#The Fortification Series

[kirbyddd]

[vivwritesfics]

Set The World On Fire

Chapter Fourteen

Lando Norris had been incredibly angry when they met. Incredibly angry, but sweet enough to help her. Turns out he just needed somebody to talk to, somebody to be there for him.

He was easy to fall for, and that put her in a world of danger

Warnings: Stalking

Mafia AU

1.5K

Series Masterlist

"Happy birthday, Stinky."

Lando opened his eyes and let out a groan. It was far too early. He closed his eyes and placed his head back against the pillow.

A hand was in his hair, brushing through his curls. "Oh, you're so cute," she mumbled and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. Lacing her fingers through his own, she tried to pull him up. "C'mon, birthday boy. I made breakfast."

The promise of food was what coaxed him out of bed. As he stood, she threw a pair of pants at him, covering up his nakedness.

The moment she opened the bedroom door, the smell hit him. It was so damn sweet. Pancakes, waffles, French toast. It was a kids dream. "Holy fuck," he said as he walked into the kitchen. "Baby, what time did you get up?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "Doesn't matter," she said as she turned back to the stove, where more was cooking. Holy shit, he was gonna be double his body weight by the time his birthday was over.

Lando strode over to her. He wordlessly wrapped his arms around her and pressed a kiss to her shoulder. "You didn't have to do all of this, baby," he whispered against her skin.

There was a moment of hesitation before she answered him. "I... this isn't like your normal birthdays, I'm sure. I still wanted to make it special."

He kissed her shoulder again. "You already have."

There was no hiding the smile she wore as she placed the newest batch of pancakes (American style this time) on the table. "Eat up," she said as she placed the pan in the sink. "I'll bring takeout home tonight, yeah?"

French toast halfway to his mouth, Lando paused. "Huh?" He asked, mouth still open, ready to take a bite. But then he put the toast back down. "What? It's my birthday," he said. "You can't leave on my birthday. That's the birthday boy's rules."

"Well, birthday boy," she began as she walked past him. "I've got work. Unless you wanna live in a cardboard box in the back alley."

For a second, Lando looked like he was contemplating it. She rolled her eyes as she headed back to the bedroom to get ready for the day.

The way Lando missed her when she was working was unhealthy, he knew. But over the weeks, months (he wasn't sure how long it had been, all of the days seemed to blend together), he'd found ways to entertain himself.

She'd given him complete access to her laptop. Lando had felt so guilty when he'd hijacked it, downloading programmes and logging into software to get into contact with his employees. But the fortification of his house was coming along nicely, all because she had given him her laptop.

Any day now the house would be ready, he knew. Lando wanted nothing more than to see her roaming the halls. He'd show her around, show her the office (once he'd made it his own), show her the library, the garden. He'd take her up to meet his mum, and his dad now, too.

The thought of her in his house, in his space, helping make it his own, it stirred something in him. Something that had him grabbing her waist before she could walk through the door and head out to work. "Lan!" She said in surprise as he nipped at her neck. "Calm down, birthday boy. I'll be back in a few hours."

He watched her go. But the moment the door shut, he sat on the sofa and opened the laptop.

Nobody had wished him a happy birthday, but Lando wasn't surprised. That wasn't how it worked in a family. It was business as usual, maybe a private celebration with the head of the family's partner.

This was already the best birthday Lando had ever had. He logged into the laptop, typed several different and intricate passwords into the software he had to get into.

Will and Max had left him messages, detailing what they had done to the house. You'll need to come by today and get yourself onto the system, Will had messaged.

A groan left Lando's lips. He threw his head back for just a moment, eyes shutting. Her rarely used car was parked just across the street, and Lando knew where she kept the keys. If he left how he could be back before returned from work.

Getting changed into his suit (the one she'd cleaned up for him), Lando grabbed her keys from the hook beside the door. He pocketed them and made his way out to her car.

Lando hadn't been back to the house in months. It didn't look any different from the day he'd left it.

By the gate waited Max Fewtrell. He looked at Lando with a frown before using the keypad to open the gate. As the gate opened, Max climbed into the car. "This isn't yours," he said.

"Nope," Lando replied and began driving up towards the house.

Still, Max looked at him,clearly waiting for something more. Something that Lando wouldn't give unprompted. "You haven't run off and become a car thief, have you?" Max challenged. "Because that would be really bad for business."

Lando couldn't help but laugh as he pulled up to the house. "Nope, this beauty belongs to the love of my life."

Beauty. Max snorted at that. The car was anything but beautiful. "If we get everything set up today, you gonna move her in?"

Truthfully, Lando didn't know. If he'd been any other rich guy living in this huge ass house, he would have done it in a heartbeat. But he wasn't just any other rich guy. His world was dangerous and he wanted her away from it. If he could have kept himself away, he would have.

Max led him to the security office. He sat Lando down in front of a bunch of monitors and began setting up the security system, coding it to his passwords and prints.

It was a long process, one I will not bore you with. Lando was nearly falling asleep by the time he was finally finished. He checked the watch on his wrist and couldn't wait to get back to her apartment, back to her. His baby.

But he wasn't quite ready yet. With Max trailing behind him, Lando walked to his bedroom.

How many mindless hookups had he had in this bed? "Get new sheets," he said and Max wrote it down. "And clear out half of my wardrobe."

Because Lando really couldn't stay away from her, could he? After spending the last few months living together, living in bliss, he couldn't imagine not waking up beside her every day.

So, Lando had his staff readying the house for her to move in. It was incredible to watch happen, all for his baby. And, as soon as that was done, he headed home, headed back to hers.

***

Things had felt normal, leaving the office. He stopped into the shops, got the birthday boy some birthday chocolates, and got some takeout for the both of them.

It was her usual route home and not too far at all. Although she lived in a sketchy area, she'd never felt unsafe on her walk home.

Until tonight.

Maybe it was paranoia. Ever since Lando had told her, she'd been a lot more wary. But she'd never felt this before, never this terrified.

She sped up her steps and quickly glanced back.

The person behind her with his hands shoved into their pockets sped up their steps, too. They crossed the street when she crossed the street and followed her around corners.

When she got to her street, she was running. She kept the takeout and the shopping held tight to her body as she legged it as fast as she could to her door.

The person behind her started running, too.

As soon as she got through the door of the apartment building, she pushed her way through and kicked it shut behind her, buying her just a few more seconds.

She managed to get her own door open before the person grabbed her. Throwing her body against the door she shut it, locked it and put the chain across.

Her chest was heaving as she dropped her bags and wandered into the kitchen. As she poured herself some water, Lando came running out of the bedroom. "Baby, what is it?" He called as he strode over.

She was shaking when Lando pulled her into his chest. "You're okay," he whispered and ran his hands through his hair. He ignored the smashed bottle of wine by the front door. "I've got you, baby."

She didn't tell him what happened that moment, couldn't bring herself to speak. Lando held her until she could and, when she did, he spent his night by the door, watching through the peephole with his gun pressed to the wood.

Tomorrow he'd get her out of here, get her somewhere safe.

a/n: i'm so sorry i haven't updated this one in over two weeks, my focus has been elsewhere lmao

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[whencyclopedia]

Utah Beach

Utah Beach was the westernmost of the five beaches attacked in the D-Day Normandy landings of 6 June 1944 and the one taken with the fewest casualties. Paratroopers were also dropped behind Utah, and despite being widely dispersed and suffering heavy casualties, they managed to secure this western flank of the invasion and liberate the first French town, Ste-Mère-Église.

Operation Overlord

The amphibious assault on the beaches of Normandy was the first stage of Operation Overlord, which sought to free Western Europe from occupation by Nazi Germany. The supreme commander of the Allied invasion force was General Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), who had been in charge of the Allied operations in the Mediterranean. The commander-in-chief of the Normandy land forces, 39 divisions in all, was the experienced General Bernard Montgomery (1887-1976). Commanding the air element was Air Chief Marshal Trafford Leigh Mallory (1892-1944), with the naval element commanded by Admiral Bertram Ramsay (1883-1945).

Nazi Germany had long prepared for an Allied invasion, but the German high command was unsure where exactly such an invasion would take place. Allied diversionary strategies added to the uncertainty, but the most likely places remained either the Pas de Calais, the closest point to British shores, or Normandy with its wide flat beaches. The Nazi leader Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) attempted to fortify the entire coast from Spain to the Netherlands with a series of bunkers, pillboxes, artillery batteries, and troops, but this Atlantic Wall, as he called it, was far from being complete in the summer of 1944. In addition, the wall was thin since there was no real depth to the defences.

Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt (1875-1953), commander-in-chief of the German army in the West, believed it would be impossible to stop an invasion on the coast and so it would be better to hold the bulk of the defensive forces as a mobile reserve to counterattack against enemy beachheads. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (1891-1944), commander of Army Group B, disagreed and considered it essential to halt any invasion on the beaches themselves. Further, Rommel believed that Allied air superiority meant that movements of reserves would be severely hampered. Hitler agreed with Rommel, and so the defenders were strung out wherever the fortifications were at their weakest. Rommel improved the static defences and added steel anti-tank structures to all the larger beaches. In the end, Rundstedt was given a mobile reserve, but the compromise weakened both plans of defence.

The German response would not be helped either by their confused command structure, which meant that Rundstedt could not call on any armour (but Rommel, who reported directly to Hitler, could), and neither commander had any control over the paltry naval and air forces available or the separately controlled coastal batteries. Nevertheless, the defences were bulked up around the weaker defences of Normandy to an impressive 31 infantry divisions plus 10 armoured divisions and 7 reserve infantry divisions. The German army had another 13 divisions in other areas of France. A standard German division had a full strength of 15,000 men.

Continue reading...

[thatswhywelovegermany]

August 20, 1989: 35 years ago, hundreds, maybe more than a tousand citizens of the GDR went from Hungary to Austria after the Hungarian government had torn down the border fortifications and stopped the border patrols near the city of Sopron. The day before, Otto von Habsburg had organized a "pan-european picnic", inviting Austrians and Hungarians from both sides of the formerly insurmountable border.

This was one of the key events that led to the collapse of the dictatorial government of the GDR and eventually to the German reunifucation in a unified Europe.

Watch the entire series of West German TV news reports to see how things unfolded from the occupation of embassies by GDR citizens to the fall of the wall in merely five months.

[djarins-cyare]

✭ Series Masterlist ✭

Languishing in a dull and lonely existence on the forest moon of Endor after travelling there to help salvage Death Star wreckage, a nearly fatal encounter with a mysterious bounty hunter out in the forest heralds an opportunity to utilise long-forgotten skills and develop something more profound than you ever thought possible.

Second person POV, present tense. Set post-season 2, diverges from Canon events before TBoBF and season 3. This is a novel-length, exceptionally slow burn with an original plot, worldbuilding, and fully-developed characterisation. SWU concepts and lore are accurately researched.

WORDS: 406,690

PAIRING: Din Djarin x Female Reader/You

RATING: Explicit (18+)

CHARACTERS: Din Djarin, Reader/You/Female OC, Original Non-Human Character(s), Original Human Characters, Greef Karga, Cara Dune, Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker, Grogu, Peli Motto

TAGS: Slow Burn, Slow Build, Romance, Love, Sexual Tension, Eventual Smut, Smut, Sex, Sexual Content, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Relationships, Healthy Relationships, Canon-Typical Violence, Blood and Injury, Dark Past, Additional Warnings In Author's Notes, Bounty Hunter Din Djarin, Soft Din Djarin, Touch-Starved Din Djarin, Din Djarin Needs a Hug, Smart Din Djarin, Soft Dominant Din Djarin, Ewok Species, Mandalorian Culture, Mando'a Language, New Razor Crest, Thoroughly Researched, Worldbuilding, No use of y/n.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This took me almost a year to write and four months to edit/proof. Each chapter is prefaced with specific tags and (where necessary) warnings, plus word counts. End notes contain translations and comments… this baby is thoroughly researched, so I’m sharing context where appropriate. I’ve also added definitions of in-universe terms so people less familiar with the franchise won’t be left wondering what the hell certain words or references mean. This is a slow burn (adult themes), and although the explicit content only occurs in the latter half, when it does, it warrants the ‘E’ rating. Basically, the first half is a love story, and the second half gets spicy. I hope you enjoy it!

