#but either way I'm obsessed with how much of this info came out of tens of thousands of words of fake expat east german usenet forums

[annabelle--cane]

I am still mad I completely missed it, could you tell me what was the tmagp ARG about and anything particularly important or interesting I should check about it?

if I were you I'd start by watching this video by @pinkelotjeart that was made as the arg was happening and chronicles most of the big events, and then I'd go to the masterdoc linked in that video's description and pick deeper into details that catch your eye. big picture: the arg gave us some introduction as to what spooky atrocities the alternate universe magnus institute was up to, some of the OIAR's vibes, and also bonzo is there. who is bonzo? bonzo.

[cloudyskies-starryheavens]

Dragon Mountain

by Katie & Kevin Tsang

Basic Info

Book 1 of The Dragon Realm Series Year published: 2020 Page Length: 233 Genre: Fantasy Goodreads Link

Personal Info

Dates Read: 12/4/24-12/6/24 Read or Listened to?: Listened to How many times have I read this book before?: 0

Plot Summary (Spoiler Free)

Billy Chan, a teenager from California, is sent to a culture summer camp in China. With his new group of friends, he discovers that not all is what it seems. Dragons are real, and they need his help!

Overall Impression

I went through such an emotional roller coaster listening to this book. I just recently bought this book at a resale store. I wasn't sure if I'd like it based on the premise, but the cover art was absolutely stunning and I'd seen it around a lot lately. When I first started listening to this book, I was instantly hooked. I really liked Billy's character, and his first friend was utterly spectacular (made ten times better by the narrator reading the audiobook). I was ready for absolutely everything this book had to offer, and I was loving it. Until I got about halfway through the story, and it started to go downhill from there. Overall I'd say this is a really good book . . . if you're a lot younger than 20 years old. I read a lot of "children's" books on this blog (and in general), but for the most part, I can still enjoy them just as much as I did when I was younger, or even just in general. I'm not sure if it's because I didn't read this book when I was younger (I would have been about 15 when this came out), but it just didn't land for me. Either way, this is a good enough book and I will continue to read the next installments within this series.

Full spoiler review under the cut!

Plot Notes:

Character Notes: Billy: - Bio: Billy is a White/Chinese boy who grew up in San Francisco, California. He's good at surfing, and it's his favorite hobby. Billy is kind, and considerate of others. It's suggested that he's somewhat popular at school, although being in a foreign environment with other kids he doesn't know brings out a more shy, cautious side to him. Overall, he is also described as being "Loyal, strong, brave, and true." He is our main protagonist through this story. - How I Feel About Him: I really like Billy! He's a very realistic character for me. I was hoping that him being mixed White/Chinese would come up more with him going to a Chinese summer camp (I'm mixed race myself (White/Latina)), but sadly, it really didn't. I'll expand on this a lot more in my later sections, but overall, I was fine with this decision. Also Billy is totally obsessed with surfing in this book. I started joking about making it a sort of drinking game (reminder to drink water!) where I'd take a sip of my water every time he mentioned surfing out of nowhere. It was funny after a bit, but then it started to just get kind of weird? And of course he used his surfing skills/knowledge to save the day at the end, I totally saw that coming. Anyway, Billy is an excellent main character for this book and I really like his perspective.

Dylan: - Bio: Dylan is a teenage boy from Galway, Ireland. He's the kind of kid that would rather stay at home and avoid danger and adventures, but won't refuse the call when it comes. He's pretty smart and decided to learn some Chinese for fun, which is what brought him to this camp. He ends up being Billy's best friend. - How I Feel About Him: I love Dylan so much in this book. As I've said, the narrator really makes this character for me. If I were just reading this book, I'd probably feel a lot more neutral towards Dylan, but Kevin Shen does such a great accent/performance for him. I'm going to absolutely gush over this narrator soon, he does such an amazing job!

Charlotte: - Bio: Charlotte is from Georgia, I think Atlanta. I believe she's fully white. She is incredibly competitive and loves to win. She knows jujitsu and is pretty strong. She's very blunt, and not afraid to tell it like it is. She's one of our four main characters. - How I Feel About Her: Charlotte is easily my least favorite character out of the main four. I find her somewhat abrasive personality to be kind of annoying. They presented an interesting opportunity to expand upon her competitive nature where she "never loses ever" and then immediately loses her first day at camp. But I feel like we just kind of forget about that plot line? I just think we could have gotten a little more. I think another big thing for me was (surprisingly) the voice acting for her character. I know I was just talking about how much I liked the narrator, but the way he voices her in particular just didn't work for me. That's the only complaint I have against Shen, but I do feel like I wouldn't have disliked her as much if I'd just been able to make a voice for her in my head while reading this book.

