#it was very far back in my queue but i wanted to publish it so had

[nerdyprudesmuststim]

hannah & tim stimboard :D

⛧ with nature & gardening stims !

☾ rq'd by @raspberrysmoon !

x | x | x

! | x | !

x | x | x

[aziraphales-library]

The requests for Christmas fics have started to come in... far, far too late. Remember folks, it takes us months to answer asks and then they're in the queue for a while before publishing.

Luckily this blog is a resource, not simply an ask blog. We already have a #christmas tag you can check for fics we've recommended before!

As a little bonus, here are a few new fics from this year...

City Of Blinding Lights by ShadesOfDeviant (G)

“Well, I sometimes—that is to say—I often considered an early evening walk round the area to see the lights quite the romantic endeavour. Arm in arm under the glow of the fairy lights, I even have a route planned out for should I ever get the chance to go.” “Should you ever get the chance?” Crowley snorts in a way that would be unattractive to almost anyone other than Aziraphale before he folds his newspaper in half and then half again, and casually tosses it onto the coffee table beside him. “You need to be a bit more subtle when you’re aiming for a temptation angel.” He adds with a quick wink before he rolls up onto his feet. AKA: Aziraphale has always wanted to go on a romantic evening walk round London to see all the Christmas lights. Now free of Heaven & Hell and able to openly express his feelings for Crowley, Aziraphale can't think of a better time to implement a plan nearly 40 years in the making.

A Dream Is A Soft Place To Land (may we all be so lucky) by randomramblingsofme (T)

Crowley feels as if the universe won't let him get his feet back under him. He has no plan, is juggling two jobs, coping with chronic pain from an old injury, expertly (so he thinks) hiding a raging crush on the bookseller across the street, and he is currently covered in tree sap. But things could be worse. For example, he could forget all about the Whickber Street Christmas party being hosted by said crush until five minutes beforehand. Oh shit. --- Modern AU, Barista Crowley/Bookseller Aziraphale

Eggnog and Effervescence by RepQueen15 (T)

Crowley turned so as to be able to watch the rest of the movie, and his ear pressed against Aziraphale’s thigh. He felt the angel tremble a little, as though this weren’t just some small service to him either, though that was nothing short of ridicule. Or perhaps…? No. This was just Aziraphale being his perfect, soft self. Though maybe, just maybe, Crowley wasn’t the only one who needed a little more physical contact in his life. *** Crowley and Aziraphale spend a quiet Christmas Eve putting up fairy lights, getting tipsy on eggnog, watching ridiculous Christmas movies and... cuddling.

Here’s a Hand (My Dearest Friend) by perilit (T)

Wherein Crowley allows himself to be comforted in the days leading up to the Christmas holiday, and repays with some comforting of his own.

I’m Dreaming of a Light (and Dark) Christmas by cheeseplants (T)

Aziraphale had begun plotting his revenge a few days after the encounter with the man he had begun to refer to as the demon in his head. Not that he was a vengeful person. He was a good and righteous person who believed it was important to bring light into people's lives. Lights, in fact. Several of them. _______ Two shopkeepers with very different ideas about Christmas battle it out on Whickber Street to create the most extravagant Christmas lights in London. But when the lights go out, they start to find they may have more in common than they first thought. An enemies to lovers human-AU Christmas decorations feud!

If the Fates Allow by catherineland (T)

Crowley makes a shocking discovery: Aziraphale claims to hate Christmas. Crowley’s new mission is to show his angel what he’s been missing.

- Mod D

[ecoamerica]

Watch the 2024 American Climate Leadership Awards for High School Students now: https://youtu.be/5C-bb9PoRLc

The recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by student climate leaders! Join Aishah-Nyeta Brown & Jerome Foster II and be inspired by student climate leaders as we recognize the High School Student finalists. Watch now to find out which student received the $25,000 grand prize and top recognition!

[falderaletcetera]

because I'm partway through a reread and queueing up a bunch of reblogs about it, and it seems only fair to recommend it first:

Jack Farris doesn’t want to save the world, just every person he knows, encounters, or hears of. It’s a bit of an issue. S. Grey doesn’t want to save anyone but himself. He wants to know everything and majoring in sagework at the Academy is the best way to do that. Laney Jones left her home to avoid the constraints there, only to find different barriers holding her back at the Academy. Eager to learn, to excel, to escape, she has far from given up. Rupert Willington Jons Hammerfeld the Seventh would just like everything to be orderly, thank you very much, but it seems the only way to make monsters and myths (and malicious but mundane men) stop rampaging through his world is to go out and do some hero-ing himself. They are put together as an unwilling study group, but they become something more.

this is Beanstalk. It's first in a trilogy, all self-published, all free on the author's website, and the series is one of my favourites. It has:

– found family, with platonic relationships front and centre

– an adventurer's academy with a complicated legacy, where "hero" means a coloured armband and a diploma

– worldbuilding (appreciative), featuring an interesting magic system and monsters of all kinds, many of them people

– a red-headed boy named Jack, seventh son of a seventh son, who left the forest and grew like a beanstalk. You may recognise parts of his story. You may recognise others down the line.

– there's a whole cast I don't want to spoil except to say I'm currently rereading the first book and really looking forward to reaching the rest.

– there's definitely casual queer rep though. what do you take me for.

– honestly the writer (hi @ink-splotch!) writes all these characters with a complexity and love that I really admire. Some of the chapters that affected me most aren't even about the main cast.

— you may know the writer from her fics, the interactive games Stay? and More a Haunting than a History, or the podcast Second Star to the Left which she co-created with Aysha Farah. I can highly recommend most of the above and will get around to MaHtaH eventually.

If anyone's interested, I'd advise you don't go looking for spoilers. There most definitely is angst, but less so in the first book - hit me up if you want content warnings!

[hlficlibrary]

Hello! First of all, thank you for all the work you do! As someone who's been in and out of the 1D fandom for more than a decade but still cannot escape the clutches of this goddamn ship, it's really nice to have a resource for discovering new (and old) fic now that all my fandom friends have slowly trickled over into new fandoms and I no longer have anyone to rec me new things (my most trusted fic friend has now completely converted to F1 fandom...the betrayal...)

Anyway! I saw that you got a request for any new famous/non-famous a little while back and thought I'd shoot you an ask. I still occasionally write and I published a new famous/non-famous a couple of months ago that I would love to share. I put you in the tags but it's probably gotten lost in the shuffle (also I probably did something wrong, I am getting fandom Old after all). I would really appreciate if you wanted to share it to the library as I'm quite fond of it and would love more people to read it :) I'll put a link to the fic post below. Hope you have a lovely day! xx

joekavaliers.tumblr.com/ post/731459442464440320/new-fic

Hello! You're so incredibly welcome! I definitely know the feeling of fandom friends finding new fandoms...argh the betrayal! lol! I'm publishing this publicly, which I hope is okay to do. I did just reblog your fic post today after getting your ask, but I wanted to answer this ask because I don't know whether it just didn't show up in the tags or I somehow missed it. But I'm so so glad you sent me an ask to let me know that it hadn't ever gotten reblogged! I really want to encourage any writers out there if you notice that your fic hasn't been reblogged in a week or two which is about how far out the queue goes in general (Sometimes more, sometimes less just depending on how many people have tagged posts!) please just send me an ask letting me know! I really do just want to support all the new fics that come out! (Okay, but I looked at your ao3 and this doesn't belong on this blog but you wrote a Tomlinshaw fic that I LOVED! Professional competitive asshole Louis lmao so good) And of course, here is your new fic!

Allegiance to your burning heart by driveinbingo

“Have you written any more new songs?”

“I have, yeah. Lately they’re just…coming out of me.”

“Are there any more about me?”

He places a hand on the back of Louis’s neck, carding his fingers through the hair there. It’s getting long again, almost the length it was when Harry left. “They’re all about you.”

*

In the ten years since he last saw his ex-boyfriend, Harry has become very rich and very famous and everything's just great, thank you very much. He definitely doesn't even think about Louis anymore. And he's certainly not going to let a ghost from his past haunt him as he embarks on the biggest tour of his career.

Except Louis always did find a way to crawl underneath his skin, didn't he?

[jcbmcdrmtt]

Get to know me game: tag someone you want to get to know better!

Tagged by the lovely @thedaughterofkings ! Thanks for the tag :)

Three ships: Sterek, Wangxian, and Andreil/Pynch tie… ranking interchangeable based on mood.

First ship: Oh gosh… probably Sterek? The first fic in my AO3 history is Sterek back in 2014, but I was reading without an account for a while before that, so I can’t say it with 100% certainty. Sterek was the first ship to leave a lasting impression, anyway.

Last song: Odo, by Ado (I was listening to my “Pump Up” playlist 😁)

Last movie: Marry My Dead Body (Taiwanese movie (US NF); casually homophobic cop has to marry a dead man’s ghost for Plot Reasons, and then a mystery unfolds. Not a BL, but watching them go from enemies to friends and watching the cop learn to not be a dick was fun and kinda heartwarming (cw for two brief but very demeaning portrayals of fat people though). Next in the queue is Our 30-Minute Sessions… primarily because it has Mackenyu from the One Piece live action in it 🙈 (in a Japanese-speaking role too!), but it also just looks cute

Currently reading: (all the fic) I just finished the Tinkered Starsong trilogy by Gail Carriger (gays and kpop in space with aliens! very fun and all fairly quick reads). I just started I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression for my own personal benefit, and then I think the next FUN book on my list is going to be Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yaros. All I know is it’s YA with dragon riding, so like. I’m already sold lol.

Currently watching: Gaya sa Pelikula (Like in the Movies, free on YT). Gay Filipino series; I’m only on episode 3 but so far I am enjoying it. Also watching Strange Planet, Ahsoka, and Star Trek: Lower Decks as they air, and Bob’s Burgers season 14 premiers tomorrow night so I am excited for that (that’s my comfort show haha). Next up is Pending Train.

