seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from Mexico
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Russia
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from Argentina
seen from United Kingdom
seen from China
seen from Germany
seen from Canada
seen from United States
seen from Japan
wait, how old are you? (vault squad)
snippet of we nearly got incinerated in a vault and all we got is this lousy group chat...
YELENA: humorless old man
JOHN: did you forget about alexei and bucky
YELENA: you are spiritually sixty
JOHN: i am not that old
YELENA: then how old are you grandfather
JOHN: how old are you
YELENA: not as old as you
AVA: ha
more sparrow ben in a time loop so i can clear my drafts
-
ben makes it to the hotel again.
he doesn’t want to. he tells himself not to. but the world’s already half-eaten and someone has to try something.
he keeps glancing over his shoulder, waiting for his siblings to catch up. sloane should be here. she should be here. jayme, maybe. christopher, god, maybe christopher. someone.
he opens the wrong door and finds nothing behind it.
he thinks they died again. probably. maybe. he can’t remember who was still alive. he doesn’t remember how he even got to the hotel this time. he doesn’t remember dying, but it must have happened.
his stomach won’t stop twisting.
if only the eldritch was enough to stop this.
-
ben tries to tell them. tells everyone.
“there’s a kugelblitz,” he says, eyes wide, voice cracking. “there’s a glowing ball in the basement and it eats everything.”
marcus doesn’t believe him. or maybe he does, but still thinks ben is losing it.
they fight about it. loudly. sloane stays quiet.
jayme says, “you’ve been acting weird ever since the umbrellas showed up.”
and ben says, “you think they’re the problem?”
and alphonso mutters, “you threw the first punch.”
which is true. but not the point. never the point.
-
kugelblitz in the basement. again. still.
marcus says they can contain it.
ben watches him die trying.
-
ben drags five into the basement and points.
“see that?” he says. “that’s your mess.”
five looks at it for a long time. doesn’t say anything at first. then:
“shit,” he mutters. “again?”
they start early. try what they can. everything they can.
it’s not enough. it never is.
-
ben screams into a pillow.
throws a glass.
bleeds from the palm.
dies in the hallway.
resets.
-
the umbrellas never leave the house.
they die inside it.
the kugelblitz doesn’t care about walls.
-
fei corners him some loop after that.
her birds flutter like knives and ben thinks about bleeding and burning and how it never, never ends for him.
“what’s wrong with you?” she asks.
ben says, “everything.”
-
ben tries to sabotage it all.
just- refuses to participate. doesn’t leave his room. lies on the bed and stares at the ceiling. ignores the alarms. doesn’t show up to fight. doesn’t go to the basement.
the kugelblitz still happens. sloane cries.
he dies anyway.
-
jayme dies.
so does alphonso.
ben thinks, how unoriginal.
then he throws up.
-
ben runs.
grabs cash from the safe. hops a train. ignores the birds circling overhead until they stop following. drinks until the stars blur. fights someone in an alley. sleeps in the cold.
he thinks, if he’s far enough, maybe they won’t die.
he doesn’t live long enough this time to see if he’s right.
-
the kugelblitz eats the world.
ben screams at his siblings.
he tells them it’s their fault. that he tried.
(rage is easier than grief, he learns, and keeps learning it.)
none of them live.
none of them remember.
-
“what if we don’t try to fix it?” he asks five.
five looks at him like he’s lost it.
maybe he has.
-
ben runs again.
different city. different drink. same result.
-
next time, ben doesn’t speak.
just watches the umbrella academy walk into the foyer from where they had appeared, his hands tight behind his back.
this time, he’ll try something different.
he has time. he has nothing but time.
death certainly won’t take him.
masterpost.
In Which The Thunderbolts Do Not Go Along With Valentina’s “New Avengers” Announcement
i am SO salty about that and i stand by the fact the thunderbolts should have clowned val on live broadcast-
we are not the new avengers (go thunderbolts!)
“No, no. Shh,” Yelena cuts in, then leans down to speak into the microphones mounted on the podium. “We’re not New Avengers. I didn’t agree to that. No one ran this by us, and frankly, I am vetoing it on the grounds of it being extremely stupid.” In which Yelena has objections towards Valentina’s announcement.
i didn’t have a choice (but you do)
Val recovers fast, because of course she does. She lets out a short laugh, light and easy, playing to the cameras. “Oh, Mel,” she says, like she’s indulging a child, though Mel can see the fury in the tightness of her eyes. “I know this has been a difficult day for everyone, but let’s not confuse facts with personal feelings—” “I’m not confusing anything,” Mel says. “You can’t pretend that you didn’t run illegal experiments on people then try to bury them.” In which Mel does not stand idly by during Valentina’s announcement.
