#source link in the first word and in source

[optimisticgrey]

✨All we have is each other✨

Part 2.2: Let me work my magic.

summary: More programming and longing and a long night with Silas.

author's note:Thank you for voting and sticking with me. Checking in, sending your thoughts, leaving your kudos and comments. It means more than words can ever express 🫶

Theme song: Architects - Doomsday

content warning: recreational drug use (alcohol, weed), therapy mentioned

word count: 3,6k

Excerpt below AO3 Link

While the system begins to process, you return to motion. Longer walks with Mal. Short, clumsy runs. You were fit in Faerûn — lean muscle built on survival, on climbing cliffs and dodging blades — but that was battle, not cardio. Not rhythm or routine. Still, you move.

You have to move. Because you know what happens if you do not.

Stopping is not an option. Not now. Not when forward is the only thing left. If you stop, the fear will take hold. It waits for the smallest stillness. You can feel it.

That gnawing truth you refuse to name: what if you’ve already lost everything?

It haunts the corners of your thoughts like a ghost. And you will not let it win.

The first calculations crash at 43%. Six weeks of sleepless labor unravel in a single failed thread. You try to breathe through it, try not to drown in that rising tide of panic. Half a bottle of gin buys you enough numbness to crawl out of the wreckage and try again.

It takes two weeks to isolate the mistake. Two weeks of pacing, of silence, of staring blankly at your ceiling at 3AM and wondering if this is the moment where you lose your grip on reality.

You are in the final phase of your job’s major project — deadlines, deliverables, responsibilities — and you can barely see straight. You push through. Because that is what you do.

It works. You still close the project on time. You just do not care anymore.

You force yourself through every hour like it is a battlefield. Joking to yourself that you have seen worse — you have seen Avernus, even if only for a moment — but the fire does n’o feel funny anymore. Not when it burns this way.

When the third run fails — because of an input error so basic it would embarrass your first-year self — you put the bottle down, pick up your phone, and schedule therapy.

It takes too long to comb through the logs. One line of bad code. One line. It makes your stomach turn. You know better. You are better.

Do better.

The doubt slips in like a crack through glass.

What if Faerûn was never yours to keep?

What if it was only a borrowed thread of fate, a tether meant to serve a purpose — resolve the Absolute, save a world — and once it was done, the thread snapped.

Your time was up.

Your presence: spent.

No. That does not track. You know it. Silas cast the spell — on a rare moon, during the right constellation. A fluke. A freak alignment of magic and math. It should not have worked and yet it did.

Still, you are terrified of what the numbers will say. You are rebuilding a spell you barely understand, in a world that barely believes magic ever existed. If the magic here is waning — if the spell hinges on timing, on a dying planet's last breath of starlight — how long will it take to work again?

You know how the galaxy works. How rare the right alignments are. You understand time dilation. It refers to the seemingly odd fact that time passes at different rates for different observers, depending on their relative motion or positions in a gravitational field.

Everyone who has seen Interstellar does.

But if six hours here are six months in Faerûn?

Gale might already be gone.

You have wasted so much time. Years, maybe. Decades even. And you cannot figure out how to fix it.

You were sent to Faerûn at a specific moment. That must mean something. The spell references time. But it is cryptic, fractured. And you have no one left to ask. Gale would have seen it instantly. He would have explained it to you like a story, gentle and precise.

The source material is scattered, fragmented — destroyed during inquisitions, dismissed as fiction, lost to time. Forgotten Realms lore offers nothing. Just fantasy, they say. Just someone’s invention.

So you bury yourself in the math. Logic is something you can understand, you can hide in, bursy your mind with.

Therapy helps, more than you expected. You talk in metaphors. You say “loss,” when you mean him. You say “helpless,” when you mean forcefully removed. You talk about a love you could not save. A life that slipped through your fingers like mist.

It helps. A little. Just enough.

Laura and Silas do their best. They offer joy, distraction, the weight of their love. You pretend it is a depressive episode. Something explainable.

It hurts, not to tell them the truth.

But you know what happens if you do.

They will worry. Suggest hospitalization. And you would not blame them.

You would have said the same, once.

Before you fell in love with a man born of Weave and wonder. A man who kissed you like you were made of starlight and ruin. Who held you with hands gentle enough to silence every scream you kept buried.

You refuse to touch the game.

You refuse to touch the game. It would not be right. He would not be the same. None of them would. It would be an echo. And you cannot bear to feel that kind of wrongness.

So you stay away. You prepare.

Your mind sharpens to a point. Fixed. Clear.

There is no room for failure now.

No plan B. No what if.

You do not imagine what happens if the algorithm fails.

You cannot.

This is total commitment.

You will return to Faerûn.

You will find Gale.

You will go home.

Continue on AO3

[redemptive-truth]

A Time to Pretend | Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Four years ago, she survived the impossible—going toe-to-toe with the Winter Soldier and living to tell the tale. Now, Bucky Barnes is on her balcony, broken and bleeding. And her? She’s always had a soft spot for lost causes with blood on their hands.

MCU Timeline Placement: Post-CATWS

Parts: Part 1

AO3 Link

Warnings: N/A

Word Count: 3.2K

Author's Note: This started out as a more of a fledging idea than an actual, fleshed-out plot, but the plot built itself as I wrote. Gets better as it goes (I hope). This is also the first thing I've written and completed since I was seventeen, but I guess that's what Sebastian Stan does to a girl

This will be a ten-part series.

*Note - In this fic, the scene at the Hotel Inessa in FATWS takes place in 2010, before the events of CATWS.

______________________________________________________________

Part 1: Inessa, 2010

“You ever get to see the inside of the White House?”

She kept her eye fixed to the rifle’s scope, breath calm, steady. Through the mist on the hotel’s windows, she watched silhouettes move—blurry shapes dressed in suits, talking with the relaxed confidence of people who didn’t know they were being watched. One group of businessmen made their way down a plush, chandelier-lit corridor, laughing over drinks.

The hotel was a relic of Cold War luxury—six floors of marble and gold trim, with heavy velvet curtains and crystal lighting that hadn’t been updated in decades. It was the kind of place oligarchs and arms dealers still used to pretend they were just successful businessmen. And tonight, it was the kind of place where people might die.

“Saw it a few times before, Connors,” she said evenly.

Her partner shifted beside her with barely concealed enthusiasm, but she didn’t glance over. It had taken them hours to find the right vantage point in the crumbling building across from the hotel. She’d been lying prone for the last hour, arms propped up, sight locked in. Connors had been talking since they got into position.

He was a good kid. Green. A new S.H.I.E.L.D. agent with a similar Army background—though unlike her, he hadn’t seen real combat. Four years in, no real advancement. She had pushed back when he was assigned to the mission in Russia, but Hill fed her some bureaucratic line about “building experience.”

She knew the truth. They thought the intel was garbage.

The source was flimsy. The tip-off that HYDRA was deploying the Winter Soldier to Inessa was circumstantial at best. But she didn’t care how cold the trail was. If there was even a whisper of him, she followed it. He was a legend, a ghost — but the promise of capturing him, seeing if he was real, was too sweet to miss out on.

“What’s it like?” Connors asked. “Meeting the President. I always wanted to do one of those White House tours—my dad’s obsessed with that stuff. But I’ve never had the time.”

She tugged her jacket tighter with her free hand, the cold biting through even with multiple layers and gloves. Russia was colder than expected in the early spring.

“Which President are you referring to?”

She caught the way Connors froze beside her, his glasses beginning to fog in the freezing air.

“Wait—more than one?”

She didn’t respond. Twenty seconds passed. The realization hit him like a punch.

“I—sorry, I forgot. I wasn’t thinking about your dad —”

“Connors, it’s fine,” she cut in sharply. “I know what you meant. Just… shut up and watch for the target.”

He was silent for maybe a minute before he began to chatter again. She clenched her teeth, fighting the urge to roll her eyes.

She hated new recruits.

Her father’s death had been over a decade ago, but the mention of it still crushed her every time. He had been a three-star Army general, assassinated just months after being sworn in as the Senior Military Advisor to the Secretary of Defense. That was her first visit to the White House—where a man she didn’t know, dressed in a suit she’d never seen before, handed her a neatly folded flag and thanked her for all that her father had done for his county. Like that would be enough to dull her grief.

For a brief moment, she was America’s sweetheart. The nation mourned the poor, little, orphan —the girl whose mother had died of cancer when she was just a toddler, and whose father now lay bled out in the street, the victim of a surgical, brutal assault. America loved a good sob story.

To add injustice to it all, the assassin was never found. No evidence, not even a hint to who it might be. Another brutal reality pill to swallow.

But once the funeral ended, once the last tears were shed and the coffin draped in red, white, and blue was lowered into the ground, everyone moved on.

Which was perfectly fine by her. She had no interest in parading her grief for headlines or leaning into a legacy built on loss. Let them forget. She didn’t owe the world a thing.

“I still can’t believe they assigned me to this op. Russia. Hotel full of ex-military and intel brokers. And you. I mean—Captain L/N, the Medal of Valor recipient. I read about your unit in Kandahar—was it true you were taken prisoner and broke yourself out after a month?”

She didn’t respond.

He took the silence as encouragement.

“That’s insane. I mean, what’d you do to get out? And to be a captain so young – ”

“Connors.”

Her voice was clipped.

“Right. Sorry. Focus. Quiet. Got it.”

He fidgeted, lowering his binoculars and wiping the condensation from the lenses with his sleeve. She adjusted the focus on her scope, sweeping past the elevators to the mezzanine. Nothing suspicious yet. Still time.

Connors spoke again, quieter this time. Like a child resisting being put in time-out.

“Is it true S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited you because your godmother is Maria Hill?”

She snapped her head away from the rifle’s scope, eyes narrowing as she fixed the young agent beside her with a look that could freeze blood. Connors flinched. The nervous smile he’d been wearing, bright under his hazy glasses and mop of curls, faded immediately.

It wasn’t the first time she’d heard it.

Yes, the infamous Maria Hill had taken her in after her parents’ death. Yes, Maria had trained her—ruthlessly—until she could kill a man with her bare hands before she turned sixteen. And yes, the rumors followed her everywhere. That Nick Fury had only recruited her because Maria asked. That she was a “pet project”. That the girl in those old funeral photos—the one sobbing in black while the President touched her shoulder—was just a tragic orphan polished into a weapon out of pity.

They never mentioned the blood she’d spilled to earn her place. Just the headlines. Just the whispers.

She could handle the rumors. But she wasn’t going to let some baby-faced agent with a month on the job say it to her face.

“Connors,” she said, low and steady. “You seem like a good kid. Really. And I have nothing against you, personally. But if you don’t shut your fucking mouth in the next thirty seconds, I’ll show you exactly why S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited me.”

He blinked at her, cheeks flushing red from the cold—or maybe embarrassment. His glasses had completely fogged up now.

“Aren’t you just, like… a couple years older than me?”

She was half a second from breaking his nose when the screaming started.

The sound tore through the frozen air like a blade—muffled, at first, behind thick hotel walls. Then sharp. Raw. Screams and gunfire rang out.

She whipped back to her scope.

“Eyes up,” she barked.

Connors scrambled to follow her line of sight. Through the scope of her rifle, she watched a masked man in tactical gear charge down a hallway—faster than any normal human had the right to move. He closed the distance between him and two guards in the span of a breath, gunning them down before their fingers even fully tightened around their triggers.

It was him. It had to be.

Her breath caught, ragged. She tracked him through the hotel’s fogged windows, shifting to find a clear shot. He was too fast. Too brutal. Somewhere deep beneath the adrenaline — the muscle memory, and years of hardened instinct, her stomach twisted.

Normal people would never stand a chance against him. That much was apparent from just the brief moment of watching him in action.

“Do you have a shot?” Connors hissed beside her, his own weapon trembling slightly in his hands.

“No… fuck, he’s moving too fast,” she snapped. “Call it in, Connors.”

He obeyed immediately, muttering rapidly into his comms. She barely heard him, locked in on the figure below. The grainy surveillance images she’d memorized hadn’t done the Winter Soldier justice. Watching him in motion—fluid, mechanical, efficient—was like watching death incarnate. If she didn’t want him dead, she might have admired it.

He dispatched two more guards with two precise shots , then leapt down a staircase like gravity meant nothing. Without looking, he fired backward, killing another guard mid-sprint. A flash of silver caught the light — his metal arm, she registered — as he drew a knife and flung it into the chest of the last man standing.

It was terrifying.

He was terrifying.

Connors was still talking, frantic, but she couldn't hear him over the roaring of her own heartbeat. She adjusted her grip on the trigger, forcing herself to breathe, steadying her aim. Below, the Soldier grabbed a man in a suit—his target, probably—by the throat and slammed him against the wall, choking the life from him.

