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thetorchwoodarchive · 1 year

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[img Fics That Haunt You [text is in horror movie poster font] A Rec Fest for Fics You Can't Stop In the center on a black background is an image of team torchwood. To their left are transparent logos for watpad and fanfiction.net. To their right are transparent logos for live journal and ao3]

Fics that haunt you -- a mix of fan and mod recs. Thank you for everyone who sent fics in!

the hands on the clock keep ticking by violetmessages (JackIanto, GwenRhys | complete | 10235 | M)

They all knew it could happen to anyone. They’d all seen the proof. Even if it happened to a miniscule amount of the population, it was still a possibility. But they had grown complacent. They had forgotten that they too were also at the mercy of the Rift, that the Rift did not make an exception for those who knew its existence. They had forgotten until they were faced with it themselves. In which Gwen and Ianto get sent back to 1969 by the Rift.

Don't You Know For Years You've Haunted Me by virtualsilver (GwenRhys, JackIanto | complete | 12803 | T)

Gwen has inherited a recessive trait that has lurked in her ancestors' blood for generations: she is prescient. She can see flashes of where the timeline is heading and can feel when something - or someone - changes it. She tries to use her foreknowledge to change events for the better, but securing the outcome of her interventions proves to be a challenge.

I Sing the Body Electric by Paycheckgurl (OwenTosh, JackIanto | complete | 19069 | T)

In 2008, Team Torchwood investigates a series of robotics robberies. In an unknown time and place Ianto, Toshiko, and Owen wake up in a dark room. Their bodies seem to be strangely metallic. Which isn’t even the strangest development. The strangest development might be that they remember being dead. Or: Torchwood fix it. But they’re androids.

Separation Anxiety: The Continuing Adventures of Club Wales by pocky_slash (JackIanto, GwenRhys | complete | 43412 | NR)

In which Jack is out of town, Andy has a case for Torchwood, Rhys makes pack lunches, and Gwen and Ianto put their detective skills to work.

here is the deepest secret nobody knows by blackkat (JackIanto | complete | 9658 | E)

Ianto closes his eyes in Thames House, lungs full of choking alien gas, and opens them in his sister's house in Cardiff.

Management of Dead Bodies in Disaster Situations: A Field Manual by heddychaa (Gen | complete | 2193 | M)

Darragh Edmonds is a so-called "disaster specialist". Called to the site of tsunamis, earth quakes, floods, terrorist attacks, he takes up the grim task of putting order to human remains, and he does it well. Cleaning up after a biological attack on Thames House should make for a comparatively easy day for Darragh: after all, the bodies of Thames House have even been so considerate as to pile themselves right at the front door for him. That is, until he's sworn to secrecy and sent, alone, to collect two bodies from the building's eerie top floor.

Four, Five, Six by miss winterhill (JackIanto | complete | 1495 | M)

The corridor outside his thesis supervisor's office was cold, and he fought down the nausea that was threatening to overwhelm him. As he waited, he tried to read the notices that fluttered on the board. There was a room to rent in the lower fourth. Someone was offering tutoring in mathematics; that one half-covered a poster about drugs. DRUGS WILL RUIN YOUR LIFE, written in big frightening letters. Ugh.

And Indeed There Will Be Time by kaydeefalls (JackIanto | complete | 42433 | T)

In 1919, Harriet Derbyshire was killed while investigating the disappearance of Torchwood Four in Dublin. In 2009, UNIT pulls a dying man out of the Irish Sea with a one-word message: Torchwood. Martha joins up with Jack's team in Cardiff to track down the errant branch of the organization -- before a time-traveling race of aliens can change the course of history as we know it.

Day Tripper by Gement (JackBessie | complete | 2360 | M)

Bessie's like any other companion: far from home, more than she appears, and always up for an adventure. And Jack Harkness really will seduce anything that moves.

A Vision Too Removed To Mention by pocky_slash (Gen | complete | 13920 | T)

In which Ianto is stuck in a time loop that feels more like hell.

Three Years From Now by LibidineTertius (JackIanto | Complete | 1660 | T)

If Jack keeps his eyes shut (then he doesn't see). Also, sex. Lots of sex.

don’t make me kill you, darling by princessoftheworlds (Gen | Complete | 603 | T)

Javic Thane carries out his next Time Agency assignment.

Stars by DinoDina (JackIanto | Complete | 4020 | G)

The night after Owen first dies, there's a new star in the sky. It's not there the next night, or the next, and Jack knows he's distracted, but he can't answer when Ianto asks if he's okay. He's not.

Chosen Well by Waldo (LisaIanto, JackIanto | Complete | 1707 | T)

"All of the… modifications have been removed, but really, she should be cremated. Just in case we're wrong."

Note to Self: You’re Going to Forget All This by heddychaa (JackIanto | Complete | 2254 | M)

Three thousand years later, Jack doesn't remember much about the leather strap he wears around his wrist; all he knows is that the device inside it needs to be repaired as soon as possible. Every year that passes he finds himself forgetting more and more, his mind collapsing under the weight of his own prolonged existence. So he does his best to follow the clues his younger self leaves him in the hopes they'll lead him somewhere that makes sense again. For now, that means one date, expressed as coordinates: 2009-08-23.

Space Dementia by chagyu (JackIanto, JohnIanto, GwenRhys | Complete | 14799 | M)

Ianto and Jack seem to be drifting apart; the arrival of one Captain John Hart will either set them back on course or completely ruin them. Ianto's not so sure which, and frankly, if Jack keeps flirting with Gwen like that, he's preparing for the latter. Alternately, how Jack's ex-lover saves his current one.

These Happy Days by violetmessages (GwenRhys, JackIanto, GwenRhysJackIanto | Series | 22267 | G-T)

A series of non-chronological stories in which Ianto miraculously survives CoE in some fashion and Torchwood Three (plus Rhys and Anwen) settle down near the seaside. This series does not need to be read in order, or even in its entirety.

Janet’s Very Big Adventure by Beleriandings (Gen | Complete | 3290 | T)

One ordinary day, the wall of Janet's cell explodes.

yours was a heavy heart to carry by someawkwardprose (JackIanto | Complete | 2064 | T)

The thing about loving Jack is this: you cannot ever let him know.

Bad Case of Loving You by virtualsilver (JackIanto, SuzieMelody | Complete | 4891 | T)

The director of Torchwood One gets a call from Jack Harkness about some shady mind control program from the 1950s and has to go digging for old Torchwood secrets, only to find some unexpected revelations of a more personal nature along the way.

Happy Birthday, Ianto Jones by aliciajazmin (JackIanto, JackJohnIanto, GwenRhys | Complete | 693 | T)

Ianto Jones is a sim, and today is his birthday.

Finding Ianto by Blackbird Song (Blackbird_Song) (JackIanto | Complete | 14906 | G)

A long time ahead, in a space bar far, far away, Jack gets a message he didn't expect.

Bilis Manger, the Demon, and the River by aliciajazmin (AbaddonBillis | complete | 1181 | E)

Bilis Manger enlists the help of his crush to help him get across a river. This is a river that they can only wade through together.

Six of Swords by Jackdaw816 (JackIanto, OwenTosh | complete | 600 | G)

The Torchwood team, but with swords

World and Enough Time (Stories From the Loop) by Jackdaw816 (JohnIanto | complete | 7224 | M)

This time loop ain't big enough for the both of them

Jack Harkness' Sexy School of Shooting™ by violetmessages (JackIanto, Gwen&Jack | complete | 1214 | T)

Jack has an excellent idea but no one else seems to think it's good. Only one way to prove them wrong.

Smile Like You Mean It by egg_agemythrusters (JackIanto | complete | 622 | G)

Jack Harkness had a smile like no other.

Dead On Arrival by violetmessages (JackIanto, GwenRhys, Gwen&Ianto | complete | 13582 | M)

Ianto Jones wakes up. The only problem is, he's certain he was dead.

Hohnq by gwendolyncooper (JackIanto, John&Ianto | complete | 1911 | G)

It’s not really a normal day to walk into the Torchwood Hub and find a goose holding a knife, but it seems that’s the way Ianto Jones’ day is going to start.

Waking God by toldthestars (JackIanto | complete | 7692 | Not Rated)

Why are Ianto's dreams coming true? What's in the box with the symbol on it? Oh, and while we're at it, what's the meaning of the life?

keep your hand at eye level of your eyes by MonsterMince (GwenJohn | complete | 8331 | E)

Five years after the events of COE, Gwen still misses her team and what she had. It's not much of a life without them, and when Rhys takes Anwen away until Gwen's willing to move on, of course John Hart turns up with an offer that's too tempting to refuse: A way to raise Ianto from the dead.

left you both of the rings by princessoftheworlds (JackIanto | complete | 21188 | T)

Ianto and Jack are the dream couple—working side-by-side at Torchwood, protecting the world from alien threats alongside the rest of their team, living in domestic wedded bliss during their off hours. But when cracks begin to appear in the surface of Ianto’s perfect world, he’s forced to confront what he knows is real.

One Last Breath by Riennynn (JackIanto | complete | 3441 | Not Rated)

Yet another homicidal alien has Jack and Ianto trapped in an airtight storage locker. Jack has a plan to make sure they get rescued alive, but Ianto isn't going to like it.

Strayverse by NancyBrown (JackIanto, IantoOther(s) | complete, series | 93, 539 | Multiple Ratings; G-E)

Amy recreated the universe and brought back the dead, but the dead don't fit there anymore.

Conditional Iteration by Beleriandings (Gwen&Ianto, JackIanto, GwenRhys, GwenIanto | series | 78, 082 | Multiple Ratings; G-E)

When Ianto dies on the floor of Thames House, time resets for him and Gwen. They soon realise that the two of them are stuck in a time loop, giving them another chance -- or as many chances as it takes -- to save the world's children from the 456.

it means something by MonsterMince (JackIanto, Gwen&Suzie, Jack&Owen, Jack&Tosh, Jack&Gwen | complete | 11316 | T)

Physically showing his team how much he cares about them is an HR nightmare, which is why Jack never passes up an opportunity to be a fake couple with his team. 5 times each member of the team had to pretend to be a couple with Jack, and one time the team pretended to be a polycule, featuring: Having fun with Suzie in couples' therapy; making an ex jealous with Owen; romancing Ianto in Serenity Plaza; taking a ballroom dance class with Tosh; and getting dressed with Gwen in hideously boring outfits picked out by Rex.

Herding Cats by blackkat (JackIanto, Non-Torchwood Ships | Series, complete | 8061 | G)

Ianto finds himself back from the dead and, apparently, in the position to double-cross a power-crazed Norse god intent on conquering the Earth by taking out a team of superheroes. Must be a Tuesday.

I just wanted you to watch me dissolve, slowly by MonsterMince (JackJohn | complete | 15417 | E)

If John had known the true cost he'd need to pay to cure Jack's immortality, he might not have paid it. (That's a lie.)

took a louisville slugger to both headlights by Flamingbluepanda (Implied Relationships | complete | 733 | G)

Ianto has a perfectly fine morning, then this happens

Jack VS the soul stealing toys by Flamingbluepanda (JackIanto | complete | 457 | Not Rated)

Ianto is king of the furbies

The Bad Neighbor by Firesnap (Gen | complete | 30576 | T)

Rhys Williams knows there's something wrong with his neighbor. It's a shame no one seems to be listening to him.

The Author, The Scribe, The Archivist by MonsterMince (JackIanto, Gwen&Team, Gwen&Ianto, Gwen&Jack | complete | 7530 | T)

The story of how Gwen Cooper helped Jack to never forget his team, with one scrapbook. (Or, Post-COE, Gwen finds Ianto’s scrapbook dedicated to Lisa, and sets about adding to it so she and Jack can remember him and the rest of their team. It works really, really well.)

Grief Lessons by elusive_eventuality (JackIanto | complete | 2936 | T)

"What groaning, what lament, what song of death, what dance of Hades shall I do?" ~ Euripides Or a CoE fix-it in five parts, one for every stage of grief.

A Tale of Two Universes by Paycheckgurl (JackIanto, LisaIanto, Gwen&Ianto, Ianto&Team, Ianto&Tosh, Yvonne&Ianto | complete | 2305 | T)

In one universe Ianto Jones lives and in another he dies. Only it’s not quite that simple.

tell rock n' roll i'm alone again by paperclipbitch (OwenIanto, SuzieOwen, JackJohn, GwenRhys, ToshAdam | complete | 17055 | M)

Band!AU. In which Torchwood have just about made it though as it turns out that doesn’t fix anything, Owen would much rather punch Ianto than shag him (honestly), and absolutely everyone seems to be Jack’s ex boyfriend.

