#with their ridiculous satellite still floating up there

[kellymalhotrab12]

How to Activate Fubo on TV?

Watching TV the old fashioned way is great until you're stuck away from home and miss today's game or a new episode of your favorite show. With fubo.tv/connect, you can watch live TV channels and sports broadcast anywhere - even away from home - using a device such as a smartphone or tablet.

Finding out how to activate FuboTV on your TV, smartphone or other device is quick and easy. Though of course you need to have an active FuboTV membership first. The FuboTV starter plan costs $64.99/month and supports up to three simultaneous streams, while the Elite plan costs $79.99/month and allows up to ten simultaneous streams.

FuboTV plans start at $69.99 per month and include access to streaming over 100 live TV channels with your subscription! There is also a tier where only Spanish-language channels are available for only $33 per month. Start your free trial now to test the service without paying a single cent.

With a Fubo com connect subscription; you will have access to over 100 live TV channels, including some of the most popular news and entertainment channels, as well as many sports channels. Fubo.tv/vizio-connect have the most extensive channel offerings when it comes to sports and also includes a free Cloud DVR service in case you need to record a game and watch it later.

What is fuboTV?

fuboTV offers up to 166 channels, a 1000-hour cloud DVR and a user-friendly interface that accurately reflects what you're used to when using cable or satellite TV. It's also just fun to say "fubo".

We also named fuboTV the best sports streamer in our ranking of the best live streaming services.

Is fuboTV good?

fuboTV launched in 2015 as the "Netflix for football" but has since set its sights on becoming a full-service TV streaming destination. Don't worry football fans, it still covers the world of sports ridiculously well - fuboTV hasn't given up on its original hooray!

In fact, most of fuboTV's live streaming is still made up of sports channels. So if you compare it to other streaming services that offer a more balanced mix of entertainment and sports programming, fuboTV still falls short.

But as a live TV streaming service with hundreds of live channels and a fat DVR, Fubo com connect is another enticing option for those who are ditching cable TV. It's a bit more expensive than most, but there are a lot of features that make it worth it.

How to watch Fubo TV from anywhere with VPN?

Choose a VPN with lots of American servers. We recommend NordVPN, now 68% off!

Download and install the software and complete the registration process.

Connect to a US server.

Go to the Fubo TV app or fubo.tv/connect twebsite and sign up for a free trial.

Have a drink and enjoy watching Fubo TV.

Fubo’s Channels

What can you watch on Fubo? With over 200 channels, there is something for every TV viewer to choose from, and there are additional benefits for sports fans.

Some of the channels included in the standard FuboTV package include:

Prestigious dramas like AMC and Sundance.

Reality TV specialists including Bravo, Food Network, MTV and VH1.

Sports programs such as BeIN Sports, the golf channel, the NFL network and ESPN (starting August 1!)

News channels including CBSN, MSNBC and FOX News

Spanish language channels including Telemundo

Kind’s channels like Nickelodeon, Universal Kids and Disney (starting August 1st!)

Want to know if your favorite channel is included? Check out the complete channel lineup.

Where Can I Watch Fubo?

One of the benefits of moving away from cable TV is that you can use your subscription services on more than one streaming device. By subscribing to Fubo, you will be able to watch your favorite shows and series on one of the following channels:

Your internet browser

Tablets

Floating TVs like Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon TV and Roku.

All devices with Chromecast

You can watch Fubo anywhere you have access to a browser or download the FuboTV app, including Apple and Windows computers.

Fubo connection with your favorite devices

www.fubo.tv/connect allows you to link your fubo.tv account to your TV. Fubo.tv/vizio-connect is currently available on multiple platforms including streaming devices, computer browsers, smart TVs, mobile devices, tablets and more! All Fire TVs and Fire TV Editions with built-in Fire TV running: Android OS 5.0 (Lollipop) or higher

www.fubo.tv/connect is the official unified resource locator where you can register your TV and stream certain FuboTv shows, movies and more, most notably famous movies, TV shows. fubotv Starter Standard plan offers 250 hour family DVR for $64.99/month, FuboTV basic plan for 1000 hours DVR with unlimited screens for $79.99/month, FuboTV Latino, 250 hour family DVR for $99.00 per quarter ($33.00 per month).

fuboTV broadcasts sports, sports and more sports - even ESPN channels (a recent development). This placed Fubo com connect in first place as we named it the best live sports service. FuboTV Inc. is an American streaming television service that primarily focuses on channels that broadcast live sports events including the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS and international football, as well as news, online television series and movies.

How to Create Your FuboTV Account Free Trial

Most programming on fubo.tv is only available in the United States and within the United States. FuboTV also has services available in Canada and Spain. Following are the steps mentioned below to start a free trial account with a FuboTV account:

Go to fubo.tv/connect and set up your account.

Select any browser of your choice on your computer.

Click "Go to Your Account Trial" to create a new Fubotv account.

Enter your user ID and password.

Enter your zip code or leave it if it is automatically detected.

Click "Create Account" to register.

Choose the membership that's right for you.

Your Account will be successfully registered.

How Do I Connect My FUBO To My Samsung Smart TV?

The first step in connecting FUBO to your Samsung Smart TV is to download the SmartThings app on your smartphone. It will help you find compatible devices and connect them to the same network. Then launch the SmartThings app on your Samsung phone and click on the "Add device" button. After installing the app, you need to enter your smartphone's PIN to connect it to your Samsung TV. When the process is complete, select the "Smart View" option.

After you download the FuboTV app, you need to log into the app. You will need to enter a six-digit activation code. After logging in, you can watch live TV channels on your Samsung TV. If you use the SmartThings app on your phone, you can mirror your phone's screen on your TV. If you don't have a Samsung SmartTV, you can still connect FUBO to your Samsung TV over the Internet.

Now you need to download the FuboTV app on your Samsung Smart TV. It's free and you can download it directly to your Samsung TV's built-in storage. Once installed, you can launch it by finding it in the app store. If you are using an older version of your smart TV, you can also download the latest version from Google Play. You can then connect FUBO to your Samsung Smart TV and watch movies, TV shows and more.

How To Install Fubo TV App on All Devices

Fire stick/TV/cube

To find Fubo TV on your Amazon Fire device, follow these steps.

Press the Home button (Looks like home on the remote)

At the top, scroll left to the "Search" magnifier

Type "Fubo TV" (no spaces)

Click on the word "Fubo TV"

Scroll down to the Apps & Games section.

Select the "Fubo TV" app.

Click on the "Download" cloud icon.

Android (TV) Boxes

You can install the Fubo TV App on a supported Android box by following these steps:

Go to the home screen on your device.

Go to the Google Play Store on your device.

In the Google Play Store, search for "Fubo TV".

Click on the Fubo TV app.

In the app store, click "Install".

When the download is complete, click "Open".

When the Fubo TV app is open, log in with the email address and password you have associated with your Fubo TV account.

Now you can enjoy all the great content that Fubo com connect has to offer!

Roku

You can add Fubo TV to your Roku:

On the Roku home page, select Streaming Channels.

Select Search Channels.

Enter "Fubo TV"

Select "Fubo TV"

Download channel

Log in to Fubo TV with the email address and password you used when registering with Fubo.tv/vizio-connect.

After that, you will be able to access all the great content we have to offer.

Android Phones & Tablets

You can install the Fubo TV app on a supported Android device by following these steps:

Go to the Google Play Store on your Android device.

Search the Google Play Store for "Fubo TV".

Select the Fubo TV app and download it to your device.

After it downloads, open the app.

Log in using your username and password created during registration on Fubo com connect.

Apple TV

You can install the Fubo TV app on your Apple TV by following the steps below.

On the main screen of the TV, you will see the App store icon. Find and select it.

At the top of the screen, you will see: Favorites, Top Charts, Categories, Purchased, and Search. Go ahead and select Search.

In the text field, enter fubo.tv/connect. You will see that the application has appeared.

Select an app and select "Download. After downloading the app, enter your email address and the password you created when you created your Fubo.tv/vizio-connect account. After that, you will be able to access all our materials.

How Much Does fuboTV Cost?

A fuboTV subscription starts at $54.99 per month for the Standard plan, which is for over 100 live channels including Comedy Central, AMC, SNY, MSG, FS1, NFL Network, and MSNBC. You can stream 2 screens at the same time and get 30 hours of free space on the DVR.

The next tier option is the $59.99 family plan which gives you over 100 channels, plus you can use 3 screens at the same time and get a whopping 500 hours of DVR space. For $64.99, you can get a family plan with Showtime (which adds 9 Showtime channels on demand).

There is an Ultra package that gives you 176 channels, as well as additional fubo (adding 40 entertainment channels), Showtime (+9 channels) and Sports Plus (22 high-energy sports channels). Cloud DVR for this location is still 500 hours.

There are also a few add-ons you might want to consider, including $4.99/month for AMC Premiere, Sports Plus with NFL RedZone for $10.99/month, fubo Extra for $5.99/month (which adds networks such as MTV Classic, Nick Music, NBA TV, NHL Network, and Cooking Channel), Adventure Plus for $4.99 a month (adds Outdoor Channel, Sportsman Channel, and a few others), plus a couple of international options.

[velitor]

Writing - 10/3

prompt from @/the.plottery on Insta:

write a flash-fiction piece about an astronaut whose umbilical cord cuts off from their ship in outer space.

(ik this is too long to be flash-fiction LMAOOO but the site i write these on asks us to write at least 750 words every day so I’m just doing my best)

-----

It was broken. Of course the damn thing was broken again. They send her out on the mission of a lifetime, and where does that take her? Right through a damn asteroid cluster. She was half-tempted to just let it sit there until she got through all of the rocks, but if she didn't get out there to repair it, she had no way to know when she would be out of the cluster. That, and Command wouldn't be happy if they couldn't get a hold of her. And she knew she couldn't get Chuck to do it. Couldn't even find him to try to convince him. Probably passed out drunk in a weird corner of the ship.

How he got all the alcohol out here, she didn't know. But she was always a split second away from tossing it out the damn airlock.

She floated into the briefing room, her little aluminum-coated package of coffee still tightly secured in her grip. The computer monitor blared on and on about the broken satellite. She simply blinked and took a long sip of her coffee, which was only powder and mess a few minutes ago. The computer bothered to pull up a diagram of the satellite, just to tell her that it had no idea which part of the thing was broken. She was smart enough to know to take the basics, at least. After another long sip of her coffee, she let out a quiet sigh. "Fucking ridiculous."

She floated through the station to the room that would eventually lead her straight to the airlock. Her helmet was patiently waiting for her, still barely attached to the wall by a hook. Otherwise, who knows where the damn thing would've ended up. She finished her coffee and threw it into one of the trash chutes on the wall. Then she unhooked her helmet. The damn thing never felt like it was the correct fit. She had pointed this out back on earth, when they still could've made adjustments, and how many were made? Zero. It always gave her a bad feeling, having to put it on. Or maybe that was because she didn't like going into the deep dark nothingness of outer space, just like anyone else. She grabbed herself an oxygen supply on the wall and secured it to her back. Hooking the whole thing up to her helmet and suit was almost as painful as having to fix the satellite in the first place. After securing a wrench, hammer, and a pack of nuts and bolts on her belt, she felt at least slightly ready. She went into the airlock, secured herself to the ship with a clip attached to the wall, and then was off.

There sat the satellite, just as much of a pain in her ass as ever, as she floated her way over there with a pace that she could only describe as painfully slow, when she eventually made it back home and got to talk to her family about the whole thing. Her hands developed a death grip on one edge of the satellite, something she wouldn't do if it was already busted, and got her feet somewhat on the surface of the ship. After only a bit of poking and prodding, she realized she would need more than just her damn wrench. She needed the blowtorch. She let out a sigh and grabbed her tether to pull herself back to the hatch. Something else she wasn't necessarily supposed to do. But it worked this time, just like every other time, and after going through the tedious process of securing the airlock, she grabbed the blowtorch sitting right next to the door, and then was unsecuring the airlock doors once more.

She got back to the satellite, her hands tightening their grip around the blowtorch as she did so. It would really only take her a few minutes to get this fixed up. If only-

She didn't know what happened. Something slammed into her, maybe, from the way her entire body ached as she fought her eyes open. Blood was smeared on the inside of her helmet. ...There was a crack. She slowly blinked. "...Chuck...?"

No response. Not like she expected one anyways.

She went to grab the tether attached to her hip.

... There was no tether. That got her wide awake. There's no fucking tether. "Chuck!" she screeched as she finally started looking around, her breath now coming out in labored huffs. Wasting her precious oxygen. "Chuck!"

"Chuck, I know you can hear me!"

"Chuck?"

#writing

[random-topics]

My First React.js Experience.

My name is Elijah. I started my software development journey this year. I don’t know exactly what motivated me into life of coding. Perhaps it is my affinity to trying what people consider difficult. I pursued an engineering course for my undergraduate degree where we learnt about another type of vehicles I didn’t know then they existed called satellites. Somehow I found it interesting to discover that there are people up in the sky thousands of kilometers away. Some place they say people float in air because gravity-the force that keeps us grounded no longer exist there. That is ridiculous. Right? I know. And so it was for me when I first heard of it. But it is true, nevertheless.

The past few months have not been kind with me. I can’t remember when last I had the 7 recommended hours of sleep. I have this burning desire in me to become the better version of me while I am still breathing. You know they say that the graves are the richest places on earth because therein lies a lot of unfulfilled dreams and unlocked potential. I don’t want that to become of me. That is why I strive to do the best to whatever I put my mind into. Coding is hard! If by chance you hear someone say It is easy, get it from me they are doing it wrong. 

When my school moringaschool.com  chose me as part of the small team to run the test program for the flatiron content(flatiron is a coding boot camp in the U.S. It is rated the best), I was elated for two things: My fear of having to face angular which everyone around confessed how  hard it was was lifted. Learning with arguably the best boot camp’s content I felt was the real deal.

React.js is believed to have a shallow learning curve. Well, compared to other competing front-end frameworks like angular. Although some will argue react is not really a framework but a library. That is not for me to discuss. At least not in this post. Maybe later. It is during my time of learning react that I have come to appreciate and agree that some things seem easier to do in the mind until you commit your hands.

Most of the concepts seemed hard to grasp. For a while, I never understood the concept of passing props from parent to children components and the whole aspect of parent-child component relationships. It took patience and extra practice to make meaning of it. I will not talk about useref hooks and some others because I don’t clearly understand what they are as of this point. My greatest support system has been my fellow students who are always ready to offer help not to mention the technical mentors who took their precious time to walk at our pace. I still am not confident working with react but I can see a promising future in react. 

All said, I am glad to report to you that through all the hurdles, I managed to create a beautiful application for my project. Beautiful because I never thought I could do it when I started. I was also able to align it with something I love called GIS. GIS is a geospatial concept that deals with location data. This makes it more exciting for me. In my new application S-connect students upon signing up are able to connect with other students with emphasis on those located near them. There is a map with students displayed on their home locations. Take a tour and see!

As we begin our back-end journey in the few coming days I am looking forward to new experiences and building great applications that are not only amazing but are able to solve current problems effectively as well.

Thank you for reading though.

#react #reactjs #coding #developers #javascript

[s11e17]

for the fic prompt maybe smthn set in s4? dean and cas s4 weird trust that they had to just confess stuff to each other is so interesting to me

tumblr user @grocerystoredean you are a genius, i hope u enjoy :) more under the cut i (once again) wrote way too much / edit: i posted this on ao3 bc people seemed to like it !! wehh thank uuu :)

--

Well, fuck. Dean exhales into the soupy air, watches the sand dunes shiver light years away. Nothing like the desert Dean knows — his old friend the New Mexico desert, wide and empty, not a soul to see him for miles in any direction except the satellites above. Once — he’d been twenty-three, maybe, a year after Sam leaving him and eleven months from Dad — he got out of his car in a stretch of land where even the highway markers had died off, and he crawled on his hands and knees in the sun and tore his clothes off and just howled at the sky for the joy and the fear of it, fear of that aloneness.

This isn’t that desert. This is the kind of desert they show in movies. This is Lawrence of Arabia desert, Iraq War propaganda desert, Iron Man opening sequence desert. Hell, maybe Dean does know this desert as well as the other. He looks up at the sky and thinks it should be yellower.

