#another plane has hit the ptsd towers

[regular-lord-reckoner]

i’m home !!

procedure went real well, everything was really smooth and almost as soon as they said, “you can count backwards if you want,” i don’t think i even said ten before i was suddenly in recovery and sipping some ginger ale.

honestly the worst part was the iv because they had to do it on the side of my wrist because apparently my veins are crooked ?? i just hate ivs anyway so that’s no surprise but other than that no complaints.

everyone was real nice and made sure i was well taken care of (my nurse even had me pee one more time before so she wouldn’t have to do a catheter which with my history…..thank you)

but yeah, i’ll have a follow up in about a month just to make sure everything’s good and the iud is doing its thing !!

i do have some cramping and bleeding but that’s normal, although a little funny because i literally just stopped my period yesterday but…oh well !! hopefully in a few months i won’t have hardly any so this we can handle and i hace some medicine (and my ~medicine) that’ll help so i’m all set.

mom had to go run some errands so my little recovery buddy is keeping me company. also, a moment of recognition for my new favorite shirt (thank you as always, Boss Dog Art; i’ve already got my eye on another one that says, “i think therefore i am against transphobia around the world” or something like that and it’s got a cool skeleton on it; this is my third shirt from them and they’re really comfy and good quality so not sponsored but check them out, they seem cool):

[igottatho]

I think we don’t talk about this comparison enough. I was 11 when those planes hit the WTC and I remember watching the second plane on live TV, first thing in the morning. This one event was used to justify so much violence, colonialism and exploitation - specifically directed at Muslims.

On the 20th anniversary of 9/11 I realized I was over 30 and still had only vague idea of what it was about…. And that’s messed up, because that Event shaped our entire modern democracy, or at least our relationship w/ the rest of the globe.

This is a long one, so please buckle up.

I myself was a teen and going through housing insecurity, complex-PTSD and in 2010, the birth of my eldest. I now know that this is how capitalism works and why modern powers embrace it - a population ruled by food/housing insecurity doesn’t have mental space to learn about “foreign affairs” (it’s not foreign if those being oppressed are directly tied to your oppression).

Back to the point: I began reading any books I could find on the topic, which ended up being these titles:

I determined to start with WHAT happened and WHY it was possible (from US standpoint). I won’t get into these details except to say:

1) US presidential administrations for sure knew some shady threats had been whispered in the Mid-East and though officials in FBI tried to coordinate a task force with CIA, neither that org or Clinton/Bush teams were interested or cared. (Ive since learned that CIA often knows about potential threats to US, but it’s not in their interest to tell us about it.)

2) one reason the intelligence wasn’t taken very seriously is due to the 1993 ‘successful’ bombing of the WTC by Yosef Ramzi (tried to link the FBI website on this topic but for some reason it won’t embed here. SUS, but you can easily access this regardless). The bomb did kill a few people but considerably less than hoped, and the goal had been to take down the tower (iirc it was wtc2?) at its base.

3) the 93 bombing did several things for US; -officials noted where issues with evacuation of the thousands of employees within the Towers, and resolved to fix ASAP (-which they neglected to do because of this next pt);

-that the towers withstood this attack indicated to US that we were infallible. That’s right, good old fashioned hubris fam! The jovial mood as employees walked leisurely down the staircases was much talked about by those who were trapped in the hellscape of 2001 attacks.

-indicated Yosef Ramzi as a ‘starting point’ for pinning down who was connected to whom in various radical Islam groups. This connection sets the basis for the main contenders in 2001’s attack.

Which brings me to my next topic, what I learned about the men who would be willing to sacrifice their lives in order to commit an attack on American soil.

1) the men who piloted the planes into the towers were carefully selected: loyal to Islam above all else (radically so), educated and willing to engage in long-term strategies. Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-shehhi both attended flight school for a time in the US (Florida for at least Atta, but idr about Al-Shehhi), but we’re only ever interested in learning to Take off - not landing. The flight school instructors were very alarmed and reported them (that’s a 🚩 red flag that the FBI noticed and reported).

2) the 93 bombing was taken as a “rough draft” for the larger attack. Ramzi was in regular contact with Khalid sheikh Mohammed, who became a leader of al-Qaeda and cohort to bin Laden. His “job” was propaganda and he remains to this day in Guantanamo Bay- another illegal occupation by the US (thats also another topic and talk). For more info on how the Plan was ‘improved upon’ please see 3b below.

3) bin Laden was becoming so extreme in the late 90s and so committed to his vision of violence upon US, that many Arabs distanced themselves from him (including Saudi Arabia’s royal family, with whom he and US has ties to - it’s complicated and another story). At the same time, the wars and violence are ongoing, largely funded by western powers. This succeeded in creating lots of young men willing to do whatever was necessary to remove the west from their countries. This is how young, well- off educated Arabs like Atta (Egyptian) became enmeshed within this group. Despite his fame, bin Laden was virtually penniless and his family (3 wives and scores of children) lived incredibly simply, even by Muslim standards (ex: no air conditioning, vegetarian diets and other strict standards). Saddam Hussein (Iraqi warlord) was very much in favor of bin Laden’s mechanizations, because (I’m simplifying this a lot, but this is yet another topic) it would be so much easier to remain in power if people were afraid.

3b) The pilots were also taught about the lackadaisical policies re: American Airlines and how to exploit that - that’s why they used smaller weapons and group tactics (19 Arabs overall directly involved in hijacking) to gain control of the planes. They knew the flight paths and scheduling to reach the ideal spot before engaging with their plans. They knew to take planes that had been freshly filled with fuel - all the better to burn. They also knew to strike early in the morning, when the towers would be at their busiest. They were also taught the structural weaknesses of the towers (one of them, I think Atta?) was educated as an architect, and knew that the WTC were structurally weak at specific points and that a direct hit would result in them collapsing. This is why the towers fell so “neatly” and resembled demolition, which is what conspiracy theorists cling to when saying ‘it was an inside job!!!11!’ - like okay, sure, in the sense that some higher up people knew about it and allowed it to happen (see Patriot Act). Another thing these folks point to is the melting aluminum - ‘theres no way it could get that hot!’ Well, maybe, but if you had several tons of jet fuel burning, it absolutely could.

4) I would feel confident in saying that pretty much every American knows the name Osama bin Laden. In one of the above titles (i believe it’s the Looming Tower) this Arabic man was quoted with saying like “the principle issue with Arabs and the West is the formation of the Jewish state and the displacement of Palestinians” (note: this isn’t entirely truthful on bin Laden’s part. He certainly agreed with the reasoning, as do most Arabs imo, but he was a really charismatic man who knew how to use events and people to his own ends), and goes onto say (again, I’m approximating) “my sincere wish is to inflict the horror Palestinians have faced since the installation of the Jewish state onto American soil. American citizens should experience that same horror that Arabs face everyday.” —-imo after having seen many many MANY disturbing images from Palestine AND New York following 9/11, I beleive he truly succeeded in this goal. Americans were terrorized like never before (Pearl Harbor maybe could contend) and then all of the US democratic systems jumped upon this justification. I’m looking at you, Dick Cheney, and your Patriot Act.

We’ll talk about the Al-Qaeda reasoning (not Patriot Act - that’s YET aNOTHER story!), but first, here’s what I went in knowing:

I realized, even tho I had heard of Palestine I didn’t really know anything about it. Americans do NOT teach this in public schools in any meaningful way (i assume if a kid is honors or going to private school, they have easier access and more thorough education). I remember being quite young and hearing that Israel had started a new state in Palestine, and I (or a peer? idr) said “…don’t people live there? what about them?” And being told be the teacher (?) “theyre fine with it” and LORD, at best a mis-characterization and at worst an outright lie.

I resolved to then find out what I could about Palestine. I started with a Palestinians own words, Rashid Khaladi’s book:

Which I highly recommend to anyone interested in Palestinian struggle and the history of how Israel has committed apartheid and systemic ethnic cleansing. Rashid Khalidi really captures the impossible situation Palestinians had been in from the beginning.

I followed up with Thomas Friedman’s cornerstone of American-Middle-Eastern journalism, From Beirut to Jerusalem.

This book is for sure missing the last ~30 years of events, but is a good primer imo of the situation. Friedman is one of the last great journalists (also imo) but I do hear criticisms that he tends to straddle the middle too often. However, I think most of us are in the middle…. Right? most people want peace. Yea, there’s those out there on all sides, who want revenge, or extremism of one type or another. But those extremists are the ones who commit acts of terror. Most people want to live in peace. It’s worth pointing out that Jewish people (Arabic, Hassidic, even kibbutz - settlements - of diaspora Jewish) have always been within Palestine. Extremists lashed out and, akin to how they’ve always been, Zionist extremists responded with a resounding sMASH (This was the Nakba, and the attitude of justification is pulled from here).

Personally I see Friedman as he presents himself; a Jewish-American who grew up with the collective trauma of the Holocaust, a romanticism for kibbutz and a strong nationalist ideal of Israel, as presented by American politics (Reagan, Carter, etc) . He fully owns his biases and attempts to reconcile all of this with the reality ‘on the ground’. He starts in Beirut and talks to Arabs of all nations, describes as best he’s able to tell what it’s like to live in the middle-east, surrounded by violence. And make no mistake, there is violence there, but that’s not for us to pick apart right now, particularly since our (US/Europe) endless wars are at least partly to blame for the continued destabilization.

Now that we’ve got ALL of this context, let’s circle back to 9/11. Nothing happens in a vacuum. I would never say that it was Understandable for Osama bin Laden to have done what he did, nor Atta, nor Al-shehhi, nor Khalid sheikh Mohammed. But I also would never say that this act of terror is justification for holding many Arabs without cause in Guantanamo. I don’t know what the “right” thing to do is for men like KS Mohammed or bin Laden. I see how these groups can be formed by preying upon people’s hopes and fears. I also see how Hamas compares to them - not one Israeli prisoner was mistreated by Hamas, despite the extreme efforts to say they were. Right now we’re seeing children being killed, or their families being killed, and creating another future where people feel they must act - in some way, in any way.

We are all God’s children upon this Earth and we all deserve peace and prosperity, especially when it is so accessible. There will always be evil, and those willing to commit it, and I don’t know what the response to that should be, I truly don’t, but I know what humans have been doing isn’t working. It’s just creating suffering.

Thank you if you’re still reading, I hope I helped give some history to you. Free Palestine, end settler colonialism, end capitalism, give Land Back to Indigenous peoples.

Note: I feel fairly confident I got most facts correct here, but it has been a couple years and I am not infallible, so please feel to correct me (respectfully). If you have other info to provide or supplement, I also welcome any discourse. Extremist Zionists need not apply, you will be blocked promptly.

I remember September 2001. I wasn't even 10 years old and on the other side of the ocean, and yet I saw it. I remember.

How the world was shaken, how the fear was palpable, how the sadness was everywhere. We had a minute of silence in my school, we talked about it at home. The loss was heavy, the earth scarred.

So why ?

Why does Palestine have to endure all of this while everyone is looking away ? Why does my country not helping Gaza ? Why the erasure of so many people, so many innocents, so many children, an entire civilisation and knowledge and faith and beauty, doesn't break the heart of every human being ?

I know a lot of places suffered the same way, still suffer the same way and all because of colonizing countries like mine.

But now, the genocide in Gaza destroyed almost as much as ten World Trade Center attacks.

I can't help but talk about it. Even if it's throught a stupid drawing. This shouldn't have happened. This shouldn't still happen. Ceasefire now. Free Gaza and Palestine.

[fnafsbheadcanon]

Cassie: Y'know... I've had a weird dream last night.

Gregory: Oh really? What was it about?

Cassie: Well, it was basically me and our entire class going to Manhattan into the One World Trade Center. Then all of a sudden we hear planes on top of us and suddenly the ground started shaking. Everyone around us got this look of PTSD as of fearing then another terrorist attack has happened ever since 2001. Our class was freaking out, everyone else started running into safety, and we eventually also were let outside and turns out there wasn't actually a terrorist attack. Apparently it was just an earthquake, and planes just so happened to be flying by, but luckily no plane hit the building. Everyone is still shaking from fear and our class decides to hide in a deli to wait out the earthquake, (which, now that I say it out loud, sounds stupid). And after the earthquake passed everyone was still in fear because of what happened to the Twin Towers and all of the victims. Everyone was afraid that the planes were going to hit the building and there was going to be another terrorist attack. I was in fear as well because I did not want to die. Then all of a sudden my dream abruptly ended. So I never got to know what happened next.

Gregory: Sorry I didn't catch that, can you repeat yourself?

Cassie: ... Bruh-

I...what did I just read..

[reidingandwriting]

5 Times Tony Wasn’t There for You, and 1 Time He Was

Word Count: ~3200 words

Ship: Tony Stark x Daughter!Reader, Peter Parker x Stark!Daughter (Platonic), Lots of IronFam ft. the Parkers 

Warnings: Probably some swearing, not completely movie compliant but follows the general timeline ❤ Kinda unrelated gif (kind of related if you pay attention) but look how CUTE Morgan and Tony are

✨ Masterlist ✨

-One-

As the young daughter of Tony Stark, you were used to your dad being busy with work. Meetings across the country, dinners with royal dignitaries across the globe, or simply just endless hours spent locked in his office. All of this before he went missing for three months and came back as Iron Man. 

It was your sixth birthday and Tony had planned the perfect birthday party for you, with Pepper’s and Happy’s help of course. You had recently developed an intense fascination with marine life, so what better way for you and your family to celebrate your birthday then spending the day at the aquarium? He even splurged a little extra to convince the owners of the aquarium for you to have a sleepover under the sea. But the night before your party, Tony told you he had to leave for a little while. “It’s okay, Daddy.” You said, with the most innocent smile on your face. “Can we have some of my birthday cake tonight?” And how could Tony say no to that? After birthday cake and being tucked into bed, Tony flew off in his suit for one of the first of many times. 

“Pepper, Pepper, Pepper!” You ran down the hall of your Malibu mansion, Happy trailing behind you. You launched yourself at Pepper, your little arms wrapping around her legs. “Is it time to see the fish?” Pepper scooped you into her arms and you settled on her hip, your face nuzzled into the crook of her neck. 

“It’s almost time! Are all the bags packed?” Pepper looked up at Happy, who nodded. 

“And in the car, ready whenever we leave.” Pepper smiled gratefully at Happy. 

“Wait! Forgot something, down please.” Pepper set you down and you ran off towards your room. 

“Thank you again, Happy. You know you don’t have to stay with us-“

“I want to.” Happy interjected. “What can I say? The kid’s grown on me.” The sound of your footsteps grew louder as you entered the living room a minute later, your stuffed bear and wad of black fabric in your arms.

“What’s that, Y/N?” Pepper tilted her head as you held out the material. 

“You know Teddy, and this is Daddy’s favorite shirt. He’s not here, so Teddy can wear his shirt. Almost like he is there!” Pepper bit her lip and plastered on a smile she hoped looked half as happy as yours. 

“Just like he’s there, huh? Come on, let’s go to the car. I bet the fish are so excited to see you.” 

-Two-

After Tony had taken down Obadiah, who you totally never trusted by the way, and had the press conference where he announced he was Iron Man, things started to go back to normal. Well, as normal as anything involving Tony Stark can be. You spent time with your dad in the garage as he worked on suit upgrades, and DUM-E seemed extra chipper (and klutzy) while you were around. Your Uncle Rhodey visited more frequently and everything was good. Life was good, until recently. 

For the last few weeks, your dad had been acting different. “Your dad’s under a lot of stress right now, Y/N. He’s okay.” Pepper would repeat this to you every time you asked. Natalie’s addition to Stark Industries provided a distraction for you, and you found yourself growing close to the red head. 

Your dad, Pepper, Happy, and Natalie were in Monaco and you were left at home  with Rhodey. You stood in the dark hall of your house, your Uncle Rhodey seated on the couch in the living room. The television lit up the room, and you slowly tip-toed to the couch. The blanket you held in your hand dragged against the floor as you climbed onto the couch. 

“Hey, kiddo. What are you doing up so late?” Rhodey wrapped his arm around you and covered your body with your blanket.

“Lonely. Miss everyone.” You nestled into Rhodey’s side and your eyes glued to the television. “Boring movie, Uncle Rhodey.” Rhodey laughed and looked at you. 

“And what do you want to watch, little miss? Let me guess, Tangled?” You nodded quickly and sent a dimpled smile up at your uncle. 

“Please?” Rhodey groaned dramatically before he started the movie, and you giggled happily. And if Rhodey sang the songs with you, that was no one’s business but yours. 

-Three-

You had hoped after the events in New York, with the team called the Avengers and their battle with Loki, things would go back to normal. Boy, were you wrong. You were on a plane with Pepper when you saw the footage of your dad flying into a wormhole, and it wasn’t until you were back in Malibu before you saw him again. Tears were shed and an endless amount of hugs were given when you were reunited. 

The changes in your dad’s behavior were subtle in the beginning. Loud noises would startle him much easier than before, and he spent less time sleeping and double the amount of time in the garage working on his suits. When he did sleep, his dreams were plagued with nightmares. On those nights, he’d check on you multiple times before morning came. “Have to make sure my best girl’s okay.” Tony would say on the rare chance you were awake before he went back to the garage to work for hours until sunrise, where he’d repeat the cycle again. Work with Stark Industries, work at home, and maybe get a few hours of sleep. 

Your dad’s PTSD got worse with each day that passed; throw in Happy being hospitalized, your Uncle Rhodey’s Iron Patriot makeover, and Pepper’s meeting with Aldrich Killian, Tony was a mess. And the threat of the Mandarin was the breaking point. “Come and find me. 10880 Malibu Point, 90265.” When Pepper heard the news, she told you to pack a bag, Christmas was going to take place as far from Malibu as possible. You stood in your bedroom, JARVIS playing Christmas music as you finished packing when you heard your dad, Pepper, and another woman yelling. You walked to the door and outstretched your hand, your fingertips brushing the handle when the first explosion went off. You went flying into your bedroom wall, and your world went dark. 

When you woke up again, you were hit with the news. The only home you had known was reduced to rubble, your dad was missing, presumed to be dead by the media, and your life as you knew it was over. You and Pepper had joined the unknown woman, known as Maya, to get the hell out of there. 

On Christmas Eve, you sat on your hotel bed, soft Christmas music playing in the room. You held your dad’s helmet in your lap, it being the closest it could be to having your dad with you. Pepper took a seat beside you, and you kept your gaze down, eyes glued to the helmet rested in your lap. 

“How are you holding up?” Pepper’s voice was quiet, hesitant. She was especially cautious with you for the last few days, afraid to further upset you. You couldn’t even count how many times you burst into tears out of nowhere, but you always had Pepper to lean on. Like now, as you leaned your head on her shoulder. 

“I just want my dad home.” Your voice cracked as the familiar sting in your eyes returned. You blinked rapidly as you tried not to cry again today. You picked up the helmet and hugged it to your chest. “I want to be on the couch, watching Home Alone, drinking hot chocolate. I want to be home. I miss him, Pepper.” Pepper’s shoulders shook as she tried not to cry, and she hugged you close. 

‘Me too, kid. I miss him too.’ 

-Four-

After everything died down with the Mandarin, your dad returned to the Stark Tower you now called home. It took a while to settle in, even longer with the Avengers frequenting the space, but you had your family- your dad, Pepper, Happy, and Rhodey. Even JARVIS in his own special way was an important part of your life and family. But history has a way of repeating itself. Right as you developed a new routine and sense of normalcy, shit hits the fan. This time it was Ultron. 

~~~

You were seated beside Maria as you and the team were on the balcony after one of your dad’s parties. You watched in amusement as Clint, your father, Rhodey, and Steve attempted to lift Mjolnir to no avail. The group talked and laughed, until the battle with Ultron started. 

“Hill! Get Y/N out of here, now!” Tony yelled. 

“Dad, no!” You started to go after your dad, and Maria grabbed your arm. 

“Y/N. You can’t fight with them. I need to get you out of here, please don’t make me carry you.” You paused before nodding, and you followed Maria to safety. Hours later, you were on the phone with your dad. 

“I’m sorry, kid. I only have a minute until I have to go off the grid.” Your eyes burned as you blinked away tears. “I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

“You promise? All in one piece?” You asked

“Maybe two.” You choked out a tearful laugh at your dad’s answer and took a deep breath. 

“I love you, Dad. Please, be safe.”

“I promise.”

~~~

You woke up with a gasp and clutched at your chest as you caught your breath. You flipped your phone over, three in the morning. 

“Miss Stark?” FRIDAY, your dad’s new AI, asked. Before the first fight with Ultron, JARVIS had been pretty much destroyed. Then FRIDAY was born. “Your heart rate has greatly increased and your oxygen levels have slightly decreased. Shall I call Ms. Potts for medical attention?”

