#I wrote this right after the last one to restore balance to the force | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lyncirenzei · 2 years

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Anya Mmiri - Shuri x Namor Oneshot

Summary: Shuri grapples with the aftermath of the decisions she’s made and those made for her. She thinks she needs to grieve alone. Namor thinks otherwise.

Rating: Teen 13+

Word Count: 6.8k

AN: I can’t believe I wrote fanfic again after this long. But these two grabbed me by the throat and threatened me. So I had no choice.

It seemed, to everyone but Shuri, that Wakanda had its strength back. That they were, by all intents and purposes, on the right track back to their former glory.

Thanos had been defeated and the souls lost for five years, returned.

The loss of their great King and protector T’Challa was mourned and celebrated before a new Black Panther rose in his place.

The heart shaped herb was restored.

And the balance of power after the loss of their Queen Mother, Ramonda, settled.

Yes, for all intents and purposes, to everyone else Wakanda handled its issues with grace and perseverance. They always came out stronger on the other side.

But to Shuri, she felt as lost as if it was all suddenly happening to her again. Like someone had taken a spear and stabbed her through the gut with it.

She sighed at that thought, placing a hand against the spot that had now fully healed, but still felt phantom pain in.

All of her emotions felt like an assault against her body. But during her physical fight with him, she realized how much they actually matched. One didn’t hurt any more than the other. Every punch, slam, scratch, throw, and even stab felt like the same pain of rectifying that she couldn’t save her brother, her mother, or protect Wakanda from an invasion of people who went undetected by their sensors.

It was all the same to Shuri. All of it was overwhelming. So she ran.

She needed time apart from everyone and everything. Nakia was the first to be so kind as to give her that place to rest her head. And to give her something even more precious. Her nephew. The future King of Wakanda, a second T’Challa, a second chance for her to protect him. To be there for him.

But even with a place away from it all, her eyes couldn’t seem to stay dry these days. With so little to occupy her time, she was forced to be with her thoughts and her emotions. And the more she felt them, the more they seemed wild and uncontrolled. They would flare up in her chest at the most inopportune moments and she hated how weak they made her feel. She wanted to scream and shout, to punch something or someone, and that was what scared her the most. With such violence playing right under the surface, she didn’t always feel comfortable being in such close quarters with the last living members of her family. She loved them too much to take her anger and frustration out on them.

So she planned a getaway from her getaway. Somewhere she could go that was isolated, where she could use her new strength to break rocks if she needed to. And scream into the air without judgment or worry from others.

And she found it on that same slab of land that she almost died on.

It was completely isolated, and still held the story of her first visit. The ship she flew in on that first time was still in pieces, scattered in the sand and bits of grass. The rock she was pinned to, still had the broken spear sticking out of it. And though some time had passed, the dents left in the sand from their powerful struggle with each other had still not been completely marred by any wind or rain that may have happened.

This was the perfect place for her to sit with her thoughts. A visual reminder of how damaged things could get when she didn’t remember who she was. When she let the greed of vengeance get in the way of what the mantle of the Black Panther was created for.

She was meant to be a protector.

That’s what she kept telling herself.

But she knew her reasons for recreating a hybrid of the heart-shaped herb was purely selfish. Afterall, she was splicing a plant that gave completely different abilities when mixed with vibranium and ingested by organic matter, with another plant that gave a different set of abilities. She didn’t take the time to study the effects it could have on a person.

She didn’t care if they could be lethal, debilitating, dangerous. At that time, she’d rather die than not get a taste of his blood on her hands like she promised herself. So she took the herb and made herself Black Panther as a means to her own ends. She put elite warriors and tribe leaders in danger for those same goals. And now, though the outcome was favorable, she was ashamed of her actions.

But they had all moved on so quickly. If they thought at all about how she used them, they gave her no idea about it. Instead, they focused on their tentative alliance with him. Namor. And on the dangers of the other world powers that would be knocking at their door. Without their attention, it left her feeling isolated and alone.

As she sat in the sand, gathering the small bits in her hands, she wondered about a many great things. All of them painful in one way or another. The tears she stored in her eyes ran as freely as her thoughts, and she didn’t bother to swipe them away. She left them to run over her smooth brown skin, down her cheeks and drip off her chin right onto her legs folded beneath her.

If she kept up this amount of water loss, she’d have a puddle surrounding her. But that was the point of sitting on this violently disturbed land. To allow herself this reprieve of exposure without being exposed.

In her distracted thoughts, she allowed herself to swim in circles, picturing a past self that she could no longer be again. Because the people who shaped her were no longer here.

She sniffled, the sound mixing in with a splash from the ocean that was a distance from where she sat. As she looked through the blur of tears that filled her eyes, she saw what she hoped was an apparition. But she knew it could only be him with that smooth tan skin, and strong, broad body decked in vibranium gold and jade.

Her breath hitched in her throat, almost causing her to choke as she hopped lightly to her feet and activated her necklace that housed the Black Panther suit.

Her entire body was covered in less than 2 seconds and she was crouched in a fighting stance. Ready.

Her eyes scanned his tight body, all the way down to the once symmetrical wings that adorned his ankles. One was missing, and she loathed herself for feeling bad about something that made her feel so good when she ripped it from him.

“What are you doing here, Namor?” She sneered his name as she called out to him, engaging her claws the more he approached.

He didn’t stop walking until he was completely on land, but he never took his eyes off of her, nor did he open his mouth to answer. They only stared at each other for a minute before his sharp eyebrows began to knit together, “Did we not come to be allies, Panther?”

“Our nations are allies,” she yelled to him. “But you and me? We’re nothing.”

She was shaking as she looked at him—he who looked so cool and unbothered by her anger. He never did hide his feelings since the moment she met him and because of that his face held many expressions. They display in the way his eyebrows moved, the sneer of his mouth, the flare of his nostrils around his jade septum piercing, or the squint of his eyes. Sometimes it was all of those things. Right now, it was just his eyes.

He wished her no harm, she could tell, even if he hadn’t said it. Instead, he raised his hands in a universal gesture of meaning peace before he turned his back to her and sat in the sand closer to the water.

She sucked in a deep breath, neck straining where she held it in as she watched him. She could feel her face twitching underneath the mask before she realized he was going to stay sitting there no matter how long she stared at his back, ready to strike.

A few clouds covered the sun, shifting the light, before she stood straight and sat back down in the sand. She kept her suit engaged, wrapped in the cocoon of a suit that offered no protection from him physically and certainly not mentally. But emotionally, he couldn’t see her face if he tried. And any protection from the one who made her feel so unlike herself, was better than nothing at all.

So she sat, quietly, holding in her anger at his presumptuousness and his silent demand to sit on the same shore that she was sitting on. He had the rule of the ocean and could have ended up anywhere, but he came back here. Why? When this place should offer him nothing but a reminder of how close he came to death?

It didn’t make sense, but then again, it didn’t make sense that with one appearance from him he was now all she could think about.

Nothing about what made sense to him or didn’t, should be her concern. She was here to heal. That was all that mattered.

Except…

When she returned the next day, there he was again.

And again.

Every time she made it to the beach and sat near the boulder she almost lost her life pinned to, he would come out of the water and sit. His back would be facing her, and he wouldn’t say a word. They did the same routine for weeks, everyday. Until, eventually, a month passed of them sitting a distance away from each other, silently.

Nakia reached out to Shuri when she realized the girl hadn’t returned to Wakanda and was, instead, somewhere she didn’t know.

Shuri assured her that she was fine. She was healing, but in her own way.

Nakia told her in times of grieving a person shouldn’t be alone. But that was the catch and she stared at its back everyday. Another person was with her. So was she actually alone?

When the first day of the second month started, she felt safe enough to remove her mask. He never turned around after sitting down and she was tired of having the itchiness of her tears pressed against her cheeks unable to dry.

But as soon as he came out of the water, instead of taking the few steps to his usual seat, he walked further up the sand towards her.

Her breath hitched in her chest the closer he got, and she got to her feet when he was only a few steps away, “Hold it! Why are you approaching me?”

She was blinking rapidly as she processed the sight of him before her.

There was a false level of comfort that eased her, knowing he would come on to the shore, sit in his usual spot, and not speak with her. Being able to expect that allowed her to relax. But now, he was suddenly doing something different, something she didn't expect and therefore could not prepare herself for.

“Why do you come here everyday?” He asked, stopping a few feet away from her. He wasn’t looking at her, she noticed. But his eyes were locked onto the boulder behind her, where the broken vibranium spear was run through.

“Why do you?” She said through clenched teeth, watching as his eyes slowly turned to rest on her frame. He examined her exposed face all the way down to her feet and Shuri rued that the one time she needed the mask, she’d been so caught off guard that she didn’t engage it.

She was sure he could clearly see her watery, pink eyes. And she knew the frown she wore was a bad mixture of anxiety and frustration.

“I come here to remember,” he answered her. “Though, what happened here isn’t something I can forget.”

He nodded towards her after speaking, as if to say it was her turn to share. She scoffed, turning her head from him, “I come here for silence and not to be bothered.”

If he had any intelligence about him, which Shuri knew he had plenty, he’d take the hint and leave her alone like he had been. But she also knew he was persistent, and the way he stepped closer to her before taking a seat highlighted that trait of his.

“What are you doing?” The shock in her voice was apparent and her feet carried her a few steps away from him. “I didn’t invite you to sit with me.”

“Didn’t you?” She heard him mutter. “I will be silently here, not bothering you as you requested.”

Her mouth balled up and her eyes widened as she processed his words, “I don’t want you sitting by me. I really don’t want you here at all, but I tolerate it. This is an affront!”

He didn’t look at her nor did he move which left her with the choice of relocating to another spot or bearing his presence closer to her.

She looked around the land, not wanting to move, not when she chose this spot for a reason. So she swallowed her irritation and took a seat after taking two more steps to the right and away from him. He was sitting slightly in front of her, so she could keep her eye on him just in case. But after a while it became obvious to her that she wasn’t only watching him because she was weary. There was something else she couldn’t place that drew her eyes to him. She didn’t know if it was the dark length of his clustered eyelashes, or the soft frame of his dark hair in general. But he looked like some type of art she was meant to study.

She shook her head, that made no sense no matter how she tried to reframe it. And eventually she snatched her eyes away from him all together with a frustrated huff.

At this point, he shouldn’t have any amount of control over her. But he did.

He’d been manipulating her from the moment he rose out of the river and accosted her and her mother. His honesty in his feelings, and his conviction towards his goals were always expressed very clearly. It was something she appreciated. And therein layed the problem. She appreciated things about him that she didn’t want to acknowledge. She wanted to hate him for what he took from her and for what he gave to her. He was just as culpable for restoring the Black Panther mantle to Wakanda the same way he was culpable for taking away a beloved Queen of the nation. And it was not fair how Shuri had to suffer for both when she wanted neither.

The mantle belonged to her brother or anyone more deserving.

And her mother, her mother belonged by her side, guiding her with her wisdom, grace, and beauty. She was her role model and what she thought was the last living member of her family. It was a sweet reprieve to be introduced to Toussaint, T’Challa son of T’Challa.

She sighed, allowing the sound to leave her mouth with no regard to whether he heard her or not.

He didn’t matter.

After a week of him sitting much closer to her, he began to come ashore with random objects.

At first, when he brought her a rock deposit from a cave near Talokan, she didn’t know what he expected her to do with it. Until he told her, “For your studies.”

She didn’t respond.

When he came with something else the next day, garnering no response from her but her eyes weary on his frame, he simply sat it next to her and then sat next to it.

That had been the closest she’d been to him since they traded blows—but unlike that time, this time she didn’t know what he wanted.

“Where did you get that from?” She looked down at the bent rock that seemed to have some sort of metal deposit within it.

“A cave near the land called India,” he said, voice sounding as warm as the sun shining above. “I gave some to our engineers. But you should have some as well. For your—”

“Studies,” she interrupted. “Right. I get it.”

“It is something else for you to focus on,” he spoke again. “When you are finished here.”

“Finished?” Her right eye twitched. “How will I know when I’ll be finished? If I’ll even finish?”

“If you let your grief consume you, then you won’t finish,” he looked at her, eyes soft. “Coming here everyday for unbothered silence will not help you.”

Her chest felt full, like she might be sick if she listened to another word he said. She’d grown to hate listening to him make sense when she couldn’t agree. Didn’t want to.

“I was here first, Namor,” she said. “And I will be here until I am done. You do not have to be here giving me your judgment and unwanted opinions.”

“I do not judge,” he was quick to say.

“You’re not helping either,” she bit out, raising to her feet. “Go away.”

He rose behind her, following in her steps until she turned around to yell at him, “Go away!”

“No, Panther,” he said in a calm, but firm manner. “I don’t think you should be alone.”

“I don’t think,” she stepped closer to him. “That what you think matters. Not in regards to me anyway. If I want to be alone, you will allow it ‘cause I don’t need your permission!”

He squinted his eyes at her tense frame, “You’re being loud is not going to get me to stop following you.”

“I’m not being loud for the fun of it, Namor,” she said through clenched teeth. “I really want you to leave me alone.”

He held his head high, looking down the slope of his nose at her contorted face filled with despair and anger, “I will not come close. But I will keep you in my sights, Panther.”

Her lips parted, ready to argue a point he would not listen to. This was as good as she was going to get without getting physically violent with him. And she wanted to. So very badly. She wanted to sink her claws into his back again, pull him close,and release all the pain she’d stored up over him. But she remembered the blows he traded with her. She didn’t want to feel those against her, not when he was looking at her the way he was. So she took off, running as quickly as her vibranium infused muscles would take her to put great distance between them. Without his wing fully healed, he’d have a hard time flying to see her and she was counting on it.

When she slowed and looked behind her, she didn’t see him. Not even at a distance. It was like he disappeared.

Without anyone around her for the first time, she felt empty—almost lost.

It was the complete opposite feeling of what she was begging for just a moment ago.

She wanted to be alone, away from him, and now that she was…

She screamed.

The sound came from her core, so deep down it felt as if the ground was shaking. Her suit deactivated, allowing her skin to breathe in the tropical breeze that was blowing. Her knees bent until she eventually fell onto them and reached for the earth below. Water poured from her eyes in the form of salty tears as her voice broke on the pain she was releasing.

This was what she wanted. The opportunity to let out all her pain without watching eyes. Even though she knew he was around, somewhere, she couldn’t see him so she pretended he couldn’t see or hear her either.

Her fingers grabbed at the sand and grass that was beneath her before her wail tempered out to whimpers of lingering grief.

Torture.

That was what she felt like she just let out of her body. A twisted form of torture she both controlled and didn’t.

After some time passed with her crouched to the ground, she fell onto her side, laying on the cool sand and staring blurry eyed out ahead of her.

In her immediate line of sight were two brown feet walking towards her with white wings sticking from the sides. One wing was noticeably missing. And when those feet stopped directly in front of her, she didn’t flinch away. When she felt a large, warm hand press onto her damp cheek, she closed her eyes but she didn’t tense up. When that same hand traced a finger down the length of her jaw to her quivering lips, her eyes opened again.

There was a warning welling up in her, like a siren wailing in her heart, but not because she felt in danger from his touch. She didn’t feel at all like she would have expected. She’d thought she would be ready to fight, to defend herself from his cold, callousness and the heavy blows he brought down upon her during their battle.

But, instead, his touch felt so warm, gentle—and what was worse—soothing.

She turned her face from him, pressing her forehead and the tip of her nose into the sand for a brief moment before forcing herself to sit up. Carefully, she wiped her face where the sand stuck and her tears dried. As she got to her feet on unsteady legs, she dusted off her body. All of this she did without meeting his gaze that she could feel never left her.

“I still don’t understand why you’re here,” she finally muttered around a throat that felt ripped raw.

She heard him sigh, but she still didn’t look up at him, “I came to remember, like I said. At first, I wanted to be here as a form of closure. I thought maybe you needed to do the same. Eventually, I realized you were not doing that.”

How could he know anything about her? Did he read minds too?

“You have no idea what I’ve been doing here,” she snapped, finally looking at him. But her face didn’t match the tone of her voice. There were tears filling her eyes again and she knew the expression she made right before crying was anything but threatening.

“I didn’t want you to be alone while you were grieving,” he ignored her. “I’ve lost enough people I’ve cared about overtime to know it is not something a person gets used to. But you shouldn’t be alone while doing so. It is not our way.”

“It’s not ours either,” she admitted, voice cracking. “But when I lost my father I had my mother and brother to share my pain. And when I lost my brother,” she sucked in a stuttered breath. “I had my mother,” she shook her head as she shrugged. “Now that she is gone, who do I have?”

She looked up at him, meeting his eyes directly so he could see all the pain and accusation in her face. She didn’t know what she was expecting to see when she met his eyes, but the soft gaze he captured her in was not it.

“I am sorry for all of your loss, Panther,” he said. “To not have one's family is like not having the very organs we need to live. And to lose a mother is like losing your heart.”

“How can you say that?” She whimpered. “If you know how painful this feels then why would you take her from me?”

“If I could have seen past my own desperate rage,” he muttered, reaching out to her. “Things would’ve been different.”

She slapped his hand away, backing up from him, “I told you it could have and you didn’t listen. You had your mind set on your way only. And now we’re here. I’ve sacrificed everything to get to this point and it's a place I don’t even want to be!”

“You can be angry with me,” he looked at the hand she slapped away. “I accept your anger. I understand it. And I deserve it.”

Her eyes closed at his words, forcing more tears down her face, “I won’t be in this place forever. I don’t know when I’ll move past this hurt. But I will. And when that happens, I’ll forgive you. But not for your sake. It’ll be for myself.”

He nodded, eyes following her as she walked past him, “Will you be here tomorrow?”

She thought about lying to him, telling him she wouldn’t ever return, “Yes, I will be.”

During the second week of the second month she spent sitting near the boulder, Namor sat directly next to her everyday. There were more and more things he’d collected for her to give her scientific opinion about. Eventually she asked him what his own scientist thought of the things he brought them.

“Do you wish to speak with them?” He asked, almost sounding eager.

“No,” she was too quick to answer. She didn't know why she said no, but she felt a fear about seeing other Talokani again so soon. “Not, not right now.”

“Of course,” he nodded. “Whenever you are ready.”

Her eyes dropped down his face, noting his sincere expression, “When I go back to Wakanda, I’ll be pretty busy in the labs thanks to you.”

“Well,” he smiled. “You’re welcome.”

She grimaced at his smile, hating the way it changed his face and automatically made him approachable. It was bad enough she never felt truly uncomfortable in his presence, even when she wanted to kill him. And now that he was by her side everyday as she tried to heal her grief, that comfort seemed to be increasing.

She found it a minor problem.

“I have so many questions to ask you about Talokan,” she said, quickly glancing at him but not being able to hold eye contact. “I don’t know where to start.”

He didn’t reply, only looked on at her picking at the grass growing through the sand. It took her more than a minute to realize he hadn’t said anything. So she looked over to him, surprised when her eyes immediately met his. They sparkled some times when he spoke, especially when he was passionate. And right now, they were doing the same thing without him saying a word.

Was it the setting sun, casting a glow and adding shadows that made him look more dazzling? Or was her eyes playing tricks on her from the amount of tears she’d shed? It could be both, or it could be neither.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Her voice didn’t have the usual strength behind it that it usually did when addressing him. “I don’t like it.”

A lie.

“My apologies,” he dropped his eyes from her. “Sometimes when I look at you, I see something that I’ve not seen in a very long time.”

She didn’t know what he meant and she wanted to ask, but she also didn’t want to know. Her feelings were all bundled up in her mind, making it hard to think and focus. She began to nibble at her lips before her whole face morphed into one of pure worry. It wasn’t until she felt his thumb right below the line of her bottom lip and the rest of his fingers pressing underneath her chin that her thoughts stopped completely.

When he tilted her head up to look at him, she noticed his eyes were sparkling again as he looked at her. They struck her, and she held her breath the longer he held her face. His head tilted to the side, dropping his eyes over the entirety of her face, “You’re impressive, Panther. It is something I cannot deny. You are of the land and no one here truly impresses me. But this is something I cannot take from you.”

She let out the breath she was holding, “I’m so happy to have your approval, Namor. It’s all I ever wanted.

His smile was soft as he dropped her chin, giving her her space back. She relished in it, while wanting to chase him, ask for him to touch her again. Why would she want anything from him, she had no idea. And that alone was part of the torture she was having trouble escaping.

She was drawn to the visage of him the moment he rose from the water and she realized it was a man with wings on his ankles, decked in vibranium, speaking to her. Then when she spent time in his company and got an idea of what kind of person he was, she knew if she could convince him to change his tactic, they could be really good friends.

Friends.

That’s all she would have wanted from him anyway. Not anything else. Well, maybe she did want his opinion on things, and his attention. But that was it.

“Someone like you doesn’t need my approval,” he muttered. “I don’t think you ever did.”

She squinted at his statement, knowing what it sounded like, but not knowing if she was interpreting the meaning correctly.

“Is there something you want from me,” she asked, wanting clarity. “I keep getting this feeling that you are waiting for me to give you something and I don't know what it is.”

“Hm,” he tilted his head towards the sun. “Something I’d want from you?” He glanced at her again, catching her eye, “After everything I have done to you, I’d only request that you are eventually able to be alright.”

“I’m a Wakandan woman,” Shuri said, sitting up straighter. For the first time, she could picture her mother’s face, her elegance and strength even in the face of tragedy. “I’ll be alright.”

In the third week of the second month, Shuri finally felt well enough to go home.

Not to Nakia and Toussaint, but back home to Wakanda.

There was so much she was sure she had missed out on by cutting herself off from the world. She only allowed contact with Nakia to check in and let her know she was still alive.

Her tears had finally dried, though melancholy would probably follow her for a while longer.