When the hue of the sky tilts — or, maybe it’s already been that color, always been that color — he figures it out. “This is a—”

“A dream, yes,” Castiel says from behind him. Dean turns around. He sees him in the poor bastard he’s wearing, but when he looks at him a little sideways, or when the heat covers him, he thinks— Cas has gotta be miles away for the way the sun makes him liquid, the way Dean can see shifting wings like floating lakes behind Cas’s eyes.

Dean shoves his hands in his pockets, ‘cause what else is there to do. “Nice, uh. Nice place.”

“Three men were tested here,” Cas says, which isn’t a reply. He nods at something over Dean’s shoulder, and Dean turns to look, and he sees— or, they’ve been inside of a furnace this whole time. It isn’t hot, though, or at least, not hotter than the desert was. Is. Than the desert-furnace has been.

In that gravel-rough voice of his, Cas quotes: “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednago, who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants that trusted in him, and have changed the king’s word, and yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God.”

“Throwin’ it back to the Old Testament, huh.” Dean knocks on the inside of the furnace. It’s like a kiln, the kind they ran into at that high school on Samhain. “Thought we were at the end of the book.”

“Linearity is not our… strong suit,” Cas says. It ain’t really a joke, hell, it barely counts as an idiom, but Dean laughs anyway, ‘cause the guy’s trying. And Cas looks half-pleased by Dean’s reaction, too. With that subtle curve in his mouth, the one Dean might be imagining, Cas continues, “I knew even then what this would come to.”

“This?” Dean studies Cas’s face, since he’s the only thing changing, moving in here. The only thing worth lookin’ at. “You mean me?” God, he looks so— he looks so human, somehow. Dean can see flames pouring out of his palms, great wings arcing up like lightning, cleaving the sky— but still. When Dean looks at him head-on, when he smiles, Dean almost feels like he might be— he might— anyway.

“You, Sam, it’s—” Cas shakes his head, or his head shakes him, or— what happens is, Cas corrects himself. “I mean to say that I have already known what this would come to. I know it now. Or what I mean is, I am in this furnace and Nebuchadnezzar is sentencing three men into a furnace and the apocalypse has already begun.”

Sheesh. “You, uh. You angels sure don’t make it easy for us to follow, man.”

“I am not a man.” Dean’s breath catches as Cas— as the furnace becomes, is, has always been the ocean, as Dean swallows saltwater while he swims to the mountain which is Castiel. His feet touch sand and the beach gives way to desert and Castiel puts his hand on Dean’s shoulder, where he touched him before, the first time, and Dean—

“Yeah,” Dean croaks out, and Castiel’s hand tightens and Dean falls to his knees, just like that, splayed out on the hot sand the way he’d crawled out of that car on that desperate hot afternoon when he was twenty-three. “I know. I know, Cas.”

“I have always known about this,” Cas says from above him, hand trailing up to Dean’s collarbone, the side of his neck, his— his jaw, his cheekbone, his hair. Cas puts his hand on the crown of Dean’s head like he’s healing him and Dean shudders. “About you. And yet.”

Dean waits. Cas stands there, wearing his goddamn slacks over his curling lion’s tail, silent.

Dean pushes Cas’s hand off him, stumbles to his feet. Cas doesn’t stop him. “And yet what, Cas?” he asks, hoarsely.

“I don’t know how this ends,” Cas says quietly. He says it like it’s an admission. Like he shouldn’t have said it. He steps back. “I shouldn’t have—”

“This— the apocalypse?” Dean catches Cas’s shoulder, and Cas lets himself be moved. “Look at me. Hey. Look at me.”

Cas locks eyes with him. That fire. You were Mount Vesuvius, Dean thinks out of the blue. You were ash covering the sky; an ice age. I can see you, covering Europe in snow. I see you making famine.

“I’ve never been conscious of it before,” Cas says carefully. “There has always been an empty space. The ending has never been foretold. But I never—”

He inhales sharply, and pulls away from Dean’s grasp. “You ruined me. Time— I must have always been conscious like this, but this is a change, but that doesn’t— I am not in— I am not like you.”

“Jesus, Cas, let’s— chill out for a sec—”

“I should not be inside time the way you are,” Cas bites out, violently. And then he pauses, and looks at Dean.

Thoughtfully, he adds, “And yet. Here we are.”

“Yeah, okay, I don’t—” Dean rolls his left shoulder back. All he knows is that Cas said you ruined me, and Dean can understand that much. Maybe he can fix it. He asks, “That’s a good thing, right? That you don’t know? That means we can change it. We get to pick how our story ends.”

“You shouldn’t be able to see me like this,” Cas says abruptly. Under his skin, a hawk cries, echoing. “In this in between form.”

He looks restless. Dean tries, “S’okay, Cas, you’re not puttin' me off or anything.”

“We shouldn’t have had this conversation.” Cas blinks, and the earth slides, and Dean is in the driver’s seat of the Impala. He feels the bass of Cas’s voice under his thighs as he says, “Sleep well, Dean.”

The dream lingers. Dean senses glimpses of it: sand, the steering wheel, Pompeii. He has the sneaking suspicion that Cas might’ve been involved, but he has no evidence, no reminder to check on Sam’s location, no ripped up sheet of paper in his pocket.

He rolls over to check the time. An old Gideons sits under his phone, propped open to Daniel, of all things. Dean thought they were at the end of the book. But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these.

“Bullshit,” Dean snorts, tossing the Bible back into the drawer. He thinks about praying to Cas. Hey Cas, he’d say, you up there? Got kind of a wacky feeling about all this. Wackier than our usual, even.

Ridiculous. He throws his coat on, and kicks Sam outta bed, mostly just thankful the kid’s where he’s supposed to be. He waits for him in the car, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. It’s quiet, but he doesn’t really wanna put on any music. As if there’s something else he should be listening for.

“Well,” he says to himself when he can’t remember it. Sam comes out of the room with their bags, and he turns the key in the ignition. The engine’s rumble is familiar under his thighs. “It’ll come to me.”

#agoodsoldier fic #grocerystoredean #:) #dean #castiel

[walkwithheroes84]

Saved By the Bell (2020) Thoughts

 When the original Saved by the Bell ended in 1992, I was still in elementary school and certainly hadn’t watched it’s first run. But over the years - via repeats - it has become something of a comfort show for me, that I turn to when I’m feeling down or just need something cheesy to chill out to. So, hen I heard about a reboot on the Peacock network, I was unsure. 

Now, having finished the ten episode season in just two days, I’m really hoping people give this show a chance. It knows what it is and what it is the child of and it lovingly pokes fun at and embraces it. All while actually showing real issues that people are facing today.

Here are my real-time after thoughts on each episode. Warning for spoilers. 

1.01: Pilot

Zack becoming Governor to get out of a parking ticket and then having no idea what to do is a very Saved by the Bell plot line. But, I love that he's not getting away with doing a bad job and the people of California actually seem to be upset with him. Also random, but - I wonder if Kelly is a doctor and why she hasn't kicked Zack to the curb if he's become such a skeevy person? I guess it is true love.

Jessie and Slater and still adorable, even as platonic friends. However, it's sad that she's kept her son so dependent on her and that it appears that Slater peeked in high school.

Lexi and Mac would be completely unlikeable if played by anyone other than Josie Totah and Mitchell Hoog. Right now, they are just unlikeable, but could grow as the series goes on.

Devante and Aisha are good and I look forward to their characters being explored more.

Daisy is fine, but I don't think she's a strong enough character to be the "lead". Many reviews have called her the "lead" and the "character viewers follow the most" and I'm not sure the character is strong enough for that. Haskiri Velazquez is capable in her role and is doing fine, but the character is a bit bland at the moment.

Principal Toddman: finally a principal that is trying to make a difference and isn't bumbling around and letting the students get away with anything.

The "running for school president" story felt straight out of the old series, with Lexi and Mac doing it for a parking space. But, I liked that in the end (it was 2 days show time and just 30-something minutes our time) they only let Daisy have the job because they didn't want to give up their spring break - not because they learned any sort of real lesson.

From previews I was a little worried that they might try and go with a Mac/Daisy pairing, and I really glad that it doesn't look that way. Yes, it feels like they might pair them down the road (if the show gets a season 2 and beyond), but for now Daisy seems more annoyed with him and Mac seems indifferent to her. It looks like the show might go with Jamie/Aisha, which could work.

1.02: Clubs and Cliques 

The theater clique is basically so cliché that its amusing. I love that they were all desperate to get Devante involved and keep him in the group chat, but he was just so disinterested. Lexi's line that she would fall for him if he kept ignoring her? Ha.

Jamie's inability to basically function as a normal fifteen/sixteen year old is alarming. The fact that he couldn't tell he is bad at football and that he makes raw food? Like, Jessie, who did you raise? That said, the football team having a "Feelings Helmet" was just amusing to me. The Bayside students are just so over the top insane.

There is a large part of me that wonders what the heck happened in the raising of Mac. Kelly had six siblings. She was raised in a working class family. I can't see her raising her son to be this entitled brat who apparently calls her stupid. And, I honestly can't see Zack allowing his son to end up an idiot who just floats through life.

But, I guess that's the point of the series: the Bayside students are all clichés and over the top archetypes of rich kids. None of them are really all that likeable and I find myself rooting for Devante, Daisy, and Aisha while wanting Mac, Lexi, and Jamie to grow up.

1.03: The Bayside Triangle

Knowing that Jamie and Lexi have been friends since they were little kids and she now has a crush on him and doesn't know how to handle it? Very relatable and makes me like her a bit more. She's right - for a lot of reasons, it can be weird to have an old friend like you.

Aisha trying so hard to fit in with the Bayside students is a bit sad, actually. It feels like she's giving up a part of herself to be who they think she should be.

Mac and Jamie's fight felt like it was straight out of the original series.

It's sad to know that Zack and Slater are no longer friends. I wonder why.

Devante is totally my favorite at this point. He just wants a fresh start and it's sad that Aisha and Daisy suspected him of wrongdoing because of his past.

Again, the fact that the students do all this weird stuff and no one at the school seems to notice or care . . .I feel that is purely making fun of the original show, but I love it.

1.04: The Fabulous Birchwood Boys

Lexi and Devante need to become best friends and stay best friends forever. Let's keep it platonic and fabulous. Also, his friends from his neighbor? I need to see more of those boys.

Jamie and Mac Freshmen year? Dorky as all get out. Lexi's fear that no one would like her. So heartbreakingly real.

Daisy having access to money for one day and becoming an entitled monster...that also felt very real. And, I'm really glad that she didn't take the easy way out and said she was sorry to the other members.

Since Mac never even asked Post Malone and since he got the other kids back - I'm starting to think the kid has more depth and empathy than I originally gave him credit for. That or Daisy is rubbing off on him. If they did Daisy/Mac down the road, I think it could work.

I felt so sorry when Lexi realized that Jamie had asked Aisha. I think they are headed for a Lexi/Jamie/Aisha love triangle, and I have to say that while I see Lexi/Jamie (because of her crush), I don't see Jamie/Aisha just yet.

Finally, Slater obsessing over the gym floors? He really did become a stereotype of a gym coach.

1.05: Rent-A-Mom

Jessie still having anxiety about caffeine and knocking what she thought was caffeine pills away from Mac was great.

Speaking of which - poor Jessie and her marriage. :( How did she end up with such a wishy-washy husband?

Slater and Aisha bonding while trying to making the team tougher was great. I cannot believe Jamie gives heartfelt speeches before games. What the hell, man? They really are pushing Jamie as the "sensitive man-child".

Jamie also mentioned that he was starting to like Aisha, but I still don't really see it. Am I alone in this? A start of a friendship, sure. But, a romance within the next few episodes - that would move too fast. Then again, it is a "teen show" and romance on those tend to move quickly.

Lexi and Mac trying to help Daisy was kind-of sweet in a weird sort of way. I like the looks into the home lives of the gang. It gives us a better understand of who they are as people.

1.06: Teen-Line

DeVante clearly facing racism and even classism at Bayside was really well done. I love that Lexi was ready to help him, because he has become such a great friend to her. Those two have really bonded and I love it.

Mac becoming a payphone, but not realizing it kind of made me smile. But what was even better was the way the school completely went into chaos after the students lost their phones. It couldn't have been more than three hours and the school already looked like a deleted scene from a post-apocalyptic film. Oh, and Mac using the rope to get in and out of the room, while the rest of the group used the door. . .loved it.

Aisha and Jamie. . .I feel like she's with him because he's attractive and sweet. There doesn't seem to be any real depth to their relationship. Though to be fair, there isn't much depth to Jamie's character - he's a satellite love interest to Aisha and Lexi.

1.07: House Party

Lexi finally seeing that she is a good (or at least better) person? I like that she is growing. Out of all the characters, I think she has gotten the most character growth (out of the kids) this season.

So. . .Mac does all his schemes because he's scared of being abandoned by the people he cares about and feels neglected by his parents? It's cliché, but. . .okay.

I'm still not really feeling Aisha/Jamie, but I'm not hating it. The relationship lacks depth, so I'm not terribly invested. But, I'm sure if I went back and watched any of the TNBC shows (without my nostalgic glasses on) those romances won't have much depth either.

Daisy trying to go wild, but instead having to be locked in a closet and making out with a coat? Eh, I get that they were poking fun at the darker and "edgy" teen soaps, but, eh.

Slater really grew during the episode and realized that it's time to leave high school behind and start acting like a real adult, and I'm proud of him.

1.08: The Todd Capsule 

Lark looked amazing. I'm so happy that she is doing so well these days.

So now we know where Screech is: on the Space Station with Kevin the Robot.

I was actually sad to learn that Kelly didn't follow her dream of becoming an actual doctor and is instead selling a fake wellness brand or some nonsense. Though, I will admit the Zack/Kelly scenes had me giggling a bit. They have become so shallow and weird, but I'm living for it. And when Zack said she was the only woman he's ever been with? That was a great jab, at least to me, at the way teen shows always do the "one true pairing" thing.

So glad Jessie now knows that Slater still has feelings for her. Can't believe her husband is having an emotional affair with one of his characters. This show can be so ridiculous.

The time capsule was a great addition to the episode, especially as they remembered all the plots that didn't make sense or were just weird: Jessie's caffeine addiction, putting on a ballet so Zack could graduate, saving a hotel in Hawaii.

How dare the gang (expect Lisa, who is a Queen) not remember Ron-Ron!

I hate - hate - that the PTA basically went behind everyone's back and is going to use the money to send the Douglas children back to their school. Yes, they can use the money to buy new things, but they will still have issues in that school. It's pure racism and classism.

Devante having a crush on Nadia (I think that's her name?) is super cute.

Loved Lexi and Daisy bonding and Lexi seeing that sometimes guilting people into things works just as well as being fake-nice. Though, you think she would have learned that by now.

So, Mac has always struck me as a character that is straight out of a 90s teen sitcom, and he still acts that way. But, I love that the show is trying to show some depth to him: he's acting out for attention from his dad. He has modeled his whole personality after his dad's high school personality in order to get attention. It's a storyline that has been done a million times (and will be done a million more times), but it fits his character.

1.09: All in the Hall

The Douglas principal saying that every few years people try and come in to "save" the school ,but than get bored and leave, because they've already gotten what they want - to feel good about themselves? Yeah, I felt that. It was so true to life, the way people rush into some new cause and than abandon it once they have gotten praise or its no longer trendy.

So happy to see Principal Toddman standing up Jade and sticking up for his students. He and Devante should have more scenes together. I like how they play off one another. I really just love Devante - he's probably my favorite.

Aisha finding a way to stay at the school via sports was very smart, but I can also see how Daisy would see it as selfish. Aisha does have a way of thinking about herself first and than others after. I think that has to do with her ultracompetitive nature - she wants to win, even if it mean leaving others behind.

Jamie got a bit more depth in this episode - finally. It was sweet that he wanted Aisha to stay, despite only having dated her for six weeks or so. He went about it completely wrong, but it was sweet. It's good that he sees that he's more emotionally intelligent than anything else.

The Aisha/Jamie stuff - eh. I never felt it to begin with, so it was no big. I'm glad that they sort of acknowledged that while he loves her, she just likes him and it was a relationship built more on physical attraction and sweet moments than anything else. I mean, they are fifteen.