“No, no, no. No, please. I’m okay, just... a bad dream is all. Nothing new.” You grabbed your cup of water that sat on the nightstand and took a large gulp, and tried to calm yourself down. You also turned on your lamp, the small bulb casting a warm glow around you. 

“Do you frequently have nightmares, Miss Stark?” 

“Y/N, please. Sometimes. Usually my dad is here and he helps me calm down. He’d sit with me; sometimes we’d watch the TV for a while, or he’d read to me until I fell asleep again.“ You pulled your blanket closer to you, a wave of sadness hitting you. “I wish he was here.”

“I’m positive Mr. Stark will be home as soon as he can, Y/N.” A pause. “What did Mr. Stark read to you when you couldn’t sleep?”

“We’ve been reading the Percy Jackson books lately. We just finished the second book the other night.” You laid back in bed and let your eyes close, and you willed yourself to fall back asleep. 

“‘The Friday before winter break, my mom-’” FRIDAY started to speak and your eyes snapped open. 

“What are you doing, Fri?”

“Reading book three, The Titan’s Curse.” FRIDAY answered as if it was the obvious answer. 

“But... why?” 

“You said your father would read to you whenever you had nightmares. Mr. Stark can’t be here, so I thought I could start reading the book to you. Hopefully he won’t be too upset that you started without him.” You smiled at how genuine and caring FRIDAY sounded and closed your eyes again. 

“That can be our little secret. Sorry for interrupting, FRIDAY. You can keep reading if you’d like.” 

“Certainly. ‘The Friday before winter break, my mom packed me an overnight bag and a few deadly weapons and took me to a new boarding school. We picked up my friends Annabeth and Thalia on the way.’” FRIDAY continued to read and you shortly fell asleep, a smile on your face. “Goodnight, Y/N.” 

-Five-

You knew things would change after the battle with Ultron in Sokovia. You had just greatly underestimated how different things would be. One change was the new additions to the team- Vision and Wanda. While you got along well with them, not even your friendships could blind you to the tensions between your unconventional family. The already seldom group meals became even more rare the silence would be unsettling. If it wasn’t silent, there was arguing that you couldn’t escape. 

Another change was the lack of Pepper in Tony’s life and subsequently your life. Pepper always tried to be there for you, even called you often and invited you to her office for lunch, but it wasn’t the same at home without her. Your dad was suffering from the loss more than he was letting on, and you had to be there for him as well. 

~~~

“I’m a grown man, Y/N. I can take care of myself.” Tony said as he looked at you, and you set a plate and a glass of water down on his workshop table. 

“I know you can, but will you?” Tony scowled at you, but you could see the gratitude in his eyes.

“Don’t know what I’d do without you, kid.” You smiled and hugged your dad tight. 

“Probably fall apart.” You said with a playful smile. “Good thing you’ll never have to find out.” You let go of Tony and walked towards the exit. “Finish up soon, or I’ll have FRIDAY shut the power off.” 

~~~

Things got worse when the Sokovia Accords were brought into play. Your family was torn apart by the decision whether or not to sign, with your dad being one of the few to sign and Cap being one of the few against the Accords. Throw in Clint’s retirement and the team you knew was no more. Tony knew this, and he made a trip to Queens for recruitment. 

~~~

“Where are you going?” You sat up from your spot on the couch. 

“Queens.” Tony walked over and took a seat beside you. “I’ve had FRIDAY tracking crime statistics, pair that with trending searches after these crimes, and I think we may have found someone in Queens that could be helpful.” Tony pulled his phone out of his pocket and projected a video for you. You tilted your head as you watched the person (definitely my age, you thought) in their makeshift suit swinging around the city, and your jaw dropped when you saw them catch a car with their bare hands. 

“And how exactly did you find out who they are? Under the suit?” 

“Classified.” Tony tapped the tip of your nose, and you swatted his hand away with a playful glare. 

“Hope you have a way to convince his guardians to speak with him, let alone go with you to fight against the rogues.” You laid back down and cuddled your blanket.

“Have we met? I always have a plan.” Tony stood up. “You’ll be okay on your own?”

“Have we met?” You copied him and Tony rolled his eyes. 

“Brat.”

“Old man.”

“I’m running away!” Tony called out as he walked to the elevator. 

“See you in a few hours.” You closed your eyes, and let sleep take over. 

~

“I wish I could go with you. We haven’t been to Germany in so long.” You sat on a workshop bench as your dad finished tweaking the web shooters for Spider-Man’s new suit. 

“As soon as everything is calm again, we’ll have a vacation wherever you want. Just us, I promise. It has been too long since we’ve spent time together without work getting in the way.” You could hear the guilt in your dad’s voice and you smiled sympathetically at him. 

“I know you’ll make it right, Dad. You always do.”

~~~

Before you knew it, your dad and the remaining team members were off to Germany for the fight against the rogues. Happy stayed behind, which you said was completely unnecessary, per your dad’s request. Just in case, he had said. He’ll only be a call away. And it’s a good thing he did. 

———

“Happy?” You groaned and held your phone to your ear. “I think I need the hospital.” That was nearly an hour ago. Now, you laid in a stretcher, being wheeled to the operating room, as Happy waited in the lobby the emergency room. Your stomach had been aching all day and it got worse as the day progressed. 

“Sounds like appendicitis. We’ll need to remove her appendix as soon as possible.” The rest of the conversation faded into the background, as did the preparation for your surgery. 

“Alright, Miss Stark.” The surgeon spoke as she administered the anesthesia. “Count down from five for me. Can you do that?”

“Five...” Your eyes closed. “Four... three...” And you slipped into darkness again. 

(In the waiting room...)

“Guess it’s a good thing you stayed behind.” Happy held his phone against his ear, Pepper speaking on the other end of the line. “How is she?”

“Surgery should be finishing up soon. I’ll call you again when I’ve seen her. I’m sure she’d appreciate seeing you when she’s home.” Happy glanced at the door, anxious to see your surgeon again. 

“The minute she’s ready for visitors, I’ll be there.” Muffled voices in the background. “Keep me posted, please? I have to go.”

“I will. Bye, Pepper.” The two exchanged goodbyes just in time for the surgeon to walk over. 

“Mr. Hogan? Miss Stark is waking up. I’ll walk you to her room.”

~

“Hey, kid.” Happy spoke quietly and took a seat in the chair beside your bed. 

“Happy...” You smiled and struggled to keep your eyes half open. “You’re here.”

“Where else would I be?” Happy could see the gears in your brain working after the question. 

“Dunno. Just happy you’re here.” You giggled tiredly. “Happy that Happy’s here. Happy, happy, happy.” Your voice trailed to a whisper and you were quiet for a minute. “Happy?”

“Yes, Y/N?” You turned to face Happy, and his eyes met yours. 

“Thank you. For always being here for me.” 

“Always will be, Y/N/N.“ Happy watched as your eyes closed, the smile still on your face. 

“Like a family. You’re my family, Hap. And I love you.” It was Happy’s turn to smile, and he leaned down and pressed a chaste kiss to your forehead. 

“I love you too, kid.” He hoped you heard him before you fell asleep. 

-One Time He Was There-

“Peter!” You laughed as the brunette led (dragged) you through the hall of his apartment building, and you looked at the doors you passed on the way to his. “Slow down, I’m going to trip!”

“I’ll catch you.” Peter replied but slowed down. “Sorry, I’m just excited.”

“For pizza at your aunt’s?” You stopped walking and Peter nodded. The slight twitch of Peter’s eye didn’t go unnoticed- his nervous tic. What can you say? Natasha trained you well. 

Happy had dropped you off at the Parker’s apartment last night, giving you an excuse about some business trip him, Pepper, and your dad had planned over the weekend. You insisted you could stay home alone, but when Tony mentioned staying with Peter, you couldn’t pass up the opportunity to spend time with your best friend. You two had spent all of the day together, Peter showing you around the city Spider-Man style. Holding onto Peter while he swung across the city was your favorite way to travel now. 

After the battle in Germany, the team had all gone separate ways. The loss was hard on both you and your father, and the addition of Peter to your life (and Pepper rejoining) made everything easier. You quickly became friends with the teen, grateful to have someone your age to spend time with. And he was ridiculously attractive, not that you’d say it out loud. After all the time you two had talked and spent together, you grew close to Peter and him to you. And for him right now, that was a curse. 

“Are you hiding something from me, Peter?” You asked. 

“Absolutely not. I wouldn’t hide anything from you. I’m a horrible liar, you know that. I start talking a lot, talking really fast-“ 

“Like you’re doing right now?” Peter scoffed at your question. 

“You have no faith in me. Come on, we don’t want to be late.” Peter continued walking and led you to his apartment door. 

“It’s okay if we’re late, I doubt May ate all of our dinner by herself.” You walked into the apartment with Peter, confused why the lights were off. You turned the lights on and...

“Surprise!” You jumped from the cheers and grinned at the sight. Your dad, Pepper, Happy, and May stood in the living room wearing party hats. A homemade “Happy Birthday” banner hung in the living room, and there were containers of your favorite takeout and a birthday cake on the coffee table. 

“Oh, my God.” You looked around the room. “Guys.” You whispered and your eyes watered as you turned to Peter. “This is why we spent the day in the city?”

“Had to keep you outside so they could get everything set up.” You hugged Peter tight, and Peter gladly returned the hug. “It was all your dad’s idea. He wanted to surprise you for your birthday.” Peter spoke softly as he rubbed your back. You pulled away after a moment and walked to your dad. 

“You did all this for me?” Your bottom lip trembled as you blinked back tears. 

“Of course I did, Y/N. You’re my daughter, my heart. You deserve the best, this is the least I could do.” Your dad opened his arms and you flung yourself into his arms. “I don’t have the best track record of being here when you need me. But I promise I’ll do better. Be the dad you deserve.” You let out a muffled sob, your face buried in your dad’s shirt. 

“Please, just more days like today.” You whispered and Tony nodded, pressing a tender kiss to the top of your head. You stepped away after a minute and wiped your eyes. “Thank you all so much. I’ll cry all over the rest of you later.” Laughter sounded through the room as you stood by your dad’s side. 

“We have plenty of time, Y/N. Now, let’s eat dinner. I nearly had to lock Tony outside to keep him from eating the cake.” Pepper said and walked to the living room, everyone but your dad following. 

“Dad? Come on.” Your dad looked nervous and you started to question him, until Pepper yelled. 

“Anthony Edward Stark, did you-?!”

“Gotta run!” You laughed as Pepper reprimanded Tony, and you sat on the couch with Peter and May. Maybe your family wasn’t conventional, and maybe your dad was busier than most. But when he was there, you were the happiest you could be, and you wouldn’t trade him for the world. Even when he stole a slice of your birthday cake before you could. Punk.

Taglist: @daughter-of-stark @agent-barnes40 @spideygirl2003 @ditttiii @missmulti @5aftermidnight ❤ Taglist and requests are open! Hope you guys enjoyed this because I loved it

[oceanera12]

Winter Soldier!Steve

I don’t see enough of this AU

And when I do it is ALWAYS Stucky So let’s take a different route on this bad boy, shall we?

First movie follows the same story line up to the train section.

Don’t know how and don’t think too hard about it because AU but somehow Steve is the one thrown from the train, not Bucky--

BUT

Bucky isn’t Steve. Because when Bucky “dies” Steve breaks down and cries. 

When Steve “dies” Bucky stares at the point where his friend fell in shock as he realizes he’s failed his friend. His stupid, punk, friend who survived getting beaten in back alley’s, illness inducing winters, allergies, the deaths of both parents, and a freaking government science experiment. His friend is gone and all he has left of him is a metal frisbee.

Yes, he is sad. But he is mostly ticked.

Zola is found by Barnes before the other Commando’s because Barnes rips off the flipping door, grabs Zola around the neck and starts choking him (and almost kills him), but the Commando’s manage to snap him out of his death rage and Zola is taken in (albeit very afraid and very bruised)

After some “interrogation” Zola admits to Barnes having a variant of a super soldier serum from his time experimenting on the soldier. Stark looks into it, confirms the fact, and suddenly Barnes finds himself in charge of the Commandos and is given Steve’s shield.

He agrees to do it on ONE condition. In the public reports of the incident, Captain America is still Steve Rogers and will always be Steve. If anyone asks, Bucky died on that train, not Steve because gosh darn it, Bucky is not going to let his friend fade into the background again.

Bucky and Peggy have a friendship and an understanding between them. Whatever happens next is for that little guy in Brooklyn.

Bucky makes a very ruthless Captain America. He does his job with efficiency and speed. The Commando’s back him up whole heartedly.

The movie plays out pretty much the same with the Red Skull fight and Bucky getting on the plane (he doesn’t kiss Peggy, geez), and then going to crash the ship in the ocean.

The radio call is different. In the call, Bucky makes Peggy swear to tell the public it was Steve in the plane. This was Steve saving the world, not James Barnes. “Because that kid saved me before he saved anyone else.”

Then he asks Peggy to tell him about how she first met his punk brother. She obliges, tears running down her face. She doesn’t know when Barnes was cut off but by the time she was done the radio had gone dead.

Seventy years later, SHIELD pulls out a frozen Captain America. Most everyone is confused when the man is brown haired, not blonde, and upon closer inspection they find whoever this is, it is NOT Steven Rogers.

Fury pulls up the redacted reports and very old, very disclosed files before finding the truth about Captain Rogers and that the person they have found is Sergeant James Barnes.

James doesn’t bolt out of the hospital room SHIELD staged. He points out the inconsistencies, the radio game being wrong, etc, then sits down and basically asks when they are going to start torturing him for information.

Fury comes in, tells him he’s been frozen and when Bucky doesn’t believe him, Fury takes him on a tour around New York City.

Bucky requests if they release anything on Captain America being found, to say it was Steven Rogers, who is now being very recluse and does not want any attention.

Avenger’s plays out slightly different. 

For one, Tony and Bucky don’t butt heads as much. Actually, Tony thinks Bucky is Steve Rogers at first (he still really doesn’t like Steve because of how his Dad talked about him) and is extremely confused when James takes off the mask and introduces himself as Sergeant James Barnes. Then Tony backpedals on that information and does his own research on it. Tony’s the one who finds the SHIELD weapons, James is angry at Fury and actually sides with Tony

For another thing, Bucky doesn’t get along with Thor very well. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s a stupid blonde but it’s just bad memories.

Nat and Bruce are fine with James, as is Clint when he comes around.

Everyone beats up the aliens and Loki and it’s a win, win.

In between movies, Bucky hangs out with Tony to catch up on modern day (because Tony really likes watching him be confused/learning pop culture and James needs it because what are these references?) Bucky tells Tony about the “real” Steve. The kid before the shield. I wouldn’t say Tony loves Rogers now, but he definitely understands him better and has a little more sympathy for the guy.

This is important because Winter Soldier is up

Bucky meets Sam while running. Sam doesn’t know who he is at first until they are introduced, then kind of confused because isn’t Barnes dead? But he doesn’t bring it up and leaves it at that because this guy is clearly suffering from PTSD and a soldier not used to being home.

Mission with Black Widow, goes to see the giant battleships in the sky, and Bucky isn’t Steve. But he also knows this is a bit much/extreme for a constant military station so he doesn’t support the project because, yes there are aliens. So why are we looking at threats on the planet and not in space???

Bucky calls Tony and chats with him for a bit about it (he feels uncomfortable talking to Peggy because it’s not fair that Steve doesn’t get to see her). Tony points out the pros and cons of the project and cracks some jokes. Overall, not extremely helpful but helps clear Bucky’s head a little.

Nick is attacked, runs to Bucky, Nick is “killed” and Bucky chases after the killer. Similar roof scene (*note: I don’t know if Steve has the metal arm. If he does, I’m thinking it’s the right arm, not the left. Don’t know why, just think it should be that way if it is) and Winter Soldier vanishes

Okay, so-- Fury says to not trust anyone. And Bucky sure as heck doesn’t trust Pierce. But I feel like Barnes is more trusting than Steve (I’m serious, the Winter Soldier experience just threw that trait out the window). So Barnes trusts Widow enough to actually leave her with the drive and not put it in a vending machine (also tells her not to show it to anyone-- which she doesn’t.)

Just going to say the movie carries out the same for the most part (including contacting Falcon) EXCEPT--

When Bucky pulls the mask off Steve he calls his name out and we still get shot at and captured. Rescued by Maria Hill, find Fury, etc, etc.

THEN Bucky calls Tony Stark from a payphone, who’s confused as to why Captain America is wanted on the news. Bucky tells Stark about Steve. Tony probably doesn’t believe him at first because, “Hello, Barnes? He’s dead. Has been for a long time. You hit your head or something?” But Bucky explains and suddenly Tony finds himself diving into old S.H.I.E.L.D. files and reading up on Soviet science experiments from the cold war.

Also, Tony comes to help blow up the carriers because heck to the no, Hydra is not using his technology, no siree.

So Falcon and Stark are flying around the carriers and taking care of goons, when Falcon gets shot down Stark goes after him and when everything is falling apart, Stark tries to get close to Barnes to grab him, but can’t because of the big guns.

Meanwhile in the Bucky vs. Steve fight, we get the whole “trying to kill one“ another thing, but I feel like Bucky is way better at pushing Steve’s memory buttons and Bucky is a little more willing to punch Steve because he knows Steve wouldn’t want to kill him. So Steve figures out “wait, I know this guy” just before they hit the water.

When they crash in the water, both are semi-conscious and they are found by Stark who flies both to his compound and calls the doctors to come work on these two sad super soldiers.

Now Steve doesn’t remember everything. But he knows that: One, Hydra is going to be after him if they find out he’s still alive. Two, these people that helped him either knew him or know of him somehow and he really doesn’t want to hurt them. Three, his name is Steven Rogers and the punk from earlier is James Buchanan Barnes.

So Steve pulls a him and goes, “Nope, not putting you in danger” and the first chance he gets he flees Avenger’s tower and disappears into thin air.

Thanks, Steve. Thanks a lot.

Age of Ultron, nothing really changes. Tony is also looking for Steve and Bucky is a little more on top of things and tells Tony that Steve might have had something to do with his parent’s deaths but he’s not 100% sure.

Civil War. Okay, bear with me for a second because I can see Bucky actually being Pro-Accords. Not one hundred percent of the actual document but the idea behind it because “yes, people need to be held accountable for their actions” but also “you can’t save everyone no matter how hard you try, trust me I know that better than everyone, but that doesn’t mean you just sit there and do nothing because some government people tell you no, you can’t get involved.” (Basically Black Widow’s stance on this whole thing)

So when “Steve” bombs the accords, Bucky knows that’s not him and tells Tony as much (who doesn’t believe Barnes completely, but willing to give him a chance because of the past) and since Bucky technically signed the accords he has more pull in what happens to him and Tony is way more willing to listen.

Which means Bucky and Tony track down Steve in that apartment with actual permission to do so, on the condition they take the “Winter Soldier” into custody.

I’m not really sure what happens after this because Tony is going to find out about his parents, one way or another. Maybe Bucky’s stories about his old friend will keep Tony from trying to kill him. Maybe they won’t. Who knows? Heck, Zola may not even make it through the front door because Bucky is allowed to talk to Steve as the “therapist”

So end this AU however you want, I think it’d be pretty accurate. I’m just going to say the Accords got thrown out the window and Bucky and Tony start helping Steve recover from Hydra. Yay!

[noncommited-writer]

WARNING FFH SPOILERS!!

Basically all my thoughts!

.

.

.

Okay can we just talk about literally the beginning??????

'I Will Always Love You' memoirs??? Holy shit I was cackling but also crying inside when they showed pictures of Tony

Then the whole plan??? To get MJ??? Oh my god, I fucking melt. I want a man like Peter who will confess to me on top of the Eiffel Tower and buy me jewellery based on the shit I'm passionate about!!!!

Also, that scene at the shelter? When he becomes overwhelmed by the mention of Tony, I started to think he might have PTSD or some sort of knee jerk reaction whenever he hears his name. The way he was already teary eyed after swinging away. I couldn't deal with that.

Then the whole plan failing on the plane and oh my god the bathroom scene?? When he starts cleaning up oh my god that's just pure cinnamon roll Peter, I die I swear.

Theeen Betty and Ned???? OH MY GOD SUCH CUTIES!!!!!! AHHHHHH they were so fun to watch istg "babe?" "babe."

When they had the whole montage of Peter just trailing around MJ and being sulky over Brad like an adorable puppy. Then getting that necklace??? Ooooof ugh kill me with your cuteness istg.

Then the whole thing with Peter not having his suit with him??? And wearing that festival mask? Shit cracked me up

And dear god save this kid from the never ending concussions from the bell tower.

