#overrode all other functions

[zeke-fanfucs]

Changed the school name cause i totally didn’t forget what i named it.

Edit: learn my mamá threw my dirty notebook with my notes on each AU. So I’m going to cry now cause fuck. I have to rewrite and read all my fanfic to get information back.

---

Three Months at Claymoore High

It had been three months since Karmor started his first year at Claymoore High, the school at the end of the district—literally and figuratively. The building looked like it had been forgotten on purpose, its brick walls crumbling under the weight of graffiti, time, and neglect. Officially, it was an alternative school for "difficult youth." Unofficially, it was a last stop for kids the system didn't know what to do with.

And yet, for Karmor, Claymoore had become something close to routine.

Every morning, just as the rising sun painted the cracked sidewalk with pale light, he’d wait at the corner by the rusted chain-link fence for Hipswitch. Hipswitch always showed up five minutes late, with a peanut butter sandwich wrapped in a napkin and a loud “Mornin’, K!” in his slow, Southern drawl.

They’d share whatever food they had—sometimes a sandwich, sometimes leftovers, once an actual slice of cake stolen from a retirement party Hipswitch had wandered into—and make their way to the bus stop. The ride to school was long and rough, the shocks on the old yellow bus barely functional. Karmor used the time to nap, head leaning lightly against the window, while Hipswitch kept watch, earbuds in but eyes always scanning, like he was expecting trouble to find them.

And trouble usually did.

The routine at Claymoore was simple: attend first period, and then the chaos started. Some days it was Albus who kicked things off, usually by punching someone for talking about his mother or spilling something on Faith. He'd swagger back into class like nothing happened, bruised knuckles and all, smelling like cheap booze he'd hidden in a water bottle.

Other days it was Hipswitch, when his sense of justice overrode his common sense—like when he body-slammed a senior who tried to steal Kerano’s lunch money, then coolly turned himself in to the principal's office.

Then there were the twins. Mahatma and Attila.

Last week they nearly burned down the science lab. Mahatma had tried to demonstrate a “controlled” chemical reaction for a project that wasn’t even assigned, and Attila—bored and twitchy—had added a little too much fuel just to see what would happen. They both watched with fascination as the flame burst up the wall, like it was a nature documentary and not a health hazard. No one got hurt, except the teacher’s eyebrows.

But the worst—or maybe the best, depending on how you looked at it—was two weeks ago, when the entire group decided to skip an exam in favor of an “educational” movie day. One turned into three. They all passed out in the cinema’s back row during a black-and-white horror flick marathon, only to wake up hours later surrounded by empty popcorn buckets and very bad decisions. Naturally, the exam had been that morning. The next day, Karmor, silent but determined, slipped into the locked teacher’s lounge and “found” the stack of ungraded exams. Somehow, the group all passed—barely. No one asked how. No one needed to.

Claymoore wasn’t a school that played by the rules. And neither did they. Despite all the messes, fights, suspensions, and “concerned calls” home that went to nowhere, something solid was building between them—something no report card could measure. They weren’t just surviving Claymoore. They were making it theirs.

And for Karmor, the new kid from nowhere, mute and strange and still piecing together what it meant to belong, this ragtag crew of broken edges had become something like family.

Not perfect. Not safe.

But real.

---

It had started pouring sometime after second period—thick, relentless sheets of rain that turned the cracked sidewalks outside into shallow rivers. The kind of rain that made even the teachers give up pretending to care.

By noon, most of the school had given in to the weather. Classrooms turned into dim sanctuaries of nap-heavy silence, where overhead lights flickered uselessly against the gray sky pressing at the windows. Nobody was learning anything. No one was even pretending.

Inside Room 204, the gang’s unofficial homeroom and usual hideout, the atmosphere was lazy, soaked in the sound of rain tapping against the windows and the occasional thud of wet sneakers as someone passed in the hall.

Hipswitch and Albus had claimed a battered desk in the back, an old deck of cards between them. It had started as a friendly game of Spades, but somewhere around the second round, it became obvious that Albus was cheating. Poorly.

"That’s your third king of hearts, man," Hipswitch said, eyeing him with a raised brow, vitiligo patches stretching across his cheek as he squinted.

Albus shrugged, grinning like a child caught red-handed but unbothered. “You ever think maybe the deck’s just... blessed in my favor?”

“You’re about to be blessed with a black eye,” Hipswitch muttered, chuckling anyway as he flicked a card at Albus’s forehead.

Albus ducked, laughing, long legs kicked out as he leaned back in his chair. He looked half-asleep already, the edge of a bruised eye from last week’s fight with a junior still faintly purple.

In the corner, sprawled on the floor with his back against a locker, Karmor flipped through a dog-eared paperback he’d pulled out of an old donation box in the library. The cover was faded, some forgotten sci-fi novel with a spaceship and screaming faces. He wasn’t even sure what the plot was yet—something about time travel and doomed planets—but he liked the way the words felt in his head. Solid. Predictable.

Next to him, perched awkwardly on a desk, Mahatma was hunched over a thick, slightly damp medical textbook, whispering to himself as he traced underlined diagrams of lungs and liver structures with one finger.

“Did you know blunt force trauma to the upper abdomen can rupture the spleen without—” he began, eyes wide behind foggy glasses.

Karmor glanced up from his book, barely interested, but nodded like he was listening.

“—any outward bruising,” Mahatma finished, sounding almost disappointed that no one seemed horrified.

“Fascinating,” Karmor mouthed silently, eyes back on the novel.

The book had definitely been stolen—that much was clear.

It still had the barcode sticker on the spine, and the corner had been half torn off, probably when Attila had ripped it off the shelf. Mahatma claimed they “borrowed it,” but Karmor had seen the way Attila had stared down the poor librarian like he was daring her to say something. She hadn’t. No one did, not when Attila looked like he might smile or bite your throat out in the same breath.

Speaking of...

Attila sat in the windowsill, legs drawn up to his chest, eyes locked on the rainy schoolyard like he was waiting for the storm to get bored and attack someone. His fingers twitched restlessly every so often, like he was itching to burn something just to watch it go up.

But right now, the rain had sedated even him.

“Boring day,” he said flatly, his voice low, like a warning or a threat—no one could ever tell with Attila.

Hipswitch glanced over. “Could be worse. You could be losing to Albus the Cheater over here.”

“Hey!” Albus barked, but his grin never wavered.

Karmor turned a page and, for a rare second, smiled to himself. Not wide, not enough for anyone to notice—but it was there.

They were broken kids in a broken school, but somehow, in that quiet, rain-soaked afternoon, things felt almost okay. Like maybe they weren’t just surviving. Maybe they were—however weird it sounded—together.

Even if the next fight was probably just a fire drill away.

———

The peace didn’t last. It never did when Albus got that grin.

It crept across his face like a sunrise over a battlefield—too wide, too sure, and completely reckless. The kind of grin that made people move their wallets to the front pocket and double-check their exit strategy.

Karmor noticed it first.

He looked up from his book, instantly suspicious. He knew that look. That was the ‘I just had the worst idea in the world and I’m gonna do it anyway’ face. He slowly marked his page with a wrapper and braced himself.

“I’ve got a plan,” Albus announced, sitting up like he was about to deliver a TED Talk. “Let’s steal a car.”

A beat of silence. The rain tapped calmly at the windows.

“What.” said Hipswitch, flat as cement.

Albus leaned forward, eyes glittering. “Just for a few hours. We drive outta this dump and hit that burger spot in Rowley—the one with the neon cow on the roof. I know where the keys are.”

Karmor let out a groan, pressing both hands over his face. He didn’t need a voice to express how unbelievably dumb that was. His whole body radiated this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard and I hang out with Attila.

“Albus,” Mahatma started gently, already slipping into his concerned doctor voice, “maybe we should think this through—”

Albus raised a hand like he was defending a thesis. “Before you say no—hear me out. My deadbeat father—y’know, the charming senator who forgets I exist?—he just bought a brand-new, shiny-ass, cherry-red Mercedes. Sport edition. Real sleek. He parked it out back of his other house, the one with no cameras, ‘cause the main driveway’s for the press. That car is begging to be joyridden.”

Attila snorted. “That car’s begging to get you locked up for grand theft, dumbass.”

Hipswitch gave him a stare so deadpan it could've been carved into stone. “So your bright idea… is to steal your rich daddy’s expensive car, drive it across district lines to get a burger, and then what? Bring it back with fries in the cupholder like he ain’t gonna notice?”

Albus grinned harder. “Exactly!”

Mahatma visibly short-circuited. “That’s... that’s not how any of this works!”

Albus threw an arm around Hipswitch like they were already partners in crime. “C’mon, Switch. Don’t you wanna eat something that wasn’t cooked by a vending machine and shame?”

Karmor shook his head slowly. He mouthed ‘This is prison time.’

Even Attila looked like he was second-guessing his life choices, which was saying something.

They all stared at Albus like he’d just said, “Let’s go to prison, but make it fashion.”

Albus sat back, arms behind his head, completely unbothered. “Fine, fine. I’ll go alone. Enjoy your government-mandated cardboard pizza. Me? I’ll be out there living.”

Hipswitch sighed and leaned his head back against the wall. “If you crash that car, I’m not testifying. I’ll straight-up pretend I don’t know you.”

Albus winked. “That’s cool. I’ll haunt you anyway.”

Despite himself, Karmor gave a small, silent laugh.

Rain kept falling outside, the world soaked in gray. Inside, Albus’s wild idea hung in the air like a dare none of them wanted to admit they were tempted by.

———

The rain had let up by nightfall, but the clouds hung low, smothering the stars and leaving the world in a sleepy, gray hush. That made sneaking onto the York estate easier. Not that they were exactly subtle.

They slipped through a break in the back fence, scurrying through hedges that hadn’t been trimmed since before Albus learned how to spell “resentment.” The place was huge—grand stone arches, statues of lions, and balconies that looked down on everything like they judged anyone not born in a tie.

But Albus York didn’t live here.

This was his father’s world. The senator. The man who told Albus to “stay out of the papers” and then shoved him into a crummy one-bedroom apartment like he was tossing out the trash. The man who bought cars that cost more than most families made in a year—and left them sitting unattended behind his third home.

“You sure the keys ain’t inside?” Hipswitch whispered, eyes constantly flicking across the shadows.

Albus smirked. “Even if they are, this is way more fun.”

The car gleamed like blood under moonlight. A brand-new, cherry-red Mercedes, low to the ground and purring with potential. Karmor crouched by the driver’s door, sleeves rolled up, his expression oddly calm.

He had watched five different videos earlier that day—each one ending with “this is for educational purposes only.”

Now it was real. His hands moved with a quiet precision, a few wires stripped and twisted, a screwdriver borrowed from the school’s shop room jammed just right into the ignition.

Mahatma, standing awkwardly to the side, looked like he was watching the beginning of a nightmare. “Do you guys have any idea how many felonies this is? Like, this isn’t even juvenile hall. This is real prison. Big men with face tattoos prison.”

“Shhh,” Attila yawned, stretching lazily like a lion waking up from a nap. “Let the idiot work.”

Karmor let out a soft chuckle as the engine purred to life. It wasn’t loud—it was clean, like the hum of danger about to make a very big mistake. He pushed open the door and leaned out.

“Get in.”

That was all he had to mouth. The words barely left his lips before the others moved.

Hipswitch vaulted into the passenger seat, already clicking his seatbelt with an anxious frown. “We are absolutely going to hell for this.”

Albus practically dove into the back seat, laughing like a man who had just won the lottery and set it on fire for fun. “Roof, Karmor! Hit the damn roof!”

Karmor flicked the switch and the hardtop began to fold back, hissing into itself until the cool night air poured in over their heads. Attila dropped into the seat next to Albus with his usual casual menace, slouched and unimpressed but clearly riding the same high.

Then Karmor shifted into gear and stepped on the gas.

They flew down the gravel path, the tires spinning once before finding their grip, and then the whole car surged forward like a shot out of a cannon. The gates loomed up fast—but Albus had “borrowed” the code. The iron bars slid open just in time for them to blast through into the open back streets.

The night swallowed them up.

Karmor’s hair whipped in the wind, his eyes focused but bright with the thrill. The engine roared as they hit the highway entrance, and the world opened wide in front of them.

The highway stretched like a ribbon of freedom under the stars, and the Mercedes devoured it in seconds. Streetlights became blurs. Signs flew by unread.

Albus whooped in the backseat, arms up like he was riding a rollercoaster. “Hell yeah! We’re gods tonight, boys!”

Hipswitch held onto the dashboard like a seatbelt was a suggestion. “I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die and you’re gonna bury me in a school cafeteria tray.”

“Relax,” Attila said with a half-smile, “At least you'll die free.”

Even Mahatma, despite clinging to the seat in wide-eyed horror, was starting to laugh—nervously, breathlessly, but it was laughter all the same.

And Karmorgrinned like a devil behind the wheel.

For the first time in a long time, none of them were just surviving.

They were alive.

The night screamed by, all silver lines and rushing wind, as Karmor gripped the wheel like it was second nature—like this wasn’t his first time breaking every traffic law on the books. His eyes burned with something wild and alive, and his grin—so rare, so full—spread across his face like moonlight cracking open a storm.

He handled the Mercedes like it was an extension of himself, weaving through sleepy roads with surgical precision. The world around them became nothing but light trails and wind-whipped freedom.

Albus was practically vibrating in the backseat, laughter pouring out of him as Karmor took a sharp turn and the tires sang against the asphalt. “Who is this guy?! Karmor, you’ve been holding out on us, Whelp!”

Hipswitch shouted over the wind, grinning now despite himself, “he drives like he’s in Fast and Goddamn Furious Twelve!”

Karmor threw a glance in the mirror, eyes shining, and flicked on the indicator—not to follow the law, but as a dramatic flourish as he swerved off the main road and into the wide-open space of an empty strip mall parking lot.

It was huge—deserted, wet from the earlier rain, glistening under the dull buzz of flickering lights. A perfect arena.

Karmor slammed the brakes and yanked the wheel.

The car spun—once, twice, three perfect circles. Tires shrieked. The engine howled. The world turned into a blur of lights and momentum.

Albus screamed in pure joy, slamming his palms on the seat in front of him, which was Hipswitch’s, like a drum. “YEAH! Do it again!”

Mahatma, who’d been clinging to the seatbelt for dear life, let out a stunned laugh that surprised even himself. He stuck his head out the window, the night air hitting his face, loud and alive. “We’re going to get arrested and I don’t even care anymore!”