Caledfwlch by BricklingGhost (TeamGwenee) (JackIanto, GwenRhys, LisaIanto, OwenTosh, OwenKatie, Team | complete | 48456 | Not Rated)

Jack has a lifetime ban from the afterlife for stealing, Owen's fiance is a right hag, Toshiko is playing children's games, Ianto has a vampire in the garden, and Gwen has a prophetic dog of death following her around for pets.

Everything I Know About the Earth by Sorrel (GwenOwen, GwenJack | complete | 16437 | M)

Spend too much time near the Rift, and who knows what might happen. Gwen's having strange dreams, and knowing things she couldn't possibly know. Things are about to change, and not really for the better. GwenOwen, implied GwenJack, mature.

Exhibit by Mirrankei (OwenTosh, JackIanto, | complete | 38701 | T)

Owen, Tosh, and Ianto find themselves kidnapped to the future. Stuck in space 2000 years in the future, they become part of an Earth exhibit in the station museum. But the portal that brought them is broken, and a visiting Time Lord smells a trap...

Unworn World by Amand_r, cruentum (JackJohn | complete | 10128 | Not Rated)

Jack thought that John'd been way too accommodating through this whole thing, and so he wasn't in the least surprised when the doctor told them that John was too far along in gestation for a procedure.

It Had to Be You by TheSigyn (JackIanto, JackJohn | complete | 12181 | M)

After the events of Children of Earth, Captain Jack runs to the only person who can help him; Captain John Hart. But this is not how John wanted it to be.

#event:fics that haunt you #torchwood #mod:nik

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baltears · 2 years

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Utena Episode 10: “Nanami’s Precious Thing” Shadow Play Analysis

(CW: incest, gaslighting, abuse; img source: ohtori.nu)

I have no idea if this interpretation of the Shadow Girls' play in episode 10 has been originated by anyone else, but I was rewatching recently and had a lightbulb moment about it that I wanted to talk about and didn’t see anywhere else, so here we go.

First off, here is the text of the scene, more or less.

A-ko: Look, I've found a little kitten! What should we name it?

B-ko: How about "Kitty?"

A-ko: That's so common! Aren't there any more unusual names?

B-ko: "Unusual Kitty!"

A-ko: No, that's not it... isn't there something that's more tasteful?

B-ko: "Tasteful Unusual Kitty!"

A-ko: No, not like that! Can't you think of something cuter that's easy to remember?

B-ko: "Something Cuter, Easy to Remember Tasteful Unusual Kitty!"

A-ko: Oh, I give up! If you're so set on calling it Kitty, we'll call it Kitty.

B-ko: Come here, Juliano. [The cat meows.]

A-ko: I said you didn't have to give it a cute name!

So the main conflict of the scene is over the naming of the cat, and we can consider the conflict it's referring to as "identifying something that evades easy identification." Looking at the events of the rest of the episode, I would pinpoint that "something" as Nanami's relationship to Touga, and I will go on to explain what I mean.

Throughout the episode (and as the story proceeds past this episode), a central question for Nanami's character is what her relationship to Touga actually is. She is constantly trying to interrogate what their interactions mean and move the relationship to some kind of place that she understands. However, Touga continually gaslights her, claiming that they have a purely platonic sibling relationship when in fact he knows that their relationship has romantic undertones, because as a means of controlling her, he intentionally leads her on only to then deny that he's done so and imply that the mere suggestion is absurd or childish. (Presumably this dynamic developed out of smaller-scale manipulations of her when they were younger; I doubt they started out at anything like this point.)

Take for example this scene from earlier in the episode:

Touga is still recovering from the injury inflicted by Saionji in the previous episode and is practicing Kendo outside, and Nanami comes to ask him to stop. She is justifiably worried that his refusal to stop and rest will cause his injury to worsen (it's also either the middle of the night or the small hours of the morning; most people, particularly most people recovering from an injury, would be in bed). Instead of stopping when she asks him to, Touga continues, and Nanami's distress increases. Notably, he could have just stopped for the night, or waited until she went back to sleep, or even just paused to have a conversation with her about it when she first came outside. But he waits until she's visibly upset and even at the point of tears.

Then Touga does this:

While assuring her that nothing bad will happen to him, he grabs her face and sort of leans in, in a way that feels obviously romantic. At the very least it's the kind of move one would be surprised to see from a brother towards his sister. So Nanami, who is subconsciously noticing that and correctly reading what the situation looks like, asks him to give her a kiss. (She doesn't necessarily mean to ask for a romantic kiss because her feelings are confused and not 100% conscious, but that's what it comes off as.)

Touga stays in the same pose for a beat longer, drawing out the suspense...

...and then he pulls away, laughing casually and telling her they're too old for that. And he even has the nerve to say, "You had me scared!" as he walks back into the house.

Nanami is left standing outside by herself, visibly confused and distressed.

After that we get a flashback to her giving him the kitten and then growing jealous of it as an example of the pattern she sees in their relationship of always having to fight for his attention. On a surface-level viewing of that flashback, it's easy to assume that Nanami has simply always been oversensitive and overly reliant on Touga for attention. But putting it in the context of this previous scene, it starts to look like he actually has a long-term pattern of abusing her using this method of drawing her in with attention and love and then ignoring her or pulling away, and it has now escalated to the point where their relationship is bordering on incestuous.

So, it's clear that Touga knows what he's doing. None of the weird, hot-and-cold way he treats Nanami seems accidental; hardly anything Touga does ever is. And her constant seeking after his attention and absolute elation whenever she gets it, once you extract them from the context of Nanami as a comedic character, reads like the behavior of an abuse victim, because that is what she is. All Nanami wants is for their relationship to land in one place, and she'd be fine with it being a normal sibling relationship – but Touga will never let that happen, because if it did, she would stop focusing all her attention on him.

Back to the shadow girls now. The back-and-forth over what to name the cat involves A-ko trying to figure out what the cat's name should be, and B-ko first suggesting something simple and straightforward, and then jokingly but intentionally confounding A-ko until she gives up and accepts the initial idea – at which point B-ko calls the cat by its real name, which she already knows. Meanwhile the cat has grown to a size much larger than the average house cat, until it dwarfs both A-ko and B-ko.

In a nutshell: A-ko is Nanami, B-ko is Touga. Nanami keeps trying to get Touga to be straightforward with her about what their relationship is ("What should we name it?"). She doesn't initially accept it when he says it is only a normal sibling relationship ("How about 'Kitty?'") because his actions continually suggest otherwise. However, after he has given her enough mixed signals, she always ends up agreeing with what he says and feeling that she has misunderstood and that it's somehow her fault, because that's what he essentially tells her. ("If you're so set on calling it Kitty, we'll call it Kitty.") (Classic gaslighting.) Meanwhile, Touga knew all along what the "cat's" name was and, having already named it, that it wasn't "Kitty" – and the cat has grown far larger than a cat should be, signifying just how out of hand his manipulation of her has gotten and the extremely disproportionate amount of space this relationship is taking up in her life.

In the context of this interpretation, I find A-ko's last line particularly telling and very sad. "I said you didn't have to give it a cute name!" – What Nanami actually wants, what any person in an abusive relationship with a loved one almost certainly wants deep down, is to have a healthy relationship with her brother that sets proper boundaries. She doesn't actually want for him to admit that their relationship is romantic, although that might be better than his constant lying; what she wants is for him to stop acting like it is and go back to just being her brother. (This is demonstrated clearly much later, in episodes 31 and 32, when Nanami is presented with the option of definitively escalating her relationship with Touga to that level and immediately rejects it.) She will take his romantic attention when it's all she can get, but it's not what she would choose if given the option of being close to him without it.

This is a key element of the episode because it shows just how in control Touga is. Even when things appear most out of control, when the duel has officially ended but Nanami keeps attacking Utena, he is still the one pulling the strings and is able to step in to stop her and save Utena at the exact right moment. But at the same time, the size of the “cat” dwarfs him too. His treatment of Nanami is very calculated, but his pathological need to be the object of all her attention is not.

(Quick note: This meta is not intended as a takedown of Touga or to portray him as a villain, any more than he already is one. Touga is actually my favorite character in the show and has reasons for doing all the things he does, but he's also objectively very abusive to Nanami throughout most of their relationship.)

#revolutionary girl utena #touga kiryuu #nanami kiryuu #utena analysis #utena

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feminaexlux · 3 years

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Fall to Me

TBH I realize belatedly after writing this that Truth was fomenting chaos in my soul and it needed to be taken the fuck out with a proverbial shotgun

Anyway here's a fic that was based off of Truth and without knowledge of the rest of S4 so far, just in case nothing makes sense

I also know I promised smangst (smut + angst) but I got tired/lazy and @mintaka14 posted something I felt was eerily similar (or just reminded me I needed to get this done) so I wanted to get this out the door

Read on AO3 here!

Rated M for language I guess?

⁂

Luka was in a precarious situation. He was lying half-naked on Marinette's chaise, with Marinette herself lying half-naked on him. She let out a quiet sleepy giggle when she brushed her thigh against his raging hard-on, still unfortunately trapped under his over-tight jeans. His neck felt sore where she'd bitten him and he figured there'd be a pretty obvious bruise there soon.

His chest was also similarly marked.

He woke up like this. He had woken up when he had needed to sneeze because some hair got all up in his face. He then realized he had a whole-ass person on top of him. And that person was the girl he had been in love with for years. He had gently brushed away her hair and she had hummed out a "Mmmm, Luuuuka," that got him hot-and-bothered and unable to go back to sleep. He kinda didn't want to wake her in fear of this whole precarious situation blowing up in his face.

⁂

This all started a week ago with Dingo, that fucker. Well, sort of. Maybe. Maybe that was all circumstantial. But Dingo had 2 extra tickets to The Bondsmiths and Ding had given them to Luka. Juleka was busy with stuff, his Ma wasn't into this newfangled noise, Ivan wouldn't go without Mylene, Mylene was in Spain on vacation, Rose was "stuff," and if Dingo was involved most of Luka's other friends wouldn't be.

He'd just thrown it out into a group chat "Hey I have an extra ticket anyone want to come?" and Marinette was the one that said "me~!" Luka and Dingo had a tense stare off when Dingo handed over the tickets.

Her? Dingo's sharp brown eyes seemed to say.

Luka stared back coolly. Yes. We're friends.

Dingo fucking smirked. How much longer, eh? Cheers, mate. He gave the tickets to Luka with a smarmy wink.

The night of the showing Luka got stuck being the designated driver. He was used to it. The concert area was indoors and packed. Ding almost got shitfaced and Brielle had to keep him from falling over. At least the sets were fantastic. When the concert was closing at around 02:34 Ding and Brielle were having sloppy disgusting make-outs, making both Luka and Marinette ever so slightly uncomfortable.

That was when it all started getting weird. Weirder.

Brielle came up for air and told Luka that she and Ding would take a cab back, so all Luka would need to do was drop off Marinette. Luka shrugged and did just that, but Marinette invited him up to crash at her place because it was already so late and he looked so tired. He was about to pass on that when Marinette mentioned that her parents were on vacation in China and wouldn't be back for a whole month, just… out of the blue.

Before he could formulate any sort of coherent response she took his hand and pulled him up the stairs to the living room, sat him on the couch, started brewing some chamomile tea for the both of them, and talked about the concert. Marinette smiled at him after handing him a mug and short-circuited his brain again. "That was fun!"

"I'm glad you enjoyed," Luka smiled back, sipping his tea.

She sat down next to him and brushed her hair back over her ear. A shiny black earring seemed to glimmer with the light it caught. "I'm really glad I was able to go with you."

His head was empty except for noticing the light blush she had on her cheeks. She looked up at him with her big blue eyes, and somehow Luka got the sense that she was… expecting something? Oh, a response, duh. "Same. It's always nice to hang out with you."

She smiled, drank the rest of her tea and set it aside. "Luka, can I kiss you?"

… What? Wow, alright he was tired. He thought he heard her ask him if she could kiss him. He was already in the half-asleep pseudo-dream state and probably imagined that whole thing. Goddamn he was such a simp for her. "Heh," he said noncommittally.

Marinette blinked at him. "Is that a… a no?"

"Hmm?"