When Namor came from the waters that day, dripping wet and positively eye-catching, her decision was made.

She was spending too much time in his company. And the more she did the more liberties she allowed him to take. He had closed the distance between them completely over the month and half that he’d spent daily in her company. She found herself wanting things from him she shouldn’t want from a person who was just a friend. And she knew, even though he wished her to be well, that there might be more he’d take from her if she gave it.

That was something she wasn’t ready for. Not really.

It’d be a glorious distraction from what was going on in their lives, but it would only add so much more to an already heavy situation.

So when he pulled her to her feet instead of sitting next to her, she knew this would have to be the last day she spent here. He walked her to the shore, his large hand almost completely encapsulating her slender one and sending sparks of warmth all the way up her arm.

“Here,” he stopped as soon as their feet touched the warm water. “Would you like to meet someone?”

She immediately looked at him, “Someone from Talokan?”

She looked to where he pointed over the ocean, only to see one large fin come from under the water and make quite the splash when it went back under, “Is that a blue whale?”

“Incantu,” he said. “She swam most of this way with me.”

“How can I meet her?” She was gripping his hand just as tightly as he was holding hers, the excitement running through her was such a nice feeling after nearly drowning in despair.

“Want to go for a swim?” He asked, pulling her deeper into the water before she could say yes. The smile she wore so brightly on her face was enough for him to know exactly what she wanted even though her shirt and shorts were not the appropriate attire.

“Hold onto my shoulders,” he told her once the water became deep enough. “I will take us there.”

She did as he instructed, gripping the firm muscles that were his shoulders and relishing at how warm and soft his skin was. Before she knew it, they were speeding off into deep waters towards a Blue Whale—a majestic creature she never thought she’d actually meet.

As soon as they got close enough, he brought her hand directly to the thick skin of the creature. She was filled with an eagerness as she rubbed her hand over the wet flesh. He had one of his hands pressed onto her back while he was saying some things to the whale in his native tongue, “Incantu, this is Shuri, the great Black Panther.”

She laughed lightly at his introduction of her and startled when the whale made a loud noise, almost as if in greeting. She kept looking over at Namor, wondering what he could be thinking, “The first time I interacted with a blue whale was when I was first taken to Talokan. It was amazing then, but I was far too scared to really appreciate it.”

“Yes,” he nodded. “It was Incantu here that carried you to our home with Attuma and Namora.”

Her eyes widened, “Seriously?” She looked at the sheer largeness of the whale she was floating next to. “Does she remember me?”

“She does,” he smiled. “Come, she must leave now.”

He pulled her close to him, holding her up in the water as Incantu started to swim down deeper into the ocean. His grip was sure and firm around her waist. She didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, but with him that close, she found she couldn’t think of much else.

“Thank you for letting me meet her,” she said to him. “It is an honor really.”

“Anytime,” his voice was like a whisper so close to her ear. She knew if she turned to face him exactly what she would see and when she did turn it still startled her just how close her face was to his. It didn’t help that she was instantly captured in his dark, sparkling eyes.

This was why she had to leave this place and never return. Whatever had started between them when she first visited Talokan had been stamped down by his unwillingness to listen to reason. But now that time had passed and she found herself back in his company, her rage settled. The wall of protection she built was melting as if it were only made of ice and the man holding her now was the sun.

He leaned towards her, just enough to press the flat of his forehead and nose to hers. Every inch of his skin that was touching her was warm with his adorned jewelry being a cooling contrast.

It was intimate. And it felt—necessary. Like a completion to all they had been through, all they had put each other through.

When she opened her eyes again, she felt bold, stronger than she did previously. As if the man in front of her was only that. A man.

A man she wanted a lot of things from.

Who she currently wanted to feel more from.

Slowly, she tilted her head, sliding her forehead to the side until her cheek dragged against the soft hair of his face. He sighed and she could feel his breath fan against her ear and jaw. It tickled, it felt good, it made her hold him tighter.

Just a sigh from him made her feel powerful in his arms.

She ran her hands up from his strong shoulders, against the back of his neck where the nape of his feather light hair started and squeezed. The pressure elicited another sound from his mouth, a sound of pleasure, she was sure, because who didn’t like their heads massaged? She kept the pressure firm and rhythmic as she made her way up his scalp. He buried his face in her neck, where she felt his mouth beginning to gently press into the sensitive skin there. His lips traced up the tattoo she had along her neck that ended behind the fold of her ear. All of this was new, and elicited sensations she’d never thought to imagine let alone actually experience. The warm waves lapped at them as they floated in each other’s arms, tentatively exploring one another.

It sent electric shocks up her spine when she felt his teeth pinch the flesh of her ear with the lightest amount of pressure possible. But that was what she needed to be jolted out of her reverie. She gripped the length of his hair tight between her fingers, and with her power, she tugged his head back enough for him to arch into her. Her eyes were as intense as his while he looked down his nose at her, completely suspended in her grip. She could see it wasn’t because she was stronger, no, that wasn’t it at all. It was only because he allowed it. There was a glint in his eyes that told her she could venture as far to say he might have even liked it.

Slowly, she loosened her grip after staring in his eyes for an intense second. He lowered his head the looser her grip became. His own hands that were firm around her waist stayed steady, fingers flexing into her back and his thumb rubbing circles into the taunt flesh of her abdomen.

“There is a line somewhere between us, Namor,” Shuri finally whispered to him. “And I don’t think it should be crossed. Not now.”

He didn’t say anything at first, instead he ran his hands up her sides and then back down to her slender hips, causing her to shiver in his hold, “Whatever you say, Panther.”

She could tell from his tone of voice and squint of his eyes that he would have preferred to push the issue, but out of respect he did not.

“Come,” he finally released her to grab onto her hands. “Allow me to take you back to land.”

She did, holding onto him as he swam through the warm waves.

There were plenty of thoughts running through her mind about her position in life after everything. And she would be remiss to not consider just where Namor fit in amongst that position. The sun moved along in the sky, denoting the passing of time. And just like the sun, her relationship with Namor rose and fell, but it never failed to rise again. He wasn’t just some foreign King of a magnificent and powerful nation that she only had to see for political reasons. It was apparent that they could at least become friends if they haven’t already over the course of sitting with their emotions for nearly two months.

But there was so much more that could develop. It was innate, the relationship they could have. But that was between them and only them.

Right now, it was not something Shuri could seriously pursue.

As he helped her out of the water and back onto the warm sand, she tugged at him a little so she’d have his attention, “I won’t be here tomorrow. I think it’s time.”

The sparkle in his eyes dimmed some, but it was still there, lingering, “When will I see you again?”

She looked down with a shrug, “I don’t know. But I imagine not too much time will pass between now and then.”

“I hope not,” he said honestly with a playful glint in his eyes.

She looked up at him, a small smile on her lips despite herself, “For now, it’s goodbye.”

He nodded, letting go of her hand and backing up into the water. She watched him go, amazed that so little time had passed since they met, but so much had happened and developed between them.

She wished she had her family to share these new feelings with. For the first time, there was a man scratching for entrance to her heart that wasn’t her baba or brother. But she didn’t have them, and for the first time, she accepted that. She would never be the same as she once was. But she lived on, and with her, the story continued.

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ladyartemesia · 3 years

Text

TEASER: Kim Seokjin and the Mean Omega

Pairing: Nerd Alpha Kim Seokjin x Popular Omega Reader

Genre: A/B/O • Enemies to Lovers • (Sorta) College AU • Best Friend's Brother AU (Who is surprised? No one?)

Teaser Word Count: 3.6K

Teaser Warnings: A/B/O sexual dynamics • suggestive content

Rating: Explicit (18+) (Teaser is PG-13)

Summary: In the modern world, alphas are almost unheard of so why even bother learning about them? After all, as a spoiled (but reasonably kind-hearted) omega who is used to getting whatever she wants, you have better things to do. However, when unexpected circumstances throw you in the path of (extremely) nerdy and (probably?) shy Kim Seokjin, you're shocked to discover that he won't be wrapped around your little finger as easily as all the rest. Bringing that infuriating geek to his knees quickly becomes your personal mission in life... But it turns out that Kim Seokjin is not what he appears to be and the mean omega who eats beta boys for breakfast is about to get way more than she bargained for...

Author’s Note: This story would not be here without the love, support and friendship of my incredible support system. You talk with me, you laugh with me, you listen when I’m crying, and you read my chaotic drafts when I am ready to pull my hair out of my head in frustration. I love you all. @ppersonna @xjoonchildx @untaemedqueen @lemonjoonah. ALSO thank you to each and every one of you who encouraged me to post this story. This fic is dedicated to all of you as a token of my love and appreciation. Your support keeps me writing. Never doubt that for a second.

“...due to discriminatory anti-alpha policies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, alphas were nearly eliminated from the general population…”

You heaved a weary sigh and rolled your shoulders—stretching the buttons of your high-end Oxford shirt to their limit. The beta sophomore to your right whined audibly and you smirked.

“...despite efforts to restore the genetic balance of designations, alphas currently comprise less than one percent of the population…”

Your back arched slightly as you crossed your legs, letting the absurdly short hem of your skirt ride up even higher. The poor boy you were tormenting shifted miserably in his seat.

How was he supposed to focus on a Human Biology and Designation Studies lecture when the living breathing embodiment of every sweaty undergrad’s fantasies was twisting her fingers in her hair and wrapping her pretty pink tongue around a strawberry lollipop right there in the middle of class?

“...unlike betas and omegas, alphas possess enhanced strength and the ability to compel other designations with their voice. Unmated alphas especially were often baselessly feared and distrusted...”

You knew exactly how you affected boys like him. You were a shameless tease who relished their attention and the power it brought you. Who needed drugs when driving a man mad with desire was a rush more potent than any high?

“...and that’s all for today so please read pages 450-466 in the text over break and remember to turn in your essay on scent and consent in intimacy—”

That poor sophomore looked like he had finally worked up the courage to speak to you, but you were already out the door and tearing down the hall toward your beautiful (and entirely platonic) counterpart, Kim Taehyung.

“Do you think Professor Moore is unaware that class is over at 3:25 or is he just torturing us for science?”

Taehyung shrugged, falling into step beside you with practiced ease.

“I mean I would torture you for free so it’s hard to say.”

The corner of your mouth quirked up at his characteristic dry humor, but the irritation at being held in that sweltering lecture hall for an extra ten minutes had frayed your temper.

“It’s the last class before spring break, I’m sure he was on some sort of twisted power trip.” You dug around in your purse for some chapstick, ignoring Tae’s amused snorting, “Alphas barely exist anymore and none of us are likely to meet one. Why bother learning what they can do?”

Taehyung tilted his head in amusement.

“You might be surprised.”

The final party before the beginning of spring break was always a laid back affair.

Many people had already caught planes to their various destinations, but your flight was scheduled for early tomorrow morning—leaving you with some time to kill.

Taehyung pressed his newest experimental concoction into your hand within minutes of entering the house (a surprisingly neat bachelor pad owned by two seniors, Jung Hoseok and Min Yoongi) and then darted back to the kitchen to craft more questionable alcohol potions like a deranged party warlock.

You had just found a comfortable place on the couch and were contemplating whether sampling your best friend’s mad scientist elixir would be worth the probable damage to your body when—

“H-Hello...”

It was that sophomore from your Designations Studies class. What was his name again? Jungwoo? Jinwook?

“Jungkook,” you smiled, delighted to have remembered before it became awkward. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

You motioned to the empty cushion next to you and the man in question scrambled over like he’d won the lottery.

“I—I know we don’t know each other well, but I noticed you were absent during Professor Moore’s lecture on intimacy and scent consent so I—” he blushed deeply, “I wrote the essay for you—and I brought a copy on my flash drive if-if you want it.”

Your heart melted immediately.

“Oh my gosh Jungkook, that is so sweet of you!”

Your gaze darted over his muscular form and thick brown curls.

Sweet indeed.

“I don’t want to miss out on the learning though,” you pouted, placing a hand on his tattooed bicep. “Can you explain it to me?”

Jungkook nodded vigorously even as his wide eyes fell to where your fingers were sliding slowly over his chest.

Scent consent was a pretty basic and universally known concept, but you really were touched by the handsome sophomore's consideration.

Why not give him (and yourself) a little reward?

“Um so basically if two people are involved in...intimate activities—”

You leaned forward to nip his ear lightly and he whimpered.

“Like this?” you asked innocently.

“Y-Yes. Like that.” He gulped. “In an intimate situation consent or refusal can be smelled. The scent of refusal or reluctance in intimacy is strong, unmistakable, and has a high chemical potency.”

“Is that so?” you drawled, sliding over onto his lap. Jungkook’s eyes rolled back into his head and you bit back a grin.

He was adorable.

“Uh-huh—it—oh my gawd,” (you were nibbling on his ear again) “it can immediately block sexual arousal and performance in the other partner. Meaning, if consent is not present, then it becomes difficult or—ahh” (his voice began to waver under your continued attention) “—or even impossible to continue with intimate acts.”

Your hand slid up to his cheek, bringing him closer till your lips were almost touching.

“Then what does it mean if I’m still so turned on right now?”

“It means,” Jungkook shuddered—nearly delirious with your scent, “that I really really want you.”

Across the room, Park Jimin chuckled as he watched you seduce his enthusiastic friend.

Jeon Jungkook was such a sweet kid.

Hopefully he wouldn’t get too attached.

“Wow... Some people are genuinely born blessed I suppose.”

Jimin turned to see Jung Hoseok eyeing the dimly lit corner where you and the eager young sophomore were exploring each other.

It was a rather...provocative spectacle. Not quite raunchy (you weren’t truly an exhibitionist)—just insanely sexy.

Jimin’s gaze lingered on the smooth curve of your thigh where Jeon Jungkook was currently holding on for dear life.

Lucky bastard.

“Ah you know how she is,” he sighed. “That boy isn’t going to get any farther than anyone else.”

It was relatively common knowledge that you liked to mess around but rarely—if ever— fully hooked up with anyone.

Jimin asked you about it once during a drunken game of truth or dare and you had just shrugged, mumbling something along the lines of avoiding STDs (which—to be fair—was at least part of your motivation), but the truth was a little more complicated than that.

In terms of experience, you weren’t a virgin, but... you hadn’t actually had sex in years.

You loved the chase, the foreplay, the build-up—the game of cat-and-mouse between two people who were attracted to one another.

But the final consummation was always so…

Wildly unfulfilling.

Every encounter left you frustrated. Empty.

Grumpy—even.

So you stopped bothering with it all together. (That was what sex toys were for after all.)

At the end of the day you were perfectly content being labeled a tease—it meant that people tended to know what they were (or rather weren’t) getting into when they rolled the dice with you.

Besides…it hadn’t even put a dent in your throng of admirers.

You were sunny, spoiled, indulgent, almost universally adored—

And you loved every minute of it.

“You know…” Hoseok took a long sip of his drink. “I always thought she would end up with Taehyung, but it’s been three years.”

Like you, Kim Taehyung was a trust fund brat and it was only natural that two beautiful and absurdly privileged people would gravitate to one another. You met at a freshman pledge party and had been an inseparable (and formidable) dynamic duo ever since.

The undisputed king and queen of campus.

Yes—maybe the two of you were a little self-absorbed at times, but it was hardly your fault that people tended to instinctively cater to the force of your combined looks, wealth, and charisma.

And it didn’t hurt that neither of you were ever intentionally cruel or unkind.

Just... habitually thoughtless.

(Though not when it came to each other. If anything your friendship was one area where you were both a little more human.)

Jimin shook his head.

“Nah that’s never gonna happen.” He tapped his nose. “They’re scent-crossed.”

Hoseok’s eyes widened.

“Really?”

Scent-crossed pairs didn’t smell sexually attractive to each other.

Like. At all.

No matter how physically or visually appealing an individual might be, it would be near impossible to form a sexual or romantic attachment to them if you were scent-crossed. Alphas, betas, and omegas were all subject to their noses first and foremost in the realm of attraction.

You and Taehyung smelled like comfort and home to one another...

But you were more turned on by a crisp cup of apple juice than you were his scent and the feeling was quite mutual.

He might as well have been your actual brother.

“That explains so much.” Hoseok snorted as he watched a drunken Taehyung do a flying leap on top of both you and Jungkook.

“Why is sunlight so offensive?” you croaked, dragging yourself and your luggage toward the boarding ramp next to an equally miserable Taehyung.

“The next time I book a flight before 9 AM, please shoot me,” he grunted.

Your parents were celebrating their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary with a month-long European cruise so your best friend had graciously invited you to spend two glorious weeks of spring vacation at his family estate.

The invitation had actually come as somewhat of a surprise because—for all your closeness—Taehyung was uncharacteristically tight-lipped about his family.

Not that he was deliberately withholding information per se… It was just that he never really brought them up beyond an occasional passing comment.

The one time you did ask him about them directly he sighed and said—

“We’re very close, but… I suppose we’ve just gotten used to being very private.”

There was clearly more to the story, but you were confident that Tae would share it if and when he was ready.

“My parents are in Seoul opening a new branch of the company. They took my little sister with them and my older brother has his own house so it will be just us.” He snuggled deeper into the first class seat directly next to yours. “We’ll hang out by the pool and chill during the day, then hit up some of the new clubs or whatever at night.”

“So… No one from your family will be there?”

Perhaps the invitation was not so surprising after all.

“Nope. Just you and me and thirty acres of ocean front property.”

You grinned.

“Perfect.”

“Whose room is that?”

The two of you were lugging your bags down the main hall of Taehyung’s expansive mansion when a strange hint of...something caught you right by the nose.

Your friend turned to find you frozen and staring curiously at a familiar door near the balcony.

His eyes widened, but you were too preoccupied to notice his momentary concern.

“That’s just Jin’s room.”

A firm hand wrapped around your wrist and dragged you away, but your eyes stayed glued to the source of the mysterious scent until you were around the corner and out of sight.

Your suite for the next two weeks was right across the hall from Taehyung’s. There was a whirlpool, a full bath, a balcony, and an ocean view that would rival the cover spread of any travel magazine.

Tae headed for the shower (to ‘wash the airplane off’) immediately after showing you the room and you were thinking of doing the same except…

Your mind kept going back to that door and the hint of scent you detected.

There was something… different about it.

It was faint—and far from fresh (which made sense considering that one of the few things you did know about Kim Seokjin was that he hadn’t lived in this house for years).

But still…

The need to smell it again pressed insistently at the back of your mind.

Suddenly the sound of Taehyung singing raunchy lyrics in the shower carried over through the walls and you found your feet moving almost of their own accord.

What Tae doesn’t know won’t hurt him, you rationalized, making your way down the hall toward Jin’s door. Besides—it’s not as if I’m going to steal anything…

You just needed to find that scent again.

By the time your fingers closed over the knob every one of your nerves was strangely—acutely—alert but nothing could have prepared you for what was waiting behind the door.

Oh. My. Gosh.

“What a colossal nerd.”

The room was covered floor to ceiling in Nintendo memorabilia.

Bright primary colors assaulted your eyes from all directions in the form of action figures, posters, pillows, and every other conceivable merch variety known to man.

In the center of the suite stood a large king-sized bed covered in a custom black couture toile-style Mario-verse bed set (that looked every bit as expensive as it was geeky) and a mountain of high quality Nintendo character plush toys.

Everything was simultaneously luxe and nostalgic—a rare combination of sophisticated aesthetic balance and childlike indulgence.

And the scent was there.

It was faint and covered under layers of cleaner and air fresheners, but still lingering just below the surface—too weak for you to get a really good whiff, yet potent enough to torment you.

You moved forward unconsciously toward the strongest source of the hypnotic smell—the strangely inviting expanse of Kim Seokjin’s mattress.

Suddenly the urge to climb—no crawl—across the bed itself and roll around in it like a kitten in catnip gripped you out of nowhere.

“What the hell?” you muttered, rubbing absently over the mating gland at the base of your neck.

Something very odd was going on with your body.

Your restless gaze zeroed in on one of the stuffed toys piled atop his pillows. It was a cute little mushroom man your brain recognized as a Mario character named ‘Toad’.

Take it.

Your mouth dropped open in shock.

You need it.

“Am I going insane?” you wondered aloud.

You have to take it.

Muscles in your hand began to twitch involuntarily. You bit your lip.

Bring it back with you.

Several minutes later a freshly washed Taehyung wandered over to your room and found you sitting perfectly still on your bed while staring off into space.

His head tilted in curious concern.

“Everything ok?”

You started a bit at the sound of his voice, but recovered quickly.

“Never better!” you chirped—almost too brightly. “Let’s go get some dinner, I’m starving.”

Then you grabbed his hand and pulled him down the hall toward the kitchen—shutting the door before he could catch a glimpse of his brother’s stuffed Toad doll stashed underneath your pillow

“...a critical water main rupture in the city’s New Market district early this morning has forced several residents out of their homes as flood water swelled up to nearly two feet. The governor declared a state of emergency and ordered hotels around the city to accommodate the displaced citizens. Crews are still clearing the water and assessing damages. We expect—

“Hey!” you shouted through a mouthful of cereal, after Your best friend switched off the television, “I was watching that!”

“And what you should be doing is getting ready for the pool.” Tae snatched your cereal bowl and dragged you by your shirt collar toward the stairs. “It is the first morning of our vacation. I’m not trying to waste any time. Now go.” He shoved you forward, smacking your ass for good measure.

You swatted back at him half-heartedly as jogged back up to the room where you enjoyed a surprisingly restful sleep last night.

Kim Seokjin’s door glared at you accusingly as you shuffled past—unable to let you forget that you had kidnapped it’s little mushroom man in an unexplained fit of kleptomania, but that was a problem for your future self.

The you of right now was going to zen out in the Kim family's premium glass-enclosed indoor pool (it was still a little chilly for the outdoor pool) with her best friend and bask in the simple joys of good company and no responsibility.

