decent in a fight, but is distant, mumbling to herself often, though what she’s saying can’t be heard. She was caught with her crew, but one of them testified against her. She doesn’t seem keen on reuniting since she doesn’t know who.

The Painted Claw – A charismatic rakshasa who enjoys gaining followers and leading them into a suicide pact. He is sending souls back to his master in the nine hells and he has been captured for now…

Habstrek the Painter – A former cart driver turned serial killer, she’s not getting out any time soon; she was captured during a time referred to in the local lore as ‘the summer of art’, in which she killed and drained the bodies of over twenty prison guards’ family members, apparently out of revenge for their extrajudicial killing of her apparently innocent husband, Algnir Half-Tusk. She’s fed via a wand charged with Create Food and Drink, as her cell door is welded shut. Guards hate her above almost all other prisoners, knowing she’d gladly turn her targets into further ‘paintings’.

Elgin Powell – charged with a dozen counts of kidnapping, he was a local mob boss’ favorite enforcer – with no bodies ever discovered, the families of his victims were denied even the peace of knowing that they were able to be contacted via necromancy. Reportedly, he kept his charges in a deep mine and they are, one and all, still alive, just shielded from scrying and blood legacy magic. Knows more about kidnappings than anyone local is likely to have ever considered.

Jimmy ‘Lumberjack’ Jackson – Woodcutter turned assassin. He was brutal, honest, and captured by the palace guards when they asked him to start signing his work; reportedly, he’s still working from inside of the prison, except his rates are infinitely more affordable. His signature weapon remains undiscovered – which is a neat trick, considering that it’s a massive war axe.

Anna – Kept in a dark room and bound with magic sigils, Anna is a deeply motivated, highly disturbed wandering killer, captured after a five-year hunt by professional adventurers; her modus operandi was to disguise herself as an orphan human child, infiltrate colonial outposts, and then systematically destroy food, water, and medical supplies, forcing the pioneers into madness, murder, and cannibalism. Rumors say that she’s responsible for the failure of two nation-states’ failure to expand their territories. She’s boasted she’d gladly take one another job, if freed.

Rankle the Bookkeeper – A master of puppeteering and palace intrigue, he went from entertainer to information broker in under a year; his spies consist of handmade puppets, each one capable of recording sights and sounds, he extorted vast amounts of funding from select projects and missions, lining his own pocket freely until he was captured under what many consider unusual circumstances. Some say that he did so to protect himself from the palace paladins and clergy, all of whom are above harming prisoners.

Coins and Pouch – Master forgers and loan sharks, these two brothers are a regular feature in the prison yard, dealing out loans with reasonable interest rates and obtaining rarities for other prisoners; it’s said that on the day they were brought into the prison, they presented a set of keys to a well-appointed cottage to the chief guard as a token of their appreciation. Ever since, they’re under protection and weekly payments continue to provide them with many creature comforts. Every year, on the anniversary of their incarceration, the guard that treats them the best receives a key to another cottage.

Aldac – Former adventurer, expedition guide, reformed arsonist, and now a leader of a prison yard ‘exercise group’, this monk is a dangerous person; some say that she’s building an army, others that it’s a cult, and nobody wants to test her in a straight fight since she crippled her last opponent in under ten seconds. Anything that requires focus and determination, she’s happy to offer her thoughts on, free of charge – provided that she’s shown proper respect first. Her sentence is for a triple life duration – tough luck for her, as her species is a long-lived one.

Thack – A monstrous human, he was a warlord by age fifteen, a respected bandit king at twenty, and captured during his attempt to seize the capital itself, turned over by his own command structure in exchange for lenient sentencing for war crimes. Passionate, charismatic, and mysteriously possessing a keen ear for music, he’s an example of what can happen to a Bard if they decide to turn war itself into a performance art. He’s making money through the writing of strategic, tactical and logistic guidebooks, periodically singing for the lost days of his misspent youth. He turns twenty-three in a month.

Rejoice-Cried-The-Kraken – Still living her best life, RJCTK is a priestess first, bandit second, and a model prisoner third, choosing to ignore her history of piracy and looting in exchange for running a small group of like-minded believers in the church she’s built in her cell; she served as a first officer on the flagship of a vast pirate fleet, choosing who lived and who was sacrificed to her deity, often by slow drowning or something that officials referred to as ‘hook dancing’. She makes a few extra coins giving nautical theme tattoos for fellow prisoners, each one a work of art worthy of a church’s stained-glass windows.

Prisoner #644 – Captured at the frontier, whatever it is, it’s only eaten six times in ten years, each time it was an unwary guard who strayed too close to the sealed cage covered in a thick burlap sheet. It hums at night, an eerie, unsettling event taking place only just before the onset of riots, uprisings, and acts of revenge on a wide scale inside of the prison. Recently, guards have reported that it has started to sing softly. Each of the Dead prisoners killed in the previous ten years are named, one by one, and it chuckled wetly when younger guards approach it.

Kishi the Kid – A 16-year-old changeling who attempted to steal the Crown Jewels. He’s stuck in solitary after using the persona of a guard to start a riot, and is well known for the many he’s started in the few months he’s been here

Cold Turquoise – The former cult leader of a Dragonborn pirate fleet. Will only talk in Draconian, and will give advice on how to operate a ship at a cost…

Henri Schum – Halfling Mafia-don. Used his resources and cutthroat approach to fund a smuggling operation on rare animals for collectors. Has 2 fingers missing on his left hand and has his ‘buddies’ rough up any new people who mention them.

Zarakos – Super beefy winged Tiefling. Brought in for attempting to rob a local bank and fly off with the loot, not accounting for the wizards that can cast Fly. Wings are always tied for obvious reasons. Not very smart, but very loyal. If you free his wings, he will follow you and your group until the end. Will carry and fly anyone that needs it

Kimnuan Shadestalker – Black kitsune assassin. She and her bard troupe would spread rumors about people so others would order hits on them. Specifically in for burning down a village after getting caught by the local authorities. If she can get access to her hands, she can summon a lute and cast spells to become invisible/incorporeal.

Binks Falkhorn- A scribe for 2 generations of very powerful wizards. Has not shown any criminal intent but is ordered to be imprisoned in solitary indefinitely after the wizard went mad and went on a killing spree, showing horrible power. His scribe is the last shred of evidence of the wizard’s work. It would be too dangerous to let the scribe roam free, but it would be foolish to kill him in case his knowledge became useful

Sparkler- A nine-year-old bronze half dragon who just wants to go home to her older brother. She was framed for a crime that she in no way could have committed. She is kept in a dark cell and is the favorite to be abused by the head guard. No knows her actual name because she rarely talks to anyone even when she is allowed.

Xnyxyh Halfheart – Channeling Chronurgy wizard without his spell book. He looks human and is locked up for various crimes. He will help anyone who can get him his spell book. However, if he gets it, he will finish becoming a lich. He does not care for anyone but himself.

Thornbull – an experimental warforged, who committed too many war crimes.

Thragg Jadewolf – half-orc spy. He looks like an ugly human. He is in prison for high treason. He infiltrated border settlements and opened the gates at night, sabotaged the defenses, etc., so the neighboring orc kingdom could conquer the settlements easily.

The masked man – this human wears a cursed mask, which he cannot take off. His crime: He is the elder brother of the current king.