Now. She had seconds.

Inhale. Exhale.

Squeeze.

The Winter Soldier moved just before the shot landed. Instead of burying into the back of his skull, the bullet tore into his shoulder—his flesh shoulder. He staggered, dropping the man in his grip. And then— He turned.

Even from across the street, She could feel it.

His eyes found her. Locked in, directly on her even from this far away.

“Damn it, he saw me,” she growled, already on her feet, yanking Connors up by the front of his jacket. “We need to run. Now.”

They tore down the stairwell with her in the lead, Connors stumbling behind her with one hand still clutching his rifle. She didn’t waste breath yelling orders, just motioned with sharp gestures and relied on the hope that he was smart enough to follow. Her boots pounded on concrete, heart hammering harder than her feet.

Behind them, there was no sound at first. For a moment, Connors relaxed, probably thinking they were in the clear. She gave him a pointed look, cocking her rifle.

Then glass shattered somewhere nearby. Heavy boots landed on metal with unnatural force.

He was coming.

They moved — hit the first floor. She shoved through the exit door, shouldered into the alley, and skidded into a sprint. The cold air outside felt like knives in her lungs, but she didn’t stop. They had maybe ten seconds. Fifteen, if they were lucky.

“Keep up!” she barked over her shoulder.

“I am, I am—!” Connors gasped, his breath puffing out in uneven clouds. “Where do we—”

She didn’t get the chance to answer. A massive blur slammed into the alley behind them with the force of a meteor. Concrete cracked under impact.

She spun just in time to see him—the Winter Soldier, hair wild and dark around his masked face, eyes shaded with black narrowed in on her with laser precision. He looked feral, deadly. And not remotely winded.

“Go!” she screamed at Connors, raising her weapon.

But Connors, to his credit—or his stupidity—stepped forward instead. “Get out of here, I’ll hold him off—”

“Don’t—”

It was too late. Connors raised his gun.

The Winter Soldier was on him in less than a heartbeat.

A gunshot rang out—but it wasn’t Connors’. She barely registered the motion before Bucky slammed his metal fist into the younger agent’s chest. There was a sickening crunch—bone and armor breaking—and Connors dropped like a sack of meat.

Dead. Instantly.

She’s stomach turned, bile crawling up her throat. She didn’t have time to grieve.

He didn’t even glance at the boy’s body. His eyes were immediately turned on her, focused in her on face.

And for a split second, she swore he hesitated. His mouth twitched. His eyes narrowed further. Confused, maybe. Or…something else.

But then the moment was gone, and he moved again—charging at her full-force.

She fired quickly, efficiently. One. Two. Three rounds. All aimed center-mass.

He dodged the first, deflected the second with his metal arm, and took the third in the side—but it didn’t slow him down more than a beat. He was inches away now.

Far too close to take him in a fight and win.

She dove sideways, narrowly avoiding his outstretched hand. Rolled, came up gasping, and ran.

Run. Don’t fight. Not this one. Not yet.

Footsteps thundered behind her. She vaulted over a chain-link fence, boots scraping the top as she hit the other side and sprinted down the next alley as fast as she could possibly move.

He was still following.

But now—he wasn’t shooting. Wasn’t throwing knives.

He was chasing. Like it was a game.

Her boots skidded over ice-slick pavement as she rounded the corner of the alley. Her heart pounded furiously in her chest, blood roaring in her ears. Panic coiled in her gut like a spring ready to snap. She forced herself not to look back, even as every instinct in her screamed that he was right behind her.

He killed Connors. In less than a second. Focus. Breathe.

She trained for this. She asked for this op. She was capable of holding her own.

She hit another fence, taller this time. Rusted metal - no footholds. She stumbled over this one this time, the height of this fence about a foot taller than the last one. Still, adrenaline propelled her forward.

He was getting closer. She could hear it. The thundering steps of a man who didn’t stop. Who didn’t need to. She would stop far before he would — and she needed an advantage over him.

She turned. Dropped to one knee. Aimed. One shot. One clean shot.

The Soldier rounded the corner at full speed—expression blank, terrifying in its neutrality. She fired the moment he was fully within range.

The shot never landed.

In one fluid motion, he deflected the bullet with his metal arm, the sound of impact ringing sharp through the alley. Before she could react, he was on her—closing the distance with terrifying speed.

She braced herself, trying to raise her rifle again, but his hand shot out and seized the barrel. With a single, mechanical squeeze, the weapon crumpled like paper in his grip, twisted metal and splintered carbon raining to the pavement.

She staggered back, breath caught in her throat, watching in disbelief as the remains of her rifle dropped from his fist. His eyes locked onto hers, cold and unrecognizing, and he began to stalk toward her with relentless purpose.

“Go to hell,” she spat, fury burning through her fear.

She slammed into him, shoulder-first, trying to knock him off balance. He barely budged, but it bought her just enough time to land a punch to the side of his jaw and duck as his metal fist swung wide.

She darted behind him, grabbed the knife from her hip, and went for his back.

His hand caught her wrist mid-swing, yanking the blade from her grip and throwing it. It clattered somewhere behind them.

She went for her pistol instead, grabbing it from her holster quickly. He was faster, knocking it from her hands before she could even get it up.

Fuck.

She spun, trying to create space. He moved with her, faster than she could react, and drove her backwards into the alley wall with a solid crash. Air whooshed from her lungs.

She struggled, throwing elbows, knees—anything to get him off her. He caught both her wrists in one hand and pinned them above her head with his metal arm. His body was a wall of unyielding weight. She kicked, but her boots barely scraped his shins.

She was trapped now.

His face was close, an inch or so away from her own. He smelled metallic, like blood and gunpowder. His blank expression hadn’t changed—but his eyes had.

They weren’t dead like they had been when he killed Connors. They were a brilliant blue, a cerulean far too beautiful for a weapon built to kill. Glazed over, like he was submerged in a fog. And maybe she was spiraling, maybe the fear had finally cracked her open—but as he met her gaze dead-on, she could have sworn that fog lifted. Just a little. Just enough for her to see something behind it.

They looked at her like he was… trying to place her.

Her breathing turned ragged. Not from exertion, but from a rising, sick panic she hadn’t felt in years. She hadn’t been this helpless since she was in the middle of a war, captured and wondering if the next day would be her last. Now, she was wondering how many moments she had left.

Her voice shook despite the steel she tried to put in it. “Do it.” Her chin lifted, daring him. “Kill me you coward.”

The Winter Soldier didn’t move. Didn’t blink.

He stared at her. Not blankly. Not coldly. There was no emotion in his eyes - no anger, no hate…nothing. He was silent, keeping her pinned in place as he observed her.

Studying her. Curious. Like a machine trying to solve a puzzle it had been programmed to ignore.

He tilted his head slightly. Just enough to unsettle her. Just enough to make her heart stutter. His gaze swept over her face like he was cataloging her features, storing them somewhere deep inside whatever was left of the man buried underneath all the programming.

And then—he spoke.

Soft. Foreign. A voice that didn’t match with the image of a killer..

“…Я тебя знаю.”

The words hit her like a blow. She blinked, startled. Her mouth opened but no sound came out. What did he say?

But he was already moving again, cold precision in his limbs as the fog rolled back into his eyes. The Winter Soldier reasserted control, expression blank once more.

Whatever short emotion had flared behind those eyes, it was gone. The rage came flooding back in. Sharp, red-hot, and blinding.

She moved without thinking.

Driving her knee upward, aiming for his ribs, she twisted beneath the vice grip of his metal arm. His reflexes were inhuman—he stepped back just enough to avoid the full brunt of her strike, then caught her wrist before she could grab the knife tucked at her hip.

She fought anyway.

Elbow, palm, heel. She struck with everything Maria had taught her. Every move was clean, fast, and brutal. She’d trained for years for this — to fight, to kill. She’d fought in active war, killed combatants when she needed to. She had been fighting as a career for years.

But he was better. Faster. Stronger. He could kill her without breaking a sweat.

And yet…

He wasn’t fighting to kill her.

He blocked every strike, deflected every blow. Grabbed her forearms, stepped out of the way, twisted her momentum against her until she stumbled—but never once struck back with lethal intent. It was all control, precision, restraint.

“Fight me, damn it!” she shouted, breathless with fury. “What’s the matter? You had no problem killing everyone in that hotel!”

That flicker returned—just a flash—behind his eyes. A hesitation.

But it didn’t stop him.

With one fluid motion, he ducked her wild punch, caught her arm, spun her around, and slammed the flat of his palm against the side of her head. A clean, surgical strike—meant to end a fight, not a life.

Everything went fuzzy. Her legs folded under her.

The last thing she saw as the concrete rushed up to meet her was the Winter Soldier standing over her, eyes clouded again.

Expression unreadable. A weapon.

And then—darkness.

[kunikame]

#PURPLE LILACS !

[13] - the weight of an arm (increased by a lie) | prev. | m. list | next

ace trappola x fem!reader smau

! warning(s) : soft angst if u squint, fluff, sorry ive been gone for so long uni kicked me to the curb i lost my will to live BUT IM BACK FROM WAR KUNIKAME NATION !!!

! w/c : 796

it was a couple of weeks later, during another one of the first year hangouts, that it first happened.

you’ve been steadily getting closer with ace, and despite the initial… rocky start to your friendship, you found you had a bunch of things in common. once you’ve learned to see through the veils of your anger, it was actually quite easy to learn to like the ginger (even though he was terribly annoying at times). thanks to that improvement, you’ve gotten a tad closer with your other companions as well, and so have they, bit by bit, learned to like ace the tiniest bit more. hangouts happened more frequently and flowed way easier – ramshackle had steadily grown into more of a ‘home’ than the word itself could describe.

on occasions like these, you sometimes get flashes of the past that blur too easily with the present. it‘s too easy to imagine deuce in a bike related conversation with your dad, taking up the greater portion of the couch in your house, sebek and jack playing cards on the floor and epel scrolling on his phone, while you and ace chat with your mom in the kitchen over running water and the clatter of dishes. ace would say one of his stupid jokes and your mom would start laughing because her humour had always been easy to cater to, and you just know she would have absolutely adored him – them – were she ever to be given the chance to meet them.

whenever these images flashed in your mind, they were soon accompanied by the weight of an arm around your shoulders, which if you were to follow to the source would unmistakably lead to a mop of ginger hair, and if you looked, really looked – because if ace trappola is anything, he’s a master of deceit – a flash of concern in the crease of his brows, unnoticed if one didn’t study his face close and often enough.

the first time it happened, you shrugged the confusion off and pinned it to ace simply being ace; the realization that the images in your mind could never be real left you impossibly cold, and aces arm was warm, so you allowed it to stay. just this once.

but then it happened again. and again. and again and again and again.

an arm slung over your shoulders, a brush of the knees, a hand covering yours, then a link of pinkies – a silent promise to comfort.

“hey, i’ve been meaning to ask, why do you do this?”

he turns to face you, lollipop stick hanging out of his mouth, “do what?”

you raise your pinky-twined hands to face level and nudge your head towards them, as if to make a point, and he lets out a thoughtful hum somewhere in the back of his throat. as he stares at your hands, he furrows his brows in the same barely noticeable way again, as if he himself was unsure, looking for an answer, an explanation.

“you make this.. face, sometimes,” he starts, hesitant in his words, “like you’re carrying the weight of 2 worlds on your shoulders, one you live in, and one you wish you did. it wasn’t all that hard to, kinda, get a rough idea of what that meant. whenever i tried to get you out of the trance with food or words, it didn’t work, so i figured if you felt a real weight instead of an imaginary one, it would.. help?”

there’s a small moment between the end of his speech and you taking it in, where he looks at you, not like a burden, or an annoyance – more like a magic trick he’s trying to figure out, seeking answers you yourself don’t have and solutions you can’t give, because there is not one thought in your head other than a bright, flashing, neon “oh”.

“it does,” you smile at him and it’s like the first flowers of spring have just bloomed, “thank you, ace. for being the only weight on my shoulders that matters.”

there’s a short pause, like kindness wasn’t the response he was expecting, until he removes the lollipop from his mouth with his free hand and shoots you a wink, “anytime, [name]”

the world might have stopped spinning for you when the reality of your situation sank in, but with the arrival of spring, you’ve noticed the sun still rose and fell every day, so perhaps it wasn’t the world that stopped spinning, but you.

as you sat there, pinkies intertwined with the ginger next to you, you felt your head slowly lean to the right, taking up its new place on his shoulder.

and as the sun set and the world spun, you felt yourself slowly returning to orbit with it once more.

