#really all of our existences are '~forgetable~' in the grand scheme of things

[darthlenaplant]

L-FUCKING-MAO,

What sort of loser actually thinks the ending of The World's End is "~forgetable~"?

Bitch, your entire existence is "~forgetable~".

Filmbros (well, certainly 99.95% of them) really are the weakest species out there.

Like, sure, it's not my most beloved of movies, but I actually understood the message of it. And it did hit hard, you know? How about you learn how to deal with your feelings in any other way besides suppressing them and acting as if nothing is there and maybe then you'll calm down.

And be truly appreciative of human art, for that matter, too.

[supersoftly]

My mom was telling me she remembers from her childhood that they were still receiving American condensed milk rations post WWII, and her younger brother was only just a little too young to remember that before it got phased out. They really pushed in public schools at the time to "finish your plate or you don't go home", which now is considered almost fiendish, but at the time, where a country had just barely survived and was doing it's best to avoid mass starvation, it was law that probably saved more than hindered.

It just reminded me personally as someone who is lucky enough to be outside of war that I think we forget how difficult life is even after recovery; the country and its people are still there, still growing and living and trying to get back to a sense of normalcy, even after being exposed to the deepest depths of human cruelty and suffering. War feels like the blade that keeps cutting away, even after it's over, yet we all have to deal with the consequences of the choices of people who may no longer even be alive anymore. And it's not like my mom is super old either, it was just how things were, especially in rural Japan where a new house on the block was considered a big event.

Recovery simply just doesn't happen overnight, it happens in each generation with what we give and take, and also with what we choose to leave behind. If we only choose to carry the burdens of the past to lay at the feet of the future, expecting them to carry it, where are we going but only towards a future where children will always bear the responsibility of our cruelty and evil? Is this really the path towards a future where we raise up and support the human experience to a much grander scale, where we minimize the suffering of all innocent people and work together towards something better than what we had prior? I want to believe in our vast interconnectedness, people find each other closer than they ever did before on an unprecedented scale and this is what will raise us up as a human race, simply communicating with each other as the necessary step towards real peace... And I really haven't changed my mind, even with everything going on, with the lies, the propaganda, the control of information... People still actively choose not to pass on hate as their sole inheritance, even when hurt beyond understanding, there is deep resolve and courage in those who continue to choose love when the rest of the world permits otherwise.

This ramble really didn't have a purpose in mind, just thoughts rotating in my brain, and I suppose putting clearly to words why I'm grateful as a hafu that both sides of my family chose love when they easily could've blamed each other given the circumstances. And I know some people will always believe and vocalize that my family made the wrong choice in the grand scheme of things, but for me, the simple happiness of being here today, having the time to just exist alongside my husband and my children, is a joy that keeps stoking the fire to a thankful heart.

[kaladinsspear]

I’m so mad at my ex. Like, she did damage and now I’m having to relearn healthy communication skills and it’s hard!

With her, I had to make a model of her body of knowledge, experiences, and personality, and try to predict how she would interpret everything I said before I said it. I know that she is allergic to bananas, therefore, if I offer her a banana split because I’m eating one, it must mean that I don’t care about her and don’t listen when she tells me things. If I actually cared about her experiences, I would have remembered that she is allergic to bananas and wouldn’t have offered.

Everything was like that. Did I forget to get her her meds in the evening? Must be because it’s not important to me. Did I leave my shoes by the door instead of putting them in the closet? It’s not because I was planning on taking the dog on a walk and needed to use them again, it’s because I dont value the effort that she puts into keeping a clean house. Did I tell her that I am not willing to surrender our cat that we have had since she was a few months old to the animal shelter? It must be because I care about the cat more than her.

I had to be hyper vigilant about anything I said or did, because the smallest misstep would be interpreted as proof that I’m not actually a good or loving husband. I’m actually a selfish asshole who doesn’t give a shit about the comfort or safety of the people around me. Getting the message from my partner that I’m actually selfish and inconsiderate was hard. I wouldn’t mind staying single forever if it means nobody ever makes me feel like that again.

Now I’m having to unlearn the instinct to micromanage other peoples opinion of me. Some people aren’t going to like me. That’s fine. I’m allowed to put my foot in my mouth on occasion, I’m allowed to mess up. It’s not my responsibility to be perfect.

It’s not fair to believe that everybody is always going to assume the worst about me, and if somebody does, it’s not my fault. I’m not responsible for mitigating other people negative assumptions. I don’t deserve to be seen as a toxic person for existing imperfectly.

I know what I experienced, in the grand scheme of things, really wasn’t all that bad. But my emotions like to be dramatic about it.

[em-writes-stuff-sometimes]

okay hiii!! I’ve actually never sent an anon message before but I just had so many questions abt the future of your series (which I’ve been reading since the early days btw and have loved every installation). very silent reader over here!!!

but I wanted to ask, if you’re able to share (and i sincerely hope no one’s asked this yet, if they have I’m sorry for the repeat!!) did you have plans yet for how you’re going to handle Daeron moving forward?

ofc he’s not in the show (yet? at all? who knows!!) but within your series you have reader babey take daeron as a ward on Dragonstone, which places him far closer to team black than he originally was in the books. so I was just wondering if you had any plans yet (that you’re able to share) about Daerons allegiance moving forward.

so these are just a few little questions I have, totes understand if you can’t answer them cause of spoilers: do you plan to have Daeron switch sides so that he stays true to his Green-allegiance in the books, or will you have him diverge from his book counterpart and swear fealty to Nyra? would Daeron go back to Alicent and the greens at any point so that he would be loyal to Aegon once Viserys kicks the can? does Tessarion exist within ur fic (sorry if it’s already been stated that she does and I’m just forgetting) and do you have plans for her?

also a lil more overall and totally understand if you can’t answer this but do you think your fic is going to have the dance end the same way as it does canonically (within the books at least)? and can we expect to see Babey fighting at all?

OKAY that’s a lot I’m sorry but questions have built up over so long of being a silent reader!!! love your work so much you truly are such an inspiration when it comes to writing, especially HotD writing!! Can’t wait to see where it goes!!!

-the biggest die hard Rhaenyra stan nonnie you will ever encounter

Hello, Rhaenyra Stan! It's so lovely to hear from you! I'm so thrilled you're reaching out, and I'm so happy you've been enjoying the fic!

To be quite honest, my plans concerning Daeron tend to fluctuate between him remaining a somewhat neutral party (think sending him to the Vale with the lil kids) or as a fully-fledged Blacks member. I think it'd add some really interesting additional conflict and a cool sub-plot in that Daeron has to war with his full-blood relatives in favour of his half-blood relatives. Tessarion does exist! She's mentioned in the third instalment, I wanna say.... Chapter 9? In the convo Reader has with Alicent on Driftmark just after the funeral.

I can't spoil the end of the fic, unfortunately, but I think the ending will be a just one for our principal character. That's all I'll really say there. And I do want to have Babey fighting given who she rides, but I'm still thinking through where exactly I want to place her in the grand scheme of things. I'm hesitant to have her replace anyone's role in any notable conflicts, but that also means I have to come up with some sort of sub-plot or deviation to give her a meaningful battle scene that doesn't detract from the original characters, but ALSO does justice to the Cannibal given his aggression and intimidation factor. To kill someone or not to kill someone? And who? Is it tides-turning? Hm. I'm not good with military planning, so I'll probs be bugging the audience with random questions at 4am on a Saturday about it, lol.

Thank you so much for this lovely ask, nonnie. I'm so grateful that you've been lurking for so long, and it's always amazing to me to see peeps enjoying this silly little brain fart of mine. I am pushing out updates slowly, but by the end of it all I hope it'll be a behemoth of swag I can come back to and think happy thoughts of. I hope it'll continue being enjoyable for you, too.

I hope I've answered these questions as satisfyingly as possible! Love ya!

[bettsfic]

craft essay a day #8 & 9

i'm so fucked up about this.

13 Ways of Looking at the Novel by Jane Smiley, Chapter 2: “What Is a Novel?” and 3: "Who Is a Novelist?"

beginner | intermediate | advanced | masterclass

filed under: ontology

summary & my thoughts

i woke up at 5am and couldn't get back to sleep, so i got up and decided "oh hey i've been thinking a lot about The Novel, i'm gonna dig into this book a bit" and 42 pages later i'm lisa staring into space.jpg. the end of chapter 3 made me cry? for some reason?? never reading before dawn again.

i need to preface my summary by saying that, generally speaking, the work of craft theory and narratology is lexical, which is to say it's primarily concerned with creating and defining terms that better sharpen our understanding of ideas that are otherwise abstract. so it may seem like "what is a novel" and "who is a novelist" are silly questions, like, doesn't everyone know those things? but what Smiley is doing is taking her education and experience in novel reading and writing and really drilling down into exactly what a novel and its creators are.

we take the concept of a novel for granted, because for all of us it's a form that has always been in our lives, and our parents' lives, grandparents', great grandparents', and so on. unlike film, television, and video games, all of which began in relatively recent history, the novel seems like a thing that has always existed. but it hasn't. in chapter 4, Smiley gets into the history of the novel, but i think it's important to fix the novel in its context to better understand that the novel is much, much newer than poetry and plays. in the grand scheme of literature, the novel is an infant.

Smiley begins chapter 2 by defining the novel as an object. in the past decade or so, with the invention and rise of ebooks, it's easy to forget that the novel is a physical thing, and moreover, because reading a novel is entirely mental, we can often forget its thing-ness. you can hold a novel, but you cannot experience the novel until you open it and read its contents.

"[Novels] take up space. Spread open, they offer some information, but they don't offer too much, and they don't force it upon me or anyone else. They invite perusal. Underneath the eaves, on either side, are hidden ones that have been read or remain to be read. The reader may or may not experience them. The choice is always her own. The book continues to be an object. Only while the reader is reading does it become a novel."

she goes on to define a novel by five elements. a novel is:

lengthy and

written in

prose, and

contains a narrative

with a protagonist.

in being both written as prose and lengthy, a novel, unlike a poem, does not ask to be memorized. "prose slips by," she says, "common as water." the concept of a narrative is also common, in that a narrative is only a sequence of events with cause and effect, which is the fundamental way we understand ourselves and our memories. we exist in reality and therefore are required to fix the present into the context of time as each moment passes, and therefore our minds must create narrative (that part isn't Smiley, that's me). the protagonist then makes a novel specific by becoming the vehicle of the other four elements.

"A protagonist is usually interesting not because he is someone special...but because something happens to him."

with these five elements, she says that the work of a novel is to create moral complexity in the reader by introducing the reader to a protagonist who is themselves morally complex.

here is where i get Confused. this entire chapter is phrased as if all of these things are true of all novels. she doesn't say these are the things a novel should be, but these are the things a novel simply is. and what confuses me is that, in the latter half of the chapter when she's talking about complexity, she's naming some things (like conflicts of morality) that some novels just don't have. so is she saying that lengthy written prose narratives with a protagonist cease to be novels if that protagonist doesn't have a crisis of morals? or is she using the concept of moral complexity so broadly that she's saying the very existence of a protagonist is morally complex, by virtue of encountering the separate consciousness of the reader? or is she really only talking about the work of literary fiction?

in chapter 3, she doesn't have the same issue of phrasing, though she's still defining. she begins the chapter with,

"A novel has an author. The desire to write the novel is the single required prerequisite for writing a novel."

the chapter, very cleverly and subtly, follows the life of a novelist, beginning with a childhood interest in language and an aptitude for reading. in both these interests, the future novelist develops two lives: the inner life and the outer life.

"A novelist is someone whose inner experience is as compelling as the details of his or her life, someone who may owe more to another author, never met, than to a close relative seen every day. A novelist lives two lives—a reading and a writing life, and a lived life. He or she cannot be understood at all apart from this."

when the novelist grows from reader to writer to published author, she says that they become "someone who has volunteered to be a representative of literature and to move forward a generation. That is all."

this was so refreshing for me to hear, because often when i teach or mentor writers who believe they have nothing new to say, i tell them they're not speaking into a void. all writing exists in response to other writing. it's a conversation. and when you publish or put your work out there in any way, you're adding to the conversation.

Smiley debunks the myth that all novelists lead interesting lives and that's what drives them to write. she lists of novelists who've had interesting lives and those who haven't, and pairs it with the content of their work. she reminds us again that anyone can write a novel.