The Wyrd Sisters – Three halfling sisters each identical except for different colored eyes, the Wyrd Sisters are prohibited from accessing the kitchen and mess halls, kept in solitary confinement from each other, and fed separately. This is due to their innate toxicity, their blood, saliva, and sweat producing an extremely toxic poison which when ingested, causes a terrifying and agonizing death in even small doses. They were arrested after their entire village was found rotting the next morning after drinking from the tainted well which they had poisoned. Rumors persist that their natural lethality came from a tradeoff with a powerful Demon.

Semaj Ironscreamer – An elderly Half-Orc Druid who has spent half his life in this cell. He was jailed after being involved in multiple eco-terrorist attacks on mining towns that had been dumping their industrial waste into the nearby rivers. Seen as a kindly grandfather figure by the other inmates and even some of the guards, Semaj is often the peacekeeper between those he can hear from his cell and dispenses wisdom to those who ask. Given the nature of his magic, Semaj is kept in an underground cell with no window and any visitors he receives will be checked for wooden objects and plant matter.

Azar – A former acolyte of the church who used his talents as a thief to steal back religious artifacts from wealthy aristocrats. Until one day he was set up by the Queen dowager to make it look like he was trying to assassinate her with the same knife she had killed her husband with. Is actually completely innocent of this particular crime, but with the weight of the crown bearing down on him his trial was anything but fair.

Vulmon Longroot – A 900-year-old High Elven Bard who was the very first prisoner ever put into this place. His crime? 800 years ago, he had been caught having an affair with all 11 princesses of the area and is actually the reason every member of the royal family has any access to magic.

Tybo the Mad Monk – An incredibly dangerous and violent martial artist who was known to wear the ears of his enemies that he killed in battle like a necklace. After a failed assassination attempt by one of his party members caused Tybo to go mad and kill his party, the Human Monk returned to his roots raiding ships along the coast before he was eventually captured and placed in prison.

Irving – he was just an ordinary peasant… until adventurers showed up in his life and destroyed it. After that he has dedicated his life to destroying them.

Dean Fisher – human. Scum landlord to good upstanding goblins. forgot to bribe a local official.

Greta Howitzer- A human horizon walker ranger who was once a famed demon hunter. But while hunting members of the cult of Baphomet, she lost her mind in Baphomet’s lair. She has the madness ‘The world is my hunting ground. Others are my prey.’ She now views all humanoids as demons and will go to any length to hunt them down. She was imprisoned after spending her money building a massive maze, kidnapping people, and hunting them down in the maze.

Dominic Halfcastle – Halfling, originally in jail for tax evasion, now known for being transferred due to the murder and consumption of multiple sentients, claims the ability to kill sentients with his mind, has displayed no actual psionic or magical power

Vestlev the Mad – War criminal of the highest order, he has been moved to a normal prison as a temporary holding place until a proper area is found. He looks old and disheveled but is a mastermind when it comes to the magical arts of evocation. From his cell can be heard incoherent babbling, but do not be fooled, he has escaped before.

Minkus the Feebleminded – Everyone knows it’s a mistake that he’s in the prison. He’s a real sweetheart if a bit soft in the head. Sometimes his cell glows at night though. Oh, and don’t let him tell you about his nightmares if he says you were in one…

Sir Jim Haggins – A true gentleman at heart, he wears his ragged suit proudly. He’s perfectly polite in every way. He doesn’t look kindly on the poor however, oh no. He detests the poor. So much so that his hunting lodge was full to the brim with human trophies when the authorities finally tracked down ‘the Slum-spree Killer’

Thiggund – This hairy brute is referred to by the only word he heads ever been known to utter. When the villagers of a small farming community found him by the road, surrounded by the brutalized remains of a merchant and his horses, Thiggund was arrested on the spot.

Unburned Barty – A slight man with an unassuming smile. He survived being burned at the stake without a single scar. He was moved into isolation after his cellmates kept killing themselves

Billy Pumpernickel – A gnome who is well known and loved in the prison, but actually committed a horrible crime. Everyone just goes with it, and other than the one horrible unforgivable thing, he’s just a pretty nice dude. Like ‘Hey, there’s Billy. Yeah, he mutilated a few kids, but only once. Nice guy.’ (Edit: This would just be hilarious when the players try to come to terms on how to treat him)

The Time Master – Real name, age, sex, & race unknown. (S)he exists 5 minutes in the future. The cell was locked, and an empty plate appeared with a note. The note had an explanation and instructions. ‘Please place a full plate inside the cell each time an empty plate is discovered. Failure to do so will create a paradox and subsequently release the prisoner.’

Elwe – An elf who walks through the corridors of the prison as if he was someone free, talks to the guards and other prisoners as they were friends. Says he is in prison due to stealing, is actually hiding from the king, who wants to kill him since he killed his father

Ozob – An old looking human with hair only on sides and a fire potion (Molotov) where his nose would be. Always angry. Whenever someone looks wrong at him, he says: you are so annoying I might sneeze.

Walks-Winding-Paths – A tabaxi shadow monk, she is kept in a fully lighted cell at all times, wearing glowing enchanted clothing. She is only fed by guards under a faerie fire spell, as otherwise they would cast a shadow which she could teleport into to escape. She will attempt to convince a party member to give her a cloak, bowl, or other object to block the light with.

Garth the Radiant – A paladin of the fallen angel Zariel. His guards are ordered to hit him every time they see him meditating or praying, as that would let him regain the spells, she grants him and summon his enchanted mace, Purity, to destroy his cell. If the party can bring him his weapon, or even give him ten minutes of peace, he will consider himself honor-bound to grant them a favor upon request. If their aims align with his, he might even fight alongside them.

Nibbles – Literally just a warlock cat.

Iydis Tyger-Eye – Former Guld Leader, she is high level Fighter and also a Were-Tiger. Killed the heads of other Were families, in an attempt to seize power and take control of the protection of the city, and its criminal underworld.

Rollins – Air School Elemental Wizard. Believes in Anarchy and Equality of all races. In jail for starting a revolution and killing the Queen.

Herman – Normal human who built Mythic Bracers of Shatter that are only attuned to him. Had used the Bracers to gain access and rob several small vaults. Then he was caught by an adventurer after going for heist to rob a merchant banker when he refused to harm others to escape with the goods. He refuses to teach/sell the knowledge of how to make the Bracers as he doesn’t want others to use it to harm someone.

Roscoe Tealeaf – A well-dressed halfling who smells of saffron. He brokers deals between prison factions. It’s no secret that he is trying to escape. He claims he was framed by a noble, or maybe arrested breaking into the noble’s vault. He’ll tell anyone who asks that the noble has a dangerous artifact. Roscoe is a lore bard that specializes in counter spell silence and general magic user shutdowns.

John ‘Musical Manipulator’ Green – Half-elf, in jail for making a whole court dance for hours on end to prove a philosophical point that the upper class will just do as they say to hold up appearances and are so comfortable in their wealth, they can watch it be taken away and redistributed.

Colin Green – human. John’s half-brother who supported him and helped with a second set up hands to pull off music. Tuomas Yurke – elf. the voice and magic behind all of this. Started to talk to John about these thoughts and with a few others began to flesh them out into a more concrete thought and into a sound. Loved by the low class, anticipated and loved by the upper class even though it is all a misunderstanding. The three of them are located at different corners and different levels of the prison so the music can’t come together and convince guards to open up cages. Mail comes from them from all over. 2 members of their group are still at large.

Vaelh’noo – Githyanki sorceress who once commanded a powerful fleet in the astral sea before she was captured in a botched raid. Her secret is that she allowed herself to be captured to escape the wrath of the lich queen, whom she plots to overthrow from the safety of her cell.

