#so if bots get to that point I figure people are just gonna stop blocking them and treat them like real users

[thetinydiamond]

You should probably consider changing your pfp, people are gonna assume you're a bot otherwise

I appreciate the sentiment but that said: afaik you need to go to somebody's profile to block them, and once somebody looked at my page it'd prob be pretty clear that I wasn't a bot.

[giggly-squiggily]

i loved the matchablossom drabble you wrote! i have a headcanon for joe and reki (if the event is still open, i'm not sure how timezones work 😅)

i think they would bond because langa and cherry are both geniuses (skating and carla) while reki and joe are both people who had to work hard for their respective dreams so whenever reki has a down phase and doesn't feel good enough joe does his best to cheer him up because he knows what it's like

Headcanons To Dabbles: Officially CLOSED!

Oo, this is so soft! I love writing Joe- he's a great big brother/dad figure to the boys! I've gotcha covered, anon!

“Hey kid.” Joe kneeled before Reki, giving his knee a squeeze. “Come on. We’re going out.”

Reki looked at him wearily, his already downer expression souring more. “Why?”

“Because.” Joe shrugged, as if that was the only answer he needed. Maybe it was.

Reki stared at him before sighing, knowing Joe was only gonna keep pestering him until he agreed. “Where to, then?”

~~~ They found themselves on the beach, parked by the water with slushies in hand and a convenient store bag full of small snacks and candies between them. The treats didn’t seem to change Reki’s mood much, but the water certainly did. He seemed less down as he took in the sights.

“When I was your age, I used to come down here whenever I got upset.” Joe hummed around a twizzler, chewing it slowly as he reminisced. “Fights with precious, failed tests, bad days- something about sitting here with the sand between my toes and the smell of saltwater around me always calmed me down.”

“It’s nice…” Reki agreed quietly, knees pulled up to his chest. It really was nice, but he still didn’t understand why Joe brought him here. “Can I be blunt?”

“Never stopped you before, kid.”

“Why are we here?” Reki looked at him, brows furrowing. “I don’t mind it, but…”

“Ah. My ulterior motives.” Joe smirked, still looking out at the ocean. “In time, Reki. First, enjoy the breeze.”

Reki did as he said, turning back to the ocean. Watching the waves made him think of skating, the ups and downs, the way they moved. He wondered what surfing would be like.

Then he thought about Langa and how his eyes matched the color of the ocean.

And then he remembered how the other skated and all his temporary calm soured into self loathing.

“There it is.” Joe pointed his now shortened twizzler at him, waving it like a wand at Reki’s gloomy face. “You’re feeling pretty pathetic right now, huh?”

“Harsh?” Reki glared at him.

“Truth.” Joe nodded, tossing the remainder of his candy in the bag. “You’re comparing yourself to Langa again. You’re convinced he’s this untouchable god of skating and you’re only his shadow.”

“That’s not…” It was true.

“Don’t deny it kid. Believe me- following behind someone like Precious and his Carla bot can make a guy feel pretty small at one point or another.” Joe didn’t sound bitter though, if anything- he sounded amused. “Then I realized the problem wasn’t Cherry, or my skating. It was me. I told myself I was nothing because I couldn’t do what they did.” Reki didn’t ask who was “they”. 

“And you know what? All this time later, I still can’t do what they do. But I don’t need to.” Joe nodded. “Neither do you. You don’t need to match Langa and be his equal to be great at skating. You just need more confidence in yourself that you’ll get there.” Joe reached out, grabbing Reki’s collar and pulling him into a side hug. “You’re gonna have days like today where it feels like there’s a road block, and you’re gonna have days where it’s clear skies. That’s just part of figuring out what your path of skating’s gonna be. So don’t be bummed out about this. I promise you, it’ll pass. You’re a great skater, Reki. Don’t forget that.”

Reki didn’t speak- his throat was too clogged with tears. He instead reached out with his fist, smiling wobbly when Joe tapped his own against it. “Thanks, Joe..”

“Don’t mention it, kid.”

[fromdevcom]

We talked to an e-commerce entrepreneur named Emma Reid who suggests that you leave a hundred comments a day within your niche if you're really serious about growing a community on a channel like Instagram: “I suggest a hundred comments a day in the relevant hashtags on the relevant people's posts, it has to be real human interaction okay otherwise people aren't gonna buy from you because there are so many BOTS on Instagram, just spamming people's posts” This is something that we talk about a lot if you want to get started on a super low budget with dropshipping it's possible Emma Reid built a half a million-dollar store like that, but she invested a ton of time and energy instead of ad dollars to get to that point.“A lot of the beginning was me just grinding away writing Instagram comments building ambassador programs from the ground up to try and really get other people to like promote the product organically and all of that before I moved on to paid ads” You can also grow these on say Facebook groups (which are best for shopify product research) just keep in mind that you have to wait a while to grow the community before you start advertising to them if you advertise too early the group will leave.   The next low to no budget marketing strategy that will drive traffic to your store is exploring new marketing channels you'd have to be living under a rock not to have her of tick-tock by now it's the newest social channel on the block and it involves creating quick videos with music or sound effects that showcase something whether it's a joke or a dance or a product there are 400 million daily active users on tik-tok meaning there's a huge opportunity for entrepreneurs to get in front of this audience early the only thing is that tick-tock is not optimized for people who are advertising on it yet there's no way to link directly to your site but the hustling entrepreneurs won't let this stop them they'll be one of the first movers so they can figure out how the platform works. Then as tick-tock evolves and makes it easier for people to go from a tick-tock account to a store, those first movers will have an advantage they'll already have an audience on this new channel now tick-tock is the most popular new kid on the block but it's not alone there are other platforms that are coming out all the times for example just last week we heard about a new channel called bite we don't know if it'll grow yet but we know that the first people to be on the channel will have the most chances of succeeding on it if it does grow.This next low-budget marketing strategy is really best for dropshippers that's because dropshippers can ship their products to anywhere in the world thanks to e packet shipping this strategy involves advertising to international markets   Most people when they set up an online store immediately start thinking about advertising to the US (due to the enormous potential that dropshipping product research indicates) and that's because u.s. is a huge e-commerce market however where there are a lot of advertisers there's a lot of competition and where there's a lot of competition on the marketing platform the marketing costs are high if your drop shipping consider going after international markets it's cheaper to advertise to these countries and you can still ship to them the only thing I have to be aware of is whether or not you'll need to translate your ads and your website in order to convert this traffic. Luckily there are free apps that help you translate your website. Now on to our last strategy - this strategy is something that got a lot of attention when we posted about it on Instagram. This strategy comes from a six-figure drop shipper named Emma Reed, what she recommends is that you soft sell to customers first and by soft-sell, she means don't tell them to come to your store and buy but rather create a Facebook ad that tells people to, for example, pick out a color of the product that you're advertising.

 This soft sell is a bit more enticing if someone sees an ad that just says pick a color they don't feel like they have to decide whether or not they want to buy before they click it they may just want to browse the colors now you might be thinking I don't want a customer to just browse the colors and leave but here's the thing the Facebook pixel will pay attention to who's clicking on your ad and who's interested in browsing colors in the first place once customers are familiar with your product because they visited your site in the first place you can use retargeting ads to go after those customers again with the use of shopify chrome extension.Retargeted traffic is often much more effective at converting than cold traffic so this is a great tip for people who want to do low budget Facebook marketing and they want to do it smartly. Starting an online store does not have to cost a lot of money and marketing can be done for cheap or for free.

[sapphireclawe]

I just want to say that the more people go "if you cared about [insert cause here] you'd donate to it/do whatever actions you legitimately don't have the time or energy for/completely wipe out part of your life or childhood for little more than brownie points on the internet", the more depressing life looks in general, and the more I start wondering if anyone else is feeling this way and not saying anything.

This combined with mass amounts of both misinformation (see the "Gaza Bot" situation where people are debating whether these are scams or not) and changes for the worse (see GoFundMe canceling Gaza evacuation campaigns and refunding the people who donated or PayPal stopping Palestinian people from using the service to get the money to get out) just wears me out day after day here.

Oh, and the fact that I'm following people (and because I legitimately don't know which is the "correct" option I haven't blocked people over this) who are either going "If you think that there's any answer to this beyond removing Israel as a nation or a people in all ways possible, you're wanting Palestine to be genocided" or "hey ignoring the millenia of history that Israel existed, either as a nation or as a people, is kinda fucking racist and rude but Palestinians deserve their home too" is ALSO wearing me down, because I KNOW that the second I actually pick a side in this argument on who deserves to be bullied out of their land and who's got the right answer, I'm gonna start getting hate messages from people on this issue. Which is only gonna get me to start legitimately contemplating suicide or something.

So this is a vent post where I point out that amongst the burnout from the life I have away from the screen is the fact that these issues are pressing the hot forks further into my psyche by going "oh look at the undecided person who doesn't want to lose 90% of her feed over people either being accelerationist about the genocide or trying to beat a point into people's heads that trying to rewrite history to make the bad guys look like they don't deserve what they already have is a fucking stupid idea, clearly she doesn't care" even though I care, but I'm burnt out.

So here's MY understanding of the situation:

WW1 ends, and the Allies create the Treaty of Versailles. This lets Austria and Serbia off the hook for the war and places the ENTIRE blame on Germany to get it fixed via reparations. Also Germany is NOT allowed an army at all.

Reparations put Germany into economic hell where a loaf of bread requires millions of euros to buy due to them trying to get the money via printing it. Austrian guy gets rejected from art school and figures "shit, now I have to work for more or less pennies to get bread. Or I'll go complaining with a bunch of people about how I'd save the world while blaming certain people."

Hitler gains popularity, despite a couple of arrests. He starts building political power and gets sworn in as Chancellor under the promise of a better life for German people. Y'know, not the Israeli people who have spent generations in Germany and are part of the people by now.

Hitler starts building an army, which scares the Allies, so they decide to LET HIM BUILD THE ARMY. Y'know, because they'd rather let the leopard be happy than deal with him due to how the last war went.

Hitler convinces the common people that they should have the right to wipe out the Jewish people in Germany, and invades Poland for a place to dump the "lesser citizens" for now.

Does this sound familiar?

The Allies hem and haw because the leopard ate Mr. Tibbles the cat and is now looking at Lassie the puppy. But they don't want to be eaten, even though Little Francis mentioned that the leopard licked him in his sleep.

By now you probably know the rest.

After WW2, the Allies look at the Jewish survivors and go "shit, where do we put you?" One of them mentions that Israel exists, so they go

"Yeah, we'll send you there. You can come back, but this area, and we'll throw in Palestine too for good measure, is yours."

Palestine, understandably, isn't happy with this. But the Allies are REALLY good at not thinking through their actions after cleaning up a mess.

Over the next 80 years, Israel has been trying to annex different areas around it (usually led by different governments) because the people in charge saw that as long as they don't pick on an Ally, they don't get in trouble for it.

Leading us to now, where very few people in office want to interfere with Israel, simply because they don't want to be the ones breaking a treaty and causing WW3.

Where do I see this going? Either war is gonna break out again or SOMEHOW someone tells the various Allied nations to get their heads out of their asses and intervene before shit gets worse. Even if it's an operation like taking out Bin Laden. But I also feel like despite everyone trying, chances are that not many people are gonna make it out. And a lot of survivors are going to be pissy at the people in the Allied nations for not doing more to help, despite everyone who wanted to help having no real ability to help.

Or someone does a skit where they gentle parent the Prime Minister of Israel and embarrass him enough to get him to take back everything he's done and start reparations. Y'know, Steven Universe that shit.

That being said, my official stance is that this will keep happening until the Allies stop making treaties that just delay the problem.

Yes, Palestine should be free. Israel existing should also be allowed without people going "but it's a lie and shouldn't exist because nobody ever told me it did in school waaahhhh". Stop using this to be antisemitic.

[lousyglitch]

about twitter (or how I learned to get back to worrying and stop loving the bomb)

Maybe a global 'public square' doesn't lead to worldwide empathy, but to a planet-sized arena of miscommunication where a 15 y/o english student with ADHD fights a 53 y/o cuban programmer over the ethics of self-diagnosis with both sides throwing personal anectodes at the other.

I don't wanna think that's the case, I wanna believe in the promise of the internet, but I'm not sure I can point to the algorithm filter bubbles or even the low character limit and state that that's the cause of all our problems.

It makes things *worse* though, don't get me wrong.

Wait, no, my whole point is that you *will* probably get me wrong, cause we probably don't share the same (or are even cognizant of each other's) cultural background, experience, neurodivergences or even mother tongue, twitter is a final fantasy boss designed by Wittgenstein.

All these barriers *can* be crossed if we come from a place of curiosity rather than judgement and take the time to learn about each other, but we're not gonna (and can't) do that to 500 strangers every day, and that sucks, I love the lack of structure in twitter .. in theory.

But maybe tumblr (and even reddit) work a bit better *because* they're more atomized (tumblr isn't as organized, but you're still far less exposed to random stuff from completely outside your circles), the dream of the mega-agora is appealing, and maybe someone somewhere will make a version of it that really will nail it, that will lead to people understanding and valuing their differences, but the versions of it we've had so far just remove all context from everyone we meet, which lead to more and more generalizations, cause that's how we came to think about each other.

My primarily experience with "popular tweets" was seeing broad sweeping statements about "men" or "women", or "incel cryptobros" or "leftist sjws", even sillier labels like "swfties" or "k-pop stans", the average interaction there is trying to figure out which boxes someone fits to speedrun human interaction, and that's... how an algorithm thinks.

I don't even think it's wrong, I did my best to communicate I fit the boxes "anarchist", "adhd", "non-binary", "artist", "retro sci-fi anime fan", I block alt-right weirdos on sight and make fun of checkmarks, I have practically pre-written replies to some kinds of people, but every now and then I feel the slight existential dread of realizing I could program a bot to do *the exact same thing*.

That's not what I wanna use my brain for, I've read big threads of different people fighting in different years play out virtually the exact same way, we're responding to decontextualization by adopting the same generalized signals, and I don't wanna become a bot, man.

What I mean is that neural networks trained to "sound human" are fed countless tweets by random people from all walks of life to try to mimic this amorphous idea of a vague human who doesn't have any of the individual qualities of a person.

And that's what I was doing, too.

I had a tumblr before, ages ago. I was still checking boxes then, mainly about fandoms, and every version of living online will involve some of that. But I believe that there's a healthy version to be achieved, communicating shorthands for who you are and what you like so you can find potentially likeminded people. Maybe I can achieve that here, again.

I think I did once, when I was too young to even realize it, and then I left it all and swam towards the social media event horizon.

See, the thing about working from home, online, is that I never really stopped spending the majority of my time in a computer, more than most of my IRL friends, most of whom have real world jobs and are sure as hell a lot closer to a balance than I am.

I kept thinking of the internet like entertainment, not too different from TV or video-games, so I kept looking to what drew my attention more effectively, just go where the current takes me, why would I put rules on fun? But it hasn't been fun. It hasn't been fun for a while, now. Because I didn't give myself rules, and the "current" metaphor doesn't work when there's an actual poseidon made of code controlling the direction of the currents.

Sometimes, you have to consciously chase the fun.

So, you know, hi.

[skellebonez]

I'm thinking spicynoodleshipping + shadowpeach #25 & 36, thank you.

Today is pain day, I just want to write angst and people being hurt physically and emotionally apparently. Sorry if you expected something more light hearted... Fair warning here for not-graphic descriptions of blood and life threatening injuries (that is once again not being taken seriously by the inured party), I wanted the excuse to follow up on a headcanon for one of these characters and I tried not to be overly descriptive.

"You have until the count of three to remove your arms from my person, or so help me…!"/ “When I say run, that means keep running."

"You have until the count of three to remove your arms from my person, or so help me...!" Red Son shouted, ocean water soaked hair sticking to his face as he tried to claw his way out of the Monkey King's hold. Steam lifted from his hair and clothes as he tried to light himself back on fire, to dry off, to get back to Xiaotian, to do something anything except be held back in his post-fight weakened state.

For his part Sun Wukong held him tighter, keeping him from slipping from his grip and falling from his cloud back into the ocean he had just fished him from or into the hard ground of the beach shores below. "Red, we have to trust them!"

"They could be DEAD Sun Wukong!"

"They can handle themselves, Red, now stop moving!" Wukong planted his foot down into the cloud as much as he could and moved to knock Red off balance to grab him around his waist and carry him away over his shoulder.

In all honesty he didn't trust his own words. Xiaotian and Red Son had been ambushed by some group of advanced tech weilding demons during some kind of outing (date, scavenger hunt, Wukong didn't take the time to ask) and they had called him for backup. He'd had no choice but to bring his current unwanted house guest, Macaque, because he didn't trust him to not antagonize the monkeys back on Mount Huaguo.

The situation had quickly gone... poorly. Red Son had already burnt himself out using far too much of his fire powers to fight the rapidly repairing bots at the demon's disposal and they had taken the time to repeatedly douse him in ocean water as an extra layer of protection. Xiaotian was holding his own but he was clearly getting tired, grateful if incredibly confused about the backup he had recieved. It hadn't taken long before the Monkie Kid turned to his mentor and asked him to take Red somewhere safe to recuperate and come back when he was "fired up" again. Macaque had shoved Red at Wukong, hissing a “When I say run, that means keep running" to the younger demon.