## ❝ after the events of the phantom bride wedding, ace started wondering whether he still had the ability to charm girls. he hasn’t thought about anyone romantically in years, hasn’t really flirted with anyone either, what if he’s gone out of it? perhaps it’s time to put his talents to the test; with the person who hates him most, no less. if he can charm her, he can charm anyone. ❞

#TAGLIST ! : @solxima @gabirii @lunavixia @y2unagiz @the-ghost-0f-t0m0 @borlining @verity-moon @myunghology @doughnuts-eater @lifeless-bug @babygurlenthusiast @shirishere @xopeach @stormyovent0aster @bontensbabygirl @ars-tral @epelossa @sinofthesloth @skeet-2 @everettelz @sakuram1nt @shatiyuh @ambigrueity @junebunny06 @norylight @dyedracoonhair @persm1net @meowbuscompany @sugarrush-blush @oopsie-daisy-doo @shinameii @jaiistg @erigaur @hananan2 @lucky-whispers @capr1c0rnstar @krisvslove @pomegranateboba @meigalaxy // ask/comment or fill form to be added/removed! (if you’re in bold i can’t tag you)

[skvaderarts]

Bottom Jayce Week Day 5: All In The Name of Science

Summary: Word Count 8.1k! AO3 Link

Summary: After Viktor is gifted an experimental and highly suspect strain of Shimmer by Singed in the hopes of curing his illness, he disappears into the depths of the Undercity. And when Jayce finally manages to track him down, he isn’t ready for what he finds. Or how strangely affected he is by it.

I saw the concept art of THIS Viktor and thought he would be perfect for this occasion. Quick timeline note: In this timeline, Viktor disappeared BEFORE the second time he used Shimmer and Sky died saving him. It takes place around the time that Ekko and Heimerdinger would have shown up in the show. Jayce is still crashing out and going through his newly divorced ark, just for a different reason. Just wanted to clear up any potential confusion. The concept art in question, courtesy of this wonderful art and its comment section: https://www.tumblr.com/starklike34/784777519897427968/couldnt-resist-seeing-viktors-new-concepts-xd?source=share

My Bottom Jayce Week Lineup can be found HERE!

So if you want to check out all the other fics for the other days, go for it! I hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading!

The Jayce and Viktor in question:

All In The Name of Science

Summary: After Viktor is gifted an experimental and highly suspect strain of Shimmer by Singed in the hopes of curing his illness, he disappears into the depths of the Undercity. And when Jayce finally manages to track him down, he isn’t ready for what he finds. Or how strangely affected he is by it.

—

The explosion at the Capitol building had silenced Piltover, but the lab had grown cold long before then.

His sudden lack of interest in his life’s work had been an unwelcome development, at least as far as the council was concerned. He was the golden child of Piltover, the Man of Progress, and an irrefutable symbol of the city's greatness. But as things stood, he was little more than a fixture, rooted in place in his lab as the even sun faded around him.

No one had seen Viktor in weeks. Jayce feared the worst.

Again and again, he combed over their last conversation together in his mind, his words gnawing at him like a festering wound that refused to stop bleeding. “I need to think,” he’d said. But when he’d returned to the lab, he’d found nothing. He’d failed to take notice at first, but now all he could do was grit his teeth and chastise himself for how long it had taken him to realize that something was amiss. That Viktor hadn’t been there in days.

Jayce had rushed to their lab in a frenzy of excitement and frayed nerves to present the blueprint for a lasting peace between Zaun and Piltover to Viktor. To invite him to the council meeting. But he’d simply vanished. He hadn’t been at the pump station. He hadn’t been at his apartment. He hadn’t been seen anywhere. And in the wake of a bomb tearing through Piltover, he remained unseen. Silent. As untraceable as smoke over water.

It wasn’t like him.

Jayce’s city needed him, but all he could think about was Viktor. When he closed his eyes, images of magic and mechanisms faded away as Viktor’s visage replaced them. The golden glow of his eyes haunted Jayce’s guilt-addled mind like a specter looming over dark water. The timbre of Viktor’s laugh, his accent, and the rare warmth of his smile.

The double doors to the lab opened, and he knew without looking up that it wasn’t who he wanted it to be.

“Oh, there you are. I was hoping you’d be here.” Came a familiar voice. It was enough to draw his attention from the object he held in his hands as he leaned against his desk, even if only for a moment.

“Sky?” Jayce lifted his head to regard her properly. Or, at least something akin to it. He could barely fake the small, tired smile that he gave her as she approached, holding something tightly between her intertwined hands.

Her presence wasn’t unwelcome. Far from it. But in truth, he’d simply forgotten about her role in their lab, so engrossed he’d been in the depths of his quasi-mourning. Jayce had spent the last while going through the motions and in and out of a sort of fugue state, unable to cope with the sudden disappearance of his partner. Worrying about him. Wondering if they still had time left. He realized now that he had taken their time together for granted amidst the thousand other things that demanded his attention, and a part of himself was wholly unwilling to grant himself even a sliver of forgiveness, even if it had been an unintended misstep.

“It’s urgent.” She said as she extended her hand to him, handing him a slightly crumpled envelope that had been visibly smoothed flat by worried hands. The seal was broken, but the paper inside didn’t show evidence of being unfolded, at least not fully. She wore a grim look upon her face as she watched him hesitantly take it. 

Sky’s eyes drifted to the object in his off hand. A picture frame cradling a photograph of the two of them together at the Distinguished Innovator’s Competition, winning their first award together. A knowing sadness filled her eyes as she extended her hand and placed it on Jayce’s shoulder, looking away. Unwilling to meet his gaze as her hand dropped back to her side. “Look at the handwriting…”

Hesitantly, he sighed and gently set the picture down as though it would shatter at the slightest touch. He opened the envelope and retrieved the paper inside, unfolding it almost absentmindedly. And then his eyes widened. A palpable wave of anxiety and bewilderment overcame him the moment he beheld his own name, scribbled in a woefully familiar flowing, if not slightly messy and hastily scribbled, script.

He felt his heart catch in his throat, as excited as he was genuinely terrified. Gripping it tightly as his heart clenched and fell into his stomach.

Dear Jayce,

I wished to be in contact with you sooner, but there were complications. Word has reached me in the Undercity of the attack on the capital and the subsequent memorial, and of your miraculous survival. I am grateful that you were unharmed. It appears that you remain as indestructible as ever. Please do not test this theory further.

Jayce rolled his shoulder and adjusted his neck, suddenly all too aware of the dull throb that traveled diagonally across his back as he hunched over to read. Something akin to an amused smirk spread across his face, the light returning to his eyes as he beheld the writing with reverence as though it were sacred script. It was really him.

It was not my intention to abandon you so suddenly and without explanation. There was ample cause, I assure you. The circumstances I now find myself embroiled in are as unexpected as they are potentially hazardous, and I do not expect that to change anytime soon. I did not wish to endanger you. I intend to be in contact again in the future, but I cannot say when. I am sorry I cannot delineate, and for the worry I have no doubt caused you. Unfortunately, that is all I can say for now. Something must be taken care of. Urgently. Please give my regards to Mrs. Young.

Do not look for me.

Your Partner, Viktor.

Jayce clasped the piece of paper as though it would vanish should he relinquish it, and take all the hope it had restored to him with it. His brow furrowed as he considered the unsettling implications of its latter half, worry settling into his heart as he contemplated what dire situation Viktor now could’ve found himself in. This was both like him and very much unlike him all at once, and that diversion from the norm cut him to the quick.

Jayce glanced up at Sky, taking note of the way she almost seemed to bounce in place from anticipation, clutching her notebook to her chest as if it would shield her from her own worry. He gave her a questioning look, glancing between the letter and her anxiety-riddled eyes. “Did you read it?”

“I read enough.” She rubbed her neck in discomfort before adjusting her glasses. “The header. Just enough to see that it’s addressed to you, so…”

Jayce handed it to her, standing to grab his coat with a soft smile. Sometimes, Sky was too sweet and well-meaning for her own good. He wasn’t blind to the fact that she cared for Viktor, even if he didn’t know to what extent. She needed answers. Closure. Hopefully, this would provide something close to that. He left the document in her care with a few pats on the shoulder as he shrugged into his jacket and strided towards the door to the lab, pushing it open as he vacated the premises.

There was somewhere he needed to be.

—

The Undercity was always dark, but something about tonight felt especially bleak and oppressive.

Jayce shuffeled along in the darkness, his feet practically dragging against the ground beneath him as he stumbled along. He was no stranger to the concept of fatigue. His current state was one that he’d been in numerous times before, and would undeniably find himself in again, but as he descended into the depths of the Undercity, it almost felt as though a weight was pressing down on him. Like he was trapped in a vice.

He had no concept of how long he’d been walking. How far into the depths of the city he’d gone. If it was even nighttime anymore. What few residents of the underground had been willing to be forthcoming with potential leads hadn’t been able to give him anything concrete other than a general idea of where to look. The good news was that they all pointed conclusively to the same region of Zaun. The bad news was that it was The Sump. Where everything that was lost found itself.

The city had been in utter turmoil around him as he descended. Infighting amongst the Chembarrons in the wake of the disappearance and presumed death of Silco had opened up a power vacuum, and they were all eager to fill it. To take a larger portion than the miserly scraps they’d been allowed. It made for hectic travel and uneasy streets, but what was new? Sadly, this was not something unfamiliar to the lanes, as much as he wanted things to be different. As much as Viktor had hoped to change things before he’d gotten sick. Jayce shook his head as if to dislodge the concept from his mind. He had to find him. Before something else did.

As he continued down the darkened streets, he couldn’t help but notice that the state of the area was somehow worse than he’d ever seen in the Undercity. Numerous unfortunate victims of Shimmer addiction scurried about on all fours, more akin to the scuttling insects that seemed to cover every surface than the people they’d once been. Ramshackle accommodations did little to keep warmth in and the thick, barely tolerable air out. Several people were scavenging through the dumpsters while others lay nearby, visibly starving and succumbing to the elements. It was desperate, harrowing, and utterly heartbreaking to witness. They were supposed to be helping people like this. Hextech was supposed to be for the people. But somewhere along the way, they’d strayed from the path.

Barely resisting the urge to wring his fingers, Jayce let his mind wander to darker places. Places fraught with anxious thoughts and worst-case scenarios. What had Viktor gotten himself into? He’d never been one to fear risks, always ready to dive in head first, but this…

A scenario wholly unwanted and unwarranted barged into his stream of consciousness unannounced. The notion that he would arrive just late enough for it to be too late. That some unknown individual had harmed him or taken him captive, and his letter had been a gentle goodbye in the hopes of sparing him the truth. That he would find a version of Viktor that was beyond his help. That his health would be too fragile and he would succumb to his fate here in the depths of the Undercity. Unknown. Unappreciated by the public at large. Jayce felt his blood run ice cold.

He never wanted to imagine what it would be like to lose him ever again.

Freezing in place from the sheer weight of the chill that crawled up his spine at the very concept, he closed his eyes, grounding himself. He would find Viktor, they would both leave this place, and they would go back to the lab together. To safety. The council would continue to do just fine without him. He’d had plenty of time to settle on his priorities in the wake of Viktor’s absence. Promised himself that if he ever had the privilege of seeing him again, that nothing would go unsaid, no matter how difficult.

They would work on a cure for Viktor’s disease, he would be fine, and they would get through this. Together as partners should.

“I wouldn’t go down there, topsider.”

He hadn’t meant to jump, but the sound of someone speaking to him had genuinely startled him. His eyes darted to his left, only to land on an elderly woman peering at him from inside a dilapidated building as she stood in the doorway. Half inside, her body was obscured, little more than her head and shoulder visible in the dim light of the alleyway.

“I beg your pardon?” Jayce asked almost hesitantly as he took a breath and sighed, attempting to shake off his nerves with moderate success.

She pointed in the general direction of the way he was headed. Into the mountainside and the remnants of the mines and the structures beyond. There was a tunnel, and beyond it, darkness. Nothing but the vague outline of derelict buildings and thick, barely breathable air.

“Into those caves. Nothing but monsters posing as humans, and humans posing as monsters.” She cackled madly, but despite the questionable state of her mind, Jayce found himself swallowing thickly and steadying himself. She leaned in a bit and gestured in the vague direction of some sort of ventilation shaft. “Something lurks in there. Most nights it comes out, stalks around, and then disappears. Couldn’t tell you what it is but…”

His eyes followed her shaky hand. The vent cover was bolted in place, flimsy pieces of wood leaned up against it in some vague attempt at keeping it closed. Someone had set a bowl of something red and some wilted flowers in front of it, along with a single lit candle as if to make a peace offering towards whatever unknown thing lurked just outside of the bounds of their perception. That watched them as they dreamed.