She scooted closer to him and he took a big gulp of his tea to hide his nervousness. "You… don't want me to kiss you?"

Oh God he heard that correctly. He sputtered and coughed, covering his mouth with a fist. "Wh-what?" He blushed hard.

She blushed as well. "Sorry! I'm sorry. I-I-I thought… um."

Several years ago they had tried to date but she'd always been… unavailable. So they kept hanging out as friends, which was… fine. It was fine. They'd never even gotten to really do anything together as a couple but as friends? It went better.

He wasn't over her. Never tried to convince himself he was. But he also honestly hadn't expected her to want to get back together. So… what changed? She sighed heavily, her complexion calming back down. "Nothing changed. Not really." She looked down toward the floor at her feet and he finally realized he asked that last thought out loud. "I… maybe I guess I did." She looked back up at him. "I've been thinking lately that I just want… to do something for me, for once. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…" She trailed off and stared back at the floor.

"I've never stopped wanting to be with you." Oh shit he said it. She looked back up at him and he awkwardly took another swallow of tea and looked away. "Sounds bad. I guess it is," he said eventually.

"But you didn't tell me?"

He met her eyes. "You were happy. You were with Adrien. I can't force my feelings on you."

She took a breath and let it out slowly. "I was, yeah." Her words hung in the air.

Luka hadn't figured out what happened to break up the state of Adrienette, but when he came back from touring with Jagged, Marinette and Adrien were "just friends" again. Luka wasn't sure how long ago the split happened and after 2 or 3 years apart did he even know Marinette anymore?

She had welcomed him back to Paris as a more grown up Marinette, not actually so different than he had remembered her. She had more confidence, less anxiety, a spine of steel. She was in charge of herself and it was so good to see her so sure.

He didn't want to mess that up for her in any way. So they remained friends for 2 more years. And for one reason or another they both kept being single.

He had somehow reintegrated back in her inner circle of friends. Luka saw for himself that Marinette and Adrien had a lot of history in their little in-jokes and double talk, dropping code phrases and making each other laugh at random. Maybe they'd reignite that spark and Luka didn't want to be caught in the resulting blaze. Even if they didn't, underneath it all he worried about being disappointed and left in the dark by Marinette like he'd been all those years ago.

Not that it did anything to change his attraction to her. He was a sucker for girls like her, except there had only ever been the one.

Marinette took his free hand and squeezed it gently. "I was happy, yes. And… I was hoping I could be again. With you?"

⁂

Slowly, Marinette thought, take it slow. She did spring this on him a little suddenly but hey, it felt right, and she had it on relatively good authority that it was time. At this point in her life she knew to trust her gut instinct and friendly advice. Although she felt more okay with this because her head was sliiightly impaired right now.

She also thought that he'd jump on… her, she supposed, given the opportunity - but he was uncharacteristically reserved. Was it uncharacteristic? Maybe not. He'd always been pretty laid back and easy going.

And observant.

Which meant he was thinking and had doubts about them. Well, shit. Okay. She didn't make it easy on them the last time they tried anything like this. Actually, Hawkmoth had made life difficult for her so there hadn't even been an opportunity for a them.

He sighed softly and squeezed her hand back. "I want… this. I do. But there's still something that worries me."

Alright, fuck going slow. "I'm Ladybug. I am now and I was then. That's why I kept disappearing." This was alright, it was kind of an open secret by this point in her superhero career. Her parents knew, her closest friends knew, and Luka was a close friend she wanted even closer, so he should know.

His mouth was slightly open and his eyebrows shot up. "Ah."

"Things are… okay now, aren't they? I'm not needed like I was before."

He smiled a little and his worried expression softened, understanding. "That… does explain a lot of things but that's not the only thing I was worried about."

That surprised Marinette. And actually now she started to worry herself. What other red flags had she given him? Shit. She'd been a basket case in her earlier teens but she'd left behind the Teenage Angst Things and graduated to Adult Things, hadn't she? Fuck.

He chuckled. "It's not --all-- a you thing, this is a me thing," he said.

"Oh please don't give me the 'It's not you it's me' talk when we haven't started anything," Marinette interrupted.

He snorted, putting down his empty tea mug on the table. "Yeah, I still want to give you some context," he continued. "First off, I'm not like Dad, I don't want to be a big rock star with all that baggage. I just wanna play music and do small gigs and have fun. I'm not gonna be rolling in money and I can't give you everything that you'd possibly want."

Marinette blinked. "I… already knew that?"

"Second, if you do want to 'start' things I promise you I'm not just going to let you go again."

Marinette bit back a smile. "Alright. Are we entering some kind of agreement here? Is this a pre-nup?" She stuck her tongue out at him.

"We're already getting married?" He laughed.

"Not if you don't want to kiss me!" He leaned in and brushed his lips against hers.

Soft, warm, simple. Real.

She placed her hands on his face and brought him in for another kiss, stopping him from pulling back all the way. "More," she breathed out.

⁂

"More?" Luka thought. It was… an odd ask but okay… He was sort of interested in more as well so why not? Except well, there were a few things clarified but he really meant to talk about things in detail before diving into… her mouth like he just did. Her fingers worked their way through his hair, her nails skimming across his scalp sending shivers down his spine. She gave back as much as she was receiving from him in their make-out and if he had to taste only one thing for the remainder of his life he'd want it to be her: sweet, warming, with notes of chamomile, bourbon, vodka, and rum.

This was getting a little too indulgent but most of him didn't mind. One part of him craved this from her, but… wait, shit. Bourbon? Vodka? Rum? She'd been drinking, dumbass. Shit. "Mm--" He tried to say her name to get her attention, maybe slow them down a bit -- okay, a lot -- but she had just leaned back on the couch and he was pulled down with her still relentlessly kissing him. "Mar--" he tried again, but she took that opportunity to take his bottom lip gently between her teeth. One of her hands went to his hips and she grabbed a belt loop and hooked a finger under his jeans, tugging him closer.

Oh boy.

He broke free from her a little reluctantly. "Hold on," he chuckled nervously after pulling back. "Wait a sec."

Her eyes went wide open and she froze. She pulled back her hands and stuttered out a "W-was that bad? S-Sorry! Oh I'm so--"

He pressed two fingers to her lips to stop the torrent of apologies. Apparently the penchant of apologizing for everything wouldn't change about Marinette even if she'd been drinking. "Marinette, you had a few drinks. I don't… I don't think…" He sighed, sitting back up.

"I only had 3?" Marinette squeaked.

"4. You finished off Brielle's."

"I-I think I'm pretty sober?"

"But you're not sure."

"I'm… sober enough, aren't I?"

"I'm not confident making that call."

"But I… I want this," Marinette said quietly but firmly. "I really want this."

The thought that kept mentally slapping Luka across the face was But will you still want this in the morning? Well. He had to be honest with himself. It was really Will you still want me in the morning?

Her knowing the general trajectory of his life and joking about marriage aside, she hadn't said anything about wanting him. Wanting a "this" and wanting to be happy again, sure. Having him along for the ride, sure. But actually wanting him and all he was? Still unclear.

And even if she said she wanted him, would he believe her? She'd been 14, yes, but she said she wanted to date and… never actually followed through, Ladybug duties aside. He sighed to himself. She hadn't been ready. That wasn't her fault. She couldn't tell him then.

But that time of being left behind didn't magically evaporate with an explanation.

He didn't think he was bitter or resentful but all of that was hitting him full-force now. Not again, his head warned him. Not again. You don't have to deal with that. And yeah, he didn't have to deal with that... Sometimes a heartbreak was worth braving.

He needed some time to think about if this was worth braving.

He felt Marinette shuffling at his side but he didn't give in to the temptation to look. He stared down at his hands, his elbows propped on his knees as he slumped forward.

"Can… Can I hear what you're thinking?" Marinette asked softly. There was a little bit of uncertainty in her voice. He didn't say anything for several heartbeats. "Luka?"

Well, at least she didn't call him Adrien. That was a plus. God that'd been once and it still left an awful taste in his mouth. "You should probably head to bed. We can talk later." Later. There was always later. Except he was tired of later. It'd been better when he didn't have to tell himself he could wait. It'd been better when he hadn't had anything to wait for.

Easier. Not better. He had to give her that.

"No," she said. "I'd like to talk now if that's alright. I'd like to… understand." Right, she was better at standing her ground. She wasn't 14 anymore. He wasn't 16 and naïvely hopeful anymore.

He probably wasn't going to sleep anyway. "I don't know how to trust you."

⁂

Shit. Shit shit shit.

Marinette felt the all too familiar cold panic settling on her shoulders like it always did. Of course he didn't trust her, she wouldn't trust herself fully now with how things played out back then. She was definitely getting a headache.

Fucking Cockmoth. Fucking Guardianship. Fucking… Adr--no, she made her peace with Adrien. They were past that now. Fucking… obligations and wrangling all those threads in her life to hold together. Marinette figured she was done with all that, but…

At the epicenter of all of these problems was her. She had to admit, it wasn't her fault but it became her responsibility to treat those around her as fairly as she could. And she hadn't been fair with Luka.

God, she spent hours staring at pictures of Adrien and drooling over every damn appearance. When she tried to get past the crush the whole universe was conspiring to push her to indulge it instead. And worst yet, she did indulge it while trying to date Luka! This was… she should have seen it coming. Who in their right mind wouldn't be at least a little bit wary of her intense obsession over Adrien in her formative years influencing her now? It defined who she was for a long time.

But she was different now, she grew up. She just needed to show it, right?

Wait. There was something about the way he said what he said. "You don't know how to trust me?" He nodded. "Do… do you at all?"

"Mostly." Okay, so there was still a tiny sliver of a chance? "I trust you with almost everything."

"Except?"

"Except me." He paused for a moment. "And you've been drinking."

But! But I… Yeah. "Okay." Her being slightly impaired did make things a little complicated. And maybe that was the reason why she was being a bit impulsive right now, the alcohol was fast-forwarding her decision making process. Marinette let out a breath she held in. "Will you stay here tonight?"

He raised an eyebrow but relented with a "Yeah."

"Come upstairs with me?"

He raised the other eyebrow as well, looking nervous. "Upstairs? To your room?"

"Yes, I wanted to--" It took a second but it clicked. What she asked didn't sound any less impulsive with how he probably interpreted that. "Oh I'm not going to seduce you or anything I just was thinking it'd be nicer for you if you were using my daybed instead of the couch here but I guess it could sound a little like I'm asking for sex which I'm not. I mean unless you consider making-out se--okay nevermind!" Wow, way to go, Marinette. Her face was burning with embarrassment. "I'll bring down a blanket!"

Okay, she had to admit it, she was definitely more than a little tipsy. She felt lightheaded when she stood up quickly. She tried to hide her disorientation as best she could as she walked away, heading toward the ladder leading up to the hatch. She'd been so focused on seeming not-drunk that she bonked her head at the top climbing up. "Ouch!"

"Are you alright?" Luka asked, and even tipsy Marinette could hear the puzzled amusement in his voice.

"I'm fine," Marinette muttered. She forced open the entry and it slammed open on the other side with a loud thunk. Fuck, she wasn't at all convincing him that she was sober. She slipped off her shoes and sat back down on her chaise/daybed, feeling incredibly embarrassed at herself. This was not at all going the way she hoped. He still felt betrayed at the things that happened when she was an idiot teenager. Should she have known? He never told her!

But he never told her because he never thought they'd get back together. That was obvious in the way he said all the things he said.

He did want to be with her. He did want her. But he'd been so hurt by what happened and… she never knew. No, of course she knew, he was akumatized by it. He'd carried that for so long and let her live her life without her knowing. Damn it, she needed to… she needed to make this right.

How could she make this right?

She was unsurprised as she felt the cool streaks of tears falling down her cheeks. In the morning, they'll talk. Ignoring the fact that it was already morning, she knew they both just needed to put this aside and get some rest for now. She heard shuffling and Luka making his way up the ladder. She quickly wiped her eyes.

"Hey, you doing okay?" He had a clear look of concern on his face, kneeling down in front of her. "Is your head hurting?"

"Oh no, sorry, I just spaced out."

"You hit your head that hard?" Luka asked, sounding even more concerned.

"No, no. I-I was… My head's fine, Luka." She sighed. "Just. Thinking, is all. Sorry, let me get the blanket."

He looked up at her a bit more keenly. "You've been crying." A simple statement.

"Yeah," Marinette said quietly, defeatedly. "But I'm okay." She pasted on a smile that didn't reach her eyes. She started getting up but he caught her attention and spoke with some hesitation.

