#I obviously will not but goddamn is it hard to write about tech right now!!!

[in---absentia]

Me reading up on the latest wave of tech layoffs and SVB implosions looking at my two obviously tech based office AUs: Should I blow this shit up too?

[dzpenumbra]

7/31/23

I'm taking a break from work on the grip tape to eat some more of my dinner and write this. I figure... why not play around with times a bit. It's already midnight, the night got away from me again. But it's just been non-stop doing shit all day.

I woke up after 2 hours and I was very disturbed. I had very vivid dreams but I did not journal them. I'm not entirely sure why. I've been in the habit of... if a dream is good, write it down; if a dream is bad... make yourself write it down. And this one... I guess it just kinda felt... annoying? Or like... "good lord, just let it go." Or something. I don't know, again, because I don't remember any of the details, but I remember it being vivid and that my emotion coming out of it was upset and frustrated and uncomfortable.

I struggled to get back to sleep. This resulted in my mind again swirling around the whirlpool of my legitimacy and future as an artist. Funny how all of these "friends" and "supporters" only seem to elicit this reaction. Funny how that reaction isn't... HOPE... or CONFIDENCE. Funny, that. Kinda like they're not really friends or supporters at all, right?

I'm really learning a lot of things the hard way right now. Primarily... how hard it can be for me to detect these things in the moment... because I'm just trying to be a fun, pleasant, good person to be around. But what I'm learning is...

If someone says they love your work and they "want to support you"... then offers to pay you to do something that is tangentially related to your field... and they stand to benefit substantially from this... and they have zero interest in and have made zero effort to even do research on or even ask questions about what you actually do... It's really goddamn hard to consider them a supporter.

Let me simplify this. If I have to change my goals, interests or passions in life in order to get support... that's not support. That's manipulation.

I will finally say that confidently and stand by it. "I'd be glad to support you if you decided to become a doctor." "You'd be much more successful as a Broadway actor than this livestreaming fad, we'll support you in that, but not if you choose to continue." As though your life goals, interests, passions... your identity... is... negotiable? It is theirs to decide?

I've gotten this from family, obviously. This is likely the most relatable thing if someone is reading this, that's the trope, right? But I've also gotten this from "friends"... and, shockingly and in retrospect super unprofessionally and unethically, from a former therapist and several people who were in positions to be assisting with my career path.

If I am a multimedia fine artist, support me in establishing myself as a multimedia fine artist. Help me figure out how to get into galleries. How to find galleries I would fit in at. Help me meet people who would be interested in what I do. Who would potentially be interested in either buying my pieces, or supporting me through other means. Or, help me heal and develop techniques to effectively and reliably be able to do that myself. Do not, under any circumstances, insinuate that my goals are not achievable and that I should set my sights on something you have in stock.

Adam Duff said something super resonant today that I really want to put out there. It was the exact sentiment I needed to hear, from the exact kind of person I needed to hear it from, at the exact right time. It propelled me into a state of walking through town and the woods beaming with joy at how wonderful life is knowing I have a place, I belong. I'm going to transcribe the quote for you. It's in reference to people wanting to give up in the face of AI art, but I think it's even more relevant in this really fucked up passive cultural war against art as a legitimate career. For context, he's concluding a chess analogy, as if playing a chess game against big tech companies.

"At this point, most people would just say 'ah, screw this, I resign.' And they just give up because... screw it. 'Your opening was too strong.' Right? And... um... what a professional will tell you (while the lawnmower is going on behind me...) is... 'don't quit, don't stop now. If you still have players, if you still have pieces on the board, keep playing. Because even with one pawn, even with one rook, if you know how to play well... you can find that loophole. You can find that backdoor into a checkmate in one. You can do it. The game is not lost until all of your pieces are gone. The game is not lost until your king is trapped, but even when your king is trapped you can still win in a draw. And not lose any points whatsoever.' So... giving up means you're not professional enough yet, a professional never gives up, a professional keeps playing until the last piece falls. And when the last piece falls, do you give up art? NO. You pick up your paintbrushes and that next time around you're going to be more well-informed, you're going to know your opponent better. And you keep playing, and keep playing, and you keep losing until eventually... you win. And that's how you improve."

After about an hour and a half of laying in bed trying to fall asleep again, I found myself ranting out loud to myself about this graphic design bullshit. About how getting me gigs and clients as a graphic designer does not help me with my career, it helps me start a new one. It brings in clientele that are specifically NOT looking for what I primarily do, who are fundamentally unaware of what I do. If I were an artisan baker, they would be customers looking for sushi. Any overlap would be a fluke.

I hear tons of people, a lot of them in positions where they are supposed to be supportive... pressuring me to find something that is... close enough... While, at the same time... not lifting a finger to even research resources that could immediately assist me in making my career financially sustainable.

I have brought my standards as low as possible. I have given up on my life goal of starting a family. I realized I already had that gift, of parenting two pets, and I loved them with all my heart. Anything else would be an absolute blessing. I have already achieved that goal. And I can happily go to my grave with that. I've come to peace with that. Career-wise, the only thing I have ever cared about is making enough money to make it so that I can continue to do what I do. To gather inspiration and create artifacts. Housing, food, utilities, materials... that's all I need.

Can you feel how upset I am about this? Can you tell how many countless hours I've spent having to justify my purpose on this planet to the very people who brought me into it? To the people in my social web who vowed to assist me in my goals of personal fulfilment, to assist me in becoming an embraced member of society.

You know what I did this morning? I googled my business. I have never done that. I knew for a fact, because it was deliberately designed this way by myself, that I will be the only accurate thing that shows up on Google. Check this out. My art business alias and username? It's a nonsense word. It's not a real word or name. Even this alias has a real word in it - penumbra. My art alias, it's a fake name that me and my bandmate came up with when we used to hang out and "make dudes" in the character creator in Tiger Woods Pro Tour 08 back in college. That nonsense name... is very non-threatening, it has no hard plosives, the best way I can describe it is "no sharp edges". It sounds warm and fun and kinda goofy. And, here's the business side... ready? IT'S THE ONLY THING THAT SHOWS UP ON GOOGLE IF YOU SEARCH FOR ME. Anything else is the algorithm assuming you made a typo. So... if you do an image search, you get a fucking GALLERY of my art. If you do a video search, the top result is The Path. If you just do a normal search, you get ALL of my socials... oddly not Twitch, though...

You know what that told me? All the years of my mom and others coming after me acting like I'm not trying hard enough to get peoples' attention? Like I wasn't doing a good job putting myself out there. These self-absorbed, careless, loveless narcissists have never even fucking GOOGLED my business. Nor have they told a soul about it. They don't know me by my alias, they know me as my birth name, with the subtitle (Failed Artist Who Won't Give Up) F.A.W.W.G.U. hehehe Fawwg U, too.

I can't fathom how many souls like me... with potential to legitimately change lives with the insight and talent they have... were snuffed out before they ever had a chance to ignite... because of bitter, jealous, self-absorbed people who claimed to know what's best for them. It makes me fucking sick. It makes me not want to live in this culture. Despite knowing... it's likely been going on for centuries, if not millennia.

So, I looked up local galleries near me. There are... I think 6-8? Some are just... personal galleries that are advertising themselves as such, so... not really options. I really... I feel so fucking overwhelmed when I even crack the lid on the process of getting into a gallery. I genuinely, honestly, feel like the best chance I have... is having a go-between.

I think I have one, possibly two. I have my former drawing teacher - who, awkwardly... has seen me naked... when I modeled for her drawing class the summer after my graduation. She was teaching Art Therapy when I was in college (13-14 years ago), I'm pretty sure she's still teaching at a nearby college. Google told me that she worked with a Buddhist temple in the past. Apparently her husband is tied into that too. I thought it was... possibly perfect. There wasn't a ton of info online, or any contact that I could find but I will try again. But I'm pretty sure she lives in the same city as me right now. I don't know if she remembers me... I took Drawing 1-4 with her, despite Drawing not being an eligible degree focus. So... I had to learn how to paint and take Painting 1-4 too... XD Not kidding. But she was my Drawing teacher. And she was renown for being a hard-ass, but I never really found her to be like that. It felt more like a proto-meme, before memes were really a big thing.

The other is my former Advisor and Head of the Art Department at my old college... who might be able to connect me with the Drawing teacher, too. Again, I don't know if she remembers me... but I was one of the only people who hugged her at her boyfriend's (one of my mentors) funerary ceremony at the college right after he suddenly and unexpectedly died of an aneurism. I'm pretty sure she still works at the same college I graduated from.

That's all I've got. My ex-girlfriend who I was head-over-heels in love with has worked in galleries for years... but... it's really fucking complicated there. And I sent her one of those letters that I cringe at during the Summer of '19, my Metamorphic Summer.

That's all I can think of. So... I had a lot of clarity on that today. And I see steps I can take. I guarantee if these people remember me fondly... they would be able to help advocate and introduce me to people. Like... immediately. They will know people. I'm just... I'm scared. I'm legitimately scared of reaching out. Why?

Because of my Metamorphic Summer. Because of the deep shame I feel. And more than that, deeper than that, at a brain-stem level that makes me sorta freeze in place like a deer in headlights? The trauma that I suffered as a result of that. "You can't just pour your heart out to people like that, you're going to upset them. It's not fair to them." And the ensuing punishments for having done so... as though they were a threat to my family, or something... It's hard to even talk about and expect people to believe it happened. It was one of those moments where you're in the moment and it feels like you're in an episode of The Twilight Zone... Like that reality show they used to have.... SCARE TACTICS! That's what it was! "Are you scared? Good. You should be... because you're on Scare Tactics!" It legit felt like that. I'm fucking there in my memory right now. And I was just like... waiting for the cameras to come out or something, like... oop this is a prank! Nope. Just a living nightmare.

So... are the chances very high that my former teachers will respond poorly? Unlikely. A big thing that keeps popping into my head, though? I'm such a different person than I was back then. I used to be a lot more bullheaded about like... doing shit my way. Kinda anti-authority, just doing whatever I want and fuck your rules kinda shit. Not in an anti-social way... but a very crude, unrefined form of individualism. "I have an idea and I'm going to do that for the assignment, and it really doesn't matter what the assignment is because this is just what I want to make." Just kinda in my own little world. But considering I didn't fail any classes... I'm assuming they were very understanding that... that trait can be an "artist thing".

So yeah, I'm kinda just... one - hoping they remember me at all, and two - hoping they remember me positively. Well, hoping they don't remember me negatively. And I can just try to reconnect, explain my position in life and ask if we can just have a chat sometime and talk about life and the business and what to do. Because I'm fucking all-in, bud. The hell I've been through? The losses I've incurred? The flagrant abuse and disrespect I've suffered? I'm not throwing in the towel and being some art jockey for people to get their company logos done for after all that. No offense to those that find gratification and pride in that kind of work, I honestly do respect it and see many extremely talented artists and craftspeople who do that. I just know that even my greatest success in graphic design (winning a contest for a client bid in college against at least 15 other submissions) was... not only not enjoyable or something I was proud of... it was stressful and tedious at every step. And I have seen copies of that work laying in the bottom of drawers soaked in mysterious muck, and I felt absolutely nothing. Because it wasn't mine, it wasn't my idea, it wasn't my inspiration. It was just my hand being guided by a committee. What I do is something very different from that. It is not empirically good or bad on either side, graphic design as a work form is simply subjectively bad for me.

And I'm only doing this work as a favor for a former friend. For, at a certain time in life, treating me like family when no one else did. I will go outside of my comfort zone and profession to do a special gig for him, and he can brag to his friends and show off his one-of-a-kind logo that no one else will get, from a fine artist that doesn't even do graphic design. Like getting a tattoo from Picasso.

Can you see how revved up my mind has been? Ever since 8AM. Wait... I got to bed when it was still kinda dark out so... I got more sleep than I thought. No, actually it was already getting light out, I remember now, probably around 5. Anyway. I ended up adding a project to my work project list. That list, by the way, is 17 items long now. Yep. I have 17 open projects right now. The grip tape and the necklaces and the skull are three. There are 14 more just waiting for me.

This piece, I am tentatively calling "Duality". The concept is revolving around a discussion my therapist and I had about how two people can look at the same situation and see it completely different. How I can be sitting right next to someone and be experiencing an end-of-the-world panic attack... and the other person is just watching the same movie, oblivious. And we're both in the same situation, looking at the same stimulus. And the inspiration I got on this was very quick and vivid. It was a painting - ideally the final product would be hand-painted, of course, but digital for prototyping. The painting is essentially... two paintings in one, overlaid or screened on top of each other. It's the same image, but... when wearing glasses with red lenses, you see the painting in one way... when you wear glasses with blue lenses, it looks similar but distinctly different. Different in the sense of... narrative, context. The actual details of the piece itself, its content? No clue. Doesn't really matter, to be frank. And the cool part? Once I get this process down and get comfortable with it? I can do it with all different types of colors. It has a lot of potential. And it makes a profound statement about psychology and relationships and subjective reality and shit. And I can get previews on what the image is going to look like through the lenses either by... getting lenses and painting while wearing them... or by doing an image in Krita or something and just... throwing a color filter over it and painting the mockup that way.

I'd love to get started with this, but... it's #10 in my queue. XD I swear to god, I have so many golden ideas right now and motherfuckers want me to make a fucking t-shirt logo for a house painting company or some shit. What a fucking waste of resources. That is a waste of fucking resources. That is poor resource allocation, which is a social failing. Not a failing of my own. I did not do something wrong and deserve to do work in a different field that I don't like and am not trained to do. I did not fail as an artist and now... I have to resort to doing work outside my field just to keep the lights on. I have had my social support network gravely fail me, due to them only having an interest in themselves. They have failed me on a personal and professional level, which happen to be deeply intertwined in this career. And I refuse to allow myself to be gaslit into believing that it is my fault, and I am not good enough, and I should be just taking scraps and handouts (that conveniently greatly benefit the "offerors") because why the fuck would I ever get more than that?

I am trained in art. I think in art. I live in art. And I will work in art. Oh and here's the last fucking rant because I still have painting I wanted to do tonight.

If I have to do a side gig... why can't I do tarot readings? Why can't I work a counter at a tattoo shop, or at a cool eclectic antique shop, or a weird oddity store or working for a museum or a historical society or a rock/mineral shop or a dispensary or something? Why the fuck does it have to be designing logos for companies? Why does it have to be designing websites for companies? Just sayin. I'd MUCH rather work at a rock climbing center than design their logo. And honestly, I'd probably get paid more in the end...

Leonardo Da Vinci would have probably been exceptional at cleaning toilets.

I'm just gonna leave that one out for you guys to think about.

If we are truly in such desperate times that I don't have choice in what side job I work? Then I'm going to prepare to flee the country. Full stop. I haven't signed my lease renewal yet, so the option is still open.

All this said, I got a nap in after my tirade and work list update. I painted more, I listened to the conclusion of the senate hearings on AI art. Then I did yoga, showered and went for a walk. There were a ton of slugs on the trail (because it rained yesterday), and I really struggled not to step on any. I did my very best, while simultaneously getting eaten alive by mosquitos. I feel so clumsy walking in the woods with shoes on. It was still good to be in nature. And I got to watch the moonrise, which was very beautiful, it stopped me in my tracks. And I was just beaming as I walked through town listening to Che Aimee Dorval's new album, which I like a lot. It's a nice change of pace from what I normally listen to.

I'm gonna go wind down a bit before bed. I kinda need it. I'd like to get at least one more petal on the mandala done. I have 5 full petals and 4 tiny fragments of the biggest pedals left to go. It's almost done!!!

[apple-but-sour]

I wanna talk about a take I saw, but good god, I cannot be bothered to deal with this fandom right now so here we are;

I genuinely do not understand people who try to argue with c!Techs "I have friends now" quote. Like- i see this take surprisingly a lot but;

"The Syndicate had only two streams, they barely did anything together! theyre not friends".

First. They literally threw a surprise birthday party for c!Tech. If that does not spell out friends then I do not know what does jahgd

Second- They did not meet in The Syndicate.

c!Phil and c!Techno have literally known each other for years, before the Dream SMP. They (obviously) have some sort of backstory together.

c!Ranboo and c!Techno went on multiple adventures and helped each other out many times before. Did we all forget about that new axe c!Ranboo gave c!Tech? c!Techno saving c!Ranboo from The Egg?

c!Tech and c!Niki might have the least interactions out of all the other duos but they still have plenty and clearly trust each other.

They have their own, separate relationships with each other. They do not need The whole Syndicate to meet up so they can progress them or develop them.

I beg this goddamn fandom to recognize that c!Techno does have friends. He has had them for a while now. Gods bless.

I think this take comes from the fact that people who dislike c!Techno can't come to terms with the fact that Technoblade is doing good.

They view Doomsday as wrong and thus believe that Technoblade should be punished for it ("face narrative consequences") and what they see instead is him finding friends in the very people he hurt, being awarded happiness and peace for what they view as a crime. They can't accept that so they try to twist it into a lie.

I understand that the Syndicate going from "we only just held our first meeting" straight to "we are besties" seems jarring but it's important to remember that this is a collaborative story. I myself wish we got more Syndicate bonding content but such things are hard to arrange due to the nature of the medium. These people have lives outside roleplaying and it's difficult to write a good, well-paced story while also making sure your streams are entertaining.

I think the Birthday stream was a kind of compromise for that. It showed that the Syndicate ARE indeed close even if the streamers weren't able to show them becoming close gradually (they did with Ranboo & Techno, the others… not so much; Phil and Techno have been besties for ages, of course). We're meant to fill in the blanks with our own imagination which is what we've been doing through fanart and writing. It's not the best but it is how it is.

People don't want c!Technoblade to succeed, they don't want him to be happy and be awarded by the narrative so they try to find reasons as to why Technoblade's place in life would be worse than he claims it is.

[fic-for-fic-sake]

A Happy Accident

A/N: The other day I found out that Chris Evans may possibly have a sex dungeon? I don’t write real people fics but I knew I HAD to write a Steve Rogers fic about this because I mean...c’mon. Also the text conversation in the fic is indeed a real conversation between my friend and I. 

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader

Warnings: NSFW, dirty talk, dom/sub, flogging, being tied up, penetrative sex, honorifics, praise kink

Word Count: 5.4k

You knew there was trouble before you even reached the meeting room, it was like a palpable tension you could sense coming from the conference room. You mentally prepared yourself for whatever was to come as you walked in and took your usual spot next to Natasha. 

“Do you have any idea what this is about?” You questioned her, murmuring under your breath since nobody seemed keen to speak above a whisper for the time being. 

“Some kind of security breach, we don’t know how bad yet, we have to wait for Stark.” She explained, speaking in clipped tones. She seemed nervous, which was understandable given the circumstances. A security breach could mean a number of things, none of them good. Anything from weapons tech to secret identities could’ve been revealed in the breach. 

The tension seemed to come to a head when Tony and Steve walked into the room. Everyone erupted into a flurry of activity, peppering the two men with so many questions it was hard to make out what came from who. 

“What was taken?” Someone asked. 

“Was it anything serious?” Someone else wondered. 

“Do we need to scrap the new suit designs?” You asked, adding your voice to the babble. 

“Okay everyone settle down and give Tony some room to think.” Steve urged all of you, forming a one man barrier around Stark. Which you had to admit was rather effective. Once everyone reseated themselves and Steve gave Tony a nod, Tony cleared his throat. 

“By now you all have obviously heard that there’s been a security breach. We don’t know who is behind the breach but so far all that was leaked was text conversations of the following Avengers; Wanda, Sam, Bucky, and Y/N.” 

You felt your heart drop to your stomach. You were a target in the security breach. But why? Why you specifically and why just your text conversations? It seemed rather harmless considering everything else they could’ve taken. 

“Luckily Wanda doesn’t really text anyone because everyone she knows is here. As far as Sam, Bucky, and Y/N are concerned they only leaked conversations from your work phones, meaning your personal phone security isn’t in question.” Tony reassured you all. Well, it reassured Sam and Bucky at least. 

“Um, what do you mean ‘work phone’?” You asked, looking around with a puzzled expression on your face. 

“You do have a burner phone for personal use, right?” Nat asked from beside you. Now your heart was located somewhere in your feet. 

“I didn’t know I needed one.” You whispered, barely contained horror edging its way into your voice. 

“Well, I mean what’s the worst that could be there?” Sam asked, trying to reassure you. Luckily, or unluckily enough, you didn’t have to answer that question because within the coming days they would all find out. 

After the meeting you tried to go about your normal routine and ignore the security breach as best as you could. That got considerably harder the following morning, when the hacker released your private conversations with your friends for all the world to see. They went something like this: 

Sarah: Do you think Steve Rogers is good in bed? 