Quikiliar – A doppleganger (Rogue). Thrown into prison for impersonating a person of high authority, they’re known for frequently making their way into guard chambers by pretending to be one. They can get access to a lot of things if you ask for it, but almost always ask for some odd favor or trinket, usually personal, like a lock of hair or an image of someone loved.

Locke – Once a guard themselves, this warforged fighter was sent to jail after attacking someone due to a misinterpretation of their actions. Unfortunately, this was also another guard with good standing with the warden, who had them put in. They serve their time willingly but can be interrogated or otherwise convinced to disclose explicit info about the prison and its guard shifts and similar.

Breeze – An air genasi artificer, she was thrown into jail after selling several infused items for high prices and then the infusing a different item. Since then, she’s gotten in good favor with guards and other inmates by enchanting some magic items and plans to use these favors and connections to escape at some point.

Zaurok – A Goliath Barbarian, although he acts calm and meditates. Known for the rare outbursts, during which he flies into a rage after being provoked or possibly from being disturbed while meditating. The several escape attempts that’ve happened are from him simply breaking the jail bars. Since then, he’s been relocated to a cell made out of adamantine.

Slicer – Kenku cleric. Devoted to a god of trickery, they gained their name after a particular… Prank, on part of their god. Around the jail will often prank the various inmates but is also known to make distracting sounds at the guards at night. Likely to be able to convince with shiny objects to prank someone or create a distraction.

Color-of-Blood – An insane Tabaxi woman incarcerated for eviscerating several people. Can often be found singing quietly to herself songs usually about ‘meal preparation’. Is usually docile and doesn’t react to being talked to unless threatened which she may attack while loudly singing ’50 ways to skin a human.’

Reginald Mark – A mild mannered human male incarcerated for a chain of serial killings. He claims he’s possessed by a banshee, but no one believes him. His speech has a feminine undertone and his skin is cold to the touch. Those who threaten him are usually found in the morning choked to death with a horrifying look on their face.

Tee’vah – Tiefling rogue who doesn’t seem too upset to be there. If approached he will happily show off a copy of his wanted poster, listing crimes from arson to murder. Secretly a doppelgänger who is honestly just trying to provide for his family and have some fun. Can break out any time he wants.

The Dread Pirate Azuzula, Roger, and Primten – A Tiefling, an earth genasi, and an air genasi. Azuzula seems useless but the other two are competent sorcerers. Despite this they follow her words to the letter. In for piracy. Azuzula can’t spell and keeps ranting about her ship the Doom Squid. Will challenge people to fights.

Taryon Sandstone – A half-elf paladin who used to be a slave fighting in gladiator pits. After gaining his freedom, he vowed to fight for the freedom of other and became a powerful hero. After the tragic loss of a close friend, he went on an overzealous crusade against slavers, killing them and their family as well as anyone who had in any way helped them (ship captains, harbor employees, food/clothes/rope vendors, blacksmith, etc.)

Tilby Valenois – A gnome mage of sorts who has committed zero crimes besides somehow breaking into a maximum-security prison and… staying there? The security guards have tried to get him to leave numerous times but usually get charmed or subdued out of it magically. Nobody knows why the gnome wishes to be there, but he hasn’t been messing with the order of things much.

Adelai – A rather amicable young woman. Nobody knows for sure what she’s in for, but general consensus is that it involved a basilisk head and the water supply to a small town

Vass – A large orc man that was used as a phylactery for a lich. Vass has been hearing whispers of the lich in his mind and is slowly being possessed. He has started doing horrible things under the influence of the lich. Performing Magic’s that he has no right to know.

Endeer – A being that inflicts his victims with horrible nightmares in each of these nightmares a horrifying creature appears to the dreamer and offers them the opportunity to “Loose yourself from the chains of your labored slumber” if the dreamer accepts, they never sleep again as their mind descends in to horrible madness

Cultists of the Basilisk – These cultists are attempting to create the creature they worship a terrible all-knowing basilisk they know that they will be successful and that the basilisk will destroy anyone who knew about him and didn’t help create him so they only share their beliefs with those they deem helpful or worthy of death

Arnold Long – A half orc/elf, he looks like a giant of a human and seems pleasant to be around in a group of people. While it appears, he is a big stupid sweet teddy bear of a person, his record is full of brutal killings that may or may not have happened. The last killings were not too long ago after a prison gang isolated Arnold in the showers and bribed a guard to not interfere. Long story short, the gang WAS major player in the prison, now all of its muscle IS dead, and the guard went missing. Arnold is to be handled with care and kindness.

The ‘Statue of The Maiden’ – It looks like a statue of a naked elven woman that was bought by a merchant (deceased) from an artist (deceased) who sold it to a noble (deceased) for a gift to his wife (deceased) and children (deceased). All that is known is the statue moves when not observed and will eat and clean itself. It leaves flirtatious messages for the guards it likes and death threats to the guards it hates. The artist swore on their deathbed it was a mistake for them to create it but, this is the only place it has been stored where it does not kill thought it has maimed a few people who fail to respect it. Attempts to remove, destroy, or study it has been ‘unfruitful and unwise’.

Inspector Brundt – A beardless dwarf imprisoned for the crimes of tax evasion, swindling, theft, and gross debt. He knows how to get things and bribes the guards to get luxuries and messages through the prison walls.

Tur the Kobold – He seems stupid and harmless. Everyone assumes he’s just a patsy who took the fall for a bigger criminal. Occasionally, though, he lets something slip that only someone high-level in a criminal organization would know.

Axe Hands – A warforged barbarian who found great success as a military shock trooper, but also was involved in an incident where he dismembered a commanding officer. Sees prison as an ‘extended furlough” and is convinced he’ll be let out when the next war starts.

Clara – A human paladin. Recruited into the military, she was driven mad by the trauma of war and turned oathbreaker. Jailed for the same incident as Axe Hands, having used her healing abilities to keep their victim from bleeding out after being dismembered. Lives to see people suffer but remembers enough of her pre-oathbreaker life to maintain a kind, innocent facade when it suits her.

Harald Silverfinger – An elf wizard who sees humans the same way a scientist sees a bucket full of white rats; testing fodder. They’re close enough to elves to be useful for experimentation, but short-lived enough that killing them really isn’t a big deal. It’s rumored that the local guild is secretly helping him continue his work, using his fellow prisoners as test fodder.

Verdos – A dwarven female cleric. Believes she was morally just in murdering the children of a local village. Full of righteous anger. Judges everybody according to her own warped and insane moral code. Can often barely be understood. In maximum security for obvious reasons. Can offer a range of cleric services at prison prices.

Tabitha Binks – A Tabaxi Rogue. An orphan growing up on the coast, she quickly fell in with the Revelry pirates. Tabitha learned to use her claws as lockpicks and may teach other Tabaxi how to as well. She was caught at sea after ambushing a wealthy fur trader.

James the Changeling – A male changeling known for impersonating the guides and has so far escaped every prison he’s been in. He’s a new inmate already planning his escape.

??? – the cell appears empty, save for a stool. Could be they’re just using it for storage. But, then why does that stool make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up?

Ood – A very old, frail and nearly paralyzed Illithid who sits still in solitary confinement, his blind eyes wide open, and only blinks or changes his position once or twice per year. Said to have messed something up when attempting to become an Alhoon. Nobody knows why he’s there, but he occasionally sends nearly unintelligible telepathic riddles to the other prisoners. Rumor has it he has invaded the minds of everyone in the prison and lives vicariously through their dreams at night.