Then the whole conversation between Talos Fury and Peter in his hotel room. Literally two very different energies meeting to a head. It was glorious.

Also when they introduced Quentin?? I was like fucking shOOk. For two reasons

One because he was such a dramatic, unsubtle, little bitch talking about his family's death and praising Peter like Tony did!

For another, BECAUSE HE HAD LOWKEY DADDY ENERGY AROUND PETER AND THE WAY PETER LIGHTS UP WHENEVER HE PRAISES HIM OH MY GOD IT REMINDED ME SO MUCH OF HIM AND TONY. FUCK.

ALSO UNIVERSE 616?? CMON BITCH HOW DARE YOU PULL THAT STUNT. MARVEL YOU COP OUT! :(

Then the inevitable glasses. Dear lord. Fuck me up with the whole Iron dad (or starker) feels that whole scene gave off. My heart hurted.

Then that scene when he had to take off his clothes to wear his suit fUCK! Lowkey tho I felt hot. Then Brad walks in and then tells him he's gonna tell MJ?? Like who the fuck????

Then that bus scene. Oh my god, shit made me laugh so hard istg. When he punched Flash and actually had to web the freaking air strike drone he sent in!!!!!!! Hswhhdhhe Peter is a fuckin mess.

EDITH :(((((( even dead I'm the hero. My fucking feelings took a fucking dive. "He always did love his acronyms" and the way Peter just chuckles, looks away with tearing eyes, voice cracking as he says "Yeah he did"

God fucking damn it.

Istg Marvel is just playing with my feelings now. It's so fucking unfair.

And then that whole fighting scene with the Fire Elemental? When I saw one of the drone take the hit, I was like. Wait a fucking moment.

Also, I caught this thing where Mysterio's magic hits the windshield of Fury’s car but instead of cracks like it should be, I saw bullet holes. And I took a moment to notice that.

NIGHT MONKEY! NIGHT MONKEY!

Then that bar scene!!!! Jesus christ. That was a whirlwind of emotions. The way Peter's smile just dropped when Beck wore the glasses and saw Tony within him. God.

Also like those backstories????? Damn. Legit. I got no other words.

The way that Peter seemed soooo disappointed when MJ lied about the reason why she kept staring at him? Ugh my heart.

YAS GIRL DO IT FOR ALL OF US! TURN AROUND!!!! (Also what the fuck that cute little chub on Tom's tummy before he tenses up for the camera is so fucking cute oh my god I fucking melt, I wanna hug him)

"It's not a competition." Yea sure, Ned. Sure.

Holy fuck. Holy fuck. HOLY FUCK.

THAT WHOLE ILLUSION SCENE?

One of the best things ever. It reminded me so much of the intros to the James Bond movies. All the smooth transitions and stunning fx. Fuck. It was all trippy.

And jesus. Using MJ like that????

Also What The Actual Fuck. When he made an illusion of Tony rising from his grave.

When I saw that tombstone, I already knew what name on it was. Didn't make it easier to see it with my own eyes.

I cant with this movie its too much for my poor heart to take.

Jesus christ when he got hit by the train.fuck nylife.

Then happy?

Oh no, I actually pretty much died at this scene.

The way Peter was so desperate on who to trust and the way he just relaxed when he realised Happy wasn't an illusion. The way Happy just went with it immediately, having similar past experience with Tony's paranoia. The way he held Peter in his arms, confused but so so so worried. The way he takes care of Peter's wounds and tries to calm him down. The way Peter breaks down over being alone, his friends being in danger, hurt over MJ, not being enough to measure up to Tony, all of his emotions coming to head. That was probably the most grounding scene I've seen of Peter ever. It really hurt in all the best ways.

"You can't measure up to Tony. No one can. Not even Tony." That line was so good because he knows the weight thats on Peter's shoulders, he knows that Peter feels pressured to take on the world, unwavering and brave and so sure of himself like Tony was. But the truth is, Tony was exactly like him behind the scenes. Tony was always breaking down, lagging behind and alone. So when he sees Peter break down, it's like seeing Tony all over again. And he can't help but soften.

"I don't think Tony would have done what he did if he didn't know you were going to be here after he was gone." And that just shattered me. He basically said that Tony would've done it all over again if he knew Peter was going to come back.

That moment, when he stares at Peter, that moment when he notices something that twists and warms his heart at the same time. When he sees Peter handle that tech and holograms seamlessly like Tony did, the way he runs his mouth with his genius, the way he seems so excited over the tech, you can see in Happy's eyes that all he sees is Tony. Tony imprinting the best parts of himself onto Peter.

He knows Peter can handle it.

And jesus christ, baby no. Its not led zeppelin, cmon.

That whole fight scene was fucking lit! I can't really explain much but wow MJ!!!! GO MJ AND BETTY!!! AYYY.

Fuck and the way Peter used his Peter Tingle to fight off the rest of the drones. That was so cool. Then when illusion Beck was handing him the glasses, he already knew that it wasn't the real him.

That heartbroken look in his eyes when he realised he can't save Beck.

His voice cracking when he wants to know theres no more illusions.

That peck? That kiss? That makeout???? These two ooze so much chemistry it actually hurts.

Ahhh that hand brush and them actually holding hands!!!!! That!!!!!!

Then flash with his mother not being around comment, fuck that kinda hurt me in the feels.

Peter having an intervention with Happy and May???? Holy shit I need more of that.

Then that date? Where they swing??? Wow goals.

And fuck Peter getting exposed. I swear my heart dropped down to my stomach.

ALSO J JONAH JAMESON HOLY SHIT I WAS SHAKING BECAUSE OF THAT!!!!

Credits scene:

Fury taking a vacation but not really is such a mood. Like he'd like a vacation but he also has to work. Idk but it might be hinting at the next captain marvel movie!!!!

Ahhh

This movie is a treasure. I am most likely going to watch it again because wow. I don't think I can take it all in 100% without watching it twice.

I saw it only a few hours ago but I already love it with all my heart. ��️

I cant believe Marvel has me hooked with their Peter Parker. ❤️❤️❤️

[kazbrkker]

Chapter 4: Proxy War

Chapter summary: Alexis and Alex head to the second part of the mission: destroy General Barkov’s airbase. (2953 words)

Warnings: mentions of PTSD, anxiety and bruises.

26 OCTOBER 2019, 1900 "Alexis" and "Alex", Codename Aces CIA with Urzik Militia Al-Raab, Urzikstan.

First day into the assignment and Alexis had already received two generous gifts.

A fresh pink and red bruise rested just above her elbow, courtesy from the soldier earlier. Travelling further up her left tricep was another strip of exposed flesh, from a bullet that grazed her while they were running for their lives. She scoffed at the addition of new injuries, hastily ripping off a gauze to bandage the wound and hoped they wouldn't scar.

Struggling single-handedly, she managed to roughly rip a jagged piece of gauze. Almost thoughtlessly plastering it against her bare flesh, when without warning, her pathetic excuse of a bandage was snatched from her.

Alex loomed over her seat, crossing his arm. She scooted over the table she sat on. He chastised, "Don't underestimate these flesh wounds. They are small but nasty, especially in dusty environments like Urkzistan. Takes little to get infected."

"This is why I rarely get assigned to places like these." She mumbled dejectedly, watching him patch her up perfectly.

Alex had feather light touches for such a muscular man. She teased, to which he placed a finger on her forehead and pushed. He was more tender only when it came to her, a fact that everyone knew. Moments later, he proudly patted his handiwork. Alex lowered to eye level with the bandage, pouting smugly.

Alexis frowned at his suspicious behaviour.

"A kiss for your booboo?"

'Dumb ass.' Alexis sent an unforgiving hard flick! to his forehead. He snickered, rubbing the red spot.

Hadir entered the room with a few fighters, a brief pause in his steps upon witnessing their close proximity, "Alena... How are your wounds?"

From her peripheral vision, Alex subtly bit his lip and roughly tossed the bunch of bandage into the medkit. "Not Alena– " She placed an easing hand over his to silence him.

"I'm still alive. Are we ready?"

"Always about work, Alexis. You hardly changed." Hadir's gaze followed their intertwined hands and chuckled, somehow amused by their reactions. "I set up shop on the edge of Barkov's base. Keep those fucking dogs in check. Friends close, enemies closer. No grenades, so we improvise."

He handed them bottles of molotov cocktail. Impressive, for what scraps it was made out of. Alex echoed the same sentiment.

"What, you think we fight this war with sticks and stones?"

Sensing the pricks in Hadir's words, she quickly hopped off the table and patted Hadir's back. "With sharpened sticks and a big enough stone, why not?"

They followed Hadir to the roof. "You are too optimistic, Alexis." She laughed at that statement. "Those bastards only understand violence... So I show them violence."

"Violence is not a catalyst, it is a diversion. Too much of it, the evil it does is permanent, Hadir."

"You'd have to send me more English dictionaries, Alexis." Hadir cheekily replied in his mother tongue. "Barkov has an air force, so we have one too. RC planes loaded with C4."

Witnessing the unfamiliar grittier edge in Hadir, Alexis thought back to her first encounter with the siblings. It wasn't hard to read Hadir, the man was practically wearing his heart on his sleeves. One could say that pointed to a certain amount of naivety, but she liked it, a kind of genuine rare in their line of work.

Headstrong, direct, loyal, three words used to describe Hadir and it would be the truest thing one could hear. Like his sister, Hadir didn't quite fit in the mold. Five years ago, the lieutenant possessed a vivid sparkle in his eyes that was lacking in his sister. Always eager for a fight, a true never-backing-down-spirit. Today, the light dulled.

But what would she know? Perhaps that was the unfortunate cost of living in a civil war.

When they reached the roof, the sun had long set, leaving behind a cast of darkness that enveloped the sky. Even in nightfall, Urkzistan still felt like a hundred degrees, but the staggered waves of wind did some to alleviate the heat.

Alex and Alexis each grabbed a remote controller for the RC planes, crashing it into the army's helicopters. There was some excitement in using amateur, yet creative equipment like these, evident in her uncharacteristically large grin. "Good hunting."

"Stay low. The airbase is ahead."

The drones flew over the hill to the airbase's tarmac. Using the bird's eye view, she expertly memorized the tarmac's landscapes before crashing her drone into a target. The remaining helicopters exploded upon impact, illuminating the night sky in a series of twisted fireworks.

"Good flying, brothers and sisters... Let's get down there." Farah praised, a smile at bay. Weapons in hand, they hopped down to the airbase's perimeter.

"Airbase perimeter is dead ahead! Second team will cover us with the cannon." Hadir yelled over the sounds of the explosions.

Alexis subconsciously reloaded her M4A1 while Alex requested for air support. His words barely registered in her brain as a bout of anxiety hit her, feeling choked. Her grip tightened on her rifle, forcing big intakes of oxygen into her burning lungs. She quickly released her fingers in an attempt to fulfil the urge to feel the Earth under her, big handfuls of sand, dirt and grass.

Her heart thudded painfully in her throat, telling herself, 'You're okay. You're okay, you're here. Breathe.'

"Copy, 3-1. I'm tasking an unmarked gunship to your position, stand by." A muffled reply from her comms grounded her back into reality, she was here, this was happening.

Alexis hurriedly looked around, everyone else was too focused on the plan to notice her. Like it never happened, she forced herself to swallow the thickness in her throat, and along with that, her fear. She packed her emotions into a box and pushed it far into the back corner of her mind.

Alexis placed her all her focus, hyper-fixated on one thing: survive.

"Roger that," Alex replied, crouching beside Alexis. They were surrounded by the full force of the militia. Their spirits were contagious, feeding her a much needed level of adrenaline and confidence.

"Get ready! We attack their armories, take their weapons, and take their airfield! Cousins– we fight to free Urzikstan and take back our country. For Urzikstan!" A mortar cannon fired to breach the airfield's perimeter walls. That was it, upon Farah's orders, everyone sprinted, guns blazing into the south wall of the airbase.

It was like clockwork, shooting, running and hiding behind covers. She slipped back into familiarity, the anxiety in her dissolved and overtook by a rush need for survival and adrenaline.

The two CIA agents worked seamlessly, benefits from the countless missions that shaped their chemistry. She glared at Alex, annoyed when he stole her shot. He shrugged, firing his rifle while branding an excuse. Truthfully, he just liked to piss her off.

"You were distracted."

"I'll give you something to be distracted about." Her words mixed with more tautness than normal, but in the midst of all that blood and fighting, Alex didn't pick up on it.

"Hm. Wouldn't be the first time."

Alexis specially took a break from firing to throw her middle finger up. She aimed her carbine at the snipers on the watchtower opposite her. Two sharp bursts later, they lifelessly fell over the tower.

"Good job, Alexis! Watchtower is clear! Move in, move in!" Farah yelled and they pushed further into the base. Following behind Farah's team, Alexis and Alex flanked left, two sharpshooters ridding of enemy hostiles within seconds.

The enemy backup came instantly —two helicopters hovering over the airbase. The heavy fire forced them behind a tiny wooden crate. Lucky for them, Hadir's plan was foolproof. He loaded just enough RC planes, and more. Alex took remote control of the RC planes.

Seeing their cover was so small, Alex immediately shielded her with himself, hugging her as tightly as he could to minimize their exposure. Alexis quickly reached for a Molotov but paused. A crafty smirk as she kicked around for the biggest piece of concrete she could throw. She looped a tactical rope over the rock.

"Take the southeast one, this one's mine!" She ordered, blindly nudging Alex's knees and pointed at the helicopter just 300 yards shy from their position.

"With a rock?" Alex bewilderedly asked, multitasking while controlling the RC planes.

"Mind your business, I'm a good shot. Remember Cairo...?" Alexis trailed off to close her right eye in concentration.

"Unfortunately."

She filtered through the comms, "Hadir! Watch this!"

Eyeing for the tail rotor (the weakest link in a helicopter), she used the length of the rope as torque, then released. The heavy weight of the rock propelled it forward, the rope entangled among the spinning blades before the block of concrete broke its spin. Small sparks ignited as the blades came in contact with the object. Within seconds, the tail rotor failed, causing the helicopter to spin uncontrollably.

It crashed into a flower of sparks and fire. Alex whistled lowly in admiration at the sight, a mumbled 'damn' escaping from his lips.

"What did I say about finding a big enough stone?"

"Well played, I guess you don't have to send me more books, Alexis!"

"Visual learner, then." Lady Luck certainly was shining down bright on her, blessing her with good timing and that majority was the work of the pilot's own anxiety. Not that she would ever tell. She winked at Alex, jerking her head at the other destroyed chopper.

A number of militia members also witnessed the fiasco, all shouting Arabic words of praises. Her stunt did wonders to renew their fighting spirits. They pushed right towards the first armory.

Alexis waited for the most apposite timing before sprinting to her next cover, flawlessly lodging bullets in the new waves of snipers on a hangar's roof. She spotted a distinct red building. "3-1, got eyes on the armory."

"Copy that, I see it too. Two tangos, let's drop 'em." They cleared the armory for reloading.

"Good work, both of you! Regroup outside! Tarmac is through the gate. Everyone to the gate!"

Alexis was a phoenix on the battlefield. Her presence mighty, fearless and deadly within a single shot. Years of experience flowing in her blood, every move was calculated and precise. One shot, one kill, she dropped targets effortlessly. She knew exactly where and when to shoot, throw a grenade or to advance. It was compelling to see her move.

It had been longer than five minutes and yet, their air support still was nowhere near them. She was growing impatient, this tarmac was the turning point vital for their success. As another round of hellfire rained down, more of their own got caught in the crossfire. They helplessly watched as grunts of pains called out, watching comrades pierced with rounds of ammunition dropped dead beside them.

"Saint to Watcher, we are taking heavy fire from enemy helis! Get us that air support, now!" The chopper was late, and the agent was furious watching others pay the price. She'd be damned if she cared if her tone was 'appropriate'.

Switching to a crawling position, a sudden pain shot from her arm. She groaned mid-shot, knowing the bandage came loose and her dive roll into the sand and dust did not help. She stayed to clear stragglers while the rest pushed through the barracks to advance further into the tarmac.

"Sister! The tarmac is ahead of us!"

"I see it! Brother, get us more planes in the air!" Hadir tried, but in a turn of events, the militia's safehouse was under attack.

Fuck. She didn't like how the tables were turning. They really needed that damn helo.

"My planes are down. We need air support. If you guys really want to help us, now is the time!" Hadir pleaded.

Alex nodded reassuringly, "We have a helo on the way! We're on our own until then! Where's the last armory?"

"In that hangar across the tarmac! We take it and the base is ours!"

"Roger that! Saint," Alex called for her. "Race you there."

"Rog." She replied lazily, pushing herself off the ground and charged to the next armory. "Let's end this."

Alexis ran past the second hangar, where Farah and her soldiers were successfully sweeping up the enemies. Catching her breath, she met an awaiting Alex outside the armory, a displayed triumphant smirk since he reached first.

Hushed whispers came from inside, revealing their headcount. In the same formation, they boosted each other on top of the armory to reach a latch. On the count of three, Alexis used all her strength to open the heavy latch door for Alex to snipe the three soldiers.

"Last armory is secure. Resupply on us." Alex commented. Both of them busied refilling their ammunition. She caught with ease as Alex tossed an unloaded sniper rifle. Her lips curved upwards approvingly. "A Windrunner...? You are too good to a lady, Echo 3-1..."

Alex watched her hands appreciatively glided along the .50 BMG's body with a grin, knowing it was her perfect weapon. Her happiness was short lived when the airbase power was cut off, leaving them in the dark. He shrugged as she returned it and left. Without a thermal scope, it was useless to them.

"I hear incoming!" Farah alerted as more tanks rolled up to the hangar. Alexis cursed, this was never ending without their helos.

"Shit! Alexis, we could really use some help here!"

Her comms sounded, "Echo 3-1, Viper 1-1 on approach. Ready for tasking. What's your position?"

'Oh hell yes', she thought, immediately ceasing fire and slumped on the ground to regain her energy.

"Viper, this is 3-1. God damn good to hear your voice!" Alex conveyed in relief. "Friendlies in the hangar, taking fire from troops on the tarmac. You are cleared hot!"

"Farah, Hadir! Get your people to stay inside the hangar!" Alexis shouted, pointing at the helo. The siblings nodded in gratitude.

"Saint to Viper, did you take a nap or something?" Alexis thought she recognized Viper's voice and callsign. Beside her, Alex almost had a cardiac arrest from her unexpected accusatory tone.

Instead, a chuckle came from the receiving end. "Saint! We ran into a little fuel situation at baseplate. How many times must I save your pretty ass?"

Alex glanced questionably. 'He had a crush' she mouthed, waving dismissively. Alex rolled his eyes in response, of course he did.

All of them remained in the hanger while Viper cleaned up. As they looked around, their headcount was drastically reduced. This sucked —she hated this part. The part where they paid the price, a hefty one, even for the victorious.

A sudden burst of gunfire shot into the hangar, barely missing the lot. "Jesus!" Alex commented, equally taken aback.

Alexis yelled into the comms, "Viper, do you mind doing a little landscaping – a tank right outside the hangar! Pretty sure we almost fucking died!"

"Copy. Anything for you, Saint." Alexis was about to call Viper out for his inappropriate comments, but since Viper was the one saving their asses, she stopped and settled for an unsatisfying eye-roll. From the annoyed expression, it was clear Alex felt the same.

After a few rockets and hellfire from Viper, they successfully claimed the airbase. "All targets destroyed. Tarmac is cleared of enemy movement, over." She looked to Farah, a warm smile slipping on the commander's face.

They won. They took the airbase and shoved it where it would hurt Barkov. Without air support, his army would face tremendous setbacks.

"Solid copy, Viper 1-1. Appreciate the high heat, don't be a stranger." Alex thanked.

"Never by choice, 3-1. Nice to hear from you again, Saint, hope to see you at the next one! Viper, out."

"Don't I know it! Echo and Saint, out." Alex interjected before she could even touch her comms.

Walking through the empty airbase, her adrenaline pumped at the sweet taste of victory. For Alex and her, victory was probably their only constant. The taste no longer revelled on their tongues the same way it used to —watered down after hundreds of missions. To them, today would have been just another victory tucked under their belts.

But for the Liberation Force, they were a step closer to freeing themselves from the cage Barkov ruthlessly shoved them in.

As Alexis, Alex, Hadir and Farah surveyed the scene of their victory, a once foreign feeling of contentment coursed through her veins. From the look on Alex's face and the way he ethnically perched his arm over her, he definitely felt that way too.

"So you do kill Russians." Hadir said jovially.

"Only the bad ones."