you were so bright (step into the sun)
“And we already are team,” Alexei says. “Not because of you. Because we made it. We fight together. Not as Avengers. We are the Thunderbolts!” Beside him, Yelena groans, grabbing his arm, and hisses, “Dad...” In which Alexei raises his issues with Valentina, and her announcement doesn’t go the way she wants it to.
lights, camera, breakdown
The lights are too bright. The whole world is watching. Val announces, “Meet the new Avengers!” And John can’t make himself breathe right. In which John doesn’t do well with cameras on him. Yelena helps.
how many ways can i write the same concept?
more than four let's find out :D
WHUMPTOBER 2025 MASTERPOST
even the smallest cuts can bleed — aka, i’m going to see now much john walker angst i can condense into shorter snippets (usually <1k words for each prompt / re: whumptober prompts)
celestial john au: i will die your son (it’s not in my hands now)
sentry john au: how much can you stand (what more can you lose)
pre-tfatws aus: i’m fine to wait in line (with all my heavy stuff)
tfatws aus: i’ve lost my patience (where is the karma)
thunderbolts aus: someone tell me why (why i’m all in my head)
•••
what if snow died bc haymitch drank all the milk? (short and silly crackfic)
Haymitch can admit he may have fucked up here.
Chugging the milk was an intentional defiance. He’s not going to apologize for that. But Plutarch following him and catching him in the act was a bit trickier. He looked at Haymitch, then the milk that he’d just drank, then at Haymitch again. At once, Haymitch realizes that his action could have terrible, terrible consequences for more than just him.
Plutarch opens his mouth to speak.
And Haymitch’s only thought is: Oh no. He’s going to snitch.
So, in his panic, Haymitch had punched him.
Plutarch went down like a sack of rocks.
Which might have been okay, if not for President Snow.
“Plutarch!” Snow calls. His voice sounds hoarse now. “Where’s the…”
His voice trails off, and Haymitch no longer hears it.
His breath is practically stuck in his throat as he looks down at Plutarch’s unconscious form, then to the door that leads to the room Snow is still in.
Oh…he is so, so screwed.
He scrambles back to the main room.
Snow is lying motionless on the ground.
Two Avoxes stand vigil at the sides, looking entirely too pleased.
Haymitch meets their gaze with wide-eyed panic.
Then, he bends down to check if Snow is alive.
He was tempted to “check for signs of life” by just kicking him, but decides against nudging the President with his foot or something similarly disrespectful, no matter how much he wants to. It would end badly in the case that Snow is alive.
And…he isn’t.
Yeah, Snow is super dead.
Yikes.
Or huzzah!
Haymitch looks back to the Avoxes with a desperate “What now?” expression.
He gets hustled away by the Avoxes who are being way too calm about the President of Panem dying in the house they’re supposed to be helping, but Haymitch gets it. If he had his tongue cut out and was made to serve some Capitolites, he’d take every opportunity to spit in their food or hide bodies of people who deserved it or something.
Oh, wait.
Plutarch is still unconscious.
He’d have to deal with the fallout of this mess when he wakes.
Should Haymitch be apologizing to Plutarch for this?
Hm. Probably.
Sorry, Plutarch, Haymitch thinks, very quietly, in his head.
Yeah. That’s a good enough apology.
Much, much later…
“That was all it took to fell Snow?!”
“So it seems. Funny how it all worked out.”
“But—it was—I just—argh!”
An amused huff. “But…?”
“It’s just—that’s how he dies. Seriously?!”
“Snow’s death is a good thing.”
“I know, I know. It’s just—that was it? It was so…anticlimactic…”
“Just take the win, Plutarch.”
Incoherent sputtering. “BUT—!”
“Take—The—Win.”
A defeated sigh. “To the revolution. I guess…”
A snort. “Cheers.”
ao3.
thundertwins my beloved <3
(whumptober edition!)
day ten — “there’s nothing you can ever say, nothing you can ever do.”
“You shouldn’t sit that close to the edge,” Yelena says. John doesn’t turn to look at her. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people.” In which John and Yelena have a talk about Lemar and Natasha on the Watchtower rooftop.
day nine — “we’ll make it alright to come undone”
So, John had been left alone. Until the Vault. Until the Void. Until the Thunderbolts. In which John contends with being part of a family again.
day seven — elevator
If he could just step into this scene, if he could get just one more chance to fix it, to grovel, to say he’s sorry and actually mean it in a way that matters, then maybe she’d look at him again, maybe she’d let him try. He knows he wouldn’t deserve it, but he wants to imagine it anyway. He takes a step toward her, instinctive, helpless, and his stomach swoops with vertigo. In which John gets lost in his Shame Room and takes a step towards the fall.
eurylochus time travel [snippet]
(i am going to add time travel to every fandom i am in, so help me-)
Eurylochus knows this is where it ends.