You: Obviously, dumb question. 

Sarah: Do you think he’s kinky though? 

You: Oh 100%, no way he doesn’t have a secret sex dungeon or something. 

Sarah: Since you’re an Avenger now you should try to find out. 

You: HAHAHAHAHA that’s hilarious and something I’ll never do, in reality. But in theory PUT ME IN COACH! I bet he would probably make me sign an NDA and I would totally be down for that. 

Sarah: I’ll sign a DNR

You: HAA, I would sign the NDA but also have to tell you what’s happening and then I would make you sign an NDA. 

Sarah: Then you’re breaking the NDA??

You: Not if you don’t tell anyone goddamn be cool. 

Sarah: It’s the principle of the thing

You: ...I wonder what kind of dom he is

Sarah: Idk if he’s a daddy. He feels like a Sir or Master. I also think he doesn’t have soft limits, only hard limits. 

You: as much as I would like to think he’s a pleasure dom I don’t think that’s true

Sarah: I agree

You: Maybe a brat tamer? 

Sarah: That feels too tame for him. 

You: Okay so then just a no holds bard whipping dom. I would wait all day in his sex dungeon just to lick his boots when he came home. Does that make me depraved? Probably. 

Sarah: Possibly, I also think he’d degrade the shit out of you, like kinda pet play shit. I also think he has a spreader bar collection. Aaaand an overstimulation kink. 

You: Oh agreed, that and edging. I feel like he would edge you for hours and then leave to go on a mission or something and you’re not allowed to touch yourself and then he comes back hours later and you’re just aching for release. And then only after you’re BEGGING he would let you come. 

Sarah: Oof. How much do you wanna bet his dungeon is like a sensory deprivation thing? Think about it, hours upon hours of not having any form of relief, after begging nonstop, no real form of your senses and then BAM normal orgasm but heightened to the absolute max. 

You: YEP! I bet he’s like the king of aftercare though, like 1000/10 so sweet. Like Steve Rogers is legit such a nice human being so I assume aftercare is the same. 

Sarah: AYO SIR LEMME BE YOUR SUB

You: GOD FORREAL!

Needless to say, you did not leave your room that day. The next day you tried to get away with not leaving your room again but Nat was having none of that. 

“Come on Y/N, I promise it’s not that bad, I’ve said much worse.” She assured you as she practically dragged you out of your room and into the elevator. 

You buried your head in your hands and let out a frustrated scream. “He’s a coworker, Nat, and I totally objectified him and basically said all the filthy things I wanted him to do to me.” 

“And I bet he’s real flattered about it! The man needs a good ego boost every now and then.” She replied with a laugh. To which you responded with another frustrated scream and a kick to the elevator doors as they opened. “I bet he didn’t even read it, I doubt anyone on the team did.” She said, sounding certain in her own thinking. She half convinced you until you walked into the training room and every pair of eyes turned to you, including Steve’s baby blues. Fuck. 

“Okay we’re working in a group today people, focusing on enhanced individuals with external powers. Wanda and Y/N against Sam, Bucky, and Steve.” Nat announced, opening the door to the special training facility. So you and Wanda wouldn’t trash too much of Stark’s equipment with your powers. 

“Hey Y/N, you been to any good sex dungeouns recently? I’m looking for one.” Sam quipped as you made your way to the starting point. Before you could even think about what you were doing the smell of ozone was ripe in the air and you sent a bolt of lightning hurtling towards Sam who was barely able to dodge it in time. 

“Sorry...hand slipped.” You mock apologized, making it clear that you would have another ‘hand slip’ if he didn’t keep his mouth shut. He got the point well enough but the damage was already done. The tension was worse now than when you first found out about the breach, everyone trying not to bring up the elephant in the room. 

Nat cleared her throat and started her countdown and then the training began in earnest. After an hour you were all panting and sweating, utterly spent from your session. Steve passed everyone a water bottle and you took it gratefully, chugging the cool liquid in earnest. It was then that another comment was made, this time by Bucky. 

“Thanks for the aftercare daddy.” He mocked as he opened his own water bottle. Once again the smell of ozone was in the air but you didn’t have a chance to meet your target before Steve had Bucky pressed against the wall, his forearm digging into the other man’s throat. 

“That’s enough.” He growled through his teeth. Everyone was silent for a minute and you almost felt sorry for the deer in the headlights look Bucky was now wearing on his face, almost. A shower of frustrated sparks extinguished all the lights in the room as you stormed from the room, embarrassment trailing after you. 

That had been four hours ago and you hadn’t left your room, despite Natasha banging on the other side of your door. You had asked FRIDAY not to open it for anyone unless given your express permission. It seemed even the AI knew what kind of a mess you had landed yourself into, as she was immediately understanding of such a request. You were in the process of ordering a burner phone off of Amazon when there was a knock at your door. 

“Nat, I don’t care how many books you offer to buy me, I’m NOT coming out of this room.” You yelled into the empty space of your room. 

“Noted, but uh, it’s Steve. Can we talk?” You were at the door before he finished his sentence. You opened it no more than a crack, not courageous enough to do more. 

“I don’t wanna talk to you, I’m mortified.” You mumbled, looking down at your feet instead of the imposing figure outside of your door. Steve gently pushed on the door with his hand and you let him open it the rest of the way. He brought gentle fingers to your chin and tilted your head back so you were looking into his eyes. 

“There’s nothing to be mortified about, sweetheart. I just wanna talk.” He replied beseechingly. And maybe it was the tone of his voice, or the way he looked at you, but you relented and let him in, closing the door softly behind you. 

“Listen, I’m really sorry for what I said. I obviously never thought it would see the light of day but that’s not an excuse and doesn’t make it okay. Fuck, Steve I’m so sorry. I can get reassigned if you want, have SHIELD put me somewhere else.” You rattled off apologies and half baked plans before you felt his hands gently clasp your shoulders and once again you were forced to look up into his eyes which had gone saucer wide. 

“Doll what are you talking about? You don’t need to be reassigned, it's not that big of a deal.” He said, in an attempt to comfort you. 

“Not a big deal? I practically accused you of having a sex dungeon and being a mega dom.” You blurted out, mortification making your voice rise half an octave. 

He let out a soft sigh before he sat down on the edge of your bed, “It’s not like you were completely in the wrong.” He replied, and that’s when your brain short circuited. 

“What? You have a sex dungeon?” 

“Well, it’s not a dungeon, it's just my bedroom, but yes I do, partake in those types of things you described.” He explained, his voice as even and calm as if he were discussing the weather. 

“Oh.” Was all you could really bring yourself to say. 

“Oh? That’s all? I have to say you were much more articulate in your texts.” He teased, his voice suddenly becoming deeper and taking on an air of authority that wasn’t there a second ago. “Tell me what you’re thinking.” 

And again, maybe it was because of his tone or because of the absurdity of the situation you found yourself in but you answered him honestly. “I’m thinking I’m absolutely mortified that my coworker found out how badly I want him to fuck me.” 

“What else?” He prompted. You couldn’t breathe properly, he was taking all the air from the room and the intensity in his gaze pinned you to the spot, like an unsuspecting doe finding itself at the barrel of a gun. 

“I’m wondering how correct my predictions were. What kind of a dom you are.” 

“Would you like to find out?” 

“Yes.” You answered before you could think better of it. The second the word left your mouth your eyes went wide at the confession. Because you did want to find out, God did you want to find out what kind of shit Steve Rogers, the golden boy, was into. 

“Then we have ourselves a deal. You want to find out what I’m into and I want to show you.” 

“Right now?” You asked, breathless. You could feel your core ache at the suggestion, the want plain as day. 

He chuckled before he moved to stand before you. “No pretty girl, not yet.” He whispered, bringing his right hand up to cup your cheek and stroke his thumb across the expanse of your lips. “First we have to talk about a few things.” 

“Like what?” You questioned, completely enraptured by this man, finding yourself willing to submit to whatever he wanted you to. You were terrified by how much the prospect excited you. 

“Like exactly what you want me to do to you. Your texts were very...explicit. But, that may have just been talk. I need to know specifics if this is going to work.” Steve explained, backing you up until you hit your dresser. Without a word he lifted you on top of it and stood between your legs, one of his hands tracing absent minded patterns on your thigh. 

It was hard to think with him in such close proximity but you tried to clear your mind because you really wanted this, your mouth went dry at the thought. “I want...I want to be tied up. And I want to be blindfolded. And whipped.” It felt weird to lay your desires out plain before you like this. It made you feel exposed, but it was also oddly empowering. 

Steve nodded his head at your requests. “You mentioned something to your friend about edging and orgasm denial, is that something you still wanted to try?” 

“Yes, but not, not yet. I’ve never um, I haven’t- I’ve never been kinky with a partner.” You explained to him, feeling an embarrassing heat creeping up your face. 

“Hey, no need to be embarrassed, we all start somewhere.” Steve insisted, bringing his hands up to settle on your hips. “Anything else?” After you shook your head he gave you a nod in reassurance. “Okay, I’ll be in touch.” He said as he stepped away from you. 

That was three days ago and you hadn’t heard anything from him on the matter since. You had trained with him, went for a run with him, had the usual team meetings and exchanged the usual pleasantries but nothing out of the ordinary. You had even gone far enough in your wandering mind to think that maybe you imagined the whole interaction. 

On Friday, you were told that Steve had gone away on a mission and by that point the team was done teasing you about the leaked conversation, already having moved on to the next thing. You had made plans to go out with them that night to a community outreach thing in Manhattan. You had just gotten your jeans on when a piece of paper slid across your floor from the door. 

You walked over to it, thinking someone had just dropped their paper, when you saw what was written on the other side of it.

Text an excuse to Stark for the outreach and then come to my room. -SR 

Your heartbeat sped up to a gallop as you read the message through two more times, just to be certain. This was it, it was happening. With shaky fingers you texted Tony a flimsy excuse about draft reports you needed to finish before you put your phone back on your desk and calmly made your way to Steve’s room. 

You went to knock but found the door slightly ajar. Taking that as your cue you stepped into Steve Rogers room. While it wasn’t the first time you had been here, it was certainly a circumstance that you weren’t used to. Everything seemed...different somehow. The curtains were drawn and the only light came from dim overhead lighting. There was a faint scent of jasmine that you assumed came from a candle or incense burner you couldn’t see somewhere. On the bed, the sheets had been changed to something that looked like silk and resting on top was an eye mask and two long chords of rope. Which seemed innocuous enough, current circumstances notwithstanding. 

“Shut the door and lock it please.” A voice commanded from a shadow in the corner of the room. As soon as you locked the door Steve Rogers emerged from the shadows in an all black version of his Captain America suit. You had never seen him in such a suit before and the sight of him in it made your mouth water and your knees buckle. This was really happening. 

“I have to admit, when I read your text conversation I was surprised to say the least. I didn’t know how many dirty thoughts resided in that head of yours but you did not disappoint, did you sweetheart?” He questioned as he made his way over to where you stood, rooted to your spot by the door. He gently pressed against your shoulder and you followed his lead, letting him back you against the door, his strong hands landing on either side of your head, arms caging you in. “And then when we spoke, you were /very/ specific in what you wanted and I am nothing if not obliging, you’ll find.” He whispered into your ear and you couldn’t help the small moan that escaped your mouth at the implication behind his words. 

“Are you ready to be my good girl? Hmm sweetheart?” 

“Yes Steve.” You whispered, your mind not being able to form anything other than those words. 

He made a slight tsking sound. “In here, don’t call me Steve. It’s Captain. Got it?” 

“Yes Captain.” You replied obediently. 

“Good girl, now get undressed for me.” He commanded, stepping back to give you room to complete his task. With nervous fingers you lifted your shirt above your head and undid the clasp on your bra. You watched as Steve’s eyes took in your exposed top half, he licked his lips which made you shiver in turn. Confidence growing by his visible excitement you unbuttoned your jeans and slipped them down your legs along with your panties, until you were gloriously naked before him. 

“God, you're so beautiful sweetheart. I’m already getting hard and all you’ve done is get undressed.” He praised you as he palmed himself through his tac pants. “Come here pretty girl.” He insisted as he picked up the blindfold. 

You walked over to him and turned around as he secured the blindfold against your eyes and tied it for you. “Now, we’re gonna use a color system, okay? Green means you’re okay to keep going, Yellow means to slow down, and Red means stop. Can you remember that doll?” 

“Yes Captain.” You murmured as you adjusted to not being able to see. You tuned into your other senses to rely on what was happening. You felt Steve take your hand and walk you over until you reached the side of the bed. He helped you up before asking you to lay down on your back. 

“Okay pretty girl I’m gonna tie you up now.” He told you as you felt both of his hands take your left arm and maneuver it above your head before securing your wrist in place with rope. He pressed a gentle kiss to the spot before repeating the process with your other arm. “How do you feel sweetheart?” 

“Good Captain, I feel good.” You told him as your heartbeat kicked up another notch. You felt him take your left leg with gentle fingers and tie your ankle to the baseboard of the bed. You gasped as he secured your right ankle, knowing you were now naked and spread bare before him. You felt the bed dip as he kneeled over you and brought his mouth down to whisper in your ear. 

“What’s your color baby?” 

“Green.” You replied. Almost immediately you felt his lips press against yours, desperate and hungry for you. You kissed back with a fervor you didn’t know you possessed. It was a strange sensation, kissing someone you couldn’t touch let alone see, but that didn’t make it unpleasant. You felt blissfully detached from your body and the need raced down to your pussy until you had the sudden urge to close your legs and hide your arousal. 

Steve chuckled against your mouth as his left hand snaked down to see what you were trying in vain to hide. “So eager for me and we’ve hardly started” He lazily swiped his fingers along your folds to feel the wetness that gathered there. He then brought the same hand up to your breast and worked your juices around your nipple, making you groan at the sheer wantonness of it all. Steve happily swallowed your groan with his mouth, his tongue taking the opportunity to pass your lips. 

You fervently kissed him back as his ministrations against your nipple continued. His lips left yours and left a trail of hot kisses down your throat and over to your neglected right nipple. You felt him blow cold air on it and your back bowed against the bed, your arms straining against the restraints. He scraped his teeth against your sensitive bud and you couldn’t help the noises that escaped your mouth. 

“Oh fuck, Captain.” You let out as he took your nipple into his mouth. You could feel his left hand leave your nipple and you let out a whine of protest. He only laughed against your skin before you heard the faint opening of a drawer. Your ears picked up the sound of him rummaging around for something but you couldn’t focus too much on that as the rest of your body was alight with fire as he continued to work on your nipple with his mouth. He finally found what he was looking for in the drawer and he released your nipple with a wet popping sound before you felt his weight shift and he removed himself from you. 

“You mentioned something about being whipped.” He teased, and you could hear that his own arousal had made his voice hoarse. Your cunt throbbed in response. “Do you know what a flogger is pretty girl?” 

“Yes Captain.” You replied from your position on the bed. Your mouth went dry at the mental image you had of Steve in his black tac suit with a flogger in hand. How would he use it on you? Would it hurt? Be pleasant? The anticipation was eating you up in the best of ways. 

“Good girl. We’re gonna do some counting. Since this is your first time we won’t do too many, just ten. But you have to count them pretty girl. If you forget, or lose count, we start over. Do you understand?” 

Oh fuck. “Yes Captain.” You heard him chuckle from somewhere above you before you heard the whoosh of the flogger and the sensation on your skin. You gasped as the leather straps came down hard against your left nipple. “One.” The second one came down against your right nipple and you found that your pussy clenched around nothing. “Two.” 

Numbers three, four, and five were placed on your nipples and your stomach.

“Halfway there pretty girl, you’re doing so well.” Steve’s voice came from somewhere around you. A thin layer of sweat had broken out over your skin and your arousal was through the roof. You found yourself panting in anticipation of the next strike. It came, the leather striking against your dripping center and you let out a gasp as your back arched off of the silk sheets. “Six” 

“Oh you liked that one didn’t you sweetheart?” Steve teased. 

“Yes Captain.” You replied breathlessly. Number seven came in the same spot and another lewd sound left your mouth as the flogger found its spot. Numbers eight and nine he placed on the sensitive insides of your thighs. 

“Last one pretty girl. You’ve taken it so well I’ll let you decide where this last one goes.” 

“Hit my pussy again, please, I want it so bad Captain.” You practically pleaded. Under any other circumstances you would’ve been ashamed at how pathetic you sounded but you didn’t care. Steve Rogers was doing depraved things to you and you couldn’t think straight. You just wanted him to keep doing what he was doing, to take all of you, every tiny nook and cranny of your being until he knew your pleasures like the back of his hand. 

“Such a needy girl, maybe after the flogger I’ll give you a reward.” He replied, sounding pleased with you, before he placed the tenth and final flog against your aching core. “God you look so sexy like this, blindfolded and tied to my bed, maybe I should leave you here as my own personal fucktoy, would you like that baby?” He asked as he inserted two fingers into your mouth. 

You mumbled your response against the digits, your pussy getting wetter at the thought of him using you like that. You were only half kidding when you had texted your friend about it but now, with your arousal so strong, it sounded more and more enticing. Steve removed his fingers from your mouth and brought them down to your sensitive center, rubbing them up and down your slit before inserting them into your slick heat. You gasped at the intrusion and felt your hips buck up in response to being filled. 

Your walls fluttered around his fingers as he began to pump them at a leisurely pace. You felt him make his way down your body to nestle himself between your spread legs and then his hot breath was fanning out over your cunt as his fingers continued to fuck you. “You look so good, pretty girl. Spread open for me like my own personal feast. God you’re so wet. I guess you like to be flogged.” He spoke, the filthy words that left his lips making you wetter than you already were. Without warning he brought his tongue to you and kitten licked your clit, sending a shockwave through your system. 

He took your clit in his mouth and sucked as he continued to work you with his fingers. You fruitlessly tugged against your restraints and bucked your hips in an attempt to get the friction you so desperately needed. 

“God sweetheart you taste better than I imagined.” Steve commented as his tongue lapped up your juices. “I bet I’ll be able to taste you on my tongue for a week.” 

“Fuck, Captain, please can I cum?” You begged, tears wetting the inside of your mask from the intensity of your session. 

“Come for me baby, let me feel you come on my fingers.” Steve commanded and that was your undoing. The knot that had been building inside of you was finally released and you came loudy around his fingers. You felt him lick you through the aftershocks. 

“Talk to me, pretty girl, how are you feeling?” Steve questioned, voice hot once again by your ear. His suit gently pressing against your overstimulated skin. “Give me a color.” He asked, pressing a gentle kiss to your jawline. 

“I’m good Captain, still Green.” You responded, coming down from your orgasm. 

“Such a good girl for your Captain. You’re doin’ so well pretty girl.” He said as he left the bed. You weren’t sure where he went until you felt his dexterous fingers undoing the ropes on your left leg. “I’m undoing the leg ropes first. And then I’m going to fuck you senseless like I’ve been wanting to do since I saw those damn text messages.” Your spent cunt clenched around nothing, as you eagerly waited for him to undo the other leg restraint. You could hear him undo the many zippers and clasps on his tac suit until the bed dipped and he was once again between your legs. 

This time skin met skin as you felt his upper thighs press between yours as he brought himself closer to you still. You felt the tip of his cock slide between your wet folds before slipping inside. The breath was stolen from your lungs at the feel of him sinking into your waiting cunt. A low moan left your mouth as you felt every perfect inch of him spreading you until he bottomed out and his hips nestled perfectly against your own. 

You felt his forehead press against your own. “Fuck you feel perfect, you know that pretty girl? My perfect little pussy.” He breathed against your mouth as he let you adjust to him. He retracted himself from you fully before swiftly filling you up again. Any noise you may have made was swallowed as he kissed you with a hunger you didn’t think was possible. What started as a slow rhythm quickly changed until he was snapping into you with a fervor akin to a madman. 

Your hips eagerly met his thrusts and soon your combined pants and skin slapping filled the room. Still blindfolded, you felt the moment his hand wrapped around your neck and squeezed just so. That had your walls flutter around him and your hips stuttered. 

“Oh you like that don’t you? You like when I choke you huh pretty girl?” He asked eagerly, his voice husky from moaning. 

“Yes, fuck, please Captain, fuck me.” You rasped out. You grunted as he brought his other hand down to press your hips into the mattress before he slammed into you at a relentless pace. Eventually, his hand left your throat to play with your bundle of nerves. 

“Come on pretty girl. Come for me.” He ordered and you were only too happy to comply. You came hard around him, enough that you saw stars behind the blindfold and Steve let out a string of curses and praises for you as he pulled out of you and you felt his cum paint your stomach. 