Last thing I wrote: Uhhhh I’m not an author and I’ve never published anything, but in 2019 I was bodily possessed by a plot bunny and did write a VERY angsty 2.5k Sterek fic fragment involving Derek going to a supernatural BDSM brothel and meeting Stiles and realizing Kate had fucked him up way too much for this and that he was more lonely than horny *cue breakdown and a caring Stiles*… to this day the only fan thing I’ve ever written lol

Currently writing: Nothing! But my brother in law just finished writing his first actual book so I recently helped my sister bind it for him as a surprise! It was both our first times binding, but I was able to help out because I have experience typesetting and had bought binding supplies for my own use before (I still intend to bind The One-Body Problem by metisket eventually because I cannot put into words how much I love that fic)

Tagging: @mobeu , @moondal514 , @aredblush , (if y’all feel like it!) and anyone else who wants to do it :)

[memento-morri-writes]

Happy STS!

Talk to me about your writing journey. What got you into writing, what was the first story you wrote (fanfiction and stories you wrote for school absolutely count), what are your long term writing goals, etc etc. *Only if you feel comfortable sharing of course <3**

Have a good week <333

Happy STS, Anna!!

I'm a chronic rambler and sometimes over-sharer, so this is a perfect question, ajdkajsd. I love telling stories, even about myself, so... yeah.

this wound up being SUPER long, so under the cut!!

So, the first thing I really remember writing was a 40-50 page handwritten nonfiction thing about the Titanic. I was in 3rd grade, so either 9 or 10, thereabouts. Also, I wrote it all from memory. That was my first real hyperfixation, too, at least that I can remember well.

After that, I know I did some writing on the family computer, but I have no idea what it was. I just remember typing away on there. Also, at some point I did some really stupid little writings on the forums for some online kids game, but again, don't really remember anything about them.

After that, I really started to get semi-serious about it in middle school. I did a weird things where from 7th-9th grade, I did a special program at the end of which I took both the AP Lit and Lang tests. (Usually people take one of them in 11th grade, and one in 12th, or just one of the two.) Because of that class, I had a lot of writing assignments, both creative and essay-based.

Some of the more memorable ones include a short story about a human being experimented on by aliens in 7th grade, a collaborative story with about 7 authors (most of the class from that program) about a mystery, another short story about aliens in 8th grade (this one in Spanish), a short story about King Arthur and his round table winding up in modern day NYC, and a third short story about aliens in 9th grade. (That one was by far the best, and I want to revamp it now! It's called "We Only Know Their Name For Certain", and I think I posted a little about it on here somewhere.)

Outside of class, I started several stories but never finished them. I know I started one very stereo typical ones about "teenager in a futuristic dystopia takes a test that determines her future", but I don't think I got past one page. I also started one about an immortal who accidentally causes the Black Plague.

I also had (and still have access to) a very, very long document titled "Fragments" where I kept all the little bits and pieces of things that I didn't know what to do with. One-off lines, or single paragraphs based off of writing prompts, etc. Also some very vague concepts, including "A short story told through messages on an answering machine". In there is the original draft of WOKTNFC, which I wrote in one sitting, as well as a whole bunch of nonsense.

In 9th grade, I took a play-writing class, and wrote the funniest piece of nonsensical shit I have ever written. It was a collaborative script between 4 or 5 of us, and we wound up with sentient cheese people, an alien named Schnebly, and a lot of relationship drama. On more than one occasion, we laughed so hard we got told to leave the room.

My ADHD and other things started kicking my ass after 9th grade, (gifted kid burnout, lmao), and I stopped writing for a while. I didn't really do any writing after that, at least not until the end of 11th grade.

Then, I took a creative writing class. We had to write a bunch of random stuff, including some poetry. My "what am I?" poem that you can find on my blog was originally from that class, and I went back to a few concepts from my Fragments document. It was after that that I remembered how much I liked writing.

Queue less than a year later, I get the idea for Fallon. I decide to make a writeblr. Here I am, ajkdjasd.

As for future aspirations, I really don't know. It would be nice to publish a book some day, but I also am well aware of how difficult that is. Also, I know that none of my current ideas (or at least definitely not ATQH) are good enough to merit publishing. So, it will be a very long time before that thought ever crosses my mind even semi-seriously. I also can't write on deadlines to save my life, so that would be a problem.

Wow, sorry, that got really long! There's everything you've ever wanted to know (or didn't) about Morri's writing career, ajdksajd.

[ecoamerica]

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

[sailor-spaghetti]

I should make one of these probably. This is NOT a DNI - anyone can follow, but this is a summary for you to decide for yourself if you'd like it here.

Hi, my name is Sailor, I'm 25, and I'm an undergrad student who is double majoring in Social Thought and Political Economy (STPEC) and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) with a minor in African-American Studies and a certificate in Civic Engagement and Public Service. I am a radical leftist and a Marxist who has recently been flirting with anarchocommunism. I hope to go to grad school one day to continue studying and learning, because I want to be a teacher someday (and I really want to help bring the pop university to the US).

I am transmasculine and use they/them pronouns primarily, but will also accept he/him if you're struggling with they/them for any reason. I gay and autistic, but I am also white and do carry that privilege. With this in mind, please ask before tagging me to contribute to a conversation. Not every political discussion is within my wheelhouse, and while leftist and liberatory politics fall firmly into special interest territory for me, I have no desire to speak above people who have more stakes in an issue than I do.

I am a crochet/fiber artist and I'm definitely going to be putting some of my art here. I also intend to open a BigCartel shop (fuck Etsy) for small items I've crocheted, but it's not live yet. I will update this post when it is.

This blog is kind of a mixture of everything. My art, politics, a place where I'll be putting some recommended reading/viewing/book/media reviews (at the time of writing this, I am currently reading Warped: Gay Normativity and Queer Anticapitalism by Peter Drucker and so far I highly recommend it), some miscellaneous fandom stuff, a lot of shitposting, just things I think are pretty or fun (there will be a lot of faerycore and liminalcore here), etc. I don't plan on reblogging porn or anything, but there's definitely some 18+ and 21+ humor here, so if you're a minor it might be best if you just look through my art tag instead of following me. I'm tagging all of my fiber art with #spaghettistitchery, so there's even a convenient tag to work with.

I will gladly engage in good-faith conversations about politics, history, etc., but the key word there is "good-faith". Things I do not consider to be good faith include:

Bootlicking

Playing devil's advocate

Hypotheticals

Tone policing

Peace policing

Liberal and neoliberal ideology in general

Moving the goalposts

Slice-of-the-pie discourse

Anything that discourages solidarity with people who are more oppressed or people living under different conditions from my/your own. Solidarity is a necessary tool of resistance.

Respectability politics

Purity politics - being a comrade does not require knowing exactly the right thing to say, it requires class consciousness and a willingness to learn from those whose experiences you do not share

Etc. This list may be expanded as time goes on.

Unless a post is immediately relevant (current news, mutual aid request, active/ongoing conversation, etc.), I only reblog to the queue so that hopefully this place can be active even if I'm too busy to post. I am a very busy person between school and real-life activism/organizing, and so I might not always get back to you right away if you message or tag me.

If any of my academic writing ever gets published, you also have my permission to DM me to ask for a free copy. If you need help accessing a book or a paper, feel free to DM me and I will use my student privileges to see if I can access a PDF to send you. I hate the inaccessibility of knowledge under capitalism and want to do everything in my power to combat it, and I encourage any other students or teachers on this site to do the same.

Some free resources that are available:

The Marxist Internet Archive - you can access a lot of Marxist texts here, for free, in multiple language.

Libcom.org - Another site where you can access leftist writings, this one focusing more specifically on anarchocommunist texts.

Kanopy - You can watch documentaries for free here with your library card. I definitely recommend using this site and I especially recommend watching Concerning Violence: Nine Scenes from the Anti-Imperialist Self-Defense.

Open Library - If you can't access an in-person library for whatever reason, you can also borrow PDFs for free from here.

Anarcho-Communist Playlist - I didn't make this but I shit you not there's so much here that every time I put it on shuffle I feel like I'm learning a history lesson.

[acanvasofabillionsuns]

navigation

the self explanatory

art - all the art i reblog comic - similarly, all the art i reblog that is a comic animatic - any animation video - videos music - songs creation - videos of people creating things, be it art, sculpture, chocolate guy, etc. poetry - poetry, using a loose definition of the term abcdefghijklmnop queue - my queue tag long post - posts that are long puns - puns :D cheesy jokes - cheesy jokes <3 polls - tumblr polls tumblr rp - when people on tumblr roleplay dancing - videos of people dancing!! fairytale rewrites - different takes on fairytales cats - cats current events - things that are happening in the world

the less self explanatory

fic recs - all the stories i reblog fic snippets - encompasses bullet point stories, story ideas, and bits of writing that aren't really a full story original story - the stories that aren't fanfics, whether that be original fiction or personal stories original work - the art that (at least as far as i can tell) isn't fanart tumblr famous - ranges from posts that i've seen at least twice to the truly iconic (for some reason on my blog this tag has a column running through the posts. not sure how to fix it) once a week once a month once a year - all the time-based posts, like thursday the 20th, saturday shorts, the Mar 10 Mario billboard, etc. humanity - people being lovely and good, actually <3 :^) - my smile tag! silly and delightful stuff here signal boost - kind of goes hand in hand with current events; less news and more just info i want to/i think should be share(d)? like, interest checks for fan stuff and commissions posts and petitions and so on liveblogging - this would be in the self explanatory bc it's exactly what it sounds like, but so far i've only liveblogged the enola holmes movie and salted about it being different from the books laksdjf;alj wizardry - wizard posting a good reminder - positivity/self care/genuine reminders à la 'turn over your laundry' 'it's okay to be sad sometimes' etc.

the personal

my fics - all my published stories my writing - includes my fics and various bits of writing (and, if you scroll back to late 2020, a choose your own adventure thing i did) meri monologues - my talk posts m mumbles - when i do a little storying in the tags of a post tk got tagged - tag games! this is a relic from when i went by tk for the first few months of having this blog, but i haven't switched it over bc alliteration it's a good good good good good good morning - sometimes i write about the good things in my day and then schedule it to post the following morning :] an ask & an-on ask - my ask answering tags! an ask is on all of them but an-on ask is for. anon asks kind words - a collection of nice things people have said about me/my writing (mostly on this list so i remember it exists)

all my friends are tagged with (one of) their names and that's it

the warnings*

reblog bait - those "reblog if/reblog for" posts. i usually don't reblog the "reblog within ten seconds for good luck" type posts, but it's there to block if you don't want to see those cursing - if there is profanity in a post it will almost certainly have this tag suggestive - the more nsfw posts i reblog. it's not very often, and it'll almost never be explicit, but this is my tag for that flashing cw & eye strain - the more eye hurty posts