“Now you’re getting it, doc!” Albus yelled, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him with chaotic affection.

Hipswitch, still in the passenger seat, laughed hard enough that his eyes watered. He looked over at Karmor, that grin still on the driver’s face, hair wild in the wind.

“I didn’t know you had this in you, partner,” he said, voice catching on the adrenaline. “You ever not surprise me?”

Karmor just revved the engine in reply, that gleam in his eye louder than any words. He wasn’t just driving. He was flying.

Another donut. Another shriek of tires and gasps of laughter.

They weren’t delinquents in that moment. They weren’t poor kids, broken kids, discarded by the system and told to behave.

They were kings of the concrete. Outlaws in the best kind of way.

Even Attila, who hadn’t said much, smirked in his seat, eyes half-lidded with contentment. “Not bad, mute,” he murmured. “Not bad at all.”

The car finally slid to a stop in the middle of the lot, smoke rising in lazy spirals from the wheels. Everyone was breathless. Laughing. Buzzing like electricity in the dark.

Karmor leaned back in the driver’s seat, one hand still on the wheel, and looked up at the stars peeking through the clouds.

For the first time since he landed in this world, he didn’t feel lost.

He felt seen.

Finally—after the whirlwind of stolen rubber and reckless joyrides—they made it to the burger joint.

It stood like a neon beacon on the edge of nowhere, the glowing blue cow on the roof flickering like it was giving up on life, but still clinging on. The parking lot was half empty, the streets dead quiet, and the air smelled like oil, meat, and freedom.

They pulled up, the engine still humming like it didn’t want the night to end.

Inside, the place was everything Albus promised and more: cracked leather booths, jukebox in the corner playing something old and gritty, and a menu that looked laminated in regret. But the food? The food hit like a religious experience.

Karmor sat with a double bacon burger in both hands, hunched over it like someone might try to steal it from him—and to be fair, someone was.

“Oi!” he mouthed furiously, slapping Albus’s hand away as the older boy made a grab for his fries.

Albus cackled, popping a stolen fry in his mouth anyway. “Hey, man! I brought us here, I deserve at least a tax!”

Karmor squinted, shook his head, then dramatically shoved a fistful of fries into his mouth, guarding the rest with his elbow like a raccoon protecting treasure. Albus just laughed louder.

“Brotherly love,” Hipswitch muttered, half amused, half exasperated. “Y’all ain’t even related and you still act like messy siblings.”

Albus leaned back, arms behind his head, greasy wrapper crinkling under him. “Family’s what you make it, bro.”

Across the table, Hipswitch slid his strawberry milkshake across the table between him and Karmor—two straws sticking out.

“Try this,” he said, casual. “It’s that good kind of fake strawberry.”

Karmor looked at it. Then at him.

Then at the two straws.

A pause.

Then he pointed—accusingly—at the extra straw, raising a brow.

Hipswitch laughed. “You think I’d make you share a straw with me? You’d turn redder than a beet.”

Karmor did turn red. Not pink. Not blush. Red. He took the straw and sipped quickly to hide his face, eyes on the table.

Hipswitch grinned to himself, proud of the chaos.

Meanwhile, Mahatma was halfway through a plate of cheesy fries, hands orange from the fake cheese dust. He looked more relaxed than he had in weeks, legs stretched under the booth, foot brushing against Attila’s like an anchor. Every so often he’d nudge a fry toward his twin, who ignored them completely.

Attila was dismantling a corn dog like it had insulted his mother. Bite after bite, casual and slow, but intensely focused. His eyes flicked up once, locking with Mahatma’s, then rolled when his brother nudged him again with another fry.

“Fine,” he muttered, taking one just to shut him up. Mahatma beamed like he won a war.

They sat like that for a long while—just eating, breathing, being.

No teachers. No cops. No parents who didn’t care.

Just a stolen night that belonged only to them.

Outside, the Mercedes cooled under the dim lights. Inside, the group laughed, argued over dipping sauces, swapped bites with fake threats and real smiles.

For once, it didn’t matter where they came from.

Just that they made it here, together.

The drive back was filled with sleepy satisfaction. Bellies full, the wind still whipping their hair, laughter echoing in the car like the remnants of a dream they didn’t want to end.

That is, until Hipswitch leaned his head back and said, smug as ever:

“No way we’re making it back without a single cop stopping us. Man, this might be the first time we didn’t get—”

FLASHING BLUE AND RED LIGHTS.

The night lit up behind them in a violent strobe of sirens and fate.

“YOU JINXED US!” Mahatma yelled, nearly choking on a cheese fry he’d been savoring.

“Aw, come on!” Albus groaned, twisting in his seat just in time to see a cruiser bearing down on them from behind. “That’s it, we’re dead. We’re not even gonna get juvie—we’re going straight to big-boy prison!”

“I’m seventeen!” Mahatma shrieked, holding onto the door like that would help.

Karmor, hands tight on the wheel, didn’t panic. Maybe a little.

He hit the gas.

The Mercedes screamed forward, tires gripping the highway like claws.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!” Hipswitch shouted from the passenger seat.

Karmor didn’t answer. Just narrowed his eyes, floored it, and became the car.

Albus started laughing—again.

But things got worse. Ahead, another cruiser pulled sideways across the highway, lights blazing, an officer already tossing down tire spikes.

“Shitshitshit!” Hipswitch barked. “They're trying to box us in!”

Karmor’s mind raced—then instincts kicked in.

He yanked the wheel hard, swerved around the spikes—tires just missing them—and took the next exit at nearly 100. The Mercedes bumped hard onto the offramp, shocks screaming in protest as they cut through the dark.

No lights.

No signs.

Just black roads and abandoned industrial zones.

Karmor drove like the shadows themselves were guiding him—twisting through alleys, coasting between half-demolished buildings and rusted fences until they skidded to a stop behind a warehouse with half the roof caved in and vines crawling up the sides like spider legs.

They cut the lights.

The sirens passed a minute later.

Then the helicopter came.

They ducked inside the car as the chopper roared overhead, a searchlight sweeping across the concrete lot like the eye of God.

No one dared breathe.

Even Attila held still, eyes narrowed, watching the beam like he could bite it if it got too close.

They waited

Ten minutes. Then twenty. Then an hour. Time blurred. The fries went cold. Mahatma chewed his sleeve. Albus fell asleep for a few minutes and snored like a dog.

Eventually, the sky went quiet again.

Karmor turned the key. The engine rumbled like a held-in laugh.

They took the long way back—side roads, abandoned roads, even a stretch of unpaved dirt.

When they finally rolled the Mercedes back through the gap in the York estate fence, nerves raw and hands twitching with leftover adrenaline, dawn was bleeding into the sky.

Albus jumped out first, still barefoot from throwing his shoes at the cop cars during the chase. “WOOOO! We’re legends! Did y’all see that drift? Karmor’s got video game hands, I swear!”

Mahatma climbed out after him, half-dead, hair a mess. “We’re going to jail. We are going to real adult jail.”

Hipswitch just stumbled out, groaning as he stretched. “Next time I jinx us, someone slap me.”

They ran across the yard like kids sneaking back into summer camp—laughing, shouting, cursing—but alive. High on the impossible fact that they got away with it.

And Karmor?

He paused at the driver’s side door, looking back at the car.

The stolen Mercedes. The chaos. The friends. The night.

He smiled.

Then ran after the others, heart pounding, laughter spilling silently from his chest.

For a moment, they were untouchable.

…..

Well until..

The next day.

They were all wrecked. Bags under their eyes, uniforms wrinkled, and not a single one of them had the energy to pretend they weren’t hiding from the cops just twelve hours ago.

But they made it.

Somehow.

No one got caught. No one got arrested. No one had told on them. The stolen car was safely back in its precious garage, and the city was none the wiser.

Now they just had to survive homeroom.

They lounged under the stairwell behind the gym—an unofficial safe zone the teachers never bothered to patrol. Hipswitch was half-asleep against the wall, Mahatma was reading something upside-down and clearly not noticing, Attila was sharpening a pencil with a scalpel for no reason at all, and Karmor was curled up in his hoodie like a sentient laundry pile.

Then Albus pulled a little pink bottle out of his bag.

“What’s that?” Hipswitch grumbled, squinting at it.

Albus read the label aloud, squinting. “Strawberry... intimate massage gel.”

Attila, looking up with a bored expression, smirked. “I dare you to drink it.”

“Bet,” Albus said immediately, unscrewing the cap.

Mahatma finally looked up in horror. “Albus, that’s lube!”

Karmor lunged across the space and smacked the bottle out of his hand like a cat defending its honor.

It bounced off the wall and landed in the trash can with a soft thunk.

Albus blinked. “...I was curious! It smelled like a Slurpee!”

“YOU CAN’T DRINK THAT!” Mahatma cried

Hipswitch just put his hand over his face and sighed. “We survived a police chase, grand theft auto, and hiding from a helicopter... and this is how we go out. Death by edible lube.”

Karmor flopped back down into his hoodie with a silent wheeze of laughter.

Albus shrugged, completely unbothered. “Y’all are no fun.”

Attila rolled his eyes. “You didn’t even flinch. You are truly a different breed of idiot.”

“And proud,” Albus grinned.

They all sat there in stunned silence for a moment. Then one by one, they cracked. Laughter bubbled up—tired, broken, giddy laughter that left their sides aching. It echoed through the stairwell like a battle cry of dumbass victory.

They weren’t normal

They weren’t safe.

But they had each other.

And they were just getting started.

Moral of the story: Don’t fucking listen to Albus. And keep flavor lube away from him.

[sjsmith56]

Promises

Summary: Bucky Barnes is abducted on his final mission before retiring to start a family with his wife. As the others search for him he tries to find a way to escape his captors.

Length: 4.5 K

Warnings: Cursing, violence, Bucky lies to his wife one final time.

Author notes: I added the Thunderbolts at the end as I figured it couldn’t be an official Avengers mission. *Quoted from Henry V, Act 3, Scene 1, written by William Shakespeare.

He promised.

When Diane last saw him, he promised to come back, promised that this was the last time. 

"When I return, I'll retire and we'll buy that log house in the country, the one with the wrap around porch, so we can sit and watch the sunrise, then eat lunch while looking out over the valley.  At the end of the day, we'll watch the sunset together before we go to bed and make a baby, or two, or three.  I'll have a workshop where I can fix up cars or motorcycles while you write.  You just have to let me go on this one last mission.  Then I'll be done with it all.  I promise."

So, she let Bucky go.  She told Sam and Joaquin to make sure to bring him home in one piece.  Then she waited for him to return.  It was hard because this was a secret mission, so secret she wasn't told anything, except that it was vital to international security.  Which was code for HYDRA.  That much Diane knew.

One week passed, then another and on the 17th day after Bucky left, the doorbell rang.  Thinking it was a delivery, she opened it in anticipation and saw Sam waiting on the other side, his face already telling her that something had happened.

"No," she said, before he even had a chance to say a word.  "He promised.  I told you to bring him home."

As Sam stepped in and tried to put his arms around her, she pushed him away, putting distance between them.  He tilted his head, his face devastated, as she bent over, then slumped to the floor. 

"What happened?" Diane asked, looking up at the man who had introduced her to the love of her life.

"He told us he was out and to blow the facility," he admitted.  "The place went up, but he didn't show at the quinjet.  We thought perhaps he lied and was still inside when he gave the order but there were no signs of him.  None of the Red Wings detected any heat signatures or heart beats.  We called in Scott and Hope, and they shrunk down to get into the small spaces but there was no sign of him.  Right now, he's MIA but I don't know if he's alive or dead."

"What about the arm?" she asked.  "There's a tracker, right?  Shuri can detect vibranium halfway around the world, can't she?"

"She can't detect it as it seems to be blocked," said Sam, then he kneeled down.  "We're not giving up.  We'll find him, I promise."

He promised.

🦾 ✈️

There was no sound, no light, and he was cold, so cold.  For a moment, Bucky flashed back to that minuscule moment when he was still aware before the cryogenic capsule froze him, when he was still the Winter Soldier.  Panic almost overrode every rational thought in him, then he breathed and relaxed a little, knowing that if he were frozen, he would be unable to inhale and exhale.  Concentrating on his hands, he flexed his fingers and heard the mechanisms in his left hand as it responded to his thoughts.  Good, it was still functional.  His right hand also moved but it was stiff, as it was so cold.  First, he tried to extend his hands out to the side, trying to determine if he was enclosed in something.  He felt a surface on both sides, then tried to figure out what he was touching.  It was a fabric of some sort, but his left hand couldn't feel anything other than its presence and his right hand was so cold he couldn't tell what type of fabric it was.  Raising his hands up from his body he felt a surface above him, perhaps six inches up, maybe a little more.

I'm in a goddam box.

The tendril of panic began curling in Bucky's stomach, and he breathed in and out slowly, forcing the panic to subside and stop.  He was aware of a very slight breeze of cool air coming from his feet, so whatever he was in was ventilated enough for him to breathe.  Remembering everything he learned about panic and anxiety he slowly blinked his eyes, trying to determine if there was any difference in lighting when his eyes were open.  It took a few moments to confirm that whatever he was in was completely dark.  He breathed deeply again, only this time he concentrated on any smells, picking something up, something familiar.  It took a few moments for him to place it, aviation fuel.  He was in an aircraft.  Listening now, he picked up the soft motor of the air pump that was keeping him supplied with fresh air.  Totally calming himself, he listened and slowly the sound of the aircraft reached his sensitive ears.  He smiled grimly in the darkness of the enclosure that held him, accepting that he was in the cargo hold of a transport plane, possibly one that was unheated.  If it were up at a high altitude that would explain why he was so cold. 

The longer it flies, the further away I'll be from home.

Bucky could punch his way out but there wasn't enough room for him to generate enough force with a punch.  Kicking would also be unproductive.  It would have to be force, constant steady pressure of his hands and then knees and feet to force the top of this box off.  That was going to take some time and preparation, slowly wedging himself into position then using all of the strength of his vibranium arm to freeing himself.  After that, he needed to be prepared for what was outside the box.  He smirked.  It was Schrödinger's cat in reverse.  There could be anything outside this box, but he wouldn't know until he broke out. 