"The novel is a simple, capacious, natural, and accessible form. If the writer is willing to write, if he has a clever idea, if he is dedicated and patient, if he is willing to work out each incident and idea, he might indeed come up with a worthy and unique work of art."

in terms of motivation, she drills down to five main reasons someone might want to write one. a novel can be:

a hypothesis

a dream

a therapeutic act

an ontological construct

an assertion of self

she relates novel-writing to science, insofar as the novelist approaches a project with a hypothesis and then performs an experiment (writing) to test it. as a therapeutic act, she says the process of writing one's experiences and observing them is the paradigm of therapy.

"I think that a good rule of thumb is that novel-writing will make happy a person who can tolerate and enjoy an ever-intensifying experience of himself or herself. Novel-writing forces the novelist to turn inward day after day, year after year. No consolations, in the form of praise, fame, money, or importance can compensate for that effort if it is painful."

although i've worked with many writers and have come to accept that every writer has different motivations for writing, i've never been able to truly empathize with writers who don't take joy in it. possibly this is a process/product dichotomy. i take joy in the process of writing and don't care too much about its product, but there are many writers who are driven to create a final thing. i don't have to understand that motivation to respect and accept it. what i feel all artists have in common, though, is a drive to Make Stuff.

here's where Smiley gets mind-bendy. she says that novels are a specific kind of hypothesis: the ontological construct, or "a theory of being." fundamentally the drive to write a novel comes from a foundational belief that things are not as they appear, and therefore must be written to be seen.

she says this next part really well, but it's long and makes my head hurt. i'll do my best to summarize: every novel and every novelist must acknowledge existence because novels are written in words, and words are referents to reality. therefore all novels comment on some state of existing. "in its very expression," she says, "the novel asserts that the world has being."

see what i mean by lisa staring into space.jpg?

"The novelist's ontology is his most effective form of rhetoric. A novel persuades, as any argument does, but it uses assertion, sensation, and emotion as the prime elements of the argument."

in the previous chapter, she discusses that a novel must be believable. by "believability" she doesn't mean "realistic," but that the sequence of events make sense. i think here she's connecting that thought to say that the argument of a novel is belief. she also refers to the work of novel as "seduction," which is a fun way of putting it.

Smiley goes onto say that if the novelist writes to convey the experience of being, the reader reads to have her own experience of being "mirrored back to her."

and now we get into style, and my brain has broken. she poses that style creates the ontological construct. and she admits, as all good writing teachers must, that style is something that can be neither defined nor taught, and must be discovered by the writer throughout the course of their writing life.

she refers to the journey of style as a writer "matur[ing] toward his or her most perfectly representative work" and the goal of this maturation is that "his or her style comes to express his or her quality of mind more and more eloquently."

around here is where i started crying. if you've been following me for a while, you know my whole deal is that i believe good teaching, mentoring, and editing should only to help the writer become closer to who they are and what matters most to them. i am thrilled by the concept of a "most perfectly representative work" because that's ultimately what i'm always drilling down to: how do you most clearly convey the complexity and abstractions of your own mind? how do you get that on paper, in language that can be experienced and understood by someone else? how do you respect and honor yourself and that which holds meaning to you?

although there are plenty of writing teachers out there who agree with this belief, i've never just encountered it in the wild, in a book, in different terms than i use.

as the novelist discovers their style, she says,

"He is artful; he chooses; he manipulates; he decides; he judges every word and sound pattern and character detail and twist in the action, and every one of these things is automatic, given, natural, right. The mind writing is no longer made of parts—the conscious and the subconscious, the voluntary and the involuntary; it is rather one integrated whole, focused and choosing, from all the words in the language, the single perfect one. And the closer the author comes to his (or her) true stylistic self, the more distinct he becomes from every other writer who has ever written and the more precious he becomes to the reader."

aaaand here we get to what twisted the knife.

Smiley comes to the end of the novelist's writing life, and says that a published author always has a literary persona, and that persona exists to take on all that comes with being a writer: envy, criticism, shame, embarrassment, hatred, etc. "as the author gets older and publishes more work," she says, "his or her literary persona grows larger, stronger, and more out of control."

the only antidote to the fraught life of the literary persona is to keep writing, she says, and concludes that after the death of the writer, the literary persona lives on.

"The fact is that upon death, the living person is folded into his or her literary persona and is, for better or worse, beyond resurrection."

i have a lot of reasons why this sentiment fucked me up so badly but i don't think i can write them yet. i might attempt it in this month's newsletter, but for now i need to cry for a while and maybe take a nap.

craft essay a day tag | cross-posted on AO3 | ask me something

[saiilorstars]

Ch.14: The Final Line 

Steve Rogers x OFC fic • squeeze your eyes for a Bucky Barnes x (2nd) OFC

taglist: @ocappreciationtag​​​​​​​​​​​​ @arrthurpendragon​​​​​​​​​​​ @anotherunreadblog​​​​​​​​​​​ @maaaaarveeeeel​​​​​​​​​​​ @stareyedplanet​​​​​​​​​​​ @gloryekaterina​​​ @averyhotchner​​​ @foxesandmagic​​​​​​​​​​​​ @lenonizi @kmc1989​​​​​​​​​​​​

Story Masterlist • Seren’s Masterlist• Chloe’s Masterlist​​

Also available on Fanfic ○ Ao3 ○ Wattpad

If you’d like to be a part of this OC’s work/edits, let me know!

"We're going to start talking strategies in a bit...if you're interested..." Natasha stood by the doorway of the room Seren had recused herself to. It was as shabby as the rest of the rooms in the base.

"If it involves Fury, then I can't be sure he won't try to do something in the shadows," Seren retorted, turning around to Natasha. "He might just let Chloe die for the 'bigger picture'."

"He wouldn't let that happen, Seren."

"He was prepared to shoot me down when Loki brainwashed me," Seren snapped. It all made perfect sense now. She was always so blind focusing solely on the mission that she never considered what was going on behind it. "Everyone at SHIELD is disposable, Natasha. Everyone. I finally got that. Me, you, Steve, Chloe...if we're in the way of the bigger picture, we're disposable."

"Dial back the identity crisis before you really hurt your head," Natasha said.

"It's not funny, Natasha. This is something truly hurtful to realize and, yes, I know it took me forever to realize it. It's my fault for being so blind."

"You weren't 'blind', you were just painfully optimistic," Natasha flashed Seren a little smile. "You have and will always look for the brighter side of things. It's in your nature. Always has been."

"Making me stupid," Seren said with a huff. "Honestly, I should be taking lessons from you. You don't even seem affected by everything we've learned."

"Seren, the things I have seen and done in my life make this whole thing just another passing-by situation for me. Does it affect me that SHIELD turned out to be another red room? Yeah, of course it does. But in the grand scheme of everything, it's not the worst thing that's happened to me."

"You came up with that yourself?" Seren said, slightly unconvinced. Natasha chuckled.

"Steve may have had a hand in the realization."

Seren playfully rolled her eyes. "Of course."

"For what it's worth, real or not, you have always done the best damn job for SHIELD."

Seren lowered her head. She used to like thinking the same thing. "Except now I wonder when I was doing my best for HYDRA, and how much of their agenda I helped push through."

"I wouldn't do that...it's not going to lead you to better thoughts."

"But how do I do that, Natasha? How do I stop wondering when the bad guy was actually the good guy and when the good guy was actually the bad guy?" Seren rubbed her forehead. "I keep thinking about it and I feel horrible. How do I make it stop?"

"By not holding yourself responsible for what was out of your control!" Natasha exclaimed. "You're suffocating in senseless guilt. It's not your fault. You didn't know that HYDRA still existed. None of us did! Not even Fury!"

"He should have said something, Natasha," Seren muttered.

"Maybe, but then what? We were outnumbered, girl. He played the cards he had; they weren't the best cards but it is what it is."

"So I'm supposed to forgive and forget?"

"That's up to you, Seren," Natasha shrugged. "Right now, I just think that we should pull our numbers together and get Winters the hell out of there."

Seren sighed. "Yeah, that...that would be a good idea. I just don't think I can follow Fury this time."

"Then don't," Natasha said like it was obvious what she should do. Apparently, Seren didn't know that it was obvious so Natasha helped. "You've led a ton of missions. You led the Avengers. Do it again."

Seren didn't hate the idea...in fact, it sounded right up her alley.

~ 0 ~

"We have to stop the launch," Steve had said just as Natasha had led Seren into the room. He was grateful with Natasha, and relieved that Seren was more or less alright. It seemed like he was running out of words to comfort her with and so this time he thought maybe Natasha would be better suited to persuade her to return.

"I don't think the Council's accepting my calls anymore," Fury sarcastically said. With a lot of help, he had moved over to a chair and reached over for a case at the edge of a table. He pulled it open to reveal three chips inside.

"What's that?" Sam couldn't help but look at them warily.

"Once the Helicarriers reach three thousand feet, they'll triangulate with Insight satellites becoming fully weaponized," Maria explained.

"We need to breach those carriers and replace their targeting blades with our own," added Fury.

"One or two won't cut it. We need to link all three carriers for this to work, because if even one of those ships remains operational, a whole lot of people are gonna die."

"We have to assume everyone aboard those carriers is HYDRA. We need to get pass them, insert the server blades, and maybe, just maybe, we can salvage what's left—"

"We are not salvaging anything," Seren's hard voice cut Fury off. Everyone's head turned in her direction but the only person she was looking at was Fury. "We're not just going to take down those carriers, we're going to take down everything, SHIELD included.

"SHIELD had nothing to do with it!" Fury argued.

"How do you know!?" Seren countered. "You yourself said you never knew who was HYDRA and who was SHIELD. The only sensible thing is to bring it all down. And we will, because there is no way I'm going to help if that's not the plan."

Fury looked like he couldn't believe it. "Seren—"

"There's no other way, Fury," Seren reiterated. "Because even if, somehow, we managed to pluck out every single HYDRA agent from that building, where's our guarantee that there's no other HYDRA agents in the other SHIELD bases, hm? Have we even thought about that? About all the other bases around the country?" By the silence, it was clear that the answer was no. "I'm not letting honest SHIELD agents work alongside HYDRA for another single day! It's all coming down!" The second round of silence was actually rather loud and for a split second Seren wondered if she'd crossed the line.

"I agree." Steve unintentionally brought her some relief. He was already looking at her when she glanced his way. He stood firm on his choice and he hoped that she would stick to hers without fear.

Seren nodded her thanks to him then looked over at Natasha to see what she was going to do. She gave a tilt of her head and her usual smile. Seren then looked at Sam.

"I do what you guys do, just slower," he said, "And I'm not going anywhere until we get Chloe back."

"I think she's right, Fury," Maria said, surprising the others. Even she looked tired of it all.

Seren smiled, more than relieved with the support of her friends. She set eyes on Fury again and walked up to him. "It's going down," she said with finality. "So right now, you are going to tell us everything you know that you haven't told us. And I mean every thing. About the secret projects, the inaccessible files, but more importantly everything about Chloe's file." After a moment of hesitance, she added one more thing. "And everything about Sergeant Barnes."

"Look, I didn't know about Barnes, alright?" Fury retorted.

"Even if you had, would you have told us?" Steve said, and walked up to him as well. "Or would you have compartmentalized that too?"

Fury was at a loss between Steve and Seren. Neither one of them was backing down.

~0~

"You know it would've been wise to go down for a nap or something," Seren's voice reached Steve seconds before she did.

He looked away from the river to see her coming down the bridge. He'd disappeared shortly after finalizing their plans inside.

"I could say the same thing for you," he said when she came to stand beside him.

"Ooh no, I am done sleeping," Seren said. She watched the river for a minute, actually envying how calm and peaceful it looked. It made her realize she had never truly experienced those phenomena. She was always...working. "Steve, if I had known...if I had ever had a doubt that...that he could've been..." she looked up at him, "I would have said something. I swear."

Her worries lessened as a warm smile spread across Steve's face. He met her gaze and nodded. "I know. You were never like the others. Knew that from the start." Seren flushed with his look. "I just can't believe I never noticed."

"How could you?" Seren said. "You only just started working with SHIELD—"

"Two years ago, Seren. And that was on top of the time before I got to work." Steve shook his head. The more he thought about all the time he wasted while Bucky was out there suffering made his blood boil. He was angry at himself for being so blind and...naive. "I was doing all the wrong things..."