Hadir looked to them sincerely. "Today was a great victory for Urzikstan. Thank you, brother and sister."

"We make a good team." Alex passed a genuine smile, proud.

Alexis huffed, looping her arms around the siblings endearingly as if to stake her claim. Her uncharacteristic affection shocked him, even though he was aware of their history. "Welcome to the team, Alex."

Farah smiled. "Yes, we've bought time, but Barkov will retaliate."

"So will we." Hadir finished. They'd be more than ready.

They had no idea where this war was going to take them. However, one thing was for sure. When they were done with this assignment, Roman Barkov would be dead. It was a promise they swore upon.

Farah glanced at her team. After today, they were comrades.

a/n: sorry this was a very technical chapter. peep alex's silent jealous streak tho... masterlist here. want to be tagged? let me know!

[pharaohsparklefists]

Are you ready for Episode 116 part 1 of 3??? 

Kaiba is not ready. He’s done! He’s totally done! He’s done with...

... the ... pity farces...? Uh, yeah, buddy, aren’t we all?

Kaiba has an opportunity to end the duel (PLEASE) but he does not take it because Noah uses Mokuba as a “shield”. I’m putting shield in sarcasm-quotes because IT’S A CARD GAME INSIDE A VIRTUAL REALITY SIMULATOR, Mokuba is not in any actual danger whatsoever.

The peanut gallery thinks this was the wrong move, and so do I, but we rather differ on the details

That’s blatantly untrue! He’s shown arrogance, smugness, a lack of humanity, callousness, cruelty, spite, genocidal tendencies-- oh you meant a strategic flaw, not a personality flaw? Well he came within one human-shield-deployment of losing outright and he’s already used BOTH his Deck Master abilities even though it should only have one, so I don’t see what the big deal--

A FUCKING THIRD FUCKING DECK MASTER ABILITY go die in a hole you smear of shit 

Seriously! How is Kaiba not like “wait a minute this seems kinda like bullshit, are you just making these up?” THIS ability lets him add 500 LP for every Monster in the Ark by removing them from play entirely.

Yugi points out if he’d just done that one turn sooner...

Because he’s the wooooorst!

At this point, Kaiba goes into a flashback, triggered by guilt and fear seeing Mokuba on Noah’s side. He justifies his harshness towards Mokuba the day of the takeover:

BUT NEVER CLARIFIED THAT OUT LOUD TO MOKUBA APPARENTLY.

He remembers how proud he was of Mokuba and how completely he trusted and trusts in their mutual love and loyalty to one another...

BUT NEVER OUT LOUD TO MOKUBA APPARENTLY

Yugi sees that this is all going rather pear-shaped and decides to impart some hard-won knowledge to Kaiba by screaming it at the back of his unreceptive head

“Who is that tiny shrieking gnome? Is that...? No I can’t tell, he’s too far away.”

Yugi reminds Kaiba of the recent traumatic near-death experience Yugi and Jou went through and Kaiba witnessed, when Malik forced Yugi and brainwashed!Jounouchi to duel TO THE DEATH

“that pinch” = they both really almost drowned to death for real

Jounouchi: Yuug I think I might be suffering from PTSD

Yugi: haha yeah, we have been in a few jolly bothersome scrapes!

Anyway Yugi manages to get it into Kaiba’s skull - thick though it is with contrariness and rugged individualism - that he should attempt to evoke the bond Kaiba and Mokuba share. Kaiba’s like, huh...

“Should I tell Mokuba I love him? ... No, better! I’ll play a CARD in this CARD GAME that Mokuba doesn’t even play. Nice. Nailed it. Best big brother ever. All I have to do is DRAW THE CARD!”

“Fuck.”

Bored, Noah [deep pained sigh] moves on to the fifth staging post on his violently inaccurate timeline of Earth’s history.

nnnnoooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Rapid???? CYCLES????????? 

THIS IS LITERALLY A WORSE UNDERSTANDING OF EVOLUTION THAN FUCKING POKÉMON

And then he immediately says, like the NEXT fucking SENTENCE is...

Shhhh. Listen. Yes, you, reading this recap. Close your eyes. Do you hear that? A high, ragged note, right at the very edge of your hearing? That’s the faint echo of the shriek of rage I emitted at this point in episode one hundred and sixteen of Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters. It will ring in the air for the rest of time, powered by the rage of a hundred thousand baffled geologists.

Ignoring literally everything Noah says (a strategy I could recommend to one Seto Kaiba), check out the city materialising in the background. The half-building just hoving into sight is KaibaCorp tower, and Noah now summons a KaibaCorp fighter plane, which flies out of the tower...

(I like the helipad and there’s a crane on the opposite jutting-out-bit, like they build things up there, which is cool!)

... and then just vanishes to come “out” of the holographic card anyway so why even fucking bother?

Noah equips the plane with two Magic Cards which allow it to deal damage even if it’s a Monster in Defense Mode it hits, which Kaiba’s dimension-hopping dragon is. The dragon arrives back from an alternate dimension every time it’s destroyed, so the plane can hit it again, which in Noah’s opinion is super great... 

He’s the worst. The anxiously watching Nerd Herd agree...

Um. Well. Much as I hate to defend this geology-abusing shithead. In fairness. “keep attacking until your opponent loses” is not, shall we say, actually bad, wrong, evil, or freakish? Like that’s .... the game?

Another turn, another chance for Kaiba to USE HIS MOUTH-WORDS to maybe TELL MOKUBA THAT HE LOVES HIM

... or he could continue trying to draw a card. that’s fine too. it’ll probably work.

Noah starts laying out his like, endgame plan here, which involves stealing Kaiba’s body specifically, dying its hair turquoise I assume, and taking over KaibaCorp

You will absolutely not, you fig-headed lick of dish scum, because your ~knowledge~ is vastly inferior to My First Earth Science Book for fucking playschool kids. 

Frustrated, scared, and angry, something in Kaiba finally snaps and he actually comes out with a genuinely devastating trash-talk takedown

OUCH

DEMOLISH HIM KAIBA

YES YOU MAGNIFICENT JERK!

[ljfeed-spn-j2-bigbang]