*there's not really anything else that i reblog and warn for with any regularity, but i'm willing to go back and tag posts if you send me an ask requesting it! additionally, my warning tagging convention is [thing cw] or just [thing mention] if it's not depicted. so for example if there was an art post showing blood i'd tag it "blood cw", but a story that briefly discussed someone dying would have "death mention."

the references

reference - just general stuff i want to hold on to for reference baking reference - baking but also recipes in general art reference writing reference job reference ^ all fairly self explanatory

the religious

greek mythology - all the greek mythology related posts i reblog christianity - mostly memey christian stuff tbh judaism - happy holidays reblogs + info about it

the fandoms

my general tagging convention for fandoms is [media name] for any posts featuring it, [abbreviated media name + character name] or [character's full name] for any characters in the post, and [ship name] for any featured ships. so a prinxiety post would be tagged with "sanders sides," "ts virgil," "ts roman," and "prinxiety," along with any other relevant tags. or a post featuring phineas and perry would be tagged with "phineas and ferb," "phineas flynn," and "perry the platypus," because for the p&f fandom i tag characters' full names. exceptions include rottmnt, because i didn't want to type out the full show name, but the characters are all tagged [rise character name] & the mxtx fandoms like the untamed and svsss, they're all under "mxtx" bc i haven't actually consumed any of the stories

i have a lot of fandoms i reblog stuff for but the main ones are sanders sides, miraculous ladybug, mcyt*, dnd podcasts (the adventure zone**, legendlark, and spell check mostly) A:TLA, and dp x dc (danny phantom/dcu crossovers - those posts get tagged "dp x dc," "danny phantom," AND "dcu" (i might omit one fandom or the other if the post is, say, a fic that mostly only talks about one fandom, but it'll have the "dp x dc" tag still))

*similar to dp x dc, mcyt posts will always have the "mcyt" tag, and if there's an associated smp with it, i'll tag that as well. i think the only smps i've tagged are dsmp, qsmp, hermitcraft, and life smps. ngl, my character tags for mcyt stuff is a mess and i don't feel like fixing it legendlark is also similar - each post has the 'legendlark' tag and then the og campaign is tagged 'dames and dragons' and any hrose camp posts are tagged as such

**i don't have one unifying tag for all adventure zone content. each campaign has its own tag - so like "taz balance" is the main taz tag you'll see on my blog - and then the characters are all just [taz character name] (e.g. "taz taako")

[epsilonbis]

So, how do you sum up this year? (On a personal level, of course.)

Honestly, I think it's been the most productive year for me in terms of artistic creation. Compared to other years when I've had long periods of inactivity due to health, morale or personal circumstances, this is by far the period when I'm most proud of what I've created. After all, this is the year I started the Companion Size comics series, which is starting to attract a lot of interest and which I haven't let go of along the way (I must say, it's easier with short, one-page stories with no real narrative thread). I've also published quite a few drawings this year around Intraspatial, another series I'm very fond of; to tell you the truth, I'm even polishing up a rather massive draft for a first chapter! And I've got lots more projects to share with you in the future.

But on a practical level too, I feel I'm drawing faster and more efficiently than before, with the help of a lot of tools and tutorials on the web. As an artist, it's always hard to look back at past work and not wince and think that you could have done better. But the further along I get, the more positive my vision of my creations becomes, and that makes me more determined to want to improve.

This year, I also started to expand my presence on other social networks, including Tumblr and Reddit. It's been a big change, and a nice surprise to see some of my work doing better on one platform than others. I'm still not comfortable expressing myself about my tastes, commenting on other people's content or sharing it, but I'm trying to improve that and get out of my bubble a little more often.

In fact, since I started publishing my drawings on the Internet (soon 10 years!), I finally feel that this childhood passion is becoming something more precious and vital to me. Maybe in the near future, I'll be able to make a living out of it, who knows?

For the time being, I'm content to take as much pleasure as I can from this passion and to progress with my projects as and when I'm able to create them.

Finally, I'd like to thank all those who have been following my progress since the beginning, those who have just joined the queue, and those close to me who have always supported me.

Thank you all and happy holidays!

[sesshy380]

No wordcount today. No brain energy after doing truck at work.

I don't usually do truck at work, but sometimes you gotta take hours when they become available. Gotta make that money somehow. I'm just super tired because of it.

Very tempted to post this Gemship fic without beta edits. I've gone over it a few dozen times at this point, tweaking here and there. That'll be one less project for the sister to have in the edits queue.

I think my Malik backstory has been self-tweaked enough by now that it too can probably be released into the wilds.

Sister has too many things going on aside from playing editor, and I want to help by removing anything that isn't longfic related, so that she only has the one to focus on. Just very nervous publishing without having the green light. I lack a lot of self-confidence in myself (for far too many reasons), and I fear I may have leaned a bit too much on her for support as a beta editor. Afterall, I did post that Puppy/Violetshipping fic without her looking over it...and it's been a huge success. Maybe I just need to stop relying so much on the little pat-on-the-back of 'Okay, Sister looked at this...and if the Honors Student says it looks good, then it's safe to post'.

[ditttiii]

Oh my God! Hi

I just read as it was and I'm speechless. It's beautiful. I just don't know what to say cause I'm overwhelmed with softness. It's illegal to write this beautifully. How you captured everything... MY GOODNESSSS!!

I love you please marry me!!

(Just kidding. Wattpad scenarios don't work in real life. Maybe they do but hardly.)

You just gained a new follower. I don't read smuts and I'm happy that i found you aslo write fics without it. I wanna say again you captured my heart. How beautifully you wrote it. I just wanna keep reading it forever and ever. But on the real side, reading the same made me realise how much hard it is to be a kpop idol. They always have to stive hard towards fulfilling others' expectations that in the midst of it, they lose themselves. I just hope that all the idols can feel loved and cared by someone who actually deserve. We fans do have our toxic tendencies and yup we imagine them just how we want them to be. I really wish they meet someone who can provide them a cosy bubble. A safe place where they can hide from all the craziness of the world. A heart which nurtures them and makes them feel what they deserve to feel. Loved. They maybe are loved by million. But loved for who they are. Where they don't feel judged or misheard. But valued and understood.

Well thanks for reading my rant. I just couldn't stop myself for expressing my thoughts while i read as it was. You're one of my favourite authors now. If you decide to publish a book one day, i would stand in queue for days to be the first one to purchase it.

Also, it you don't have a bear anon, can I be 🐻.

~🐻

lakslaksls i had written a whole ass rant back in reply but dumblr as always crashed on me and i lost it all :') this garbage fire of an app i swear sometimes just !! tests !! me

anywhooo

loveeeee 😭😭😭. hiiiiiii 💗

since you cant see me heres the 'as i read your ask' visual. loads of awws every 2 seconds, me smushing my phone to my chest a lot, cooing, rolling around on the bed and almost falling off.

also DUH ofc lets marry i ll make us flower rings i m ze skilled at em ✨ 💍 🌸

also awww okay before anything else. thankyou so much for following me but even more so sending one of the sweetest feedbacks i have ever gotten. especially for as it was which like you said is an sfw work and not very long too so i didnt really expect anyone to love it as much as i do but you just 😭😭😭 you own that story now. its yours. i give it to you.

as for the swf bit. i completey feel that. for, i think, years i strayed away from smut (back when i started reading fics the ratings were like lime and lemon on ffn.net and that was a whole another crazy ballgame lol) but yeah i still dont read just pwp or smut centric fics much because i am more of a fluff/angst/slice of life hoe so it was imp for me to keep my masterlist balanced for all audiences. i have a pwp or two as oneshots but even all my multi-chaptered fics are so far sfw. they ll have smut scenes in the future but as an aid to the storyline and i ll put in warnings in those chapters. so just a heads up if you would like to read those as well 😊 but yeah i have plenty other sfw stories and i ll always write them coz they just make me happy and give a lot of room for characterisation play which is ofc my absolute favourite thing to do heueheu.

also the way you put it! preciselyyyyy. being an idol comes with its own can of worms and ik idek the half of it as a fan so any idol au i write is written with a lot of thought on how they actually would feel about these things irl. i m not saying my view is accurate but its also my way of respecting these artists and just a self realisation of how much shit they put up with to give us the content and music that they do ♥ always something i ll be grateful for.

and aaahh please your rant i loved it sm it truly brought me so so much joy to read what 'as it was' did for you. as an author a review like this just keeps you going and energieses you to write more 🥰 and my adorable as heck bear noonie, ofc u can be the bear anon. its yours. u r one of my fav noonies *boop* and i look forward to hearing from you more 🥰

[skellebonez]

Tumblr Messed Up Fill #1

So Tumblr did a BIG OLD OOPS and published a bunch of my unfinished drafts that I left in my queue at 1 PM... when I set it to 1 AM and intended to finish a couple and then change the time again.

LUCKILY I DIDN’T HAVE THE ENTIRE FILLS IN THE QUEUE AND JUST BITS I ADDED IN TO HOLD SPACE. So... I guess this is how we’re doing this! @winterpower98​ here’s some Mentor Swap AU Shadowpeach!

How did you get that scar?/That is not a good hiding spot.

It had been scheduled far in advance and Wukong should have remembered that this was going to happen. The Weather Station needed to let it rain sometimes! It was good for the environment! Good for nature! But Wukong was Wukong and when he trained with Xiaotian for as long as he did he had a tendency to forget the unimportant things like “scheduled downpours” and “when training is actually supposed to end”.

So by the time he managed to crash land a foot away from Mei’s front door after pogo sticking his way off of Mount Huaguo he looked like he’d been dropped into the ocean.

“Cold-cold, cold and wet!” He yelped, shoving the staff back into his ear and trying to hold his jacket over his head as best he could, which did just as much good as it did during the ride. Which was “barely anything”. “Ah shit, it’s cold why can’t they make the rain not COLD!?”