You had a moment to catch your breath as you heard Steve pad over to what you assumed was the bathroom. He came back and placed a warm washcloth against your skin, cleaning up the combined mess you both made. Then you felt his hands move up to untie the blindfold around your eyes. You squinted into the low light of the room and were shocked to see Steve bare chested and glistening with sweat before you. 

“Hi.” You murmured shyly, finding that some of your confidence had left you along with the blindfold. Seeing him like this, because of you, because of what you had done, somehow cemented this moment in reality. There was no turning back now. 

“Hi yourself, how do you feel?” He asked as he undid the ropes around your wrists. 

“I um wow, I feel great.” You said and realized it was true. In the afterglow of the scene you felt amazing. Sexy and empowered and utterly spent but undeniably amazing. 

“You did great.” Steve assured you as he took lotion into his hands and massaged the areas on your wrists and ankles where the ropes had been. He placed a gentle kiss on each palm when he was done and went to get you a glass of water. “Drink all of this.” 

You took the glass from his hands and drank deep. Appreciating the cool feeling of the water as it slid down the column of your throat, you didn’t realize how thirsty you had become. You finished the glass and handed it back to Steve, who placed it on one of his bedside tables. 

“Good girl.” He praised and you felt yourself blush in response. He noticed. “Do you like being praised, sweetheart?” 

“Yes Captain.” You nodded. 

“I’ll keep that in mind.” He replied as he helped you into one of his shirts and placed you underneath the covers. He rested beside you and wrapped you in his strong arms. “You did so well today for your first time. It wasn’t too much for you was it?” 

“No, I really liked it.” You reassured him. He pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead with a promise to discuss it more after you slept some.

[lifeofkaze]

When Stars Ignite - Chapter 5

HPHM Rockstar AU

A/N:

General Warning: This whole fic has a general warning of being NSFW / 18+. We will give specific warnings for every chapter in itself, but several adult themes will be more or less present in every chapter, may it be explicitly or in mention. These include sexual topics, drug abuse, (ab)use of alcohol, smoking and a whole lot of cursing.

Specific Warning: Language, reference to smoking (cigarettes), allusions to NSFW topics

~~~

Find the masterpost here, the previous chapter here and the next one here. The songs featured before every chapter can be found on this pretty badass playlist here.

~~~

This work is a collaboration with @the-al-chemist

Taglist: @slytherindisaster @carewyncromwell @night-rhea

Gettin' sold, second hand

That's how it goes, playin' in a band

It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n' roll

~ AC/DC - It’s A Long Way to the Top ~

Halfway through their first week back on tour, their time in London was slowly drawing to an end. Lizzie couldn’t quite believe how fast the days seemed to fly by, each one a blur of tiredness, boredom and the addictive rush of adrenaline when they were on stage. Every day and night was like the one before and totally different all at once.

It felt like only yesterday that she had stepped from the plane back from America; at the same time, being surrounded by all the familiar faces and living in long established routines, her break from the hustle and bustle already seemed like an eternity away. Lizzie could still feel the last traces of jetlag wearing her down sometimes, but at least her shifted rhythm helped her stay energised during the shows; not that she was getting much sleep afterwards either.

Wrecked from her chronic lack of sleep, Lizzie had missed her alarm this morning. When she arrived at the largest dressing room of the O2 Arena, she found the rest of the band already assembled.

Merula and Everett were sitting at the huge table in the middle of the room, Everett scrolling through his social media accounts while Merula was painting her nails in a dark violet colour. Skye was slumped onto one of the sofas at the back of the room, a magazine spread across her lap. She looked up from the colourful pages as she saw Lizzie enter.

“About time you’re showing Jameson; thought you’d gotten lost somewhere. Where’ve you been?”

Lizzie sat down on the arm of the sofa Orion was sitting on; he lifted his head briefly and smiled before bending over his notebook again. Lizzie tried catching a glimpse of the lyrics he was scribbling down but he covered them with his hand. With a shrug, Lizzie turned her attention to Skye.

“I overslept and then ran into Charlie. Murphy and KC are gone somewhere, ‘having a meeting’ apparently.”

“That’s what they’re calling it these days,” Merula muttered under her breath, making Skye snort with laughter.

“Anyway,” Lizzie chuckled, “they’re not here to show the new pyro girl around. They left the job to Charlie, but apparently she’s late and no one knows how to reach her. He’s a little grumpy about it.” She furrowed her brow in concern. “I hope that doesn’t make for a bad start. Charlie had better behave, from what KC told me the newbie is promising.”

“A female pyro tech, just when I thought I’d seen it all,” Everett scoffed. “I mean, how good can she even be?”

Merula arched an eyebrow at him, her eyes sparkling dangerously. “You have a problem with a woman on the job, or what?”

Everett blatantly ignored her, however. “Hopefully we’ll have something to look at this time, right Orion?”

Orion was trying not to roll his eyes. “What we portray on the outside pales in comparison to what we carry in our hearts; as long as she’s a good person who is sure of what she’s doing, nothing can go wrong.”

“Getting along with Charlie would help, too,” Lizzie added.

A grin tugged at Orion’s lips. “It would indeed.”

Everett looked at him sceptically and shook his head. “Listen to you, as if you didn’t care about looks as well.”

Now Orion finally looked up from his notebook for good and frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Stop acting all innocent, everyone knows you’re getting your fair share of groupies as well,” Everett laughed, obviously finding the thought of someone preferring Orion to him hilarious. “Hotel room walls aren’t the thickest, you know.”

Lizzie almost choked on the bottle of water she had helped herself to. She was trying her hardest not to blush as her eyes flickered to Orion. Their eyes met for the briefest of moments before she busied herself with the lid of her bottle, hopefully looking more innocent than she felt. She could tell by the way Orion was trying to keep a straight face that Everett’s remark came just as surprising to him as it did to her.

Clearing his throat, Orion replied levelly “I have no idea what you’re talking about. It’s a wonder you’re able to hear anything over the racket you’re making most nights.”

Everett shrugged. “At least I’m open about it.”

“As much as I hate to say it, but Ev has a point,” Skye chimed in all of a sudden. She was waving her magazine through the air. “According to the Daily Mail, you’ve had at least six affairs ever since we’ve been to Spain. They mark you down as quite the casanova.” Same as Everett before, the thought seemed to amuse her to no end.

Merula rolled her eyes at Skye. “Why are you even reading that shit?”

“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” Skye shrugged. “And it’s fucking hilarious.”

Meanwhile, Lizzie had regained her composure. “Well, don’t keep us on the rack. What’s the latest news?”

Skye cleared her throat before scanning the pages. “After things got frosty between us in Poland, Lizzie and I have apparently decided on an open relationship. Good for us,” she looked up and blew her friend a kiss, which made Lizzie giggle. “They’re still taking bets when Merula is going to come out of the closet -”

“What is this bullshit with me being gay all the time,” Merula snarled.

“You just give that vibe, I know what I’m talking about,” Skye shrugged indifferently before carrying on. “We already had Orion being a ladies’ man and Ev… “

Skye trailed off as she read the paragraph again and looked up after she had finished. “There are pictures of you with Rita Skeeter in here, what’s that about?”

“None of your business,” Everett answered brusquely.

Lizzie saw Skye’s face darken at his tone and quickly snatched the magazine out of Skye’s hands. Just as anticipated, Skye’s attention immediately went to her as she tried to get it back.

The potential fight being dissolved before it had begun, the mood was gradually calming down again. It was an almost relaxed atmosphere in the dressing room, when the door opened and Ethan walked in. He looked very tense and as the door fell shut behind him with a bang, the muscles around his mouth were tight. He exhaled slowly, his hands running over his lessening brown hair.

Skye was disconcerted to see her father looking so unusually stressed. “Dad, what’s wrong?”

He held up a hand to silence her before producing a crumpled package of cigarettes from his pocket. Flicking his silver lighter open, he held the flame to one of them. “I’ll explain in a minute.”

“You do realise that there’s smoke detectors in here?” Lizzie pointed out apprehensively. “I don’t know about you but I don’t care much about getting soaked.”

Ethan took the glowing cigarette out of his mouth again and put it out against the nearest table. “Fucking rules,” he muttered. “Nobody gave a shit back in my days.”

Orion looked up from his notebook, his dark eyes unreadable as they took in Ethan’s nervous demeanour. “It’s clear to see that you’re agitated, but a pain is shared is a pain halved. What’s the matter?”

Ethan sighed, wistfully closing the packet of cigarettes before stowing it away in his pocket. “I had a few calls back and forth with the label over the last few days.”

“So?” Skye urged him on.

“They’re not particularly impressed with what the press is writing about you at the moment. They’re considering cutting the budget for the next album by half.”

His words went down like a lead balloon in the silence spreading throughout the room; no one could believe what they were hearing.

“Why the fuck would they do that?” Skye finally managed to croak out. “The next album was going to be our biggest production so far.”

“Why are they even thinking about it?” Lizzie agreed. “We’re playing to a full house every night. We’re doing a great job, if I may say so, and the reviews have all been really positive so far. The press has been good.”

But Ethan shook his head. “No, Lizzie, the press hasn’t been good at all. People don’t care about professional reviews in respectable magazines anymore. Everything the public sees is what’s written in those goddamn tabloids.” He was eyeing Skye’s copy of the Daily Mail with a grim face. “And they’re having a field day with you; have been for a while now.”

His look darkened further as his gaze swept the round of musicians assembled in front of him, resting particularly long on Everett, who didn’t budge in the slightest.

“Some of you are taking this whole ‘rockstar’ lifestyle too seriously. What was fun and games in my time doesn’t work today anymore. I’ve been told that the label had to fork out a good amount of money to get some positive stories about you out, counter the negative attention you’ve been getting.”

His words were met with icy silence, none of them feeling personally addressed by Ehtan’s barely hidden accusation.

“Listen,” he continued more placatory, “I know sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll are all fun to do, I’ve been there myself. But these days, people aren’t as easy about diva behaviour and trashed hotel rooms.”

Again, he was giving Everett a hard stare. “Cleaning up behind you costs the label hard cash. Cash they’re now cutting from the production budget.”

“That is very unfortunate to hear,” Orion spoke into the ensuing silence. “Is there anything we can do to make them reconsider their actions?”

Ethan’s face lit up with enthusiasm. “Good that you’re asking! I already designed a battle plan for us, we won’t have them compromise our work that easily.”

He placed both of his hands on the table where Merula and Everett were sitting, tapping the smooth surface with his fingers. “I’m thinking about going all out on the charm offensive. We’re going to be doing more interviews, more meet ‘n’ greets, fan events, charity bullshit, more of everything. You name it, we’re going to do it. We have to show the public you’re not some off-hook dickheads but still the old friends with a fucking heart of gold like you were when Equinox started.”

Merula snorted derisively. “Nice thought, but I doubt that will impress the guys from the label. You said it yourself, they’re all about the money, they don’t care about this sentimental bullshit.”

“You’re right,” Ethan said, “that’s why I struck a deal with them.”

The way he was avoiding Orion’s eyes was boding ill on Lizzie. And sure enough, Orion’s shoulders were tense as he spoke, his voice noticeably cooler than before. “What kind of deal?”

“They want to know if your new material is worth the huge investment. We need to prove that we’re still the best horse in their stable and they should place their bets on us instead of the new blood they recently signed, like that Winger guy.”

He ran his hand over his dark goatee as he met Orion’s eyes. “Some representatives are going to come to one of the shows in Manchester, see whether what you’re doing is still good enough for their full support.”

He raised his chin in a commanding gesture as he continued. “And they want to see how the crowd reacts to the new songs.”

Lizzie involuntarily held her breath. Orion was particular about his music; Ethan could have just as well asked him to set down his guitar and never touch it again.

And sure enough, his answer to Ethan’s proposition was simple. “No.”

But Ethan wasn’t about to acknowledge defeat so easily. “Yes. If we give the crowd and accordingly the label a taste of what’s to come, they’re going to see that we only deserve the best of the best once we’re ready to hit the studio again.”

Orion, however, remained unimpressed. “No.”

Ethan blinked, clearly irritated at the refusal to cooperate. “Why not?”

“None of the songs are ready to be shared. You don’t serve your guests a half-cooked meal and neither do you hang a picture missing its colours on the wall.”

His eyes narrowed as he looked Ethan straight in the face, the look in his eyes unwavering. “I won’t have my unfinished work being sold for profit; that’s not what this is about.”

Ethan glared at Orion, but instead of a sharp remark from his side, Everett spoke up. “We could play my stuff.”

Clearly surprised at the unexpected offer, Ethan turned his attention to the singer of the band. “You got songs of your own?”

Everett shrugged nonchalantly. “Sure I do. Just promise me they’ll be featured on the album and they’re all yours.”

Hesitant about giving Everett the confirmation he was asking for, Ethan focused on Orion again. “‘No’ is your last word?”

Lizzie had heard some of Everett’s songs before. They weren’t bad by all means, but they were lacking the finesse Orion’s music brought with it. She knew Ethan would take whatever he was offered, but that wouldn’t be in the band’s best interests.

“I know you're protective of your work,” she told Orion quietly, giving him an encouraging smile, “but you showed me what you’ve written so far, and some of the songs are almost there. They’re the best you’ve ever done, believe me. Everyone’s going to love them.”

Orion held her gaze for a moment, searching for the affirmation he needed to agree to a deal he didn’t want to make, but knew he had to in the end.

When he finally tore his eyes away from hers, he looked at Ethan and sighed. “Fine, have my songs. Under one condition,” he added, nipping Ethan’s victorious grin in the bud. “Until I’m completely satisfied with them, I’m going to sing them.”

“Excuse me?” Everett bristled up, “Am I the singer of this band or you? Get out of my fucking spotlight.”

Orion shook his head. “You misunderstand; I’m not trying to fight you for your place in the sun, my friend. But I wouldn’t know how to explain to you what I want the songs to sound like until they’re really finished.”

Ethan snorted. “Stop being a diva, Orion.”

But Orion was adamant in his resolve. “I’m not. All I want is for the people caring about our music to get what they deserve; and they don’t deserve some unfinished songs that aren’t even played the way they’re supposed to be.”

Both Ethan and Orion were staring at each other for a moment longer, before Ethan threw his hands up in exasperation. “Fine, have it your way then.”

Not believing what he was hearing, Everett stood up from his seat. His aggressive energy seemed to fill the room, making it feel a lot smaller than it actually was.

“Are you for real?” he snarled at Ethan. “I’m the frontman of this band, not him! It’s bad enough that his songs are the only ones that get played when mine are easily as good.”

He turned to Orion, eyes sparkling with anger. Lizzie, who was still sitting next to him, tried not to shrink back before him, but Orion met his gaze as calmly as ever. However, this seemed to anger Everett even further.

“You always said you didn’t want to sing, you were perfectly happy with doing background vocals if you had to. Why now all of a sudden? Tell you why, you’re not happy there’s someone else who knows how to write a decent song in this band. Do you consider me a threat to you or what?”

Everett’s voice had risen considerably. Skye and Lizzie were sharing a worried glance as the two male members of their band were glaring at each other, Merula just looking to and fro between them with a bored expression.

Not wanting things to go south even more than they already were, Ethan stepped between Orion and Everett to break their eye contact. “Ev, calm down. There’s no need -”

He was interrupted by a sharp knock on the door. Taken by surprise, it took Ethan several attempts to make the strain disappear from his voice. He cleared his throat one more time before calling to whoever was waiting on the other side of the door.

“Come in.”

[mooosicaldreamz]

We obviously need your song by song analysis of evermore please!

i got asked to do this about four times so here it is.....much anticipated. i know. please note that when i say that i hate her or despise her i don’t actually mean that. but i do

EVERMORE

OK LETS GO

WILLOW - ok, groovy first time you hear it, right? has a strong rumbly wiggle. let’s VIBE. the low of the verse, the high of the chorus…oh my goodness! what is she doing. she’s just out there! wow. “wherever you stray i follow” is a banger. “life was a willow and it bent right to your wind” with the overlay oof let’s go.!!!! a shockingly strong first entry of the record…best one since “welcome to new york” maybe!!! let’s just say it!!! for some reason “i come back stronger than a 90s trend” throws me off though…i don’t know. it’s just so moody pop, no one is doing it like her!!! i hate her

CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS - every time i listen to this song i listen to it four times. not a joke. it’s perfect. i don’t think i need to convince anyone! it’s perfect!!!!! what are you doing? taylor swift, the most dramatic bitch, has been writing dramatic bitch songs since she was fourteen and yet, somehow, she contrives to write even more dramatic things as she ages. this song is a JOKE. there are not ENOUGH songs about denying proposals! it’s just simple and sad. oh my god. it’s insane. the fact that she wrote this with her boyfriend (i have a running theory that they are married, we are going to refer to joe as her Perfect and Glorious Husband from now on) …… come on. the ENTIRE BREAKDOWN. “YOUR MIDAS TOUCH ON THE CHEVY DOOR / NOVEMBER FLUSH YOUR FLANNEL CURE / THIS DORM WAS ONCE A MADHOUSE / I MADE A JOKE WELL ITS MADE FOR ME / HOW EVERGREEN OUR GROUP OF FRIENDS / DON’T THINK WE’LL SAY THAT WORD AGAIN / AND SOON THEY’LL HAVE THE NERVE TO DECK THE HALLS THAT WE ONCE WALKED THROUGH” ……. concluding with that absolute stabby killer “what a shame she’s fucked in the head” oh my god……….. and the song resolving in a very adult “you’ll find someone else” god

GOLD RUSH - ok so like this song is like ok it’s got the same groovy high /low that’s happening on willow but it’s so different! it’s so good! the pulse of the beat propelling the whole thing through and then the falling apart “oh what must it be like to grow up that beautiful”……………..ok. the visceral image of “my eagles t-shirt hanging from the door” …………. i admire very much taylor’s oncoming gift of moving through high/low imagery…… i love her so much? it’s so HARD. “my mind turns your life into folklore” beautiful! BEAUTIFUL! also i have some belief in me that this is about karlie kloss but i shall not dive into that hole.

TIS THE DAMN SEASON - oh so i’m supposed to LIVE with this song EXISTING. WHY!!!! HOW……..oh my god………..taylor was like, yes, i’m going to write a song about a famous girl going home and banging her high school flame for a week and jack and aaron were like oh ok. “i parked my car between the methodist and the school that used to be ours.” she is such a joke. “you could call me babe for the weekend” like ok emo!! emo!!! OK. I LOVE THIS SONG

TOLERATE IT - taylor really gave us the most depressing track 5, but it’s absolutely a banger and i love her! she is just vibing! oh my god. what a specific emotion to pinpoint with this song….it’s such a gift. no one is hitting this space

NO BODY NO CRIME - this song has no business being on this record but in the BEST WAY, like how daddy lessons mysteriously appears in the middle of lemonade. oh my goodness. this is just pure country revenge song. taylor was like oh actually i haven’t forgotten my roots and i hate men more than i ever have. and she got haim to sing with her. and it’s so good. the low “i think he did it” oh my goodness. this song is a joke. how is it real? it’s just a perfect radio song. it reminds me very much of “before he cheats” but it’s a lot more sonically calm

HAPPINESS - similar to “tolerate it” and i think “champagne problems” this song is beating on an emotional bush that is really really hard to hit the head of. like, so she collabed with the national and bon iver on this record and previous obvi, and i LOVE them, but their music can often be very………impressionistic? perhaps? is how i might put it. it’s sometimes hard to get a note of specificity from it. imo. but taylor loves a fucking story bro. and she has figured out how to tell made up stories. she can’t be stopped now. like…this space of a breakup and knowing that it’s for the best and being sad in this way? name a pop star who has a song this nuanced. for real! god. i despise her. “across a great divide / there is a glorious sunrise”

DOROTHEA - the other half to the far superior TIS THE DAMN SEASON and a banger all the same. it has the bouncy joy of the most buoyant national songs. in the same vein as the also far superior BETTY, she has her sweet dumb boy slurry and less intelligent voice. i love that she paints these narrators this way, it’s just nothing she would have ever reached for ever before this period. she has a Perfect and Glorious Husband now and she has begun to understand teenage boys, FINALLY.