Ling-Fei: - Bio: Ling-Fei is from China. I don't believe they specify where. She's more of a quiet girl, but she's very kind to everyone and everything. Since her grandparents died, Old Gold has been a grandfather figure to her. She is the last of our main four. - How I Feel About Her: Ling-Fei is alright. She's a very me-coded character but she never really stuck with me. Yeah, I suppose I really don't have a lot to say about her. She, like Charlotte, is a pretty simple, kind of one-note character. Dylan can suffer from this as well, I suppose, but I feel like we spend more time with him.

The Dragons: - Bio: There are four main dragons in this book. The kids name them Spark, Xing, Buttons, and Tank. Tank is large and battle-hardened with a soft heart, Buttons is a sweet dragon with a love of all things human, Xing is a sassy dragon with a slightly abrasive personality (dragonality?), and Spark is a quiet, reserved dragon. Each dragon is matched with a human in a "heart bond". They've been imprisoned in Dragon Mountain for centuries, waiting for the perfect people to come along and rescue them, as well as to help them save their world. - How I Feel About Them: What disappointed me the most about this book was how little I connected with the dragons. When we first met the dragons, I was obsessed with Buttons. I thought it was so adorable that the big, beefy dragon had a huge passion for button collecting. I loved it! I literally remember screeching in my car in the parking lot at Goodwill while I was listening to the part where we're introduced to him and his horde. But otherwise, things went kind of downhill. I think what turned me off most was how little I liked their names. Xing is my favorite name of the bunch (meaning Star), but the rest of them . . . . I think I was just kind of disappointed with how juvenile they were? Tank? And Buttons? Like, I get it, but, come on. And as for Spark, they mention how "Small sparks flickered [on her wings] like tiny fireflies," and I thought they were going to name her Firefly, which I thought would actually be very pretty, but they name her Spark?? And I think that devastated me way more than it should have, so that's really on me. But yeah. I just kind of felt like they didn't take naming the dragons seriously enough, and that kind of made me feel like the whole story wasn't taken very seriously, and that maybe I shouldn't take the story seriously either. The dragons also are really into exposition dumping? I'm not sure how much I should really rant here, but just know that as soon as we met the dragons, I stopped really liking this book.

Old Gold: - Bio: Old Gold is the owner of the Chinese cultural summer camp known as Camp Dragon (this book and no one else in it is subtle). He is the grandfather to JJ and the grandfather figure to Ling-Fei. We find out later that he is a bit of a twist villain. - How I Feel About Him: You know what, I liked Old Gold being a villain more than I thought I would. I pretty much knew from the start that he was involved with the dragons somehow at the beginning of the story. He sent the kids to find a dragon fruit, the camp is called Camp Dragon, he told the kids the legend of the Dragon's Heart star. So yeah, I figured he somehow knew about the dragons trapped in Dragon Mountain and he was trying to find kids that would release them. But I thought he was doing it for good. Nah, this old dude wants power and is actually secretly evil?? I know people hate the oversaturation of twist villains that come out of nowhere (he was so sweet in the beginning of this book) but I was kind of here for it. I just hope that we get more of him in the later books. He was pretty evil at the end (he literally murdered Ling-Fei's grandparents for a dragon pearl and contemplated murdering Ling-Fei too) so I hope we get more of an explanation for that, I suppose? But yeah, I think we can have fun with this guy here.

JJ: - Bio: JJ is a sort of bully at Camp Dragon. He's within the age range of our main four characters (he's 13, Billy is 12, and I don't think they specify for the others), but he likes to act like he's better than everyone else. Probably because his grandfather owns the camp, or maybe because he's more well-versed in Chinese and Chinese culture compared to the campers, but I digress. We don't see a lot of JJ in this book, but he does get stranded in the Dragon Realm with the other kids at the end of the book, so he'll be in the sequel. - How I Feel About Him: JJ is alright. I'm here for a mini JJ redemption arc where he maybe learns to be more of a team player and becomes friends with the main four. Otherwise he was just a rude character to be a rude character. He sort of reminded me of Malfoy from Harry Potter.