Mac and Lexi feeling empathy and trying to help Daisy was nice. It's clear that they have both grown to care about Daisy (and Devante and to a lesser degree Aisha). I also enjoyed the small tease of Mac/Lexi with them both agreeing that they would totally hook up, because they are both so hot. Who doesn't love two shallow people admitting they are shallow? Though, I still think the writers are slowly - maybe - setting up something with Mac/Daisy. Maybe. Possibly.

I laughed out loud when Daisy ran into Jean (or is it Dave?) at city hall and he just kept denying that they had met before, but they clearly had.

Daisy's breakdown and her nearly doing drugs and the group hug - complete with Jamie discussing some random talent show we never saw (a jab at the original show airing episodes out of order?) - was just so classic teen sitcom. I loved that they pulled back from that by showing Mac reaching for the joint during the group hug.

1.10: Showdown

Overall the season was much better then I thought it would be and I'm really hoping that they are able to work in a season 2. I don't know if they could do several seasons, but I think they could probably do 2-3 more seasons of 8-10 episodes each. They still have a lot to focus on: relationships, class differences, the fall of the Morris family, Jessie's marriage breaking down and how that plays out with Jamie and even Slater, etc.

I really liked the two throw away lines of: Zack asking "Remember Tori?" and Kelly responding with a confused: "Huh?" and then Kelly quickly telling Mac that his father is not Jeff.

I wouldn't say Zack learned a valuable lesson, so much as he realized that he only wanted to stay Governor because he didn't want to be a loser. Which I guess is a lesson in a way, but he's still a bit of a slime ball.

I'm so glad that Slater told Jessie he was sorry for teasing her in high school because she protested and that he's happy today's teenagers are more willing to speak out about their beliefs. And, I'm even happier that Jessie stood up to her stupid and selfish husband.

Aisha and Daisy ganging up on Devante and than realizing that the clicks at school need a common enemy was great. What was better was Lexi, who has had the most character grown this season, willingly becoming the scapegoat.

Mac still needs to work on his daddy issues, but he's getting there. Hopefully he and his parents can really bond during quarantine.

Jamie telling Lexi that the only reason he wasn't sure if he wanted to date her was because she's been mean in the past was very sweet. Do I think the show is headed for Lexi/Jamie? Yes. Do I think it will last? No.

I still have a feeling that, at some point, they will do a Mac/Daisy pairing. Or at the very least have Mac develop a crush on Daisy, which will be interesting to see.

Other thoughts: I love that the show was able to poke fun at the clichés, corniness, and weirdness of all the late 80s-early 00s teen sitcoms/dramas that people my age grew up on; while at the same time exploring current day issues, without getting too preachy or pushy. They used pop culture well, without it feeling overly done. Someone else has mentioned in several threads that the show reminds them of the show Community, and I have to agree - it really does have an "early" Community vibe to it. I know a lot of shows are being cancelled or not renewed due to Covid, but I really do hope they give this one a second season. I really want to see where they go next.  

Cast List:

Main Haskiri Velazquez as Daisy Jiménez Mitchell Hoog as Mac Morris Josie Totah as Lexi Haddad-DeFabrizio Alycia Pascual-Peña as Aisha Garcia Belmont Cameli as Jamie Spano Dexter Darden as Devante Young John Michael Higgins as Principal Ronald Toddman Elizabeth Berkley Lauren as Jessie Spano Mario Lopez as A.C. Slater

Recurring Mark-Paul Gosselaar as Zack Morris Tiffani Thiessen as Kelly Morris Ed Alonzo as Max Cheyenne Jackson as René

Guest Lark Voorhies as Lisa Turtle

#saved by the bell #zack morris #a.c. slater #jessie spano #kelly morris #mac morris #jamie spano #lisa turle #daisy jimenez #lexi haddad-defabrizio #aisha garcia #devante young #kelly kapowski #lark voorhies #tiffani thiessen #mark-paul gosselaar #mario lopez #elizabeth berkley #dexter darden #balmont cameli #alycia pascual-pena #josie totah #mitchell hoog #haskiri velazquez #jessie x slater #zack x kelly #saved by the bell (2020)

[nitewrighter]

26 with Gency? 🙈

26. Stargazing

---

The thrum of processors kept Lijiang Tower’s control center from feeling too empty. Lynx Seventeen had been able to remotely scrub the Null Sector cyber-attack from Lijiang’s servers, and their own strike team had driven out the Null Sector operatives infiltrating the facility. Winston and Mei were off busy gathering additional intel from Lijiang’s other scientists, trying to determine Null Sector’s next move, more or less leaving Genji and Mercy to their own devices. Genji made a point of speaking with what Omnic workers were there to try and determine the point of the leak, but from what they could gather, the primary leak had been remotely hacked. Mercy was at this point mindlessly scrolling through Lijiang’s medical emergency plans and finding them all perfectly viable when she felt a finger tap on her shoulder. She jumped with a gasp and whirled around to see Genji.

“Do you have to sneak up?” she said breathlessly.

“...Ninja,” said Genji, with a shrug and she just scoffed and smiled before standing up from the monitor she was scrolling through. “You find anything?” he asked, craning his neck slightly to look at the monitor.

“Nothing mission relevant,” said Mercy with a shrug, “And you?”

“Nothing mission relevant,” said Genji, “But I did find something. Come on.” Mercy tilted her head at him with some curiosity, but he was already walking off. “Come on!” he said again, and she rolled her eyes with a slight chuckle before following after him out of the office, through the room of thrumming servers, and out to the main control center. It had numerous monitors displaying the statuses of Lijiang’s space station and additional satellites, as well as a column-like central processor in the middle of the circular room.

“What’s out here?” said Mercy.

“Look at this,” said Genji, brushing his hand up against a monitor.

“I don’t think we should touch--” Mercy started but suddenly the lights dimmed and the entire room filled with holograms of stars and constellations, “...anything...”

“Not pressing any buttons,” said Genji, stepping around her and showing her his hands, “This also looks like something they do for the tour groups...Not terribly practical to display a satellite’s projection like this all the time.” He pointed up at one of the hologram satellites drifting around the room.

Mercy smiled a little. “It’s beautiful, Genji,” she said, folding her arms, “...it’s kind of a shame we don’t get to visit places like this like... regular people.”

Genji sidled next to her and nudged his shoulder against hers, “I don’t think it’s so bad, having the place to ourselves.”

She snorted and pushed her shoulder against his, playfully as his sights trailed upward.

“North star,” he pointed, “You can find it--”

“From the corner of the big dipper,” said Mercy, pointing to a different star.

“Oh ho, a doctor and an astronomer?” said Genji a bit playfully.

“Well my relief work took me to a lot of remote places, and GPS can’t track everywhere,” said Mercy with a wry smirk. 

“I had to learn star navigation from a group of bedouins and solar-powered omnics!” said Genji, he pointed, “There. Sirius.”

She pointed, “Betelgeuse.”

“Is this a competition?” said Genji.

“I’m not competing. Are you competing?” said Mercy, arching an eyebrow, before pointing “Bellatrix.”

“Alkaid,” said Genji.

“Pollux.”

“Castor.”

“Pleiades.”

“That’s like. 7 of them, that’s cheating,” said Genji.

“I just said I’m not competing!” said Mercy.

“She said, competitively,” said Genji folding his arms.

“Oh for--” Mercy stepped behind Genji, wrapped her arms around his waist and pushed off of the floor, spreading her valkyrie wings and taking him up among the hologram stars.

“Woah!” Genji’s leg’s flailed underneath him as the floor disappeared but he trusted her and the warmth of her embrace and turned his gaze upward before she came to a hovering stop right in front of the Pleiades.

 “There. Maia, Alcyone, Asterope, Celaeno, Taygete, Electra, and Merope,” said Mercy, pointing to each star as she spoke, still holding him tight in her grip.

“Who’s not competitive now?” said Genji.

“Don’t make me drop you,” said Mercy, with a snicker.

“You picked me up!” said Genji, “I guess I’m just your problem now.”

“Oh for goodness’--” Mercy rolled her eyes as Genji craned his torso so he could bring an arm behind her shoulders and support himself a bit more as they floated among the hologram stars, “You like getting under my skin, don’t you?”

“You can get so lost in the mission, otherwise,” said Genji, “Lost in ‘Mercy.’“

Mercy blinked a few times and then glanced off.

“Mercy would never threaten to drop me,” Genji said teasingly. “She’s too busy looking like a World War One pinup on the posters.” 

Mercy snorted hard before her gaze trailed back out to the hologram stars. “We both worry about you, though,” she said softly, “What you said about navigating the stars... you were wandering out in the Sahara?”

“...for a little less than a month,” said Genji.

“Why?”

“It was before I met Zenyatta,” said Genji, looking out at the stars with her, “I was trying to figure out who I was.”

“There are less... dangerous pilgrimages you can take--Kumano Kodo, the Camino Santiago, the Philosopher’s walk--...”

“I didn’t really think of it as a pilgrimage...” said Genji.

“...did you think you would find the answer that far away from people?” Mercy said quietly, “Did you even think about how you would get back?”

“...how much less seriously would you take me if I told you I got separated from a tour group?” said Genji.

Mercy looked at him blankly for a few seconds. “...what?”

“I wandered over the wrong dune, lost in my thoughts, next thing I know, the tour truck is gone,” said Genji.

“You--you missed a tour bus through sheer force of brooding!?” said Mercy, incredulously.

“But what matters is, I learned how to navigate by the stars,” said Genji with a sage nod.

Mercy sputtered. “You--How did--I can’t believe you--Are you messing with me? I’ll get it if you’re messing with me.”

“I’m not messing with you,” said Genji.

“You’re ridiculous,” said Mercy.

“Only person you know who brings a sword to a gunfight,” said Genji with a shrug. Mercy huffed and then kissed him on the side of his faceplate, prompting his visor to brighten. “Oh--heh...”

“Doctor Ziegler?” Mei’s voice piped up from below, prompting Mercy to nearly drop Genji with surprise, prompting them to both scramble to grip each other in mid-air as Mercy descended.

“Yes! Mei! Something you needed?” said Mercy, her and Genji’s feet both touching on the ground.

“...Winston and I are ready to get back to the Orca,” Mei glanced at Genji, “Unless you’re... busy?”

“Busy?” 

“What?”

“Who’s busy?”

“Just looking around--”

“We’re not--”

“I’m not---”

Mercy and Genji’s voices were overlapping each other as Mei gave a slight eye roll and turned around to head back to the Orca. 

“RIght! Orca!” Mercy blurted out as she and Genji followed after her.

#gency #this is off the ooooold prompt list #but eche here's been painstakingly reading through my fic backlog so... props to ya #love ya

[tisfan]

I Take Thee, Witch

Chapter Five - I Wanna Reach Out and Grab Ya

Bucky couldn’t sit still, Wanda decided. She’d dragged more than one chair over to him. Moving things with a gesture and a few choice words was the most impressive part of her magic. Or maybe it was that she was using magic and it made him nervous.

“Look, I’m not a very important witch, and I don’t know a lot of magic,” Wanda started. “You’ll hardly notice at all.”

“You’re moving things around by pointing at them, I think that counts as impressive magic,” Bucky said, waving his arms around.

“Oh, no, no,” Wanda said. “My father’s very important, he’s in charge of the moon.”

“I thought you said he worked for NASA,” Bucky said, stopping in his tracks to look at her.

“Well, yes, he does, sort of,” Wanda said. “In that he drops in from time to time, especially when they get their silly little satellites too close.”

“And no one’s ever reported a witch in a pointy hat showing up at NASA?”

“Well, no,” Wanda said. “You’re being prejudiced, the pointy-hat thing was centuries ago, and not all witches wear them.”

“Did you seriously just hashtag-not-all-witches me?”

“Look, Papa has a coven on the moon,” she said. “It’s safe and there are a lot of technological issues that cause problems and complications with magic, so-- moon coven. That’s where Papa works. The Brotherhood of Witches.”

“Witches aren’t women?”

“Right, like all doctors are men,” Wanda said, rolling her eyes. “You don’t have to be sexist and stubborn at the same time. Witch is what we do, what we are, not what bits and parts we have.”

“So, do something witchy,” Bucky challenged.

“You mean aside from moving the furniture,” Wanda said. She sighed, gestured, let her nose wiggle and poured herself a drink. From across the room. Let it float over to her hand. “Hmmm. Whiskey. Not my favorite.” She twitched and the whiskey became a glass of wine. “Not enough.” Another wiggle and there was a margarita in her hand. A big one, with sugared rim and some gummy fishes floating in it. “Better. You want one?”

“Vodka,” Bucky said, firmly, staring.

She snapped her fingers and produced a vodka for him. And just to be obnoxious about it, she imported it from Russia. She didn’t include the Russian who was drinking it, because she couldn’t make things out of nothing. She could move them, replace them, change them. But there were certain rules about magic and creating something out of nothing was… well, it had been done a few times before, and the results had been disastrous.

Certainly, she wasn’t going to get arrested for Creating Chaos.

“All right,” Bucky said. He drank his vodka and then hissed between his teeth. “Oh, that’s good.”

Wanda pointed a finger and filled it up again. “You believe me now?”

“Oh, I’m not sure that I’m not just dreaming,” Bucky said. 

“You’re not,” Wanda assured him. “I mean, maybe I shouldn’t have married you. Witches don’t always mix with mortals, and a lot of times it really doesn’t go well, but I… I just love you, so much.”

Bucky finished the glass of vodka. “I love you, too,” he said. “I do, don’t I? You didn’t…” He made some sort of gesture with one hand that was meant to mimic a magic spell, but looked just ridiculous. His fingers were far too stiff.

“No,” Wanda said. “I… I can’t do that. Not that another witch couldn’t, perhaps. But I don’t know how. All I-- Papa wants me to marry a warlock, the Vision. And I didn’t want to. So I cast the  Hearts Desire. It’s not a love potion, it doesn’t… create feelings. It just shows you the-- not even really a soul mate. Just shows you the person you’re most compatible with. That you have the best chance of having a good relationship with. All the rest of it, that’s all still us, and our work to make it work.”

“So, the magic said I was your best possible… husband?”

Wanda nodded. “Are you mad about it?”

Bucky put the glass down and crossed the room to her. “I’m not mad,” he said. “I love you. We’ll-- we’ll talk about it more in the morning.”

“I mean, I thought you should know,” Wanda said, biting the side of her lip. “But also, I probably ought to warn you.”

“Warn me?” Bucky picked up his glass again, refilled it. Honestly, if he kept that up, she’d probably have to magic him sober again, just so she could enjoy her wedding night. And she wasn’t really good at that sort of thing. 

“Papa was here,” she said, waving a hand at the now closed and locked window. Not that locks -- mortal locks -- would do any good if Papa wanted in. “He’s not… disposed toward our marriage.”

“Uh.”

“He’ll probably just try to talk me out of it. A lot. I’m unlikely to wake up with a bullfrog on my pillow or anything.”

“That’s possible? The whole turning people into frogs thing?”

“For some witches,” Wanda admitted. “And while it’s not hard to change yourself. I can do that. But it’s really hard to change other people. He’d not expend the effort. Also, the Council of Witches disapproves of anything that might let mortals know we’re around.”

Bucky gave her a sharp look. “Like marrying one?”

Wanda winced. She had hoped he might not put that all the way together. “It’s possible.”

Bucky put the glass down again, and while he wasn’t looking at it, Wanda whisked it off to the sink. No more drinking. “I’ll fight for you, you know,” Bucky said. “Witch or not. You’re my wife.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Bucky said, gathering her up into his arms. “Now-- I’m going to take you to bed, unless there’s something else pressing I need to know.”

“Not right at present, I think,” Wanda said, giggling as he carried her the few feet over to the bed and dropped her on it.

“Hello, wife.”

“Hello, husband.”

*

Outside the window, barely noticed, an owl watched, golden eyes unblinking. For a long moment, the owl merely perched there, resting on the rail. Then, with a sigh that seemed too big for such a creature, it launched itself into the air. 

Higher and higher it flew, way past what a normal own would do, and then past what a normal owl could do.

He was beyond the reach of earth’s gravity before Erik Lenhsherr changed into his birth-form. Strong and powerful and handsome, wearing a dark magenta cloak and his psionic disrupting helm, he made an impressive sight. If anyone could have seen him.

Which they could not. Erik had not reached the age of five full centuries by being an idiot. 

He landed on the dark side of the moon and approached the fortress there. Genosha shimmered out of the illusion that protected it, and the door opened to admit him. 