Jayce gripped the lapels of his coat, brushing his fingers over them as he adjusted the garment in a bid to appear less nervous than he was. It did the very opposite. The old woman cackled, and Jayce was suddenly painfully aware of how naked he felt without his Mercury Hammer. He’d left it behind for fear that it would be too conspicuous at a time like this, but…

Jayce had never been superstitious or paranoid, but if magic existed, then who knew what else did. He wouldn’t dispel the notion, at least not entirely. He would let it linger on the fringes of his subconscious where all the other nightmares dwelled, festering and feeding on his insecurities until it took hold when he least needed it to. Until it was time to be known again.

“Has it done anything?” It was a fair question, but one he wasn’t sure he wanted the answer to. He didn’t want to believe any of this was real.

“Nothing yet, and we intend to keep it that way.” She shook her head almost nervously, clenching her jaw as she continued to gawk from the open doorway. “Let’s hope it doesn’t have a taste for topside flesh.”

Jayce attempted to wave off her remark nonchalantly, feigning a lack of fear. He just about managed to convince her, but it was harder to convince himself. He reached into his pocket and produced a photo of Viktor, stepping closer so that she could take a better look at it.

“Have you seen-” He didn’t get the chance to finish before she nodded.

“Oh, I’ve got some bad news for you, deary. He went to see the one who lives down there quite some time ago. Haven’t seen him come back since.”

Jayce sighed deeply. Of course he had.

“Do you know anything about who he went to see?” It was a long shot, but perhaps he’d been with an acquaintance in the Undercity this entire time. Sure, he’d never heard Viktor speak of having anyone else in his life, let alone a friend or a relative, but surely he wasn’t so alone in the world. Surely… Jayce suddenly felt his heart clench. He was. He knew that. It was false hope for the sake of it, his optimistic mind trying to find something to cling to in such a disparaging place. Jayce was all Viktor had. He’d told him as much himself, once upon a time.

As soon as the words vacated his mouth, he wished they hadn’t. The look on her face spoke volumes about what she’d seen in her lifetime, and she had nothing hopeful to contribute to his endeavor. She nodded.

“Enough to know that he must have been awfully desperate.” She shook her head, her tone as grim as her eyes were dark. All humor had vacated her. “Everyone down here knows better than to meddle in the affairs of Singed.”

Jayce sighed, resigned. “Thank you for your time.” He had heard enough. There was nothing for it, then. He was going down there. 

—

If the populated side of the tunnel was bad, then the far side was immeasurably worse.

A thick haze blanketed the area, snuffing out virtually any light as he proceeded into the depths of the abandoned structures. The area wasn’t vast, but the low visibility made it difficult to navigate with any efficiency. He stumbled around a corner, looking side to side as the sudden realization that he didn’t quite know where he was in relation to the way he’d come in hit him like a tidal wave.

He turned in a bid to reorient himself, stumbled back against a building, and then suddenly became painfully aware of something that he hadn’t noticed before. He was no longer sure he was alone. Something at the edges of his perception called to him, alerting him to the possibility that something might truly lurk in the darkness. It felt like eyes. Like breath on the back of his neck, but he told himself it was simple paranoia nibbling at the edges of his nerves. And if it wasn’t, well, that was even more reason to find Viktor and leave. Exigently.

Suddenly, there was a low metallic creaking sound from behind him as though something were putting weight on something flimsy just out of sight. Jayce didn’t think. He acted, dashing forward and around the corner into an adjacent alleyway. His foot caught on something; some sort of metal grate by the feel of it, and the hatch gave way, sending him careening downward into some sort of ventilation shaft. A soft yelp escaped him, followed by the distinct sound of metal clanking as he was tossed from side to side against the unyielding metallic confines of whatever he was now ensnared by. But he wasn’t allotted much time to process the direction he was going in, much less his destination. With just as much subtlety as his entrance, he made his exit, falling through the opposite end of the vent and, after an anxious few seconds that felt like an eternity, making impact with the unforgiving concrete below, rendering him little more than a winded, dazed facsimile of himself. But a cursory assessment brought with it the relief that at least nothing was broken.

A sharp intake of air through gritted teeth followed by a groan as he attempted to muster the mental energy required to sit up was instantly waylaid by the realization that he appeared to be in a factory building of some sort. A former manufacturing plant of some unknown purpose, by the look of it. Maybe a printing press? Nothing extraordinary or worth delving into further, but just noteworthy enough to catch his attention. And with it the realization that despite the cavernous nature of the semi-subterranean space, it was still light enough to see in. At least where he lay facing the far side of the factory. Dim light bounced off the wall behind him. It flickered, interrupted by something. And then came the distinct, familiar sound of metal making contact with concrete.

“... Jayce?!”

The man in question practically leaped to his feet, his heart set alight by a voice he’d almost been sure he’d never hear again. He spun to face its source and, despite his disbelief, there he stood. Viktor. Holding a dim lantern in his right hand as he stood in front of him, leaning on his crutch with an incredulous look plastered across his face. Golden eyes darker than he remembered, but gleaming in the dark nonetheless. Filled with equal parts wonder and abject horror. “It really is you…”

The sound of his voice was like a balm against charred skin. His hair was just a bit longer than Jayce remembered, tucked behind his ears on either side and swept back just enough to keep it out of the way. Strangely enough, he didn’t appear to be wearing his external leg brace. But stranger still was the apparent state of his health. He looked… better. The polar opposite of what Jayce had envisioned when he’d mentally prepared himself for what he might find. He was noticeably less gaunt, and although it was apparent that his habits in regards to maintaining a proper sleep schedule were still an issue that needed remedying, the bags under his eyes were less prominent and far lighter. He looked as though he’d taken a few years off the clock. Probably right back to just before his health had taken a turn. But what stood out most were his eyes. Golden as ever, but they almost seemed to glow in the dim light. Radiant. Enchanting.

Jayce gawked.

“Did something in the tone of my letter indicate that it was a good idea to ignore my explicit request that you not come here, or do you simply possess no regard for your safety?” Viktor was half bewildered and half enraged, and it showed. He didn’t raise his voice, but he almost seemed to speak through gritted teeth as though it took a great amount of willpower to restrain himself. He looked away, tilting his head to the side as he seemed to check something in the middle distance. And for a brief moment, Jayce caught a glimmer of something else in his expression as he peeked at him out of the corner of his eye. He seemed almost… concerned.

“Viktor…” Jayce felt his face turn warm as he rubbed his chin and jaw with an open palm, his eyes darting away towards nothing in particular. Truthfully, he hadn’t thought this through. His singular thought had been to find Viktor. In his haste to locate him and bring him back to safety, he’d, um, disregarded that part of the missive. And the potential peril that might come with it, despite the clear indication from Viktor that he might be in danger, and Jayce, too, by extension of being in the same locale. He was developing an unintentional knack for wearing Viktor’s patience down to bare metal, despite his best intentions. And yet, despite everything, the only thing he felt was joy and relief to see him again, an overwhelming sense of fondness flooding his senses and taking all coherent thought with it. Viktor was alive. More than that, he almost seemed to be doing better in some respects than when he’d last seen him.

It was almost too good to be true.

“... Are you alright, Jayce?” Viktor softened as he spoke, turning almost cautiously to look him up and down. His brow furrowing just enough to indicate that he was thinking deeply, assessing him. He took in every inch of Jayce’s form from the soles of his shoes, to the hairs atop the crown of his head as Viktor attempted to ascertain for himself if there were any signs of injury. Jayce nodded his head, smiling gently. Words failed him. He was fine. More than fine. Better than he’d been in a very long time.

Viktor regarded him silently for a moment, his eyes drifting downward as he seemed to think. As if some great unseen weight had suddenly settled onto his beleaguered shoulders. The dark haze of the warehouse blanketed them like starlight, the lantern flickering as its oil ran low.

“You must go, Jayce. It isn’t safe here.” He pleaded softly. Almost too softly as though he genuinely meant what he said, but despised every syllable that passed his thin lips and lamented their usage. Sought vengeance against the honesty of their purpose.

“Yeah, I gathered that. That’s why I came here. To help you.” Jayce said with a warm look, his head tilted ever so slightly to the side as he nursed the new wound in his chest right where his heart no doubt resided. Was Viktor still upset about their last conversation? About everything that hadn’t happened between them? “I… want to make it up to you. Everything. I know I wasn’t there when you needed me, but… We’ve made a few breakthroughs back at the lab on ways we might be able to help you.”

Jayce didn’t have to say it. Didn’t have to address the unspoken weight that settled between them as Viktor lingered on his every word, taking them in. dissecting them into digestible pieces as he realized that Jayce was still chasing the fantasy that he could be cured. That they still had time.

“Oh… Jayce… You misunderstand.” There was such grief in his voice that it nearly stilled Jayce’s heart. Jayce took a step and reached towards him, only to halt as he saw Viktor’s body pull away despite his ever-honest eyes betraying his earnest desire to the contrary. He was worried. “I am the risk.”

Truthfully, Jayce couldn’t fathom a single circumstance in this universe or any other where that could be the case. Or where it would be enough to stop him. He smiled, extending his hand. Wordlessly asking Viktor to join him. Beckoning him to abandon his solitude before something they couldn’t undo happened. “Okay, I’ll admit, I trip over your crutch from time to time, and sometimes you make me think you’re about to blow up the lab, but we can talk about your casual attitude towards lab safety later. Let’s-”

Viktor didn’t answer. Instead, he sighed softly, coming to an understanding that Jayce knew nothing of. He reached up towards his vest and undid it, allowing it to fall open and hang loosely against his body as he undid the button beneath to reveal that he wasn’t wearing his brace. 

Ah, so that was why his clothes seemed to fit differently.

That would’ve proven to be a revelation in of itself if not for the additional detail of the almost spider web-like network of veins that snaked across his torso, glowing a dark red in the dim lantern light. He averted his eyes as he held the garment open just enough so that Jayce could witness it. Just enough to intrigue him and bring an end to his machinations. Just enough to worry him into coming closer as he stared despite not meaning to.

“Viktor, what happened?” He tried to conceal the genuine sense of horror and dismay at the prospect of Viktor’s suffering, but couldn’t. His heart raced at the thought that Viktor had endured this without his comfort and company to reassure him. Jayce blinked rapidly, chasing away tears. And as he looked up to meet his eyes, Viktor looked away. And Jayce realized all too late the conclusion Viktor had come to. He reached over and took his wrist into his hand, stroking the back of his hand with his thumb in reassuring circles. “Wait, please… That’s not what I meant. Are you in pain?”

Shaking his head, Viktor risked a glance at him, bringing his left hand up to rest on his own right shoulder as he seemed to contemplate retreating into the darkness he’d sprung from. Yet despite this, he did not move. Instead, his gaze traveled down to where Jayce grasped him, eyes lingering on the way that Jayce rubbed the back of his hand. The gentle solace it brought. The tension slowly abated, but it did not depart entirely. Still, it was enough to reaffirm his decision to stay, even if only for a little while longer.

Something in Jayce didn’t believe that Viktor hadn’t suffered. That he wasn’t still. But he wouldn’t press the issue for now. Baby steps.

Yet strangely enough, there was a part of Jayce that flustered at the sight of Viktor standing in front of him, buttons undone just enough to grant him a tantalizing glimpse at the warm skin beneath. Just enough to tempt him into wanting to touch what he knew he couldn’t. Just enough to…

“As strange as it is to say, I doubt you would believe me if I told you.” Viktor finally spoke. He sounded nervous, certain in the truth of his words but unsure as to where to go from here. Jayce could work with that.

“When has that ever been the case?” He said with a knowing, sympathetic smile, his irises full of warmth and affection. For a moment, he was almost willing to swear that he’d seen Viktor’s face flush, but it was probably little more than a trick of the light and a product of wishful thinking. “Try me.”

Viktor didn’t respond. Instead, he slipped his hand from Jayce’s grasp, clasped his fingers almost tentatively around his own, and pulled him into the inky blackness that was the back of the warehouse.

—

As it turned out, Viktor had been hiding out in the warehouse for some time now. He’d stumbled upon the location as the effects of the compound in his blood had started to take root. As the specialized strain of Shimmer had begun to settle into his bones and his blood. A gift, courtesy of Singed.

He’d thought it wise to set up shop in an attempt to run a few tests before returning to Piltover, but days had turned into weeks, and weeks into months as his condition spiraled sporadically from passable, to deathly at the whims of seemingly nothing. Most nights, he was capable and fully functional, but others… others he’d been willing to believe would be his last. So more tests were in order. And a new notebook to record his findings in.