What I Liked/What Worked: I liked bits and pieces of this book. The beginning was so strong for me. We had excellent introductions to these characters (the human characters), Billy was a strong choice for our main character, the camp was interesting, the first little adventure (with the scavenger hunt and the tiger) was fun, and overall, I liked how the team was starting to bond together. Then we met the dragons, and I was disappointed. As I've said, I loved Buttons, I thought he was really cute and fun. The powers the kids got were kind of interesting, albeit not super creative for the most part. The adventures they went on in the Dragon Realm were alright. There was a fight with a bad-guy dragon, a crab fight, a troll they had to outsmart, and evil plants. Actually, I hated the troll scene, that viscerally upset me. Anyway, yeah, the first third or so of this book was the best for me.

What I Didn't Like/What Didn't Work: Alright, I think I'm going to start with my expectations for this book. When I first picked it up, I thought it was going to be a sort of Percy Jackson clone where, instead of Greek mythology, we'd get to explore Chinese mythology. I love mythology and learning about other cultures, so I decided to go with it. I think there being western style dragons on the front cover of the book should have been my first clue that this is not what the book was about, but hey, I'm not going to sit here and pretend like I know what every rule is for what Chinese dragons can look like. When I learned that Billy was mixed race, I was also excited for the potential to explore what it would be like to go to a summer camp in China where maybe he'd be an outcast. Maybe he'd be like a fish out of water where he only kind of knows the culture and language but lags behind everyone else. I thought that would have been an interesting thing to see. But no, Billy is actually more Chinese than most of the other campers, aside from Ling-Fei. Like, I'm all for representation, but southern US girl? Irish boy? We also had some side characters from Mumbai and Ghana. So I guess I was just really hoping for a cast of Chinese characters here, and that's not what the authors went for.

Now let's talk about the dragons. The dragons themselves were okay, but I just didn't really vibe with the way they were handled. So the kids meet the dragons, and pretty quickly we get a huge exposition dump about the dragon war against the Dragon of Death, and dragon heart bonds, and magic pearls, and this and that, and I just . . . it was a lot. It also just felt very generic to me? Like, a bunch of kids stumble upon some magic thing, and then some magic beings say, "Hey, kids, you want some powers? If you come with us, you can save the world!" And they're like, "Okay!" And I just ??? I know this is a kids' book and I know that just about every idea has already been done but. This is what they went with? And I'm not saying that just because the authors are Chinese (sorry, I thought they were siblings, apparently they're husband and wife and Kevin is Chinese), they have to write a Chinese story about Chinese people but. I don't know, I just wanted something more diverse than what I've been reading. It's fine that they did their own "original" idea, but again, I think I was just looking for something else. Like, even the pearls really weren't like how I've seen them in other books. They could have been dragon pearls or something, and that's what made them so special. But nah, they're just regular magic pearls. Anyway, I just wanted to put somewhere that, if you're looking for a book that's a little more Chinese focused, I recommend Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and Dragon Keeper. It's been a long time since I've read these books but I was heavily comparing this book to these two. Or at least, I wanted to if it had been more Chinese centric. Idk.

Nitpicks: Okay I really only have one here but. Why does Dimitrius have a name? They make such a big deal about how dragons can only be named by humans but this dragon has a name? I guess it makes sense that dragons have their own names, especially since they haven't had anything to do with humans in hundreds of years. Also I suppose the main bad guy dragon is kind of a dragon supremacist (all of the dragons are kind of dragon supremacists though) and it would make sense that they would want to name themselves? But yeah that kind of bothered me. Oh, also I hated the scene with the troll. Billy let that guy puLL HIS TEETH OUT OF HIS SKULL JUST LIKE THAT. Dude, I felt that physically, I was cringing so hard listening to that part. And then they just brush it off lmao. I can't even imagine how much Billy's parents are going to have to pay for dentures so he can have his teeth again. I thought maybe Buttons would heal Billy at the end or something and make his teeth grow back. But no, it's just not addressed. Maybe I'd be able to let it slide a little more if it had been Billy's baby teeth or something, but he's twelve, so all of those should be gone. I don't have anything against people with missing teeth, but man. Dental stuff is so expensive in the states and I just couldn't get it out of my head how stupid that was. Ugh. Bro ripped out his teeth with his weird little rock hands eww eww eww eww I can't. Oh and the surfing thing. This was more of a "funny bad" thing though, so that's what makes it not a huge dealbreaker for me. But I need to talk about it. Bro needs a second hobby. I got so tired of him randomly talking about surfing and comparing everything to surfing. I want to say he brought it up in his internal monologue at least ten times in this book. I get it. And it's even funnier (spoiler alert, I've already read the next two books by the time I'm writing this) that it doesn't come up like at all in the next couple books. It's like some rude individual like me complained about it and they just deleted it entirely from books two and three. Anyway it also totally cracked me up that they genuinely used his surfing ability in the final battle. It was very minor but I just knew they had to do it at some point. Maybe instead of ripping out his teeth he could have surfed his way out of the whole rock troll thing--