The Vision appeared, probably summoned by magical alarms. “And--”

“She married a mortal,” Erik snarled.

“Oh,” the Vision was a nebbish sort, technically a witch of such high standing as to earn his own sobriquet. But he didn’t have the magnetism to pull off powerful witchery. He’d been expecting to marry into Erik’s family and earn more status with that alliance. “What shall we do?”

“Watch. Wait.” Erik suggested. “She’s not likely to be very happy among the mortals, and when she’s ready to come home, it would be best if she wasn’t already angry with you.”

“True,” the Vision said. “And, if nothing else, mortals don’t live all that long. I can just as easily be married in thirty years as now.”

Erik hummed thoughtfully, but didn’t respond. Better to be silent, and thought wise.

But Wanda had always been stubborn. The twins both were.

It would be a long, difficult half century.

for @livewire28

A/n - If this was an actual TV show, this would be the end of the pilot episode... consider the theme music playing 

#bewitched AU #winterwitch #Bucky x Wanda

[tacittherapist]

Heartbeats quicken. The tremors return. Rose opens her laptop, glancing about to make sure she’s alone. Gods forbid anyone, especially Jade, see her revisit one of her lowest points. She craves it -- to know the bitter ennui of her past mistakes is a nectar that keeps her reality grounded and the fire under her lit. This particular memory is perhaps the worst mistake of her young life though, and to correct it would be to supp deep from the ichor of sweet relief. She pulls up the log...

tacitTherapist [TT] started trolling grimAuxiliary [GA].

TT: So. GA: So TT: It’s come to this. GA: Indeed It Has TT: And you’re still not budging. GA: Consider My Position Entirely Unmoved TT: Entirely? That seems a bit harsh. GA: This Is A Harsh Reality TT: I imagined you’d have at least granted me the niceties and lied about how malleable your convictions are. GA: Rose GA: What Is There Left To Say GA: We Have A Crucial Difference In Opinion That Cannot Be Reconciled GA: We Have Iterated Our Arguments To Each Other For Days Without Relent GA: The Underlying Basis To This Disagreement Is Presupposed On The Notion That This Infernal Game Has Shown You The Right Course Of Action Without Any Other Supporting Evidence That It Isnt Simply Lying To You Once Again TT: They aren’t lies, they’re possibilities. GA: But Only One Of Them Will Happen To Us GA: The Rest Dont Matter GA: Thus They Are Lies And There Is Just One Truth TT: Couching your beliefs that way is what I disagree with. GA: Then You Arent Fucking Listening GA: Only One Of Those Timelines Will Be The One We Are In GA: So Forgive Me If I Buttress My Language In Solipsistic Idiom GA: Unless You Can Give Me More Than One Percent Assurance That We Will All Make It Through This By Jumping On This Fantastic Savior Satellite GA: I Cannot Support Your Idea And I Suggest You Let It Go TT: I can’t. GA: I Know GA: Thats Why Theres Nothing Left To Say TT: I disagree. I think there are a variety of things left to say. GA: Do They Relate To The Problem At Hand Or Are You Stalling TT: Irrelevant. The impetus of communication isn’t inherently problem-solving, it’s to convey meaning. GA: The Impetus Does Solve A Problem GA: You Want To Convey Meaning So The Solution Is Communication TT: Semantics. I’m saying there are other avenues of thought we must explore first. GA: Rose According To You We Are Running Out Of Time GA: Is This Truly How You Want To Spend Your Last Moments With Us GA: Bickering Pointlessly On Separate Computers To Avoid Devolving Into Another Shouting Competition Which Karkat Invariably Wins TT: Would you rather I pivot into sweet nothings about how I’ve so enjoyed our time together on this desolate rock? TT: Would you rather I spin the yarn of our tale aboard this distant laboratory, slowly starving as our grist cache dwindles? TT: Must I recount our feeding calendar in which we literally take turns stemming the hunger pangs until we all eventually succumb to malnutrition and sickness simultaneously? GA: No TT: Then this is how I’m spending my last moments. Quite presumptuous of you to assume I’ve made up my mind as well. For all you know, I could be swayed and end up staying here. GA: Given You Were Just Eviscerating My Position Mere Seconds Ago As To Why We Should Stay Here Im Sufficiently Certain You Wont TT: That’s another issue. Your certainty. The Light has shown me countless avenues to success. There are literally endless timelines in which we follow my advice and everyone meets up to finish the game. TT: And yet you’re somehow unwaveringly certain that none of them will occur? GA: Your Argument Swings Both Ways TT: I don’t appreciate the implicit reference to my confusing sexuality, but go on. GA: If There Are Countless Possibilities In Which We Succeed Following Your Idea Then There Are Also Countless Possibilities In Which We Succeed Not Following Your Idea GA: Its Two Infinities GA: The Question Lies In Which Infinity Is Bigger TT: That makes no sense, infinity is infinity. GA: Yes But Some Infinities Are Larger Or Smaller Than Others GA: Some Infinities Are Not Even Truly Infinity But We Consider Them Infinity For The Sake of Mathematics TT: How does that make even remote sense? GA: While You Were Studying The Majyyk I Was Reading The Calculus TT: I didn’t realize I was speaking to Jade’s pupil. GA: You Arent GA: If I Were Jades Pupil Wed Have Met Up By Now And We Wouldnt Be Having This Inane Conversation TT: But you can become her pupil! If you just come with me. Trust me, Kanaya. Please. GA: I Trust You Rose GA: But I Cannot Go With You GA: Look GA: The Prophecy Satellite Is On The Horizon GA: You Have Not Much Time TT: Technically I have all the time I need. GA: Dave Has Sworn Off His Powers And You Know This TT: He can be convinced. GA: If Your Powers Of Persuasion On Him Are Anything Like They Are On Me I Highly Doubt That TT: Fuck you. GA: Rose

A pregnant pause passes as Rose looks over on the horizon. The satellite is indeed coming into view.

TT: I’m sorry, Kanaya. TT: I love you. GA: I Love You Too Rose GA: But This Is Goodbye TT: It doesn’t have to be. GA: What GA: Didnt We Just Go Over That Im Not Coming With You And That You Arent Staying Here TT: Yes. But if you don’t say goodbye, it means we’ll meet again. GA: Rose This Is Childish TT: If you don’t say goodbye, it isn’t the end. GA: This Is The End Rose TT: It isn’t the end. I’ll see you again. I’ll find John and Jade by myself and we’ll come get you. GA: How GA: How Long Will It Take To Find Them GA: And How Will You Find Us If You Ever Do GA: This Laboratory Is Bound To Continue Drifting Even After You Depart GA: We Wont Stay Frozen In Place Once You Leave GA: This Isnt Like One Of Those Trashy Rainbowdrinker Books You Devoured GA: This Is Real Rose GA: You Must Face This Truth TT: We are the shapers of our world. GA: Not This Again TT: We determine our own fate. GA: Rose This Is A Quote From Another Novel Please Dont Do This TT: We mold the physical to our whims and thrust it forward through our own designs. We shape destiny. We reject that which displeases us and create our own reality. TT: Can you really not indulge me? As this one last act of kindness? GA: I Will Allow You One Kindness But It Will Not Be This TT: Fine. As my last act of kindness from you, I want... GA: It Cannot Be Something Ridiculous TT: I want you to forget me. GA: What The Fuck Did I Just Say TT: Hear me out. TT: If truly everything we’ve been through thus far has meant so little that you can’t put your faith in my decision, I want you to forget it. TT: It will be as if it never happened. I was merely a phantom in this session, and should I somehow return (against your predictions), I will get to vindictively rub it in your face. TT: But if you’re right, and I never return, the pain for you is lessened. You were never in a relationship with me, so there’s nothing to mourn. I never existed. Things were simply bad, and my nagging insistence to redirect our course was never there. TT: I want you to forget me. GA: Rose You Know I Cant Do That TT: Not even for me? As your last kindness? GA: It Would Not Be Kind To Invalidate The Memories You Ensured We Would Create GA: It Would Not Be Kind To Devalue Everything You Have Done For Us GA: And I Still Cherish Those Memories Even If They Led To Something Painful TT: It will only cause you more pain if you hold onto them. I don’t want you to suffer. GA: I Want To Suffer These Memories GA: They Offer Me Some Reassurance TT: But not enough to convince you to join me. GA: No

Rose stops typing, a nerve in her snapping. Her face goes beet-red, despair swelling into wrath. She sets her claws to the keyboard once more.

TT: Then if not by your grace, I’ll make you forget through spite. GA: What TT: I want to be forgotten. I want my existence to be erased from this failure of a timeline. I never loved you. You meant nothing to me. GA: Rose TT: My departure will be a curse upon you unless you forget. Whether by magic or by will, you must forget me. All those memories I made with you meant nothing. I did those things only to ensure my own survival. Your presence was happenstance at best. TT: Now that I’m heading out on my own, our destinies are uncoupled. Whatever happens to you is beneath me. I am taking the path to victory, and you can all squander the rest of your miserable lives here. TT: I won’t come back for you. I gave you all the chances I had. This is your fault. GA: Rose Please Dont Do This TT: You won’t see me again. I’m getting on that satellite and I’m not looking back. Even if I am to die, alone on a satellite, it will be a Heroic death as the only one with any sense not to continue a cursed existence on this fucking rock. TT: I will live with only a spectre of guilt that I didn’t forcibly coerce you onto the satellite with me, chastising myself for respecting your wishes and letting you choose your own demise. TT: That is all. Goodbye.

tacitTherapist [TT] stopped trolling grimAuxiliary [GA].

True to her word, Rose closed her laptop and walked briskly to the edge of the floating laboratory to wait for the satellite to pass by. Sheer anger coursed through her veins, hoping that would mask her true intent. She had never displayed that kind of fury before, let alone to Kanaya. If she played her cards right, Kanaya might still join her, moved by the pure strength of her conviction. But there was no hesitant hand on her shoulder, begging her to stay or to join her. There was no last-second plea, no ‘Rose Wait’, and not even a footstep in her general direction as she waited.

Resigned, she boarded the satellite, breaking her word and casting a desperate glance back as the satellite continued its course away. Through the tiny window, she could see Kanaya simply looking down at her grubtop, her face stained jade. Regret swelled, and for just a second, she could feel herself begin to open the hatch and jump back towards the meteor. But the second passed, and soon she was out of range to give even a cursory wave goodbye.

The same tears begin to stream down her face as she closes the pesterlog and wraps her sheets tighter around her shoulders. She can’t keep putting off her meeting with Cetus forever... but she still doesn’t know how she’ll reckon with the shadow of her failed ploy.

#pesterlogs #long post #((by god this was brutal to write))

[ithinkthingsaboutstuff]

how do you think Brainy would react to Kara telling him he's like the moon (especially to her sun?)

The Sun and The Moon

[Karadox-  mini fic, I loved this idea to much not to do a mini fic, enjoy friends]  

The night was cool, the sky was clear and night was all her’s. Kara was floating in the air as she let the air flow onto her skin. Though Kara lives in the city she will always take any chance to admire the nature earth has to offer. Tonight she she chose to gaze upon a great lake that was outside city limits. She chose to only levitate as the she was still in her civilian clothes but still wanted to look at the lake from a higher point as she felt the ground level did not do it magistracy justice.

Kara looked down at the lake, the moon was full. Its refection leaving a rippling silhouette, the stream of light leaving an echo of the celestial body on the gently swaying water. As looked to the sky once more, her hands embracing her shoulders, she felt a presents come next to her.

‘Nice, night it is not.’

‘Yes, it is.’

Brainy then made his way to float beside her.

‘Are you cold?’

he looked at her confused.

‘No, I’m not I never really am on earth, I just like how it feels.’

‘Uh, personal preference.’

‘Yeah.’

She looked over to him to see that he was not wearing his image inducer.

‘Oh, you decided to go blue tonight.’

‘Yes, I…. personal preference’

She smiled and chuckled to herself.

‘So what brings you out here tonight Kara.’

She looks to the distance once again.

‘The moon.’

‘Yes it is quite…stunning tonight.’

‘It really is, I don’t think I give it as much attention as i should.’

‘Oh?’

She turned, her body briefly danced in the air before settling.

‘I mean, I get my powers from the sun, so I think, I tend to, and I know it might sound ridiculous and even arrogant, but I tend to think of myself as some kind of extension of the sun, like my power is its power and its power is my power, so in weird way I’m the sun’s…champion? or vessel? to protect the life it gives, or something like that.’

Brainy took a moment to take in her confession.

‘Kara I think the things you say can be ridiculous, to me, from time to time, but arrogant is not a word I nor anyone else would ever use to describe you. You are, well to many, like a god or champion already, but you see a chance to be something else, something warm and bright, so it is no stretch to my imagination that you are, indeed the sun.’

‘Thank you for the vote of confidence.’    

‘Anytime, but I am wondering what the moon has to do with any of it?’

Kara lowered herself in the air for a moment before drifting back up.

‘Well, I think maybe, that the sun and the moon are linked, in an ostentatious sort of way, like, its looking over the earth when the sun can’t, it moves the tides and lights the way for people when the sun can’t, its like its strong in a different way.’

‘Well, the moon is not capable of having quakes of any kind, and is the only natural satellite earth has, and if it were to be removed the earth word spin so fast that a year would contain more then a thousand days, so one could look at it as a beacon of stability.’    

‘Yeah.’

Kara took him in for a moment before drifting her body in the air but gliding it back down so she is faced to face with him.

‘So, I guess that makes you my moon.’

Brainy trailed back slightly as he looked her up and down.

‘In what way do you mean.’

She smiled at him, she then flickered her eyes to the moon beside them.

‘If am like the sun, I would say that you would be like the moon. Your calming, you bring light out of darkness and ‘beacon of stability’ is you to a tee.’

Brainy dipped down in the air slightly

‘I would think J’onn would suit that role better then I ever could.’

Kara lightly chuckled.

‘J’onn is a wonderful person and one of my favourite people, but he has this fire in him that can come from this place of deep anger and regret, but you have this aura of stillness and understanding, that I think can only come from you.’

‘Thank you, that is most kind, and avowal, especially from the sun.’

Kara smiled again and brainy moved his head to face the moon shining before them, its glow filling their faces, he took in its beauty and breathed out a sigh.

‘Do you truly see me in such a way.’

Kara swayed over to him putting her hands on his shoulders, she then drifted slowly upward and  presses three light kisses on each of his technical implants,

‘To the moon and back.’

#karadox #kara zol el #kara danvers #supergirl #brainy #brainiac 5 #querl dox #mini fic #mini fanfic #it has been many a moon (get it) since i did one of these #like wow #to long #but thanks for the wonderful ask/ prompt #you give me so many and i want to write them all #but i am so lazy and so unmotivated #happy holidays #and Merry Christmas #this my gift to y'all

[mobius-prime]

124. Sonic the Hedgehog #71

Heeeyyy, is that a pair of green eyes I see up there? Have we finally reached the issue where Sonic's eyes become his trademark green? Guess we'll have to dive into this "strangest issue ever" to find out…

In the Beginning…

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Art Mawhinney Colors: Barry Grossman

Hey, why is the secondary story being told first? Hm…

Amy has led Tails to the same part of town she and Dulcy explored several issues ago, when they looked around the Mobotropolis Library for Kirby books. Tails is a bit nervous, but Amy excitedly leads him inside, and happily greets a Mobian dog sitting on the floor surrounded by books. But who is this person?

