#they will attack humans indiscriminately

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

Just in case you've never seen a monkey run …… （a monkey in qianling mountain黔灵山 in china)

[zigcarnivorous]

Israel Booby-Trapped Electronic Devices Exploding in Lebanon -Democracy Now!

[heritageposts]

What does life in North Korea look like outside of Pyongyang? 🇰🇵

Hey, I'm back again with a very scary "tankie" post that asks you to think of North Koreans as people, and to consider their country not as a cartoonish dystopia, but as a nation that, like any other place on earth, has culture, traditions, and history.

Below is a collection of pictures from various cities and places in North Korea, along with a brief dive into some of the historical events that informs life in the so-called "hermit kingdom."

Warning: very long post

Kaesong, the historic city

Beginning this post with Kaesong, one of the oldest cities in Korea. It's also one of the few major cities in the DPRK (i.e. "North Korea") that was not completely destroyed during the Korean war.

Every single city you'll see from this point on were victims of intense aerial bombardments from the U.S. and its allies, and had to be either partially or completely rebuilt after the war.

From 1951 to 1953, during what has now become known as the "forgotten war" in the West, the U.S. dropped 635,000 tons of bombs over Korea — most of it in the North, and on civilian population centers. An additional 32,000 tons of napalm was also deployed, engulfing whole cities in fire and inflicting people with horrific burns:

For such a simple thing to make, napalm had horrific human consequences. A bit of liquid fire, a sort of jellied gasoline, napalm clung to human skin on contact and melted off the flesh. Witnesses to napalm's impact described eyelids so burned they could not be shut and flesh that looked like "swollen, raw meat." - PBS

Ever wondered why North Koreans seem to hate the U.S so much? Well...

Keep in mind that only a few years prior to this, the U.S. had, as the first and only country in the world, used the atomic bomb as a weapon of war. Consider, too, the proximity between Japan and Korea — both geographically and as an "Other" in the Western imagination.

As the war dragged on, and it became clear the U.S. and its allies would not "win" in any conventional sense, the fear that the U.S. would resort to nuclear weapons again loomed large, adding another frightening dimension to the war that can probably go a long way in explaining the DPRK's later obsession with acquiring their own nuclear bomb.

But even without the use of nuclear weapons, the indiscriminate attack on civilians, particularly from U.S. saturation bombings, was still horrific:

"The number of Korean dead, injured or missing by war’s end approached three million, ten percent of the overall population. The majority of those killed were in the North, which had half of the population of the South; although the DPRK does not have official figures, possibly twelve to fifteen percent of the population was killed in the war, a figure close to or surpassing the proportion of Soviet citizens killed in World War II" - Charles K. Armstrong

On top of the loss of life, there's also the material damage. By the end of the war, the U.S. Air Force had, by its own estimations, destroyed somewhere around 85% of all buildings in the DPRK, leaving most cities in complete ruin. There are even stories of U.S. bombers dropping their loads into the ocean because they couldn't find any visible targets to bomb.

What you'll see below of Kaesong, then, provides both a rare glimpse of what life in North Korea looked like before the war, and a reminder of what was destroyed.

Kaesong's main street, pictured below.

Due the stifling sanctions imposed on the DPRK—which has, in various forms and intensities, been in effect since the 1950s—car ownership is still low throughout the country, with most people getting around either by walking or biking, or by bus or train for longer distances.

Kaesong, which is regarded as an educational center, is also notable for its many Koryŏ-era monuments. A group of twelve such sites were granted UNESCO world heritage status in 2013.

Included is the Hyonjongnung Royal Tomb, a 14th-century mausoleum located just outside the city of Kaesong.

One of the statues guarding the tomb.

Before moving on the other cities, I also wanted to showcase one more of the DPRK's historical sites: Pohyonsa, a thousand-year-old Buddhist temple complex located in the Myohyang Mountains.

Like many of DPRK's historic sites, the temple complex suffered extensive damage during the Korean war, with the U.S. led bombings destroying over half of its 24 pre-war buildings.

The complex has since been restored and is in use today both as a residence for Buddhist monks, and as a historic site open to visitors.

Hamhung, the second largest city in the DPRK.

A coastal city located in the South Hamgyŏng Province. It has long served as a major industrial hub in the DPRK, and has one of the largest and busiest ports in the country.

Hamhung, like most of the coastal cities in the DPRK, was hit particularly hard during the war. Through relentless aerial bombardments, the US and its allies destroyed somewhere around 80-90% percent of all buildings, roads, and other infrastructure in the city.

Now, more than seventy years later, unexploded bombs, mortars and pieces of live ammunition are still being unearthed by the thousands in the area. As recently as 2016, one of North Korea's bomb squads—there's one in every province, faced with the same cleanup task—retrieved 370 unexploded mortar rounds... from an elementary school playground.

Experts in the DPRK estimate it will probably take over a hundred years to clean up all the unexploded ordnance—and that's just in and around Hamhung.

Hamhung's fertilizer plant, the biggest in North Korea.

When the war broke out, Hamhung was home to the largest nitrogen fertilizer plant in Asia. Since its product could be used in the creation of explosives, the existence of the plant is considered to have made Hamhung a target for U.S. aggression (though it's worth repeating that the U.S. carried out saturation bombings of most population centers in the country, irrespective of any so-called 'military value').

The plant was immediately rebuilt after the war, and—beyond its practical use—serves now as a monument of resistance to U.S. imperialism, and as a functional and symbolic site of self-reliance.

Chongjin, the third largest city in the DPRK.

Another coastal city and industrial hub. It underwent a massive development prior to the Korean war, housing around 300,000 people by the time the war broke out.

By 1953, the U.S. had destroyed most of Chongjin's industry, bombed its harbors, and killed one third of the population.

Wonsan, a rebuilt seaside city.

The city of Wonsan is a vital link between the DPRK's east and west coasts, and acts today as both a popular holiday destination for North Koreans, and as a central location for the country's growing tourism industry.

Considered a strategically important location during the war, Wonsan is notable for having endured one of the longest naval blockades in modern history, lasting a total of 861 days.

By the end of the war, the U.S. estimated that they had destroyed around 80% of the city.

Masikryong Ski Resort, located close to Wonsan. It opened to the public in 2014 and is the first, I believe, that was built with foreign tourists in mind.

Sariwon, another rebuilt city

One of the worst hit cities during the Korean War, with an estimated destruction level of 95%.

I've written about its Wikipedia page here before, which used to mockingly describe its 'folk customs street'—a project built to preserve old Korean traditions and customs—as an "inaccurate romanticized recreation of an ancient Korean street."

No mention, of course, of the destruction caused by the US-led aerial bombings, or any historical context at all that could possibly even hint at why the preservation of old traditions might be particularly important for the city.

Life outside of the towns and cities

In the rural parts of the DPRK, life primarily revolves around agriculture. As the sanctions they're under make it difficult to acquire fuel, farming in the DPRK relies heavily on manual labour, which again, to avoid food shortages, requires that a large portion of the labour force resides in the countryside.

Unlike what many may think, the reliance on manual labour in farming is a relatively "new" development. Up until the crisis of the 1990s, the DPRK was a highly industrialized nation, with a modernized agricultural system and a high urbanization rate. But, as the access to cheap fuel from the USSR and China disappeared, and the sanctions placed upon them by Western nations heavily restricted their ability to import fuel from other sources, having a fuel-dependent agricultural industry became a recipe for disaster, and required an immediate and brutal restructuring.

For a more detailed breakdown of what lead to the crisis in the 90s, and how it reshaped the DPRKs approach to agriculture, check out this article by Zhun Xu.

Some typical newly built rural housing, surrounded by farmland.

Tumblr only allows 20 pictures per post, but if you want to see more pictures of life outside Pyongyang, check out this imgur album.

[hathorik]

THE BOMBS DROPPED ON GAZA ARE 25 TIMES THE PAYLOAD ALLOWED ON URBAN AREAS

25 TIMES THE PAYLOAD ALLOWED ON URBAN AREAS

25 TIMES

THIS IS A GENOCIDE

*IMPORTANT REPORTING* A Times Investigation Tracked Israel’s Use of One of Its Most Destructive Bombs in South Gaza

(Source: New York Times | Last Updated Dec. 22, 2023) During the first six weeks of the war in Gaza, Israel routinely used one of its biggest and most destructive bombs in areas it designated safe for civilians, according to an analysis of visual evidence by The New York Times

Here's a clip for easy access, but please WATCH the FULL VIDEO ON YOUTUBE with no paywall * Warning: Graphic Content* Ultimately, the investigation identified 208 craters in satellite imagery and drone footage. ... the findings reveal that 2,000-pound bombs posed a pervasive threat to civilians seeking safety across south Gaza. Reporting By Robin Stein, Haley Willis, Ishaan Jhaveri, Danielle Miller, Aaron Byrd and Natalie Reneau

This is not defense, this is not justice, this is an affront to international humanitarian law. Stop the carnage.

The international community must do more than merely profess the defense of human rights; it must also ensure compliance in practice. DON'T LOOK AWAY. KEEP UP PUBLIC PRESSURE. PUSH FOR PEACE.

[shitpostingsapphic]

Arcane criticism would be absolutely more tolerable if the "internet critics" actually said stuff that actually happened in the narrative. "Caitlyn gassed the entire city of Zaun" no she didn't. "Caitlyn murdered Zaunites" no she didn't. "Caitlyn was always evil" no she wasn't. "Caitlyn seduced Vi in the middle of a panic attack" no she didn't. "Vi fucked Caitlyn even though she knew Jinx was suicidal" Vi didn't know that, she simply thought Jinx had chosen to leave, and Vi was alone once again. Of course she sought comfort in Caitlyn. "Ekko would have hated Vi and Caitlyn for going after the chembarons" you mean like he did, for all of s1? No he wouldn't. "Caitlyn is a Geneva convention violator for using chemical welfare. She's a war criminal" you mean a real world thing that doesn't exist in the world of Arcane? Well if we're using that as a metric for good and bad in this universe, Jinx is guilty of the same thing, only Jinx used it indiscriminately, targeting the entire city of Piltover. Men, women, and children. Caitlyn used it as a strategic way to incapacitate the chembarons and put a stop to shimmer production and the related crimes surrounding it. And it was done as a more humane alternative to an all out invasion, WHICH WOULD HAVE harmed and killed Zaunites indiscriminately.

See what I mean? Your criticisms are fucking stupid and that's why no one takes you fucking seriously.

[nomsfaultau]

Actually I got a character like this who I did bio math for and figured he needs ~300 pounds of food a day. Mostly I like obsessively doing calculations for non human characters to find bio capacity, but this became like a plot point that comes up occasionally. They’re on the run, having food is a huge concern that drives character action, even causing tension between him and the main scavenger for the group since he’s a hell of a fighter but the constant need for food means more chance of drawing attention from hunters via supply runs or foraging damage.

plus, the bad guys muzzle him so he doesn’t bite, purposefully giving him the rations he needs to survive but leaving him unable to actually eat them.

This isn’t a requirement at all of course, stories can’t and shouldn’t carry all details. But also looking into the logistics can also offer tons of new plot opportunities!

"but how does the giant monster consume enough calories to eat?' fuck YOU it's part of a lush ecosystem that isn't depicted onscreen. Yeah let's just pause the adventure to discuss trophic levels and ATP transfer between subterranean bacterial colonies. Fucking clown. Yeah let's just halt the whole adventure to talk about how the iron-poor planet never developed a magnetosphere, thus the cellular life can harvest energy from cosmic background radiation. That's appendix shit. Moron.

[zvaigzdelasas]

In late January, our organization [DAWN - Democracy for the Arab World Now] which works to reform US foreign policy in the Middle East, filed a 172-page legal brief to the International Criminal Court urging it to investigate former President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for aiding and abetting war crimes, crimes against humanity, starvation, and genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The court has already charged the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, for committing these same crimes. Seeking the prosecution of US officials in the only global criminal court was not a decision we took lightly, particularly as the court faces threats from the United States itself. But the evidence against Biden, Blinken, and Austin is so overwhelming and the devastation to Palestinians so horrific that we felt it was our duty as a US-based organization to demand accountability for their crimes.