Red Son was decidedly unhappy about this.

"Xiaotian asked me to keep you safe and I'm not g-"

The sound of an explosion of some sort behind them stopped the Monkey King in his tracks and he turned around to see the mountain they had been flying from begin to crumble. The mountain that Xiaotian and Macaque had still been on. Crumbling...

Wukong barely registered the fact Red had stopped fighting against him and was just holding onto him and had started shaking, his hold digging through his top layer to grip the fur on his shoulders painfully. He didn't know what was worse, his own vantage point of seeing the moutain fall before his eyes after missing the explosion... or Red seeing whatever had broken it and now only being able to hear what was happening behind him as Wukong held him in a tighter grip.

"No.... no no no no no..." The Monkey King felt Red's breathing speed up and grow desperate at his words and he cursed as he made a quick beeline for the ground, stumbling and nearly falling into Red Son as he tried to set the fire demon on the ground. "No, no, they're fine, they're fine Red, I'm just going to-"

"They were still on there," Red Son whispered, grip not loosening as he tried to look past Wukong's body blocking his view.

"They're fine, they have to be."

"They were on there Wukong!" Red said again, and the small wisp of steam he felt against his cheek did not come from Red trying to dry himself off again.

The air between them grew tenser and tenser the more seconds passed and just as Wukong felt like something would snap he heard a sound from behind them. It was familar, growing louder the closer it came, and like a shooting star the end of his staff burried itself in the beach sand a few feet away from them and shrank as two seperate forms fell from the sky with varying yelps of pain and surprise, the larger one bouncing and landing a few feet further away.

"XIAOTIAN!" "XIAOTIAN, MACAQUE!" Red and Wukong shouted at the same time and Red finally let go of his iron grip. They ran toward Xiaotian, both breathing a sigh of relief as the younger man sat up with a groan. Wukong froze again when he saw the varying splashes of red coating and dripping from his shirt and jacket, opening his mouth to say something else before being cut off.

"It's not mine," Xiaotian said quickly in his heavy breathes and the tone of his voice, laced with fear and confusion and shaky as Red knelt in the sand beside him to look him over told Wukong exactly what he needed to know. The quick gaze and nod back at the other figure sent him rushing off to leave the couple to themselves. He trusted Red to take care of his student.

"Xiaotian I-I thought- the mountain it-" Red Son stumbled on his words as he let the steam tears seep from his eyes freely, not caring who saw them now that they were from relief, and he looked over the Monkie Kid. Despite being coated in fresh blood he looked... he looked fine! A few scrapes and when he looked at his neck he saw the beginning of a nasty hand shapped bruise and claw scrapes... like someone had grabbed him by he scruff of his neck and yanked hard. "What-"

"Macaque!" Xiaotian interupted, grabbing Red's hands and standing himself up. "Their robot things, they did someting and he grabbed me and jumped in front of me and-"

"Holy FUCK." Sun Wukong's exclimation startled both of the younger men and Red Son didn't need to be told to follow the other as he rushed over to the two ancient monkeys.

Macaque had bounced hard when Xiaotian had landed and lost grip on him, eventally coming to stop more than a few feet away and leaving a... genuinely concerning trail of blood behind him. Red Son couldn't help but think this was far too much blood for anyone, let alone someone as powerful as the Six-Earred Macaque himself, to leave behind and still survive.

And yet, somehow above all odds, he could see the dark furred tail weakly trying to thump against the ground from where Wukong had rolled him onto his back. The Monkey King was leaning over him, his own tail shaking stifly along with his arms as he ran his hands over his sideburns and through his hair as he was making an odd half-laugh and half-muffled yelling sound.

"Wukong, wh-oh my HEAVEN!" It was Red's turn to yell, staring down at the the other monkey in the ground.

"Hello to you too," Macaque said through gritted teeth, an expression of severly inappropriate for the situation amusement on his face.

He looked... bad. He looked bad, those were the only words Red could think of to describe the sight. Whatever glamor he had was gone, his eye scar and what would have been his milky white eye in full vew.

Unfortunately, it seemed as if something had happened because the eye was definitely not there now. Much like a nice chunk out of out of the matching arm. And he had a nasty gash in the same side.

That explained the sheer amount of blood everywhere.

"How are you alive right now?" He breathed out in disbelief.

"Let's just say," Macaque groaned, bringing up his good arm to wipe away some of the blood from his face. "Immortality and invulnerablity aren't the same for everyone. I literally cannot die."

"Like..." Red swallowed, looking at his wounds again. "Cannot... at all?"

"Cannot at all," Macaque confirmed. "But man can I get beat to shit. Healing takes forever too, but I'll heal."

There was a soft sniffling sound and something that sounded like a laugh from Red's side and when he turned he could see Xiaotian grimmacing with a half smile on his face. "I'm glad you're not going to die but never save me like that again please. I'd rather us both be hurt but in one piece next time. I almost dropped you pogoing out of there too."

"There ain't gonna be a next time kid," Macaque growled, but it was weak and didn't have any real bite behind it. He looked at Xiaotian with a glare. "And stop crying. Like I said I'll be fine, give me 3 days and I'll kick your ass when I steal you for training again. Just didn't want Peaches over here keeping me up all night with his crying if you got really hurt."

The mention of his nickname got a reaction out of Wukong, a soft chuckle and a heavy exhale of breath. All 3 other people watched in confusion as he leaned down, resting his forehead against the other monkey's softly as his tail started to sway in the sand. "I appreciate it... but now I'm gonna keep you up all night cleaning your wounds you idiot." His words were harsh but his tone of voice was soft, gentle almost, and if they listened closely they could hear a soft almost imperceptable rumble from his chest.

"That's, uh..." Macaque started, looking away from the face so close to his own. "That's still... better. Right?" He sounded just as, if not more, confused than Red Son and Xiaotian were at the Monkey King's bizarre and unexpected reaction. But he didn't tell the other ancient to stop.

"OH!" Red said suddently, turning to Xiaotian. "The demons, are they-!?"

"Dead," he responded with a sigh. "Like, super dead. If they managed to survive that explosion they were definitely buried in that... mountain-lanche? Whatever, they're not coming after us."

"Good," Wukong said softly as he sat up. "I'm gonna fly Macaque back to Mount Huaguo, you two follow us. Get cleaned up. Stay with us for the night?"

His words were stilted, awkward, but heartfelt.

The two men woudn't have said no even if they weren't.

[freckledmountain]

Lulling comfort

By @freckledmountain for @romeoandjulietyouwish

Rating: Gen

Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark

Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark

Summary:

"Music had gotten an entirely new meaning after that, from Disney songs to musicals to classic rock, and everything else in between. … He´d do anything to listen to Peter sing to them again."

Or, an AU where you hear whatever your platonic soulmate sings or hums! :D

For the @friendly-neighborhood-exchange

Read on Ao3

Chapter 1: Change

Some-

BODY ONCE TOLD ME

the WORLD IS GONNA ROLL ME

I AIN´T THE SHARPEST TOOL IN THE sHE-ED

Peter´s endearing screech and dramatics at the starting notes startles a fond laugh out of Tony, making DUM-E beep in curious surprise.

The bot has a screwdriver in his grasp and usually Tony´d chastise him for grabbing tools without permission (he has not forgotten the last lab incident, thank you) but right now he´s much too preoccupied resisting the urge to join in the kid´s slumber party via his own singing.

God bless karaoke.

Peter had looked sheepish when he´d mentioned it to him, the little get-together his scary girlfriend and Ned had planned this weekend at the latter´s place after a ridiculously long week of exams. Tony had absolutely no problem listening to his kid´s voice in his head, but it was still sweet of Peter to ask beforehand.

“You know I work best with music anyway.” He´d said, remembering all the times he´d listened to Peter perform dramatically to songs on the radio.

Peter´d hunched his shoulders a bit, smiling. “Yeah, okay, okay, I just wanted to make sure because Ned might ask me to duet to Take on me again, and last time I sang it you were on a meeting and FRIDAY sent me that video of you mouthing the words and Ms. Potts looked like the disappointed dad from that Shawn Mendes vine- “

…even if he had no idea what the kid was talking about sometimes.

He´d gasped and placed a hand to his chest, feigning offence. “Have you forgotten the time you had Call me maybe on loopin my head for an entire day?”

“…It was a dare?”

“Hmm” he´d said, raising an eyebrow playfully as Peter dissolved into laughter. “whatever you say, bud.”

His smile softens unconsciously at the memory as he methodically tweaks a few things in his nanotech suit, still listening to Peter belt out lyrics in his head. Truth be told, he misses the kid working alongside him like usual, but he knows how important spending time with his friends is to Peter.

(The parenting books say it´s imperative too, although of course he hasn´t ever read, purchased five on a whim or fret over anything of the sort. Obviously.)

He hopes Ned and Michelle´s respective other halves don´t mind the kids crooning 80´s rock on a Friday evening, but he guesses if they´re anything like them, they probably won´t complain. Soulmates are cool like that.

He remembers all the times Rhodey had told him about his soulmate´s voice inside his own head, how he´d suddenly perk up and grin at whatever melody he could hear, how he´d start humming randomly to join in.

Tony had grown up hearing nothing but his own treacherous thoughts for the longest time, almost losing hope completely at the possibility of having a soulmate right up until adulthood. Heavy metal music blasted over his speakers constantly whenever he was busy in his workshop, but he never joined in. There were moments when he´d thought his love for singing would be soured forever, since apparently the universe or whoever was in charge didn´t have a problem leaving him without someone out there to share it with him in his head.

Thankfully, he always did have Rhodey, and boycould he kick-start the fun in singing again with his flawless Mariah Carey impressions. He´d loved the few times he´d heard Pepper sing too, and there´d even been one memorable instance where he´d surprised Happy vocalizing in an unexpectedly pleasant lilt.

Hearing Peter sing though...simply put, there was nothing else like it.

-and we could aLL use a little changeeeeeeeEEE

…Yes, nothing was quite like it.

Tony shakes his head, smiling, and grabs his phone to text May about the kid´s shenanigans. She´d been more than a little concerned when Peter and him had figured out who the other was, (that was one heck of a superhero fundraiser) but now they´ve become much closer, and Tony can genuinely say they´re friends. He´s glad to have her on his side, because May Parker is, in Peter terms, a very kind powerhouse, and not someone he´d like to mess with.

He´s about to press send when the lights in the room flash red.

Tony´s up and summoning his gauntlet attentively in a second, right as FRIDAY pulls up screens around him, showing footage of the emergency.

“What am I looking at, FRI?”

“Around 30 heavily armed machines have emerged in Midtown Manhattan, boss.” She responds, as the room fills with projections. The robots on screen are huge and ugly as heck, about the width and height of three school buses together. They´re making their way through the streets surprisingly quickly for how heavy they look. People run away, steering clear of their illuminated blasts. “They appear to be releasing high frequency blasts approximately every ten seconds. Local police have just arrived at the scene and are requesting backup, since the blasts are causing structural damage to the surrounding buildings. The source of these machines is unknown.”

“Tell the team to suit up and meet me there.”

“They have already been alerted, boss, but I´ll relay your message as well.”

The rest of his suit materializes around him, and he makes haste to get to the nearest window, half worried and half downright annoyed at whoever was behind this.

“Another one for the robot bingo card on means of world domination.” He says to himself, unimpressed. Just one week without this crap…

He soars above the sky nonetheless, blasting his way towards the fight.

Please stay put kid, he wishes, even as the singing stops.

---

Three blocks.

He´s three blocks away from where Peter is making his way back when it happens.

As big and fast as the robots are, Tony can tell they weren´t exactly made by the finest of the loons who regularly try to take over New York. Not to mention they´re absolutely appalling to look at, whoever designed these things had absolutely no taste, Tony thinks, crushing his twenty-second bot with the suit´s repulsors. It hasn´t exactly been easy, since the wretched machines have no real apparent motive but to blow up everything in their path, but within an hour it seems they´re done with the worst of it.

He can see Nat and Wanda dealing with the remains of one of the last ones below, while a little way away Cap´s talking with a few cops, scoping out the damage. Even though the air is permeated with smoke and there´s rubble in some places, there are no casualties, and they´ve thankfully emptied out the buildings that got wrecked. SHIELD will take care of the rest.

He flies over the skyscrapers, keeping an eye out for any other bots, but it seems like FRIDAY´s finished identifying all of them. He activates a private line on the comms to talk to Peter.

“Done securing the area from whatever that disastrous colour scheme was?”

He can hear Peter´s good-natured groan as his location pops up on Tony´s screen, six blocks away.

“I know, right? I can wear mismatched socks for a week and rock them no problem, but blue with like, eye-melting neon? Yikes.”

“Exactamundo. Couldn´t agree with you more, kid. But hey, it looks like you might actually be able to get back to your sleepover after all. Can´t wait to hear what alarming chorus is going to keep me up until midnight.”

“Oh you just wait, we´re doing ABBA next and it´s gonna be so-“

FRIDAY tears through the conversation with an alarm, but it´s precious seconds too late.

A gasp. An abrupt thud resounding through the comms. A scream. Peter´s.

Tony´s blood freezes in his veins.

“Peter? Peter!?”

He gets there in less than a minute and sees one of the bots with its blaster pointed at Peter, still smoking from the shot.

He obliterates it without a second thought, his mind swirling with fear and rejection at FRIDAY´s next words as he runs towards Spiderman´s crumbled figure.

“No heartbeat detected, boss”.

Chapter 2

The first time he´d ever heard Peter´s voice, he´d been running on three hours of sleep, a frankly heart-attack inducing dose of caffeine, and no motivation whatsoever to sit down with stuffy board members for five hours.

It didn´t exactly come as a surprise that for the first few milliseconds of the “Itsy bitsy spider” chant in his head he´d thought, confusingly, that it might just have been his mind finally resorting to the resurface of old nursery rhymes as a way to tell him to go the frick to sleep.

His heart however, was another matter.

As ridiculous and improbable as it sounded, a new something in his chest rose even before he knew what was happening. He might not have been a machine, but something slowly and irrevocably clicked into place the more he heard that gentle voice go on about water spouts and suns.

He´d stopped short in realization. Blinked.

And then smiled wide enough to lose himself in the mirth of it.

He´d run back to his workshop right after that, laughing like mad with the absolute mayhem of emotions coursing through his whole being, almost crashing into Pepper in the process. She´d looked back at him in concern, questions already forming in her lips, before Tony had frantically mimed at her to keep quiet, wanting to listen to the soft voice´s final notes.

Once the song finished, Tony may or may not have let out a loud shriek of sheer joy and told an increasingly delighted Pepper all about it, practically bursting with excitement.

“Pep! Wait, what do I do now!? Do I- Do I sing it back to him? Do I sing another- crap I don´t even know any children´s songs, JARVIS, JARVIS!”

In the end he´d had to phone Rhodey to yell the news ecstatically to him, because he´d just found maybe the universe hadn´t wanted to screw him over after all, and he felt like screaming it from the rooftops. The little voice was sweet and shy and boyish and happy, and about the best thing Tony had heard in his damn life. He couldn´t have contained himself if he´d tried, and heck if he was going to any time soon.

(“Tones, what- “

“Rhodey!”

“…was that you or a screech owl.”

“It happened! There´s- a little kid! Somewhere! Spiders! My soulmate!”

“The- wait what-? “)

Music had gotten an entirely new meaning after that, from Disney songs to musicals to classic rock, and everything else in between.

…

He´d do anything to listen to Peter sing to them again.

Burning.

He´s burning all over.

Screaming in pain, he tries to escape from the scorching heat, but it´s everywhere, it´s everything, he´s the pain, he´s the fire, everything hurts-

And then as soon as it appears, the pain is gone.

He opens his eyes, blinking woozily.

“Oh, thank God.”

His vision blurs all over for a minute. There´s dampness in the corners, left over from tears.

Tears?

He makes an attempt to sit up, but there´s a hand holding his shoulder gently. He blinks again.

Tries to decipher his surroundings.

He´s laying down in a mostly deserted, grubby looking street. A figure kneels close to him, some sort of red and gold robot type thing. He narrows his eyes at it, trying to figure out why it feels so familiar…but finds, to a detached kind of surprise, that he can´t.

He has no idea what happened.

The robot seems to be very relieved for some reason, just staring up at the sky for a couple of seconds, taking a deep, wheezy breath.

Even with his head feeling like wet cotton, he looks at him with concern. The robot sounds seconds away from fainting. Is he…alright?

When the robot´s face opens and a man´s head peeps out (cool!), he almost jumps back in surprise.

And then…

Well. He still doesn´t have a clue who this person is, but as soon as he sees the man´s expression of utter joy and relief, something inside him settles. Safe.

He blinks in confusion at the feeling. He knows this person. He does.

But who is he?

“Pete? You´re back bud. Do you feel okay?” The man´s (man? robot? man-robot? cyborg? figment of his imagination?) smile fades slightly, looking at him in worry. “FRIDAY” Friday? Who on earth is he talking to? “didn´t you say the CPR made his vitals-“

“I´m- I´m fine” he says, because enormous confusion aside, he is. Maybe his head is scrambled, and he feels exhausted, but he has a feeling he´s been in worse shape before.

A feeling.