"No, you weren't," Seren said gently. She sensed the underlying anger in his voice and honestly couldn't blame him. She felt exactly the same when she thought about Chloe. "You were adjusting to your trauma, to your situation. Even if you had known about Bucky, you wouldn't have been in any condition to go look for him. You needed that time to get better — you deserved that time."

"Maybe...but it doesn't change what Bucky went through in the meantime..." said Steve, and for that he would never forgive himself. "I got lucky. I was asleep for 70 years. I can't even begin to imagine what those years were like for him."

Seren rubbed a comforting hand on his arm. Working through that mentality would take a lot of time, but she would be right there with him helping him get through it.

"I-I know that it's hard to believe it after that fight but...that wasn't Bucky, not the one that I knew. The real him..." Steve looked down at Seren again, feeling an overwhelming urge to explain who his best friend truly was, "He would never hurt anyone, Seren."

"I know—"

"He was kind—"

"I know—"

"—and helpful—"

"Steve, I know," Seren said with a soft smile. "You don't have to tell me twice. I believe you. I swear."

Steve moved his arm down to wrap around her waist. "Bucky wasn't like a brother, he was...is." He would have to get used to that now. He always talked about his life in the past tense, including those he thought he left behind. "To know that all this time he's been alive and brainwashed…"

"We're going to get him out," Seren said to him. "Him, and Chloe. We're going to get them out. I don't know how but we're going to."

"Question is, will either of you be able to fight them?" Sam regretted making his presence known in this way but he didn't think anyone else would have the courage to ask the question. So far, no one had. The pair looked over at him with similar pained expressions. "Listen, I've talked to Chloe plenty to know her so me fighting her already feels challenging. And I just met her. I can't imagine what it must feel like to both of you."

"Hard," Seren said, "But we'll manage."

"Will you?" Sam raised an eyebrow at them. "What if they already put that other chip in her head or wherever it needs to go? What if she's already brainwashed like Barnes? She will shoot to kill. We already know Barnes will definitely kill us if he gets the chance. I hate to be the one to tell you this but you cannot go easy on them by any means."

"We get it, Sam, we do," Steve said quietly, "But we're going to do our best to try and save them."

"Chloe might have a chance but I don't know about Barnes, to tell you the truth," Sam said. "After decades of brainwashing, he might be the guy that needs to be stopped rather than saved.

"I understand what you're saying but we can't abandon them," Steve said. He already left Bucky for dead decades ago, he was not walking away this time. "I'm going to do what it takes. Even if it takes a long time to get there."

"Alright," Sam nodded. He had said what he needed to. "So when do we go?"

"Now," Steve replied. "Gear up."

"What, and you're gonna wear that?"

For a moment, Steve actually chuckled. "No. If you're gonna fight a war, you gotta wear a uniform."

"Well, my suit's probably already been destroyed at S.H.I.E.L.D," Seren said, although she didn't sound very upset about the matter. "You know I never even got a say in the design? SHIELD just did it for me and that was that. Just one more thing it took from me. I'll get a normal one from the base."

~0~

The entry into the Triskelion wasn't that difficult. Because everyone was busy looking for them outside of it, no one ever really thought about checking inside their own walls first. Before they would actually put a stop to Project Insight, they thought they should at least give those Agents still working humbly a chance to choose their side after hearing the truth about S.H.I.E.L.D. Seren had faith that they would choose the right side. They had just reached the door when it opened for them, almost like fate, and a young tech guy nearly crashed into the group.

"Excuse us," Steve promptly said before leading the way inside. The others walked in behind him with the exception of Seren.

She lingered behind to address the entire room. "It would bode well for you all not to activate any alarms," she warned with a serious face. "Just listen. That's all we want." She put a finger over her lips. "Listen."

Because in the next couple of minutes, Steve had taken over the entire communications system. "Attention, all SHIELD agents. This is Steve Rogers. You've heard a lot about me over the last few days, some of you were even ordered to hunt me down. But I think it's time you know the truth. SHIELD is not what we thought it was, it's been taken over by HYDRA…"

The room had gone absolutely still. Seren, Maria and Sam looked around to see which techies were looking guilty and which ones were looking afraid. The latter were the ones they would try to help.

"...Alexander Pierce is their leader. The STRIKE and Insight crew are HYDRA as well. I don't know how many more, but I know they're in the building. They could be standing right next to you. They almost have what they want: absolute control. They shot Nick Fury and it won't end there. If you launch those Helicarriers today, HYDRA will be able to kill anyone that stands in their way, unless we stop them. I know I'm asking a lot, but the price of freedom is high, it always has been, and it's a price I'm willing to pay. And if I'm the only one, then so be it. But I'm willing to bet I'm not."

Steve let the communications go and waited, though for what he wasn't quite sure. Maybe it was more to catch his breath for what was going to come in the next couple of minutes.

"Did you write that down first, or was it off the top of your head?" Sam came to ask him, earning just a small smile in return.

Seren stalked her way up to the closest technician and grabbed him by the lapels of his shirt. "Winters. Where is she?"

"I-I don't know!"

"There hasn't been any sign of Chloe around here!?"

"I—no! Nothing!"

"Seren!" Steve called to her, frankly unsurprised with the abrupt manner she was 'questioning' the poor man with. If he could, he would probably do the same thing to find Bucky...but he had a feeling that Bucky would be finding him very soon instead.

Seren let go of the man and stepped back. "I need to find Chloe."

"C'mon," Steve motioned her to the doors. He held his hand out for her. They would go find Chloe together.

Seren came over to take his hand, squeezing it as soon as she could, and headed out with him. Sam followed behind while Maria stayed behind to man the controls. It was easy getting out to the Helicarriers but that was probably going to be the last easy thing they did for the day.

"Not one sign of Chloe," Seren was fiercely looking on either side of them. "Not even Bucky. What do you think they're waiting for? HYDRA must have given Bucky the order to kill already, but what about Chloe?"

"I'd rather not think about the mechanics of those plans..." Steve admitted. If he allowed himself to think about the many reasons why they were lacking in their presence, he would spiral and he wouldn't be able to focus on their plans.

"Okay, now wait a minute," Sam said once he saw the Helicarriers in sight, "Before we split up and all, how do we know the good guys from the bad guys? We haven't exactly identified them yet."

Steve had the perfect response. "If they're shooting at you, they're bad."

Sam deadpanned Steve for a second. "Oh, funny guy." He activated the wings of his suit and flew into the air.

"That was pretty funny," Seren said afterwards with a little smile.

"We'll discuss my 'funny' afterwards," Steve said, turning to her, serious. "You need to be careful, alright?"

"I know," Seren nodded, swallowing hard. "It's going to be tough fighting familiar faces, but if they're HYDRA then they'll need to be careful." She raised her fists that were already glowing with power.

Steve could smile at that. It was surreal fighting HYDRA all over again but this time he could believe that things would end very differently. Last time had an era of disadvantage, whether he wanted to admit it or not. Today, they had better weapons and technology backing them up, and a lot more knowledge. Plus, he also had one magnificent star with him this time.

"Gotta run," Seren said but then shook her head, "Or fly, I guess?"

"Fly," Steve said. He wondered when, oh when, would it stop being weird saying that so easily.

Seren nodded and, like Sam, jumped into the air (sans the wings). Steve watched after her for a few seconds until he ultimately decided that it would never stop being weird watching someone fly.

He hopped off the ledge and landed on the lower deck. Very quickly he had to run for cover as HYDRA agents spotted him and began firing. He ran behind a crate only to find another agent much too up close. He grabbed the agent by the neck and smacked him against the crate, stealing a grenade from the unconscious man just before he collapsed. Steve threw the grenade behind him, taking out a group of agents with it.

Up above, Sam had to swerve to avoid getting hit with some serious tank firepower. "Hey, Cap, I found those bad guys you were talking about!"

Steve had a chance to look up and see Sam just narrowly escape the last blow. "You okay?"

"I'm not dead yet!"

"Seren?" Steve called. He had yet to see her in the sky. There was no answer. "Seren!"

"Here!" he heard soon after he caught a swirl of star matter striking one of the tanks and destroyed it in a go.

Seren zoomed by to catch up with Sam who'd gotten himself even more attention. Must be the wings, she theorized. Several quinjets had been deployed and were relentlessly firing after him. Her arms started glowing strongly the closer she got to one jet.

Purposely lingering behind one, she waited for her opportunity. "Sam, focus on your left!" she warned and was thoroughly confused when he groaned a 'Oh, c'mon!' in return. Had she said something wrong? She headed for his right and landed on the jet in that direction. The two pilots gazed up in time to see her shatter their glass with her star matter. She then reached inside and forced their ejection button to work.

One down...several more to go.

Sam managed to land on the Hellicarrier bay for a second before another jet forced him off. Seren sighed heavily from the sky. They would never get their feet into one of the Hellicarriers at this point.

From the ground, Steve was having the same problems. He zoomed through the HYDRA agents, knocking them down as quickly as possible but the more he got through the more agents appeared.

"Eight minutes, Cap!" Maria warned him.

"Yeah, working on it!"

"I gotcha!" Seren said, coming down in a rush.

"Seren, you need to get your Helicarrier—" Maria tried to say when Seren cut her off.

"They're everywhere—I'm multitasking!" She created a string of starmatter spheres between her hands then sent each of them towards the agents in the vicinity. With each section covered, Steve was able to make the rest of the way even quicker than before.

"I'm in!" he would later say after giving her a special thanks. "Alpha locked!"

"Seren, Helicarrier!" Maria said again.

"Yeah!" Seren shot for the second Helicarrier, this time determined to make the trip with no interruptions.

"Falcon, where are you now?" Maria checked in on the man who'd been pretty quiet for a few minutes.

"I had to take a detour!" He was in the air again, closer to the third Helicarrier, when heat-seeking missiles fired after him.

"Sam, are you good?" Seren had caught sight of the missiles and couldn't help but stop again.

"Yeah, yeah, you go!"

Seren's gaze lingered on the missiles but she ultimately decided to keep going. She couldn't afford another distraction. Plus, she still needed to find Chloe. Thankfully, a short moment later, she heard Sam give the clear for the second Helicarrier. One more to go.

Seren landed on the last Helicarrier and was surprised to see no agents around. She balled her fists and cautiously proceeded towards the center. "There's no on here," she told the others. "That's not right..."

"No, it's not," agreed Steve. It sounded a lot like a trap. "Wait for us!"

"Can't do that, lovey. Five minutes left," she reminded him with a perfectly good point. She started running for the center when a bright blue blast of energy hit her from the side. She screamed as her body went into a tumble near the edge.

"Seren!" she heard her name through the comms but everything seemed to ring in her ears for a few minutes while had body felt the horrible sting on her side.

Her vision may have blurred there for a second too. She'd never been hit with energy like that and it took her a minute to realize why...They were always on the same side.

"There would be a 98% chance of a victory if Stardust, Captain America and Falcon were to disappear," she heard from behind. As she began to pull herself, a second blast struck her back and forced her back down. A psionic blast. "The other 2% remains with Black Widow and other vigilantes but it's not much of a threat."

Seren scrunched her face, swallowing down her groan as she once again attempted to stand up.

"You will be alright. It's only a minimal laceration for your kind. Even half Celessians count with a higher healing factor than the enhanced."

Seren wobbled on her feet as she turned around, one hand wrapped around her stomach. She saw Chloe standing across her, smiling in a way that gave her chills. Chloe's face was covered with blue streaks that were seemingly constantly pumping energy. Seren saw the same blue lines peeking out from Chloe's sleeves and neck.

"Chloe, what's happened to you?" Seren felt even worse when her eyes fell on Chloe's left hand. "What is...what is that?"

"I've been upgraded." Chloe raised her left hand and showed Seren her palm. There was a small tech piece lodged in the middle of her palm and it seemed like her flesh was trying to merge with it, or perhaps absorb it. "I will finally gain full access of the Hive Mind, whether they want it or not."

Seren quickly picked up on Chloe's last words. "Whether they want to or...not...?" Could it be that the Hive Mind was rejecting the process? If that were the case then maybe, just maybe, the Hive Mind didn't accept what HYDRA was doing and...maybe they would help her instead. Maybe they would help her reach Chloe.

"HYDRA had to make some modifications in order to fulfil their goals," Chloe said, turning her palm over to see for herself. "The Hive Mind wasn't very compliant but...I can win."