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rwby-redux · 2 years

Note

What are huntsman keeps?

In a sense, the outposts are bases of operation for Huntsmen. They exist as part of a support network throughout the wilderness, strategically built along major roads roughly equidistant between two or more towns and cities. At time of writing, there are 11 named outposts, although the plan is to eventually add a few more to the roster.

In the Kingdom of Vale, there are five: Fort Derecho, Keep of the Broken Spear, Keep of the Tattered Cloak, Old Faron, and Tidewatch.

In the Kingdom of Mistral, there are three: Lost Oziel, Pinewatch, and Shanlin Redoubt.

In the Kingdom of Atlas, there’s one: Solaire Keep.

And in the Kingdom of Vacuo, there are two: Fort Iosefka and Stonehold.

Each outpost is overseen by a person known as the steward or Chief Huntsman (CH or Chief), who is directly appointed by the academy headmaster of the presiding region. The headmasters, as part of their job, work with stewards to ensure that outposts are adequately provisioned and staffed, and that important intel (Grimm census data, criminal activity, and such) makes its way through the appropriate channels.

The outposts provide numerous services for both Huntsmen and non-Huntsmen alike, and were built with several key functions in mind:

Communication — Each outpost has its own communication tower with two main channels—a public one and an encrypted one. The public channel can be accessed by anyone within range of its broadcast signal, and is the primary means by which travelers or towns radio for help. Licensed Huntsmen, on the other hand, have access to the encrypted channel via specialized apps on their scrolls. This channel is used for relaying sensitive or confidential information directly to the outpost, without the risk of being overheard.

Dispatch — In addition to the steward, a handful of Huntsmen in rotation are permanently stationed at the outpost. When a distress signal from travelers or nearby settlements is intercepted, a Huntsman is then sent out into the field to provide aid. In the event of a staffing shortage, an outpost may request temporary assistance from teachers at any of the prep schools or academies (including the headmaster).

Evacuation — While all of the outposts differ from each other in terms of architecture and layout, they tend to share the same dimensions. Each roughly occupies the area of an American football field, about 57,600 square feet (5351.215 square meters, or a little more than 1 acre), and has a carrying capacity of close to a thousand people. In the event of a natural disaster, bandit raid, or overwhelming Grimm attack, towns can be evacuated and take refuge at the closest one.

Provisioning — The academy headmasters are responsible for ensuring that outposts have the resources they need to function. This includes food, medical supplies, and ammunition, amongst other things. These resources are provided for free to Huntsmen that work at the outposts, and to unaffiliated Huntsmen passing through the area. Similarly, the outposts maintain facilities for use, including a vertiport for airship docking, workshop, forge, infirmary, bathhouse, canteen, barracks, and lodging for familiars (stables, kennels, and an aviary).

Employment — Outposts are funded by their respective kingdoms, and as such, offer a reliable source of work for Huntsmen, particularly those seeking a more rural lifestyle. In the interest of those simply passing through the area, mission boards are posted in the central hub, with local job listings from private clients.

Rendezvous — If two or more Huntsmen out in the wilds need a safe place to reconvene, an outpost is almost always the default choice. Their placement relative to towns and cities makes them highly accessible.

While many of the outposts were built in tandem with the formation of the Huntsman Academies, at least a few were repurposed from old pre-war military fortresses.

It always felt weird to me that despite being such an integral component of inter- and intra-kingdom defense, Huntsmen had no structural support outside of the academies (and even then, the academies seem to exist largely for the benefit of students, not licensed adults). And yes, while Huntsmen can choose to operate independently, it struck me as somewhat incongruous, given that all licensed Huntsmen are trained on teams first, which should emphasize a sense of cooperation. Their occupations should make Huntsmen more akin to comrades than strangers who happen to share a job title, and yet we seldom see this play out in the canon. Thus, outposts exist to reinforce that unity by supplying them with places where they can meet, swap news, and socialize in between assignments.

(And because in the Redux's story, the outposts will play a major role in the plot—particularly in Volumes 4, 5, and 9.)

#asks #anon #i speak #worldbuilding #huntsman outposts #huntsmen meta #huntsmen meta asks #meta content #in the interest of being maddeningly vague:#the outpost known as lost oziel is near the town of ameneurosis #ameneurosis is where oscar is from #have fun with that #huntsman employment

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all-that-glitters-is-goldfish · 3 years

Link

New fic is up!

Summary: “Sleep can affect seizures in many different ways. During normal sleep-wake cycles, changes in the brain’s electrical and hormonal activity occur. These changes can be related to why some people have more seizures during sleep than others, and why not getting enough sleep can trigger seizures.“

Steve feels guilty that he let this happen to Bucky.

It’s a Saturday afternoon when he wakes up, only Bucky doesn’t know that.

The only thing he knew was that he wasn’t in the comfort of the bed he shared with the man he loved. He couldn’t feel the silk sheets that were cool to the touch of his metal arm. He couldn’t feel the dozens of pillows that he had propped up behind him as he slept, the pillows that they had argued about buying. It was unnecessary to have so many pillows, but Steve liked them, and Bucky didn’t argue.

Bucky never argued with Steve. Which is probably what led to this. Led to Bucky waking up on a Saturday not even knowing that it was a Saturday.

He may have not known what day it was, but he was aware that the day was sunny and could feel the heat on his face. His eyes scrunched as he became increasingly aware of how bright it was.

“Is the light bothering you?” There was a voice, but Bucky didn’t recognize it. He wanted to say yes, yes it was way too bright, but he couldn’t even find the energy to nod.

His neck was stiff, as if there were bricks placed at the sides of his head, preventing him from any range of motion.

“I’ll shut the curtains, just hold on, love.”

Love?

He was confused, but the bewilderment settled as the room suddenly became dark. His eyes weren’t open but the light that was causing his eyelids to furrow behind the heat was suddenly gone and Bucky was grateful for that.

He was grateful to the voice in the room.

“Sam’s on his way, you’re going to be fine…” The voice cut off and Bucky could tell that it was shaking. Was the voice sad?

Bucky was aware that he wasn’t flat on his back like he normally was when he woke up. He was used to opening his eyes in the morning to the sight of the white ceiling tiles that he used to count at night when he had trouble falling asleep.

He usually woke up to turn his head over and stare at his still-sleeping boyfriend, who slept in a fetal position, cuddled close to Bucky’s side. He always wondered if his metal arm was cold when he wrapped it around Steve’s shoulder, but his lover never stirred.

But Bucky wasn’t in his bed, and he wasn’t on his back. No, Bucky was rolled over on his side, one arm sprawled across the floor and the other tucked nearly under his chin, supporting his head. His right leg was extended straight, and the left was bent upwards towards his stomach.

“I’m so sorry… This is all my fault.” The voice continued.

He was secured in place, he realized. Stuck to this spot on the ground. The itchy carpet fibers irritating his cheeks as he tried to move his head.

He startled at the sound of loud footsteps approaching him. He wanted to shy away from the unfamiliar presence but felt too tired to compete. Suddenly, there were hands on his wrist, gripping tightly and he felt the steady beat of his pulse underneath the stranger’s fingers.

“What happened?” A new voice asked, stern, but tinted with worry.

“It’s my fault.” That was the first voice again. Bucky wanted to open his eyes to see who was speaking, but he felt weighed down with exhaustion.

“Stop saying that, Steve.” Steve! His boyfriend, the love of his life. Was that who the voice belonged to?

“It is though!” The voice was anxious. Steve was anxious. “It was my stupid idea to pull an all-nighter.”