He took some time to remember what happened before the building went up.  After days of searching the dense jungle, then locating the secret base they spent more days sending in Scott and Hope on the miniaturized Red Wing units, scanning the entire layout.  They went over and over the plan to infiltrate, download the server onto an external hard drive, then rig the place to blow before evacuating and rendezvousing at the quinjet.  He remembered being the last one out and sending the signal to blow the building as he ran through the dense jungle.  Then there was a sharp pain in his neck, and he fell, his legs and arms immobilized as whatever was in the dart ... that he pulled out ... finally knocked him down.  He couldn't react when they picked him up and carried him somewhere.  Although he was groggy, he remembered voices, mostly men, except for one woman with a Spanish accent.  Some of the men had American accents but there were also at least two Russian ones.  There were complaints about how heavy he was and maybe they should take the arm off to lighten the load.

"No, the arm is of interest to the buyer," said the woman.  "Nobody touches it, or the deal is off."

He was captured and sold.  Once again, he relaxed and let his mind wander as memory fragments returned to him.  There was another injection in his neck, then his arms and legs were restrained with something shiny ... titanium.  But the restraints weren't on him now ... because they were too big to fit in the box.  Whoever designed the box said it would block any trackers on him and make it impossible for the vibranium arm to be tracked as well.  They were confident it would hold the Asset.  They called him the Asset.  It was HYDRA.  He had to get out now.

🖥️ 🪤

Hours later Shuri sent notice to all of them that she had something to report.  From her lab in Wakanda, she sent them the footage from the satellites she hacked into.  The images showed Bucky leaving the facility, running through the jungle, then clapping his hand on his neck before falling.  A group of people surrounded him.  It had been a trap.

"I am still running them through facial recognition," she said, "but one has been identified as an occasional associate of Valentina de Fontaine.  She specializes in acquiring difficult individuals and spiriting them out of the country within minutes.  She employs a pharmaceutical genius to concoct all sorts of anaesthetic cocktails and injections to immobilize anyone, including Sergeant Barnes."

"Is Fontaine in on this?" asked Sam.

Shuri shook her head.  "Unlikely.  This woman freelances for whoever pays her the most.  I can't see Fontaine waiting until Bucky is out of the country to kidnap him.  She could have this woman pick him up on his way to the office and not go to the extent that this abduction did.  They carried him to a jeep which was driven to an airfield, where they boarded a newer model of an Antonov AN-124 Ruslan cargo aircraft.  Only 80 were built by 2020 and only two were bought by private individuals, both Russian oligarchs.  One of them, Nikolai Chernov, doesn't exist, at least his name doesn't until 2015.  There are few pictures of him and nothing from before 2015."

"Are you thinking he's HYDRA?"

"It is possible he underwent a name change and cosmetic surgery to change his appearance after the HYDRA files were dumped on the internet.  If I were a gambler, my money would be on Chernov."

"Can you track the aircraft?" asked Fury, who was present via a video link.

"Yes, it is over the Black Sea at the moment, heading towards Russian territory.  This aircraft fully loaded can fly about 3700 km.  Without a full load, carrying only a few passengers, including a certain super soldier, its range is 14,000 km.  I suspect that it is headed to Siberia, possibly the facility Sergeant Barnes was held in.  There has been an increase in activity around it but nothing we can tie directly to Chernov ... yet."

"Keep working on it," said Fury, then he looked at the others who were assembled.  "What are you waiting for?  Get on a quinjet and head towards Russia.  Keep in contact with Princess Shuri.  I'm going to pay Val de Fontaine a visit."

The team were ready within 30 minutes and in the air shortly after.  Although they were hours behind, they flew at the top speed of the quinjet, narrowing the lead the cargo aircraft had on them.  With luck they could land at the projected destination an hour after the Antonov did.  Hopefully, it wouldn't be too late.

✈️ 📦

It had taken some time, but Bucky had finally positioned himself in such a way that he could maximize the pushing force of his vibranium arm.  With slow but steady pressure as he pushed away from his body, he hoped to weaken the edges of the box.  He was still unsure if it was sealed like a coffin lid with hinges or if it was fastened down all around the edge with screws but either way, if he could get one part of it loosened enough for him to see, then he could concentrate his efforts on a specific section and power his way out.  When that happened, he had to be ready to act, fully expecting guards ready to shoot him with more of that tranquilizer.  Reasoning that they wouldn't shoot him with bullets considering the trouble they had already gone to in acquiring him, it was important that he have some sort of shield, perhaps a portion of the box itself, to use in his defence.  With a deep inhale, he thought for a moment.

It's now or never.  Now it is.

The first attempt at applying pressure didn't produce a result, so he increased it until he heard a crack.  It sounded like a gunshot to him, being on the inside, but he stopped and listened, hearing no change in the outside sounds that he could tell.  A second steady push produced the sound of metal tearing, then suddenly the top raised by an inch or so, just enough for some light to enter.  The edges were screwed down, in intervals of every two inches, by the look of it.  Only a small length of the top had pulled away but with that part compromised the rest should come easily enough if he really put all his power behind it. 

He listened, hearing voices speaking Russian.  The cabin was pressurized, otherwise they would have masks on, meaning he could breathe freely.  They didn't hear the sound of the lid tearing open or notice the edge coming up.  Obviously, they thought enough had been done to keep him contained.  With the sounds of the aircraft louder to him, now that he had broken the top seal, he thought it was likely they wore headsets in order to speak over the background noise.  That meant they wouldn't react until they actually saw him burst out of the box.  He could have the time to take out a few people before anyone else reacted.  With a pressurized cabin, no one in their right mind would fire a gun and risk decompression.  He only had to worry about a tranquilizer dart.

Once more unto the breach. *

He pressed upwards with all of his might, forcing the top of the box to tear away.  Leaping out, even though he felt sluggish and stiff, Bucky turned towards the frightened eyes of the nearest two men, left to guard the box, each of them bundled up in winter wear.  They didn't even have time to stand as he leaped towards them, picking them up and throwing them at a second group who were just rising.  The one that still stood raised a gun and Bucky rolled onto the floor, picking up a section of the destroyed box, using it as a shield as he advanced towards him.  Using it to hit the gun away, he punched the man with enough force to send him flying towards the wall of the aircraft, its cavernous hold empty except for the scattered pieces of the box which once held him and the sprawled bodies of six unconscious men.

"Soldat," said a woman's voice and he whirled to see a woman standing outside the closed cockpit door aiming a tranquilizer gun at him.

"I am no longer the Winter Soldier," he spat.  "I am James Bucky Barnes, and you've really pissed me off."

She fired, then looked with both fear and amazement as he caught the dart in his metal hand then advanced towards her.  Grabbing her by the arm he held the dart against her throat.

"If I press this into you, will it knock you out or kill you?" he asked.  "At this point, I'm willing to inject you just to see for myself.  Where are you taking me?"

"Siberia, the old HYDRA facility," she gasped, nervously looking at the dart as he pressed the tip into her skin without piercing it.

"Who is the contract for?" Her lips were set in a grim line, and he squeezed her arm harder.  "Tell me."

"HYDRA," she whispered.  "A man who survived the purge after the release of the files onto the internet.  He has been acquiring enough wealth to start it up again.  You were to be the Fist once more."

"The words don't work."

Her eyes met his.  "But you have a wife."

With a roar Bucky raised his hand with the dart in it as if to jam it in her throat.  She cringed, anticipating her own death but he jammed it against the bulkhead, breaking it in pieces then he pressed her against the wall with one arm and searched her with the other, finding a phone.  Shoving her into a seat, he glared at her then he sent a text, watching the screen for confirmation it was received.  Grasping the cargo netting that was placed around the perimeter he tore it apart into strips, using it to tie her up, then did the same to the unconscious men.  He disarmed all of them, taking a gun for himself, and went into the cockpit, whose pilots were unaware of what was happening in the cargo hold.  At least they were until he jammed the muzzle into the neck of the pilot.

"You speak English?" asked Bucky.

"Yes."

"I speak Russian so don't try anything," said the super soldier.  "For now, you keep on course and you answer any inquiries from air traffic control like you normally would."  He switched to Russian.  "If you do anything to alert your people that I am in control I will shoot you and let the aircraft crash.  I am a super soldier and can jump from several hundred feet without a parachute.  Your death will be meaningless to me.  Do you understand?"

"Da, I understand."

The phone rang and Bucky answered it.

"Sam.  I'm okay.  They're going after Diane.  I already texted Fury as I figured by now you and the team would have checked satellite imagery and saw what happened to me.  They're taking me to the Siberian facility.  I'm taking it down, permanently.  As long as it's there someone will always try to bring it back online."

"We concur," replied Sam.  "We'll be there an hour after you get to the airport then we'll fly to the facility.  Fury will see to Diane and make sure she's safe.  Wait for us.  I brought your favourite weapons."

Bucky smiled grimly.  Sam was so thoughtful. 

"It was a trap, wasn't it?  I thought it went too smoothly."

"Yeah, someone mentioned to a certain free lancer that you were retiring, and word made its way to Nikolai Chernov.  He was known as Yuri Karolenko when he was in HYDRA.  When Natasha Romanoff dumped the HYDRA files onto the internet, he was smart enough to go underground, get cosmetic surgery and change his name.  Built a little fortune in the process.  We're hoping he's in Siberia and we can take him into custody."

"Well, I have the team that took me tied up in back.  If you could arrange for someone to take them into custody at the airfield nearest the Siberian facility I would appreciate it."

"Will do."  Sam hesitated.  "Buck?  I'm glad you're okay.  I thought you didn't get out before the building was destroyed.  Telling Diane you were missing ... man, I don't ever want to go through that again."

"You won't," said Bucky.  "I'm done.  I promised her."

They shared a few more pleasantries then Bucky hung up.  It was still going to be a while before they landed.  He flipped down a jump seat in the cockpit and sat, watching the two pilots.  He would have to monitor them for the rest of the trip.  That was alright with him.  The knockout drug they gave him was all the rest he needed.

The arrest of the abduction team was anticlimactic.  At first, the Russians refused to arrest the group on the airplane but when Nick Fury provided the Russian president with proof that Chernov was planning a coup (courtesy of some high-level hacking from Shuri), the level of cooperation increased significantly.  A Russian military unit arrived at the airbase nearest to the old Siberian facility, along with an American diplomatic team who were dispatched from the U.S. Consulate General in Vladivostok.  It was the latter who informed Bucky that a military unit was sent to the Siberian facility to arrest everyone there, as the Russian president was claiming sovereignty over the situation.  Although he was grateful to the Avengers for alerting him to Chernov's actions, he no longer wished for their presence in the country.  As soon as the quinjet arrived he wanted them to leave.  The destruction of the former HYDRA facility would become the responsibility of a Russian team. 

It was difficult for Bucky to accept that declaration, but he had no choice but to wait for the arrival of Sam and the others.  When they arrived 55 minutes later, they greeted their teammate then re-boarded the quinjet and set a course for Hawaii, six hours flight away at top speed.  It was late when they landed at Hickam Air Force Base in Pearl Harbour.  A minibus was waiting for them and transported them to several private guest houses at the base.  As they were dropped off, a base officer assigned them to their quarters.  When he handed Sam and Joaquin their access cards, Bucky began to follow them into their bungalow.

"Sergeant Barnes?  If you'll follow me, I'll walk you to your guest quarters," said the young lieutenant. 

"All I need is a bed and a coffee maker," growled Bucky, tired and still grouchy about not being able to make sure the Siberian facility was destroyed. 

"We have more than that for you," smiled the officer. 

He led Bucky up the walkway to a small bungalow, knocked on the door then left.  Puzzled, Bucky watched him walk away then turned back to the door when he heard it being opened.  The next thing he knew Diane's arms were around his neck, crying as she clutched him firmly against her.

"Baby, don't cry," he murmured, stroking her hair and back before he kissed her.  "I'm okay, really." 

They kissed again, deeper this time as he walked them both into the small house and closed the door with his foot.  She was already undoing the straps and zippers on his jacket, peeling it off him.  As their desires grew, they discarded their clothing while they moved towards the bedroom.  The next half hour was blurred in a lot of kissing, touching, and love making.  When they had sated their needs after more than 2 ½ weeks apart, they laid under the covers of the bed talking.

"How did you get here?" he asked.

"Magic portal,' she smiled.  "Nick Fury arranged for it, after I helped in the arrest of the pair sent to abduct me."  Bucky was quiet, disturbed that his wife was used in an arrest.  She could tell and eased his concern about it.  "All I did really was answer the door.  They were disguised as FBI agents sent to take me to a safe house.  But SHIELD was already there and when I went to my room to get my purse, they made the arrests.  Did you destroy the Siberian facility?"

"No, the Russian government said they would handle it and wanted us out," he answered, shaking his head.  "Not sure I believe them."

"Well, you're done now, right?"  She ran her hand through his hair, scratching his scalp in a manner that always relaxed him.  "You promised."

"I did promise," he answered, groaning slightly at how good her hands felt.  "I'm retired, as of right now."

His words were sealed with a kiss and more making love.  After two days in Hawaii the whole team plus Bucky and his wife flew back in the quinjet.  The couple bought the log house with the wrap-around porch and began to live a quiet life as they prepared to begin a family.  It was what Bucky always promised Diane.

Three months later

Sam, Bucky, and Nick Fury, stood at the quinjet, facing U.S. Agent, Red Guardian, Black Widow, Ghost, Taskmaster and Sentry, the group formerly known as the Thunderbolts.  They were all in civilian clothes.

"This mission wiped the slate clean for all of you," said Fury.  "The destruction of the HYDRA facility in Siberia is top secret and not to be discussed in the future by anyone.  If we hear any chatter about the mission and trace it to any of you, your pardons are cancelled.  As far as the Russian government is concerned a malfunction in the self-destruct mechanism set it in motion and their people were unable to stop it, resulting in the evacuation of their staff.  They witnessed the destruction of the site."

"You're sure the Russians don't know it was us," confirmed Alexei Shostakov, Red Guardian.  "I don't want to be hiding from their covert security forces."

"We're sure.  The enchantments put on you made you invisible to the security cameras.  You successfully evaded any human contact while you were there.  By all signs you worked well together and if you're open to more assignments with us, we will welcome you with open arms.  If you choose to freelance instead just remember to pick your employers carefully.  We will be watching.  Anything else?"

John Walker, U.S. Agent smirked.  "Is Bucky afraid if his wife finds out he went on one more mission she'll divorce him?"

"I'm more afraid she'll kick my ass," replied Bucky.  "Being pregnant with a super soldier baby has made her get a lot stronger than me.  All she knows is I went on a road trip to find a car for me to restore and stayed several nights in a motel."  The sound of an approaching vehicle drew all their attention.  "In fact, there it is."

Alexei whistled appreciatively as the driver of Bucky's truck parked beside them pulling a vehicle on a flatbed trailer.  "A 1971 Dodge Charger.  426 engine?"