READ THE COMPLETE STORY ON AO3:

(Chapters containing explicit content marked †)

Chapter 1: The Obstacle

Chapter 2: The Interrogation

Chapter 3: The Covenant

Chapter 4: The Snare

Chapter 5: The Strike

Chapter 6: The Groundwork

Chapter 7: The Genesis

Chapter 8: The Progression

Chapter 9: The Hide

Chapter 10: The Beast

Chapter 11: The Adjustment

Chapter 12: The Storm

Chapter 13: The Broadside

Chapter 14: The Intercourse

Chapter 15: The Village

Chapter 16: The Confession

Chapter 17: The Reprieve

Chapter 18: The Fortification

Chapter 19: The Ambush

Chapter 20: The Meridian

Chapter 21: The Homestretch

Chapter 22: The Union †

Chapter 23: The Overture

Chapter 24: The Crescendo

Chapter 25: The Harmony †

Chapter 26: The Cadence †

Chapter 27: The Ride †

Chapter 28: The Veneration †

Chapter 29: The Spree †

Chapter 30: The Tribute †

Chapter 31: The Courage

Chapter 32: The Feast

Chapter 33: The Exhibition †

Chapter 34: The Reward

Chapter 35: The Binding †

Chapter 36: The Synergy †

Chapter 37: The Match †

Chapter 38: The Flag †

Chapter 39: The Foundling †

Chapter 40: The Future †

✨Additional Media✨

@burntheedges has written a spectacular little drabble detailing what Din was up to during the paragraph break near the end of chapter 1 (*SPOILERS* you don’t find this out until chapter 27).

@roughdaysandart has sketched a fantastic study of chapter 33 and it’s absolutely perfect (*SPOILERS* cliffhanger ending for the chapter).

@djarin-desires has created some awesome AI images of a few scenes using Midjourney.

I spent a stupid amount of money on the Hot Toys official Din Djarin action figure, simply so I could photograph him in poses from my fic 🤷🏼‍♀️ This is just a taster of what’s to come, but here he is offering to help Reader climb onto the speeder in chapter 8.

🧡💚 Thank you for reading! 💚🧡

➤ MAIN MASTERLIST

Dividers by @samspenandsword

[scotianostra]

January 24th, 76AD, is said to be the likely date of birth forPublius Aelius Hadrianus, who built Hadrian’s Wall.

When the Romans invaded the British Isles they held, large parts of what is now Scotland, even after the construction of Hadrian’s Wall in AD 122, there were large forts around the country at varioustimes, the largest of which was Trimontium located at Newstead, near Melrose, in the Scottish Borders. It was occupied intermittently from about 79 to 184 AD and was the largest of the "outpost" forts after the construction of Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian’s Wall was largely abandoned for about twenty years from .AD 138, when the Romans established a new frontier in Scotland between what are now the Firths of Forth and Clyde, where they built the Antonine Wall.

The Antonine Wall was more of a very large ditch, and my old flat would have been part of the structure, part of the "wall" is on land only yards from me. I got into trouble for calling it a ditch from a Roman historian before, so will add that it was much more, the thing is it more or less looks like one just now, much of the fortifications are long gone.

Hadrian is noted for his interest in architecture and the number of provinces he visited whilst Emperor. He is likely to have visited Britain in AD 122, after some kind of conflict in the preceding years, and we know that it was in this period that construction of the Wall started. It has also been known as Picts' Wall, or Vallum Hadriani in Latin.

The origin of the Picts is clouded by the many fables and legends about them. There are numerous theories as to who the Picts were and where they came from. Experts even disagree over what they ate and drank and what language they spoke although some point to the existence of a distinct Pictish language, which today is believed to have been an Insular Celtic language, closely related to the Brittonic spoken by the Britons who lived to the south.

Often described as savages the Picts were an ancient and artistic people who defied the might of Rome which conquered the rest of Britain. They were a sophisticated , hardworking, clever people, skilled in farming and fishing.

You would have thought a savage tribe would have been an easy conquest for the Romans, but the Picts were anything but that. Picts are first recorded in history in the third century AD. Eumenius, a Roman writer, describes the "pictus" as fierce and skilled in battle. It is not clear whether "pictus" (the Latin for painted) was intended, or if this is a Latin form of some indigenous name. I prefer to think of them as the "Painted People"

Although the Romans reached Scotland and often defeated them in battle, they never conquered the Picts or Pictland. The Roman Empire's expeditions north resulted in few permanent gains.

Scotland's sculptured stones, created by the Picts of ancient Alba tell the stories of a race of people who defied Rome and survived the invading Vikings, thus preserving a separate culture and race in Scotland. It is in these sometimes mighty, sometimes delicate stones that the history of ancient Scotland is now recorded.

There are many of these slabs on display in The National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, as well as a fine display in The Hunterian in Glasgow.

When the Romans left the Picts were often attacked by the Britons and eventually all the Pictish tribes agreed to support one High King who would rule all of Pictland.

It's said the Picts, unusually, were a matrilineal society, i.e. bloodlines passed through the mother. Pictish kings were not succeeded by their sons, but by brothers, nephews or cousins as traced by the female line in a complicated series of intermarriages between 7 royal houses. It is this rare form of succession which in 845 AD gave the crown of Alba and the title Rex Pictorum - King of the Picts - to the son of a Pictish princess by the name of Kenneth, Son of Alpin, he is generally accepted by most historians as the first of the kings of Scotland, follwing on from his reign as King of Dál Riata. As usual though, not al agree on this.

The Picts survived as a distinct people until early in the 10th century. However, there is no record of them dying out or moving elsewhere. It is most likely that the Picts simply integrated into the large population within the developing multi-ethnic nation of Scotti, Picts, Celts, Britons and Angles which we now call Scotland. The map, from wiki says this was how their lands looked as late as the 7th century. The last pics are of two Pictish people and a 15th century depiction of King Kenneth.

[carionto]

The Human Battle Moon is... preposterous

After the United Federation unveiled their Battle Moon - a monumental series of fortifications, combat bases, planetary shields, massive fighter bays and factories, and more weapons platforms than you could count aimed at every direction, the Humans became disturbingly excited.

After only a few short months, Humanity unveiled their counterpart, and, well... There's no good way to say it, so we'll just say it:

It's three moons stacked in a row with a giant rail gun going through all of them.

They call it the Death Kebab.

____________________________

(I was gonna write something more but sometimes you need to know when not to, so I'll leave this post at that)

[julianrahmat]

If you like what I do, please consider supporting me on Patreon

" The monks at the ancient Snowpoint Temple arrived with a strange report: The "statue" on the temple grounds turns out to be a long dormant pokemon! The League has deployed artillery and built fortifications on site, and we need Hunters on standby when it finally awakens." - Snowpoint dispatch

Regigigas, the Collosal Pokemon is the final in a series commissioned by Patreon supporter Cholulorax. It is the leader and creator of the Legendary Titans.

Pokemon

Regigigas can be considered as a "final boss" monster, as the battle with it takes place at the fortified Snowpoint Temple grounds. Not much is known about Regigigas, but it appears that it predates the building of the Snowpoint Temple, as it was thought to be a statue of a long forgotten deity, but recent cracks in the rock revealed it to be a long dormant Pokemon. 

When Regigigas finally wakes, it lumbers slowly, its attacks weak and slow. But as the battle drags on, it becomes quicker, tougher and more powerful. Hunters must slay it before its strength returned fully, as it is bound to devastate its surroundings

Researchers theorize Regigigas may be the progenitor of all of the other titans, as many similarities can be found with the titans.

Armor

Regigas boosts the hunter's strength the longer they are in combat.

Weapons

Regidrago weapons have high Normal (Raw) attack, but average sharpness and negative affinity, but can be offset by exploiting Regigigas's armor

Outro

We will return to the regular releases, starting with Rayquaza. I apologize for delaying it for more than a year, as doing this as commission really helped me out financially and I was strapped for cash since moving to my new home. Thank you for staying and supporting this project. 

But going forward I will be doing only one set of weapons and armor for each Pokemon form, as it allows me to not hold back and ration my ideas. So a normal pokemon will get 1 pair armor (Male and female) and 2 weapons, instead of 2 pairs of armor and 4 weapons. But pokemon with multiple powerup forms and regional variants will get 1 set each.

[todaysdocument]

Map of Detroit River and Adjacent Country, August 26, 1813. 

Record Group 64: Records of the National Archives and Records Administration

Series: Reference Maps and Drawings

File Unit: Michigan

Image description: Zoomed-in portion of a map of the Detroit River, showing the tiny grid of streets that indicate the town of Detroit, and the fort just to its west. Across the river on the Canadian side of the river are British Batteries, and the American Redoubt and fortified Camp, evacuated. 

Image description: Map of the Detroit River from Lake Erie to Lake St. Clair. The Canadian townships and the Michigan Territory side of the river are bordered in different colors. Military fortifications and rivers are labeled, as is a tiny section of streets labeled “Detroit.” What we now know as Belle Isle is labeled “Hog I.” 

[wmarximoff]

𝐝é𝐣à 𝐯𝐮 | 𝐰. 𝐦𝐚𝐱𝐢𝐦𝐨𝐟𝐟

summary: as you slowly reconnect with Wanda, you feel a familiar feeling of déjà vu.

warnings: making out, smut, strap-on sex (Wanda receiving) mentions of smoking, mentions of drinking, canon typical violence, angst.

pairing: Wanda x fem!reader

word count: 10k

main masterlist| series masterlist|

༺ᱬ༻

A carton of almond milk, a jar of peanut butter, a dozen eggs, a stick of butter, a can of peas, a bag of soft multigrain bread and a sizable bottle of wine are the components of the plastic basket that Wanda carries slung over her right arm. She doesn't know that she forgot to get a can of corn too. But the basket is kind of weighty and she might as well use her magic to levitate the items around her own silhouette, but she prefers that way, holding them down herself with her own arm strength.

Sometimes it's good to keep the sense of normality active. Even if normality just means carrying a basket full of groceries around the supermarket. She then looks at the face of the brown watch buttoned at the base of her left wrist and checks the time, blinking her greenish eyes after squeezing a long, full yawn in the back of her throat.

A gray-haired old lady (Mrs. Sharon Davis, an elderly widow, all wrapped in her pale blue cardigan) in front of her appears to be in a conflict with herself to find some of the change interred in the lowest of her silver wallet. And Wanda scrutinizes the establishment around herself, between the shelves stocked with groceries and the glossy linoleum floor; the weary gaze wavering absorbedly over her own white-fabric sneakers and contingently fixing on a dark, even smear on the floor between them.

 Old Mrs. Davis still hasn't spotted her desired coins, and she's been digging into her wallet for the silver pennies for a good few minutes now. Wanda listens over her shoulder as someone pulls into a shopping cart right behind herself and lets out an audible groan, evidentially annoyed at the delay of the old lady with her change, but Wanda doesn't see the point in bothering to torment herself.

It's not yet six o'clock and she'll be peaceably walking home, for Westview is a small, undisturbed, reticent suburban town where everything is so close and easy to find. And she knows that, with her house being just a few blocks away from the locality of the modest market, she won't be long in coming to prepare dinner for her and her boys (whom she has left securely at the house, both doing their math homework). She smiles tenderly to herself when she thinks about Billy and Tommy.

After all, she knows she's never loved anyone as passionately as she loves those two little boys (the grace of her life, the reason for her morning smile and for the blaze of keenness pulsing within the fond fortifications of her warmish heart). For her they are everything, and that is why she would do anything for them – they are the epithet of the purest form of love that Y/N had ever gifted her with; the culmination of their love converted into two vulnerable little creatures that are made up of the best of the two of them.

She just knows, like a good mother who understands both her children so well, that at that moment, the twin boys are probably watching some silly cartoon on the television set beside the broad fireplace found in the corner of the commodious living room. And she is placid in a supermarket line, getting a whiff of the eccentric consequence of the odd combination of the full-bodied aromas of cleaning product and some sturdy feminine perfume – an even slightly nauseating aroma, kind of overpowering and suffocating. In some aisle away from her, a child is heatedly asking his mother to buy him some treats.

Wanda then ponders about making something a little special for dinner, and recalls about the delicious kugel recipethat her mother used to prepare in the length of her childhood days, back in devastated Sokovia, so many years in the remote past that encompasses the beginning of the disasters that marked her life.

The memory that gushes over her is sentimental and bittersweetly recurring to her core; she deliberates about the sporadic months of starveling and a small humble family of four, when her father was lucky with his sales and there was a sufficient amount of money left to buy the soldiers' leftover ingredients.

But then, she retrieves back to the years of her late youth, all lived in the restful caresses of the compound in upper Manhattan. She was still understanding about how to breathe without having Pietro to hold her hand. She was learning to live on her own. She was coming to terms with the truth that living didn't inevitably have to be a bad experience at all; not when Y/n showed her that there could still be delight in the little things in life.

And it was Y/n who used to marvelously praise the dish when Wanda found comfort in the act of cooking, and she always repeat a few slices every time Wanda cooked it so long ago, when they were just two teenage lovers (and eventually also young wives, both living in a small bubble of love and companionship on the edge of a comfortable wooden cottage surrounded by dozen of yards of apple orchards).

There was the sweet virtuousness of the warmth of two young girls' lives at that time. It was the first time that Wanda was really fond of being young (of breathing and having a beating heart, of having a life to live valuing every little detail of it).