“His pulse is strong and he’s breathing fine.” That was the other voice again, not Steve. The other voice sounded matter-of-factly. They were calm, Bucky decided. Calm was what he craved.

“How long did it last?” The tranquil voice asked.

“Just over a minute. But he’s been unresponsive for almost 10 now.”

Unresponsive? No, Bucky was very much awake. Should he let them know?

He tried to move his head again, the feeling of bricks still stopping his neck from turning to face the voices. He felt a strong hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t try to get up yet. You’ve just had a seizure, Buck.”

A seizure? Oh right. He had seizures. It’d been a while since the last one. Almost a year if Bucky remembered correctly. It was so hard to recall right now as he laid sprawled out on the floor, his head throbbing. He swallowed back a metallic taste in his mouth, causing a wave of nausea to overcome him.

“Are you with us?” That was the non-Steve voice again. Bucky grunted in response. He tried to provide them with a coherent answer, but he couldn’t seem to form a word.

“Good, that’s really good, Bucky.” Someone was rubbing their fingers through his hair. It felt nice, comforting.

“Can you tell me your name?” Bucky felt himself frown. Name? Why does the voice need his name? His lack of answer seemed to cause a commotion, as a pair of fingers were suddenly prying his eyelids open.

“Did he hit his head?” The face in front of him was asking.

“No, I caught him.” That was Steve again. Steve! Steve was someone he loved, someone who made him feel safe.

“Yes baby, I’m right here!” Huh. Had he been talking out loud? “Sam’s here too.” Sam, right. He knew Sam. Sam was their best friend.

“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes, but you prefer to be called Bucky.” That was the voice in front of him again. Sam? That was Sam. “You had a seizure about 20 minutes ago. It’s Saturday, just after 12. You’re in the living room of your apartment that you share with Steve.”

Listening to Sam’s voice was relaxing and he was thankful for the information he was being provided. The confusion was beginning to lift. The hand in his hair was still now, except for the slight shaking he felt against his skull.

“This is all my fault Sam. You’re the one who told us he needs to keep a constant sleep schedule, but he’s been dying to have a Star Wars marathon, I didn’t think staying up all night would do this! He hasn’t had a seizure in 10 months!” Steve was frantic, panicking. Bucky wanted to reach out and hug his boyfriend. He hated when he was upset.

“It’s no one’s fault, man. Sometimes there are other reasons. Medications might need to be adjusted. Stop blaming yourself, he’s fine.”

“‘m fine” Bucky repeated.

He heard a slight chuckle. “See?” That was Sam again.

He jumped as he felt a pair of lips on his temple. “Sorry! Sorry, baby, I didn’t mean to startle you, I’m just so glad you’re okay.”

Bucky sighed in contentment. Steve’s touch felt nice.

His world was going black again.

“Should we take him to the hospital? It’s taking him a while to come to-“

“No hospitals…” Bucky struggled to respond to his boyfriend, but he knew the hospital was a place he did not want to be. He hated the smell of bleach and the bright lights, the poking and prodding of doctor’s and nurses and the memories that flooded back to him of his days in that stupid chair.

“Okay. Okay, baby, no hospital.”

“He’ll be fine, Steve. He’s just tired. Let’s get him to the bedroom.”

Yes, the bed with the too many pillows that Bucky had grown to love. The pillows that Bucky didn’t argue with Steve about buying, because he never wanted to argue with Steve. How he didn’t want to argue with Steve about staying up all night despite feeling out of sorts, because he would never pass an opportunity to spend time with the man he loved, even if it meant giving up the sleep his body so desperately needed.

His thoughts were interrupted as he suddenly felt himself being lifted off the floor. His arms were strategically placed around the shoulders of the two other men, as they dragged him down the darkened hallway. He felt weightless as the they carried him to the bed, placing him gently onto the cool, silky sheets. He smiled at the comfort, as his head laid back onto the array of pillows, each a different size and colour. Someone placed a blanket over him, and he snuggled against the sudden warmth.

“If he looks like he’s going to be sick, remember to roll him on his side.” That was Sam again, speaking from somewhere across the room. He became aware of another body pressed closely beside him, radiating more warmth that Bucky was grateful for. “And don’t leave him alone until he’s fully conscious.”

“I’m not going to leave his side, Sam.” The fingers were back, caressing his hair.

“You’re a good boyfriend, Rogers.” Bucky knew Steve was blushing at the comment, though his eyes were closed. “You two deserve each other.”

“He deserves much more than what I have to offer.” Bucky hated when Steve talked about himself like that.

“Don’t you say that, Steve. He loves you.”

Yes, yes, I do. Bucky was thinking, wishing he had the energy to tell him.

“I just want him to be safe, Sam. Seeing him collapse like that, after 10 months without one… I almost didn’t know what to do. Like all the first-aid training you put me through was erased.”

“But it wasn’t. You timed the seizure, you put him in the recovery position, and you kept his airway clear. You saved him, Steve.”

“I guess.”

“You did! Steve Rogers, you need to learn how to accept a compliment. And pull yourself together for when he wakes up.” Sam nodded towards the now sound asleep Bucky. Steve smiled down at his boyfriend. “He looks like an angel when he sleeps.”

Sam rolled his eyes, taking the captain’s comment as his cue to leave. “Call me if you need me. You love birds be careful.”

Steve nodded as Sam let himself out before adjusting himself so that he as snuggled up against the cool metal of Bucky’s arm. He liked the feeling of the cold on his face, as they lay under a pile of warm blankets.

The next time Bucky woke up, he knew it was a Sunday. He was on his back, staring up at the white ceiling tiles that he counted when he couldn’t sleep. He turned his head to the side, smiling as Steve snored lightly beside him. His head was propped up in the crevice of his metal elbow, but he didn’t seem to mind the cool touch.

#stucky #steve and bucky #StevexBucky #Bucky Barnes #Steve Rogers #Sam Wilson #fanfiction #ao3 #ao3fic #marvel fanfiction #marvel #MCU #Winter Soldier #captain america #falcon #epilepsy

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libermachinae · 3 years

Text

Fault Lines Under the Living Room

Part I: Listen - Chapter 1: A Commotion, Eager and Anxious (Previous)

Also available on AO3! Summary: Arcee arrives on the Lost Light just as someone else is getting ready to leave. Chapter Word Count: 3010

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“Hey, you’ve reached Captain Rodimus’ personal hailing frequency. If you’re calling to complain again about mandatory hab sweeps, please refer to recent events involving briefcases and the hereafter outlawed opening of. If you have news involving foolish, ridiculous, or nonsensical obstacles in our quest, input 1 to be transferred directly to Megatron’s personal comm line. If you have a complaint regarding sign placement, grammatically incorrect maintenance manuals, or that weird temperature difference between floors 7 and 8, input 2 for Ultra Magnus. If you’re lonely and want someone to talk to, input 3 for automatic directions to Swerve’s. Input 4 to be connected with me, provided I’m—”

Beep.

“Rodimus?”

“Blaster! Great timing, we just got back from Fortuna. Don’t talk too long, though, Magnus just handed me my prep for the hearing and these datapads are engraved with his personal insignia.”

“Sure, Rodimus. I’ve got incoming transmission from an unknown caller, not laying down any codes I’m familiar with. Tried pressing for details, but all they’re letting slip is they want to talk to you. Want me to patch them through?”

“Hm. On the one hand, unknown caller with mysterious intentions almost always means trouble, right?”

“We’ve ended up in some axel grease for it in the past, yeah.”