"I don't need the blanket. I'm probably not going to sleep," he said with a half smile, sitting down on the floor in front of her. "Too much going on here," he tapped against his temple. "I'm guessing the same for you?"

"Yeah again," she said, smiling for real this time. "Can we keep talking?"

"We can. I thought it'd be better if you got some rest but sleep isn't coming for either of us anyway." The lights in her room were muted but she could see the bags forming under his eyes. He passed his hands over his chin, lightly scratching at the stubble coming in.

"I was really kind of… no, not kind of. I was awful when we dated before."

"You weren't awful. You just weren't there. I understand that you had Paris to save," he added quickly when she had furrowed her eyebrows. "But the fact remains that I wasn't able to spend any time with you. Juleka kept telling me to watch out and that you dated me only because Adrien wasn't available to date anymore. I was hoping you'd change your mind and you would want to be with me, but then you were making time for him and your other friends while I was left waiting. I'm a human being, Marinette, not a doormat. You forgot about me. It was miserable and I felt like shit. I almost regretted asking you out at all."

⁂

Ah, fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. There were none of his usual filters. He just spewed all that out there. It was all true but maybe he should've let it go? She was young and dumb, anyone at that age was capable of making stupid-ass mistakes. Luka himself made soooo many of them. It'd been like 5 years since their breakup, maybe he should just get over it already. Marinette was in his arms literal minutes ago and he had to go and get like this. And he made her cry again. Nice one, Couffaine.

This was the worst sort of crying. She went absolutely still with a solemn expression, being oppressively silent while the tears fell from her eyes. He felt his mouth go dry and he swallowed. "I--" he cut himself off.

Marinette nodded her head so slightly Luka almost didn't see the motion. "I didn't make time for you," she agreed, her voice tiny and broken.

He suddenly wanted to make a quip about knowing all about time and giving Second Chances to let them both recover but that would be disingenuous and corny as hell. He wasn't so sure he believed in them much anymore. And maybe the way this played out was better anyway, at the very least he needed to own what he said as he couldn't take back his words.

Marinette broke the silence. "I… I wasn't very happy with myself back then. I did make a lot of bad decisions. I didn't give you… much of anything I guess."

He smiled a little. "I still have that pendant."

"I could have given you more. I could have been doing so much more. And I didn't. I didn't," she repeated, a hitch in her voice.

Fuck. He could meet her halfway at least. "It sounded like you had a lot to deal with. You knew your friends better so it makes a lot of sense that you'd prefer to hang out with them. I was just some guy. The brother of a friend. I wasn't that important in the long run."

"Don't say that," Marinette cringed a little. She wrapped her arms around herself. "You were--are important. I was… I was scared. Of a lot of things. A lot of stupid things." She shivered slightly. "I was a little scared of disappointing you. I was scared that maybe I had used you to… make me feel better about myself. I was scared that you'd never see all of me. I was scared that Hawkmoth would use you against me and your family and Paris if you knew I was Ladybug and it happened anyway without you knowing about me. I was so stupid back then."

He sighed. "Hey, please don't beat yourself up. I didn't want to make you feel like you have to explain what happened in the past. I got too… wrapped up in how I felt back then. We didn't work out and that's just life." It hadn't been their time.

Did he still love her? Sure. But they'd been better off as friends. She even made a point of trying to hang out with him nowadays. She told him everything that was on her mind. She gave him small gifts here and there, made it to all of his gigs, invited him to all of her fashion showings. They saw the movies and concerts they wanted to see together. When she felt lost or sad he was the first one she reached out to.

As… friends?

There was this uncomfortable feeling tugging at the back of his mind. He felt it at the base of his skull, a slow dawning realization. But… he almost didn't want to acknowledge it as it could have been just some phantom hope that she would love him like he sometimes dreamed. It was way too easy to get lost in some fantasy.

Maybe he was just scared himself. Scared of being ghosted again if he picked up this hope and tried to make it real. In a roundabout way he was saying that, at least.

Okay. Time to bite the bullet. He leaned forward and put his hand on her elbow. "I know we're hanging out a lot more now. I'm sincerely enjoying all the times we get to do stuff together. I'm grateful that you're giving me all that." This is it. Just say it out loud. "I'm saying that if we want to be more than friends, I'm scared that you're going to leave me again."

Whew. Was that so bad? Actually yeah it was terrifying.

There was a grimace on Marinette's face. "I… I-I understand," she said weakly. "I understand why you'd be afraid of that. But I don't know how to prove to you that I won't?"

It felt like the world shifted, the same as the first time he ever saw her. That earlier hope was coiling around his heart, making it beat faster. "You won't?"

She kept looking pained. "J-Just so you know I t-totally get it if you wanna stay friends or… or something, but I-I want… I know I messed up and I get pretty crazy sometimes so maybe you don't want anything to do with me after this and it's completely your right to do that--"

"Hold on," Luka interrupted her, half anxious and half this is so Marinette. "I'm not--" She put her fingers to his lips to quiet him.

"B-But I have to ask if you could give me a second chance?"

⁂

Marinette pulled her head back a bit and got annoyed at herself. "Sorry, that wasn't supposed to be a pun. O-On your… history as Viperion."

Great, so not only had she made an ass of herself but she just unintentionally punned at Luka. Marinette intensely disliked when Chat had made those inappropriately annoying puns whenever moments were tense. She seemingly picked up the habit, ugh.

Luka laughed and the tension was cut a bit. Maybe Adrien wasn't so wrong to have joked all the time. Luka took her hand into his and pressed his face against her palm. "Alright, alright," he breathed out. Instantly Marinette's heart started beating faster. "I just wanted you to hear me out. You do hear me, right?"

Marinette nodded. "I hear you." There was a slightly rough and tickling sensation under her finger tips as she was able to feel some of his 5-o'clock-shadow (except what was it now, 4am?). Funny, she didn't notice that so much when she'd been kissing him.

"Then you should know that even though I've been scared, I could never stop hoping you'd warm back up to me." He gently folded her hand in his and smiled up at her. "Do you want to go out to dinner with me? We don't have to get married along the way."

"W-Well, yes to dinner, or maybe breakfast? But I mean," Marinette said, attempting for casual but probably still coming across nervous. "Don't throw that whole marriage idea out yet. I'm still not sure how to… prove things?"

He smiled. "Spend some quality time with me. That's all. It doesn't have to be big."

"Okay, breakfast and dinner. And lunch, too." She wanted to spend all the time she could with him. He wasn't asking for much -- to be honest he never asked for much, and this was something she wanted to give.

Luka smiled, probably thinking she was joking. "Think you can get some rest now?" He asked. "I can head back downstairs--"

"No! No, no, I mean, stay here with me. I-If you want."

"You're not trying to seduce me, are you?" He grinned.

"Well, I can," Marinette grinned back. "Can I?"

He seemed a little surprised by that. "Uh," he blushed.

How cute, he got flustered. Capitalizing on that, Marinette leaned forward to wrap her arms around his shoulders, her forehead against his. "I'd really like to," she whispered.

"How... inebriated are you?"

She sighed. "Do you really think I'd be having a coherent conversation with you if I was drunk?"

"You tell me, Ladybug."

"Luka Couffaine, you are a gentleman but I'm merely... warm and not even buzzed anymore. I would definitely still like to seduce you."

He blinked a few times. "Oh." He paused again, thinking it through. He gave a little laugh. "I'd really like that too."

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argentdandelion · 4 years

Text

The Multiverse is Terrifying: The Sans Suffering Rule

Sans doesn't have that problem, and that's a very bad thing.

The Undertale fandom has many, many works and concepts that alter the premise of the game itself. These are, loosely speaking, “AUs”, and they are so numerous in the fandom they’re practically synonymous with “Undertale fan work”. Sans is very popular across every part of the fandom, to the point many of AUs feature or even focus on Sans. He also has countless variations, outnumbering that of other characters. Indeed, it seems he’s the only character that exists in some “AUs”, and all the works the author can recall, only one doesn’t feature Sans, or an imitation or variant thereof.

Within the scope of Sans-centric work, it’s popular to have canon Sans (“Classic”) interacting with versions of himself from other timelines or universes, such as through Sans having a special machine or power that lets him travel to timelines or other universes.

If Sans were to become very familiar with the number, breadth, and details of AU Sanses and their worlds, he would conclude he’s very special and important, in a cosmic sense. And if that happened....the implications would be very, very bad.

Section 2: His suffering is disproportionate to his own lifespan.

Firstly, it is very common to make him suffer, and his suffering (averaged across popular fanworks/AUs) is disproportionate to his own lifespan, assuming he’s much younger the Asgore, Toriel, and Gerson. The ancient war veterans have lived for so long that there are many more opportunities to change the timeline within their own lives, necessarily splitting off into unique or severe suffering scenarios. Importantly, Toriel can die in many timelines, and Asgore dies in every timeline but one. (Gerson, strangely, cannot die in any canon timeline.)

Still, although people could show Asgore discovering the human killed Toriel or vice versa, and Gerson finding out the human killed Toriel or Undyne, the former is rare and the latter is unheard of. Indeed, as Asgore seems oblivious to the human’s murder spree in canon, he doesn’t face much suffering until the point he is killed in one hit.

Section 3: Sans often suffers in especially severe ways by his works’ standards.

Not only is he very popular, but it is very common to make him suffer, and frequently in ways that are unique or especially severe by the standards of the work.

Famously, his brother is often killed by a human. Although the overall number of murders in a Genocide Route is at least 101, and the human probably kills a bunch of people with close connections to later victims, the fanworks themselves don’t linger on this. Though fanworks could kill off the love interests of the RG01/RG02 and the Dogi pair, do so in horrific, prolonged ways, and make the survivor suffer, they rarely do.

In an Underfell variant (Papyrus vs. The Forces of LOVE), he’s abused by his own brother, he’s starving (PredatorTale/HorrorTale), is starving and also gets his eye ripped out and has a grotesque head injury (HorrorTale), he gets stuck in a state between life and death (AfterTale), he becomes an amalgamate with Papyrus (Sixbones)....

And he gets killed, over and over, even within ambiguous-canonical or more-or-less post-canonical works. (Canon Genocide timeline, Genocide timeline-based variants including AfterTale, and GlitchTale) Adding onto the special severity of suffering, Sans ends up having to kill a murderous or mass-murderous human in so many variants and repetitions.

Section 4. Sans Often Suffers in Unique Ways

Adding onto this, fanworks pile on extra-canonical (exaggerated mental health problems, Gaster Blaster transformation suffering) or ambiguous-canonical (e.g., Flowey Runs) types of suffering to Sans much more than anyone. After all, how many works show Flowey-Sans showdowns? How many works show him and only him (or W.D. Gaster and/or Papyrus with him) getting worn away by the resets and Flowey fights?

Additionally, across several works, he uniquely witnesses Papyrus dying first-hand (something ambiguous in canon), and picks up his scarf from the snow and cries. Only Monster Kid parallels this when witnessing Undyne get hit with a lethal blow, but they don’t actually see her turn to dust, and Monster Kid always survives afterwards. Through these things, Sans is further supported as cosmically special in his suffering.

Section 5. The Timeline Will Always Make a Sans (Eventually)

For Sans to exist, a timeline would need to allow for the decisions or phenomena that led to the point Sans could exist. Therefore, it seems that every universe will eventually conspire to create Sans, often using different methods to do so. It doesn’t matter whether he was made by resurrecting a human corpse, or by W.D. Gaster being his standard-issue father with a wife, or the same man creating him in a lab, or the same man (now a god) creating him from a black hole...he will practically always exist, in timelines that overlap with his probable creation time or not.

To be clear, a handful of works are exceptions to the trend. For example, InvertedFate actually has Sans doing slightly better than Canon Sans, nothing bad happens in LittleTale, and Sans doesn’t exist in Caretaker of the Ruins (probably because he wasn’t born yet).

Section 6: Implications

Were Sans to ever figure out the sheer breadth, commonness, severity, and uniqueness of his suffering across canon-associated and non-canon-associated timelines and universes, it would cause a lot of shock and existential terror. Any work where he doesn’t suffer a lot is an anomaly in an overall trend, or he doesn’t suffer there because he doesn’t exist there yet.

Importantly, though Flowey torments him in Flowey Runs, in some works Flowey (or his parallels) do not exist, don’t interact with Sans, or aren’t tormentors (Underfell). Therefore, since Flowey isn’t to blame in every variation, it would seem he is a favored plaything or a cruel god or gods.