So yeah, no telling how this guy somehow survived ten years inside Robotnik's own city without being captured, or how he kept the library in such pristine condition since then, but as you may have guessed this is the guy who made the noises - accidentally, due to creaky doors - that scared Amy and Dulcy off the first time. But now, in the intervening time, Amy has returned and made friends with him, and has been getting access to all sorts of Kirby books to read. Tails takes the book Jeremiah is holding and discovers it to be a book of the history of Mobius, which Jeremiah claims his grandfather had been working on right up until Robotnik seized power. He doesn't bother going into the issue of, say, whether Kirby is even still alive after the war, but Tails jumps right into the book, reading it aloud for Amy to enjoy as well. In the beginning of time, life evolved after a meteor struck the planet, eventually branching off into different species. The most advanced of them all was apparently the echidna, because even when Kenders isn't working on his own pet sister series, he still has to make the echidnas, like, the best ever. One day, a squirrel named Alexander decided he wanted to unite every Mobian species to advance knowledge together and build a stronger society. The only ones who refused him were the echidnas, who went off to build their own society, and the Overlanders, who were too violent and acted with aggression when offered this choice. However, with nearly every other species agreeing, the building of a kingdom began…

This oddly seems to conflict with the history of Mobotropolis we were given just a few issues ago, where it was stated that it was built to commemorate Nate inventing ring technology and bringing the kingdom out of the medieval era. I mean, I suppose the beginning of the Acorn line could have coincided with the construction of Mobotropolis, but it seems odd, then, that Nate would have been omitted from such an important piece of history. It would also basically make King Max only the second Acorn king ever, since Nate was essentially an adopted uncle to him, which incidentally also makes the king's line about Sally being the "first female Acorn" to be immersed in the Source of All kind of silly if there were only two males before her. Even more ridiculously, this simply would not leave enough time for the echidnas, after rejecting the offer of multiculturality, to go off and found Albion, split off, build Echidnaopolis, raise the Floating Island, and go through like six hundred more years of history with the Brotherhood of Guardians before reaching the present day. Honestly, I think this is just a genuine continuity mistake, but it's not really a big deal, as one could suppose that, say, Mobotropolis was merely rebuilt to the standards of modern technology when Nate arrived. This is somewhat supported by Tails' next line, which references the beginning of the Great War with the Overlanders… dun dun duuuunnn!

And now is when I add the title, writer, penciller, and colorist for the next story, right? R-right?

Oh, we're just jumping right into it, are we? Well okay then. Sonic indeed has his green eyes now, as well as shoe buckles which are important to Sally for whatever reason, but we don't even know the story behind it. Well, we were promised a bizarre issue, and we're getting one - this entire story is told in reverse! We essentially have to follow the events backwards to figure out what caused everything we're seeing. So jump backwards twenty minutes before the above page, and everyone in Mobotropolis is celebrating that the energy beam that was about to destroy reality has vanished, with Nate crediting Sonic using his speed, along with a super emerald. Sally, in Knothole, feels woozy, but then reasons that if she's woozy, she's alive, which must mean Sonic succeeded. Uh… succeeded in what, though?

Sonic essentially starts pulling a Superman-style time reversal, running insanely fast around and around the entire globe, which begins to force him into shifts of alternate forms - first Super Sonic, then Ultra Sonic from when he fought Naugus. Then, passing through the desert near Sand-Blast City, he begins to experience never-before-seen forms, beginning with Solar Sonic, which turns him a brownish-orange. In the Southern Tundra, he becomes Polar Sonic with white-blue fur, and in the Great Rainforest he turns into Eco-Sonic. The glowing time-beam, which he is attempting to attract to him with his speed, turns and begins to follow him, and before he can get away from it, it strikes him…

Back to thirty minutes prior! Sonic is in Mobotropolis, staring at the beam from the palace along with Nate and the king. The beam is focused on Knothole, causing it to slowly shift back to its proper place within the flow of time. However, if left unchecked, the beam will eventually screw up time all over the planet, destroying it. Sonic asks Nate how they'll handle it, and he suddenly pulls out, presumably from his own anal cavity since it's never addressed where he was keeping this giant thing, a white Super Emerald.

Back up ten minutes! Sonic has just broken through the time barrier around Knothole separating it from the rest of the world, but Sally, to his surprise, isn't with him. He tries to head back in through the Great Oak Slide to find her, but the slide is glowing so brightly - three times more brightly than when he entered - that he doesn't want to risk blindness. Instead, he races off to Mobotropolis to find help.

Rewind eight minutes, and Sally and Sonic have just entered Knothole. Everything within is incredibly bizarre, and things seem to be moving backwards, even people's speech.

Just in case you have trouble reading backwards, by the way, Jules is saying "Where on Mobius is our son, Bernie? He's been avoiding us for weeks now," to which Bernie responds "I'm sure he'll communicate with us when he's ready, Jules, my darling," which is totally how people talk to each other. Sonic and Sally, realizing that time is even more messed up here than it already was before with the whole three-hours-ahead thing, try to leave the village so they can find out what's going on, but the odd glow surrounding them, somehow protecting them from the backwards flow of time, also prevents them from interacting with anything in the area, including the Great Oak Slide. Sonic gets a crazy idea of how to escape anyway - just go through the time barrier!

Well now we know why he was surprised that Sally wasn't with him before, but say, what was happening ten minutes before now? Well, Sonic and Sally were sliding down the Great Oak Slide, of course! It's filled with a blinding yellow light, which Sonic reasons must be connected to the bright light he saw a few minutes ago. What bright light? Well, going back seven minutes should give us the answer! Sally and Sonic are walking around in the forest, discussing his previous disobedience of the king's order not to go after Nate. Sally reassures him that her father wasn't actually angry, just had to keep up appearances, and after a brief discussion of Queen Alicia's static state and Dr. Quack's continued efforts to find a cure for her, the topic turns to Sonic's own parents, and how Sally thinks he hasn't been spending enough time with them as they've been worried about him. Sonic, somewhat stunned, realizes she's right, and claims he "still hasn't got this parent thing figured out yet," which is… honestly really sad. Remember, this kid, since he was five, believed that his parents were dead, and not long after that lost the only other person he could see as a parent figure when Uncle Chuck was captured and roboticized. He's been so long without real parents that now that he suddenly has both his mom and dad back, he has no idea how to really interact with them. Their conversation is suddenly interrupted, however, by a flash of light from the entrance to Knothole…

Back to fifteen minutes ago, and Sonic, Elias, and the Secret Service have just returned to Mobotropolis, bringing Nate with them safe and sound. Despite Elias and Sonic sharing a broment together over their success, the king chews them out for jumping into danger despite his orders.

Well, the only unanswered question we have now is - where did the time beam come from that almost destroyed everything? The answer comes, of course, in the form of another satellite sequence which happened fifty-nine minutes earlier, with an O-SAT unit activating, focusing on the planet's surface, and ominously firing.

Because this issue is so confusing when read backwards (although I do admit to liking the dramatic effect it creates, especially with the final page showing the satellite firing), I'll just summarize in chronological order what happened, just in case anyone's head is reeling. While Sonic, Elias, Nate and the others were on their way back from West Robotropolis, the satellite fired a time beam towards the surface. The king ordered Sally to escort Sonic back to Knothole, where they witnessed a beam of light emit from the entrance. After entering, time was running backwards, and they attempted to escape to figure out the cause, but only Sonic managed to get out. He ran to Mobotropolis for help, where Nate concocted a plan to use Sonic's speed along with a Super Emerald to attract the beam to him instead. Sonic was hit by the beam, and as Knothole resumed an ordinary flow of time, Sonic's appearance changed to include buckles on his shoes and green eyes. Somehow, no negative effects came of this, and everyone lived happily ever after including Sonic, unfazed by his new form. Funnily enough, Sonic is the only character they bothered concocting a story for to explain how his eyes changed from black to green. Every other classic-styled character from the games who started with the black eyes just randomly, without any fanfare whatsoever, starts to develop colorful eyes as the issues progress, as we've already seen happening intermittently with Tails and Knuckles. I guess since Sonic is the main character, he gets special treatment? Eh, doesn't really matter. Oh, and of course, we've forgotten one more thing - the title and credits that were missing from the beginning of the story, but appeared on the final page in keeping with the whole reverse theme! I'll just go ahead and reprint them here exactly as they're spelled out in the issue itself…

Colors: odrailgaG knarF Pencils: reltuB nevetS Writer: srelloB lraK

Retro Activity

Oh, yeah. They went there.

#nala reads archie sonic preboot #archie sonic #archie sonic preboot #sonic the hedgehog #sth 71 #writer: ken penders #writer: karl bollers #pencils: art mawhinney #pencils: steven butler #colors: barry grossman #colors: frank gagliardo

[bigskydreaming]

I dont want to intrude on your convo with your friend but I've been reading all your posts about your changelings verse since you started making them. Is the Alicia you mentioned next to Boyd in the poart about the changeling market meant to be Boyd's little sister from TW? What's her change, if you don't mind telling??

LOL no worries, and you’re not intruding, I don’t mind comments or weighing in on any post I make ever, unless its specifically under a cut and I’m like ‘plz dont reblog Im gonna delete this in ten minutes anyway, IM JUST HAVING A MOMENT OKAY’ lolol.

So yeah, you’re fine, and if you follow me because of TW which you obvsly know well enough to recognize Alicia’s name, you probably know how much I love exploring minor or barely ever used characters, haha. Alicia Boyd is no exception and I have a ridiculous number of headcanons and places I’ve used her in various unposted WIPs considering that she made all of one appearance on the show and it was a hallucination/flashback. BUT WHATEVER.

Anyway, Alicia’s Change is one of my faves, and given that she’s such a barely there presence in TW, she’s a character I’m pretty comfortable keeping just as she is in my TW changeling headcanons, when writing the official ‘to be published’ stuff in this ‘verse. 

All Changelings’ physical changes and magic are in some way related to their personalities and individual traits, even if that connection isn’t immediately obvious. And even though the Changelings are supernatural in origin, given that their magic reflects who they are and who they are is a product of a 21st century modern society, I wanted some of them to have changes and magic that seems in some ways almost sci-fi or technology based, even while still definitively being magic at its source.

So for no particular reason other than just its my head, I’ll headcanon what I want, I’ve always pictured Alicia as a STEM girl, very much into science and math, and her change and magic ties into that.

Basically, she looks just like she did before she was Changed, so she’s a fourteen year old black girl who’s just a slightly older version of the character we saw briefly on TW….except for the fact that she’s at all times surrounded by what appear to be like…ghostly versions of herself.

Like, at any given time there’s a half dozen to a dozen different versions of herself, totally intangible and somewhat faded/transparent like a photo that hasn’t been fully developed….and they’re all ‘orbiting’ her, for lack of a better term….kinda like the electrons of an atom orbit it.

And these other versions of herself all look slightly different upon closer inspection - different hairstyles, clothing, a couple have glasses, etc….and some appear like they’re floating in mid-air, others like their feet are sinking into the ground….and most of them usually look like they’re just hovering or flickering around Alicia like half-formed images or ghosts that are all moving, doing something - whether appearing like they’re talking, walking, fighting, reading, any number of things….and all of them seemingly paying no attention to what’s going on around Alicia here and now, if they’re even aware of it.

Which they are though, because the thing is, these ‘satellite versions of herself’ are all alternate versions of herself existing currently in other parallel universes where the Change still occurred and they all ended up with the same magic as this Alicia.

So essentially, there are between ten and sixteen versions of Alicia, spread across an equivalent number of parallel universes….who are all Changelings with the exact same magic….which connects them all.

Just like they appear like ghostly images of this Alicia here, this Alicia appears as one of the ghostly images hovering around each of the other versions of herself in their realities.

And despite them always looking like they’re doing their own thing for the most part and oblivious to anything happening in a different reality, that’s just a matter of them learning after a loooot of practice and trial and error, how to primarily just focus on their main reality and only keep a vague/back of their mind awareness trained on what’s happening with the other versions of herself via their magical connection.

Whenever something big happens to one of them though, no matter which reality, like if one of them is in danger, the others can immediately stop what they’re doing in their home realities and pay attention to the one who’s actively in danger….because all the Alicias can communicate with each other, share knowledge and life experiences and skills with each other, and so whenever one of them really needs the others, the others can all focus on them and come to their aid or support them in a variety of ways, even without being physically present.

And some of these parallel universes are more similar than others, and some of them are just sliiiiightly out of sync with the others….like one of the Alicias lives in a universe that for the most part is almost identical to this Alicia’s universe….except its timeline is like, thirty seconds ahead of this one’s.

Meaning while its not foolproof, due to the very very minor differences in realities resulting in the people in each reality making slightly different choices….that 30 seconds ahead Alicia tends to for the most part be able to give this Alicia a 30 seconds heads up to any unexpected danger. 

And there’s a bunch of other ways their magic is helpful too….each of the Alicias’ has their own fields of study…remember since Changeling magic reflects the person, the fact that these Alicias all have the same magic is because all of these versions of her are precocious little science and math prodigies in some way….but they all have slightly different interests and scientific and mathematic pursuits they’ve applied themselves towards or decided to study in earnest. Which means any one of them can at any time draw on the knowledge possessed by one of the others due to studying a specific field that the other one doesn’t know a ton about. Or they can just talk to each other directly, ask each other questions about something, or use themselves as a sounding board or to bounce ideas off of each other. 

So sometimes Alicia will just stop in the middle of talking to other Changelings in town here to be like hang on a sec, I need to get this….and appear to just be talking to one of her own flickering reflections in the middle of the sidewalk, while anyone who knows her well is pretty used to this and just chills like someone waiting for a friend to finish up on the phone after she had to take an urgent call, lol.

And since the Alicias don’t have to be in the same or similar physical space to still appear as satellites of each other Alicia in her home reality, one Alicia can be physically present at one side of town and really need something like….from a book she left at home on the other side of town. And one of the other Alicias is usually bound to be at home and by focusing on her, Alicia can just ask her to read from her own book what this Alicia needs to know, or like, check something online, or solve a problem real quick for her and give her the answer while she focuses on doing something else urgent at the same time, etc.

Then there’s the fact that some of the Alicias have a lot of self-defense training and teach the others some tricks, and a couple are very practiced with a variety of weapons they can pass along expertise about….one Alicia excels at picking locks, which comes in handy as this Alicia, along with about five of the others, is kinda like….the Nancy Drew of their respective Bordertowns, the pint-sized, precocious PI that other Changelings often turn to despite her age, because Alicia (all the Alicias, really) is damn good at what she does.

Also via their connection to each other’s realities, when they focus they can basically see what’s going on around one of the others, so for instance, when this one is in danger or running from someone or something like that, and a few of the others are safe and sound at home, they can just focus solely on her and everything going on around her, and its like Alicia has preternatural awareness of her surroundings then, because she’s got five or six other versions of herself flickering around her head and at her back like ghostly shadows…and all of them are shouting instructions to her or to look out for this or that or turn here, etc. So there’s basically six pairs of eyes looking out for her and keeping her apprised of everything that’s going on in her vicinity at the moment. 

That really comes in handy. 

Everyone can see the other versions of herself that are most present via her connection at any given moment, given that that’s the nature of her physical Change, but since its her magic specifically, only she can actually hear the other versions of her or interact with them….with very rare exceptions. None of them have quite figured out yet how the connection totally works, in the sense that some of them are in sharper focus at times than others, like, there’s always some connection between all of them, but at different times some feel further away and are harder to communicate or interact with than others. And they’re not sure if that’s because like, their different universes are engaged in some kind of movement or orbit or rotation relative to each other, or if there’s some other reason for it, but a few of them are always working on that particular puzzle at any given moment, lol. 

But on a related note, on three separate occasions, when one of the Alicias in one reality was in extreme danger, another Alicia was able to temporarily ‘jump into the driver’s seat’ of that Alicia’s body, via their connection….one time was when one of the skilled fighters jumped into one of the Alicias who was being attacked by someone she’d followed during one of her investigations and turned out to be more dangerous than she’d expected….another time one of the other Alicias jumped into the body of an Alicia who’d been knocked unconscious in an accident and the other Alicia was able to assume control of her body and get her out of danger until she woke up and it bumped the other one back into her own body….and then the third time, one of the Alicias saw that this Alicia was about to get hit by a car that she didn’t see coming, and the alternate Alicia tried to warn her by projecting through their connection as hard as she could, to look out….and somehow accidentally jumped fully into this Alicia’s body and threw her(self) out of the way, before almost immediately being slingshotted back into her own body.

Except none of them have figured out how to do anything like that on command, despite it vexing a number of them. They just know it most likely has something to do with the intensity of a life or death threat or situation making it possible…even though it doesn’t always seem to happen, so they try not to rely on it.

And on one particularly memorable occasion that none of them have the faintest clue why or how it happened, eight of them went from flickering around this Alicia like satellite ghosts….to manifesting physically around her in this reality in their own bodies, and shocking the hell out of the guy trying to intimidate her, who was not at all prepared for the teen girl to suddenly be just one of a literal crowd of nine girls all staring him down. So he turned tail and ran, and they all almost instantly winked back into their home realities and returned to just being afterimage-esque glimpses of them still orbiting around her.

None of them have any idea how that happened or why, let alone how to make it happen again, which irritates the crap out of most of them because ugh, screw magic, there has to be a logical explanation for at least the mechanism of this, damn you supernatural forces with no coherent consistency!