The man (he´s decided on man) starts going on about robots, and getting him to a tower with someone called Dr. Cho, but all he can do is blink back, his confusion increasing.

“I´m really sorry” he interrupts, knowing he´s probably going to disappoint the man, but needing to push forward even so, “who- who are you? Are you-? “

He tries to put a word on the feeling seeing the man´s face had evoked in him before, tries to remember who he is or what he has to do with the man or why he feels so…safe. So safe. With him there, even with all the questions going round and round inside his head.

“Are you my dad?”

The man´s face stills. For a second, it looks like his brain short-circuits.

Mood, a thought rings out in his head, unbidden.

That´s when he hears it.

A huge metallic…thing coming through the street towards them, and he doesn´t know why but it makes his heart thump like a rabbit´s in a cage, and suddenly he gets a flash of remembering pain, and he knows these machines, these machines are dangerous, and what if the man gets hurt too-

He pushes the man behind him as he desperately tries to look for somewhere they can hide-

-but the man grabs his hand first and hurries them both towards the sturdiest-looking car on the street, crouching so they´re out of sight.

“Uh, alright. I- this must be really weird for you, but it´ll be okay. Just stay here for now, ´kay? I´ll- We´ll figure this out. You with me?” The man holds his gaze for a second, and it´s so sincere, he finds himself nodding.

The man smiles. “Okay. Give me a sec.” And then he gets up and turns towards the robot.

What the-what´s he doing!?

He reaches out clumsily to drag him back, but the man´s face gets obscured by his robot mask once more and he…

Flies?

The frick? He thinks in bewilderment, as he sees the man lift off and attack the robot with blasts coming from his hands. My maybe-dad can fly!?

Either he lives in a sci-fi novel, or he´s going absolutely nuts.

Could be both at this point, frankly.

The whiz of gold and red fighting the robot is almost quicker than his sight can keep up with, but he persists, looking out anxiously for any opening the robot might have to take the man down so he can try to warn him about it. There is none though, the robot might be exceedingly fast, but the man remains unyielding. He takes another look at the giant machine and sees it´s blaster-

And then it´s like someone takes his brain and shakes it around everywhere, and the throbbing is so sudden he kneels and clutches his head tightly to keep it from falling apart. His thoughts feel shattered and tampered with, and the pain-

He cries out in agony, and tears fill his eyes again.

The man! I have to look out for him!

He tries to listen to the fight again, but just as he tries to focus in on it it´s like a tsunami of yells and police sirens and voices washes over him, and noise, why is there so much noise-

Overwhelmed, he kneels until his forehead touches the grainy concrete, and wishes he would just pass out.

He doesn´t, though.

Among the oversaturated ocean of noise, one adds to the mix.

Except this one isn´t grating. This one doesn´t make everything seem like too much.

Because it feels like it´s coming from within himself.

He´s at a loss for what´s happening, but the voice slowly and lightly blocks out all the other noise, grounding him in a gentle tune. In a flash, he recognizes the song. He knows where he heard it last.

Mr Stark.

And he remembers.

“Kid? What are you doing up?”

He shrugs, sinking deeper into the couch cushions. Baby Tarzan laughs onscreen.

He half expects Mr Stark to push him for more details, but he seems to understand Peter´s not in a talking mood and walks up to him solemnly.

“Scoot.”

He does, and Mr Stark plops down next to him, wordlessly extending his arms out in invitation. Peter falls into the hug gratefully and sighs. Exhaustion pulls down on his bones, but he´d rather not get back to the nightmare he woke up from. Mr Stark snorts softly at something in the movie, and then they both jump a bit at the sudden loud gorilla roar. They keep watching the movie, and Peter´s curls are brushed back gently in a soothing motion.

He wants to sleep. But he can´t.

But he´s safe here, isn´t he?

His chest grows heavier as he thinks of the dream, and when he blinks, his eyelids dampen. He hasn´t shed a tear yet, but Mr Stark must sense something again because his hand at Peter´s hair stills.

And then he starts singing.

It´s a lulling comfort, and Peter melts into the embrace, allowing his tired eyes some rest.

He´s safe.

Come stop your crying

It will be alright

Just take my hand

Hold it tight

I will protect you

From all around you

I will be here

Don't you cry

He´s safe.

With a final shot from Iron man´s repulsors, the robot powers down, and Peter runs out to meet Mr Stark, almost crushing his ribs in a hug.

“Woah, woah!” The helmet´s visor pulls up, revealing a grinning Tony. “Did that actually work? FRIDAY told me you were freaking out and I thought it might help calm you down.” He says, hugging him back. “But it did more than that, didn´t it?”

Peter´s too relieved to do anything but nod happily into his shoulder, but he gets the point across.

They stay there for a full minute, just holding on to each other. Until Tony grumbles out a “and I can´t believe you remembered Phil Collins before Iron man, seriously.” and Peter bursts out laughing, lightening the mood.

“The man didn´t sing that soundtrack in five languages for nothing, Mr Stark. It slaps.”

Tony hides his smile in Peter´s curls, and hugs him close.

[idga-buck]

Some and Others, 3/?

Earth’s mightiest heroes save the city again, but that’s never the end of the story.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word Count: 4,301

Content: canon typical violence, death, destruction, swearing

Bucky was going to call. He just didn’t. He was surprised you hadn’t and overwhelmingly disappointed that it meant if he was going to apologize, it was a conversation he’d have to initiate himself. It could wait though. Just a little longer while he figured out what he wanted to say.

A week later, the Post ran a story about the same gossip site that had leaked your photo of him being shut down after many of their stories and photos were found to be fake. A rarity for the world of journalism these days, Sam noted casually as they stopped at a newspaper cart. Bucky bought a couple candy bars and watched the man with the thick black mustache and the gold chain slip copies of the article in front of a few of his worst sellers. Could he actually be that lucky? It was an easy out after a week of dodging questions and trying to remind the world to stay out of his business.

“So that photo of you? The secret girlfriend?” Sam waited for Bucky to respond, but when the centenarian opted to buy a Pay Day instead, he watched closer. Bucky hated that. Sam said he had a staring problem, but Sam was the one with x-Ray vision. He could read people, read a room, read Steve’s body language from across a battlefield and adjust his position without being told. As annoyed as Bucky acted when paired up with Sam Wilson, he was one of the few people in this century that Bucky Barnes respected. Truly. Except for that moment on a street corner when brown eyes were scanning his complete lack of guts and deciding what was worth commenting on.

“Yeah,” Bucky ripped open the wrapper a little too aggressively and responded with peanuts between his teeth. “It wasn’t real.”

Sam nodded and stuffed his hands in his pockets while Bucky stuffed his face. “I don’t know how you land the fake girlfriend story, when I’m right here,” they started walking away from the stand while Sam jabbered on. “And lookin’ as fine as I do? Come on, man,” he danced ahead of Bucky a few steps, forcing him to look up. “You know this would make a better story.”

Before Bucky could say anything, a loud crash echoed between the buildings. Nothing was visible from their block, but both men, trained for combat, were instantly on alert.

“That for us?” Sam asked, eyeing the busy intersection.

“No,” said Bucky, a clipped tone in his voice as he shook his head and started walking again.

Another crash, this time accompanied by the faint human noises that usually follow tragedy.

“You sure about that?” Sam’s eyebrow shot up.

Sirens from every kind emergency response vehicle blared in the distance, growing louder then quieter again as they wove their way through the streets, changing directions to avoid traffic.

Bucky pointed at a passing fire truck, waiting until it had turned down another street before speaking. “See? They got it.”

Then Sam’s phone rang and Bucky swore, planting his hands on his hips while whoever was on the other line confirmed that the emergency growing in the distance was in fact for them. Sam placed the call on speaker and gave their current location. Stark’s voice was muffled and metallic, the way it usually was while calling from inside his fancy helmet, but he told them to stay put as he did a fly by with Sam’s equipment.

“Tell the Tin Man he’s got a special delivery,” Tony informed them from somewhere overhead.

“They're your wings,” Bucky grumbled, looking up from the ground as the familiar glare of Iron Man’s thrusters came into view. “And your robot.”

“First of all,” Sam informed him. “Red Wing isn’t a robot. He’s a drone.”

“It,” Bucky corrected, “is a robot.”

“I’m gonna tell him you said that,” said Sam before pointing up to where Iron Man had doubled back to get a better angle. “And… unlike some of us present, my body is exactly as God created it, flesh and bone.”

“Pop up, deep center,” Tony’s voice rang out obnoxiously through Sam’s phone once more.

Bucky watched a black bundle falling from the sky, trying to position himself under it and pushing more than one pedestrian out of his way to do so. “Actually, I was a catcher back in ‘32.”

“THEN CATCH!” Sam hollered just before the EXO Falcon gear landed square in Bucky’s chest, forcing him off his feet and onto his ass, skidding to a stop on a sidewalk while the people around them scattered, gasping and grabbing at their phones to take pictures of the two Avengers. Bucky laid flat on his back, both arms still wrapped around the bundle, and took a deep breath when Sam stood over his head, arms shooting out to his sides as he yelled “SAFE!”

Bucky groaned and tossed the black bag up into Sam’s arms, hard enough to make him stumble but not enough to knock him down. “Should have said ‘out.’” Bucky grumbled and Sam chuckled as he dug through the bag for his equipment. “Safe makes it sound like I-”

“You really wanna argue about baseball right now,” Sam laughed, securing his wings over his torso and releasing them both with a flash as if stretching before a fight. “Or are we gonna go save the world?” Bucky didn’t answer, just took off running in the direction of the screams. “That’s what I’m talking about,” said Sam to himself, shooting up into the air.

…

Robots. Drones. Whatever they, Bucky Barnes has decided that he hates them.

Fighting Nazis was easy. Not physically. Not when your gun isn’t really yours and the food sucks and you’re almost as worried about losing your toes as you are losing your team. But it made sense. These men in their wool coats wanted innocent deaths. Something in Bucky that had been there all along was born anew in the war. He was a protector. Of his sisters, of Steve, of his country. It made sense.

Nothing about Hydra made sense and the therapist he stopped seeing told him it was okay to think about those years differently than the rest. So he did.

When T’challa presented him with a black vibranium canon for his left side, the enemy was otherworldly. Literally. They didn’t bleed like men. They made horrible screeching noises when they died, but even that was different from me. They rode disgusting creatures with teeth that could have scratched his arm if he’d let them get close enough. They were invaders, their leader sought destruction on an even greater scale than the War. Bucky was a protector again, protector of Earth, of life in the universe. An unimaginable title for the boy he’d been, sitting in front of the radio with his family and marveling at the president's voice. It’s not like he was eager to do it again, but space invaders whose goal was universal genocide would be met with the business end of Bucky’s favorite rifle.

Fighting robots, however, was fucked up.

Bucky was still processing his new life, still getting used to the idea that people carried plastic cards in their wallets and could pull money out of the walls with just a few buttons. There were movie theaters with screens two stories high. Cars plugged into the sides of hotels. The cell phone in his pocket was overwhelming as is. In a few minutes, he could buy all the clothes he’d ever need, pay for dinner, and talk to people across the country. It was baffling.

All this technology, all this progress, and of course there were people who weaponized it. Bucky hated that. He remembered science fairs, remembered Howard Stark’s big promises. There was so much hope in him as a young man. He’d live to drive a flying car, his children would learn about the world through a holograms in their livingroom, his grandchildren would live on the moon. The possibilities were endless. So much so that people with horrible intentions for the world also believed that the possibilities were endless, forcing Bucky into his current position.

His thighs were wrapped around the base of a machine, arms wound near the top. He threw his shoulders back with all of his might, squeezing his legs in the process, and didn’t stop until the metal gave way. Bucky fell onto the pavement with his own momentum, the enemy in two pieces with wires exposed and frizzling as they died. He dropped the robot and rolled to his side, observing the scene around him. Steve used a cleaner approach and sent his shield flying through the air. Three more bots’ were sliced in two, the last of which was pinned by the shield into the side of a brick building. Sam circled above, with Redwing swooping below to draw laser fire away from bystanders while Wanda tried her best to herd them away, spinning to throw angry red energy at anything that came their direction.

“Sergeant Barnes!” The familiar and overly excited voice of the kid in blue and red spider gear startled Bucky. The kid swung in unexpectedly, decked out and ready to help. Bucky didn’t care that he was probably skipping school to do so and swung his vibranium arm behind him, the metal of another droid crunching under his elbow. “How can I help?”

Bucky squinted, a little dumbfounded at the question. There was a six block radius being overrun with droids, drones, robots- whatever- and people were terrified. “Pick something,” he grunted, taking the robot's head… top part, between his hands and twisting until it gave way and the bottom half dropped powerless to the ground.

Just then the sound of metal screeching pulled both their eyes to a city bus being thrown around like it was weightless, crunching the vehicles nearby, and sending more people into a frenzy as buildings were still evacuating onto the street. “That! Pick that!” Bucky commanded and the kid flew away, attached to a white string like a kite. Two more robots were approaching from the sidewalk, red eyes glowing and ready to fire. Bucky looked around the street for something, anything that he could use before deciding on a minivan. The windows looked clear, driver and passengers already scampering away at the first sign of trouble, so Bucky planted his boot into the back door and kicked. The door caved in and the vehicle flipped onto its side before skidding to a halt on the sidewalk and crushing the robots beneath it.

“Uh! MISTER BARNES, SIR, SARGE-!”

Bucky turned back to look at Peter, propped up on a light pole and leaning so far back his body was almost parallel to the ground. The only thing keeping him upright was the two thick white webs attached to the bus, one at the front and one at the back. It was tipping over dangerously low, trapping a small group of people between the bus and two buildings, one that had smoke billowing out the windows. This was a mess.

Bucky ran through the street, jumping onto the hoods of abandoned cars to avoid weaving between them before leaping off an SUV and rolling back into a run on the sidewalk. A laser struc Peter, knocking him clean off his perch, and the webs supporting the bus went dangerously slack as it started tipping toward the trapped people again. Bucky jumped, wedging himself between the building and the collapsing bus with great effort. His shoulders dug into the brick behind him and his thighs burned as he shoved the bus away from the wall, gritting his teeth as he felt it slowly start to tip away from the ground. The kid was now on the ground somewhere out of sight and Bucky had to hold back from sending the vehicle flying, lest he squash Stark’s favorite spider in the process. The tension in his legs grew as he held it steady, adjusting his feet and shoulders until he felt it wasn’t going anywhere.

“Hey!” He called out to the people below him. “Get out of here, go!”

There were rushed thank yous and lots of tears as the crowd dispersed from their trapped position. But one voice stood out among them and it made Bucky’s heart speed up.

“Bucky?! Oh my god, BUCKY!”

Bucky’s eyes were closed under the strain, but he’d know your voice anywhere. He opened them just in time to see Peter recover and zip off in a new direction. Bucky released his breath and shoved his feet out hard, tipping the bus back. He dropped from the wall and grabbed you as the bus wobbled precariously in both directions before finally falling into traffic and directly onto the roof of an empty red sports car.

Bucky hadn’t realized how tight he was holding you until you said his name again and the word was broken. His arms relaxed a bit, but you made no move to run away… or let go of his jacket. The two of you just stared at each other, breathing heavily, before screaming drew your eyes away. The small crowd of people you’d been stuck with were running away from where you stood, but the two in the back collapsed, their bodies charred and heavy as they hit the ground. You screamed then and Bucky pulled your back into his chest, hugging your stomach as you keeled over. He’d seen so much death in his hundred odd years, it was hard to witness it with these fresh eyes. You weren’t prepared to watch two innocent people’s skin melting under lasers. Hell, neither was Bucky and while you cried in his arms, the smell of burning flesh stung his eyes. He’d never get over that smell, no matter how many world wars he participated in. His face was buried in the back of your head, shushing you as he lifted you up. He took careful backwards steps until you were both hidden in the same alley you’d just been trapped in. Bucky looked up at the burning building and decided he had a minute before you were both in danger here.

“Hey,” he said softly when you went limp against his chest. “Hey now,” he repeated, spinning and almost dropping you when he realized you hadn’t just relaxed… you were unconscious. “Shit,” Bucky dropped to his knees and let your body lean up against his chest, slapping at your cheeks and calling your name to try and wake you up. Half of your face was red with blood from a wound he couldn’t see somewhere in your hair. Break up or no break up, he couldn’t leave you like this. Any other person, he’d run them to safety and double back to continue clearing the streets. But this wasn’t any person. It was the girl he dumped in the middle of a restaurant and had continuously put off calling to explain himself. He hadn’t gotten the chance to clear the air and leaving you to wake up in a few hours in the middle of a destroyed midtown was just too cruel. He did like you and now it felt like he owed you.

Bucky picked you up like a doll and slung you around to his back, crossing your arms over his chest as your legs dangled behind his knees. That wasn’t going to work, he decided after only a few steps. “Can you hold on a little-“ Bucky drifted off as he turned his face to see your face hidden behind him, your forehead limply resting against his shoulder. “Of course not,” he berated himself and stopped to adjust again. This time he stooped, grabbing one of your arms and one of your legs with his hands. You were slung over his shoulders like a backpack, the same way he carried goats in Wakanda, only much easier since you weren’t kicking or screaming and he had two hands with which to wrangle you.