He continued into the building, shuddering as he felt rain water seeping through every bit of fabric he wore, even his shoes the traitors. He immediately started ripping off his shirt, at the very least wanting to get some of the drenched clothing off him, and he froze when he heard a yelp from the other side of what should have been a very empty entry way given Mei was supposed to be out of the house.

A very familiar yelp.

“Why aren’t you are your own house!?” The voice yelled, and as Wukong pulled his shirt over his head he found the voice’s own staring at him with wide eyes alight with a mix of confusion and horror.

“UH, I think I should ask you that, Macaque!” He accused, turning sideways and walking backwards into the building with a raised eyebrow. “Why are you in Mei’s house? Are you hiding in Mei's house!? That is not a good hiding spot!"

“Wouldn’t you like to know, Monkey Boy?” Macaque said snarkily with a smirk.

“Monkie KID, and yeah, that’s why I asked,” Wukong snarked right back, holding his shirt and jacket out in front of him with a frown. “Also, you’re a monkey so...”

“Oh shut up.”

"And you look like you nearly drowned," Wukong chuckled, ringing his shirt out and pointedly not mentioning the blush he saw forming on the other's face. Yet. "It's raining cats and dogs and I’m pretty bad to, but you shouldn't be that bad."

"... don't laugh," Macaque grumbled, doing much the same to his scarf. "I was trying to get here when the rain was getting really bad and I... fell. Off the docks."

Wukong immediately burst into cackles.

“I told you not to laugh you asshole!” Macaque snapped, baring his teeth and trying to puff up his fur in annoyance but failing miserably with the sheer amount of water weighing him down. If anything it probably just made him look... adorably sad. Like a puppy. But a human sized monkey.

“I-I’m sorry!” Wukong held his sides, trying his very best to stop laughing. He also failed miserably, if not even more so than Macaque. “It’s just imagining you, YOU, falling off the docks? Just! You’re practically an acrobat! You’re usually way cooler than that!”

As Wukong continued to fail Macaque’s face softened as he stopped barring his teeth in warning and stared at the other young man.

“... you think I’m cool?” He asked softly, attempting to smooth down his fur and brush the water out of it.

“Kinda?” Wukong said with a half snicker, finally having himself under control. “Cool enough I guess.”

Macaque hummed, giving up on his attempts to dry off with a sigh. It was pointless to try to dry off with his fur like this, not without some kind of towel or brush. And he would be damned if he let Wukong let himself shake dry! That was not going to happen.

So instead he turned to the other, watching as he laid out his tip layers on his arm and turned around.

And something caught his eye.

Multiple somethings.

“How did you get that scar?”

Wukong tensed, not enough for him to stop moving but more than enough for Macaque to notice that he was walking away much slower than he needed to.

"Depends on which one you mean," he answered eventually. He reached up to pull on his hair, frowning as it dripped more water on him.  "Hold that thought until I come back."

And so he did. Macaque watched the other leave and stood in the open room, awkward and dripping sea and rain water all over Mei's floor.

He debated leaving. Just walking out the door and avoiding the awkward conversation that was sure to be leveled in his direction when the human returned, but before he could even make the decision to decide on an option something brought and green was lobbed at his head and wrapped around his face.

“WHAT IN THE-”

“Towel off before Mei gets angry we both tracked in water,” Wukong said, mischievous chuckle resounding through the air before Macaque managed to unwrap the towel from his face. “I’ve got something else that’ll help out after.”

Macaque was going to ask what that something was before the words died in his throat, the sight before him making him pause in confusion and barely held back amusement.

“You have Monkey King themed PJs?” He asked, toweling off his head first. “At Mei’s?”

“Sometimes I stay over.” Was all Wukong said, shrugging as if it was nothing. “Considering you’re here and I don’t see signs of a break in I assume those plum PJs in the same closet are yours.”

“I DON’T HAVE PAJAMAS HERE I DON’T STAY THAT OFTEN!” Macaque snapped, and his face flushed a deep red in embarrassment before he saw Wukong’s victory smirk. “... you made that up to make me slip that I’ve been here before.”

“And you took it hook, line, and sinker,” Wukong said playfully, grabbing the monkey demon’s arm and using a second towel he had to dry it off. “I wasn’t kidding about the PJs though.”

“O-oh...” was all Macaque could reply with as the information slowly sunk in before he ripped his arm away. “I can do that myself!”

“Then do it and come inside!”

~

Macaque was... mostly dry after a couple minutes, enough for Wukong to drag him into the bathroom and instruct him to change and use the blow dryer he has shoved into his hands while he mopped the floor. And as much as Macaque disliked the noise... he couldn’t argue that the warm air of the device was a welcome change from the icy seawater against him.

He may have looked like an extra puffed up fur ball when he was done and refused to come out until he at least had the PJs (short sleeved and indeed covered in plums) on to hide the worst of it.

Didn’t stop Wukong from devolving into cackles at his expense once again.

“Hold on, let me do something,” Wukong offered, and guided him to sit down on the couch sideways, situating behind him with the other pulled against his chest and a comb in hand. “At least I can help with your hair... if it counts as hair.”

“... I don’t know if it does,” Macaque replied, finding himself at a loss for what to do and say in this situation.

They were enemies, right?

Shouldn’t Wukong... be chasing him out of the building?

Now sitting him down to- OH NO!

“ACTUALLY WA-”

Macaque froze as Wukong’s fingers brushed against his scalp and the teeth of the comb brushed through his hair, far more gentle than Macaque could remember anyone touching his hair before, and he went limp in Wukong’s arms like putty.

“Knew that’d get ya,” he felt Wukong say as much as he heard him say it, and the hands and comb continued through his hair and fur and he couldn’t even muster up any coherent words to snark back at him. Just a frustrated grumble. “Xiaotian does this to me a lot. And to his monkeys. So I figured this would be... ya know, nice for you.”

They stayed like that for a good while, Wukong brushing his fingers and the comb through puffed up fur and pulling out tangles Macaque didn’t even know he had on the back of his neck. It felt... strange. To trust someone that you spent so much of your time fighting against, flirting with awkwardly in the midst of battle, never thinking that the two of you would just sit and do anything calmly together.

But here they were. On Mei’s couch. Macaque feeling a purr rumble up in his chest as Wukong groomed through his hair and fur in a gesture he clearly admitted he knew the implications of.

“They’re from before,” Wukong said after a while, after he rested his head on Macaque’s shoulder and started working through the fur on his arms. “Before Red took me in... back before I had the staff to fight with.”

And as much as Macaque wanted to ask, and if he really tried he knew he probably could, he chose not to push it when he heard the way Wukong’s tone changed. Something equally nostalgic and melancholy.

“I think they make you look cool too,” was what he said instead.

“... We’re both pretty cool.”

[draculadailyreactions]

Dracula Daily Reactions: Is there a way I can help?

Because some people have been so incredibly kind as to ask!

(Previously: How are you going about this?)

First, what is this?

To record this collective experience, I'm setting out to reblog and catalog (in order) every Dracula Daily-related post tagged either #dracula or #dracula daily, from April 27, 2022-ish to… I don't know, whenever this stops. The last email comes in November; I imagine I'll stop saving new posts published after the end of 2022 or something.

Dracula Daily may happen again next year, and I hope it does. The goal, however, is to capture this year's incredible, first-time-ever (as far as I know) wave of synchronously paced interest in a classic novel.

I hope the resulting archive can be a source of joy and interest for Dracula readers, tumblr users, scholars, and the many people who are all three. 🧛🏻‍♂️🦇🖤

Credit where it's due: I was inspired by this post by @lillysliterature!

Is there a way I can help?

Reader help

The way I'm doing this is, I've paged wayyyy back in both the #dracula and #dracula daily tags, and I'm queueing each post in order. So if an original post is tagged with either of those, I should catch it. (Details on my methods here.) The hitch is that this method only shows new, original posts with those tags. It doesn't show: a) reblogs that add especially interesting/funny things to the original posts, or b) posts from before May 2022 that have been revived as part of the Dracula Daily conversation. (Here is a great example, sent by a lovely Dracula Daily reader.) So if you have favorites of those, do send them over! 🥰

Encouraging messages are so welcome. This is a pretty ambitious undertaking, especially for one person (lol), so it's wonderful to hear that other people think it's worthwhile too! I'd love to know how it's proving interesting or useful to you.

Tech help

The most time- and labor-intensive aspects are:

manually queueing each post in order, and

paging all the way back to May 6 (or whichever day I'm up to) when I accidentally click away from the far-back page in each tag.

Tech questions

The biggest ask: I don't suppose there's any way to automatically queue each post in a given site-wide tag? Very understandably, tumblr might not allow that, even with Xkit-esque workarounds, because it could lend itself to spamming or abuse. That said, if you know a way to manage it, it would be a massive help for this project.

Do you know of (or want to devise) a way that I could jump to a specific day in a given site-wide tag? For example: I'd love to skip to the May 6 posts tagged #dracula instead of having to click allll the way back from May 21 (or whatever day it is when I accidentally close the tab/click away/have to restart my computer. PAIN).

Is there were a way to view both tags together in one page? For example, "Here are all the posts from May 6, in order, that are tagged either '#dracula' or '#dracula daily' or both." That would save me from having two windows open side-by-side and comparing timestamps.

Do you know of a way to publish more than 50 posts automatically from the queue every day? 150-200 would be great. There were more than 1000 relevant posts on May 5 alone! At a rate of 50 a day, posts from Dracula Daily 2022 will still be publishing from the queue well into 2023. 😅

Thank you for reading — I'd love to hear your thoughts. The askbox is open! 🧛🏻‍♂️🦇🖤

All images: ID in alt. First posted: May 21, 2022. Last updated: May 22, 2022.

[jeon-kookie-dough]

Caught in the Game - Chapter 01

After growing up in the midst of Toman and a rather wild time in college, you are now working for a popular fashion magazine. You were aware of your boss's gang past - Kokonoi Hajime's name having been well-known during your school time - but after you bumped into an old friend at work the other day, one coincidence follows the next and you find your past catching up to you...

pairings: Koko x reader, Chifuyu x reader genre: angst, gang!au rating: m for violence & slowburn smut word count: 2,536 next>

The subway was much stuffier than usual. Bodies pressed into each other at every curvature, the sweat mingling on the sticky handlebars. And it is only the morning, for fuck’s sake.