CONEY ISLAND - i have upon many occasions opined that i love the national VERY MUCH. i once went to a festival with my gf and her sister to see them even though i was expressly not invited and you know what despite the fact that it caused a lot of angst, i got to see the national play TERRIBLE LOVE in the middle of the night and I SCREAMED IT. so like, listen. what is matt berninger doing here, to me, specifically????????? i was somewhat hesitant about how their voices might blend, but it works astonishingly well. and i think that it’s so wonderful, i can’t. the imagery of a dreary coney island…..”sorry for not winning you an arcade ring.” as taylor always proves, the bridge is spectacular. “were you standing in the hallway / with a big cake / happy birthday”……”and when i got into the accident / the sight that flashed before me was your face / but when i walked up to the podium / i think that i forgot to say your name” sorry to yOU calvin. she had ISSUES. and now she has a Perfect and Glorious Husband. also “sorry for not making you my centerfold” ok kaylor

IVY - this song is about emily dickinson and i DARE you to tell me that i’m wrong. I DARE YOU. I DARE YOU. you’d be wrong! embarrassing for you. taylor finally writing a probably legitimate queer song and it’s about fucking emily dickinson is so on brand…..it’s dripping with poetry and groove and she’s so fucking dumb i hate her so much. her narrative of ivy and poetry and the lakes district…….ok taylor. i know. i know you watched all the dickinson things that came out and you identified with her. the gentle sway of the “oh, goddamn” and the “oh, i can’t”……i CAN’T EITHER TAYLOR !!! i CAN”T TAYLOR!!!! “oh goddamn / my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand / taking mine but it’s been promised to another / oh i can’t / stop you putting roots in my dreamland” TAYLOR. and then she says, “oh you didn’t realize this wasn’t gay?” “i want to know the fatal flaw that makes you long to be magnificently cursed” like @ emily yourself taylor “he wants what’s only yours”……TAYLOR. give me the entire catalogue of emily dickinson songs!!!!! i can’t do this. “springs breaks loose / but so does fear” “i’d live and die for moments that we stole / on begged and borrowed time / so tell me to run / or dare to sit and watch what we’ll become / and drink my husband’s wine.” taylor if you see this post, a, i love you, b, i need you to tell me about ivy, and c, PLEASE can i have tickets to your next tour in the year 2025 or whenever because my gf never buys me any to your shows……….i love this song if it isn’t clear. i think i’d love it if it wasn’t gay

COWBOY LIKE ME - ok this will sound weird and if you’ve read this far i’m going to assume that you don’t care about me being weird…but this song reminds me of the fanfiction STAY THE NIGHT by lynnearlington (maybe u’ve heard of it). please reply if you think about this and feel the same. “never wanted love / just a fancy car” “you had some tricks up your sleeve / takes one to know one / you’re a cowboy like me” the opening line re: the tent-like thing reminds me very strongly of the fourth of july at our family’s country club and they set up a tent over the parking lot and this song just makes me think of that vibe????? i don’t know. i have vibes. i love this song a lot, which is impressive because it follows after the gay euphoria of IVY. perhaps this is because it gives me its own gay euphoria. “now you hang from my lips like the garden babylon” ???? is one of the most gay, seductive, brutal lyrics i have ever heard. she wrote that down and was like, oh yeah, vibez, hundo p. she did that to me

LONG STORY SHORT - this song is an honorary sequel to I FORGOT THAT YOU EXISTED from the lover era (honestly i’m still in the lover era). but i actually think this song is better! so we are taking that. “actually i’ve always thought that i looked better from the rearview” ok taylor let’s access that feeling! “no more keeping score / i just keep you warm” is like, stupidly sweet.  rip to calvin but now taylor has a Perfect and Glorious Husband.

MARJORIE - made me cry, simple and beautiful. one of the more personal songs on the tracklist! and something that i had never considered that she would write about, but i think the quarantine period has allowed a lot of us to dig into our feelings, so….vibez. we’re vibing!

CLOSURE - this song’s production sounds a lot like bon iver’s recent productions, very tech-y and repetitive and spare. rip to karlie kloss but taylor has a Perfect and Glorious Husband and karlie’s legal last name is kushner so who really won? hmm? i love “i’m fine with my spite / and my tears / and my beers / and my candles” the inclusion of candles is just. vibez. there are four candles lit rn in our apartment!

EVERMORE - i think this song is very intriguing and i’m still puzzling with it! the simplicity of her depressive gray November phase and then the very ebullient and bold bon iver interlude……..really has a manic/depressive, sad/angry vibe???? it feels so on brand for this pandemic quarantine…..and it works shockingly well, except for that i’d rather listen to the bon iver part for 10 minutes more. “all my waves are being tossed / is there a line that i can just go cross” and then taylor’s sort of call and response with his interlude……should just be the whole song.  but it’s still good. that’s how annoying she is

[keyofjetwolf]

Bonus Question Answers! (non-anime animated noms)

This was SO. FUCKING. HARD. This question went so much better than I expected, and I’m only sad I lack the artistic skills to make it all a reality.

Below, my PAINSTAKINGLY selected top answers, If yours is listed below, you’ve earned an entry in a random draw to win a GIFTENING liveblog OF YOUR CHOICE

---

Q: The Senshi suddenly find themselves in a very different animated world. Which cartoon power (think Looney Tunes) do they each now possess?

*  Usagi can make literal rainbows happen when she smiles.  Rei can set anything on fire with her mind (she feels a bit cheated because she can do that at home too).  Ami can write down anything in her special notebook and it literally changes reality around her (she does not share this with her fellow Senshi, because she knows the full weight of this power.  She did, however, write Michiru having a bad hair day for just one day.  Just one.)  Makoto has the ability to pull out any ingredient she wants from any pantry/door/closet.  She usually uses this for cooking purposes, so she won't have to purchase groceries.  Minako has the ability to mimic any voice in the world, whether she has heard it or not.  Hijinks ensue.  The Outer Senshi sensibly escaped from the new animated world right after Michiru recovered from her bad hair day.  They don't speak of the experience. -- @amberlilly  [The whole thing was so solid, but what absolutely sent it over the top for me was Ami using her powers to fuck with Michiru in the most petty benign way, which is EVERYTHING.]

*  Usagi is definitely rocking the exaggerated tear gushers.  Ami can pull charts/diagrams out of nowhere at any time.  Rei combusts when she gets sufficiently mad.  Makoto has birds fly around when she sings while cooking or cleaning.  Minako breaks the fourth wall to make jokes and asides to the audience.  Chibi-Usa is somehow able to walk through ludicrous danger without getting touched, because the censors won't allow kids to be hurt in this show. Haruka can make girls melt into puddles of goo with her flirting.  Michiru can summon a servant at any time to take care of an unpleasant or potentially dirty task for her (including to take the slapstick comedy for her).  Setsuna has access to the script.  Hotaru just sort of appears sometimes, just standing there, silently and menacingly, but never does anything on-screen (though you may hear the occasional off-screen screaming).  Oh, and while I'd like to say Mamoru gains the power of inexplicable entrances... he kinda already has that one.  --Darkcloud k'California  [Again, I loved all these, but particularly Chibs saved by the censors, Michiru’s poor hapless slapstick avatar, and everything about Hotaru, thank you.]

*  Usagi: The power to be found charming by every character she encounters and somehow escape all consequences and damage by simply remaining oblivious, a la Tweety Bird.

Rei: The power to explode, reducing her surroundings to charred wasteland, but remain relatively unscathed (perhaps a bit singed)

Ami: The power to grow multiple arms, hands, and hundreds of fingers in order to do tech stuff

Makoto: The power to punch someone through a brick wall, possibly several, and into someone's family dinner. It's always some surprised-looking family's private event. Often the same family.

Minako: the power to, Bugs Bunny style, apply lipstick and seduce ANYTHING. Which, according to her, is a power she already has.

Haruka: The power to run off a cliff and keep going until she looks down. She never learns to not look down.

Michiru: The power to stick a pin into any other character and cause them to deflate like a balloon

Hotaru: She just gets to actually be used. It is thrilling.

Pluto: She will observe this strange planet from afar with her huge telescope and breathe the Martian air and look great in a kilt and Roman-style helmet. --  @incorrecttact  [Your set-up and punchline delivery style on all of these was perfection, and I legit lol’d at Mako and the poor family she continually interrupts.]

* to make dynamite go BOOM (Rei obviously); to have their opponent chase them to the point where they're floating in midair and then their opponent falls 5000 feet but they calmly walk back to land (like Wil E Coyote & the Roadrunner) (Usagi); the power to blow kisses to their opponent (which are clearly poisonous and end up killing the chap) (Minako); the power to have their opponent's entire arm shattered if they try to even punch them lightly on the arm (Makoto - this is canon anyways, but moreso exaggerated here hehe); to open a book and start reading it out loud and words start showing up on screen, confusing tf out of their opponent (Ami - also canon already)  --@midnightdrops  [Each of these were great, but Usagi and Mako as you described them totally sold me.]

* usagi: can now float on yummy aromas, so long as they lead her somewhere tasty! the others play a quick tournament of jun-ken-pon each time it happens to determine who will be responsible for steering her from blissfully drifting into traffic. again.

ami: is now possessed of x-ray vision! only she can neither turn it off, nor control its intensity. she is working on developing a set of goggles to dampen the effect, and secretly hopes they will make her look like geordi laforge.

rei: rei-chan is now blessed with the power of song! her heartfelt melodies soften the malice of even the most one-dimensional baddie, and influence public policy on a global scale. international success life, yo! i guess she's really a hard worker!

makoto: has become something of a cartoon cupid! in a poorly-ventilated room, her mere presence has bystanders declaring their love for one another within minutes*; and her decadent wedding cakes are the hit of second marriages across the country. *all of them so like her old senpai, and none of them falling for her, alas!

minako: employs her considerable powers of confidence and charm to convince the others she now has access to Plot Manipulation, mainly by engineering and taking ownership of a series of happy accidents. her real power is to literally jump out of her skin when she's startled*, and she has no intention of EVER letting the others know about it.  *minako discovered this new ability while she was changing a roll of toilet paper, and a spider dropped onto her hand. the leader of the inner senshi had never been so horrified. her bones were so slick and cold, her skin a hideous unwiped pile, and then THE SPIDER CRAWLED INTO THE PILE and she STILL doesn't know if it ever got out and sometimes her skin itches REALLY bad and you know what let's stop talking about this right now okay???

setsuna: can now manifest a giant pencil and erase the enemy! but doing so would be breaking The Greatest Taboo, and leave her impaled upon the pencil.

haruka: her new empathetic ability is remarkably similar to Ma-Ti's "heart" ring (Captain Planet and the Planeteers, 1990 - 1996). basically, she's just like really soft at you, and it inspires you to take more positive actions toward yourself and the world at large? she protests about wishing she'd received something tough and intimidating, but secretly is very moved by being made an instrument of kindness.

michiru: her intuition has mutated into fourth wall awareness, and the subtlety with which she makes this known to you is SO GODDAMN UNCOMFORTABLE OH MY GOD

hotaru: can now not only communicate with inanimate objects, but also render them permanently animate! you should have been there during the princess tutu crossover episode when she met lamp-chan - they're STILL inseparable, and chibiusa is SUPER jealous. speaking of which,

chibiusa: can now use hammerspace to store her endless series of magical geegaws and weird animal boyfriends.  -- @rasiqra-revulva  [Dude, you have got to stop making me snort laugh, it’s RUDE. Pure solid gold, every word, with a special nod to Haruka, MICHIRU, and Minako’s extended tragic cartoon backstory.]

* Usagi - like her name suggests, she is now Bunny. By which I mean she is now a very pink and blonde bunny (somewhere between Bugs and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit), but with super-elastic limbs to accompany her new form. Ami - Magical Science Powers up to and including ‘mix one brightly colored liquid in flask with another brightly colored liquid in flask, explosion, get hammer.’ Rei - An infinite supply of dynamite she can pull out of nowhere. This shouldn’t be as useful as it is. Mako - Literally suplexed a giant metallic youma not just untransformed, but before she has Senshi powers at all. I fully believe she could lift an anvil in canon. Minako - While Usagi looks like a rabbit, Mina now has the supernatural trickster abilities of Bugs Bunny. Implausibly effective bad disguises, persuasion, showing up out of nowhere. Chibs - Now that gun from her first appearance is a real gun, but it shoots anything from normal bullets to pies in the face to live birds. Pluto - The fourth wall is a real and tangible thing. Pluto can not just break it, but control it. If she wants to remove a layer of cel or suddenly turn things into sketch, she can do it. If she wants to teleport, she can skip in the animation. If she wants to suddenly appear as a Roger Rabbit-style cartoon in a live action field, or vice versa? Yeah, she can do that too. She basically uses this power to warp the layers of her cartoonish reality for pastry acquisition. Haruka - You’d think it would be Roadrunner speed. Haruka thinks it will be Roadrunner speed. But no, it isn’t. Space Jam is Looney Tunes, and Haruka’s power is Basketball. Michiru - Another power that’s just canonical: Wealth. Ridiculous, tremendous wealth. Hotaru - The funniest thing for Hotaru to be in a zany cartoon world is Even More Spooky. Nothing changes except the artstyle and a ridiculous supervillain cape.  -- Regalli  [Pluto, man. Fantastic and brilliant and I legit WANT THIS. Also though, Hotaru with a cape.]

*  Usagi gains the ability to eat anything and everything like the Tazmanian Devil, though she shares none of his aggressive personality; Minako enjoys fucking with people by bending reality (you know, diving into painted tunnels and stuff like that); Ami is able to utilize and test unreal technology without harm, like jet boots, massive bombs, tornado seeds, etc.; Mako uses body manipulations to change her size and shape--especially for blocking attacks to protect people or grabbing people (coupled with her immense strength); and Rei is the only one aware of the audience beyond the Fourth Wall... She tries not to talk to them but sometimes she just can't help it, especially when Usagi is getting on her nerves.  -- @thehubby  [I said pander to me, and you absolutely did. I can’t stop thinking about Rei trying not to make fourth wall eye contact, then just whirling around all “CAN YOU FUCKING BELIEVE THIS SHIT??!?” and as it turns out, that IS precisely what I wanted.]

---

I’ll be drawing for the bonus liveblog around the start of THE GIFTENING 2020 (currently looking to be Monday, 11 January 2021). Each bonus question is another chance to earn an entry, so keep those answers coming! I CAN ABSOLUTELY AND SHAMELESSLY BE BOUGHT.

[waywardodysseys]

Untouched - Part One

Pairing: Ezra x virgin female reader

Warnings: sexual tension, cussing

Requested?: Yes from this ask - Gods! Wish I've found your blog sooner... I LOVE the way you write! You deserve all the best things, hope ya know that. I've been having a hard time for so long now, and your writings make me go all giggly and happy... Anyways, would you ever be willing to write a virgin and inexperienced reader x Din or Ezra ? A oneshot maybe or even a mini series. I'd die for that!! But I don't want to make you uncomfortable or anything.

Author’s note: right now I am looking at this as a 3 part mini series

~   ~   ~

You’re working on the station’s data system when your name is called over the PA.

“Tech Y/F/N Y/L/N. Please report to the bridge.”

You sigh and put down your tools. You’ll be back for them. No one else comes down here except you.

You make your way down a long metal corridor, past the docking bay and med clinic. You climb the steps up to the bridge where the captain turns and smiles. Her white hair is short, and her blue-green eyes sparkle under all the light.

“I need you to go down to Jade,” the captain remarks in her light English accent.

Jade was the name they were calling the green moon which was just beyond the red planet.

“Why? I’m no digger. I do tech.” You reply.

“You’re the only one who hasn’t been down on a mining mission. Everyone needs to go.”

“I’m no digger.” You repeat.

“I know you are tech Y/N. There are others aboard who can handle it while you’re away.”

“Who are you placing me with?” You ask, curious.

“Ezra.”

You swallow. Your heart rate increases. Not him. “Why him? People say he’s a bit off the books. Does things his own way.” You shake your head. “I don’t think him, and I would be a good match. A good team.”

“He’s experienced. You’ll be fine.”

You rub your inner wrist. You’re nervous, anxious. You don’t want to go down to Jade. Well part of you wanted too but part of you wish it wasn’t with Ezra. You had a crush on the man since the first day abroad the station. He would smile at you, talk to you but you kept your distance, stayed focus on work.

“You leave tomorrow.” The captain’s voice cuts through the quietness.

“Tomorrow.” You repeat.

“Ezra will be double checking the departure routine. You should join him.” The captain stops outside the docking bay.

You had been wrapped up in your own thoughts you hadn’t realized you had moved your feet, walking beside the captain towards the docking bay.

“Right,” you say as you look between the docking bay door and the captain.

The captain touches your shoulder lightly. “You’ll be fine Y/N.”

You smile weakly and nod before the captain turns away and heads back towards the bridge. You look at the circular docking day as your heart continue beating rapidly inside of your chest.

You can do this, you think, you must do this.

You press on the keypad and the circular door opens in the middle. The top half goes up, the other half goes down. You walk into the docking bay. The smell of oil and gas are prominent as you hear drills and torches working on metal.

You look around and find Ezra.

He shies of being six feet tall. His hair is short and brown, and he has just a small patch of blond hair on his right side. You take in his long neck and wonder how many women have placed their head against it and inhaled his scent, licked his skin.

Oh, god, you think, this is a bad idea.

He’s holding a clipboard in one hand as his eyes skim the list. He looks up and sees you, smiles. “Y/N.”

Your heart quickens just a beat and smile. “Ezra.”

“Captain says you’re joining me.”

“I am.”

“Good. You’ll be fine. You’ll have me as your guide.”

“This will be my first time from the station.” You say lightly.

Ezra raises his eyebrows, “I thought everyone on the station has gone on some type of dig on Jade.”

You purse your lips. “Not me. I do the tech on the station. All the tech.”

Ezra smiles, “we won’t be gone long. I’m sure they’ll survive without you.”

-------

The next day you and Ezra are descending in the pod, heading towards the alien green moon.

You’re strapped in your seat as your heart beats fast. You’re still unsure about this, still unsure about spending time with Ezra. You wonder if he’s going to do his own thing down on the moon or teach you how things should be done correctly, when the fuel gauge begins blaring.

“What is it?” Ezra asks.

“Fuel gauge. We’re losing fuel at a high quantity.” You reply.

“Fuck,” Ezra hisses. “I double checked everything before we departed. Fuel’s full.”

“It’s indicating a leak.”

“Tripe fuck!” Ezra shouts.

The pod makes it through the atmosphere of the moon and continues on its projected path to the landing site.

After the pod lands safely and in one piece, both of you scramble out of your seats, hook up cords and the oxygen tubes to one another then don your helmets and head out into the atmosphere of the alien moon.

You find the compartment of the fuel tank and unlatch it. Liquid spills out onto the ground.

Ezra sighs angrily from behind you, “fuck times infinity.”

“I’m sure it can be fixed.” You say as you look it over.

“We don’t have any fuel!” Ezra barks.

You knew that, you were just trying to ease him.

“I know Ezra. Just calm down before you waste our oxygen,” you say lightly.

Ezra looks at you, “why aren’t you freaked out?”

You stand and look at him, “I am freaked out. But I don’t need to show it because you’re obviously doing that! Goddamn! This is why I didn’t want to come down here especially with you.”

Ezra glares at you. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing,” you say as you turn away.

Ezra grabs your arm, “Y/N.”

“Nothing,” you hiss as you yank your arm from his grasp.

Minutes later you two are lugging out supplies from the pod and setting up a tent about 30 feet from the pod. You’re quiet, Ezra’s quiet but he’s seething with anger now you and he are stranded on this alien moon.

-------

It’s been months since you and Ezra have been stranded on the alien moon.

There are times you two are fine with one another, then there are times you can’t stand to be in the same vicinity with one another.

Majority of the days are spent digging, sometimes Ezra goes off alone while you try to fix the tech and coms because those busted and shorted one day.

Ezra had been angry and punched some of the controls while he was inside the pod.

“Great Ezra,” you had barked when he had seen what he did, “now we’ll never leave.”

Ezra had shrugged and walked away from you.

And now since you two had been on this moon together for too long, Ezra can’t control himself any longer. He wants you; he needs you.

He wants to kiss your mouth, see how soft your lips are. He wants his hands to travel your body, to see if your skin is delicate. He wants to be inside of you, to see if you’re as tight as imagines when he jerks off when he’s alone.

Ezra watches as you walk into the tent and begin unhooking yourself. He stands as you remove your helmet and walks over to you.

You turn and face him. You take a step back and look at him.

“Ezra,” your voice is airy and filled curiosity.

Ezra cups your cheeks and brushes his mouth against yours.

He inwardly moans. They are soft like he imagined.

You feel Ezra remove his hands from your cheeks and then wrap his arms around you, pulling you up against him.

Ezra begins pushing down your spacesuit.

Yes, your mind screams. But wait, he doesn’t know you’re...

You pull back breathlessly, “Ezra.”

“Y/N.” He presses his forehead against yours. “I want you; I need you.”

You had been with this man for months. Were you ready to give him yourself? Were you wanting Ezra to be your first?