Listening Experience: Alright, let's talk about something nicer now. I hate being mean and complaining, believe it or not, haha. I've already said this, but the narrator for this story, Kevin Shen, really made this book for me. He's so good with the accents (except maybe the southern accent for Charlotte). I liked hearing him speak the little bits of Chinese sprinkled throughout the story, especially with his dedication to pronounce Xing correctly every time (my best friend is Chinese and we were just having a conversation about how important pronunciation is when speaking Chinese). His Irish accent was amazing as well, and I absolutely adored the voice he gave Dylan. It absolutely brought him to life for me. I think the issue I had with Charlotte's voice was just that he was trying maybe a little too hard to do her accent while also kind of trying to sound like a girl? I've known other audiobooks narrated by men where there's a southern female character and listening to them trying to do the falsetto southern accent just kills me. And not in a good way. So I don't think that it's his fault is what I'm getting at. Anyway, yeah, I just wanted to give massive props to this guy because I really appreciated his performance :)

Cover Art: The cover art for this book is phenomenal. I think it's part of what made this book so memorable for me after seeing it around a few years back, probably at a Barnes and Noble and/or on Goodreads or something. The colors are probably my favorite part. The blue on the red is so stunning, and the complimentary yellows are absolutely striking. I love the composition, I love the design for Spark, and I also wanted to mention that Billy's silhouette looks exactly like one of my friends from high school (who also happens to be White/Asian). Man, I love this art.

Final Notes

Favorite Parts/Quotes/Passages: I liked the scene where Buttons showed everyone his horde before Dylan named him Buttons. It was so cute, and it reminded me of Harry Potter again where Ron's dad really likes muggle stuff. I thought it was such an adorable little addition that he likes something as specific and niche as buttons, and it was a nice change to the other dragons who like jewels and gold. I should mention that Spark didn't have jewels or gold as her horde, she had more of a fish keeping thing going on? (Same, girl, I love my betta and shrimp tanks 😔✊) I thought that was cute too, but Buttons was so much cuter, I was screaming. So yeah.

Enjoyability: 8/10

Would I Ever Reread This Book?: Probably not. I bought this book, but I'm going to try and resell it to another used book store. I'd recommend it to my kids, but I think I'd be more than fine going the rest of my life without reading this book again. That sounds super mean and harsh, wow. But yeah, I've already experienced this book, and it's just not for me.

Do I Recommend This Book?: Yes, actually, very much so. That is, I recommend it for a very specific audience.

Who Would I Recommend This Book To? What Would I Like For Them To Take Away From It?: I'd recommend this book to primary and middle grade readers. The reason why I'm rating this book so high is because I know this book isn't really intended for me. I can recognize that, while I don't like it personally, I think this is a great book for children. I think this would be a wonderful introduction to fantasy for new readers and young kids who have a thing for dragons. I think if this had been one of the first dragon books I'd read, I would have liked it way more. The simplistic storyline would have also been nice for my elementary/middle school brain, and the pacing of this book would have kept my attention spectacularly. Unfortunately, I've read books like the Inheritance Cycle and. Man those are so good. They're very much not for kids, though. But say as I do and not as I say, because I did read those books in sixth grade. Probably shouldn't have but man they were good. I also just reread them a few months ago, and I'm planning to read Murtagh real soon. Anyway I got off topic.

Overall Rating: 7.5/10

[giorno-plays-piano]

Heartache

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Soldat!Reader

Warnings: yandere, obsession, kidnapping, captivity, torture, brainwashing, delusional Bucky.

Words: 2535.

Summary: You don't need the one whose name was Bucky Barnes, a hundred years old broken man who returned back to the world that couldn't offer him anything but regrets and nightmares. You need your Soldier, the one who won't return to you even if you throw Bucky back into that iron chair and fry his brains for the thirtieth time.

P.S. I have to say it turned out darker than I expected. Attention! Bucky is free from his programming, but he does not heal as he should. 

__________________

“You look old.”

You decide to give him the pleasure of hearing your voice. It sounds dull from behind the glass when Bucky comes closer, looking at someone he recognizes too well, but you do not recognize a man he became, nothing reminding you of the one with whom you once shared your bed.

You know what the man looking at you through the glass thinks. You didn’t age a day since the last time he saw you, and while he knows why, it still surprises him to see a young woman watching him calmly as if all those years didn't pass.

