#<- ive been informed that this implies i am severely touch starved. lmao.

[scattered-winter]

So what is your time fuckery au?? I've noticed you mention it a few times in tags but never found a proper 'thing' about it. As in, there's no fic or main art that I can find

(hope your day is going well <3)

ha, yeah, the time fuckery au mostly lives in my brain only at this point. I've written a few scenes here and there, and even posted a few snippets to my blog, but mostly it's just been an ongoing development in my brain only <3 that SAID. i loove talking about it so i'm glad u asked :] (technically "timeline fuckery au" is probably more accurate because that's what I'm messing with: timelines and alternate universes, as opposed to. literal time. but i called it the time fuckery au once and it stuck. so.)

here's the playlist (I'm constantly updating it) :]]

so basically. there are 2 different versions of the call of duty modern warfare franchises: the og, w three games in the mid-2000s, and the reboot with two games between 2019-2022, and a third game in the works. for the most part, the two franchises are fairly aligned w similar events/recurring villains (such as the shepherd betrayal, which happened in both versions, but in the og it resulted in the deaths of ghost and roach, but in the reboot nobody died. in fact, overall in the og games, everyone on the team was dead by the end except one of them.) in this au, the two versions are alternate, adjacent timelines. all the deaths that happen in both* timelines are fundamentally Not Supposed To Happen, and so some Freaky Timeline Shit occurs to try and correct it. the two soaps trade places. og soap ends up in the reboot timeline with the reboot team, and reboot soap ends up in the og timeline with the og team. at this point, reboot soap and ghost are in a relationship, and the 141 is all very close, and so of course it's a big mess when soap wakes up in a universe where everyone looks like his closest friends/boyfriend but they are, fundamentally, different people. and the same goes for og soap, who's suddenly thrown into a room with people he half-recognizes but none of them are Right. and what's more, some of the team is Not There when they should be. (like roach).

*as of the 2022 game, nobody in the main team has died yet, BUT the third game is involving makarov, who was the villain who caused the deaths of several team members in the og, so I'm taking some liberties with the timeline during that period. so in the unchanged reboot timeline, several team members died.

(i would also like to point out that the actual switch happens before all the deaths happen, obviously. HOWEVER, both soaps know exactly how the original, unchanged timelines are gonna turn out if they don't do anything. it's basically just a very fucked up timeloop.)

to make matters worse, the soaps are connected to each other even before the actual switch happens. reboot soap has nightmares of his team dying right in front of him (gaz shot, ghost burned, etc) but they're not his team. they're the og team. but ofc he doesn't know this yet <3 and this ofc happens vice versa, but I haven't figured out specifics for how the reboot team dies yet so I can't tell you anything about it lmao

and the dreams don't stop after the switch!!! because why bother sending them to alternate dimensions if not to remind them what will happen if they fail!!!! and the entire time, they're also racing against time because having two people Cross Realities is throwing the continuum out of whack, and so it's trying to Find Equilibrium Again by merging the two soaps more and more as time goes on. reboot soap wakes up with a scar that he didn't have before, but remembers getting. on a mission he never went on. og soap is talking to ghost (with all the awkwardness of talking to someone who's dating your alternate self) and he calls ghost something that only soap--reboot soap--ever called him. he just. Knew. and so on top of everything else, they also have all the fear of slowly losing themselves <33

and of course they manage to save both teams (and also bring reboot roach into the team godbless <33) and things return to normal but not before there's a LOT of angst and timeloops and timeline fuckery going on. this whole au is basically me just taking both canons and attacking them with scissors and then gluing the little pieces together into a collage. and then rinse and repeat. I'm having soooo much fun with it :]]]] and of course, at the end before the timelines fully go back to normal, the teams get to meet their alternate selves :]] self recognition through the other except it's you from another life :]]] here's a lil snippet :]]]]]]

Simon stood in space. Stars wheeled overhead and below, clustered in colorful nebulas in explosions of color and light.

And across from him stood…himself.

Ghost was holding himself the same way Simon did; weight evenly distributed on each foot, gaze constantly shifting from person to person and window to door. Ready to act at a half second’s notice.

Simon could see the moment Ghost noticed him; a slight stiffening to the shoulders, a straightening of the spine, a subtle slide of the foot to gain a better defensive stance. All miniscule tells, but to Simon, glaringly obvious, a blinking neon sign.

Were Simon’s tells always this clear, or was it simply because he knew to look for them? He could read the other Ghost like a book; the subtle tilt to his head as he sized him up, the tension in his shoulders as he decided if Simon was a threat. He could read the other Ghost and see how he himself was being read; another tilt to Ghost’s head as he clearly came to the same conclusion as Simon.

“You’re the other one.” His voice took Simon off-guard. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but this wasn’t it: soft, rounded at the edges, like a stone worn smooth by a stream. But behind it was that edge, that gentle tone of danger. Even from a different world, that was still the same, with perfect, striking clarity.

Simon wasn’t sure what to say. What was there to be said? Here he stood, before someone who was his double in nearly every way, who likely already knew what he was thinking because he was thinking it, too.

“How’s the team?” was what he said at last, rough, abrasive voice grating against Ghost’s softer tone.

“In one piece. Thanks to your man.” Your man. Did this Ghost know what Johnny meant to him? He must; he was Simon, after all.

“Yours did good work here, too,” Simon said, though they both knew Captain Mactavish wasn’t his.

They fell silent, as they both preferred, simply studying one other. Ghost had sunglasses over his mask to veil his eyes, something that Simon had done himself on occasion. He liked it when nobody could see his eyes, but hated how it limited his field of vision.

It was unnerving, the way he was so very much like himself. The mask, the name, the way Ghost stood. He was a dead man walking, they both were. Had he suffered the same things Simon had suffered? He must have; why else would he wear the mask, and stand like that, like an attack might come from any direction?

For a moment, Simon looked at Ghost and Ghost looked at Simon. A pair of reflections, a pair of echoes. For the first time in his life, Ghost could peer out into the darkness and see his own face looking back at him.

Then Simon broke the silence, voice as haggard and vulnerable as he would allow it to be in the empty space between worlds, where stars flickered under their feet and where there was nobody to hear but himself.

“Were we better off dead?”

Ghost paused for a moment, hesitated, looked Simon up and down, and Simon knew he wasn’t just seeing him standing there. He was seeing the coffin six feet under, the choking dirt, the dead bodies in the flat in London, the rivers of blood staining his hands, so much of it that he could never wash it all off. The nightmares. The kills. The missions, one after another after another, because the war never ended, not really, not for him.

“I don’t know. Maybe we were.”

And there wasn’t anything else to say, not after that. Simon sighed, felt the universe sigh with him, and dipped his head in acknowledgement. A few feet away Ghost did the same, and had Simon been able to see his eyes, he would have seen himself reflected there, just like everywhere else.

And then the stars and the mirrors melted away, and Simon woke up.