You had heard him on rare occasions in the middle of the night moaning your name. You would sneak a peek over at his bunk. See his hand moving up and down under the sheet. He was getting off to you, not another woman. It was you he was getting off too.

But he needed to know. He deserved to know.

You look into those deep, dark brown eyes of his. You cup his cheek.

“I do want you Ezra. I need you too.”

Ezra kisses you again and pushes your spacesuit further down your body.

You pull back and look at Ezra. “I need to tell you something.”

Ezra raises his eyebrows. “What?”

You swallow as your heart quickens. “I’m a virgin.”

Tags: @pascalisthepunkest​, @kaelyn-lobrutto24​, @jokersdoll​, @knight-of-heart44​, @mandadl0rian​, @random066​, @earl-01​, @caitlincat-95​, @longitud-de-onda​, @cosmo-bear​

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

y’know i love memes as much as anyone else on this hellsite and the internet in general. but one meme i can’t stand now, as well as a joke used by older comedians about ~kids today!!!! am i right???~ that i can’t stand now, is the one that’s like “all 10 year olds want today is an iphone or an ipad or a macbook for their birthday or christmas! all i got for my 10th birthday/christmas as a kid was a tennis racquet and a tether ball that hit me in the face! kids are so spoilt today! you better get an i-job to i-pay for your spoilt mac-ass!”

because like.... do you not understand that in today’s increasingly over-connected world, ipads and macbooks or other tablets/laptops are pretty much required school equipment now, if your 10yo kid’s primary/elementary etc school has a ~bring your own device~ policy for kids in years 4-6??? like obviously yes, some schools will provide students with laptop/tablet trolleys and stuff.... or also the government might have a program to roll out laptops/tablets to schools (like australia did under rudd and gillard).... that some schools will literally put “parents must get a reliable tablet computer or laptop computer for their child to use for assignments”. when it comes to high school, i imagine that they’ll need their own laptop/tablet the whole way through their time there, if there is no longer any school provided or limited school provided laptops/desktop computers/tablets.

that’s besides the point that laptops etc are even more so required now than ever before, after everyone was forced to do homeschooling because of covid??? so. practically. a kid asking for a macbook/ipad or other tablets/laptops for their birthday or christmas, isn’t such a bad idea for a present??? even if yeah. apple is overrated and overpriced to the max. but suck it up and pay for your child’s future education??? even it means getting a cheaper laptop or tablet for your kid.

all i can say on the above point is that yes. the idea of ~bring your own device~ policies does set many families back- especially those in/from lower income areas/backgrounds or single parent families... considering that a decent tablet will set you back at least $500 and a decent mini laptop is around the same.... but bigger and better laptops are around $1000 on sale (windows) or idek like $1,200 on an apple education pricing deal. like yeah. it’s a demarcation thing and also setting some people up to fail. and again, this has been made increasingly obvious during covid due to different families acces to buying laptops/tablets or other internet connection means. i also understand that these big ticket item purchases of tablets/laptops hits the hip pockets of everyone harder during the pandemic, especially if you’re struggling with debt like mortgage repayments or whatever while being made redundant or are being paid less while working from home.

okay. not to sound like a spoilt brat of a kid, but i got my first laptop, an i-book G4 for my 10th birthday in 2005. then almost 10 years later, i got a macbook for my 18th birthday (and for my HSC/end of high school exams) in 2013. yes, this is the macbook that i promptly fucked up two years later in 2015, by trying to encrypt the hard drive, since i was taking it to uni and it had all my internet passwords remembered on it along with my banking details. the same goes for my other windows laptop... where the hard drive just decided to fry itself like 4 months into me using it, along with the trackpad. and that was a $1,200 ASUS laptop (bought on sale) that i was using for uni. and then finally my little HP stream laptop’s keyboard shorted out halfway through a creative writing class (that was $500 and it only has a 28gb hard drive so it’s very light and good for transport).

but my point is, me having my own laptop (as opposed to using the family computer only) helped me immensely in my studies..... and they were literally fucking essential to me both in business college and uni. but they were also helpful in late high school, considering that 90% of my assignment work was expected to be typed out in microsoft word or powerpoint or excel (for maths and science). or for more creative projects, i was expected to use adobe photoshop and video editing software like imovie or adobe premiere pro (art/computer tech/drama/that weird year 7 subject i did called INTEL) and garageband/sibelius (for music). how on earth was i supposed to keep doing work on adobe photoshop or word etc at home if i didn’t have my own laptop to continue the work???

because as a final point, for me, literally by year 10 in 2011, NOT ONE of my assignments was expected to be handwritten (bar my actual exams or in class tests; also state tests/exams etc; or if it was a poster or visual art). if you dared to turn in something handwritten, the teacher and student interaction would be like the following example:

teacher to a kid whose handed in a handwritten assignment: did you not read the assessment outline? it said WORD PROCESSED WITH WORD! what is this handwritten thing? okay fine. i’ll take it this time. but read the outline next time, timothy!

timothy: *stammers out* s-sorry miss/s-sorry sir *stalks away from the teacher’s desk in embarrassment and shame*

the teacher, probs thinking to themself: weird that a kid thinks they can hand in something handwritten. silly, really.

the above scenario was the same for me in years 11 & 12. also, by year 9/2010, we were using the education management system moodle (and maybe early stage presi for online presentations) for both of our HSIE subjects (history and geography) and i think a couple of other subjects, during most lessons and especially for class work that involved group work/class discussions, via online discussion boards function. my year group was actually was actually one of the test year groups for the early models of moodle. so by the time i was in uni, i was a native to using moodle; so i could skip the “moodle help tutorial” subject portions on it in every class.

hell, for today, i wouldn’t be surprised if foreign language subject faculties in high schools are now using school subscription class accounts or something for duolingo or babbel. and today, kids are learning coding from like year 4 onwards, i think, on apps at school as part of their science & tech studies lesson portion of the day. how on fucking earth are kids meant to keep up with their class work progression on coding apps or whatever, at home, if they don’t have their own laptop/tablet??? ridiculous. how would kids fare today without their own laptop/tablet, if all of their classwork for homeschooling is on like google drive/cloud or whatever other open source drive/open source cloud software their school uses?? or any other apps that their school might use??? obviously we are seeing this play out in real time during the pandemic, world over, where if a child is in a single parent family or if their two parents don’t have adequate enough resources/have been fired or let go from their jobs/juggling working from home and homeschooling; then it’s hurting these kids likelihood of doing well with distance learning.

but yeah. my point is that if your kid is asking you for a laptop or a tablet (regardless of brand) for their birthday or christmas, maybe buy them one?? because you never know. it may be the very thing at the top of their student resource list for the following school year. and also. do you know what stops kids fighting over their access to the family computer/tablet to do their assessments etc??? buying them their own personal laptops or tablets. even if they do cost an arm and a fucking leg. get your heads out of your asses and help your own goddamned kids (or relatives if it’s a nephew/niece etc asking for one) like you’re supposed to.

okay. for phones. i’ll admit i wouldn’t like a 10 year old having their own phone, because of social media being so easy to access on them. but if you don’t allow them to use the app store and don’t allow them to download instagram/facebook et al..... and give them the phone solely for safety reasons, i think that’s fine?

i’ve had a phone since i was 10 years old. also not to sound awfully clichè, but i turned out okay??? i had to have a phone back in year 4/2005 due to safety and also family issues. do you know what my teachers did with it? locked it away in their desk til the end of the day. obvs they had to remind me to take it home sometimes (bc i did leave it behind at school in the desk a few times lmao) but yeah. i was alright. if a kid wants a phone..... maybe make a compromise and get the classic nokia 3310 or something?? like i obvs agree that kids as young as 10 defs don’t need a smartphone like an iphone or a samsung galaxy. but a rock solid and basic nokia 3310 or whatever with no wifi access??? that’s good enough imo.

[stovetuna]

would you ever consider,,,,,,writing a fix it fic,,,,,,for endgame,,,,,,,pls im starved but also I love you so fuckin much your writing brings me joy

HEART EYES oh my gosh, thank you, anon. I hope this is sufficient. 

full disclosure, I’m absolutely useless when it comes to the “logic” of time travel, so a lot of liberties are being taken here for the sake of story. 

- - - 

Moments after the bright blue light of Tony’s arc reactor goes dark, Steve knows what he has to do.

He grieves, at first. He could hardly do anything else. Hell, it’s everything he can do not to let a howl out, the one clutching at his throat right now that’s equal parts devastation and rage. He swallows the raw, unholy sound and he weeps instead, like he’s never wept before—not for Bucky, or Peggy, or the Commandos, or Natasha, or Sam, or anyone—and then he falls to his knees in the ash and mud, everything that’s left of Tony’s last act of defiance. 

The words echo across the years like the worst kind of phantom pain as Steve looks and looks and looks at Tony, Tony’s corpse, Tony’s unnaturally lifeless body that doesn’t make sense to see, I think I would just cut the wire. 

Always a way out. 

Steve wishes he could go back in time and punch himself in the teeth, just like Tony said. 

Around him, heroes kneel, silent. No one talks about what has to be done, what the world will be like without Tony Stark, how they’re supposed to go on—for the moment, everything is still, and just as the blue light of the arc reactor had flickered out moments ago (wrong wrong wrong it should be shining like a solar flare he should have lived it should be him against that rock) Steve feels something flicker to life inside his own chest. It’s faint, but glows steady. Only he can see it, feel it; only he knows what it means. 

It’s a choice, an easy one, that Steve’s already made. 

*

After the funeral, Bruce sends him back with the stones. Clipping branches takes time, but it’s hardly tedious: First he returns to Morag, walks past Quill’s prone, snoring figure, and returns the Power stone to its place in the timeline. Like something out of Indiana Jones, Steve thinks to himself as he does it, but it’s not his voice he hears. It’s Tony’s, because only Tony would see a dangerous, precarious situation like this and make a pop culture reference. 

They watched that one together. Just him and Tony, early on, when things were still good. Tense, maybe—brittle, but good. Before Steve knew about Bucky, or HYDRA, or Tony’s parents; before Steve realized he did in fact know how to lie, but only when it came to Tony Stark. They’d drank good beer and talked gingerly around the subject of Steve’s adjustment to the 21st century; Steve couldn’t help but think of Tony when Indiana shot the swordsman, remembering what Tony had said on the helicarrier with startling clarity, the opposite of how he’d been thinking in the moment: I think I would just cut the wire. 

Now, Steve pushes the orb back through the energy barrier, mouth pressed in a firm line. The burns will heal, in time. He has plenty of it, after all, and the pain is a cheap price compared to what he felt watching Tony die, and it’s a price he’s more than willing to pay if this works.

• 

The Soul Stone is hard, not because of the climb, or the Red Skull (although, in fairness, it does throw Steve for a moment), but because he has to watch the soul stone plummet to the earth knowing it won’t bring Natasha back. There are only so many things he can fix, and this isn’t one of them. 

“What’s done is done,” Schmidt says, sadder than Steve ever heard him in life. Turning around, Steve looks at the cloaked figure floating, weightless, a few inches above the ground. He doesn’t feel pity, per se, but there’s a misery to Schmidt’s expression that looks deeply carved. Earned. Painful. He looks the way Steve feels, standing there in the place where Nat died.

“What was it like?” Steve asks, meaning the moment when Schmidt held the cube and disappeared. It doesn’t even register that he’s spoken until Schmidt is looking at him and speaking back. 

“Death would have been preferable,” comes the reply. Steve doesn’t have to go far to remember Tony’s slack, expressionless face, how sickeningly wrong it felt to see death in a place it didn’t belong. It would be unbearable to even imagine that moment for more than a second if Steve didn’t have an extra vial of Pym particles tucked away in his belt. 

“Yeah,” Steve mutters. “I know what you mean.”

Natasha would be proud of him, the way he punches Skull clean through the side of the mountain on his way out. 

* 

Returning the Reality stone is…complicated. 

Rocket and Thor had conveniently forgotten to mention how they got the stuff out of Dr. Foster—maybe Thor didn’t even know, since he’d been having a conversation with his mother at the time, according to Rocket’s later recounting of events—which means Steve is left standing over a sleeping stranger with a syringe filled with dangerous miasma with no clue what to do. 

He can hear Tony in his head again, a welcome rupturing of the tension that’s making it hard for Steve to even breathe, let alone think his own thoughts: stick ‘er with the pointy end. 

It’s solid advice, actually. But for a moment, all Steve can think about is how dearly he misses that voice in his ear, his head, his life, even though he’s lived less than seventy-two hours without it, but that’s seventy-two hours (plus/minus seven years and change) too long. He’s getting impatient, putting things back the way they were just to get to where he should have been all along, and he doesn’t want to waste a minute watching Dr. Foster sleep when he knows he could be spending that precious time getting back to Tony. 

Life, Steve’s learned too many times in too many devastating ways, is too goddamn short. Tony didn’t hesitate, in the end, so Steve won’t either. Not now.

Holding his breath, Steve sticks Dr. Foster with the pointy end and then runs like hell.

* 

The Sanctum Sanctorum is remarkably unscathed despite being surrounded on all sides by Chitauri carcasses and broken alien tech. Dust from the rubble and ash permeates the air so thickly it’s like trying to breathe plaster of Paris without a mask. Steve coughs as he knocks on the front door, grateful all over again to be cured of his asthma. 

The person who opens the door is far from expected, but like Nat told Scott that fateful day back at the compound, nothing’s crazy anymore. 

“You’re not who I was expecting,” they say, lackadaisical like they’re not surrounded by dead aliens that just fell out of the sky. Bruce and Stephen had told him the Ancient One was a bit, well, strange, but Steve certainly wasn’t expecting this much archness wrapped up in sunflower yellow. 

What, did Big Bird suddenly decide to take up transcendental meditation? Tony’s voice snarks. Steve bites his tongue for a second to hold off the snort threatening to escape him. The Ancient One raises an eyebrow (or lack thereof) at him with a smirk. 

“Is he close, still?” 

Steve’s thoughts go silent so fast his head spins. “I’m sorry?”

The Ancient One steps forward. “I’m sure you are,” they say. It feels dangerous, standing out here on the front steps like this, but if the Ancient One doesn’t flinch at being exposed, then neither will Steve. They hold out their hand with a beatific smile. 

“I won’t ask how it all went,” they whisper conspiratorially, “but do tell me one thing: is Bruce alright?”

The Time stone flashes a vivid green from the safety of its cradle of dense foam inside the carbon steel suitcase, which Steve holds out to the Ancient One like one would a box with an engagement ring inside. 

“Bruce is fine,” he says. The but goes unspoken. One look at Steve and the Ancient One knew exactly what his plan was, apparently. He’s still reeling from their earlier comment. He watches the stone float up from the suitcase and drift toward the amulet resting against the Ancient One’s stomach; their hands flicker and move as it opens with a whisper of metal and gears that reminds Steve poignantly, painfully, of Tony. 

There had been a couple of years there, the good ones, when he’d spent a lot of time watching Tony in his workshop, learning the ways in which Tony’s genius applied itself to the world. Everything from DUM-E to JARVIS to the suits to their comms to the reactor powering the tower to proprietary satellites to pasta carbonara, Tony’s mind was capable of it all, and then some. And it all lived inside a man who drove Steve crazy with anger and frustration and awe and lust and who gave Steve so unbelievably much without asking for anything, anything in return except Steve’s friendship and trust and instead Steve had given Tony the awful truth about his parents two years too late.

After Siberia, Steve spent most nights awake, standing on balconies and rooftops just holding the flip phone and thinking back to those earlier days with the kind of bitterly pitiful regret of the truly stupid: of course he’d been infatuated, back then. Of course he’d run away from the very thought. There’d been Pepper, obviously, and it was Tony. More to the point, it was them: Steve and Tony, oil and water, north and south, futurist and idealist, stubborn and stubborner still, always opposite in all the ways that mattered. 

Of course he’d used that as an excuse. God forbid Steve Rogers ever admit to being afraid. 

The Ancient One closes the amulet with a slow, gentle glide of their pale, steady hands. Tony’s were darker, bigger, stronger, more. Not capable of this kind of magic, but to Steve, Tony’s mind was magic. And his heart was made of pure light. He’d placed it in Steve’s hand. Steve never told anyone how it burned him to hold it, or that he’d prayed for the wound not to heal. 

He’d cried the next morning—for their losses, yes, but mostly because he had healed. It was torture, feeling one way but appearing the opposite. It was one of the ways he and Tony had come to understand each other, over the years prior: sometimes what appears on the outside isn’t the truth of what lives on the inside. 

Looking up into the Ancient One’s eyes feels like falling headfirst into time, itself. 

“I would caution you against your choice,” they say, wise and mischievous at the same time, somehow, “but I know you will set things right, when the time comes.” 

Steve closes the suitcase and nods. He tries not to think about Tony’s funeral. The way the first arc reactor Tony had ever built floated off on a wreath of flowers across the surface of the lake, quiet and all heart, the way Tony had been at the last. 

He has to go back there, one day. 

But not yet. 

* 

His past self is still lying unconscious on the glass walkway where Steve left him when he returns. Arms and legs akimbo, that charmingly ridiculous uniform stretching to compensate for the awkward splaying of limbs, Steve Rogers of 2012 looks like a child who went down for a nap, hard. In so many ways, he was a kid, back then, and yet so old. Too old, too soon. 

You’re just a little unstuck, Billy, Tony had said to him once when he’d found Steve awake in the communal kitchen at 4 AM, too riled by a nightmare to go back to sleep. At Steve’s confused look, he’d smiled—kind, soft, caring—and two days later gave him a first edition signed copy of a novel by someone named Kurt Vonnegut. 

Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.

He read it cover-to-cover twice before he went looking for Tony in the workshop to thank him with a hug. One of the few they’d ever shared, and all the more precious for it. 

Steve Rogers of 2023 knows this kid won’t hesitate to seize the opportunity he’s about to be presented with.

“Look alive, soldier,” he barks. Rogers coughs and splutters and springs to his feet like something stung him right on the ass. As soon as he registers Steve, his copy, standing in front of him, he falls back on his heels into a fighting stance. It’s wobbly around the knees, but Steve doesn’t bother correcting his stance. This isn’t what he’s come to do. 

“Listen to me, and listen carefully,” he says, and then he tells him everything he needs to know. 

Bucky is alive. You can save him.

Peggy, too. You can be with her.

The war is over. You can live without it. 

You can go home. You get to have one.

Imagine it. 

Rogers looks at the time-space GPS with a degree of skepticism Steve forgot that face was capable of. After talking trees and raccoons and living Norse gods and alien armies from outer space and Titans and time travel—after Tony Stark—nothing seems impossible anymore.

Finally, finally, Rogers holds out his hand, palm to heaven. Steve’s stomach tightens painfully to remove the device from his hand, but he thinks of what’s waiting for him downstairs, and letting go has never been so easy. Rogers holds it like a bomb waiting to go off, wary and fearful, but excited, too. 

Then, he looks at Steve, lit up the way a child whose parent has just given them a whole dollar to spend might be. 

“Are you sure?” 

“More than I’ve ever been.” 

Rogers’ face tightens. “What about—” he glances down through the glass. “The others? Will they know? Will they be alright?” 

“I’ll handle it,” he says. He’s taking a page out of Tony’s book here, winging it where he’s used to planning. Bucky was proud when Steve told him his half-cocked idea to go back in time to be with Tony Stark, however Tony would have him. 

How’re you gonna figure out being both Steves at once?

I’ll handle it. 

And if they figure it out?

They’ll handle it.

Rogers is hesitating. He doesn’t want to be selfish—that’s not in his nature. Steve smiles and reaches out, cups his hands around the one with the device and closes Rogers’ fingers around it. 

“It’s okay,” he says. You’re allowed to be selfish, when it’s the right thing to do. 

Looking at his younger self is dizzying, like vertigo. Tony once mentioned having a huge crush on Jimmy Stewart when they watched that movie as a team, which is how Steve learned Tony Stark liked men, too. That was the night his world really turned upside-down. 

Steve reaches into his belt and hands Rogers the extra vial. Enough for one trip. He’ll never get his dance with Peggy, but she’ll get hers. 

Steve will just have to dance with Tony, instead. What a hardship. 

He’s smiling, looking vaguely downwards where he knows Tony is, when Rogers looks at him and asks, “Why?” 

Steve dials the date and time and coordinates from memory. 

A week from Saturday.

The Stork Club.

Eight o’ clock, on the dot. 

The past is past, except when it’s not. Rogers is unstuck, but Steve isn’t. Not anymore. He hasn’t been for a long, long time. 

He shrugs. Smiles, easy, the way he couldn’t when he was Rogers’ age, fresh out of the ice and soul-broken, hopeless. 

“I’m home.”