Jayce had been largely silent for the better part of an hour, pursuing the pages of the leather-bound tome as though it held the secrets to immortality. Perhaps it did, if Viktor wasn’t exaggerating his findings. And that wasn’t something he was typically want to do. But between diligent study of his partner’s notes and the rare stolen glance at Viktor’s still partially bare chest, Jayce had little time to ponder the ramifications.

“To my great relief, I have confirmed that I am not contagious,” Viktor added as if sensing what part of the notebook Jayce had just stumbled into. His partner nodded in consideration, enraptured by what he read. Fascinated.

The symptoms were intriguing. Sensitivity to light that seemed to grow with time to the point of being excruciating. Dizziness and daytime drowsiness. A constant lack of appetite. But with those downsides came better muscle rigidity, enhanced hearing and eyesight, and regeneration of damaged tissue. If the symptoms could be mitigated and this mutation could be tolerated and stabilized, then…

And then Jayce got to the next page. “... Episodes of bloodthirst…”

“They are sporadic in nature, and barely controllable. An inherent part of the nature of whatever creature this specific strain of Shimmer was derived from. A bat of some variety, from what I now understand.” He gestured broadly before allowing his arm to flop back against his abdomen as he leaned his back against a makeshift worktable. A grim look crossed his face. “Hence the reason I told you not to come here.”

Realization hit Jayce like a bolt from the blue.

“You think you’ll hurt me?” Jayce scoffed at the notion, quirking an eyebrow as he continued to read Viktor’s notes. They were hastily scribbled in parts, perhaps in a bid to record what it was like to experience such a thing in the moment. Unfortunately, that did not make for coherent data. “That’s why you want me to leave. You're afraid that I’ll be here if it happens again.”

“Is that so ridiculous?” Viktor sounded almost offended by the notion that Jayce didn’t think he was capable of such a thing. That he couldn’t pose a risk to someone, regardless of his desire to. Jayce had to resist the urge to smile at the way he glared, his lips pursed as he gave him the most serious look he could muster. It was adorable, if not genuinely effective. But he didn’t want to come off as patronizing. He knew Viktor too well.

“Yes,” Jayce said in a manner so matter-of-fact that it almost came off as unserious. “You wouldn’t even kill the last spider that got into our lab.”

“Arachnids are fascinating creatures. Even if I admittedly cannot stand the sight of them.” Viktor conceded, huffing. He folded his arms, not quite pouting but most certainly rolling his eyes. “But that was then, and this is now. We are both different people than we once were. As you well know.”

Jayce nodded begrudgingly. He was willing to admit that. They undoubtedly were. He’d come to some conclusions of his own in recent months. Experienced an epiphany or two in his solitude at the lab they’d once shared with one another. Conclusions he had battled against before realizing that there was little point in it. He knew the truth.

“Does it come with any other upsides?” Jayce enquired, laser-focused.

“Eh. It depends on what you consider to be an upside.” Viktor shrugged nonchalantly. Too nonchalantly, in fact. Jayce smirked from behind the pages of the journal. Viktor had always been a poor liar. It was one of his most endearing qualities, as far as Jayce was concerned. But it was rare that he caught him red-handed like this. His golden eyes betrayed him.

“Okay, you’ve piqued my curiosity. What is it?” Jayce gave him a lopsided look, his brows raising just enough to purposefully call his bluff.

Viktor blanched. He could hear Jayce’s smile.

To Jayce’s visible shock, Viktor’s face turned a few shades pinker as he opened his mouth to speak before closing it again, contemplating. Measuring the weight of what he truly wanted to reveal, and what he wanted to keep to himself. “It’s easier to demonstrate than explain...”

Without hesitation, Jayce gently closed the book and strolled over to him, laying it down on the table next to him. He leaned over, resting his chin in his hand as he met Viktor’s gaze, irises sparkling with words unspoken.

“Show me,” Jayce said softly without a hint of fear, but more than a hint of something else. “I’m not afraid.”

Viktor gave him a contemplative look, almost as though he were trying to gauge something. His gaze deepened, eyes darkening as Jayce swore they shimmered in the dim light as he felt his own pulse race in anticipation. Viktor reached forward unhurriedly, tucking his fingertips into the edge of his collar and grazing them against the skin there with deliberate precision. The moment his fingertips touched his skin, Jayce shuddered and his breath hitched to a halt, pupils dilating as an involuntary thrill shot through his body, accompanied by the unmistakable sensation of his pants tightening. Jayce swallowed audibly, his face darkening as he flushed a pretty shade of deep red. It suited him.

Viktor’s gaze swept down him acusatorily, pulling Jayce’s attention along with it as the taller of the two half closed his eyes under the intensity of his watchful eye. Viktor could feel the palpitations of his partner’s heart against his fingertips. The warmth of the blood that lingered just below his skin. The path it took through his body. Where his blood pooled.

“I… did not mean to do that.” Viktor began to elaborate, but Jayce’s smile commanded him to stop without the utterance of a single syllable.

“You didn’t,” Jayce admitted almost sheepishly, leaning in ever so slightly to test the waters. Unsure if he was misreading and overstepping, but ever willing to hope beyond hope that he wasn’t. “I’ve missed you, Viktor. Terribly.”

“Yes.” It was more a response born of mutual sentimentality than anything else. He, too, had hungered for him. In more ways than one. “I can see that.”

Jayce pressed his head against Viktor’s forehead, closing his eyes as he savored the scent of him. The soft strands of hair that tickled his face. The noticeable lack of heat that radiated off of his skin. Viktor was always so cold to the touch despite the warmth that radiated from his very soul like the guiding light of an eternal flame. He was beautiful. Precious. Something to covet by those who held no claim over him and were undeserving of his company. Unlike him. He would never be that again, if he’d ever been.

He was pulled from his revelry by the sensation of Viktor slipping his fingers out of his collar and taking hold of his neck tie, pulling the delicate fabric from its rightful place tucked securely in the front of his vest. He used it to guide him forward into the soft warmth of his embrace. Into the comfort of his arms as a hand came to rest on his shoulder.

Jayce rested his head on Viktor’s shoulder, inhaling deeply as he brought a hand to rest against Viktor’s upper back. Cradling him as he nuzzled his neck and the valley of his shoulder with his cheek. The past few months had been filled with idle daydreams of moments like this. Fleeting, beauteous things that always ended far too soon for the solace they brought. He was in no rush. No hurry to end the splendor of the sensation of being close to Viktor again. This was no flight of fancy. It was splendor incarnate. Rapturous in the magnitude of the worship he sought to bestow.

Tempting fate, he placed a single, chaste kiss against the mole on the back of Viktor’s neck and watched as the man in his arms melted like supple wax.

He held his lips there, pressing a second and then a third as he felt Viktor’s hand release his tie and snake up into the back of his hair. Drawing him forward. Inviting him in. Their breath slowed in measures, soft as the feeling of Viktor’s skin against Jayce’s lips. He was perfect. So dearly perfect as nothing else had ever come close to being. Jayce would be content to stay as he was forever, lingering in one perfect, unbroken moment.

Viktor could’ve allowed it. But instead, he leaned back to look Jayce in the eyes, trusting that he would hold his meager weight. That he would not let him fall. The thought that Jayce would falter never so much as forming in his subconscious. Viktor beheld him with reverence and fervor, a famished look taking up residence upon the features of his face as starvation took root in his gut. Desire in his core. His breath deepened as he leaned forward, eyes glimmering as they met in the middle, well aware of what the other wanted. What their bodies required. Their lips pressed together softly before parting as they both earnestly attempted to inhale the other under the scorching heat of their shared kiss. Their very first.

As they were with all things, they were scientific. Careful, but curious all the same. Exploratory as Jayce hungrily delved deeper into the confines of a place so unknown to him in reality, but thoroughly conceived in his mind's eye. His imagination had sold him short, for no fantasy could compare to the feeling of Viktor’s lips against his own, his tongue intertwined with his like the roots of a great deepwood old groth. The way Viktor grasped his bottom lip between his teeth, razor sharp canines digging in just enough to be felt, but nowhere near enough to hurt as he sucked tenderly on it.

Jayce groaned deep in his chest, his free hand searching hungrily for the buttons at the front of Viktor’s shirt. He undid them with just enough restraint not to tear them asunder under the heat of his passionate anticipation. The garment parted beneath his grasp, and he seized what he now knew to be his, freely given and guided to by a careful tug of his hair. He took the soft nub into his mouth, diligently servicing it as he barely resisted the urge to growl from satisfaction at the sound of Viktor’s choked gasp. Viktor opened his mouth, his head falling back and his eyes closing as he labored under the sensation of Jayce’s mouth against him, trailing ever lower with a clear goal in mind. Kissing the dark veins on his abdomen.

Jayce was undoing the buttons at his fly when he felt Viktor’s fingers cup the underside of his jaw, beckoning him to look up. To bask in the radiance of his otherworldly stare as he gazed down at him. As Jayce slipped his fingers eagerly into the front of Viktor’s pants, greedily stroking him in firm, steady pumps and watching as Viktor’s honeyed gold irises nearly rolled back in his head. His breath labored and his hands clutching the worn old wood of the desk at his back so hard that Jayce swore he saw it splinter.

But when their eye contact broke and Jayce stood to pull them close together again, he was met with something he did not expect. Viktor’s arms coiled around his back, anchoring him in place as Jayce hefted him into a sitting position on the table so that their bodies could better align. Viktor stared almost vacantly as he undid the front of Jayce’s vest and the tie at his neckband, letting it hang limply around his neck as he parted his collar. Eyes glassy. As he kissed the warm skin that fabric had once vainly sought to conceal. Pulling Viktor’s chest against his own as his worship deepened. As their mutual desire crested to untold new heights. As Viktor trailed his tongue up the side of his throat hungrily, tasting the salt of his flesh.

Jayce was hot. Both figuratively and literally, as Viktor grasped him tightly. As desire overtook his senses and thirst and ungodly desire flooded the logical part of his mind that knew better than to act upon his rising appetite, but cared little to indulge his common sense. His desire not to.

Viktor pressed a kiss to him, parted his lips, and pressed his incisors into his flesh.

Gasping in genuine shock at the sensation, Jayce almost pulled away. Almost jerked back to ask what had gotten into Viktor. Almost deprived himself of the wave of warm, heady pleasure that flooded his body from the top down like molten glass being poured into a mold. His eyelids fluttered as the sensation took hold, and a sound somewhere between a sigh and a moan slipped past his lips. He felt Viktor’s kiss deepen. Felt the momentary pang of discomfort before euphoria set in. And as it did, he decided to stay as he was, anchored to the spot from pure pleasure. Willing to question very little as he allowed Viktor to indulge in his newfound appetite.

He remembered a segment of Viktor’s notes at that moment. A paragraph about the subconscious desire to do this very thing that he had yet to act upon, despite the way his throat burned and his stomach clenched in need at the thought of it. How he’d been utterly appalled by the notion of such a beastly instinct. How he’d fought not to succumb to his baser instincts for so very long and become the beast he knew himself not to be. But something about Jayce, about his scent, and his bearing, and the mutual eros in his heart that was so much deeper than even his own hunger, that had finally broken him. Had finally set the cracks in the dam loose and the floodgates bursting. Be it the knowledge that he need not hide himself from Jayce, be it his longing for Jayce rendering him too desirable for him to withstand, be it simply a matter of time until the inevitable occurred, neither of them knew. And in that moment, neither of them cared.

Jayce wanted to satiate him. To be satisfied. And so he would.

All at once, he could sense Viktor in his head. Beckoning him to unwind. To let him in. To allow him to indulge in the act of delighting him as he became almost painfully rigid from the act of being subconsciously coaxed alone. He felt Viktor’s hands on his body and his words echoing throughout the confines of his mind as Viktor praised and commended him, a haze settling over his lust addled mind as Viktor reached ever deeper still, caressing the folds of his brain and sending his loins into quaking spasms unlike anything he’d ever felt. He felt something deep within him stir. Felt the otherworldly pleasure that radiated from his prostate as Viktor did something to it with well-practiced fingers from within him without so much as a hint of external stimulation. He felt Viktor’s approval. Felt him purr against his shoulder as his nails dug into the flesh of his back, his hands snaking under his shirt to pull him ever closer still as Jayce stroked him. His adoration as Jayce surrendered himself to him, trembling from near overstimulation at the crossroads of pain and pleasure as they melded into one uniform sensation. There was no need for glamor or convincing. No need for the power of persuasion. He would willingly give himself to Viktor without even being asked, such was the depths of his desire. His love.