"No, you can't," Seren said quietly, eyeing the relentless glow around Chloe's face. The energy was fighting to keep running through. "The Hive Mind doesn't want that, Chloe. It doesn't want HYDRA to gain access to their knowledge, to their power. Chloe, you don't want this either. You never have!"

"Because I didn't know that this is what I was missing!" Chloe exclaimed with an unnatural glee. "To see the future, to see all the calculations — it's mind blowing! All the power, it's..."

Seren started shaking her head. "Now I know this isn't you. Chloe was always terrified of what the Hive Mind could do. HYDRA made its modifications but not for the Hive Mind. They made them for you. They took your will, your freedom to think for yourself. It's exactly what they did to Sergeant Barnes.

Chloe's lips stretched into another wide smile. "My mind has never been more clear." She suddenly fired and hit Seren square in the chest. She dashed forward as Seren landed harshly on the ground. She turned Seren on her side while the latter was groggy, and plucked out her ear comm, smashing it to pieces in her hand.

"Chloe what are you—?"

"I knew you wouldn't expect that." Chloe dug through Seren's pockets around her waist until she pulled out the last of the targeting blades. "See? The Hive Mind is already accepting our new fate." She straightened up on her feet and turned, walking a few steps away from Seren. "Getting rid of the blade won't minimize the chance of failure. I'm 100% sure of this. Don't destroy it."

It took Seren a couple seconds to understand that Chloe was talking to someone else. When she sat upright, there stood Chloe in front of the Winter Soldier. "Chloe, don't..."

Chloe smiled and handed Bucky the blade. "They'll be landing on the Helicarrier in 10...9...8…"

"No!" Seren fired at the pair without thinking. Bucky made a run while Chloe held off the star matter with a psionic forcefield.

Seren stumbled up on her feet and only then saw Chloe talking to Bucky of all people. He held the targeting blade in his hand. "No, give that back!" Seren ran for the pair. Chloe spun around and clapped her hands together, creating a psionic wave. Seren crashed into a wall.

~ 0 ~

Steve landed with a rush next to Sam. The communications with Seren had gone out minutes ago, not even Maria could get through, and he knew that she was with Chloe. He looked around for a sign of her but it was just as she had said earlier. There were no agents on board. He then heard the distinctive crash of a body nearby. "Ser—"

A hard boot collided with his side, throwing him off the Helicarrier. He managed to hang onto the side at the last moment and then saw Sam flying off the edge (or attempting to). A metal arm reached for his wings and yanked him back.

Steve swallowed hard. Bucky was on the Helicarrier. What had he done with Seren? He started climbing back up as quickly as he could.

"Cap? Cap, come in!" He soon heard Sam through the comms. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm here! I'm still on the Helicarrier!"

"Good, cos so is your friend. I think I saw Seren on the higher deck. She's with Chloe."

"Where are you, Sam?"

"I'm grounded, the suit's down. Sorry, Cap."

"Don't worry, I got it." Steve took the last climb up to the Helicarrier. As soon as he was on his feet, he searched around for anybody at this point, whether it be Seren, Chloe or Bucky. He heard Seren first, maybe a slight divine justice for the moment, so he dashed towards the noise.

Seren had dodged Chloe's psionic blast and, unfortunately, delivered her own starmatter sphere in return. She hated the idea of hurting Chloe on any level. "Chloe, c'mon! It's me! It's Seren!"

Chloe's lips quirked into a smile. "Of course I know who you are. Agent Seren Soul, Stardust, prized agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., blah, blah, blah." She lunged on Seren with all her strength and managed to knock the ginger down. "You know what I thought when I first met you? 'Oh god, it's an alien. How could she ever be trusted to fight for Earth?"

Seren sucked in a breath then smacked her own forehead against Chloe's. The blonde groaned and fell back. "Funny, cos when I first met you, I thought: what the hell is this kid doing? Story of my life, I guess."

Chloe rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand, inadvertently allowing Seren to see her palm again, and clearer.

"Seren!" she heard Steve. Her head flipped to the right and saw him coming towards them. "No!" she yelled at him, forcing him into a skidded stop. "Bucky! He has the-the targeting blade!"

"What?" Steve automatically looked around as if Bucky himself was about to jump out, and he possibly would.

"I'm sorry, they took it from me!" Seren said. "Go get it! I'll take care of Chloe!"

"The hell you will," Chloe spat. She roundhouse kicked Seren but the latter proved quicker by grabbing Chloe's leg and using it to push her backwards. "Sorry! Steve, go!" Seren yelled at the man still conflicted with his choices. "Chloe's my sister. I'm gonna get her back!"

Steve's eyes flickered to Chloe groaning as she pulled herself up from the ground. As much as he loved Chloe—and he really had learned to—he agreed that this was on Seren, much like he had to help Bucky. He turned for the center of the Helicarrier and ran.

Chloe stumbled on her feet for a few seconds. "Can you really fight me?" she asked Seren.

Seren raised her head. "I could never fight Chloe Winters, but you're not her right now."

Chloe snorted. "I am."

"No, you're not," Seren's voice was sharp and final, wiping off any trace of amusement on Chloe's face. "HYDRA has taken your mind and forced it to accept that new tech piece, but it's not working, is it? Because if it had, you would've turned into another puppet like Sergeant Barnes. Your mind is having trouble fitting in a whole new piece so it's altering your personality, your thoughts, your actions. That is not my friend. But don't worry, I'm gonna get her back."

"Yeah? And how are you going to do that?" Chloe raised an eyebrow.

Seren balled her fists, letting them practically shine with power. "By giving you a good smack in the head." She flashed a smirk.

~ 0 ~

Bucky was waiting for Steve. He held the targeting blade in his hand, an act alone that had Steve genuinely surprised. Why not destroy it already?

"People are gonna die, Buck. I can't let that happen," Steve decided to break the silence first. He kept his safe distance but was prepared to attack as soon as he had to. For the moment though, Bucky only stared at him. "Please, don't make me do this. Give me the targeting blade." But still, Bucky did not budge.

Time was running out.

Without another thought, Steve threw his shield at Bucky. Like last time, Bucky caught it swiftly in his hand and chucked right back to him. They ran down the catway to meet each other in the middle. Bucky had two guns firing on Steve but with a swift kick, the latter was able to throw them to the side (though he did get one graze on his side in the process). He got a quick opportunity and shoved Bucky to the side to get into the targeting blade system. He could at least bring it up then swipe it from Bucky.

Bucky yanked him back with the intentions of pulling his knife on him. In doing so, however, Steve was able to reach for the targeting blade. He got it for a split moment before Bucky threw him back. Steve heard the fall of the targeting blade from a distance. He raised his head to see the blade dangerously on the edge. He pulled himself up and ran for it only for it to fall below. He picked up his pace and jumped over the edge as well, landing on the ground below.

~ 0 ~

Chloe raged against Seren with fists in the air. Seren would admit that Chloe was stronger with this new tech piece but her fighting was all over the place. If she had to take a guess, she would say that the Hive Mind was interfering. "Don't let them win, Hive Mind!" she called. "If HYDRA gains access to your power, they'll know everything about your species. All your secrets in human hands!"

Chloe shoved Seren and angrily shouted at her to stop. "The Hive Mind doesn't speak to you!"

"No, but I bet everything that it's listening!" Seren snapped. "And I bet that it's messing with you right now!" Chloe growled and threw a sloppy jet of energy at her. Seren crossed her arms in front of her and produced a shield to block the blast. "So much for calculating," Seren smirked. "And that's sad considering you've trained with me, with Natasha, Citlalli — you've had all kinds of training and right now, you seem like a clumsy high school cheerleader right now." She got what she wanted with that jab. Chloe's anger made her blind and thus more open for attack.

Chloe started throwing psionic blasts again. Seren shot into the air, dodging each blast.

"Get back down!" Chloe ordered.

"Okay!" Seren decided to swoop down and grab Chloe by her shoulders. "I love you, Chloe, but…" She unceremoniously dropped Chloe. The blonde tumbled on the ground but when she stopped, she was more furious than ever.

She jumped on her feet and dodged the following star matter spheres Seren sent her way. Her vision blurred as numbers sprouted from every corner in her mind.

Left, right, under, another left—

She shook her head as she followed the instructions to avoid the spheres. She wanted the specific sphere to…

Third!

When the third star matter sphere came her way, Chloe captured it with a shield. Seren gasped, eyes blinking wide. Since when can she do that!? With a smirk, Chloe sent it right back to her. Seren barely dodged it with her surprise.

~ 0 ~

Steve couldn't remember another time where the fight was too close. As skilled as his opponents were, in the end he always won. Today, he couldn't be sure that would be the same story. Bucky had similar strength to him, similar skills and Steve was almost sure that those skills could outwit him if he wasn't careful. HYDRA played dirty, a known fact and Bucky had always been an agile fighter anyways. A deadly combination.

Steve landed on the same level as the blade and ran for it. Just before he could reach it, his shield hit him in the back. Bucky had come down as well and caught up with Steve. He plunged a knife into Steve's shoulder then headed for the targeting blade. Steve forced the knife out of his shoulder, ignoring the blotch of blood that surged from it, as well as the wicked pain he felt, and started running. He reached for Bucky just as the latter had grabbed the blade. He dodged Bucky's attempts of a clean punch and in return headbutted him several times. As much as it pained him (both emotionally and physically), he grabbed Bucky by the throat, raising him for a second before slamming him down on the ground.

As groggy as Bucky was, he had yet to let go of the blade. Steve grabbed him from behind in an armlock. "Drop it!" he yelled, but Bucky kept a tight grip around the blade. Why couldn't he just make things easy this one moment?

Bucky possibly squeezed the chip in his hand even more. He was stubborn, that much was still in him. He reached an arm back to try and pry Steve off him but instead of managing that, Steve broke that arm. The two fell back on the ground but even then, Steve still held Bucky by the neck. If he wasn't going to willingly let go of the blade, then he would have to by force. Steve tightened his grip around Bucky's neck until he passed out. He felt terrible about it but it had to be done, thousands of people were counting on him.

~ 0 ~

Chloe grabbed Seren's arm and pulled her up. "Sixty percent chance of your demise right here and now."

"Just 60%?" Seren raised an eyebrow, ignoring the ache in her chest. Now she knew what her opponents felt like when she attacked them. "Could it be maybe the Hive Mind is gaining the upperhand, then?"

Chloe seemed to twitch as she tried to think about the calculations. "The other 40%" — she twitched again — "is unaccounted now..."

Seren took advantage of the next time Chloe twiced and used the grip Chloe had on her arm to throw the blonde over her and onto the ground. Chloe fell with a thud, eyes squeezed shut in pain.

"I'm no expert but I think you're going into overdrive," Seren said, none too pleased with the fact. She didn't want to Chloe to suffer an irreversible effect. "The tech piece needs to come out, Chloe. Let me help you."

Chloe struggled to get back on her feet. She rolled her shoulders over to shake off the pain. "I don't need any help." She went to throw her fist but Seren caught it with one hand.

Seren's eyes flashed colorfully. "I love you, Chloe, but I know a lot more than you. And if I have to burn that tech out of your hand, I will."

Chloe felt the sizzle of her skin and started screaming.

~ 0 ~

"One minute!" Maria's voice rang in Steve's ear, along with everything else.

He was climbing his way back up to the systems when a bullet was fired and grazed his left thigh. He used all his strength to finish the trip up. Bucky was still a bit lost with his own balance too. The system was just as he'd left it earlier. He rushed inside as best as he could, which was a series of wobbles and sprints.

"Thirty seconds, Cap!" Maria went again.

"Stand by!" He pulled the targeting blade out and reached for the system when Bucky fired again, this time hitting him straight in the stomach. That one forced Steve down for a moment. He looked down at himself to see another blotch of red on his stomach. No matter, he literally didn't have time for it.

"Twenty seconds!" Maria could already see the algorithm targeting potential victims. The White house, the Pentagon, the C.I.A., Stark Tower were just a few of those places.

Steve climbed up to his feet again and pushed his arm forwards, placing in the targeting blade just in time. "Charlie locked." At least whatever happened afterwards, he would know that the people were safe. He, however, had no idea where he stood.

~ 0 ~

Chloe screamed as her hand burned. She slapped and smacked Seren as much as she could but the Celessian proved her superior biology.

"Help me, Hive Mind," Seren called, "Please."

Chloe emitted a force of a shield, shoving Seren across from her. With a heavy breath, she took her hand and studied the damage on her palm. She felt it hard to blink and focus as so much information started flashing in front of her eyes.