His steady march out of the fray was interrupted once by Wanda. After directing pockets of people to safety, she’d sought out the source of the invasion. Bucky looked around for a safe place to stow your body and found an SUV that was abandoned but still running with the doors unlocked to lay you out across the backseat, carefully tucking your feet in before slamming the door behind him. He liked Wanda, despite not knowing what exactly she was capable of, but liked her a lot less when he found himself immersed in a glowing red forcefield and being lifted into the sky. When he was forced through the large glass window of another building only to look up and find her floating gently through the hole his body had created, she shrugged.

“This way was faster,” she said, Sokovian accent much softer than their first meeting.

“Right,” Bucky groaned, making a mental note of how many Avengers could zip through the air with ease and the odds of being the one she found on the ground.

They raced up the final set of stairs and Bucky ripped the maintenance door to the roof off its hinges. It was unlucky that Bucky and Wanda had been the ones to find the bastard responsible. If it had been Steve, he’d been bound and handed over to the authorities. Tony might have thrown him in armored vehicle and shook him around a bit before demanding answers. Bruce… depending on the day wouldn’t have been much better. Nat would have gotten answers easier than either of them and Sam was easily the most noble of the bunch, so Bucky had no idea what he’d do. The right thing, whatever that was. But Wanda wasn’t particularly fond of people who harmed innocent people. The motivation didn’t much matter to her when the sounds of children crying could be heard in the streets. Bucky didn’t have much grace for people who were smart enough to help, but broken enough to hurt. Like the bastards in Hydra, who healed him, kept him alive, gave him extraordinary strength then weaponized him. Anyone who had this level of technological advancement and chose to bring destruction with it was a waste of air. Wanda hoisted the man up into one of her angry red orbs while Bucky broke the control panel into as many pieces as he could, destroying anyone else’s opportunity to learn from this guy. Neither of them had anticipated this guy to be so well armed. It looked like a pistol, but whatever it fired managed to get through Wanda’s energy field and pierce her shoulder, breaking her focus just enough for him to drop back onto the roof. He took off running to the edge and leapt, but Wanda recovered faster, using her powers to yank him back. Bucky caught him in the air and squeezed, locking the man in a painful hold until he noticed glowing red numbers counting down behind the man’s neck. Shit.

“Bucky!” Wanda pointed at the man’s hands, wrapped threateningly around a plunger that could only mean one thing.

Without a better option, Bucky turned back to edge. He released the man and as he tried to stumble forward, Bucky’s boot landed square against his sacrum, launching the man through the air and into a neighboring building in a ball of fire. Both Avengers watched the corner offices go up in flames, disgust and horror in both their eyes.

“The whole block was evacuated,” Wanda said softly and Bucky nodded. There was a distinct lack of screaming coming from the direction of the building and sirens soon flooded the streets below as first responders made their way into critical areas. From the ledge, both of them watched as the remaining bots dropped to the ground before their team, disengaging en masse. Steve looked up from atop a bodega and saluted the sky in their general direction, lifting the shield as a second acknowledgment before jumping down to the street to start… whatever Captain America does once the threat has been neutralized. The PR and clean up stuff wasn’t Bucky’s scene and he turned away, making it all the way across the roof, still observing the scene below, before remembering that you were somewhere, either still unconscious or just waking up, deeply confused in the back of a stranger’s car.

“You okay?” Bucky asked, wanting to make sure before asking Wanda for any favors.

She pulled her hand away from her shoulder, black nail polish and red blood looking menacing and downright witchy against her pale fingers. “I’ll be alright,” she assured him, eyes already glowing red as she prepared to offer more aid.

Bucky stopped her and nodded over the side of the building. “Gimme a lift?”

She snorted and waved her fingers without looking at him and soon enough, Bucky found himself falling on his ass once again. He needed to work on his dismount if this was going to become a regular pairing. Thankfully or maybe not, you were trying to wake up as Bucky slipped into the driver’s seat and commandeered the vehicle. He turned back to watch you whine in pain as you tried to sit up, before slipping back into sleep when he told you to stay down. You were in and out for most of the drive, which helped Bucky weave up and over curbs to avoid stagnant areas where everyone had abandoned their cars out of fear.

…

You woke up with a headache, exasperated by the bright lights of the emergency room. Bucky could see the moment you came to by the hard squinting that melted into a grimace. You’d had a couple false starts, but when your eyes opened and locked on his, Bucky knew it was the real deal this time. He stood to pull back the curtain and immediately a nurse was shimmying her way into your space, brushing her chest against Bucky’s in the process. He nodded and gave her a tight smile. It had been like that since he walked into the ER with you. Avengers carrying blacked out civilians get a lot of attention, but they also get speedy service. Which is what Bucky told himself when he stuck around once you’d been admitted. You’d get better care if he stayed with you, so he did. Feet propped up on the end of your bed and dropping whenever someone came to run another test. He wasn’t family and didn’t claim to be, so they told him nothing, but nurses managed to smile flirtatiously in between doing their job. In another life, Bucky would have… done something. Anything. He smiled. He was a hundred, not dead, but there was something off putting about receiving these looks when you were asleep right there between hanging curtains in an overrun hospital as ambulances and families started to arrive from the mess he’d just left.

You answered their questions slowly, but correctly. Your name, where you were, what year it is, who the president is. The doctor would be in soon and Bucky took the minute of alone time to scoot the chair they’d brought in for him. You were watching him expectantly as the legs scraped across the floor, just a few inches before he could reach a hand out to yours. You looked down curiously at your hand in Bucky’s.

“They spelled my name wrong,” you murmured and Bucky’s eyes fluttered shut as you lifted your joined hands to observe the little plastic bracelet closer. He shook his head, wanting to apologize, but also hoping you wouldn’t connect the dots that he’d given them your information incorrectly. “Bucky?” He looked up to find your eyes wider than usual, a little more vulnerable than he was used to seeing you and wanted to do something to make you feel better. But like the entirety of your relationship, he had no idea how to do that.

“You’re okay,” he nodded, telling himself as much as he was telling you.

“Thank you,” you squeezed his fingers as your voice shook.

Just then a man in a white coat, pushed back the curtain and Bucky stood reflexively, dropping your hand in the process. He turned back and saw your face fall before crossing your arms over your chest and looking away from him.

“Sergeant Barnes,” the doctor addressed him first.

“Bucky,” he corrected without thinking and turned his body, opening up the room a bit and directing attention back to what mattered. The patient. You.

“Thank you for bringing her in,” the doctor continued, then looked back and forth between the two of you. “We’ve got it from here, if you need to-”

“He can stay,” you piped up. The doctor asked if you were sure, but you were. The doctor nodded, turning fully toward the bed and while that was Bucky’s goal, he now felt completely out of place in the tiny space.

“First things first,” the doctor started. “You and the baby are just fine, so I don’t want you worrying about that at all. Do you have a OB or a-”

Bucky stopped listening at that moment and focused on the roaring ocean in his ears. He looked to the bed where you were listening intently to what the doctor was saying, nodding and shaking your head mechanically. While he stared, you stole a glance in his direction. Your face was blank and he didn’t spend much time trying to read it.

“This sounds personal,” he said, voice flat and vibranium hand already reaching for the curtain at the end of your bed. “Take care.” Without sparing another look, Bucky walked through the busy emergency room with his left hand tucked into his front pocket, making him invisible to anyone who didn’t know he was there.

A/N: Here we go! It’s happening. I’m not sold on the way this ended but it was getting long as is and don’t worry, Bucky will have his chance to make it up to you.

Tags: @fangirl-swagg @learisa

[squishneedsahero]

Self Discovery

It’s Who I Am

Part 2

Description: How would The Falcon and The Winter Soldier have played out if you, the younger daughter of Howard Stark got involved? You had been kidnapped by HYDRA at a young age, your mind taken from you as they forced you to work towards creating new weapons for them and when HYDRA had fallen you had gotten free with your scattered memories for you to slowly piece together.

Word Count: 2715

It's a little over an hour later when the three of you reach the airport and board the military plane which had dropped Sam and Bucky at the warehouse. Joaquin is more than a little surprised that you of all people had just happened to be there and had joined their group. You take a seat and lean back with your eyes closed. At this point your cracked rib isn't hurting any more, which you should probably look into as theres a good chance you could also be enhanced thanks to your time with HYDRA, but theres also a good chance you have a really high pain tolerance thanks to HYDRA.

You take off your shirt, leaving you sitting in your leggings and sports bra as you decide to work on the technology in your shirt. You had used Tony's nano technology to create the shirt, and leggings, so they were smart and it was just a matter of programming them to do exactly what you wanted. Right now you wanted to make it so they would absorb most of the shock from any time you got hit, because dealing with super soldiers who you didn't want to kill was just a bit different from aliens you could use brute force on.

Sam and Bucky's talking pulls you out of your thoughts and you look up at them. They begin to argue about something so you go back to your thoughts, preferring those to the sound of their voices. You had found that you were quite good at getting lost in your thoughts, hiding from the world and it's problems in the relative safety of your own mind. You knew very well it was a trauma response, disassociating and blocking everything around you out. It might not be the healthiest thing but considering everything you had been through and the many ways you could respond to that trauma you'd take this response.

You had been working on all of this stuff with yourself since you had basically refused to see a therapist. You knew you should talk to someone but the settings you had seen that they offered therapy made you want to just shut down worse than you simply keeping to yourself with all of this. Before you know it you have already fixed the problems with your suit, gotten the nano bots set to better protect you in a fight.

Once the suit is finished you look up and come back to reality, and realize that the plane is landing. As you zone back in Sam notices and asks, "you good, y/n?"

You blink before focusing on him, "yeah, I'm good," its a lie but for some reason you don't want Sam to worry about you.

He laughs gently and shakes his head, "thats a lie, but we don't have to talk about it. It's not my business anyways, I was just checking."

This causes you to pause for a moment, normally people would continue pushing you for answers, "alright," it comes out almost as a question but the conversation ends there since the plane touches down at that moment.

Baltimore, you recognize the city as Baltimore. You follow Sam who is following Bucky, who is leading the way somewhere in the streets of Baltimore. Sam pauses for a moment to talk to some kid and you gently wave a hello before you all continue on your way. The three of you walk up to a house where Bucky knocks on the door and a kid answers only to say the person Bucky is looking for doesn't live there.

"Tell him the guy from the bar in Goyang is here." That gets the kid to listen and he closes the door as he goes to tell Isaiah who is wanting to see him. It's a moment later when the door opens again and the kid lets you all in.

You barely make it into the room, and see Isaiah when you begin feeling sick to your stomach. You know him. You had done something to him during your time with HYDRA and whatever that something was it was bad enough that the sight of the man in front of you made you feel sick. From the look on his face he recognizes you as well.

Isaiah gives you a sour look and you point towards the door, tears beginning to form in your eyes, "I'm- I'm gonna go," you look down and your hands are shaking. You look back and forth between Isaiah and the door a few times in the space of five seconds, "I'm sorry-" you say quickly to Isaiah before running out the door.

You make it to a tree in the yard where you catch yourself and take a pause to regain your bearings. You're about to hurl, but you're able to hold it back as you let yourself collapse to the ground, leaning against the tree as the tears flow down your cheeks. You grab your head and begin taking deep breaths. You didn't know what you had done to Isaiah but you knew you regretted all of it, that you had been forced to do it, just like every other horrible thing which you had done.

You get a hold of yourself after a few minutes and then sam and Bucky come rushing out the door, they walk past you Sam loudly asking why Bucky hadn't mentioned the fact that there has been a black super soldier for decades. You stand up and once again you're suddenly shaken back to reality as a police siren goes off nearby. It's as though the sound resets you, something that felt familiar as all of your physical reactions to seeing Isaiah disappeared. You stood up straight and made your way over to Sam and Bucky where a cop was asking if Sam was bothering Bucky.

"No. Do you know who this is?" Bucky asks sounding a bit angry with the cops for deciding to pull this shit. You can see the realization come to the cop's eyes as the other whispers in his ear, the regret and embarrassment clear on his face.

"Mr.Wilson, I'm sorry- I didn't recognize you without the goggles." With that he rushes back to the car where they end up finding out that Bucky has a warrant out for his arrest since he'd ditched a state mandated therapy session.

The police take Bucky away, leaving you and Sam in the street. It's once things calm down that Sam turns to you and asks once again, "are you alright? You ran out of there pretty fast."

You pause for a moment, looking at him before answering, "I'm... as alright as I can be." There is another pause as you try to shove back the vague memories that were now remerging due to the immediate threat of the cops is gone. You swallow deeply then shake your head a little before beginning to walk down the street, figuring you might as well get walking if he's going to bug you about this. "It's easier to not talk about it."

Sam is quiet for a bit, simply walking beside you for a while before saying, "look y/n, that might work for now but eventually it isn't going to work anymore. I know you don't know me and I don't know you but, I'm willing to help you. It's just a matter of if you want it, but for now let's just go get Bucky out of prison."

Something about that causes you to pause, and you look at him as the both of you walk. It's a few moments before you decide to speak, "thanks." You walk in silence from there, considering what he had said, of all the people offering to help he seemed the most genuine, your gut told you that you could trust the man next to you. Your thoughts on this topic cause you to frequently glance over at him even if you didn't notice this fact.

Sam on the other hand does notice your frequent looks, but decides to stay quiet, feeling he had already pushed you enough for the short time you'd known each other. Having a quiet moment though as the both of you make your way to the police station he does find himself stealing his own glances at you, not in a crude way. Sam had practically never been around you up to this point and he'd been distracted all day, this was the first quiet moment there had been between just the two of you all day. He had noticed that your eyes are the color they are, or the curve of your nose and how it complimented the rest of your face so well. It was a known stereotype that you were attractive, you were a Stark you had to be attractive, but Sam hadn't taken the time to actually notice this before this and now that he had noticed he wasn't sure if he could forget it.

The pair of you make it to the police station and take some seats it the lobby area, after talking with the officers at the front desk to ask about conditions for Bucky's release. They don't give either of you any answers, leaving you to wait instead. Eventually a woman walks in and up to the both of you, introducing herself as Bucky's therapist.

As she does this Bucky is walked out the double doors, "thanks for getting him out."

"It wasn't me," the woman responds as none other than John Walker comes in, flaunting himself as he does so.

You can't stop the groan of annoyance that leaves your body as you see him and the woman says she has worked with him before.

Once Bucky is out the therapist walks over to him, "condition of your release session now, you too Sam- y/n you're fine to wait."

This tells Sam that it isn't an option for him to say no so he follows, leaving you with John who had said he wants to talk with all of you as soon as they're done. You grab your phone, and walk out to wait in the parking lot for Sam and Bucky rather than having to stand by John and Lemar while you wait and just for good measure you decide to take a moment and call Pepper to give her an update on what it is you're doing.

"Hello, y/n," Pepper answers the phone, "you alright?"

"Hey Pepper, I'm good, thanks. I'm going to be gone for a while, not sure how long but I found something to do and it seems like it might help me find some sort of purpose. I just didn't want you to worry."

"Thanks for letting me know, and good luck y/n," Pepper responds. Pepper had been trying to help you since Tony had died, Morgan was the only real family you had left even if you didn't remember any of them anyways. But making sure you at least had a chance at a life you'd want was the least she could do for you since your brother had sacrificed himself to give everyone that chance.

You had officially been declared dead when you were only 13 years old, it was because of this that you hadn't been included in your father's will. Then with your sudden coming back with the blip and Tony's unexpected death you hadn't been included in his either. This left you with nothing to your name, and to be frank you were okay with that, you didn't see the need for material items. There were so many other things you needed to do with your life that worrying about an inheritance was no where on your list. It was all too important to you to not let anyone down, you needed to re-learn how to be yourself. Be who you had been before HYDRA and all of that had happened. Thats what everyone wanted from you they kept telling you stories about yourself and how you had been when you were younger, how you had dressed, walked talked and acted. You just couldn't bring yourself to want to let anyone down by not being that person any more.

This was why Pepper took care of you almost like another child, you had nothing to your name and no memories of your life before HYDRA. You were relying solely on other people's word that you were who they say you are.

"Thanks Pepper, I'll be home soon, bye."

"Goodbye y/n," then theres a click as Pepper hangs up.

When Pepper hangs up you don't remove the phone from your ear, instead turning to see if John and Lemar had followed you out of the police station. They hadn't so you put your phone in your pocket, and move to lean up against the building while continuing to wait for Sam and Bucky. It's as you take a deep breath to relax for a moment that the door opens and you hear a voice that is already annoyingly familiar, "hey, y/n," John greets you.

You bite off a sarcastic remark and decide to instead say, "hey Josh."

You can hear him struggle to not correct you and then say, "look, we got off on the wrong foot, let's start over, I'm John Walker, Captain America," and he holds his hand out to shake your hand.

You raise an eyebrow slightly as you look at his hand, "yeah," you pause for a moment, "it's not happening John. You introducing yourself isn't going to change my gut feeling about you and honestly I'm sorry because as far as I can tell you haven't given me a reason to not like you, I just don't and you're going to have to deal with that fact." Once again you were blunt with him, you really didn't see a reason to dislike the guy but you did and until he gave you a reason to like him you were going to stick with your gut to be safe.

Relief. That is what you feel only moments after you finish talking to John as you see Sam and Bucky exit the building. John notices too and decides to get their attention by setting off the siren of the cop car you were standing next too.