2017 Masterlist

This year, cloex_brosluvr is the hero for coding allll of this masterpost. Please tell her thank you! Below, you will find master lists of all the entries posted to this community for the 2017 spn_j2_bigbang challenge. I encourage you to scroll through the list and look for anything you might have missed. There is some AWESOME fic and some INCREDIBLE art, and it all deserves to be appreciated! If you see any errors, just let me know and I'm happy to correct them. Start getting ready for 2018, I'll see you right back here in January for sign-ups! JARED/JENSEN Fic title: Wandering Lost Link to art: Here Author name: dugindeep Artist name: thruterryseyes Genre: RPS Pairing: Jared/Jensen Word count: 36,000 Summary: Hired by an eccentric billionaire, Jensen is tasked with transporting a '55 Ford F-100 from California to New York. After the car breaks down, he's stuck in the middle of Nebraska and spends a week getting to know a whole mix of oddballs he'd never spend a minute with back in NYC. "Not all who wander are lost," but Jensen's a little of both as he warms up to the townspeople and the local handyman, who is equal parts peculiar and charming. And maybe he even finds himself along the way. 　 Fic title: To Protect Link to art: Here Author name: twoboys2love Artist name: 2blueshoes Genre: SPN RPS AU Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: Explicit Word count: 27,000 Warnings: Vague references to anxiety, hurt!Jensen, hurt!JDM, UST, violence, firearms, bottom!Jensen, assault Summary: Jensen is a famous author of horror novels. He gets his inspiration from his nightmares and fears. When he moves to an isolated house, he picks up a "stalker" who sends him vaguely threatening letters and flowers. His agent and long-time friend, JDM, hires a retired cop as live-in security for Jensen. As Jared makes himself at home in the house, on the grounds and the pool, they develop a friendship with tantalizing possibilities. What are Jared's motives for the friendship? Is JDM jealous or protective? Jensen ends up with two people he trusts pitted against each other. 　 Fic title: Come What May Link to art: Here Author name: hideurdemoneyes Artist name: quickreaver Genre: RPS AU Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC-17 Word count: ~32k Warnings: major angst, fluff, smut, major character death, modern day AU, prostitute!Jensen, writer!Jared, swearing, bottom!Jared, top!Jensen, implied past Jensen/others, implied bottom!Jensen, terminal illness, virgin!Jared, anal sex, anal fingering, rimming, drinking, attempted non-con, mild violence, singing, light feminization Summary: San Francisco, mid-2000's. Jared is fresh off the bus, a wild-eyed dreamer from Texas searching for fame and romance. He finds himself in an unexpected friendship with t he eccentric Misha and his gang of aspiring theatre folk, allowing them to introduce him to the seedy underbelly of the performance world. Along the way, Jared falls madly in love with the star of the failing Castro Theatre, Jensen. But there's another man out for Jensen's affections - the rich, powerful, and sadistic Jeffrey. Based as an AU of Moulin Rouge!, Jared and Jensen's tale is the greatest love story ever told -- and the greatest tragedy of this modern era. 　 Fic title: Forgiving the Past, Finding the Future Link to art: Here Author name: morganadw Artist name: white_laurel Genre: J2 AU Pairing: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki Rating: R Word count: 44,176 Warnings: This may contain slight triggers but nothing is shown and most of the serious trauma/abuse is in the past and mentioned in dialogue or description. This is a bottom!Jared fic as well that includes some minor kink and use of handcuffs. See tags and warnings on actual AO3 story post. Summary: Jensen Ackles & Jared Padalecki were once best friends and high school sweethearts in their small hometown of Paxton, Texas. They had plans to run away to start college & their life together on their terms until the night of graduation when betrayal and lies ruined those plans. A decade later found Jared returning back to the town he hated & finding himself confronted by Jensen, the man he believes lied and used him. Jensen wants answers as to why Jared not only ran away without any explanation but also now hates him. Upon learning the truth of that fateful night, Jensen uses some unconventional methods and his job as sheriff to get Jared to listen. He realizes he also has some listening to do as some of what Jared's done comes to light. The former flames must come to grips with their pasts and the events that led to their breakup. They will have to learn to forgive in order to heal and start moving forward towards a future they both still want. 　 Fic title: My Secret Heart Link to art: Here Author name: storyspinner70 Artist name: meesasometimes Genre: RPS Pairing: Jensen/Jared Rating: NC-17 Word count: 25,154 Warnings: bottom!Jared, top!Jensen, OCD!Jensen, genderqueer!Jared, m/m, light angst, schmoop, homophobia Summary: Jared isn’t obsessed with Jensen Ackles. Except, you know, that he really kind of is. A moment of clumsiness brings him into Jensen's life and they start a tentative friendship. As they get closer, they learn exactly how true the old adage is – you can never judge a book by its cover. He learns how Jensen struggles with OCD and the nightmare the world can be for him. He also learns Jensen is a safe place for him to lay his own secrets, and that not everyone will laugh at an all american college boy who, some days, wants nothing more than to be beautiful. College age AU. Reduced age gap boys. Genderqueer!Jared, OCD!Jensen, Not a cross dressing fic. 　 Fic title: Wake Me Up When September Ends Link to art: Here Author name: lullysg Artist name: kaelysta Genre: RPF AU Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC-17 Word count: 131k Warnings: descriptions of September 11th attack (only in the first couple of chapters), permanent injury, physical disability, PTSD, survivor’s guilt, alcoholism, depression, substance abuse, accidental overdose, a lot of angst, hurt/comfort, hurt!Jared Summary: It started out as a regular Tuesday morning in New York City. The sun was bright in the sky when at 8:46 a.m., a plane crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. 2,606 people died in there that day, but there were also survivors. Jared and Jensen meet for the first time in a night that hadn't gone so well for either of them, and they build an instant connection. An unplanned second encounter happens while a building is threatening to collapse on their heads, and an impossible choice has to be made. The attack leaves deep scars, both physically and mentally, and they are going to learn that the hardest part wasn’t surviving September 11th. Finding the strength to keep living in the aftermath of what that day caused is what proves to be the real challenge, especially when the light at the end of the tunnel seems impossible to reach. 　 Fic title: When the Devil Came to Pluto Link to art: Here Author name: tsuki_no_bara Artist name: amberdreams Genre: RPS Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: PG Word count: 21,300 Warnings: Chad. Asexual!Jensen. A certain amount of historical hand waving. Non-CW actors. Summary: The New Mexico territory in the 1870s is a vast and wild place, all scrubland and hills and mystery, home to gunslingers and miners and working girls and scattered native tribes. Jared and Jensen live in a little mining town called Pluto, keeping the peace for a brothel and occasionally checking up on the mine. The land around them is full of secrets and stories, which Jared is eager to learn and share. And then one night Jensen vanishes and Jared sets off through the desert to find him. A herd of ghost ponies brings him to the devil's front door, and even though the devil is not what Jared was expecting, he still thinks they can make a deal so he can get Jensen back. 　 Fic title: Bound Link to art: Here Author name: junkerin Artist name: emmatheslayer Genre: RPS Pairing: Jensen/Jared, Jensen/Misha (mentioned), Jensen/Lehne (non-con) Rating: NC-17 Word count: 35,809 Warnings: Non-con, slavery Summary: Thanks to nanobots humanity got finally rid of all diseases. Or so they thought. That was when "Omega" the last disease hits. It leaves the patient paralyzed while conscious. Catlin Padalecki finds a treatment in form of bonds or tapes that enables the "omegas" to move again. But her invention gets misused and sends the omegas into slavery. 25 years later Jensen Ackles is a freed omega who works with the resistance. He wants to pressure Catlin into helping them. But he only finds her son Jared and Jared is to not willing to help even after Jensen makes him an omega too. Can the two stubborn men overcome their differences? Will they be able to overcome hate and prejudice in order to free the omegas and to set right what once went wrong? 　 Fic title: A Song in the Stars Link to art: Here Author name: strive2bhappy Artist name: immortalfire13 Genre: RPS Pairing: J2 Rating: NC-17 Word count: 40,000 Warnings: mentions of past torture, scarring from said torture, a bit of blood from overuse of powers Summary: Jared Padalecki has dreamed of taking to the skies since he was five-years-old. When he becomes an adult and builds a spaceship of his own, he gets to do just that, looking for adventure -- little did he know the adventure waiting for him. Jensen Ackles is born part human, part Terryn and his life as an outcast is difficult -- music is his only real escape. When he's captured by the Dominion, an organization hell-bent on taking over every galaxy in every way they can, he's used as a lab experiment to see how his special, combined heritage can be advantageous for them. Fleeing Dominion control, he vows to himself, they will never find him again. A chance meeting between Jared and Jensen helps both of them get what they're looking for -- and the way things end up, it may have been more than just chance. From various planets throughout different galaxies, to nights under the stars in space, Jared and Jensen find in each other something worth fighting -- and possibly dying -- for. 　 Fic title: Silly Love Songs Link to art: Here Author name: nerdypastrychef Artist name: liliaeth Genre: RPS Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC17 Word count: 28,436 Summary: Jensen’s life revolves around love songs. He feels about music the way that most kids feel about Disney movies. They all have a special place in his heart and all of his important memories are embedded with a soundtrack of his favorites. Jared, on the other hand, doesn’t care much about music beyond background noise and love songs are low on his list. But when he moves into a new apartment in downtown Austin his neighbor’s singing through their shared walls start to change his mind. A love story told in three acts. A YouTube Playlist for the music. 　 Fic title: Open Warfare: The Secret of a Successful Marriage Link to art: Here Author name: whiskygalore Artist name: magic_penguin Genre: RPS Pairing: J2 Rating: NC-17 Word count: 40k Warnings: Omega Jensen, Alpha Jared, Age switch, Very brief attempted non-con, and potty mouthed boys. Summary: There was a time that arranged marriages for Omegas were a common occurrence: thirty or forty years ago. Now, thankfully, Omegas have the same rights as everyone else, are free to live their own lives, to marry whomever they choose. Except for Jensen. Because, in a move that will save Ackles’ Systems from bankruptcy, Jensen’s dad has just signed him up for an arranged marriage to Jared Padalecki. Unfortunately, Jared is an idiot with a poor choice in friends, and Jensen is a stubborn dick with an unconventional profession, so it’s no surprise when their marriage quickly degenerates into a state of open warfare. 　 Fic title: The Pie that Binds Link to art: Here Author name: herminekurotowa Artist name: liliaeth Genre: RPS Pairing: Jensen/Jared, Jensen/Matt, Jared/OMC’s Rating: NC-17 Word count: 29,000 Warnings: kidnapping, slavery, non-consensual drug use, most dubious consent due to drug use, attempted rape, minor character deaths, hurt!Jared, hurt!Jensen Summary: Jensen lives in the woods, He'd never thought his sweet tooth could get him into trouble so deep he might drown in it. Jared lives in a palace made of stone because he's the king, but he's not very good at it. 　 Fic title: Till Death Do Us Part Link to art: Here Author name: aggiedoll Artist name: mangacat201 Genre: RPS Pairing: J2 Rating: NC-17 (PG for art) Word count: + ~126k Warnings: major character deaths (for fic, no warnings for art) Summary: When two young men, Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, bump into each other in the crowded cab zone in front of a bustling airport, in the middle of a fierce comeback of winter in spring time, they don't know yet how their fates will soon intertwine – and how this connection has started years before without them realizing. When the competition between the ruling mob families Jensen and Jared belong to turns into an open war, things start to get out of hand. Mob Family politics threaten to crash and burn the forbidden love, marriages are being plotted, death sentences spoken. A mysterious blue eyed consigliore, called “The Angel” and a ruthless Russian mob boss who likes to call himself Lucifer are woven into the deadly game. A game that might become obsolete, as Jensen is fighting a war of his own against an illness no one knows of, and Jared desperately tries to write his own rules by turning his parents´ schemes against them... 　 Fic title: Therapy Link to art: Here Author name: sanshal Artist name: evian_fork Genre: RPS Pairing: J2 Rating: R Word count: 37,345 Warnings: There are instances of male-nudity, and (because of the theme) descriptions of power-imbalance. Also mentioned are one incident (each) of spanking, diapering, figging and past/off-screen, but referenced instance of self-harm. References to past dub-con. Jared suffers from self-hate/ excessive guilt and self-image issues. Unevenly sized chapters. Some language. ... and I think that covers it? Summary: Jared embarks on a D/S relationship to combat his depression. 　 Fic title: Of Princes and Prophecies Link to art: Here Author name: zubeneschamali Artist name: fridayblues Genre: RPS Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC-17 Word count: 44,101 Summary: Jared has lost everything thanks to the usurper High King. He can't take any of it back, but he can strike out the only way he knows how: kidnap and ransom. The High King's fiancé is riding across the country and through Jared's forest, and wouldn't he be a fair prize? Jensen has not quite resigned himself to the fate of being the High King's second spouse when bandits strike. If he can get away from them, it might be his only chance for a life of his own. But once he finds out who the bandits' leader really is, everything will change, for himself and for his kingdom. 　 Fic title: The Lighthouse Link to art: Here Author name: timehasa_way Artist name: blondebitz Genre: RPS Pairing: J2 Rating: NC-17 Word count: 21,388 Warnings: top!Jensen, language/sex, some angst, AU Summary: When his adoptive mother loses her eyesight, a clueless Jensen takes her to the San Antonio Lighthouse for the Blind, an organization meant to empower, train, and educate those with her condition. Upon their first visit there, they meet Jared, a helpful volunteer who's been through a similar experience with his grandfather. Jared helps Jensen adjust by befriending him and accompanying him to blindness sensitivity training classes. Jensen comes to realize that he and Jared have a connection he can't ignore, and that this helpful volunteer could be the best thing that's ever happened to both him and the woman who raised him. 　 Fic title: Flickers Upon Cordillera Link to art: Here Author name: cyndrarae Artist name: yanyann Genre: RPS, werewolf lore AU, shifter lore AU, post-apocalyptic AU Pairing: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki (others: Jensen Ackles/Matt Cohen, Jared Padalecki/Adrianne Palicki, Jeffrey Dean Morgan/Andrew Lincoln, etc.) Rating: NC-17 Word count: ~70k Warnings: explicit m/m sex, bottom!Jared, BDSM elements, dubious consent, prostitution, non-graphic violence, character deaths, some heterosexual content, minor characters from cast of The Walking Dead Summary: It’s a brave new post-apocalyptic world. Humans no longer rule the planet, Lorics do. And at the bottom of the food chain are the shifters. This is a world pretending to be better, but racial tensions simmer thick under the surface. Then there’s Jared, genius-level shifter, pretending to be someone pretending to be Jared. And there’s Jensen, powerful Loric Alpha, falling in love with a human but accidentally bonding with a shifter. It’s an epical comedy of errors that snowballs into the biggest socio-political scandal of the millennium. One this brave new post-apocalyptic world sorely needed. 　 Fic title: The Load Link to art: Here Author name: zmphony Artist name: myukur Genre: RPF Pairing: J2 Rating: NC-17 Word count: 56k Warnings: Brief attempted non-con (not main characters), age gap, bottom!Jensen, daddy!kink, explicit sex, language. Summary: Jared had never picked up a hitch-hiker before. He’s spent the last five years behind the wheel of a semi-truck, looking down the endless black ribbon road like the barrel of a gun. This was his job – his life. It’s when he’s passing through Loveland, Colorado, a few weeks into the haul, that he sees him; sitting on the side of Route 287, a few scarce fingers from the yellow line dividing him from the wandering shoulder to Limbo, USA and instantaneous death. His thumb pokes out of a hole in his ratty black gloves, arms covered in flannel and denim, and his whole body is strapped under worn, beaten overalls. The line of his legs, constantly stepping backwards, becomes fractured at the calf where steel-toe boots begin. Overalls, Jared thinks. 　 Fic Title: Yours, Mine, and Ours Link to art: Here Author name: angelzfurys Artist name: bluefire986 Genre: Supernatural RPS Pairing: J2 - Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki Rating: NC-17 Word count: 54,000 Warnings: slight but not to detailed self harm and thoughts of suicide, not very detailed car accident with minor injury, male on male sex (just two small scenes) and some teenage sexual exploring in general. Summary: Jared and Jensen have been accidentally switched at birth. They grow up in vastly different circumstances owing to the fact that Jared is a werewolf in a family of humans who sometimes masquerades as the family dog while Jensen is the lone human in his pack and feels ever the third wheel. When the mix up is discovered it shakes up both families and opens a new can of worms for all involved. 　 Fic title: Fair Winds and Following Seas Link to art: Here Author name: riyku Artist name: phoenix1966 Genre: RPS Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC-17 Word count: 21,000 Warnings: age difference, mentions of permanent injury (not the main characters) Summary: Deadliest Catch AU. Keep your head down. Work hard. Never wear a hat in the wheelhouse or your luck will take a nosedive. This is the rookie advice that Jared gets in his first few days as a deckhand on board an Alaskan crabbing boat, in between catnaps and ice storms, twenty-foot seas and more near misses than he really wants to count. He also learns early mornings followed by late nights aren't enough to kill a person, but ten minutes in below freezing waters might be, and that the biggest favor he can do for himself is to try and stay on the captain's good side. Jensen rose quickly through the ranks to become one of the youngest captains the fleet has ever seen, but he has been around long enough to know that no one ever gets through a season without a few battle scars. It's Jared's quick wit, sarcastic mouth, and a particular sort of point-of-no-return look about him that makes Jensen hire Jared on a whim, reminds Jensen a little of himself fifteen years ago. There's nothing better than watching the morning break over the bow of the ship - Jensen just needs to keep Jared alive and well long enough for the kid to figure that out for himself. 　 Fic title: Breaking the Ice Link to art: Here Author name: ashtraythief Artist name: dancing_adrift Genre: RPS Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC-17 Word count: ~70k Summary: Jared has been harboring a crush on Jensen, the prince from the far north, ever since he was fourteen, so when his parents announce that they’ve chosen Jensen as his husband, Jared couldn’t be happier. But when Jensen arrives in Scayen, Jared realizes that there’s more to him than meets the eye — and even more that Jensen doesn’t want Jared to see. But it shouldn’t take much more than Jared’s sunny charm to melt Jensen’s icy facade, right? Except it isn’t so easy dealing with cultural differences and misunderstandings; sometimes it takes a lot of food, some good friends’ advice, a little kitten, and even a bit of magic to overcome a rocky start. 　 Fic title: Love is a Burning Thing and It Makes a Fiery Ring Link to art: Here Author name: deanshot Artist name: bflyw Genre: RPS AU Pairing: J2 Rating: NC-17 Word count: 32,759 Warnings: Bottom Jensen, scenes of fire damage Summary: Fire, one of nature’s purest forms consumes as it goes, caressing the earth in its fiery grip, like a serpents tongue it flickers and wraps its coils around living things before turning them black as life departs. Being part of the Glenveagh Fire search and rescue team was a dream job for Jared. But being part of a community that cared for each other and had no problem with Jared loving another man who happened to be the most gorgeous green eyed man he had ever met but also understood Jared’s passion for his job. Everything was going well until on a seemingly normal sunny day, one fights to stay alive while the other has to wait at his boyfriend’s base of operations. Each one living through their darkest day not knowing if they’ll see each other again. 　 Fic title: The Deeper Illusion Link to art: Here Author name: hybridshade Artist name: riverofwind Genre: RPS, AU Pairing: J2 Rating: Nc-17 Word count: 37k Warnings: includes some minor/previous pairings other than J2, dub-con situations, mind control, power imbalance, injured!Jensen Summary: Agent Jared Padalecki of the FBI's Magical Injustices Division is just doing his job when his team manages to capture high-level magic user and thief extraordinaire, Jensen Ackles. The takedown seems way too easy for Jared's liking, but Jensen refuses to divulge his motives until an attack on his life forces him to give up a name. That name is JD Morgan - an infamous mind-weaver and all-round bad guy that the MID has been quietly hunting for years. Using Jensen as bait, the Bureau decides to tie him and Jared together in more ways than one, and neither is particularly happy about the new arrangement. However, in the process of luring Morgan out into the open, Jensen's precariously kept secrets threaten to be exposed, and he and Jared may just be forced to put their lives on the line. 　 Fic title: Swallowing Matches Link to art: Here Author name: sleepypercy Artist name: emmatheslayer Genre: RPS AU Pairing: J2 Rating: NC-17 Word count: 32k Warnings: underage sexual content (younger Jared is the aggressor) starting at 13, implications of violence, actual violence, serial killers, rough sex, toxic relationships, bottom Jensen, Jensen/OMC Summary: Jared's a budding serial killer and Jensen's the boy next door who sometimes baby-sits. They've always been obsessed with each other, and Jared's always been able to get Jensen to do anything he wants. The problem is, Jared gets jealous. And when Jensen hits high school, Jared's not the only one who notices how pretty the boy is. 　 Fic title: Singularity Link to art: Here Author name: paleogymnast Artist name: lightthesparks Genre: RPS (sci fi au) Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: R Word count: 21,000 Warnings: descriptions and discussion of terrorism, war crimes, violence to children, and other unsettling subjects in a sci-fi setting; nonconsensual body modification; slavery; xenophobia; apartheid, other dystopian elements, and widespread mindf*ckery Summary: Thousands of years ago, humans left Earth and traveled to the stars. Hundreds of years later, humans left Earth once again, and founded a new home, New Terra. New Terra exists in peace, but danger lurks in her past, and the calm is nothing but a paper-thin illusion. War is returning—a centuries-old conflict between humans and "Pios," the pioneers who left earth hundreds of years before the settlers of New Terra. Will Jensen unlock the mystery of his past? Will Special Agent Jared Padalecki find the traitor responsible for the worst act of terrorism in New Terra's history? Or will their shared secrets push them towards a deeper hidden truth? 　 Fic title: Mayhem Afloat Link to art: Here Author name: candygramme and spoonlessone Artist name: thruterryseyes Genre: (rps) Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC-17 Word count: 33,572 Warnings: Minor Character Death Summary: A cruise should be a relaxing vacation away from the worries of the everyday world, but with an international assassin running wild, not to mention a master jewel thief, relaxing is the last word Jared Padalecki would use to describe his voyage. Fortunately there's a really hot lounge singer onboard to help take his mind off things. 　 Fic title: ...and heartbreak ensued Link to art: Here Author name: cillab42 Artist name: jessie_cristo73 Genre: SPN RPF Pairing: Jared/Jensen, Chris Kane/Steve Carlson, Tom Welling/Mike Rosenbaum, Chad Michael Murray/Matt Cohen Rating: NC-17 Word count: 75,041 Warnings: mentions of abortion, miscarriage, mpreg, A/B/O, werewolves, omegaverse, top!Jensen, Bottom!Jared, suicide attempt Summary: Jared loves Jensen, he does; he just doesn’t like being an Omega. He’s assimilating, but he’ll never be the perfect Omega that society demands. After a year of hell, he’s still attempting to reconcile who he was with who he is now and the answers aren’t easy. Especially when Jared spends his free time dreaming of subjugating his Alpha and have Jensen bend to his will. Jared plans to continue to struggle against his mate’s authority until Jensen comes to the aid of two Omegas whose problem takes up Jensen’s time and awaken a jealousy in Jared he wasn’t aware he had the capacity to feel. 　 Fic title: Untitled Superheroes or Why you should never let the media decide your superhero name Link to art: Here Author name: shadowcat_spn Artist name: siennavie Genre: RPS Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC-17 Word count: 20k Warnings: Swearing, description of violence and injuries (minor, not too graphic), sexual situations, implied!bottom Jared Summary: Splashing color from your fingertips isn't the greatest superpower to have. But when a new villain emerges who only brings darkness it is left to a young reporter and his disabled chameleon to save the city. And maybe fall in love with his roommate along the way... Featuring Jared as a reluctant hero with a peculiar gift and a sense for bad timing, lots of color being splashed around and two boys being oblivious to what is right in front of them. Or: The hero and the villain unknowingly share a flat. 　 Fic title: Blues in the Night Link to art: Here Author name: oobydooby67 Artist name: beelikej Genre: J2 RPS Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC-17 Word count: 33,000 Warnings: Vampire AU, blood, blood kink, graphic sex, PTSD, WWII, graphic violence, depiction of war, minor character death, implied character death, torture, angst, explicit sex/language. Summary: The search for a missing elder leads Jensen to Los Angeles, California. It is his responsibility to question contacts and connections about Tyman, who has not been heard from or seen in a year. Frustrated with the search, Jensen meets a human who claims to have had a casual relationship with Tyman. Jared trades information for two pastrami sandwiches and ten thousand dollars. Unfortunately, after the trade, Jensen is no closer to finding Tyman, and a lot closer to Jared than he ever thought possible. 　 Fic title: The Wounded Don't Cry Link to art: Here Author name: pinkisgoth Artist name: sinnerforhire Genre: RPS Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: PG-13 (technically under the MPAA: R for language) Word count: 87k Summary: When artist Jensen Ackles moved to the Pacific Northwest from the southwest with his family – adoptive father Jeff and adoptive brothers Chris and Quinn – it gave him a chance to paint a whole new world of mountains and forest at the beautiful plateau near Mount Rainier. Two years later, disaster struck when Jensen was the victim of a violent attack that left his hands permanently injured to the point that he could no longer paint. During the two years since then, he has spent days helping his father and brother at the farm, café and draft horse rescue that has become the center of their lives on the plateau while slowly recovering, physically and mentally. One day their world is shaken when their new neighbor – a local tycoon infamous for his ruthless business methods – informs them that the survey line on their property is wrong and they are about to lose almost a third of their pasture to him. That is, unless one of them can work for him for a year, in which case he will deed over the property. Jensen goes to work for their mysterious new neighbors – coffee magnate Jared Padalecki and his lawyer Matt Cohen – but is shocked to discover one of his own paintings hanging in the house. As the past is slowly revealed and revisited, their lives are increasingly intertwined until the fateful day where all their lives may be changed – or destroyed – forever. 　 Fic title: Gladiator: A love story Link to art: Here Author name: zara_zee Artist name: evian_fork Genre: J2 RPS Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC-17 Word count: 29,930 Warnings: violence, minor and spn-canon character deaths, torture, references to animal deaths, references to executions, m/m sex, slavery, branding, corporal punishment, non-con touching, attempted assault, non-graphic references to non-con and dub-con, fanciful Romanization of names, anachronistic language. Probably. Well it’s not ancient Latin, anyway. Summary: As a second son, Jensen Akelsen of Cimbria will never inherit the family farm, so he travels to Rome with a trader to join the Auxilia—the non-citizen corps of the Roman Imperial Army. Unfortunately, Jensen’s travel companion proves less than trustworthy and he finds himself sold into slavery. Jensen’s fighting skills see him bought by Ludus Armentarius, the training school which owns the most popular—and most terrifying—gladiator in all of Rome; the infamous Colossus, Jared of Illyria. Bitterly angry and struggling to adjust, the very last thing Jensen expects to find in his new life is friendship, romance and love. 　 Fic title: You're My Mortal Flaw; I'm Your Fatal Sin Link to art: Here Author name: backrose_17 Artist name: banbury Genre: RPS AU Pairing: Jensen/Jared Rating: Mature with a few NC-17 scenes Word count: 31,522 Warnings: Minor character death, top!Jensen, bottom!Jared, child trauma Summary: Jared has always been a fan of heroes and hopes to someday be the sidekick to his favorite hero the Dragon. What he didn't expect was one of the Dragon's worst villains to kill his parents and his life changed forever after that night. Being the adopted son of his hero's alter ego Jeffrey Dean Morgan Jared vows to do whatever it takes to prove himself to Jeff that he is a worthy hero. The day that Jensen Ackles and the new villain Chaos arrive into his life Jared's world is altered once again. Jared finds himself swept off his feet by Jensen and unable to say no to Chaos as Tempest. He has no clue what Chaos and Jensen are the same people, they, on the other hand, have known for a while who he is and plan to never let him go. If Jared knew what was waiting for him in the shadows he would have been happy dealing with the fact that his boyfriend was a dangerous villain. 　 Fic title: Muse FM Link to art: Here Author name: cleflink Artist name: dollarformyname Genre: RPS Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: PG Word count: 31,920 Warnings: Fantasy violence Summary: Jared's job is boring, boring, boring. As a night security guard, he protects empty buildings by sitting on his ass and watching the security cameras while listening to a lot of talk radio. Not exactly the life he dreamed of for himself but hey, it's a living. When he gets chosen for a new job babysitting the front desk at Muse FM radio station, Jared's mostly expecting more of the same. He's not expecting Jensen, the mysterious, hoodie-wearing host of Muse FM's overnight show, to catch his interest quite so thoroughly, or to be quite so difficult to figure out. He's not expecting so many unanswered questions about what, exactly, he's supposed to be protecting Jensen from. He's also not expecting to care so much about either of those things. Oh, and he's definitely not expecting the monsters. 　 Fic title: Shipwreck Between Your Ribs Link to art: Here Author name: cherie_morte Artist name: cassiopeia7 Genre: RPS Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC-17 Word count: 40,913 Warnings: Explicit sexual content and mental illness (supernaturally induced depression, suicidal ideation). Consent issues typical of selkie tales are not present between the main pairing but are discussed. Summary: AU: All Jensen wanted was a nice month at the beach. What he got was an over-affectionate seal that happens to turn into a hot guy when no one else is around. Jared makes Jensen’s summer better than he ever could have expected, but when his vacation is up and he has to return to the real world, Jensen finds that he's fallen in love with someone who can only truly love the ocean. 　 SAM/DEAN Fic title: Sometimes Love Don't Feel Like It Should Link to art: Here Author name: amypond45 Artist name: stormbrite Genre: Wincest Pairing: Sam/Dean Rating: PG-13 for show-level violence, sexual suggestiveness, bad language, dark themes Word count: 27,784 Warnings: suggested non-con, self-harm, addiction, sibling incest (not explicit) Summary: Investigating a rodent problem in the bunker, Sam and Dean find a magic door that reveals alternate realities, worlds that came into being when Dean made different choices throughout his life, sometimes disastrous ones. When Dean finds another version of his little brother, one who is wounded and alone and needs his help, his instincts lead to potential disaster as he learns that things aren't always what they seem. 　 Fic title: Flyover States Link to art: Here Author name: tardisonameter Artist name: badbastion Genre: Wincest Pairing: Sam/Dean Rating: NC-17 Word count: 32,000 Warnings: sexual content, canon-typical violence, angst Summary: Sam's world tips on its axis after his girlfriend dies in a fire and his brother is the only thing that keeps him from drowning. Despite his every intention to hunt down the demon that killed both Jessica and his mother 22 years ago and then returning to his studies, that plan grows more and more distant. The ever-presence of Dean's care morphs into something else over time, born from the need for comfort and fueled by danger and desperation, and Sam realizes something about the both of them. But transitioning from being brothers that are just beginning to find their way around each other again to something more, something that could potentially destroy them for good, is anything but easy. 　 Fic title: Seven Rows of Seven Link to art: Here Author name: smalltrolven Artist name: tx_devilorangel Genre: Wincest Pairing: Sam/Dean Rating: NC-17 Word count: 28,500 Summary: Soulless Sam reconsiders the leprechaun’s offer to retrieve his soul from the Cage. As they leave Elwood, Indiana behind them, Soulless Sam reads the fairy spell book in the car and weighs the pros and cons of giving up the freedom of being without a soul. Due to a series of ill-considered decisions, the payment of boons owed to the fairies cause changes to the brothers' relationship that have been a lifetime in the making. 　 Fic title: The lost plateau - The lost daughter Link to art: Here Author name: siriala Artist name: kuwlshadow Genre: Wincest AU, partial fusion with The Lost World Pairing: Dean/Sam Rating: NC-17 Word count: 30k Warnings: hurt Dean and hurt Sam, bottom!Sam, top!Dean, human Castiel, animalistic Impala, dinosaurs, ghosts and demons Summary: Still trapped on the plateau without the first clue about a way to escape, the members of the Campbell-Singer expedition settle in their new lives through more adventures and strange discoveries : backbreaking work down in the mines, ghosts and monsters, deadly volcano and ceremonial caverns ! The Winchester brothers and their allies might stand a chance of surviving all foes and obstacles if they prove smarter than the traitor in their midst, ready to take advantage of their weaknesses to get what he wants more than anything. Notes : this fic is a sequel to my 2016 bigbang, The lost plateau – The lost brother. If you haven't read it, you'll find everything you need to know in the new story. 　 Fic title: I Wanna Live With You (Even When We‘re Ghosts) Link to art: Here Author name: runedgirl Artist name: alexxkah Genre: Wincest Pairing: Sam/Dean Rating: NC-17 Word count: 23,400 Warnings: Character death (Dean is a ghost), suicidal ideation Summary: The Winchesters learned a long time ago that it takes more than death to part them. But Dean didn’t count on two things when he decided to stick around – Sam harbors feelings that aren’t just brotherly for him, and Bobby was right about what eventually happens to ghosts. 　 Fic title: Moments Lost Link to art: Here Author name: milly_gal Artist name: stormbrite Genre: Wincest Pairing: Sam/Dean. Pre-Crowley/Castiel Rating: NC-17 Word count: 29,780 Warnings: Temporary Major Character Death. Suicide. Blood, guts and gore. Dark Themes. Time Travelling Winchesters Summary: Sam's gone, Dean's barely holding on, and Castiel - well, Castiel's left nursing a man who's already given up. When Dean decides The Empty would be preferable to a life without his brother, Castiel has to find a way to scrub the red from his clothes and fix the world, a world that needs the Winchesters. It takes a deal with a deity who wants nothing more than to see the Winchesters burn, a reforming of old friendships, and an alliance with an unholy creature to bring Sam back into play and stop Dean making a cataclysmic mistake (again). Now, all that's stopping the universe being shredded is a group of individuals that make absolutely no sense: two desperate and disheveled Hunters, one half flaccid Angel, and a Demon who doesn't know which side of the fence he's sitting on any more. Can Dean let go of this Sam? Will Crowley finally pick a side? Can Castiel live with his guilt? Who knows, but one thing is set in stone: The Winchesters and their family never give up without a fight and they'll take whoever they need to, down with them. 　 Fic title: (Only) the Gods Can Dwell Forever Link to art: Here Author name: swan_song21 Artist name: blackrabbit42 Genre: wincest Pairing: Sam Winchester/Dean Winchester Rating: NC-17 Word count: +34k Warnings: graphic descriptions of violence Summary: In his desperation to save his brother from The Mark of Cain, Sam makes a pact with Ishtar, the Sumerian goddess of love. The story follows Sam as he struggles to finish his quest, and comes to terms with his relationship with Dean. Only to discover that the solution has been with him all along. 　 Fic title: Stillness in Winter Link to art: Here Author name: glasslogic Artist name: blythechild Genre: Wincest - unrelated , slash Pairing: Dean/Sam Rating: R Word count: 34k Warnings: Vampires, Murder and slow, sleepy sex Summary: As the world around him gives up its autumn colors and settles down into the long cold of winter, Sam's own body is finally slowing into its own kind of hibernation. Deep in the mountains with only Dean and a broken laptop for company, isolation is their best defense against the outside world during the vulnerability of Sam's transformation. Sam didn't expect becoming a vampire to be easy, but he didn't expect almost a decade of being mind-numbingly bored either. He should have remembered that the world has cures for boredom – and the cure is always worse than the disease.　 Fic title: The Many Bitchfaces of Sam Winchester Link to art: Here Author name: majestic_duxk Artist name: stargazingchola Genre: Gen Rating: PG Word count: 22400 Warnings: canonical death, but not all canonical deaths, show level violence, spn au, John Winchester neutral, canon verse, canon divergent, brotherly relationship, angst, misunderstandings Summary: Sam's always had a way with words. Dean's always admired it, respected it. But what he can do with a single facial expression? That's pure genius. 　 Fic title: A Step Beyond Logic Link to art: Here Author name: firesign10 Artist name: red_b_rackham Genre: Gen Rating: R Word count: 20,760 Warnings: Major Character Death, Side Character Deaths Summary: When Gadreel kills Kevin, it triggers a series of personal losses and grief that devastate Dean. He continues to hunt, but travels a path of moral ambiguity, self-searching, and analysis that ultimately leads him to take drastic action. Working with Rowena, Dean confronts God (Chuck) and seeks to violently reshape the world on a scale that even the Winchesters have never attempted before. Fic title: Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death Link to art: Here Author name: ameraleigh Artist name: kuwlshadow Genre: SPN AU Pairing: Dean/Cas Rating: R Word count: 31191 Warnings: character death, sexual content, horror elements Summary: When Sam came home, they thought that their troubles would be over. That they could get back the normal life they craved so much but when the demon who had spent more than a decade torturing them threatens to take away everything and everyone they love; Sam and Dean are forced to team up with Crowley via a binding spell. Instead of normal they are forced to deal with the horrors of time travel, curses, evil spirits, the devil and a weapon that could potentially blow up their entire lives. Continues on from His Name Was Death and Hell Followed with Him. Fic title: Curse Breaker Link to art: Here Author name: all_the_damned Artist name: m14mouse Genre: Supernatural AU Pairing: Dean/Castiel, Sam/Castiel, Dean/Sam/Castiel Rating: NC-17 Word count: 50,722 Warnings: Mystery, Horror, Memory manipulation, Spells and curses, Light blasphemy, Brief references to torture--including sexual assault and mutilation, War, Demon deals, Hellhounds, Blood drinking, Slavery, Immortality, Deception and lies, Sibling Rivalry, Wings, Rimming, Biting, Anal, Hand feeding, Humiliation, Service Submission, Magically induced asexuality, Complicated book restoration Summary: In Heaven, all angels bow to Michael, immortal god and supreme ruler, the architect of peace and order. At his command, Castiel, a humble librarian, is sent to Hell to serve as ambassador, the liaison between regimented Heaven and unruly Hell. Castiel doesn't feel up to the task, especially after meeting Lord Winchester, the charismatic and cruel ruler of a large territory in Hell. At Winchester Hall Castiel finds secrets, lies and manipulations. But he may also find the answer to the disturbing dreams that have long disrupted his sleep. Fic title: Sweets For My Sweet Link to art: Here Author name: ascn Artist name: knowmefirst Genre: SPN AU Pairing: Sabriel Rating: NC-17 Word count: 24k Warnings: Gore, Murder, Blood, Blood-play, Mental Illness, Hallucinations, Injury, Bleeding, Serial Killers, Psychology, mentions of abuse, mentions of sex trafficking, death Summary: Serial killers Sam Winchester and Gabriel Novak dole out their brand of poetic justice as the Karma Killers, disposing of those who have slipped through the law's fingers. After a botched kill tears them apart, leaving Gabriel in jail and Sam floundering on his own, the two Killer lovebirds have to find a way to be together, or die trying. 　 from Supernatural and J-Squared Big Bang Challenge! http://ift.tt/2ucrgza