He could hear the sound of Viktor’s breath against his ear as he settled into a rhythm. As his consumption petered off and became a series of small sips instead of drunken gulps. As they went limp in another’s arms and his lips finally parted from his neck with a pop and nary a drop spilled, shuddering as they reached mutual climax. Viktor, with the aid of Jayce’s fingers as he idly fondled him through his own orgasm, and Jayce from the sheer intimacy of being so very wanted. The inherent pleasure of their little experiment sent him over the edge, leaving him clinging helplessly to the last vestiges of his sanity as his orgasm dragged him under with the strength of an industrial vice, his undergarments now rendered little more than an unsalvageable mess. Jayce beheld Viktor with astonishment and wonder as their lips met again, and his head suddenly swam with fatigue before he closed his eyes. His legs convulsed before failing him, allowing him to slump against Viktor as little more than dead weight. Utterly spent.

If he’d been more cognizant, he would’ve been pleasantly surprised by the way Viktor managed to save him from crashing into the floor and table in a blood-deprived heap. He would’ve smiled warmly against him as Viktor cradled him in his arms on the floor, looking him up and down with a mixture of trepidation and disbelief as the reality of what had just transpired came rushing back all at once. But instead, all Jayce could manage to do was huff softly and settle in against him, the subtle warmth of Viktor’s arm around his back grounding him like an anchor cast adrift against the rolling tides. Insulating him like wires against rubber.

The two of them would stay as they were, huddled together half under the table on the floor with only the sound of their breath between them. With Viktor’s fingers tangled in Jayce’s sweat-dampened hair, and his head clutched gently to his chest against his heart until the morning came. Until change was necessary. But for now, there was no need for anything. For apologies for old and new wounds alike. For faux pas and missteps in the name of progress. For now, there was only their affection and the way it anchored them. The way is sustained them.

For now, there was only their love, and the boundless depths of it.

—

Wow, 19 pages… I overdid it again lol. I think I’m cursed. Anyways, I apologize if this one isn’t as steamy as the others. I was going for more of a mood piece. Less smut and more vibes. The next story will NOT have that problem. But I do have some juicy Van Helsing-esque shenanigans planned for Vampire Jayvik Week in November, so look forward to that if you liked this! I saw the new concept art of Viktor with his hair swept back post cocoon and knew I HAD to use it for something. See you very soon!

[dcforts]

"you kept all my letters" "i burnt all your letters" "but you kept them first"

is still one of the best things i will ever read

[born-this-way-16]

The Shadowhunters Chronicle: Extras and Deleted Scenes

Hello tumblr!

So I've been working on this on and off for quite some time now, and I figure that even if it wasn't finish yet I could still start putting it out there in case anyone was interested, or had been working on a similar document.

The document is exactly what the title says, a compilation of all the extras and deleted scenes available to us (so far) (and as far as I've gone as of today, may 2024).

Indeed some extras can be find on the internet but aren't technically allowed to be shared yet through official channels, publishing houses having the rights to exclusivity for a certain amount of time (as mentioned in one of Cassie's newsletter https://mailchi.mp/cassandraclare/20221206-7908076?e=eaba486123)

Like I've said it ain't finish yet, but it also won't ever really be finish for quite a few years with more books coming... So I figured fuck it! let's share the wip ;)

Lots of love people <3

[ultimate-sword-showdown]

What's the difference meant to be between (tell me about the sword" and "write up a description"?

Okay I know you said you got it but I'm gonna go ahead and answer this anyways because I think people have been pretty confused and I could probably clarify it better.

So the "tell me about the sword" box is intended to be for you to gush about the sword. You don't have to write professionally you can just gush directly to me because I'm the only person who is going to see it. If no one provides me any fully written out descriptions for that particular sword, I'll be pulling information from these boxes to construct my own summary of the sword to post alongside the polls.

The "write up a description" box is for you to use if you'd like to clean up your description in the box above and make it more professional looking so it'll look better publicly on the polls. Cutting out all the fluffy language and grammar errors and whatnot. It's by no means a required box to fill out, it's mostly there in case you'd like to skip the step of having me do my own research and write up my own descriptions, since in theory you're more familiar with the source material than I am.

The box can also be used to point me towards useful resources, i.e. if you found a really obscure wiki that you think would be better to pull from than the usual fandom wiki results that come up first. If you ever wrote a huge tumblr post breaking down every aspect of the sword or something, or know someone who has, you can link that here as well. It's just a way to help point me in the right direction.

Tl;dr, the first box is for you to write knowing I'm the only one who will see it. The second box is for either links to help me write my descriptions, or for you to try your hand at writing a description for me that will be seen by the public.

[tacticalthaumaturge]

UN says no food has entered northern Gaza since start of October, putting 1 million people at risk of starvation

CNN — No food has entered northern Gaza since the start of October, putting 1 million people at risk of going hungry, the World Food Programme told CNN on Friday.

The article continues, describing the reduced number of aid trucks & faltering food distribution, and repeatedly uses the word "famine".

So calling out the first sentence as an understatement is fair - but that disregards the headline & rest of the article.

[curiousorigins]

Btw Inkling is a fantastic word. It sounds fun and it's meaning and use is solid.

I have too many words I'm found of, in English and Italian to have a genuine ranking. But if I did, this would probably be in the top 100.

Ink-one of my favorite sound combos. (And mediums to work in although the medium shares zero etmology with this work. Their only relation being sound and spelling) and the sound Cling. I know it's uncommon to have favorite phonemes/syllable combos, but this one combo is just so fun on the tongue. It brings me joy. Inkling.

[monsterfactoryfanfic]

if I've learned anything from grad school it's to check your sources, and this has proven invaluable in the dozens of instances when I've had an MBA-type try to tell me something about finances or leadership. Case in point:

Firefox serves me clickbaity articles through Pocket, which is fine because I like Firefox. But sometimes an article makes me curious. I'm pretty anal about my finances, and I wondered if this article was, as I suspected, total horseshit, or could potentially benefit me and help me get my spending under control. So let's check the article in question.

It mostly seems like common sense. "...track expenses and income for at least a month before setting a budget...How much money do I have or earn? How much do I want to save?" Basic shit like that. But then I get to this section:

This sounds fucking made up to me. And thankfully, they've provided a source to their claim that "research has repeatedly shown" that writing things down changes behavior. First mistake. What research is this?

Forbes, naturally, my #1 source for absolute dogshit fart-sniffing financial schlock. Forbes is the type of website that guy from high school who constantly posts on linkedin trawls daily for little articles like this that make him feel better about refusing to pay for a decent package for his employees' healthcare (I'm from the United States, a barbaric, conflict-ridden country in the throes of civil unrest, so obsessed with violence that its warlords prioritize weapons over universal medical coverage. I digress). Forbes constantly posts shit like this, and I constantly spend my time at leadership seminars debunking poor consultants who get paid to read these claims credulously. Look at this highlighted text. Does it make sense to you that simply writing your financial goals down would result in a 10x increase in your income? Because if it does, let me make you an offer on this sick ass bridge.

Thankfully, Forbes also makes the mistake of citing their sources. Let's check to see where this hyperlink goes:

SidSavara. I've never heard of this site, but the About section tells me that Sid is "a technology leader who empowers teams to grow into their best selves. He is a life-long learner enjoys developing software, leading teams in delivering mission critical projects, playing guitar and watching football and basketball."

That doesn't mean anything. What are his LinkedIn credentials? With the caveat that anyone can lie on Linkedin, Mr. Savara appears to be a Software Engineer. Which is fine! I'm glad software engineers exist! But Sid's got nothing in his professional history which suggests he knows shit about finance. So I'm already pretty skeptical of his website, which is increasingly looking like a personal fart-huffing blog.

The article itself repeats the credulous claim made in the Forbes story earlier, but this time, provides no link for the 3% story. Mr. Savara is smarter than his colleages at Forbes, it's much wiser to just make shit up.

HOWEVER. I am not the first person to have followed this rabbit hole. Because at the very top of this article, there is a disclaimer.

Uh oh!

Sid's been called out before, and in the follow up to this article, he reveals the truth.

You can guess where this is going.

So to go back to the VERY beginning of this post, both Pocket/Good Housekeeping and Forbes failed to do even the most basic of research, taking the wild claim that writing down your budget may increase your income by 10x on good faith and the word of a(n admittedly honest about his shortcomings) software engineer.

Why did I spend 30 minutes to make a tumblr post about this? Mostly to show off how smart I am, but also to remind folks of just how flimsy any claim on the internet can be. Click those links, follow those sources, and when the sources stop linking, ask why.

[felassan]

Jason Schreier for Bloomberg reports: 'Inside the ‘Dragon Age’ Debacle That Gutted EA’s BioWare Studio'

The latest game in BioWare’s fantasy role-playing series went through ten years of development turmoil. The failure of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, released in October, led EA to gut BioWare

[note: article is below cut after these tweets]

Jason Schreier: "NEW: What went wrong with Dragon Age: The Veilguard? Why was the writing so tonally inconsistent? Why did it feel so shallow? Why were there so few choices? Really, after ten years of turbulence, it was a miracle that anything came out at all. This is the story [link]:" [source]

Jason Schreier: "The fatal flaw for Dragon Age: The Veilguard wasn't just that it pivoted from single-player to multiplayer and back again. It was that after the second pivot, the team was forced to keep going rather than hit the reset button and take the time to create a new plan." [source]

Jason Schreier re: this old tweet from Casey Hudson: "Fun fact: when I first reported at Kotaku in 2018 that Dragon Age 4 was rebooted to become a live-service game, BioWare studio head Casey Hudson wrote this on Twitter. But it was not entirely truthful. In reality, the game was being designed around cooperative multiplayer, replayable missions, etc" [source] Casey Hudson's old tweet from 2018: "Reading lots of feedback regarding Dragon Age, and I think you'll be relieved to see what the team is working on. Story & character focused. Too early to talk details, but when we talk about "live" it just means designing a game for continued storytelling after the main story."

Rest of post/article under cut due to length.

(bold in the text below is mine for emphasis)

"In early November, on the eve of the crucial holiday shopping season, staffers at the video-game studio BioWare were feeling optimistic. After an excruciating development cycle, they had finally released their latest game, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and the early reception was largely positive. The role-playing game was topping sales charts on Steam, and solid, if not spectacular, reviews were rolling in. But in the weeks that followed, the early buzz cooled as players delved deeper into the fantasy world, and some BioWare employees grew anxious. For months, everyone at the subsidiary of the video-game publisher Electronic Arts Inc. had been under intense pressure. The studio’s previous two games, Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem, had flopped, and there were rumors that if Dragon Age underperformed, BioWare might become another of EA’s many casualties. Not long after Christmas, the bad news surfaced. EA announced in January that the new Dragon Age had only reached 1.5 million players, missing the company’s expectations by 50%. The holiday performance of another recently released title, EA Sports FC 2025, was also subpar, compounding the problem."

"As a result of the struggling titles, EA Chief Executive Officer Andrew Wilson explained, the company would be significantly lowering its sales forecast for the fiscal year ahead. EA’s share price promptly plunged 18%. “Dragon Age had a high-quality launch and was well-reviewed by critics and those who played,” Wilson later said on an earnings call. “However, it did not resonate with a broad enough audience in this highly competitive market.” Days after the sales revision, EA laid off a chunk of BioWare’s staff at the studio’s headquarters in Edmonton, Canada, and permanently transferred many of the remaining workers to other divisions. For the storied, 30-year-old game maker, it was a stunning fall that left many fans wondering how things had gone so haywire — and what might come next for the stricken studio. According to interviews with nearly two dozen people who worked on Dragon Age: The Veilguard, there were several reasons behind its failure, including marketing misfires, poor word of mouth and a 10-year gap since the previous title. Above all, sources point to the rebooting of the product from a single-player game to a multiplayer one — and then back again — a switcheroo that muddled development and inflated the title’s budget, they say, ultimately setting the stage for EA’s potentially unrealistic sales expectations. A spokesperson for EA declined to comment."