“And the reason we set down on Scarvix was to avoid creating more problems while we deal with the fallout from the last batch.”

“I thought it was to give the crew a day off?”

“And that’s why you’re our morale guy. Ratchet would probably tell me to ignore it, right?”

“I guess.”

“You don’t think he would?”

“Not really sure how the CMO’s opinion is relevant.”

Because Ratchet’s vote was the only one he knew.

“Yeah, never mind,” Rodimus said with a shrug, almost losing his balance in the process. “Ultra Magnus would say the same thing, anyway, and he’s counting on me to get to the hearing on time. He cares so much , he ‘summarized’ Brainstorm’s alleged code infringements himself.” He shifted the armload of datapads. The topmost pad was hanging off the edge, preparing for freefall, but trying to tilt it back to safety risked upsetting the rest of the pile.

“Nice of him,” Blaster said.

“Yep, super nice. He went to so much trouble. Really dug into the details, researched historical precedents, looked at the case from every angle. He probably buried his essay on the origins of Decepticon as an adjective somewhere in here.” The datapad tilted and dropped. Rodimus shifted his weight to one leg and kicked with the other, bouncing the pad off his knee and catching it with his teeth. “You know ‘at? Hure, ‘ut the comm hrough. ‘robably just a co’arketer, anyay.”

“Yes, sir.”

The familiar click and beat of a line being transferred. Rodimus deposited the datapad on top of his stack and started walking again, forgoing his office in favor of a detour to the middle decks. The view there was more impressive, the angle revealing the organic landscape that stretched between the Lost Light and Fortuna, a popular interstellar rest stop with enough mechanical business to make it worth the daytrip. Chomskians were their patrons of choice, but a hand over the faction insignia and most folks would let it slide. Walking the length of the Lost Light revealed a subtly changing view as the gleam of the mechanoid hub altered the silhouette of the city, and Rodimus busied himself tracking the shuttles, jets, and personal aircraft traveling in and out, letting it distract him until his comm came back.

“Am I speaking to Captain Rodimus?” an unfamiliar voice asked. Cybertronian, definitely, but otherwise unknown.

Cool .

“Yep, captain of the Lost Light and quester for the Knights of Cybertron,” he said. “What’s up?”

“This is Autobot Arcee, requesting permission to dock in the Lost Light’s shuttle bay.”

“Arcee?” Rodimus went through the list of all the Autobots he knew, ignoring the space where Arcee’s origin should have been. Some folks, MTOs especially, didn’t like to broadcast that information, and it wasn’t strictly necessary for a personal database search. Regardless, “Sorry, Arcee, I’m not remembering you. Who did you serve under?”

“New recruit. Was working with Prowl for a bit, now Optimus Prime. We’ve met.”

He had to hold himself back from shutting down the call. The datapads wobbled and he quickly righted himself.

“We have?” People who worked for Prowl were strategic about when they released that information. If she really was a new recruit, it was possible no one had explained to her yet that, ultimately, everything led back to him. It was the only justification he could find for staying on the line and not telling Ultra Magnus to initiate an immediate sweep for unauthorized listening devices.

“Well, no. But I crashed a shuttle for you. Into Galvatron.”

“You did?” And just like that he had forgotten Prowl entirely.

“I did. Me and a few others. It didn’t do much, but you and Optimus managed to take care of Vector Sigma anyway, so, bygones.”

Why couldn’t he remember this? It sounded awesome .

“Totally,” Rodimus said, feeling a swell of pride as he remembered the moment Optimus had set aside his doubts and trusted Rodimus’ word on the Matrix. Up until that point, his chosen name had felt ill-fitting, like the myriad of function tests that preceded a new harvest’s official classification. Or, in his darker moments, like the Primes of old, who claimed the Matrix’s blessing despite no legitimate connection to it. Optimus had put his faith in Rodimus, though, in his connection to the Matrix, and that faith had been rewarded , not punished . For once, his destiny hadn’t been priced in spilled energon.

Not that they hadn’t seen any.

“So you decided to get the brand and make it permanent?” he asked, pulling himself back to the present.

“Yes.”

“Then yeah, come aboard. ‘The more the merrier,’ as Megatron would never say. When do you estimate your arrival?”

“I’ve just breached atmosphere, should be there in an hour.”

“Perfect. I’ll send instructions along to open the shuttle bay doors and will be there to meet you.” He passed the news to Megatron and Ultra Magnus and was unsurprised when only the latter acknowledged the alert, as well as a bunch of forms that seemed incredibly tedious and not worth the bandwidth. Maybe once the hearing was over, he could sit down with his co-captain and remind him of the responsibilities he had agreed to as part of his deal. That would be a proper, leader-like thing to do.

Or he could let Megatron continue to wallow in whatever new misery he had concocted for himself. It certainly made his shifts easier.

He and Arcee exchanged farewells and his comm powered down, leaving Rodimus to strategize. Arcee’s arrival meant he did not have enough time to get back to his office, read through all of Magnus’ files, and make it to the shuttle bay, especially with all the effort it would take to even work himself up to unlocking the datapads. Better to make a good impression on their new guest and bump out the least pressing task. He could do his reading once Arcee was settled.

Walking around weighed down by the burden of knowledge was a drag, though, so he stuck to the part of the plan that involved getting rid of the datapads. He spent the remaining walk to his office (longer now after he had inadvertently walked in the opposite direction while on the comm) thinking about what he could do with the surprise free time. Maybe take a quick lap around the lower decks or make his first official visit to “Visages”. Something fun, carefree, and just barely skirting regulations; something normal , to start the work of convincing everyone, again, that things were going to be fine.

~*~

Ratchet was not stalling.

There was a chance he was overpreparing, but better that than the opposite. The galaxy was a big place, and if he was even slightly accurate in his guess of how far Drift would wander in his search for redemption, he would be touching corners of it even the war had never brought him to. So, an abundance of fuel was necessary, at least enough to last two bots a month plus about half that for the journey outward. Then medical supplies: wiremesh bandages, nanite gel, intravenous lines, sparkstarters, sorted boxes of nuts and screws, antiviral uploads, rust repellant, strut stabilizers, soldering wires… The shuttle was turning out better equipped than some of the mobile surgeries he had worked from during the war; even some hospitals had been dangerously low on materials he now found in abundance. For the first time, he had the resources to make sure nothing and no one would be lost to shortage, and he intended to take advantage of that new luxury.

Following that, the next logical step had been to make the rest of the shuttle comfortable as well. Two Morphy berths with recharge docks. A media library of music and movies to pass the time (the former Cyclonus’ recommendations, the latter, Swerve’s). A few selections from his private engex stash. A box of data blockers he had buried deep among the medical supplies and would claim were standard for any med kit if interrogated.

He nudged the box of Hex pieces against the wall with his foot. Was it alright there was nowhere to sit beside the naviconsole and the berths? He had though Drift would appreciate the economy of a smaller shuttle, but with the cargo loaded the atmosphere was shifting from cozy to cramped. Would Drift feel claustrophobic, reminded of squatters’ dens and Decepticon outposts? Drift was also a high-energy bot, who would probably itch for a chance to spin his wheels from time to time. Were the fuel reserves large enough to accommodate multiple planet stops?

Ratchet’s knuckle had worked its way between his teeth before he realized what he was doing. Dropping his hand, he forced himself to turn around and exit the small spacecraft. He was committed. Out of anyone on board, Drift had done the most to earn this home. If no one else was going to step up and do the right thing by returning it to him, Ratchet would resign to do it himself.