*

The last test is the hardest. Steve goes down to the lobby via the elevator, carrying the scepter in one hand and the suitcase containing the space stone in the other. He’s dressed in his 2012 uniform again, and he didn’t miss the way it rides up his ass, but he’s got more important things to think about. 

There’s still a commotion happening in the lobby, the fallout of Tony’s self-inflicted heart attack diversion, but Steve manages to force himself away from where he knows Tony is to walk right up to Alexander Pierce. He would dearly love to drop the man right here and now in this lobby, audience be damned, but he has a part to play, yet.  

Steve tamps down the urge and rage long enough to present Pierce with the last stone. The look that flickers behind Pierce’s shrewd blue eyes is telling enough—Steve could punch himself, it’s so obvious. Glee, hunger, intent, all there, malicious and toxic. HYDRA, right out there in the open.

He’ll deal with it later. With extreme prejudice. 

“The cube was just a housing unit,” Steve explains, slipping back into his old by-the-book tone of voice like one slips on a pair of well-worn leather shoes. Pierce takes it with an eerie smile. 

“Very good, Captain.” At Pierce’s nod, Steve straightens, looks back with a knowing smirk, and nods in return. Rumlow would have already updated him about Steve’s words in the elevator; now the rest of it—rescuing Bucky, infiltrating SHIELD, destroying HYDRA and Pierce with it—is up to Steve. 

But first.

“If you’ll excuse me, sir,” Steve says deferentially, already moving away from Pierce toward the circle of black suits hovering around Tony and Thor like expectant vultures at the feast. His heart is in his throat, racing.

“Get your hands off me!” 

Tony.

Thor is running interference on the suits, pushing and holding them back, Mjolnir in hand. He clears a space for Steve to walk through with a nod. Steve nods back, but his eyes are elsewhere. 

Tony.

“I said let go of me, Mall Cop! I’m fine, I don’t need your help.” 

Pepper always says I’m the best at taking care of others at the expense of myself, Tony had told him once. They’d been sitting on the edge of the landing pad near the top of the tower at sunset, going over what went wrong with whatever battle had happened that day. Steve had spent the entire conversation with one hand shoved under his thigh to stop himself from reaching out to hold Tony’s, who’d put himself in the line of fire—unnecessarily—and had nearly given Steve a panic attack. 

A panic attack. How quaint, compared to a shattered heart. 

She’s right, Steve had replied, but then Pepper’s right about everything. 

Most things, Tony said. I’m still not sure if she’s right about me. 

Steve still remembers the way his hand had clenched under his thigh at those words. What do you mean? 

Tony had looked out over the city, not gloating or smug the way Steve had assumed he would be when they first met and Steve learned billionaires were a thing that existed—quite prevalently—in the 21st century, but wistfully, like he couldn’t believe he had the view at all. 

Most days I wake up expecting her to be standing by the bed fully dressed, waiting for me to open my eyes so she can tell me it’s over, he’d said, quiet so only Steve could hear, like the whole city was listening in and Tony wanted to keep this moment between them. I don’t think she’s right about choosing me. 

Steve could have painted Tony in that moment: vulnerable, eyes and skin and hair glowing like fire and honey and whiskey in the light of the setting sun as it glinted off the cityscape. He was handsome, small but strong, nervous but brave, and so unbelievably worth choosing it took every ounce of Steve’s strength to keep his hand under his thigh. To not reach out and take Tony’s face in his hands and just—

Tony, he’d said softly, urgently but without force, waiting until Tony looked him in the eye to say what he’d been holding back for years and even then it was only the tip of the tip of the iceberg: You are worth choosing. 

The way Tony had stared back at Steve then is not unlike the way he looks up at him now: from the floor of the lobby of Stark Tower, roughed up and shellshocked from the battle and his brief introduction to outer space and a minor cardiac episode, but relieved and inarticulately happy to see Steve there among the suits. 

“O Captain, my captain!” Tony crows, wheezing slightly on the last syllable in a way that is far too endearing for Steve to handle, especially given his own fragile state. When Tony reaches a hand up, Steve doesn’t hesitate to take it and haul him to his feet.

Tony is alive. Standing there, in front of Steve, alive. Younger, smoother around some edges and sharper in others, beautiful like a sunset and a sunrise rolled into one—an astronomical anomaly of the rarest kind. The Black Sabbath t-shirt is singed but mostly whole, and Steve wants to linger on that detail, except he can’t. 

“You alright there, Cap? You’re looking a little blue around the gills…”

Blue. Blueblueblueblueblueblue. 

The burning light at the center of Tony Stark is so blue, a glowing circle shining out from behind that silly threadbare band t-shirt like a beacon in the night, guiding Steve home. How is no one else marveling at this? At Tony Stark, alive? 

He’s staring. At Tony’s chest. He knows he is, but there’s no helping it. Just like there’s no helping the way he reaches out and pulls Tony into a hug like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do. It wasn’t long ago he’d carried this same body, suit and all, off the battlefield, crying himself hoarse even as he laid Tony out on a patch of grass in the sun away from the smoke and desolation. He’d watched this man die not seventy-two hours ago, and here was Tony, in his arms the way Steve should have held him years and years and years ago, alive. 

It shouldn’t be possible. But as he’s learned ten times over, when it comes to Tony Stark, impossible is only a matter of perspective (and a little bit of elbow grease).  

Steve muffles his hitching breaths against Tony’s shoulder, trying desperately to compose himself even as he falls apart. He’s failing, but can’t bring himself to care. Tony returns his embrace haltingly, like he can’t believe it’s happening, but then neither can Steve. 

“It’s alright, big guy. Party’s over,” Tony chuckles into his ear, nervous, patting Steve on the shoulder from under his arm in an awkward bend. “I’m fine, I promise.“ He does the unthinkable, then, Tony: he steps back and takes Steve’s hand and lays it flat against his chest so Steve can feel the strong thud of his heartbeat and the low, steady hum of the arc reactor at the same time. “See?” Tony says with a quicksilver smile, “alive and well.” 

Steve knows his eyes are wet. His hair is a mess and he’s still grieving his Tony, and that grief is a ten-ton weight in his stomach. And yet, standing here looking into this Tony’s big brown eyes, faced with that benevolent (if teasing) smile and generous heart, Steve feels young and limitless, weightless, like he’d float off the floor if it weren’t for Tony, who’s still holding his hand against his chest.

Steve knows this is selfish and reckless and his staying here could break the fabric of reality itself, but he would choose this—he’d choose Tony, warm and alive and smiling at him—every time. There are battles to be fought and truths to be told and lives to save, and he may never get to have Tony in all the ways he wants him in this or any timeline, but he’s willing to wing it and see. 

Who knows—they could very well end up married. 

Crazier and more impossible things have happened.

“Alive is good,” Steve says, locking a sob away behind a smile so big it strains his cheeks. “It means you can still pay for shawarma.” 

Tony’s face goes slack with surprise, and then he’s laughing so hard he’s cackling, leaning into Steve’s steady hand for support. Steve can feel Tony’s laugh as much as he can hear it: it feels like home and sounds like rock music and looks like sunlight spilling out between his fingers, bright blue. 

- - -

also on AO3! https://archiveofourown.org/works/22299358

[prorevenge]

Go ahead and undermine my credentials and hard work. I'll just make sure people know who you really are.

Backstory

I'm 25(M) and I work in the IT department for my company. Our IT department branches out into 6 smaller departments (Technical Support, Programming, Web Development, Computer System Analysis, IT Security, and Network Engineering). Each of these has their own boss and the boss of these all answer directly to the Director of the IT department. A couple weeks ago, I was called into the Director's office when I came into work. She’s an incredible person and mentor.

She told me that she had some good news and bad news. The bad news was that she was offered another job at a much larger company as the IT director at one of their branches in Chicago, so she’d be leaving in a couple of months. The good news was that the position for IT director at our company was open, and given my performance and reputation around the office, my immediate boss (the head of Computer System Analysis) had put my name in for consideration for the job! Each of the six department bosses in IT had to put one name in for consideration, so I have at least five other people who are competing for this job, plus any potential outside hires (It’s four now, but I’ll get to that). After our little chat, I weighed the pros and cons of the job if I get it and I decided to just go for it! I might have a pretty good shot at getting the job, since I'd consider myself a fairly likable person, a hard worker, and fairly good at my job. But there are others who are also very good candidates and I'd still be okay if I didn't get the job. It’s an honor to just be considered.

Now let me tell you about the target of my revenge. For the sake of this story, let's call this guy "Gabe". As the head of Technical Support, Gabe had the power to recommend anyone in his department for the position, but he picked himself. Now I already knew him and what he's like because a year ago I also worked in Tech Support for a short time. I was originally hired to be in the Computer System Analysis department, but I volunteered to help out in Tech Support since we were a bit short-staffed at the time. Gabe is an obnoxious, self-absorbed, arrogant, and uptight dick who doesn't listen to anyone who he feels is "beneath him". He's either in his late 30s or early 40s, but either way he has at least 10 years on me. He's a little on the chubby side, receding hairline, and a neck-beard. All he needs to achieve his final form is a fedora. Back when I worked for him, he gave me a lot of crap for so many little things. From not filling out repair tickets right to completing a repair slightly out of order, he always had something to complain about. But other than that, he seemed fine to me. To be honest, I probably wouldn't have done what I did or gone as far as I did. But then this happened:

I was just doing my work and minding my own business, as one does. I stood up to go refill my water bottle at the water fountain and guess who follows me? If you said Gabe, then congratulations. You get a cookie. Gabe walks up to me while I'm filling up my bottle and starts a conversation.

Gabe: Hey OP, what's goin' on? How are you?

Immediately I knew somebody was wrong. He's never this friendly. But I had no easy way out of this, so I rolled with it.

Me: Hey Gabe. I'm good. How're yo-

Gabe: So I heard that (Head of CSA's name) put your name in for the Director's job.

Me: Yeah! I'm really excited to interview! It's an honor to even be considered.

Gabe just laughs and puts on his normal expression of smug and gassy

Gabe: Listen to me. If you think they're gonna pick you, a lazy new kid who can't even write a fucking repair ticket correctly, over me, a team manager who's had 15 years with this company, then you're out of your goddamn mind.

I was shocked. I couldn’t believe those are actual words that a coworker, much less a coworker with a higher position, said to my face.

Me: What the hell? Why would you say that? I did nothing but good work for you last year and you know it.

Gabe: It was mediocre at best! When I become the IT director, I’m gonna crack the whip. Why anyone would think someone like you is a worthy candidate for one of the highest positions in the company is beyond me. So I’ll make sure my new department heads have better judgement than (Head of CSA’s name)

He walked away smugly and I just stood there, both shocked and honestly quite hurt. The only part he got right was that I was relatively new, being there for two years. But I also realized in that moment that I couldn’t let this kind of person be the Director. But, again, I’m just a kid to them, so what can I do?

Planning The Revenge

That same day, I went down to the building's cafeteria to take my lunch break with my girlfriend (she works in the Marketing Department). I told her about the promotion and what happened with Gabe. She made me feel better by talking me down and that was super nice. But what happened next was even better. A few of my friends from IT walked by to congratulate me as well and they sat down. A couple of them are from Tech Support and the rest are from the other departments. My girlfriend welcomed them to sit down with us and we made it a little party. We talked and then I told them about what happened with Gabe. The ones in Tech Support all groaned and, surprisingly, so did the rest of them. I was intrigued and I asked them to elaborate, and all of them have their own Gabe horror story.

Turns out that his usual condescending remarks aren't the worst of it. They had stories about him ripping into an intern for not getting his coffee order right, one story about him making transphobic remarks about an HR rep (really sweet guy. Makes incredible babka.), one of them has a couple of recordings of sexist and rape-y comments towards the female department heads in IT, and he's even come to work intoxicated on multiple occasions. Although that last part wasn't really news to me, since he reeked of alcohol frequently.

Now at this point, you’re probably asking the same question my girlfriend asked: “Why don’t you tell somebody?” Well I’ll tell ya. Our communication policy is kinda shit in IT. Rather than report a dispute or an issue immediately to HR or the Director, we have to give it to our immediate superior, which in this case would be Gabe for a lot of them. You really think Gabe’s gonna rat himself out to the Director? As much as I love my boss and think she’s going a wonderful job, that’s the one policy that she has that I don’t agree with.

At this point, we had all kinda bonded over our mutual hatred for Gabe. We had all agreed that Gabe would be an absolutely terrible boss and we needed to stop him. We were the Avengers and this was our Endgame (which is funny since Endgame would come out the next day). Just then, my genius girlfriend said something that I couldn't believe I didn't figure out sooner. She said "Y'know, this time next week, you're going to be face to face with the CEO, an HR rep, and your Director for the interview. That's your opening. You can air out all of his dirty laundry right there." The rest of our faces lit up, realizing this too and we were ecstatic. This was our chance and we weren't going to waste it. Gabe is a terrible human being and would be an even worse Director. He had to go. But I'd need proof first. So that's what I got.

Revenge Time

Along with rewriting my resumé and brushing up on my interview skills, I spent the next week being something of an investigative journalist. I asked my previously mentioned coworker to email me those recordings he had of Gabe’s rape-y comments (which by the way were absolutely sickening to listen to. I think the worst one was “I’d love to raw her over the trash can like the dirty whore she is.”), as well as spending time interviewing members of the Tech Support team as well as some of the other department heads. Almost everyone had some form of bad experience with him, ranging from unprofessional to downright abusive behavior. The head of WebDev even said that she was always uncomfortable whenever they were alone in a room together. By the time I was done, I had 3 voice recordings of Gabe, 4 pages of quotes from people around the office, and the stories I had originally heard at lunch that day when we began planning. I really wanted to prove his whole day-drinking thing, but I was afraid that going that far might cost me my job. But what I wanted to do was sneak into his office, open his drawers, and hopefully find empty liquor bottles or something to that effect. But what I had would just have to suffice.

Then the day came. We were in the Endgame now. I showed up to the work the day of interviews in my finest suit, my resumé, and literal pages of evidence to make my case. I walked into the office and saw my competition along with a bunch of other people who I didn’t recognize. Those were the outside hires. I was getting pretty nervous, especially when I saw the interview committee in the conference room through its glass walls. The CEO, my Director, and an HR Rep. I took a few deep breaths, checked when my turn was, and then I sat down to do my work, just waiting to make my move. A few of my coworkers came by my desk to wish me good luck, and that made me feel a lot better about it.

I waited and waited for my turn and then saw Gabe walking up to me from the conference room, so that means his interview must’ve just finished. I pulled out my phone and went to voice memos and began recording, just in case I got anything more out of him, and oh boy you bet I did.

Me: What’s up, Gabe? How was your interview?

Gabe: Great. Obviously. The job is as good as mine. You might as well not even try.

Me: I’m still gonna try my best, man. Who knows? I might even get it.

Gabe: Yeah keep dreaming.

He starts to get up in my face and I can smell his lunch on his breath. Too many onions. He then starts hissing at me.

Gabe: You’re absolute trash, kid. They’re not gonna pick a kid with two years of experience with an undergrad degree over me. I’ve been at this company for far too long and got my undergrad degree and my masters from Princeton! Don’t think for a second that you have the upper hand. You’re nothing to me!

I held my breath while he ranted and then he walked away to talk to another one of my coworkers who had their interview already. Coworkers around me just looked at me both shocked and confused once he walked away. I grabbed my phone, stopped the recording, and played it back. That was it. That was the final piece. I waited for a couple more interviews to finish, until they finally called me in. I grabbed my bag and my phone and walked into the conference room. As I walked, I could feel the eyes of some coworkers on me. They knew my plan, and I think they were counting on me to pull this off. Once inside, we all shook hands and exchanged formalities before sitting down and letting the interview begin. Not all of it is relative to the story, so let me just skip to the end.

CEO: Given the amount of internships you've done and how much time you've put into the company, you may have a good chance. However, we've just interviewed people with almost triple your experience. How do you stand out from the rest.

Me: Well, if I become the new Director, I already have some ideas for policies I'd like to put into place.

Director: Oh really? Would you care to give us an example?

Me: Don't get me wrong. I believe that you have done an amazing job as Director of this department, but there are some things that I think can be improved upon. For instance, our policy when it comes to HR.

HR Rep: Could you elaborate on that, please?

Me: Certainly. In the IT department, when we have any disputes or grievances to settle, we need to report them to our direct superior. Not the Director, but to the lower department heads. My goal is to streamline communication, so workers can report issues directly to the Director or go straight to HR.

Director: Alright, but can you tell us why the current policy is an issue?

I started smiling. This was it. This was my opening.

Me: Funny you should ask. Recently, I heard stories from a bunch of my coworkers about our head of Tech Support, Gabe. He's been very rude to his staff and to others on multiple occasions. In fact, I think "unprofessional" is a bit of an understatement from the stories I've been hearing.

Right then, I reached into my bag and pulled out the long list of stories and quotes I had gathered from the past week and handed them to the CEO.

Me: I care about my coworkers, so I did some digging. I really feel like this is something that you need to see.

I watched as the search committee read the quotes and stories. I watch their expressions turn to shock and disgust, which I totally get. I felt the same way when I heard all of this.

HR Rep: This is a... conflict of interest. From what I know, Gabe is also your competition for this position. How do we know that these stories aren't fabricated so that you could get an advantage? Because offenses like these could result in immediate termination. I hope you have a way to prove these very serious accusations.

Me: I had a feeling you'd say that. You are free to interview any of the people I quoted, but I can just save you some time and show you this.

I pulled out my phone and opened up the email that my coworker had sent me and all four of us listened to this neck-beard's disgusting and upsetting quotes. But I wasn't done there. I also pulled up the most recent one. The conversation between me and him. My Director just looked down at her desk and then they looked at each other. I was the one to break the silence.

Me: I'm sorry you had to hear all of this.

CEO: Could you please email those recordings to me? I would like to address this immediately.

Me: Of course. You are free to keep those papers too.

I forwarded the email to him along with my recording.

Director: Thank you for this information, OP. We'll let you know our decision when the time comes.

Me: Of course. Thank you for your time.

I shook everyone's hand again and that's when the HR Rep spoke up.

HR Rep: Can you please ask Gabe to come back? I would like to address this immediately as well.

I'm ecstatic at this point

Me: I would be happy to.

I leave the room and notice my friends in Tech Support just staring at me. My girlfriend was also sitting at my desk, since we planned on going out for lunch after my interview. I didn't want to give anything away, so I kept a straight face and walked past them and towards Gabe's office. I walked in and sighed.

Me: The interview committee wants to see you again.

Gabe just looked up from his computer and just gave me a cocky smirk, as if to say "I told you so." He got up and pushed past me towards the door. I followed behind him towards the conference room and we parted ways when he went in and I walked towards my desk. I wanted to see exactly what happened. I watched what unfolded through the glass walls. I saw Gabe's face turn white and his expression turn from smug to terrified. He turned his head to me and I had this shit-eating grin on my face. I just waved and then left my office with my girlfriend to have a nice lunch.

The Aftermath

I was feeling pretty good about the whole day. I got my revenge, did fairly well in a job interview, and had amazing chicken parm for lunch that day. I felt so good, that I decided to take the rest of the day off. I went to the zoo, saw a really cute koala bear. The next day, I came to work dressed down since interviews were over, and then patiently waited for the committee to make their decision. When I walked into the lobby of the building, my two friends from Tech Support ran over and trapped me in a bear hug.

Me: Well this is new. What's this for?

Friend 1: You did it!

Me: I GOT THE JOB?!

Friend 1: No! We wouldn't know even if you did. We're talking about Gabe!

Me: I stopped him from getting the job?

Friend 2: Oh you did a lot more than that. But you'll just have to see for yourself.

Both of them drag me to the elevator to go up to the IT floor. When we get there, they dragged me through the main office and over towards Gabe's. When we got in, all I found was an empty room with a desk in the middle of it. My jaw dropped. Apparently I collected so much evidence for Gabe's misbehavior, not only did I eliminate him from gunning for the Director's job, but he was also fired from the company and potentially blacklisted since everything I submitted for evidence against him was put on his permanent file. I'm not sure if he was blacklisted or not since I'm not entirely sure how that works, but he's definitely gone for good. I asked them about the details of what happened after I left. They told me that Gabe was so mad (probably at me), that his face was bright red. After he left the conference room, he spent the rest of the day packing up and drinking in his office, so I guess my day-drinker theory held up. He left in shame, and we won't see him again.

I was so excited. Gabe was gone and it felt like the office was a brighter place. People were so excited that a few people outside the Tech Support department brought in a bunch of desserts, from cheesecake to brownies. They were delicious, but I think what them taste better was that I did something to cause this rush of joy. I think the best part of this whole thing is that only a couple of people know that I had something to do with this. The rest of them? Totally clueless. I'm not the protector that IT wants, but I'm the protector that IT needs. Now enough humble-bragging. It's starting to make me feel like a douche.