Once again the sound causes your mind to feel as though it has reset. A sudden calm sets over you, but it's not a peaceful calm, it's a terrifying calm. A calm before the storm though what the storm was you had not a clue.

By the time you come back, and zone back in to reality, Sam and Bucky are standing next to you and talking with John. John is trying to convince Sam and Bucky once again that all of you should work together. Bucky flat out rejects this. Sam on the other hand offers a reason as to why it is easier for you to not work together, and it is actually logical.

John on the other hand does not appreciate Sam's calm and logical reasoning. "Well, if you won't work with me then stay the hell out of my way."

You give him a double take, like are you serious John? Didn't he just say that he wanted to try and start over so that you liked him? Welp, now your gut feeling at least makes sense and you don't have to feel bad for disliking him for no reason.

You follow Sam and Bucky as they walk away, "we don't have any leads, so I say we bet on someone who has a better hand than we do."

There is a moment of silence before Sam says, "no, we aren't going to see Zemo."

Of course Bucky brings up good points and in the end convinces Sam that going to visit Zemo is a good idea. You of course only have a vague idea of who Zemo is and know he is nothing but trouble so you're just going to trust them on this, and your gut was telling you that you could trust them on this. You instinct hadn't lead you wrong yet so you were going to continue following it until it proved otherwise.

[transformers-autobotsrollout]

Cybertron. A planet that has been embroiled in war seemingly since its creation. This is the stage on which our story is set. 

We open on a gladiator named “Powered Convoy” getting whaled on Strong-Bot. While he manages to get the upper hand and wins the match, as he leaves, we can tell that he doesn’t enjoy what he does for a living. He drives back to the docks where he lives, which are in pretty bad shape, but his face lights up when he sees Ratchet and she tells him about her new job.

The next day, Ratchet asks Optronix what paint job she should have on her first day working at Iacon City’s science guild (Oppy's got his arm covering his eyes, he is polite) and Magnum comes in asking Optronix how his last match went. Typical wholesome, slice of life robots. When Ratchet drives up to the citadel, Optronix takes a sharp left to talk to his... correspondent. It's not Megatron, but Sentinel Prime who was a like-minded 'Bot who believed in his words.

Sentinel explains that while he can’t directly bring petitions to Alpha Trion, he has gained an audience with Megatron, who’s most certainly the closest and most powerful they’ve got to someone who approves of off-planet exploration. While Optronix is nothing but firm in his beliefs, he’s unable to articulate what he wants in front of a crowd (in his words: “I’m bad with speeches”), so he asks Sentinel to speak for him. 

Sentinel agrees, and then we hard cut to Megatron in a testing facility, currently watching Doubledealer and Shatter show off the destructive capabilities of a massive fusion cannon. A little on the nose, but I think it’s good.

Ratchet’s first day doesn't go as well as she’d hoped. She gets mocked for being lower-class by the elite guard, ignored and pushed around by the more experienced medics and scientists, and by lunch she’s wishing she never left home. And then she meets Ariel Pax, a cadet in the Elite Guard. Ariel treats her with kindness that she’s endlessly grateful to finally get from these city-bots, and she spends the rest of the day with her.

The summit is treated more like a daytrip for Megatron. Megatron only talks to Sentinel, period, and he spends most of the time talking about his own opinions wherever Sentinel tries to discuss the content of Optronix's words. Optronix still doesn't talk much due to his fear of speaking in public, but he does his best to keep up. 

Anyways, they have lunch at a typical fancy place with 56 forks and Megatron is still only talking to Sentinel. Sentinel's trying to recall Op's words as best as he can, but Optronix has had enough and finally speaks his mind, shocking them both.

Megatron and Sentinel both leave for the train, but Optronix realizes that Megatron... "forgot" to tip, so he sticks behind. On the train, Sentinel admits that it was Optronix who had a solid plan on societal reform, but Megatron has his own opinions on Optimus... namely that he's "too naive" to be a leader and that it'll take a miracle to convince him otherwise.

The train suddenly lurches forward without Optronix on it. Poor guy has to cling to the caboose just in the nick of time as Sentinel and Megatron inside try to figure out what's going on. A masked individual suddenly jumps the two, and while they outclass him physically, he's able to use magnetic fields and well-placed knockout gas to take them out. 

Optronix pries his way into the train and finds it full of explosives that he has no idea how to defuse... so he calls out for Sentinel and Megatron, and gets no response. They're a little tied up at the moment (HA).

Megatron isn't amused and dryly asks how much the intruder plans on ransoming them for. The response he gets is that they're not getting ransomed at all; they're going to be blown to smithereens from the dozens of EMP bombs he's planted all over the train. 

Significantly more freaked out, Sentinel tries to reason with him. But the intruder says that there's nothing that Sentinel or Megatron or any of those hoity-toity bluebloods can do to stop this, and that they've had it coming for a while. Megatron laughs and tears into the bot.

“My fault? You think this is my fault? Oh, that is rich!

You’re one of those bots, aren’t you? Let me explain something. I’ve worked my way to the top with everything going against me, with everyone I’d known being sent offline or segfaulting their RAMS to the point of inoperability, and I’m still standing. I struggled for my position in life, and you have the audacity to accuse me of being undeserving? 

Think about it. Real hard. What have you done to deserve your lot in life? That’s what I thought. You’ve done nothing. Nothing at all! You’ve lazed away in your rusting husk of a chassis and decided to punch up for the fun of it. That's why you blame me, you blame everyone that’s actively tried to be an operating member of society out of your own jealousy and guilt. You sat as you were, a worthless lay-about, and you take it out on people you deem your 'oppressors'.

It isn’t my fault that you’ve gone nowhere, it’s the fault of an ill-mannered, ill-tempered, functionless, underdeveloped cog with nothing better to do than to beg for scrap metal instead of-!”

The stranger tapes his mouth shut and is like “lol figures” while Sentinel tries to be all “you’re never gonna get away with this, Optronix is gonna getcha” and the guy noticeably freezes up. Optronix is about halfway to where they are when he’s ambushed. 

Thankfully, he manages to knock the guy out of the emergency door, and they have your typical battle atop a train. Optronix notices something familiar about the magnetic attacks he uses and breaks the mask he'd been wearing. It’s his old friend Windcharger, who’s quite unhappy about Optronix "becoming Megatron’s new bodyguard."

Optronix explains that it’s a misunderstanding, and Windcharger goes on about how people like Megatron are the reasons that Optronix was forced into fighting in the first place; Optronix’s spark is in the right place but he aims too high. Understanding Windcharger’s frustrations, he at least tries to talk him down from destroying the train as it’ll not only kill him, but it’ll kill all the innocent bots waiting at the station. Just as Windcharger seems like he’s about to relent… Megatron blasts him in the chest.

Sentinel’s sentries aided in their escape and defused all the bombs. Optronix soberly brings Windcharger’s shell back inside as Megatron thanks him for the rescue. As they pull into the station, Megatron spins his tale about Optronix’s genius and his defeat of a dangerous terrorist, all the while he’s really in the back, stabilizing Windcharger. 

He asks why Optronix didn’t leave him to die, to which Optronix tells him that it’s his second chance to make a change that involves less mayhem. He can tell that Windcharger is passionate about his cause and he hopes he’ll make the right choice. Windcharger flees through a trap door and Optronix steps outside to face the reporters.

Megatron’s busy talking about how his life was saved by Optronix and Sentinel Prime and how whomever was responsible for this is in custody (HA). Except this bit's on a screen that Magnum is watching, and he asks Optronix how much of it's true. Sentinel answers for Optronix that Megatron greatly exaggerated a lot of it, but the basic gist is true.

Optronix says that he feels uncomfortable at the amount of "deception" that's being used to fill in the gaps, even with Sentinel reassuring him that " it doesn't matter if he agrees with us or not, just as long as our message has a platform".

Evidently Optimus isn't too jazzed about that. He mumbles something under his breath about how blunt honesty is more effective than convincing lies. Magnum, Optronix, and Sentinel get off the shuttle and arrive at the Dancitron. Sentinel insists that "Primes don't party" but he's dragged in by a delighted Ratchet, who's celebrating her first week as a proper doctor. 

At the Dancitron, Ariel Pax and Ratchet dance together while Optronix talks more about his beliefs with Magnum and wonders if he's aiming too high. Yes, he wants Cybetronian culture to branch out and share with the universe, but Sentinel's words have made him worry if he should be trying to fix their society first and focus on other planets later. Optronix tells Magnum "I never wanted this vision of mine to be a transaction".

The next day, Optronix meets Jetfire and his envoy of Protectobot Elite guardsmen for the first time. He was Ariel Pax's commanding officer in the Elite Guard and a brash, overconfident jerk that didn't really mesh too well with 'civilians' and was very blunt and vocal about his opinions. Optronix could NOT stand him at first and their first meeting ended with Optronix calling him a "brute".

Megatron talks to Flipsides and Shockwave about what really happened in his massive garden. He admits that while he is impressed with Optronix, he'd "prefer to keep my business partners at arms' length" and that gives him an idea. 

Megatron calls Sentinel and requests a meeting with him. When he arrives, he offers him a job at Tarn Industries and tells him he'll upgrade all his sentries free of charge. Sentinel refuses because he already has his job as a Station Master and he doesn't want his sentries tampered with. Megatron's pissed but concedes.

Ratchet learns to fight from Ariel and confides in her that she’s always hated violence from first hand seeing Optronix’s injuries from the gladiator matches and patching up her fellow dock workers. 

Magnum is in Metroplex, trying to get their leader Gravitas to back Optronix's words. He never really trusted Megatron or his company and he just wants the best for his best friend. But Gravitas won't listen; he's clearly preoccupied with something else. Whatever Magnum tries to say, he's shut down or blocked off with xenophobic statements that he knows'll only drag them offtopic if he tries to contest them. 

Gravitas at least has the decency to tell Magnum that he clearly has a good head on his shoulders... which is why he's been chosen to be the next leader of Metroplex. Turns out Gravitas has a week to live because of the noncommunicable rust plague inside his body, yaaaaaaaaay. 

Magnum takes this poorly and panics to Optronix that he doesn't think he'll be ready for all the power that comes with this position. Optronix, equally stressed, proceeds to become even more stressed.

Optronix and Sentinel finally get Alpha Trion and the rest of the Cybertronic Alliance to hear them out. Sentinel hasn't told Optronix anything about Megatron offering him a job nor what he heard when he was tied to him (remember Chapter 1 where Megatron was a jackass to Windcharger?)  and Optronix is incredibly nervous about speaking in front of a crowd. Megatron has made it clear through pretty much everything he's done that he's got something else planned for Optronix's idea, but they've no idea how he's going to spin it.

Megatron opens with the basic gist of Optronix's ideals; their culture is stagnating and their world needs a cultural reset. All's good so far until Megatron unveils his idea: to colonize and conquer other planets. Using their resources and spreading the name of Cybertron far and wide, establishing trade centers for partners, becoming stronger and stronger through political allies and bringing Cybertron into a new Golden Age. 

Optronix's worst fears have come to light. Megatron's made it all about himself and is treating the entire thing as a business proposition. Worse yet, the members of the council and even some bots in the crowd are agreeing with him. 

So he puts his foot down and tells Megatron that this wasn't what he'd intended, that he's spinning this concept wildly into something that benefits only him and not the whole of society.

Megatron responds thusly. "You came to me and asked if I could help you speak. I strongly suggest you recall why you couldn't do it yourself."

Optronix is silent.

Megatron asks "Is there anything else you'd like to say?"

"Yes."

With that, Megatron takes a right hook to the face and goes sailing into the wall. Now that he's been sufficiently silenced, Optronix tells the council his ideas. 

Cybertron should branch out with peace and support, not with ideas of conquering and monetary gain from these people. They can share their cultures and learn new things from alien lifeforms without forcing their ways of life onto them. How every sapient being in the universe deserves freedom and the right to education.

"Don't you see? There's no need for senseless violence-" 

He's cut off when Megatron tackles him to the ground. 

As the two of them begin to fight, the entire house devolves into chaos, with verbal and physical blows flying left and right. Everything has gone to hell, and it's not made any better when Alpha Trion calls order in the court with his "equalizing staff". Alpha Trion declares the two mentally unfit on the spot and orders them both to have "system purges" in order to “calm their circuitry.” 

Megatron is royally pissed at having his name dragged through the mud, and as the two are taken away by Elite Guardsmen, loudly blames Optronix for the whole thing. Jetfire outright refuses to perform a system purge on them despite what Alpha Trion says, taking Optronix by surprise. While the alternative treatment (a nanite bath) isn't exactly enjoyable itself, it's far less invasive than the former.

A month passes. Optronix feels horrid. All his intentions blew up in his face and this, if any, is a good time for Sentinel to tell Optronix the truth. Optronix isn't shocked at all, but he asks why Sentinel didn't tell him sooner. Sentinel tells him that he didn't want to discourage him because Megatron was the closest thing they had to a foot in the door. This leads to an argument where Optronix asks Sentinel if it was worth siding with a xenophobe just for the sake of popularity. 

After quite a bit of nasty insults are lobbed back and forth, Sentinel leaves and Optronix folds in on himself.

Megatron visits one of his own subsidiary factories in Velocitron. He's eerily serene as he speaks with the head engineer of the building, Dirt Boss. Once Dirt Boss tells him everything he needs to know and asks him why he's in such a good mood, Megatron smiles and tells him he's got a new lease on life. 

He proceeds to shoot Dirt Boss point blank and rigs the building to explode, knowing fully well that the radius will decimate the nearby train station and send one hell of a message. As Ratchet and Magnum lead Optronix outside to try and cheer him up, they see a massive billowing black smoke cloud in the distance…

Optronix and Magnum aid in the horrible aftermath of the meltdown on Velocitron. Megatron is being shady and keeps making references to an “ ideological terrorist attack” with roughly zero proof. Magnus and Override have a sweet little moment of romantic tension as they knock into each other. Optronix remains cautious about the attack as Ratchet snarks about how Megatron is still bitter about having his brain waves scrambled… which never actually happened since you know, Jetfire’s gayness saved Optimus and also Megatron by proxy.

Optronix and Ratchet enter Iacon’s Hall of records and read up on Cybertronian history to try and figure out how to get their own movement off the ground. Optronix discovers information about some of the primes and realizes that a lot of them share the same morals and views that he does. He's beside himself as he keeps scampering back to grab more and more datapads about all the primes as Ratchet watches. Optronix is overwhelmed with joy that he's not alone... and then he sees a symbol emblazoned across one of their chests.

An ancient symbol, one that means "quick-thinker”. Autobot. And this gives Optronix an idea. Optronix throws a match for the first time in his career, and everyone can tell. He uses the assembled crowd to better discuss his beliefs and explain the future he wants for Cybertron. And surprisingly enough... he gets someone that listens to him. Namely, his OPPONENT, Impactor. This little spark of hope is enough to convince him that he's still got a fighting chance.

A few days later, Magnum is getting ready for the official announcement that he’ll become the next leader of Metroplex, following Gravitas’ death. He’s distracted from these proceedings when an episode of Andromeda Explains It All airs with Megatron as its special guest, a mere half-hour before he’s scheduled to appear. Magnum immediately tells the guards to cancel the announcement out of fear for the pro-Autobot civilians in the crowd.

Optronix is having his own problems with being an Autobot as he has to help an Autobot supporter being hounded by two punks calling themselves Decepticons, one of which accuses Optronix of being “pro-invasion”. They quickly shut up and book it when Jetfire and Sentinel appear. Still burned by Sentinel’s betrayal, Optronix is cold towards the both of them, but Sentinel begs Optimus to hear them out. Namely, Jetfire thinks that Megatron intentionally sabotaged his own factory to incite violence towards them and their supporters. So Optronix and Sentinel put aside their annoyances towards each other and focus on the true villain, Megatron.

The Decepticons proceed to cause more chaos across multiple cities as the Autobots clash with them. Ariel and Ratchet argue about the rising tensions, with Ariel refusing to spur the wrath and endanger more people by outwardly supporting the Autobots as an Elite Guard member, and Ratchet contesting that Ariel knows that standing up for what she believes in is more important.

Jetfire and Sentinel (who is entirely unwilling) burst into Megatron’s private airship with all their evidence. Jetfire threatens to arrest Megatron right there on the spot. The two Autobots are promptly dragged out of the ship by reactionary Decepticons. The Decepticons take Sentinel hostage and attempt to execute him where he stands, but The Elite Guard is there to stop them.

Iacon is set ablaze by the Decepticons and the heroes rush to the citadel. Alpha Trion's all like "oh okay huh looks like the incredibly invasive mental reprogramming backfired, who'da thunk". We and Optronix of course know that they never were reprogrammed because Jetfire saved them, but being that Jetfire is unconscious, he can't exactly explain that to him.

Alpha Trion then begs Optronix to protect the Matrix, thinking Megatron's going to steal it and use it's power against him out of vengeance. Optronix agrees, on the condition that Alpha Trion doesn't hold himself up in the citadel and helps his friends get innocents inside.

So Megatron shows up a little later on, Alpha Trion begs for mercy and apologizes for what he did to them both, but guess what! Megs doesn't care! He's just here to kill Alpha Trion and leave because he can blame it on the riots exploding across the city. He doesn't give two damns about the Matrix.

"I'm not going to kill you. Gravity should do most of the work."