...Or not.

A few minutes later you bounced into the living room wearing a simple black tankini with a cute floral cover only to find Taehyung on the phone with his head in his hands.

“Yes, sir. I understand… I...I know this is my responsibility...”

That didn’t sound good.

After a few more tense moments, Tae hung up and collapsed backward into the couch with a heavy sigh.

“That water main break you heard about on TV this morning was the last straw between the province and its current contractor. They called an emergency meeting for new bids.”

Your heart dropped as you sank down beside him.

“Your dad wants you to go...doesn’t he.”

Taehyung nodded miserably.

“He can’t leave the Seoul opening on such short notice and managing government construction contracts is part of what I’ve been training for. This could be huge for our company.”

“Well...why doesn’t your brother go?”

“Jin is the brains behind most of our patented gaming and tech innovations. He wouldn’t even know where to begin with this sort of thing. Besides,” his lips quirked up in a rueful grin, “my brother doesn’t have the patience to stroke entitled geriatric egos for hours on end—which is likely what I’m going to have to do.”

The two of you headed back to Taehyung’s room where you helped him pack some suits and toiletries for his trip.

Naturally you were disappointed but...this was a great opportunity for your best friend to prove himself in his chosen field and you both knew it. In fact, he was already starting to brighten a bit.

“The meeting is about a hundred miles north of here. My dad’s secretary already handled the flight and hotel room.” His eyes darted around the suite to see if he was forgetting anything.

It was clear he was nervous, though you were sure he didn’t need to be. Kim Taehyung was a trust fund brat, but he was also talented and deeply passionate about his family’s company.

Someday this would be the norm. The two of you were stealing time in college, determined to live a little before the expectations of your powerful families transferred fully onto your shoulders.

It was becoming more and more clear, however, that your carefree time was slowly running out.

Mother had already spoken to you about potential marriage alliances and your father expected you to intern with his Vice President this summer just as your elder sister had...

Taehyung’s voice suddenly interrupted your bittersweet introspection and you couldn’t help but smile at how grown-up he looked in his suit and briefcase ensemble.

Everything was going to change, but not quite yet.

“They estimate negotiations should take around a week or so…” He walked over and pulled you into a tight hug. “There should still be some vacation left for us when I get back.”

“Hurry back then,” you mumbled grumpily into his chest and he chuckled.

“I will.”

Taehyung had been gone for less than twenty minutes when you decided that the best use of your time would be to eat more snacks.

The last thing you expected when you skipped merrily into the kitchen was to find it occupied by a shaggy-haired homeless man in glasses.

Your first instinct was to scream which caused the homeless man to drop the apple he was biting right onto the floor where it rolled around for a small eternity before coming to rest at his ankles.

Your second instinct was to grab a butcher’s cleaver from the nearby knife block and wave it chaotically at the intruder while shouting something along the lines of—

“You’ve made a huge mistake! My boyfriend is the biggest, meanest mafia boss in Seoul! Leave now and he might let you live!”

The homeless man continued to stare at you with a mixture of confusion and shock, but made no move to run away in terror like you were hoping.

So you tried again.

“Didn’t you hear what I said?! The last man who touched me drinks his steak through a straw now! Do the smart thing and leave before my boyfriend comes down those stairs and it’s too late!”

Infuriatingly, the homeless man was still not fleeing for his life and frankly you were starting to get frustrated. You drew in a deep cleansing breath and were prepared to issue another grandiose threat when he finally spoke.

“I’m sorry, miss. I... think there’s been some sort of mistake. Who is your boyfriend?”

There was no rational explanation for what came out of your mouth next, but it rolled off your tongue so smoothly and you didn’t even flinch.

“Kim Seokjin.”

For the first time in your entire exchange, the intruder looked truly alarmed.

Now that’s more like it.

“You’ve heard of him I see. He’s a dangerous man and my body belongs to him.” You slammed the cleaver down onto the countertop with a (hopefully) menacing slash. “Kim Seokjin doesn’t like when other men put their hands on what belongs to him.”

There was a long, unpardonably tense moment of silence…Then the stranger slowly reached forward and picked up a mobile phone from the table in front of him.

His eyes remained locked with yours as he pressed a quick series of buttons, brought the phone to his ear, waited a few seconds and said—

“Taehyung… Would you mind telling me why there is a half-naked, knife-wielding omega in our kitchen claiming to be my girlfriend?”

Hello! Please comment on this post if you would like to be added to the taglist!

You guys were all so wonderful, and encouraging, and excited that I literally got this teaser out in three days! If you like what you read so far, please let me know! I cannot put into words how meaningful and valuable feedback is to me. I truly treasure it! It fuels my creativity and keeps me writing. I would love to hear from you!

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n1kolaiz · 3 years

Text

"You want to know what death is? I'll tell you. Death is the loss of life. Despite everything doctors like me attempt... a patient's life can still fall through our fingers. You think death lies in the apex of science? Anyone with such little regard for life will die by my hand."

Character Analysis: Yosano Akiko

Age: 25 || Ability: Thou Shalt Not Die

BSD CHAPTER CHAPTER 65-66 SPOILERS

table of contents:

1. Author counterpart.

2. Yosano's history.

3. 'Angel of Death' defined.

4. Yosano and Atsushi.

YOSANO BRAINROT!*(#&!*@#($

1. Author counterpart.

Having been given the “Sho Ho” at birth, Yosano Akiko’s counterpart—the real-life author—was known for her zealous take on both feminism and pacifism.

Side note: Once again, to avoid confusion, I will use the name Sho Ho in reference to the real-life author, and Yosano in reference to the BSD character.

Sho Ho's writings were pretty much out-of-the-ordinary in her time, and despite being suppressed by the social norms of gender hierarchy, she sought to reform society’s view on the cultural perspectives of women and their sexuality (She expressed her love for a woman in one of her poems, but many still argued on whether she identified herself as queer or not.)

"Thou Shalt Not Die," Yosano's ability, is actually named after one of Sho Ho's most famous, controversial poems. She wrote it for her brother, who was a soldier in the war between Russia and Japan (1904-1905). In her poem, she expressed her general distaste for war and how her brother was a part of it.

O my young brother, I cry for you Don't you understand you must not die! You who were born the last of all Command a special store of parents' love

Would parents place a blade in children's hands

Teaching them to murder other men Teaching them to kill and then to die? Have you so learned and grown to twenty-four?

- excerpt from Sho Ho's poem, "Kimi Shinitamou Koto Nakare"

Her words were blunt enough to inflict guilt on her brother's conscience, as she wasn't afraid to express her disapproval over how her brother took part in the typical violent bloodshed and manslaughter of war. Such opinions perturbed the authorities, and her work was eventually banned from the public for a period of time. Later on, it was used as an anti-war statement.

2. Yosano's history.

Now, as for the character in BSD, Yosano is seen to be generally strong-willed, and later on, we see that she is terrifyingly compassionately ambitious in the way she treats her patients. She treasured life itself, and hated the thought of losing a patient.

Yosano had developed her relations with Mori Ougai back in the Great War, when she was just 11 years old. Her ability was a great benefactor in saving lives. Realistically speaking, she was used for her ability to heal injured soldiers and diminish the effect of any casualty acquired.

Initially, she wasn't aware of this, until one of her close friends pointed it out by subtly accusing Mori of manipulating her to participate in the War under the close-to false pretence of 'saving lives.'

As much as her ability did save lives, it also forced soldiers to return to the frontlines and suffer injuries over and over again. The soldiers were never given the opportunity to return to their families because of her ability. This obliged them to carry on in the war without any excuse, inserting them into a vicious cycle they had no escape out of.

Metaphorically speaking, Yosano's hatred for Mori sort of mirrors Sho Ho's disdain for war and fighting, don't you think? The way Kafka materialised Yosano's past was quite interesting because he used chapters 65 and 66 to explain Yosano's dislike for Mori, reflecting how Sho Ho used her poem to explain why she condemned the idea of war and how her brother was part of it.

Before the effect of her ability was fully understood, however, every soldier praised and thanked her for what an angel she was. One of the soldiers she had befriended and gotten close to even kept a tally of the number of times she had saved him. He was the one who gifted her the butterfly hairpin she wore all the time.

The weight of the truth that her ability was a curse rather than a blessing fully dawned on her when her soldier friend ultimately committed suicide, because the fact of being indefinitely trapped in the throes of war agonised him until his spirit gave out. This drove Yosano to loathe her ability, or rather, how it was used.

In the time she participated in the War, Yosano was given the alias 'angel of death' due to the control she retained over the battlefield, but I thought that perhaps Kafka had a reason behind giving her this title, so I did my research.

3. 'Angel of Death' defined.

Side note: I wouldn't want to disrespect any culture or religion, so if my citations are inaccurate and/or disrespectful, do feel free to correct me/let me know! I did research out of pure curiosity, and I don't intend to twist the significance of any of the interpretations.

I had to grow up learning about the basics of religious stuff, so it's kind of nice to study something out of the box, and very much against my father's rigid belief system :D

ARCHANGEL ARIEL

(archangel: an angel of higher rank)

I came across the few characteristics of angels/goddesses and their roles, and the one which really caught my attention was the female archangel, Ariel, the angel of nature.

[ source ]

In Hebrew, the name Ariel means 'altar' or 'lioness of God,' and her role is to heal. In addition to that, she is also recognised as a helper to another one of the seven main archangels, Raphael, whose role is to provide physical and emotional healing, too.

She is the protecter of the environment and the animals therein, and is bestowed with the duty to oversee the order of heavenly bodies as well as earth's natural resources. She assures the sustenance of food, water, shelter, and supplies of human beings, much like how a nurse is to a patient I suppose.

In relation to Yosano, I think this part is pretty self-explanatory, or perhaps this is blown out of proportion HA, so take this as a suggestion rather than a fact, because I'd like to believe that Kafka had a reason for giving Yosano a title as such.

In the past, I've come across the angel of death only to perceive it as a female grim reaper of some sort, so it was pretty cool to find that the word 'angel' and 'death' made up a title of a someone like Ariel, one of the purest forms of humility and compassion.

GREEK GODDESS PANAKEIA

For my beloved (wannabe/or not) students of Greek mythology (much like myself, let's make a cult!), you've probably heard of Panakeia, the goddess of healing. Medicine finds most of its vital significance in Greek history, and in its mythology, Panakeia is actually known for her ability to heal any kind of sickness.

[ source ]

Her name means 'panacea,' which is actually defined as a remedy for all diseases. Terminal diseases and injuries lead to death, right? This would bring us back to Yosano's ability to nullify any injury's effects on a person, keeping them from death itself.

Now, we know that in order for Yosano's ability to work, her patient, or victim, has to be in a near-death condition in order for her treatment to take effect. This can't exactly fit into the description of resurrection, but it can be described as some sort of rebirth.

GREEK GODDESS PERSEPHONE

So another goddess which reminds me of Sho Ho/Yosano, is Persephone, the goddess of spring and rebirth. Before Hades, the god of the underworld, fell in love with Persephone to take her to live with him, Persephone lived a happy life.

Hades, with his nature of darkness and the like, was captivated by how pure Persephone was, and stole her away from her former life to live in an environment which differed sharply from her natural aura of purity.

[ source ]

Remember when Yosano's friend left a note behind before he killed himself? The note said nothing except for, "You are too righteous." Take that as you will, but figuratively speaking, you could say Mori takes the role of Hades in the story, while Yosano can be portrayed as Persephone.

Sho Ho can also be a parallel of Persephone, in that she had to adapt to the realities of war and disharmony, while Persephone had to adapt to the raw darkness of the underworld with Hades.

Sho Ho stood against society's norms and decided to reform it, making her one of the most well-known feministic pacifist in history, while Persephone managed to escape from the underworld to return to her former position, earning the title the 'Bringer of Life,' or the 'Destroyer of Death.'

Furthermore, the way Sho Ho's anti-war poem took its effect later on, reflects the way Persephone restored balance in the world after returning from the underworld.

4. Yosano and Atsushi.

chapter 66; Yosano: "It's my fault that those close to me died... Is there some place where it's okay for me to live?"

chapter 8; Atsushi: "If I have any chance of saving them all, of returning them home safely, would that mean it's okay for me to keep on living?"

I couldn't help but think of Dazai and Atsushi back when I was reading through these panels. Ranpo (my beloved), along with Fukuzawa, accepted Yosano as she was, despite how her ability was a cause of despair and misfortune.

Ranpo looked past her mistakes and the entirety of how dark her past was to welcome her into the Armed Detective Agency. Dazai, on the other hand, knew who Atsushi was and what his ability had made him do before anyone else, and still decided to provide a safe place for Atsushi to find his sense of belonging, journeying with him as he learned to use his ability properly.

For more info about Dazai and Atsushi's dynamic, you can check out the analysis I did for Dazai :D

Atsushi desired to save people to prove his right to live, while Yosano made her wish to achieve the recovery of all her patients the reason for her existence.

Others would prefer to accuse both Yosano and Atsushi of having a saviour complex, but the reason why they pursued to save people with utmost dedication, stems from the nature of what their past was like. You know the saying 'from broken to beautiful?' Yeah, it's something like that.

The way their pasts were written out gave them a desire to change, which was, I daresay, initiated by the people who took them in: Ranpo and Dazai. Their abilities were demonised because of how they were used, but once they broke from their abilities' effect over their lives, they honed their skills to control them for the right cause instead.

In a less cynical point of view, I believe both Yosano and Atsushi stood for what was right, and wanted nothing but to achieve peace and harmony in whatever way they could, even if it meant risking their own lives to save others.

So yeah, that's it for my rants today. Thank you for reading, and if you have anything to add, go ahead! I'm open to discussions ;)

#bsd #bsd atsushi #bsd yosano #bungou stray dogs #bungo stray dogs #bsd characters #bsd analysis #literature analysis #bsd abilities #bsd anime #bsd manga #bungo stray dogs atsushi #bungou stray dogs atsushi #bungou stray dogs yosano #bsd dazai #bsd mori #bsd ranpo #character analysis #.daydreams

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army-of-mai-lovers · 3 years

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Jet and Yue’s Deaths: Were They Necessary?

Two of the most common ideas I see for aus in this fandom are the Jet lives au, and the Yue lives au. I’ve written both of these myself, and I’ve seen many others write them. And while yes, fanfiction can be a great way to explore ideas that didn’t necessarily have to be explored in canon (I’m mad at bryke for a lot of things, but not including a Toph and Bumi I friendship is not one of them, even though I wrote a fic about it), it seems to me that people are mad that Yue and Jet are dead, to varying degrees. There’s a lot to talk about regarding their deaths from a sociopolitical perspective (the fact that two of the darker-skinned characters in the show are the ones that died, and all the light-skinned characters lived, is ah... an interesting choice), but I don’t want to look at it that way, at least for right now. I want to look at it as a writer, and discuss whether these deaths were a) necessary for the plot and themes of ATLA in any way whatsoever and b) whether it was necessary for them to unfold in the way that they did, or if they would have been more impactful had they occurred in a different way.

(meta under the cut, this got really, really, really long)

Death in Children’s Media

When I first started thinking about this meta, I had this idea to compare Jet and Yue’s deaths to deaths in an animated children’s show that I found satisfying. And in theory, that was a great idea. Problem is: there aren’t very many permanent deaths in children’s animation, and the ones that do exist aren’t especially well-written. This may be an odd thing to say in what is ostensibly a piece of atla crit, but Yue’s death is probably the best written death in a piece of children’s animation that I can think of. That’s not a compliment. Rather, it’s a condemnation of the way other pieces of children’s animation featuring permanent character death have handled their storylines.

I’ve talked about this before, but my favorite show growing up was Young Justice, and my favorite character on that show was far and away Mr. Wally West. So when he died at the end of season 2, it broke me emotionally. Shortly thereafter, Cartoon Network canceled the show, and I started getting on fan forums to mourn. Everybody on these fan forums was convinced that had Cartoon Network not canceled the show, Wally would have been brought back. And that is a narrative that I internalized for years. Eventually, the show was brought back via DC’s new streaming service, and I tuned in, waiting for Wally to also be brought back, only to discover that that wasn’t in the cards. Wally was dead. Permanently.

So now that I know that, I can talk about why killing him off was fucking stupid. Wally’s death occurs at the end of season 2, after the main s2 conflict, the Reach, has been defeated, save for these pods that they set up all over the world to destroy Earth. Our heroes split up in teams of two to destroy the pods, and they destroy all of them, except for a secret one in Antartica. It can only be neutralized by speedsters, so Wally, Bart, and Barry team up to destroy it. It’s established in canon that Wally is slower than Bart and Barry, and it’s been played for laughs earlier in the season, but for reasons unexplained, the pod is better able to target Wally because he’s slower than Bart and Barry, and it kills him. After the emotional arc of the season has wrapped up, a literal main character dies. There’s some indication at the end of that season that his death is going to cause Artemis to spiral and become a villain, but when season 3 picks up, she’s doing the right thing, with seemingly no qualms about her position in life as a hero. In the comics, something like this happens to Wally, but then he goes into the Speed Force and becomes faster and stronger even than Barry, in which case, yes, this would have advanced the plot, but that’s probably not in the cards either.

In summary, Wally’s death doesn’t work as a story beat, not because it made me mad, but because it doesn’t advance the plot, nor does it develop character. Only including things that advance plot or develop character is one of the golden rules of writing. Like most golden rules of writing, however, it’s not absolute. There is a lot of fun to be had in jokey little one off adventures (in atla, Sokka’s haiku competition) or in fun worldbuilding threads that add depth to your setting but don’t really come up (in atla, the existence of Whaletail Island, which is described in really juicy ways, even though the characters never go there.) But in general, when it comes to things like character death, events should happen to develop the plot or advance character. Avatar, for all of its flaws, is really well structured, and a lot of its story beats advance plot and develop character at the same time. However, the show also bears the burden of being a show directed at children, and thus needing to be appropriate for children. And as we know, Nickelodeon and bryke butted heads over this: the death scene that we see for Jet is a compromise, one that implicitly confirms his death without explicitly showing it. So bryke tasked themselves with creating a show about imperialism and war that would do those themes justice while also being appropriate for American children and palatable to their parents.

The Themes of Avatar vs. Its Audience

So, Avatar is a show about a lone survivor of genocide stopping an imperialist patriarchal society from decimating the rest of the world. It’s also a show about found family and staying true to yourself and doing your best to improve the world. These don’t necessarily conflict with each other, and it is possible for children to understand and enjoy shows about complex themes. And in a lot of cases, bryke doesn’t hold back in showing what the costs of war against an imperialist nation are: losing loved ones, losing yourself, prison, etc. But when it comes to death, the show is incredibly hesitant. None of the main characters that we’ve spent a lot of time getting to know die (not even Iroh, even though he was old and it would have made sense and his VA died before the show was over--but that’s a topic for another day.) This makes sense. I can totally imagine a seven year-old watching Avatar as it was coming out and feeling really sad or scared if a major character died. I was six years older than that when Wally died, and it’s still sad and terrifying to me to this day. However, in a show about war, it would be unrealistic to have no one die. Bryke’s stated reason for killing off Jet is to show the costs of war. I’ve seen a lot of posts about Jet’s death that reiterate some version of this same point--that the great tragedy of his character is that he spent his life fighting the Fire Nation, only to die at the hands of his own country. Similarly, I’ve seen people argue in favor of Yue’s death by saying that it was a great tragedy, but it showed the sacrifices that must be made in a war effort.

Yue

When we first meet Yue, she is a somewhat reserved, kind individual held back by the rigid social structures of the NWT*. She and Sokka have an immediate attraction to one another, but Yue reveals that she is engaged to Hahn. The Fire Nation invasion happens, Zhao kills Tui, and Yue gives up her life to save her people and the world, and to restore balance. Since we didn’t have a lot of time to get to know Yue, this is framed less as Yue’s sacrifice and more as Sokka’s loss. Sokka is the one who cares for Yue, Sokka is the only one of the gaang who really interacts a lot with Yue on screen, and Sokka is the one we’ve spent a whole season getting to know. While I wouldn’t go so far as to call Yue a prop character (i.e. a character who could be replaced by an object with little change to the narrative), she is certainly underdeveloped. She exists to be unambiguously likable and good, so we can root for her and Sokka, and feel Sokka’s pain when she dies. In my opinion, this is probably also why a lot of fic that features Yue depicts her as a Mary Sue--because as she is depicted in the show, she kind of is. We don’t get to see her hidden depths because she is written to die.

In light of what we’ve established earlier in this meta, this makes sense. Killing off a fully-realized character whom the audience has really gotten to know and care about on their own terms, rather than through the eyes of another character, could be really sad and scary for the kids watching, but not killing anyone off would be an unrealistic depiction of war and imperialism. On the face of it, killing off an underdeveloped, unambiguously likable and good character, whom one of our MCs has a deep but short connection with, is the perfect compromise.

But let’s go back to the golden rule for a second. Does Yue’s death a) advance the plot, and/or b) develop character? The answer to the first is yes: Yue’s death prompts Aang to use the Avatar State to fight off the Fire navy, which has implications for his ability to control the Avatar State that form one of the major arcs of book 2. The answer to the second? A little more ambiguous. You would think that Yue’s death would have some lasting impact on Sokka that is explored as part of his character arc in book 2, that he may be more afraid to trust, more scared of losing the people he loves, but outside of a few episodes (really, just one I can think of, “The Swamp”) it doesn’t seem to affect him that much. He even asks about Suki in a way that is clearly romantically motivated in “Avatar Day.” I don’t know about you, but if someone I loved sacrificed herself to become the moon, I don’t think I would be seeking out another romantic entanglement a few weeks after her death. Of course, everybody processes grief differently, and one could argue that Sokka has already lost important people in his life, and thus would be accustomed to moving on from that loss and not letting himself dwell on it. But to that, I’d say that moving on by throwing himself into protecting others has already shown itself to be an unhealthy coping mechanism. Remember, Sokka’s misogyny at the beginning of b1 is in part motivated by the fact that his mother died at the hands of the Fire Nation and his father left shortly thereafter to fight the Fire Nation, and he responds to those things by throwing himself into the role of being the “man” of the village and protecting the people he loves who are still with him. Like with Yue, he doesn’t allow himself to dwell on his mother’s death. This could have been the beginning of a really interesting b2 arc for Sokka, in which he throws himself into being the Avatar’s companion to get away from the grief of losing Yue, but this time, through the events of the show, he’s forced to acknowledge that this is an unhealthy coping mechanism. And maybe this is what bryke was going for with “The Swamp”, but this confines his whole process of grief to one episode, where it could have been a season-long arc that really emphasized the effect Yue’s had on his life.