He heard a commotion, eager and anxious, as he stepped out into the shuttle bay. The hangar doors were opening, sunlight slipping through the growing crack, and several parked crafts were being taxied out of the way. Not wanting to get cut off by wandering shuttles, he hurried to the pedestrian entrance, where most of the voices were coming from: a small crowd, loiterers looking for the new source of intrigue. Whirl and Tailgate were among them, providing running commentary as the unwieldly ships skirted just shy of scraping each other’s paint off, so it was no surprise to find Cyclonus standing further off.

Perfect. Though Ratchet and Cyclonus were not on bad terms, neither had ever tried to expand their relationship past the occasional long-suffering glance. If it had been one of the bots who had his spark twisting every time he bumped into them in the hallways, Ratchet would have worried about giving his plan away, but he doubted Cyclonus cared whether the something-like-guilt was visible.

“Cyclonus,” he greeted.

“Ratchet.” The older of the two offered a polite nod, though his gaze returned to the door.

“What’s going on? Somebody forget something in Fortuna?” Ratchet kept his voice light, curiosity without investment. A change in routine could mean nothing, but by now everyone knew it could also be the start of something weird, dangerous, or a combination of the two. Either way, it would end up among Swerve’s stand-up material.

“New arrival,” Cyclonus said. “Arcee of the Darklands: a tested warrior with a spark that rivaled Galvatron’s.”

Might as well have called herself Foreboding of Doom and saved his declarative archives the search. Ratchet wondered if he should move his departure up.

“Is she here? Did I miss it?”

Rodimus’ panicked shouts preceded his stumble into the hangar. Ratchet greeted him with a pointed look, which he shouldered by simply not noticing it while his gaze darted around the room.

“Not yet, Rodimus,” Hoist announced over the loudspeaker. “We’re just getting the last shuttles cleared for landing.”

“Oh, thank Primus,” Rodimus said, tilting his head back as his fans released a cloud of warm air. “Fantastic.”

“You look like you gunned it to get here,” Ratchet said, waving away the smell of an overheated engine.

“No, that would be speeding, which is definitely against spacetime law,” Rodimus said, straightening to flash Ratchet a deeply unappreciated grin. “I ran. I told Arcee I would be here to meet her, and it would make for a pretty bad impression of the ship if the captain failed to live up to his promise.”

“Don’t you have a hearing to be getting ready for?” Ratchet asked, the question slipping past his censors. Slag. That was not the note he wanted to leave on. The stress of his impending departure was getting to him more than he had realized.

Rodimus shrugged, unaffected.

“Magnus gave me all the materials, just need to read them. Won’t take long.”

That stirred something in Ratchet’s spark.

“Good to know our justice system is under such attentive care.”

“Perhaps this is a conversation that would be better saved for when we are not moments from new introductions,” Cyclonus interjected, his deep bass distracting enough to halt those emotional processes of Ratchet’s that started to loop out of control whenever Rodimus opened his mouth. He set his vocalizer to standby, not trusting it to wait for his command, and wondered whether it would be better to get out sooner. Before his own smart mouth made his worries a reality.

The appearance of the approaching shuttle did not ease his concerns. Starting as a speck above the horizon, all optics were on it as it approached, a little blob of a spacecraft dangling over the city of Fortuna. Big, for a single occupant. Ratchet hoped he was wrong, but he noticed something further odd as it came nearer.

Whirl took care of that loose thread of optimism.

“It’s purple,” he said, with a coy look at Cyclonus, who ignored it with enviable steadiness.

“It’s a Decepticon vessel.” Ratchet had seen enough in his time. After the fall of Tyger Pax, Autobot regulations had outlawed all colors between navy and magenta for ships, and he could think of no other species brazen enough to steer a spacecraft directly into civilian airspace. “Rodimus?”

“Blaster confirmed Arcee’s ident after our call,” Rodimus said. “Bit of a garish choice for a ride, but it’s her.” He had maneuvered himself to the front of the group, standing at the front like he was putting himself on display for an honored guest.

“That is rich, coming from you.”

“Thanks, Ratch,” Rodimus said, casting over his shoulder a wink and a grin before he turned back to face the oncoming ship. Ratchet’s frown deepened and he ignored the way the gesture reminded him of Drift.

He never knew what the bot had seen in Rodimus. Short-sighted, selfish, and with an ego that could have powered the ship if he could have been bothered to contribute that much, Rodimus’ ability to perform feats no one else would attempt meant he was also prone to making mistakes they neither could have imagined. For all the time Ratchet had spent on the Lost Light , he still had no idea the limits of chaos Rodimus was capable of summoning to it, so he let triage and combat protocols idle in the background while they waited.

It was not a nice landing. The thrusters were still burning several hundred feet out, so they all heard the roar of wind buffeting ailerons as the shuttle struggled to slow itself down. It was only by the combined effects of the Lost Light ’s buffeting shield and the shuttle’s reverse engines that they did not suffer a catastrophic collision, and even then, the shuttle bounced as it finally touched down, coming within feet of kissing Huffer’s personal speeder. Ratchet still did not remember to vent as it struggled through taxiing, twice having to reattempt a maneuver as the combined efforts of Hoist, Rodimus, and a group of volunteers guided it to its designated space. Only when the engines finally shut down did Ratchet hear the collective sigh of multiple hydraulics systems releasing their tension.

“Guess Darkland warriors don’t need to know how to drive,” Ratchet muttered. He thought he heard Cyclonus huff, which was enough to get a chuckle out of him.

That was it, though, because in the next moment Rodimus was rushing to the lowering hatch, his spoiler flicking behind him like an insect wing. Ratchet caught a glimpse of a labyrinthine cargo hold before Arcee stepped forward, filling the space, and descended rapidly. He tensed, ready for something else to come charging out from behind her, but besides a look passed between her and Cyclonus nothing immediately hostile revealed itself.

“Welcome to the Lost Light,” Rodimus said, standing aside to let Arcee descend. The hatch raised as soon as she was standing on the Lost Light’s floor, blocking Ratchet’s view again.

“Yes, thank you.” Her tone was clipped, not the melodic veil of sophistication Ratchet had come to associate with Cyclonus, and she scanned the assembled bots with a look of blatant suspicion. Ratchet could relate to that, if nothing else.

He glanced at the purple ship once more while Rodimus led Arcee in the direction of the rec rooms while the rest of the crowd dispersed. Ratchet himself would never believe in anything as a sign or omen, but the sight of the purple plating made old welds ache, and he found his resolve. He would go get a drink. He would attend the hearing. And then, goodbyes or no, he was leaving that night.

#maccadam #transformers #rodimus #ratchet #my writing #longfic #fault lines #im posting this so late 😂#life happens yknow

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robotnik-mun · 3 years

Text

More Robotropolis Notes

Predictably I decided to take another crack at a ‘Free-For-All’ Sonic setting. Even more predictably, I focused on Robotnik crap.

Enjoy some rambling, incoherent worldbuilding that’ll never go anywhere, folks!

V.E.G’s

Justice in Robotropolis begins and ends with the VEG’s- the Vassalization Engineering Gulags. The VEGs are the prison-fortresses of Robotropolis- massive installations where prisoners of war and criminals are sent to in order to be processed and either subjected to Roboticization or a slow, lingering death as a bio-battery. VEGs are enormous, multilayered complexes bristling with external weaponry and housing near endless numbers of robotic troops, and are dispersed all over the territories of Robotropolis. VEGs are strategically placed across the internal borders of Robotropolis, with a single VEG taking processing the prisoners of several surrounding territories and often acting as a nexus point between Zones. The reason for this is due to Robotnik’s paranoia about the potential capture and reverse engineering of Roboticization technology- as such there are relatively few VEGs in proportion to Robotropolis’ organic population and geographic size, but each one is responsible for the Roboticization of thousands each year.