She memorizes the exultant smile of her ex-wife, looking so light and beautiful even while talking with her mouth full (a half-crocken smirk drawn to her left-side, like the smirk also articulated in the innocuous characteristics of her little Tommy after he was born, which reminds her so much of the radiance that used to gleam in the sweet features of her former companion). Her ex-wife wasn't always a lonesome and distant creature creeping in the corners of her mind, and it genuinely aches inside her chest to remember that.

Y/n always devoured lavishly every traditional Sokovian dish she has ever prepared and promptly asked for more – and then thanked her with a chaste kiss placed on the pulp of her lips, which promptly evolved into the building of an intimate, sweaty moment with two bodies rubbing greedily against each other. But she soon lets out a crestfallen, rather disillusioned sigh, repressing herself for having gone back to those secluded memories amorously stored in the edge of her brain in the first place (of the concept of two adolescent girlfriends absorbed in love in the purest sense of the word, emulating the seriousness of a relationship with adult bearing, but never losing, at its core, the youthful sweetness worthy of teenage lovers). Two girls playing love in a world that was a little too hard on them.

She glares ruefully at the bulbous base of the red wine bottle and then lets out a sorrowful exhalation. Her relationship with Y/n felt like it was straight out of the old sitcoms that she always appreciated so much, where no problem was a genuine obstacle and that, by the end of the day, the two lovers would be in each other's affectionately secure arms again (and that perhaps she let have an effect on her a little too much, when dealing about decisions made early on in her adult life).

But then she reminisces that she was merely turning eighteen years old when she became a wanted on an international scale, and that, prior to that, she had also grown up in a war-torn country. She never knew how to behave like a normal person per se – whether that was before or after she became able to expel bolts of magical energy from her fingertips. She never quite knew how to fit into the role of a child or a young adult in the first place. Not by herself.

There was no time in Wanda’s life to understand precisely how to fit these labels (she was protesting with so much loathe constricted within her heart, volunteering to save her homeland, being made of little more than a lab rat by the clutches of a bunch of mad men, being used by the being that promised her greatness, but only ended up costing her the life of her darling brother).

In the cramped confines of a bleak, sullied cell, with only a modest television in the corner to entertain her mind away from the needles and the brutality, there were not many allusions of love and passions that elapsed through her life outside a square screen.

Wanda was aware that she just mimicked other people's movements and transcribed them into her own actions, as if it was all just a show and she was its young star, trying to intomb in her core the path of catastrophe and violence that had always shadowed her closely; it was only the years of strict therapy, self-knowledge and self-care, right after being blipped and coming back, that edified her to be her own person in a truly healthy way. There would be no more extremes in her life.

Her cohabitation with Y/n at the time facilitated, of course – even though her wife had changed a lot in the time that followed since the blip, at first, things had worked out well between them. Or as well as possible under the anomalous circumstances. The two of them took care of the (still) newborn twins and of each other, always with great tenderness and affection while they did it. At least that's how it worked for the first year after their reunion – until Y/N got into alcohol's graces for good, that is.

Their relationship had always felt rather light and jovial before Thanos snapped his fingers. And after that she might even have come back, but it was indeed her marriage that had turned to dust in that remote dreary day in Wakanda. In all honestly, she's not quite sure what's changed in that meantime that she's been away (dead, she was dead). And it's uneasy to ponder about it, but sometimes she does – she can’t help it.

Her corporeal existence had disintegrated into a sift of life, crumbling into her own ashes. There was color, and then the dreadfully wide expanse of emptiness (death); she, as a self-aware being, ceased to exist with just a thought and a snap of two fingers.

Her consciousness faded before she could even realize she was doing it – the palms of both her hands constrained firmly against the wound in YN's stomach that was leaking bundles of fresh blood. And Wanda never relatively questioned her existence before that (she only questioned why she ceased to exist in the first place). Returning to dust, as people of faith would say. Five long years that slipped through her fingers and dripped onto the floor in the form of a veil of dust.

It still feels odd in her guts, even ten years later, to remember that there's a void somewhere in her life that would be filled with the time that was thieved from her by the Infinity Gauntlet. A void that had once been filled by the subtle presence of Y/n's love.

Once, when the twins were about a year old after the blip, Y/N drunkenly knelt down with her face defectively reclining on Wanda’s thighs and questioned her as to why Wanda and the babies where the ones erased from existence while she stayed behind, abandoned like an old piece of furniture that no one wants to use anymore. Wanda never knew how to answer it, but they got divorced about a month later or so.

But she imagines that it, the crumbliness of their relationship, has something to do with the fact that they were both a little precocious in getting married before their twenties properly speaking; maybe if they were older and more experienced before doing it, she thinks, standing in line at the supermarket, maybe then they wouldn't have had the sorrowful culmination that they did (the crying faces and the broken hearts).

Maybe they could have risen together, and not just drifted further and further away as the days passed. Maybe Y/n didn't feel guilt-ridden every time the twins cried in need to be held or fed. Maybe Wanda wouldn't have queried her for the love she no longer knew how to give – she is fully aware of the fact that she has always had a somewhat pushy nature, after all. Maybe this, maybe that.

She doesn't know why she's been thinking about maybe so much these past few days. But it's not her fault that her ex-wife happens to be so pleasing to the eye. The person behind her in line grumbles again, and there is a mischievous chuckle that reaches her ears with airs of grace. Wanda is sincerely considering summoning some coins with her magic for Mrs. Davis.

“Oh my God, this wine is divine!”

It is Sarah Proctor who addresses Wanda, the key to undeniably everything in this town. Wanda knows it's the other woman because a sudden pulsing urge to fade away takes over her nervous system as soon as the voice echoes behind herself.

She is the high-nose blonde woman who lives up the street, is a devoted member of the Westview Elementary School parent-teacher association (in the year before Wanda had witnessed her make a young teacher leave the room in tears after a meeting), proudly cultivates the most exquisite yellow roses in the neighborhood and wears a pair of classy yoga pants that would fit a young teenager with half of her age. A self-proclaimed wine mom.

Her daughter is a classmate of Billy and Tommy, and the children often attend both the Proctor and Maximoff residences – which occasioned in Sarah a vague idea of intimacy that only endures in the head of the blonde woman with bobbed hair.

She has already invited Wanda several times to Westview Pool Club girls' gatherings, but Wanda politely declined with an odd smile and a trivial wave of her hand, because she's never been the socially outgoing kind of type—and she's always been under the impression that every attempt Sarah made from approaching her were due to the fact that the other woman knew of her past as an Avenger (as did most of the small-town citizens), and so was trying to turn her into a kind of living-tourist-spot for the eyes of the rest of the world to witness.

Rumors had it that Sarah would run for mayor in the upcoming election, and having a former Avenger as the face of her campaign certainly sells well with the predilections of the American public. Little does she know that Wanda won't vote for her.

“Oh yes, it's one of my favorites,” Wanda retorts, talking about the dark tall bottle of red wine prudently deposited inside her plastic basket, “It's been a while since I've had a drink, so I decided to buy a bottle to open this weekend.”

“Some special occasion, I suppose?” Sarah articulates a suggestive grin, but Wanda just frowns uncertainly, half squinting at her neighbor, “Maybe some... special visitor? I always knew you had it in you, Wanda. You know what they say about the quiet ones...”

“What– no, no. No,” she flashes a half embarrassed, half awkward smile, chuckling nervously while doing so, “Y/n is staying with the boys for the weekend, so it's just a special little thing for me. All by myself. A quarantine-style staycation. A whole weekend... just to myself.”

“Y/n, huh?” Sarah raises a well-crafted eyebrow in a pique of curiosity, “Your ex-wife, right? I remember seeing her at the twins' birthday party. I mean, she's pretty, yes, but she's quite the quiet type, huh... just minding her own business with a cup of soda.”

“Yeah, she was never one to talk much in public, even when we were with our teammates… but neither am I, honestly.”

“A pair made in heaven, indeed,” Sarah then flashes a smile, but the taste that slides across Wanda's tongue is bitter and kind of hard to swallow. Wanda shifts her body weight uncomfortably from one leg to the other.

“But wait, she's also an Avenger, isn’t she? Yeah, she's the one in the black and white outfit! Oh my God! Who wore a jacket over it and had that kinda mean attitude, all punk rock and stuff?”

“Herself,” Wanda agrees, pressing her lips together in a long, clumsy line. She just wants to go home and cook her damn kugel.

“My my, how did I not notice this before? I remember seeing her in the news once, when I was in college. I also had quite a taste for delinquents back then, if you know what I mean. And, well... I explored a lot in college.”

Wanda feels a hot twinge high in her face and she bites the inside of her cheek in a rather timid act (but there's no denying that Y/n's somewhat rebellious attitude has always had a lewd effect on her legs as a young teenager with a schoolgirl’s heart).

“She and Black Widow, I think, saved the life of the mayor in that bombing on the Fourth of July in... ‘15, ‘16, maybe? Yeah, I remember that! She's the one who's super strong, isn't she? Who held up a scaffold once and saved those kids!”

“That's her, yes.”

The brunette muss in a limp voice, which seems to draw a slightly indecent laugh from the blonde woman with her shopping cart full of knick-knacks and silver hoops clicking in her earlobes. It is from her that the aroma of sturdy perfume comes.

“Well, I imagine that super strength of hers comes in handy in some… situations.”

“Situ–” but then she blinks just one time, “Oh,” Mmrtification hangs over Wanda like a bucket of paint spilled over her dark-haired head.

She opens and closes her mouth like a golden fish, frowning, and her cheeks don't take long to reach strong shades of scarlet, glowing red like one of the tomatoes inside Sarah's cart.

It's inappropriate, and she knows it, but she can't help but feel a certain tingle in her breasts as lapses of memory enlighten her thoughts with the ghost of touches coursing along her body. Then she thinks of Y/N's warm, measured breath against her earlobe (of strong hands pinning her wrists above her head, of a tense, impassive hip against her own hip, of the cracked headboard and the broken bedframe). A movement and a moan. An electrical discharge in her bowels. And then, fuck... just Y/n tearing her insides apart.

The other woman smiles viciously, and Wanda suddenly wishes she hadn't put on a sweater before leaving the house, because she can actually feel herself starting to perspire at the expectant look her neighbor bestows on her.

She's never been one to deal with such intimacies with anyone other than her ex-wife (merely some casual, unsuccessful and sporadic blind dates that's never been more than a few kisses and a few touches here and there, by no means ending up in her or anyone else's bed). But she permits herself only to flash a wan grin towards the other woman when she realizes that, in front of her, the old lady has lastly found her damn change. Fucking finally.

And then, with the memory still boiling hungrily in her innards, like a hungry beast devouring her from the inside out, she takes a large step in the other direction, trying to walk away from Sarah as humanly possible, as if the other woman carries with her a toxic cloud that sickens everything that comes in contact with her. If Wanda couldn't probably get a nice lawsuit for that (or worst), she'd turn Sarah into a disgusting slimy frog.

“Well, I, I, I need to go, Sarah, but it was really nice meeting you around here. Bye,” the enchantress raises her wrist, bidding the blonde woman goodbye with a wave of her hand and a small, introverted (half-awkward) grin.

There is barely time for an answer to be formulated on the part of the housewife. Wanda's cheeks are still red hot as she (virtually) dashes through the small supermarket's automatic double doors like a fugitive on the run. Mrs. Davis drops a coin on the floor on her way out.

ᗢ

You don't know exactly how long you've been raising and lowering the joint of your bent elbow above your head. It doesn't feel right to do it, just as it doesn't do it if it feels wrong. It's just necessary – it’s like cracking some eggs if you're in the mood for an omelet for breakfast. You just have the fullest conception that a few good minutes have passed since the beginning of all the activity, and as in the rehearsal of a play, you are repeating the gestures until you overcome them with great proficiency and your culmination comes out perfect, from your liking.

And you don't bother to intend to stop doing it anytime soon – such a guttural, animalistic and barbaric action. At this point, the movement is already instinctive after being recorded in at the core of your memory, an automatic message engraved between the ligaments of your neurons. You've done it innumerable times before, and you know you'll do it a few more times after this one.

You lift your right arm, lowers your implacable fist constricted like a steel ball, the resonance of smashed cartilage and wrecked bones echoing in your eardrums, all instructed by the figure of a bloodthirsty invisible conductor within the ramparts of your own cranium. The face of the bewildered guy lying beneath you looks like a loaf of raw, misshapen meat as you repeat a cadence of sequentially delivered punches against his facial bones. And he, who is at least twice as big as you, lets out a piercing howl of pain from the cavernous depths of his throat, as even a wild bear would do if attacked deep in a forest.