In the case of Yue, I do lean toward saying that her death was necessary for the story that they wanted to tell (although, I will never turn down a good old-fashioned Yue lives au that really gets into her dynamism as a character, those are awesome.) However, the way they wrote Sokka following Yue’s death reduced her significance. The fact that Yue seemed to have so little impact on Sokka is precisely what makes her death feel unnecessary, even if it isn’t.

Jet

Okay. Here we go.

If you know my blog, you know I love Jet. You know I love Jet lives aus. Perhaps you know that I’m in the process of writing a multichapter Jet fic in which he lives after Lake Laogai. So it’s reasonable to assume that, in a discussion of whether or not Jet’s death was necessary, I’m gonna be mega-biased. And yeah, that’s probably true. But up until recently, I wasn’t really all that mad about Jet dying, at least conceptually. As I said earlier, bryke says that in the case of Jet’s death, they wanted to kill a character off that people knew and would care about, so that they could further show the tragedies of war and imperialism. Okay. That is not, in and of itself, a bad idea.

My issue lies with the execution of said idea. First of all, the framing of Jet’s original episode is so bad. Jet is part of a long line of cartoon villains who resist imperialism and other forms of oppression through violence and are punished for it. This is actually a really common sort of villain for atla/lok, as we see this play out again with Hama, Amon, and the Red Lotus. To paraphrase hbomberguy’s description of this type of villain, basically liberal white creators are saying, “yeah, oppression is bad, but have you tried writing to your Congressman about it?” With Jet, since we have so little information about the village he’s trying to flood, there are a number of different angles that would explain his actions and give them more nuance. My preferred hc is that the citizens of Gaipan are a mix of Earth civilians, Fire citizens, and FN soldiers, and that the Earth citizens refused to feed or house Jet and the other Freedom Fighters because they were orphans and, as we see in the Kyoshi Novels, Earth families stick to their own. Thus, when Jet decides to flood Gaipan, he’s focused on ridding the valley of Fire Nation, but he doesn’t really care about what happens to the Earth citizens of Gaipan because they actively wronged him when he was a kid. That’s just one interpretation, and there have been others: Gaipan was fully Fire Nation, Gaipan was both Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation but Jet decided that the benefits of flooding the valley and getting rid of the Fire Nation outweighed the costs of losing the EK families, etc, etc. There are ways to rewrite that scenario so that Jet is not framed as an unambiguously bloodthirsty monster. In the context of Jet’s death, this initial framing reduces the possible impact that his death could have. Where Yue was unambiguously good, Jet is at the very least morally gray when we see him again in the ferry. And where we are connected to Yue through Sokka, the gaang’s active hatred of Jet hinders our ability to connect with him. This isn’t impossible to overcome--the gaang hates Zuko, and yet to an extent the audience roots for him--but Jet’s lack of screentime and nuanced framing (both of which Zuko gets in all three seasons) makes overcoming his initially flawed framing really difficult.

So how much can it really be said, that by the time we get to Jet’s death, he’s a character that we know and care about? So much about him is still unknown (what happened to the Freedom Fighters? what prompted Jet’s offscreen redemption? who knows, fam, who knows.) Moreover, most of what we see of him in Ba Sing Se is him actively opposing Zuko and Iroh. These are both characters that at the very least the show wants us to care about. At this point, we know almost everything there is to know about them, we’ve been following them and to an extent rooting for them for two seasons, and who have had nuanced and often sympathetic framing a number of times. So much of the argument I’ve seen regarding Jet centers around the fact that he was right to expose Zuko and Iroh as Firebenders, but the reason we have to have that argument in the first place is because it’s not framed in Jet’s favor. In terms of who the audience cares about more, who the audience has more of an emotional attachment towards, Zuko and Iroh win every time. Whether Jet’s actually in the right or not is irrelevant, because emotionally speaking, we’re primed to root for Zuko and Iroh. In terms of who the framing is biased towards, Jet may as well be Zhao. So when he’s taken by the Dai Li and brainwashed, the audience isn’t necessarily going to see this as a bad thing, because it means Zuko and Iroh are safe.

The only real bit of sympathetic framing Jet gets are those initial moments on the ferry, and the moments after he and the gaang meet again. So about five, ten minutes of the show, total. And then, he sacrifices himself for the gaang. And just like Yue, his death has little to no impact on the characters in the episodes following. Katara is shown crying for four frames immediately following his death, and they bring him up once in “The Southern Raiders” to call him a monster, and once in “The Ember Island Players”, a joke episode in which his death is a joke.

So, let’s ask again. Does this a) advance the plot, and/or b) develop character? The answer to both is no. It shows that the Dai Li is super evil and cruel, which we already knew and which basically becomes irrelevant in book 3, and that is really the only plot-significant thing I can think of. As far as character, well, it could have been a really interesting moment in Katara’s development in forgiving someone who hurt her in the past, which could have foreshadowed her forgiving Zuko in b3, but considering she calls Jet a monster in TSR, that doesn’t track. There could have been something with Sokka realizing that his snap judgment of Jet in b1 was wrong, but considering that he brings up Jet to criticize Katara in TSR, that also does not track. And honestly, neither of these possible character arcs require Jet to die. What requires Jet to die is the ~themes~.

Let’s look at this theme again, shall we? The cost of war. We already covered it with Yue, but it’s clearly something that bryke wants to return to and shed new light on. The obvious angle they’re going for is that sometimes, you don’t know who your real enemy is. Jet thought that his enemy was the Fire Nation, but in the end, he was taken down by his own countryman. Wow. So deep. Except, while it’s clear that Jet was always fighting against the Fire Nation, I never got the sense that Jet was fighting for the Earth Kingdom. After all, isn’t the whole bad thing about him in the beginning is that he wants to kill civilians, some of whom we assume to be Earth Kingdom? Why would it matter then that he got killed by an EK leader, when he didn’t seem to ever be too hot on those dudes? But okay, maybe the angle is not that he was killed by someone from the Earth Kingdom, but that he wasn’t killed by someone from the Fire Nation. Okay, but we’ve already seen him be diametrically opposed to the only living Air Nomad and people from the Water Tribes. Jet fighting with and losing to people who aren’t Fire Nation is not a new and exciting development for him. Jet has been enemies with non-FN characters for most of the show��s run at this point. There is no thematic level on which the execution of this holds any water.

The reason I got to thinking about this, really analyzing what Jet’s death means (and doesn’t mean) for the show, was this conversation I was having with @the-hot-zone in discord dms. We were talking about book 2 and ways it could have been better, and Zone said that they thought that Jet would have been a stronger character to parallel with Zuko’s redemption than Iroh and that seeing more of the narrative from Jet’s perspective could have strengthened the show’s themes. And when it came to the question of Jet’s death, they said, “And if we are going with Jet dying, then I want it to hurt. I want it to hurt just as much as if a main character like Sokka had died. I want the viewer to see Jet's struggles, his triumphs, the facets of Jet that make him compelling and important to the show.” And all of that just hit me. Because we don’t get that, do we? Jet’s death barely leaves a mark. Jet himself barely leaves a mark. His death isn’t plot-significant, doesn’t inspire character growth in any of our MCs, and doesn’t even accomplish the thematic relevance that it claims to. So what was the point?

Conclusion

Much as I dislike it, Yue’s death actually added something to atla. It could have added much, much more, in the hands of writers who gave more of a shit about their Brown female characters and were less intent on seeing them suffer and knocking them down a peg, but, in my opinion, it did work for what it was trying to do. Jet? Jet? Nah, fam. Jet never got the chance to really develop into a likable character because he was always put at odds with characters we already liked, and the framing skewed their way, not his. The dude never really had a chance.

*multiple people have spoken about how the NWT as depicted in atla is not reminiscent of real life Inuit and Yupik people and culture. I am not the person to go into detail about this, but I encourage you to check out Native-run blogs for more info!

#jet #yue #bold text #italics #death tw #murder tw

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nhaomei · 3 years

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Omen - Viper - Sage theories coming up so buckle up kiddos

SO! Whatever happened to Sage and Viper, but mostly to Omen is what has caused the dimension break, creating multiple dimensions. Now, hear me out, bear with me, let me explain. So, whatever it was that has caused Omen to become what he is now, it has ripped him apart again and again, we know that. He has died multiple times. ("There is... another of me. How many times did I get ripped apart? How many times did I die?") His most important quote is "I am the beginning, I am the end." What does he mean by beginning? Maybe the dimension break, if it weren't for him getting split, all of this shit wouldn't have happened. Now, to talk about what I think he means about being "the end": Viper wants to help Omen become human again, it is one of the main things what drives Omen as well, it seems ("I will take back what is mine."). Although, I don't think he is sure of him ever becoming human again is possible. ("My burden never ends.") The voice lines have lead me to the conclusion that while the other agents ("impostors", "copies") are alternative versions of their 'original' selves (they are the same, but completely different... am I making sense?), Omen's 'copies' are way more than that. When he got ripped apart, he got 'split' between worlds/dimensions ("Split... sighs they don't know the meaning of the word.") that is why he is also always glitching, he is struggling to keep himself in one place, something is always pulling against him... (Although we know from one of his voice lines that if he gives in to this 'strain', he dies: "I let go for a second!" - when he gets resurrected (and some more voice lines fit in here but-, yea too lazy to write them all)) Fragments of himself literally scattered, either resulting in appearing in the many dimensions, or even creating them. Omen clearly shows some serious struggle to remember what has happened to him, and judging by his interactions, it is murdering other Omen's that gets parts of his memories back. "I will kill that Omen. I will take his memories. I will remember." // (Viper: "I wonder what's inside their Omen. What truth is he keeping from ours?") I do believe that he is especially out for the other Omen's blood.

But! It’s worth noting that he also feels better about himself when he's slaughtering the copies ("I feel like myself. Catch them. Again!" // "Again. Hurt them, again!") "How many must I kill before I am restored? sigh More. Always more." This could refer to the copies as well, but I think he is talking about killing other Omens. He seems to be very enthusiastic about killing his other selves, after all. Lil bit more I feel like could be connected to him feeling more like himself when he kills: "Close, I am so close." // "I can be even more." (The last two are new voice lines from deathmatch) Alright, so about his relationship with Viper. It is obvious that they've known each other before the 'tragedy' happened (Don't really know what else to call it, truth be told), we know that from their (mostly Viper's) voice lines. However, there is something that Viper is keeping from Omen. They both talk about getting the enemy Omen's memories. Maybe she kept some for herself? How... do you keep memories? Maybe I'm completely off track with this one, but her keeping secrets from him despite them trusting the other is worth mentioning. ("Don't die here, Sabine. I need your secrets.") Another thought: Maybe Omen knew the risk he was taking when he confronted the... thing that has eventually turned him into Omen (if we go with the theory of him not being the results of a failed experiment which I honestly doubt is true, but we don't know that yet. These are but theories.) What made me believe this was this voice line: "Make the right choice, even if it calls for sacrifice." Maybe it was an act of self sacrifice? (He took a risk to... to save something? Someone? Or for the sake of something I didn't think of? And well, he took the risk and look where it has lead... but maybe the other option was far worse? Maybe they had no idea what the options even were? Or what risks he/they were taking?) Him and Viper might have been counting on Sage to help them if things were to go wrong, alas, whatever it was that has happened was beyond Sage's powers. Omen: "I survived obliteration. I will survive them." I do not know what to say to this line, honestly. It's pretty self explanatory. Worth mentioning, though. 'Obliteration' does sound like something beyond Sage's powers to me x) So due to unknown forces (a massive explosion? a rift? idk) Omen has died, got split etc etc, and maybe Sage did try to revive him, maybe it did succeed, but not in the way they wanted it to; Omen was beyond redemption at this point. But she did reach out to him. With time I'm positive she has honed her skills enough for even Omen to recognize her strength. ("Sage, you are truly... limitless.") // (Sage: "I wasn't strong enough before, but now, now I am strong enough for us all." // "This is what I trained for.")

I do not know how to phrase this, but Omen has... ascented? Well, he certainly did become something way more than human. He senses when people are afraid around him, he feels what Sage's powers do to 'the natural balance' ("A Radiant healer is with them. I can feel her pull against the natural balance..."). Both him ("I have reset the balance." // "I will break the balance."- although the latter he means metaphorically, says it when the teams are tied) and Sage ("Tip the balance in our favour.") seem to have their hands on the scale, both tipping it. Sage pulling against the balance by reviving people, Omen resetting the balance by... killing? But why with killing? Well... another theory coming up: "Sage, the life you give. Do you ever wonder where it's taken from?" Remember what I wrote about Omen feeling like himself when killing others (and Omens)? I guess you could say he 'collects' when he kills to get 'restored' (back to the line: "How many must I kill before I am restored? sigh More. Always more.")... what it is he collects though, I lack the vocabulary to explain. Maybe that is where she gets the life from; from Omen. And if this is true, it also keeps him from getting restored. A quote from Viper that might be referring to this: "One more time, Omen. laughs How many times have you heard that now?"

Omen feels more obliged to kill and ‘tip the balance’ when sage tips the balance by reviving. Even, just maybe, that it’s stretched to Reyna “(...) You give life, i take it.” in a way, he is maybe fixing what sage has ‘broken’ or is doing what he believes will fix it. While we are at Viper, whatever that 'Obliteration' was, maybe Viper got blamed for it. She either lost everything due to the 'obliteration' or they took it away from her (she might has done time? idk this was a sudden idea haha) OR! A third idea. She might have been there when the 'tragedy' was happening; maybe a rift opened? Maybe that was the first time clones have appeared? Since it is the clones she is talking to when she says these lines: "You wanted a villain!? I gave you a villain!" // "I am your monster. You made me this way. Never forget that." // "Let's take from them what they took from me... Everything." // "They call me a monster. Shall I prove them right?" // ("I will not loose my home again." // "Hurt those who hurt us." // "We will hurt them.") ...Or I'm completely wrong and she is talking about something different. We shall not forget about Kingdom. Now, about Sage and Viper's vendetta against her. "Sage, you're the only one able to keep us alive. Don't fail us now, like you failed me then." Worth noting, she didn't say 'us', but 'me', 'don't fail me’. It is possible that she is talking about what has happened with Omen, but I think its more connected to her losing everything she had. How, you may ask? To answer that question: I have absolutely no clue. "That's payback, Sage." -When she kills Sage. Well, "Hurt those who hurt us." // "I am your monster. You made me this way." Hmm? Might be connected to Sage. Once again, I don't have many ideas what it is that Sage has (or hasn't) done for Viper to be so mad at her. Now a little bit about Sage! She doesn't really talk much about Viper, her voice lines are more directed towards Omen. "Omen. You are a force of nature!" (in contrast to Omen's voice line about her 'pulling against the natural balance') According to google: "To say a person is a force of nature means the person is a very strong personality or character. In short, a person that is full of energy, unstoppable, and unforgettable. These attributes can play out in many ways, and those viewed as a force of nature, or who self-identify in this way, need to have an acute awareness of the impact, and consequences, sometimes unintended, of their power." ‘Force of nature’ in this case can be used in two contexts: to compliment omen by proclaiming he is strong, or to say that he is... one with the balance? His powers and who he is is literally a ‘force of nature’, becomes merged less with humanity and towards the unknown abyss of what we do know. Sage most definitely pities Omen. I'm convinced about that. "I wonder what torture their Omen is going through. Is it like ours? Poor soul." Does she know what her Omen is going through though? Hmm maybe she does. Sage and Omen embody life and death, Omen does feel her powers, but does she feel his? I say yes. And here is why: "Their Omen might be a nightmare, but I was never scared of the dark." Omen's whole kit works around fear, he fights by inflicting fear in his enemies. We know that from his many voice lines, his abilities and that one voice line from Phoenix: "Omen wins by fear. Don't let him get to you!" I don't believe an ordinary human is able to withstand Omen's paranoia. Sage however (while being human herself) does not fear him. Why? She knows better than that. She knows more. To quote Omen "They fear death... they should fear so much more than that." Sage might be aware of a huge chunk of what Omen knows... and knowledge keeps her from being afraid. That is all I have, thank you for coming to my TedTalk. Also! Feel free to share your thoughts on the matter, I’m curious! ----- Special thanks to @breaddaerb for helping me out finish a few thoughts

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kikis-writing-world · 4 years

Text

Broken Art

A/N: Told y’all I was struggling lately 🤣 I’ll admit, I tried to keep this neutral reader, but I was pretty in my feels when I wrote this so if I missed something please call me out - although I did force my love for Gene Kelly onto the reader lol

Pairing: Marcus Pike x Reader

Word Count: ~1700

Rating/Warnings: PG - Heartbroken Marcus, unrequited (?) pining, very vague mention of sexytimes. As usual, not proofed

Summary: Last night you’d gotten a call from Marcus - his girlfriend broke up with him. Today, you’re going over to look after the love of your life- your friend.

You let yourself into Marcus’ apartment with the spare key he’d given you for emergencies. You were unsurprised to find the blinds drawn and lights off, despite that it was already late in the morning. Marcus was usually an early riser, but you had expected this today. You sighed, having known this would be what you found as you entered - you kind of hated that you were right.

You set the shopping bags down in the kitchen on your way to his bedroom. Your eyes were still adjusting to the dimness inside the apartment, but as you pushed the door open you could see the outline of the lump under the blankets.

“Oh, honey,” you sighed softly to yourself, padding across the soft carpet. Marcus didn’t stir as you pulled the blanket up, sliding in behind him.

“What are you doing here?” He asked quietly, voice cracking. The sound made your heart break, you knew it wasn’t just sleep and disuse causing it.

“Came to see you, silly.” You answered obviously, curling around the man, spooning him. You felt him take a deep breath, your arm curled around his bicep and chest.

“You didn’t have to.”

“I know.”

Silence took over the room as the two of you lay there. His hand found your arm, trailing down your skin until it wrapped around your own hand. Linking his fingers with yours, he gave it a thankful squeeze. You rested your head on your other arm, stretching it out so your free hand could play with his hair.

You let time tick by like that, being there for the sweet, broken-hearted man pressed against you. The phone call from the night before, hearing him choke back tears as he told you his girlfriend had left him for another man, played through your head. You had no idea how this kept happening to the most amazing man you’d ever met. You thought that Lisbon woman he’d told you about had been crazy, but somehow it had happened all over again with Brittany.

“Have you eaten yet today?” You whispered into the darkness.

“Not hungry.” He mumbled back, wiggling against you as he burrowed deeper into his pillow.

“You have to eat something, sweetheart.” You sighed. “How about I make you some pancakes? I brought blueberries, chocolate chips, bananas, strawberries. I can make any kind you want.”

He didn’t answer, but you didn’t let that discourage you. You knew this man could rarely decline the offer of pancakes. You gave him the time to consider it.

“Banana and chocolate chip?” He finally asked, voice soft and unsure. Like you could ever say no to him.

“Of course.” You grinned. You sat up, pressing a kiss to his cheek before climbing out of his bed. “I’ll be back soon with them, okay? Coffee?”

“I think I’m out.” He admitted.

“I’ve got you covered. Do you want some?”

“Yes, please.”

You closed the door behind you and fought the urge to collapse against it. You were trying to stay upbeat and supportive for Marcus, but seeing him like this was soul crushing. He deserved so, so much better than this.

You shook your head clear and moved to the kitchen to get started on making breakfast for the two of you. You tried to focus on the task at hand, not letting your mind wander.

It was dangerous to let your thoughts dip too deep into what you would do to Brittany if you ever saw her again. It was even more dangerous to let yourself wander into the realm of how you would have never done this to him.

It was almost too easy to imagine you were making breakfast for yourself and Marcus under different circumstances. Maybe you’d stayed the night after he took you on an amazing date - candlelit dinner followed by a walk through the park. The night breeze just a little chilled so he’d wrap his arm around you, or offer you his jacket as you strolled together. Or maybe a night in, watching old movies as you cuddled up on his giant, plush couch. Possibly you’d woken up first after truly tiring him out last night, and now you were making breakfast in bed, where you were sure to get into round two (or maybe at that point, three or four) once you’d eaten.

No. That was very dangerous to think about.

Of course you were in love with him. You weren’t sure how any warm-blooded woman wouldn’t be. He was the perfect gentleman, he was Disney-prince handsome, he was smart and funny. He wasn’t scared of commitment or talking about feelings, he worked hard both in his professional and personal life. Seriously, he was a cute animal sidekick away from being a movie character.

You’d never admit this to him. You couldn’t stand the thought of the pity on his face as he explained he didn’t feel the same. How the awkwardness would grow between the two of you until there was too much distance to recover from. How the texts and calls would slowly stop, you’d see him less until he wasn’t a friend but an ‘oh yeah, I used to know that guy.’ You’d take a friend like Marcus Pike in your life any day over losing him completely.

You banished those thoughts as you piled two plates with pancakes, adding some of the fruit you’d brought over on the sides. You dug out a serving tray from his cupboard, loading the plates, syrup, cutlery, and two coffees. No need to bring cream and sugar, you knew how Marcus liked his coffee - of course you did. It was a little pathetic how much you loved him.