Bucky nodded.  "426 Hemi but it needs to be rebuilt.  Body needs work."  He saw the admiration on the Russian man's face.  "You want to help?  I have another spare room at home."

Alexei looked at Yelena as he had promised to spend time with her after the mission.  "Go ahead, Dad.  It's good to have a hobby.  I know where to find you."  She looked at Fury.  "What if Valentina de Fontaine tries to recruit us?"

He let out an audible breath.  "That's up to you but you know she can't be trusted.  It was her slip of the tongue that saw Sergeant Barnes abducted.  She still insists it was an innocent comment to an acquaintance, but that woman does nothing accidentally."

"Well, may I discuss working with the Avengers permanently?  My sister trusted you and you have been more than fair with me."

"Miss Belova, we can definitely talk."  Fury looked at the others, waiting for any other overtures.  "You know where to find me."  He turned to Bucky then and extended his hand to shake the other's.  "I guess this is really goodbye then.  You've come a long way from the man who tried to kill me twice.  Steve Roger's faith in you wanting to get out from behind the mask was justified.  You've been a valued member of our team, and we will miss you, James."

"Thank you ... Nick."  He grinned, knowing Fury didn't like his first name being used.  "You're a tough man to kill and I'm glad I was unsuccessful.  Take care of Sam and the others.  I promised my wife that I would retire when we were ready to start a family.  I'm just keeping my word to her."

Gesturing to Alexei, the two men got into his truck.  With a wave Bucky drove away from the quinjet leaving that part of his life behind for good. 

He promised.

One Shots Masterlist

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[tendermiasma]

Whoever sent the ask with a lot of questions at once I super appreciate you but I don't quite know how to answer without putting a giant novel post on the dash at once but to your question about whether Clover found Halsin attractive at the start, lord he thought Halsin was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen but he smelled of fae magic and that overrode every other function in his brain. Until it didn't. Whether Halsin found Clover attractive, yes, incredibly, very-- even if he was a peculiar little guy before he found out what was really going on.

To your ask about the significance of the honey comic, I don't know if you've played the game or had Halsin in your party when you actually get to the city, but Halsin has a really rough time with it. The human suffering, especially with the children, really wrecks him so it was just a time when he was very vulnerable and I wanted to show them holding onto each other through the horror and exhaustion of it all.

(Also, please no spoilers, I haven't finished the game)

[thatastrobae]

her with the violet eyes

The neon purple hands of (dimension 42) Aaron Davis’ analog clock signaled to Miles that it was nearing the twelve o’clock hour. He layed freshly showered, in borrowed fleece pajamas that he swore he had a pair of back home. The red leather loveseat/futon in Aaron’s condo was identical to the one his father sold over a year ago and despite the comfortable plushness of the mattress, Miles knew he was getting no shut eye tonight. Given the fact his body was in four different dimensions in a singular day, Miles should’ve been knocked out by now; however he was wide awake. It wasn’t because of the rattling sound of Aaron’s running refrigerator or the fact that his alternate self was in fetal position right beside him. What kept him awake and alert was his mind replaying the past 16 hours on a 4X speed loop. As if…if he stopped thinking about it for one second, he’d forget everything. Miles scoffed when soft snores began to emit from his Earth 42 counterpart, indicating he was now sound asleep. Contrarily, the prowler swore on his late abuelitos grave that he would be posted up all night to make sure Miles didn’t try anything funny. Miles thought it to be likely that his other self trusted him more than he was willing to admit; there was no way he would’ve dozed off if he didn’t. Either way, the jaded teen had nothing to worry about. Miles knew his best shot at finding a collider and getting home was with his and his Uncle's assistance; running away would push him farther from his goal. The young Spiderman decided hours ago that he couldn’t afford to be impulsive at the moment, his father was running on borrowed time. The random pieces of advanced tech in Aaron’s apartment caused his thoughts to drift to the utopia that was Nueva York. Of course the famous Spider Society would be based in such an advanced dimension; with their high speed trams, self-driving cars, opulent glass skyscrapers, AI assistants, avatars…

...Cute avatar girls to be more specific…

Even if he wanted to, Miles couldn’t stop his train of thought from heading in that direction. Getting acquainted with her was definitely one of the highlights of this tumultuous day. He was in a facility full of spider people- more spider people than he ever could've imagined, but there was something about her. The pleasant, invigorating zing! that tickled his brain when he first registered her being. He never thought a Spider sense could feel so amazing. His attraction to her wasn't subconscious for long because he quickly found her to be witty, intelligent, assured. How could he not give her all his attention? If it were up to Miles, he would've followed her around headquarters for the rest of that day; asking about the function of every machine in the place- just to hear her talk. For a total of five minutes, he didn't give a damn about meeting Miguel O'Hara. Miles wasn't afraid of Miguel in the slightest, but the knowledge that she'd likely face hefty repercussions for aiding his escape made his stomach harden. She didn't have to help him, she barely even knew him and vice versa. And yet under her violet gaze, he felt seen... for the first time in a while.

'I'll never see her again.'

The thought made him miserable, but he had to face the facts. She was dimensions away and was probably regretting her noble act towards him...as well as meeting him in the first place. He couldn't even properly thank her- or at least protect her from Miguel's brutish wrath. His talons ripping through the barrier, fangs bared, red eyes bulging through it’s sockets- Miles thought he was done for, but then he turned and looked at her. She was a wreck and it was obvious to Miles that she had much to lose if she didn’t abide by Miguel’s orders. Brilliantly, she overrode his tampering and Miles was prepared for her to deactivate the machine. But then she met his pleading gaze and fixed him with a look of her own- not the look of pity he’d grown used to seeing on others- no, it was a look if recognition. Her affirming nod. It was a relief that at least someone in that big fancy place understood his actions. The stubborn part of Miles' mind kicked in quickly. Even if they would never cross paths again, Miles was determined to remember her. The way her pixilated hair perfectly mimicked a tight curl pattern, her upturned feline eyes, and not to forget her endearing tooth gap. If he were home, he'd utilize his sketchbook. Draw her to the last detail while she was still fresh in his mind. For now, his memory would have to do. Miles remembered her lilting voice as she teased him, her naturally beguiling aura. He forgot his own name because he was too keen on learning hers. No one ever made him feel the way she did and Miles knew at that moment that it'd be impossible to forget her. In fact it was more likely than not that he would fall into the same old pattern he was in this past year. Fantasizing about a spider girl from a different dimension. Only this time, Miles was sure this girl wouldn't randomly apparate to his house a year later. And maybe that was a blessing in disguise, maybe it's best that she remained a beautiful fantasy. One that could never pose a threat to his emotional well-being. Far a way and untouchable, only appearing in his dreams at night and making her way to the back of his mind during his busy days. He should only be so lucky if- "Gah!" Miles was torn out of his bout of angst when a bony knee dug into the right side of his abdomen. He looked over to his dimensional equivalent who had the audacity to sneer at him in his sleep. The young prowler maneuvered his body to a more comfortable position on his stomach and grumbled as if to say...

'Can you stop thinkin' so damn loud? I'm tryna sleep here.'

The two were complete opposites- that much was clear to him, but Miles wondered if his other self was also prone to getting attached to girls he just met. If only they were on better terms; Miles could talk to him and not have to internalize the anguish of knowing he'll never cross paths with her again. He let out a heavy sigh and attempted to clear his mind of all the uncertainty of what was to come the next day. Instead, he focused on the neon purple hands of the clock. Soon enough, repose began to take over his being and he could've sworn the neon purple looked violet.

[thedragon-and-hisboy]

lycanwing hiccup and dragonroot 😩😩😩 he's my baby guy i want to see him suffer <3 @mr-business-whump

He couldn't hide it from Astrid. Even if she hadn't seen him change, she could get any secrets out of him without trying. The others, however, didn't have to know.

It had gone well for three months. It never got any less painful, but with Astrid and Toothless, Hiccup made it through. And anyway, the reward was flying with wings of his own, and he would put up with a great deal of pain for that.

When the night of full moon approached, Hiccup sat Astrid down to talk.

"I want to hit a base this time," he said. "As a dragon."

"Hiccup, that's insanely dangerous!" Astrid said. "If they hit you with that dragonroot and you react badly to it, they'll be getting a dragon AND you! Can you imagine how much Viggo would love that?!"

"What if you fly me?" Hiccup said. "Then you can see things I missed and help keep me safe!"

Astrid hesitated, then sighed. "You're going to go, even if I don't," she said. It was a fact and an accusation.

"Probably." Hiccup took her hand. "Please, Astrid. It'll make such a difference."

"Fine. You need someone to get you out of trouble, I suppose." She shook her head. "But if it goes wrong, you aren't hearing the end of it."

It did go well. At first, anyway.

Astrid’s guidance helped Hiccup direct his fury at the hunters and their base, and he had so much more control for destruction. He and Toothless always functioned in harmony, but having his own fire made a world of difference.

On his back, Astrid was laughing in delight. Below him, hunters were in screaming disarray. He let off a triumphant roar and jet of red fire into the sky, hearing it echo back across the base. Then he heard something else.

"FIRE!"

Arrows like an upside down hailstorm flooded the sky. Hiccup screeched; pain was flaring in his left shoulder. Not just pain. Blaring, blinding agony and sensation took over his senses. He could dimly hear Astrid screaming, barely feel wind making his wings flail uselessly, but none of it compared to the agony centered on the arrow in his flesh.

Gods, is this how it was for the dragons? Wave after wave of an overpowering assault on all senses?

The impact stole his breath and stopped the pathetic wailing he hadn't known was his. More pain exploded, but it merely added to the dragonroot's effects.

"Get back!" Astrid yelled from somewhere over him. Weapons rang, hunters cried out in pain, Astrid taking them down two at a time. He tried to open his eyes, but his vision was overtaken by bright colors and the harsh light of torches. He whined and hated the sound.

"Get her under control!" Someone bellowed from nearby. Ryker! Hiccup tried to stand, but his muscles wouldn't support him. He tried to shoot, but his throat constricted around the fire. Astrid was good. Very good. But even she couldn't fight forever.

A bola appeared and tore the axe from her hands, then another bore her to the ground while wrapping around her torso. "No!" She fought, but the ropes were woven with wire.

"Well, well!" An infuriatingly familiar voice was approaching them. Hiccup squinted up at a man in red and black armor and a smug grin. "Why, miss Hofferson! No Nadder tonight?"

"Get away!" Astrid snapped. She kicked, but Ryker stepped on her leg. Not enough force to break it, but she hissed in pain anyway.

"What dragon is it?" he asked his brother.

"It is a kind I have never seen before," Viggo said, utterly fascinated. He leaned toward Hiccup, who snarled and bit the air an inch from Viggo’s nose. "I want to study this. Bring it to the pens!"

"No!" Astrid cried again, twisting under Ryker’s foot. Hiccup growled and tried to stand again, but this time a different sensation overwhelmed him. He looked up frantically: the moon had set.

The horrible shrinking of his wings, his fangs, his skin! Panic overrode the dragonroot as he thrashed, voice changing even as he screamed.

"By the gods!" someone shouted. The hunters were clamoring, yelling in shock and panic. Hiccup's diminishing tail knocked a few back as he thrashed.

Hiccup cried out in a thoroughly human voice as the transformation ended. His skin, always so raw after the scales retreated, burned like fire in the night air. He was unclothed again, but he was so curled in on himself that this hardly mattered at the moment. It would matter very soon, but for now he couldn't care.

Silence fell, save for Astrid’s frantic attempts to reach where Hiccup lay. The hunters, Viggo, and Ryker were speechless.

At last, Ryker said "By Almighty Thor. The boy's a monster."

"That would explain why I didn't recognize the dragon," Viggo said. "No one has ever seen a Lycanwing and lived to tell the tale." He stepped forward and knelt next to Hiccup. "Oh, Hiccup. You have really done it this time, my boy."

[one-of-many-journeys]

Day 48

Dawn’s Sentinel

Riding west. All that time in the snow got me used to functioning while half freezing. The heat was a shock.

Speaking of shock...Damn Stormbirds circling. I dismounted to take it on since I need a claw for my Stormslinger anyway. Thankfully I'd taken a swig of shock wax before its cannon pinned me down. Hardpoint to the cannon, blaze canister detonations; rope, chill water canister explosions, more hardpoint. Done. Salvaged the claw for when I get back to Varga in Longnotch. Might be a while.

Smoke in the distance—stout towers, felled trees. An Oseram settlement. They're a long way from the Claim.

Up on the roof of the largest dwelling, I found Petra, a tinker, forger, and mayor of Free Heap. She led a band of Oseram here after they helped take Meridian for Avad, all of it beginning with a working party that she joined in building the city's great elevators after fleeing the Claim. They settled down next to a huge scrap pile left by the Old Ones—plenty of building material, though Petra doesn't care to know what the scrap was for or how it ended up here. The Old Ones had their time, she said. Their works are over now.

In Free Heap, they govern themselves, help each other, though it seems to me that they answer to Petra above all. I know enough about Oseram culture to understand how significant it is for a woman to lead one of their settlements.

Petra told me about a huge bandit clan that had taken up residence in the excavation site next to the scrap heap. They'd been trying to muscle their way into the settlement and push the Oseram out, barring them from their livelihoods in the meantime. Petra had a plan to deal with them—a weapon of her own design, iterating on one she built for the assault on Meridian. The parts she needed to finish it were in the heap now crawling with bandits. She proposed a job opportunity. I accepted.

I took out the bandit's scouts and sentinels first, scaling the excavation equipment to get a decent angle over the whole camp.

The bandits were holding their best gear at the back of the camp, heavily defended. I had to scale around the side to find a way in. There was no getting through without a fight; not enough places to hide, and far too many of them. I picked up the power cells Petra needed and made to exit when a bandit called out to me from above, warning be that the rest of the clan was coming to launch an all-out assault on the town. Not sure why he felt the need to announce this to me, the one who'd just cleared the camp single-handedly, but I won't complain.

I had to hurry through the scrap yard to gather the materials Petra requested. With that sort of fire power on our side, we'd be able to fend off the bandits' assault without casualties. The place was crawling with Scrappers, predictably, but I overrode a couple to keep the rest at bay, sneaking up on those I could. With parts and power cells in hand, I made the short trek back to Free Heap to prepare for the oncoming attack.

Petra's cannon is a marvel. It loads itself automatically by pulling in ammunition with waves of force like a Behemoth. The projectiles are like smaller blast bombs, spraying destructive clusters over vast distances. When the clan came charging from their base beyond the cliffs, I caught them before they could even get close. They kept on coming, charging, dumb as machines.