But in that alley on Long Island there is not a soul available to help him to get rid of your uncomplacent fists – not at the end of a passage that is unpopulated, far from prying eyes that could creep in your direction during the action which takes place there, a beacon of environment squeezed between two amorphous walls of scorched bricks, which gives the illusion of a single long, damp, narrow street. 

A sphere of blood is clotted on your face, like an eccentric gemstone, a dark red pearl splattered under the arch of your left eyebrow. And you pant heavily, your veins stiffening.

You've never been one to refuse punching a motherfucker in the face – your forte has always been pounding up things, whether on the countless missions conveyed alongside your teammates or at work during your teenage years, taking advantage of your inhuman gifts to have something to eat at the end of the week.

You've never had a dilemma in whacking someone’s ass. Even more so when that said someone had committed a hate crime against a racial minority and got away with the trial, because that's the way it is in New York City. The recurring metallic scent of fresh blood squirts in a jet of reddish color, thick and gleaming across your rigid, compact knuckles. The gruesome fragrance is no stranger to your sense of smell, and you're not quite sure whether you want it to be or not.

But it is what you are; as an inherent component of your biological chemistry (like the serum gushing through Steve's veins, altering him from inside out, or the magic pulsing within Wanda's core, changing the structure of her brainwaves), you know that hostility is a primeval part of your nature longer than the placid ends of an ordinary, quiet life.

The peaceable domestic life lived alongside Wanda is long gone, and desolation and wrath are your only roommates within the walls of your morbidly valueless apartment. You've been living like a cornered animal for fifteen years in programmed mode, always exposing your fangs and your claws at any sign of danger, just self-destructing, dying little by little, not craving to exist for one more day after laying your head on the blandishments of your pillow and staring blankly at the ceiling, whirling through your usual drunken state. Just desiring to somehow wreck your imperishable body that can't be cut or torn by human hands or tools.

People much well-intentioned than you are long gone, and you, by some implausible probabilities, were (cursed) fortunate to have endured thorough all the catastrophes that life directed at you. The car accident as a child. The blip as a mother and as a wife, as a friend.

The damn journey by the mountain of Vormir, in which three of you went in the grip of that appallingly isolated planet, and only two came back with a chest full of oxygen and life pumping through your nervures. The avid combat for proprietorship of all the six Infinity Stones, and the provenance of the final snap that brought back peace to the equilibrium of the universe by eliminating the existence of its greatest known threat at the time.

You just seem to live confined in this unbearable cycle of misfortune, and it's not fair to others that you are the person left to tell the story of those who are gone. If only you could, you would swap places with the true heroes who gave their lives for the greater good. You would even be honored to do so yourself.

Your chest heaves and deflates severely within the molds of your leather jacket fitted around your shoulders over a short-sleeved plain shirt, your veins bulging with rushing blood, and you rise to your feet, setting up your knees, and step back to inspect the big man who lies defeated to the floor of the alley, amidst a pool of his own blood and filth typical of places like this — your jacket sleeve shimmering with bundles of fresh blood, a coat of gleaming sweat limping glistening on the beam of skin on your forehead, near your hairline.

He is still alive, groaning in a vital position, and is severely battered. And it was never your intention to kill anyone. He probably learned his lesson. Maybe you should break his legs, just in case. A tremor rolls under your black sneaker feet as a loud motorcycle passes by in the distance. Sirens also pass presently afterwards, coming and going with their blue and red outcome.

But there, squeezed inside the claustrophobic walls of the dim alley, you are far from any possible intervention. You then register a single shake that travels along the outline of your left leg as your cellphone pulses inside the back pocket of your old jeans, shivering against your hip bone.

 You take an elongated gulp of air before diving into your flickering pocket and hooking the device through your fuming, blooded finger length. You know your pupils are dilated and dark. Your gaze is empty and brittle as you scrutinize between the digitally formed words before your motionless eyes. Frequent bursts of oxygen are a method of neutralizing the pulses of adrenaline throbbing in the artery inside your neck. But the taste that slips between your teeth is acid and sour, and you lock your jawbone at the information that is cognitive to you.

Hey, Y/n. Are you really going to come get the boys tonight? I saw somewhere that it will rain later, so I wanted to check with you just to make sure.

(seen)

It’s Wanda.

(seen)

By the way.

(seen)

Yes, you know it's Wanda (your sweet Wanda, the trace of humanity lingering inside your icy chest), that she texted you. And it doesn't astonish you at all (not anymore), because not many people contact you lately during the sunny period of the day. You two have been keeping in touch the last few days, after all, you told her that you wanted to be more present in the twins' lives. And it's not an untruth at all, but your sly creaking anxiety makes you feel like it's a kind of uncertainty inside your throbbing stomach walls.

Maybe it's not the right decision, the voice inside your head spoke. Maybe at this point in life they don't need you anymore. Maybe this is a breakthrough, or even the commencement of a calamity worthy of a Greek novel, you're not quite sure yet. You turn on your heels and spin your back on the battered man, so you can send your reply to your ex-wife's number without looking at the ferocious outcome of your latent tantrum.

yup, your avid thumbs type along the digital keyboard provided on the screen of the small electronic device, i’ll be there in 1 hour or so. hope they like cheeseburgers.

And then you slide your upper teeth along the flesh of your lower lip, somewhat unsure of how to proceed.

try to enjoy your staycation btw. you deserve it

(seen)

:)

(seen)

You don't know why you sent her that stupid emoji. It's not like you're a teenager reproducing a failed flirtation attempt with the girl you have a crush on anymore.

But a lapse of realism is present as your vision aims on the blood folds on your stinging fingers folded around the cellphone, and you feel a heavy ball of constricted lamentation taking shape in the back of your throat when your sorrowful eyes scrutinize thorough the lines of your hands and find there only odious signs of a cavernous viciousness (a raw, physical cruelty also reflected within the mirror of your shattered soul).

In the background, the man is still groaning in pain. And you're not sorry you broke him in a beating. No, no. You're just sorry for yourself, because you didn't bat an eye when you did it. Vaguely the memory of Wanda placing chaste kisses along your hands invades you, and you realize you wouldn't want her to kiss your unseemly fingers right now (because you find her too pure to dwell on the filthiness of your touch).

The skin on your hands abruptly itches and feels dull, and you don't feel like having those plagued fingers around your children’s immaculate faces anymore.

ᗢ

The twilight of dusk breaks with the trepidation of an ingrained thunder, which rumbles all in a glow of white light that splits along the longitudinal path that comprised the pleasant suburb that is Westview. So, this is an opaque afternoon resulting from the middle of the rainy day, gray and hazy in its chilly essence, with tenuous threads of a torrential drizzle protecting the foundations of the two-story house on the slopes of the street, making the dewy ivy rustle on its ground, dripping slowly from the eaves of the ceramic tiles.

Standing on the porch of Wanda's house, you ponder that you should have listened to the weather forecast when it was said that during the afternoon there would be a period of rain. Your dark hoodie is really soaked through and your hair, pulled back in a high half ponytail, is damp against the skin of your own forehead. You feel kind of stupid.

Compact, opulent, slate-colored clouds were uneven against the emerald green of the panorama of howling houses, hills and trees, like the leaning of thick smoke from a desolate fire. A fierce storm, nevertheless, is not anomalous in the face of the oscillating spring climate of the state of New Jersey, which is not a real stranger to the rainy weather of the season. Thus, the nonstop drizzle is not the atypical episode of the day altogether.

The conquering event of such a rank happens when Wanda opens the door and finds you there, standing with your elbows dripping cold droplets water in the light wood entrance, and then pulls you into the cozy embrace of the pleasant climate established within that domestic environment of her own home.

“For God’s sake, Y/n, you're soaking wet!”

She reiterates, surveying you with an apprehensive gaze that runs the length of your head to toe, her slender ringless fingers still pressed worriedly around the outline of your right forearm tucked beneath the humid fabric of your damp blouse – but Wanda doesn't seem to realize as she's still carries with the action, and you kind of don't want her to let go of you anytime soon, so you say nothing about the warm touch tingling on your cold skin.

“Yeah, the rain started when I was halfway there and there was no way for me to avoid it, so I just went with it,” you mutter, with a certain lack of interest smoldering in your quiet voice “Sometimes I wish I still had a car...”

“But you didn't bring an umbrella?” Her gaze is accusatory in your direction, the tone of voice sounding dangerously concerned inside your ears, “Wait, you walk all the way over here?! I could have gone to get you!”

“Well,” you kind of sigh, shrugging your shoulders within your hoodie, without looking her straight in the eye “You see, I, hah… I didn’t think it was actually going to… you know… to rain. And technically I have some level of super speed in me, so...”

And then you look at her, and the exact facial expression you'd expect to find there makes its way until it slides all over her face. She’s pissed off.

“But I told you it was going to rain!” she then frowns at you, looking a little exasperated while doing it, her beautiful features drenched in an irritated tone of incredulity, “Seriously Y/n, you need to listen to what I say more! What if you get sick?”

You flick an eyelid at the grumpy figure of a very upset Wanda standing right in front of you, exhaling aromas of tea and crimson color. It's funny how the pique of nostalgia slips through your bones – there is an air of familiarity when a subtle sense of déjà vu settles into your cognitive system, like the feeling of coming home after a long trip. You feel at home. You feel belonging.

This image is very cherished to your spirit, and you can't help but to articulate a small grin that feels light in your heart in front of your ex-wife, who then aims towards your gaze with a gleam that is an assortment of misunderstanding and irritability flickering in the greenish irises, the color that look like two emerald stones embedded within her eyeballs, curving a single one of her sharp dark eyebrows in an high arching cut.

You feel married to her again for half a fraction of a second – it's like your remote newlywed routine all over again. And the feeling is actually good. She looks so pretty. It's like you could kiss her lips right there.

“What? What's so funny?”

Wanda questions you in an almost petulant way, and you let out a pleasant chuckle as she tilts her head slightly to the side of her right elbow, her chin pointing toward the tip of your nose – her typical irritating movement as the harbinger of an angry reaction to anything that troubles her spirit.

“You know I'm physically incapable of getting sick, don't you?” you declare, still with a smile carved along the outline of your own lips, and Wanda crosses her forearms close to her chest in an even vaguely embarrassed way in front of you. She was always a stubborn type anyways.

“It's that super durability mutant thing or some shit like that. At least that's what Banner told me once, and he's a smart guy y’know, so I believe him,” you casually shrug, “I haven't had a cold since I was, like, thirteen. Shit, I don't even know if I remember what it's like anymore. You don't have to worry about me, Wanda.”

“W-well,” she exasperated in a timidly cute way, even a little childish in essence, pressing her open palms against the sides of her hips well-guarded by a pair of pale mom jeans – the attire so far from the miniskirts and chains and torn clothes she used to wear when she was younger, at the apex of her mean girl phase.

Today isn't the first time you've noticed that her waist got wider as a result of the prudent ripening endowments of late adulthood blossoming into her beautiful body-type. It suits her well. You want to touch her skin through the fabric of those flimsy jeans and the thin white cotton blouse; your fingers itch to do it.

“Just because you don't get sick like other people it doesn’t mean you can walk around in the rain whenever you feel like it. You look like a wet dog right now, you know.”

“Alright, alright, I get it,” you raise both your hands to shoulder height in a placid gesture of surrender, “No more walks in the rain, I promise you.”

“You're impossible, Y/n,” she then rolls her green eyes into their sockets, but you just smirk jokily at her reaction.

It only takes a nonchalant magical flutter of Wanda's wrist, with her right five fingers all enveloped in a fading mist of crimson steam, for the well-versed witch to make your garments still swell on your body, expelling from the bristles of fabric, as even in a chemical separation reaction, the water molecules that soaked them in the first place.

It's like a huge hair dryer blowing hot air the entire length of your body and then unexpectedly stopping as if pulled from the socket, making your skin temperature pleasant again like a sunny embrace all around your body. You find yourself dry in a matter of seconds, from your socks to your underwear, thanks to her remarkable magical gifts.

The tingles consequential from the scarlet mist touching your skin still slither down the length of your body. It is familiar and eccentrically comforting – it's like eating again a candy that you used to eat during the preludes of your childhood; tastes like home and happiness.

“You know what, your powers come in handy sometimes, I’ll give you that,” you say in a mocking tone of voice, and she raises a single eyebrow in response.

“You’re annoying. I'm still considering throwing you out back in the rain for dripping water all over my carpet, just so you know.”

“All right, mom, relax. I won’t do it again, girl scout word.”

“You were never a girl scout, Y/n.”

Wanda just casts a weary glance in your direction, but there's a slight lighthearted tone that resides in the green outline of her graceful irises, as if an inside joke has taken hold between you two. She smiles, and so do you, because you feel comfortable while doing it – a pair of complicit grins from someone whose chest is filled of joy and fullness. The atmosphere that sets in is comfortable, and you feel more relaxed being close to her.