[scientifically-strange]

Could you do a fic with void!Danny/nocturne!danny meets the avengers? Maybe he tries to keep them asleep like that one ep and they have to fight back? I'd love to see that in your writings

Low key trigger warning I guess? It;s not heavily detailed but in Clint’s section (right after Natasha’s) there is a little bit of child abuse so if you need to skip that part of his section here’s your warning.

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Danny had died from fear.

It was little known how the dream reaper came to be. Only that whatever he perished from had terrified him more than anything. In those last moments of life he had, he had vowed to make others suffer like he had. When his soul finally made it to the Ghost Zone he took on a new name. When he heard it in worried whispers he couldn't help but smile to himself. After all, those who were brave enough to mutter the name Nocturn were the most fun to tear down.

Now he lived for fear.

It was a very rare experience for him to leave his lair, but a ghost has to do what a ghost has to do. And for him it was stupidly easy. After all these years they still hadn't forced any sort of restriction against him leaving to the mortal plane. Yes, it was against the riles, bit nobody ever told him what to do, for fear of...Well, fear itself.

Danny gave a toothy grin as he stepped out if his portal, his green, pupil-less eyes a beacon in the night. He took a big whiff of air, noticing the arid pollution he just inhaled, an sighed in contentment. Oh, this was going to be fun

It didn't take him ling to go through a large chunk of the Big Apple, sneaking into peoples dreams and feeding off of their nightmares. From room to room he traveled, not having a specific path in mind. When he fed off of the nightmare from a small boy, he finally took a second to breathe, relishing in his new power. It felt good to be back.

And then he saw it.

There, in the middle of the city was a glowing beacon. A tall tower with the letter A stood proud and tall, beckoning the nightmare ghost to it. Danny wasted no time sinking into the shadows, laughing maniacally as he did so.

He grinned as he rose from the floor, detaching himself from the shadows that his stark white hair contrasted with greatly. The room was dark and empty, nut he could sense the presence of reams on the building. In fact, there were two just on this floor...

He rushed to on of the doors, easily going throughout and finding a fine specimen indeed. He was big, blonde, and turned on his side, asleep. Danny licked his lips as he crept forward until he was towering over him, his hands around his head. He gasped at what he saw. The blonde was there, dancing with a pretty brunette in a dark red dress with eyeliner so sharp it could kill. They swished this way and that, the woman giggling and muttering loving things with her rich accent.

Danny twisted his clawed hand, closing his fingers slightly, and the dream shifted. Now the blonde was on a speeding train, reaching for someone who was hanging off the side of it. The stranger fell, and with him so did the blonde. Not enough. It wasn't enough, Danny needed more to feed off of. He twisted his hand again, his hand half way to being a fist. It was the blonde again, only this time he was dressed nicely in a suit from the forties. People were celebrating around him, but everything was silent save for every loud pop and bang that happened throughout the room, making the blonde flinch every time. Ah, yes. Now Danny was getting somewhere.

The noises started becoming more frequent, more loud, until it eventually drowned out everything. even the blonde's thoughts. Danny grinned as he watched he hyperventilating figure drop to his knees, covering his ears and curling in on himself, somehow making his large body look small. Flashes came from the blonde's head, now. It wasn't anything Danny had manipulated. Oh, this was getting so interesting.

It was the blonde, dressed as the American flag with the iconic shield strapped to his back as be ran through a war zone, dodging bullets left and right.

The blonde's physical body was coated in a sheen of sweat, and he was starting to thrash around. It was always a curious experience to see people hyperventilating in their sleep, gasping for air from something they could never escape.

Danny dropped his hands, letting the blonde suffer in silence aw he left to the other person on this floor, which just so happened to be a few doors down.

This time it was a dark skinned man in a gray sweater that had ARMY written across it in big, bland letters. So he was a veteran as well. There was nothing quite like the taste of PTSD. It was certainly one of Danny's favorite. Especially if mixed with some self doubt or a side of failure. Like this young fellow.

From the looks of his pinched face, he was a,ready experiencing something unpleasant in his own head. Danny placed his hands around the man's head like he did with the blonde and hum,ed.

This man was more than just in the army. He had been a free bird, rescuing people from the war zones the blonde had been to busy running through. There was another person flying next to him, smiling a big toothy grin. His goggles were crooked and his hair was everywhere, and Danny could tell the man was held at such a high regard form his little birdy. Everything went south without Danny having to do anything. The grinning, dark haired boy was still smiling as bullets ripped through his body. He was still smiling when he fell to the ground, and he was still smiling when his body made a sickening splat sound.

Danny breathed in the chaos, relishing in it, really. His hand closed ever so slightly.

Now it was his little bird flying high over the city, looking down at the American blonde in his arms as he carried him. Danny could guess what happened next without even watching. But he did anyway, because where was the fun in turning away a show with his dinner?

It started slowly. First the wing malfunctioned, dropping them down and down, until finally they hit the ground. Birdy had twisted his body so that he took the brunt of the force, but when he took his wings away from the blonde, he was riddled with bullet holes, his neck snapped and his glazed eyes blaming his little birdy. It was truly horrifying. If all the dreams in this building were like this he should come back more often.

The man was gripping the sheets, mumbling in his sleep and rolling this way and that. Danny couldn't help but feel proud of his handy work as he lifted to the next floor, finding only one on this floor.

He effortlessly crept into the room through the shadows and peered down at the red head. Her face showed no emotion. When Danny placed his hands around her head, it was a dark nothingness. Danny grinned. Blank canvases were his favorite.

He tapped her skull ans everything appeared all at once, making her face scrunch up in protest. There were bright lights and painful torture. There were hands cuffed to the bed, and there was sharp pains everywhere. Danny almost laughed at how delicious this one was. After all, it's not often you get someone with a tortured past like this. The kind where they were never really a child in the first place. Danny clenched his fist, and it didn't seem to shift. No, instead her dream moved forward full throttle. There was a blonde man, a different one then the one he had already visited. He had a bow and arrow, and was approaching her like one would a scared animal.

The red head lunged forward, knocking the bow away. She straddled him, punching him in the face and over until it was a bloody, unrecognizable mess with half his teeth missing, before taking one of the arrows from his quiver and plunging it through his chest.

"Natasha..." The blonde whispered. But his host, Natasha just stood up and walked away, completely void of emotion.

Just like her training.

Danny released her, noting how her whole body was stiff and her knuckles white as she clenched her fists. It was hard enough to cause a tiny bit of blood to leak from her palm.

Danny moved on.

And boy oh boy, he was gonna have fun with this one. He had stumbled upon the blonde from Natasha's dream, sleeping under a mountain of covers and cuddling with a giant stuffed dog. Oh, this would he to easy.

This man didn't fear much, Danny was quick to realize. But that only made it easier to pick out which one was the worst. He was faced with a large, tall blonde putting a heavy grip on the small shoulder of the host and shoved him to the ground, swinging as hard as he could. The stench of alcohol wafted from his breath, and Danny almost moaned at the taste of every punch that connected with the child's face.

Then he let the dream shift willingly, following this person into the depths of his mind.

It was dark at first, but when it became bright again, Clint was standing in a room full of people. All of his friends and people he considered family were in there, all to crowded. The lights turned off, casting the room in pitch black darkness before turning back on again. The pain in Clint's eyes was as much as the pain in his heart when he realized someone had disappeared from the room.

This process repeated over and over until finally only the Avengers were left.

"Bruce," hos host whispered, pleading. He was on his knees, looking up at the curly haired man. The lights shut off. When they came back on Brice was gone.

"Listen, Thor, I'll teach you more Midgardian slang, please just don't-"

Again, and Thor was gone.

"Tony...I know I'm a pain in the ass but-"

Tony left.

"Steve, come on, old man, you're the only one who's-"

Steve disappeared.

Tears were streaming down his host's face now as he looked up, silently begging for Natasha to stay. She spat on the ground in front of him. The lights turned off.

He was completely alone.

Danny let go slowly, savoring every last drop from this one. He was special. Danny was almost tempted to take him into the Zone with him so he could have a never ending supply of nightmares to feed off of, but thought against it. He didn't need the observants on his ass.

He exited the room quietly, not looking back at Clint's crying figure as he stayed in his dreamscape. He inhaled deeply, finding a new scent. It was way down below, in the basement. He smelled PTSD, neglect, attachment issues...Much like the archer he had just left. Danny grinned as he began slipping through the floor.

He was maybe half way through when something hard hit him in the back, knocking him forward and out of the floor. Danny growled and turned around, only to see Thor and the others he had haunted. Danny smirked.

"Back for more?" He taunted, straightening up. He was smaller than every single one of them, scrawny and pale, but he had more strength in his pinky finger than they did in their whole bodies. Especially after feeding off of their nightmares.

Off t the side, the archer's door slid open, revealing a groggy Clint rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

"Whas goin' on?" he mumbled.

"Clint, back up," Natasha spoke. It was like a switch went off. Clint was immediately more or less awake as he began walking towards his friends. Oh, but Danny had a better idea. After all, he couldn't just let this one get away from him.

Danny lunged forward, grabbing Clint by the waist and pulling him back. Danny held his arms to his side with one arm, the other one reaching around his throat. He gave the lucid Avengers a wicked grin, tracing his claws down Clint's Adam's apple, feeling the nervous swallow.

"One wrong move," he said. He didn't need to finish the thought. Steve immediately put his shield down, leaning it against the wall, and his friend, the birdy, had placed his gun next to it. Thor dropped his hammer, and Natasha held her hands up in surrender. Clint couldn't have felt more ashamed that this was happening, all because he had been to slow. Why did he have to be such a dummy?

Suddenly the hand around his throat left, gesturing as he spoke to the others. Clint didn't hear a word he said. At least he had been able to read Nat's lips when she told him to move his ass, but now he was completely out of luck.

And then it came back. The thing holding onto him let go, screeching in pain, and Clint immediately scrambled over to Tony, who was decked out in the Iron Man armor, holding up his bow and arrow in the hand that wasn't smoking. Clint grinned at him, signing a quick thank you before grabbing an arrow and pulling the string tight, aiming right for those blazing, unearthly green eyes.

"You mortals won't win," he taunted. He moved again, and man, wasn't that a trip. It was strange seeing space be his body, but it wasn't moving with him. Like a bad cartoon, except with a cooler pattern.

"Be gone. drauger!" Thor bellowed, swinging his hammer around. Lightning started to collect around it, and the 'drauger' sneered.

"I'll come for you next, Odinson," it hissed. And then it melted into the shadows.

There was a sort of blanket that lifted off of them. It was completely unnoticeable until the thing had left, and with it the bad energy. But he had left his mark on them, had looked into most of their deepest fears that they never told anybody. This...This would have lasting effects.

"Thank you, Thor," Steve said, gripping the god's shoulder tightly. His face was pale and his blue eyes were hard, but he gave his friend a weak smile nonetheless.

"I will happily smite any drauger that lays a and on you, my friends. They are vile creatures that do not deserve the afterlife." Thor sounded pissed, but calm somehow. They all nodded with him, different levels of distress across their faces. But all heads swiveled to Iron Man when he cleared his throat for everybody's attention.

"Anybody want a drink?" he asked, gesturing to the elevator behind him.

Nobody protested.

[sunshinykittens-blog]

Not Enough Alcohol in NYC...

Saturday, November 25 the wee hours of the morning. I think.

I would love to go to sleep right now, God knows I have been through enough chaos the past 72 hours to qualify for hazard pay, or at least PTSD treatment. The flights, the usual holiday family drama (not EVEN my family), an empty apartment, snotting all over some Tower residents, new digs…but I probably should start from the beginning…

Wednesday

When last we left our intrepid adventurer (that would be me), it was in an airport, JFK to be exact. I was waiting, along with Sunny and the 3 younger kids, for our flight out to Pasco (via Seattle) to spend the Thanksgiving weekend with her mom and oldest child. My kids weren’t going to be at my family gathering, so no sense in going home, especially since I’m spending an entire week home for Christmas. Besides, Sunny’s mom has been going through some health issues, and I haven’t seen her in forever. Sunny made all the flight arrangements, all I was supposed to do was pack my bag and be ready to go. So something I didn’t know about her before this day, seeing as I had never flown with her before: Sunny is paranoid about missing flights. I realize that this is one of the busiest days for traveling, and that means all the lines for everything would be extra long, but I am still not sure why we had to leave the apartment at 6 am for a 1:30 pm flight. Maybe she thought we’d get caught up in the parade traffic. But since The Man arranged for a car to take us to the airport (and pick us up upon our return Sunday afternoon), we didn’t have to worry about getting a cab or riding the subway (Sunny’s great idea). So yeah, I am grateful to The Man for the car. Amazingly, we checked bags and got through the security lines very quickly. We were through to the gate section of the airport by 10. Even though one of us was chosen for the random search (guess who that was). Luckily I didn’t have any contraband to speak of, so that was pretty smooth, except for them telling me I needed to get my driver’s license updated to my new address when I get back. Yet another thing for me to have to squeeze in before Christmas. Sunny suggested we grab some coffee and lunch while we waited for our plane. Over this meal is when she told me we had another 3 hours before we were scheduled to board. That’s when I made my last post. (BTW, the girl child is an extremely talented artist, I’ll have to post some of her work sometime soon. Oh, and Sunny did manage to catch the loose cannon. When last I saw, all the kids were still alive.)

I will say this, at least Sunny got us first class seats for our flights (yes, I said flights). It was nice, but we were kind of spread out a bit. Which is nothing compared to the connecting flight in Chicago, which was delayed over an hour for mechanical problems, and we got bumped to another plane, and everyone was pretty scattered then. For our final leg from Salt Lake, though, we were in one cluster of seats, thanks to the airline folks feeling bad for us having missed that connecting flight. After they saw how frazzled she was with the middle child, who kept wandering off. But we arrived safely at our destination airport only about 2 hours later than scheduled. Oh yes, and every time we hit an airport with wifi, Sunny would get a gazillion messages from the oldest child asking why we weren’t there. I felt bad for Sunny, so I admit I bought her a drink in Chicago and Salt Lake. And then I paid for a taxi van to drive us from the airport to her mom’s house so we wouldn’t have to wait for a shuttle.

Didn’t take long for the drama to start when we got there, though. There was only one bed in the house, and that belonged to Sunny’s Mom. The oldest hadn’t even put her bed together, so we were all sleeping on the floor. I haven’t done that in I don’t know how long. Mom started in on how worried she’d been and why were we late, and then blaming Sunny for not getting there any sooner (like we can just hijack the plane or something). But like I said before, Mom had recently had some health problems, so I just tried to overlook it and be there to support Sunny. She was going to need it. Then we all stayed up way too late (with far too little alcohol), and finally got to bed at some point after midnight. I whispered to Sunny as we were drifting off that had I known we were going to sleep on the floor, I’d have rented a car and got a hotel room. Or at least rented some rollaway beds.

Thursday, Thanksgiving

Well, this day started entirely too early for a regular day, much less a holiday, even with the extra time we got for being 3 hours later than home time. Mom had said she needed help cooking, and we were fine with that. But she needed to oversee everything and everyone, assuming we had never entered a kitchen before in our lives. By the way, who in their right mind puts an egg into their literal Stovetop Stuffing? Menu was pretty good, very standard: ham (instead of turkey, which was fine with me), stuffing, green bean casserole, sweet potato soufflé, rolls, and 2 kinds of pie with whipped cream. It was a store bought kind of meal; everything came out of a box, can, or bag, or was bought ready to serve like the ham. Except the pumpkin pie. The Airport Problem Child made that and did a really good job, if I do say so myself. Which I do. So as soon as everything was cooked, we had to eat – right that second! Dinner conversation included why in the world did Sunny move so far away, why didn’t she tell her mom and oldest before she moved, why didn’t she find a man and settle down, how her mom’s health was (not good and how much worse it was getting every second that Sunny wasn’t caving), how the kids liked school, Sunny works too much, maybe at least she could find a husband in New York, how were my kids doing, and when was she moving back to Washington. We tried deflecting most of that by saying we had good jobs that we liked, we were making really good money at them, and we were about to move into a secure building at the first of next month. After dinner (with an unhealthy side of stress and heartburn), everyone retired for a nap. Except for Sunny. She stayed up to clean. Of course I stayed up with her. And it took every bit of 2 hours to clean. After which, the tree came out.

Sunny is not a Christmas person, she really doesn’t like it at all. She feels it’s entirely over commercialized, which I agree with. Unlike her, I enjoy the holiday season with full gusto. My only complaint is with people who have conniption fits when people break out the Christmas songs before Thanksgiving. I also find these are the same ones who then start complaining that there isn’t enough time in the Christmas season to get everything done that they want to do – starting the day after Thanksgiving. Anyway, Sunny was going to be aggravated with the evening. So first, her mom put on some Christmas station with some really annoying, tacky Christmas music. And let me tell you, that is really saying something coming from me. I love all Christmas music. At least I thought so until that night. I mean nobody liked it. Not even Sunny’s mom! And then the tree, it’s a wonder Sunny hasn’t ground her teeth down to stumps. It’s kind of old, but we couldn’t get her mom to let us run out and buy a new one. And the lights…it’s a wonder they can’t see that thing from space. You know those sort of net-type lights, the kind you drape over the shrubs outside? 5 of them. Draped onto a 6 foot tree. Then we had to add another 15 strings of plain white lights. I tell you, I needed shades when we plugged in the tree. Then the ornaments, a mix of glass, plastic, and handmade kids ornaments, and then those irritating silvery plastic icicles, the kind that clog up the vacuum. Then, just when we were starting to get into the tacky music, Mom changed it to something equally obnoxious.