A group of them congregated under the bridge over the site entrance. Petra told me to blow it up, and though it seemed like n extreme course of action, given it was her bridge and all, the debris crushed the attackers and either barred or deterred the rest. In the way of final words, it was impactful. The attack was over.

Petra certainly made her satisfaction known. I like her. Another woman the Clanlands couldn't hold down, like Gera. Speaking of, I asked around about her husband, Kendert, since he was last seen in the area. He didn't make it to Free Heap, but a few traders said they spotted him along the western road heading for the border some days ago.

I set out looking for signs of him, spotting abandoned supply crates and bottles of Oseram ale along the way. Blood too. Lots of it.

I ran into a herd of scavengers—Scrappers and Glinthawks, disturbing the tracks I was trying to follow.

Dusk came and went, until I came to the end of the trail, an ale barrel that had torn its way downhill to scatter its contents in a field of Tramplers. Above, camping on the ridge, I found Kendert, injured and mournful. He was surprised to hear that Gera cared enough to wonder where he was, let alone send someone looking. Seems like they had a rocky parting back in the Claim, and from what Kendert refused to mention, it almost sounded like he'd set out intending to bring her back, her being his property and all. Not so anymore. He just wanted to see her and try to patch things up, wished he'd accompanied her in the first place as an equal.

I trust him on his word. Besides, he'd be no match for Gera. Problem was, he'd lost all his stock to the herd, and wouldn't skulk back to Gera empty handed. It was a lot to ask, but I hadn't had a tough machine hunt all day. I agreed to salvage what I could of his stock.

To start, I overrode a couple of the Tramplers. Sneaking through was no fun, but I may have overestimated my new allies. Things got messy, fast.

Lucky I got in and out as quick as I did. Pretty soon a nearby Thunderjaw caught wind of the battle and started attacking my Tramplers. Not quite up to taking on that thing tonight.

I returned to Kendert with ale in hand, but he'd have to wait a while for the machines to clear out before heading down the eastward road. Good luck crossing it on foot with a Thunderjaw on the prowl. I hope he finds Gera, for his sake. For hers, I hope she reserves the right to turn him right back around again.

I returned to Free Heap for the night.

No free bedrolls in this place, just wood, stone and shelter. At least it's warm.

[separatist-apologist]

The Fire Won't Burn Me

All I know is this could either break my heart or bring it back to life

for @elucienweekofficial

Summary: Princess Elain Archeron wants nothing more than to be reunited with her missing youngest sister and to see her father finally emerge from the fog of grief he's been living under since her mother died. When her step mother arranges for her older sister to fetch her youngest to celebrate Elain's impending engagement to a neighboring prince, it seems like she'll get her wish. That is, until her father's fearsome huntsman steps in and wrecks it all. Now she's on the run, hiding in the forest to keep herself- and her heart- intact.

In her quest to understand why someone would want her heart carved from her chest, Elain will have to reconcile what it means to truly be the fairest of them all

Read on AO3 | Chapter 1

Elain had never run so hard in her life. Tricked by the huntsman, lured out in the woods only to be spared at the last minute. Elain didn’t know if she should be grateful or furious. Fear overrode every other emotion as she tore blindly through the trees, terrified he’d change his mind and come after her. 

The skies opened as Elain tried to figure out a path to follow that would get her far, far away from her stepmother. Maybe, she thought wildly, she’d follow Nesta. Go to the wall, vanish into the Illyrian Mountains. Assuming she managed to survive the night.

The rain was cold, mingling with her tears. The only benefit was the thunder and the wind drowned out her loud, uncontrollable sobbing. All Elain could imagine was her stepmother ordering the huntsman to kill her—and how stupid she’d been to trust him. He’d let her go, though. 

Elain clung to that as she ran blindly, slipping through mud until her dress was torn at the hem. Her hair caught on branches that seemed like vicious, grabbing hands, ripping it from her head until she screamed.

In the end, Elain found a large enough knoll in a tree to climb inside, shielding her from the worst of the elements. Knees drawn to her chest, the best she could do was sob into the fabric of her gown. Sure, she and her stepmother had never been friends but to want her dead?

“Why?” she whispered, as if the trees might answer her. There was only silence and the rustling of animals that convinced her Lucien was coming back to finish what he’d started. She couldn’t sleep, even when the rain died down and dawn broke against the horizon. 

Elain’s legs ached when she unfurled them, stumbling to her feet blindly. She had no idea where she was and the rain had washed away any semblance of a path. That was both a blessing and a curse. Lucien wouldn’t be able to track her down but she now had to keep moving and hope she didn’t die before she found safety.

“You can do this,” she whispered to herself. Pretty words that were functionally useless, and yet it convinced her to take that first step into this terrifying new life. She couldn’t go home—Lucien had promised to kill her if she did. How would he explain her death? What would Nesta think? Nesta.

Dread solidified like ice in her gut. Feyre was probably dead, then—and Nesta sent on some far flung mission where no one would be surprised if she died, too. All three daughters easily eliminated…though for what purpose, Elain couldn’t begin to guess. It wasn’t like her father would be giving another woman children, and as long as there was a whisper of hope that Nesta was alive, her throne would be safe.

Assuming that was even what was happening. Maybe Elain had done something to deserve this. Had shared some secret with Graysen she wasn’t supposed to, or otherwise undermined her fathers regime. For hours, Elain racked her brain for any hint of wrongdoing, certain she must be missing something.

She simply refused to believe Lucien’s assertion that it had been her looks that had caused this. That was crazy. And yet…and yet as Elain continued her miserable hike, she thought of Amarantha’s laughter every time Graysen spoke. How she’d felt like they were in a competition for his attention. Those nails on her shoulder when Elain had said beauty couldn’t run in their family because they weren’t related. Her beauty was a result of her parents—but that slight surely wasn’t enough to sign her death warrant.

What did Elain know? Not enough, she decided. She’d been too complacent for too long and now she was lost in the sprawling forest hoping she’d find a village or a person who wouldn’t recognize her. Someone who would whisk her away to safety. 

Elain wanted to sleep. She wanted to eat something, wanted a bath and a warm bed. For hours, all Elain had was her stiff dress, ruined from the rain the night before and her aching feet. Convincing herself to just give up and go back—to run to her father and tell him everything and pray that was the thing that finally woke him up—Elain didn’t notice the cottage sitting silent and dark in front of her until she tripped over a loose stone. 

It was clear no one lived here from the built up weeds and the window pushed ajar. Someone had broken in at least once and had the decency not to destroy anything. Elain tried the door handle and when that didn’t budge, hiked up her dress, and climbed through the window, too.

It was small. A kitchen, a living room, and a loft overhead where she assumed someone might sleep. All of it was covered in a thick, near suffocating layer of dust. Elain made her way to the kitchen where she found several jars of pickled vegetables and canned fruit. She opened one and, after tasting it, ate an entire can of sweetened peaches hoping they were still edible. 

Her stomach momentarily full, Elain found the little bitty bathroom, complete with a toilet that flushed and a bathtub filled with spiders. A table in the main room held two chairs with two equally broken legs. The stairs that led to the loft creaked when she put her weight on them, but otherwise held.

She’d been right about the bed. A moth eaten blanket covered a springy mattress, all of it smelling faintly of mildew. Still, a bed was a bed, and shelter was shelter. She’d take what she could get. At least she was alive. That was what Elain told herself when she collapsed atop that blanket. She’d been spared by the huntsman and once she figured out what was going on, Elain swore she’d figure out some plan to return. 

Or, that was what Elain told herself as she drifted into sleep.

She woke to the sound of the stairs creaking and then a voice, dark and masculine, asking, “How did you get in here?”

Elain sat up, heart hammering in her chest. Light flooded the downstairs, illuminating the features of the person staring her down.

“Is…is this your house?”

“Technically,” he replied gruffly, looking at the threadbare blanket she was curled beneath. “Did you break in?”

Elain was going to break down. Tears gathered behind her lids, Elain tried—and failed—to come up with a reasonable explanation.

“Don’t…don’t fucking cry,” the man ordered, brown eyes wide with unmistakable fear. “You ah…you got a name?”

She should have lied. “Elain,” she whispered, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Okay, look. Don’t go around telling’ everyone I’m out here doing favors, alright? People will start asking me for shit. But if you ah…clean this place up, I might be willing to look the other way for now. You’re gonna need to get a job!” he added when a smile bloomed over her face. “I’ll be expecting rent from you!”

“Okay,” she agreed. “When?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Spring? Give you some time to ah…get on your feet. And work on this place. I mean it. I want to see real improvements or you can crawl back to wherever you came from!”

“I will,” Elain promised, creeping a little closer. “What’s your name?” 

“Jurian,” he said with a deep frown. “That’s all you need to know. I’ll be getting locks for those windows…you’re the last person crawling through them, do you understand me?”

“I understand,” she whispered, offering him another smile. Jurian merely blinked, as if no one had ever done such a thing and he didn’t know what to make of it. He was rather grumpy, but Elain decided right then that she liked him. 

“I ah…” he rubbed the back of his neck again. “I’ll be back. Don’t open that door for strangers.”

He didn’t have to worry about that. How long before Amarantha wasn’t a looming threat, she wondered? A few days? A month? Elain watched Jurian climb back down the steps, flinging the musty blanket from her body to follow him down. 

“I could use some other things—”

“Does it look like I’m running a charity here?” Jurian demanded, taking stock of the rather pathetic living area. Elain could fix that easily with just a little water and soap. And a rag, if she could hunt one down. Jurian, too, seemed to realize it would be a tough sell asking her to clean up his dilapidated cottage with only the things she had on hand. 

“I’ll see what I can do,” he finally grumbled, turning in a half circle again. “Remember what I said about letting in strangers.”

She nodded. “I promise. No strangers.”

That didn’t seem to appease him. In fact, Jurian seemed all the more disturbed by the events unfolding. But Elain was thinking, trying to figure out an escape route. For now, staying in the cottage made sense but she’d have to leave eventually. She couldn’t risk someone recognizing her while she was still within her fathers borders. 

“How far are we from Avalon?” she asked. She’d heard stories of Beron Vanserra, the King of Avalon and his seven sons. The rumors were each was more handsome than the last, making his youngest so beautiful it hurt to look upon him. Whether that was true or merely a myth meant to make his sons seem more marriageable, Elain didn’t know. What she did know was a man with seven sons would need wives and after the first, he was likely hoping for just any advantageous match to benefit his kingdom.

Elain could barter for an alliance with her sister. Perhaps she could marry one of the younger ones, someone of no consequence bound for the universities or priesthood. Or maybe Beron would merely trade her safety for information—that was better than another marriage.

She merely wanted to be prepared.

“Two weeks walk,” Jurian told her gruffly. “Through rough terrain. Are you from there?”

“I have a friend who lives that way. I was thinking I might pay them a visit when winter is gone?”

Jurian leveled a long, unreadable stare at her. “Well. I’m not helping you with that.”

Elain offered him a sunny smile. “I wouldn’t dream of asking you for anything else. This is far too kind already.”

“It is too kind,” he grumbled. “Don’t forget what I said. Do not open this door to strangers.”

“I swear,” she agreed, waving as Jurian made his way out. If she could scrounge up enough fruit and sugar, maybe she’d make Jurian a pie to thank him. But for the moment, she was as safe as she could get. She had four walls and a roof.

And somehow, it felt like paradise.

LUCIEN:

“Well?” Amarantha demanded when he strode back into her bed chamber. She was dressed obscenely in a black, lacy thing that threatened to overturn his stomach. He betrayed none of his hatred, setting a wooden box atop her vanity. She strolled forward, leaning forward so he could have looked straight down the front of her dress if he’d wanted.

Lucien averted his eyes. 

“Did she suffer?”

“I carved out her heart,” he replied dryly, refusing to imagine what that would have been like. Elain was safe and alive somewhere in the forest and just as soon as he finished here, Lucien meant to go track her down. “What do you think?”

“Oh, what I wouldn’t give to have seen her face. Do you think she realized it was me who ordered it?” Amarantha asked, pulling that heart from its tomb to hold it in her hand. Lucien fought back the urge to vomit, waiting until she set it back in that cedar box and closed the lid.

“She knew.”

“Good. You’re dismissed,” Armantha added, waving a hand at him.

Lucien turned from the dark bed chamber, listening to the howling sounds of wind and rain from just outside. And as he went, he swore he heard Amarantha speak.

“Mirror, mirror, on the wall. Who is the fairest of them all?”

Lucien didn’t stick around to see if the mirror could talk back. He wanted to go straight back into the woods and find her and knew he was probably being watched. Lucien didn’t like Amrantha’s black guards—soldiers loyal only to her, paid with whatever money she’d brought with her. They did all her bidding and Lucien didn’t doubt that if he slipped out in the middle of a storm, Amarantha would hear about it.

He was tempted to check in on the party happening in one of the halls and didn’t think he could look at the prince who was supposed to be marrying Princess Elain knowing he’d sent her far, far away. In the end, Lucien went to the small room he was allotted in the palace for the night, if only to bathe and sleep. 

Lucien’s nightmares were plagued by visions of those trusting brown eyes. A whispered please, and the way Elain flung herself away from him, running as fast as she could to escape him. Lucien woke a little before dawn, bathing himself in an attempt to shake off the memories.

He’d saved her life. One of the black guards would have drawn it out, making sure she suffered before finally killing her.

The problem, outside of his own desire to see her again, was the fear that she’d turn right back around and come home. That she didn’t believe him or thought she could change the ending. Maybe she’d buy herself time—but Amarantha would know she’d been thwarted and no matter how far Elain ran, she’d always be looking for her.

Better for the princess to vanish entirely. Lucien could put her on a boat for Rask by the end of the week. He could get new papers drawn up for her, a new identity, a new life. She’d never be a princess, but she’d be alive.

And maybe he’d sleep again. 

Lucien dressed himself after his bath, grabbed his usual breakfast, and was out the door without a second glance. That was hardly unusual. Lucien loathed spending time in the palace, preferring to be outdoors and in the woods minding for poachers and keeping the local wolf population from getting too out of hand. 

Lucien made his way to the forest with ease, hand on the hilt of his sword. He traced the path where he’d left Elain and then, with nothing else to do, guessed the route she would have taken. Thinking of her like a frightened doe, Lucien imagined she would have run in a straight line, veering only when something in her path forced her away. 

The tell-tale traces were there. Strands of her hair tangled in low-hanging branches and pieces of her dress buried against the mud. Lucien collected them all, erasing the evidence without a second thought. Relief filled his veins at the knowledge that she had heeded his warning.