You don't really do it, but it feels like your fingers are entwined with the fingers of her own hand – the specter of touch is written between the two of you, and it's as if your soul can really feel hers at its core, like two magnets that can't stop attracting each other instantaneously. You've always gravitated towards Wanda's overwhelming presence, and things won't be any different now.

“Come on, the boys are watching cartoons in the living room,” Wanda says, then turning her back on you so that you follow her lead to the intimates of the house, “You can stay until the rain stops.”

You follow after your ex-wife without further circumlocution, the two of you passing through the small and comfy entrance hall as you go after Wanda into the large rectangular living room, your hands always tucked inside the single pocket of your hoodie as you accompany her with phlegmatic steps in your essence. Your shoulders feel even lighter as she turns to you and casually offers you the sweetest smile you've ever seen in your life.

Torrential rain is still pouring down from the sky outside the house, and the boys Billy and Tommy can be seen wearing warm, comfortable clothes, both the twins snuggled up against the back of the gray linen sofa, their little smart eyes looking smilingly at each other’s faces and not towards the television screen, where some cartoon that seems unfamiliar to you is shown.

They seem to share some secret that only two people with some primal connection as to what unites them would be able to do it, but the sounds of banter irrigated in the air of childish shenanigans reveals the mockery between their giggles.

They are brothers and they are twins, yes, two parts of a whole, born of the same womb that they shared from the beginning of their existence as two living beings, but you were always a little happier to realize the closeness established in the friendship between your children. Billy and Tommy are each other's best friends.

The pair then seem to make themselves aware of the presence of their two mothers as they enter the room, and the smiles of both children scintillate in enthusiasm as the pairs of eyes look up and acknowledge your appearance a little further behind Wanda's still figure, following her very closely, ceasing the small section of chitchats they had between the two of them.

“Mom!”

“Mommy!”

From the sofa the boys joyfully call out to you, beaming in your direction. You can't help but do the same to them.

“Hey, my demons spawn. What are you up to there, huh?”

“We were preparing something! Okay, so, mom,” Billy speaks in response, barely seeming to be able to contain the glee of excitement inside his tiny body.

“Listen to this-!” Tommy complements his brother's phrase, in a tone of enthusiastic anticipation.

"Hey, I want to start it!" but the other twin intervenes promptly, almost indignantly.

Tommy frowns, turning up his freckled little nose towards a rather annoyed Billy, who is sitting next to his left elbow. The little boy briefly tilts his head to the left side towards his brother, and you know you've seen similar action in Wanda's characteristic mannerisms.

“No, I want to start it!”

"I want to start it!"

“But I want to start it!”

“I want to start it!”

“Why don't you both,” Wanda then promptly interferes with the small disagreement between the boys, increasing her mother's reproachful tone of voice a little, preventing, at the beginning, that the intrigue takes a somewhat bigger proportions, “Start it together?”

“Yeah,” you support her in a complacent tone of voice, “You two came up with the idea together, so the right thing would be to do it together too. Whatever it is, I mean.”

"Okay."

"Okay..."

The two of them mutter almost in almost defeated tune, fidgeting together on the couch. You think that they look cute while they're there, tiny and sitting like two baby rabbits.

"You ready?" Billy questions in a low voice, turning to the brother beside him.

“Yeah,” Tommy mussed back, nodding in agreement.

“Okay,” says Billy then, almost proudly, “Three, two, one, go.”

And then, you can barely contain a smirk when the boys, in different and discrepant voice tones, begin a silly chant in their thin children's voices. In the corner of your peripheral vision, you notice that Wanda also lets out an amorous smile, melting into a comfortable puddle of kindness, dying in love with her two singing little children sitting across from the two of you.

“We like ice cream like any child should,” they hum together, vocalizing playful tones as they proceed through the song's component words, “And if we get some ice cream, we pro-mise to be… good!”

Then they look towards the two of you, displaying expectant smiles written all over their childish faces. And you and Wanda exchange glances, and the smile she offers you is very similar to the one that graces the curve of Billy's lips.

"Nice try, smarty-pants, but you haven't even had dinner yet."

“But mama,” Tommy replies in a pleading tone of voice, “We really want ice cream!”

“Yes, we want ice cream!” exclaims Billy in agrément, "We can't wait!"

“Well, we can have dinner first, then ice cream. What do you guys think?" you offer them, your eyes darting towards Wanda's face, "But you need to have dinner first to grow to be strong and healthy, and ice cream is for dessert only. Right, mama?"

Wanda looks in your direction, and then smiles. And you smile back, because the situation is prone to do so. You, for the first time in so long, feel welcomed and hassle-free in the presence of others. The air inside the house is blissful and warm, so unlike your empty, disdainful apartment forgotten somewhere on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan. Wanda doesn't feel like your ex-wife right now – at least, that's not how she looks at you.

“Right,” her eyes flash pale green beams towards you “Let's have dinner first, mommy.”

ᗢ

You wake up in the middle of the night, but maybe you just haven't fallen asleep at all. The sheets that grace the bottom of your body are soft and comfortable, and the pajama set you wear is not your property. It's late in the course of the long night, and like so many that have passed before this one, you just know you wouldn't be able to rest your relaxation anytime soon.

How could you even do it? Perhaps you stayed longer than you realized detailing the gloomy ceiling of Wanda's guest room, counting in your mind as you scrutinized every passing second so that you still had control over something (time being something), so that you wouldn't go mad at being dismembered alive by each of your own inner demons.

If the beginning of the night was watered in jubilation and a serene comforting coziness on your part, the firstfruits of the dawn soon came to frustrate you in the form of intrusive thoughts quite harmful to your twisted mental health.

The torrential rain didn't stop anytime soon, and after having dinner with Wanda and the boys (in a very warm congregation, you were sitting at the table with your family, eating the same food as them and breathing the same oxygen, always supported by grins of pleasure as you chatted eagerly with each other), and the twins were slow to fall asleep after two generous mugs of chocolate mint ice cream each.

Your ex-wife insisted that you stay for the night after the two of you carried them upstairs and deposited them in their respective tidy beds, showering each of them with chaste kisses to the tops of their childish heads – Wanda's little staycation was long-forgotten by then. You let out a disturbed sigh, both palms of your hands polishing the length of the dull face of yours.

What the fuck, you think, what the fuck are you doing there? This may even be your family, but this is not your house. It's not your home. Not anymore. Reverberating through your insides you find the throttling need for a drag of a cigarette eating away at the bottom of your lungs like a harmful parasite sucking the life from its source, and then you get up to do it, because lying down feels like it consumes you from within in a profuse haze of bubbling anxiety that bursts from your stomach to your mouth, making you feel so weak inside.

It has always struck you as a somewhat ironic cynicism on the part of the universe that you, who are possessed of an impenetrable shell on the outside, suffer so much from the brittle fragility of your own interior – hard skin does nothing to protect a broken mind.

The lavender bedclothes had begun to tighten the muscle in your neck after a while, and in the room just down the hall, you assume Wanda sleeps comfortably cuddling in her bed. When searching inside the single pocket of your hoodie, the well-folded garment on top of a plain desk in the corner of the room, soaked in the darkness of the shadowy environment, the absconse pack of cigarettes from a brand that you are quite familiar with, that keeps you company in the acrimonious moments of solitude, you take a single cylindrical unit towards the spaces open to your drooping mouth and then you find the cold lighter with your fingertips, leaving for the entrance door of the room offered to you by your ex-wife.

After descending the stairs, stepping one step at a time with your bare feet, you are surprised that the door leading to the backyard is already open before you are even there, and the cold night wind has blown inside the house like a curious, invisible animal, installing an icy feeling of dysphoria within the broad walls.

But before you could search with your watchful eye for some intruder who went beyond the icy specter of the night, in avid state of alert, you notice an apollonian silhouette hunched outside, sitting on the step outside the door, with a long waterfall of soft hair in the color of a raven's down running halfway down her spine.

The restlessness that weighed heavily on your shoulders eased as the familiar full-bodied scent of hibiscus tea mixed with the sweetness of a mild strawberry shampoo slithered into your nostrils and filled your lungs thirsty for smoke and tobacco. As you approach, you see that Wanda, wearing a sheer silk robe over a red nightgown, is accompanied by a large cup that exhales small clouds of steam, with the tiny bundle that carries the tea herbs submerged into the hot water inside the dark container.

"You really have loud thoughts," Wanda's small, soft voice ripples through the air and then hugs your body as your ex-wife turns toward you with a lingering slowness that, to you, is as familiar as the taste of your unsmoked cigarette.

Her eyes glow an intoxicating green hue amid the darkness of the night, only supported by the silver light of the moonlight coming from outside the residence. You feel like a frog being studied on a silver platter in some high school biology class.

Wanda's diligent gaze always seemed to be able to penetrate through the cracks of your soul – she always understood you as if she were an expert when dealing with any subject concerning you. You let out an uneasy sigh, oddly scratching the inside of your throat as you do.

"Sorry if I woke you up, it wasn't... it wasn't my... intention."

“It’s okay,” she mumbles serenely over a sip of hot tea, the pulp of her nacarine lips being moistened by the hot liquid she's ingested, “I still haven't been able to sleep anyway.”

And it's no surprise to you, because you slept and woke up next to this woman for several of the component years of your life span, and it was always well known to you that Wanda is a woman quite affected by long sleepless nights, not being able to afford to actually close her eyes and be fortunate enough to have a good night's sleep.

Countless were the nights turned to morning dawns, when you both resided under the same roof in the compound back at the Avengers Tower, so many years before you were there, standing in the middle of her kitchen, silently watching her perform the simple act of drinking tea at her backyard door.

“Still having trouble sleeping?”

“Once in a while,” Wanda answers you, and with her eyes she indicates the empty space next to her right elbow so you can sit there, “Sometimes I need to relearn how to sleep all by myself. And... It's not easy, when I’m under the same roof as you again.”

Without saying a word, you cross the entire length of the kitchen, passing by the island and the marble sink, to be seated on the marble step that freezes your warm skin, next to the woman who smells of hibiscus with strawberries and deep scarlet tones.

Her eyes recognize the figure of the unsmoked cigarette between your fingers, unlit and forgotten like the insignificant little rolled-up tobacco paper that it is, and then she looks toward the profile of your silhouette, blinking once with her thick eyelashes as she does so.

“You start smoking again?”

“Yeah, it's been a while, actually. A couple of years to be honest. Not that I'm proud of it, but,” your gaze shifts to the small cylinder, turning it between the digits of your index and middle fingers of your tender right hand, “This little shit here helps me calm down, I guess. Or at least I like to think so. I don’t know."

Silence touches both of you shoulders, and there is a moment for Wanda to sip more of the tea that has spilled into her cup. When the drink is gone, then all the way into her stomach, she places the container on the floor, close to her left ankle like a tame kitten, safe from her company. You are still hesitating in the uncertainty of whether or not to light up that damned tempting cigarette.

“Earlier today,” she begins, immediately drawing your attention to her pretty face, and you're met with her pink lip as she clamps her upper teeth over the contour of her wet mouth.

“You and me and the boys... it was good. They like having you around. And I... I like it too, Y/n. It felt right.”

She hums in the sigh of the night. You feel a crackling feeling swelling inside your swollen chest, but you don't say anything in sequence, because it's Wanda who continues to talk in her silver moonlight monologue.

“I had forgotten what it was like to feel like this. Me and you acting like family with the boys the way we’re supposed to be. And it's good, Y/n. It’s… really good. I missed that, you. I missed you.”

You choke relatively. For Wanda, a heartbeat rumbled in her ears. And then she looks at you, and you look at her.

And suddenly, you don't want to light that cigarette anymore – because she leans her chin forward, leaning her head towards you, and you do the same when your body cries out for her, lips colliding in midair like the consolidation of a wish, a scarlet fever supernova bursting within your own chest.

And then, the full-bodied freshness of hibiscus darts into the half-open breach in the gap between your lips, pressing a velvety tongue against the slit between your teeth, discharging into your mouth a red-sour-sweet flavor, definitely good though, but rougher than usual as the two of you now share a needy, somewhat sloppy, even animalistic kiss.

Even if there is indeed a need on Wanda's part, and you just need someone to scare you away from the evil inside your head. Your ex-wife, in a thoughtless act, dives with her clever hands into the thin fabric of the tank top that clothes your impenetrable skin, grabbing the sides of your waist in a needy way, as if all she wanted at that moment was to feel you, as if her entire existence existed based on physically feeling you snuggled into her icy body.

She blinks, consenting to the overflow of her feelings, enraptured by the image of your cheeks burning and your chest heaving. And she does what she thinks is right to do, which seems to be the only option possible in this small moment of affection and dedication, filled with an ember that if she could name it, she would call it love - because she knows she love you, even if she didn't say it out loud yet. You are the love of her life, and she is the love of yours.