5 Mar 25

Article 25 of the Rome Statute, which governs the ICC, defines accessorial support for a crime as a crime itself. To be held liable for aiding and abetting an international crime under the Rome Statute, there must be evidence that a person has not only substantially contributed to crimes but knew such contribution would facilitate the commission of crimes.

It was not difficult to document such evidence.

Biden, Blinken, and Austin provided Israel with military, diplomatic, and public support knowing that such support would facilitate Israeli attacks on civilians, mass murder, and the deliberate deprivation of items needed for the survival of Gaza’s people. Israeli officials spoke openly about starving Palestinians as a punishment for October 7, and Israel deliberately blocked food and water from entering the territory, which now imports nearly all of its food, creating famine-like conditions.

The military support that these officials authorized was essential to Israel’s ability to carry out its atrocities. Beyond the nearly $20 billion in weapons, Israel relied on the United States to provide intelligence and targeting assistance; attack armed groups in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen; and deploy backup forces, such as US warships and planes. Without this help, Israel could not have so fully obliterated the civilian infrastructure in Gaza. In October 2023, Gallant admitted that Israel depended on US assistance for its military operations, stressing that the Israeli government “relies on them for planes and military equipment.” Other Israeli officials explained that “while Israel has its own intelligence, the United States and Britain have been able to provide intelligence from the air and cyberspace that Israel cannot collect on its own.” And when the Biden administration briefly suspended arms shipments to Israel, the Israel Defense Forces was forced to ration its use of certain munitions.

Supplying this aid to Israel was illegal under US law. Biden, Blinken, and Austin rejected the advice of their own staff to halt these weapons transfers because they violated US laws, such as sections 620I and 502B of the Foreign Assistance Act and the Leahy Law, which prohibit sending weapons to abusive forces.

Several senior State and Defense Department officials publicly resigned in protest of the Biden administration’s Israel policies. Even the Biden administration’s own report to Congress admitted that Israel had failed to comply with international laws prohibiting attacks on civilians, used US weapons to target civilians and civilian objects, and blocked humanitarian aid—including food, water, and medicine—to Gaza. Biden himself warned Israel that it was losing international support because of its “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza.

These officials knew that Israel would use US weapons to continue its crimes, but instead of following the law and cutting off the flow of arms, they replenished and even accelerated the supply of bombs, artillery shells, mortar rounds, and missiles.

Just as important was the political support that President Biden authorized. The United States vetoed seven Security Council resolutions, including those calling for the provision of humanitarian aid, and abstained in votes for all four successful resolutions that attempted to halt or limit Israeli attacks against civilians. This was coupled with Biden’s, Blinken’s, and Austin’s public justifications of Israeli atrocities—when they sometimes amplified falsehoods, about, for instance, beheaded babies or mass rape, designed to incite rage against Palestinians and neutralize public opposition to US support for Israel. Without the resolute backing of these three US officials, the international community may have been able to order Israel to abide by a ceasefire and halt the bloodletting under threat of sanctions.

Urging the ICC to investigate US officials is a politically fraught undertaking, and with the new Trump administration, it carries additional legal risks. On February 6, President Donald Trump renewed an executive order for sanctions against the ICC—an attempt to obstruct its investigation of Israeli officials. On February 13, the Treasury Department sanctioned ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan under this order, prohibiting the provision of “services” to him by US persons, which could be deemed to include the submission of evidence. Although a federal court enjoined Trump’s previous sanctions on the ICC as an unconstitutional infringement on free speech, it’s unclear whether a new court would reaffirm that finding. DAWN’s January 24 submission predated Trump’s new sanctions regime, but providing any new evidence to the court will be risky, and ICC lawyers and partner organizations have expressed fear of being hit by sanctions and other penalties themselves.

Seeking the ICC’s prosecution of US officials could also trigger a congressional backlash against the court. Though Senate Democrats succeeded in narrowly defeating a bill for much broader sanctions against the court in January, the specter of investigations against US officials may well spur a renewed effort to pass the bill.

The pressure on the court is tremendous, and its survival is at stake—and not only as a direct result of its chief prosecutor being sanctioned. If the ICC fails to prosecute those responsible for the crimes in Gaza because of political pressure, it will lose what credibility it retains and reaffirm the view that it exists merely to prosecute culprits deemed acceptable to the United States—to date, nearly all Black Africans—thereby instigating a stampede of withdrawals from Global South member states. If it continues to prosecute not just indicted Israeli officials but US ones for the genocide in Gaza, the United States will undoubtedly demand that its allies—like the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, and France, which provide the bulk of the court’s funding—abandon their membership in the court as well, just as it is now demanding that they refuse to enforce the court’s arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant should they visit their countries.

[sayruq]

The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (Euro-Med) released a report on 30 April urging an investigation into Israel’s potential use of illegal thermal weapons. “An international committee of experts must be established to look into the weapons Israel has been using as part of its genocide in the Gaza Strip … including the potential use of bombs that produce such high heat that victims’ bodies evaporate,” the Euro-Med report said. The rights group cites testimonies received from Gaza which revealed a “horrific new level of killing in the Strip.” The bodies of Palestinian victims appear to have been vaporized by the weapons Israel used against residential buildings. “Thousands of victims remain missing, either because it was impossible to recover them from under the debris in light of insufficient equipment and technical know-how, or because their bodies were either hidden by the Israeli army or no longer exist,” the Euro-Med report reads. The report continues to say, “A number of the victims killed in these horrifying Israeli raids on residential buildings have vanished and may have turned to ashes, raising questions about the type of bombs used in the attacks.” Thermobaric weapons, also referred to as vacuum bombs, are two-stage munitions. The first charge disperses a fine aerosol cloud of materials ranging from carbon-based fuel to metal particles. The second charge ignites the materials used, creating a fireball, shock wave, and vacuum as it sucks up the surrounding oxygen. The blast from these weapons can last significantly longer than conventional explosives, enabling it to vaporize human bodies. Mass graves in Gaza hospitals previously raided by Israel show that civil defense staff found “bodies without skin,” according to Gaza’s Government Media Office. According to the Euro-Med report, “The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and international humanitarian law all forbid the use of thermal bombs against civilians in populated civilian areas. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court also classifies the use of thermal bombs as a war crime.” Israel has also illegally deployed white phosphorus weapons on civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza and Lebanon. According to a Washington Post analysis, the white phosphorus munitions used in Lebanon’s south were supplied to Israel by the US. Palestine’s Agricultural Work Committees Union said that Israel intentionally uses chemical weapons on farmlands in the Gaza Strip to contaminate its soil, posing an increased cancer risk to farmers.

[kaoskuantico]

Caitlyn stans think a gas released though a vent system will only affect those you want, not like...The gas will travel through all the space because it's...A gas.

"She was only targeting the chem barons" okay she should've used a small grenade like Silco did when she found them specifically, but she didn't. She used it indiscriminately. And choking citizens.

And most importantly, she didn't attack the chem-barons because she wanted to do some good actions or whatever. No, she was after Jinx, so she gassed and assaulted Piltover citizens to get the answers out of them. And she didn't even need to, the chem-barons were more than happy to give Jinx to them, she didn't need to violate human rights to do so.

[historyandmemes]

South Africa files ICJ case accusing Israel of 'genocidal acts' - (29th December 2023, 04:19 EST | Source: BBC)

Following its application to the ICJ, South Africa's presidency said in a statement that the country was obliged "to prevent genocide from occurring". "South Africa is gravely concerned with the plight of civilians caught in the present Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip due to the indiscriminate use of force and forcible removal of inhabitants," it said. >> Access the full case here.

TODAY (Jan 3, 2024) — U.S. White House National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby Calls South Africa's Suit "Meritless, Counterproductive, and Completely Without Basis in Fact" (Source: C-SPAN, PBS)

The White House's response is blatant gaslighting and displays a callous disregard for human life.

DON'T LOOK AWAY. Read the full case/evidence for yourself. PUSH FOR PEACE.

[storiesfromgaza]

It is very important to read this and share it

Today the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor Observatory stated that Israel dropped over 25,000 tons of explosives on the Gaza Strip as part of its ongoing extensive war since October 7th, equivalent to two nuclear bombs.

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory, based in Geneva, highlighted the Israeli army's acknowledgment of targeting more than 12,000 objectives in the Gaza Strip, setting a record in the number of bombs dropped, surpassing 10 kilograms of explosives per person.

With the advancements in bomb quantity and effectiveness, while maintaining a consistent amount of explosives, the quantity dropped on Gaza could be equivalent to twice the power of a nuclear bomb.

Additionally, Israel deliberately employs a mixture known as "RDX" (Research Department Explosive) commonly referred to as "the science of complete explosives," with a power equal to 1.34 times that of TNT.

This means that the destructive power of the explosives dropped on Gaza exceeds what was dropped on Hiroshima, taking into account that the city of Hiroshima covers an area of 900 square kilometers, while Gaza's area is no more than 360 square kilometers.

Furthermore, Israel has been documented using internationally banned weapons in its attacks on the Gaza Strip, particularly cluster and white phosphorus bombs. White phosphorus is a highly toxic incendiary substance that rapidly reacts with oxygen, causing severe second and third-degree burns. The Euro-Mediterranean team has documented cases of injuries among the victims of Israeli attacks that resemble the effects of dangerous cluster bombs, as they contain small high-explosive submunitions designed to penetrate the body and cause internal explosions, resulting in severe burns that melt the victims' skin and sometimes lead to death. These submunitions also cause peculiar swelling and toxin exposure in the body, including transparent shrapnel that does not appear in X-ray images.

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory has emphasized that Israel's destructive, indiscriminate, and disproportionate attacks constitute a clear violation of the laws of war and the rules of international humanitarian law, which stipulate the obligation to protect civilians in all circumstances and under any conditions. Killing civilians is considered a war crime in both international and non-international armed conflicts and can rise to the level of a crime against humanity.

The 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions, along with the 1949 Geneva Convention in its latest formulation, established fundamental human rights during wartime to limit the deadly health consequences of internationally banned weapons, some of which could lead to the "genocide" of civilians.

Article 25 of the Hague Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land prohibits "attacking or bombarding towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are not defended."

Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that "any destruction by the occupying power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or cooperative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations."

According to Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the destruction of property that is not justified by military necessity and on a large scale is considered a serious violation that requires prosecution. Such practices are also classified as war crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory has called for the formation of an independent international investigative committee to assess the magnitude of explosives and internationally banned weapons used and continue to be used by Israel against civilians in the Gaza Strip.

This committee would hold accountable those responsible, including those who issued orders, made plans, executed actions, and took measures aimed at achieving justice for Palestinian victims.

[jewishvitya]

972mag is a publication by Palestinian and Israeli journalists.

Quotes from here:

In a eulogy for her brother Hayim, an anti-occupation activist who was murdered in Kibbutz Holit, Noi Katsman called on her country “not to use our deaths and our pain to cause the death and pain of other people or other families. I demand that we stop the circle of pain, and understand that the only way [forward] is freedom and equal rights. Peace, brotherhood, and security for all human beings.”

Ziv Stahl, executive director of the human rights organization Yesh Din, and a survivor of the hellfire in Kfar Aza, also came out strongly against Israel’s assault on Gaza in an article in Haaretz. “I have no need for revenge, nothing will return those who are gone,” she wrote. “Indiscriminate bombing in Gaza and the killing of civilians uninvolved with these horrible crimes are no solution.”

Yotam Kipnis, whose father was murdered in the Hamas attack, said in his eulogy: “Do not write my father’s name on a [military] shell. He wouldn’t have wanted that. Don’t say, ‘God will avenge his blood.’ Say, ‘May his memory be for a blessing.’”