Where had she gone, though? She didn’t seem the sort to rough it, but after walking well into the afternoon with no hint as to where she’d ended up, Lucien was beginning to suspect Elain Archeron was dead. 

Lucien told himself that was for the best. One way or the other, his lie was safe and Amarantha had gotten what she wanted. Still, it seemed a shame to lose a person like Elain. Lucien trudged forward, still thinking about her bouncy step and her big eyes. He’d see Jurian about all that meat he’d asked to be dried. If nothing else, Lucien could hole up in the forest with jerky and try and ease his wounded conscience.

Jurian was waiting in his home, a frown on his face. Lucien stepped through the door, noting his meat was tried and neatly packed up in brown paper. 

“What do I owe you?”

Jurian rattled off double the usual price, the lines between his eyes creased. Lucien crossed his arms over his chest.

“Are you trying to cheat me?”

“No,” Jurian replied gruffly, “but I’ve got new expenses.”

“Finally knocked up one of the barmaids, huh?” he teased, fishing out the coins despite the markup. 

“I fucking wish,” Jurian replied, snatching the gold coins from the rough wood table. Lucien gathered up his meat, surprised to see a basket of unusual items sitting just beside the fireplace. Blankets and cookware were mingled alongside a set of pretty yellow and red dresses. He saw soap and rags and a few gardening supplies peeking from the bottom, which likely housed more things he could only imagine.

“Are you bringing home a wife?”

Jurian’s cheeks darkened. “No, nothing like that. I ah…you know, don’t worry about it.”

Lucien narrowed his eyes.

“Did you, by any chance, pick up a new tenant?”

Jurian was the most crotchety man Lucien had ever met. There was no one and nothing in this world that could convince him to go out on a limb or do something that didn’t directly benefit him. If he was gathering supplies for a woman he didn’t intend to make his wife, Lucien could guess who might make such an act of kindness possible.

“Why are you asking so many questions?” Jurian demanded, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Because I’m on my way to visit Elain,” he lied, mentally running down every little cottage Jurian owned in the village. “And I know what she’s like.”

“She’s not…this isn’t manipulation—”

“Trust me,” Lucien said, clapping a hand on Jurian’s shoulder. “I know.”

Jurian blew out a relieved breath. “She seems like a nice kid. I want to help her out.”

Lucien nodded. “I can take this to her if you want.”

“Yeah. Every time I look at her, I…” Jurian ran a hand through his closely cropped brown hair. “She’s just…you know?”

“Yeah,” Lucien agreed, unwilling to admit he felt immense relief that not only was Elain alive, but she’d managed to engender more than enough good will. Hell, Jurian was trying to keep her safe. That was good and bad. With that kind of charm, Amarantha would know he’d lied before the week was out. He needed to warn her to be careful, to dial down whatever magic seemed to shimmer around her.

Just long enough for Lucien to get her out.

“Remind her of what I said,” Jurian said absently, turning toward a pig's carcass hanging from a hook just over a large tub shaped sink. 

“You got it,” Lucien replied, wondering if he was supposed to know what that warning was. Jurian told Lucien where Elain was—tucked away in the woods just outside the village in the cottage the healer had lived in before she died. That was better than Lucien had been imagining. No one else would know she was there so long as someone brought her supplies. He could do that until he got her out.

Lucien made his way to Elain—a short walk from Jurian’s workshop built against two ancient oak trees. Her cottage was tucked against a hill and judging from the ruined front garden and the peeling paint on the door, it had seen better days.

He rapped his knuckles against the door. Elain flung it open, her smile shifting to horror when she saw him. She tried, to her credit, to slam the door on him, but Lucien wedged his boot against the frame and pushed in.

“You—you can’t be here,” she breathed, arms wrapped around her body. “I did what you said—”

“I’m not here to kill you,” Lucien interrupted, ignoring the twang of disappointment he felt. Of course she wouldn’t be happy to see him. Why should she be? Lucien was happy to see her, though. 

He set the basket on the floor between them, noting that she was still in the clothes from the night before. She looked exhausted and a little too pale for his liking, but otherwise unharmed and alive. “This is from Jurian.”

“Oh,” she said, some of the light returning to her eyes. “He sent so much.”

“You made quite the impression,” Lucien teased, closing the door quietly behind him. Elain had already sunk to the floor, rifling through the items with delight. 

“Why are you here, huntsman?”

Ouch. He supposed he deserved that. “I came to warn you to lay low. I can get you to the continent–”

“I’m not going to the continent,” she scoffed, pulling one of the yellow dresses from the basket. “Not that it's any of your business, but I’m going to Avalon.”

She was joking. “Why…why would you ever go there?”

“I heard the king has sons,” Elain told him, unable to hide her earnestness. “Seven, to be precise.”

There was an unspoken question beneath her assertion, so Lucien, crossing his arms, nodded his head. “He does.”

“Surely some of them need wives. I’m suitable enough, maybe for his youngest.”

Lucien nearly choked on the air he was breathing. “You want to marry King Beron’s youngest son?” he asked her. Did she…did she really not know? But Elain only nodded her head before rushing to explain the rest of her plan.

“I’m still a princess, and my sister is going to be queen. I think that’s an incredibly good match for someone likely destined for the universities, right? And my stepmother can’t kill me if I’m under another king's protection. He could…he could help me put Nesta on the throne, even.”

Unlikely. Lucien didn’t bother to tell her all the things wrong with her plan. Namely, she was standing in front of Beron’s youngest son and though he had been destined for a university, she was a prize worthy of Eris or Cadmus. Not him. Beron wouldn’t have wasted a princess, even one who’d fled in disgrace, on Lucien.

“When?” he asked instead. If Elain was planning to go to Avalon, he’d at least see her to the border. He’d have to flee again, too—Amarantha would likely be demanding his heart next.

“Once winter has faded,” she said. Lucien wondered why she wanted to wait three months, and Elain answered. “Nesta should be back with Feyre by then. She will be back by then.”

Nesta was likely dead, as was Feyre. And he could see on her face that she was calculating that possibility, too. Elain was living in delusion and Lucien figured if she was plotting to marry him, the least he could do was help her out.

“Alright,” he said, looking around. “You’ll probably need some chairs, then?”

“What are you doing?”

“I didn’t risk everything just so you could sit on the floor while you ate,” he replied.

“When the snow clears, I’ll take you to the border.” Where he’d tell her who he was, assuming she didn’t put it together first. Vanserra

wasn’t exactly a common last name. 

“Why risk anything for me at all?” she asked, clutching that dress to her chest.

Lucien made his way toward the door, shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t know. What I do know is our fates are tied together, now. So do me a favor, princess?”

She looked at him with those eyes that haunted him.

“Don’t open this door for strangers.”

And then he was gone, grateful to be out of her presence.

And somehow missing her all the same.

[chronal-anomaly]

Thinking about recalls and the automatic recall function on the accelerator. How the accelerator alone burns so much energy, but especially after Recalls is when it hits the worse.

Basic, easy recalls come with routine side effects. Exhaustion, after too many, hunger, dehydration in some cases. Not unlike going for a moderate jog. While she doesn't like to recall in training, she will, and that's usually when you see these the most.

The side effects worsen a bit more when it's more of an extreme recall, occuring either after a long recall or an automatic one following a fatal blow. It will trigger milliseconds before she would die, sending her back anywhere from 3-10 seconds before whatever it was that would kill her (explosion, bullet wound, etc). It's not an exact science, but it usually tries to put her out of immediate harms way again (recalling to empty space, in front of another bullet, etc). It still happens but less so.

The other area where she might see worse side effects is long term recalls. They're highly recommended against by Winston and the rest of the design team, so it's incredibly rare that it happens. While she can recall to any point in her Overwatch timeline life, Winston designed a governor to limited how far back she can recall to.

She overrode this exactly 5 times. 3 of which were spent on going back to watch the Zurich base collapse, look for answers, and try to find survivors. This was a dark, manic point in her life, where she was clutching for any kind of answers ever, at all. The first time it happened, it was only a few days after the explosion. The second, on the one year anniversary and the third, about 4 years after the collapse of Overwatch. Still seeking answers, still failing terribly. There would probably be more, if she wasn't taken into "protective" custody by the UN shortly after clean up efforts were concluded.

The other two visits were to the Slipstream launch, with very similar goals. Those ranged from 2 years after her return and 2.5 years after her return. Trying to understand what happened, how it happened, etc.

The longer she recalls, the more harsh the consequences. Anything within a 3-10 minute recall is fine, with very little side effects. An hour - 10 hours leads to more exhaustion, but barely. That means she can immediately get back up and into the fight. Anything beyond that, things get worse.

Worse side effects include blurred vision, bleeding from the nose and sometimes the ears, vomiting, fainting, stints of incorporealness where she's present but unable to touch anything, and unconsciousness.

Following her last trip to Zurich, Lena slipped into a coma for four days before waking up, as her body tried to replenish depleted energy sources. Winston had a lot to say about that one. Following a particularly nasty ultimatum when fighting omnics one day, Lena was left with the option to run a weapon out of town or let it explode in the middle of everything. Once the automatic recall kicked in, she was out cold for 7 hours, requiring search and rescue from the rest of her team to find her on the empty beach she landed on.

These are all treatable, and not deadly unless the accelerator is overtaxed, like we see in the trailer short in the museum. In that case, the accelerator will go dark until it is charged off her energy to go again, and is usually a pretty terrible moment until she's back. Lena usually finds cover in these rare situations, radioing out to give her 10 until the accelerator is back online. If she can, she'll retreat, but that's not always possible.

[docholligay]

House in Fata Morgana: Door Three --1869

I have never reviewed a visual novel before, but iscahwynn made me a very generous offer and a long line of patience, knowing that we are trying something very new. To that end: Please don’t spoil me for the game at all! If you are reading this, I have only gotten through the part written above, and I don’t want to be corrected, even if I’m wrong, even if I’ve missed something, i don’t want to have anything confirmed or denied, and I don’t need any trigger warnings or extraneous explanation. Iscah would like my pure, naive experience of the game. Thank you!

Non-spoilery: This is not so much a horror story as it is a revenge story, and one I think I really would have enjoyed if not for the fact that it purports to take place in 1869 in the Eastern United States, which unfortunately is a time period and place about which I am pretty knowledgable. It actually doesn’t want to take place in 1869--the political-social aspects of mob culture and building America are better suited for a placement in the 1890s at earliest, and really better placed in the 1910s-1920s. It gets married to both its 1600-1700-1800 progression and its desire to involve the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, and this ends up hurting the frame for what is actually an enjoyable story about the long tail of revenge and what we are born to do. 

Spoilers below: 

BOY, do I wish this hadn’t taken place in the time period it says it takes place in. Other than the Transcontinental Railroad, this story really does not want to take place in 1869. The music used, the cultural upheaval of wealthy immigrants becoming a part of high society, the establishment of the Sicilian mob in the US, the hairstyles used, the slang used, the social class as a function of marriage, all of this actually wants the story to take place at least thirty years later. For most people, this is going to be fine, but I found it so distracting that it made this door not particularly fun for me to play. It wasn’t even “this isn’t accurate” it was “If you just moved your year, this would be so in the wheelhouse that the inaccuracies would be small” instead of the constant buzzing glare of it. I am trying not to bore everyone with this but the first pizzeria in the entire US did not open until the 1900s. The first recorded use of “the willies” was in 1896. I assume the perfume being referenced is Guerlain Jicky, known for being one of the first prominent vanilla base perfumes, and that was released in 1889. I am dying here. 

Okay, Doc, we get it, you didn’t care for the time period it was set in but let’s talk about the story. 

I actually loved the idea that Maria had been sitting around waiting for her moment for years, and the fact that Jacopo believed that their bond overrode any anger she would have over being essentially dethroned and her family murdered. I wanted to yell so much at Jacopo and his father because I feel as if this could have been very easily avoided by making Maria “our beloved sister” or something, and having her legitimately help Jacopo in his quest to establish the family in the US. I’m pretty sure there’s actually precedent for this in history, as it gives Maria a lot less reason to upset the apple cart, because she’s still benefitting by it. If I were Maria, I also would be endlessly enraged that I was serving as a maid to the boy I grew up with because his family murdered mine. I would be a little sore about that. What she does doesn’t surprise me, and as soon as I found out she had grown up with him and their families had been at war, I figured out that was going to be the story of it. 

Jacopo is an interesting character because he’s trying so hard to be a strong hand at things that he ends up absolutely screwing himself over. He doesn’t know how to be genuine to himself because he has no idea who that man is, so he’s playacting at being this big tough capofamiglia guy, and eventually he has to buy into that himself, leaving him unable to make meaningful connections with anyone. It’s so interesting taken next to the last door, because door 2 was so literally violent and its consequences so obvious, but door three is such a sense of personal violence, and so drawn in. Of course he doesn’t kill the White Haired Girl, because that would be action and decision on anything personal. Of course he doesn’t speak to her. His violence is one of inaction, and it costs terribly at the end of the day. I found this so human, to be so weak in such personal ways. 

I really did love the very end where it shows Maria and Jacopo in their little hideaway and they briefly talk about running away and getting a job elsewhere together, and getting away from all this, and you see how if they had just been brave enough to do that, if they had been brave enough to go against the thing that they had been told they were born for, they might have made it out. They might have found something different and better. I don’t agree with the way the game says its in their blood, because I don’t believe in that sort of thing, but I do believe we can get lockedinto things we think must be true about ourselves, and so we are the ones who pen our tragedies with our own hand. 

By the way, Costa Nosta isn’t “Our house” game, it’s “Our thing” if you are going to directly reference the Italian-American mob please hit up google. 

It must be said that I am getting a little tired of the White Haired Girl’s shit. I don’t do “Pathetic sad downtrodden character :(“ very well, it’s something i don’t connect with, and in the same way that I think jacopo needs to open up, she needs to step the fuck up in at least one of these goddamn timelines and stop being a doormat if she doesn’t want to be one. 

Calling it Pig Iron Manor was interesting to me because pig iron is a crude iron that’s very brittle and not really useable for much. I don’t know if that’s meant to be a commentary on Jacopo himself or if they just thought it sounded cool, but I could see it working for Jacopo even if I don’t strictly speaking agree. 

Don’t answer this--so why WAS all the latin about the witch in maria’s handwriting? I never did figure that out for myself, and it felt like a really strange inclusion into a story that 100% worked without any mention of the witch or the portrait.

