#not sure if that's still going on since nano shit the bed over generative AI though

[stellamusing]

I keep falling into writing lulls that span multiple years, and during those I tend to avoid using scrivener for any piecemeal writing I do wind up doing, because the syncing can be a pain and it's impossible to pretend to work while actually writing a novel on my work computer bc dropbox doesn't allow you to edit text files for some godforsaken reason, so I just default back to google docs.

But then I inevitably get bit by a writing bug that demands actual organization and structure and I open Scrivener back up and I'm like. What the hell. This is so much better. Why was I not using this all along.

Anyways, highly recommend. The cons are that syncing is kind of clunky and you can't write from other computers using an online interface. The pros are literally everything else, especially if you're writing things that need structure like novels or long academic papers. At the very least, there's a free trial and you should check it out.

Now if you'll excuse me I need to go write more of the Star Wars soap opera that the brain worms are demanding lmao

[gyromitra-esculenta]

A disclaimer: I find the idea of ‘second gender’ quite… interesting. On the other hand, the way it’s most commonly treated makes me quite uncomfortable because it takes the agency – the consent – away from the characters in a very underhanded way and tries to justify it with a biological nature, which is a big warning sign for me personally (and this is about me – this is just not my thing in general – and I’m not condemning anyone who likes it, there is no talking about sexual fantasies as wrong or right as long as they stay exactly that). While the consent/agency thing can be fun to explore, the setting makes it often a foregone notion. As I’m a fickle thing thrumming with a lot of ideas, this is me trying to get rid of this one, putting it on the shelf to maybe use somewhere else, some other time, to focus on other things I should be writing (like finishing the next funny chapter of red eyes, putting together the ending to the old soldiers crack or crack sidestory of how they got together which is just hcs). This all to say there’s some main idea here and some other things going in the background. Oh, and I write like shit in English. Also, I’m not really tagging it here since this is a controversial theme - abo and alluded to mpreg.

 Sands of Remembrance

 It was really ironic if he thought more about it. Here he was, twenty-eight years old, with almost thirty years of his life missing – just gone and nowhere to be found – living a life he was not ready for, chasing ghosts he did not recognize, looking for answers to the questions he was not able to formulate.

Escaping. Always escaping from something, even if it weighed heavily on his conscience, but he was only twenty-eight years old, he was not prepared for the responsibilities of this kind – and he was not fucking prepared to fucking die right now, for fuck’s sake!

“Where the hell are you!?” Jack, cowering behind the broken down bus on the pier, growled into the receiver. “If you’re using me as bait I’m going to ventilate you a new one, you fucking…” There it was, the explosion, the otherworldly screech of the metal tearing, and a familiar roar of whatever the fuck those shotguns of his were. He sneered, counting down the shots and raising with his rifle hoisted up as the final one rung out silencing the last man screaming. The fucker in question was standing relaxed, with weapons dissolving in the wisps of black smoke, the burning barge behind him slowly sinking into the water covered with a rainbow slick of the oil spill.

The visor gave no indication of any other targets and Jack, slinging the rifle on his arm, cut through the blown out hole in the hull of the bus – what was a wrecked bus doing on a fucking pier was a mystery in the first place – and crossed the distance separating him from the mercenary while trying not to step too deep into the gore strewn around, because those fucking guns packed an unnatural punch.

“Do that again and I’ll make sure you’re going to breathe through a tube,” Jack growled, grabbing the bandolier in his fist to stress the point. “Unlike you, I have someone to come back to.”

Reaper chuckled, moving gray bangs out of his face with a claw, and, shit, Jack swore internally, he lost another rubber band and did not notice – which unnerved him even more considering how inconsequential it was in the whole situation. He was fucking royally pissed at the other mercenary. Their working relationship was tenuous – had its ups and downs – and there were some allowances he was willing to make, but this, this was too fucking much.

“Your copy of the mainframe,” Reaper put the data stick in the pocket of the varsity jacket Jack wore over the nano-padding, the other hand brushing the small of his back. “You make for a good distraction, Soldier.”