“You miss your star.” You say, tilting your head to the side and narrowing your eyes at him when you see his new vibranium arm.

“It doesn't matter.” His answer is immediate, and Bucky isn't surprised to hear the raw anger in his own voice: he is no longer the Soldier you knew, and he is worried he won't find a way to interact with you. You don't seem too interested in Bucky Barnes and whoever he works for despite the fact you are hardly HYDRA's soldier yourself.

What he doesn't know is that you still stay the soldier you have been once, and nothing will ever change that regardless of whoever Bucky Barnes sends your way to cure you from HYDRA's conditioning.

"I'm glad you remember me."

You find it peculiar: a man who has been trying so hard to get rid of anything that ties him to the Winter Soldier has been looking for you for years, finally tracking you down, capturing you and bringing you here as if your pure existence didn't remind him of the worst years of his life. What did he expect to find? A comfort in someone who once had been paired with him just for the sake of research?

"Don't bother, Mr. Barnes. There's nothing there left for you."

You see he's taken aback because you have hit a nerve. Apparently, James Buchanan Barnes thought the connection between the two of you remained the same, and he could dig up the feelings that had long been buried. Stupid, you think, he's forgetting the most important part: he is not the man you formed the bond with. You don't need the one whose name was Bucky Barnes, a hundred years old broken man who returned back to the world that couldn't offer him anything but regrets and nightmares. You need your Soldier, the one who won't return to you even if you throw Bucky back into that iron chair and fry his brains for the thirtieth time.

It doesn't matter. After all those years you didn't believe in happy endings, and even if the man watching you through the glass think he is going to get one after getting out, he is clearly deluding himself.

Averting his eyes, Bucky clears his throat and changes the topic, trying to give himself a false hope he can mend things. “I will convince Shuri to treat you. She helped me break through the conditioning, and she will do the same to you."

You could raise your brow at him, but maintaining this facade is tiresome and doesn't make sense. "I see you have no idea how much my conditioning differs from yours. You can't break through it. It's embedded in me."

"I thought so, but I got rid of mine. You can do it too, I'm sure."

Although you see him trying to assure you, Bucky's getting agitated because he really has no idea what HYDRA did to you. He couldn't know it when he still was the Soldier, but now the lack of his knowledge leads you to the thought your former masters destroyed whatever info they still kept - they foresaw he would search for you.

"Your brainwashing was flimsy. I've always wondered how come you were considered HYDRA'S greatest assassin when you just needed to see your dear friend once to start getting your memories back." You snort, knowing Bucky would feel a slight hint of jealousy in your voice, but you don't care: you've never hid from him you only needed the Winter Soldier, and he was gone.

Bucky doesn't know what to say as a part of him wants to scream there was nothing flimsy about electroconvulsive therapy he went through over and over again, but he looks at you and sees how different you are from him, having no memories of your own, not knowing even your name or the place where you came from. It doesn't scare him, but the fact you had long merged with the Soldier you've become does. You don't separate yourself from her the way he did. In fact, the Soldier had completely absorbed your true persona, and Bucky doesn’t know the real you. He only knows RED, a Soldat who at one point was been created by HYDRA just like all of them were. Despite searching for the information about your past for years, he found nothing, not even the year when you became a part of the organization. Bucky doesn’t think you did it willingly judging by the fact how you reacted when he had been training you among the other Soldiers, but he can’t be sure.

You’re a ghost. None of the masters who had been giving you orders know anything about you except your specialization and things you can do. Bucky supposes there were once people who knew the truth, but all of them are probably dead since the ones he has captured were utterly useless. His only hope is Shuri who might bring whatever is left somewhere deep inside your mind to the surface, yet he isn’t sure she will take you: the more you talk, the more it becomes clear you will not ask her to do it willingly, and Shuri won’t like that. The redemption can only be granted to someone who asks and works for it.

You don’t seem the type.

“What do you want me to do?” He asks you quietly, his forehead almost touching the glass separating you two when Bucky watches you with that pathetic expression of his. “If I let you go, you will return to people you serve. If I bring you to police, you will end up in a lab in the hands of the government.”

You allow him to see your smile as you observe him, desperately hoping you will tell him you will come back to the good guys and stay with him, playing a role of his funny little girlfriend because Bucky Barnes cannot allow himself to form an adequate relationship with any woman who has not been tainted the way he was. It probably seems so tragic to him that he had to spent years trying to catch you.