And people there talk about breaking the cycle, which has to mean us. We must be the ones to do that, we have the power and the freedom to allow us to do that. We keep Palestinians trapped and dying and give them no path out of this way of life.

Peace should not mean quiet subjugation. It should mean stopping the genocide, and it should mean no occupation, no apartheid, no ethnic cleansing, undoing whatever we can from the colonialist tactics Israel has been using from the start.

And it has to mean us.

[13tinysocks]

My Dead Girlfriend

Conquest is curious about you. It's hard to tell if you're breaking up if you're not really together. Enemies wait cloaked in the stars.

[Invincible Variants X Reader]

Yeah we got hit by the fanfic author curse and got scammed out of a thousand dollars but-? We are so back, lets suck some cock.

[Part one] [Ao3] [28] [Chapter Index]

[Header from my wife whose art you should look at]

29 *  As Friends [13.6k] 

"Telling me you can't do this While your tongue's in my mouth If you don't want it, please, could you just spit it out?"

Spit - Slutever

        Being nine-thousand-three-hundred-seventy-two years old meant a lot of things. One Conquest was one old bastard, creaky in his bones. Two, he killed billions of beings in his lifetime and committed every one of those deaths to memory the best he could. They gave him their fight, their fire and hope and he squashed it out. The least he could do was remember to hold their struggles close. 

        You hadn't been his kill, but he remembered you just fine. The child-emperor's side piece that he dragged around like a stuffed teddy bear. Conquest thought it was cute, really. Good that the boy had a companion, didn't spiral the way Conquest had for thousands of years in the lonely void of the empire. You yourself, had been near inconsequential, a pet that bit and had to be put down.

        Conquest thought Mark was a good emperor. Better than Nolan had been, more thirsty for expansion, which meant Conquest got to throw himself more into his work, got to kill away the loneliness that always came back. He got to train the boy king himself in the spots of peace in between. Over the years, he'd begun to know what a friend could be. But at one point, Mark understood him better than anybody else ever had.

        Right after you died, Mark had no one else. Lashed out at the council. Killed indiscriminately. Spiraled. 

        Mark knew he needed people to pull himself back up from the pit he'd fallen into, but he couldn't go to the council. They were old, stuck in their ways, would talk bad about you if he talked about you. Conquest was old, but not stuck. He listened while he and Mark slaughtered entire populations. Finally felt a connection of real understanding between himself and another Viltrumite and that made him want to fight all the harder for the empire.

        Yet here you were, back from the dead. Could humans do that?

        Conquest should have been annoyed, but he wasn't like the council. He didn't know how you were back, but Mark held his shoulders higher. He hadn't been in contact with the empire in over a year, but he kept his earpiece in. He'd always hated the monotony of the empire. The endless reports and research that needed to be done before anything interesting could happen, Conquest was a man of action. Mark or Kregg pointed him in a direction and he attacked. Restless as a rabid dog until the job was done. Until there was no one left. He had a habit of getting sidetracked, going off on his own for months or years at time. He thought the empire moved too slowly so he took matters into his own hands more often than not. Mostly good things came out of it, sometimes bad. This time when he left, he didn't imagine the emperor wouldn't come back. It was supposed to be a quick mission, a side project Kregg hated. Conquest was secretly happy to hear Mark defy him as he destroyed a small planet that would never be suitable for invasion. He expected to hear the boy's voice a few days later, maybe a few months. He heard nothing but Kregg.

        He'd heard all the moves the empire had made since Mark went missing. Bad ones. So he stayed out in space trying to patch things up through more killing until finally, some good news came in. Lots, all at once, with the emperor's return with seven more in tow. Along with you. You being back meant Mark was motivated the way Conquest was- and really love was a beautiful thing. 

        He smiled down at you with all his crooked, yellow teeth. Thought he looked charming when really he looked rabid. White suit coated in months of muck and dripping with fresh blue blood. "Been awhile, little man."

        Mark's grin mirrored the wildness of the old man's, "Too long you ancient murderous fuck." He slid off you and hovered up to meet his eye. Next to the man, he looked like a doll. "Lemme guess, the missing Ferroids are your doin'?" 

        The man opened his palms, both blue. Beneath the mess, one of his arms glinted gold in the light. Chunky and mechanical, an older model than Phantom's prosthetics. "Guilty as charged. Heard you were heading over here, came to have a looksie. Found that base we built destroyed so I returned the favor."

        Mark put his hands on his hips, frowning, "Before we got here, bro? Some'a them could'a known somethin'."

        You swore you were about to witness a murder with how they were looking at each other. Tension crackling between them, both their muscles bunched and ready under their suits. The man didn't lunge, instead his bushy mustache fell with his frown, "I may have gone a little overboard, I'll admit. You know how I get with the squishy ones."

        Mark laughed, "I'd expect nothing less."

        Gray's voice crackled in Mark's ear piece, "Are you available to speak with the leader of the Gainoy's? They'd like to know more specifics about Ferr as to best prepare their men."

        Mark put a finger to his ear, "Be right over." He let his arm drop as he landed next to you, "Let's continue this on the ship, yeah? Mostly after you've been through the blaster. Love ya, but you smell like piss."

        ***

        The flight back was quick. Mark and the newcomer chatted back and forth while you watched Ferr grow further and further away. Your trip outside the ship cut short. You hadn't realized how much you'd come to loathe the ship's cold interior until you were back inside it. All inorganic shapes and shiny metal, whereas the buildings of Ferr were like massive vases, wizard towers out of a book. 

        Mark set you down inside the landing dock where Gray waited by the door, head down and tapping away at a data pad. "I told the Gainoy leader you'd be available to talk in-" He looked up and paused. A few yards away stood his mentor, still old, still a dirty bastard, but laughing alongside Mark. Gray had seen Conquest smile and laugh, but it was never genuine. Always an animistic sneer or mocking chuckle, never a grin of real friendship or an earnest guffaw, but there it was. Alien on his hard-featured face, cut with the same old scar.

        Mark pointed at Gray who looked like he'd seen a ghost. "That's one'a the ones I was tellin' you about. You were raised on Viltrum, right man?"

        Gray's throat was suddenly bone dry. He nodded stiffly. "Yes."

        Conquest's brows shot up, "Oh? Think he's stronger than you, then?"

        Mark elbowed Conquest in the ribs. If Gray so much as let his guard down a fraction around Conquest, he'd crack Gray's skull, almost kill him to teach him better, but there Mark was, acting chummy, shoulders relaxed. Adding to his disbelief was you, close enough to kill in an instant if Conquest wanted to. Gray hovered further into the hanger, closer to you. 

        Conquest watched him curious as a cat, of course picking up his intention to get between the two of you, "Sure got the same weaknesses. Tell me, boy, how did you find another human that looks so much like your old pet? Or is this one his?" Mark filled him in on quite a bit on the way over but not that particular detail. Conquest didn't remember much about humans, if they could sustain major injuries and live or if all humans simply looked the same. 

        "Right, I was just gettin' to that part." He'd mostly got lost in the trapped in the desert bit, not why he'd left in the first place- for you. "Really, the whole thing is a long as fuck story I'll tell ya another time but short version is, same bitch, different dimension like that guy right there." 

        Gray was nearly shoulder to shoulder with you now, you'd wandered closer to him, further from Mark and Conquest, but not fast enough for you to know what Conquest was. He was debating on whether to zip you out of the room, not liking how Conquest was looking at you. The Conquest he knew killed anything that looked mildly afraid of him and right now, you looked well, not great. Shaken but hiding it in the way you had since he met this version of you.  

        You only dug your grave deeper by saying over your shoulder, "Do you really have to call me a bitch all the time?"

        Conquest rose a brow, "This one's got a tongue the other didn't. Only heard her talk a few times." He hovered closer, but kept a distance as he hovered around you. You didn't move, you'd been sized up by Machine Head's men in a similar way, averting your gaze normally made them back off. You'd made a mistake responding to Mark, but he got under your skin more than your boss had. Gray took the opposite approach, body always turning to keep watch on him. His Conquest thought you were a waste of time and space. Suggested he impregnate you right away, then force you into one of their healing tubes to keep you alive long enough to deliver his child. 

        Mark stayed back, watching with an easy expression when Gray thought he should be panicking. "That she does."

        With every revolution around you, Conquest grew closer like a marble circling a drain. "Not shaking like the other one did 'round me..." He said so close you could smell his stale breath. Gray moved around you like a wall. "Maybe that's cuz the boy's actin' like a shield." He reached out quick for Gray, who dodged, and was captured by his fleshy arm as it shot out viper-quick, and flung him away by the shoulder. It happened in a moment, one moment Gray was there the next he wasn't. Conquest leaned hard into your personal space, let you see the shine of his one milky blind eye, "Let's see how brave you are like this."

        Gray spun and shot back toward you but Mark made him, "Stop," with a hand clasped hard around his ankle. He turned, protestations on his tongue but he saw Mark's face- hard set, oozing an emperor's authority. Gray didn't untense but stopped pulling toward you. Mark let his leg drop, the both of them watching as you stood your ground eye to eye with Conquest.

        After so many years of being surrounded by death, the fear started to blend together at the edges. What was so different between bullet wounds, stabbings, poisonings, thousand-something-year-old homicidal maniacs- they'd all kill you in the end. All of them hurt. You'd been around death and people threatening it so much, it felt almost nostalgic, a sick sort of familiarity that settled in your bones. You were scared, Conquest could hear your heart, yet you stood your place. Used to the hierarchy in Machine Head's gang, when the bigger fish were talking- you sat down, shut up, didn't move a muscle. If you did things as you had been, it probably wouldn't happen.

        "Huh... You really are different." Conquest rolled back, standing at his full imposing height where his balding head almost touched the ceiling. 

        "Gotta thank the powers for that," Mark said with pride swirling in his chest. Conquest had been fine with you before, but an approval now felt like a priest's blessing. He could hear the wedding bells.

        "Powers, hm? Strong ones?" His eyes scrunched up. 

        "Strong enough I had to... temporarily disable them." He was talking about you like a prize goat at a farm show.

        Conquest was only more intrigued, "Mind turnin' 'em off so I can see for myself?"        

        Gray opened his mouth to object. You beat him to it, "Or why not just take the collar off entirely?"

        "So spirited!" Conquest said, "Really boy, you must let me-" Mark held up a hand and Conquest shut right up. Gray held his jaw from falling open. Never in his years had Conquest listened to a damn thing he said.

        "We both know you'd get overexcited and kill her."

        Conquest nodded with a small smile, "You got me there."

        "A showcase another time." Mark gave you a significant look. Could he be considering taking the collar off? You hadn't slipped up yet, had been amicable enough, surely he had to think you'd learned your lesson. "But right now? The only person you should think about sparring with is me." 

        Conquest turned away from you entirely, lunged at Mark like a puma from the brush. Mark cackled, waiting for the tackle with open arms that sent them both bouncing to the floor and nearly out of the automatically opening airlock entirely. Good thing you kept the space suit on. They righted themselves, arms caged around each other, growling back and forth as their muscles bunched and veins popped. 

        You watched, confused while Gray hovered over to you, horrified at what he was seeing. Conquest was... hugging him? He placed a hand on your shoulder asking silently if you were okay. The both of you had trouble looking away from the strange scene but you made eye contact for a moment to say, "I'm okay."

        "Good to see you ain't weaker, boy." Conquest grunted, though his lungs were collapsing under Mark's grip, "Not much stronger either. Gotta work on that."

        "Being trapped in a desert can do that to ya." Mark gave one final attempt to crush his spine but Conquest only laughed, "I'll be back at ass kickin' levels soon enough."

        Their arms slid away and they hovered apart. "Really though man, you smell like actual piss. Hit the wash before I kick you off the ship."

        A laugh bubbled up from Conquest's belly, full and ear-cracking. "Fine, fine, I see how it is."

       Gray was sent away not long after Conquest left to find the nearest atom-blasting wash chamber. Nowhere near as nice as a human style shower, but much more effective. Plus, the man needed some good eats and sleep. Gray however, wasn't sure he could sleep again after seeing you and Conquest so close to each other. Felt helpless once again to the whims of the Emperor as he left. 