You groaned at yourself, having a mental conversation to get it together as you picked up the tray. You could pine over him later. Now, he needed a friend.

You carefully balanced the tray on your hip, taking one hand off of it to open the door.

“Breakfast.” You sang, shuffling in carefully. “Lights.” You warned before flicking the switch.

The overhead light illuminated the room, Marcus whining as he tucked his head under his blanket. You could see his clothes from the night before tossed carelessly on the floor instead of neatly put in his hamper. That just told you how desperate he had been to crawl into bed once he got home from his date.

“C’mon Marcus. You gotta sit up and eat.” You told him, kindly but firmly, as you sat on the bed beside the lump in the blankets.

You heard him sigh before he moved, sitting up and letting the blanket fall to his waist. His eyes were red-rimmed, his hair was a mess from hiding under the blankets - and probably not helped by you playing with it earlier. He had on a white undershirt, probably the one he’d been wearing last night and hadn’t bothered to change. Stubble was starting to grow in along his jawline and upper lip.

You didn’t mention his appearance, focussed on balancing the tray between the two of you, making sure the coffee didn’t spill or the blueberries roll off the plate as you settled it onto the bed.

“Thanks.” His voice was hoarse as he reached for the coffee. You organized the tray while he drank, passing a set of cutlery his way. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“Of course I did,” you disagreed. “That’s what friends are for.” The words tasted bitter, so you chased them with a sip of your own coffee.

You spent the day with Marcus, trying to take his mind off of his recently failed relationship. You made sure he ate and stayed hydrated, but otherwise did nothing of importance. The two of you lounged around, chatting and watching TV as you tried to just be there for him.

The fact that he hadn’t slept well the night before was obvious, even before he fell asleep on you midway through An American in Paris. The two of you had been nearly cuddled together under the throw blanket from the back of his couch - more so leaning against each other than cuddling - when his head started to droop onto your shoulder. You teased him for falling asleep, but he insisted he was wide awake. You didn’t call him on the lie as he slowly slumped lower, leading to you wrapping an arm around his shoulders to find a more comfortable position for the both of you. Soon enough, his head was pressed into your chest as slow, deep breaths escaped his barely parted lips.

The movie played on, forgotten in the background as you stared at his profile the best you could from this vantage point. Not just any man could steal your attention from Gene Kelly, but this wasn’t any man. This was your Marcus.

He looked younger in his sleep - the worry from the last two days, plus the usual stress of his job fading away. His lower lip jutted out farther than his top in an adorable pout.

You wished you could kiss those lips. Kiss all his worries away until he looked this relaxed while awake. Kiss him to show him just how much he was loved and cared for despite the string of girls that barged in and out of his life, each stealing a new piece of his heart. You wanted to wrap that heart in bubble wrap, pack it up with a giant “fragile” stamp on it, until it was safe like the beautiful pieces of art Marcus spent his time hunting - like the beautiful piece of art it was in it’s own right. Lock it up in a vault until only experts were allowed to touch it with reverent, gloved hands, restoring it from it’s past traumas.

But no, you couldn’t. What good was art when it was hidden away from the world? His heart wasn’t yours to claim and protect. You’d be there to restore it though, however many times he needed.

You sniffled, trying to stop the tears that were threatening to spill down your cheeks. Instead of continuing the melancholy train of thought, you smoothed his hair down, pressing a kiss to his temple. Closing your eyes, you leaned your head gently against his. His heart wasn’t yours - to have, to keep safe - but as you dozed off, you couldn’t help pretend just for this moment that it was.

Tagging: @wickedfrsgrl

#Marcus Pike #Marcus Pike x reader #Marcus Pike imagine #Pedro Pascal Character fanfiction #Marcus Pike fanfic #The Mentalist Fanfic #WookieTales

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bedlamsbard · 3 years

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Luke and Leia?

two problems: one, I think when they made the ST the writers and directors swayed closer to Mark Hamill’s and Carrie Fisher’s personalities rather than what Luke and Leia would have been like thirty years on -- for me, this is more noticeable with Leia/Carrie than Luke/Mark, and there’s some knock-on of this in the books/comics. (This is probably true for Han and Harrison Force, too? But I feel like they were closer together originally, and then having Alden!Han balanced some of it.) Which is not to say that there shouldn’t have been any Carrie in Leia, obviously, but for me there’s a big disconnect between EU Leia and current canon Leia, bigger than just different writers and different canons should account for.

two...these are somewhat messy feelings, and they are very, uh, I have a feeling. not that these other thing isn’t, obvs, but this is also very I Have A Bias And It’s Called Rebels. I really am resentful of the fact that Rebels decided to sideline its main Jedi characters for whatever reason -- yeah, there’s the oft-cited “you’re the last one!” or whatever the actual line is from the OT, but that’s something that’s easy to handwave away in the ancillaries. Even Yoda’s cameos in Rebels show him as kind of waving off Kanan, Ezra, and Ahsoka (god, I really hate Henry Gilroy’s take that Yoda controlled everything in the Jedi temple in Shroud of Darkness, he might be the writer but I disagree); I’ve always gotten the vibe that Yoda in this era was completely focused on the Skywalker twins as the solution to the Sith problem, and everything else was essentially extraneous. Which, tbh, works for Yoda, because Yoda. Obi-Wan in Twin Suns...honestly, doesn’t feel right for Obi-Wan? And Obi-Wan comes out and goes “this is not your story!” wow, way to make the subtext text, Dave. (He and Gilroy wrote the ep, which I just realized when I went to check the writer, and wow, that explains a lot about my problems with it.)

I think there was a chance to do something really interesting with Rebels by presenting an actual rival to Luke as ~savior of the Jedi, or ~future of the Jedi, or however you want to frame that. And honestly, S1 seemed to be going there. And then Rebels started leaning away from it -- slowly at first, and then faster and faster, until we get to the “we’re making the subtext text” part in Twin Suns and then straight-up killing off Kanan and flinging Ezra into space in S4, along with whatever the hell they’re doing with Ahsoka. And I don’t necessarily mean “rival to Luke” in terms of “Ezra and Luke have to fight” (though I do genuinely believe that Ezra’s and Luke’s approaches to Jediness and how to be a Jedi are so different as to be essentially incompatible), but in terms of “is this actually Luke’s Destiny?” Is the role that Luke played in restoring the Jedi to the galaxy (ST and whatever went down prior to that aside) actually something that only he could have done, or was he the only option? Rather than actually deal with that question, SW went the (in my opinion) lazy route and went with “he had to do it because he was the only option.” (And honestly, not dealing with whatever the hell Ahsoka was doing between Malachor and the Rebels epilogue and/or Mando, which is still at minimum a good ten years, actually makes this worse.) If your means of dealing with a character’s role in a story arc is to get rid of all the rivals before they can actually be rivals (and again, I mean, like, thematically, not literally), then to me that says that role is not something that they could have been able to accomplish otherwise. For me it really weakens Luke as a character, and that’s to the detriment of both Luke and honestly the entire saga story arc.

okay actually there’s a third thing about Luke and Leia -- I said this on Twitter before the Mando finale aired and because it was many moons ago I now can’t find it, but honestly? Star Wars is weakening its main story line by no loner telling big name stories about the OT trio. These are supposed to be big name famous characters who have all accomplished extraordinary things, and yet as far as Mando is concerned, they might as well not exist. Up to the finale there was not a single piece of evidence that Luke or Leia actually existed, and even the Luke cameo...they can CGI Mark Hamill for that because it’s not going to have lasting consequences. If it was going to have lasting consequences, they would have recast. (I mean, if he’s got a recurring role next season we can revisit this in 2022, but until then.) These are saga characters! These are people who have RESHAPED THE GALAXY. They should have an impact in Star Wars’ big name ongoing projects in one form or another!

The impression I get right now from the current slate of upcoming projects is that Star Wars is gambling that their viewership is, by and large, more interested in the greater Star Wars universe than it is in established Star Wars characters. They may be right; Mando is certainly very successful. The upcoming character spin-offs -- Ahsoka (yikes), Andor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Lando project -- those are all main characters but they’re not the main characters. And honestly, we’ll see how this goes. It may go well. It may go poorly. It may be all over the map. (this is the most likely option.) I did love Solo, but as far as Lucasfilm’s concerned, and a lot of the mainstream audience, it was a flop. The post-RotJ EU and the post-RotJ new canon have varied in that the new canon has, with a few exceptions (which are not ~mainstream, with the exception of Battlefront II), mostly shied away from telling stories revolving around the OT trio. The longer they go without doing that, without showing the impact that these people have on the galaxy, that they have right now -- the more they’re weakening the impact that Luke and Leia ought to have. Yeah, I came in from the EU, I do think that Luke and Leia should be, to some extent, living myths. The problem is that Lucasfilm wants to do live action TV and frankly, I think they’re wary about recasting Luke and Leia after Solo. (Even though Alden is a great Han, imho.) This is honestly the perfect time to do a post-RotJ animated series -- use Mark Hamill’s VA skills! he’s not going to live forever! that gets around the Carrie Fisher problem! the weird Force shit works REALLY well in animation in a way that it does not in live action, and come on, don’t Luke and Leia deserve to deal with the weird Force shit too? WOULD YOU NOT ACTUALLY LIKE TO SET UP FOR THE SEQUEL TRILOGY sorry it’s star wars dumb question

#let me sing you the song of my people (star wars fans): SCREAMS #bedlam watches star wars #bedlam watches rebels #thatdarnalicat #bedlam answers #star wars criticism

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goddess-of-geeks · 4 years

Text

Grace and Power pt. 1

Reunion

This would be so much better if I came up with a name for this fic.

A/N: This is in fact not the first time I wrote a reader insert but it is in fact the most work i’ve ever put into one.

Warnings: None

Word count: 2100

You opened the flap to the tent that would temporarily house retired General Iroh, Prince Zuko and Commander Zhao. When you entered you saw two guards blocking the exit from Zuko and his Uncle with two spears.

You and Zuko locked eyes, an emotion that can only be described as shock graced his features. You gave him a tight lipped smile before looking towards your commanding officer, Zhao.

“Commander Zhao,” You said, making Iroh and the formerly mentioned look your way. You noticed a similar look of shock on Iroh’s face. “We interrogated the crew as you instructed. They confirmed Prince Zuko had the Avatar in their custody, but let him escape.”

“Now remind me,” Zhao grinned before walking up to stand behind Zuko, whose face morphed from shock to hurt and betrayal. You looked down at the ground, you hoped that you following orders wouldn’t ruin your short lived reunion. “How exactly was your ship damaged.”

Zuko looked down in defeat.

Prince Zuko and Iroh were seated across from Commander Zhao who was standing in front of his desk.

You and another guard were standing behind the young prince.

“So,” Zhao began, “A twelve-year-old boy bested you and your firebenders.”

“Wait, the avatar is twelve? You’ve spent the last, nearly three years looking for a twelve year old boy.” You said looking at the prince.

Zuko nodded in response. You looked up and pondered on that thought for a moment before mumbling to yourself.

“And I thought I had nothing better to do with my life.”

Zhao cleared his throat drawing your attention towards him.

“My apologies, sir.” You said bowing towards him.

“You’re more pathetic than I thought.” Zhao continued as if nothing happened.

You looked up at Zhao. You never understood how a man could be so cruel to a child.You knew you hated Zhao when you saw the twisted smirk that was on his face when Ozai burnt Zuko.

Zuko spoke up, “I underestimated him once, but it will not happen again.”

Zhao turned his back to the prince before stating, “No, it will not, because you won't have a second chance.”

When Zuko spoke up again he sounded almost frightened, “Zhao, I’ve been hunting the Avatar for two years and I-”

Before the price could finish his sentence Zhao turned on him hottily, flames erupting from his hand as he swept it in an arc from left to right.

“And you failed.” He finished for the prince. “Capturing the Avatar is too important to leave in a teenager's hands.” You don't understand why Zhao used that as an excuse. He watched with his own two eyes as you took on ten of his men, with nothing but a katana, during one of his training exercises.

“He’s mine now.” Zhao finished his sentence.

Zuko threw himself at Zhao in frustration and anger. You and the guard beside restrained him. While he was struggling in your grips you were rolling your eyes.

“Zuko calm down, you don't wanna do anything you might regret.” You said to him.

He ignored you, causing you to roll your eyes again.

Before Zhao could leave the tent he turned to you and the guard, Zuko still struggling in your grasps, “Keep them in here.” You and the Guard nodded.

When Zhao left Zuko gave a demonstration of his anger by kicking the table stationed next to Iroh. You and the other Guard let go oh his arms soon after.

Zuko turned to you, fire in his eyes, finger hitting you in the chest accusingly, “How could you.” He practically spat in your face.

You didn’t flinch, “How could I what?” You questioned, your eyebrows furrowed as you looked towards the prince. “Do my job?” You asked further.

Zuko crossed his arms over his chest and scoffed at your words, “Job.” He said in a sour tone. “You’re a year younger than me. How could you possibly have a place in the military.”

Iroh watched the whole interaction calmly, with a fond expression on his face. Remembering the good old days when you two would fight and argue.

“It’s not like I had a say in the matter. Zhao saved my life, sadly I’m in debt to him.”

Zuko crossed his arms and turned away from you in a huff.

Iroh stood up before walking over to you and placing his hand on your shoulder, “I am very enlightened to see you again Y/N. We should celebrate. How about some more tea!” He exclaimed. Zuko rolled his eyes, and you had a fond look on your face. You missed these two so much.

After an undetermined amount of time Zhao finally re-enters the tent.

Zuko and Iroh were seated in chairs facing one another.

“My search party is ready.” Zhao said addressing Iroh and Zuko.

“Once I’m out at sea, my guards will escort you back to your ship and you’ll be free to go.” Zhao said.

“Why? Are you worried I’m going to try and stop you?” Zuko retorted.

You felt like your eyes were gonna fall out of their sockets if you kept rolling them so much.

Zhao laughed, “You? Stop me? Impossible.”

Zuko stood up from his seat, “Don't underestimate me, Zhao. I will capture the Avatar before you.”

“Prince Zuko, that's enough!,” Iroh said standing as well.

“You can't compete with me. I have hundreds of warships under my command, and you... you're just a banished prince. No home. No allies. Your own father doesn't even want you.”

You couldn’t believe anyone would dare utter such things to royalty, banished, yes, but still royalty nonetheless.

“You're wrong. Once Zuko delivers the Avatar to his father, Ozai will welcome him home with honor and restore his rightful place on the throne.”

You didn’t even know what you were saying, the words just began to spew out of your mouth, and you had no control over it.

Zhao turned on you, his face red with anger.

“You’ve only been here two weeks, what makes you think you have the right to speak to a Commander in such a way.” Zhao growled at you.

You opened your mouth to retort but he cut you off.

“If Fire Lord Ozai really wanted him home, he'd have let him return by now, Avatar or no Avatar, but in his eyes the so-called “Prince Zuko” is a failure and a disgrace to the Fire Nation.”

You tried to speak up once more, but his time Zuko cut you off. You swear you were gonna stab someone.

“That's not true.” Zuko said.

Zhao turned to Zuko with a nasty face, “You have the scar to prove it.”

Zuko launched himself and the commander and you made no attempt to stop him.

“Maybe you'd like one to match!” He shouted in his face.

“Is that a challenge?” the commander questioned.

“An Agni Kai. At sunset.” Zuko said.

You froze. Yeah you wanted someone to put Zhao in his place but you didn't want Zuko to fight in another Agni Ka, considering what happened at the last one.

“Very well. It's a shame your father won't be here to watch me humiliate you. I guess your uncle and your little girlfriend will do.” Zhao said smugly.

Zhao turned to walk out of the tent, he stopped and looked at you before saying,”Your actions will cause you to suffer major consequences. I hope you are ready to face them after you have to watch the prince face another devastating defeat.”

Zhao finally left the tent. You were glaring daggers at the spot he was previously standing.

Iroh walked up to Zuko “Prince Zuko, have you forgotten what happened last time you dueled a master?”

“I will never forget.” Zuko responded.

Iroh, Zuko, Zhao and You were in a Fire Nation Arena. Zhao and Zuko were kneeling, backs facing one another, preparing for battle. Zhao had 4 of his men in attendance, whilst Zuko only had you and Iroh but that was enough.

“Remember your fire bending basics, Prince Zuko.” Iroh said, “They are your greatest weapon.”

Zuko stood up, “I refuse to let him win.”

His shoulder wrap fell to the ground. You swept your eyes over his muscular figure.

A small piece of your heart shattered at the realization that Zuko was no longer that sweet 13 year boy old you knew all those years ago.

Zhao stands and turns, his shoulder wrap falling off his shoulders, as well.

“This will be over quickly.” Zhao stated.

Atop the gate a gong sounds. Both men face each other and assume firebending stances.

Zuko fires the first shot which passes harmlessly to Zhao's left. He fires again, this time it passes without effect to Zhao's right. Zuko fires several more, the last of which Zhao blocks, satisfaction evident on his face. Frustrated and losing control of his breath, Zuko moves towards the commander, unleashing more fire from both his hands and feet. Zhao dodges and blocks them all. Zhao then crouches forward and shoots flame at a point on the ground close in front of him.

From the corner of your eyes you saw Iroh watching anxiously.

“Basics, Zuko! Break his root!” You heard the retired General exclaim.

Zhao fires many blasts of flames, alternating between his fists. Zuko blocks each, but is slowly forced back. On the last strike Zhao uses both hands, knocking Zuko over and sending him skidding backwards in the dirt.

You hold in your breath hoping he’s okay.

Zhao takes a flying jump at Zuko. Zhao lands as he tries to get up, but he isn't fast enough. Zhao fires right at him. Zuko rolls out of the way just in time, and as he is getting up sweeps Zhao's feet out from under him.

You finally exhale the breath, your chest gently rising and falling.

Zuko lands on his feet, a slight smile appears on his face. Zuko walks towards Zhao, using his feet to produce small waves of flame that rush toward his opponent. Zhao is caught off balance and wobbles slowly backward.

Iroh clenched his fist in an expression of hope, a smile beginning to spread over his face.

Zuko finally lays Zhao out flat on the ground with a blast of fire. Zuko rushes up to him, prepared to deal the final blow.

“Do it!” Zhao yells.

Zuko releases a blast that shoots to the side of Zhaos’ face.

“That's it? Your father raised a coward.” He sneered at Zuko.

“Next time you get in my way, I promise I won't hold back.” Zuko said.

He turned his back on the pathetic Commander and began to walk away.

You took notice of how Zhao got up and shouted in anger. He unleashed a wip of flame at Zuko. You stepped in before the flames could hit the princes back. The fire coming from Zhaos’ foot is extinguished as your gloved hand closed over his foot.

You gave the commander a nasty look. “After this horrendous display of you being a sour loser,” You said in a sweet tone, “I have decided to tender in my resignation.” You finished dropping his foot causing him to stumble and land on his butt.

Iroh and Zuko appeared to be frozen in time for a moment before Zuko rounded on Zhao.

You turned and placed your hand on Zukos’ chest, and looked him in the eye. He looked down at you.

“Don’t.” You said in a hushed tone.

Yould see the moment's hesitation in his eyes before he slapped your hand off of his chest and continued advancing toward the Commander.

“No, Prince Zuko.” Iroh said after he witnessed your failed attempt to stop the angered Prince. “Do not taint your victory.”

Iroh turned to face Zhao, a look of disdain on his face.

“So this is how the great Commander Zhao acts in defeat. Disgraceful.”

“I wholeheartedly agree.” You chimed.

“Even in exile my nephew is more honorable than you.”

Zuko looked at Iroh in surprise at his statement.

“Thanks again for the tea. It was delicious.” Iroh said finally to the Commander

Iroh moved to leave, You and Zuko followed closely behind. With burning anger, Zhao watches them exit the gate of the arena.

Outside, Zuko quietly asked Iroh,”Did you really mean that, Uncle?”

Iroh slyly stated, “Of course. I told you ginseng tea is my favorite.”