[letterboxd-in]

N3xt Y3ar // Chapter 1:

"Art is Dead"

ⲥⲁⲥⲟⲉⲧⲏⲉ𝛓 𝛓ⲥꞅⲓⲃⲉⲛⲇⲓ ─── ⲥⲁⲥⲟⲉⲧⲏⲉ𝛓 𝛓ⲥꞅⲓⲃⲉⲛⲇⲓ ─── ⲥⲁⲥⲟⲉⲧⲏⲉ𝛓 𝛓ⲥꞅⲓⲃⲉⲛⲇⲓ

this chapter is a letterbox archives original. do not repurpose.

ⲥⲁⲥⲟⲉⲧⲏⲉ𝛓 𝛓ⲥꞅⲓⲃⲉⲛⲇⲓ ─── ⲥⲁⲥⲟⲉⲧⲏⲉ𝛓 𝛓ⲥꞅⲓⲃⲉⲛⲇⲓ ─── ⲥⲁⲥⲟⲉⲧⲏⲉ𝛓 𝛓ⲥꞅⲓⲃⲉⲛⲇⲓ

Static crept across the edges of a shoddy television. An uncannily perfect actress gave a winning smile as she faded from view. When the movie shuddered to a halt, there were no credits. Instead, the television whirred once more. With a pained noise, it selected another film, just as superficial and mind-numbing as the last; one pushed to the top of an algorithm without human intervention.

The apartment was like any other in the city. Everything was the same, at least on the outside. Littered with takeout boxes and nothing of importance. The sensitive items, the things that held memories and creativity, were stashed away. Hidden from any prying eyes.

They all feared the worst. So they stuffed individuality into the corners of reality.

The sun rose over the horizon, raised by wires rusted and barely functioning. Artificial light bled through the pale blinds. Not good enough quality to actually stop any sunlight from entering the apartment, the subtle shine caused Shepherd to stir.

“What time is it?” Shepherd mumbled when the light became too demanding to ignore. They didn’t say it to anyone, not exactly, though their brother was on the other end of the coarse couch.

“June?” They said.

No response.

“Juno?”

Just the steady rise and fall of his chest.

“Juno. J. Junie.” They prodded, trying out some nicknames they knew annoyed him.

Observation showed Juno was basically comatose. Shepherd ignored his silence and dragged themselves off the couch. It strained on poorly made springs and hinges.

They didn’t notice they had been wearing the same clothes for days on end until the light properly hit them. Blinds drawn, a false day welcomed them.

“Rise and shine, Junebug!” They teased.

Admittedly, Shepherd was as tired as Juno, maybe more. But they hoped the chipper melody to their voice overrode the lethargy.

Juno groaned when the sun’s rays filled the room.

“Call me Junebug again and you’re sleeping in the streets,” he muttered, not fully awake yet.

Shepherd drew the blinds higher, sliding the window open for a nice, disorientating morning breeze. As any good younger sibling would.

“Damnit, Shepherd…” Juno said as he finally sat upright – as upright as he could with that posture, anyway – rubbing his eyes in the process. “You’re gonna be the death of me.”

“Aw, I wouldn’t go that far. You know you love me,” they smiled.

Juno sighed, a sound weighed down by years of hopeless struggle. “Honestly, Shep, how do you keep this up?”

Shepherd paused. At least their cheeriness was distracting from any real issues. But was that enough? There was a dull pain that loitered in the back of their head, an insistent presence every day. A discordant song that always hummed out of tune. Impossible to ignore, impossible to fix.

They glanced around the apartment. No, there was no fixing someone like them. For one moment, their shoulders dropped, and their smile waned.

“Shepherd?” It only took one second of weakness for Juno to notice. He struggled to lift himself off the couch but was able to stand and move to their side.

That bright, fake sun looked down on the two of them. Shepherd looked away, if only to try and see something real.

“Tell me what’s goin’ on,” his voice was gentle. Expectant. There was a hoarseness to it, a slight strain from the lack of use.

Shepherd glanced out a tiny ramshackle window. The glass was chipped and the frame was rotting, but what was more important was the bleak greyness outside. Nothing real, nothing human.

With a choke, they said, “Don’t you see it?”

A twinge of confusion crossed Juno’s face as he tried to follow his sibling’s line of vision. He placed his hand on their shoulder, a display of kindness obfuscated by uncertainty.

“I’m gonna need some more information, bud.”

“I just… I feel like…” They struggled, trying not to look at the deadened streets below.

Juno adjusted his arm, pulling Shepherd into a half-hug. “You gonna spit it out, or do I have to guess on that?”

“I’m gettin’ to it, hold on…”

Shepherd scoured their vocabulary for the right words. But there really weren’t any words to explain that hollowness in their chest. Each day was the same. They’d been wearing the same clothes for a week, maybe more. Was there any point to it anymore? 

Juno rested his arm on their shoulder.

“We’re just rotting here, y’know?” They managed to say. “And there’s–well, there was–so much for us to do. And we’re just here? Still?”

As they spoke, their mind pulled them into the past. To a time when there was music, real music, and art, real art. They had talent, they could feel it on their fingertips. Each note fit, but when it didn’t, it was so beautifully real regardless. It was a song! Every song knew it was a real piece of art. But now, every song had a dull, whirring, mechanical hum behind it. Droning on and on, without a shred of reality to its name. Shepherd was right. Everyone used to have art to make, but not anymore. It all became so robotic.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” he said. His voice was cold, but Shepherd could discern the defeatedness in his tone, “you tried to do somethin’ to stay creative, or relevant, or whatever you wanna call it, and we came up worse than nothing.”

Shepherd pulled their gaze away from the window and to their apartment. Juno was no liar, the place was awful. Their home betrayed a sense of hopeless despair. Conformity tried to mask the scent, but it just… couldn’t.

“You tried too,” they said, voice sunk deep into a soft sadness.

He didn’t reply straight away. For a short moment, he tried to distract himself with anything else. But with no distraction in sight, Juno had to confront their words.

“Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

Juno let go of them and raised his arms to show off his… less-than-well-kept form. 

“And look at me now,” his voice was stained with sarcasm, “what an inspiration, huh?”

Shepherd sighed. Listening to Juno talk about himself like he was some piece of trash weighed on them. When they felt like that, they just shoved the feelings of inferiority into a bottle in the back of their mind and left it there. Which wasn’t entirely healthy, maybe, but it served some purpose.

“Well, hey, you’ve got proof of your art, at least. After all this time!”

Then they gestured to the outside of that window.

But outside was bleak as ever. Bleaker, somehow. Under that false sun, all plant life, most colour, and all individuality were gone, including…

“Not anymore.”

“What? You’ve gotta be—”

Shepherd moved to the window and shoved it open. Beneath was grey, grey, some more grey, a little grey over there, and a small horde of robots next to an unused, dilapidated wall. Each silver bucket of bolts had a can affixed to one hand. They each did their part to strip paint off brick. Colour melted into clear. What was once a beautiful mural, minus the… disorganised canvas, was swiftly replaced with nothing at all.

“Are they kidding?”

“Told you so.”

Though Juno’s voice was blanketed by a thick layer of sarcasm, there was a vague hint of hopelessness. As the robots stripped away the last bit of paint, his paint, his art, Juno’s shoulders fell a little bit more. Shepherd turned back to him, though they didn’t want to meet his eye. Seeing that would be enough to make them cry, and that just couldn’t happen. They tried to twist themselves into a knot, secure and hidden.

“Look, uh,” he said, “why don’t we… go on a walk?”

“A walk?”

Shepherd blinked. A walk? Neither of them had walked in so long. A walk insinuated going outside. And that didn’t happen anymore, not really. Especially not by Juno’s own volition.

“What are you lookin’ at me like that for?” Juno asked, off-put by Shepherd’s bewildered expression.

“You want to go on a walk.” They said, disbelief flavouring their words. “You? A walk?”

Juno shrugged. “Yeah, sure.”

They tried to not let their jaw hit the floor as the confusion solidified. If anything, it was a damn good distraction.

“It could… get your mind off things,” he rubbed the back of his neck, “think that could be useful.”

The window’s open frame lay forgotten as Shepherd took a grounding breath. A hollowed-out corpse that acted as a painful passageway to the truth of the outside world. Both of them tried to ignore that. Despite that, the curtain stayed drawn and the window stayed open.

“Yeah,” they agreed, “yeah, that’d be good.”

Juno tried not to sigh. There wasn’t a single bone in his body that wanted to leave the little cage the two of them had built.

Maybe ‘wanted’ wasn’t the right word. He simply couldn’t fathom leaving anymore. Didn’t have the motivation.

But he’d do it for Shepherd. As a kid, before they had a name that fit, they’d be bouncing off the walls, never stagnant. They could stay still for two seconds, tops. Now… Well, now things were different. Neither asked to leave, so neither did. Get the groceries delivered, work from home, and have no family to visit.

It was a simple formula, and an easy one at that. When there was nothing else to do, they both just let the natural things happen. The world passes without any human interference. Work may be made for idle hands, but the hands will not work when all hope is lost.

“Alright. We can go in–-”

“Now?”

Juno hesitated. “Hold on, not right now, let’s get all fixed up first. God,” he nearly laughed at that.

Shepherd smiled then. Not like the ones before. Those smiles hurt; they weren’t real. But as they busied themselves with the needed preparations for such a journey, a small, genuine look of hope tinted their face.

ⲥⲁⲥⲟⲉⲧⲏⲉ𝛓 𝛓ⲥꞅⲓⲃⲉⲛⲇⲓ ─── ⲥⲁⲥⲟⲉⲧⲏⲉ𝛓 𝛓ⲥꞅⲓⲃⲉⲛⲇⲓ ─── ⲥⲁⲥⲟⲉⲧⲏⲉ𝛓 𝛓ⲥꞅⲓⲃⲉⲛⲇⲓ

[next] [previous] [first]

[emily-ttg]

Windows File Handles

Need to rant about an issue I've come across today -- Windows has far too many types of file handle.

First you have the stdc and win32 FILE* and HANDLE respectively. Having these two be separate made sense historically (and still somewhat nowadays) as DOS and Win32 applications were broadly structured as separate -- with the latter preferring Win32-specific solutions as stdc was/is viewed as being TUI-centric with wholly graphical applications being Windows' original purpose; people would just drop back to DOS to use console applications. Whilst a tad annoying to have two -- the historical reasoning wasn't entirely without reason.

Moving onto the first of the weirder ones -- HFILE-oriented functions (_lopen, _hread/_lread etc.) deal with their own handle type intended only for compat with these functions in 16-bit Windows with its different handle width and IO function implementations. This would be fine so far as compat went but there is no reason these handles needed to be entirely disconnected from Win32 HANDLEs as it actively breaks compat with functions now designated for "low level IO handles" (which we'll address later). This means that this set of functions operate on a handle type needlessly distinct from the other Win32 HANDLE type -- they're both literally just integers -- in the name of "compatibility" which got broken a few years later anyway; API design and maintainence, ladies and gentlemen.

Now for "low level IO handles" -- otherwise known as FDs. These are a type of file handle stored purely as int and used with what are now seen as the POSIX compatibility functions introduced into NT's unix subsystem -- eventually incorporated into Win32/the Windows CRT directly. These are your _read, _fstat, _fdopen etc. (Microsoft's hypocritical approach to C compliance with these stupid "oldname" techniques is a matter for another day). However -- when HFILE functions were still broadly used, there were some unix-y functions provided with many DOS C libraries which could work with them (such as fstat f.e.). So when these unix-y functions were introduced they were compatible with the very similar DOS functions which already had unix-y compat and stored their handles as ints right? Of course not. The new UNIX-y compatibility functions effectively overrode the old DOS versions and replaced the kind of file handle they consume -- thus leading to a compatibility breakage with a class of functions whose continued existence was solely in the name of compatibility. Great job Microsoft.

Then we have the WME/WinMM HMMIO class of file functions. I'm not going to go into too much detail on WME here because we'd be here all day -- but basically it was Windows 3's version of the "multimedia OS" craze which would come to dominate the 90s (and was more effectively realised in 9x). One aspect of this led to a separate IO system supporting memory files, file cookie-like behaviour so one could implement specific file formats via. standard handles (as well as effective CD usage) and of course normal file IO. HMMIO files are not compatible with any other kind of file handle and have their own set of functions for interaction -- add another to the pile.

These are all that I've encountered personally (at least recently) in Windows' native system APIs when doing work on AftGangAglay (https://aftgangaglay.github.io/). There may be more kinds of handle I've missed/forgotten (I seem to remember a COM-based file stream interface but I can't find it at time of writing) but it's certainly more than enough for MS to reconsider what they're up to. My entire project is founded on the continued efforts of software systems to maintain compatibility, which is a noble goal; however as we've seen some of these were introduced only to be abandoned instead of simply extending existing behaviours in the first place -- or were overriden by newer behaviours. Microsoft seems to be allergic to using existing standards in modern Windows -- but it all really got started in the Windows 3 era when they started rampantly overriding stdc/unix-y functionality they already had in MS-DOS with their own inferior API in the name of an ill-formed perception that compatibility with a standard would adversely affect the practice of programmers for their principally graphical system.