        Mark told him to keep the Gainoy's waiting awhile longer, to continue his work in the control room so Mark could be alone with you. Not how Mark phrased it, but Gray understood well enough. 

        "You did good out there," Mark said, arm wrapped casually around your waist. 

        "That guy looked like he wanted to kill me." You shifted, waiting for him to take the cue and lift his arm, but he didn't.

        "Conquest wants to kill everybody. He won't mess with you after I said no, unlike the rest of the council- that guy actually respects me."

        The look you gave him was less than ecstatic at that news. "Really, he's a good guy. One of the best in the empire, don't let the old man's porn stache get to you. Least he likes you, can't say the rest of the council feels the same, but that doesn't matter- you were awesome."

        You'd had your suspicions but it didn't feel great to have them confirmed. "I said one thing."

        Mark pressed you close to his side, "Yeah, instead of nothing or breaking down like..." 

        You imagined her in your place. Sniveling and weeping for the dead like a good person would. Fighting with Mark the second they got back, shoving him off, but you just stood here. Felt yourself lean into him despite the collar's weight. 

        "I'm used to it." You explained, "Meetings with Machine Head were always like that."

        "Well, tch- This meeting held a lot more weight than anything you did with that douchebag." 

        Mark looked down when you didn't respond. Saw the impassive look on your face. Shit. He was making things worse. "Look babe, I'm never gonna make you kill people if you don't wanna. All I want is you by my side. You don't even have to say anything next time. Just thought it'd be good for you to understand what it's like to be more. I know I act super hot and cool all the time, but it's stressful."

        Again you didn't respond, just nodded when he finished talking. Machine Head's automated voice echoing in your head.

        "Loose another target, you loose a hand, got it?" The first missions on the streets always went bad. Machine Head could be lenient, but not three escapes lenient. He didn't give a shit you were eighteen and piss scared- he wanted those fuckers dead.

        "I- I use my hands with my powers, sir." You hadn't learned not to talk back, that even if you spoke softly and logically he'd punish you like you'd called him stupid. You would learn in the coming months with pay cuts that left you restless and threats to your cat or kneecaps.

        Pale fists slammed down on Italian maple. "You think I give a shit? Get out of my office and kill that guy before I take both your hands. Fucking kids these days, 'boohoo I don't wanna lose my hands' grow up."

        Compared to everyone else your age, you were grown up. But you had to be better to survive, so you put your head down, spoke when spoken to. These last few months you'd spoken more than you had the last year. Felt yourself come out of that hard concrete shell you built around yourself and just like that- it was back. You were back in that high rise.

        "Babe?"

        Except you weren't. You had more than you ever had. Food, power, friends, if you could even call them that. Fucked as the collar was, you supposed Mark had his reasons, you were a dog trained to bite and he was trying to train that instinct out of you. Shitty, sure, but it showed how good things were now. You were safe-ish. The only real danger to you was yourself.

         "As long as you don't hurt me like he did, I don't care what happens." It was true in a way you hadn't considered until this moment. Even when that knife came barreling at you, you felt none of the fear you had with Machine Head. You weren't alone, weren't disposable. All you wanted was to be secure. "And I don't think you will besides," you pulled at the collar from over the space suit, "this and sometimes being an asshole so... yeah."

        Shit. Mark's heart pounded. Oh holy shit, this was a total breakthrough. You were fragile right now, he had to say the right thing, keep this going. "I promise I won't," he turned you both, going from a side hug to pulling you into his chest, cradling you into him. "You mean so much to me, I'd never." Everytime he blinked he saw you bloody. His grip on your back loosened instead of tightened, scared he'd pop you like a balloon again. "I know I can be an asshole, but I really do care about you."

        His words skid over your concrete surface. You watched them go by, pretty and soft and meaningful. You could reach up if you wanted, take them to your cold heart and warm it. You were still hesitant. Remembering the heads on the floor, the Machine Head sound of his tone. Remember what's going down on the planet below. You tried to find compassion for them within you, but it just wasn't there. You thought of her, wondered again how she'd respond if she was here.

        You made yourself say it, wearing the skin of a good person who gave a shit, like you desperately wanted to be- like Machine Head beat out of you. "The king... it's good he's dead, but are you really going to kill all those people for that?"

        Mark understood your hesitation, had seen you struggle with it the whole time you'd been here. It was never something he'd experienced, but as a child he wanted to be good for his dad, to put out little lies to make him smile or not yell at him. You didn't have to do that with him, he had seen the way your eyes lit up when you talked about killing, the way your jaw trembled. He knew it was an act.

        It was still hard to keep the frown off his face as he said, "A handful honestly. Few on each planet as a warning to the rest not to rebel. Every death has a purpose." More than a handful were dead. A white lie, not one you could follow up on and it wasn't really a lie. The Ferroid's reproduced faster than Viltrumites did. In the grand scheme of things, they'd be fine. "And when that's done, we're gonna have two enforcers come to watch the planet and make sure everything gets back on track."

        It was a testament to how fucked you were that death having meaning felt right. With Machine Head, it felt petty, useless- all gang war bullshit was- but this was real. And- wasn't the empire trying to do a good thing? Maybe it'd just be best if you stopped questioning it. Yet your nature wouldn't allow that, "Aren't you worried the second you leave the new guys will get killed?"

        "There's no way they can kill a Viltrumite again, but we definitely shouldn't have had them stationed in the same place at once. This time I'll keep 'em separate, have one call in an emergency if the other dies. Honestly? I know you probably don't care, but the empire's in a good place right now. Without the other Marks, I wouldn't have the people to leave here. Hell, this mission would've been waaay too short staffed without 'em, would've taken a day or two for the initial scouting. They're dumb as rocks but I'm glad to have 'em if they can make our empire better."

        "...Our empire?"

        He laughed, pulled back enough to see your face, "You're gonna be my empress one day. You should start thinkin' about the empire like it's already yours. Just like I am."

        You'd wanted power in a detached way. You knew you'd never get it, but now it was pressed against you. Looking down at you like it loved you. You didn't know how to feel, blame it on the emotionally stunting trauma. "I uh... I don't know if I can."

        Which wasn't a no- you were accepting the empire, accepting him. Mark would jump up and down if it wouldn't kill his cool guy persona. 

        He hooked his thumb under your chin, tilted your visored head up to him, "If tonight's proven anything, you can. In like a million years but I'll be there to help you along the way."

        Through the dissociative haze, you smiled. In the heart of the evilest empire in all of existence, you were safe. People were dying and for once you weren't at risk to die with them. "I dunno about a million years."

        "Alright, you got me, a hundred."

        "I won't live that long."

        His fingers moved to slide the visor off, he hadn't even told his version of you this, a secret he'd regretting keeping from her, "With my team working on a cure for human mortality? We've got more than enough time."

        Yeah, he kidnapped, collared, declawed, and humiliated you- but he was also bending the rules of death for you. In the moment leaning in, letting him start to pull the visor off- seemed like a good idea.

        Until the air lock opened and oxygen started hissing out of the room in a whirl. Mark held you in place, pushed your visor back down. You were safe but the moment was ruined by Sebastian, stood on the landing platform, cracking his neck and covered in blue blood.

        It'd been too long since Sebastian really got to see the desperate desolation in someone's eyes before he popped them out. The two months, technically ten, since he'd ravaged Earth felt like a millennia ago. Killing the handful of Ferroid's he had was like a hit of heroine. Markus and Kregg kept a close eye on him, prevented him from killing more, and now he was looking for another kind of fix.

        He wasn't authorized to return to the ship, but he did anyways. Thinking Mark would've returned to Ferr by now on administrative business and left you all alone. Inside he itched to hold you, thought you'd writhe and fight just like he wanted you to. You weren't stupid, you had to have caught on by this point he liked when you fought back- you were flirting, not consciously- you'd yet to figure out some integral things about yourself. Sebastian didn't mind helping you along. Scaring you to near death until your cunt and eyes both wept for him. 

        And for all his efforts to break away from Markus's prying little eyes? To help you figure out who you really were? He was greeted with the sight of you about to swap spit with that inferior, idiot who thought piercings were a good replacement for personality. He could almost excuse you filling the hole his absence left with Mark. You missed him and didn't know it and that was adorable still- he didn't approve. 

        Mark straightened but still kept protective arms around you. "Kregg definitely didn't give you leave. What do you think you're doing?" Mark had a sinking feeling. He should've felt dread, but really, Sebastian scaring the shit out of you was all according to plan.

        Sebastian's brains had leaked into space after the quantum bombs, but he wasn't stupid. He knew Mark could've sent him and Lensless to another planet to watch over, could demand they be the enforcers that stayed at the Ferr Belt, but he hadn't. Wouldn't. As long as you kept pushing against Mark's affections, Sebastian had a shot- Not that he'd let himself be sent away from you when the time came. It'd never happen, you were a stubborn bitch. You had to know Sebastian was the only one that really mattered. Mark was nothing but a cheap clone in a long skirt. A cheap clone he had a quiet mutualistic agreement with. Mark got to play the good guy and Sebastian got to woo you because you wouldn't actually fall for that knight in shining armor bullshit. Mark thought he'd win out in the end, but Sebastian knew you on a deeper level. When people lose all hope, they show you their true colors and Sebastian knew the color of your heart, soul, and bubbling life force as it leaked out your throat.  

        Sebastian ignored Mark's obvious faux glare and prowled closer. "If it isn't the empress."

        There was something about the way he said it that made bugs crawl under your skin. A sobriety sank in. What were you doing? Letting Mark fill your heads with flowery thoughts of ruling a fascist empire, that's what. He made you feel safe, but it wasn't real, not when he let Sebastian stay.

        You pushed Mark away, emotionally and physically. He didn't budge, kept you close to his chest as his brow ticked up.

        "Get back to work." Mark hissed.

        Sebastian stopped two steps away and though Mark's hold stiffened, the feeling of security you'd started to admit- melted away. All it took was a look, proximity, and your heart was racing. They both could hear it. Both felt a thrill that their individual plans were working, thinking they were both in the right for different reasons.

        To both their delight, you said, "Get the fuck away from me."

        Sebastian did not, in fact, get the fuck away. "I see you're already acting the part."

        "I don't want to hear it." You leaned away but Mark's arms kept you regrettably in place. You knew he was trying to protect you alpha male style, but it felt like he was keeping you there so you'd be hurt, not saved.

        "So standoffish... You really do fit right in here." Sebastian said.

        "I'm assuming your squadron is right behind you?" Mark probed.

        Only to be blatantly ignored, "Tell me, Empress, did you notice your little friend wasn't there?"

        "What are you talking about?"

        He smirked. You were so adamant on acting like you hated him but you spoke to him so readily. Fine, he enjoyed some back and forth.

        "Don't tell me you didn't even notice?" He laughed, nasty as a humid summer afternoon, "It's okay, you can admit it. He's not around to feel crushed by the fact that you don't care about him as much as he thinks." According to Lensless's reports, at least.

        It clicked. Looking back, you couldn't count his face among the blood-splattered living in the massacre aftermath. "Seb? You're talking about Seb?" You'd been so wrapped up in the murder and politics and blue blood you didn't do a head count.

        Sebastian's answering grin made your stomach drop. "What did you do?"

        Mark shifted in front of you, "Don't talk to him." He sneered at the man, "Get back with your squad right fucking now."

        You wriggled in Mark's grasp, trying to look around him at Sebastian. Hoping his face held answers, that he wasn't ominously fucking smiling like he'd done something to Seb. 

        Sebastian hovered back toward the airlock. He was getting away with his secrets in tow. Desperately, you peered around Mark's body and shouted, "Stop! Tell me what ha- ack!"

        You'd grown used to the collar's weight, to its restrictive feel around your neck. In your moment of panic, it was easy to forget it was there, what it could do. Easy as it was to forget how to stand and breathe. Mark caught you before you could fall but you were in agony, laid on the floor or not. 