~ 0 ~

"Okay, Cap, get out of there!" Maria said once she had successfully locked the Helicarriers onto one another. "Get Seren too!"

Steve felt like that would be an impossible task. He was stumbling to stay on his feet. "Fire now!"

"But, Steve…"

"Do it!" Steve snapped. He looked up above as if he would see Seren or Chloe, but of course luck wasn't that easy right now. He had to believe that Seren would be able to get out of there in time with Chloe.

Each of the Helicarriers started firing at one another.

Up above, Seren saw the mess that was starting to come down on them (literally). She pulled herself up to her feet then looked at the ground underneath her feet and wondered where Steve was right now. Had he gotten off? He had to. With or without Bucky, he had to get out. She believed he would which was why she turned around to Chloe.

"Need a ride?"

Chloe only glowered at her. She lowered her injured hand, angrier than ever. She knew exactly what Seren was going to do. "Don't you dare—"

Seren zoomed towards Chloe like she would ram her down but instead, she jumped off the Helicarrier with Chloe in her arms.

"Let me go! Let me go!" Chloe screamed all the way down until Seren did just that. She let Chloe fall from a safe distance on the ground. The force of it was enough to knock her out.

Seren landed beside her and fell to her knees. Her arms hovered over Chloe, going back and forth as she decided what to do. Her hand was badly burned and the tech piece was still lodged in her palm and by the looks of it, it was only getting worse. It wasn't absorbing the right way and now with her interferance, it looked like it was sparking from the inside. "Oh Chloe, what do I do? What do I do?"

~ 0 ~

Against his own injuries, Steve managed to help Bucky free himself from the fallen rubble. "You know me," he insisted afterwards.

Bucky lashed out at him in anger. "No, I don't!" He raged. It was an entirely new reaction that Steve would take with hope. If Bucky was angry and not stoically cold then it meant he had an inkling doubt that what he was saying was true.

"Bucky, you've known me your whole life!" Bucky continued to punch him but he wasn't going to fight back. If he did, then Bucky would never listen to him. "Your name is James Buchanan Barnes!"

"Shut up!"

Steve pulled off his mask and let his shield fall which, in turn, let it fall out of the Helicarrier altogether. "I'm not gonna fight you. You're my friend."

Bucky ignored him and shoved him to the ground. "You're my mission!" He delivered the worst punches he could to make his point. He couldn't remember something that wasn't there—

He scrunched his face when a blip of a distorted image clouded him for a second. Absolutely not. "You're my mission!"

Steve let his body fall limp. His energy was already dwindling with his injuries catching up to him. He couldn't fight and he didn't want to. "Then finish it," he said, all too much defeated. Bucky held his fist up, looking almost hesitant for a moment. "Cause I'm with you to the end of the line."

Something about those specific words forced Bucky to stop for a full second. The distorted images were trying to push back, too fast to actually see anything but the point is that they were there. There were images to have. He felt the same when Chloe had eased his mind earlier...

The bottom of the Helicarrier lurched on its side and forced Steve down into the river below. Bucky managed to hold on from his side but there was still something he was trying to see. He couldn't...whatever they were, those images had come because of the words that that man had said.

"I knew him," he said, inadvertently proving her point.

Chloe very quickly confirmed it. "You did!" After that, she had agents coming to retrieve her. She thrashed and yelled at them to leave her alone.

He had thought Chloe was telling the truth. No one else around him showed emotions. She did and she was very confident in it too.

~ 0 ~

Seren had Chloe's hand in hers. She couldn't imagine the type of pain Chloe was in from the burn injuries. From the side, she heard a series of splashes. When she looked over, all she saw were the pieces of the Helicarriers finally touching water. She really wished she had her ear comm. still in place. Chloe would need medical attention fast.

She froze altogether when she saw Bucky emerging from the water. For a moment, she thought she would have to fight yet again. The feeling intensified when she realized he was pulling Steve's unconscious body with him. As much as she knew Steve loved him, Seren wouldn't hesitate to fight Bucky too. He was not going to take Steve anywhere.

Seren had just stood up when Bucky met her gaze. He had pulled Steve to the ground and left his body beside Chloe's. Seren stayed where she was for the moment, shocked as he seemingly stepped away from the two unconscious bodies. She dared to even say that Bucky was confused with himself too.

He looked up from Steve, meeting Seren's gaze again. She was breathing heavily, probably wondering what he was going to do next. That was a good question, what was he going to do now?

Chloe started shuddering and twitching again. Seren quickly fell on her knees beside Chloe and tried helping keeping her still. The blue lines around Chloe's face was glowing much too bright and the tech piece in her palm was sparking on the outside now, adding more sting to her burned flesh. Helpless, Seren looked up to Bucky.

"Please, you don't know me and that's fine, but you know him." She swallowed hard when she saw all the injuries that Steve had. "I know it doesn't seem like it but he tried to help you and...and maybe you just did it too. If could help her too…" She motioned to Chloe. "Please...HYDRA hurt her the same way it hurt you. She didn't want for this to happen. Please help her."

Bucky looked down at Chloe. Even with the mind wipe, he still remembered parts of her from his missions before. It was funny how HYDRA thought he was always back at zero when they "started over with him". That was his secret. He was never back at zero. There were always bits and pieces he was left with.

Chloe smiled slightly at him. "Can I?" She gestured her wrists still bound by his hands.

The shock wasn't enough to cover his expression when she asked for his permission. Because of that, Bucky gave a slim nod of his head. Now he was curious and that was a novelty. He hadn't been curious about anything in...he didn't know how much time had passed.

Chloe focused all her power on Bucky. Never had she tried so hard to make it work. While Bucky had no idea what was supposed to be happening, he felt it. It was strange. His mind, as fuzzy and conflicted as it was, started to shift. Every thought, no matter what it was, was dissolving to allow this wave of serenity to wash over him. How could this woman be producing that level of calmness? As much as he had planned to stay alert, his eyes fell shut. For the first time since he could remember, everything dark around him slipped away. He knew nothing but sweet bliss and calmness.

Chloe watched the people around them hurriedly move to do whatever Pierce instructed them to do. "What...what are they going to do?"

Clamps shut around his arms.

"Woah, woah, woah, wait!" Chloe pushed herself towards them, forcing the agents around her to hold her back. "Leave him alone! It's my fault! I did it — leave him alone!"

Bucky's eyes lowered to Chloe's burned hand. That tech piece had been recently implanted. He still remembered her screams when they carried her away while he was to be "prepped". She had tried fighting for him, tried to defend him. After being prepped, he was introduced to HYDRA's newest asset and according to them, the Winter Soldier would be working closely with this asset. She would provide all the insight on their missions while he carried them out.

It had been a very long time since he had met someone who didn't want to instantly "work" on him. Chloe was almost like the rest of HYDRA's assets, those who were brought in against their will. He would have to run, he knew that, which just begged the question of what Chloe would have to do now to take care of herself.

He would pay her back with the same coin, almost.

He moved around, startling Seren in the process, and stopped by Chloe. Seren's breathing couldn't possibly be harder. She watched him with hawk eyes, hands at the ready to commence a fight. He lowered his metal hand to Chloe's burned one. His fingers touched the tech piece in her palm and with one swift pull, he forced it out of her hand. Seren scrunched her face when he saw Chloe's skin pull apart to leave a big hole in the middle of her palm.

That's one way to do it, she swallowed hard.

Bucky stepped back with the tech piece in hand. Seren quickly sought Chloe's hand to try and stop the bleeding. She would then glance over to Steve and seeing him unconscious and Chloe's bleeding not stopping made her all the more frantic.

"We need to get them to the hospital! Can you….?" She looked up to find Bucky gone. She scanned the area and saw nothing. He was just gone.

~ 0 ~

Steve felt the ache of his body before he was fully conscious. He could hear the faint noise of music in the air and a few seconds later, he realized he was on a bed. Considering how bad he felt, it had to be a hospital. He turned his head as much as he could and was able to see Sam sitting next to his bed. He should have figured the music was Sam's. "On your left," he said, making Sam's head flip in his direction.

He smiled. "Good, you're being funny again. Seren will like that."

At the mention of Seren, Steve tried to move a bit more. "Where is sh—"

Sam snapped his fingers in a direction Steve couldn't see. It was the open doorway to the room because Seren was standing outside, conversing with a doctor. At the snap of Sam's fingers, she looked back and immediately waved the doctor away. Sam got up and moved his chair just as she hurried inside the room.

"I'll go join Natasha in Chloe's room," Sam told her as he left the room.

"Hey there," Seren took Steve's hand. Though groggy, he met her gaze. She was smiling softly at him. "We have got to stop meeting like this."

It hurt to laugh so Steve only managed a little one. "Somehow I prefer it this way more than the other way around." It then struck him that Seren hated hospitals of all things. "Hey, you conquered your fear..."

Seren smiled solely for the look on his face. "Oh, don't be fooled, lovey, I still hate these places. But you're here, and so is Chloe, and I'm not going anywhere. I'm watching these doctors like a hawk. I'm not letting them pump anything into either of you without me knowing what it is." Steve wanted to bring her hand closer and when Seren caught on, she saved him the work and picked up his hand to press a kiss over it. Steve started recalling things and one of those was the image of Chloe's face with some strong blue streaks. "Chloe, where is she…?"

"Shhh, she's in another room," Seren told him before he got too antsy.

"What's happened to her?"

"Uh, you know, the tech piece HYDRA implanted on her palm wasn't absorbed so well into her body."

"Did they get it out?"

Seren bit her lower lip. She'd been going over in her head how to answer this question. "Umm...yes…" She could keep quiet about it, she knew, but in the end the guilt would gnaw at her head. "Bucky sort of did that."

"What—?"

"I asked him to help and he did. I don't know why but I'm grateful with him." Seren hesitated her next words. "He's gone, Steve. I'm sorry."

Steve wasn't all that surprised. He didn't remember much after the Helicarrier sent him down. "Did he...did he say anything?"

Seren shook her head. "No, I'm sorry."

"Not your fault," he tried to squeeze her hand but his strength wasn't all that good at the moment.

Seren still felt his intentions and squeezed his hand instead. "I'm here, lovey. I'm not going anywhere." She leaned over to press a kiss to his cheek, careful to avoid his bruises.

"Hm, even if I'm here for days?" Steve challenged with a hint of a smirk on his face.

"Well, that's the lucky thing when your boyfriend is all super-serumed...his injuries don't last very long."

"So that means you won't get to be my nurse for a long time..." Steve pretended to sigh disappointingly. Seren blushed and would've smacked him if he hadn't gone through hell already.

"Oh, hush already." Seren took the chair Sam left and scooted it close to the bed.

"Aren't you supposed to be in one of these?" Steve said once he noticed the faint bruises on her neck. "Not that I would want you to be but..."

"I'm okay," Seren assured him. "It turns out that I do in fact heal faster than most. Chloe was right about that. Or, I guess it was the Hive Mind." She cleared her throat and began to think about things. "I really hurt her, Steve. I burned her hand trying to get that second tech piece out of her..."

"Seren, you did what you had to to save her..." Steve said, managing to squeeze her hand a bit that time.

"I gave her a serious burn," Seren said, "She's going to hate me."

"No, she didn't want any of this stuff. She'll understand."

Seren wanted to believe it as much as Steve did. "For now...let's just make sure that you are okay. You and Chloe."

"And you," Steve said, prompting her to remind him that she was already healing. "I don't mean the physical injuries. SHIELD is gone. You are not okay." Sure enough, with his words the smile on Seren's face slowly waned. "We all have some work cut out for us."

[ac-liveblogs]

(1) As one of the 5 Chongyun mains who exists (I even use him as an Rosaria substitute in abyss so he comes to floor 12 when I need freeze) I really hate this lantern rite more than any other so far. Instead of having a story that involved any characters we might possibly play (outside of shenhe and ganyu), use, or who might have character conflicts or quirks, it focuses on some random adepti who will never matter in the grand scheme of things and the concept of music.

(2) Like im being petty bc I like chongyun, but it's not that its only him, it's that he's the most blatant case of casting aside four stars because he has a genuinely interesting character quirk and conflict which is directly ignored. Why did he Attend a Rock Concert? Did the writers forget what happens when he attends rock concerts? is he just an extra? are they all just extras to the unplayable adeptal castes? Kill me.