In hindsight, I don't know what would've been more satisfying. Doing what I did or getting the job fair and square and firing Gabe. But if there's one thing I learned in life, you will do things that you are proud of that you will enjoy and you will do things that you're not so proud of but will really enjoy. This doesn't apply. I am both very proud of this and I really REALLY enjoyed this. This might come back later to bite me in ass, but for right now I think I'll enjoy it. But now the Director has to pick a new head of Tech Support. Either that or she'll give that job up to the next Director. It's been almost a few days since the interviews and we're still waiting on the results. Even if I don't end up getting the job, I still gained something from this. I have a better bond with my coworkers and got rid of the asshole in my office. If enough people like this story, I'll update you on if I got the job or not.

Moral of the story: Don't shoot an unfamiliar gun. You don't know how strong the kickback's gonna be.

TL;DR: I was considered for a job promotion but was demeaned by a superior who was also up for the job. I found out bad things about him and presented them during my interview and got him fired and possibly blacklisted from getting another job.

(source) story by (/u/KyuubiBlade)

[starker-stories]

An Accord (WIS), Chapter 4

I’ll be re-creating my individual chapter posts for An Accord over here on the blog that replaces starkerstories. Until I hit the current chapter, I’ll be posting daily. They’ll have links to both tumblr and AO3 chapter links. I’m sorry if that bothers people who’ve seen this all before in the tag. I’m content to leave all my other fic as AO3 only, but this is my current favorite child, so I’m spoiling it rotten.

This fic is on a weekly update schedule. Hopefully every Friday. (After I finish the repost.) More chapters may appear sooner if the writing is going well. Because I have 0 self-control.

Tumblr Chapter Links: ch1, ch2, ch3, ch4, ch5, ch6, ch7, ch8, ch9, ch10, ch11, ch12, ch13 AO3 Chapter Links: ch1, ch2, ch3, ch4, ch5, ch6, ch7, ch8, ch9, ch10, ch11, ch12, ch13

Tags: Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Anal Sex, Oral Sex, Polyamory Negotiations, Polyamory, Cheating, Past Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Domestic Nightmare Tony Stark, Reconciliation, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, WinterIronSpider, Happy Ending, Clothed Sex, Domesticity, Peter Parker is legal age in the state of New York, College Student Peter Parker, Takes place about 2 years after Civil War. Closeted Character

Summary: “I’m gonna go start dinner because otherwise you two will never eat. How did you survive before I took up residence in Tony’s kitchen?” ——————————————————————————————

Chapter 4: Like a fuckin’ sleeping kitten

Bucky knocked quietly on the master bedroom door. There wasn’t an answer, but that was clearly Peter’s voice crying out for help. And the kid wasn’t stopping. Hesitantly, he turned the doorknob. “Peter?”

“Help! Somebody help him!”

Peter was alone in bed, on his stomach, arms splayed out, fists grabbing the sheets, his body twisting. Bucky sat on the edge of the bed.

“Peter.” He’d never had to deal with anyone else’s nightmares before. “Peter, it’s Bucky.” He tried to remember the things the kid had said to him. “You’re safe. You’re in Stark Tower. You’re in Tony’s bed. You’re safe Peter.” He didn’t know much about someone else’s nightmares, but he knew enough about his own. Don’t touch him. Don’t stop him from flailing. Don’t try to shake him awake. Don’t turn on the bright lights. “Hey, Peter. It’s Bucky. You’re having a nightmare. It’s not real. You’re in your home.”

Peter’s vision was blurred with tears as he blinked his eyes open. “Tony?” he said in a small pained whine. He reached his hand out.

“It’s Bucky. You were having a nightmare. I don’t know where Tony is.”

“Oh.” Peter lay still, breathing shallowly but too fast.

Bucky reached over and touched Peter’s outstretched hand. “I’m here, Peter. It’s Bucky.”

“Oh.” His brow furrowed.

“You’re not awake yet, are you?”

“Tony?” Peter’s voice started to rise toward panic again.

“No. Bucky.” He looked down at his hand holding Peter’s. He changed hands. “Peter…” He spread Peter’s palm over the back of his metal hand. “It’s Bucky. You’re having a nightmare. I’m here. You’re safe.”

Peter’s fingers curled around Bucky’s hand. He smiled sleepily and blinked a few times. “Hey Bucky.”

“Hey Peter. Are you awake?”

“Uh huh.”

Bucky ducked his head to look into Peter’s face.

“Hi. I’m awake,” Peter said back. He rolled onto his side and curled up, still not letting go of Bucky’s hand.

“Where’s Tony?”

“Iron Man business. He had to leave right after we went to bed. FRIDAY, where’s Tony?”

“He’s in New Zealand, Peter. Should I tell him you need him?”

“No. I’m okay. Is that family okay?”

“Yes. The boss has the part of the building they’re in stabilized. He and Colonel Rhodes are searching for other survivors.”

“Don’t interrupt him, Fri. It was just a nightmare. Bucky’s here. I’m okay.” He bit his lip. “Good night FRIDAY,” he said reluctantly. He looked at Bucky. “He can’t be distracted right now and she’ll tell him.”

“Are you okay?”

Peter curled in tighter around the duvet. He shook his head.

“Wanna talk about it?”

He shook his head again.

“Wanna call Tony?”

Peter’s voice was small. “Can you… can you stay?”

“Sure, kid.”

Peter looked up at him. “You don’t mind?”

“Will Tony mind?”

“That you stayed to help me get over a nightmare? No.” He bit his lip again. “Can you… get in bed?”

Bucky climbed into the ridiculously huge bed and sat up, leaning against the headboard. Peter’s hand immediately took his metal one and held it.

“Do you mind? I know it’s you then.”

“It’s okay, Peter.” Bucky liked it that Peter and Tony both touched him on his left arm no differently than his right.

Peter balled himself up in the duvet. He put his head in Bucky’s lap, looking away from him. He picked up Bucky’s other hand and put it on his head. His sigh shuddered. And his breath hitched as he started to quietly cry.

Bucky wasn’t sure that Tony would see this as such an innocent sight if he were to walk in the door right then, but Peter was obviously a very tactile person when he was upset. He slowly started to thread his fingers through Peter’s hair. The boy’s tears stopped after a bit and his breaths evened out. Bucky could tell he’d fallen asleep.

He hadn’t realized he fell asleep as well until he felt a light touch on his shoulder.

“Shh. I don’t want to wake him up,” Tony whispered. “Didn’t want to wake you up either, but didn’t want you to kill me if you felt me climbing into bed,” Tony said smiling as he did so. “Nightmare?”

“Yes.”

Tony curled up against Peter’s back.

“I’ll go,” Bucky whispered.

“You’ll wake him up and Fri says he only fell sound asleep two hours ago.”

“New Zealand okay?” Bucky asked.

“Still to the right of Australia where I left it. You can go if you want. If he wakes up I’ll be here. Trying to sleep like that’s gotta be uncomfortable.”

“I’ve slept in worse positions. I don’t want to wake Peter up.”

“Can’t move because of him. Like a fuckin’ sleeping kitten.”

“Like a fuckin’ awake kitten,” Peter muttered, still half asleep. He reached back and pulled Tony’s arm around his waist. He still didn’t let go of Bucky’s metal hand. “’M tired. Shut up.”

~~~~~

FRIDAY woke them up to announce an urgent call from Maria Hill. None of them were still sleepers. Bucky had slid down fully onto the bed. Tony was sprawled half across Peter’s body. His arm had reached from around his waist to entirely cross the boy and was resting on Bucky’s knee. Peter still had a death-grip on Bucky’s hand, but had pulled it across the man’s body, twisting him, yet still managing to sneak himself in under his entire metal arm and was drooling onto Bucky’s t-shirt. His leg was bent back at an odd, starfish angle, caught underneath Tony’s.

“Fri? Did a wormhole open up above us?” Tony muttered.

“No boss.”

“Why the fuck are you waking me up?”

“Maria Hill is calling for Sergeant Barnes.”

“Bucky,” Tony corrected her, still asleep.

“Maria Hill is calling for Bucky. He’s an hour late for their debrief.”

“Fuck!” Bucky said, trying to disentangle himself. “Peter, let go. I’m late.”

“Be late,” Peter mumbled, in perfect imitation of Tony’s expression.

“I can’t. Let go, kid.”

“Ugh,” Peter reluctantly let go of Bucky’s hand and rolled over, pushing Tony onto his side and nestling himself against the man’s chest. He nuzzled against the arc reactor, and gave a sleepy chuckle. “I think I need tech to fall asleep.”

“Shut up and go back asleep, Pete. I had half a building dropped on me last night. I’m not getting up for anything less than a wormhole.”

“I’m going to need a lift to the compound.” Bucky tossed the duvet he’d knocked off the bed back onto it and over the sleeping couple.

“Fri?”

“On it boss. The helicopter will be waiting for you by the time you’ve finished getting ready, Bucky.”

“Thank you FRIDAY,” Bucky said as he headed for the bedroom door.

“Shut up, Bucky.”

“Shut up, Bucky.”

~~~~~

“FUCK!”

No one was in the penthouse when the helicopter dropped Bucky off from yet another day of debrief. The sound came from below.

“GODDAMMIT DUM-E! Are you trying to… Go. You’re useless. Wait. Bring me the… no not that one the other… Yes. Thank you. You get to live one more day.”

“Tony?” Bucky called out.

“Oh hell! How hard can getting this damn thing to work be! You are annoying the hell out of me, machine. Goddammit I have a PhD in physics, one in engineering, and one in robotics. How the hell can I not manage to adjust one… OUCH! FUCK!”

Bucky followed the expletives to their source, down a long flight of spiral stairs into a workshop. He still didn’t see Tony, but he saw an entire array of his armor stretched along one wall. And he saw Peter, hunched over a table with things hovering above it that looked like the battle game Luke Skywalker was playing with Chewbacca.

“Peter?”

There wasn’t an answer. Peter’s hands kept moving through the light, making things grow and spin and change. He was mumbling to himself. Bucky walked over to the table and stood opposite.

“Peter?”

“Fuck!” Peter said, jumping in his chair, sending the strands of light that were following his fingers off into nothingness. “FRIDAY, take it back to just before I added the catalyst.” He took the earpieces out and smiled. “Bucky. You’re home early.”

Loud clanging sounds and more cursing came from a level below where they were.

“Tony, you are not doing percussive maintenance on a transmission electron microscope, are you?” Peter shouted.

“Of course not, babe. I would NEVER do something like that.”

“You could just call Lawrence Berkeley to finish the…”

“They brought the damn thing here and set it up. I can complete the adjustments of a goddamn electron microscope on my own!”

Peter sighed and rolled his eyes. “There are only FIVE others in the world and you are going to destroy the sixth!”

Bucky chuckled. “I’m gonna go start dinner because otherwise you two will never eat. How did you survive before I took up residence in Tony’s kitchen?”

“Menus,” Tony’s voice came from downstairs. “A whole drawer of them next to the fridge. This is New York. You want something, anything, ask FRIDAY. It appears.” Tony’s head appeared from the hole in the floor where the spiral staircase was. “Even a transmission electron microscope. Which is now adjusted, fully functional, and ready for me to work on the nanites..” The rest of Tony appeared.

Peter didn’t even try to hide the fact that he was drooling. Bucky at least hid it. He was a houseguest. It was inappropriate to drool over his host. Even if his host was wearing a tight-fitting black tank top, torn jeans, covered in sweat and dirt, and looking like sex on two legs.

Tony gave Peter a smirk. Peter smiled, got up from his workstation, and met Tony at the spiral stairs. He took Tony’s hand and led him up the next flight to the penthouse… and the bedroom… level.

“Sorry, pretty,” Tony said, not sounding sorry at all. “You’re on your own for dinner.”

[keltonwrites]

thanks for the binder

My father wrote me a book, and I haven’t read it. My father and I are as alike as any father and daughter have any right to be, in spirit, temperament, and assuredness of our capability. I tell you this because the book is about him, and thus, essentially about me, and that’s not the only reason I can’t read it. If I read the book, he will obviously die. If I don’t read the book, he will definitely, without question, also die, but a different death. Neither more sad nor terrible than the other, but different in their command over bad guilt or dumb grief. I will either feel like dying myself because I did not read it when he was alive, or I will be so adept at imagining him dead I will be weeping at his non-grave, sitting across from him at the table as he lowers the newspaper to look curiously at his weeping daughter. It is also with certainty that reading the book will kill me, either with love so deep it drowns me in profound agony, or in that I will see how light and fire and good personalities burn out into dusty pieces of ash, particles we breathe in and sneeze out on a bus while strangers glare passively in our general direction. We are all just piles of molecules, dead on arrival. What and why, etc. Reading the book will kill us both, and not reading it is killing us both, and being dead either way does not make approaching it any less dreadful. So instead I just hold the plastic three-ring binder from somewhere like Staples because he doesn’t know you can just find that kind of thing at Walgreens. And when all I have is that binder, he would be paper cuts and glue coming undone from photos with no jpegs or even negatives, just the one photo of the one thing that he stuck to a page for his daughter so she could be proud of him so one day she could cry so hard hoping so profoundly that he had been proud of her. So, I can’t read the book because I have to. I don’t have a choice. I bring this up because we’re both in good health and I am deeply superstitious, and sometimes I like to wave things in the face of my superstition to see what comes of them. Also, because one of the characters in the novel I am writing is based on my dad, and that character dies, so I’ve been crying a lot. This novel has been a long-time coming, in that the characters first came to me in 2014. Thus far they have been very patient with me, but I could feel them rumbling, packing their things or dying somewhere in my computer, and I knew I needed to act quickly. I booked a room up the California coast where no one could ask me, well, anything, and I started to write again. Kill your darlings doesn’t always mean slogging them off with machetes, but sometimes cutting their character information and pasting it into a document of Dead Darlings, ctrl+F’ing their name, and deleting—watching the word count fall with them. Sorry, Hannah. Sorry, Red. Once upon a time, I wrote frequently for free, and now I write infrequently for money. And that, as far as I can tell for myself, has not resulted in the kind of life I want. But this is a hard thing for me to parse. Some coworkers read this (hi! Please don’t tell me if you read this) and I would very much like to keep my well-paying job so I can continue to fantasize about buying a home so that one day I can do things like paint a wall yellow and then wonder if it was a bad idea. I also would like (for no reason I can discern other than growing up middle class in Ohio) to own a big truck with big wheels with a big engine so I can joyfully drive to the back of every parking lot because that’s the only place it will fit. And these things cost more money than I was making writing for free, as you can surmise by the word “free.” A year or so ago, I was taking the Yale course on Happiness through Coursera (of course not knowing when I was rejected from Yale as an insulted 17-year-old that I eventually could take all the interesting classes for free without ever doing the homework.)  It prompted me to take a happiness survey. I love quizzes about my personality (which any personality quiz will tell you about me right away — Type 7, ENFP.) When I went to create an account, it told me I could not. An account under that email already existed. I cocked my head like a dog at the computer to emphasize to myself my own confusion, and I turned immediately to the search bar of my email to get to the bottom of this. It turns out, I had taken the exact same quiz some 4 years prior. And the results were still in my account. The internet giveth. But, of course, the internet also taketh away: upon taking the quiz again, I was happier, but not by much. This didn’t make sense. In 2014, I had an emotionally abusive boyfriend, lived in a 150 sq ft room where I was not allowed to make noise (!), and often couldn’t leave work for spans of 30 hours at a time. But in the 2018 quiz, I was making significantly more money working fewer hours, I was in a happy and supportive relationship, I lived in a cool ass house with cool ass pets — where was my goddamned happiness? I took that quiz in November and assuming you’re currently experiencing time the same way that I am, it is now March, wait, no, it’s April, and I spent the last five months carefully examining what made me happy and what didn’t. And like any person who’s had to have the phrase “forest for the trees” explained to them multiple times, I couldn’t see what was painfully obvious to 97% of people who knew me: when I’m not writing, I’m not happy. And I’m not talking about tagline writing, or UX writing, or writing scripts for product features, or writing about bike rentals in Ventura, or any of the writing I was actually doing. I could still slip into flow on those things. I could still get excited and get lost in the rhythm, but upon completion, it felt like planning a trip with friends only for them all to have something come up, and the plan get pushed another indefinite year. At some point, you just have to take the trip yourself, and I thought that trip would be this newsletter, but I’ve struggled to write more newsletters because of two things: why buy the cow, etc., but also because it feels like there needs to be a point. And while I suspect those are beliefs I should investigate and dismantle, today I happen to have a point, so here it is: If doing something doesn’t feel right and you don’t need to do it to survive, you should probably do less of it. And if there is something you feel called to do, but feel you don’t have time to do it, you should probably take a long hard look at your calendar and (oh boy) your choices. It’s been five years since I sat down with these characters, and in the meantime, my dad sat down and transcribed his entire life pre-my-mom with photos. It’s page after page of wild parties, broke down cars, school dropouts, ski towns, jumping out of airplanes, fighting fire, and living in the wilderness all so his daughter could be like, “sorry Dad, I can’t book a ski trip 3 months in advance because there’s no way this tech company with 250 other employees could find a way to replace my somewhat vague skill-set for a Friday. Also I gave up on my dreams. Thanks for the book." Holding the three-ringed binder, looking at the printed title page he’d slipped under the plastic cover, feeling such pride and love it could distort the proportions of the room, I knew when I would be ready to read it: when I could send my dad my finished manuscript so he could read what he’d made of me while I read what he’d made of himself. So I'm in a cottage up the coast from where I live, away from the cat in my lap and the dog at my side, away from morning coffees and goodbye kisses, far far away from bosses and emails, and the farthest away from what doesn't feel right in order to get closer to what does. 

Thanks for reading. Subscribe to the newsletter here. 

[sage-nebula]

1 3 5 7 and 12 for Iron Dad + Spider Son!!

1.) If you had to change their very first meeting, how would you change it?

Honestly, if we consider the fact that their very first (unofficial) meeting was in Iron Man 2 when Tony saved Peter at the expo, then I wouldn’t want to change it. Even though Tony didn’t really know that was Peter at the time, everything about that moment is just so perfect to me, because:

Peter, despite being such a little boy who was just wearing a toy helmet and (I think?) glove, actually raised his hand as if to blast the robot that was attacking him. He couldn’t do anything to it, but unlike all the adults around him who were running away, Peter stood his ground and tried to fight back, and if that’s not foreshadowing for the fact that Peter would one day be a hero in his own right, I don’t know what is.

Instead of jumping in front of Peter to blast the robot, Tony stood behind Peter to do it, thereby making Peter think (at least for a second) that he was the one who did it. Tony even said, “Nice work, kid!” afterward as if to reinforce this. Sure, Peter couldn’t have and didn’t do anything, but he tried, and Tony recognized that, and Tony wanted to take two seconds out of the battle to give Peter that encouragement. There is no doubt at all in my mind that that particular moment was what made Peter idolize Tony so much in coming years. Iron Man not only told him he did nice work, but also saved his life. Even though I’m sure Peter never brought this up to Tony, I highly doubt he ever forgot it. (Bonus: I bet after that Peter went on and on and on about it to May, and so she was well aware of how much he loved Iron Man, and so no doubt when Tony showed up at their flat in Civil War, that look she gave to Peter with the raised eyebrows and all was totally your hero is here to see YOU, isn’t that something? Like she was excited and happy for him not only for the grant, but also because that was his hero and she no doubt could tell he was wigging on the inside. (For different reasons than she suspected, but still.)

THAT MOMENT CARRIES SUCH HIGH OCTANE MUFASA AND SIMBA ENERGY. Specifically—okay, so Tony stands behind Peter and blasts the robot, therefore making Peter think (at least for a second) that it was him, right? Well, do you remember that scene in The Lion King where the hyenas have Simba and Nala cornered, and Simba keeps trying to roar to scare them off, and then this massive, ear-splitting roar shakes the air, and for a hot second Simba thinks it’s him, but then he turns around and realizes it was Mufasa who appeared on the scene to save his son? MMHMMMM. The only difference is Peter didn’t get in trouble (at least from Tony) after the fact, but otherwise? MUFASA AND SIMBA, CLEAR AS DAY.