Worse still, if Sans does not conclude he and all variations thereof are the playthings of deities...it is simply a natural rule of the universe, like water carving through rock, that Sans will eventually be created and suffer immensely and disproportionately. He cannot fight that, cannot argue against it, cannot befriend it.

It would have better for him to never visit other AUs at all.

If you liked this post, check out the post author's Patreon or Ko-Fi.

Reference

For reference, these are the AUs/fanworks the author considered, consciously or unconsciously, for this analysis. Some may be missing. Note that some don’t feature Sans, don’t feature canon-unusual levels of suffering, or don’t feature Sans yet.

Caretaker of the Ruins, LittleTale, PredatorTale, HorrorTale, Swap Out (Underswap), Kaitogirl’s Underfell (Underfell), Soulfell (Underfell), Papyrus vs. The Forces of LOVE (one chapter, fanfiction, Underfell), Handplates and Sixbones, Underlie, The Choice, Pulling a Tooth, Storyshift, InvertedFate, GlitchTale, TimeTale, ScrambleSaga, Entity Neo, Soul Dichromatism, We Need to Talk (Gasterblaster AU, though not for Sans specifically and not that focused on Sans), Spectrum (Gasterblaster AU), Trust/The Best Revenge (Gasterblaster AU), Fallen Flowers, The Anomaly (Post-Canon), They Say He Shattered (Post-Canon, Mixed Timelines), Time-Scar, Over the Void, Cost of Living, Heart and Soul, Chocoblook, Zombietale, Charatale, Mysterytale (Crossover), Unexpected Guests, Appreciate Your Bro Sans (actually happy Sans), Hard Mode, Ghost Switch, Growth Spurt AU, Deeperdown. Name the Fallen (Papyrus shouldn’t exist here; everything thinks he’s a human), Flowey is Not a Good Life Coach.

#Undertale #Analysis #Meta #Undertale AU #Undertale AUs #Undertale AU Comics #Sans Undertale #Sans the Skeleton #AU Sans #AU Sanses #Existential Terror

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if-the-crown-fits-translate-it · 3 years

Text

Discord pt 90

[Date: 17/03, 02.33 PM GMT - 17/03, 03.53 PM GMT]

[This conversation was going on in #arg, partly simultaneously to another in #general. The second is referenced later and was posted separately before this one.]

[Direct continuation of pt 89]

[After Void pointed out the gdoc change, Fetch added another message:]

[Added was: “Please don’t tell them please don’t tell them please just pretend you never saw this just please.”]

Void: “nvm may be just my bad internet fucking things up ignore me”

Jack the Observer: “Oh. I see it.

Little sunflower seeds in green and yellow :)”

[Maxwell: “Where do you see that?”]

Jack the Observer: “Ask fetch, I think. He’s the one who edits the blog”

Jack the Observer: “But it’s there, if you look.”

Maxwell: “Fetch....”

fetch: “It isn't though?? I'm looking at the doc right now and there's nothing about sunflower seeds”

Jack the Observer: “I can send pictures, fetch.

If you would prefer?”

Maxwell: “i cant find anything”

fetch: “jack. after yesterday do you really wanna push me.”

Jack the Observer: “Yeah, i kind of do, actually

I could

I feel like it’s important and relevant information”

Void: “fetch knows best about what is there just ignore what i said,,,,”

fetch: “yeah. let's just ignore it.”

Maxwell: “but you all said...seeds”

donti (e): “... fetch please, this is serious.. it could endanger everyone here”

Jack the Observer: “Sunflower seeds :) leaves in yellow and green. You think if i won’t let Max hide it, I’ll let you, Fetch?”

fetch: “jack. drop it. right fucking now with that stupid fucking smile.”

Jack the Observer: “You are, in fact, just as important as Max is.

Unfortunately.

And it’s imperative that we keep all of you safe.”

Maxwell: “that...is one of the nicest things ive heard you say to us....”

fetch: “i know the doc better than anyone. i know what's there and whats not. if I say there's nothing there then there's nothing there.”

Jack the Observer: “You put it there, Fetch.”

fetch: “there's nothing there.”

Jack the Observer: “ Uh huh. /s”

jaynoblade: “he's right. there's nothing there. i just looked”

fetch: “im not ignoring anything there's nothing there.”

Jack the Observer: “Jay, what the fuck”

jaynoblade: “genuinely. i just looked. nothing”

donti (e): “hey hey hHEYyyyy chill”

Jack the Observer: “Is it gone — wait”

fetch: “check for yourself, jack”

[Context: Fetch deleted his edits about the seeds.]

Jack the Observer: “Oh, no i still have it”

fetch: “as i said. there's nothing there.”

Jack the Observer: “I still have it. And i have more pictures if you want to see them.”

donti (e): “... seeds?”

Maxwell: “thats just an image of a previous thing?”

fetch: “how do i know you aren't just editing shit”

[donti (e): “... seeds?”]

Jack the Observer: “I’m trying to have Fetch tell you first.”

kateza: “Hi good morning what’s going on?”

Mothbo: “Jack saw something no one else did”

[fetch: “how do i know you aren't just editing shit”]

Jack the Observer: “Fetch. You know I don’t lie.”

[Mothbo: “Jack saw something no one else did”]

Jack the Observer: “Haha :)”

fetch: “but you sure as hell spout a lot of bullshit.

now for the last time. There's nothing. there. Fucking drop it.

please.”

Jack the Observer: “And now instead of knight you sound like Max

Crazy”

Maxwell: “what?”

Jack the Observer: ““Oh no, i don’t want to tell them, please i just want to suffer by myself and not accept any help even though I clearly need it, no everyone else is busy, everyone else is stressed, they can’t know please don’t tell them”

That’s what you sound like

And that’s what Fetch sounds like too”

fetch: “you better watch your fuckin mouth, pal.”

Mothbo: “Jack, that's not going to help them all. I know you're hurt cos of Syd but don't take it out on them.”

Maxwell: “....”

[Mothbo: “Jack, that's not going to help them all. I know you're hurt cos of Syd but don't take it out on them.”]

Jack the Observer: “I’m not angry, I’m amused. And I’ll admit, slightly frustrated. What is up with these people and their self esteem issues.”

fetch: “what's up with you and your attachment to someone that doesn't exist anymore?”

Maxwell: “.....fuck off”

Jack the Observer: “If you don’t tell them within the hour ill see you in #img”

[fetch: “what's up with you and your attachment to someone that doesn't exist anymore?”]

Jack the Observer: “Oh, so you don’t exist when Knight is out? Shut the fuck up”

Maxwell: “i....”

Jack the Observer: “I’m glad you’re not all acting so goody goody and nice talking me anymore. This is refreshing.”

[People tell Jack and Fetch to stop arguing with each other. That just solved nothing and there’s no time to waste]

fetch: “i don't have the energy to fight anymore. there's nothing in the doc, whatever you have is edited bullshit, end of story.”

Jack the Observer: “Okay, we’re just going to ignore someone purposefully endangering their own health then. Sounds good to me /s”

[kateza: “I just woke up, I’m assuming something supposedly happened with the doc, I’m assuming the edit history was checked can we please stop fighting I don’t like this”]

Jack the Observer: “I can see something important. I’m being forced to keep imperative information to myself. You can see why I might take issue with this.”

fetch: “i thought you loved keeping information to yourself. that's what an observer does right. he just takes in information and does nothing with it. he doesn't get involved.”

Jack the Observer: “This is different.”

fetch: “of course it is.

just drop it.”

donti (e): “ah.”

Jack the Observer: “Yeah it fucking is different, Fetch. We fucking need you on this team. We’re meant to just ignore when you’re hurting? We’re meant to ignore when you’re endangering yourself?”

fetch: “i said. drop it.”

Jack the Observer: “Holy fucking shit not everything is about Syd”

Jack the Observer: “Maybe this is just about you”

fetch: “well maybe I don't want to be paid attention to. i'm not a fucking zoo exhibit. just leave me the fuck alone.”

Jack the Observer: “I don’t know how many times? I have to say this? But if I saw you as nothing more than a “zoo exhibit” i literally wouldn’t care about this at all”

Void: “fetch, people will learn one way or another. please at least take the chance to tell them yourself?”

Jack the Observer: “Clock is ticking”

fetch: “there's nothing to tell. im fucking fine.”

Jack the Observer: “There you go, sounding like Max again”

kateza: “wait, ok, so now fetch supposedly has the buds? Is that’s what’s going on? No one is catchinng me up everyone’s just arguing”

Jack the Observer: ““I’m fine I’m fine” you’re clearly not.”

[kateza: “wait, ok, so now fetch supposedly has the buds? Is that’s what’s going on? No one is catchinng me up everyone’s just arguing”]

Jack the Observer: “I can see something. Fetch isn’t letting me tell anyone.”

fetch: “well MAYBE I DONT WANT YOUR FUCKING HELP.”

donti (e): “HEEEEY HEY

jacks doing what he can”

fetch: “YOU EVER THINK ABOUT THAT? YOU CANT FUCKING HELP ME.”

Jack the Observer: “...”

fetch: “QUIT TRYING.”

Jack the Observer: “...”

Jack the Observer: “...

...

that was a bit too loud for me, actually. Ill be in #img in fifty minutes.”

Jack the Observer: “good luck.”

fetch: “fine. i need a nap anyway.”

Maxwell: “......”

[People talk about how important it is to share information, especially with how the situation currently is, and that they’d have to work together if they were ever going to resolve anything about this problem. They then note that if this in-fighting continues, more and more people might be dragged into Crown’s court. But then…]

jaynoblade: “okay, this is somewhat off topic, but.... do we even really know who crown is? because we thought he was ranboo in enderwalk, but then in that one ask he implied that he isn’t”

Maxwell: “hes something else then....”

Maxwell: “uh small problem”

donti (e): “prince read the backlog.”

[This refers to the conversation that had been simultaneously going on in #general2.]

A random Spark: “I know...which means Prince probably now knows the deal with the three court members and why they're gone”

kateza: “which means we'll be having another mind wipe probably :/”

LLyr: “D:”

Maxwell: “OH NO OH NO OH NO”

Maxwell: “i...”

donti (e): “if we had explained it fae would be wiped and then we'd be in trouble.”

Maxwell: “can we tell faem? fae already know....”

Maxwell: “he only brought up me and fetch....should we tell him about marcus?”

donti (e): “... maybe?”

A random Spark: “It's a good idea to.”

LLyr: “if the dam has already broken, i dont see a reason to keep it hidden. maybe ask marcus what he thinks about it?”

Maxwell: “i wanna say his name...”

donti (e): “you already namedropped him,

go for it

he might as well get the facts.”

kateza: “i don't like this

i don't like where this is going”

Maxwell: “jack what did you put in images”

Jack the Observer: “What i promised i would.”

donti (e): “fetches entry.”

Maxwell: “hes..oh god”

Maxwell: “i messed up i messed up i messed up--”

kateza: “no no no

you tried to help max. you did what you thought was right and even if it didn't have the outcome you want you tried to do what was right and that's good of you”

Maxwell: “i made it worse no no no no”

Jack the Observer: “You calm down too.

Panicking isn’t going to help prince.

It’s fine. Let faem remember.”

#on:discord #by:maxwell #by:fetch #if the crown fits

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noredinktech · 3 years

Text

A QA Interview We Never Used

About five years ago I was working on a QA interview process and got the following suggestion: “You’ve just arrived at the airport and have two hours before your flight to Hawaii. Make a list of everything that could go wrong between now and when the flight lands.”

No information about how to assess the candidate’s response was provided, and I had another concern. I remembered growing up in Maine and taking a vacation once a year: we’d rent a house on a lake for a week and drive to it in the family car. For my parents, this type of vacation was a huge luxury, something the generation before had never been able to do; I doubt flying to Hawaii, or anywhere else, ever really entered their minds. At the age of 23, I had flown a total of three times in my life, and always between New England and Arizona.

All this is to say that I was worried about cultural bias in the interview, a worry I admit I wouldn’t had thought of if it had simply been presented as, say, a road trip. But it seemed that frequent flyers, who could readily access detailed images of airport parking lots, terminals, and the planes themselves, would have a distinct advantage that was unrelated to the testing skills I wanted to measure, so I didn’t include it in my set of interviews.