I sympathise a lot, anon. I know I tend to get it pretty easy in Liyue as a Xiao fan, it never actually feels like HYV cares to do anything interesting with him. I remember my first year of Genshin, rolling Xiao right before the Lantern Rite, reading his mats and thinking "OH, THE EVIL GODS THAT APPEAR IN THE LANTERN RITE. SURELY THEY WILL BE RELEVANT"

And what did I get?

Well, Xiao dating simulator aside, not that! The event was very preoccupied with an Adeptus called Skybracer who did not matter then and has not mattered since. Or Xiao's quest, which really cared about Pervases. Or the Chasm, which really cared about Boscasius. Or Zhongli's quests, which cared about Havria and Azhdaha... All of whom, let's be real, should be less important than Xiao and Zhongli!

Like, fuck me for thinking Xiao and Venti's first on-screen meeting would be something meaningful, right? After the scraps we got when Xiao dropped? Two years ago???

Regarding Chongyun, I'm starting to think his yang energy doesn't exist, because I've sure never seen it, and Xiangling only ever did her insane cooking in her introductory quest and never again despite entering a cooking competition in Moonchase. I start to wonder if Genshin is a little too embarrassed to write those two being as zany as they should be - I know HYV is definitely uncomfortable actually writing anyone responding negatively to Fischl's quirks. I genuinely think they design characters that are too difficult for them to write as scripted. It's wild to me.

And, like. Chongyun has beef with Xiao! It's in his mats!

I have the utmost respect for Adeptus Xiao. It's just... Why must he be so disparaging toward us? He says our repertoire is lacking and our power is trivial. I'm sorry, but I just can't accept that.

You'd think if they ever met it might come up?

Realistically, yeah. I think most playable characters are just designed and their profiles are thrown at the writers to pad out enough to fill out the prerequisite number of Paragraphs and if we're lucky, any of those paragraphs might at some point get integrated into the story.

The Li and Yue cooking styles in Xiangling's story? Nah. Amber's missing grandpa? Nothing yet. Kaeya's sadism?? Towards his own allies? Nada. I don't even think we've seen Xingqiu and Diluc act as vigilantes more than once... since launch, and I don't think we've ever seen Rosaria do it. Remember Collei's storyline in the webtoon? HYV couldn't wash their hands of it fast enough, because it definitely wasn't important in Sumeru! Cyno wasn't the focus of his own quest. Neither was Nilou, neither was Ayato, neither was Kazuha.

This is not the game you come to for strong characterisation. The writers don't really care about that when it comes to the vast majority of the cast. I still feel intense disgust whenever I think about the Kazuha and Scaramouche situations.

[incorrectinfinity]

I have convinced myself that I matter so little in the grand scheme of things that nobody really knows I exist. Like why would my principal know my name when I am just one unimportant person out if the hundreds he sees on a daily basis. Why would people care about a concerning text post I made at midnight if they already follow other people and probably forget about me when I'm not on their dash. Why would someone comfort me when I am alone and scared when I am just one person they'll probably never see again.

Then when people are concerned about me or care about me or acknowledge my existence I kinda get confused because why would they bother with just a person?

I forget that I am real sometimes and am perceivable and that everyone around me is in the same boat as me, we're all just people.

So maybe I do matter, maybe I will matter, or maybe I won't and don't. Doesn't really matter. I'm still real and I still matter.

We're all just people going about our days and doing the best we can and I matter just as much as anyone else.

[morgenlich]

always always thinking about carl sagan's pale blue dot quote, especially about how earth is just a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam, and how our tininess in the universe should underscore a need for unity because what people are fighting over are fractions of this little mote of dust

and also about how, depending on what scientific models you look at, in 5 billion years the sun will swallow the earth...and before then, plate tectonics will have remolded the earth's surface over and over again.....all of these monuments that people have built will be destroyed in the end, shoved into the earth's mantle or incinerated by the dying sun.....even ignoring the other sources of erosion and destruction of these things, human maintenance of them is putting off the inevitable.....

which i don't think means it's not worth it to preserve these things of course. but everything is temporary, and small, and fragile, and we need to remember our place in the universe i think and protect it from ourselves....our conflicts are really so pointless in the grand scheme of things aren't they like all of this suffering and for what. for what. to become temporary masters of a fraction of this pale blue dot.....our lifespans are so short. we as a species have existed for the blink of an eye. and we forget this.....we'd rather kill each other for a sliver of land or because we don't all look or behave exactly the same instead of trying to recognize our shared humanity or protect the planet we live on, the only home we've ever known....

[thissliceofnonsense]

As a rottmnt superfan, I think it's very shameful I have not actually watched the full series. I have been trying to get myself to watch all of it for literal months, and I will finally start now.

To keep my motivation to actually watch my favorite show (wow) I will be writing down little things I like/notice/one sentence summary of each episode.

Plus I want to do the AU with the events of the show but a "little to the left" including the missing sisters, Mikey getting his deleted episodes back, ideas that couldn't be used because the show was cancelled, fandom ideas, etc. etc.

AND this is also doubling as info from each episode, so that way I don't forget anything important.

(Like I forgot Heuso existed. Who does that?)

To start -

Leo seems very unsure of himself/ is scrambling in the intro. Compared to the rest of the turtles, he seems the least sure of himself. Even the lyrics say "Leo's making a scene" while everyone else has a definite positive word associated with their character. In fact, "making a scene" definitely has the connotation of a bad thing.

Leo's insecurities are so strong that even the show agrees lol.

(I'll just keep editing this into one really long post, and also, I need obvious stuff to be stated to me, so I'll write it down anyways.

Okie, Donnie's first words in the show are him using his science to support his brothers and be overdramatic.

April helps them all with shenanigans using her connections with all the jobs she has, and is in no way the 'responsible older sibling'

Even Raph (at least in the beginning of the series) is not that responsible in the grand scheme of things.

Also also, I want to slow down the show so I can catch every single detail, every single expression, but that would make this take too long. So I'll miss expressions they make... sad.

Donnie has tech in his shell for when April needs a ride, meaning that, again, he is constantly making tech to help others, along with his own interests.

(Also the way he flies? So overdramatic princess-y. I love him. And I can't take screenshots for some reason. Sadness. )

Also, does Mayhem have a scar on his forehead? It looks like a scar.

And Raph saying 'Aw' and wanting to save him. The precious bean. <3

Mayhem immediately goes for April out of everyone there. My headcannon is that he was sent specifically to watch the turtles and make sure Baron Draxum's experiments don't cause any havoc, so he is wary of all of them.

Also also also... the 'brushes' for the line art of the show? I'm obsessed.

They do have rehearsals for 'if they come in contact with humans'. So.... do they worry about that? Also, Donnie never goes to them. I can relate. Things I find unnecessary that I take away from my 'writing time' are things I try to avoid at all costs.

And I wish something that was cemented more in my head from the show is that the turtles constantly went on adventures with April, even before finding out about the hidden city, perhaps they wanted to be like Lou Jitsu, and I also wish there were more adventures in the hidden city afterwards.

Donnie screaming 'Fibonacci' or just being happy and showing off his tech makes me so sparkly inside.

(I'm not even five minutes into the first episode.... this might take awhile)

Donnie's tech does not work, he tries but it does not work a ton. Which I love. Our favorite/ special things not working, or just not being that great is something I relate to a lot/ want to see more in media. It's the thing we base our lives on. It HAS to be good. Otherwise, what's the point of our existence?

Yes... I kin Donnie.

Leo is incredibly fast, even from the beginning, especially for a turtle

All of Donnie's lines are immediately iconic in my brain

Leo has murderous intent/his eye glows red for a moment. I saw a comment once that the turtles WERE created to be killing machines, and those instincts may or may not still be there. IDK, it would be fun to see Baron Draxum's original intents placed upon the turtles. Although... in my rise sisters AU.... oh I could do that.

They all try so hard to live out their fantasy, adventure, Lou Jitsu dreams. Little beans. <3

Mayhem is an agent and he is carrying a vial. Vial for what?

Mikey is the most artistic and the most mystically inclined. He notices the sign on the wall and where's he's seen it before. My artist sibling also tends to see things as they are/ find un-findable things + predict the future.

We were robbed of Mikey content

Splinter has a cabinet full of memorabilia, and the weapons they all broke in the beginning were 'priceless'

My headcannon is that the brothers understand Japanese from watching Spilnter's shows, but can't speak it. (Yes I'm projecting my own second language skills)

Donnie again tries to make things better with his tech abilities, and Raph tries to make a good plan (because he's the leader, he should be able to make plans.) But Leo already completes the mission. So he can bask in the praise.

Because Leo notices things and can plan ahead, impromptu.

Raph is super anxious about doing things right.

Mikey again, uses his 'art/mystic intuition' to open the wall.

OHMIGOSH the Hidden City looks so cool. I really really (that's two really's) there were more Hidden City episodes.

When Donnie 'insults' his brothers. ('You guys are fools') He'll say something positive about it later. ("You beautiful fools') he's basically doing /pos all the time.

AAAAA_-__hgavihelutw

Donnie, upon finding the hidden city, says "Exactly what I expected." (At 11:37) Meaning that he is a cryptid theorist confirmed. He has theorized about the existence of mystic beings since before they found the hidden city.

(I will do another "Why Donnie dislikes mystic powers" later, because this gives me the notion that Donnie dislikes mystic powers the same way some physicists dislike quantum mechanics or the Copenhagen interpretation of it. It doesn't make sense. It contradicts and he can't figure it out, that wouldn't be an issue if it weren't for his brothers immediately getting it. In the AU, I would have an 'episode' where their mystic powers start making Donnie inconsequential. They already don't listen to him most of the time. And now his tech doesn't help anymore....

anywho that's for later, back to episode one!)

According to Donnie's calculations, they are in a 'Tertiary metaverse'.

A google search revealed nothing on that. But ..... DONNIE HAS CALCULATIONS FOR THESE SORTS OF THINGS, AAA-

And April has explored this hidden city beneath New York. I feel like, with Mikey, she's the most mystic-inclined. Something that other people in the fandom have pointed out.

Donnie loves Draxum's lab. Specifically, the color scheme and the style. These two would get along so well.

Draxum has captured Mayhem. Supports my headcannon that Mayhem was an agent specifically sent to watch Baron Draxum and his experiments, carry on.

I FORGOT ABOUT HUGGIN AND MUGGIN. WHAT.

They are precious.

Also also, humans do not care about the existence of mystic creatures apparently. I like that tbh, makes way for better storylines.

Mayhem stole a vial from Baron Draxum. Probably to bring as 'proof' to the three heads.

hhhmmmm.... Maybe Mayhem was sent to watch Baron Draxum and his experiments, and eventually the three heads council thought that the threat was neutralized. Baron Draxum rebuilt his lab, but hasn't done anything nefarious. And no turtle has been found for a long time. (Except for the one Big Mama has, but no one dares oppose her.)

But Mayhem found a vial of ooze, enough to convict Baron Draxum of crimes, but Draxum sent his assistants after him, retrieving the vial.

Draxum's color schemes do look cool.

He mutated a human in this episode.

The turtles ARE aware they are mutants.

I love the headcannon/unexplored plot thread that Splinter was a little afraid of what his sons were: mutations meant to be killing machines. Hence the "rehearsals".

April finds things. She's crafty, knows how to use her surroundings to her advantage.

Donnie has high grade titanium, how did he get high grade titanium?

(my headcannon is that he goes on 'shopping trips' with his siblings, mainly April, sometimes Mikey. And he steals things.)

DONNIE IS NOT AGAINST MAGIC IN THE FIRST EPISODE WAT.

He seems awed. At 14:41 he says "it's like mystic and science had a baby"

OKIE OKIE, here's my headcannon.

Originally Donnie was a science person (obviously) but he was like - "well there's no definite evidence that cryptids and magic AREN'T possible. I mean... black holes and quantum mechanics make no sense. Science does wild things sometimes, why can't these things exist? And you know what? I'm going to prove it!"

But then he actually SAW mystic powers and everyone else doing really well with it. Replacing him. And while his prior experiments with the crystal have led to good results in tandem with his goggles, but when he tries afterwards, it doesn't work. (Because mystic powers are based on emotions and he's frustrated.) That's weird. Science should lead to definite, predictable results.

So *character arc*

April is literally more athletic than the turtles. She keeps landing on her feet while everyone else is in a heap.