(All the Alicias rant quite often about their inability to pin down firm rules for a lot of Changeling magic and how and why it operates the way it does. Big fans of logic, the Alicias. Not so much the bafflement).

Sooooo….she’s a LOT of fun to write, even though she’s very challenging to…maneuver around, narratively speaking, if that makes sense, lol….but like, yeah, I have a blast writing her. 

The main Alicia, the one who’s always front and center, is snarky but never in a mean-spirited way. More like….her mind is always twenty steps ahead of everyone around her, sometimes literally, lol, and so she rolls her eyes a lot and sometimes makes a show of being exasperated that she has to slow down and wait for everyone to catch up, but its not because of “oh I think everyone but me is so stupid” or anything like that, its usually just….pure impatience on her part. 

The second she figures something out she wants to go, go, go, move on to wherever that leads. She winds up getting in various less than totally safe situations purely because she doesn’t want to stop and grab someone to go along with her when checking something out, but also just because the nature of her magic means she’s never truly completely on her own, and she sometimes forgets to factor that in, or remember that her other selves aren’t usually physically present and able to help her out of a jam. 

She’s so used to their presences that every so often she just genuinely forgets that they’re not right there in the room with her, which has caused some confusion to more than one person when meeting her for the first time and realizing those silent movie-style images of her are actually real and she’s actually communicating with them, not just talking to thin air.

Fortunately, she’s smart and capable in her own right, so when you multiply that by a factor of twelve to fifteen similar minds all attuned to all of their best interests….there’s very few situations she isn’t capable of getting out of on her own. Not that this makes her big brother facepalm any less when she blithely handwaves off a recent escapade as no big deal and something she has no idea why he’s getting so worked up about.

(I mean, she does totally get his concerns and isn’t lacking in self-awareness, its just that she’s also committed to giving him gray hairs before he’s forty. She is, among other things, still a little sister after all.)

Due to her many alternate selves, and the vast array of personality differences between each of them, that many of her close friends are at least aware of by proxy, given that even though they can’t hear her other selves, they’ve all heard her casually talk about them often enough to know them in a sense as well….

Anyway, so a lot of Changelings have nicknames based on their Changes or magic, and she’s no exception. She goes by her own name and just introduces herself as Alicia, but its not uncommon to hear others address her as or reference her as ‘Sybil.’

When asked how she feels about that name, she tends to just shrug and stare off into the distance contemplatively. “I don’t know,” she’ll say at last. “Part of me loves it, and part of me hates it.”

And then she’ll just grin as everyone around her just groans, because she’s just Like This, and just looooves being literal in little ways like that - given that she’s literally acknowledging that half of her alternates feel the one way, and the other half feel the other way. 

Another common line of hers is something like “Hey, I’m only problematic on Thursdays,” or “that wasn’t me, that was Alicia Number Nine, its not my fault she hates you.”

Her magic is just weird enough and behaves just erratically and unexpectedly enough, that its hard to be entirely sure when she’s just bullshitting you and when she might actually be telling the truth and some weird power snafu had one of the other Alicias in her body the last time you interacted with her and she was short with you.

There’s never a dull moment with her.

#changelings 'verse

[dontcallmecarrie]

Meme anon here, so I am stuck in being a perfectionist and trying to find the right meme/pic to use (with proper credit where it is due) or to make for myself so i am right now just going to send overall descriptions in 4 different asks if that is okay. Just to get the overall idea/theme of the memes (since they deal with Phase 3 and such. Here goes nothing... (1/5)

(2/5) HAL and Skynet memes. I'm actually working on MAKING them, OMG! It's kinda fun actually.

(3/5) The picture where Tony announces at the Press Conference (tm) that he was Iron Man. Then Text Post/meme. Or various pictures of Tony in the suit. THEN meme. (Sorry if any of these were not what you were/are expecting.)

(4/5) Use stuff inside your TWIFFON au, such as using the S.W.O.R.D. Logo that you have and make memes using that. (Just a thought.) Or pretend/fake images for the Fashion Week Fiasco or the Relay Race (if that was hypothetically photographed in your au.)

(5/5) And for the last meme ideas/descriptions: Pictures of the world/Earth with the initials of SI or the SWORD Logo ghostly photoshopped on top/behind it, with then the meme idea. Or just the planet with the meme (something ominous but funny). I got some HAL memes already made. They're not perfect but they're done. Still working on some of the others (not the SWORD logo, that I'm leaving alone) Please let me know your thoughts. Too far? Not quite what you're looking for? This has been fun!

.

...oh boy. Friend, some of these memes are actually edging into spoiler territory, because of Reasons. 

Under the bolded part for those who don't want spoilers, because the more I think about it the more likely I am to ramble and the memes are actually a very important plot point in TWiFFON, no matter how ridiculous that sounds without context.

Also: in regards the memes you’ve mentioned, I get the feeling some of them would probably be SI-only. For instance, while the Fashion Week Fiasco made headlines, other incidents [cough cough, the Relay Race] are the sort of thing that stays in-house. Kinda like Legal’s jokes about world domination, now that I think about it. 

The spoilery territory comes with the memes that might involve the world, though, for multiple reasons.

See, after the Civil War arc, there’s going to be a few others to go: the fallout of Civil War, the Final Battle, and the Realization.

Specifically, after the Civil War arc, there’s going to be another timeskip as Tony acutely feels the crunch of ‘oh shit the Avengers aren’t an option to protect the planet anymore, it’s literally just me, oh fuck’.

When he feels this crunch, he’s not going to pull his punches intellectually— by which I mean he’s going to delve into morally dubious stuff, and the other side of the Merchant of Death takes center stage as he brainstorms potential defense after defense for Earth. Here’s the thing: when I say ‘morally dubious’, I mean ‘he’s going to wish he could afford to drink something stronger than coffee’ because he’s going to go over SHIELD’s shadier research, notes of the tech found after New York, everything JARVIS found via scouring the dark web, you name it. 

Even more specifically, remember that energy shield that protected the portal device in the first Avengers movie? Remember how it was borderline impossible for anyone to get past it? 

Yeah, Tony’s going to do something like that. But for the entire planet. 

An immense network of satellites and what-have-you, spanning the entire globe. 

[it’s not exactly original since I got the idea from both Star Wars and Doctor Who, but bear with me]

There’s more to it than that, but the energy shield is meant to be one of the last lines of defense. 

Here’s the thing: it’s not subtle. Kinda hard to be, with its size and the breathtaking amounts of energy it requires [good thing SI’s invested so heavily into green energy], and its name is what makes it prime meme fodder.

Because what everyone’s seeing is this bigass energy shield network in the sky, keeping out the vast armies that stretch as far as the eye can see. And Tony’s naming skills are only marginally better than a biologist’s, and the rest of humanity’s isn’t much better.

The energy shield’s official name is the Iron Dome [also because it’s got the same idea as the thing in real life], but the moment it went online, the internet renamed it Skynet, which, awkward. 

It only gets funnier after the Reveal, too.

...on another note, the main role the memes play ties in with Tony’s obliviousness. 

See, after the Civil War arc, Tony’s [understandably] hyperfocused on the whole ‘protecting the Earth’ schtick and doesn’t really have time for much else. He’s tangentially aware of other stuff going on, but he has so much to do he doesn’t really pay attention to it. 

When the first memes about world domination start to float around, he blinks but goes back to work, because again, turns out that when it comes to protecting the planet, if you want something done right you have do it yourself. Normally he’d have fun with the memes, would be over the moon and be laughing at them with everyone else— but he has Things To Do. 

The single meme I have in mind for the matter is Star Trek-based, and also later on serves as the basis for why the rest of the galaxy refers to them as the Terran Empire, btw.

The first meme desensitized him to the idea; by the time Pepper approaches him about it, he thinks she’s joking. When the Sorcerer Supreme shows up shooting him significant looks and talking about being responsible to take care of threats to the Earth, the implied threat flies right over Tony’s head and he just goes “great, welcome to the club! I haven’t accounted for magic yet, is there anything we could tweak in this project to bolster our defenses?”

This is why it takes a honest-to-goodness Destroyer of Worlds to break it to him that no, it’s not a joke, he genuinely did take over the world. Yeah, oops.

.

...long story short, I really like the idea, but again, not sure how much screentime I’d be able to give the memes in the main fic. The sidefic would allow for more screen time, of course, but I’m not sure if that’s something you’d want to see?

edit: I’d put in a read-more, only apparently I can’t? Apologies to anyone who didn’t want spoilers or long posts.

#I got an ask! #replies #Naught replies #behind the scenes #The War is Far From Over Now #major spoilers for TWiFFON #TWiFFON spoiler #long post

[cybled-a]

some cool fun facts about mara sov 

before the collapse, mara worked in zero-gravity, spending extended EVAs fixing satellites and ships

on board the yang liwei, mara would go on solo EVAs and peel back the top layer of her suit. this would trigger a cascading neural response and near death experiences before her suit would automatically move to save her. she would record these experiences and use them as bartering tools among the rest of the auturge classes

she loves earth the way she thinks only people who grow up in space can love earth

when the gardener and the winnower were battling and sending forth gravity waves that were pulling the yang liwei apart, mara decided to leap into the cataclysm, and was therefore the first person to enter the pocket universe created by the clash of the darkness and the light

she was the first to awaken after the cataclysm. she created the awoken as flawed immortals so that they would not be tied down in paradise, so that she could eventually return to the earth she loved so dearly

a lot of her time in the distributary was spent not just moving chess pieces, but becoming knowledgeable herself. her expertise in astronomy and ship tech, in languages and literature, in biology and physics, is not something to be scoffed at

she is not EVIL. she’s made some terrible choices, some morally grey, others morally bankrupt, and her instinct for secrecy and lies has made things more difficult than they probably need to be, but her paramount goal is the survival of humanity, and a balancing between the darkness and the light

on that note, she is absolutely flawed. her hubris is,,, ridiculous. she is arrogant. she is proud. she is also compassionate, and despite the mask she puts on, she cares deeply for those she loves and for humanity

she doesn’t trust the traveler. in her eyes, the traveler is just another flawed god undeserving of worship, a broken orb that cannot truly protect what remains of humanity and that may have doomed them from the start

oryx was a respected enemy. in him, she saw what she might someday become in terms of power, though not singularly sided with the deep

the nine she respects less. mara has suspicions that they are responsible for the disappearance of the 9 crew members from the yang liwei that never awakened in the distributary. and she obviously knows what they did to orin and is none too pleased at the “death” of her friend and the “shell” that still floats around 

she’s over 12 billion years old. you read that right. 

she still grieves for sjur. her relationship with lord shaxx is a simple bond enhanced by their shared grief ( sjur and shaxx were great friends ) and mara has had sexual relationships with many people over the millennia but sjur is the love of her life and she misses her every single day

#HC. MARA SOV. #uh i love her #like i hate her but also ? love her

[rose-gold-romantic]

Whatever It Takes:Chapter Three

A Loki x Reader based in the Tesseract fic universe! Avengers: Infinity War follow-up fic. Next in the Tesseract fic series. Links to Tesseract, Lokasenna, What Heroes Do, and Fidelity. Also to my AU Feel You.

I WOULD LOVE FEEDBACK! Want to be tagged in updates? Let me know!

@malignentmac @fandomsfanman @i-am-supermerwholoked221b @markusstrayya @sincereleygmg @pandaqua​ @person-born-winchester

Just a forewarning, this one has a major POV shift from the past entries, since Reader was Dusted at the end of Fidelity! Keeping with my recent trend in fic titles, it’s named after a track on the official soundtrack. I also constantly watch this Video, and recommend it to hype you up! @malignentmac @fandomsfanman @i-am-supermerwholoked221b @markusstrayya @sincereleygmg @pandaqua​ @person-born-winchester

The days passed with a harrowingly slow pace, every hour feeling as a lifetime. Everyone in the compound was on edge, in their own stage of grief for the fallen, and anxiety for Danver’s return. Over two weeks had gone by, with no answer from Danvers.

Thor had settled in to a pattern that seemed a stronger version of behavior that I had seen before. His sole focus seemed externally to be finding the rest of the Asgardians, but I knew that he was grinding his proverbial axe for a rematch with Thanos. The guilt that he carried with him was nearly tangible, and my attempts at reassurance went without response. Thor would not resume any form of normalcy until Thanos had been brought to justice.

One night, as I continued monitoring the system we had scanning for the Asgardians, the ground began rumbling beneath my feet. I looked up to see Steve and Natasha both running towards the front doors, and I followed suit.

Bruce and Rhodey were already outside, and we slowed to a walk as we watched a spaceship slowly float to the ground, Danvers carrying it as she slowly descended. Pepper Potts ran out to stand with us, tears welling in her eyes. As the ship rested on the ground, the boarding ramp deployed, and two figures shuffled out.

Nebula supported Tony as they came out of the ship, and Steve ran up to help support Tony.

“I couldn’t stop him.” Tony breathed, his body thin, weak, and doubtless shutting down from lack of food and water.

“Neither could I.” Steve replied, frowning.

“I lost the kid.” Tony confessed, his distress evident.

“Tony,” Steve said, his usually calm composure beginning to crack, “We lost…”

“Is um-” Tony’s question was abruptly cut off by Pepper’s embrace.

“Oh my god.” She said, tears now falling in relief.

“Let’s get him inside.” Rhodey said, “We can talk shop in the morning.”

When morning arrived, we all gathered in the boardroom, sitting and standing around the table. Thor continued to seclude himself and sat in a seperate area, the rolls he had once denied now being consumed.

“It’s been 23 days since Thanos came to Earth.” Natasha said, explaining Earth’s predicament to Tony and Nebula. “World governments are in pieces. The parts that are still working are trying to take a census. And it looks like he did… exactly what he said he was going to do. Thanos wiped out fifty percent of all living creatures.”

“Where is he now?” Tony said, sitting in a wheelchair as an IV bag continued to drip, “Where?”

“We don’t know.” Steve answered. “He just opened a portal and walked through.”

“With the space stone at his disposal, he could be absolutely anywhere.” I clarified, capturing Tony’s attention.

“Are you guys sure I’m not dead?” Tony said, gesturing to me. “Last time I saw you, you tried to kill all of us. Now we’re all buddy-buddy?”

“There were several powers at play at that time,” I said carefully, “I do sincerely apologise for the destruction and injury I caused in New York. Thor and I have both come here in hopes of restoring our people’s lives, though our search for the remaining still continues.”

“Speaking of Thor what’s wrong with him?” Tony asked, gesturing to my brooding brother.

“Yea, he’s pissed.” Rocket replied, “He thinks he failed. Which of course he did, but there’s a lot of that goin’ around here, aint there?”

“Honestly, until this exact second, I thought you were a Build-A-Bear.” Tony said, startled.

“Maybe I am.” Rocked mumbled.

“We’ve been hunting Thanos for three weeks now.” Steve said, attempting to re-center the conversation. “Deep Space scans, satellites, and we’ve got nothing. Tony, you fought him.”

“Who told you that?” Tony snarked. “I didn’t fight him. No, he wiped my face with a planet while the Bleeker Street Magician gave away the stone. That’s what happened. There was no fight.”

“Did he give you any clues, any coordinates, anything?” Steve pressed, our hope waning.

“I saw this a few years back, you know.” Tony griped, “I had a vision, I didn’t wanna believe it. I thought I was dreaming.”

“Tony, I’m gonna need you to focus.” Steve said, trying to prevent Tony from derailing the conversation further.

“And I needed you. As in past tense.” Tony said, his tone cutting and bitter. “That trumps what you need. It’s too late buddy. Sorry. You know what I need?” Tony stood up, shoving things off of the table. “I need to shave. And I remember telling you, Cap.”

Tony moved to hit Steve, but not before Rhodey and myself restrained him.

“Tony, Tony, Tony, stop!” Rhodey said, trying to calm his friend.

“Otherwise what we needed was a suit of armor around the world.” Tony continued, his tone harsher with ever word. “Remember that? Whether it impacted our ‘precious freedom’ or not- that’s what we needed!”

“Well, that didn’t work out, did it?” Steve said, his throat constricted and tight.

“I said, ‘we’ll lose’. You said, ‘We’ll do that together too.’ And guess what, Cap? We lost.” Tony spat. “You weren’t there. But that’s what we do, right? Our best work, after the fact? We’re the Avengers, we’re the Avengers. Not the Prevengers, right?”