        The shock was nowhere near as long as the first but it hurt. Made your whole throat pulse with righteous agony. Made tears spring from the corners of your eyes. Humiliating for someone like Sebastian to see and grin at- thinking to himself that maybe the collar wasn't so bad if it was that easy to get a view like this. Once he could finally escape this pathetic excuse of an empire, he'd tear it off so you could fight, but for now, with all your overprotective overseers? It was a much better idea to play with the collar than angst over it. 

        "I think I'm starting to see the appeal." Sebastian hovered forward an inch. Even in your haze, you flinched back. The fear in your wet eyes made his cock twitch.

        "Back off." Mark's voice dripped venom, authority. Underlying threats of all sorts. 

        Sebastian paused, put his hands up in mock surrender. "As you wish, Emperor."

        Mark wanted to rearrange his face again but he was too valuable to the empire. Especially with how fragile things were right now. Seb being in the infirmary right now was bad enough.

        "Get out of my sight before I fucking kill you." It was a bluff and they both knew it- but who had you in his arms? Who had a collar around your neck?

        Before Sebastian could respond with attitude in kind, you started to support your own weight. Mark's attention fell on you, brows set soft. "Don't, you'll-"

        You pushed him hard. It felt like nothing, but it was surprising enough that you were able to stumble backward out of his grip.

        "Don't act like you're sorry." You rasped, blindly wobbling backward to get away from him as fast as you could.

        One second, you were about to kiss him, starting to accept the empire and all it's bloody flaws. The next you were looking at him like you hated him. This was beyond whiplash.

        "I didn't do that, you did!" He said before he could rethink.

        Your face went sour. "Fuck you, Mark." 

        It took two seconds for that feeling of safety to erode. You weren't safe. Weren't being retrained for a better life, only to be the perfect dog for the emperor. You were being held prisoner by an evil empire where Sebastian was allowed to be alive near you. Mark could've taken you away at any point, punched Sebastian, but he didn't. Just stood there and talked and let Sebastian prod at you.

        You stumbled out of the automatic door and into the hall. He could have caught you without much of a chase and tried to explain he hadn't wanted this to happen but- that'd only make things worse. Technically, it was his fault, but Mark was never someone who accepted his own flaws.

        Mark reared on Sebastian, "You stupid, conniving motherfucker."

        "Those two things directly contradict each other, Emperor sir."

        Mark's jaw ticked. "I don't think you remember who's stronger here." 

        "If I may, Emperor," Sebastian said with sickly sweet respect, "you got lucky."

        Mark's fists rose, "Let's see about that."

        ***

        The door to the emperor's personal medbay slid open to reveal nothing. All the beds were tucked away into the wall or floor. The goo chamber Grayson had floated in was drained and powered off. The only thing of note was a single alien doctor, tapping away at a data pad with four arms, despite there being seemingly nothing to do. 

        He didn't look up when you came in. Maybe if you'd kept the space suit and visor on, he'd have mistaken you for a Viltrumite and treated you with respect, but you'd thrown the things off while storming away. Wore some basic outfit that was glaringly non-Viltrum. He didn't look up when you said, "Where is he?"

        "Where is whom?"

        "Seb."

        The doctor looked up only to wear confusion on his brow. "Whom?"

        Right, the other Viltrumites outside the council had no reason to call the Mark's anything other than Mark. You tried again, "The hurt Mark? That was just here, I think? Uh.. piercing right here." You tapped your cheek.

        The doctor looked at you for some moments, saying nothing before turning away, tapping at his data pad. Your fingers twitched to fists, "I'm talking to y-" 

        "He left." The doctor said, "Refused to stay longer than we could put a treatment capsule on him." So Sebastian wasn't bullshitting. 

        "Left to where?"

        The doctor stopped his tapping, "I don't have access to that information. Now, if you'd please leave me to my work?" He said while nothing was happening around him. You assumed it was all digital diagnostics, alien bullshit.

        "Fine." You left, headed straight for the dorms, "dick."

        ***

        The fight lasted all of three blows before the airlock opened and Kregg rushed in, saw Sebastian punching Mark's cheek to burst open, and knocked the boy so hard on his ass he went limp.

        Mark's ire whipped onto Kregg, "I could've handled that myself."

        "I know, sir, but you two were bound to damage the ship in your... squabble. No worries, I'll take him to the medbay."

        Behind Kregg floated in Markus, Lensless, and Grayson. Mark held up a hand to tell Kregg not to leave. He turned on Markus, "You were supposed to be overseeing him." He gestured to Sebastian, thrown on Kregg's shoulder like a bloody flour sack. 

        Markus kept composed despite the emperor's ire. "He left when we were counting the population of a particularly dense area. We came to his location as soon as we noticed."

        Mark cackled meanly, "He was here five fuckin' minutes."

        "I know, I'm sorry, sir." Markus emanated Kregg's diligent respect. So respectful and so fake it made Mark want to throw up.

        He wasn't sick to his stomach but he had another thing to throw at Markus, "I was this," he held two fingers a millimeter apart, "close to fixing things with her, and you idiots let that asshole loose for five fuckin' minutes. How is the empire supposed to thrive if that's your reaction time?" 

        Mark thought this was checkmate. You liked him, even if you were mad, you wouldn't be long. You liked him more than Markus, even if you talked of escape. It'd all stop soon enough once your tantrum was done. Markus didn't have nearly as many romantic encounters with you. Markus was just a pawn. A pawn who'd try and work harder to earn a spot next to you, but he'd never be emperor.

        Markus had him fooled, had made moments for you Mark didn't know about. Told Mark as long as he could go back to his own dimension in time, he didn't mind working for this empire, he was loyal no matter what. Total bullshit but Mark thought he could kill Markus before then. That it'd be no great loss to you when Markus knew the exact opposite. 

        All Markus said was, "Apologies, sir." Mark took his cool veneer as an act. It wasn't. Markus knew Sebastian must've really ruined things and for Markus, that was damn good news.

        "Apologies? Are you kidding me?" Mark wasn't done. "You fucked up on the first real mission I give you, with an overseer. Are you kidding?"

        "If I may," Kregg said, "Don't blame the boy, it was my fault. I left a moment to inspect a suspected rebel camp. Thankfully, it was a false alarm but there was one less set of eyes and these boys were all making themselves very busy at the empire's expense. If anyone's to blame, it's me."

        Markus caught the look Kregg gave him. A silent apology. He really did feel bad. He really was getting onto Kregg's good side. 

        Mark's face ran through a marathon of emotions before he pointed towards the door, "I'll figure out your punishment later, just get him out of my sight."

        Kregg left, followed closely by the others. Grayson the last to leave. Mark flagged him to stay behind. Barely waiting for the door to close for privacy to ask, "The implants?" If a fuck up that big could happen, he was taking no risks. Next time Sebastian was even a toe over the line, he wanted that motherfucker to hurt.

        "Almost ready, sir." Grayson said. In truth, they could've been done by now but he'd been distracted by other pet projects. Mostly making a backdoor to the collars code. Then there was what he'd been doing to the cameras. The brain chips simply fell to the wayside.

        Mark assumed he'd been caught up in working on your brain chip upgrade for the collar. Assumed the best way to get Grayson on task was to say, "I want you to watch the security tapes from the last five minutes. Maybe that'll put some fire under your ass."

        Dismissed, Grayson returned to the labs where he watched the rewind, sent to his embedded datapad. Felt terrified by moving pixels. He called the lab techs together, half-lied the emperor wanted the chips by morning. Not one of them slept that night. Coding, assembling the tiniest pieces of tech they could reasonably fit into a needle.

        By midnight, the test chip was ready. A prisoner was brought up from the cell blocks. Malnourished and forgotten, some long ago leader from a planet already taken over. She'd spat in the emperor's eye, so he'd sentenced her to isolation intermingled with occasional torture. It wasn't often enemies of the empire were left alive, but she'd tried to kill you, hadn't backed down when Mark confronted her. Sometimes before your death, Mark brought you to her cell, showed you what nasty new thing he was having done to her. The old you never appreciated it. 

        But the old you was dead and so was the prisoner after they put the chip at the base of her brain stem. When Grayson sent a test pulse  meant to make a Viltrumite hurt- her head burst open. She fell to the ground, dead, muscles still contracting. Grayson's ears twitched from a lighter version of that awful frequency until the techs took her away.

        They were ready. All that was left to do was to implant them. Grayson didn't consider himself sadistic but he couldn't wait to see how Sebastian folded the next time he spoke to you so terribly. If Grayson had it his way, the chip would shriek if Sebastian thought of you at all. But Mark was cruel in a different way and too loose with his leashes. 

        He didn't tamper with the chips. He could've and would've been caught. No, he made them perfectly. Let the lab team pat him on the back. Lowered their guard so they wouldn't expect what he was going to do next.

        ***

        Knock, knock.

        No answer for the third time. You were beyond worried now.

        Knock, knock.

        "Seb?" Something shifted inside. It was a small confirmation of life but enough to make you pound incessantly at the door, "Seb?"

        The door slammed open to reveal a rack of abs. Dotted with red-purple bruises, a hard disc sat below his belly button pumping his guts full of drugs. Left arm encased in a hard shell sling. He looked at you with a shining black eye and a nose more crooked than you remembered.

        "What?" He sneered with a puffy lip.

        "Jesus." At least he was alive. "Fuck what happened to you?"

        Seb looked past your shoulder to the wall. Nearly locked eyes with the hidden camera. Silently, he slid aside as invitation for you to come inside. You shuffled in, the door shut much to his instant regret. Why the fuck was he letting you see him like this? Weak and beaten and pathetic. He was supposed to be the cool guy.

        "Mission went bad." He grunted as he sat down hard on his bed. "If you're here for booze, I still don't got any."

        "I'm not." You follow him to the bed, sitting, "I heard you got hurt and you weren't in the medbay."

        The last person who gave a shit about him died. He should push you away so you didn't follow suit. But he couldn't help himself, "What? Got a thing for beat up guys?"

        "It's not funny, I was worried. You weren't there, but this weird rude guy was and I was like 'oh my god is he dead?'"

        Seb nodded, "Yeah... that doctor guy was like, a total douche."

        ***

        With Viltrum tech, it wasn't long before he was stable. All his holes patched with freshly healed skin or in the case of his torn gut, a disc. The rest of the med team had been dismissed back to their quarters. The Viltrumite doctor left to attend other business, probably aiding bio-research down in the labs. The empire was always cooking up something nasty.

        In his nine years working with the empire, he'd only known violence. Piecing his oppressors back together. Cutting chunks off other species to take down to the lab for study. Going to the prison blocks to administer just enough medicine to keep prisoners alive but in agony. He hated it. Always had since he was a taken from his home planet, his people cowardly bending the knee. But there was no way out from under Thragg's iron fist. 

        Until Thragg died. The power exchange was a messy affair with plenty of mistakes on the new emperor's part. Especially those first few months. Mark fumbled planets, disregarded advice, got servants of the empire unnecessarily killed, some of the doctors own friends. The Emperor never cared, but when you died? Mark killed his whole team. He only lived because he'd been on the other side of the ship, taking care of important business. It was a miracle the plan worked. He was a sympathizer of the Coalition a long time but he'd had doubts they'd pull through on their end. But they did. He lived, spluttered an explanation to the emperor who almost gutted him- but he was the only member of the med-team left. Someone had to train up the new hires after Mark killed the rest.

        It was luck really. In a rage, Mark blamed the team for your death, killed them all that night. Suspected one of them was the mole who gave the dead you that data pad. In reality, it'd been the doctor who'd done it. It'd been easy. At the time, the observation team wasn't as fleshed out with way less cameras to watch. Only after your death did Mark's paranoia make communicating with the Coalition much harder. But he'd found a chink in that armor in the form of another sympathizer on the team.

        Over these past weeks, he'd slowly let it leak that there were multiple Mark Grayson's at play and not all of them seemed entirely loyal to the empire. He was given the green light to move in, see if he could catch a sympathizer by the tail. 