But there was something else I liked about the interview. It got at what it’s like to be a tester. Looking for risk and points of failure. Questioning assumptions. Viewing every transition from moment to moment or state to state (house, car, pre-security, post-security, boarding, flying, deplaning…) with skepticism, wondering where things might come apart and replaying them over and over, looking for faults. And as one of those people who often reflexively lists things that might go wrong in regular life for no reason and when no one asked, perhaps I felt this interview honored a behavior that annoys others. So a few years later, on a flight to San Francisco, I made my own version, which I then promptly forgot about. A few years after that, the QA team was redesigning parts of our interview process, and I remembered it and shared it with my colleagues.

Testing mindset interview

Introduction

In this interview, you’ll be presented with a scenario and asked to offer reasons for how the information presented in the scenario could be possible. To avoid a list of very similar reasons, we ask that you stretch your imagination and try to consider as many different categories of reasons as possible. What does categories mean?

Dividing anything into categories can be arbitrary, of course. To give you an idea of how we’ve divided things into categories, consider the example scenario below (we don’t want to spoil answers by discussing the real scenario yet). The example scenario is similar to the one we’ll present as the real interview question.

Example Scenario

Suppose you were asked to make a list of every danger you might face while hiking through a forest. To start, you might say, I could get attacked by a wolf, or trampled by a deer, or struck from above by a hawk. While these experiences are undoubtedly vastly different, they all involve an animal attacking you, and we’d say they fit into a single category. You might also suggest, for example, that you could be attacked by an empty suit of armor; while somewhat more poetic, this still falls, in our opinion, under the category of “something attacks me”, and doesn’t require a new category to hold it. If you mentioned accidentally ingesting a poisonous mushroom, though, we wouldn’t try to argue that the mushroom belongs in the same class as the other attacking entities — this is a new category, perhaps something along the lines of “ingesting dangerous things”.

For this exercise, try to keep our rough ideas of categories in mind. We’ll ask you to provide examples for a specific situation, and we’ll be looking for how many different categories your examples cover. While it doesn’t hurt you to list many things from the same category, it doesn’t help, either. We encourage you to write down everything that comes to mind, but focus on trying to think of new ideas that aren’t closely related to what you’ve already written.

The Real Scenario

You enter an empty cabin. The entrance is to a kitchen, where a table holds three identical bowls of porridge. On the stovetop, a much larger pot of porridge sits over a low heat. As you brazenly devour the porridge, you notice that the contents of the bowls are not identical after all — the porridge in the first bowl is scalding hot, while the porridge in the second bowl is freezing cold, and the porridge in the third bowl is a pleasant temperature, somewhere between the two extremes of the other bowls.

What are some possible reasons that the porridges were not all the same temperature?

I liked my scenario because I felt it didn’t require too much knowledge from any particular domain. Deep knowledge of cooking, heating and cooling, or fairy tales wouldn’t, I guessed, confer much advantage. It also offered a certain level of whimsy that I felt would serve as an appropriate warning for anyone who might have to work with me.

But a concern remained. It was one of my two concerns from five years ago: how to assess the candidate’s response? Was there a fair and objective way to do it? I intended to go through the candidate’s list (“someone added ice to one bowl and hot water to another”, “something is wrong with my nerve endings”) and check off every distinct category they’d identified (“interference from outside actor”, “error in measurement”), but even if I created a near-perfect list of categories (I felt close), could I really communicate what size of categories I had created to the candidate without giving away answers? (Probably not). When I actually practiced the interview with a colleague, things deteriorated further, as many of her answers fell into a gray area as to whether or not they should count for a particular category.

Time ticks on, cooling our porridge and bringing deadlines rushing to meet us. I kept thinking about the problem, but an epiphany never came. With no solution to problem of a fair scoring system, I scrapped the interview and wrote this blog post instead.

Do you give (or have you taken) any kind of QA interview like this? Let me know on one of the social platforms below.

Alexander Roy QA Analyst | NoRedInk

LinkedIn | Github | Twitter

Thanks to Kristine Horn for her help while I was still trying to salvage the interview, and to Michael Glass and Charlie Koster for reviewing this blog post.

#qa #interviewing #engineering

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adricno · 4 years

Text

this gif just exudes fuck boy energy

anywho ! hi im mini from the 6ix ! and this is 1/2 of my demons . [ since everyone tends to call me a demon IM OWNING IT TO MY OWN KDFJGHDFKJ ] im super excited to be back and playing both my kids, but here you’re gonna learn a little about Adriano who is 1/2 of the D’Alessio family around here ! click here to learn about Alanna who is played by the beauty that is Dani !

new york’s very own Adriano D’alessio was spotted on broadway street in black Fendi sneakers . your resemblance to lorenzo zurzolo is unreal . according to tmz , you just had your twenty second birthday bash . while living in nyc , you’ve been labeled as being picky , but also attentive . i guess being a virgo explains that . 3 things that would paint a better picture of you would be a pack of cigarettes, sunglasses covering bloodshot eyes, and late night drives .

Basic Information

Full Name: adriano marco d’alessio

Nickname(s): addy, adri, dri

Age: 22

Height: 6′2 ft

Date of Birth: september 13th 1997

Zodiac sign: virgo

Hogwarts house: slytherin

Ethnicity: italian

Nationality: italian-americian

Gender: cis male

Pronouns: he/him

Orientation: heterosexual

Religion: agnostic-catholic

Language(s) Spoken: italian + portuguese + french + german + english + spanish

BACKSTORY TW * drugs + alcohol + illegalities

Adriano is the first born from his parents, alanna coming in second - they’re only a year a part so people tend to think they’re twins - but , adriano is firm on stating he’s the much older one , and definitely more mature from the two .

Adri was actually born in Italy, and moved to New York before he could even remember, but often going back to Italy for family functions and just for fun.

The D’Alessio’s are a very powerful , influential family . their last name means something once it’s spoken , in italy and even iin the united states . it’s not just Adri’s parents that made it big , but every part of the D’Alessio’s have a mark in the world someway or another , so , YEAH . they’re a pretty big deal .

going on ! adri was given A LOT of responsibilities which ... he did not want to do . he grew up being the golden boy with a face that can fool just about anyone . looks and personality MAGNETIC . the name , the genes , it all came with who he is .

his dad an ambassador / rep for italy in the USA , his mom this LOVING model that worked her looks into a model agency as big as IMG .

while taking every language class to discuss business , adri was pretty much forced to join in on his mom’s business . he hated it , he honestly HATES being a part of this lifestyle . he wants to be rich but on his own accord , if you know what i mean .

but he does it , bc he knows his name and everything comes with a price . doesn’t mean he doesn’t tend to REBEL . which he does quite often , sneaking out of family functions , smoking one up , doing some blow .

growing up he was a typical rich boy with a pretty face, getting around . he doesn’t get along with either of his parents but if he had to choose , it’d be his mom . he believes his dad’s just controlling her . after what happened to Alanna , Adri definitely doesn’t trust his dad.

Adri’s super overprotective of Alanna, after everything that went down with his dad , alanna , and the italian mob . adri is cautious about everything.

he’s still an idiot tho.

SECRET

* no one is supposed to know this, but im gonna explain it here. if u want any connections based off this . LET ME KNOW . :)

Adriano always loved cars , when he was 5 he got into a maserati and crashed it into a tree bc he didn’t know how to drive but ever since then he’s had a fascination with them. got his license early, knows how to fix , pull them a part . ANYTHING to do with it, tends to be everyone’s mechanic . always making the best cars around aesthetically , and internally.

he got into street racing , which is illegal by EVERY means possible . he worked up the ranks , it being the place where he had to prove himself rather than just going by name . so he made it up there where he’s pretty respectable .

Adri works with bringing illegal imports for car parts into the USA . [ think like fast and furious life ok DKJFHDKFBH ]

AND , like father like son -- he uses these dealings to bring in large amounts of coke / weed / other drugs into the country . so he works with cartels , on the side DKJFGHKDJGH

not only does he do THAT but he also organizes and runs in these races - they give him a certain high -- a kind of adrenaline where death is at ur fingertips . it’s a gamble he likes to take .

PERSONALITY + CURRENT SITUATION

he’s a big idiot, in a sense that a lot of things just go over his head . he’s very business savvy , as in he likes to think things thoroughly , which may just be the virgo in him. he’s the guy you want to take to a casino.

usually the life of the party - funny enough , he does DJ on the side . adri finds it works out in his favour to make things that would get a crowd worked up. that’s just a hobby of his , but he’s pretty much just living like a socialite , modelling for whatever his mom puts him in - and even if he hates it the most , he goes a lot with his dad to learn the ins and outs of being a future ambassador , but adri rlly does it to benefit his side business.

he’s a good person on the inside, he just maybe never shows it . on the outside he seems humble and the nicest , but he loves to play games , mess around with people . a bit sadistic . i actually hate him JDFGHKDFJGHDFKSGHJDSF

highkey prefers to being alone than in a crowd of people , believes he’s a lot better than most bc he’s smarter , but he’s not , he’s an idiot KJDGHKJFDGH

he’s gotten away with literally everything so he believes he’s invincible . he’s gottena arrested before but it’s nothing he couldn’t get out of and whenever the media finds out , he’s able to twist it around where he looks innocent in it . or he just pushes it off like it’s no big deal .

ironically , super chill . never one to look for a fight , instead he likes solutions .

He does go to school ! but he takes classes online to avoid people , so not many people really know he goes to school and is currently earning his masters.

the only person he wants to prove himself to is himself, and adri has such high standards that he’s always trying to reach for the best KJDHFGKDJFHG

I THINK THTS IT FOR NOW ??

I LIKE BRAINSTORMING WITH PPL FOR PLOTS/CONNECTIONS , SO LIKE THIS AND I WILL HIT YOU UP <3

BESIDES THAT IT’S REALLY ALL THE REGULAR TYPE OF CONNECTIONS

#someone pls tell me to stop watching narcos related shows #DKFJGHDFKJGH #my brother told me im learning about my family his torY AND I SCREAME DSHGJKDFG #was i also listening to tego calderon ?? maybe DKJFGHDFJKGDFJ #k imma get ky up later but lmk if u wanna plot with this kid ! <3 #wealthyhq:intro

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etherealwaifgoddess · 4 years

Text

More Time - Chpt.5

Summary: As much as the guys have loved living in their idyllic little bubble for the past few months they know they need to return to the real world sooner rather than later. Master list can be found HERE.

Warnings/ Content: Unsurprisingly, more fluff. With a little feels too.

Word Count: 1.3k

Author’s Note: Hello lovelies! We made it through the work week, woo! I, for one, am very thankful it’s over. I’ve been fighting this damn cold for days now and I just want to curl up with some tea and die for a bit. As soon as I post this I will be retreating under my blanket fort. Don’t judge me. But do enjoy this chapter of our boys finally returning to the real world. Also, this our last chapter before we meet our third main character :D

Chapter Five

January was bitter cold and Steve and Bucky both started going a little stir crazy after the third back to back snow storm. Steve was as healthy as he could be and he had even gotten over a totally normal cold with no complications shortly after New Years. Bucky had been completely over the top, mother-henning him endlessly from the first sniffle to the last cough, but he had only been sick for a few days before his immune system decided to do its job for a change and he recovered easily.

Steve had been considering reaching out to Sam about getting a part time volunteer job at the local VA branch but he hadn’t actually done it yet. He was feeling cooped up and missed the satisfaction of a day spent helping people. Steve figured he could help out at the VA a few days a week and still have time for his art. He knew Bucky would make a fuss over him not pushing himself too much but Steve needed to feel useful again. He’d spend months getting used to his new life and he was ready to start giving back and help other guys settle back into their civilian lives. He was trying to figure out how to broach the subject when Bucky did it for him.

“So Sam was telling me about the work he’s been doing with SHIELD down in El Salvador helping the city rebuild after the earthquake.” Bucky said conversationally over dinner one night.

Steve raised an eyebrow, he knew that tone. Whatever Bucky was getting at wasn’t as casual as he was making it out to be. “Oh really?” Steve played along, wanting to see where it was going.

“Yeah, they’re doing a lot of good work down there. Sam goes down and back on the Quinjet a few days a week, it’s not even three hours the way he flies. They still need so much help rebuilding the hospitals and schools, and getting the public services set back up. It’s sad more people aren’t doing more.”

“Hmm. That’s good SHIELD has stepped in to help. And for Sam too.”

“Steve, I want to help.” Bucky’s eyes were pleading for understanding and he waited quietly for Steve to react.