The way from my house, which is located kind of in the outskirts of Tokyo, to Chiyoda where my office was located, felt like a lifetime this hot morning. Between trying to avoid creeps in the subway and standing in the longest queue in front of my favorite coffee shop for what seemed like hours, I was trying to supersede immense tiredness.

As of November, of the year prior I was working for one of the bigger fashion magazines in the country and the deadline for my latest article was already scratching at the front door. More like clawing, actually.

Up until starting up this job, I was used to living a half-assed life. School came easy to me, despite having been caught up in some…situations. College was a blur of alcohol and parties and I just barely graduated. After college I held myself above water with various part-time jobs, having been kicked out from home at barely 18 and landed my current job by chance. This upcoming article was more than important to me, thus stressing myself, and crying my fucking eyes raw from frustration, since it was the first time having my work printed in an actual magazine instead of just publishing online.

The second I stepped foot into Marunouchi Park Building, I sighed of relief and thanked who ever invented ACs. I entered the elevator, pushed the button for the 23rd floor and leaned back against the cool metal wall of the cabin. Just as the doors were about to close, somebody sprinted into the otherwise empty cabin. The person was male and of average height, balancing a couple garment bags and shoe boxes in his arms. I wasn’t really surprised that he was going to exit on the same floor, as the other offices in this building were mostly financial firms.

Not minding the other person, I let him leave the elevator before me, clocked in and greeted my colleagues with a friendly nod. I took a while, but in the past eight months, people seemed to have accepted that I was far from a morning person, so they learned to appreciate my curt nods. Only because I bring coffee. At least that’s my hypothesis.

“Good morning, sunshine!”

My eyeballs immediately rolled to the back. Hearing my boss’ voice in the morning was like nails on a chalkboard. I rolled back with my chair, peaking around my cubical. The bright sunlight illuminated the office through the glass front, reflecting in the angled door to the chief editor’s single office. His figure leaned in the door, arms crossed and hand holding out expectantly.

“S’up, Koko?” I mumble. I knew exactly what he had his hand stuck out for, but I wouldn’t give him the gratification he wanted. That rich fuck, I thought. Bet he snorts his coke with 10k yen bills but can’t even get his own fucking coffee.

“Think my hand is missing an iced Americano this morning. Care to explain?” His slender frame circled around the cubicle wall, now towering above my sitting person. My office was usually occupied by five people in total. Inui always being late and the other three on vacation left me as the only victim. I rolled my eyes at him. “Dunno”, I retorted, opting for my most innocent look. “Think I might have dropped it. You can have a sip of my Cappuccino, but I’m afraid I spat in it.”

Kokonoi Hajime was a peculiar person. He stood at 5’9” and his black locks braided away from the left side of his face was his signature look. He cared a lot about his staff being dressed well, as he himself only own designer suits from Italy. Despite enjoying the power he had over his staff, he also was very liberal in the way we communicated with another at the office. I had never met him before taking the job, but I had certainly heard of Kokonoi way before.

Koko was only a year or two older than I was and back in middle and high school he had a reputation. He lived one school district away from me, but the stories about him were also told at my school. Stories of a financial prodigy that hid behind his wannabe gangster friends that, most of the time, resorted to violence.

“You have a foul mouth”, he snickered, grabbing my cup and taking a sip anyway. “Somebody ever told you that?” I hummed in response, counting my coffee lost, and turned on my laptop. “I have a meeting in five minutes, so please take my calls, will you? Inui is useless, as always.” I nod silently, still grieving the loss of my coffee. Koko’s gaze rested on Inui’s empty desk, then on me. “How’s that big article of yours coming along?”

I knew he meant no harm with that question, but my elevated stress levels along with the acid, that always seems to wing in his voice, made me snap. “Fuck off, alright? I’m working on it.”

The chief editor raised his hands in defense and backed away from my desk, a smile playing about his lips. “The meeting’s until noon. Tell Inui to take my phone when his drags his lazy ass here.”

Inui arrived at 10:30, offering a coffee and a doughnut as a peace offering. I told him to screw off and, finally, concentrated on my article. It was almost done, but I needed it to be perfect before handing it to Kokonoi for proof-reading. I couldn’t afford messing this up if I ever intended of becoming a regular in the print.

I was so emersed in my work that I never saw the visitor arrive or leave. At lunch, all that occupied my mind was my hunger. I didn’t really have a lot of money left, thanks to the fucking chief for having me dress in expensive clothes so he quote unquote didn’t have to claw his eyes out at the sight of me, so a snack from the vending machine it was.

With food just in sight, my feet may have become a little too eager and I stumbled a crashed face first into someone walking by, having them fall onto the marble floor with me. I cussed under my breath and tried to get onto my feet, when there was already a hand outstretched to help me.

“You okay?” I averted my eyes immediately, embarrassment written on my face. “Uh, yeah, I’m alright, I guess. Er, I think you dropped something.” I dove right back down, picking up the visitor laminate. It read ‘Visitor for KOKONOI Hajime. Name-‘

My gaze darted up immediately, meeting a pair of silver eyes staring right back at me. “Mitsuya fucking Takashi?” I whispered in sheer disbelief. My opposite grinned, squeezing his eyes shut doing so. “It’s been a long time, huh, (Y/N)?”

I found myself accompanying Mitsuya to a Korean restaurant down the street for lunch. His treat, he said. The sun was merciless, and he scolded me for not carrying an umbrella with me. “It’s bad for your skin, you know?” I grunted, looking up at him. “Like I care.”

My high school graduation ceremony had been the last time I had seen Mitsuya. Up until then, we had almost been inseparable, having lived in the same shitty apartment complex, visiting the same middle school and him only being one year older. Back then, a lot of things happened. We never really had a fall out, at one point things just changed.

At the restaurant, we slid into a booth and a young waitress came to our table to take our order. Her eyes revealed that she found my companion attractive, but as per usual, he was oblivious. A couple minutes passed, and we were handed our drinks.

“Alcohol at this hour?” His eyebrow shot up in worry, vanishing behind his silver hair. He changed it up a bit since then, leaving his shaved sides in his natural black hair color, his top hair raked with black strands in the otherwise light hair. “Thought you had given up on that.”

I stirred my vodka soda with the glass straw, the ice chinking against the glass. “Yeah, I had.”

Mitsuya didn’t dig any further and leaned back into the cushioned bench instead. “So, a fashion magazine, huh? I thought you always wanted to become a sugar baby, what happened?” At his question I emptied half my drink in one gulp, disregarding the straw completely. “Turns out I’m not really cut for sucking wrinkly dick.” To that, Mitsuya busted out laughing. “You achieved just what you always dreamed of. How does that feel?” I asked quietly.

He stayed silent for a while and I watched him gnawing at the inside of his cheek, clearly thinking about how to choose his next words. “A lot of time has passed, you know?” His voice was dull as he finally spoke. “And a lot happened in between. I guess it was either getting my life under control or…” His voice trailed off, but I knew exactly what he left hanging in the air. Prison. Or even worse, death. “For my sisters’ sake, I chose to get my life together.”

I nodded, fumbling with the glass straw, one burning question on the tip of my tongue. How are the others? Is everyone still alive? I was too afraid of the answer, so I pushed the thought way back.

“Tell me about you, though”, Mitsuya smiled and leaned forward, folding his hands and propping his chin on them. “Working for Koko now, huh? How’s that been?” I groaned quietly and let my head hang. “He’s a fucking pain in the ass. Making me buy all this expensive shit so I’ve got nothing left in the bank. If I knew beforehand who the chief editor was, I would have never taken that job.” Mitsuya chuckled and flicked my forehead. Just like he always used to.

“I know what you mean” he mused. “I never thought I’d see his face again after-“ My eyes shot up at the tone in his voice. I never knew they had met before. Back then, I would have feared for his life. Everyone was young and stupid back then; delinquents with nothing but fist fights on their minds. But the folks Koko had surrounded himself with were more on the actual criminal side.

“What? Mitsuya, you never told me!” Even I was surprised at the pure horror in my voice. “Why didn’t you say something?” Mitsuya shrugged. “Nothing bad ever happened. It was just a surprise to see him in a position like this, that’s all.”

After lunch, which was fucking delicious, dare I add, Mitsuya and I exchanged numbers before going our separate ways.

The rest of the day I couldn’t concentrate on anything anymore. Before I headed home, I met Kokonoi’s gaze through his glass door and it gave me the shivers. Like he was watching me. Like he knew something. Creep. This weird feeling followed me all the way home and I caught myself looking back at every turn, at every red light. For some reason the conversation I have had with my old friend had me nervous. Nervous for him, for me, for everyone. What if Koko’s the same old thug, but with a lot more money and influence?

At home I opened a bottle of white wine, dunked the cap in the bin and sat at my desk, ready to catch up on the time I wasted at the office being worried. With a little liquid confidence, of course. Cheers!

I had approximately gotten about three hours of sleep. My body felt like it had gotten run over by a truck, my brain felt like soup. The only silver lining was, that I had, hallelujah!, finished my article – and my favorite co-worker Natsuki returning from her vacation. She had been working at the magazine already when I had started and showed me around.

Only a few days after I had started working, Atsushi Sendo had been transferred from another internal office to ours. There had been a lot of rumors occurring around his transfer, sexual harassment among them, but in the end, he had only royally fucked up his latest pitch and, as a punishment, had been put under Koko’s supervision, since he’s known to be the meanest editor. He ended up liking to work with us so much that he just stayed. The three of us ended up becoming the bane of Koko’s existence.

I stepped one foot into the office, yawning and pulling an Inui, I can’t believe that I arrived even after him, before I heard Natsuki already picking a fight with the chief editor. I silently put her coffee next to her cup of tea, handed another one to Inui and sat down at my own desk.

“With all due respect, Kokonoi, but you can’t expect me to not freak out when I come back after three weeks and find myarticle published under your name!” I leaned back into my chair, eyes closed, and head thrown back, and listened to the bickering in the chief editor’s office. A few minutes later, Natsuki threw the door into the lock behind her, the heel of her shoes dangerously echoing in the otherwise silent room.