But Optronix shows up to save the day, the Matrix around his neck on a chain. Megatron weighs his options on who he wants to kill more and Optronix quite literally has a target painted on his chest, so he takes the bait and chases him away from the citadel, in turn protecting everyone that was packed within.

The Elite Guard and Ratchet successfully get a barrier around the citadel, only for Inferno to suddenly reveal his true colors as a Decepticon double-agent. He stabs Ariel’s optic out and tries to off her while she’s wounded. Ratchet snaps. She not only tackles him to the ground, but she successfully tears his arm out of its socket and beats him with it. Windblade is barely able to get her off him, but the damage is done in more ways than one.

Once they're well and far away from the center of town, Optronix tries to open the Matrix and blast Megatron into next Tuesday. This fails and Megatron mocks him before blasting him (and the ground beneath his feet), and Optronix falls through an entire building, seemingly offlining him. Jetfire's second wind comes in and he starts whaling on Megatron as Optronix lies in the basement of the building quietly pleading for the Matrix to open.

His grip falters, he slumps over, and in true LIGHT OUR DARKEST HOUR fashion, the Matrix transes Optronix's gender and boosts his lightning powers, giving him the strength to soundly body Megatron. Megatron falls in front of the Decepticons and has to be carried away by Strikha, who orders a full retreat.

Optronix returns to the citadel with both Jetfire and the Matrix in his possession. Alpha Trion is shocked, but his friends are nothing but overjoyed. It's Jetfire who comes up with the name Optimus by way of calling his transformation "an optimal solution".

Ariel awakens missing her optic and berates Sentinel for not knowing what he was doing, only to change her tune when she hears Ratchet's the one that saved her life. Ratchet weakly smiles as Ariel thanks her.

Alpha Trion is all set to set up a grand ceremony, but Optimus tells him to read the room and says there will be no celebrations until the city is rebuilt. He wonders to himself if he's deserving of this power and if he's just as culpable of starting this mess as Megatron is. He looks around and sees the company he's kept... and reassures himself that there's still goodness in the world, and the best they can do right now is pick up the pieces.

[barrendome]

the 2b2t survival guide

are you planning to play on 2b2t? have you been playing but can’t seem to get out of spawn? or have you been waiting 12 hours in queue to no avail?

in that case, have i got some stuff for you! heres a handy guide about how to actually play, and some tips to help along the way!

step one: preparing

you can just hop right in and go, but it is smart to know a bit beforehand.

know what you're getting into. the server has no rules to it, so you just have to expect a fuckton of disgusting shit, slurs, etc. just kinda accept that, and ignore it.

get a hacked client. sure, you can play on vanilla, but doing that will make your life harder. the best client to use is impact, but if you really need to you can download wurst instead.

make a plan. although this is optional, its smart to do. you can just wing it if you wanna, but it’s helpful to have a goal for what you wanna do in the server.

step two: queue

queue is basically inevitable, but there are a few things you can do to make the wait less painful!

decide if you want priority. priority queue is a godsend, it takes 30 min at MOST to join the server! but on the other hand, its 20 dollars per month. if you’re planning on playing for a long time and dedicating lots of time to playing? get priority. if you just wanna check the server out? don’t worry about buying it.

join when nobody else would. the best times i’ve found are near 1-3am, or on a weekday in early mornings. you’ll still have to wait hours, but not as long as you would otherwise.

pray for a server restart. when it restarts, turn on auto-reconnect (if you have that) or just keep on trying to connect. you’ll get onto the server extremely quick if you’re able to join right after a restart.

do something else. multitasking is the best way to wait. leave queue running in the background and check on it whenever you can, but fill your time with other stuff. i usually draw or watch videos when waiting!

step three: common sense

you gotta use normal common sense, but also server-unique common sense.

remember: there are no rules. people are going to kill you. people are going to grief you. people are going to say gross shit. the worst kinds of people are here on the server, you have to accept that.

what you build is gonna go. no matter how nice it looks, how far out it is, how tiny it is, whatever. its how 2b2t works. when you build, you have to remember that its going to get destroyed one day.

you aren’t safe. no matter how far away you are, or how nice that one person is. don’t get lulled into feeling secure, stay on edge. better safe than sorry.

enderchests are your friend. you’re definitely gonna die, several times, so keep any important things in your enderchest. for more space, put everything into shulker boxes and store the boxes in your enderchest. this is why silk touch pickaxes are something you’ll need: because your enderchest is the only safe place for your items.

signs are the best communication. carry a sign with you, and read all the signs you find. its not important, but its fun to read what people write, and its nice to make your own mark on the world with just a simple sign.

don’t trust anyone. or at least, be cautious of everyone. if you run into someone, expect deaths, and be cautious even if they give you stuff.

you aren’t special. oh, so you watched a bunch of fit videos and know everything about the server? no you don’t, shut up. you’re gonna spam things in chat and grief a bunch of builds to become a notable player? you’re gonna become a minor annoyance, shut up. you read this guide and now know how to become the best 2b2t player ever? my guide is shit, shut up.

everyone hates new players. don’t openly say you’re new. just stick to yourself for the first while of joining.

step four: chat

so you’ve joined, and you connect to see.. the constant spam of chat.

hide the chat. go into settings, and turn chat off. usually chat isn’t worth looking at, except for warning about server restarts. if you wanna keep chat on, just turn down the opacity.

use /ignore. theres bots constantly flooding the chat, so if you wanna keep chat on, spend time quickly ignoring all the bots.

don’t ask for help. you do not wanna let everybody know you’re new, and if you don’t get ignored, people will send gross shit or fake help instead.

if you have a question, ask google. like the point above, asking for help isn’t a good option. search stuff up on google or the 2b2t subreddit before asking chat. and try not to ask obvious questions either.

don’t get into arguments. don’t rile people up or argue, its kinda risky, and again some bad shit will get sent your way. its really not worth it. if you get angry at some gross shit people are saying, just /ignore them, because fighting them will make you just a laughing stock.

step five: escaping spawn

i know what you’re thinking, “tumblr user barrendome! stop rambling and just tell me how to actually PLAY now!”, and yeah yeah, okay, i will.

turn your hacks on. what i’d suggest is turning on storage esp, player esp/tracers, search (search for blocks like melons, crops, wood, etc), and things like that. also keep xray and freecam ready, and make sure you set keybinds for those.

collect, store, die, repeat. i never did this, but my boyfriend did, and it worked incredibly well. he would collect as many resources as he could, store them in an enderchest whenever he saw one, and then either die of hunger or something else. he’d repeat this process until he had enough stuff in his enderchest to get him out of spawn.

save your hunger bar. try not to run, and try not to jump. its hard, but its important. most deaths are from hunger in the first while of playing, so just try not to get hungry. for this exact reason, the main thing you’re looking for is food.

don’t go into the nether right away. spawn nether is impossible to get out of, so travel on the overworld for about 2000 blocks, and then its safe(ish) to go into the nether.

20000 blocks is the safer zone, but its still spawn territory. outside of 50000 blocks is when id consider making a base if you really need to, but try to go much farther if you can. 

step six: just outside of spawn

so you’re out of the major spawn area... now what?

find food, farm food. get as much food as you can, thats the most important thing to do at this moment. make sure you have as much food as you could need, and store some in your enderchest.

make a temporary base. you can make a small house, a hole, or even just a dirt hut. just make sure you have a place to store all your extra stuff, and a place to stay for now. (sidenote, don’t put a nether portal right beside your house.)

find a bed. later on, beds aren’t a big deal, but at first they definitely are. try to find or make a bed, and set your spawn somewhere. i’d suggest hiding the bed somewhere near your temporary base, but don’t make it visible.

get geared up. use your xray and get some diamonds, look through dungeons for enchanted books, make yourself tools, etc. its best to get what you need now that you’re out of spawn.

go fishing. you can get food, enchanted books, xp, etc. going fishing is actually super useful. the autofish hack is your friend right now. but don’t go afk when fishing, you can get kicked for it.

remember the nether highway myth. if you have almost nothing, and are travelling on the nether highways, there’s a good chance a high-level player could stumble upon you, take pity, and give you stuff. remember not to trust anyone right away, they could still end up killing you. but there is still a chance that being on the highways could get you everything youd ever need. again, though, make sure to put everything in your enderchest!

step seven: planning and playing.

im ready! ..what do i do now?

make a goal if you haven’t already. if you wanna be a nomad? plan where you’re gonna wander. if you’re gonna make a huge base? plan where to build it and go out there. if you’re gonna go visit monuments? figure out which ones and their coordinates, and start walking. gonna join a group? figure out which one would be safe and fun to join, and try to get in.

get as far from spawn as possible. unless you wanna stay near spawn, try and get 100,000 blocks away or further. and if you really wanna keep a base intact, don’t stay near any of the major highways.

have fun! as rough this server can be to play on, theres a lot of cool stuff you can find, and its important to find joy in the chaos.

and that’s all for now!

i may have forgotten things, so feel free to send me anything i missed! but i hope that everything i was able to write down will be enough to help anybody that wants to join 2b2t.org, the oldest anarchy server on minecraft!

[themockingcrows]

Companionship Through Circuitry ch. 6: Setbacks

Bro/Hal cw: blood, violence, deathclaws, and a generally bad day in the wasteland

Journeys are never without their inherent dangers. When you're living in the wasteland, it's to be expected. Doesn't make them suck any less, though.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20942408/chapters/64071430

     I spy with my little eye-

     “Hal, pick a new game already.”

     I can assure you this is the best game to play out here.

     “Fine,” Bro said, exhausted. They’d been traveling for days on the remains of the highway by now and there was no sign of a proper township. He smelled, his back and legs hurt, and despite having plenty of food water was always a precious commodity. He also had at least four letters to send by now, including a few sketches and schematics he’d designed after toying with the Furby body some more, in case Dave wanted to get his hands on a little guardian bot of his own. The kid was smart, even he’d be able to handle basic scripting to make a functional system for it. Surely someone else he was buddies with could figure out an AI of sorts for it, too. 

     True, it would have been easier to follow another path by now, but following the main point of the highway just seemed the best, most direct route for him. Who’s to say it was brahmin who made the trodden paths that led further into the wastes, or humans? What if it was mutants, or worse, deathclaws stalking the wastelands? Scuttling parties of mole rats or vicious dogs.

     Would you like to know what I spy or not, Bro.

     “I don’t want to know, but I’ve got a feelin’ you’re gonna tell me anyway aren’t you.”

     Correct! I’ll give you a few hints.

     Bro groaned in irritation.

     “A bloatfly,” he guessed off the bat.

     No, though it is annoying.

     “As annoyin’ as you? Why isn’t there a fuckin’ mute option on these shades..”

     Your second hint is that it’s bipedal.

     That perked him up somewhat. Bro scanned the horizon further off for signs of a city or outpost, a wanderer, a courier. Anyone. Instead what he saw was the lanky, sharply pointed edges of a juvenile deathclaw. A definite pain in the ass, but nothing he couldn’t handle.

     “...And how long have we been in deathclaw territory for, Hal?”

     Uncertain, my saved map mentions shopping centers, not deathclaws.

     “Ooh, shopping centers?” he said. “Put a peg in it, if we find somewhere to trade soon we might do a run back to grab some more supplies for trade and keepin’.”

     The deathclaw is still nearby, you know.

     “I can avoid it if I want,” Bro said, taking out his sword. A juvenile would take some fast work, but he knew he was good for dispatching the monstrosities, and people paid good money for their clawed hands, even the small ones. Hell, even he wanted some bits off of one sometime, though mostly for show. How sick would a deathclaw fang necklace be, after all?

     You appear to be approaching the small one instead of fleeing.

     “Watch and learn, Hal,” Bro said as he shifted his weight and began to run. Aching feet or not, his boots cut into the crisp cooked layer of topsoil and sank ever so slightly with each step. The deathclaw noticed him and turned, beginning to awkwardly run towards him, long limbs ungainly but just as deadly as an adult. They met in the middle, Bro’s sword singing off the armored hide of the creature’s forearms, taking a chunk with it as he went. The deathclaw lunged for his middle with a shrill noise, catching a chunk of shirt on the end of one of its spiky hands, but just missing his tender vitals. He turned, and used the momentum to slice at the space where its behorned head connected to its body, the sword sliding against softer skin. Staggered, the small deathclaw stepped forward, then tottered back unsteadily as it began to bleed out.

     Bro lifted a foot and kicked the creature backwards to its spiny back, then followed with the sword to spear its chest, cranking the blade to the side once it glanced off a rib, forcing downwards till it stopped moving. Planting his boot on its chest, he yanked his sword free and swung it in the air a few times to rid it of blood, and smirked. Fuck, that felt good. Nothing like taking out a little nightmare to give a nice rush of adrenaline and dopamine. Hell, he wouldn’t even say no to a smoke or a drink right now, ride that high long as he could.

     Excellent, now how do you intend to deal with the mother?

     “Mother?” Bro asked, about a half second before he felt something plow into him like a freight train, sending him flying and pain searing through his right shoulder blade. He landed flat on his face and skidded before rolling over, hand on his sword raising it defensively and other hand reaching for his gun.

     Shit. Shit, shit, this was definitely a mother death claw, the hide was darker than usual. He must’ve just killed one of her brood. Not a good look for someone not interested in dying in the middle of nowhere. He fired a quick two shots, missing the first and nailing her in the left eye  with the second, though it only seemed to make her more enraged after a brief second of shaking her head. She raised a hand and slashed downwards where Bro was scooting backwards, forcing him to block with a weakened grip before the second slash sang home across his chest, blood spurting where her claws shredded flesh and fabric alike. One of the straps of Bro’s bags was severed, leaving him half dragging it as he continued to try crawling backwards, firing till his clip was empty.

     Hal was urgently trying to tell him something, but Bro couldn’t hear anymore, couldn’t think, could only focus on the burning in his chest and the taste of copper in his mouth. Things were flashing through his mind as he stared down the deathclaw, who was raising both of her hands for a double slash that he wouldn’t be able to block in the slightest. Things he still wanted to do, to say. Memories.

     Dave the day he left home to travel to the city, bag on his back and barely a look back as he wove past the traps. Dave as a lanky tween, perched by his side on the counter top as he cooked an omelette for them both, telling him a joke that he still didn’t think was funny but that he’d laughed at anyway. Dave at five, sitting on his lap as he fiddled with a new project that would eventually become a birthday present game for him, looking up at him with big red eyes almost full of tears when he refused to tell him what he was working on.

     Dave, still struggling to put weight on as an infant as Bro kept him warm on the sofa through a bout of fever, trying to coax him into eating just a bit more from the bottle, wondering if he should make the trek to find a doctor or keep hunkering down and hoping it would work itself out. Being scared out of his fucking mind about this tiny, sick thing in his arms and on his chest, worried he’d break if he moved wrong.

     This wasn’t fear he felt. It was acceptance. Dave being sick or hurt was fear, even when he’d been the one to hurt him in the preparations he’d run repeatedly over the years. A deathclaw? This was his just rewards for being cocky without backup. He wanted to have time to apologize to Dave, like he always really meant to.

     He wanted to apologize to Hal, too, for not managing to take him to get his body. For getting his hopes up about Dirk and then dying with him in the middle of nowhere. Maybe the shades would get crushed by the deathclaw after he died, spare him much misery. They’d both just go out like a candle in the breeze and nobody would be any the wiser.

     A shot rang out, and blood spurted from the side of the deathclaw’s head. She staggered, stomping her sharp feet on his abdomen and legs as she adjusted her balance and snarled in alarm at the new threat. More shots, each one more precise than the last, till finally one hit the same eye he’d shot earlier, and the beast went down on top of him. Though his ears were still ringing, Bro could feel his pulse slowing down and everything going darker as the feeling of faintness took over.

     Bro. Bro!

     “Sorry, Dave,” he mumbled, blood on his lips and eyes unfocusing as red eyes stared at him. No, wait, not Dave. “Hal..”

     AMBROSE.

     The last thing Bro was aware of was a high pitched repeated beeping pattern ringing out from the shades on his face, a signal he knew so well. Anyone out here could recognize SOS when they heard it, but Bro couldn’t care anymore who did hear it.

     Darkness claimed him.

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     “...p. See? I think he’s waking up! Jake, push more fluids!”

     “I’m going as fast as I can, don’t you think he’d bl-........”

     “...ver if we don’t. Sometimes you have to do dangerous things in a time of crisis, just pu-...”

     “...rry chap, we’re doing our best. Why were you playing with a deathclaw mot-...”

     “...’s going under again, God damn it why don’t we have more gauze!”

     “...aid last time we wouldn’t need that many, let me check his ba-...”

     “....tting sick, stupid coat, ugh! Hand me a clo-...”

     “...ehozaphat he’s rolling in meds and chems! Lookit all this, it’s a kings ran-...”

     “...ab whatever you can, inject him with at least two, and hand the alcohol to me so I ca-...”

     “...nk he’ll make it? He’s in an awful way, Jade. We’re still at least a few miles out fro-...”

     “...re he’ll make it, we just need to hur-...”

     ...ve him. Please. Pulse is falling at an alarming ra-...

     “...re trying our best, believe me, it’s up to him if we ca-...”

     ...n’t lose him to-...