Wanda then hurls herself even farther forward, a nymph figure smitten with idolatry, and takes her prize, pressing the commission of her red lips against the outlined mouth with the flavor of melancholy that could belong to none other than you, so exotic, and never the same.

You feel the smart hands rest at the end of your spine with an almost practiced disregard, seeking nothing but feeling at first, far from the lascivious idea of consolidating the carnal act. Wanda just wants to feel you close, all to herself, comfortable in her grip. Between a set of pink lips, a tongue is present, and this tongue curls up in another in a not hasty and exaggerated way. It's elegant. It's careful. It is harmonious.

But a slow kiss unravels, and Wanda holds her breath and returns in search of more of her favorite flavor to keep in her mouth, only to be promptly reciprocated by a devoted you, a soft nostalgic familiarity edging your silhouettes connected by the lips beneath a star-studded sky, with an absorbed perfection that no one else but the two of you would be able to achieve.

Up and down, side and side; surrounded by genuine attunement, lips moved carefully, following an invisible line that dictates your not so reckless actions. A waltz of delicate, tangible lips that still fit together so perfectly, so neatly, that you might as well cry.

But the pacified kiss soon takes the form of a fervent kiss as you pant hot against your ex-wife's lips, and the fervent kiss becomes little kisses sprinkled around her neck that soon dissolve into a hollow moan, into a world where there didn't seem to be any more worries as long as you were in each other's arms.

In her own time, Wanda drags her teeth along the lower lip of your mouth, which groans deeply in response with a tingling in your throat, a tiny fraction of time passing until, like a buzz, quick, rough lips take refuge again in a tongue inside your mouth, and you feel an icy hand grasp your breast in a primitive way.

Clever fingers, soaked in crimson, traveled to your scalp, and a light mouth caresses yet another moan of yours. In a heartbeat, Wanda swings a leg over your knees and sits right on top of your lap, grabbing your wrists to put your hands around her waist.

“Please,” she cries against your lips, “Please, Y/n, touch me. Make me feel you again.”

The feeling is familiar. Toxically familiar. It is the red invading your senses, intoxicating you with dense doses of scarlet. You know very well that, even before the enticements of alcohol and cigarettes, your primary vice has always been the crimson sweetness of Wanda's body. And, well… you're not known for being resistant to the temptations of your addictions.

ᗢ

A crimson marble glow glistening under the palms of both your hands. Sweat glistened in the hollow of your groin across your burning hips. Wanda riding on your lap, naked as a Renaissance painting displayed in the dim light of a museum, her chest heavy like a marathon runner. The long, thick length of the red strap brushed against a specific spot on her inner walls that made her delirious and increasingly pivot her hips toward you, seeking more, brushing against each other like two animals in heat.

There was nothing rational in that animalistic act. The symphony in the room was that of skin beating wet against skin; of her lascivious wetness voraciously swallowing your cock.

You could see it from the single, retracted drop of sweat that poured into the valley between her own swollen breasts, the two mounds swaying just before your lascivious eyes; a delight modulated to your stormy gaze, profuse as sea water, which clouded your young girlfriend's body with a predatory look, immersed in illicit labor.

Your insides tingled in a white-hot tingle, both clits sliding through the material of the strap, the insides of your thighs strong and wet against Wanda's pulsing center.

Her tight pussy pressing against the erect silicone phallus between your legs, the red of the material buffed with the sticky juices from inside of her. That was her bed, her sheets wet beneath your sweaty bodies, the walls of her room reverberating the pornographic grunts and moans from deep in her throat.

“F-fuck-!” she clenched her teeth, her nails lacquered with black nail polish carving red paths in the muscles of your back, “Y/n, fuck, right there, ah-!”

Her thick Sokovian accent spilled into your ears, and something primal and cavernous rumbled inside you, like a spark that explodes in a raging fire. You wanted to own her. You wanted to consume her.

You wanted to eat her alive; fuck her until the mold of your strap was forever etched into the walls of her greedy cunt, which was increasingly squeezing the silicone phallus, a delicious pressure forming a red knot just below her belly button.

“Ah-! Ah-!, pozhaluysta, pozhaluysta-!” she gasped in her native dialect, loud and clear against your ear as you fucked her as hard as possible “Trakhni menya... ya pochti u tseli, ya po-pochti u tseli... Ugh, dorogaya!”

“Fuck, are you close?”

“M-mhmm! ” she kind of moaned, both eyes squinted two lewd lines “Please don't stop, don't stop Y/n, ah-!”

The scream was loud as you dropped her suddenly onto the sheets, her sweaty back slamming against the thick material of the mattress, her dark hair spilling across the pale material of the pillow.

You slipped your hands between the folds of both her knees and brought her lower back close, barely giving her time to miss your strap inside her dripping cunt before guiding the red material between her sticky folds, resuming the vigorous action of fucking your way against her cervix.

Your strong hand pressed itself (as did the bone of your jaw) against the upholstered headboard, and there a rip was deferred by your own touch – as it had done to a plucked pillow, and a lampshade shattered to the ground.

The lamp above your heads flashed white. Wanda's eyes glowed a profuse scarlet that swallowed the moss green of her irises, the darkening of her dilated pupils making her eyes look like two bottomless wells of lust. You buried your face against the beam of sweaty skin that joined her neck to her collarbone, and placed a generous, savage bite there.

“Fuck- I’m gonna cum, I'm gonna– fuck! Y/n! Oh, fuck!” she decreed, panting against your bare neck, pressing her fingers against your buttocks in an incitement to the act they so indomitably committed.

“Come for me Wanda,” you murmured against her ear, “Come on my cock, pretty girl, make a mess for me. I wanna hear you fucking scream my name.”

The bed hit the wall again. And again. And again. You didn't stop at the first orgasm. Nor in the second. Nor on the third. Until you abandoned her in the middle of the night.

[ashleyrowanthewriter]

That Dream Again - Life and Times of Ashley the Crow (Crow HRT?)

Next

*************

I felt the warmth of the sun rays on my feathers as I was waking up. My murder flew to the ground looking for breakfast. I’ve found some tasty looking fruits and I called my compatriots. I saw a friend finding some nuts so I brought him a rock to crush them. The feast was plentiful. It was time to scavenge for needles to build fortifications on the nest. The murder took off into the air and started the search. I tried taking off too, but no matter how much I tried moving my wings, I could not take off. I tried and tried to no effect. And my murder left me.

I woke up with heavy breathing. In the same bed as always, in the same body as always. No beak, but a human nose. No talons, but human feet. No feathers, but human hair. No wings, but human hands. Some tears appeared in my eyes, but I quickly wiped them.

I looked at the clock. It was 2 AM. I knew I should sleep more, but I doubted I’d be able to. Then I remembered that I had a guest.

My girlfriend Arja was sleeping in the other room. She was far into her dragon transition to the point that she could only sleep on my couch. I went to the guest room. Arja woke up a bit right as I opened the door.

“Are you sleepwalking?” Arja asked.

“No,” I said. “I just had… that dream again… Can I sleep with you tonight? If I fit on the couch of course.”

Arja moved a bit to the side. “Sure, come here,” she said.

“Thank you.”

I snuggled together with Arja. Her scales felt warm like a cup of tea in an Autumn afternoon. I felt it was just what I needed.

“Have you been having these dreams a lot?” asked Arja.

“A lot more since I moved,” I said. “Maybe it’s my brain that is finally allowing this feeling.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Arja asked.

“You know I can’t become a crow!” I said. “That stupid fish heart of mine will not transition properly! I’ll die before I can fly!” I was on the edge of crying. “Sometimes I want to jump. I don’t care if I fly or not. But at the same time I don’t want to fall.”

I think I scared Arja. She embraced me tighter. She put a hand on my heart.

“I understand you want to listen to this,” Arja said and moved her hand to mine. “But if so, don’t listen to this!”

I felt better and genuinely smiled. “Thank you!” I said.

We kissed each other and fell asleep.

In the morning I woke up to an empty couch. I looked around the room looking for Arja. I’ve found her in the kitchen with a bowl of fruits and nuts.

“How was the night, my little bird?” Arja asked.

“Much better,” I said. “What’s with that bowl if I may ask?”

“I thought I could pay you back for all the stakes,” Arja said.

I was really happy.

“You didn’t add any sulfur?” I asked, referencing an inside joke.

“I would never!” Arja said.

We laughed and I started eating my breakfast. It was a nice morning. A much needed high after a sudden low. And I was grateful for knowing Arja.

*************

So here we are! I've finally wrote my own crow HRT story. And I guess I've managed to unintentionally subvert the genre. But since the OG uses their series to express their feelings on transitioning, I can do it with my feelings on being trans with a heart defect. Maybe someone feels similarly. It would get less lonely.

Anyway, I hope you'll like it! There will be more stories, but they will be more episodic than a typical animal HRT series. Unless it turns out my heart defect doesn't prevent me from transitioning somehow! Then I'll start crowing up as soon as the real me starts girling up.

Anyway, shout out to everybody who might need it!

Aha! And the title of the series lost the poll, but I grew to feel it would be appropriate. Sorry for disappointment.

[toskarin]

with all the rimworld talk recently, are there any mods you like for it?

so these are deliberately going to be weirder picks because anyone else would recommend you Majestic Trees, Psychology, Facial Animation, etc.

some sort of music mod is a must if you've played the game long enough. I usually tailor my selection here to the theme of my modpack, but my favourite general purpose pick is Music Expanded: Made in Abyss

Ashlands. I love Ashlands.

the Fortifications series is great if you want lots more to clutter your base with and enjoy the combat side of the game. it does tend to make bases look like industrial nightmares, but that's why you got the mod, right?

D-Pad. it's so handy to be able to manually control groups of pawns on such a granular level, especially if you're getting involved in lots of ranged combat

Outland Genetics, just to get those weird fantasy characters going. have an elf in your colony, help yourself

Army of Fetid Corpses + CAI 5000 if you really want to make it a survival horror nightmare. I personally really enjoy the vibe of realising that horrifying guro monsters are a looming threat, just because they look so deeply unpleasant and scary that you can't ever really get entirely desensitised to them

[whencyclopedia]

Juno Beach

Juno Beach was attacked primarily by forces of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division as part of the Allied D-Day Normandy landings of 6 June 1944. The Canadian troops initially suffered heavy casualties since aerial and naval bombardments had failed to knock out the heavy guns of the German defensive positions, but by the close of D-Day, the beachhead was secured and deeper than at any other point of the invasion.

Operation Overlord

The amphibious assault on the beaches of Normandy was the first stage of Operation Overlord, which sought to free Western Europe from occupation by Nazi Germany. The supreme commander of the Allied invasion force was General Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), who had been in charge of the Allied operations in the Mediterranean. The commander-in-chief of the Normandy land forces, 39 divisions in all, was the experienced General Bernard Montgomery (1887-1976). Commanding the air element was Air Chief Marshal Trafford Leigh Mallory (1892-1944) with the naval element commanded by Admiral Bertram Ramsay (1883-1945).

Nazi Germany had long prepared for an Allied invasion, but the German high command was unsure where exactly such an invasion would take place. Allied diversionary strategies added to the uncertainty, but the most likely places remained either the Pas de Calais, the closest point to British shores, or Normandy with its wide flat beaches. The Nazi leader Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) attempted to fortify the entire coast from Spain to the Netherlands with a series of bunkers, pillboxes, artillery batteries, and troops, but this Atlantic Wall, as he called it, was far from being complete in the summer of 1944. In addition, the wall was thin since there was no real depth to any of the defences.

Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt (1875-1953), commander-in-chief of the German army in the West, believed it would be impossible to stop an invasion on the coast and so it would be better to hold the bulk of the defensive forces as a mobile reserve to counter-attack against enemy beachheads.

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (1891-1944), commander of Army Group B, disagreed with Rundstedt and considered it essential to halt any invasion on the beaches themselves. Further, Rommel believed that Allied air superiority meant that movements of reserves would be severely hampered. Hitler agreed with Rommel, and so the defenders were strung out wherever the fortifications were at their weakest. Rommel improved the static defences and added steel anti-tank structures to all the larger beaches. In the end, Rundstedt was given a mobile reserve, but the compromise weakened both plans of defence. The German response would not be helped either by their confused command structure, which meant that Rundstedt could not call on any armour (but Rommel, who reported directly to Hitler, could), and neither commander had any control over the paltry naval and air forces available or the separately controlled coastal batteries. Nevertheless, the defences were bulked up around Normandy to an impressive 31 infantry divisions plus 10 armoured divisions and 7 reserve infantry divisions. The German army had another 13 divisions in other areas of France. A standard German division had a full strength of 15,000 men.

Continue reading...