It only took a moment before my sleepy body jumped awake when it got hit by a paper ball. My eyes ripped open just to find her eyes lingering over the wall between our cubicles. “Thanks for the coffee”, she said, raising the cup in a silent toast. I did the same, somewhat straightening up my spine in the seat. “Glad you’re back”, I yawned. “Old scrooge was unbearable.”

“Was?”, Natsuki barked under her breath. “He’s the spawn of hell! Remind me to never take anything from him again. He’s the kind of person to always expect something in return and I don’t even want to think about what he would expect.” I grunted in my chair and sipped on my black coffee, leaving a red lip print on the paper.

“Money” Kokonoi, who unbeknownst to any of us had left his office, answered Natsuki whilst keeping his sly eyes on my. “I don’t take anything but cash. (Y/L/N), where’s your article. Deadline’s today.” Natsuki’s and my eyes met over the screen. Our boss rarely called us by our names, much less our family names - he prefers shit like darling or sweetheart. Why the fuck am I still working here?! – so we knew something was up. And maybe I have a hint.

“Check your mails. I submitted it at, like, 3.” “A.m.?” Natsuki mouthed in disbelief, but I kept my eyes fixed on Kokonoi. He beckoned me with a finger to follow me. “Come in my office for a minute, would you, sweetheart.” There he was again. The egotistical, chauvinistic asshole. The chair hit the screen behind me as I rolled back a little more forceful than intended, but I followed him, anyway.

[themollyjay]

On the Necessity of Making Our Own Myths

So, I’m writing this on what is technically the day after I finished Transistor.  That is, it’s after midnight, even if I haven’t gone to bed yet. The reason I mention that is because it won’t get posted for a couple of weeks since it’s going in the queue for the Monday blog posts, but the timing in relevant.  You see, the same day I finished Transistor, I saw a Tumblr post talking about Harry Potter and JK Rowling and in one of the responses to the original post, a trans person talked about how Rowling betrayed a whole swath of her fan base.

The comment stuck with me for a number of reasons.  First, because it really does feel that way.  My childhood wasn’t great.  In fact, it kind of fucking sucked in a lot of ways, and I missed out on a lot of the experiences other kids got to have.  When I discovered Harry Potter, I latched onto in a big way, because it filled a huge void I hadn’t even realized existed.  I loved those books so much, I can’t even put it into words.  When Order of the Phoenix came out, my girlfriend at the time and I ended up with four copies, because Amazon didn’t deliver the two copies we had on preorder on release day, so we went down to borders and bought two copies.  We went to the midnight release for Half-Blood Prince.  Harry Potter was a huge part of my life for years, and now I flinch every time someone makes a Harry Potter reference, or Rowling’s name comes up because it’s an instant reminder that someone who created something I loved deeply doesn’t believe I have the right to exist.

But I think the second reason it stuck with me is a lot more important.  It stuck with me because it made me realize that far to often, as queer people, and especially as trans people, we look to people outside our community to create our myths for us.  It’s not something that’s really our fault, because for a long time, we didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter.  For a long time, queer people, and especially trans people, were silenced by systematic censorship and oppression.  Queer narratives just weren’t allowed, or if they were allowed, they had to end in pain, misery and tragedy.  Those were the rules imposed by the gatekeepers.

Those rules have slowly but surely faded away.  First through queer people bypassing the system by setting up our own publishing houses, and making our own movies, but then, when the mainstream media realizes that queer people had money, they rushed in, trying to get those queer dollars. First my queerbaiting, then by safely neutered queers who never dated or had relationships, then with the gay secondary characters, and only very recently, with the very occasional, heavily sanitized queer lead.

But the problem is, we as a queer community, and more specifically, we trans people, are looking outside of our selves for the mythology we need to nourish our souls.  That’s not healthy for us for any number of reasons. First, because if we rely on straight people to create our myths, or to approve our myths, we never really get to see ourselves.  Not really. We get to see what cishet people consider acceptable queers.

This leaves us with myths that are cut off from our culture.  When was the last time Alex Danvers made a horrible gay joke about herself?  When was the last time Batwoman attended Pride? When was the last time you saw a group of queer characters sitting around bitching about straight bullshit? When we let outsides create or approve our myths, we only ever see versions or ourselves that are acceptable to those outsiders.

Which brings me back around to Transistor.  Transistor is the fourth novel I’ve finished this year, and I don’t want to give the impression that I’m not incredibly proud of the other three, because I am.  It’s just that Transistor holds a special place in my heart, because of what it is.  The first piece I’ve ever written with a Transgender protagonist.  It’s a myth intended to speak to people like me, to people who have had the same sort of experiences as me.  It speaks to the shame and insecurities trans women feel about our own bodies.  It speaks to the imposter syndrome that’s an inevitable result of transphobia and TERF rhetoric.  It’s speaks to the religious alienation we feel because of the way the church rejects and demonizes queer people, to the way our families reject us or ignore us when we need their help.  It speaks to our often traumatizing relationship with our own bodies.  It speaks to the way law enforcement neglects, abandons and abuses us.  It speaks to found family, and the lengths we’ll go to in order to protect the people we love.

Transistor is, on the surface, a story about a woman who accidently gets Superpowers, and ends up having to fight an angel to protect her girlfriend, but scratch the surface, and you’ll find a diary of my experiences as a trans woman.

I think the queer community, and especially the trans community needs more of that.  We need more storytelling, more mythology, that comes from within.  We need to raise our own voices and tell our own stories, because at the end of the day, no one else can tell those stories the way we can. No one else can tell our stories honestly and authentically.  And as long as we rely on people outside of our community for the stories and myths that inspire us and give us hope, we will always be waiting for the next betrayal, the next person to come along and give us something we love, only to snatch it away and tell us how vile and disgusting we are.

I wish I had something cleaver to say, or some words of wisdom to wrap this up, but honestly, after what I wrote today, I’m spent.  All I can really say is that a culture without its own mythology is not a culture which lasts.  We need to give voice to our stories, to give birth to our own mythology so that it’s there for those who come after us to find and absorb so that they don’t just know what came before, but they can feel it and understand it.  Otherwise, who and what we are will be lost.

[freudensteins-monster]

You Say “Mad Scientist” Like It’s A Bad Thing

Based on my own tumblr post: 3am thoughts… Has anyone written Jane Foster as a mad scientist, I mean like a villain?

Chaotic neutral Darcy and Jane featuring modern/human SHIELD Agent Bucky.

Available on AO3.

Content Warnings: Implied/Referenced Torture, Aftermath of Torture, Amnesia, Memory Suppressing Machine | The Chair (Marvel), Dark, Sort Of, Ambiguous/Open Ending...

In a world full of megalomaniacs, straight up supervillains, and fricking aliens, mad scientists were a dime a dozen. Dr Foster was one such scientist who was quickly moving from mildly irritating to SHIELD’s Most Wanted.

Dr Foster’s gimmick was portals. She first gained international attention when she claimed responsibility (via an untraceable Instagram account, @dr-mthrfckng-foster) for diverting LA’s 405 to a dirt road in rural Australia. Then came a string of impossible robberies – bank vaults and the private collections of the world's richest assholes stripped bare in seconds. Then she created a portal that caused an Indonesian typhoon to bear down on Wall Street, flooding the trading floor. And then she robbed a top secret government black site of some classified technology.

And that’s when Director Nick Fury made finding and stopping Dr Foster SHIELD’s number one priority.

Agent James Barnes had been stuck on suspension for two weeks, with two more to go, and was itching to get back into the field. He had way too much free time on his hands: he’d caught up on his sleep and everything in his Netflix queue. He’d cleaned out his refrigerator, done laundry and enough meal prep to last him until next month. He’d caught up with his family, cleaned his whole goddamn apartment twice, and now he was well and truly bored.

He was out for his fifth run of the week (and it wasn’t even Wednesday) when his work phone rang.

“Thank Christ,” he muttered before answering.

“Barnes.”

“It’s Hill. How’s the arm?”

“Fine,” Barnes grunted, rotating his metal shoulder irritably. “You got something for me?”

“Are you up for a recon mission?”

Usually he would have protested. He headed tactical units. He was an elite ‘first through the door’ kind of field agent. Not that he couldn’t be stealthy and patient - he’d been a sniper in the army for christ's sake - but going unnoticed in public was kind of a problem for him these days; he’d have to wear jackets and gloves in the middle of August to hide his prosthetic for starters.

On the other hand, his mother had been calling him every second day to feed him carb-heavy meals in exchange for help around the house, all while dropping not-so-subtle hints that he should start dating again. Requests for more grandchildren couldn’t be far behind.

“I’ll be there in thirty.”

Thirty-five minutes later Agent Barnes was back at his desk at SHIELD HQ perusing through the increasingly large file of one Dr Jane Foster. 

She had been a brilliant student and had earned a PhD in Astrophysics from Culver University by the age of 25. By all accounts she should have been one of the leading researchers in her field, and if doctoral programs handed out superlatives Dr Foster’s would have been “Most Likely To Win a Nobel Prize By 30”. 

Unfortunately for Dr Foster, and the rest of the world, she had been forced from that path by a sexist tenured professor who publicly denounced her theories, and the woman herself, as crazy, discredited her published work, and used his influence to ensure she was denied all of the more lucrative research grants.

When federal agents went to interview him after the 405 incident they found his office looking like a tornado had gone through it and the professor himself was nowhere to be found. A few weeks later he stumbled into a US Embassy in Russia after being found wandering in from the forests outside Vladivostok, half mad and still decrying the evils of allowing women into scientific fields.

He had been placed into witness protection and promptly admitted into a psychiatric facility under his new name, and was being monitored by several undercover agents in case Dr Foster felt like punishing him some more. 

Anyone else who had a part in ruining Dr Foster’s legitimate career was also under surveillance, as was her mother in London, a terrified ex-boyfriend in Boston, and a handful of known associates, though Dr Foster hadn’t been in contact with any of them in years.

SHIELD and other federal agencies had tried the usual methods of tracking down a rogue mad scientist. They tried to find out where her base of operations was, firstly by looking for any properties in her name, but Dr Foster had been a broke student with an impressive amount of debt (until the day she decided to wipe it, and the rest of Culver’s student debt, out). So if she had property it would definitely not be in her legal name and all but impossible to trace back to her. Then they tried to look for drains on the powergrid. However she managed to generate her portals - SHIELD scientists still hadn’t figured that out - it surely had to be using huge amounts of electricity. So far they’d found six grow labs and two server rooms running illegal god-knows-what, but no Dr Foster.