Although the chair you’re bound to doesn’t let you stand and come over to him, you still lean closer to the window, wearing the same polite but welcoming smile you used to lure your targets closer to you.

“I want you back in that chair, going through the whole process of brainwashing again until you become the Soldat you’ve been. I want you standing with me and feeling as much pain as I did until your sensitivity goes down to zero, and you no longer remember those funny friends of yours. I know you won’t trade your freedom and whatever else you have after getting out, but I don’t need James Buchanan Barnes or White Wolf or whoever you have become. I am RED of HYDRA, and I have bonded with the Winter Soldier you buried, Bucky.”

When he leaves, the massive metal door getting locked ten times the least, you stare at the grey wall beside the glass. You wonder how getting the privilege of remembering his past made him so miserable, a pathetic, broken man who did not understand how lucky he had been, not only breaking free from HYDRA’s grip but gaining his true identity back. He probably pitied himself, poor little boy who had been broken by the big bad guys. He did not understand that all other soldiers who came after him, except the suicide squad made with Stark’s serum, had been turned into ashes. There was nothing left to break in them - and you either.

_______________________

Shuri wasn’t happy to hear your story just like he thought, but Bucky couldn’t lie to her, hoping she would understand. Of course, she didn’t, telling him outright it was impossible to treat somebody who didn’t want to be treated. While it was also inhuman, forcing you to do something against your will just like HYDRA has been doing all these years, it also erased the possibility to use the same methods she chose when she treated Bucky.

“You don’t understand,” she tells him, shaking her head, “it’s not that I don’t want to help, but without her cooperating it’s close to impossible. They didn’t use the same ways to program her just like they did to you.”

He isn’t satisfied with her answer even though he knows Shuri wants to help. He can’t leave it like that, leave you to your fate, return you where you belonged, and he keeps asking who or what may be able to help you until she finally tells him something about electrical stimulation of the brain that can awake memories that you have buried. Shuri immediately regrets it, seeing how Bucky’s face lights up.

“It is a very complicated process that requires an extensive medical knowledge. Worse, even if performed correctly, this technique can traumatize her even further. Please don’t do this. We don’t even know if this method will be effective.”

Bucky doesn’t promise her anything, though a part of him feels guilty he made her tell him this. He just has to do it: undoubtedly, HYDRA or whoever you work for now will force you to go through the brainwashing process again, and whatever treatment Shuri told him about can’t be worse than this. If Bucky does everything right, you might stand a chance to live like he does, away from the horrors of the war you had been a part of ever since the organization abducted you. Even if you don’t want it, clearly it is an effect of the memory suppressing machine: any sane human being wants to have a normal life, right?

It takes him months to find and steal the equipment he needs, leaving no traces - it reminds him of the days when he had been under HYDRA’s control, but he does what he has to. Learning how to use the machine is a much more complicated task, but Bucky is grateful for that serum-enhanced brain of his: he nearly swallows the information from the books in record time, reading about sending a burst of electrical energy into your cerebral cortex to stimulate your brain and finally retrieve your memories. Now he knows what Shuri meant by traumatizing, but this doesn’t stop him either. He does what he has to do.

“What is your name?” He repeats after listening to your screams for ten or maybe twenty minutes, your body going limp in the black, cold chair when you open your mouth, breathing heavily, your face stained with tears and sweat.

“Dolores.” You say immediately, knowing he will repeat the procedure if you keep silent, your heat beating wildly. “I grew up... on a small farm in Iowa... I had an older sister... and slept with a big teddy bear with a red ribbon...”

“You are lying.” He says simply, and a jolt of electricity cuts through your head, nearly electrocuting you while you scream again and again.

For some reason he always feels it when you say what he wants to hear instead of the truth. What he doesn’t understand is that the truth he wants has been told months ago: you did not remember and you were not going to remember anything from your past. It was stupid to try. There was nothing left of you, and while he thought he was resurrecting a human in you, he was simply destroying your body that was regenerating every night after the therapy.

When you receive a new jolt, shaking and screaming, tears streaming down your face until they fall down onto your already wet t-shirt, you whisper through gritted teeth, “Either I will have you as my Soldat, or I will not have you at all.”

Bucky presses the button.

__________________________

When he is finished he takes you to a bath in the room next to your cell. You almost lose the ability to move for an hour or two, giving him time to prepare you: Bucky undresses you and slowly lowers your body in the tub filled with warm water, watching that you take a comfortable position and don’t slip, effectively suffocating. Today he had almost gone too far, risking to fry your brain: you still refused to give up even after two months of therapy you have gone through, and Bucky isn’t too happy.