[twola]

Seven Deadly Sins - VII

PAIRING: low to mid honor Arthur Morgan x Fem!reader

Because if one thing is true, it is that Arthur Morgan is a sinner. Pure, organic, non-GMO smut. A continuing series.

Warnings: Smut, Violence, Low to Medium Honor Arthur (and all that entails)

Pride: a feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one's own achievements.

➵ AO3 Link

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It is not even a question, nor even a suggestion, of where you sit high atop Arthur’s horse. Slotted against him, pressed back into his chest, one arm securely holding you to him. There are no jokes or witty retorts this time. One of your hands rests lightly above his, splayed across your stomach.

It is not some hidden thing as you traipse through Rhodes, the dusty red dirt blowing in the wind as townsfolk watch his horse slowly walk through.

Something akin to pride surges through you as men collecting on the hotel’s porch look upon you and then avert their eyes, so as not to garner attention from the gunslinger behind you. His arm tightens around your midsection each time you pass a man, and you’re sure that the look he gives passersby is a dark, threatening glare.

This man, who can tear any other one apart with his bare hands, has decided that you are the thing that captivates him. That he desires above all others. That he will worship and satisfy and murder for you.

You’d happily do the same, of course. While killing rivals may not be as easy for you as it is for him, you’ve noted the way women look at him in saloons and bars, and you can’t wait to sit upon his lap, draping yourself over him, in public as if to stake your claim.

All of the muscle and sinew and strength that make up this man - it belongs to you.

You lean back against him, your head against his collarbone, and sigh contentedly.

His fingers tighten gently on your belly, and you feel him lean into you. He presses his lips against your cheekbone lightly. For all to see.

Yours.

-

The sun has set by the time the two of you reach the old plantation house, the fire blazing up the way as he guides his mare to hitch her for the night. He swings himself down from the saddle and ties the reins to the post. You swing your leg over the saddle and he grabs your waist, guiding you down gently.

You glance toward the camp, where people have gathered around the campfire, laughter, and discussion wafting through the warm air. Arthur places his hand on your lower back, pressing you gently toward the group.

“C’mon, let’s get back to 'em. You know you’ve missed Pearson’s cooking.”

You roll your eyes but smile all the same. The two of you make your way past the horses and mock fortifications that have been built to the gang, where you are welcomed and immediately asked about the take - which Arthur is able to artfully craft and excuse on why you’re coming back empty-handed. One that didn’t involve locking yourselves in a hotel room for multiple days.

The tale is believed, and you take your seat on the ground next to Mary Beth, who hands you a bottle of beer with a smile. Dutch beckons Arthur toward the decrepit fountain to talk in a hushed tone.

The night rolls on, with Javier playing his guitar, men reciting bawdy jokes, and Uncle and Hosea telling stories of old. Arthur and Dutch return to the fire after some time, the latter lighting a cigar and holding the match up for Arthur to light one of his own before they both take seats on chairs around the fire.

At some point, you stand up, stretching your back, which was sore from being in the saddle all day. You lean backward, hands bracing your spine, and wince a little before stepping around the circle and toward the house. After the last several days, all you can think about is going to sleep - curling up in your spot in the downstairs room of the house, where several of the other girls have made their sleeping arrangements as well. You round behind Arthur and he turns his head toward you.

“Darlin,” Arthur grunts, the cigar smoking between his teeth, “C’mere.”

He yanks your arm toward him, and you stumble slightly, his other hand grabbing your hip and pulling you into his lap. Javier, fortunately, does not miss a beat as he strums his guitar, though his eyebrows raise in amusement. Mary Beth stifles a giggle, while both Hosea and Dutch smirk into their respective drinks.

Arthur does not seem to care at all, one hand securely on your hip, the other pulling the cigar from his mouth as he exhales a plume of smoke in the other direction from you. You take the opportunity as it's given, draping your arms around his neck and leaning into his solid warmth.

Javier continues to play in the warm night. 

You’ve started to doze off, sitting there on his lap, head laying on his shoulder. He notices and taps your rear, “Y’can head up to my room. I’ll be up in a little.”

You nod, blinking back the drowsiness as you move to stand up from his lap. Before you can move away from the campfire, however, Arthur grabs your hand, and yanks you back toward him, nearly pulling you to the ground as you jolt in surprise. 

He tuts disapprovingly as he rights you, one hand on your hip, “Ah-ah, not without a proper goodbye.”

A lopsided smirk crosses your face before you lean into him and press your lips against his. He holds you in place for what seems to be an absurd amount of time before drawing back.

“Go on now.” He drawls lowly, his lips hovering inches away from yours. You stand up to your full height, acutely aware of the eyes that have settled upon you. Without acknowledging the stares of the men around the fire; you walk away, toward the house and away from the gathering.

A bottle is chucked at Arthur’s feet. He turns back from watching you to scowl at where it came from.

Micah opens another bottle of beer at his seat on a crate across the campfire. He sneers in Arthur’s direction, pointing the neck of the bottle at your retreating figure.

“ ‘S that why you’re in such a good mood, Morgan? Finally gettin’ your cock wet?” 

Arthur smirks. “Ain’t no fault of mine you can’t get any you don’t pay for.”

Micah scowls back at him, “Least I can please the ladies, old man.”

Arthur snorts dismissively but doesn’t push the conversation back, instead taking a long pull of whiskey from the bottle in his hand and staring into the flickering flames of the campfire.

-

It’s even later by the time he clambers up the stairs of the old plantation house, each creaking under his weight as he makes his way up them. He opens the door to his room slowly, peering in to find you on his bed, facing the wall, under a heap of blankets.

The lantern is turned low but throws moving shadows throughout the room, and you stir from the bed, rolling over to face him. Completely rousing from slumber, you whine softly as he makes his way around the room, pulling his gun belt off and placing it on the table opposite the bed, hanging his hat on an old dresser. 

“Arthur,” you purr, with the vestiges of sleep still evident in the hoarseness of your voice, “come to bed.”

He smirks, pleased with himself in the needy scratch of your voice, as he turns back toward you to take you in.

You’re tangled in the threadbare sheets on the bed, in only one of his unbuttoned work shirts. 

“Hm. Think that’s mine.” Arthur snorts, amused as he places his hands on his hips in mock annoyance.

You smile deviously as you edge the hem of his shirt up, up, over the swell of your thighs, the cotton slowly passing over the thatch of dark hair that hides your cunt. 

“Come here, Arthur.”

You open your legs, showing him your glistening folds. 

Is this what it’s like?  

Coming to wherever he laid his head every night to a warm bed and a woman who wanted only him? Arms to embrace him and a slick, hot cunt to bury himself in night after night? To wake up tangled in limbs and skin on skin instead of rough spun sheets?

God, now he understood why Dutch always had a woman in his bed.

“My lady.” 

His boots rumble to the floor as he sheds them.

“I like hearing you say that,” you sigh happily, reaching toward him.

“I’ll say it t’ya every night if this is the way I find you in my bed.” Arthur pulls his suspenders down and begins to unbutton his shirt. You sit up and start unbuttoning his pants, smirking as he juts his hips forward into your touch, his cock hard and swelling beneath the denim.

He sheds his shirt quickly, peeling it from his arms and tossing it to the floor. You’ve unbuttoned his pants and shove one of your hands down them, grasping for his cock, and he grunts through gritted teeth as your fingers encircle his flesh.

Arthur’s hands find their way to the collar of his shirt on your shoulders, the open ends barely hiding your nipples as he starts to draw the fabric apart. He steps back, pulling away from you and your hand to peel down the sleeves of his shirt from your arms, stripping it from you and throwing it unceremoniously on the floor. 

Still a step away from your bare form, Arthur shoves his pants to the floor, where they pile at his feet as he steps out of them. His hard cock bobs heavily as he steps closer to the bed, and you sit up on your knees, meeting him as he dives in to press his lips against yours.

His arms snake around your warm body as he presses his tongue against the seam of your lips, which you quickly acquiesce and open to him. You run your hand down the plane of his chest, down his stomach, almost reaching his cock before he pushes you back, hard, and you yelp as you bounce slightly on the old bed. Before you can utter a word of complaint, Arthur climbs on top of you, pressing you into the mattress, and slots his lips against yours as his hips shimmy between your legs, his cock rubbing against your most tender flesh.

He knows his mouth tastes overwhelmingly of whiskey. He’s not drunk, not a bumbling mess who can’t see straight… But he has had more than enough to drink to be dangerous .

You gasp into his mouth as one of his hands moves to knead roughly at your breast, the other one looping under your lower back, pressing your hips up against his. His hips roll back and forth against yours, the friction of his cock parting your folds and rubbing against your clit makes you whine in pleasure.

He thinks, vaguely, at this point you’ve gotten the hint. It's one of those nights. He’s near smothering you under his large frame, and his tongue pushes against yours fervently as low sounds reverberate from his chest.

Arthur pulls back, and your bewildered gaze has turned into something more feral, more needy. You let your legs fall open farther as you pant, he looms above you, stroking his cock that’s covered in your slick after rocking against you for many moments. 

“Gonna fuck y’ now.” He drawls, and as soon as the words leave his mouth, you’re standing there, in the middle of Flat Iron Lake, moonlight dancing on your dewy curves.  

And he is gazing from the shoreline with near unquenchable need.

“ Yes -” you moan, and you thrust your hips up to get closer to him, “ Fuck me , Arthur.”

Arthur can’t press into you fast enough, sinking in ‘til his hips are flush against yours, groaning out in pleasure as your tight warmth constricts around him. He can only bear to give you a few moments to get used to him before he pulls back and thrusts himself forward with a vigor that makes you moan loudly. Your sweet cry is music to his ears, and he finds a punishing rhythm that keeps you gasping for more.

He braces one of his arms against the wall as he bears down on you harder; faster. He’s enjoying this, just watching your eyes nearly roll back into your head, your panting, whining voice mewling with every thrust.

He wants Micah to hear you from goddamn Rhodes . 

“C’mon darlin’,” he grabs your chin and you groan as he forces you to look up at him, and with a growl, he pulls back completely from your hips, leaving your pulsing cunt to clutch around nothing, “They can’t hear ya.”

Arthur, in one smooth, fast, bruising stroke, slams his cock back into your cunt and you shriek , screaming your pleasure into the room and out the open window.

“Tha’s it- c’mon now…” He throws his hips into a punishing rhythm, one of his hands spread wide around the globe of your rear, clenching hard enough that you’d have purpling marks from his fingers come morning.

He can see the tears collecting at the corners of your eyes, and your mouth hangs open as he continues to pull the sweet sounds from your mouth. But he wants more, more.

“ Let ‘em know who’s fuckin’ you .” He snarls in your ear, the bedframe clanging against the plaster wall in the room as he slams his hips into yours, and a piteous wail erupts from your throat, volume high as he hits a spot in your cunt that makes your body sing.

Finally, like ambrosia dripping from your blessed lips, his name escapes out into the night as you convulse beneath him, your cunt clenching near painfully around his cock.

“ A-Arthur-!”

That, that did him in. Every man for goddamn miles would have been able to hear that, the high-pitched screech of his name, breathless, satisfied. It’s only four more strokes he can get in before a loud groan tumbles from his throat, he squeezes his eyes shut tightly as his cock pulses stream after stream of spend into your warmth.

He’s breathless - you’re breathless. Maybe he did have a bit too much to drink, considering the most he can do right now is collapse to the side of you, drawing you in closer to him, before sleep overtakes.

-

The birds chirp softly in the morning light. The humidity of south Lemoyne is smothering in its heaviness, even this early in the morning, the cicadas are loud even as the sun rises. Shady Belle, her glory days long behind her, sits as a testament to times long gone, the death of a way of life extinct in this modern age.

If one stands at just the right place, under the awning of the side porch, they’d be able to hear a muted noise of wood knocking against plaster. It was probably a good thing that no one was actually standing there.

In the room above, you and Arthur are wrapped around each other.

Your leg is thrown over his hip as he muffles your sighs with his lips. His large hand is spread wide over the swell of your rear as he rocks his hips into yours, slowly, gently. His fingers cover over darkening signs of his need for you from last night. Under a blanket the two of you undulate in unhurried motions, his cock slowly sliding in and out of your cunt as if he had nothing else to do in the world.

His tongue dances with yours, as your fingers dig into his shoulder blade, your arm wound underneath his.

You give a little cry when he hits that spot within you.

“ There’s my girl.” He whispers against your lips, his low voice husky as he squeezes your rear, rolling your hips against his own.

“ Arthur- ,” you whine out, trying desperately to keep yourself quiet, unlike last night’s session.

“Mm, darlin -” he drawls into your mouth, his hips moving faster as your cries become higher, louder, needer. After one sweet gliding thrust, you gasp, your mouth hanging open as your fingers grip around his arm tightly.