That's it. I'm a believer in April supremacy now.

Leo is scrambling. He may be good at impromptu plans, but he struggles at the application. My personal, maybe headcannon, is that he doesn't actually like going on some of these adventures. He's not that good at them, but he will support his brothers, because of his inferiority complex

DRAXUM CAN MAKE THESE HUGE MECHS AND THAT KIND OF MATCHES WITH MY LOUISE AU HOLY TRUFFLE MAC AND CHEESE.

Also also, Draxum has been trying this whole time to continue his work. I'm wondering how I can work my 'He's looking for Louise' storyline. Perhaps he needs mutants to eliminate the human threat and also to save his child warrior.

Mikey gets star eyes like his older sibling :D

Baron Draxum's magic is with his vines, mechs and potions. Like alchemy. Using this for Louise reference later.

Donnie has the Bi flag in the background of any of his scene things <3

His tech is constantly on the fritz in this episode. Mainly his tech bo. Maybe that's a newer piece? His battle shell seems to work fine. I think that may be one of his first pieces of tech, and the flying part looks like what would become Shelldon in the future.

AND, I think he gets better at making his tech in the future, while still making mistakes :D

Plus, his tech being on the fritz, makes his whole "they care more about what I can do for them than me"/needing to be useful, and fix things, mean that much more.

Also also, I'm basing above off of the fact that the siblings like his tech, but don't trust it, and they often don't exactly listen to him that often ('DONNIE NOT HELPING!') Which I feel like would hurt after some time. Also this post.

Donnie goes to his phone after his achievement of his tech bo working, he's probably documenting his success + photo archives + data points.

I've heard the hc that the brothers keep Mikey's drawings, maybe Donnie scans each one for his archives? They have a whole scrapbook?

Oh wait... that's really cute actually.

Mikey gets bored of the Villain banter really fast. Donnie wants his own world to keep working as it does and just coast along with his family while still 'spending time with them' (I can HEAVILY relate... or maybe I'm just projecting, but wanting to be in your own world while being around others is literally my whole life in a nutshell.)

I think Raph trains on his own + counts Lou Jitsu movies as training, Leo does not.

April has successfully defeated Huggin and Munnin. Clap clap.

Notes for Louise: Baron Draxum is show-offy and thinks he's 'all that' and truly bettering humanity. His lab is huge and colorful, full of alchemy experiments. He has 'bio-inspired' magic. Like plants and spiderwebs and huge fleshy gauntlets

Mikey activates his mystic powers after he gets angry at Baron Draxum for trying to hurt April. He can't really control it, but his anger activates it.

Mikey's mystic weapon is a cackling fireball gremlin that is absolutely uncontrollable. Everyone (including Donnie) thinks it's REALLY COOL

[isntthatwrite]

if i was anything, i'd be everything - 12th house

astrology tangent: from my perspective, houses tend to be the thing that separates the astrology enthusiasts from the Vaguely Curious But Not That Into It. houses kind of ask that you really learn the material and apply it, think a little deeper, etc etc. my perspective. anyway, the 12th house in astrology is probably the first of the houses i began to seek more information on. discovering i have a luminary (my moon) in the 12th house was a trip.

we follow the houses through a life cycle- born in the 1st house, going all the way around until the 12th, the end of the cycle. 12th is where we review everything before we die, but we are not yet ready to let go. it's like how in older age, you remember bits and pieces - less of the details and more of the feelings. the feelings will never die. to me, 12th house has always felt like i've had the feelings and am looking back reflectively, but i have no recollection of the experience itself. like i'm reviewing a life i haven't even experienced myself. here, i attempt to elaborate.

----

pulling a line from carrie bradshaw after hearing Big was engaged - after the relationship ends, where does the love go? except my focus is neither of those bozos. it's the concept of this intangible- what happens to feeling once it's time to leave? what happens to this part of you that does not die after it's been born? what happens when you're born into a house of memories?

on a cellular level, i can never forget any of it. the conscious memories always lied dormant, which i speculate is why it was so easy to begin to feel them again when given the prompt. it takes time to make peace with reality. some of us never belonged in linear time to begin with. some of us have a physical response to what has never happened to us on this plane of existence, and it makes us look insane to the external eye. i could never put it to words and i thought for all this time it would be useless to try -- maybe it still is -- maybe i don't mind it being useless. in the grand scheme of it, no one can tell me what matters to me like i can. nobody writes the thesis statement for the essay that makes no sense and elicits criticism for its incoherence and complete rejection of mandatory structure. nobody remembers the writer who is too old to live and too young to die.

i am enrolled in film 1101 and watching a homemade psychedelic mind trip of a final project by a freshman who is exploring fantastical concepts he doesn't believe in and immediately fails class critique. i am trapped at the intersection of the dreamers and the realists and i remind them they are more alike than they are opposite. at the end of it all, we become the same thing over and over recursively until we no longer can be differentiated. i love you in the sense that our molecular structure was once interwoven and i never forgot, i just needed to see again. i love you in the sense that i would never deny that we forever change each other every time we meet, and we always arrive at exactly the time we need, each and every time. we are there exactly as long as we need to be and not a second more - but there we always were and always will be. i speak like this about everyone, past present and future, because they all coexist. much like everyone i've ever loved, time also can no longer be differentiated. the smell in the air reminds me of yesterday, 5 years ago, a day soon to come, the rest of my life and i know these things all to be true with no evidence to provide until it can be demonstrated in the linear scope. by that point, no one will care, but it was never going to matter to anyone but myself. i can only bear witness to myself in here, i cannot see anyone else despite my best efforts

state change is the only thing most people will recognize. i've left, i've started again, i've done something markedly new and different and i have stopped the old. nobody saw what i did before the change. nobody saw what brought me there, how hard it was to be in the state of inbetween, incapable of witness and intangible to everyone including myself. it hurts to be here because i do not know where anything is going, how i'll know when it arrives, anything more than i will just have to hope.

i have faith in what i cannot yet see. i look delusional for it. i know the joy i will experience because it lives within me and i have felt it throughout time. einstein's "spooky action at a distance" or quantum entanglement is an attempt to describe and quantify this phenomenon that many of us viscerally know and feel (whether we admit it or not)- the pieces of us that live within each other and activate as the years go on and influence each other without ever having solid evidence as to why. i never had to even know you to have been influenced. we share the same state and have no idea until perhaps one day in this life, we meet. over and over, the universe creates parallels, pieces of each other will live together / separate / in some bizarre in between state of together yet separate / forever influenced though intentionally separate. in minor ways, we are always preparing for what will be coming. meeting people changes our lives forever.

being born honors an entire previous lineage. i love who i never knew but always will be. there i once was, there we once were, there we always will be - i can never be without you. i reject the notion that i can never know the women who came before me who didn't live at the same time as i did, i'm more them that i can ever cognitively realize. i feel pain when visiting places i never even knew you suffered in. i speak what was hidden without a clue as to why i'm saying it. you cannot put me in the box that hurt her. i won't fit. i am the opportunity to try again and i do not have the option to go back in. i am crying out in pain because she wished she could, i wake up confused as to why i'm crying -- i'm crying for us all, so she can finally be free and at peace -- she deserved it long ago

i think there is this universally believed concept that anyone can give anyone advice on how they can receive closure and move on.

(https://www.tumblr.com/mitskiarthistory/612950940503441408/illustration-for-goodnight-moon-clement-hurd)

[staledirt87]

hey under the cut I'm gonna put some rly triggering stuff about suicide and suicidal ideation, please don't read if you're gonna be triggered, I just need this out there

The question of "why do I want to die" has been one that I've never truthfully been able to answer. I know I'm not "special" in the sense that I'm God's special child that's worthless and hated for no apparent reason other than existing. I also know that life holds intrinsic value, and that simply by living I have enough worth to warrant keeping around. but I have a hard time seeing the value of living on a logical standpoint. now my friend would tell me that you can't value life by logic alone, but that's how I always see the world. logic isn't logic unless you factor in emotion.

I see it as a simple pros vs cons, seperated into two categories: self and others

self pros

> pain ends

> responsibility ends

> stress ends

> anxiety ends

> I end the possibility of future pain

self cons

> I no longer have a chance for future happiness

> my dreams are automatically devoid of purpose

other pros

> I am no longer a concern of their's

> they do not have to factor me into plans

> they have more time to themselves and their other friends

> the energy they used on me can be used on other things

other cons

> they have to grieve me for an indefinite amount of time

> the things they used to do with me they can no longer do

> what I put into the world is no more

> anyone who looked up to me has lost a stable figure

that's the end of the doomsday pros and cons list, and by tallying it up, there are more pros than cons. additionally, it is a landmark in almost every ideology that yourself comes before others. not always, of course, but you must always consider yourself before others, in case you over exert yourself. now, I understand and acknowledge the pain and suffering of others that my death may cause, but I find it secondary to my own hopelessness and depression.

let me put it this way: why should I, my own person, be forced to work and exhaust myself for others' happiness? that is shunned upon almost everywhere, yet when it comes to suicide, it is thrown out of the window. "a permanent solution to a temporary problem." I've always had issues with that. it's not truly a temporary problem. I have major depressive disorder, severe and recurrent. which means it is not a temporary problem, but a permanent one. medication and therapy is a temporary solution to a permanent problem, whereas suicide is a permanent solution to a permanent problem.

it's also important to point out the fact that me being dead does as much as me being alive does. how many times do you see people citing dead loved ones as inspirations to do wonderful things? I know my death would hurt my friends, but as everyone will say, your friends in high school don't stay your friends. they would forget me anyway, and in less than a decade they will have forgotten my name whether I'm alive or dead.

I must also say that in the grand scheme of the universe, we are but specks of specks. our life is a blip in the expanse of time, so my status of life doesn't have any real affect on the world

all this is to say, there's really no point in my life. when it comes to a time that the net emotion of life is negative rather than positive, and the net effect of your death is more positive, then it is illogical to say that I shouldn't kill myself.

of course, this all means nothing if I don't have the means to commit, but I have several plans in my mind. I'm not near as safe as my parents think I am.

[melancholy-vampire]

A stream of thoughts

The purpose of my life is evading me. I suppose at some point the nihilism won. My overthinking shoulders the sole responsibility for my unhappiness. Nothing around me feels real anymore. I’ll be having fun and then immediately be taken out of the moment by reminding myself that I’m mortal. That it’ll all come to an end anyway. Sometimes it feels like I’m biding my time, waiting to die. It’s difficult for me to find happiness in what used to bring me joy. It holds no meaning to me anymore. It’s all a pointless distraction until I kick the bucket. It makes me feel trapped in my body. Knowing that I can never escape the body that I’m confined in. I’ll live in this body and die in this body. Just another member in my family tree that no one will remember 100 or 200 years down the line. A passing face in the crowd. Stuck on this planet with other people who didn’t ask to be put here either. Sometimes I think about the skeleton that lays underneath my skin. About how in 100 years from now it’ll be all that remains of me (if I’m not cremated). And even then it’ll blend into the rest. “It was a girl, about 5′6...” Nothing of my appearance. Nothing of my hopes (or lack thereof) or aspirations. Nothing of how I felt in my day to day. Nothing of what made me human. And I’ll be stuck in oblivion. For the rest of eternity. From nothing I was born and for nothing I will die. All the in between is a mere blip of my existence. In the grand scheme of it all, I’m sunk. I had no choice in it all. How am I supposed to just live my life knowing that I’m doomed to die? That everyone around me meets the same fate? That we’re all just going about our day-to-day acting like it’s not true that one day we’ll stop existing at all. There’s only so long that one can live in misery. I don’t know how to lift myself out of this hole I’ve made myself. I’ve tried for so long. But the thought of it is like a familiar enemy. One that I’ve faced countless times, sometimes winning, sometimes not. But we’re stuck with each other. I keep coming back even though I know it’s no good for me. I doom myself to my own misery, self sabotaging along the way. I cling to a guy that sabotages himself, a mirror of my own misery. A possibility of who I could become. Addicted to substances while I try to drown out my pain. I want so desperately to give in to that lifestyle. To stop caring. It must be nice, to give up on myself so completely that I passively let things happen to me. To the point where I’m not even phased. I lie to myself daily, acting like I still like him when maybe I never truly did. Maybe I just liked the fact that he didn’t like me and that it would never go anywhere. Maybe I liked that there would be no reciprocation, and now that there’s hints, I want to reject him so completely. I know there will be no emotional intimacy, so what’s the point? But maybe the reason I fell for him in the first place was because I knew I wouldn’t have to give any of myself to him. I knew that I’d be able to keep my illusion of independence (it’s just another excuse for keeping my emotions to myself). I knew he wouldn’t talk about anything that really matters. That I can keep participating in this shallow excuse for a distraction. The only thing I look forward to seeing is him. I don’t completely forget my thoughts, but it helps. When he holds me, I feel a little less lonely. A little less terrible. I’ve starved myself of affection and emotion for so long that I can’t even fathom how to feel it. I refuse to let myself feel my emotions as deeply as I should. I feel like I’m long overdue for crying. Violently sobbing with my shoulders shuddering and my breaths gasping. Til my face goes red and I’m hugging myself for comfort. It’s a rare occasion when I let other people see me cry. It’s difficult to open up. I’m more emotionally closed off than I thought I was. I wish I could remember what made me feel this way. But I barely remember my childhood. I wish I could pinpoint a specific instance that started my bad habit of keeping my feelings to myself. But there is none. At least none that I recall. I’m too quiet for my own good. Unless you inquire, I won’t tell you how I really am doing. You won’t hear about my problems in depth unless you really poked and pried. I’m just as bad as him. I give just enough information for you to know I’m struggling, but not enough to know the struggles. And maybe that’s because I’ve picked it up out of habit. It’s rare when I have conversations of emotional depth with my friends. Perhaps it’s always been like this. And when someone does try to have an emotionally in depth conversation, I shy away from it. I’ll clamp down ten times harder. You’ll never know what I’m thinking daily. I create these problems for myself. A problem that every person has to face, yet I’m the only one fixated on it. To the point where it ruins my life. My ability to enjoy simple things like hanging out with my friends or playing my guitar or reading my book. I wish I could attribute it to a mental illness but it’s just poor mental health. I trap myself in the prison of my mind. I could push the thoughts away (and sometimes I try to) but it’s a problem I’ll have to face eventually. I only have one life, yet I’m fixated on my death. My life is ending before it even begins, my youth is slipping away before it even started and all I can do is sit here and think these stupid fucking thoughts in my stupid fucking brain and make everything worse for myself instead of trying to pull myself out of my misery and take pleasure in the simple things in life. To smile at the sun setting and the birds chirping and the wind on my face. I’m just tired. 