Pouring a strawberry-scented shampoo on his palm, Bucky starts to carefully wash your hair that grew longer in the months of captivity, watching that neither shampoo nor the foam gets in your eyes. You are nearly breathless: the serum they gave you made you less stronger than him, but your regeneration abilities are on a whole different level, and soon your body will adjust and erase the damage made.

He asks himself whether keep using the machine makes sense since he didn’t make much progress, the programming still very much in you even after all those incredibly painful sessions. What if you were right from the start? What if there was nothing to remember, and all he could do was to leave you in the state you were in before he destroyed whatever was left of you?

No, he can’t do it. Leaving you means taking away your chance to ever get back to normal life, and he can’t force himself to do that.

Never in his life Bucky Barnes will admit letting you go meant never getting his own happy ending the way he wants it.

“Why reinventing the wheel when you can make it so much easier?” All of a sudden, your hoarse voice whimpers in his ear when you look at him, tiredly moving your head up. “Do what they’ve always done. Use the programming to give me an order.”

A part of him is shocked with the revelation: he wanted to be neither the Soldier nor the one giving him commands. But the other part makes him realize how much easier it would be if he just used what has already been done to you instead of relying on an obviously ineffective method that damaged your mind and body. Of course, he has nothing in common with Karpov sending him on the assassination missions. Bucky only wants you to learn how to become human again, free you from HYDRA once and for all, give you the life you undoubtedly wanted. Even if he uses the same method the organization did until he finds a better way to undo the programming, it is still for your own good.

___________

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[helioleti]

I've been rewatching ATLA several times lately and this time I especially ended up wondering a lot about Iroh and Ozai's past and characters in general. I just can't help but think it weird that Ozai is the ultimate trashbag of a humanbeing while Iroh ended up preaching harmony and peace. It just doesn't make any sense. These guys are brothers. They were brought up by the same parents, in the same fascist imperialistic nation, they were taught the same values growing up. You're trying to tell me the difference is that Iroh was destined to be the person he eventually came to be, but Ozai was just born evil? No, I don't think so.

I have two hot takes that I'm gonna elaborate:

1. Iroh had a guidance Ozai lacked

2. Ozai was the less favored son

(Disclaimer: I haven't read the comics yet so I don't know how deep they've already gone into this subject at some point. I'm trying to interpret and analyze the stuff that I got from the animated series only. If anything I say contradicts what has already been confirmed in the comics, feel free to correct me.)

Hear me out. Iroh wasn't born a saint. Everyone is aware of this, especially Iroh himself. He laid siege to Ba Sing Se for 2 years, costing the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom thousands of lives. Everyone knew that if the Fire Nation took over the capital, it meant almost ultimate victory for the Fire Nation. He even went as far as making a offhand sadistic jokes about burning the city to the ground in that letter to Zuko and Azula.

Iroh acknowledges it himself; He was a different man.

So what changed?

Yes, his son died. It broke and shattered him from the inside, making him drop all efforts to continue fighting in the war. To continue what had been his lifelong ambition, what he believed to be his destiny. He had a literal vision about taking over Ba Sing Se when he was a child, and that had been what he'd been pursuing ever since. But the death of his son managed to crumble all of that into nothingness. How is that possible?

Don't get me wrong. I think it's completely valid. I just don't understand how Lu Ten and Iroh could've had such a loving and caring relationship in the first place, when that's clearly something unusual among the royal family. Ozai burned and banished Zuko without a second thought, not to mention all the other shit he did to him growing up. Ozai didn't give two shits about Azula either, he only ever intended to use her as his weapon. Doesn't seem too surprising, if you ask me. Azulon didn't hesitate to demand that Ozai kill his own son if he wanted the throne. That's the man that raised Ozai, so it's just logical that Ozai learned that behavior and those values from his own father.

Even 9 year old Azula thinks it laughable that Iroh would fall apart at the death of his son. She is a child and this is how she thinks. The reason Zuko doesn't think like this is because he's had the guidance of his mother, unlike Azula. This is the kind of mentality these kids grow up with. They grew up with war and so did Iroh and Ozai.

So why was Iroh's relationship with Lu Ten so different? Where did Iroh experience the kind of compassion and love he passed on to his own son, that Ozai definitely didn't? People act on how they've come to learn, so where did Iroh learn to care about his son to a point that it made him give up on his lifelong ambition?

Let's review a very crucial information we have on Iroh and Ozai as siblings: They have a huge age gap.