He knows he will not be returning to Itheca from the moment Odysseus is presented with that choice, from the moment Zeus tells him to choose. His captain, his king, his brother turns slowly—there is already grief in his eyes. He is mourning them, even before he opens his mouth to say the words: “I have to see her again.”
“But we’ll die,” says Eurylochus. He is resigned, more than anything. His anger is muted, and he feels oddly detached from the outraged protests that are cropping up around him. Odysseus has made his decision, and he understands.
Eurylochus’s own words come back to haunt him: You must carry all the blame!
And he knows that Odysseus’s mind will not be changed.
Eurylochus is still, as the rest of the crew charges forward, weapons raised, fearful and enraged. This was their captain, who had led them to victory in Troy, who had salvaged their crew after the cyclops, who had saved them from Circe, who had sacrificed them at Scylla—and now, he was casting aside the rest of them. Eurylochus is a stone in a river, with the water rushing past, with the crew bumping his shoulders in their haste ahead.
Odysseus’s expression does not change.
He looks past the rest of the men—his men, his men whose lives he had given up for his own—at meets Eurylochus’s gaze. He does not speak a word, but Eurylochus thinks he can hear what he might say: I’m sorry.
Eurylochus does not know what words Odyssus sees in his eyes.
Perhaps it is: I understand.
Or: I hate you. Traitor. Deserter. Murderer.
Or: I love you. My king. My captain. My brother.
In those final moments, Eurylochus hopes it might be: I am sorry as well.
And the clouds converge in a divine, unavoidable, cataclysmic storm.
---
Eurylochus thinks he knows what to expect from death.
He and the rest of the crew had ventured into the Underworld. Eurylochus had seen Polites, had seen the faces of all the men they had lost. He would be another face in the ocean of the dead, another soul drifting in the shadowy realm, seeking solace in the company of those who had perished before him.
His afterlife looks like the crew that he had poured his life into. It is a kind sight, one with no starving friends, no tragedies that they had been forced to face. Many of them are familiar, but Eurylochus is first approached by Polites, the smile on his face as sure as the sun shining upon them all past clear skies.
“Will you not join the celebration?” asks Polites. He waves an arm broadly, to the men deep in their cups, before offering him a glass of wine. Polites nudges him until he accepts, amicably making conversation before he wanders off to mingle elsewhere.
What nice illusions death brings, Eurylochus thinks.
Eurylochus’s sense of peace is disrupted when he glances down at his hazy reflection in his rippling drink. He reaches up to his face, to un-sunken cheeks and tireless eyes, and feels unease creeping up his spine. Eurylochus looks around him, to the unbroken ship he stands upon, to the fleet that is sailing adjacent, to the six hundred men indulging in a joyous victory—they had all been in high spirits after Troy, when the prospect of home was an expectation, not a fitful dream.
Then, his gaze falls upon someone who would not have joined in him the Underworld so soon. Odysseus looks younger, or perhaps it is simply because he is unburdened. He has not been aged by the stresses forced upon him, engaged in a conversation with Polites. Eurylochus had not seen Odysseus so carefree since—oh, he thinks. Since before the cyclops had dealt the blows that had killed their men and their morale.
And Eurylochus realizes: this is not what death is.
Eurylochus curses himself for allowing his mind to be enraptured by the foolish tale it had initially spun. Death is not an isle of happiness; the Underworld had been a grim affair. It had been their men trapped in their last moments—that fear that would never leave them, their soul bared for them to see, in the eternity that they would remain.
Polites had been optimistic until his end, and in his unending spirit that would linger in those depths they had crossed to reach the prophet. But Polites had not been like this—not in what Eurylochus had just witnessed, had just interacted with. Polites had only been so bright in his memories.
But this was far more vivid than a memory.
If Eurylochus was not dead…perhaps it was divine intervention. It must be. How could he explain living beyond the storm that had thundered down upon them all? He had died there, yet he was not dead any longer. He was not on the isle of Helios any longer. He was long before then, for reasons unknown. But what being would dare surpass a punishment delivered by the king of gods, the thunder bringer and lightning wielder himself?
Eurylochus decides that he would rather not find out.
(...aaaand that all i've got for now, but i'll reblog this with an ao3 link when i finish up the full fic :D)
edit (2/5/25): still not a full fic, but i have moved this snippet to ao3
ava starr character study!!
stories of old (they talk of ghosts)
Ava knows she can’t fix all of her injuries on her own.
It’s still easier to try than to trust.
In which Ava reflects on a life of pain. Bucky commiserates.
-> link to ao3.