        He leaned over the bed and whispered low, though he knew the cameras were off, "I know how to help you."

        Seb opened an eye, "I sure fuckin' hope you do, man."

        Ah, yes, of course the dense one was what he got stuck with. Still, he was Mark Grayson. All powerful, uncaring about the empire, Mark Grayson.

        "I've heard what you think of the empire," as reported by his eyes on the inside, "and I agree."

        Seb roused fully awake and mildly terrified, "Fuck are you talking about, man?"

        The doctor held an oblong finger over his narrow purple lips, "Fret not. I am no enemy to you."

        "Enemy to..." Seb rubbed his head, pounding with memories of the last few hours, "Man, what the fuck are you goin' on about?"

        Really dense or a better actor than anticipated. Both could be good and bad. Could get him killed or get the Coalition the best ally they could hope for. He came out with it, "The Coalition needs you."

        Seb went bolt upright, "The what!?"

        "Calm down or we'll be found out- wait, where are you going?"

        Seb floated out of bed wearing nothing. All the clothes had been cut off him for a full body assessment. The blanket that'd been thrown over him fell away exposing hairy, swinging immodesty. "Leaving, obviously."

        The doctor's heart dropped. He scurried to keep up with Seb as he approached the door. "Wait, you can't tell anyone." He grabbed Seb by the wrist, "They'll kill my family." Not that he had one but a white lie never hurt. 

        Seb looked over his shoulder at him with a sneer, "Man, I don't give a fuck 'bout your family." 

        "I see." From under the doctor's coat came a ray gun. Coalition issued. Couldn't kill a Viltrumite but would sting. He pressed it to the disc in Seb's back, opposite the one in his front. "Then I can't let you leave."

        Seb rolled his eyes, "You really think that tiny thing's gonna do shit? I don't give a fuck about you or your Coalition."

        "I misjudged you." The Doctor clicked off the safety. Hoped to God that the shock would short circuit the medicine disc, make the drugs go bad and somehow poison the boy. "You're just like the rest."

        Seb didn't move, not out of fear but because he was sluggish, sleepy, "You think I look like a snitch?"

        He was tempted to ask what a snitch was. 

        "Yeah, that's what I thought." Seb jerked away but didn't get close enough to the door for it to automatically open, "I'm not leavin' cuz I'm scared'a you. I'm leavin' cuz I'm not gettin' involved in any of that dumbass espionage shit. Do what you want but keep me out of it. I'm not telling anyone." With that, he left. Running away from yet another problem that was really a solution.

        ***

        "Did he at least treat you right? Like, you're gonna be okay?" You reached for his face, concern knitting your brows. He flinched away, already feeling weak, not needing you doting on him. 

        "Psshh, dude I'm fine. Don't get all soft on me." He remembered one of the first times you really talked. High and lying on a cot. You'd said the same thing to him. He wondered if you remembered. 

        "I'm not soft I'm just..." He looked at you then, really looked. Forced smile dropped like a rock at the red in your eyes, "Tired. Worried."

        Bullshit. He was used to being hurt, to being indifferent to others pain but he couldn’t help but ask, "What happened to you?"

        You frowned, "Same shit as always."

        He sighed, "Same here." His head lulled to the left, freeing up plenty of shoulder space for you to lean on. 

        You took it without thought, looking up at his face as you said, "Is that code for Sebastian being fucking insane?"

        He went rigid. "No." Said too fast, an obvious lie. "It was a surprise attack, alien bullshit, you know."

        You knew, actually knew, Mark told you all about it. The weapons on Ferr couldn't hope to tickle a Viltrumite, let alone partially gut one. You let him have the lie. Would question him later when he wasn't so raw, literally and figuratively. "Man, that sucks."

        He scoffed, a little less stiff as he thought you bought the lie, "Yeah, so does this whole place."

        You huffed a laugh, "Wait. You wanna know what Gray said?"

        "Oh God."

        You elbowed his side, gentle as you could despite the fact you couldn’t hurt him even if you tried. "He saw me about to rock your shit on the cameras.”

        Seb went pale and red at the same time. "Oh fuck, he's gonna kill me."

        "He was the only one who saw. Don't think he really cares, he's kinda weird in a good way. I mean, there's a team of aliens who probably saw, but I bet they don't know what a dick is and you're not dead yet so-" Seb dragged a hand over his face, not smiling like you’d hoped he would. You consoled him with a, "He even showed me some blind spots."

        "I don’t care what he showed you, dude. Im just glad one of your insane jealous boyfriends maybe won't kill me." He said bitterly as his body throbbed. He'd be fine in a few days but he was going to keep the hell out of Sebastian's path if he could. Out the corner of his eyes, he saw you frown, "That was shitty of me."

        "It was." You hummed, "But they are all fucking insane so." 

        The conversation lapsed. Awhile you sat, comfortably sharing heat while Seb stewed in man-angst that morphed to paranoia.

         "There aren't any cameras in here, right?" If he was caught with you again there had to be some sort of consequences. Maybe Sebastian would finish the job.

        "Only place there aren't. Gray showed me all the angles. Not a single room's got'em." 

        "Thank God." you looked at him with worry knotted brows. It made his stomach sink. You couldn't be worried about him. "I mean, if people were watching me at night? During prime jerk off hours, bro? I'd end it."

        You laughed, surprised, "You really...?"

        "Gotta deal with how much this place sucks somehow. Like yeah, it cuts a lot into my sleepin' time but how am I supposed to fall asleep if I haven't jerked my shit?"

        "Every night?"

        He nodded, "Duh. Puts me out like a light, dude.”

        "You're fucking crazy, man. There could have been cameras the whole time, you know Mark’s weird as hell." You relaxed further into him, hand casually falling over the top of his thigh in suggestion.

        Seb watched your hand carefully, voice coming out teasing against his will, "You're the one fuckin' other guys on the emperor's bed."

        Your fingers drummed pleasantly over his pants, hastily thrown on when you were knocking at the door. "You’re the one who almost let me jerk you off in the hallway."

        Your hand dipped into the crevice between his thighs. Seb stiffened but didn't stop you. Practically had to scream at his dick not to get hard as he said, "That was really stupid of both of us. I could'a died."

        "Maybe, but nobody's gonna catch us here." You leaned harder into his side, head hooked on his shoulder watching him as he tried to keep a passive face.

        His Adam's apple bobbed. 

        Seb was used to a certain amount of fucking. Randoms, friends, a little... something with Rex. It kept him on cloud nine where he didn't have to think about anything. He'd been spoiled by them, and then ruined by you. His hand barely held him over. Every orgasm felt less intense and more boring than the last. Always thinking how much better it could've been if he was inside you. But he knew better. 

        There was the Emperor and his dogs. Gray could snitch on him at anytime. Or the camera team. Mark could have him executed or more likely, castrated for what he'd let you do to him in the hall. Even now, this was a risk. What if Gray had lied about the room cameras? Could he really be so stupid, so horny he'd risk his life for a handjob?

        That decision didn't fall to the head on his shoulders. Not while the other rose, poked up through his skirts. 

        "Ignore that." He said, sounding strained. Fists curling in the sheets, trying to force his dick back down- down boy, bad! 

        "Do you really want me to?" Your heated breath on his neck made the hairs on the back of it stand up- and his dick a little stiffer.

        Shit. Not good. Abort. 

        "You're sure, no cameras?" He said instead.

        "No cameras." Your hand slipped under his skirts. Closing the distance between you and his clothed erection painfully slow. "Just me and you." And the need to feel normal. Like you were in control and not submitting to Mark with his fucking shock collar.

        You hardly touched him and his head fell back. A sigh sent up into the ceiling, his hair spilling over his shoulders. All you did was hold him, slowly rub your hand into the fabric. "Shit."

        Your hand agonizingly paused, "That a good shit or bad shit?" 

        "Good," he breathed, "good shit."

        "Good." You hummed, resuming movements to you could watch his pretty face twitch and flush. "Jeez dude, I'm hardly doing anything."

        "It's been a long time for me, okay? Just," he pushed his skirts to the side, looked down and got a good view of you fondling him, "fuck." He throbbed in your palm. You didn't wait for approval to tear his magnetic fly open and pull his cock out.

        Your hand retreated to let him move but when you didn't immediately start jerking him off again he whined and bucked into the air, "You're killin' me here."

        You hadn't been in control in so long, you wanted to take your time with this. "Be patient."

        "If I don't cum right now, my balls are gonna fall off." Maybe a little light fem-domme wasn't the best idea right now. Fine. You'd have a good time either way.

        The tip of his cock bubbled out a single tear. It wasn't enough, so you spat into your hand and wrapped it around his shaft, the bottom vein thrummed in your palm. Your thumb came up, pressed and rolled up and around his sweet pink slit. He was groaning, muscles tensing and untensing before you'd even started to get a good pace, pumping your hand up and down his length. 

        Seb was usually one for dirty talk but after the fight, the medbay, and the fact he hadn't had you since the desert, all he could do was gasp. Watch with puffy, half lidded eyes as you worked him. Tilted his neck so you could lean in and suck the skin between his throat and shoulder. You couldn't help biting. 

        That earned your hand a hearty thrust that made your bones rattle in your palm. "Shit, my bad." He pinned his hips to the mattress, regretting that your pace slowed with a pained hiss.

        "It's fine." You said, lips slippery on his neck. "Just don't do that to my mouth, okay?"

        "You're..." You let go much to Seb's chagrin. He didn't mourn the loss, not when he knew what was coming next. Thighs spread as you lowered to your knees, shuffled between them.

        "Fuck," he breathed, "you're so hot."

        He should have argued. Said this was too much, too far. He distantly thought of the collar tracking your vitals, he hadn’t touched you but your heart was racing, he could hear it under the thrum of his own blood. 

         Fucking you in the desert was almost fair game but now it was treason. No arguments came as you again took him into your hands, pumped up his base and lowered your head to his. Tongue warm and soft and inviting and begging to be painted. 

        The only thing Seb could say as your lips joined your tongue was, "Holy shit."

        You looked up at him, eyes red, dick in your mouth, and he swore in that moment he loved you. Loved you even more as your tongue lathed over the bottom of his cock. Head slowly bobbing up and down, spearing yourself more and more unto him with every repeat. 

        You stayed midway down his length, hand working his base, for some time. Enjoying the stretch in your cheeks, the weight on your tongue, the cockhead pressed to your uvula. You thought of him thrusting into your hand before and you shivered. You'd told him not to but you wanted it. Your hand came away, rested on his stomach as you made the slow journey further down. 

        A soft sigh cooled his puffy lips. His hand shakily came to the back of your head and pushed you ever so gently down until your lips kissed his pelvis and the head of his cock kissed the back of your throat. Your nose pressed into a thick mat of hair that smelled like sweat and a hint of sappy blood. You didn't care. You nestled your face harder into him. Unable to breathe well with him blocking your throat. Gag reflex held at bay even when Seb started rocking his hips up and down.

        Languid at first but the longer Seb was inside you, the harder it was to keep himself together. Thoughts jumbled like his fingers (in your hair/twitching on your scalp). He fucked your face with held-back fervor. A band inside him tightened. He went faster as he could restrained, rug burning your lips with his quickness. An incoherent babble of, "Fuck, shit, so good," came pouring out his lips. 

        At first you couldn't keep up but you found a rhythm, moved with him while avoiding cutting with your teeth. The beginning of the end started when you moaned around him. Feeling the stretch in your mouth like it was your cunt. Every thrust sent shudders down to your heating core. You looked up at him with tears in your eyes like you needed this. 

        He spilled down your throat with a cry. Finally feeling a real release with every pulse of his cock. Ebbing away too fast for his liking. 

        You pulled back, letting his slick, softening cock escape the cavern of your mouth. His seed hot and heavy in the back of your throat. You shut your mouth, still tasting like him, throat bobbing as you swallowed. "You know for all that alien food you eat, you don't taste half bad." 