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

     When Ambrose woke, it was to clean sheets and a bright light coming from a window. He reached up to touch his face and panicked to realize the shades weren’t on him any longer, looking around as he tried to sit stark upright to look around. Tried being the correct term, considering when he got a few inches upright his abdomen and chest sang with burning pain and forced him to lay back on an aching shoulder. Sighing an exhale, Bro took the room and himself into account.

     The room itself looked to be a standard medical setup for a scap town, shelves of supplies and a few more beds shoved into the same room with him, a shabby gray curtain sectioning the space off from another area. He was laying on a cot with the aforementioned clean sheets, which were a hell of a commodity, and wrapped what felt like head to toe in bandages. His chest had padding underneath that seemed fresh enough, as well as his abdomen, and another bandage seemed to be wrapping his shoulder. His forearms had bandages, a shift of his legs revealed smaller areas of wrappings and-

     Bro snatched the sheets and lifted them upwards, looking down towards his groin in worry. Okay. Phew. Dick still there and in one piece, no need to panic. Thank fuck.

     Were you honestly more concerned for your dick than me? Came a voice from the top of the shelves, arms folded in and tucked at an angle to not get damaged or in the way.

     “To be fair, I’ve been attached to my dick longer than you,” Bro said, giving another try at this standing thing and getting as far as sitting upright before he had to stop, dizzy. He was also connected to an IV he realized, two bags half drained already and the tether attached to his arm carefully with another bandage and some tape to keep it from moving. One of the bags was unmistakably blood. “Where’s my stuff.”

     I’m fine, thank you for asking. I can really tell you were concerned for my safety after being nearly disemboweled. I can also tell you’re just dying to know how you went about not dying.

     “My stuff, Hal.”

     In the other room, safe and fucking sound.

     “Thank you. Gimme a second and I’ll come get you,” Bro said, running a hand through his hair. He realized with surprise that it was clean instead of gritty with sand and dust and blood, freshly washed like the rest of him. Someone had taken care to wash him thoroughly it seemed. Hell, even his fingernails were spotless. Shocking. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d been this squeaky clean, it was almost a shame he didn’t remember it. “How long have I been out?”

     Almost a week.

     “Jesus,” Bro rasped as he finally stood up on shaky fawn legs, reaching for the IV stand for balance before making his way over to the shelf, naked as the day he was born save for the bandages. He groped for the shades hurriedly when he started feeling faint again, and had just grabbed them when the curtain pulled back.

     A tall girl with dark skin, shocking green eyes and long wild hair tied back into evenly sectioned ponytails stood owl eyed behind large round glasses with a single crack in the left lens, a stethoscope around her neck and familiar leftover military gear covering her from head to toe. She frowned, and immediately rushed forward to grab Bro by the elbow and middle of his back, steering him back to bed.

     “How long have you been awake!” she asked. “Why didn’t you wait till someone came to help you? Are you in pain? Do you need any water? Food?”

     “Few minutes,” Bro said, more than a little startled. He sat and covered himself soon as he could, but the young woman didn’t back off in the slightest, swooping close to shine a pocket light in his eyes, checking his pupils.

     “Has there been any bleeding? Any night terrors? Do you have any numbness or weaknesses?”

     “I feel like shit, but otherwise,” Bro said, grimacing and jerking his head back from her grasp as she turned the light off.

     “I’ll get Jake to bring some lunch in for you, I’m glad you’re not running on glucose anymore. Actually, I’m glad you’re running at all,” she said with a grin. Her canines were strangely sharp looking. “My name is Jade Harley, and I’m half of the reason you’re alive right now.”

     “Is the chap who tried to cuddle the wrong end of a mother deathclaw awake yet?” asked another voice from beyond the open curtain.

     “He is! Get some of those mirelurk cakes and mac and cheese, please?”

     “I’ll bring some of that slackjaw jerky too, I imagine he’s half starved for real food,” said the male out of sight, before Bro heard distant sounds of dishes and metal scraping metal.

     “...So what, you a doctor?” he guessed.

     “We both are, in our own right. My cousin, Jake English, is the one who spotted you first out there. The primary reason you’re alive, however, is because we’re both sharpshooters! There wouldn’t have been much left to save if we hadn’t pegged that bitch into the dirt,” she said enthusiastically.

     Bro’s lip twitched in amusement. This person couldn’t have been older than her early twenties, but she was a doctor? And a sharpshooter?

     “So who really saved me?”

     Jade’s smile sharpened somewhat, looking predatory. “I don’t think I’d tease like that when you’re still so weak. All it’d take is a cushion to take you out right now, I bet.”

     “Sorry, just. You’re so young…” he trailed off as another figure entered the room with a dinner tray. This person didn’t look much older than Jade if he was a day, face clean shaven and hair styled but messy, standing at about the same height. He looked much more solid, though, shoulders broad and chest straining a little at the fatigues shirt he wore, and his demeanor seemed much sweeter than his cousin at first glance. More innocent somehow, or somehow less aware of the intensity of their surroundings.

     “Here you are, I’ll get some juice for you as well in a few ticks. First time I’m seeing this much of your outside as opposed to your inside since we got you scrubbed down!” he laughed, setting the tray on Bro’s lap. The food smelled fresh and was warm on his thighs beneath the sheet, mirelurk cakes looking greasy and delicious, mac and cheese that smelled plenty creamy from the box, and some kind of soft looking jerky rubbed with spices that made his mouth water as much as the fresh stuff before him

     “Try to eat slow,” Jade warned him as Jake trotted back out of view for a moment and came back with juice as promised. “Hope apple’s okay! It’s what we’ve got.”

     “Apple’s fine,” Bro promised, tucking into the mac and cheese first, eyes closing in bliss. Salty, creamy, rich. He could feel it flooding his system already, a body starved for nutrients beyond the bare minimum of functioning and safety. Once he shoveled a second bite into his mouth, he slid the shades onto his face and grinned a bit when haughty red eyes looked at him. Hal was clearly annoyed, angry even, but those eyes were full of concern too.

     “We’ve got tea too, though not everyone enjoys what we brew,” Jake chuckled.

     “Their loss, it’s delicious,” said Jade with a shake of her head.

     Scans show temperature readings as normal. Pulse normal. Pupils overly reactive to light, but not abnormal.

     “I hope he didn’t talk your leg off,” Bro said. “He’s kind of annoyin’.”

     You have terminal stupidity, I propose an immediate lobotomy to put you out of my misery.

     “Will you knock it off for ten seconds and let me eat before rippin’ me a new one?”

     It’s true. The doctor said so. You’re just stupid.

     “You were snuck up on by a creature twice your size in the wasteland,” Jade pointed out with a smirk. “Though I’m glad Hal’s giving you a positive reading. He was quite useful while we were saving you.”

     “How much did he talk,” Bro wondered aloud.

     “A bit,” she admitted. “We discussed why you were traveling, though he wasn’t that talkative about details. He let us know about Dave when you kept saying his name, in case you didn’t make it. He wanted us to be sure to let him know, and to send your other letters.”

     “You’re a long way from home,” Jake chimed in, taking a seat on the nearest bed to talk while Bro shook his head and went back to eating. “But it’s all fine now. Er.. mostly.”

     “How much do I owe you,” Bro said almost immediately, breaking a mirelurk cake in half with his fork before stuffing it into his mouth. He’d worry about manners when he wasn’t sitting in a room with two strangers who’d apparently saved his life and seen him in more detail naked than anyone else had in years.

     “We’ll figure out caps in a little bit,” Jade said. “You’re going to need to stay here a while longer either way, and we had to use a lot of your medical supplies.”

     “Helped ourselves to a little bit of your food as well, but mostly it was the chems and supplies we needed at the moment. Lucky for us you were damn near carrying a medics inventory on your back!”

     “Yeah, I just got through a vault,” Bro said. “Place hadn’t been looted yet till I got there.”

     “A vault!” Jake interjected excitedly. “Was it like they say, all sterile and eerily perfect?”

     “It was full of the people who used to live there, and they weren’t human anymore,” Bro said simply.

     It was quite a show to see that many feral ghouls get put down in one go.

     “Oh, that doesn’t sound very dapper.”

     “Vaults rarely are. They’re either fulla deadly shit, full of a shit load’a nothin’, or fulla people who don’t want you to bother them because you’re all gross from bein’ outside and they know you just want the goodies they’ve got.”

     “My grandpa was from a vault,” Jade said with a grin. “He’s the one who raised both of us, taught us everything we know.”

     They traded conversation for a time while Bro continued to eat, though it waned when he finished and looked exhausted, surprised that the very act of eating took so much energy out of him. Jake took the tray away and Jade performed a followup examination as Bro settled back tiredly on the pillows. Before she left, he requested his belongings, or what was left of them.

     He had an important letter to write.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Bro’s head ached sickly by the time he finished writing the letter, nearly as much as his heart, and his eyes were wet. He didn’t dare to rub at them, nor to even draaw attention to them, but the fact he’d cried while pouring his fucking soul out onto the page wasn’t something he’d admit to anyone. Hal, bless him, remained quiet aside from occasionally offering a correction on a phrase to make it sound better. At first Bro had resented the dictation, but found the changes in wording to be a positive thing, eliminating double meanings. What he ended up with was the letter he’d envisioned sending Dave when the deathclaw was about to do the killing strike, and the fewer mistakes and misunderstandings that could arise from it was for the better.

     It took another few days of resting, eating, and conversing with the doctors before Bro was strong enough to go for walks around the town. First thing was first: he paid express for his letter bundle to be sent to Dave along with some money, the most recently written one marked URGENT in bright red stamped letters. Secondly, he got himself a cola and drank the entire thing in one go. The doctors had been kind enough to spot him some clothes, since his shirt was ruined and his pants were scrapped in the moment by bloodshed and emergency bandage use on top of their general wear and tear. The down side was he hated fatigues… but hey, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

     He was settled with another soda at the little bar and grill early one morning, having shared breakfast with Jade and Jake once more (his own recipe this time, which only Jake seemed enthusiastic about once they’d tasted the product), but wanting to just sit outside and enjoy the early morning before the sun really got going on cooking everything in the wasteland to death. Hal was quiet, watching as well he presumed based on the little target viewers moving around every time someone moved.

     What do you plan to do if you don’t get a reply?

     “Keep goin’,” he said with a shrug, taking a sip. “I’m not expecting a reply to any of my letters, but he knows which way we’re headed if he wants to write back. Kid knows how to use a map of settlements to send ahead of the curb if he wants to.”

     ...I was worried I lost you too, back there. But you’ve never once apologized to me yet.

     “Apologized for what?”

     For nearly making me watch someone I care about die. At least the first one had the decency to not die while wearinng me on his fucking face.

     Bro was pensive and stretched his long legs out from his seat before tipping it back on its hind legs, balancing in place as he took another sip.

     “I promise I won’t die while wearin’ you, then.”

     You f-

     “I wouldn’t wanna hurt you at all.”

     … That is acceptable I guess.

[littlekatleaf]

Buried in a burning flame is love and its decisive flame (part 6)

Part One    Part Two     Part Three      Part Four    Part Five

Something was buzzing right in his ear. Almost like a chainsaw but not quite. On the other side, hair tickled his cheek. What dragged him back to full awareness, though, was the flayed feeling of being watched. Junkrat shifted and opened his eyes. The room was empty, but a door clicked shut down the hall. Waking up sandwiched between two people was odd. More so that neither was Roadhog. Most odd, though, was how comfortable he felt. Despite the congestion and headache, his body was relaxed, warm. Sleep had been dreamless and deep. Untangled himself from the blanket, from Hana and Lucio’s arms, carefully so he didn’t wake them. 

Least the floor felt solid under him again. Maybe getting better. Step-tapped down the hall, listening to see who might be awake in the not-yet dawn. Nothing from Mei and Satya’s room or Lena and Emily. Also silence from his own room, which could only mean Roadhog was awake. Otherwise the snoring’d be enough to deafen. He stood in front of the closed door for a long minute. Knock? Just go in? That idea felt weird. Wished it didn’t - didn’t used to. What had changed? Maybe should go back to the couch and pretend like everything was fine. Would be easiest - he considered it with longing. Now that he’d been up a minute realized was still a little dizzy. Unfortunately, though Hana and Lucio were cozy he didn’t want to give them whatever plague he had. 

Raised a hand to knock. Hesitated. Maybe Roadie’d just got up for the bathroom. No reason to interrupt him, demanding an explanation for something he hadn’t done. Dropped his hand. Stepped back. 

He turned and detoured to the kitchen - maybe another drink’d knock him out. Give Roadhog enough time to fall asleep too; then he could crash in the cot with no one the wiser. He’d just put the kettle on to boil when the house sat comm beeped. 

Jumped to reach it before the sound woke someone. “Yeah?”

“Fawkes - it’s Morrison.” As if it’d be anyone else on the other end of the comm at the ass crack of dawn on Christmas. 

“Hey old man.” Serve him right, callin’ him Fawkes. Ain’t no one called him that.

The disapproval practically radiated from the link through the silence, then “Where’s Lena?”

“Still sleepin’, her ‘n everyone else. Ain’t even daybreak here, mate.”

Another heavy silence. Wondered whether Morrison’d call him out for insubordination. Or at least being annoying. Grinned as Morrison contented himself with a deep sigh. “There’s been further intel. Null Sector was sent to retrieve a device that was supposed to be under guard in the settlement attacked yesterday morning. Our source says they weren’t successful. It’s unclear whether the device was left behind or taken when the settlement was vacated. We need to send in a recon team to ascertain whether the device is still in play.” 

Junkrat considered asking whether he remembered it was a holiday, but figured he did. Maybe it was just another day for Morrison, too. “Suppose this needs to happen asap, yeah?”

“If we don’t get in there, they will. I hope I don’t need to explain how problematic that would be.”

“Nah. Got it.”

“I’m sending schematics. Have Lena look them over before she goes, then delete. Can’t have anyone else getting hold of them. And tell her to report immediately upon her return.”

“Always does, don’t she?” For all her tendency to lighthearted fun, Lena was conscientious and responsible and it grated to think Morrison didn’t recognize that.

Course Morrison didn’t bother to respond, just cut the connection.

“Dipstick,” Junkrat muttered. The question was, what to do now? Not a question, really. Wake Tracer, interrupt her holiday, and give her Morrison’s assignment. After all, who else could do it? The whispered tone was sly. Had a point though - why did Lena need to have her holiday morning interrupted for a simple recon mission? Seemed like something one person could do alone. Why drag anyone else out into the cold. Oh Jamison. You think you could be trusted with this? Laughter scraped his thoughts. He scowled. Course - why else would Morrison tell me. A small, considering hum. Perhaps… a chance to prove yourself somewhat useful. Yes; exactly. He’d take care of it - be back before anyone else got up. Prove it wasn’t just Roadhog they needed. 

The kettle whistled shrill and he startled, yanked it off the burner. Fortunately still heard Hana snoring from the living room. Dumped boiling water over two teabags, Roadie’s opinion be damned. No time for ‘real’ tea. Needed to get moving before someone caught him. He checked the files Morrison had sent - straightforward enough. A small case, with something inside that looked very much like a bomb - one big enough to take out several city blocks. He memorized the look of the case, the details of the bomb - tried not to imagine what the explosion would look like… would feel like. Then deleted the files. Gonna do what he was supposed to this time. Gonna follow orders. Not gonna take the device for himself and disappear. Not this time.

Are you quite certain you are capable? The illness, the fever… you are likely not up to it. Perhaps you should wake Tracer. He clenched his jaw. ‘M fine. Can do this on me own; told the voice. Told himself. Not weak. Not pathetic. Almost like his own body rebelled his decision, a sudden urge to sneeze had him scrambling to keep from spilling his tea as he stifled the fit. Just a cold. She’ll be right.

In case, though… in case he wasn’t capable…and maybe to see… see whether it was the money, the treasure…  Junkrat found a piece of paper and scribbled a handful of words and a set of coordinates. Not the words he really needed to say, but the question he needed answered. In case, and to see. He slipped the paper under Roadhog’s door - usual snoring now - and headed out. Be back before anyone realized he was gone - but if not, the note would tell Roadhog what he’d need to know.

Night was cold - though supposed that went without sayin’. Always cold, here. Not sure he was gonna ever get warm. Be a bit of a hike, without the ute… but didn’t want to risk disturbing Lena to get the keys. Didn’t mind a walk now and then. The tea was still warm, the caffeine lending him a measure of energy. Somehow, his body felt a little floaty. Make the walk easier, maybe. The snow had stopped, sky gone clear and dotted with stars that shimmered like diamonds scattered on deep indigo velvet. The moon was high and full, reflecting light over the snow covered fire road.

Junkrat walked, following the tire tracks from earlier in the day, just barely visible. Good thing, too - not sure he’d remember the way otherwise. His breath puffed clouds. The depth of the quiet was unexpected - birds still sleeping, too cold for crickets. Snow creaked under his steps, ice-covered tree branches snapped. Then, somewhere in the mountains above the high, mournful cry of a coyote. Raised the hair at his nape, a chill of goose flesh over his arms. An answering yip, off to his right. Another farther ahead. Hunting. Wondered who was prey? Another howl, then a high scream, and more barking howls. The pack had caught something, likely a rabbit,  and the sounds made him shiver. Rubbed a hand over his forehead, kept walking as the sun rose over the mountains.