“You gonna-” Arthur’s whispered question is cut off as his eyes screw shut, a barely concealed moan escaping from him. He’s brought to that precipice also here under the blankets. You take the opportunity to surge forward and catch his lips, which he greedily accepts and presses his tongue against yours.

Your blunt nails leave crescent marks in his skin as your cunt clenches around his hard cock, and not a moment later, his hips buck forward further into you as he comes, hot and fast, into your wet warmth.

Muffled sounds of lips meeting each other, soft sighs, deep, low rumbles fill the room, though outside the window, the noises of the camp coming alive stream in - the clanging of Pearson’s pots, the crackling of the fire, the murmured greetings of men lining up for their morning coffee. The whinnying of the horses.

Arthur pulls his lips back from yours, and his hand moves to your cheek, brushing back to your hair as his azure eyes scan your face. You smile, your hand pressed against his chest, under the muscle and bone you can feel the strong thump of his still-racing heart.

“Much as I’d like to stay ‘ere all day,” He presses another quick kiss to your lips, just enough that his scruffy beard scratches your chin, “I gotta get goin’ on this job.”

You frown for a moment, but the curve of your lips is playful, you know too, that he has to go. He slowly extricates himself from your embrace, and as you grab the balled-up blanket to cover your nude form, he starts to dress, kicking dirty clothes around on the floor before opening the chest at the end of the bed. You certainly don’t mind the view, the man is hewn seemingly from cut stone, solid and muscular from his head to his toes.

A small sense of regret flushes over you as you watch him pull on a nice pair of suit pants, as the object of your pleasure is hidden from your view as he buttons them up. He snorts, watching your face fall, and a small smirk appears on his face.

“Eager there, aren’tcha?”

“Shut up.”

He laughs to himself as he pulls on a fresh white dress shirt, feeding the buttons through their eyelets.

“Why, ain’t you just the sophisticated gentleman.” You giggle before stretching your arms above your head in the bed as he ties a silk scarf around his neck.

He mutters something under his breath. Probably cursing Saint Denis and the high society trapping it entails.

Arthur pulls on his jacket as you roll to face him fully, tangled up in the worn blanket, your hair mussed with sex and sleep. The fabric does little to shield you, your breasts high and on display to him, he can see the fading bruise he made with his teeth the week prior when he had you up against a brick wall in that Saint Denis alleyway.

Possessive pride surges within him as he steps closer to your form. You smile up at him, a tired, tender look on your face before he leans over you and the bed.

He taps on the bare skin of your décolletage with his middle finger. 

“Much as I like this view… you deserve somethin’ beautiful here. Gonna get you a fancy necklace after this job.”

He leans down and kisses the hollow of your neck, and you smile as his beard tickles your skin.

You laugh, pushing his hand away. “C’mon now, I’m just a lowly thief. Women like me don’t wear fancy necklaces.”

“Y’aint just a lowly thief. You’re my lady. Let me spoil ya.” He drawls lowly into your skin, leaving trails of wet imprints from his lips as he moves downward. Arthur laves his tongue over the swell of your breast, closing his lips around one of your peaked nipples and suckling gently.  A satisfied whine, soft and gentle, leaves your throat, and Arthur smiles against your skin as he presses his lips back up your neck before pulling away from your warm body.

You sigh in contentment as he pulls the blanket up and over your chest, keeping you cocooned in a semblance of warmth as he needs to leave your embrace.

“Y’know, I’m sure you can just steal one.” You laugh as he steps toward the table and grabs his gun belt, wrapping it around his hips. The revolvers glint in the sunlight streaming in from the open window.

“Naw. I’ll have plenty of money after this job. Can buy you anythin’ you want. Anythin’ that looks good round that pretty little neck of yours.”

“Oh?”

“Sure, ain't every day we’re robbin’ the Lemoyne National Bank.”

-

[dailyadventureprompts]

Dungeon: The Fleetbreaker’s Bones

“More than three hundred years dead and rotting and it’s still going to kill us all. That’s dedication right there.”

-Tousu, hapless deckhand moments before a wreck

The remnants of this great kaiju turned fossil-reef has been swallowing up ships for centuries, a habit it’s not managed to break despite a great hero spearing it to a volcanic atoll and founding a prosperous kingdom over the territory it never would have ceded in life. Underwater lava flows create boiling mists and unstable weather patterns making sailing anywhere near the island a gamble. Ships lost in storms throughout the region seem invariably pulled towards the reef, leading many in villages along the coast to speculate that not even death can sate the great beast’s hunger.

In more recent years a ramshackle band of corsairs has decided to make the Reef their home, having suffered a disastrous defeat while raiding the mainland and needing somewhere, no matter how inhospitable, to regroup.  The Fleetbreaker ironically provided the perfect safe harbour, close enough to the trading lanes to raid, far enough out of anyone’s way and into unfriendly waters that reprisal was unlikely. They’ve had such success that they’ve been able to cobble together dwellings and fortifications across the reef, as well as a knocked together shipyard in the sheltered caverns that were one the kaiju’s belly.

Adventure Hooks:

The Fleetbreaker Pirates have managed to chart the rhythm of the atoll’s seemingly unpredictable weather, following in the wake of storms like scavengers after a bloodthirsty predator. With the party’s vessel having barely survived the night battling a sulfurous smelling gale, they’ll have to act quickly as first light and the hope that comes with it is dashed by the appearance of enemy vessels on the horizon.

Captured at sea (or perhaps after having one too many rounds of grog while in port) the party find themselves clapped in irons, stripped of their gear, and locked in a series of muggy stone cells. The Fleetbreakers deal in slaves as well as plundered goods, and it’s only a matter of weeks or maybe even days before their buyer shows up to trade in flesh. They have to escape, but how? Sneak out just their friends and disguise themselves on an enemy ship? Break out the other innocents and risk detection?

There are many sections of the great fossil reef where the pirates do not go, tidal warrens inhabited by skittering things made monstrous by generations of feeding off kaiju flesh, boiling caverns where lava vents glow just beneith the surface of the water and odd shapes move in the mineral vapour, lofty and winding passages leading to the lonlely spinal cliffs where the sound of strange birds causes hallucinations. Somewhere among all of this is the hero’s spear, a divinely invested artifact that has the power to found, and perhaps destroy kingdoms. The party may unwittingly stumble across this artifact while escaping captivity, or find it in a dramatic moment as they pursue the last of the pirate captains into the caverns in their final push to oust the corsairs once and for all. What they do with it after that is all up to them.

[mariacallous]

In Liu Cixin’s science fiction novel The Dark Forest—part of the popular Three-Body Problem series recently serialized by Netflix—humanity is faced with the prospect of an alien invasion. The extraterrestrials are on their way to conquer Earth but are still light years away; humanity has hundreds of years to prepare for their hostile arrival.

Amid a need to bolster defense spending globally and, crucially, to foster innovation across the entire world, representatives of the global south make a proposal at the United Nations. Developing countries demand a universal waiver of intellectual property protections on inventions relevant to defense to enable them to develop their own technologies and contribute to planetary fortification. In Liu’s story, the global south’s call meets staunch opposition from wealthier states, which veto the proposal. Although set in an imagined future, Liu’s point resonates clearly in our own time.

The most recent parallel is the global vaccine hoarding that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the height of the emergency, rich countries bought up and hoarded COVID-19 vaccine supplies, which left many developing countries unable to obtain sufficient vaccines during 2021-22. Even when they arrived, donations of leftover doses from high-income countries were often too close to their expiration dates for developing countries to actually use them.

Global south states sought to build up their own secure vaccine production capacity but were stymied. Critically, vaccine manufacturers, such as Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, refused to share IP-protected technology with World Health Organization (WHO) initiatives, such as C-TAP and the mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub, that were attempting to create a network of distributed vaccine production. It is estimated that such hoarding cost more than 1 million lives in developing states.

Remarkably, the global south saw this coming. Even before a single COVID-19 vaccine had been administered, developing countries accurately anticipated that they would be left at the back of the line for supplies. Burned by the experience of HIV/AIDS medicine shortages in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the global south predicted similar inequities occurring during the COVID-19 crisis—and they tried to act to prevent this.

In October 2020, this foresight motivated developing countries, led by South Africa and India at the World Trade Organization (WTO), to propose an international waiver of IP protections—known as a TRIPS waiver—on COVID-19 vaccines, treatments, and other health technologies. Much as in Liu’s story, the global north firmly rejected the proposal, leading to a delayed and watered-down WTO decision in June 2022 that I, and other academic experts, argued was too little, too late.

Crucially, we can observe the same pattern emerging yet again in the current negotiations over the WHO Pandemic Accord. Just like Liu’s vision of humanity preparing for an inevitable alien invasion but unwilling to share technologies globally, the world remains stuck in a doom loop. Another pandemic is foreseeable. A new treaty could provide a way for the international community to learn the lessons of COVID-19 and boost pandemic preparedness. Yet the world is making the same mistakes all over again.

Given the failures of the WTO process, experienced commentators such as Ellen ‘t Hoen anticipated that shifting the debate to WHO could help ensure that similar inequalities do not arise during the next pandemic. Many hoped that WHO, with its overriding focus on global health, would be a more receptive forum to the global south’s equity concerns than the WTO, which prioritizes IP via TRIPS, one of its foundational 1995 agreements.

However, thus far, the negotiations have been hampered by the same issue that blighted the WTO TRIPS waiver process: Rich states are unwilling to agree to any potential pandemic-related limitation of international IP rights or to expand IP flexibilities to include nonvoluntary options such as a mechanism for the compulsory licensing of trade secrets on pharmaceutical manufacturing processes needed for scaling up production of pandemic products.

Broadly speaking, developing countries want terms that would mandate technology transfer of key health technologies, such as vaccines, to the global south. Rich countries decry this suggestion, claiming it could undermine IP rights.

Hence, wealthy nations are balking at the use of progressive language on the compulsory use of IP in Article 11 of the draft accord. Instead, the U.S. government emphasizes supporting voluntary agreements—without acknowledging that the voluntary systems, including COVAX, failed to provide for the needs of citizens in many global south countries during the COVID-19 era.

In these negotiations, several key parties, such as the European Union and the United Kingdom, argue that a WHO treaty cannot deal with IP issues because that would equate to trespassing on rules that the WTO created. This back-and-forth between the WTO and WHO reflects an asymmetric power game that the global south is not well placed to win.

With no movement on IP, developing countries seem less willing to agree on a rare point of leverage, namely, the terms of Article 12, which addresses pathogen access and benefit-sharing. Put simply, developing countries are concerned that if they agree to terms on restriction-free sharing of pathogens with pandemic potential, without reciprocal guarantees of technology-sharing and health product distribution, they will be left at the back of the line again in the next pandemic.

Wealthy countries may be succeeding at reducing this leverage; recent news reports suggest that detailed provisions on pathogen-sharing may be shifted to a separate instrument.

It seems that for rich states, property is sacrosanct; global health is not. Yet, rather than property, it is worth recalling that patents were originally considered to be a form of state-granted privilege. In the 19th century, industrial states viewed IP not as an instrument of free trade but rather as a form of trade protectionism.

This idea of IP as protectionist privilege remains a more accurate description of what global IP law is intended to achieve. Much as in Liu’s novel, the stark reality is that there is no circumstance—not a new pandemic, not even an alien invasion—in which the global north would be willing to give up its protectionist privileges by sharing its technology with the global south.

With the WTO in decline and the WHO multilateral process in trouble, the global south may have to examine alternative options for building up pandemic preparedness. Intriguingly, Netflix’s 3 Body Problem envisages this. Unlike in the book, on TV the U.N. resolution for open technology-sharing is never even proposed.

Instead, a Mexican national who happens to be the chief scientific officer of a cutting-edge nanotech company becomes frustrated by Western corporate-military obstructionism and decides to upload all her London-based employer’s source code and trade secrets to open-source platforms with the aim of assisting developing countries to produce the technology. She even includes a downloadable guide on how to copy the functionality of the technology while avoiding IP infringement.

This fictional feint away from the multilateral forum and toward individual decision-making parallels real-world moves toward open-source biotech. This approach has been pioneered by Peter Hotez and Maria Elena Bottazzi of Baylor University, who created the patent-free COVID-19 vaccine Corbevax. They successfully transferred the vaccine technology openly to producers in Botswana and India. Meanwhile, the WHO mRNA hub at Afrigen in South Africa led by Petro Terblanche is encouraging open south-south collaboration on new vaccine technologies.

If the Pandemic Accord negotiations falter before the World Health Assembly begins on May 27 or they fail to produce a just treaty, efforts such as these will take on even greater importance. An inequitable Pandemic Accord will signal that Liu was right: The global north will continue to hoard technologies even in the face of looming Armageddon, and south-south collaboration on producing health technologies may be the only way forward for enhancing global pandemic preparedness.