        You were smiling up at him, contented, but all he could feel was a looming dread. What the fuck was he thinking? Why were you okay with this?

        "Seb?" You pulled yourself up his body, careful to avoid his sensitive softness and healing discs. You reached to touch his face, to check in with him because you cared. He melted too easily into your touch, even if it was on his busted cheek, leaned in when you went to kiss him.

         His other head started to work and that head made him stop, flinch away.

        You paused, “Seb?"

        God, you looked so confused, he was such an asshole. But he couldn't bring himself to act like it, saying soft, "You should go."

        You blinked at him, "What? No one knows I'm here, you don't have to worry."

        That broke his resolve because who did you think you were? Making him all.. soft and shit. All like, susceptible to danger just for the chance to feel you.

         "Of course I fuckin' do," he snapped, "that thing monitors your vitals. No cameras means they’ll assume the worst."

        You hovered but didn't leave. "Did I bite you or something?"

        "No you-" His voice rose, but the words stopped as he saw that awful falling look on your face. He cared too much about you. It was a problem. Before he had no problem kicking one night stands out on their ass but now he gave a shit and that was stupid and dangerous for you both. So he let his voice raise, let himself yell because maybe then you'd stop being so terribly good for him. "You gotta stop hangin' around me! I know your boyfriend's a dick and all but he'll kill me if he catches us if you haven't noticed. Or do you just not care about me?"

        No. No you just started to feel normal. You couldn't take this. "I do. I won't let them hurt you."

        He laughed, "How? You're just some human."

        You didn't know and that started to scare you. "I can- I can-"

        "Yeah, you ain't got shit." He tucked himself back into his pants. 

        You hadn't been taken care of. You didn't want just anybody to take care of you, you wanted Seb, you wanted a normal friend. "If he hurts you, I'll never touch him again." It's a desperate plea.

        "Oh sure, like that'll hold up with your track record." The skirt went back over his crotch. When he stood you stumbled back. 

        You sputtered, the taste of him going sour in your mouth, "What's your problem?" 

        "My problem? Tch, look at me. You think I can do shit once your boyfriends decide they're done letting you use me?"

        Your eyes followed his hands, gesturing to his chest and the wide disc holding his guts in. The implication wasn't lost on you.

        "I know it was Sebastian." You snipped, because he was being a cunt. 

        You looked at him with so much pity it burned. Made his wounds laced with pain killers start to throb.

        "God," his hands flew up to twist into his hair, "You knew and you still came to fuck me? What's wrong with you? Can you just-" Stop giving a shit about a gutter rat like him? Stay? Never talk to him again? Lay with him and talk about Rex? Leave? Take your clothes off? "Go already?"

        Your eyes misted over. A wall that'd fallen snapped back into place. Good, but not good enough. You were like a hungry dog in the street, always coming back for more friendship or dick. He was too happy to give it away. 

        "I came because I was worried, it just hap-"

       "Look, you're fun and all but for my sake, stay the fuck away from me."  It hurt but it was the smart thing to do. The easy thing to do because he was angry and weak and pathetic and he knew it.

        Sometimes you forgot with the crooked nose and piercings and attitude, that he was still just another Mark Grayson. "Fine."

        You shoulder checked him on the way out. It didn't actually do anything, but he found himself swaying back into the wall anyway. Hit with the sledgehammer consequences of his own actions. The door shut. He was alone, sinking with the feeling of it. Your friendship gone just like that. The one thing that was keeping him sane on this hell ship. Being alive felt like a consolation prize.

        He wasn’t surprised. He always was a selfish asshole.

        "I'm not some... just because we... ya'know. It was one time." 

        Rex looked up from the glowing stick he'd been twirling through his fingers. Practicing how long he could hold a charge before it inevitably exploded. It'd been quiet, them just hanging out in Rex's room in the Teen Team headquarters. The skunky stench of marijuana thick in the air.

        "Uh," Rex half-laughed, "I mean sure dude, but it was actually two times."

        "I wouldn't even call it one." Seb took a hit off the blunt. It wouldn't do anything, not since he'd gotten his powers months ago but he still liked the warm hug feeling of smoke in his lungs. He hadn't told Rex about that one caveat yet, Rex would take his blunt-bumming privileges away and he wasn't ready for that. Not after losing the ability to take molly and xanax at the same time and stargaze high as all fuck. "We didn't even like, touch tips or anything."

        "Dude, we jerked each other off." The charge grew hotter and hotter in Rex's hands.

        "As friends." Seb spat out because he couldn't take the sick swirling feeling in his gut at the memory, Rex's green eyes locked onto his instead of the porn he'd put on, idly playing in the background.

        Rex laughed, "Sure, cuz every pair'a bros does that." He turned to the wall and let the charge fly into a tungsten painted target. Bullseye came with a small explosion that lit Seb's face up so pretty. Seb caught him staring, the feeling intensified. 

        Looking back he should've acted on it sooner. Should've realized their time together wasn't going to be longer than a handful of years with how stupid and selfish they both were. How they both acted like they were invincible. Always trying to stay in their own little bubble of loser paradise.  

        Seb always thought he was going to die young because of that stupidity. He never thought Rex would go first.

        You'd just gone but the loneliness felt weeks deep.

        ***

        A rhythm was set as the days passed. The ship was stationed outside the Ferr Belt as they waited for replacement workers. The culling was said and done with as little structural damage as possible. A job for Gray and Markus who had the finesse. The council could be a little more callous with lesser civilizations, it'd set back timelines restructuring buildings on the planet itself.

        Mark was permanently trapped in his office, taking naps at his desk when he could. Always on calls with loyalist planets, who as the days went by, got more and more frantic to prove their loyalty after Mark slightly over exaggerated the killing on Ferr by a hundred thousand. When he wasn't in his office, he was in the war room, listening to Kregg as he planned out a deliberate path for the next planets to check up on- short visits or quick executions depending- on the way to the next staple planet that actually mattered in the grand scheme of things. 

        The Hydroxians weren't a foolish people, they were engineers and weapon smiths known far and wide across the galaxy. Rebels to the core who made and dispersed weaponry solely to rebel planets. Most rebel forces still used them to this day. The amount lessened more and more in the past hundred years though, as they'd gone radio silent. Viltrum used to be able to pick up their radio chatter, but now there was nothing. Any soft-bellied rebel the Viltrumites killed, toting one of their fancy weapons, had no answers either. The galaxy chalked it up to extinction.

        So did Viltrum.

        Until a few days ago. Gray came into Mark's office, interrupting another long, brain-rottingly boring meeting. He'd tweaked the scanners settings to what he was used to on his Viltrum. It made things a little more gorilla tech, but that's all it took for Hydrox's hundreds of years of luck to run out. 

        Because right there on the data pad, a tiny dot with distance was an unknown mass flagged. Mark cut the meeting short, went straight to the observatory and called in the council. Sure enough, there was Hydrox, thousands of miles away but unmistakable in the scanners. Blending into space with what must've been an intentionally thick debris field of black machining waste and rudimentary cloaking tech.

        They were trapped. Unable to send out more weapons. Unable to see their burning red sun. 

        They could be left alone to die under their man-made cloak, but that wasn't Viltrum's style. They'd rebelled loud and proud, they needed to be made an example of. Publicly televised for the galaxy to see, they needed to die. Never have the chance to send out weapons again.

       They pointed the scanners at Hydox and for the first time got a look at how massive it was. Population well into the billions. A single Viltrumite could do the job but it was flagged as too risky. In their time isolated they could've made countless breakthroughs. Their weapons were toys to Viltrumites but packed a noticeable sting hundreds of years ago- leaving the question of what were they now?. It was too dangerous to leave them alive.

        Gray was patted on the back. Helped Kregg and Markus put together an invasion plan, often relaying it back to Mark. Mark listened, stretched himself thin going from duty to duty. In seconds of peace between endless things to do, he watched you on the cameras. Wished he had time to go to bed and just lie with you.

        You’d been in the lab more than usual instead of puttering about with Seb these last few days. Seb cut corners more than ever on his work much to the council's annoyance, but Mark let it happen. When not working, Seb was in the training arena, adding on level after level of artificial gravity and working out till he nearly passed out. He avoided you like the plague. 

        Mark had his suspicions. Got a report from the observation crew about you entering his room, matching up with a small spike in your vitals. It pissed him off sure, but, something bad had happened. You weren't talking, you were so lonely you opted to go to meals alone or with Lensless. Opted to go to the labs more with Grayson. You were emotionally hurt by some guy who was only making himself better for the empire and avoiding you- it was a total best-case scenario.

        You'd wounded him by storming away after what Sebastian had said. He hadn't been able to speak with you since, so wrapped up in busy work. But he was hopeful because he knew once he got time to see you, you'd be glad for it, he was much better company. 

        Lensless was an idiot, always tailed by the too-serious Lucan. Both his and Sebastian's brain chips had been successfully installed. Sebastian was kept under while Grayson finished development and the first to undergo the procedure. Lensless 'finally' got to fight Lucan, who was ordered to knock him out at the next prodding. The fight had been harder than Lucan thought it would be, Lensless was slippery, but once he landed a few good hits on the boy he was out. He didn't acknowledge any questions about his black eye. Knocked out, the chips were attached to their brain stems. Grayson oversaw the operation. Confirmed with Mark himself the operations were a success.

        When they woke up, they were none the wiser, suspicious, sure, but who would guess Mark had ordered impromptu brain surgery? They both went about their duties with their tails still on. It'd be too suspicious to drop them abruptly. Mark wanted the first use to be a nasty, painful surprise. He also wanted to make sure the chips were working which they wouldn't entirely know until a few days after the operation and the chips were fully synced to their brain waves.

        Lensless wasn't a worry even with the chip. He seemed to calm afterwards, not pushing his luck with Lucan, seemingly satisfied with their fight. He also got more time around you, and instead of terrorizing you like he and Sebastian had the desert, he played nice. Saying things just on the edge of acceptable. Hovering around you like a gnat. Always hinting at some gift he got you but when you asked, he giggled, covered his mouth and said, "Not with Lucy around. Stoooop! I'm embarrassed!" When you'd said barely anything at all.

        Mark had a servant check the room to find a sack stuffed under the mattress. In the report he got it was listed as: various biological matter. Ew. 

        Right now, you were in Grayson's lab. His prostheses finally moved with less stiffness. His buzz cut had grown out an inch, making his head look like black puffball. You were going through the motions as Mark waited for another call from a loyalist colony. Grayson was being more than thorough in the capture and study of your brainwaves, terrified if he got one thing wrong in the re-code the collar would wind up shocking you to death.

        Mark appreciated the effort. Watching you do another round of breathing exercises for low-brainwave scans, as he finally got a call from the loyalists. He turned his attention away.

        "...And out." 

        Air whooshed out slow behind your teeth. "In." Grayson said, you sucked in, "and..." you held your breath, waiting for the instruction for what felt like the hundredth time. "We don't have a lot of time."

         You breathed the word out, "What?"

        The lab was empty aside from you both. The techs on their lunch break. You wanted to go with, but Grayson said it'd be bad to interrupt the tests, so you lagged behind.

        "I've looped the microphone and video feeds." He muttered, shuffling closer like somehow the mics would still pick up his voice, "for the next minute, they'll think we're doing our exercises." 

        Your jaw dropped. You'd been waiting for days on end for an update from Markus, for something to assure you some leverage. Nothing. He'd been too busy. Then Gray couldn't manage to steal himself away to see you at all. You hadn't even seen Mark. Everyone was too busy working on the empire to help you. Grayson hadn't given a single hint he was up to something and now he'd stepped over the line, stepping closer to you, sat as always on the lab bench.

        He didn't wait to speak until spoken to as he usually would, "It's a test." The next time he did something like this, it'd be longer, give him more time alone with you, but for now thirty more seconds was all he could steal. "I-" and yet the words still get caught in his ragged throat, "I wanted to show you I've been trying since I can't..." His eyes flicked down to the collar. He couldn't help with that yet, but the cameras were fair game.