"The union between BioWare and EA started off with lofty aspirations. In 2007, EA executives announced they were acquiring BioWare and another gaming studio in a deal worth $860 million. The goal was to diversify their slate of games, which was heavy in sports titles, like Madden NFL, and light in the kind of adventure and role-playing games that BioWare was known for. Initially, it looked like a smart move thanks to a string of big hits. In 2014, BioWare released Dragon Age: Inquisition, the third installment in a popular action series dropping players in a semi-open world full of magic, elves and fire-spewing dragons. The fantasy title went on to win the much-coveted Game of the Year Award and sell 12 million copies, according to its executive producer Mark Darrah — a major validation of EA’s diversification strategy. Before long, Darrah and Mike Laidlaw, the creative director, began kicking around ideas for the next Dragon Age installment — code name: Joplin — aiming for a game that would be smaller in scope. But before much could get done, BioWare shifted the studio’s focus to more pressing titles coming down the pike. In 2017, BioWare released Mass Effect: Andromeda, the fourth installment in a big-budget action series set in space. Unlike its critically successful predecessors, the game received mediocre reviews and was widely mocked by fans. A few months after the disappointing release, the head of BioWare stepped down and was soon replaced by Microsoft Inc.’s Casey Hudson, an alumni of BioWare’s early, formative years."

"Like much of the industry, EA executives were growing increasingly enamored of so-called live-service games, such as Destiny and Overwatch, in which players continue to engage with and spend money on a title for months or even years after its initial release. With EA aiming to make a splash in the fast-growing category, BioWare poured resources into Anthem, a live-service shooter game that checked all the right boxes. One day in October 2017, Laidlaw summoned his colleagues into a conference room and pulled out a few pricey bottles of whisky. The next Dragon Age sequel, he told the room, would also be pivoting to an online, live-service game — a decision from above that he disagreed with. He was resigning from the studio. The assembled staff stayed late through the night, drinking and reminiscing about the franchise they loved. “I wish that pivot had never occurred,” Darrah would later recount on YouTube. “EA said, ‘Make this a live service.’ We said, ‘We don’t know how to do that. We should basically start the project over.’” Former art director Matt Goldman replaced Laidlaw as creative director, and with a tiny team began pushing ahead on a new multiplayer version of Dragon Age — code name: Morrison — while everyone else helped to finish Anthem, which was struggling to coalesce. Goldman pushed for a “pulpy,” more lighthearted tone than previous entries, which suited an online game but was a drastic departure from the dark, dynamic stories that fans loved in the fantasy series."

"In February 2019, BioWare released Anthem. Reviews were scathing, calling the game tedious and convoluted. Fans were similarly displeased. On social media, players demanded to know why a studio renowned for beloved stories and characters had made an online shooter with a scattershot narrative. In the wake of BioWare’s second consecutive flop, the multiplayer version of Dragon Age continued to take shape. While the previous games in the franchise had featured tactical combat, this one would be all action. Instead of quests that players would only experience once, it would be full of missions that could be replayed repeatedly with friends and strangers. Important characters couldn’t die because they had to persist for multiple players across never-ending gameplay. As the game evolved over the next two years, the failure of Anthem hovered over the studio. Were they making the same mistakes? Some BioWare employees scoffed that they were simply building “Anthem with dragons.” Throughout 2020, the pandemic disrupted the game’s already fraught development. In December, Hudson, the head of the studio, and Darrah, the head of the franchise, resigned. Shortly thereafter, Gary McKay, BioWare’s new studio head, revealed yet another shift in strategy. Moving forward, the next Dragon Age would no longer be multiplayer."

"“We were thinking, ‘Does this make sense, does this play into our strengths, or is this going to be another challenge we have to face?’” McKay later told Bloomberg News. “No, we need to get back to what we’re really great at.” In theory, the reversion back to Dragon Age’s tried-and-true, single-player format should have been welcome news inside BioWare. But there was a catch. Typically, this kind of pivot would be coupled with a reset and a period of pre-production allowing the designers to formulate a new vision for the game. Instead, the team was asked to change the game’s fundamental structure and recast the entire story on the fly, according to people familiar with the new marching orders. They were given a year and a half to finish and told to aim for as wide a market as possible. This strict deadline became a recurring problem. The development team would make decisions believing that they had less than a year to release the game, which severely limited the stories they could tell and the world they could build. Then the title would inevitably be delayed a few months, at which point they’d be stuck with those old decisions with no chance to stop and reevaluate what was working. At the end of 2022, amid continually dizzying leadership changes, the studio started distributing an “alpha” build of Dragon Age to get feedback internally and from outside playtesters. According to people familiar with the process, the reactions were concerning. The game’s biggest problem, early players agreed, was a lack of satisfying choices and consequences. Previous BioWare titles had presented players with gut-wrenching decisions. Which allies to save? Which factions to spare? Which enemies to slay? Such dilemmas made fans feel like they were shaping the narrative — historically, a big draw for many BioWare games."

"But Dragon Age’s multiplayer roots limited such choices, according to people familiar with the development. BioWare delayed the game’s release again while the team shoehorned in a few major decisions, such as which of two cities to save from a dragon attack. But because most of the parameters were already well established, the designers struggled to pair the newly retrofitted choices for players with meaningful consequences downstream. In 2023, to help finish Dragon Age, BioWare brought in a second, internal team, which was working on the next Mass Effect game. For decades there’d been tension between the two well-established camps, known for their starkly divergent ways of doing things. BioWare developers like to joke that the Dragon Age crew was like a pirate ship, meandering and sometimes traveling off course but eventually reaching the port. In contrast, the Mass Effect group was called the USS Enterprise, after the Star Trek ship, because commands were issued straight down from the top and executed zealously. As the Mass Effect directors took control, they scoffed that the Dragon Age squad had been doing a shoddy job and began excluding their leaders from pivotal meetings, according to people familiar with the internal friction. Over time, the Mass Effect team went on to overhaul parts of the game and design a number of additional scenes, including a rich, emotional finale that players loved. But even changes that appeared to improve the game stoked the simmering rancor inside BioWare, infuriating Dragon Age leaders who had been told they didn’t have the budget for such big, ambitious swings."

"“It always seemed that, when the Mass Effect team made its demands in meetings with EA regarding the resources it needed, it got its way,” said David Gaider, a former lead writer on the Dragon Age franchise who left before development of the new game started. “But Dragon Age always had to fight against headwinds.” Early testers and Mass Effect leads complained about the game’s snarky tone — a style of video-game storytelling, once ascendant, that was quickly falling out of fashion in pop culture but had been part of Goldman’s vision for the multiplayer game. Worried that Dragon Age could face the same outcome as Forspoken — a recent title that had been hammered over its impertinent banter — BioWare leaders ordered a belated rewrite of the game’s dialogue to make it sound more serious. (In the end, the resulting tonal inconsistencies would only add to the game’s poor reception with fans.) A mass layoff at BioWare and a mandate to work overtime depleted morale while a voice actors strike limited the writers’ ability to revise the dialogue and create new scenes. An initial trailer made the next Dragon Age seem more like Fortnite than a dark fantasy role-playing game, triggering concerns that EA didn’t know how to market the game. When Dragon Age: The Veilguard finally premiered on Halloween 2024 after many internal delays, some staff members thought there was a lot to like, including the game’s new combat system. But players were less impressed, and sales sputtered."

"“The reactions of the fan base are mixed, to put it gently,” said Caitie, a popular Dragon Age YouTuber. “Some, like myself, adore it for various reasons. Others feel utterly betrayed by certain design choices.” Following the layoffs and staff reassignments at BioWare earlier in the year, a small team of a few dozen employees is now working on the next Mass Effect. After three high-profile failures in a row, questions linger about EA’s commitment to the studio. In May, the company relabeled its Edmonton headquarters from a BioWare office to a hub for all EA staff in the area. Historically, BioWare has never been the most important studio at EA, which generates more than $7 billion in annual revenue largely from its sports games and shooters. Depending on the timing of its launches, BioWare typically accounts for just 5% of EA’s annual bookings, according to estimates by Colin Sebastian, an analyst with Robert W. Baird & Co. Even so, there may be strategic reasons for EA to keep supporting BioWare. Single-player role-playing games are expensive to make but can lead to huge windfalls when successful, as demonstrated by recent hits like Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring and Baldur’s Gate 3. In order to grow, EA needs more than just sports franchises, said TD Cowen analyst Doug Creutz. Trying to fix its fantasy-focused studio may be easier than starting something new. “That said, if they shuttered the doors tomorrow I wouldn’t be totally surprised,” Creutz added. “It has been over a decade since they produced a hit.”"

Article by Jason Schreier. [source]

[great-and-small]

You know what I hate about the internet? Sometimes people will just lazily slap a “citation” on an infographic and trust that they’ll be completely taken at their word and nobody is going to dig deeper. And it works all the time. As an example, please look at this photo someone posted to dispute my assertion that garlic can be toxic to dogs.

Okay well, kind of a pain to manually type in that link but obviously I am going to look into this study that is confident enough to recommend people feeding their dogs garlic. So here’s the article, kind of a weird journal choice for this graphic to reference from but looks like a legit (though 20 year old) study

Funny thing is, almost immediately this article acknowledges that garlic can indeed be toxic to dogs. The health benefits mentioned in the graphic are referring to human health, not canine. This section is literally in the introduction of the article and one of the first things you read. Emphasis here is mine.

Crazy to me that someone would imply that this article encourages giving dogs garlic when it in fact immediately asserts that doing so has the potential to cause hemolytic anemia. The article does explore the anti-thrombotic effects of garlic components in dogs and humans, but by no means does it say that “contrary to misconceptions garlic is safe for pets”. It is dishonest to assert this in an infographic. However the creator of the image correctly assumed nobody would check, because the person who posted it took it as fact without further investigation.

I am begging you to be skeptical. Check your sources. Check their sources. Check my sources. Learn how to dig deeper and exercise that muscle as much as you can, especially on the internet. You will be absolutely shocked how much misinformation is casually stated and received as pure fact.

[fairuzfan]

UPDATE: More Vegetables!

Today, Hussam and his team in Rafah were busy sorting and packaging vegetables. They managed to put 200 packages, each with 10kilo of vegetables (potatoes, eggplants, lemon, jalapeños, tomatoes, and cucumber) and 3 packs of feta cheese for each family.

A few days ago, Hussam also bought diapers, soaps, and buckets to distribute to families with babies. All your donations go directly to Hussam. He still is able to withdraw cash from limited money sources but with high fees due to shortage of cash throughout Gaza. He now pays 15% in fees, which might increase in time. Please keep up the good work in spreading the word and donating.

Thank you so much for all your help these past few months!

HelpGazaChildren Notion Site || #helpgazachildren tag

Paypal Link || GoFundMe Link

[ID: the video is of a group of people working to organize packages of vegetables to distribute to refugees in rafah. The vegetables are listed above. The video starts off by showing a printed tumblr logo atop bags of vegetables to showcase that these items were bought by tumblr fundraising efforts.

The first still image is of men organizing packages of vegetables. The second image is of bags of vegetables meant to be distributed to camps in rafah. There are printed papers of the tumblr logo on top of the packages. The third image is of stacks of diapers and buckets. The fourth image is closeups of stacks of luncheon meat.]

[lepidopterium]

Video originally from Bisan Owda's Instagram page, posted on February 10th, 2025

Transcript:

Hi everyone, this is Bisan from Gaza. I am still alive, and it's been a while since the last time I posted.

I was just trying to realize the new reality. You know, there's no bombing, but a lot of restrictions in the movement. No supplies, no Internet, no electricity, massive destruction we need to deal with...yeah, and a lot of things.

But I have a lot of updates, [of course] besides the, you know, the bullshit about the German guy (Donald Trump) meeting the Polish occupier (Benjamin Netanyahu) discussing on a stolen land, the Turtle Island, that Gazans must flee their land so other random rich people can sit in.

Besides all of this, the updates are:

First, the Israeli army withdrew from Netzarim checkpoint. So, actually for 15 months they have been telling the world that this is a strategic step, and they will not withdraw from Netzarim crosspoint, and that they will allow the settlers, the Israeli settlers, to enter to the settlements in Gaza Strip using this road. But Subhanallah, Subhanallah, they withdrew and the landowners got back to their lands in the north and around Netzarim checkpoint. That's the first thing.

The second thing is that, OK, OK… [Like], the world happily celebrated the ceasefire, the moments of joy while Palestinians are returning, are claiming their homes, while we're crying, happiness tears, but now it's time to point again to to the main problem.

Actually, we are still in… We're still facing the same dangerous displacement and, let me say, forcibly immigration, actually. It's not a voluntary immigration because there is no rebuilding. There's not even tents for people to survive this winter, to survive the new getting back to their…to the north, to their areas, but… in other words, displacement, because no homes to get back to.

So we're still living this. It's really hard to survive this.

So now it's time, first, to put Israel, the Israeli regime, the Israeli occupation, accountable for all of this, to put the Polish guy (Benjamin Netanyahu) discussing the fleeing, the emptying of Gaza Strip, in jail because this is his place, because he's a war criminal. This is time to rebuild Gaza. This is time to enter Gaza by foreign workers, by [foreign] journalists, by the people of Gaza who evacuated during the genocide, and now until this moment, they cannot get back to Gaza again.