Agent Barnes read the file twice, reviewed all the transcripts of the interviews with her known associates, and came to one very important conclusion: she had an accomplice. 

As smart as Dr Foster was there was nothing in her academic history to suggest that she had a background in computer science that would account for the notable hacks and the untraceable nature of her activities. To add to that several interviewees had made passing remarks about her not having a cell phone for most of her academic career, and how she had zero interest in social media.

Two days later, after getting the okay for a field trip from Hill, Agent Barnes made his way to Culver University to speak to anyone who had even the vaguest recollection of Dr Foster. And that’s how he learnt about the intern.

He’d started by dropping by one of the physics labs where Dr Foster had spent most of her time, and by pure chance met a doctoral candidate who remembered her, and her intern.

“I think her name was Darlene. Glasses. Always on her phone.”

…which led him to the academic advisor who put the two of them together...

“Darcy. Darcy Lewis. She was actually a PoliSci major but left it too late and Dr Foster’s internship was the only one available. She had only been working with her for a few weeks before… before Dr Foster’s funding was revoked and she was asked to leave.”

...who pointed him to one of Darcy’s former professors…

“Average student. Good debater. Often late, and always had a coffee in her hand.”

...who gave him a few names of some former classmates who might remember her…

“Not the worst person to be stuck with on a group assignment. Pulled her weight. Obsessed with her stupid iPod.”

“I swear she lived off pop tarts and coffee. And not Starbucks either. Some stupid hipster chain.”

“Deja Brew. Serious problem. Went through one of those loyalty punch cards every week. Always complained about having to go home for the holidays and resort to big chain coffee shops.”

...which had him driving out to Darcy Lewis’ hometown, located a few hours south of Roanoke, Virginia, stopping first at the local high school to speak to the school principal…

“She’d always been good with computers but wasn’t allowed to use them at home for some reason so she spent a lot of time at the local library using theirs. We had to suspend her once. One of her classmates accused her of accepting payment from other students to hack the school’s records and alter their grades. Their grades were definitely getting altered, but we couldn’t get any concrete proof it was her.”

...who was able to find a photo of 16 year old Darcy in an old yearbook and told him what bar he could find Darcy’s mother in.

“She knows not to come to me if she’s in the shit, because I would call the cops in a heartbeat. Especially after that stunt she pulled before she went off to college…”

“What stunt was that, Ms Bennett?” Agent Barnes asked patiently, hoping he wouldn’t have to enable her alcoholism to get some useful information. 

“I made some mistakes, okay,” she slurred defensively. “I was having an affair with my boss. Don’t know how Darcy knew. She told her stepfather but he didn’t believe her. Then a few weeks later we went out to dinner for my boss’s birthday... all the tv’s in the bar start showing security camera footage of us falling into offices and motel rooms. Took her all of a minute to ruin two marriages and a law firm.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he replied diplomatically. “Is there anyone she could turn to for help? Her father, perhaps.”

“He died when she was about twelve. They were as thick as thieves,” she recalled with a tinge of bitterness.

“Was there any place that was special to them? Someone she might go to ground?”

She shook her head. “He used to rent this old cabin near the Catskills off a buddy of his every other year. Winter or summer, Darcy loved it. But it's long gone. Forest fire, I think, the year before his accident.”

Back in his car Agent Barnes reviewed the data points.

Dr Foster had a base of operations somewhere. Had to be private, and as best SHIELD could guess it must be off the grid and Dr Foster must be generating her own power.

Dr Foster was a space nut at heart, and while an abandoned observatory might be too much to ask for, she’d probably want somewhere with minimal light pollution.

And while they could portal anywhere, neither of them spoke any other languages and had no familiarity with any international locations, so they were most likely still State-side. (Dr Foster’s mother had moved to London when Jane was twenty-three, but she’d never found the time to visit.)

Miss Lewis was familiar with the Catskills area. A base of operations there could be very isolated.

Dr Foster was most likely building and modifying her own own equipment so she had to be able to access materials. Sure, she could portal to her local hardware store, but having Darcy drive into the nearest town for supplies would attract less attention.

Miss Lewis had an addiction to coffee procured from Deja Brew, a small hipster chain with only a handful of locations along on the east coast. While she could have found another way to get her caffeine fix, people were creatures of habit.

Miss Lewis was also known for stocking up on poptarts. In one of the only images of the other side of one of Dr Foster’s portals there was what appeared to be, if one squinted, a box of limited edition pop tarts on a counter.

He plugged it all into SHIELD fancy search engines and got a few results back. The most promising was an abandoned ski chalet turned abandoned research station halfway up a mountain, an hour drive away from an up and coming tourist town, whose main street hosted a Deja Brew cafe. They also had a small mom and pop hardware store, as well as a post office, and a grocery store that had still been selling pumpkin pie pop tarts around the time Dr Foster’s portal had been caught on camera.

Agent Barnes came to with a groan. The flesh of his shoulder where it met his prosthetic felt like it was on fire, and he was pretty sure he could smell fried wiring.

The research station had come up in SHIELD’s initial search for a potential mad scientist's lair, but had been dismissed for not using any power and for not sending back any heat signature readings. Perhaps they’d found a way to fool the scanners. Or maybe they just weren’t in the day the readings were taken. Whatever the reason, Agent Barnes had a good feeling about it. He filled his tank up at the nearest gas station and got on the highway, forgoing checking in at the Triskelion on his way past in favour of driving all night. He’d call Hill when he had something solid. 

** *** **

“Fuck…”

He willed his eyes open and came face to face with Darth Vader.

Barnes reeled back at the sound of the synthesized voice. “Who sent you? Who do you work for?! The Rebellion?” 

“What the fuck!”

It took him until his eyes adjusted to the fluorescent lighting to realise that Darth Vader was wearing a grey knit dress and black tights. Darth Vader laughed and ripped off his mask to reveal a smiling bespectacled brunette underneath. The accomplice. Darcy Lewis.

“Sorry, I was just messing with you, dude,” she teased, tossing the mask over her shoulder. “I’ve always wanted to do that. But seriously, who do you work for? Who knows you’re here?”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he lied. “I was just camping in the woods, man. I saw the lights and decided to check it out,” he rambled in a lazy Canadian accent. “How the hell did I get here? Did you electrocute me?”

He used his not-quite fake panic to test the limits of his restraints. He’d been strapped into some sort of junkstore barber chair, with thick metal shackles locked around his wrists, ankles, and chest. His metal arm could probably make quick work of them but the damn thing was not responding. His panic became a little less fake.

“Just camping, huh?” she echoed back with a raised eyebrow, leaning forward to the point where Barnes couldn’t avoid getting a good look down her top and the 15-carat pink diamond (worth about 40mil and reported stolen in one of Dr Foster’s vault heists two months ago) hanging around her neck. “So that wasn’t you poking around town this morning?” she asked pointedly, drawing his attention to the wall of monitors he hadn’t noticed showing various street cameras around the town. “I’ve got eyes and ears everywhere, dude. You got into town bright and early in a beat up looking truck with plates that didn’t exist two weeks ago and started flashing my yearbook photo around. So, who do you work for?”

He levelled his best steely-eyed agent stare at her and switched back to his native pissed-off Brooklynite accent. “I ain’t tellin you shit, sweetheart.”

“C’mon now,” she cooed, taking a seat on his lap. “Who do you work for? FBI? Interpol? SHIELD? Crawford County Library Services? Listen, I was totally going to return Eat Pray Love, but we had to skip town in a hurry and it got lost in the move. I will totally pay to replace it.”

Years of training (and regular poker games with the Black Widow) had taught him to school his features, even if that last one threw him for a loop.

“Nothing? You sure you don’t want to talk to me? Fine,” she whined. “Jane!”

It was only then that Barnes switched his focus from his captor to his surroundings and realised that there was another occupant puttering about on the other side of the large telescope that took pride of place on a hydraulic platform underneath the research station's retractable roof. The infamous Dr Foster.

“Jane!”

“What?” came the irritated reply. 

“Come over here and practise your monologue. Look! You’ve got a captive audience and everything!” she announced, laughing at her own joke. 

“I don’t have time, Darcy,” the disgruntled voice argued. 

“Hey! I spent two days writing up that monologue, the least you can do is spend twenty-five minutes reading it out loud so I can make sure it doesn’t make you sound too much like a cartoon villain.” 

“Twenty-five minutes?! Are you kidding me?” Dr Foster stormed out from behind the telescope to wave a wrench at her assistant. She looked less put together than her ID photo, appearing to be long overdue for both a shower and a nap. “I’m in the middle of something. I’ve almost figured the problem with the mobile portal generator, and… Darcy, why is there a man tied to a chair in my lab?”

“This man?” Darcy snorted, taking Barnes’s chin in her hands and wiggling it about. “This is the intruder. You remember the intruder alert, like fifteen minutes ago? Lots of flashing lights and alarms? Well, I found this guy passed out on the lawn. For most people, hitting my force field would be like getting lightly tased, but this bad boy,” she continued, tapping a fingernail against his dead metal arm, “meant you ended up getting the full 50,000 volts to your heart. Thanks for letting me practice my CPR by the way,” she added with a wink.

“It’s not a force field, Darcy. It’s a glorified invisible pet fence, upsized and modified so it reacts to the electrical impulses in the human body.”

“It keeps people out; I’m calling it a force field.”

This was definitely the weirdest interrogation he had endured by a large margin, Barnes mused as he followed their bickering like a pingpong game.

“Who is he, Darcy?” Jane sighed wearily. “What is he doing here?”

“Fiiiine. Janey, meet Agent James Barnes of SHIELD.”

“What?! SHIELD?!!”Jane screeched. “Why did you bring him here?”

“He found us, Jane. What was I supposed to do?”

“Something other than bringing him inside our secret hideout.”

“I am not killing him and burying him in the woods; I just did my nails.”

Jane scowled, turning the full force of her overtired fury on James. “Why can’t you SHIELD issue jackbooted thugs just leave me alone? Can’t you understand how important my work is? I am challenging the very foundations of modern science - of the laws of the universe! I am on the verge of a breakthrough! And if you or Nick Fury think you can stop me, you’ve got another thing coming!”