        You turned to the camera in the wall he'd pointed out days ago. "Are they really-" you turned back to finish your thought, but found your lips nearly brushing his. He'd leaned in, stopped at the last second. Blue eyes wide like a deer in the headlights, he looked like the Mark you knew as a teenager, scared and shy and so full of want it made your stomach flip. 

        His breath was cool and minty across your lips. A hairs length separated your flesh. Electricity wanted to pull you closer but you were so shocked by the cameras, by his sudden quiet treason, by his boldness that you just blinked back at him. He wanted to press forward, kiss you, hammer his allegiance home, a show that his trick had worked, that he would do anything for you. It'd be easy. You weren’t cringing away or pushing him back.

        Your eyes started to shudder closed and as you leaned in, he leaned back like an oppositely charged magnet. "Sorry, I just..." He said when your eyes opened. "You feel like you owe me and I want..." His words got stuck, he wanted you to want him. He didn't want a kiss as a thank you or an obligation for helping you, he wanted you. Wanted you to want him the same way he wanted you. He checked the clock on the wall, ten seconds. He swallowed hard as he watched your eyes flicker down to his lips again, "Don't. Not until you really want to." 

        You understood well enough, had somehow always been able to read between the lines with him. Grayson moved back to the position he was in before, leaving you stunned.

        "You're a weird guy, Grayson." You smiled at him, soft, sweet, just like she used to, "Thank you."

        "The cameras are about to turn on." He lifted his hands in gesture to breathe out. He hoped when the loop cut, no one noticed his blush. "...And out."

        ***

        At long last, the ship caught up. Close enough to confirm the ship was indeed the emperor's. Far enough that the Thraxa's bio-tech would keep the cloaked ship hidden from the warships sensors. 

        Thragg wired into the communications, a shoddy connection at best, even with how far he'd advanced Thraxan tech. He heard the boy's plans for Ferr and mostly agreed with the proceedings. He would've killed more than half, had to hold himself back when he felt how weak they were. He would've had replacements here faster but none of that mattered. No matter how much Mark tried to rebuild the empire, Thragg was waiting to burn it back down.

        All there was left to do now was wait. 

[rimaahgaza]

Dear Friends,

Please read this as if I'm a member of your family. maybe your sister, daughter or a friend and as if my family who's under death now is yours.

I’m reaching out to you with a heartfelt plea for assistance. My family and I are seeking to escape the relentless cycle of violence, destruction, and deprivation in Gaza. The ongoing conflict has stripped us of our livelihoods and deprived our children of their right to education and basic human rights.

My name is Rima Ali, and I am from the Gaza. I am a mother of three children: Mohammed (13), Yousef (11), and Sidra (1.5). The ongoing conflict has stripped us of our livelihoods and deprived my children of their right to education and basic human rights. Before the war, we led a modest yet fulfilling life. However, the conflict has turned our world upside down. We lost our jobs, our home, and the future we had envisioned for our children. The daily struggle for survival in a war-torn region is unimaginable. We dream of a life where our children can go to school without fear, where we can work and contribute to society, and where we can live with dignity and hope.

My beautiful children

My children, especially Mohammed (13) who has a rare condition called G6PD deficiency or favism, are struggling due to the scarcity of food and malnutrition. Limited access to food restricts his diet, impacting his health and development. Even baby Sidra celebrated her first year during the war under dire conditions, lacking even basic needs like diapers and milk.

I have suffered lot of great losses during this harsh time of war. I lost my dear sister and her daughter in a shelling attack last December. My sister was my soulmate, and her loss has left a void in my heart. My mother was seriously injured by shrapnel from three shells that hit the house where she was seeking refuge. Her condition requires immediate attention, which is why I am reaching out for your support. The cost of her medical treatment and the logistics of transporting her to a safe place for proper care are significant. Your donations can help save her life and alleviate some of the immense burdens we are facing.

Humanitarian Aid for Gaza Families

Our home, once a sanctuary of warmth and security, now lies in ruins, a stark reminder of the indiscriminate nature of conflict. Everything we own and possess have been completely destroyed by the relentless shelling in Gaza. The devastation has left us struggling to survive without basic necessities. We have no water, no electricity, no communication, and no safe shelter. Each day is a battle for survival under these harsh conditions.

Our home before the war

The continuous shelling has made it impossible for us to find safe shelter. Our home, once a place of comfort and security, has been reduced to rubble. We have been forced to move multiple times, seeking refuge wherever we can find it. Our longest period of displacement was in Rafah, a city in the south of Gaza. Here, we faced extreme hardships, with overcrowded conditions and limited resources. The lack of water and electricity severely affects our daily lives. We are unable to cook proper meals, access clean drinking water, or even maintain basic hygiene. Yet amidst the rubble, a glimmer of hope remains, fueled by the resilience of the human spirit and the generosity of strangers.

Our home after the war

By a miracle and the generosity of friends, I managed to borrow enough money to escape Gaza with my children through the Rafah border. The cost was $5,000 per person. We are now in Egypt, but my family in Gaza continues to suffer. I am reaching out to you for help. My family is still trapped in the dangerous Nusierat camp, which is currently under attack. I desperately need financial support to evacuate them and to sustain my children and me in Egypt. We are struggling to afford rent and food.

Your donations, no matter how small, will save lives. They will help bring my family to safety and provide us with the means to rebuild our lives. If you are unable to donate, please share our story on social media using relevant hashtags like #GazaCrisisRelief, #HelpGazaFamilies, and #SupportPalestinianFamilies.

Your support means the world to us. Thank you for reading and for your compassion. From the bottom of my heart, I appreciate your help.

Thank you for your generosity and support!

[sonecta]

I see a lot of Islamophobic as well as Hinduphobic rhetoric going around, especially due to the Indo-Pak conflict. And most people are seeming to believe whatever the see on random tumblr accounts which aren't even from here and has no touch with reality?? What the hell

The tumblr demographic is mostly teens and young adults with impressionable minds. These kind of things have a cumulative effect and give rise to hatred.

As someone who has literally witnessed/still witnessing the polarization of communities and increase in communal violence, here are my two cents on it:

1. Talk to Indian Muslims who are common citizens in the country - those who are students, those who have a daily job, those who lead a generic life. There are around 200 million Muslims living in India. Ask how their experience is, if they feel "unsafe" here. Ask if they are friends with people of other faith. Ask how they feel about India. Mostly the people who bark on the internet are people who have an agenda, and you get that pov.

2. The nomenclature of operation 'Sindoor' - Sindoor is traditionally viewed as a symbol for married women in Hinduism, many women are choosing to not wear it quoting it a patriarchal symbol. Nonetheless, at Pahalgam Hindu men were targeted and their wives were told to narrate it to others. The attack itself was religious in nature and hence is the name of retaliatory operation. (Those saying one Muslim man was also killed, yes because the terrorists also asked the people who were Muslim to recite Kalma, and killed who could not)

3. Genocide against muslims? The operation is being led by a Muslim woman Col Sofia Qureshi. Indian Muslims are in support of the retaliatory attack. This is a conflict targeting documented terror bases of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, not a specific demographic. The list was later released and now available on the internet. Also, Pak spends majority of their budget on defence and has nukes, they are in no way same as Palestine.

4. Targeting civilians - It's unfortunate that women and children died as a collateral damage on targeting the sites. It's an age old tactic that terrorists use-blend in with the civilians and use them as human shields. The civilians killed were neighbors and family members of the targeted terrorists as of the information available now.

However, the retaliatory attack from Pakistan was indiscriminate bombing into civilian localities, not military facilities. Yesterday, more than 15 cities were targeted with drones. Shelling in Poonch has killed at least 13 civilians and injured many.

War serves no one but how is this alright? People spewing bullshit sitting at their homes, pushing their narratives without half an idea of what's really going on? You are disgracing the genocide on Palestinians by comparing this with that. Both are totally different situations caused due to different reasons. If you don't have proper knowledge about a situation then don't spread misinformation about it. Pray for our safety.

[dasha022]

.

In Amity Park, where spectral activity had always been more intense than in other places characterized by such phenomena, the representatives and explorers appointed by the government, under the guidance of the Fentons, attempted to deploy a containment network for the unknown entities that had become recurrent in the area over the past few years.

The initial idea was simple: treat ghosts as threats to human security. After all, the attacks and incidents in which they were involved showed that they lacked rational thought when dealing with humans. Devoid of empathy, feelings, or a defined moral compass, ghosts acted without remorse in many of the cases documented by the Fentons and in collaboration with the follow-up investigations carried out by the GIW.

Thus, the installation of containment devices in Amity Park, the epicenter of the disaster, was carried out. The belief was that this would prevent a massive expansion to other populated areas. Dr. Fenton, along with her husband’s support, was assigned to work on the project in collaboration with several GIW delegates.

But what seemed like an organized plan to protect the city quickly turned into a battlefield. The ghosts, feeling hunted and trapped, began to grow more volatile in their appearances.

Instead of containing them, the repression only fueled the violence. The situation escalated when the echoes of this confrontation spread, reaching other entities, other areas.

The government named it: Persistent Ectoplasmic Interference.

The Justice League heard part of the matter, and although they did not interfere directly, they kept monitoring everything and investigating through their own means. Their responsibilities were many, and their enemies more tangible. But that didn’t mean they were waiting to be caught off guard.

They didn’t break the boundaries set by the government and its management of the situation, but in the shadows, they tracked and gathered every relevant piece of information.

When spectral activity began to touch the borders of the cities defended by several league members — Central City, Star City, Metropolis — the government delegates and involved branches found it difficult to keep the heroes out of the matter.

Spontaneous portals, invisible presences, energy disturbances that even the Lanterns could not filter. The so-called ‘ghosts’ didn’t cause turmoil or disasters as predicted in the records obtained. At least not indiscriminately. They had specific zones, places, sites to attack.

The heroes found it difficult to try to stop them. Even with the Fenton technology that Batman, Cyborg, Flash (Wally West), and Red Robin had adapted to fight them.

It was then that Danny Nightingale, ex-Fenton, appeared before them.

Danny offered reports. Dimensional maps, ghost classifications, containment protocols without harm. Technology that surpassed that of his parents, from whom he seemed distant. According to him, his thoughts on ghosts were vastly different. To him and his older sister, their parents were too caught up in their opinions to see beyond their partial research. And those who sponsored and supported them were even more so.

With his collaboration with the League, the young man wanted to prove that yes: some ghosts were hostile. But many more simply existed. And that, he said, was not a crime.

The League accepted his help. Or so he thought.

But where Danny saw understanding, they saw patterns. Patterns that could be coded. Predicted. And controlled.

Thus, the Rehousing Project was born. Not an offensive, but a “protection strategy.” Its mission was clear: to identify spectral entities not recognized by dimensional continuity, neutralize those that affected the human environment, and isolate all those that escaped the boundaries of the “comprehensible.”

Neither Deadman nor Greta were mentioned in the documents. Because they were “different beings.” Singular souls trapped in this world after being unable to transcend to the proper rest, whether through magic or dark arts. Not like the erratic specters who continued causing havoc without reasoning or understanding the fragility of cities and those who inhabited them.

And when Ember McLain, the ghost of what the GIW categorized as an amplified lament, exploded during a concert, causing significant emotional imbalance among the participants, the problem escalated even further.

Ember was overwhelmed by what was happening to her kind, many of her loved ones had disappeared. They had rescued many, but not all were found. So, when she felt the fear, the rejection, the contempt burning her throat — she used her gift, out of desperation. Not to dominate. But to make them listen. To make them feel.

But when she projected her voice onto the human minds, pushing emotions to the surface of thousands of people… she only reinforced their fears. And the decision was unanimous: one could not trust beings that felt so differently.

That day, most of the heroes were convinced that ghosts were not living beings with complex emotions.

They were anomalies. Reactions. Echoes with teeth.

And that same day, Danny stopped being the hero ally.

😉

https://archiveofourown.org/works/64465951/chapters/166867915#workskin