So this is, yeah, this is time. [Enough]. Enough cheering, enough happiness, because what happened and what's still happening is a genocide, OK? It's not a turn off-turn on mode. No, no, no. It's a genocide. And everyone must be accountable for what they have done.

The occupation, the international organizations, the occupation, the [genocide] supporters... Even the companies that supported the genocide, supported the weapons, supported the the Israeli regime economically. So it's time.

If it's not time now, then it will not be the time to put all of these people, to hold all of them responsible. And another thing, if we didn't do it now, then everything we have done as Palestinians, and you have done as people supporting the Palestinian people, is in vain. Everything is for nothing.

We don't want to just forget what what they have done, what the Israeli army has done, what the Israeli regime, ministers, supporters, what the U.S., what everyone [who] funded the genocide has done, okay?

It's time to hold them responsible to make sure that this will not happen again, and that Gaza and Palestine will just be free and will be rebuilt.

[Let's go], let's continue.

end of transcript

source from Bisan Owda's instagram page

Bisan supports Ela Elna Elak, an on the ground organization providing food, water, and other resources, including temporary classrooms, to rebuild the Gaza Strip.

You can support them and follow their work at this link.

You can follow their work on Instagram as well.

[suigenerisisadiva]

Crazy Shit Y/N Wayne Has Done: PART 2!!!!

a definitive but not exhaustive list

Pairings: Batfam x Batsis!reader batsis!reader centred fic!

Content: Swearing, crack yet again

A/N: Lots of people wanted part 2 to this! I'm so glad so many divas like my work omfg!! Link to Part 1: Crazy Shit Y/N Wayne Has Done

Fine Shyt I need to tag: @inejinn , @softieekayy & @ilona2nerrie

1 - Took the BatMobile into a StarBucks drive thru with Damian and Titus in the passenger and backseat.

(Claimed it was an "eco-friendly carpool" was supported by Cass & Steph)

2 - Created a fake cult around Juice Cleanses to see which Gotham Moms would join in.

(Called it "Blessed and Pressed")

3 - Tried to crowd-surf at a Gotham Charity Event

(Key Word: Tried Nobody caught her and Tim made a TikTok out of it)

4 - Replaced every official Wayne Family Portrait with her face photoshopped into them, then made it her LinkedIn banner.

(Including ones prior to her birth, confused Damian for a looong time)

5 - Got kicked out of Gotham Prep School for starting a betting pool on which teacher would snap first (She won the pool, making Jason very proud) ("Mr. Callahan German suplexed a lit student, even though he teaches French.")

6 - Changed the BatComputer's voice to say "Slay Queens" every time a case gets solved. (Drove Bruce up the wall)

7 - Made fake love letters “from Nightwing” and left them in the manor to make Dick paranoid.

(They were written in glitter pen). (“Your arms are so strong. So emotionally unavailable. Marry me?”) (Dick started sleeping with his door locked.)

8 - Made a bingo board titled “Things Bruce Wayne Ignores” and crossed off squares in the middle of a press conference.

(Squares included: “Personal boundaries”, “Any child under 25” &“The concept of rest”)

9 - Ran a lemonade stand in front of Wayne Enterprises and charged $50 a cup.

(People paid for it.) (“I called it ‘Traumaade™ – tastes like spite and unresolved issues”)

And finally

10 - Texted the family group chat “He’s gone 😔” and went offline for like 5 hours.

(Came back with: “Turns out Alfred just went to Costco.”)(Everyone cried a little.)

LMFAO I HOPE YOU ALL ENJOYED THISSSS!!!! Likes, comments, reblogs and requests are highly appreciated! Requests are open!

Sources! -

Header - Pinterest

Bat dividers - @sister-lucifer

Grey dividers - @cursed-carmine

Bow Divider - @dollywons

This post is property of suigenerisisadiva

[flamingpudding]

Can you write a fic about this if you can

https://www.tumblr.com/hello-eden/759003690226024449/is-it-a-enemy-or-a-child?source=share

Thanks for the ask, I will try! But first...

Link and credits to the original op: Prompt by @hello-eden

Now onwards! :D Hope you will enjoy....

-----------

Damian stared. There before him was no longer his Grandfather but a boy some years younger than him. He glanced over at his elder brothers. Richard was already on the coms reporting back. Drake was on his wrist computer typing away about something while muttering. He glanced back at the boy, suddenly realising that what he thought was his resemblance to his father could also be resemblance to his grandfather.

The boy before him, probably around the age six, had dark black hair with a white prominent sideburns, similar but far more prominent then Todds white forehead streak. The boy's eyes were not just the simple green Damian had been familiar with but one of the boy's eyes was red, heterochromia. Something Damian hadn't been aware his grandfather apparently had. All his life he had never seen his grandfather like this. The youngest that man had ever appeared had been 60, though Damian was acutely aware that his grandfather was far older than that.

But right now, there sat a six years old boy, his grandfathers ropes, oversized and barely hanging to the boy's shoulders, in the middle of the aftermath of one of his grandfathers plans backfiring. The boy glared at them eyes narrowed as he clutched the robes around himself, Damian noticed the shift in the boy's eyes, red and green wandering around but keeping them in his field of view. He noted how his shoulders tensed before they turned back onto them. It was clear his grandfather did not retain his memories.

"Hey there buddy." Richard, the one who probably had the best handle on small children among them stepped forward and Damian watched how his de-aged grandfather took a step back growling. Damian blinked, that was not what he had expected from his usually dignified grandfather, but then again, he was de-aged and a child.

"Where is mom?"

There was a pause among everyone and they could practically feel the drop in the air of reality hitting hard. With how old his grandfather truly was, there was no way his great-grandmother was still alive. Damian's head turned to look at his eldest brother, his eyebrow arched his masks on his face moving according to that. The silent question of 'now what?' Passed on towards Richard before he turned back.

"Some things happened, and we are here to help. You don't need to be scared of of, in fact it would be create if you could help us better understand-" He watched how his brother tried to gently explain the situation to his grandfather, a sense of strangeness filled Damian watching that seen but he snapped out of it as the boy cut Richard off with a small growl.

"Mom would never leave me. The only reason he would is if something happened to Ellie!" They stared and the conviction the boy spoke these words with, yet they all caught it the brave front the boy was putting on. The slight barely audible stutter, the wet sheen to his eyes as he stared back at them. It tucked at all their hearts. And Damian could accept it right now, this wasn't his grandfather Ra's Al Ghul, but a small boy lost and confused.

While Damian came to terms with the situation Tim caught on to something else. The boy before them asked about his mother, but then used the pronounce 'he', while Tim hadn't expected it that clearly indicated that Ras mother wasn't a simple female that might have died long ago. He had noted the use of a different pronounce that 'regularly' associated with the term mother.

Despite the show of hostility Tim crouched onto eye level of the boy. "Could you tell us your name, and age?" He tried to ask gently, the way he had seen Dick interact with children before. "We could help you find your mom then or maybe Ellie, if you tell us who they are?"

Tim ignored the looks his siblings were sending him and burning into the back of his head. It didn't matter if that was a small lie, they needed to calm the boy down and confirm information. While there likely was no doubt that this was Ra's, they still needed to confirm it, the de-aging happened to quickly before their eyes there was no guarantee that they really could completely trust what they saw.

Though judging by the glare the boy was now giving him, that had a lot of similarities of how Damian tented to glare at them at times. Tim could say there was no changes that, that wasn't Ra's. Still they had to proceed logically just to be on the safer side, in case this wasn't just a villain plan backfiring but a part of a bigger absurd plan, to appeal to their consciousness with the use of a innocent looking child.

The boy on the other and stiffened more, eyes darting towards each of them, then around the area before coming back to stay on Tim. In a way the teen hoped to see some sort of recognition. But instead he saw contemplation, the gears turning in the small boy's head as red and green eyes wandered over them once more.

"Dan."

Was the court answer they got after several minutes. Dick blinked under his mask glancing back at his siblings before at the child again. "What was that Buddy?" He kept his tone friendly and calm, anything to make the child feel safe at the moment, even if that child was Ra's Al Ghul.

"Dan, that's my name." The child version of Ra's, Dan spoke again eyes on them as the boy clutched the oversized robes around him tighter. Not speaking up more.

"Dan?" Dick heard Damian murmur, it was the least to say it confused them all but then again, Ra's was very old originally, he might have changed his names a couple of times during his life time so far. It wasn't like they could track down anyone anyway or keep to what Tim had told the boy, about trying to find likely already dead people for the boy.

"Anything else you want to tell use, Dan?" Dick ask gently in hopes to get anything more out of the boy but, realised a moment later that they hit a wall as the boy's eyes narrowed with dangerous glint. Something he tried not to react on as he had seen that kind of look from Damian before and dear god, this child version of Ra's was making them more and more aware that Damian was related to that man after all.

"That's all I am going to say." The boy growled a little, though Dick could still see the hints that all of that was just a brave facade to not appear weak before them. A mannerisms he remembered all to well Damian had for a long time when he first came to Gotham. A mentality of 'don't show weakness'. Dick sighed, this was going to be difficult to handle wasn't it?

Dan stared at the place these strangely dressed people had brought him too, by now he was wearing more fitting clothes instead of that oversized robe. Though the shirt and shorts where still to big for his current frame. For a moment he cursed his small build as he quietly walked about this 'safe house'. While Dan was no stranger to strangely clothed people or entities, he was wondering what he had gotten himself into as he watched them from the corner of his eyes. The last thing he remembered was being with his Mom and Ellie, they had just gotten back from a checkup with Frostbite and his mom had promised him that he was allowed a spar with Frightnight.

And then...

Suddenly he was before these people strangely dressed people in the mittel of what looked like a destroyed altar, robes that were way to big barely fitting him. While Dan acted bravely he couldn't help the childlike fear at the sudden change of situation. Frostbite had explained it to him and Elly, that because of now properly growing up their mentality would reflect on their actual ages now. It was annoying and by all means Dan didn't want to appear weak in front of potential danger, but his eyes still watered at the thought of his mom suddenly leaving him.

Sometimes he hated how attached he had gotten to Danny after all these years.

He glanced back at these 'heroes', his ears twitched as he tried to catch what the conversation the oldest of them was having on what appeared to be a earpiece communicator. Dan had noted that everything seemed, a lot more modern that what he was used to. It made him wonder if maybe something happened to the timelines again and he got flung into a different time. If that was the case he knew he could relax and just wait for his mom to pick him up, but at the same time Dan had a feeling that wasn't the case. There was no green post-it note from old Clockwork.

Keeping these people in his peripheral vision he angled his body away. One hand out to the side and definitely kept out of their side he tried to see if he could still access his ghost powers, he knew Frostbite had told them not to do that while they were still in a delicate state of re-aging but he needed to know, in case he needed to defend himself. It didn't have any Fenton weaponry on him either.

Dan hissed as a pain shot up his arm and he dropped trying to summon his powers, with a slight bout of annoyance. Okay Frostbites warning was valid, noted. Thought the next moment the kid dressed like a streetlight, Robin if he remembered right, snatched his arm up, inspecting his hand and Dan blinked for a stunned moment before growling. He didn't liked getting touched. He was just about to voice that when he froze.

Recognising something he hadn't before. "You...." He mumbled stunned. That kid had a ecto signature, it was weak, washed out and not really strong, but Dan recognised it and swallowed hard, it was similar to his moms and his own and Ellie's. Before he could comment on it more a gleam got his attention and suddenly Dan saw something else peaking out of the collar from the colourful dressed boy.

Without thinking Dan snatched it and stumbled back from the boy, inspecting the green, emerald like stone. The gold chain around it broke as he had ripped it of the others neck as he looked at it carefully, his thumb going over the smooth surface. While Dan did that he did not notice how Robin got held back by the teen from lashing out. He didn't noticed how the three 'heroes' seemed to hurriedly hiss and discuss something among themselves as Dan inspected the calling stone.

He would be a fool to not recognise this. It was a stone made from concentrated ectoplasm, it appeared like an emerald to mortals but in truth was made from his mothers ectoplasm. A calling stone, to call him when ever they were in trouble and his mom wasn't with them already. Dan clutched the stone, it looked different from the one he remembered his mother giving him. His head snapped up as he stared hard with narrowed eyes at the other boy only a couple years older. Noting some resemblances to Danny.

Suddenly he had the thought that maybe, just maybe Clockwork had sent him here on purpose. Because maybe these people had done something to his mother, to Danny, and maybe even Ellie too. Because why else would they have one of these calling stones.

"How did you get that? Where is mom?"