Frankly, I'm guessing about 10-20 years. Looks more like 20 to me, but that could also be Iroh's greater amount of endured pain and war making him look older than he actually is. But no one can deny that an age gap is definitely there. Which can also indicate they had different upbringings, despite having grown up in the same family as brothers.

What does this mean? Well, that's just me theorizing now, but I can definitely imagine that Iroh had someone, a family member maybe, there for him who wasn't around or didn't care to be when Ozai grew up. There must've been someone there who gave Iroh emotional security and guidance throughout his upbringing. Who? That's up to imagination. A friend of the family? A friendly uncle? His own mother ((or father))? (The last two things worked out for Zuko in the end, didn't they?) Otherwise I can't really explain myself why Iroh had enough values to love the way he loved Lu Ten, while Ozai clearly didn't give two fucks about his children at any point in his life.

Iroh was the firstborn son, the one who had a vision very early in his life that his destiny was to take over Ba Sing Se. Probably the one who got to have a family member care about him enough to show him how to love.

(I like to point this out a lot because I find it very interesting, and very significant. Please A:TLA give us more info on Iroh's past!!)

Which brings me to my second take: Ozai was the less favored son.

Iroh was clearly a son to be proud of. He was a master firebender, the "Dragon of the West", if you will. He apparently had a vision as a boy that he'd conquer the most "impenetrable city" in the world. He probably lived up to his parent's expectations for his whole life, especially having no sibling to be compared to for a significant part of his life. He broke through the outter wall of Ba Sing Se during his siege. Yada yada yada, you get my point. He's the best son they could've wished for.

And Ozai? As far as I know, he barely even has any military achievements. Taking over Ba Sing Se was Azula's doing. While Iroh laid siege to the capital, he was at home chilling in the palace. He's the younger brother to an established hero and was never meant to be firelord. Now, I haven't read the comics for more info on Ozai's biography, but this man barely had a chance to live up to his parent's standards with Iroh as an older brother. If my theory is correct, Ozai also didn't have any person to provide him emotional guidance throughout his life. (*cough* like Azula)

The logical outcome is: infinite jealousy.

And when Ozai suggests to Azulon that he revoke Iroh's birthright to become firelord, this is Azulon's answer:

Azulon doesn't even hesitate to call Ozai out on his bullshit. He doesn't hesitate to take offense at the suggestion of betraying Iroh, and he even seems to care about Iroh's suffering. Not to mention that Azulon is overall annoyed with Ozai's request for an audience and sends the rest of Ozai's family away as soon as he can, to get whatever it is Ozai wants over with.

I could also mention the fact that Ozai tried to impress Azulon with his daughter's skills (Azula, even named after him) and the overall strained relationship these two seem to exhibit. It's obviously very different from Azulon's relationship with Iroh, if the way he talks about said man is anything to show for.

What if Azulon treated Ozai the same way Ozai treated Zuko? (Probably without the physical abuse, but you get my point.) What if this is where Ozai learned to treat a "useless" kid like shit, maybe also in a way to cope with how he was treated himself?

Getting deeper into the fact that Ozai is rather a loser compared to Iroh, without any big military achievements and without value for anything beyond that, this also explains a lot about Ozai's constant need to establish his dominance.

First; Becoming Firelord through radical manners (you know, killing his own son or killing his own father)

Second; Publicly burning and banishing his own son whom he considers a weakling, who dared to speak up in his war room. Doing this to have everyone know that he doesn't associate himself with weakness and that he will not ever tolerate any form of disrespect.

Third; The whole Phoenix King act. No one can tell me this isn't a madman's doing. This is literally to show off that he is the most powerful person in the world.

Ozai is so obsessed with proving himself and his superiority to everyone, including himself and probably Iroh too. This makes most sense if we consider that he probably lived in his brother's shadow for his whole life, ignored by probably every guiding figure he's ever had in his life, maybe even considered a laughingstock by his own father.

Perhaps this is also the reason Ozai didn't have any problem with Iroh accompanying Zuko in banishment. His brother, the hero in whose shadow he grew up, and his son, the failure he'd wanted out of the way for a long time already. It would erase Iroh's image that made him superior to him, once and for all. For himself and the world. I believe that branding him a traitor was the biggest satisfaction Ozai had ever experienced in his life.

I absolutely despise Ozai with every fibre of my heart, but it amazes me how ATLA continues to leave so much room for interpretation and explanation for a character as despicable as him. Writing this, even had me feel sympathy for him at some point. Feel free to disagree with me or add anything, I'm eager to hear everyone's thoughts about Ozai and Iroh's backstories because I'm geniuinely very curious.