Before his mouth could betray him and ask how the hell they knew his boss Darcy spoke up.

“A little off script, but I like the energy, Jane. Very much the mad scientist vibe we’re going for. But next time, try not to make it so personal – we’ve got to hide the target of our frustrations, remember? Instead of saying “SHIELD” say “government”, instead of saying “Nick Fury” say “president”.”

“Right, right,” Jane nodded absently, tapping the side of her head with the wrench she had just been waving around like a weapon.

“Now, go back to work. I’ll handle this.”

“Okay, thanks Darce. Oh, have you seen my soldering iron around?”

“It’s in the locked cabinet because you’re not allowed to use it unsupervised, you know that. Gimme ten minutes, I’ll bring it to you.”

Jane wandered back to her side of the observatory, muttering under her breath, leaving Barnes at Darcy’s mercy.

“She’s not the criminal mastermind here, is she?” he wondered, his eyes roaming over the strange cupcake of a woman in his lap.

“Not exactly,” Darcy admitted. “I mean, it’s not like she set out to be a mad scientist. I kind of rebranded her after that little freeway incident.”

“Rebranded?”

“Yeah. She was in a bad way after New Mexico and then when the first live test of her portal engine went a little sideways I didn’t want dudebros on the internet coming after her, so I changed the narrative. Instead of ‘girl scientist makes mistake, should stick to making sandwiches’ I changed it to ‘Dr Foster, genius astrophysicist, causes chaos, totally on purpose.’”

“And all those robberies?”

“I may have encouraged that. I’m all for sticking it to the one percenters, and Jane needed to fund her experiments somehow,” she added with a shrug.

“So Jane’s the absent-minded professor and you’re the brains behind this operation, huh?”

Darcy laughed and slid out of his lap causing a distracting amount of friction. “I’m really not. So you, Coulson, and Fury should be really, really scared.”

“How do you know those names?” he had to know, cover be damned.

“You don’t know? Of course you don’t,” she huffed. “Fury and his clearance levels. I’d tell you to ask him about New Mexico sometime, but you’re not going to be able to.”

“Why not? What are you going to do to me?” Barnes fretted, unable to ignore the sinking feeling that he was in big trouble; she wouldn’t have told him anything if she intended on letting him walk out of here.

“Oh, relax. I’m not going to kill you. I’m just gonna scramble your brain a little.”

She circled his chair, flipping switches as she went, and something behind him started humming ominously.

“So, admittedly I didn’t major in hard sciences. I had an ex who did, but he also fancied himself something of a cat burglar, so when he went to jail I liberated all his college textbooks and gave myself a crash course in electrical engineering. And it helped that those HYDRA designs were really easy to follow.”

“HYDRA?” Barnes cursed.

HYDRA had been the scientific branch of the Nazi regime and believed that discovery required (human) experimentation. They were supposedly eradicated at the end of WWII but Project Paperclip saved some of HYDRA’s greatest minds, giving them immunity in exchange for their genius. If Foster or, more worryingly, Darcy had aligned themselves with some surviving HYDRA faction the results could be catastrophic.

“Yeah, I found them in that SHIELD warehouse when we recovered Jane’s stolen research.”

“What are you talking about?”

“They just call it ‘The Chair’, which is totally not creepy at all,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “And this is the Halo,” she added, drawing Barnes’s attention to the whirring circle of metal that was lowering itself over his head.

“What the hell are you doing?” he shouted, renewing his efforts to break free of his restraints. “Get that piece of scrap metal the fuck away from me!”

“Hey! Don’t mock my work. It may look like I raided a junkyard for the components - and I did - but my welding game is on point. It’s totally safe. Mostly safe. It’s just going to send focused electrical pulses to your…” she paused to consult some smudged writing on her hand, “hippocampus and prefrontal cortex.”

The Halo stopped moving and two metal plates extended, pressing against the sides of his head, holding it like a vice.

“Please… don’t do this,” he begged as she approached him with a rubber mouthguard.

“C’mon, open wide. You don’t want to end up braindead and unable to chew your food,” she jested, waving the thing in front of him. “Oh, just one question before I fry your brain,” she added just when he was about to give in. “How did you find us? I was so careful,” she whined.

Agent Barnes, terrified as he was, still managed to look smug at his small, short lived success. “Deja Brew coffee.”

“Curses!” she wailed theatrically. “Betrayed by my one true love!” 

Darcy huffed and quickly returned her attention to the matter at hand. 

“Thanks for that,” she said with a smile as she forced him to bite down on the mouthguard. “I’ll know better for next time. Start making my own coffee at home… but it never tastes as good,” she muttered to herself.

She stepped away from him and bent down to pick up a similarly frankensteined industrial remote with long wires snaking back to the chair and a clichéd big red button at its centre. He began struggling anew, screaming around the foul tasting rubber, begging for mercy.

She took great delight in his terrified expression and put on her best supervillain voice, “Give my regards to Nick Fury.”

Nick Fury observed his agent from behind a two way mirror as he sat behind a table in an interrogation room. Barnes had been sitting there for the past hour as still as a statue, except for his unfocused eyes which flitted about the room. 

In true horror movie fashion, Agent Barnes’ screams echoed down the mountainside like an avalanche, sending animals fleeing in terror for miles around.

** *** **

Local LEO’s had found him wandering aimlessly down a stretch of highway just outside the ruins of what had previously been Puente Antiguo, New Mexico, and ten minutes after they ran his prints Agent Romanoff had been on a quinjet to collect him. She’d been directed to the nearest hospital and found him sitting up on a bed but not responding or reacting to any of the medical staff as they buzzed around him. Agent Romanoff took a cautious step forward and held her breath as his unfocused eyes settled on her. 

“Hello James...”

An excruciating minute later the veil lifted and he attempted a smile. 

“Hey Tasha.”

She’d brought him back to base and dragged him to SHIELD’s medical bay for more tests - not that Barnes put up much of a fight, in fact he was terrifyingly compliant. The SHIELD doctors confirmed what the New Mexico doctors suspected: the bruising and electrical burns around his temples and his memory loss were indicative of some back alley version of electroshock therapy. His memories should come back in time - how long was anybody’s guess - but for the moment Agent James Barnes had no memory of the last four weeks.

Fury picked up a tablet with depressingly little information on its screen and stepped into the room, waiting for Barnes eyes to focus on him before taking a seat. 

“Agent Barnes.”

“Director.”

“I know you’re probably sick of questions by now, but I have a few more for you, if that’s alright.”

“Yeah, sure…”

It rankled Fury to no end how meak and passive Barnes seemed. Heaven help him, he missed the argumentative sonofabitch.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Being called into your office.”

“What for?”

“I punched Rumlow.”

“Why?”

“He was bragging about taking advantage of a drunk woman at a club when he was last on leave. He didn’t like me calling out his shitty behaviour. He punched me, I punched him back.”

Fury sighed. He hadn't gotten a straight answer out of Barnes at the time of the incident and he couldn’t feel happy about getting one now. 

“Do you remember what happened once I called you into my office?”

His brow creased and his eyes zipped back and forth like the carriage of a printer as his mind searched for the elusive memory.

“You suspended me?”

“I did,” Fury confirmed. “For a whole month. But two weeks into it I pulled you in for a special assignment.”

Barnes tensed, shrinking in on himself. The confusion about his lost time seemed to be the only thing that got under his skin, but only when someone brought it up. Once the moment passed he forgot to be concerned about it.

Fury took pity on him. “For the past two weeks I had you running down leads on the whereabouts of Dr Jane Foster.”

“The scientist with the portals? Did she do this to me?”

“It’s not exactly her MO, but then again no law enforcement agency’s ever managed to have a confrontation with her. Never had the chance. Those portals of hers let her keep at a distance. You might have been the first person to have a face to face with her, but I can’t confirm it because I don’t know where the hell you were when this happened,” he grumbled, letting a little more of his usual exasperated tone filter through. “You missed check in by two days. The last we heard from you, you were at Culver running down leads on what you said was a potential accomplice. We found your car in Tromso, Norway, a day after you were found on the side of a road in New Mexico. You don’t appear on any security footage or speed cameras in the area. There’s no activity on your work or personal credit cards. Your activity logs on our highly secure system for the last two weeks are nonexistent, as are your call logs on your work phone. Even the messages you sent Romanoff from your personal phone complaining about your assignment have since been deleted - from her phone too. She’s real pissed about it. As far as your digital footprint is concerned you disappeared from a gas station outside Roanoke, Virginia, last week - do you know how weird it is to know you were headed out towards a place called Roanoke only to up and vanish?” He sighed at Barnes’ painful silence. “Is there anything you can remember, anything at all about Dr Foster or her accomplice? Anything that will help us catch up to you without talking to everyone on campus to figure out what you discovered?”

Barnes’ brow creased in painful confusion.

“I think… I think I saw Darth Vadar.”

Director Fury blinked. “Right…” He took a deep breath to stop himself from venting his frustrations at Barnes, the sorry bastard looked like a kicked puppy as it was. Instead he got up and tapped the tablet against the metal tabletop harder than strictly necessary. “Well, I’ll just go put out a BOLO out for Darth Vadar then.”

“Okay,” Barnes murmured, and promptly zoned out again.

Agent Romanoff exited the viewing room looking uncharacteristically unsettled. 

“I want a full detail on him at all times,” Fury ordered as he stormed off towards the elevators. Hill had just stepped off and was looking even more grim than usual. “Until his memories come back he’s vulnerable, and once they do he’ll be a target.”

“I’ll get a STRIKE team on it. Not Rumlow’s.”

“Get another one along with any assets currently not on assignment. Flood that campus, interrogate everybody. I wanna know who the hell Dr Foster’s accomplice is, and I wanna know yesterday. Understood?”

“I think we might have more pressing concerns, sir,” Hill reported, tapping at her tablet as it beeped erratically. “Coulson’s said there’s an issue with the Tesseract. Dr. Selvig read an energy surge from it fifteen minutes ago.”

“NASA didn't authorise Selvig to test phase,” he grunted, taking the tablet from Hill.

“He wasn't testing it, he wasn't even in the room. Spontaneous advancement.”

“Motherfucker.”