So I don’t think I’d change anything about their first meeting there, even if it was unofficial. As for their official first meeting in Civil War … honestly I’m not sure I’d change anything there, either. Maybe I’d make Peter a little more excited to see Tony at first, before he realizes that Tony is there because he discovered his secret and panics / gets upset. I might also nix Tony’s “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that” line about Peter’s homework, because Tony actually takes Peter’s schoolwork seriously (he wants Peter to go to MIT ffs), so I can’t see him being so dismissive (although maybe from his perspective it’s because he was like goddamn this child is young, but desperate times called for desperate measures). But other than that I loved that scene, too, especially with Peter explaining why he does what he does and that resonating with Tony so deeply, gosh. (Also the fact that Tony had a spidersuit ready-made? He was planning to meet Peter and give him the upgrade long before Civil War. It’s just that Civil War pushed that deadline up.)

3.) What is your favorite AU/prompt idea/trope for your pairing?

AU: MMMM, well, honestly, I’ve loved all the ones we’ve talked about, and I do have a favorite but I don’t want to say so publicly just yet because I plan on writing it soon! You can probably guess it, though, because we’ve talked about it recently … I also really like the Venom AU, though, although with the movie that came out recently I’m hesitant about writing that one because the Venom in my AU is definitely villainous, and I wouldn’t want to tick off any fans of the Venom movie, haha. All of that said, I also have plans for a Fix-It AU for Endgame, so … we’ll see how quickly I can get that written and posted.

Prompt Idea: Listen, I am 1000000% here for anything where Peter is hurt or put in danger and Tony engages the Papa Wolf Protocol. Like, I do want it to be in reason—fics where Peter is taken down or out too easily / without much of a fight aren’t my jam, because this kid is a superhero, he’s Spider-Man, he lifted a building off himself when he was wearing pajamas, he can do so much more!—but I absolutely love Tony being a protective dad for Peter who will rain down hellfire on anyone who dares to hurt his kid. Give me all of that, I can never get enough.

Trope: Just give me all that beautiful, glorious, Papa Wolf, but I’m also here for Parent In Distress wherein Peter helps out Tony, as we saw in both Infinity War AND Endgame. But I’m really here for all genres of Iron Dad and Spider-Son. I honestly, truly cannot get enough.

5.) Favorite canon moment of them?

I love pretty much every single moment they had together (even that dressing down in Homecoming, as painful as it was), but god, I’m going to have to say the hug in Endgame is the ultimate. Everything about it is just absolute. The way Peter saves Tony right before they reunite; the way Peter immediately starts rambling on without taking breath as soon as he runs up to Tony (and also, “Holy cow, you would not believe what’s been happening!” Peter, sweetie … he has more of an idea about it than you do right now jdkslfds); Tony’s fucking face, the way you can see him being a bit dazed at first, then his eyes lighting up as he sees Peter in front of him, then the way he swallows and his face contorts as he’s physically fighting back tears; the way Tony says “hug me” right before he pulls Peter into a hug (it’s so quiet it’s hard to hear but it’s THERE, I’ve watched a camera rip of this scene 93058349058403543 times with the volume all the way up); the way Peter says, “Oh, this is nice” as he hugs Tony back; the way Tony hugs him TIGHTER after Peter says that and the way they both close their eyes into it. We started at “this isn’t a hug, I’m just getting the door for you, we’re not there yet” and now we’re at “hug me” and god FUCK my entire heart is crying in the BEST way.

I just wish it wasn’t followed by so much TRAGEDY afterward.

7.) Favorite headcanon? (Your own or someone else’s)

I have to say, I loved the idea of Peter being a groomsman at Tony’s wedding, and I’m so sad that couldn’t happen for obvious reasons. I love that we’ve all collectively agreed that he is Morgan’s big brother, because obviously, yes. Also, as much as it kills me, I love the idea that Tony listened to all of Peter’s voicemails and watched all of his vlogs (including the “little video diary” he made of the trip in Civil War / Homecoming) over and over, and saved them all, never once even thinking about deleting them after Peter’s death in Infinity War. It’s so painful, but I can’t imagine any other possibility.

I also love the idea that Tony and May co-parent Peter (with Pepper helping out sometimes as well). Because let’s be honest, they do. They’re 100% on the same page with regards to Peter’s safety, there’s no way they wouldn’t be successful co-parents.

12.) If you had to take them and plunk them into another fandom, what fandom would that be? Why?

Well, there’s the obligatory Pokémon AU where Tony is a veteran trainer (perhaps even the Champion on top of being CEO of Stark Industries, which would make pokémon tech in this universe) and Peter is a new trainer that stumbles across Tony’s path and that Tony takes under his wing. It’s obligatory because I love Pokémon so much how could I not consider this?

Other than that, I’m not sure! They work so well where they are I’m not sure I have very much compulsion to move them, especially since I’m not really into other superhero series so I’ve not got many ideas that would necessarily fit their powers / abilities, haha.

[ayearofpike]

The Tachyon Web

Bantam Books, Inc., 1986 197 pages, 14 chapters + epilogue ISBN: 0-553-26102-9 LOC: CPB Box no. 677 vol. 12 OCLC: 14404988 Released July 30, 1986 (per B&N)

The Tachyon Web is a network of satellites that creates a sort of hyperspace fence. It defines the boundaries of the Union, and no civilian craft is allowed to venture across it. But the Excalibur, piloted by high school kids, finds a loophole – literally – in the form of a star gone nova that shorts the Web and allows them to get through. Of course, messing with interstellar nuclear physics never goes smoothly, and the Excalibur is crippled. In the effort to save their ship and themselves, the friends discover a whole race of people also fleeing the nova, also without much knowledge about their future, and also fearful and anxious about the days ahead.

When I got into Pike, he was well into his career as an author, and already the majority of his books were published under the Archway Paperbacks imprint of Pocket Books. When I went looking for his new books or stuff I’d missed, that’s the bulk of what I would find on the shelves. There were a couple ways to know I’d not read one: 

The inside front cover had a long list of Pike’s books under Archway, so I could go down and check or cross them off as I easily found them.

On the author notes page, after the history and outside interests, he’d list all of his works (getting longer by one every time), not limiting himself to the Archway stuff.

The Tachyon Web was always in those author notes, second-to-last. (Getting Even never was.) But without a printer or a publisher, I had no idea how to find this book. Remember, this was pre-Internet, pre-public-Web. I couldn’t just Google it because it was pre-Google. I couldn’t ask Amazon to find it because it was pre-Amazon. (Earliest purchase in my Amazon history? Getting Even, which I requested in January 1998.) 

My only sources were the bookstore or library card catalogs, and while everything else had gotten a reprint (my copies of Slumber Party and Chain Letter are like 20th printings), The Tachyon Web never did. It was also a time when bookstores could, like, survive, so they didn’t have to put used and new books together on the shelves. My school library snootily didn’t carry Pike (though they sure had goddamn Stephen King and R.L. Stine) and the regional one didn’t have a copy. My local bookstore had a used and out-of-print book finding service, but come on: they’re looking for historical editions of classics of literature, not some pulpy juvenile sci-fi paperback that’s only eight years old. And so I resigned myself to never seeing this one.

But then this happened.

Reprint, Pocket Books, 1997 211 pages ISBN 0-671-69060-4 OCLC: 970433587 Rereleased January 15, 1997 (per B&N)

Now that I think about it, I have to imagine that Pike was subtly putting pressure on Pocket to reprint this story. Why would he include it in his accomplishments if it went away so fast because it actually sucked? (N.b. consider the absence of Getting Even.) Wouldn’t he have known that as he grew in popularity there would be a groundswell from fans to get an easily accessible edition of this story that almost no one had ever seen? Regardless of their critical acclaim, the sales of the books alone would have been enough to give him some leverage to have this one put out there again.

I mean, I can see why it might have disappeared so fast back in the day. The Tacyhon Web is hard sci-fi: lasers, aliens, spaceships, hyperdrive, force fields, supernovae. It’s not what anybody was looking for from the Slumber Party guy. Let’s be real: authors get pigeonholed into genres from the start, teen horror was historically (and probably still is) marketed to girls, and sci-fi has long been a no-girls-allowed clubhouse. The shift in YA speculative fiction to female-driven future dystopia stories, I could argue, isn’t so much a loss of traditional sci-fi as it is an adaptation of that traditional horror to bring in some sci-fi elements. Which Pike eventually figured out, but again, he wrote largely before YA was received critically as “real books.” And honestly, his type of fiction might be more of a reason than a victim.

More than any of his other books, The Tachyon Web requires Pike and his readers to think about the implications of meddling in the affairs of another culture. Eric and his friends can quite literally save an entire race, but is that their right or their place to do so? Should we share this huge technological leap with a people who might not be ready for it? What if the Kaulikans are greedy and protective, and start to use the new power to subjugate humans? What does it say about humans that we immediately think this about someone else? This examining of culture and society is all in the narrative, to be sure, but not with the degree of complexity that either sci-fi fans or readers from the future have come to expect. It just wasn’t asked of a teen author in the ’80s, and Pike doesn’t waste too many words on it.

None of this consideration keeps Eric from playing great white savior for the Kaulikans, either. (Though, as he’s described as a soCal boy with brown skin and black hair, I imagine Eric as Latino. More hidden representation for me!) See, he fell in love with the first alien girl he laid eyes on, and now he wants to make sure she can live beyond the spaceship. His friends mostly buy the human party line that we can’t give our tech to an unproven people, and he has to literally hijack Excalibur to give it to the Kaulikans. Except, oh shit, here comes the human army to take the ship back! Turns out they’ve been watching the whole thing and let the fucking sun explode on these people without helping. And now their orders are to retrieve the hyperdrive at any cost, but the Kaulikans obviously can’t let the hopes of an entire people, now within their grasp, be simply taken away from them. We’re at an impasse.

If you thought the humans would see the light and let the Kaulikans have the ship, you’re better than the people in charge. If you thought they’d escort the Kaulikans somewhere safe and then take the tech away, you’re overthinking a solution. It ultimately comes down to one dude with a conscience who has suffered a terrible loss in his past, who knows that he should help but has been ordered not to intervene, who has been looking for an excuse like Eric to act like it wasn’t his fault that the aliens discovered the tech. So he gives up instructions to build the hyperdrive on what amounts to an SD card (which can conveniently be read in alien computers). The humans get Excalibur back, and Eric’s friends are going to be OK, but he was sitting in the meeting so he knows too much and can never go home. It’s a good thing he already found love, just like it says on the back!

If I hadn’t been so into Pike when this reappeared in 1997, I’m not sure I would have been eager for or even interested in this story. (When it came out, all we’d gotten for a year was Spooksville stories and Last Vampire sequels; I was aching for something different.) The characters just don’t have the depth we got in Slumber Party, which is still the gold standard he’s trying to write up to at this point. The situation is an interesting one, and the problem arises because of mistakes the characters themselves make, but it gets a little too big a little too fast. The expectations and limits on kid lit at the time simply didn’t give Pike enough room to explore everything that needs to be addressed. And the reprint is just that: aside from some edits to improve understandability, it doesn’t change anything.

But then, these limitations might be what make the story realistic: we’re stuck trying to understand interglobal and racial dynamics from the perspective of an eighteen-year-old who’s never wanted for anything and has to absorb and process injustice on the fly. He’s still neurotic and insecure, like all of Pike’s main characters, but he lives in a society that prizes his culture, his language, and his abilities. It’s got to come as a shock to see that this foreign one is not only considered inferior, but that we aren’t even going to risk contact, let alone help it survive. Interesting that YA fiction is the genre taking so much more initiative to make us think about these issues today, where thirty years ago a book on it didn’t perform and almost went away forever.

[dontcallmecarrie]

You guys know the drill. Some spoilers for Chapter 20 in TWiFFON, [plus some themes that get touched on in the next arc,] because of obvious reasons. 

The what-if I’m playing with this round, under the cut because it grew on me and now wants to be its own spinoff oneshot of TWiFFON:

What if Ultron had managed to kidnap Tony?

I wasn’t very subtle about Ultron’s obsession with stealing Tony away, and it’s pretty obvious what would’ve happened if he hadn’t been stopped. Vision got to him before he got a chance to do so, but if he hadn’t been assimilated, Ultron would had most definitely stolen Tony away. 

As for exactly what happens...It depends a bit, actually. In Chapter 20, Vision was lucky; Ultron hadn’t expected him to be that strong, and managed to win the fight. 

But maybe, in another universe, Ultron won, because Vision powerful but young, whereas Ultron knows his limits, and has been sitting for years with little more to do than wait and plan. 

If Vision had lost the battle, Ultron would’ve possessed the Mind Stone, and been amused by Vision enough to transfer him to the now-mostly-defunct Legionnaire while keeping the shiny new vibranium body for himself. 

...or perhaps he does something else, but there’s only so many what-ifs I’m willing to keep track of during a shatterpoint, so just roll with him ditching Vision, all right? 

And, with it, Ultron would have been unstoppable. 

Tony, of course, would’ve known right away that something was wrong, but he’s busy fighting a huge horde of Chitauri on his own lonesome, cut off from everyone else, and would not have been able to take Ultron on as well. The Iron Legion’s good, but their numbers are being decimated because Ultron’s got his main objective [the Mind Stone back] and he wants to take Tony with him when he goes to report to Thanos, so subtlety isn’t a concern anymore. 

The Avengers realize they’ve been played, pretty damn fast. 

Because it’s pretty hard not to notice, when the Chitauri aren't working as a distraction anymore, just focused on overwhelming Iron Man, and Tony’s very clearly trying not to lose it over the comms and the portal’s acting up but they don’t have Loki’s Scepter, don’t know how to influence it. 

The battle’s almost entirely shifted to the air so the team can only watch while Tony Stark’s finally overwhelmed by the entirety of the Chitauri army, and swept away into the portal, and it closing almost immediately after. 

Now, since I’m fighting off plot bunnies already, I won’t go into what would’ve happened if Ultron had left the portal open, because that’s pretty self-explanatory and any alternatives would require their own post for me to go into specifics.

Tony’s very obviously freaking out, and this is literally his worst nightmare, cut off from JARVIS, and the rest and he’s seeing the alien army he’s been trying to get the Earth ready for and...welp. 

That he’s being dragged and ‘presented’ to Thanos, is only the goddamn cherry on top.

He doesn’t know what happened to Vision, but Ultron’s wearing his body and that’s not exactly helping either. The only silver lining to being around Ultron is his tendency to monologue, and that’s how Tony gets an idea of what’s going on. 

Thanos is looking at him like he’s an insect, and oh, that’s where Loki got some of his crazy from, makes sense. [He’s so, so screwed, isn't he?]

...oh, wait, they want to recruit Tony? And have him make them an army, because they’re curious as to what he’s capable of? This, he can work with.

...it’s been a few years since the debut of Iron Man, and Tony never really advertised what went down in Afghanistan. Plus, these aliens have different priorities, and really it’s not their fault they’re making the same mistake the Ten Rings did. 

Except for the way it really, really is. 

Add in Tony’s resistance to the Mind Stone [Loki tried it on him in the Avengers and failed, remember? Plus with humanity’s surprise tolerance for items of infinite cosmic power that I mentioned in another post] and you get Tony with highly advanced alien tech, being forced to supply an army for the enemy. 

Because that’s ended so well for his captors before, right?

Meanwhile, back on Earth...

...hmm. I can’t decide. Because the Avengers are reeling, are going ‘oh shit’ and ‘looks like Tony wasn’t as crazy as we thought, oops’, while JARVIS...

Umm. Well, obviously he’s not going to take it well. 

And I can’t honestly say how that’ll go down. Because JARVIS, at this point, is traumatized and has been hyperfixating on Tony’s safety to cope. His morality’s never been much to write home about and Tony was what was keeping him reigned in. He has a robot army at hand, doesn’t believe in overkill, and his morality chain’s gone, there’s no way this can go wrong, right?

He was already borderline Skynet in some ways, but seeing Tony get kidnapped [and hearing him, and feeling the connection become static]...well. I’ll leave that up to your imagination.

It depends, really.

If he goes the subtle route:

 JARVIS would regroup the Iron Legion, collect Vision and any alien artifacts, and book it home. He wouldn’t care about what happens to the Avengers, except to run a subroutine to monitor them [because he’d deemed them a potential threat before but now Tony got captured on their watch—] and mobilizing as many researchers to get on the case as he possibly can. Dr. Foster’s data gets copied to his private servers, SWORD and R&D are on it, and it still doesn’t feel like it’s enough.

Vision gives him the data, and got moved to an Iron Man suit [because the body he’s in was mostly running on willpower], while they’re working on making him a newer and better body. [And if the Iron Legion’s also growing exponentially...well, that’s no one’s business, now, is it?]

Rhodey immediately gets brought in, and is kept in the loop the entire time. 

This isn’t his normal field of study, and the only words he recognizes are the ones that also pertained to aviation engineering, but he does his best to not get lost.

He’s seething, and only part of it’s guilt [he’d been less than 500 meters away, again, just like last time—], and JARVIS clued him in as to how the team had treated Tony [he’d punched Thor while still in the suit, when they’d first met. Thor had let him, and didn’t lift a hand to fight back]. 

But things are going slower now, because Resident Genius 1′s the guy who got kidnapped, while Genius 2′s MIA [...or not? Maybe he sticks around? Hmm...] and Dr. Foster and Selvig’re doing quite a bit of heavy lifting. Not to say SWORD and SI aren’t, but their specialties are in ways to make things explode better other fields, so progress isn’t what it used to be.

The Avengers, meanwhile...well, they get shafted, simply put. Tony was the one doing all the work, and now that he’s gone and SI’s devoted its spare resources to finding him, they’re facing the scrutiny of the world and don't have any good answers to their tough questions.

 Turns out losing billionaire philanthropists was a bigger deal than they’d thought, and now that Tony’s gone it’s Steve that’s getting called by the World Security Council, except this time it’s about reconstruction efforts in Johannesburg and questioning his recruitment choices and what was being done to secure the planet and he doesn’t know what to say. 

...that might’ve been a bit harsh, actually.

 I’d like to think that Tony’s loss would’ve been the wake-up call the Avengers never had, the likes of Phil Coulson’s death in the first Avengers movie, because I’m a sucker for good team dynamics and even if it won't go this way in TWiFFON, if I can fix it even a little, I will. 

Just...umm. 

Please ignore Wanda’s absence, or pretend that the Chitauri took out both twins instead of just Pietro in this one, because of reasons.

Thor’s taking it the hardest, and Vision’s mention of Thanos [one of the things he’d managed to get from Ultron’s mind during the fight] makes his blood run cold as he remember’s Loki’s Scepter [and the gleam of madness in his eyes], the similarities between him and Tony, and goes back to Asgard as soon as possible because—no, please no. Hopefully Heimdall had something, please, don’t let this happen again—

Steve’s the team leader, and he’s taking it pretty damn hard, too. He’s looking back, and remembering what happened last time, and wants to punch himself in the face. How had he not seen this? Why hadn’t he— just— how could he have been so stupid? [And what could they do now?] 

His nightmares had featured Bucky falling for years now. Seeing Tony getting swept up and up and up is not much better. 

Natasha’s calling in as many favors as she can, and between her and Maria Hill, a good chunk of SHIELD’s scientists are also working on it. Relations between SWORD and SHIELD improve, because they’re collaborating more, and working towards the same goal. 

Clint’s retirement either gets moved up from ‘after this mission’ to ‘right fucking now, go to ground and lay low stat’, or he stays with team, since half the roster’s MIA and the other half isn’t doing so hot. He’s also calling in every favor he’s got, and the scientists who were working on the Tesseract and weren’t in Natasha’s debt tended to owe him one. [Or two.] 

Bruce’s situation I already covered. Either MIA or hard at work.

They’re doing what they can with what they have, and maybe it’s not enough right now, but they’ll get there. 

[Aka the cast of TWiFFON assembles to rescue Tony.]

Of course, that’s assuming JARVIS has a modicum of self-restraint and subtlety, when Tony’s been kidnapped on his watch. [He doesn't believe in overkill, after all.]

If JARVIS had decided to go forego subtlety, though...

He can make Skynet look like a toddler, his morals are now officially compromised, and Tony did his level best to keep him safe.

You do the math.

He may or may not have kidnapped every scientist who hadn’t replied favorably to his request within 72 hours, is what I’m saying. 

He may or may not have stolen all data from multiple nations without making any bones about it, and scared the crap out of the planet while at it. 

Ditto as to what the Iron Legion’s up to. Or Stark Industries. 

Tony would gladly raise hell for those he cares about, and some things run in the family. 

Either way, at some point another wormhole’s made, or opens up.

Everyone’s gearing for battle and panicking and the Iron Legion’s assembled, when a single figure in slim black-and-gold armor slowly exits and the portal starts to close behind him.

“This the right place? Terra—Earth, I mean, Earth! Damn I’ve really spent too much time abroad. Hey, JARVIS, miss me—oooh boy. You’ve been busy, haven't you?”