A wide smile stretched across Steve’s face, “It’s about damn time, Barnes.”

Bucky let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “It’ll be just a few days a week to start, and only helping alongside Sam. I haven’t agreed to go back on call for missions or anything yet…You’re really not upset I want to go back to work?”

“Of course not! I knew it was only a matter of time before we had to venture back out into the world. I’ve been thinking about volunteering over at the VA part time, just to get back out there. I wasn’t sure how to tell you but, with you going back to work, now you won’t have to worry about me being cooped up at home all day while you’re gone.”

“I didn’t know you were thinking about volunteering. I think it’s a great idea though. Did you talk to Sam yet? I’m sure he’ll get you hooked up with a position.”

“Not yet, I wanted to talk to you first. I’ll call him in the morning and see what he can do. Does he know you’re looking to go back?”

“No, but Fury does. I asked him what I’d need to do if I theoretically wanted to end my sabbatical but not go back to full active status.”

“And what did he say to that?”

“Pick up a damn phone.” Bucky said in a terrible Nick Fury impression.

Steve laughed, “Sounds about right.”

“I’ll call him tomorrow and see when the next group is going down.”

“Sam’ll be happy to have you back on the team.”

“Yeah, it’ll be good. We’re gonna be okay, aren’t we?” Bucky sounded so hopeful it made Steve’s heart clench. He loved this man so much; the boy who defended him against bullies when he was too small to defend himself, the man who gave him love and care after his ma died far too young, the soldier who followed him into battle so selflessly, the assassin who after seventy years of torture and brainwashing had broken through all of that to remember Steve and pull him from the Potomac, his best friend, his lover, his partner in every sense of the word. “Yeah, Buck.” He said finally, “As long as we’re together, everything's gonna be just fine.”

xxXxx

Steve and Bucky rejoined society on the same cold Tuesday in February. Bucky’s alarm sounded while it was still dark outside and he tried to shut it off quickly to not disturb Steve. Thankfully he barely stirred, his good ear pressed into his pillow and his hearing aid resting on the nightstand, out for the night while he slept. Bucky dressed quickly in the dark and kissed Steve’s forehead lightly before he slipped from the bedroom. He made a pot of coffee and left it on the warmer for Steve to enjoy the rest when he woke up later. Bucky scrawled a note for Steve wishing him a good first day and reminding him to text or call if he needed anything, leaving it by the coffee pot where he would be sure to see it. Bucky stared at the quiet apartment for a moment as he pulled on his winter coat. They had a nice life together but wondered absently if maybe they should get a cat or something. Just a warm happy creature to keep them company when the other was out. Pushing the thought aside he hurried off into the cold to meet Sam at the compound by six.

Steve woke up while Bucky was in the air somewhere over the North Atlantic. He sent him a picture of himself holding up Bucky’s favorite Star Trek mug, smiling with his hair in disarray from sleep, along with a quick text.

Stevie G [7:06:18AM]: IMG.29348

Stevie G [7:06:20AM]: Thanks for the coffee! :)

Jerkface [7:07:10AM]: np have a good 1st day luv u

Stevie G [7:07:40AM]: You too. XOXO

Steve was still smiling when he left the apartment for work, ready to tackle his first day back in the world.

It was late when Bucky got home but Steve was still awake watching a documentary on Georgia O’Keeffe.

“Hey, you didn’t have to wait up for me.” Bucky said as he hung his coat by the door.

“It was our first day, of course I did. I saved you dinner too if you’re hungry.” Steve offered, turning off the TV.

“We grabbed dinner before we headed back but thanks. Maybe you can take it with you tomorrow for lunch?”

“Maybe. I found a deli down the street from the VA today and I had the best pastrami sandwich of my life. I’m taking you there this weekend.”

“Sounds great. As much as I missed you, I’m beat. How about we go curl up under the blankets and you can tell me all about your day?”

“You just wanna get me in bed.” Steve teased pulling Bucky close to him. He lifted up on his tip toes and kissed Bucky until he let out a soft moan.

“Says the guy kissin’ me ‘til my toes curl.” Bucky teased back. “Come on, ya punk.” He swept Steve up in his arms and carried him off to bed where they could relax, catch up, and then get back to where that kiss had been leading.

Tag list lovelies: @godofplumsandthunder @remilupin22 @supraveng @hiddles-rose

If anyone wants added or removed please lmk!

#more time #stucky #stucky fanfic #stucky fanfiction #steve rogers #preserum steve rogers #post winter soldier bucky barnes #shrinkyclinks #marvel #post endgame #post avengers endgame #endgame fix it #endgame fixit #marvel fanfic #marvel fanfiction #stucky x original character #stucky x original female character #stucky x ofc

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eve6262 · 4 years

Text

Hue Chapter 1: Alien

Rose’s room always smells of freshly cut flowers, expensive perfumes, and tea. There are three tables. One, a desk, mostly clean save for papers half-finished and a quill and bottle. The second is her vanity, the perfumes sorted by hue and scent, small bottles and sticks of makeup littering the lineup.

The third is a small round table, on which is always the tea set, with only two cups to its name. Surrounding it are three bookshelves filled to the brim, and stacks sorted along some dissonant melody only she understands on the floor space.

“Tea?”

“Sure.”

She hums as she boils the water, scattering leaves with effortless precision. I wonder, vacantly, when she learned how to make tea so perfectly. Between studying scripture? Did she even bother to read the books, or did she ace it all while brewing cups upon cups finding the perfect recipe for pink rose tea?

The teapot has been crafted with care, so when the water boils the whistle does not hurt the ears. It sounds more like an ocarina, almost melodic, and yet so distinctly clashing. It must have been tailored to Rose herself. Such conflicting natures- calm, yet studious; unbothered, yet a perfectionist. Such a strange girl.

“Here you are.”

Always a perfect cup. This one is no different- a little sweet, and yet that is perfect for today. Can she read my mind?

“Tell me.”

“Hm?”

“Am I talking to a witch in disguise?”

“And this is because?”

“I’m supposed to believe you get this perfect, every time, including the differences, without reading my mind? Impossible.”

“You’re an open book, Mira darling.”

“Nonsense. Witch.”

“Off to report me?”

“Not even if you pulled a demon out of your skirt.”

Her laugh sounds like out of tune fairy bells. I want to hear more of it; the only thing so addictive is her smile. They come together; a package, the two of them. How nice. I’m addicted to both. Damn witch. Even if she’s never cast a curse in her life, she’s bewitched me; that’s enough, is it not?

“Now then, you’ve come here for a reason, I’m sure.”

“Yes. The new recruits were complaining about something, so I went into the woods to see. There’s a strange plant that almost seems to respond to what you do.”

“Interesting. Moreso than a flytrap?”

“Larger. And a bit more complicated. Thought I saw an eye, though I could be wrong about that in particular.”

“So you say, but you’ll disappoint me if I see no eyes staring at me when we get there.”

Rose puts down her teacup, having only half finished it. The soft clink is so ingrained into my mind, I swear my muscles move in reaction to it.

“Very well then. We leave when?”

“At your discretion.” It’s always her times. I could probably set my own, but what purpose is that? I have cleared my whole day for this; I would clear my whole week if she asked on a whim.

“Now, then?”

“As you wish.”

This, too, is at Rose’s discretion. How long it takes to get there; what pace we set, what mood the day is in. Everything is under Rose’s control; under her spell, just as I am. She is as controlling as Uvirel, I think; except Uvirel has never appeared before us to enforce things, where Rose is very willing to act on her wishes.

The woods are an offshoot of the cathedral, mostly to prevent people from wandering in and discovering something dangerous. The only way for the church to truly protect the land is to own it; naysayers often walk into danger themselves. Sometimes I wonder how anyone can agree with such idiots. Must be idiots themselves, I suppose.

Rose is beautiful. It’s something I don’t often think about- I know it, no need to keep thinking about it. But it never ceases to stun me, just how enchanting she is. In the quiet darkness of the woods, with slivers of light falling through the cracks and onto her hair, she looks like an angel with a halo of light around her; ethereal, and yet so real. I want to touch her, just to make sure she won’t fly away, or dissipate into the light. I won’t bother her.

A witch, maybe. But I’ll let it slide.

We come to the place where I remember the green visage, and I stop Rose before she takes another step.

“Here?”

“Yes.”

“To searching, then.”

It takes no time at all for my hand to be caught by a vine snapping to attention. Within moments Rose is muttering a spell, unbinding me, but her focus is not on my health; instead, she scans the underbrush with a precision befitting a hawk. Suddenly, she sees her target; she lunges with just her bare hands, and quickly gets caught.

My sword is unhooked on a moment’s notice and without hesitation I cleave the vines in two; Rose is almost unbothered, pointing to the source. I am tempted to skewer it to observe, but Rose would perhaps kill me, so instead I slash all its vines so there is no method of attack.

A final vine comes out from behind it, but before I can slice it, the front opens to an eye, staring at me with fear and curiosity.

“Ah. Good, it wasn’t disappointing.”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying this, then.”

“Oh, very much so. Studying is nice, but I’ll admit watching you wield a sword is often better.”

With that she walks up, confident as a cat, and starts poking and prodding, making notes in the book that follows her around. The pages never run out; they seem to get lost in the abyss, and I swear she always opens it to the same spot. The eye looks at her with malice; I point the sword straight at it, and back to fear it goes.

After a few hours, she makes a triumphant noise, somewhere between a grunt and a hum.

“Alright. Figured it out. Think it’s bound itself to a rune, and used the magic to gain sentience. It didn’t work quite right, though, or something, and now it’s very barely an animal in the slightest degree.”

“So we are?”

“Hm? Oh. Well it’s not like it can do anything, and if it regrows the vines then whoever’s coming here should be more careful.”

“Very well. I’ll use it as training for the cadets.”

“Oh, do invite me. I would love to watch that.”

“Of course.”

As we walk back to the cathedral, I can’t help but wonder where the second eye went.

A few days later, and we are adventuring again. The days between are calm; sometimes I come simply to drink tea and take a break, others we barely talk at all. Those days I don’t quite care for. There will always be more to research, though, and thus more adventures to take. Worthwhile.

“You’ve come bearing news?”

“Not surprised the witch knows, even when I’ve done nothing to reveal my secrets.”

“Easy to read, Mira darling. I’ve told you that before and I’ll tell you again.”

“That does not change you being a witch.”

“Oh, alright. Now tell me the news.”

“I was swimming and found an underwater cave covered in green, glowing markings. I’ve never seen them before.”

“Interesting.”

The soft clink of china makes my muscles jolt on instinct. It is only luck that I do not look like a fool, much less drop my teacup.

“When are we leaving, then?”

“At your discretion.”

“Now’s a good time as any.”

The beach is very nearly next to the cathedral. I swim in my armor- it has been made waterproof due to those godforsaken salamanders that like to crawl into crevices and bind with the metal, so swimming with it is a matter of strength rather than worry about rust or the like. Rose, the cheater, casts a little spell and she’s floating in a bubble next to me. Witch.

Witch I love to love. I’ll give her that- she’s a damn skilled witch, to have caught such a high-ranking paladin. Or maybe I never actually had any fortitude, and my title is due to my good acting. In either case, I am now her puppet.

There it is, again. Under the sea- so dark compared to the light of the surface- is a strange ring of green lights surrounding a cave. They seem to speak in scripts I don’t recognize, and by her puzzled, inquisitive gaze I suspect Rose hasn’t a clue either.

“This is…otherworldly. What have you found, Mira darling?”

“Is that not your job to find out?”

“Well, it’s not an eel’s lair, I’ll tell you that. Come, let’s go.”

Without a thought she drifts almost lazily into the cavern, gazing at the walls. There are no more markings, but there are metal bits strewn about; I don’t recognize the metal, or any colors, or even the shape. No armor would break like this; what is all this? A damn ship’s remains? Not in a cave like this- no ship could make it here.

As we go further in, there are more metal scraps. At some point, Rose notices something- she dashes to pick it up, and we look at it together. Strange strings- they feel smooth to the touch, and are assorted colors. The insides have very thin metal wire- for what, I wonder? And how are they so thin? Cut with a saw?

“Mira.”

Her voice is soft, serious, in awe. I cannot focus on what she says, like this.

“Yes?”

“This…this cannot be of this world.”

“Yes.”

I can’t quite comprehend what she means. Not fully- I know, literally, what that means. The idea does not register the same way she understands it; such is evident in her absolute awe, compared to my very near boredom. If she wasn’t such a beautiful damn witch I’d leave right now.