About an hour later, I was questioning my decision to be there for the whole weekend. Because that’s when the oldest started in on how unfair life was and how hard she has it there. I could tell she was angling to move with us. Allow me to say one thing about the eldest child: Super Social Justice Warrior Snowflake, she’s about as far from me on the spectrum politically, religiously, and socially as you can get. And before we had left New York, Sunny made me promise that I would not start a fight with her. In other words, I’m surprised that I didn’t bite my tongue off in the short time I was exposed to her awake. She went all over the place from one thing to another, but finally I’d had enough. In fact, I don’t even remember what it was she said, or even what I said, only that I finally blew up and smacked her with an opinion that should have given her a heart attack right then and there. But her face welled up and she stormed off to her room, slamming the door shut and sobbing loud enough to be heard in Seattle. I just looked at Sunny and said I needed to get some air. I grabbed my coat and headed out the door. I walked for a good while, too bad I don’t have a fitness tracker because I easily walked 10k steps. I finally got so cold I went back inside (no hot water for a shower, but I’ve come to not expect that), and crashed in the living room with the kids instead of in the eldest child’s room with Sunny. I slept very little, eventually getting up literally at the crack of dawn for another walk.

Friday

Overnight I had come to the conclusion that neither my blood pressure nor Sunny’s family could take me sticking around for the rest of the weekend. As soon as I walked out of the door, I was on my phone with the airlines looking for the first flight out. I agreed to be on standby; even an airport had to be better atmosphere. I called a taxi, and realized everything except for my carry on bag was still in the bedroom where Sunny, the artist, and eldest child were still asleep. I was not about to go in and risk waking the crew. Instead, I tiptoed over the boys and went to the kitchen to leave a note.

“Sunny, Needed to fly back quickly. Can you please bring my suitcase when you come? See you in a couple of days. Call when I get home. Tell your mom thanks for dinner. Kate”

I carefully gathered my few things in the living room and made for the door. The youngest sat up and rubbed his eyes, then asked where I was going. I lied to the boy, told him I was needed at work, and that I’d see him in a few days. He shrugged, nodded, yawned, and went back to sleep.

I sat in the airport for only a couple of hours before I got on a flight to Denver, where I sat for two hours before I got a plane to New York. From JFK, I took a taxi back to the apartment. As I was walking up the three flights to the apartment, all I wanted to do was take a long hot bath, cuddle with my Spazzie, and get a full night’s sleep. I planned to spend the rest of the weekend lounging around and maybe doing some packing for the impending move looming on the horizon. It was about 11 pm. I unlocked the door to my apartment, stepped in, turned on the lights and saw…nothing.

Literally nothing. Every single thing was missing from our apartment. No futon in the living room. No dishes in the cabinets. No towels in the bathroom. And, the horror hit me as I realized, EVEN THE CATS WERE MISSING!!! For the third time since I moved to New York, I was dialing 911 to report a theft. And, bless her heart, Officer Yang came to take the report. I tried to give a pretty good description of what was missing. Her partner went down to the super’s apartment but there was no response. About half past midnight, Jake’s mom came home from her shift and looked in. We found out from her that a group of men had come first thing that morning and had been packing up our stuff. She had assumed that she had misremembered the date of our move. She offered to let me stay in their apartment, but I didn’t relish another night sleeping on the floor. Instead I called a cab as soon as the police left.

I had thought about going to a hotel, but figured they would pretty much be booked solid. I decided the best place for me to go would be to the Tower. I knew there were comfortable looking sofas, at least, and I figured that all the residents were gone for the holiday. Maybe I could convince The Man to hurry up the remodel because we really did have nothing. No sense in buying furniture, moving into the old apartment to just have to move it the following week. I had the taxi drop me off at the Tower, and I stood just outside to make the phone call I was dreading. I had to tell Sunny we had been cleaned out. I got her voicemail, which made some sense to me. It was closing in on 1:30 am, which was 10:30 pm there.  And her mom was always fussing about her being on her phone. I left her a message and promised to call after I got some sleep. Then I went inside.

The night guard was someone I hadn’t met before, but I had my badge so he let me in. The elevator ride up was the longest leg of my journey. I was reviewing all the events in my head and was starting to feel overwhelmed when the doors opened on the 91st floor. I had decided that I was going to have a cup of tea before trying to find a blanket and settling in on the sofa in the lounge. Surely The Man wouldn’t begrudge me that after everything I had been through. I hung up my coat and stashed my carry on in the closet and entered the common area, headed to the stove to heat water in the rarely-used kettle.

Standing at the island were three men. I recognized Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes from news stories I had seen over the years. The other one was unfamiliar to me. They were casually dressed, sweatpants and tees. It appeared they had just come down from the training room, they were slightly sweaty with a healthy glow. Captain Rogers was pouring some post-workout smoothie thing into glasses. I took a deep breath, feeling everything from the past few days welling up behind my eyes, and my nose starting to tingle and burn. I was desperately trying to contain my emotions in front of the people that I was definitely going to be running into in the halls and elevators, residents of the Tower. I was not going to lose control.

They glanced over at me as I came in. Captain Rogers welcomed me, asking if I was one of the housekeepers. I told him I was and then he said he thought we’d be back Sunday evening and where was my partner. I told him that she was still in Washington, and we were supposed to be back Sunday, but I had to leave early. Sergeant Barnes then asked why. And I think that’s where I started to lose that tenuous hold on my emotions. I tried telling them about the disastrous 24 hours that Thanksgiving had been, but I think I became a bit flustered. I don’t think I was making sentences. And then pieces of the past 2 days came spilling out and I absolutely burst into tears. Next thing I knew, I was seated on a stool at the island, Sergeant Barnes was doing his best to awkwardly comfort me with an arm around my shoulders, and the man I didn’t know was pressing a tumbler of some form of alcohol into my hand and demanding that Captain Rogers go find Mr. Stark and bring him up immediately. Before long, hthe Captain had returned with The Man Himself in tow. I will admit, he was concerned to see me sitting there sobbing, and he asked me what was wrong. I lost it again, someone handed me a handkerchief, and after about 5 more minutes, I regained some control. I blew my nose, took a deep breath and started to speak, but when I tossed back half the dark amber liquid, there went my voice.

When it returned, I told him as calmly as I could about the stress at Sunny’s mom’s house, that I just had to leave before really bad things were said, the layovers, the crying babies, coming home to a literally empty apartment, finishing up with the emotional outbursts they had all just experienced, which I assured him was a rare occasion, and could I please have a blanket so I could crash on the sofa. I finished the drink while waiting for the answer. I noticed glares aimed at The Man from the others in the room. And then the Captain threatened to call Miss Potts. Finally The Man said to follow him.

We went down on the elevator together, all four of us. I could almost feel the heat of the glares directed at my boss. This was the second elevator ride I’d had with him that was in complete silence, but somehow I felt like the awkwardness was coming from him this time. The doors opened on the 62nd floor.  I followed The Man down the hall to the door opposite the one he had showed us at the beginning of the week, the others behind me like some sort of guard or something. I now thought that what he was going to do was bring up a bed for me. Maybe this convinced him to complete the remodeling ASAP. But when I stepped into the now opened doorway, I was completely flummoxed. There, inside that room, was my apartment. Complete with cats. Spazzie came racing towards me and I scooped him up cuddling and scratching behind his ears. And I started crying again. I put him down for a minute and asked what the hell was going on.

The Man shrugged and told me he’d figured it would be great if we came back and found everything already moved in. One less thing for us to worry about, as it were. They had gone in, packed everything up and moved it, though they hadn’t known what stuff was mine and what was Sunny’s, so unfortunately we were going to have to go through the boxes ourselves. I was really jet lagged, and it was after 2 in the morning, so it took a little while for everything to sink in. But when it did…

I yelled, I screamed at him, I cried big fat hot mad tears. Sergeant Barnes smirked, thoroughly enjoying every word. Sunny’s cat, Aaron, came into the room and started pawing at me. I scooped him up and continued ranting. And then I realized something was climbing my leg. I looked down to see this cute little gray tabby kitten working its way up. And that was most definitely not my cat. I’d never seen it before. The guys all insisted that it must be ours because it was inside the apartment when they packed it up. And it had a collar. About then I felt all my energy drain from my body. I ordered them out and told them that we would finish this conversation tomorrow. I fell into the bed in the bedroom and pulled a comforter up over me. Spazzie curled up behind my knees, Aaron was behind me, and the kitten sprawled out on the pillow next to me. I’ve got to call Sunny tomorrow to let her know everything is OK and to just come to the Tower as soon as she gets in. But right now I need to sleep.

[thejamesoldier]

81 Bucky x Reader?

Thanks lovie for sending something in! This was so fun to write bc let’s face it, we’re all jealous hoes when it comes to Bucky xxx

Prompt #81: “Who’s texting you? - “Umm. Nobody.”

{im sorry but this gif is actually making me cry. he’s just so beautiful someone stop him}

A Naked Face & A Phone

There were a couple of Things that happened that ultimately led to your downfall.

The first Thing was Bucky got a phone.

The second was Bucky shaved for the first time since the 40′s. Like not stubble management, but actually full on shaved. Naked face and all.  

Both were huge steps for him and you were so proud. You didn’t tell him that because you’re not Steve and it’d be weird. The only reason Bucky and you have ever spoken is because your the only one he let’s work on his arm.

Stark brought you in because you’re the best of the best when it comes to modern cutting edge technology (which Tony never said straight out, but it was implied and coming from Tony Stark you were flattered). Originally you were only supposed to conference with Stark about creating a new arm for one Sergeant Barnes. Help him with ideas and such because two geniuses were certainly better than one. But when you both brain stormed up a possible first model to present to Barnes before actually making it (because Barnes knows more about it than you two ever would and it would be stupid not to have him involved in the process), he took one look at the graphs and walked out without saying a word.

Tony almost chased him down being offended, furious, and exhausted from about two weeks of no sleep and too much coffee trying to make this for him with you. But you held him back and talked some of Barnes perspective into him. You figured the idea of any kind of surgery on his body would with out a doubt be one of Barnes’ big red ‘DON’T PUSH ME’ buttons on the PTSD panel in his brain.

It took a month of hard conversations and more model work-throughs before Stark, Barnes, and you decided on a final draft. You and Stark manifested this final theory into reality to make the first physical model of Barnes’s new arm. When it came time to put it on though, Barnes took one step into the surgery/tech room, one look at the metal table in the center of hovering machines and assistant drones, and plummeted into one of the most heart wrenching panic episodes you have ever witnessed. It down right broke you in two.  

It took another month for Barnes to be comfortable enough to even look Tony and you in eye (not that it was personal, you had to keep reminding Tony of that), and then another month after that to agree to try again. You couldn’t blame him for his fears. Honestly, if it were you, you would have given up long ago. But Bucky has the kind of soul that is so resilient, so strong even at it’s weakest, that he truly does belong in those comic books and museum murals. He deserved to be made a constellation in the sky to be look up to an awed at. Bucky astounded you.

Of course you’ve never told him that.

It turned out that Barnes was only comfortable with you touching him and securing the new arm because during his time with Hydra, no woman ever worked on him. Sure there were women scientists, but the actual surgeries and operations and tune-ups were left to the male “doctors”. Tony, for once, wasn’t offended if maybe a little troubled. Tony understood it wasn’t about him, it wasn’t even about Barnes, it was about fear and how it controls the mind and body, irrational or not.

It’s been about a year and a half since you attached that first new arm; a year and a half of you hopelessly and secretly pinning over Bucky Barnes.

Currently, you’re sitting in your own tech room (after the realization that Bucky wouldn’t allow anything to be done to him unless you were doing it, you were permanently hired) at Stark Tower, sitting a little crooked on a rollie-stool, bent over at an odd angle, nose deep in Bucky’s newest upgraded arm: JBB Model #024.

For the last hour you have been trying to get a set of wires to cooperate in his forearm and are heavily relying on your stores of patience to not do something childish or over dramatic in front of Bucky. Bucky still couldn’t make himself sit in a chair with a high back or head rest, so instead he sits on a stool too, metal (or vibranium – courtesy of T’Challa) arm resting on the sturdy work table between you. A bunch of tools and gadgets are displayed haphazardly on the generous wide tray. At the beginning of your tune-up the tools were all perfectly organized by purpose and necessity, but as this process dragged on a lot longer than originally planned, you got sucked into the mechanics of his arm and sacrificed your pretty tray for a messy one.

Your eyes hadn’t left the inside of his arm the entire time, blindly grabbing at tools and things as you could not pull your focus away or relax the line that felt as deep as the grand fucking canyon inbetween your eyebrows. Bucky watched every tick and snap you made in his arm. At the beginning he had to watch because he never was aloud to watch before, making sure you were doing what you told him you were doing. He sometimes felt the need to apologize for treating you like a Hyrda doctor, but one look at your face and he knew you understood and weren’t even the slightest bit offended.

He was so grateful.

Bucky now watched yes to oversee progress, but his gripping fear lessened the more he trusted you, and instead his eyes had wandered to watching you. He hadn’t looked at a woman and thought, ‘She’s pretty’ in such a long time that when it happened to him in the middle of one of your regular tune-ups, he had to exercise every inch of self control to not jolt in his seat. You thankfully didn’t notice but Bucky was left with a big ol’ ball of yarn to grapple with now.

As he observes you now, focused like the world will end if you break your concentration for even a second, he gives himself permission to admire you. He’s as familiar with the planes and lines and curves of your face as you are with every inch, inside and out, of Bucky’s arm. You’re simply beautiful, and Bucky feels so refreshed at having such a human thought but also nervous because shit how does this work again? and he’s kept this precious feeling he has for you tucked safe away inside his chest. No danger of being found out because if Bucky is good at anything, its holding onto things.

Barnes believes he’s too fucked up for you, but there’s no law against admiring you from a far (or one foot away) is there? He doesn’t remember that there was. Staring is only rude if you’re caught, which he made sure he never was.

As you tinker away you’re so absorbed in your work that you don’t feel Bucky’s gaze on your face, never have. You go into this zone when you work where everything blurs out, time, hunger, thirst, rest, your surroundings, and its a curse and blessing. Tony is the only one (and Bruce) who gets that.

Now nothing short of the world blowing up could pull you from your focus –

Beep beep!

Your ears register the sound of a phone vibrating and for some reason your brain deems this ‘world blowing up’ serious because you tear your eyes away from the godforsaken wires, to see Bucky blinking down at his Stark phone, large thumb tapping across the screen.

Your sore fingers want to twitch but instead you let your left eye do the twitching instead. Before you can stop yourself because who the fuck is texting Bucky?!! you finally, after a year and a half, trip up.

“Who’s texting you?” You would like to say your voice was casual and friendly, but instead it sounded hoarse from not having spoken in a while and surprisingly sharp.

Bucky’s thumb pauses. A number of reactions and emotions flutter and tumble through him at your tone. Plus the fact that you never once have been distracted, or even made small talk, while working on his arm before and now of all times you break your streak? Bucky ends up settling on feeling mushy and warm but also like gongs were being banged on in his stomach when he hits send, locks his phone, and stuffs it back into the front pocket of his jeans before responding.

“Umm. Nobody.” Now Bucky had no idea why he lied. Obviously someone had texted him (it was Sam yelling at him in capslock accusing him of eating the last of the oreos he had called dibs on; Bucky was totally guilty of this quote ‘HEINOUS CRIME’), but for some reason a foreign instinct told Bucky to be cryptic. To be mysterious.

Barnes’ words hit you like a slap in the face. The obvious fact that you had expected him to tell you was beyond embarrassing. He might be yours in your head, but in reality he barely said two words to you. Of course it wasn’t your damn business to demand to know who’s texting him! Bucky’s looking at you from the corner of his eye like you might have another head sprouting out of your skull or something. Your heart cries and hides under metaphorical covers.

Bucky keeps his profile to you, side-eyeing you with what he hopes is a dark horse (as Nat had called him) sexy confidence, but seeing your face heat up and your eyes blink back an expression of unfiltered humiliation, before you practically stuff your face inside his arm as you get back to work, he realizes you may have misinterpreted him.

Fuck, he thinks, barely stopping himself from huffing like a child, this flirting shit is harder than I remember.

You almost can’t take the never ending Niagara Falls level of embarrassment pouring over your head and soaking your body to the bone. You want to vomit. You want to stab yourself in the eye with the electric tweezers in your hand. You also couldn’t stop even if you wanted to the rush of theories running through your head at who could be texting him. The phone is new, barely a week old so you comfort yourself that he couldn’t have gotten loads of girls’ numbers…

Yet, you’re inner asshole adds.

You know Nat is trying to rope Bucky into her matchmaking game, the same one that she’s been doing with Steve. Your heart gives an extraordinarily uncomfortable squeeze in your chest, but you’re proud to say you didn’t wheeze. You only continue working on the wires, praying you can fix them because sitting here under Bucky’s obviously disgusted eye is Purgatory itself.

Bucky hears your heart do an impressive chorus of pumps and jolts, the only hint that you’re as effected by this as he wanted you to be. Okay maybe he didn’t want to make you feel humiliated, but the confirmation that you cared was so satisfying; he actually loved you wanted to know who was texting him. Your exterior expression is back to its professional masked coolness and Bucky is hit with the itching urge to try to do something to break it again. To peel you out of your formalities and get you offering –

Offering? Bucky’s eyebrows would have knit together but his face is as cool and empty as yours, Offering him what?

Its another ten horrible minutes from hell before you finally fix those fucking wires. As quickly as you possibly can you carefully re-plate his arm, making sure everything is secure and smooth, before near leaping out of your seat and sprinting for the sliding glass door even if this is your workshop. Shut up, escaping was vital to your survival at this point. You shout some excuse about really having to go to the bathroom before Bucky can say anything, door already sliding close behind you.

Bucky stares after you, outwardly impassive, but inside there’s a hurricane of What the Actual Fuck Am I Doing?

It’s been a week since your outburst. You keep torturing yourself with re-runs of the moment to remind yourself why you need to avoid him at all costs. I mean not that you spoke that much anyway, but still you made extra sure. You wish you were cool enough to not have to avoid him and could hide your feelings so effortlessly like Natasha tried to teach you, but you were much more pathetic and therefore, weren’t good at hiding your feelings. You’re surprised you’ve gotten away with it this long. If it was a normal dude you would have been caught much sooner, but since Bucky is so far from normal you realize that’s been your cop out.

Now you’re panicking. Because Bucky, while oblivious to certain things while he re-learns how to be a man, was and still is one of the world’s most deadly assassins with instincts and reflexes as sharp as a fucking laser. Nothing got past him in a professional setting, but now that he’s realizing he can apply those same skills to everyday communication in reading people you have a fairly good dooming feeling that your time has run out.

He’ll emotionally snipe your ass so quick you won’t even know what hit you.

Bucky’s arm tune-ups are weekly. Sometimes more than once a week if there are any minor training incidents or the like. Tomorrow he’s due back in your workshop and you’ve been laying sprawled out on the carpet of your bedroom in your place in Queens for the better part of three hours.

You’ve been meticulously going over emergency procedures, installing ‘self-eject’ buttons, on multiple situations that could occur in that room. You know your end is here but goddammit you’re going in prepared. You know you might be over-dramatizing things, but you’ve been head over heels for this guy for a year and a half. You give yourself a little slack.

It’s tomorrow and your about ready to vomit sitting, or more like jittering on your stool obsessively organizing and re-organizing your tools. Your hair is tied back into a loose ponytail to keep your hair out of your face as you work, but you are tempted to yank a few strands out to hide behind. Before your nerves can get the better of you and release a curtain of your hair, Bucky strides in.

You don’t look up right away, pretending to be professionally preparing your tools for the tune-up. It’s not until Bucky grunts his usual hello and sits down, before you brave a quick glance up and do a painfully embarrassing double take. Your lips part, your fingers drop the tool you just picked up, and your lungs peace out.

Thing #2 happened. He shaved.

The once rugged look Bucky sported had disappeared completely. The loss of stubble on his face revealed the elegant lines of high cheekbones and a diamond cut jawline, high arched eyebrows sitting low and enticing over crystalline cobalt eyes, a swath of coal lashes that cast soft shadows on either side of a swooping nose sitting above the deep valley of his cupid’s bow. It all collected into this handsome portrait of old world charm and beauty.