“Okay, you made your point.” Rhodes stressed, “Just sit down, ok?”

“Nah, nah, nah.” Tony insisted, shoving Rhodey and myself away. “Here’s my point.”

“Sit down!” Rhodey repeated.

“She’s great, by the way.” Tony said, gesturing to Danvers as his breathing became more and more labored. “We need you. You’re new blood.”

“Tony!”

“Bunch of tired old mills!” Tony continued, “I got nothing for you, cap. I got no coordinates, no clues, no plan, no options. Zero. Zip. Nada. No trust. Liar.”

Steve’s face fell, Tony’s continued attacks wearing down his usually collected exterior. As the one-time friends continued to stare at each other, Tony ripped his ARC reactor from his chest, shoving it into Steve’s hand.

“Here, take this.” Tony spat through labored breaths, “You find him, and you put that on. You hide.”

Tony collapsed to the ground, exhausted after the stress of the argument.

“Tony!” Rhodey exclaimed as Steve, himself, and I all gathered around Tony to support him.

“I’m fine.” Tony breathed, “I…” Tony lost consciousness, and Steve and I carried him to a hospital style bed in another room.

Bruce set up a new IV for Tony, and Pepper came in to his room to be with him as Rhodey left and came in to the conference room once more.

“Bruce gave him a sedative.” Rhodey said, “He’s gonna be out for the rest of the day.”

“You guys take care of him.” Danvers said, “And I’ll bring Xorrian Elixir when I come back.”

“Where are you going?” Natasha asked.

“To kill Thanos.” Danvers replied coolly.

“Hey, you know, we usually work as a team around here.” Natasha said, causing Danvers to take pause. “Between you and I, we’re also a little fragile.”

“We realize that this is more of your territory.” Steve said, “But this is our fight too.”

“Do you even know where he is?” Rhodey contested, irritated.

“I know people who might.” Danvers replied, optimistic.

“Don’t bother.” Nebula said from the doorway. “I can tell you where Thanos is. Thanos spent a long time trying to perfect me. Then when he worked, he talked about his great plan. Even disassembled, I wanted to please him. I’d ask, “where would we go once his plan was complete?”. His answer was always the same: To the Garden.”

“That’s cute.” Rhodey scoffed. “Thanos has a retirement plan.”

“So where is he then?” Steve asked.

“Rocket, show them.” Nebula said, and Rocket nodded before leaping up onto the table.

“When Thanos snapped his fingers, Earth became ground zero for a power surge of ridiculously cosmic proportions.” Rocket said, a hologram of Earth appearing above the table. “No one’s ever seen anything like it… Until two days ago.”

The hologram shifted, showing another planet with a shockwave traversing the surface. “On this planet.”

“Thanos is there.” Nebula confirmed.

“He used the stones again.” Natasha said, inspecting the hologram.

“Hey, hey, we’d be going in short-handed, you know.” Bruce cautioned.

“Look, he’s still got the stones, so…” Rhodey added.

“So let’s get him.” Danvers suggested, “We’ll use them to bring everyone back.”

“Just like that?” Rhodey questioned.

“Yea, Just like that.” Steve said.

“Even if there’s a small chance that we can undo this,” Natasha said, “I mean we owe it to everyone who’s not in this room to try.”

My mind raced with the thought of having (Y/N) back with me, holding her again, being able to tell her how much I loved her. My heart ached for the chance, for the idea of being able to rectify the grave wrong.

“If we do this, how do we know it’s gonna end any differently than it did before?” Bruce countered.

“Because before, you didn’t have me.” Danvers explained, her composure cool and collected.

“Hey, new girl, everyone here is about that superhero life. Even the ex-villain over here.” Rhodey said, gesturing over to me. “And if you don’t mind my asking, where the hell have you been all this time?”

“There are a lot of other planets in the universe.” She replied, “And unfortunately, they didn’t have you guys.”

Thor rose from his bench, walking over to face Danvers. He held his hand up to summon Stormbreaker, and it flew across the room, soaring into his hands and missed Danver’s face by mere inches. She didn’t flinch, and instead smirked at my brother with a knowing look.

“I like this one.” Thor said, finishing the roll he had been eating earlier.

“Let’s go get this son of a bitch.” Steve said, nodding.

#loki #loki x reader #fanfiction #endgame #whatever it takes #marvel #romance #self insert #tesseract #rose gold romantic

[theashamedghost]

When Houseless meet

So this is my first attempt at writing anything destiny related. I was kinda inspired by @dngrs-untld-hrshps-unnmbrd   “Mithrax the Forsaken” Series which is amazing! I’ve got quite a lot of this fic planned out so I hope you enjoy! 

Sal-4 adjusted the zoom on her scope as she brought the rifle against her shoulder. Her movements slowed until she was completely still. Time passed, she had no idea how much time, a few minutes, a few hours, hell, even a week could have passed and she wouldn’t have known.

Eventually, her ghost poked out of her nearby rucksack. “If you don’t move soon your joints will begin to rust up.”

“I’ve been tracking this gang for months now. Whoever they are, they know how guardians work,” Sal explained. “They’ve been harassing refugee camps and then disappearing before a fireteam can pin them down.”

“So you’re going to sit here until they show up?”

“Exactly.”

The ghost adjusted itself in the air. “Why didn’t you say anything? I could have asked Devrim for the latest reports.”

Sal-4 sighed. “I don’t want these scavengers listening in on our radios.”

“So you’ll take this gang down by yourself?”

A smile picked at her metallic lips. “One dreg at a time.”

Her ghost hung in the air for a moment longer before disappearing back into the safety of her rucksack and silence once again fell on the lonely tree. Occasionally she’d adjust her position as to get a better view down the long gulch but as day turned to night and day again there wasn’t a trace of any life.

After the eighth day, her ghost once again appeared. “Sal, this is getting ridiculous. I’m going to-” The small sphere was cut off as a loud bang rang through the air. Pulling back the bolt of her rifle Sal-4 smiled.

“You were saying.”

The singular eye of the ghost widened. “D-did you hit them?”

Sal rolled her shoulder and groaned in pleasure as her joints loosened. “I hit them, now to see who we hit.”

“What do you mean who?” The ghost asked as its guardian jumped down the tree.

Sal-4 slung her camouflage rifle over her shoulder and pulled her well-worn hand-cannon from its holster on her side. As she approached her target a familiar chirping echoed around her.

“W-what do you mean who?”

“I saw something move in the brush, something big. So I shot it.”

Her ghost audibly sighed. “And what was it?”

“I just said,” Sal said as she loaded a round into the cannon. “Something big, anyway, you know the rule.” Before the ghost could protest Sal-4 readied herself and rushed forward leaving her satellite to hide behind a nearby rock. Now alone Sal took a deep breath and felt her chest expand as she closed in on the wounded enemy. As she got closer Sal could hear dull hisses and groans from the thick bushes. Kneeling close the ground she looked to a small stream and the deep purple streaks that stained the water.

“Fah Avixis drah.” A deep voice roared.

Sal fought the urge to smile as her eye glowed with savage joy. “A captain. My lucky day.” She scoffed standing to her full height. The injured Eliksni clasped one of his arms around his chest while he scrambled for his shock blades.

Firing a single shot a mere handful of inches from his head Sal stepped forward. “Don’t move.”

Balling his clawed hand the captain looked up the guardian and hissed. “Ava fik miha.”

The jubilation that filled her chest quickly vanished as Sal shook her head. “The one time I wish I had taken up Devrim’s offer of language classes,” Turning her attention to the wounded captain she raised her gun. “Name, Sal-4,” She said placing her free hand against her chest plate. “Sal-4.”

The captain propped himself up against a rock and watch as the guardian knelt down.  “Safor ava fix Avixis.”

Pulling down her hood down Sal sat down with the gun still trained on the captain. “Sal-4. Name Sal-4.”

Narrowing his glowing blue eyes the Eliksni coughed loudly before taking a deep breath. “Nam. Safor.” He said between laboured breaths.

“Good,” Sal smiled. “Name?” She said pointing at her soon to be prisoner.

The captain mustered his remaining energy and for a moment stood to his full height. “Avixis.” He hissed before collapsing back against the rock.

Sal narrowed her eyes and took a moment to examine the captain. Judging by the various scars on his arms and legs she figured he must be pretty old. “Okay, nice to meet you Avixis. To be honest with you I don’t know what I’m going to do with you. Looks like I tagged you pretty bad,” She said pointing to his wound. “So how about this. You help me and I’ll help you.”

“Sah ava Avixis dix vah.”

Shaking her head Sal sighed to herself. “Hey Ebi. You can come out!” She shouted over her shoulder as she reached out and took the blades that waited at Avixis’ feet.

“I wish you’d given me a better name,” The ghost said as it flew over. It glowing eye bulged when it saw the bleeding captain. “Is this who you shot?”

Sal nodded. “Ebi meet Avixis, Avixis, Ebi.”

“And what are you going to do with an injured Eliksni captain you can’t even talk to?”

“Well he won’t be much use to us dead, so I guess we’ll have to patch him up. How much do you know about Fallen anatomy?”

Her ghost gawked at her. “Nothing. Why would I?”

Pushing her ghost to one side Sal stepped towards Avixis. “Hurt.” She said pointing to purple blood pooling around his body.

Avixis nodded and pointed to the rifle on Sal’s shoulder. “Safor ava Avixis.” He coughed slowly pointing to her hand-cannon.

Sal-4’s hardened expression slowly softened. “Oh no big guy. You’re not getting out of it that easy,” Looking down at herself she silently cursed her metal body, turning around she sighed. “Desperate times.” She said quietly to herself.

Slowly Sal reached to her collar and lifted her cloak over her head. “Stop blood.” She said holding up the fabric.

“Sal what are you doing? You’re a hunter. You can’t give up your cloak.”

“It’s my cloak I can do what I want with it.” She said with balled fists.

Avixis tilted his head to one side and growled quietly. “Safor in ava Avixis?”

Sal noted the tone of his voice and smirked. “He keeps saying ‘ava’ what does that mean?”

“We’re out of range from Devrim.”

Stepping forward, Sal held up the long cloak. With each step, Avixis hissed a little louder, following his stern glare she reached down and dropped her her cannon onto the ground, much to the dismay of her ghost. “It’s okay. It’s okay,” It didn’t take long for Sal-4 to close the distance between them and soon she felt his breath against her faceplate. Tentatively she took the arm that cradled his wound and moved it to one side, all the while Avixis never stopped watching her with a mixture of curiosity and distrust.

Sal reached around the alien’s waist making sure the thick collar of her cloak covered the wound. As she tried to tie the knot behind his back Sal fell forward before she could stop herself she felt a pair of arms grasp her shoulder.

“Thanks,” She said against his chest. “This should keep you from bleeding to death.” Looking Sal found Avixis inching closer and closer to her.

Pressing a clawed finger against her cheek the captain wheezed. “Great. Machine?”

“Great machine?” Sal echoed looking over shoulder.

Ebi floated closer to the Fallen. “I think he means the Traveller.”

“Yeah, but why is he poking my face?” She asked as Avixis leaned even closer.

The ghost swirled around their guardian and chirped loudly. “He must think you’re the Traveller.”

Fighting the urge to burst into fit of laughter Sal-4 gently eased away from the curious Eliksni. “That’s cute and all but what are we going to do with him?”

Her ghost hummed. “You were the one who shot him. He’s your responsibility.”

Sal-4 groaned as she stood up. “And you’re my ghost so I’m your responsibility,” She said with her hands on her hips. “Look, I’ll wait here with him while you go get help… and an english to eliksni dictionary.”

“What if he attacks you? If I can’t find you I won’t be able to bring you back.”

“He could have attacked me at any moment when I was patching him up,” She explained as Avixis slowly reached out to poke at her side. “If we help him out he might be willing to help. They’re stories of guardians and Fallen teaming up all over the system.” Sal shrugged.

Ebi sighed as she hovered high over her guardian. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to help after you shot him. Just stay put, I’ll be as quick as I can.”

Hours passed as Sal-4 waited for her ghost to return, eventually the sky began to turn a deep orange as the sun began to set. Her attention, however wasn’t on the sky but on her prisoner. Worried that her cloak wouldn’t stop the bleeding she had gingerly taken one of his hands in hers and placed it against the wound.

“Hold.” She said slowly.

Clearing his throat Avixis looked up from the hole in his side. “Great. Machine. Hold.”

Sal narrowed her eyes. “You’ve got four arms, surely you can use one.”

Seemingly ignoring her Avixis reached into his armor and pulled out a series of small cylinders. With his other two arms he fiddled with the large plated mask that covered most of his face, a high pitched hiss followed as a rush of gas escaped the apparatus.

As Avixis replaced the spent cylinders Sal picked up one of them and rolled it in her hand. “I’ve guess this stuff is Ether.” She said holding it up to the fading sunlight.

Avixis nodded and pointed to his mask. “Ether.” He hissed quietly holding up two of his large fingers.

“Wait,” Sal gawked. “You’ve only got two of these left?” She said holding the empty cylinder up to him.   

“Great machine,” He said pointing to her. “Ether, Avixis.” The captain added pointing back to himself.

Feeling the heat sinks in her shoulders hiss gently Sal shook her head. “You’re charming really but I’m not the great machine, and I don’t have any ether.”

Avixis reached out to her mouth piece and took it in one of his hands. “Great machine?” When Sal-4 shook her head the captain released her and sank back against the rock and hissed loudly to himself.

“Don’t worry,” Sal giggled. “I’ll take it as a compliment.”

As an uneasy silence fell on the two of them Sal-4 watched with crossed arms as Avixis looked down to the small stream than ran beside them. For some reason he wouldn’t look up from the water, his seemingly boundless curiosity seemed to have evaporated in an instant. Humming through her metallic lips she leant back and pouted at him.  

“Sorry to disappoint. Also, you should know it’s not very polite to call us machines.”

Avixis looked up at her for a moment, when their eyes met he bowed his head down to her. “Avixis kul fik dars.”

“Apology accepted,” Sal-4 smiled as something caught her attention. Looking up to the sky Sal’s smile widened as Ebi descended below the tree line. “Took you long enough. What happened?”

The ghost took a moment to examine the captain before turning to their guardian. “You do realise we’re in the middle of nowhere, it took me ages to find anyone.”

“So who did you find?”

Before her ghost could answer a great booming rang through the forest. “Well, well, well,” The voice scoffed as a mountain of a figure appeared over the ridge line. “What do we have here?”

“You found a Titan?” Sal sighed. Immediately upon seeing the new guardian Avixis balled his fists and readied himself. “Oh shit,” She hissed quickly getting to her feet. “Hey musclehead, keep it down.”

The Titan rested her hands on her hips and looked down at the Fallen captain. “Quite the prize you’ve got there.”

“Sah ava in fik.” Avixis hissed up at her.

Puffing out his chest the Titan reached up and took off their helmet. “Well that’s rude,” She said jumping down to meet Sal-4. “Quin Chi, pleasure to meet you.” She said offering her an open hand.

“Sal-4,” She said taking her hand. “Wait. Do, do you understand him?” She asked pointing to the now standing captain.

Quin Chi scoffed. “I’ve spent a lot of time in bars in the Reef. Met all sorts of people and eliksni. After awhile you pick up the language,” She shrugged turning to the captain. “Mithixis garn nel.” She jeered in a low tone.

For a moment Avixis was stunned silent but it wasn’t long before he narrowed his eyes at the Titan, growling under his breath. “Safor.”

Getting her attention Sal slowly came to his side. “What is he saying?”

“Other than insulting my honor? Not much.”

“Safor in fik Avaixis.” The captain said looking down at her.

The titan ran her fingers through her light blue hair and whistled. “He said that you dishonored him.”

“Asar”

“But he thanks you. Wait, what are you even doing with a captain?”

Sal crossed her arms. “I’ve been tracking a gang of fallen around here for over a week. This guy is the first Eliksni I’ve seen in all that time.”

Quin Chi hummed. “Well you hurt him pretty bad,” She said pointing to the now soaked cloak around his side. “What do you want to do with him?”

“Ideally. Take him back to the City and get him to spill what he knows, but I doubt Zavala would appreciate a nine foot captain walking around the Tower,” Sal sighed. “How far is the Farm?”