Finally, she starts to move again. Slowly, through the tunnel, looking for more strange artifacts. A strange black panel, with the strings come out of it. There is glass on its top; I only know because it is shattered. A little square of some strange material, with a symbol on it- mildly resembling a “k,” but slightly off. Also, backwards.

The silence is ominous. I feel that something is coming; I do not know if it is hostile. Instincts, do not fail me; it feels foreign, as if even when I meet it I will not understand a damn thing. I don’t feel hostility, but that does not mean it will not fight. I must be prepared, but not hostile myself; my sword is in my sheath, but it is unhooked.

Rose is slow and methodical with her movements as we approach a breach in the water. She doesn’t let the bubble pop above the water; she wants to observe. We see more strange, unidentifiable objects. There is no one there, as far as either of us can tell. I know she thinks so, too, as she is slowly approaching.

I don’t know if this area is hostile. She doesn’t, either; I see the fear in her every move, the apprehension in her eyes. She’s about to surface; I can’t let that happen. She’s begging me not to; not with her voice, but with everything else in her body capable of begging. Or maybe I’m just under a spell.

The water splashes loudly with my arrival to the surface. My lungs go from gills to my nose; I cough a few times, still getting used to the fresh air. So clean, too; it gives me a heady feeling, how nice this air is. Perhaps this is another enchantment; perhaps Rose has simply never seen another witch’s magic.

“Zu thrien kra? Li'phren ku shren, hh…. ku'vren?”

“What the hell?” Whispers Rose, but we’re already getting our answer.

A woman- woman? I don’t know- steps out of a turn we didn’t see. Her top half looks normal compared to the bottom- a normal person, almost, except for the teal skin and light colored pupils. And her hair, which blends its colors- a vibrant blue on top, fading to dark at the tips; little teal stars dot it, as though there’s a galaxy within her long, curled mane. There are two crystals on her head like hair clips, the same color but with none of the stars; there is seafoam, or perhaps mist, or something of that nature gathering like a tiara sitting upon her head.

Her coat- which is all she wears- is certainly not from this realm. It has strange patterns on the shoulders, with little gems hanging from it in the same green, glowing hue as the outside markings. Said markings line the bottom of her coat, and the cuffs; they are folded, seemingly but line up perfectly with her outfit. There is a strange dangling link in the center of her chest, connecting the two halves rather than buttons or the like. Three teal crystals hang from it.

And then, her bottom half. Tentacles- too many to count, more than an octopus- similar to her hair, but in reverse; mostly dark, with light-tipped ends.

“…eh? Kali-vr– I mean, offworlders?”

Her voice is deep, and has a strange accent I can’t place.

“Er, this would be home, for you, hm. I am the stranger, yes?”

“I would believe so.”

“Hello, then. My apologies, I don’t know language well. Not many…” She makes wild gestures with her hand, trying to find a word.

“Resources?”

“Hm? Ah. Probably? Not very good with this language, ahaha.”

“That’s alright. I don’t know yours, so I can’t quite blame.”

“Oh, of course. Only the Aaciren know our words. I had forgotten I am on another home right now- another planet.”

“You come from space?”

“Hm? Ah…kind of, yes! Space works, yes. ”

“An alien.” Breathes Rose, as her first words of a century. Her eyes are dumbstruck, and yet hold a curiosity only ever sated by vigorous testing and interrogation. I almost feel bad for this alien woman; I don’t know quite enough to empathize, yet.

“Ah, is that the word for it? In our language it is quite different.”

Suddenly, Rose seems to remember that we are still in water; she shivers, from the temperature. I notice, at about the same time. Even for an underwater cave, this place is strangely cold.

“Ah, apologies! I perfer the chill- er, that is wrong, yes? My, my, silly Orall'vren. Give the guests the warmth, even home that is tradition- that’s not the right words? Hm. Strange language.”

The alien moves about, gathering something from farther in the cave. I look to Rose; all the intrigue is gone from her eyes, and in its place is fear and cold.

I can’t leave her like that. I hold her hand, first; she looks to me, scared, looking for some stability. I haven’t a clue what has given her a fright, but I refuse to keep that look on her face any longer. I gently nudge her into my embrace; she moves, stiffly at first, then practically launches herself into my arms, shivering against my armor. It is warmer than she is, I know this; thank Uvirel for this armor.

By the time the alien comes back, Rose is looking satisfied again. She looks at me once more with a clear thanks in her eyes. There, again, is a third look I am addicted to. Damn witch, casting her charms even now, even here. I will never tire of it.

“Here, here. Blankets are warm.”

The alien doesn’t lie. They are warmer than either of us; we huddle under two like scared kittens rescued from an abusive owner.

Now that we’re safe, Rose looks around curiously. I see the search for knowledge slowly come into her eyes again, like the slow beginning of the rising sun. Everything she looks at she looks more sharply at. She isn’t speaking again, though. Still, her voice escapes her.

“Thank you.”

“Of course, of course! Hospitality is important- that was correct, I am sure of it.”

“May I ask you a question?” Rose, finally , starts to speak to the alien.

“Yes, of course. Ask away! I will answer as best I can in this language.”

“What’s your name?”

“Orall'vren.”

#hue #writing #fantasy

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rebellect-writes · 4 years

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[b]Name:[/b] Jess [b]Age:[/b] 20 [b]Where’d you find us?:[/b] Well there was this impulse you see?

[hr]

[b]Full name:[/b] Christopher Marsh, he obviously changed his name. [b]Nickname/Alias:[/b] Cris Marsh

[b]Age:[/b] 30 [b]Birth date:[/b] 15th of March 1980 [b]Gender:[/b] Male. [b]Sexual Orientation:[/b] Straight.

[b]Weapons carried on person (if any):[/b] None that could get him arested these days, just a simply swiss army knife. [b]Occupation:[/b] Unemployed for the moment.

[b]Animal:[/b] Wererat [b]Power level:[/b] Alpha. [b]Does your character have a hybrid form?:[/b] Yes. [b]Rank:[/b] Captain General [b]Hybrid Form:[/b] [URL=http://arnoldwurzel.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/d_d4th__wererat_by_udoncrew.jpg][LINK][/URL] [b]Face Claim:[/b] Karl Urban [IMG]http://i42.tinypic.com/214w84x.jpg[/IMG] [b]General Appearance:[/b][LIST]Standing at 6 foot, 1 inch, Cris is an imposing sight when he wants to be. Naturally, he slouches a lot, so he looks to be shorter then he really is when in a group of people. He’s muscular and looks as if he’s lifted weights most of his life though he doesn’t have the form of a serial weight lifter, just someone that likes to keep fit. He holds his head high, even with everything he’s done in his life and respects himself for doing things other people couldn’t dream of doing. While Jose is tanned, Cris comes off an oddly pale cream color, even after spending days in the sun he never seems to get darker. At the moment, lower face is covered with scruff that he plans to shave off at some point.

While he may look like a soldier, Marsh has a natural habit of blending in for whatever situation. Most often, he can be found in baggy button up shirts open at the neck or t-shirts, jeans and running shoes. He may look slobbish but that doesn’t mean he is, he can change dramatically when the need calls for it, and has been seen in a suit more times then he’d like to remember. When it comes to what he does best, work, he’ll be found in combat boots, combat pants and a black t-shirt with enough weapons on him to end up in Guantanamo Bay on charges of terrorism. [/LIST][b]Mindset:[/b] Dominant. [b]General Personality:[/b] [LIST]Cris is a talker when the need calls for it, more then enough; he talks for his partner when confronted with someone else. Though that doesn’t mean he can’t drift off into silences that run through days without him uttering a single peep. He’s a watcher, and a doer, that often leaves most of the thinking for Jose. Don’t mistake him for a brute though; he’s got a devious mind behind a smart charming mouth that has worked its wonders on many a person. He almost never over does it with work, and will often tell Jose to stand down when he thinks his friend and brother needs the rest. They’re a solid partnership.

He’s easy going to a point, while Jose plays with knives to keep his reflexes sharp, Cris can be found lounging around with a beer and a book, or simply sitting there enjoying the silence. He isn’t the kind of guy that openly goes out of his way to find trouble or something to do; he simply lets things come to him, whatever those things may be. When someone strikes against him and those closest to him, his mind goes blank and stays that way until he finds something to occupy himself. [/LIST][b]Strengths:[/b][LIST] [*] Jose and their friendship/brotherhood. [*] He's got a cool head and doesn’t always jump the gun. [*] Cris can shift at will and control when he shifts outside of a full moon. [*] Shifting into his half form, it takes skill that and can be used as a threat. [*] He doesn’t blink at threats or weapons pointed at him. [/LIST][b]Weaknesses:[/b][LIST] [*] Jose and Tonia will always be a core weakness for him. [*] Someone bringing up his children and wife. [*] Home cooked meals; he mostly lives on take out unless he’s in a creative mood. [*] Multiple shifts cost energy, energy he could need in a fight. [*] Cris does have a rare flare of a temper at times. [/LIST][b]Likes:[/b][LIST] [*] Beer. It’s not the answer he wants but he’ll take it. [*] Working with his hands. [*] Moving around and keeping busy. [*] Sleep when he can get it. [*] Getting back at Jose' pranks. [*] Weapons. He’s slightly OCD with his toys. [*] Driving, more particularly speeding if there’s an open stretch of road. [*] Video games, don’t even ask... [*] The Rodere running smoothly. [*] Threatening idiots. Cris really is more bark than bite though. [/LIST][b]Dislikes:[/b] [LIST] [*] Coffee. Nasty stuff that. [*] Sitting still when he knows there are things to be done. [*] People blaring music in cars. Some people don’t want to hear it. [*] Crowds. He’s fine as long as he stays near the edges. [*] People that talk just for the sound of their own voice. [*] Racists. There’s a time and a place for idiocy. [*] People sitting behind him in cars. [*] People that lie to him and think that they’ll get away with it. [*] When challenges arise in the Rodere. [*] Bad morning television. It has a nasty habit of stealing his soul and attention. [/LIST][b]General History:[/b] [LIST]While he had been born to a rat of a father, and a human mother that had later married his father, Cris was brought up in Rodere life from as long as he could remember. While his father was away a lot, his mother used to make sure he played with the other children and get to know people even if he didn’t want to. The only people that seemed to draw his attention in the Rodere clan were Jose Walker and Tonia Coya, who Cris quickly became friends with. He was the big brother of the three, always trying to protect them even though he knew damn well both of the younger kids could hold their own. At 11 years old, his best friend moved in with his family on a more permanent basis. The Marshes knew that Jose didn’t have a bad home, but since both boys were inseparable, it was considered best by the adults in their lives.

Growing up with Jose as his shadow, they protected Tonia even when she swore blind that she could take care of herself, through school they made sure that anyone that even looked at her wrong knew that they would face a serious talk about the well being of themselves, should they ever shoot their little sister another look. They laid off ‘talking’ to people on her behalf, after they accidently dyed her hair purple because she was going on a date, and she chased them up a tree all night. There were a few times, even after that incident with the hair dye that he had to pull Jose off some poor boys throat, though that was few and far between.

Growing older, their friendship stayed strong and when Tonia had her child, both the ‘brothers’ and their families helped out. At the time, Cris had been married to his high school sweetheart, for two years, with children of his own that he absolutely adored. What changed everything, even though they didn’t know it at the time, was the fact both brothers were going off to enter Special Forces after being infected with the rat lycanthropy virus.

While working, their contact with their family and friends where slim to none, and getting out of the military having served their country should have been a wonderful occasion, they should have been going home to their Clan. Only, they had been in so deep that they received no word of the fact their families and friends had almost been wiped out. What really hurt Cris, was the fact his wife and children had been killed and it took them both days to finally calm down and begin to form a plan that would get them answers.

They started asking around, seeking those that survived and remembering those had had died. On finding out their sister Tonia had survived it, Jose suggested that they track her down and Cris fully agreed that they needed to know everything they could on who had attacked the Clan. So together they both began the trip to Vegas where most of the survivors had said she’d gone too, staying under the radar. It’ll be a trip to remember, since Marsh is at a loss with what to do and knows Jose only wants to help him. When they couldn’t find Tonia in Vegas, they decided that they needed a fresh start. Somewhere new or at least somewhere they hadn’t been in a few years. They settled for going to England, Jackford, naturally. All it was in the end was a matter of sticking a pin in the map for him. [/LIST]

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