The sound of your tool clanking against the metal of your tray wrenches you out of your staring. You fumble with it some more making an awful ruckus. Bucky is smiling fondly at you scrambling cross the work table and gently places his metal elbow down in the usual position you like it when you first start. When you eventually wrangle your tools back to their spots and a loud silence reigns over the two of you, you gently run your fingers over his arm before starting the tune-up.

Your cheeks are like two bonfires that adamantly refuse to go out. Bucky watches you blush and blush and blush and blush as you dive nose first into his arm. It’s downright adorable. He hears your heart pump unevenly and fast, doing it’s best imitation of Thumper in your chest. Bucky rolls his shoulders a little and swallows against a dry throat. He takes out his phone and opens up the messaging app.

“Sorry!” You squeak when your fingers twitch at seeing Bucky fucking texting again who the hell is he texting?! and a sensor on the inside of his bicep sends an electric jolt into Barnes’ shoulder.

Bucky feels the jolt but doesn’t do anything but smile when you look up all doe-eyed and jumpy.

“Didn’t hurt.” The supersoldier says kindly, looking in your eyes and letting his smile ink into his gaze. You bite your lip, flutter your lashes in a nervous flurry, and snap your eyes back down to his arm.

Bucky is so damn smug with himself. Knowing for sure that him possibly communicating with other people makes you jealous. At first he didn’t know why you were acting the way you were, he just knew he liked it. It wasn’t until he really thought about it that it came to him. Bucky doesn’t want to play with you, he just wanted to run a few tests of his own before going in for what he so charmingly called ‘Real Obvious Flirting Initiative’.

With a small steadying breath and without taking his eyes off you, Bucky types out a text. His smile grows with your terribly hidden jealousy as you listen to the thick pads of his thumb tap the screen. When he’s finished typing, he checks to make sure there are no weird autocorrected words then hits send.

Your phone goes off with a ding! in your back pocket. You pay no mind to it and continue to work, subconsciously plotting ways to steal his phone and see who he has in his contacts. Threatening every female in his contact list is too much right? Right, yeah too much. Maybe you could accidentally break the phone? No, Stark would get him a new one. Probably even a better one at that. You continue your devious train of thought while pacing on through the tune-up.

Thankfully Bucky doesn’t pull out his phone again, so when you finish you don’t have to bolt out of the room. Again. You look up and deliver (what you hope is) a professional smile and a nod, wiping the grease and fluid off your hands with a rag. Bucky stands, looks down at you and winks.

You’ve never felt so close to death (and maybe heaven) in your entire life.

When Bucky leaves you breathless sitting dumbly on your stool, you pull out your phone and subconsciously check for any messages. 

Today 16:30

Unknown Number: Hi

You furrow your eyebrows and respond.

Today 18:12

You: Who is this?

It’s not a second before you get a reply. 

Unknown Number: Next tune-up you’ll find out

Things went pretty smoothly from there. Sickeningly cute actually but you weren’t complaining (only Tony did but what’s new).

Hi so I hope you liked it! I had a blast writing jealous!reader and smug af!bucky xx

Don’t be afraid to submit something if you so desire! Drabble Prompts are here .

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[jerome-katie]

The Environmental Effects of The War in Iraq

Katie Jerome

It’s no secret that war is not good for the environment. When the U.S. military bombs another country we are destroying their physical environment even when we don’t try to (e.g. precision strikes). Bombs explode and hurt children and women and not often their targets. They blow up houses, landscapes, farms, the way people get their livelihood, cultural centers, and places of religious worship. The U.S. does this all in the name of democracy and freedom, and we have done it again and again throughout history in order to maintain power and control over other nations. This blog focuses on the Iraq war specifically and will start by discussing how we got to war with them, then I will discuss effects, and lastly, I will discuss symbolic packages the United States government did use to convince us we needed to be in this war.

A Brief History

We went to war with Iraq on March 19th, 2003 shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001. We started the war on the principle of the Bush Doctrine which made it okay to preemptively strike countries who we thought would attack us. Al-Qaeda brought the planes into the towers, they are a part of the Afghani terrorist group called the Taliban, not based in Iraq. But Bush and the American government and media lead the people to believe that we were going into Iraq to fight the War on Terror, the War on Terror was being fought in Afghanistan already at the same time.  

America has a history of infiltrating other countries government’s when they’re not being run the way America wants them to be run. We have invaded in Iran’s government and Iraq’s to create an anti-Iran sentiment. Saddam Hussein was America’s puppet until he invaded Kuwait in 1990 that was when the war became really about assonating him in 2003. That is why we went to war with Iraq. It was painted that Iraq terrorists were the ones who crashed planes into the towers on 9/11, but that was not true. We went to Iraq to get after Saddam Hussein because he wasn’t doing what America wanted him to do. So we went to war in Iraq and we still have troops there 14 years later.

Here is a video clip explaining all that happened.

In the documentary, “Why we Fight” there is a clip of Geroge W. Bush Jr. saying he knows that Saddam Hussein didn’t have anything to do with 9/11. Bush Jr. was the president at the time. Why are we fighting when the head of the U.S. government doesn’t know why we’re fighting it?? George W. Bush is seen as one of the dumbest presidents there has been until Trump came along, but still, even he should be able to know why we went to war in Iraq.

Additionally, Vice president Dick Cheney was the vice president of a military contract company called Halliburton. That connection also adds to how militaristic we’ve become in the last 10 years.

Environmental issues of the Iraq War

War causes so many issues to the environments both social and physical I’m not going to go in depth about them because there’s already a lot of research out there talking about effects.

Some effects on the environment during combat are:

Destruction- Setting off bombs is going to destroy anything that it hits for at least 300 meters around it as my professor said in class one bomb will destroy the length of 7 cars. It’s no joke.  

Resource Extraction- War uses a lot of resources oil and oil is a reason why we have gone to war in the past thinking about the war in Afghanistan and Kuwait. The Middle East is home to oil reserves where we have been getting our oil from for decades.

Invasive Species- The planes, helicopters, and other vehicles that come from America to the other countries to a foreign country bring seeds, pollen, and sometimes weeds with them to the other country and those species aren’t native to the country, so that causes problems for the ecosystems that are already at work there.

Hunting and Poaching- Soldiers need to eat in the field and when there is combat. Farmers and others who live around the combat site will flee they will kill and eat their livestock. Meat is easy to cook and right there in front of them. Soilders also are given rations and will get care boxes from home occasionally, so if the food is durable enough to go into the field with them they will take that as well.

Social Issues of the Iraq War

War causes all kinds of issues for the humans involved in the military and the civilians abroad.

War creates veterans who often have a hard time getting work after they return home and have psychological issues like depression and PTSD after having to kill people in combat if not also permanent or not injuries from combat. Vets from Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom have between 3 and 25% of a chance of having depression when they return. And between 10 and 18% have PTSD or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder according to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs.

War creates refugees who can no longer stay in their homelands because it’s no longer safe to live there. 1 in 25 Iraqi’s were displaced from their homes according to the Costs of War study done by the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs at Brown University.

War also causes the death of civilians, soldiers, and academics. Death also affects the families that are left behind. There was a case of a father who lost his son in the World Trade Center bombings on 9/11. He wanted to get back at the people who killed his son, he got a bomb with his son’s name on it and it was sent with 100% accuracy to Iraq the military claimed. He finds out later that were not in the conflict that he thought we were in and he was devastated that he put his son’s name on a bomb, but he didn’t know at the time, so he says he doesn’t regret what he did because he didn’t know. He also talks about the loss of feeling like we can trust our government to do what’s best for our country this is especially hard for him to believe because he’s a Vietnam veteran, he served his country and trusted them to know what’s best.

The Media

A significant part of this issue is also the media. News reporters who were to report on the Iraq war were to be pro-military and many news folks who didn’t support the war or said anything remotely not supporting the war was fired. Even reporters who went over to Iraq to be with soldiers. Not to say that many reporters just didn’t survive being in Iraq. This is the same with government representatives. Anyone who is anti-war is seen as a crazy liberal socialist, so even democratic political leaders have to support military action to be respected in government and continue their work and the climb of the government ladder.

Symbolic Packages of America

We want to think that democracy works the way that we’ve always been told it works. People continue to tell us to call or write our government leaders when we have a problem with a policy, but we forget that think tanks are also a part of the governmental system. They have more power than citizens have to change things especially when it comes to military policy decisions.  

I’m coming to believe that the America I thought I lived in isn’t the America that the rest of the world sees. America is home to many struggles and we are one of the most diverse countries in the world because of war, really. We pride ourselves on freedom, democracy, individualism, and the free market, but as I get older I’m starting to see a different America. An America where I can’t trust the government because something is always going on that I don’t know about. We go to other countries and undermine and destroy their governments so that we can remain in power. What are we so afraid of? America not being number one? Maybe were so afraid of losing power because we didn’t have it in the first place?  We’ve been stealing since day one when Europeans claimed this land after native people had been living here for centuries. America likes to paint other countries as bad and scary and unsafe to live in and because of that for a long time I’ve looked at the Middle East and only seen the conflict and refugees coming over here not knowing how to speak English and making me take extra time to help them at work, but not the beauty that can be in these places and not the sadness that they feel in having to leave their homelands and come to America and Canada to the very countries that are bombing their homes.

Iraq is beautiful and culturally rich and though a bit more patriarchal than America. But what irks me is this feeling that American government has this need to take over other countries governments and continue to keep them relying on us for leadership and guidance when we don’t spend enough money or time on our own people who are suffering here. Pertaining to the Iraq war specifically, it’s a war that we didn’t need to start and one that has gone on for more than 10 years.

Conclusion

War causes a lot of destruction and damage to the communities we infiltrate abroad. What can we do here is talk about war as a real issue, call congresspeople, protest the war, realize how militaristic the U.S. actually is and see it as not a given it doesn’t have to be this way and we should know what is going on in our country with our leaders all the time. Trump is causing harm in a lot of areas right now so there’s a lot of work to do, but it’s important to note that President Obama dropped bombs too, in fact, he spent on average 18.6 billion dollars more a year than George W Bush in his time in office. War is a systemic issue within American society and the government it isn’t one president or one leader it’s an issue with many more facets than I talked about here. Choose one that intrigues you and fight!  

Note: In this blog I don’t go into the physical monetary costs of war, but I attached a video by the company “GOOD” who does a really good job of breaking down the costs and the money that we put into war it’s outrageous what we spend on war as a country and it connects back to Eisenhower’s farewell address warning us against the military industrial complex and giving too much power to that system. I also have his full speech attached here and the quote where he talks about the military industrial complex specifically.

Works Cited

Jarecki, E. (Director), Jarecki, E., & Shipman, S. (Producers), & Jarecki, E. (Writer). (January 2005). Why we fight [Video file]. Retrieved May 10, 2017.

LALLANILLA, M. (2016, October 04). How Does War Affect the Environment? Retrieved May 10, 2017, from https://www.thespruce.com/the-effects-of-war-on-environment-1708787

Costs of War Project. (n.d.). Retrieved May 10, 2017, from http://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/refugees

PTSD: National Center for PTSD. (2007, January 01). Retrieved May 10, 2017, from https://www.ptsd.va.gov/public/ptsd-overview/reintegration/overview-mental-health-effects.asp

War documentary that we watched earlier in the semester for extra credit...

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[alternative-eyes]

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oR9kzhc_WZA/XDeVmBjcu8I/AAAAAAAAkmg/q-ap9Zdvrx8pLq1bNcFD7WQtr9hAOrGOgCLcBGAs/s72-c/Project%2BBlue%2BBook%2BPoster.png

By Kevin Randle A Different Perspective 1-9-19

Jack Webb

     Back in the 1970s, Jack Webb of Dragnet fame created something he called Project UFO. It was based on the files of Project Blue Book and it was difficult to recognize the cases presented. The attitude of the program, if I remember it correctly, was to examine a case that might have been inexplicable and find a rational and reasonable answer before the hour expired. Although I was excited about the show, I was quickly disappointed in the final product. It reeked somewhat, again if I remember correctly, of a debunking operation. This new incarnation, given the snappy tile of Project Blue Book, seems to be at the other end of the spectrum. It suggests a grand conspiracy that involves what most of us believe is the mythical MJ-12, Air Force officers who will go to about any length to prove a case has a terrestrial explanation and a hint of the Men in Black. In other words, it is filled with the paranoia of the UFO field and has very little to do with the reality of the situation as it was then or as it is now. While it is suggested that it is based on the history of Project Blue Book, very little of what I saw was based on that. About the only things that were accurate were the names of some of the people such as Dr. J. Allen Hynek and Project Blue Book. Once beyond the superficial, we plunge headlong into the fantasy that has grown up around UFO investigation. In one scene, a general walks into an office that is reminiscent of Fox Mulder’s FBI office filled with photographs, newspaper clippings and drawings of alien creatures. Since this is the beginning of Hynek’s association with Blue Book (Project Sign actually), some of the material there is out of place. It shouldn’t show up for years. And while I’m in a nitpicking mood, I’ll note that the military customs and courtesies are simply misunderstood. The civilian show runners and directors don’t understand saluting and get it wrong. You have an Air Force captain referring to Hynek as “Doc,” which seemed to be a little disrespectful. And the uniforms seemed to be a combination of Army and Air Force, meaning that elements of Army uniforms showed up on the Air Force uniforms. As I say, nitpicking. The real trouble here is a suggestion that the stories are grounded in reality but I fear it is a reality driven by every paranoid rumor, half-truth and fantasy that has infected the UFO community since the 1940s. I just had a hard time getting beyond all of that. I was hoping for something that had a little more of a documentary atmosphere, not something that was invented for a story that has little to do with the history of Blue Book.

Lt. George Gorman on the left.

In other words, as Jack Webb had done decades ago, we have a show that is “based” on the truth, but that moves into fiction immediately. I was quickly disappointed again. However, this time, I recognized the case that began the tale without having to have the producers tell what it was. The opening sequence and the investigation are wrapped around the October 1, 1948, sighting by Second Lieutenant George Gorman, an Air National Guard pilot, on a routine night flying mission near Fargo, North Dakota.

In the show, he buzzes a football stadium, climbs out and spots something, a glowing ball in the distance. He attempts to intercept, chases it, is apparently hit by it, and open fires on it. Once he lands, he is more than a little crazed by the events and for me, talks gibberish. He is suffering from an acute case of PTSD and eventually ends up in the psycho ward before being given a shot and dragged off. Apparently, the shot will wipe out his short-term memory of the event. Hynek is called in to investigate and walked over to where the plane is being examined. He is stopped by a military guard but Hynek gives him the facts of high-altitude radiation and then is allowed to not only examine the plane but to sit in the cockpit. The guard should be reprimanded because he didn’t know that Hynek was authorized to see the plane and shouldn’t have allowed him close to it. After the captain with Hynek told the guard that Hynek was authorized to examine anything he wanted should the guard allow him to pass. But really, all of this is trivia. If you understand that this is a television drama and not a documentary, that they were not constrained by what really happened, and that they are creating situation to move the plot, then the show is enjoyable. Maybe I nitpick a little too much, but that’s half the fun for me. I am interested in where the show is going and how many elements that have nothing to do with Blue Book will be brought in. I suspect they are going for an X-Files vibe as opposed to an actually historical vibe. For those interested in the facts of this case, I have examined the relevant documents contained in the Blue Book files. Gorman was building his nighttime flight experience at the time. As the program told us, Gorman did, in fact, fly over a football stadium but at 1500 feet, as FAA regulations required. Gorman did see a smaller aircraft about 500 feet below him. (We would later learn that it was flown by Dr. L. N. Cannon with his friend Einar Neilson thought the names are redacted in the actual files.) He then spotted another object that was flying between the Hector Airport Tower and the football field. The tower operator told Gorman that there was only one other private aircraft in the sky. Gorman said that he was going to give chase. Gorman later told the Air Force investigators:

After the initial peel off, I realized the speed of the object was too great to catch in a straight chase, so I proceeded to cut it off in turns. At this time my fighter was under full power. My speed varying between 300 and 400. The object circled to the left, I cut back to the right for a head-on pass. The pass was made at apparently 5000 feet, the object approaching head-on until a collision seemed inevitable. The object veered and passed apparently 500 feet or less over the top above me. I chandelled [a flight maneuver] around still without the object in sight. The object made a 180 degree turn and initiated a pass at me. This time I watched it approach all the way as it started to pull up, I pulled up abruptly trying to ram the object until straight up with me following at apparently 14,000 feet, I stalled out at 14,000 feet with the object apparently 2000 feet above me circling to the left. We made two circles to the left. The object then pulled out away from me and made another head-on pass. At this time the pass started and the object broke off a large distance from me heading over Hector Airport to the northwest at apparently 11,000 feet. I gave a chase circling to the left trying to cut it off until I was 25 miles southeast of Fargo. I was at 14,000 feet, the object at 11,000 when I again gave the aircraft full power… to catch it in a diving turn. The object turned around and made another head-on pass. This time when pulling up, I pulled up also and observed it traveling straight up until I lost it. I then returned to the field and landed.

Although the program suggested that Gorman had fired on the object and that his aircraft had been damaged by it, there is nothing in the Blue Book files to corroborate that. This is artistic license, I suppose, but it is important to note that this was an aspect added to the story. Gorman did say, “I am convinced that there was definite thought behind its maneuvers.” He added:

I am further convinced that the object was governed by the laws of inertia because its acceleration was rapid but not immediate and although it was able to turn fairly tight at considerable speed, it still followed a natural curve. When I attempted to turn with the object I blacked out temporarily due to excessive speed… I do not believe thee are many pilots who could withstand the turn and speed effected by the object, and remain conscious.

There were other witnesses, though they didn’t support all of the statements made by Gorman. One of those was Dr. Cannon and he provided a statement for Air Force investigators. It said:

I was flying and Nielson was using the phone and while circling the Football Field at the A.C. at 1600 feet, the Fargo tower advised us there was a [F]-51 in the air and a few moments later asked who the third plane might be. We had noticed the 51, and when we were over the North side of Hector Field going West a light seemingly on a plane flared above and to the North moving very swiftly toward the West. At first we thought it was the 51 but we then saw the lights of the 51 higher and more over the field. We landed… and then went up to the tower and listened to the calls from the 51 which seemed to be trying to overtake the plane or lighted object which then went southward and over the city. The plane was moving very swiftly, much faster than the 51. Tried to get a better view with a pair of binoculars but couldn’t follow it well enough…

In the tower, L. D. Jensen, said that he had seen the object or light at about 1000 feet in the northwest, pass rapidly over the field, flying in a straight line. He could see no form or shape, even through binoculars, and he could not see the maneuvers of either the F-51 or the object. Officers from Project Sign, the forerunner of Blue Book, arrived from Ohio and interviewed all the witnesses. Eventually, after an investigation that included testing Gorman’s aircraft for radiation [which might have had more to do with the altitude and cosmic radiation rather than alien spacecraft], they concluded that Gorman had engaged in a dogfight with a balloon. Dr. Donald Menzel believed that Jupiter had a role in the dogfight as well. The official answer in the Blue Book files is balloon. Jerry Clark, who is one of the historians of the UFO field, and who might be THE historian of the field, wrote in his UFO Encyclopedia:

Though some knowledgeable students of the UFO phenomenon… have rejected such an explanation for this famous sighting, unlike some Air Force would-be solutions this one seems plausible, particularly in the light of the failure of ground witnesses to confirm the extraordinary performance Gorman ascribed to the object he was pursuing After the Mantell incident [in which another Air Guard pilot was killed chasing what turned out to be a balloon], the Gorman sighting may be the most overrated UFO report in the early history of the phenomenon.

I will note here that Clark is more liberal than I when it comes to UFO sightings and explanations, so his conclusion here carries extra weight. I agree with him. Gorman somehow tangled with a balloon. There is one final point and that concerns the over reaction of the pilot in, dare I say it, the pilot of Project Blue Book. There is no evidence Gorman was completely freaked out over the encounter. True, he had trouble landing the aircraft, but that was the reaction of the encounter. It was not a long-term problem. He remained in the Air Guard and retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1969.

Continue Reading ► See Also: ‘Project Blue Book’ Meets with Mixed Reviews in the UFO Community ‘Project Blue Book’ Is Based on a True UFO Story – Here It Is Project Blue Book - Episode 1 Mangled By 'History' Channel Project Blue Book: Alien-Hunting Agents Seek the Truth About UFOs New UFO Drama Series "Project Blue Book" | VIDEO UFO Scripted Drama, 'Blue Book' To Be Produced By Award Winning Filmmaker, Robert Zemeckis

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