[psychotrope777]

trump opinions

i have a lot of complicated feelings abt donald trump for one he is an objectively evil man and i want to make my stance clear on him first and foremost hes a racist, xenophobic, imperialist, capitalist pedophile & serial rapist; i am NOT a centrist i dont want anyone walking away from this post taking away anything irt my feelings on him besides that i think time in alcatraz would be too lenient a punishment for him i think he needs to be slathered in peanut butter and thrown in a ring full of starving dogs and the footage of him being literally torn limb from limb broadcast on national tv, i think what he did to those girls on little saint james is enough to warrant him being executed by firing squad and knowing that they saw him not only getting away scot free but also being president of the fucking united states in spite of it because hes rich and white makes me hope he gets an inoperable cancer in his brain.

i think the fact that he was elected in and of itself, the fact that the electoral college (infernal invention to begin with) overrode a majority vote in front of the entire country in favor of literally one of the most hated men in modern times, should have pushed democrats way left but that would have required them challenging their beliefs about america. also the average us president is a racist, xenophobic, imperialist, capitalist pedophile & serial rapist and literally the only difference between trump and any of the other fucking american figureheads is his willingness to voice his opinions. it pisses me off that trump has become a sort of boogeyman not because he isnt evil but because hes like almost this cartoonish caricature of american policy that democrats now have someone to posit as the Big Bad and make their own incredibly racist capitalist warlords look "morally upstanding" in comparison, the fact that im still seeing people insist you vote for biden makes me want to scrape my face off on the tar. it doesnt matter to them that biden's politics are not meaningfully different from trump's, it doesnt matter that obama's presidency (under which biden was VP) laid the groundwork for trump's aggressive and bloody immigration policies and that obama and previous presidents are responsible for not codifying the laws that the trump administration would later overturn, it doesnt matter that biden is actively funding an alt-right ethnostate's imperial crusade and genocide of the indigenous people of the levant, it doesnt matter that biden has his own library of sexual abuse allegations under his belt and that he was a segregationist in recent memory. because democrats are not leftists, they dont give a fuck about progress, they care about saving face for the state, their modus operandi is dodging threats to the status quo and maintaining enough plausible deniability that any american president can be falsely posited as the face of empowerment and social progress while ordering drone strikes and maintaining military bases in overseas countries. biden smiles for the camera and shakes hands the way hes supposed to its all a fucking puppet show and no one gives a fuck as long as they feel like the peace is being kept. got away from me a little bit here but like i feel like donald trump's election peeled the facade back on what a fucking evil and rotten country america is and maybe thats part of the reason he's become this mythical figure to democrats despite not really being meaningfully different from any other president in terms of his beliefs and policies

again it lkinda got away from trump for a second but his cult following is another thing. like yes trump is in his own right a cult leader but it's like... he's not a bill gothard. he's not a joseph smith. he's not a jim jones. because donald trump is a very obviously unintelligent man and hes also either senile or the years of cocaine use and medical cocktails have fucked up his brain to the point of being barely functional. and i mean its not like there havent been cult leaders or fundamentalist juggernauts that were incredibly stupid or insane. look at mark driscoll or kenneth copeland or fuck honestly even people like charles manson or roch theriault. but trump lacks charm. do you know what i mean? he lacks grace or prose. hes not well spoken he can barely string together a fucking coherent sentence. i believe the only reason hes gained the following he has is because of the power afforded to men like him by our society. i mean fuck even elon musk has a similar thing going on despite the fact he is also observably unintelligent and has an incredibly unlikeable personality. donald trump grew like a weed out of the poison soil of reagan-era economics and we all know money is power in america. honestly i cant even believe he was able to like, apply to run for president. there's not a point where you're like, considered psychologically unfit to hold a position of power? can literally anyone be president? can i be president? fucks sake didnt jim bob duggar run for president... what a fucking nightmare

[finalfronticr]

❛ I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to get something together. ❜ The laughter in his voice is hardly concealed as he immediately busies himself with doting over the bundle in his hands. Seeing as the child may be here for a while , perhaps a baby shower is in order after all. Unless they do have some poor parents that are searching for their child - and in that case , Jim would hate to take such a milestone away from them. Even though in most cases the baby shower is had before the baby. But this is such short notice that they'll just have to make do.

While he knows Bones is speaking , it's as if his words are going in one ear and out the other. He's far more preoccupied with pacing around the transporter room , gently bouncing the baby in his arms. The paternal instinct within him has overrode just about every other function , and he only spares a momentary glance up at the Doctor before turning his attention back to the child.

❛ I suppose we don't have anywhere on the ship truly fit for a baby. ❜ Is the only response he utters : voice low , gentle. It's the truth. The sickbay does seem to be their best option at the moment , even though they don't exactly have a crib at their disposal. Improvising , however , has quickly become to be one of the Enterprise's greatest assets. He's sure they'll come up with something.

There's no hesitation when he answers. ❛ I'm sure Mr. Spock won't mind. ❜ Any other day , any other reason , and Jim would've fought tooth and nail to stay on the conn. But this is different. Not only is it a child , but compared to any of the other predicaments this ship has seen in the past few months , this is a cake walk. He has always wanted to be a father , after all. ❛ I can handle a few days of fatherhood. Don't you think ? ❜

"Oh, of course not. Though I didn't have time to make gift bags for the occasion." Leonard exchanges a knowing glance with Scotty over Jim's head, entirely unsurprised by the way Jim's attention near-immediately laser-focuses in on their unexpected guest. Anyone on the ship could've predicted this sort of reaction from a mile away, and he steps out of the way so that Jim can carefully steal the kid from the engineer.

It's just as well. Scotty's been being a good sport, holding perfectly still, for long enough that the man's starting to look a bit uncomfortable. Or maybe that's just how the man looks when he's dealing with anything other than the warp core. McCoy returns his attention to his tricorder, tucking the hand scanner away so that he can glance over the readings, offering Jim a preoccupied hum of agreement.

"At least until we can figure out where exactly they came from and how they got here, yes, I'm inclined to say the same. And Sickbay's not much of an upgrade, but the equipment there's more useful to me than this is." When he looks back up, he gets the impression that Jim might not have heard any of that at all. Leonard can't even bring himself to feel any level of exasperation over it - if there was ever a worthy distraction, it's this, and god knows how many days (weeks?) it's been since he got to see Jim this genuinely happy over anything. He poorly smothers a smile and peers over the captain's shoulder.

"...But they seem healthy enough," he concludes. "No idea what we're supposed to do with them, but there's that. Don't suppose you think you'd have any luck handing the conn off to Spock for a few days straight so you can help babysit, because I'll tell you one thing right now: the rest of the crew's not going to stop getting sick or injured no matter how busy I tell them medical is going to be with this." And god knows none of their schedules can handle one more ounce of strain.

[albatris]

my favourite coping skills for emotional distress are "lentils" and "why not just go the fuck to sleep about it, actually"

[misteria247]

Y'all know that one Vocaloid song sung by Rin Kagamine? The one about the robot who's trying to figure out what her purpose is and trying to figure out the reason she's here? Only to find out through a bunch of files found on her creator's computer files that she was made as a companion and when she'd regained all these memories and acquired her emotions that she previously didn't have she'd quite literally broken down due to how much it overrode her systems? I think it was something like Kokoro? Or the other song sung by Miku Hatsune where she's a program that's being deleted by her master and creator so in a desperate attempt to do the thing she loves she sings the fastest song she's ever made? Telling her creator that she'll miss him and thank you for letting her sing her songs before the deletion process is completed and she's disconnected from the server, causing her to become an Error? The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku I believe it's called?

Anyways that type of scenario but with Donbot.

Like it's been a few hundred years or so, he's been wandering the Wastelands and Oasis for such a long time that he's essentially forgotten everything about himself other than his system and its programming. It's during one of his dazed like wanderings in the desert, with the harsh unforgiving sun blazing down on him that he comes across a small area that contains the ruins of a building. It's decrypted and there's barely any signs of it left save for the stone crumbling stairs and rusting metal frames and rotted wood. Beside it is random stones that are slightly buried in the sand. Donbot pays no mind to them, instead digging through the husk of this building in search of a new power resource when he comes across a door hidden within the gutted out structure. It leads into the ground much like a basement and Donbot pries its rusting door open, disturbing the sand and metal as it gives way to a dark, musty place that smells of decaying machines and faded chemicals.

Donbot goes down into the darkness, stepping on broken glass and disintegrating papers and such with his robotic foot. He digs around the abandoned basement, stumbling over documents and blueprints that had long since eroded due to time, their ink faded or completely gone after a century of being in the dark and damp basement. He continues on his mission not showing any interest in his findings, his programming not allowing him to think about things such as what once was obviously a lab of some sort. As he digs into the grime and sand and dirt his sensors pick up something. Buried beneath the debris and broken pieces of what was once wooden shelves and other trinkets he finds a computer. It's old and ancient, covered in dust and silent as if a scepter that's been quietly sitting in the darkness of the basement, waiting for the moment for the world above to shine into its cavern once more. It takes Donbot a bit of time, using his own power source to try and jumpstart the computer to life, to see if its batteries and database can be of use or if he should take his search somewhere else. It comes on, surprisingly, the sounds of its servers boosting up filling that basement where Donbot stands, patiently waiting for it to completely come to life. After all the robot's in no rush to go anywhere. Once on and fully functioning somewhat Donbot begins his work of searching its inner hardware and data, in hopes of finding what he's looking for. As he scans and analyzes it in his robotic database he comes across something.

An encrypted file code.

Donbot doesn't think too much about it. Doesn't think about how easy it was for him to get into the system that's encrypted for a reason. Doesn't think about the reason why it was made like that in the first place. All he thinks about is his mission for a new battery source and when it finally is opened and within his technological grasp, it's only then that Donbot's servers are suddenly overwhelmed with information. Information that leaves him reeling.

Memories.

Memories of a human boy with missing teeth and a cocky smirk, memories of a human girl with bright red hair and a kind smile.

Memories of a rat with a stern yet mischievous gaze who was full of wisdom.

Memories of three turtles whose laughter and smiles and shining gazes ring and flash within his mind.

All at once the data, the memories come flooding back, drowning Donbot in a sea of shock, horror, love, pain, grief and despair. Memories of a city long lost, of a father long gone, of companions once there, of brothers once right beside him. Memories of a body long ago made of flesh and bone and blood, instead of wires and screens and metalwork. Memories of aliens and mutants and ninjas and an apocalyptic world started by a bomb.

Memories of his brothers dying one by one, slowly but surely leaving him as the last one standing.

Donbot remembers it all, remembers his desperate attempts to make his pain, his grief, his hatred of his immortality stop. His attempts leading him to make the very file he's now just opened once again. Donbot doesn't think, his entire existence shutting down because it's too much but he forces himself to leave the basement, to go back to the surface to make sure that this was the place that he thought it was. Once the sun hits him again his robotic gaze is already swinging towards the strange stones buried by grime and sand. Forcing his body to move towards them Donbot finally draws close enough to confirm his suspensions.

The stones had writing on them. Faded and barely seen on their grainy surfaces, worn down due to time and the harsh weather conditions that they faced. But Donbot could make them out and their words made him collapse next to them.

Leonardo Hamato.

Raphael Hamato.

Michelangelo Hamato.

His brothers graves.

Realization hits him like a ton of bricks and that's all his systems could take. Kneeling against the headstones of his brothers final resting places, Donbot's systems begin to shut down due to the sheer devastation and overwhelming overflow of information that essentially makes up his heart. As he finally shuts down for good, Donbot only thinks one last thought.

'I'm sorry for taking so long, please wait for me one the other side.'

As Donbot's systems finally shut down, the flashing screen screaming the words ERROR at him, Donbot hears something that he hasn't heard in eons.

'Took you long enough brainiac.'

'Bro-! We've been waiting for you-!!'

'Let's go home Donnie, everyone's waiting for you.'

As soon as he knew, Donbot finally let go, his mechanical body letting out a small noise before going still in the long awaited embrace of death.

'Thank you......for waiting for me.'

Many years later when the Wastelands have changed with the sands of time, the desert would be silent. Other than the sounds of the harsh winds blowing the dry burning sands being the only thing heard. Somewhere further in its harsh grasp is the ruins of what was once a home in an dried up Oasis. Beside it sits three graves and the broken figure of a robotic turtle that has long since passed, finally looking peaceful for the first time in centuries.

[rjalker]

February 12th 2023: don't donate until this part is removed! someone stole my fucking wallet.

I'm making this my pinned post because I am tired of suffering.

Here's the link to my actual About post. Read it if you're going to follow me, it has my DNI as well as tags I use for things so you can blacklist them if you want/need to.

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Hi I'm fucking too disabled to work but have to get a fucking lawyer to get fucking disability SSI from the stupid fucking government because it's literally designed to make people give up before they get their gods damned money.

I literally don't even eat even a single meal each day.

I'm also trans and would like to fucking medically transition someday but at this point I've just fucking give up that hope because I will literally never be able to afford it unless capitalism gets smashed tomorrow. in which case none of this matters, but that's not going to happen because that's not how revolution works so fucking anyways

also we're out of ibuprophen and I have fucking menstrual cramps right and yeah I should probably get fucking tested for endomitroiosis or whatever the fuck it's called but you know what else I don't have? Health insurance. Because I'm too disabled to work, and even if I could work literlaly no one will give me a full time job that wouldn't literaly just end up killing me.

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Here's the gofundme link.

My paypal, venmo, and cashapp are all "Rjalker".

Here's the link to my redbubble store if you'd rather buy something.

You can also tip me through tumblr.

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I have the Redbubble prices set so that when you buy a product I actually get a decent cut instead of $2 max. If you buy a pin, for example, I get $9.

My paypal icon is the same flower design as my tumblr icon. I don't think cashapp and venmo have icons but if they do I'll make sure they're the same too.

Check out and request more pronoun pins on my sideblog @custom-pronoun-pins

This post is being made November 30th 2022 but unless they suddenly invent No Longer Disabled pills it's just not going to have a fucking "this is no longer relevant" date because this shit isn't going to get better.

Here's what your money will be going towards if you donate:

rent, $500 a month for my half

phone bill, $35 a month

water bill, around $35 a month

internet bill , $45 a month

cat food, cat litter, and vet visits

groceries

clothes

fixing the washer or just buying a new one

fixing the dryer or just buying a new one

all the fantasy and scifi books I'm going to write that I will literally be giving away for free because if it's not clear enough yet I fucking hate capitalism. You will be able to download the books for free endlessly and the only time you'll have to pay money is for the cost of the materials to make the physical book.

we literally have not had a functional washer or dryer for the last like five fucking years in a row. All our clothes have to be washed in the fucking tub and then hung up in front of a fan to dry, or put in the fucking pop-up air dryer we found that takes for fucking ever and can't hold more than a few things before it stops working almost entirely.

I'm making this my pinned post because I'm tired of suffering. I'll fucking put the other one back when capitalism ends or I get the fucking disability SSI I literally would have been getting from birth except for the fucking idiot in the government who decided to fucking remove us from the fucking disability list when we turned eighteen when they took us off the fucking survivor's benefits of our fucking dad dying.

No I am not fucking joking. My twin and I were literally born four months early. We were literally guaranteed disability SSI from the moment we were born because of all the shit that went wrong and the fact that both of us were blatantly fucking autistic and had dyslexia and all this other shit.

And some fucking government worker fucked up when we turned eighteen and not only took us off the fucking survivor's benefits SSI, which overrode the disability SSI, but also fucking took us off the list for the disabled SSI.

Literally assigned abled at eighteen.

And I still haven't even fucking been diagnosed with anything for my physical disability because again! No health insurance! Because I can't work! Because I'm disabled! And since I can't work I can't get my disability diagnosed! Which means I can't get accommodations! It's literally a fucking endless cycle that will only stop if I or capitalism die!!!

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Update 12/11/22: The water bill for November has been paid! Thank you!