You couldn’t help but snort at his declaration. Sending you into a full laughing fit followed soon by Iroh and eventually Zuko, as the three of you walked towards the harbor.

~~~

And that’s the end... for now.

Master List

Taglist form

#prince zuko x reader #zuko x reader #zuko x you #fire lord zuko #atla #atla fanfic #atla zuko #zuko fanfic #zuko imagine

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dallonm-archive · 4 years

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So I Turned Church Mud Into A Novel Lol Oops | NaNoWriMo 2020

Folks the JOURNEY I have been on in the last 3 days. I’ve been on a great albeit chaotic Church Mud high and it led to? This?

For those who don’t know, Church Mud is meant to be a ~7k words short story for my writing dissertation (and it still is). I attempted to do Draft Zero over summer, completely missed the mark, pretended it didnt exist for a month and here we are. One thing I learnt from that attempt though was that there is a much wider story to be told than what we’d see in those 7k words. Back then I was content with it only existing as a short story, not having all the parts told, because I liked the idea of Felix and Dorothy existing in this small window with a happy ending that’d otherwise be temporary. But I cannot help myself :) I met my advisor on Wednesday and reaffirmed that I’m at a really good place with this story in terms of ideas, themes and character - what’s missing was just the plot. So that’s what I’ve been working on (and killing my sleep schedule over) since, and what happened was: I realise most of my ideas wouldn’t fit the short story --> But they’d work in a novel --> So I guess I’m writing Church Mud as a novel after I graduate? --> But I kinda wanna write it now --> But I can’t --> But I want to --> Chloe your dissertation --> Hey you want more novel content? Here’s chapter titles --> God I Can’t Wait To Write This As A Novel --> Hey that thing where you write a novel in a month is happening soon...could be a...perfect excuse to...….,,,

So I had a ~revelation~ at 4am: why can’t I write it now? NaNoWriMo coincides with when I’m meant to brainstorm this story, so why don’t I take what I have and pants it as a novel, intentionally #LoseNano2020 and use what I wrote to infer what the short story will look like whilst also have a Draft Zero to work with/finish/rewrite next year? I debated if this was a good idea because it felt ~unconventional~ but I realised that a) I want to write this as a novel anyway and b) this is where I’m loving the project and that’s what matters and c) makes it feel less like uni work lol I’ve spent the all day playing around with what Church Mud The Novel would look like, and not only am I o b s s e s s e d but it also taught me? so much? about the short story? I was worried it’d get complicated but from the vague plot idea I have, I have a clear vision of Church Mud The Short Story separate from the novel, but I also see how it would fit into the novel as a chapter, and seeing where it’d fit in has really helped me figure out where it sits in the twins’ lives and so many elements I hadn’t considered before. I believe very strongly in Writers Intuition and my intuition is telling me that this is the direction I need to go with this project. My only issue is Church Mud doesn’t fit as a title for the novel at all and was never going to be the title, but I really don’t care oop, I’m not titling it until next year unless I come up with a title so good I want to change the short story as well lmao. But other than that this is working so well for me and really catalysed the momentum I already had atm for this story. I’ve also wanted to rework how I share Church Mud things here and this is a perfect way to at least for the next month, but before I ramble more lets actually talk about where the story is!

CHURCH MUD

Genre: literary fiction Setting: California (+ probably some other states? Idk I’m not American wtf is a state), 1986 POV: third person present + retrospective moments, split between twins Felix and Dorothy The Vibes: hazy summers, hot air, 3am, saltwater breeze, grainy photographs, empty roads at night, the moon blurred by clouds, arms resting out car windows, abandoned churches, telephone boxes, getting lost on purpose, cigarette smoke, dust from an old Bible Deals with: faith & the weaponization of it to control others, identity, perceptions of reality, chosen family, independence v co-dependence, free will, trauma & what it means to “let go”

CONTENT WARNINGS: religion/religious imagery (specifically Christianity), trauma, toxic relationships, inferred addiction (all updates will be tagged with these/any more specific warnings)

This is still in very early conception, in the sense of it’s existence as a novel, but it’s definitely an expansion on the ideas I had for the short story, where these two seek to let go of their past together so they can live their own, new lives, and also restore their tangled relationship that could never be fixed through letters and distant contact. When Dorothy left the controlling religious cult she grew up in, she never gave herself a chance to properly process the complicated emotions that came with that decision, or the trauma she went through, opting to cope with it by putting all her energy into building her new life and embracing her identity. Watching her brother navigate the same new, confusing path she took four years ago forces her to look back on her own experience, and the repressed memories of events that prompted her to leave in the first place. When Felix catches up with her, he struggles with the realisation that adjusting to this new life and world won’t be easy, and whilst it was the right choice, his impulsive decision has ramifications. Trauma does not necessarily stay in the place you associate it with and for Felix, it’s like seeing all of it from a birds eye view, all at once, including everything he blocked out. With his faith, his sister, and his drive to be a good person, he has hope for himself and the world, but the pain and anger he harbours will not make it easy for him. ^by no means a pitch literally just the copy paste of the quick summary I wrote for myself lmao

The most exciting part of this to me is how different, yet similar the novel feels. This version of the story isn’t necessarily happier, it’s still rough around the edges, but it’s definitely from a different mindset and there’s this haziness to it that doesn’t exist in the short story. It feels like a grainy home video that they’d never let see the light of day. I wouldn’t call it dreamlike or softer because of this, but there is this distinct tonal shift from the short story to the novel that I can only describe through the aforementioned Vibes. As I said, I have an idea of where the short story would fit into the novel’s timeline as a chapter, but they still won’t be the same. The short story is obviously more restricted to one singular event, and that turns the intensity and tension up high. This difference is also 100% influenced by the fact that the short story is set only at night (bar for some potential flashbacks), and the night plays a huge thematic and atmospheric role. Of course parts of the novel will take place at night, but the presence of daytime changes the mindset to me? In the short story it feels like they’re stuck in this perpetuate-esque night, whereas in the novel you know that the sun will always rise.

This story is also very different aesthetically, but at the same time elements of the short story’s aesthetic come into play and clash with the unique aesthetic of the novel, where they coexist, but are also in conflict with each other. As you can tell from these two moodboards where you can really see how for the second I gave up trying to make it coherent lmao:

To me there are two distinct aesthetics, and they are both very different and exist in different ways, but they are both inherently part of the story, and it feeds into this idea of perception of reality and these two realities that the twins perceive: the “outside world” and the gated world they grew up in.

The stars of the show, my favourite disaster twins:

Not fragile, but not made of stone either

Loves very hard, sometimes more than she’d like

A protective and loyal soul, especially with those she loves, but she never wants to forget to protect herself

If I’m in love with my best (female) friend, no I’m not <3

-goes to the edge of the pier and stares wistfully at the ocean so everyone knows that I am the main character-

Loves her brother more than anyone else but is struggling to figure out his new role in her life. As teenagers she felt painfully tethered to him because they were always The Twins, and she had nobody else, as adults she hopes to find a balance between their deeply close bond and their harshly different lives

Arc driven by defining your identity and then redefining it, and facing the parts of it you’d rather lock far away. Also deals with her experience growing up as a girl in a religious cult in the 60s/70s, and the relationship faith has with her feminist identity.

As of now, there’s more focus on him in the novel, since the short story focuses on Dorothy and I feel to write him from an observer perspective I need to get into his head first

Just found out restarting your life completely is hard?

Trying to be a good person, wants to be a good person, but there’s an anger in him that he hates but it’s festering and it’s growing

But ultimately he is a sweet and soft person and that’s what he wants to be in life even though it’s hard, it shows especially with his sister

I think at some point he locks himself in a cabin and? I would too

Centred around perception of trauma and v influenced by my own experiences with that, where you think things will be easier as soon as you leave that situation but really it just makes you look at everything from a distance and be like “what the fuck?? that actually happened??” (which conflicts with the fact that you KNOW you’re in a better place and you would never go back, but it hurts and it’s hard especially understanding the placement of your trauma in this new space)

I need to give this dude and his sister a happy ending for my own wellbeing. I don’t know how that’ll look but these two will get their happy endings. I actually don’t think I’ve loved two characters more and I love all my characters deeply

And I think that’s all for now! This 100% was not the direction I expected to take but I am so glad I did, and I also love the opportunity to reintroduce this story because good Lord it’s changed so much (and this instance is the most change). I also think this is the perfect Nano scenario for me, as someone who’s never done it before, there’s zero pressure on me to “win” because I don’t expect to even finish this. I’m just going to see where it takes me and see what it’s given me at the end of the month. I’m also not outlining this at all lmao, one because me and outlines do not get along but also my Preptober is just. the work I have to do for my dissertation anyway, which is reading and gathering a lot of fiction/nonfiction about cults/religion, and all the weird and unhinged takes on it. It’s very slow but it’s also fun! My uni work this weekend is literally to read The Girls by Emma Cline so I think I won here?? I also want to dedicate the rest of October to the short stories I planned to write for Nano (I was going to work on my collection).

I don’t know if I’ll do a taglist for this - I have the og Church Mud one but like I said I’m rethinking how I want to share this story and updates for this will only be regular in November so?? But chances are I will be constantly on my bullshit for the next month and a half with this story, pretty update or no pretty update

My NaNoWriMo page is here, although fair warning I have No idea how this site works, this is my boomer moment. Excited to clown about this story though!

- Chloe

#first off my fatal flaw is interchanging between Felix and Dorothy and Dorothy and Felix #second off i would die and kill for them #writing #amwriting #writeblr #writeblr community #religion /#trauma /#nanowrimo #nanowrimo 2020

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eternalrevivalist · 3 years

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Greece: A historical essay - Part 1/4

On the 25th of March 2021, the people of Greece celebrate their independence day. This year is especially important because it is exactly 200 years since the outbreak of the revolution (1821). I decided to honor my country and its history with a (relatively) detailed post.

Most people around the world already have knowledge regarding ancient Greece, so I will be brief here.

ANCIENT AND ARCHAIC GREECE:

between 3000 and 1100 B.C. roughly, there existed the Minoan civilization of Crete. We know little about them besides their elaborate palaces (anaktora), intricate plumbing systems and wonderful frescoes. They used the linear A in their writing, which remains undeciphered to this day. This civilization was one which traded with the outside world. Being an island, they also did not have many fortifications, which might have contributed to their downfall. There are 2 main theories as to their decline: Invasions from the mainland Mycenaeans or the major volcanic eruption of Santorini around that time.

Pictured above: 1) a partially destroyed room, allowing a peek inside 2) some restored frescoes 3) an outer room 4) A showcase of the simple and geometric, yet elaborate and colorful, structure of the building. All of these pictures are from the Palace of Knossos.

The next civilization to succeed them were the aforementioned Mycenaeans, who thrived between 1650 and 1200 B.C. They originally lived in the Peloponnese peninsula, on the southern tips of mainland Greece. It appears that they invaded and subjugated the Minoans at some point. They used linear B for their alphabet, which has successfully been deciphered and is our first indication of archaic or proto-Greek. The later tales of Homer (Odyssey and Iliad) are set in the 1200s and involve Mycenaean legendary heroes and rulers.

They were organized in independent and semi-independent city-state kingdoms, crafted bronze weapons and were a war-like people. Around 1200, we see an increase in fortifications around their settlements and the remains of their palaces carry signs of having been burned. This implies that they, too, fell to an invading force which had been threatening them.

The Minoans and Mycenaeans appear to have both used a centralized “manorial” or palatial economic system, which revolved around their grand palaces.

After their fall came the dark age of ancient Greece, which lasted from 1100 to 750 B.C. As implied by the name, we have very little information about this time. Pottery lost its elaborate design and became merely geometric, the linear B alphabet stopped being used, settlements were much smaller and fewer in population.

One other notable involvement is the arrival of the Doric tribes to the Greek mainland, displacing and possibly mixing with the Mycenaeans.

CLASSICAL GREECE:

This is the ancient Greece everyone knows and loves. The Dorians were not the only ethnic group of that time, with them appeared the Ionians, Achaeans, and Aeolians. In myth, these are all relatives who came from the same ancestor, Hellen (not the famous Helen of Troy, but instead a male patriarch from Thessaly).

The Achaeans might have had a relation to the Myceneans or have existed alongside them to some degree, This is only a hypothesis though.

The Dorians were the direct ancestors of the Spartans and Corinthians, among other smaller states of the Peloponnese.

The Ionians are best remembered as the ancestors of the the Athenians but also their many coastal and islander allies, including the region of Ionia (modern Smyrna/Izmir region) in Asia Minor.

The Aeolians lived in modern-day Thessaly and were the most numerous of the Greek groups. During the Doric invasion, some of them fled to the island of Lesbos and the region of Aeolis (which they named) in Asia Minor.

During this period we see the early foundations of what would evolve into the ancient Greek city-state model, as most imagine it, as well as the government forms of Classical Greece - Oligarchy, Democracy, Tyranny. These forms of government acted as ancient ideologies of sorts, to a degree.

In Sparta, Lycurgus implemented the reforms which led to the highly militarized, disciplined, regimented and isolationist Spartans of the Classical period.

In Athens, there was a succession of reformers who led to the establishment of Democracy. First was Dracon, the least democratic of all and whose laws give us the modern definition of the word “Draconic”, afterwards we have the moderate Solon, who can be credited with the foundations of Democracy and maintaining a balance between the aristocratic wealthy and the common poor. There was a brief interruption to democracy between 561 - 510 B.C. as the leader of the Democratic faction, Peisistratus, took the reins of power as a Tyrant (back then, the word had a neutral or even slightly positive connotation, along the lines of “benevolent dictator/enlightened autocrat). The laws and customs of Athenian Democracy were kept in place during those years and were able to blossom after the end of the tyranny. Cleisthenes was the next in the line of reformers. A radical democrat, he greatly expanded the power of the poorer citizens. All of these reforms led directly to the Athenian Democracy inherited by Pericles right before the Peloponnesian war and during the zenith of Athenian power, wealth and culture through its leadership of the Delian League.

Before that though, there were the Persian wars, which started when the coastal city-states and former colonies of Asia Minor cried for help to the Greek mainland, in an effort to avoid complete annexation by the Persian empire.

This led Greece to band together against the threat of the Persians and beat them back, after many losses and much hardship. This is considered the main grand epoch of the classical era and bound them all together as “Hellenes” for the first time.

Greece was not a place of long-lasting peace and alliances though. Soon after, the Athenian populist democratic politicians promised their people great opulence, which they could only ensure by taking from the common fund of the Delian League and using that money on their city. Thus Athens prospered at the expense of its supposed allies, leading to the era of Athenian Hegemony around the 5th century B.C. (Sparta used to be the hegemon before them, around 650 B.C.). This all lead directly to the Peloponnesian war of 431 - 404, where the Spartans emerged victorious after protracted campaigns and battles, gaining the title of “liberators” for dismantling the Athenian hegemony and liberating their tributaries.

During this period we also have the beginning of Greek philosophy as we know it, with the activity of Socrates. Pre-Socratic philosophers were generally natural scientists and cosmologists, he was the first to deal with moral and political philosophy, changing the term forever. Plato was his student, who famously wrote his own political system in “The republic” and unsuccessfully tried to implement it in Syracuse. Aristotle was the student of Plato and became the founder of Mixed government and Classical republicanism (as it was later known and developed later in the renaissance), he was also the teacher of Alexander the Great, the famous Greek-Macedonian king who created an empire.

Sparta’s attempt at aiding oligarchic tyranny in Athens, with the conclusion of the war, failed and Athens returned back, somewhat weak but still great, after only a few years. The next hegemon to take the title were the Thebans, the third most powerful city-state of the era. They held it for a short while in the 3rd century, until Alexander the Great’s father, Philip II, took that title from them, laying the groundwork for the later conquests of his son.

Alexander defeated the Persians, conquered Egypt, Babylon, Asia minor, Persia itself and finally modern-day Pakistan and Afghanistan, reaching the Indus river, where he finally met his equal at the hands an Indian kingdom and was forced to return back to Babylon, where he died.

His empire fractured into four successor states and Rome met little resistance, fighting only Epirus and a weakened Macedon, in their conquest of Greece.

Pictured above: Greek states around 200 B.C.

Bright yellow: Seleucids

other Yellow: Achaean League, Epirus and states under Macedonian influence

Dark Blue: Aetolian League and Independent states

Orange: Macedon

Dark Green: early Roman conquests

Light Green: Kingdom of Pergamum

Purple: Ptolemaic (Egyptian) holdings

#greece #history #culture #archaeology #greek independence day

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misskittyspuffy · 3 years

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To a better future (15x20, alternative ending)

[Takes place in 15x20, alternative ending]. When Dean and Sam find out that Chuck has manipulated them once more, they decide to take control of their lives again. (Dean/Cas, Sam/Eileen, Dean & Sam)

Note: Like many of us, I was truly hurt, angry and devastated after the finale, that was a huge slap in the face. I decided to wrote my own ending, the one I was sure we were getting (if the show had followed its narrative). Feedbacks are more than welcome ♥︎

Please note that English isn't my mother tongue, if you have any remark or spot mistakes, feel free to let me know! :) This is a translation of my fanfiction "À un meilleur avenir".

Ao3 link

Their saturday nights were usually made of binge-watching sessions in the Dean-cave. Beers and pop-corn were their driving force for the evening. They usually were sitting on the couch Dean had especially set up in front of the big screen. Some other nights, they were going to the movies —which they rarely did in the past.

But that evening, duty was going to prevail.

An empty warehouse, deserted thirty years ago, had some strange —their kind of strange— activity in the past few weeks and the eldest Winchester had decided that it was worth to take a look at what seemed to be a ghost case. Three rash people had died at the place and some survivors had reported violent attacks.

A year ago, they had regained their free will. As it turned out, Chuck hadn’t played his last card that day, near the lake. After turning him into a human —at least, that’s what they had thought— the Winchester brothers hadn’t realized that they just had been trapped in his last scenario.

To remove a threat, you need to make believe to your enemy that he has successfully beaten you. And that’s exactly what Chuck had done. He had made them believe they had won. And had largely benefited from it.

The trap had taken the form of an illusion that had led Dean to his death and Sam to the perfect family life he had once hoped for. There had been a shift in the way Sam was feeling though —when he had gotten married, when his son was born, he had felt that something was off, but he had never succeeded to put his finger on what.

Seven years had passed after Dean’s death when one morning, while Sam was off to his daily jog, he had found Jack on his porch, waiting for him. He was looking unusually worried, which had led the Winchester to believe that something very serious had happened. Little did he know, by this time, how much his life had been about to change. The Nephilim had then explained to him that he was about to break the divergent timeline Chuck had created and in which he had locked them in. The trick was ingenious, but Jack had been more clever. He had perceived a breach while moving from one world to another —he and Amara were rebuilding the parallel dimensions Chuck had meticulously destroyed, in order to preserve the Balance of the Universe.

It had taken a while for Sam to fully accept the idea that what had been his life for so long was a lie. The illusion created by the former God had become his new reality. Getting out of it was scary and had seemed impossible at first. He had spent hours contemplating the life he had built, watching the son that was born from his marriage —born from an illusion. But looking at him playing in their living room, he had felt very real. When he had called him “dad’’, handing him over a drawing he had just made of their perfect little family, his throat had tighten. In the next few days though, he had come to terms with the fact that Jack was right, and a deep feeling of gravity was now taking over. What was about to happen was probably one of the most painful things he ever had to experience. Losing what he thought was real did feel real, but intellectually, he knew something wasn’t right. It wasn’t who he was, it wasn’t his life.

As soon as Jack had told him about Chuck, about the fact that he still had his powers —to some extent— and had only conceded a part of them to him, including Amara, Sam had known he was telling the truth. Seven years ago in that barn, it wasn’t the ending Dean had deserved.

It wasn’t them back then, it wasn’t him right now. Their lives had been taken away from them.

He had finally put his finger on what felt wrong. Jack had then mentioned a certain Eileen, and at this moment, that name hadn’t even ring a bell. Donna, Jody, Charlie, Claire… So many people that Chuck had erased from their lives. People that were once family had become strangers. Sam had finally accepted Jack’s plan to restore his life and Dean’s life the way they were before everything went wrong. The bonds the youngest Winchester had formed in that illusion were left behind, and he knew it was a wound that wasn’t going to be easy to move on from. But he knew his brother didn’t deserve to die the way he did. It had been enough for him to find the courage to move forwards with Jack’s scheme to fix their lives.

The natural order of things was back in the space of a few minutes, thanks to Jack. He had brought Dean back on Earth, had given them back their memories and —in the process— had restored their real personalities. Sam was again the same age he was before they fought against Chuck. The fallout had been truly hard to accept, for both of the Winchesters. They had been screwed, big time. Dean had fallen on his knees, right in the middle of the Bunker, feeling more numb and devastated than ever. Only a few hours had passed for him when he was in the fake version of Heaven Chuck had created, but it had been too much already. He had received a call from Donna and Jody, who had felt the need to talk to him, after feeling like they had gone through a fever dream.

What a f*cking asshole, the eldest Winchester had yelled, while throwing his phone away.

He wasn’t as expressive as his brother, but Sam shared the same state of mind. He was still processing, especially considering what he had left behind, but now that everything was back the way it used to be, the seven years he had spent in that illusion of life felt like a blurry dream. They were now in control of their lives again.

Jack and Amara had been enough to overpower Chuck —for real this time. Using his idea of a lie, they had turned him into a real human being. He had quickly gotten a chance to learn that the Universe had a really strange sense of humor, and had died a few weeks later from an unknown disease.

One year later, on a saturday night, Dean was getting ready for his hunt. Standing in front of the Bunker’s table, he was putting away weapons in his bag, making sure that they hadn’t forgotten something that could be useful : the EMF meter, pouches of salt, guns… At some point, he frowned and rummaged at the bottom of the bag, and finally found a nunchaku.