“This fucking shit ain’t funny!” Jack shoved him back with a snarl. “Angel, two hours to RV, pick me up.”

“Do you have it?” Reaper asked observing the retreating back of the vigilante.

“Only the new frequency, they’ve changed it.”

“Clever. Wouldn’t expect nothing less.”

“Gabe, why don’t you just fucking follow him,” Sombra murmured, “or just put a damn tracker on him?”

“That would spook him. How long till you crack it?”

“If I really get on it, two, three hours tops.”

“Get on it then.”

*

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to keep this up,” Angela started just as they were stepping off the small ship. “You’re very agitated, Jack.”

She was trying to sound reasonable, talk him down, and he knew it. It irritated him more, but not because of her – her intentions were good – but because of himself. Jack combed through his hair absentmindedly.

“No. That’s not it. The fucker’s hard to read. But it works, for now,” he glanced at the evening panorama of Oasis sprawling outside the private landing pad. “Angela, I have to… I need to do this thing.”

“I understand but it still doesn’t make me think it’s a good idea,” she put her hand on his shoulder. “They’re asleep, so change and rest. I’ll have the data looked at by friends.”

“You mean the AI.”

“Maybe.” Jack scoffed at that. Maybe. As far as he came to understand, it was the Oasis thing, to play with things that should be very well left alone, but on the other hand… Athena supposedly had worked with them for years, still did. Which did not make trusting former GOD-AI any easier. “I’m going to shower.”

Angela smiled and nodded gently, leaving him shortly as he stood still observing the lighting up city.

*

“Who the fuck are you?” Jack questioned his reflection – the little ritual of his – because the face that stared back at him was not his. He did not know that person, the lines on the forehead, the crow feet at corners of the eyes, the cut of the mouth, the gray hair, and the scars. This was a stranger he wanted to understand and failed, repeatedly, to do so.

His fingers slowly glided over the smooth now shoulder. It was one of the first things he asked of Angela, to remove it, to destroy the very presence of the scar that could have never belonged to him.

He remembered waking up on the operating table, not being able to even scream, not because of how his throat hurt but because he forgot how to scream, and merely whined and wheezed, with Angela cradling his head and trying to soothe his fear, pain, and confusion.

He remembered the months of rehabilitation and relearning how his body moved and worked, full of disappointments, anxiety, and breakdowns.

But the worst of it was learning that a half of his life just… stopped existing, wiped out, and he was left with Angela describing someone he didn’t understand, recognize nor know, someone she cared for – the person he certainly was not anymore in a world that was not his. This terrified him on a different level, the primal fear crawling along his spine and freezing the blood in his veins.

He had time to read. Too much time actually. Enough to learn that the thing he was was either considered an evolutionary dead end or the future evolution of human race – there was almost no middle ground.

Jack bit his lip and the person in the mirror made the same gesture. He had grown up with the notion that meeting one’s mate was that wonderful fairytale thing – all laughable in the face of the fact who that supposedly was for him – and even more importantly the reality everyone thought it was his own mate that did try to kill him.

Killed him in a sense.

“Stop thinking,” Jack barked at the reflection and slipped on the robe. He slicked back the wet hair – growing them out was a personal act of defiance towards ‘something’. And a way to help conceal his identity, even if Jack Morrison, Strike-Commander of Overwatch, was long dead and buried, and there would be no one looking for him.

He was only twenty-eight years old and felt the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Back in the room, he kneeled down by the bed, resting his head on the mattress, his hand reaching out towards the closer of the two shapes under the covers, but fingers staying just millimeters away. Jack stared at the only reason – two reasons – that kept him going, trying for anything at all, searching for answers to questions that did not make any sense at all.

“You shouldn’t stay like that, you will hurt in the morning,” Angela said from the doorway.

“No,” Jack smiled faintly, “this is okay, just like… this.”

“If you say so,” she huffed a bit. “Athena dealt with the encryption. We will look through it tomorrow.”

He closed his eyes. The answers could mean nothing to him, but his children deserved them.

“Thanks again.”

“Don’t mention it. Sleep well, Jack.”