While Roboticization is the primary fate of anyone unfortunate enough to be shipped off to the VEG, there is another, arguably even more horrific fate- namely that of being converted into a bio-battery powering the very machinery that enslaves Mobius’ peoples. A refinement of the technologies designed for Badniks, to become a Bio-Battery is to be slowly killed over a course of many months or even two years, depending on the health of the subject. Subjects are placed within the life draining ‘pods’ of the batteries, wherein they are gradually drained of their life force until nothing remains but a decayed husk. The pod clusters are located in reinforced sub-basements, and due to their resemblance to grapes on a vine, some individuals with knowledge of their existence have morbidly compared them to vineyards.

Some VEGs, besides serving as Roboticization and Bio-Battery processing plants, also fulfill a secondary role of carrying out scientific research and development. One such ‘Science’ VEG is located within Robotropolis-occupied Trailius, where it serves as the HQ for the local Legion chapter and is administrated by Legion Prefect Maw the Thylacine. It is the only VEG to be entrusted to one of Robotnik’s organic agents, as the rest are exclusively staffed by robots.

VEGs are not individually named, but are instead referred to by number, in order of construction- VEG-1, VEG-2, etc. The largest and most infamous of the VEG’s is the prototype facility first created by Robotnik, and designated as VEG-0.

VEG-0 was created by converting a massive volcano springing from the ocean, using its magma core as a thermal power plant for the entire facility. VEG-0 upon completion was set to immediate work, and by the present has been responsible for Roboticizing millions. It serves as the face of Roboticization, even as the task of creating Robian slaves was delegated to other VEGs. The subsequent VEG models were created smaller than the original and incorporated Bio-Battery technology to make them independent from Robotropolis’ main power grid, but even so, VEG-0 remains an ominous and terrible symbol of Robotropolis’ might in the eyes of its citizens and the world itself.

Prisoners at VEGs are not kept in cells, but rather in suspended animation within special capsules before being unloaded for Roboticization or Bio-Battery integration.

These capsules are essentially miniaturized, self-contained Bio-Batteries unto themselves, using the life force of the individuals imprisoned in order to be powered. While nowhere near as lethal as the Bio-Batteries proper, the capsules none the less are painful to be trapped in… which suits Robotnik just fine.

The Robotropolis Legion

The Robotropolis Legion (disparaged by many as ‘The Dark Legion’) wears many hats- it is at once the civilian government, law enforcement, and civil defense corp of Robotropolis, at least on paper. The easiest way to advance in Robotropolis’ society without being a scientist is to join the Legion, and the Legion eagerly takes all comers- collaborators seeking to be spared Roboticization, lunatics eager for someone heart, the destitute and desperate seeking ANYTHING in life… and rarely, even a few true believers of Robotnik’s foul vision join the Legion. All who join the Legion are granted cybernetic enhancements and military grade training before being deployed, either to the streets of Robotropolis’ Habitation Zones or to further Robotnik’s influence overseas. Many have come to know the image of the Legion Trooper- clad in red armor and in face concealing helmets abstractly resembling skulls, the troopers serve as constant reminders of Robotnik’s control over the denizens of Robotropolis and the promise of power to those who would willingly submit to his rule.

The Legion is surprisingly loose in its organization, compared to other military organizations and in contrast to Robotnik’s own demands for absolute order. The Legion is divided up into Chapters based around the location in which they operate, which depending on circumstance can be individual communities or general areas. Each chapter is headed over by a Prefect, who is in turn served by a commander, and oversees the various units of Troopers under their command. Beyond that though, each Chapter is essentially run as the Prefect in charge sees fit. So long as order is kept and Robotnik’s quotas are filled, Robotnik doesn’t care what his subordinates do as long as it doesn’t interfere with the efficiency of his empire.

In the early days of Robotropolis, this wasn’t the case- the Legion’s authority was more centralized, and there existed greater co-operation and synergy between the Legion chapters, with all Legions being under the direct command of The Grand Marshal of the Legion, whom also was an active participant in Robotropolis’ government. The first and only such Grand Marshall was one Conrad Targo, an Overlander general who betrayed his government to serve Robotnik. Targo was instrumental in the Legion’s formation and implementation within Robotropolis’ territories, particularly with Robotropolis main robotic armies occupied elsewhere, allowing the Legion to pick up the policing that would otherwise distract the machine armies from their primary function of conquest. This, in effect, made Targo the head of domestic defense and Robotnik’s effective third in command.

After an accident seemingly killed Robotnik and his second-in-command Snively, Targo briefly assumed control over Robotropolis. During this brief time, Targo instituted a draft for service into the Legion, intending to expand the cybernetic army. His reign however proved brief- sensing the weakness brought on by his transition of power, the Kingdom of Acocrn hoped to take advantage of the brief instability to decapitate Robotropolis’ leadership and thus weaken the foul city enough so that they might reclaim their homeland. A special, covert strike force was assembled and deployed into Robotropolis to assassinate Targo and to cause general mayhem within the Inner Empire in the hopes of causing widespread chaos across Robotropolis. Led by Colonel Tig Stripe, the squadron came close to its goals… only for Robotnik and Snively to re-emerge, unharmed and ready to reassume command of Robotropolis.

The assassins where subsequently destroyed, and a near-dead Targo was kept alive by artificial means. Julian had long been suspicious of Targo’s loyalties and ambitions, as well as his control over the Legion. His ‘death’ had been a ploy from the start to set Targo up so that he could fall, and to make his enemies on the global stage reveal their hands in this supposed moment of weakness for Robotnik’s Empire. In the aftermath of this incident, Robotnik eliminated the position of Grand Marshall and re-structured the Legion to grant each chapter greater independence from the other and more decentralized leadership in order to make them less able to organize against him. Finally, Robotnik roboticized Targo and then further modified him into a new breed of command class robot to oversee his SWATBot armies. Thus was Conrad Targo, Grand Marhsall of Robotropolis, reborn as Supreme Commander Brutus.

Since that time, the Legion has maintained its role as the effective state police of Robotropolis and the closest thing it has to a ‘civilian’ government. Members are afforded greater freedoms than non-members as well as better access to things like food, water and high end medical technology, for both themselves and their families. Robotnik maintains the relative inefficiency of the Legion because it keeps them divided and thus unable to organize towards overthrowing him, while providing additional targets for local resistance groups as well as a means of recruiting people into his service. Given that the robot armies of Robotropolis vastly outnumbers the so-called ‘Legion’, Robotnik is more than willing to put up the Legion’s presence… for the moment, anyway.

Technically, there are two Legions- the Home Legion, which policies the habitation zones of Robotropolis, and the Away Legion. The Away Legion is effectively a secretive terrorist army for Robotropolis, a series of subversive cells that seek to chip away at nations until they are vulnerable to invasion by Robotnik’s machine armies. The Away Legions are even more individualized than the Home Legions, and this creates a degree of friction between the two branches.

All of which proceeds as intended by Robotnik.

With the absolute loyalty of his robots to pick up the slack, he can afford distractions from his more flawed subordinates. Sooner or later, EVERYTHING will be machinery anyway.

#Sonic the Hedgehog #Fanfiction #Worldbuilding #Dr. Robotnik #Commander Brutus

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