“What the hell?!’’ he grumbled. “Damn it, Sam!’’

A man’s hand appeared next to his, adding a blade in the bag, which the Winchester opened a little more to give his partner a better access to it.

“You really like this one, don’t you?’’ he said with a smile.

Cas shrugged. “You’re the one who told me that I was going to have my favorites.’’

“Right,’’ he nodded.

The former angel was standing next to him, dressed in a leather jacket, wearing jeans and a red shirt, that completely detonated with his previous usual wardrobe. Dean was partly responsible for this new looks, he had dragged him to a few shops after Cas had came back human.

“You think it’ll be enough?’’ the blue eyed man asked.

The Winchester looked up and leaned on Cas, kissing him briefly on the lips. “Looks good to me.’’

A disapproving look appeared on the former angel’s face. “Dean.’’

Dean raised an eyebrow. “What?’’

“Did you really think I wouldn’t notice the grenade-launcher?’’ he sighed.

While he was speaking, Cas opened the bag again, pointing out the weapon in question.

“So what?’’ the Winchester said with an innocent look.

“Ghosts, Dean. We’re going to fight ghosts. The grenade-launcher’s usefulness will probably be close to nada.’’

“Oh yeah, because your blade is going to have so much effect on them,’’ Dean said in return in a teasing tone.

Looking a little bit offended, Cas squinted. If a look could kill…

“You being so cute when you’re mad really should be a crime,’’ Dean said with an affectionate expression on his face.

The former angel was standing still and Dean kissed him again on the lips before grabbing his hand and leading them to the Bunker’s stairs, making him follow his steps. “Let’s go, you can still sulk in the car,’’ he said in an amused tone.

Sam appeared in the hall, coming from the corridor. “Hey,’’ he said to the couple. An intrigued look appeared on his face. “What are you up to?’’

Dean and Cas exchanged a look.

“Nothing big, a haunted place. You know, the usual stuff,’’ the eldest Winchester shrugged.

Sam frowned. “You got a serious lead on that?’’

“Yeah, three deaths. We’re going to take a look.’’

“If you give me a minute, I could—’’

“No,’’ Dean interrupted him firmly. “You and Eileen got plans for tonight. Go. Watch your dancers in tights, or whatever, we’ll take care of the dead.’’

Sam rolled his eyes. “Really, Dean? That’s all you’re taking away from ballets? Dancers in tights?’’

“Never saw one, but I’m fine with it,’’ he answered with a half smile.

Cas grabbed his boyfriend’s arm, pushing them in the direction of the stairs. “Don’t pay attention to him Sam,’’ he said midly-amused, midly-exasperated. “Dean is right, we’re taking care of it. Enjoy your night,’’ he ended with a smile.

While they were leaving, Sam realized his nunchaku was in the trash. “DEAN!!!’’

***

What was supposed to be a classic hunt turned out to be more challenging that what they were expecting. A demon also occupied the Warehouse, and a second one had appeared during the fight. Cas’ blade ended up being useful. After killing one of them, he was projected on a bunch of cardboards. Dean killed the other one, and once it was over, he ran in the direction of the former angel, worried.

“Cas, you’re okay?’’

“I’m fine,’’ he answered while breathing heavily. He grabbed the hand Dean was giving him. “I didn’t expect this turn of events.’’

“Yeah, two little surprises that weren’t on the program,’’ Dean said, looking down at the corpses. “You’re sure you’re okay?’’ he asked again, sliding his hand along Cas’ arm.

Cas nodded and kissed him on the cheek, near the corner of his mouth. “Don’t worry that much for me. I can handle myself. You’re human too… and you’re still here.’’

“I’ve been human a lil’ bit longer than you have,’’ Dean said. “I got my fair amount of injuries before properly kicking ass, you know. Takes time.’’

“Our training helped me to improve.’’

“Good, that’s what it was meant for,’’ he said firmly.

Dean started remembering their first trainings and what had led them to this situation. Which reminded him how things went the year before, after they had gotten back on their reality.

Flashback - A year ago

After learning that Chuck had manipulated them once more, Dean had locked himself into his bedroom, on the edge of breaking everything that was in it. The person he used to be probably would have done it at this point. But Cas’ words still resonated with him. Love was the force driving his actions, he wasn’t made of hate or violence, and he wanted it to be the thing that would prevail from now on. He had every intention to honor that.

Once he had hugged his brother and catched up with him about the recent events, Sam had left the Bunker to meet Eileen, who he had been talking to for the past hour. They both had felt the need to see each other, considering how things had gone since the last time they had interacted, the day she disappeared. With Sam away, Dean had taken the opportunity to do what he knew his little brother would probably have dissuade him to try. He had went to see Jack, who hadn’t left the Bunker yet. The young man was quietly sitting in the library when the eldest Winchester approached him, a determined look on his face.

“Can you open a breach to the Empty? Do you have that power?’’

“I know what you’re thinking,’’ Jack said, slowly closing the book he had in his hands. “I was expecting you to ask me that. Can I do it? Sure. But… the actual state of things with the Empty is not stable enough yet. I’m… negotiating with her.’’

“I have to do it, you know I can’t let him over there,’’ he ended with a trembling voice despite himself. “I’m not asking you to bring him back for me, I know it might not be possible right now, this is something I have to do by myself. I’m just asking for a little boost.’’

Jack quietly nodded. “You think you can win this? That you’ll have something to offer that the Empty will be interested in?’’

“Let me handle this part,’’ the Winchester replied.

A beat.

“So? The breach?’’ he asked again, looking impatient. He had tried to cover it, but his voice had came out as a little supplication.

“Of course. It’s Cas.’’

Dean’s throat tightened and he had a sudden difficulty to swallow. “Yeah… exactly. It’s Cas.’’

“But if things go wrong… I don’t know if I’ll be able to step in. There is a new balance, I’m not the only one ruling on the Universe, and I have no power over the Empty. That’s why I didn’t have a chance to bring Cas back myself.’’

The Winchester nodded, nothing would make him change his mind.

A few minutes later, the breach was open. A dark circle had taken place on the Bunker’s wall, undulating and growing second after second, the same way it had the day it came to collect Cas. Dean took an inspiration and with no hesitation, threw himself into it.

“Good luck,’’ Jack said once the Winchester had disappeared.

A smile took place at the corner of his mouth.

He knew everything was going to unfold the way Dean had planned it.

***

The Empty was a vast place, it really was doing justice to its name. The darkness was the only thing Dean could contemplate, with no beginning nor end in sight. He wasn’t even sure that he could actually see anything beyond fifteen or twenty feet. He was destabilized at first, didn’t know where to start, turning around and contemplating the void, trying to find any form of activity, a sign of Cas’ presence. Unsure of the direction he was supposed to take, he blindly started to walk around, and did the only logical thing he could do at this moment. He called Cas’ name. Once, twice, ten times, twenty times, fifty times —but for a moment, silence was the only answer he had gotten. He shout out his name until the Empty finally appeared right before him as Meg.

“Cas! Cas!’’ she said in a mocking voice. “WILL YOU SHUT UP??!!!’’

Dean took a few seconds to adjust to his new interlocutor, on his guards.

His jaw clenched. “Where is he?’’ he asked firmly. He wasn’t there to negotiate.

“You’re here to get your sweet little angel back, that’s cute… but not enough. Your weapon will have no effect on me,’’ she said while pointing out the blade he held in his left hand.

The Winchester looked briefly in the same direction and tighten his grip on the blade even harder. “It’s not for you.’’

The Empty looked intrigued. “Really?’’

“Where is he?!’’ he asked again.

She sighed while crossing her legs, sitting on her throne. “Somewhere… between here and there… I saved him a seat at my best spot.’’

A creepy smile distorted her face and she raised a knowing eyebrow in Dean’s direction. Cas’ treatment was probably one of the most painful she could inflict to someone. At this mere thought, the Winchester started to feel sick in his stomach. How long Cas had been here? How many days, months, years maybe had he been stuck in this place while him and Sam were living the scenario Chuck had planned for them?

The Empty hadn’t seen it coming —to be honest, Dean hadn’t either— but in the second that had followed, he had thrown himself to her and gave her a powerful punch in the face, that destabilized her for a second. She sent him away from a movement of her hand, he landed harshly on the ground. Dean got up pretty quickly, but the rage hadn’t left his face, his eyes were still dark and fixated on the Empty.

“WHERE THE HELL IS HE??!’’

“You and your angelic boyfriend are really insufferable,’’ she said furious, matching his own tone. “You wanna know where he is? He’s reliving his worst torments on loop. In which you’ve done many cameos, actually,’’ she added amused. “I’m not gonna pretend I’m not enjoying watching him suffer. Because I do.’’

Dean clenched his jaw. “One last time, tell me where he is or I swear I’m g-’’

“You’re gonna what? Yell at me to death?’’ she said mockingly. “You can do nothing against me.’’

“Maybe. But I can get quite inventive, I’ll be the biggest pain in your ass. You like quietness? I can promise you you’ll never find peace again. I’m human, you have no power over me.’’

The Empty’s face suddenly fell.

“Tell me where he is,’’ Dean said, once more.

She looked contemplative for a few seconds and a sigh escaped her lips. “Good luck, Dean. But remember… no matter what you do, Castiel is mine.’’

With a snap of her fingers, she teleported him to Cas. Dean landed harshly on the floor of a cold room, only to find himself surrounded by four walls. There was no door, no way to escape. The place was dark and he had a hard time seeing where he was, but after adjusting his vision to the place, he discerned the presence of Cas, who was lying down, facing the floor, unconscious. He wasn’t physically hurt, but the pain on his face was very telling about the hell he was emotionally experiencing in whatever the Empty was putting him through in his nightmares. His face looked worried and scared.

Dean kneeled next to him, hanging the blade at his belt. He turned him on his back and tried to wake him up, putting a hand on his face.

“Cas! Hey, Cas! Wake up. I need you to wake up.’’

It took a little while, but after insistance, Dean finally succeeded to bring him back to conscientiousness. Cas had a hard time keeping his eyes open.

“Dean?’’ the angel finally said in a husky voice. He wasn’t sure if he was truly awake or if dream and reality had just got mixed up again.

“It’s me,’’ he said. “Hey, hey, stay with me, okay?’’ he added when he saw that Cas was falling out again. He tried to keep him in a sitting position.

“You’re not real.’’

“I am. I promise you. I’m sorry it took me so long…’’ His voice broke. He kept the angel’s face between his hands, looking deep into his eyes, trying to convince him it was really him. “I’m gonna get you out, okay?’’

Cas seemed lost. “Where are we?’’

“The Empty. You sacrificed your life to save me, remember?’’

A beat. Cas’ eyes seemed to focus and find a semblance of consistency. “I remember.’’ His face fell. “Dean… what are you doing here?’’ he said in a worried voice.

The Winchester was baffled. “You really thought I was going to leave you rot here?’’ His throat tightened. “You saved me, Cas. More than once. You really thought I wasn’t going to look for you?’’

Cas frowned. “You might not be able to leave this place.’’

“Oh believe me, I will. We will. You’re coming with me.’’

The angel shaked his head. “I can’t, Dean, the deal…’’

Dean stopped him. “The deal doesn’t matter anymore. I have a solution.’’

He took the blade at his belt and showed it to the angel, who seemed lost in return. He didn’t understand.

“But… you have to agree with my plan,’’ he added, nervous.

“What do you mean?’’

“The Empty can only hold angels and demons. If you’re human, she won’t have any hold on you.’’ He pointed out the flask that was attached to his necklace. “If we extract your grace, if you become human… you’ll be able to come home with me.’’

Dean was anxious, he didn’t know how Cas was going to react to his proposal.

“Do you agree with this plan?’’ Dean asked hesitant.

The angel nodded, still feeling groggy. “Of course.’’

“Awesome,’’ Dean said, relieved. “Look, I don’t know what the Empty is up to, we should hurry up, okay? You’re ready?’’

As a sign of agreement, Cas extended his neck, giving free access to Dean. After a short hesitation, the Winchester cut him a little with the blade, placing the flask near the incision. The process started and only took a few seconds. The blue light, glittering, started its transfer to the container, making the angel feel suddenly weaker.

“YOU HAD NO RIGHT TO DO THAT!!’’

The Empty, still wearing Meg’s traits, had just appeared next to them. Furious.

“Castiel is mine, you had no right!’’

“We did actually, and we took it,’’ Dean answered in a defiant voice, while helping Cas to get up. “He’s human now, he doesn’t belong to you anymore.’’

She was about to throw herself at them but the portal leading to their world appeared again on the wall of the room they were in. Dean put Cas’ arm around his neck and led them to the breach, which they quickly got aspired by. In the next second, they were on the Bunker’s floor, catching their breath.

“Excellent timing, kiddo,’’ Dean said to Jack while getting on his feet.

He promptly ran to Cas’ side, helping him to stand. He was noticeably weakened, but seemed to be okay.

“How are you holding up?’’ he asked to the former angel, his full attention on him.

Cas leaned a little on him. “I think I’ll be fine,’’ he assured. Cas then realized who was standing next to the table. Jack. He fixated his look on him with a questioning look and the young man finally ran to his father and took him into his arms. “I missed you, Cas.’’

“How long… how long was I gone?’’ he asked while they were breaking the hug.

Dean and Jack looked at each other, uncertain. The timeline had been changed, distorted, rebuilt. What had represented a few days for Dean had been seven years for Sam. And they didn’t even know how it was for Cas. It was a difficult question to answer.

“We should save this for later…’’ Dean said, with a tap on his shoulder. “Let’s take care of you first.’’

***

Ten days had passed and things were back to the way they used to be. Not everything was the same, of course, but their life had now found a semblance of normalcy again. Dean had rearranged everything in Cas’ bedroom, to adjust and adapt the place to his new needs. He had given him some of his clothes and they had gone shopping to complete his wardrobe.

Cas was feeling way better and, like he once had to do, was now adjusting to his new life as a human, rediscovering the pleasure of eating food that didn’t taste like molecules.

Things with Dean had slowly changed during the course of the last few days. At first, they had been all focused on his new condition, helping him to find a new balance, but now that things were pretty much coming back to what they were, the dynamic between the hunter and the former angel had slowly became awkward and a strange tension had taken place between them. Not that they were avoiding each other, far from it, but they were walking on eggshells —even Sam had noticed it. Cas was particularly cautious about the way he was acting around Dean. After his confession, which they had never talked about since he had came back, he was very attentive to not causing any discomfort.

Little did he know about the inner battle that was currently raging in the eldest Winchester’s mind —battle he had lost many times in the past few days, actually. Hesitation, fear of doing everything wrong, of the unknown, of giving his life a new turn, of experiencing his feelings in a way he never had before… all of this was holding him back. The love thing wasn’t something Dean was comfortable with. Not because he didn’t felt it —he felt it too much actually— but he had never been good at expressing it. He was good at pretending things didn’t affect him, his nonchalance was preserving him. But Cas’ confession had changed everything, had made every single wall he had built around his heart shiver. He had been aware of his feelings for the angel for quite a while now, years even. He had slowly realized that there was nothing brotherly about the way he was feeling about him. Their relationship had always been quite unique.

Every time he had lost him, Dean had known. The deepness of the hurt had been beyond reparable. When he had offered him that mixtape, shortly after he had almost died a few years ago, it had been his way of expressing it, even if he knew the angel wasn’t going to understand the true meaning of such a gift. He knew it was the love language that had made his parents fall in love, and in some kind of way, it had been the language he had chosen to use.

But he was tired of being silent. Tired of not being who he was. Of not following his heart.

He had no reason to hide anymore. He couldn’t pretend Cas didn’t feel the same way. All his life, he had been solely focused on Sam’s happiness, because that was all what mattered. He wished for him to have the perfect life he had always wanted. Who would have guessed that one day, Dean Winchester would start thinking about his own happiness, would believe that he might actually deserve it too. Better days were coming. They were now free, a world of new possibilities was opening to them. Maybe, just maybe, he actually deserved something different than the life made of sacrifices he had always imagined for himself.

It hadn’t taken that long for things to take a new turn. Cas had decided to come to his first hunt as a human, which had immediately activated in Dean his protective mode. The Winchester had tried to stay as chill as he could, but he had stay right beside him, not letting him out of his sight. Once they had been back from their mission, the former angel had complained about it, telling him that he did not want to be a burden for him, which had led to a grumpy answer from the hunter.

When Dean had come to his door that night, to make sure Cas’ wound after their hunt didn’t need more care, their conversation had derailed incredibly fast.

Cas had been shaking his head, not breaking eye contact with the Winchester. “You should stop worrying that much about me, Dean.’’

A beat.

He had then given him an earnest answer. “Can’t. Won’t.’’

They had stayed silent for a moment, staring at each other from opposite sides of the room. Dean had felt his hands become sweaty, his breath racing. He had taken a new step inside the room, had closed the door behind him. He was now standing near the entrance, his eyes fixated on Cas, who was next to his bed. The silence of the room was only troubled by the sound of their respective breath, which added some kind of weight to the moment.

“I’ll never stop worrying about you…’’ Dean said with a new intensity, tilting his head on the side.

He had taken a new step towards the former angel, hesitant. His eyes had been fixated on the floor for a moment, before he had brought them back on him.

“Cas…’’

He had shaken his head, opened his mouth like if he was about to say something, about to speak his own truth, but no words had come. So he had decided to do the only thing he knew how to do: let his actions speak for him.

Once he had reduced the distance between them, Cas’ heartbeat had incredibly increased. He hadn’t dare to hope. Never. But… what if? In the spare of a few seconds, he had gotten his answer. Dean’s face had come really close to his own, his green eyes never breaking the contact with his blue ones. There was so much left unsaid, but right now, he needed to show him how he felt. He had leaned closer to him, closed his eyes and their lips had finally met. Shyly at first, but when they had realized how good it felt, how it was everything they had needed, they had reinforced their embrace. There was no hesitation left. The Winchester’s hands had cupped Cas’ face, while the former angel had wrapped his arms around him. When they had first broke the kiss, their faces remaining close, a silent tear was running through Cas’ cheek.

“I love you too, Cas,’’ Dean finally succeeded to say, like if he was reprising their conversation from weeks before. Tears were flooding his eyes and he was shaking. “We… never talked about it, since you came back. I never got a chance to thank you for… everything. Absolutely everything, Cas. Things went so fast back then. But I want you to know how much I love you. I have for years, actually. Everything you are… and I always miss you, so much. But I never thought… I never thought we could have this. And I’m sorry, so sorry, that it took me so long to say it.’’

Cas’ throat had tightened. He had been physically incapable of saying anything in return. It was all he had ever wanted, but had convinced himself he would never get. He didn’t think he would deserve it. He had taken the initiative of the second kiss, which had started as tenderly as the previous one and led them to explore a physical and emotional intimacy neither of them had known before.

From this day, every piece of the puzzle had started to fall in place. Their life had taken a new turn —but this time, it was one they had chosen.

Present day

Dean had just parked the Impala at a gas station. Once he had turned off the motor, he had rotated his body to face Cas’, who was sitting next to him and was consulting his phone.

“Claire and Kaia are coming by on friday,’’ he said, meeting the Winchester’s eyes.

“It’s her birthday, isn’t it?’’

Cas nodded.

“We should get her something,’’ Dean suggested.

“I’m gonna need your help,’’ the former angel said, a hint of panic on his face.

The Winchester winked at him. “Don’t worry, I got an idea of something she might like. She loves music, right?’’

Cas sighed. “Yes, she… tried to make me listen to some of it, actually. It was… quite an experience.’’

Dean bursted into laugher when he remembered the day he had found Cas listening to The Pretty Reckless.

Since the day he had become human, Cas and Claire had been more in contact than ever. They had talked on the phone and had met each other a couple of times. Claire was still living with Jody and Donna, but along with Kaia, they were now doing things their way. The young blonde was pretty invested into the hunting life, a choice Jody and Cas weren’t sure they were approving. But she wasn’t taking no for an answer and the only thing they could do was let her make her own experience. Everyone could see that Kaia had a good influence on her, though.

“At least, we don’t have that kind of issue with Jack,’’ the Winchester said. “Well, when he comes by,’’ he then muttered to himself.

The former angel agreed. “I understand his questionings way better.’’

“A Nephilim who became our new God and now juggles with multi-dimensions and handles existential kind of stakes… Yeah, makes sense for you,’’ Dean said with tenderness in his voice.

A half smile appeared on the former angel’s lips and he shrugged. “I’m a few millions years old, Dean. I mean, I was.’’

“And you’re really not doing bad,’’ he added, taking his hand in his. “You’re doing a lot of good, actually.’’ Cas tightened his squeeze, intertwined their fingers.

Adjusting to life as a human being had been a whole new challenge, Cas was still processing and learning, even though he wasn’t a stranger to this. But with the help of Dean, Sam and Eileen, he was getting more and more comfortable and used to it. A month and a half after he had returned from the Empty, he had decided to seek for a way to help and be active in this new stage of the world. He had joined social workers in a shelter and had offered his help for the place five times a week for the past months. He had gotten very invested, and Dean had joined him more than once, especially when some supernatural events had collide with the work they were doing there.

“Offering guidance and protection to these kids seemed more appropriate than spending days in bed watching Netflix with you… even though I really enjoy Netflix,’’ he ended with humor in his voice.

Dean raised an eyebrow, midly-offended. “What about being in bed with me?’’

The former angel rolled his eyes, accentuating his grasp on the Winchester’s hand. “Like if you didn’t already know that I enjoy that part.’’

An amused smile appeared on Dean’s lips, before he became serious again, looking at Cas lovingly. “We did a lot of good lately, you and I…’’

They stared silently at each other for a few seconds, lost in each other’s eyes. Cas got closer and leaned into Dean to kiss him slowly. “We did.’’

***

When they arrived at the Bunker, they saw that Eileen and Sam had returned from their night out. They were now comfortably sitting on one of the couches that were in the main room and were both looking at the youngest Winchester’s screen, laughing at what they were watching.

Dean and Cas came down the stairs and walked in their direction.

“So, how was it?’’ the eldest Winchester asked in a skeptical voice, while putting his bag on the table.

“Amazing,’’ Sam said with an emphasis. “I know what to get you for your next birthday.’’

Dean’s face fell. “Sam, if you drag me to one of your ballet things, I’ll never talk to you again, capiche?’’

The youngest Winchester shrugged, side-eyeing the former angel. “Maybe Cas wants to see one.’’

“Ha! Doubt it,’’ Dean said in a pretty confident voice.

“Well…’’ Cas seemed to seriously consider the option. “Why not.’’

“What?’’ Dean said incredulous, looking at his boyfriend with a look of betrayal. “Really?’’

“Life is short,’’ Cas said with a shrug. “There is a lot of different forms of art, I don’t want to limit myself to only a few of them.’’ He smiled and teasingly nudged Dean, who looked disappointed.

“You should consider it,’’ Eileen added, laughing a little. “We made pop-corn, do you want some?’’ she then signed, pointing them the bowl that was on the table. The moment she said it, she realized it had gone empty. “I’m gonna get us some more,’’ she added.

“I’m coming with you,’’ Cas signed.

He put his jacket on one of the chairs and while talking about his and Dean’s last hunt to the young woman, they left the room together. The eldest Winchester and the former angel had taken some sign language classes online, adding that learning to their almost daily practice, allowing the efforts to be split in two during conversations.

Dean watched them leave, looking contemplative for a few seconds, and then came to sit next to his brother, after grabbing one of the beers that was on the table.

“No bad surprises? During your hunt?’’

The eldest Winchester was lost in his thoughts and he took a moment before answering. “Two demons, who came out of nowhere. But we got rid of them pretty easily. They were the ones responsible for the attacks and murders. The ghosts were harmless…’’