As he drew closer to the settlement even through the congestion, he caught the lingering scent of explosives, of charred metal and burned wood. Fortunately, still seemed just as deserted as it had before. Bots no more than twists of metal and scrap. Listened carefully for any signs of life, of movement but there was nothing. A breeze kicked up, rustling tree branches and sending skirls of snow swirling around his foot. He shivered suddenly, coughed. Right. Check the cabins fast, in and out and no meandering. 

Former inhabitants must’ve cleared out in a hurry - one of the cabins had the remnants of an unfinished meal scattered over the table. A spilled mug, puddle of coffee frozen. Stove unlit, the place was no warmer than outside. Clothes, books, toiletries all left behind. First cabin clear - no case. Second and third cabins much the same. Was downright eerie. 

Junkrat was entering the last cabin when he caught the unmistakable crunch of footsteps from somewhere behind the building. His heart tripped, double-timed. Fuck. No chance it was any of the Overwatch crew - they’d have taken the ute and hadn’t heard it. Not bots, either, steps too light and quick for a mech. Looked around the cabin - hide or fight? Hadn’t brought much in the way of weapons. Couple of grenades and that was it. Perhaps you didn’t think this one through, yes? What will you do now, with no bodyguard to protect you?

Junkrat pushed the thoughts away. Fuck that. He’d lived most of his life on his own. Didn’t need Roadie. Exactly. He’d figure this out. The cabin was all one room, not offering much in the way of hiding places. Under the bed would only be a trap. Maybe if he closed the door quick and quiet the lock would hold… Was just about to do so when a small black case caught his eye. Someone had shoved it under the bed, but not far enough. The case or the door? 

Kicked the case farther into the darkness under the bed and lurched for the door as a shadow fell across the entrance. Click of bootheel on the threshold. A sense of foreboding washed over him like nausea. Junkrat squinted in the dim light of dawn and the figure lifted her head, revealing a shock of red hair and suddenly his entire body went numb.

“Well, well, well. Jamison Fawkes.” Her face was still in shadows but he knew that voice, the Irish lilt. Hearing it outside his head made the world tilt and he almost staggered. “There were rumors that Overwatch had taken in a Hog and its pet Rat.” She glanced around the room, as though Roadhog might be hiding somewhere. “You’ve come alone?” Her tone was one of delight. 

“Ain’t alone. Me body guard’s just in the other cabin.” Lies came easily, and though his voice was hoarse, it was steady. He lifted his chin. “An’ I ain’t a kid no more, neither.”

“It has been some time. Indeed, you are no longer a child.” Felt her gaze taking in every inch of his body. A shiver he couldn’t suppress climbed up the back of his neck. She stepped toward him and he resisted the urge to move back. She reached out and placed her right hand on his chest. Her fingers were like white spider legs, and her nails were dagger sharp and still painted purple. His heart stuttered under her palm. “You feel hot - are you ill?” 

“Just your hands are cold,” he tried, but even as he said it, he knew he was going to sneeze. Fucking always. He ducked away from her as his body convulsed.  “AhRissshah!  Issh! HaRiiissh-uh!”

As he tried to catch his breath, she backed away from him. Didn’t realize she was moving toward the bed until it was too late. She leaned down and with one swift motion pulled the case free. “Overwatch should have sent someone else. Not a boy...weak…  ill.” Her teeth flashed in a grin. “I would love to stay, to see how you have been after all this time, but I must deliver this. Perhaps I will return, and perhaps you will still be here.” 

Knew he should run, but he had no energy left. Reached into his pocket for a grenade instead- maybe it’d take him out, but she wouldn’t have the bomb. Could see exactly how a real explosion felt. He yanked free the explosive, she raised her right hand and a stream of purple and gold energy flew from her palm. Everything went white, then black.  

[thanksjro]

Eugenesis, Part Six Scene Four: Xenon Info-Dumps For Five-And-A-Half Pages

Alright, back to bullshit.

Galvatron is being a rude little turd to Xenon, calling his robot collection old and dusty, but Xenon’s too wrapped up in the Quintesson/Cybertronian lore to be bothered. Ultra Magnus just wants to know what the fuck he’s done with the Matrix.

You heard the man, out with it.

So, back when the Quintessons first started out, they were known as the Progenitors- yeah, I know- a quasi-organic race who went from caveman-level intelligence to full-blown hard sci-fi sons of guns at an incredibly rapid rate.  

Problem is, they didn’t get any further than that. They tried, sure. They tried real hard, for millions of years. Then, once their inspiration had run out, they started looking to other races to try and figure something out.

This just in, god is dead and James Roberts killed him by turning him into a glorified OS.

So, P.R.I.M.U.S. is encoded onto these geodes, and they become sentient. Sometimes they think they’re god.

Just like everyone else in this story.

Now that the Quintessons knew about these little god-doodads, they wanted one for themselves, to try and reverse-engineer the secret to immortality. They hired some guys called the Weavers to nab one for them.

This is some serious nerd shit, y’all. Galvatron agrees with me- he’s never even heard of any of the things Xenon’s droning on about. Neither have I- this is all Roberts at this point.

The Weavers brought back two geodes to the Quintessons, who promptly hid them away until the Masters cooled off a bit, since they were a little miffed about the thievery and whatnot. Then they noticed a couple problems: A) the geodes were encrypted to the moon and back, and B) if you so much as looked at the thing wrong it would purge the Lifecode completely.

Didn’t Optimus throw this thing at Unicron a couple times? Maybe the geode just doesn’t like you, Xenon, ever thought of that?

In order to decode the geodes, the Quintessons needed massive computers. Y’know, like God. But before they could really get a head start on that, the Masters’ nanobot enforcers showed up, blocking out the sky like a giant swarm of angry wasps. They wrecked shopped on Quintyxia- the old one, not the new one- and the Quintessons ran for it. They headed for the planet where they’d buried the other geode, but something went wrong with their hyperspace drive, and they didn’t arrive until two million years after they’d set off.

They dug for the geode, hit something metal, and that’s when the quakes started. The Quintessons left, thinking the planet was unstable.

At this point, Magnus is begging Xenon to just get on with it.

The Quintessons headed back to Quintyxia, to find that their lush, green world had been turned into one made of metal. Cybertron. Quintyxia is Cybertron. New Quintyxia is Quintyxia. It’s like that time Prince named himself the Artist Formerly Known As Prince.

Of course that leaves the question of why the nanobots didn’t just destroy the planet instead of… doing whatever they did to make Cybertron Cybertron.

So, Cybertron is a planet-sized computer, tasked with the sole purpose of decoding the meaning of life.

You know, I remember reading somewhere- and don’t quote me on this, because I can’t for the life of me remember where exactly- that Roberts has never read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Now, either he’s lying- which I don’t know why he would, the guy loves references- or this is just a weird thing the collective brain of the English population does, where they all jump to the same ideas in absurdist sci-fi.

When the Quintessons showed up on Cybertron, they were met with the results of the cracked Lifecode- the first Transformers (but they couldn’t transform, that was a thing that developed alongside the war.) They couldn’t do much of anything, really.

Well, now we know where the protoform babies in IDW come from.

The Quintessons, not ones to squander an opportunity, decide to use these fragile, helpless proto-beings as slaves.

Yeah, the Quintessons have kind of been the worst since day one.

They build brain modules, stick them in the ground- Seedlings, Xenon calls them- and watch as the planet wrapped living metal around them and built bodies.  

The Quintessons get pretty good at making the Auto-Bots, and get to a point where they’re drafting up blueprints for each solitary one. Blueprints that Xenon apparently kept, since he’s got all these copies in the pods right now.

If you couldn’t tell already, we’re going with the “the Quintessons made the Transformers” creation myth.

Of course, you make a big enough species, they’re going to need some corralling- that is, if you want to be an awful, controlling, overbearing parent. And the Quintessons definitely wanted that. So, what’s one to do?

…Look, it’s not that I necessarily disagree on a base level, but-

Xenon, you fucking neckbeard.

Because the Quintessons forgot that religion is not a one-set-outcome game, they were surprised to find that it had given their creations hope and will, things you really don’t want your enslaved masses to have.

The Covenant drove off the Quintessons, then fucked off into deep space to spread the message of Primus, with Maximo at the head of things. Maximo was the leader of the Cybertronian Empire and Megatron’s progenitor in the Marvel UK comics. They did leave someone behind to keep the masses within the faith- Primon. He’s important in the comics, just trust me on that.

Oh man, we’re finally getting some answers.

Xenon admits that the Quintessons didn’t come up with everything; there were parts that they just straight-up ripped out of the geode’s owner’s manual.

Oh. Well. That’s… underwhelming. Xenon’s really just dumping the entirety of the Cybertronian religion into the trash at this point, isn’t he? This info-dump has been going on for five pages, and we still aren’t done.

Turns out that kill switch code was pulled from the geode too- 4/11.002983712 is its serial number. That’s like if you called your dad by his first name and then immediately died afterwords.

But whatever happened to that second geode the Quintessons buried on the other planet?

Yeah, that turned into Unicron.

Turns out the virus that wipes the Lifecode from the geode messed up, and made the geode want to kill literally everything in the universe just for being alive.  

Well, isn’t that all just fine and dandy~!

Because the Quintessons didn’t realize what Unicron’s whole deal was at first- the vore-planet had learned how to lie at some point before they met up- they worked together for a time.

At this point the Quintessons had gone from being quasi-organic to something more cybernetically-dependent, so that might have also made things a little difficult in the baby-making department. Or not. I don’t fucking know, things are just happening at this point.

MOTHERFUCKER DO YOU KNOW WHAT BOOK YOU’RE IN

THERE WILL BE NO HAPPY ANYTHING

Storytime’s over, back to the present day. Xenon’s going to take these podded robots and populate New Quintyxia with them. They won’t fight, they’ll be actual, normal people who don’t wage war.

Xenon must have gotten some new glasses, because that’s one hell of a rose-tinted worldview he’s got there.

Ultra Magnus at this point just asks for the Matrix back so they can go home. Xenon says “nah, but check this out tho” and powers on the pod-bots.

Xenon, that’s gross. Don’t make Galvatron and Magnus watch you be weird with the power of granting life, man.

All the robots wake up, stand, and stare up at Xenon, who’s floated up to the ceiling on his power trip. They… aren’t supposed to do that.

Turns out the Matrix is a friggin’ liar, and only promised power because it’s actually Unicron in there. Well, damn.

Galvatron shoots Xenon. Good.

Shoulda sprung for the waterproofing on your Uggs, Mags.

Galvatron’s on a roll, now. He aims at one of the zombies and fires, and they all go down, thanks to their interlinked minds. Crisis averted, I guess.

Magnus, though not happy with Galvatron’s wanton destruction of innocents, has bigger fish to fry at present; he’s convinced that the Matrix is still inside God. Boy oh boy, is he wrong, but the narrative demands he at least tries. He sticks his hand into the computer, up to the shoulder. That’s not good heavy-duty machinery safety.

Well, shit. He’s been possessed by a higher power.

You know, now that I think about it, there’s a good chance that Xenon putting the Matrix into God messed up the killswitch code, and that’s why Prowl had to use a wasting disease to try and end it all. Not really relevant at this exact moment in the story, just a thought I had.

Galvatron, having had enough mystical bullshit for one day, shoots his arm clean off, severing the connection. Magnus drops like a stone, and Galvatron bolts as everything starts coming down around them.

Oh no, Magnus is gonna be our first victim, isn’t he?

Magnus follows after Galvatron, leaving his arm. Hope he doesn’t run into any aqua fortis on the way back to the Trident, because his Pretender shell is beat all to hell.

Then Xenon pulls himself together and stops being dead.

Sigh.

This was ONE section.

[purplepersnicketywrites]

WIP ask game! 📝 Answer these questions and send to five mutuals! Get to know each other’s writing processes and learn some tips from other writers! 1. How long have you been working on your current WIP(s)? 2. Do you have any tips to beat writer’s block? 3. What is a current fic you’re reading? Is there a fic/writer who inspired you to start writing? 4. What’s the first and last sentence of a current WIP you have written? 5. Do you have a fave OC? (if any?) Why?

aAA OKAY SO

1. How long have you been working on your current WIP(s)? 

This... Varies. The longest is a WIP I started... Probably a little over a year ago? The Final Part of the Nightmares Aren’t Explodable series that I started thinking about and jotting ideas down for pretty much as soon as I’d finished with Cranky-rishima. Some of my other WIPs have only been with me for a couple of weeks!

2. Do you have any tips to beat writer’s block? 

Sprinting helps! You set a timer (I normally do it for 30mins a pop, have short break, then another sprint or two before a longer break... Hell Yeah Pomodoro Method), you sit in front of your WIP and you just Add Words for that whole time. No editing. It can be as rough as sandpaper. The important thing is to put down the words (because you can go back and fix ‘em up pretty later).

If you’re on Discord there are bots you can use to do sprints with that’ll ping you to start & stop so the timing thing is easier to manage. Writer-bot is a good one - it also comes with stuff like exp points for sprinting, character name generation, worldbuilding prompts, and the ability to store project wordcounts to name only a few functions!

Another thing I do is hop around different WIPs. Now, this isn’t always the best method for everyone, but my attention span is. Hm. Well, I have adhd. So, if one particular fic is fighting me and I can’t figure out how to get my characters from point A to point B, I go to one of my other fics and pick up something I’ve been wanting to do on that one. So if the intensity of a scene in, say, Blood of my Hand is draining me a little, I can go add some gooey fluff to Define: Oblivious, or work through what I have so far in my chatfic and methodically add the right timestamps to each message, etc.

Writing drabbles from prompts and stuff can help...... if your drabble doesn’t break free of its chains and start becoming an Entire Fic of its own.

3. What is a current fic you’re reading? 

SO MANY but I’m gonna say summa cum laude by oredatte ‘cause I literally just finished reading its final chapter like 30 seconds ago. The Fluff, the Softness, the Love. hHHhhhH

4. What’s the first and last sentence of a current WIP you have written?

Okay so these are from my chatfic! First sentence:

Katsuki squinted at his phone. 

And last (current) sentence:

"Hey," Kirishima said, swinging his legs over and off the bed. "Wanna go check out what Satou's making?"

5. Do you have a fave OC? (if any?) Why?

So. I have. A lot of OCs. Hundreds. That’s not hyperbole. *sweats in pokemon and mlp fan*

I just like, don’t have that many bnha-based ones? Just maybe like,, well there’s the kids and then that villain and the... eight? Nine? Maybe? Okay they’re multiplying, but still.

So, my few bnha OCs! Here’s my fave of those so far! *sweats in mlp fan louder*

Horse is just a horse. He has a quirk called ‘Inconvenient Teleportation’. If anyone remembers that meme a few years back about the horses in places that horses shouldn’t be? Yeah. That. He winds up in odd places, startles a few people, and then pings back to his field.

There doesn’t seem to be any conscious thought on his behalf as to where he ends up, but it’s never anywhere particularly dangerous for him. Just weird.

[onewithearth]

We gotta talk about the elephant in the room.

Okay, I’ve been on this website for a while with over five different blogs and I love it to death even tho its seen a ton of shit hit the fan. I know that the people moderating this website just shot themselves in the foot taking action too late for a problem that people were point out, making articles, tagging the staff in, and even making entire blogs devoted to getting rid of the bots. I still remember when they starting showing up, still routinely block them, and if asked, could go on in great detail about how they slowly took over.

Which leads me to my concern. I’ve never seen a mass Exodus of this hellsite quite like this. I still remember the Dashcon disaster of summer 2014 and how it killed off the SuperWhoLock fandom (which to this day we still have no idea how one of those things caused the other). I remember people trying to figure out how to stop art stealing from happening since last year or so, a problem that hasn’t fully been solved. And...I remember when a CERTAIN fandom came back from a hiatus and caused a few site to crash due to servers getting clogged, tumblr was almost included in that.

But along with all the bad, there’s also good. I found a place to find funny memes when I was going through depression, found blogs that taught me to be a better artist, environmentalist, adult, and activist; learned things about my personal and mental health, the LGBTQIA+ community and other cultures that the american education system refused to tell me, among many other wonderful things.

When I first heard of people moving to other websites I was skeptical at first but now this is getting so widespread I’m starting to wonder if this new policy will even save the website or if it’s gonna loose so much foot traffic it’s gonna shutdown. And this comes two months after I started this blog, which is still gaining more and more followers every day. I have more followers on this young sideblog than I do on my mains. I’m sad to think that it might all come to an end soon and my work will be for nothing if everyone is willing to kiss this app goodbye for good over a policy that, while I don’t necessarily agree with it, is going to make or break Tumblr.

If this place shuts down I don’t know what I’m gonna do in terms of moving to another social media platform. I finally found a form of grassroots activism I wanted to get heavily involved in and am participating in the Solarpunk community though this blog, but now I don’t know where to find that outside of Tumblr. I have several options but all of them don’t make me as fullfilled as staying on Tumblr.

TL;DR, I’m not gonna log off for good. At least not yet. There’s still plenty of ways to be an activist on here even if this new policy is pretty sexist and a lot of other things. I’m still gonna stay to support and spread ideas of activism and unionizing, but this has me miffed to say the least and I’m still looking into other options.

Everyone in the plant based/solarpunk/environmentalism community, what do you think? and are you going to another social media site? which one?