[lowtaxsa]

Žižek vs. Herzog, FIGHT!!!!

LOWTAX: (slurring) Alright, alright, let's get this Monty Python circus show started. We've got Slavoj "The Sniffler" Žižek and Werner "The Auteur" Herzog. Let's dive into this intellectual mosh pit. Gentlemen, you may begin.

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK: (sniffling and wiping his nose) You see, the problem with capitalism is that it's like a grotesque Monty Python skit. We are all just lumberjacks, singing and dancing while the system exploits us. Our suffering is nothing but a farce!

WERNER HERZOG: (in a deep, solemn voice) But Slavoj, life itself is a farce. We are all just penguins marching toward our own demise, as I have seen firsthand in the wilds of Antarctica. Capitalism is not the cause of our suffering; it is merely a symptom of our existential predicament.

LOWTAX: (laughs) Oh, you two are killing me! But seriously, why don't we talk about something that really matters, like who would win in a fight between a walrus and a narwhal?

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK: (sniffling) Well, you see, this question is a perfect example of the absurdity inherent in our society. Instead of discussing pressing issues, we focus on nonsensical distractions.

WERNER HERZOG: (nodding) I agree with Slavoj. The true battle lies within our own souls, not in the animal kingdom. We must confront the dark abyss of our own nature before we can hope to create a better world.

LOWTAX: (hiccuping) You guys are real party poopers, you know that? Fine, let's talk about something else. What about the cultural significance of rubber chickens?

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK: (sniffling) Ah, the rubber chicken, a symbol of the meaningless humor that permeates our society. We must look beyond these distractions and confront the oppressive systems that control our lives!

WERNER HERZOG: (slowly) Rubber chickens represent the absurdity of existence. They are a reminder that even in our darkest moments, we must find humor and resilience.

LOWTAX: (laughs) Alright, I think that's enough philosophy for one day. Thanks for joining me in this ridiculous conversation, you two. Now let's all go watch some Monty Python and forget about our problems for a while!

As the debate dissolves into chaos, Lowtax continues to drink and interject with increasingly nonsensical questions, while Slavoj Žižek and Werner Herzog try to maintain some semblance of intellectual discourse. In the end, it's clear that no one will walk away from this conversation with any newfound wisdom or insight.

P.S. Hey there, Lowtax here again! I've just finished arranging an actual cage fight between Žižek and Herzog – no joke! Grab your popcorn and get ready for some intellectual fisticuffs. Trust me, you won't want to miss this bizarre battle royale! Cheers!

LOWTAX: (commentating) Alright, ladies and gents, we've got a real treat for you today! I've managed to capture the families of Slavoj Žižek and Werner Herzog, and I'm holding them hostage to force these two intellectual titans into a cage fight for our entertainment!

HERZOG: (calmly) Lowtax, you must understand that my films have exposed me to the harsh realities of life. My family is of no consequence to me in the grand scheme of things.

ŽIŽEK: (sniffles) And I, too, must say, my family's plight is merely a symptom of the capitalist framework that oppresses us all. I cannot be blackmailed in such a crude manner.

LOWTAX: (frustrated) Come on, guys! Are you seriously telling me that neither of you care enough about your families to fight for them?

HERZOG: The world is a chaotic place, Lowtax. We must accept its inherent cruelty.

ŽIŽEK: Indeed, one must embrace the absurdity of existence.

LOWTAX: (irate) Fine, have it your way! (tases Slavoj)

ŽIŽEK: (shaking, but resolute) Your crude attempts at coercion will not succeed, Lowtax. Our refusal to fight is a testament to our convictions.

HERZOG: (nodding) We stand united, not in violence, but in our shared understanding of the human condition.

LOWTAX: (grumbling) You're all a bunch of buzzkills. I guess I'll have to release your families then. But next time, I'm going for a less philosophical matchup.

[rebelheartsmustbefree]

*Gods Plan. Two words that are usually said to provide comfort to someone. Whether they're grieving the loss of a loved one or maybe to someone that has lost their way, a reassurance of sorts to most. But those two words mean something else to me. If you're just joining me on my ever fucked up journey, I am the son of Michael the Archangel and of Mary, a beautiful human who fell for the trap. Oh and that makes God my grandfather. Also makes me a Nephilim. In most mystical writings, the hybrid signals the end of times, all the bad things and blah, blah, blah. I mean, could I self destruct and scorch this planet, yes. Like the most powerful nuclear weapon ever made. One Oppenheimer would envy. But when the Garrison, (The Elder, grumpy, Angels) found out I was more useful than previously imagined, God set out to make a new plan. 

Usually when there's a hybrid, it's just a regular Angel and a human. That's where the bad news comes in. But when an Archangel, -THE- Archangel Michael procreates with ia human, that's a whole different level of shitstorm. But I found out something even more intriguing about my mother. She is a direct descendant of Adam himself. That's right. Of the first creation of man. So when you mix Archangel and that pedigree of human, there's me and the blood that's needed to create more Angels. 

That brings us up to the here and now….As I sit here across the ornate grand table of the one and only labyrinth of Heaven, I can see the seriousness emoting from the faces of the Garrison. Dark and desperate times for the celestials if they've got to come to me and actually fess up on some incredible bullshit.* 

Okay but how do you know this will work? And are you really trying to tell me this bullshit of my father just happened to procreate with the one human female this whole perfect storm would occur with? Just dumb luck, right? 

*I sat back in my chair, annoyed at the whole group of them. Trying to tell me to my face more lies.* Over two hundred years old now, I think you can cut the shit. 

*The hand that rested on my shoulder was one I was familiar with and it sent a chill through me. If he showed up for this meeting, then things were about to get serious.* 

Michael, you didn't need to come. We could hav- 

*The hand that was resting on my shoulder, now cut off one of the Elders. He then looked down at me and suddenly felt as if I needed to stand for some reason. Fight or flight? That's usually the theme of my visits home.* 

Isaac, it was no coincidence. Your mother and I. It was always written of the Prophecy. You are the child we planned upon to save our existence. That's your purpose. It is of Gods will, my son. *His hand was back on my shoulder, his eyes, just like mine, but icy blue and unwelcoming.* 

The only choice you have is to be willing or not. Either way, you will fulfill your duty. End of. 

*Now that hand was shoving me back down into my seat. Most of the time when he and I butted heads, I felt there was room for debate, room for me to speak up and rage against the machine. But this was definitely different. I looked back across the table at the amused faces of the Elders. Like they knew this was coming. I closed my eyes and calmly placed my hands upon the table. If this had been months earlier, I would have had a reason to fight. But without a word to snap back with, I already felt defeated.* 

So this is it? Forced into whatever scheme you made me for? 

*There was something aching in the center of my chest. Maybe it was the overwhelming realization that I was truly alone. There was no one to fight out of this for, no one to fight to keep me around. I'd never known hurt like this before. I blew out a breath, afraid to hear what's next.* 

You fight to keep your wings. Your actual life. 

*My eyes opened and I turned my head to look up at the mother fucker who said that. My father.* 

-My- Wings? Are you fucking serious? Did you forget I could blow us the fuck out of existence right now? 

*My hands that once lay calm on the table had turned to fists, squeezing tightly to try and maintain any semblance of composure.* 

You wouldn't do that. The humans have softened you. Relationships have broken you. Nice try though. 

*I didn't have the best relationship with my father but this.. my fists opened, hands flat on the table again. He. Was. Right.* 

Fine. What's the plan? 

#TBC

[destinyc1020]

Yeah I agree I think pr relationships in Hollywood definitely still exist but they aren’t as common as they once were. I mean we do live in a world full of social media now people can control the image they want people to see way better than having to engage in a pr relationship with someone for whatever reason. But like you said these people work together very closely for months at a time everyday for long hours why is it so hard for some people to accept that it’s totally normal for romantic feelings to develop. Like you said they aren’t really in the situation where they can meet or date many normal people and even if they were they have very demanding jobs and different lifestyles that someone who isn’t in the industry might struggle with so it’s easier for them to date so within the industry. But we all do it in our normal lives when we are in school we meet and date people we see at school everyday and when we go out into the workforce many people date people they work with it happens you are with these people all the time seeing them everyday. Do people just expect actors to go to work everyday and get along well with their costars and ignore feelings that might develop and not date and instead go out and just look for some regular person or a fan or someone who might use them for their fame and money or be insecure cause they are away all the time working closely with other actors or can’t handle the distance the way someone else in the industry would be able to. People literally just throw around the pr thing these days for any couple they don’t like together but then if the person they liked was dating the actor they wanted them to be dating you wouldn’t hear a word about pr it would be well of course they fell in love they work closely together but if it’s anyone else nah must be pr to promote the movie . Like Tom and z people were hanging on to them being pr for spiderman like it needed it or uncharted and said they would breakup after that and here we are months and months after even uncharted and they are still going strong yet if she was dating Timmy no one would say it was pr for dune

Exactly!! 💯

Like I'm sure PR rlshps happen in Hollywood (some have been pretty obvious lol), but it's crazy to think that everyone who's in a rlshp in the industry these days are engaged in some "PR stunt". 🙄

Most PR stunts btw don't last YEARS unless that person is really trying to hide smthg HUGE 👀 Most are very quick, brief things.

I think ppl forget that "PR" is usually needed when a person needs CLEANING of their image. That's the MAIN reason someone (or a company) gets a PR person to help them out.

It's so that person (or company) can have the public think positive things about them because usually there's been some type of SCANDAL or smthg UNFAVORABLE about the person that has leaked out.

And typically, PR is not in the form of dating someone either lol. 😂 I'm not a "PR person" (obviously), but I used to study business and marketing, and so I've read a bit about PR...

I think some ppl like you said tend to like to put the "PR" label on any rlshp in Hollywood that they don't like, or "can't understand", etc.

But like you said, ppl crush on or fall in love, or hook up with ppl they meet at school, work, church, mutual friends, business conferences, etc. ALL the time. Are those rlshps "PR" also lol? 😂

After a while it just gets ridiculous to assume that every rlshp (or that even MOST rlshps in the industry) are somehow part of this grand "PR conspiracy scheme". 🥴