“If you’re going to be dragging this guy with you all the way? At least ten days. If you can get him on your ship, no more than a hour.”

Sal’s eyes fell to the ground as her ghost came to her side. “She didn’t want to spook any fallen. We walked here.”

“Do you have a ship?”

Quin slowly nodded. “Of course I do.”

“I need it for one trip, that's it. I’ll pay anything.”

Pinching the bridge of her nose the Titan took a deep breath. “Okay hunter, you can take it but in return I want something. You hunters have a thing for dares and giving your word?” Sal nodded. “Then I want one dare on reserve. Something I can call in whenever.”

“You know those are supposed be between hunters. Not anyone can make a hunter dare.”

“If you don’t like calling it that then just call it a favour.” Quin scoffed.

Sal looked over the captain who was still glaring at the titan. “You’ve got a deal,” She said as her heat sinks released a hiss of steam from her shoulders. “And… thanks, I guess. You titans aren’t all muscleheads, I guess.”

“Yeah, yeah I’m sure you’re surprised that we can be nice sometimes,” Quin chuckled as her ghost appeared at her side. “Bring the ship around.”

Tilting his head Avixis stepped between the two of them. “Inxi mithras eliksni.”

Quin Chi clutched at her sides as her shipped hovered over head. “It seems like he’s pretty fond of you.”

“W-what did he say?” She asked looking back to the captain that stood over her. Before she could get her answer a blinding light filled her vision and a moment later both her and Avixis were crammed into the cockpit of Quin’s ship. Clearing her head Sal looked over her shoulder. “You okay back there big guy?”

Avixis merely purred in response as he inspected the ship. Reaching forward he leaned over Sal and looked down at her. “Safor. Avixis, thanx yoo.”

Feeling heat rise in her shoulders Sal tilted her head back and smiled up at him as Ebi turned the ship in the direction of the Farm. “Happy to help.”

“Of all things your first friend had to be a fallen.”

#destiny #oc #fallen x guardian #destiny game #exo x fallen

[idiopath-fic-smile]

Fic: The Curious Case of L’Ami

Fandom: Les Mis/Starship Iris crossover

Pairing: Enjolras/Grantaire

Summary: Some say L’Ami is a legend, a figment of a void-addled imagination, like that former gambling boat turned ghost ship, or the giant astral squids floating in The Deep.

Notes: Commission for Brynn. (Prompt: Enjolras, Grantaire, and any other amis that strike your fancy in the Starship Iris universe.)

Fic: 

Officially, Adrien Enjolras and his fellow conspirators are dead, killed in an accidental explosion during the failed student protests of 2180. No bodies were ever recovered from the site, but there are eyewitnesses, death certificates, security camera footage which places Enjolras and the others at the scene moments before the fatal detonation.

Unofficially, though--Mathieu Combeferre was always top of the class when it came to hacking video feeds, and it’s true that during his brief stint at the school’s drama department, Sebastien Courfeyrac demonstrated an almost disturbing flair for pyrotechnics.

Beyond that, well, people have a knack for seeing what they expect to see.

Enjolras hates being called a pirate, so naturally, Grantaire does it as much he can.

“What we do is not piracy,” Enjolras insists at dinner that evening. They’re down to only protein tablets again, but Bossuet insists on nightly crew meals anyway, citing some half-remembered psychology paper on the importance of group cohesion. “They were out for gold--”

“--and glory,” Bahorel cuts in.

“And other, non-gold forms of wealth,” Prouvaire offers from the corner, where he’s sharpening knives. “Jewels. Silver. Tobacco.”

“Really, this piracy thing is sounding better and better all the time,” Grantaire declares. “And we haven’t even gone into the clothes yet. Those long swoopy coats? Those hats? They don’t even make saboteur hats.”

“Not yet, they don’t,” says Joly, a needle and thread in his hands and a troubling gleam in his eyes.

Some say L’Ami is a legend, a figment of a void-addled imagination, like that former gambling boat turned ghost ship, or the giant astral squids floating in The Deep.

Others claim to have seen it firsthand. These people are, for the most part, lying.

Feuilly and Musichetta worked for many hours in Joly’s lab to create a series of light wave-neutralizing panels which, when applied to the outside of the ship, render it close to invisible in flight. Scanners are a little harder to fool, but it’s not impossible to scatter a signal, and anyway, Combeferre didn’t get his reputation for nothing.

When the Regime’s local radio fails, when a supply line breaks down, when a piece of unjammable IGR tech becomes hopelessly jammed, when satellites plummet from the sky like shooting stars, a low-level lackey will sometimes blame the crew of L’Ami. Sometimes, this person will be correct.

The thing is, sometimes they’re wrong. Sometimes, the resistance comes from much closer to home: orders not carried out, protocol ignored, a devastating weapon left to suffer a mysterious number of production setbacks. When a simple functionary of the Regime acts out of conscience, allows the gears of the machinery to grind close to breaking, even for a moment, L’Ami is there to take the blame. That’s half the reason it exists.

Grantaire calls it The Good Ship Plausible Deniability, but that’s just Grantaire.

Éponine has a job for them. This is not unusual; Éponine is the one with the most contacts on the ground. Scouring the ‘net is one thing, but she’s the one who picks up on the whispers, the thoughts nobody dares commit to keyboards or transcribers.

A prominent politician on New Jupiter has been working with the mafia since before Neuzo.

“The Estonians?” asks Bahorel; “The Sicilians?”

“More small-time than that,” Éponine tells him. “They call themselves the Jondrettes.”

Cosette turns from her pilot’s chair to frown at Éponine. The two share several seconds of complex eye contact, the kind with multiple layers of meaning, and then Cosette reaches up and squeezes Éponine’s shoulder, supportive.

“We go back a ways,” Éponine explains to the others. “But it’s fine. Won’t be an issue.”

“Are you sure,” says Enjolras.

Éponine smiles wolfishly. “I think Bossuet would say it’ll be good for my sense of closure.”

The mission is complicated. Wiretapping mob lines from the air is a no-go; criminals have the best encryption on the market. Planting a bug in-person means infiltrating either the Jondrettes’ headquarters, or the offices of a minor chancellor.

“Chancellor’ll have less security,” Bahorel points out. “Fewer armed guards--”

“But we’ll need a better cover story,” Éponine finishes. “High clearance. You know what that means.”

Enjolras does.

Grantaire shows up to the briefing wearing thick black eyeliner. “It’s my form of protest,” he explains. “I will rock this look until you at least give me a small plank to walk people off.”

Enjolras, who has consumed more piratical factoids than he’d really care to admit, says absently, “They didn’t even do that” before he’s thought better of it.

“Aha!” Grantaire shouts. “So by not allowing me a plank, you admit we’re pirates!”

“In other news,” Courfeyrac interjects brightly, “the briefing!”

To pull off this latest mission, the crew will need at least two sets of convincing ident cards, badges, and scannable contact lenses to create the illusion of a bodyguard and a mid-level aide. (Bahorel and Courfeyrac, respectively. Éponine is out due to the chance she could be recognized by one of Jondrette’s thugs. It remains to be seen if the Chancellor is brazen enough to invite known criminals directly to his office, but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility.)

“Simple,” says Grantaire. “Child’s play. A grievous waste of my talents. I could be counterfeiting money on a tropical planet, sipping absurdly conceptual cocktails on a hover-beach, and here I am instead--” “And why is that, exactly?” Enjolras fires back. Grantaire just shrugs one easy shoulder, eyes shockingly blue against all that black. It reminds Enjolras of the way Earth stands out in photos taken from space.

“Who’s got the attention span to stay put?” Grantaire replies. “If anyone needs me, I’ll be in my quarters.” He reaches the door, spins, and adds with a grin, “mateys.”

The irritating thing about Grantaire--and there are many, but the chief one among Enjolras’s concerns--is that it is almost impossible to get a straight answer out of him.

Grantaire of a dozen years ago would never so casually take orders, would certainly never then turn around and perform the tasks required. Maybe he just prefers fucking shit up over trying to rally the people. But then again, the work Grantaire does--falsifying records, forging credentials, crafting careful replicas of retinas--is not just an act of creation but an act of incredible precision.

Everyone aboard L’Ami has made sacrifices. Everyone left behind people, places, the chance for anything resembling a steady life. They are all legally dead, after all. Most did it from a place of deep conviction, the same conviction that once drove them to pledge their lives to the cause back on Corinth.

Grantaire was not one of them then. The only change between those days and the day Grantaire chose to run with them was the total failure of the student uprisings.

Why this, why now? Certainly, Enjolras has other things to think about. They’ll need more rations soon, and both Cosette and Feuilly have been after him about some new engine part that should be able to up their speed by something like fifteen percent. Combeferre is only a year’s worth of work away from being able to implant a virus inside the Regime’s intra-government mail system. Courfeyrac’s disguises get more promising every day. And if nothing else, there’s an endless expanse of stars out the window, endless thoughts to have about the scope of the universe and the promise of a brighter dawn.

Most of the time, this is more than enough to keep his mind occupied.

Most of the time.

Enjolras is waiting by the comms when word comes that the plan’s gone south. Fifteen minutes after Courfeyrac successfully managed to slip into the Chancellor’s office and plant the bug inside of his desk, Bahorel was spotted and recognized by a freelance guard.

“How,” says Cosette, calm tone belying her white knuckles on the dashboard.

“Not sure.” Courfeyrac’s voice comes in a whisper; from the sounds of it, he’s ducked behind a corner. “I know he was on the amateur boxing circuit, back in the day--”

The name on Bahorel’s ident card won’t match up with the name he went by then. It’s a matter of time until the small talk branches off into questions and they are discovered.

Enjolras has to fix this. It was his call to send Courfeyrac and Bahorel, his call that put them in danger. He paces the cockpit.

“I’m going in after them,” he announces.

“No,” says a voice from the doorway. Grantaire is standing there, shoulders tense, still wearing that ridiculous eyeliner. “We don’t have the numbers for a confrontation.” His voice is quiet, devoid of irony or sarcasm. Somehow, that’s the strangest part of the whole scene.

“I’ll keep it covert,” Enjolras says. “I’ll pretend to be Bahorel’s superior--we’ve still got that spare IGR uniform, right?”

“We do, but we’d still need a new ID for you,” Combeferre replies. “It’s the same problem.”

“The guard’s less likely to check the credentials of a superior, you know that,” Enjolras snaps. Every second they debate is a second Courfeyrac and Bahorel lose.

“Let someone else do it,” Grantaire adds, grave. “We’ve got four or five working aliases between us--”

“Nobody with the clearance to extract them,” says Enjolras. He sighs, rakes his fingers through his hair. “How fast can you make a new ID, Grantaire.”

Grantaire shakes his head. “Not fast enough.” “Then I’ll have to go without.”

“Please don’t do this, Captain.” Grantaire swallows, stares unblinking at Enjolras. “We can’t lose you.”

Later, Enjolras thinks. Later he will pause to examine this moment, the way Grantaire’s voice cracks on ‘you,’ the way his own throat aches in sympathy. Later, because there will be time, because this plan will work.

“Cosette, get ready to make a fast exit,” says Enjolras, already peeling off his captain’s vest. “Tell Feuilly to stoke the engines. Bahorel, keep stalling. Courfeyrac, make your way back to the ship as discreetly as you can. And Grantaire? Have a little faith.”

Grantaire’s choking, hysterical laughter follows him out of the cockpit.

The sun is bright and surreal in his eyes after so many days shipside. Enjolras strides forward, trying to make his speed look commanding and not desperate.

“You there!” he shouts at Bahorel and the guard. “You’re not paid to stand around chatting!”

“Sorry, sir!” Bahorel barks.

“Sorry, sir!” the guard echoes.

“Report back to your stations immediately!” says Enjolras.

“Yes, sir!” Bahorel jogs off, and Enjolras’s heart lightens.

The guard blinks back at him.

The best way to stem critical thinking and divert suspicion is to play into strong emotions. Fear works well. Enjolras launches into a lengthy, furious lecture on the importance of professionalism, of duty and obedience and manning your goddamn post.

“Sir,” says the guard slowly, “I was on break…”

An actual official of the IGR would know this. An actual official of the IGR would be able to access the roster.

“Meadows dismissed me at 09:00,” the guard continues, “Senior Officer…?” One hand is on his radio. There are people everywhere, no way to stop him without making a scene. Enjolras prays that Courfeyrac and Bahorel are already back on the ship.

“Sir!” someone is yelling from behind him. “Sir!” Enjolras spins around. Grantaire is running towards them at full speed. He’s wearing Feuilly’s mechanic coveralls with Musichetta’s leather gloves, to hide the knuckle tattoos, and a pair of goggles jammed over his dark curls to cover the eye makeup. “Sir!” Grantaire calls, “beg pardon, but you left this in the transport!”

In his outstretched hand is a pristine new ID card, emblazoned with the words Major General Hugo.

The guard looks a little pale.

“Would you like to continue to question me,” asks Enjolras, deadly calm.

“No, sir!” The guard executes a sloppy salute and turns on his heel.

Grantaire is doubled over, breathing raggedly. He must have sprinted the whole way. Feuilly has a slighter build; the mechanic suit strains at the shoulders and biceps.

“Thank you,” says Enjolras, as dispassionately as he can, mindful of the crush of people on all sides.

“No...tip...necessary,” Grantaire manages between pants. “Just...glad...to be...of service.”

Once they are safely back in space again, the mood on the ship is messy and ebullient. They may be down to protein tabs, but it turns out there’s still wine.

Bahorel is cheerfully regaling everyone with the story, including a spirited impression of Enjolras as a tyrannical senior officer. Enjolras half-expects Grantaire to be in the thick of the festivities, but he is absent from the mess hall. Nor is he in the cockpit or the engine room or the training room.

Enjolras finds him, finally, in the hydroponics lab.

“Thank you,” he says, and Grantaire jumps.

“You already said,” Grantaire replies with a crooked smile. There is a measure of truth in that smile, but something else, too. Enjolras allows himself to remember that argument in the cockpit, and it’s as though that glimpse of the slipping mask has granted him a better sense of it now.

“I mean it,” Enjolras pushes. “You risked your life, and I appreciate it.”

He’s not sure what he expects, but it’s not laughter. “God,” says Grantaire, bitter and amused, “don’t. Please don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Act like this represents magnificent sacrifice on my part. I acted with extreme selfishness.”

Enjolras frowns. “I don’t follow.”

“Do you really?” Grantaire’s voice is climbing. “Come on, Enjolras, I refuse to believe you’re this obtuse. You must know.”

It’s beyond confusing. “Know what?” Enjolras repeats. “If you’re going to talk in riddles, at least make it rhyme.”

“Well, fuck,” says Grantaire, and an edge of that hysterical laughter is back. “Fuck, what rhymes with, ‘I’ve been desperately in love with you since I very first heard you preaching fire and brimstone and freedom on the quad?’ It’s a little, it’s a little tough to make that scan, but Jesus Christ, give me a second--”

There is a long pause as every neuron in Enjolras’s brain swivels, reconfigures, sputters back into life. Several things suddenly make more sense. Several things also make less sense, but he’ll have time to sort that out.

They’re alive. They have time.

“Grantaire,” he says, hears himself say, “will you go out with me?”

There is a much longer pause. “...say again?” mumbles Grantaire.

“Grantaire, will you please take off those stupid goggles and go out with me?”

“Wow, uh.” The goggles land on the floor, and Enjolras watches those blue eyes widen.

Enjolras fits his hand to the side of Grantaire’s face because he can, because they’re both still breathing and the skin of Grantaire’s jaw is warm and rough with stubble. When Enjolras presses their mouths together, Grantaire’s lips are soft, almost hesitant until something inside him seems to snap and then they are kissing with abandon as the hydroponic system softly mists the air around them.

Presently, Grantaire pulls away. “Are you sure, I mean, are you one hundred percent sure this isn’t just gratitude at how I totally saved your ass?”

“I’m sure,” says Enjolras. “Although, I do think you deserve a reward for that.”

“Yeah?” says Grantaire.

Enjolras takes a deep breath, carefully schools his face. “Shiver me timbers,” he says, totally deadpan, before reaching out to reel Grantaire back in.

Grantaire’s grin is brighter than a supernova.

#fic #not posting this on AO3 bc how do you tag a crossover of a 19th century literary classic + your own handmade space opera #does it count as self-indulgent if someone else came up with the prompt? #idk but i had fun doing it