“They’re gone too?’’

“Yup, we did what we had to do.’’

“Awesome, I’m gonna put the informations on the app.’’

“Don’t worry about it, Cas did it on our way home,’’ he said while patting his brother’s leg.

“Good. Hey, did you know that the app had now spread in Europe and Australia?’’ Sam said while showing him the screen of his computer. “Charlie took care of everything.’’

Dean smiled proudly. “They would have been stupid not to do it. It’s a genius idea that you had.’’

As soon as they had found their free will again, Sam had spent months thinking about what was going to be his next step. With the exception of his relationship with Eileen, which was the only thing he was pretty much confident about, the possibilities about his future, especially in terms of career, were very uncertain. The life he had in Chuck’s ending was now a fuzzy memory, but it had led him to question his ambition.

After hesitating, he had decided to follow his gut and pursue his will to become a teacher. Law school was his past self’s dream and after years of fighting, he had realized that he wanted to pass on his knowledge and connect with other people. At the same time, he had developed an app with the help of Charlie, that was reuniting hunters in the same virtual place and allowing them to share precious informations about their hunts, the supernatural spots, informations and datas about the creatures they had fought, the places and dates of their hunts. Every case that was solved was signaled as such on the app.

It was a worldwide and virtual version of John Winchester’s journal, that had allowed him to unite thousands of hunters through the world and had facilitated the fight against ghosts, demons and other creatures. Sam had invested a lot of time in the making of the app, which was now the biggest database that ever existed on the subject. Rowena, as the Queen of Hell, had a better control over the demons than it was the case by the past, but many of them were still off her authority.

Watching his little brother be so invested in his new missions had made Dean very proud.

“You’re doing great, Sammy,’’ he said while looking at his brother. “The way you handled this whole thing… you made a difference.’’

He raised his beer in Sam’s direction.

“I don’t know if you realize it, but you’re not doing so bad either,’’ Sam said after a few seconds of silence.

Dean shrugged. “Doing my best.’’

“The bar is practically yours, Dean. There’s only some paperwork left, it’s a done deal.’’

For the past month, the eldest Winchester had started to see his dream of possessing his own bar slowing become a reality. They had found it during one of their hunts in Lebanon, with Cas, Sam and Eileen. It was well located but the place had been haunted for years and the previous owners had much trouble selling it. In exchange for the Team Free Will’s services, they had offered to sell it to Dean at a very interesting price.

“I guess,’’ Dean said with a proud little smile

“And Cas…’’ Sam added gently. “You seem to be doing great together. After all these years… you deserve it.’’ He tried not to push too much, knowing how bashful his big brother could get on this kind of topics.

Dean was looking at his hands, but his face had clearly brightened up. He nodded. “From day one, he changed everything for me.’’

Sam smiled. “Who would have believed it.’’

“All those years ago, I wouldn’t have seen us coming this far.’’

“Clearly, me neither…’’

The youngest Winchester was hesitant for a second, looking nervously in the direction of the framing of the door Eileen and Cas had went through.

“You know… I’m gonna propose to her,’’ he finally said.

Dean’s eyes went wide open, even though he wasn’t exactly surprised, knowing his brother.

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while now… I’m confident that what we have is what I’ve been looking for my whole life. Everything just… clicks, when I’m with her. I didn’t think it would happen again, after Jess.’’

Dean bowed his head for a second, smiling.

“You’re… you’re not going to cry, right?’’

“What?! Me? NO!’’ Dean replied in a defensive voice. He took a new sip on his beer, trying to hold it together. “I’m just very happy for you, Sammy.’’

He took his little brother in his arms, gently patting him on the back.

“Are you scared?’’ he asked once they ended the hug.

The youngest Winchester sighed. “A little… I mean, I’m not really afraid that she would say no, even if this is a possibility, of course. But, I trust what we have and I know she’s sharing my dream of building our own family.’’

Dean looked confused. “What scares you then?’’

“Well… the last time I thought about marriage, it was with Jessica… and I lost her. In the worst possible way.’’

“Our lives went pretty well since the day we defeated Chuck.’’

“I know, but… a part of me is still afraid that everything is going to be taken away from me, you know? We lost so much since our childhood, I’m just… not yet used to things being so simple. I don’t know if that makes sense?’’ he said, looking at his brother.

Dean slowly nodded, with an understanding look. “It does. I woke up more than once in the middle of the night just to make sure Cas was still lying down next to me…’’

“We had our share of traumas and losses…’’ Sam sighed, taking the beer he had left on the floor. “To a better future,’’ he finally said, raising his bottle for a toast.

“To a better future.’’

THE END

#Destiel #DeanCas #Saileen #Sam x Eileen #Dean x Castiel #Supernatural #SPN 15x20 #SPN fanfictions #Fix-it fics #My fanfictions #To a better future

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wisdomrays · 3 years

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QUESTIONS & ANSWERS: Did Prophet Muhammad Write the Qur'an?: Part 2

The Qur'an's substance also is a compelling argument for its Divine authorship. Those who allege that someone wrote it provide no proof to support their assertion. Other Scriptures, due to human intervention, make claims that we know to be untrue. For example, they give a particular account of creation or of a natural phenomenon (e.g., the Flood), which we know from modern scientific facts, such as fossils or astronomic discoveries, to be false. People altered those Scriptures to suit their own understanding, with the result that the progress of science has rendered their understanding and their now-corrupted Scriptures largely irrelevant and obsolete. However, the Qur'an has not been subject to such mistreatment.

If someone wrote the Qur'an, how could it be literally true on matters that were completely unknown at the time of its revelation? Do not the unbelievers realize that the Heavens and the Earth were one unit of creation before we split them asunder? (21:30). Only in the last few years have we been able to contemplate this verse about the first moment of the universe in its literal meaning.

Similarly, when we now read: God raised the Heavens without any pillars that you can see. Then He established Himself on the throne [of authority]. He has subjected the sun and moon [to a law]; each runs its course for a term appointed. He regulate all affairs, explaining the signs in detail, that you may believe certainly in the meeting with your Lord (13:2), now we can understand the invisible pillars as the vast centrifugal and centripetal forces maintaining the balance amid the heavenly bodies. We also understand from this and related verses (e.g., 55:5; 21:33, 38, 39; and 36:40) that the sun and moon are stars with a fixed life-span, that their force of light has or will fade away, and that they follow an orbit that has been determined with the most minute exactness.

A literal understanding of these verses does not diminish the responsibility that comes with understanding—that you may believe certainly in the meeting with your Lord. The purpose of the verses has not changed; only our knowledge of the phenomenal world has changed. In the case of former Scriptures, scientific progress has made their inaccuracies ever more visible and their associated beliefs ever more irrelevant. Just the opposite is true with the Qur'an—scientific progress has not made even a single verse harder to believe or to understand. On the contrary, such progress had made many verses more understandable.

Yet some people still allege that the Prophet wrote the Qur'an. While asserting that they are on the side of sense and reason, they allege what is humanly impossible. How could a seventh-century man know things that only recently have been accepted as scientifically established truths? How is that humanly possible? How is it on the side of reason and sense to claim such a thing? How did the Prophet discover, with an anatomical and biological accuracy only recently confirmed, that milk is produced in mammal tissues? How did he discover how rain clouds and hailstones form, or determine a wind's fertilizing quality, or explain how landmasses shift and continents form and reform? With what giant telescope did he learn of the universe's ongoing physical expansion? By what equivalent of X-ray vision was he able to describe in such great detail the different stages of an embryo's evolution within the uterus?

Another proof of the Qur'an's Divine origin is that what it predicts eventually comes true. For example, the Companions considered the Treaty of Hudaibiyya a defeat; the Revelation stated that they would enter the Sacred Mosque in full security and that Islam would prevail over all other religions (48:27-28). It also promised that the Romans [Byzantines] would vanquish the Persians several years after their utter defeat in 615, and that the Muslims would destroy both of these current superpowers (30:2-5), at a time when there were scarcely 40 believers, all of whom were being persecuted by the Makkan chiefs.

Although the Prophet was the ideal man, he could make mistakes on matters not related to Islam or Revelation. For example:

• When he exempted certain hypocrites from jihad, he was criticized: God forgive you! Why did you let them stay behind before it became clear which of them were truthful and which were liars? (9:43).

• After the Battle of Badr, he was rebuked: You (the believers) merely seek the gains of the world whereas God desires [for you the good] of the Hereafter. God is All-Mighty, All-Wise. Had there not been a previous decree from God, a stern punishment would have afflicted you for what you have taken...(8:67–68).

• Once he said he would do something the next day and did not say "if God wills." He was warned: Nor say of anything, I shall be sure to do so-and-so tomorrow, without adding "if God wills." Call your Lord to mind when you forget, and say: "I hope that my Lord will guide me ever closer than this to the right way" (18:23–24), and You feared the people, but God has a better right that you should fear Him (33:37).

• When he swore that he would never again use honey or drink a honey-based sherbet, he was admonished: O Prophet. Why do you hold to be forbidden what God has made lawful to you? You seek to please your wives. But God is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful (66:1).

In other verses, when the Prophet's higher duties and responsibilities are brought into clear focus, the limits to his authority are made known. There is a clear space between the Messenger and the Message revealed to him, as clear as between a person and his or her Creator.

Orientalists deny the Divine authorship out of fear of Islam. Many miracles are associated with the Qur'an. One of the clearest is how quickly it established a distinctive and enduring civilization by serving as its constitution and framework. It mandated the administrative, legal, and fiscal reforms necessary to sustain a vast state of different cultural communities and religions. The Qur'an inspired a genuinely scientific curiosity to study nature and travel in order to study different peoples and cultures. By urging people to lend money for commercial ventures and to abandon interest, it made sure that the community's growing wealth would circulate. It inspired the first-ever public literacy and public hygiene programs, as both were necessary for worship. The Qur'an also commanded the organized redistribution of surplus wealth to the poor and needy, to widows and orphans, for the relief of captives and debtors, the freeing of slaves, and for the support of new Muslims.

One could expand this list considerably, for only the Qur'an has ever achieved what many people have desired. Do we not know of at least one human idea of how to establish or run an ideal society, at least one system or formula for solving equitably social, cultural, or political problems? Have any of them ever worked or lasted?

Those who deny the Qur'an's Divine authorship also fear its power and authority, and that some day Muslims might obey its commands and restore their civilization. They would prefer that the Muslim elite, as well as other Muslims, believe that the Qur'an is a human work belonging to a certain time and place, and therefore no longer relevant. Such a belief would relegate Islam to Christianity's current status: a tender memory of something long gone.

Such people want Muslims to believe that the Qur'an belongs to the seventh century. They admit, in order to beguile Muslims, that the Qur'an was very advanced for its time. However, now they are the ones who are advanced, who offer a lifestyle of intellectual and cultural freedom, and who are civilized, whereas the Qur'an and Islam are backward. But, scientific progress proves the Qur'an's accuracy on questions related to the phenomenal world and helps us to better understand the Qur'an, just as improvements in our understanding of human relationships and human psychology will establish its truth in these areas.

Claiming that a person wrote the Qur'an only reflects the failure to understand that all individuals are indebted to God, Who has given us everything. We do not create ourselves, for our lives are given to us, as are our abilities to contemplate, comprehend, and feel compassion. We are given this extraordinarily subtle, varied, and renewable world to exercise these abilities. In addition, the Qur'an is a gift of mercy, for there is no way it could have had a human author.

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bethanyeliseart · 4 years

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Rise of Skywalker, a movie I genuinely loved!

Ok so I've had almost a full day to think about my thoughts on Rise of Skywalker. Right from leaving the cinema, I knew that I loved this movie! Sure it had it's flaws but every single Star Wars movie does and I like to think the positives outweigh them. It had amazing cinematography, the adventure was there, and all the emotions that come with Star Wars.

SPOILERS AHEAD

I think first I'll talk about the flaws because I love ending things on a cheery note. First, Rose Tico was pushed to the sidelines and I wish we got to see more of her character arc. I think after seeing the backlash some fans had for Rose, JJ was afraid to have her in the spotlight. She could've done more. I would've liked to see her interact more with Finn even platonically. And interact with Rey.

Second, I'm a huge Anakin Skywalker fan so part of me feels like they disrespected his arc in this movie with Palpatine being back. I kinda felt like it was all for nothing. But then I did see some other reviews that said he brought balance for a long time, but balance isn't permanent. So that post brought me some peace on that, thanks to who wrote it (I can't remember who, sorry!).

Third, Ben Solo's death. So I'm not sure if I just hate it because I loved his character or if it really wasn't a good decision. Star Wars stuck to their algorithm of redeeming the villain but to only kill him seconds later. We already saw this with Anakin. Did we have to see it again? Then again it was really meaningful that he sacrificed himself for Rey. Maybe he's still alive somewhere, idk I'm in denial still.

Ok so now onto things I liked/loved which is a lot, but I'm not good with reviews so I might not name all!

First I must say that I loved Rey and Ben's relationship and chemistry. There isn't too much dialogue, but you can see how much they care for one another through expressions. Props to Adam Driver for conveying so much in just looks and actions. The way he looked when he found Rey's dead body was so heartbreaking. He looked so vulnerable.

Also the way Rey was so relieved to see Ben after he brought her back. She smiled like he was this bright light. And oh my, my heart fluttered when they kissed. It's probably just me being the huge romantic that I am, but that was one of my favorite parts. From the beginning they had a strong emotional connection. In TLJ we can see how strongly they feel for one another. Ben wants her to be by his side constantly and really opens up to her. Rey does the same. She let's her self open up about her past and desire to belong somewhere/someone to Ben. In my mind, the buildup was there. It saddens me that it had to be a tragic romance, but Star Wars always has that tragedy. Ben also showed that hope leads somewhere. Rey held onto hope that he would return to the light and he did. He was at peace when he died.

Second thing I loved was the trio of Rey, Finn, and Poe in this movie! We have been waiting to see them all in action together since TFA. And JJ did not disappoint. The banter between the three flowed nicely and was comedic. It felt like a family. It was also so nice to see Rey interacting with Poe! You can tell they have spent a lot of time with each other. For those who think Rey is alone, she has these two guys for her family.💛

The scene where all the ships showed up last minute gave me Endgame vibes and I loved it. Especially when the main theme started.

The entire be with me scene in the throne room was chilling and awestrucking! (wow that first part of that sentence just threw back to GoT😨) When Rey looks up into the sky and the lightning fades to the calm and serene stars I too felt so relaxed. The soft music was so lovely, John Williams never fails. Hearing the jedi voices was what had me smiling like an idiot, especially hearing Anakin's voice saying "Bring balance as I once did". (I guess that's proving that his arc wasn't completely ruined). I would've loved to see Hayden Christensen, but I appreciate that we got to hear his voice.

Was anyone else so surprised to see Han even as a memory? It's not even that I was surprised because of how it goes into the plot, because it makes perfect sense for Ben to look back and remember his last interaction with his father. His father would be the key in him returning to the light. It just surprised me because I did not expect Harrison Ford to show up on set of Star Wars ever again😂. It was a very nice and welcome surprise though. From the moment he killed Han, you could tell Ben felt regret and remorse. I also loved that Leia reached out to her son one last time, showing Ben that his family has not given up on him.

LEIA! It was so awesome to see her training as a jedi with a lightsaber! That flashback gave me so many chills. I loved how Leia continued to train Rey even though she knew she was related to Palpatine. It shows that Leia doesn't judge someone based off blood. Leia loved Rey and had faith in her. People can't help where they came from.

It was so sad to see Leia die but we all know it was going to happen. Chewie's reaction was so emotional and made me shed a tear. The galaxy will remember Princess Leia and Carrie Fisher forever.❤

The Ending

Overall, I loved the ending. Sure I'm still devastated that Ben is dead, but looking at the big picture it was good/satisfying.

People are saying that Rey didn't grieve Ben and she moved on too quick. I think she knows that he will always be with her because no one's ever really gone. He is one with the force. (Ngl, part of me likes to believe he is alive out there somewhere or waiting to come back).

Also as I said before Rey still has people she loves! Finn and Poe are still alive and there for her.

This is just the way I saw it, but I don't think Rey plans to stay on Tatooine very long/permanently. Rey didn't start and end the same way. She has a family now (Poe and Finn) and knows who she is. I think she went there to pay respect to the Skywalker family, it is where it all started with Shmi and her son, Anakin. She buried the lightsabers because they are no longer needed (her new lightsaber is beautiful btw) And don't hate me, but I don't mind her calling herself Rey Skywalker. She felt a deep connection to the family and both Luke and Leia took her under their wing. She doesn't care for/need the name Palpatine. It's not who she is. Which brings me to people being mad that Rey wasn't a nobody. I respect their reasons and everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but I don't think it hurt her character arc. Rey being related to the worst Star Wars villain and still not falling to his dark ways shows how strong she is! She defeated him and brought balance once again to the galaxy despite being his blood.

The ending shot was beautiful and was a perfect way to end the Skywalker saga. The binary sunset and theme was ethereal. It's how the movies started and it's how it ended.

Star Wars is tragic, romantic, and hopeful. This movie showed all of those things. We lost Ben but he felt love again with Rey. Hope was restored with him turning back to the light and Rey defying expectations of a Palpatine. Personally, I loved this movie so much and it did not let me down.

Feel free to add anything you liked about the movie!

#rise of skywalker spoilers #tros spoilers #star wars #rise of skywalker #rey #reylo #ben solo #anakin skywalker #also would've loved to hear padmé's name mentioned #the galaxy forgot her #the rise of skywalker #rise of skywalker review

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gov-info · 3 years

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President Joe Biden Delivers Inaugural Address

Chief Justice Roberts, Vice President Harris. Speaker Pelosi, Leader Schumer, McConnell, Vice President Pence, my distinguished guests and my fellow Americans, this is America's day.

This is democracy's day. A day of history and hope of renewal and resolve through a crucible for the ages. America has been tested anew and America has risen to the challenge. Today, we celebrate the triumph not of a candidate, but of a cause, the cause of democracy. The people, the will of the people, has been heard and the will of the people has been heeded.

We've learned again that democracy is precious. Democracy is fragile. At this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed.

From now, on this hallowed ground, where just a few days ago, violence sought to shake the Capitol's very foundation, we come together as one nation, under God, indivisible to carry out the peaceful transfer of power, as we have for more than two centuries.

As we look ahead in our uniquely American way: restless, bold, optimistic, and set our sights on the nation we can be and we must be.

I thank my predecessors of both parties for their presence here today. I thank them from the bottom of my heart. And I know, I know the resilience of our Constitution and the strength, the strength of our nation. As does President Carter, who I spoke with last night, who cannot be with us today, but whom we salute for his lifetime of service.

I've just taken the sacred oath. Each of those patriots have taken. The oath, first sworn by George Washington. But the American story depends not on any one of us, not on some of us, but on all of us, on we the people who seek a more perfect union.

This is a great nation. We are good people. And over the centuries, through storm and strife, in peace and in war, we've come so far. But we still have far to go. We'll press forward with speed and urgency, for we have much to do in this winter of peril and significant possibilities, much to repair, much to restore, much to heal, much to build, and much to gain.

Few people in our nation's history have been more challenged or found a time more challenging or difficult than the time we're in now. Once-in-a-century virus that silently stalks the country. It's taken as many lives in one year as America lost in all of World War II. Millions of jobs have been lost. Hundreds of thousands of businesses closed. A cry for racial justice, some four hundred years in the making moves us. The dream of justice for all will be deferred no longer.

The cry for survival comes from planet itself, a cry that can’t be any more desperate or any more clear. And now a rise of political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism that we must confront and we will defeat.

To overcome these challenges, to restore the soul and secure the future of America requires so much more than words. It requires the most elusive of all things in a democracy: unity, unity.

In another January, on New Year's Day in 1863, Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. When he put pen to paper, the president said, and I quote, “if my name ever goes down into history, it'll be for this act. And my whole soul is in it.”

My whole soul was in it today. On this January day, my whole soul is in this: Bringing America together, uniting our people, uniting our nation. And I ask every American to join me in this cause.

Uniting to fight the foes we face: anger, resentment, hatred, extremism, lawlessness, violence, disease, joblessness and hopelessness. With unity, we can do great things, important things. We can right wrongs. We can put people to work in good jobs. We can teach our children in safe schools. We can overcome the deadly virus. We can reward, reward work and rebuild the middle class and make health care secure for all. We can deliver racial justice and we can make America once again the leading force for good in the world.

I know speaking of unity can sound to some like a foolish fantasy these days. I know the forces that divide us are deep and they are real, but I also know they are not new. Our history has been a constant struggle between the American ideal that we're all created equal and the harsh, ugly reality that racism, nativism, fear, demonization have long torn us apart. The battle is perennial and victory is never assured.

Through civil war, the Great Depression, world war, 9/11, through struggle, sacrifice and setbacks, our better angels have always prevailed. In each of these moments, enough of us, enough of us have come together to carry all of us forward. And we can do that now. History, faith and reason show the way, the way of unity. We can see each other not as adversaries, but as neighbors. We can treat each other with dignity and respect. We can join forces, stop the shouting and lower the temperature. For without unity, there is no peace, only bitterness and fury. No progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only a state of chaos.

This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge. And unity is the path forward. And we must meet this moment as the United States of America. If we do that, I guarantee you we will not fail. We have never, ever, ever, ever failed in America when we've acted together.

And so today at this time in this place, let's start afresh, all of us. Let's begin to listen to one another again. Hear one another see one another, show respect to one another. Politics doesn't have to be a raging fire, destroying everything in its path. Every disagreement doesn't have to be a cause for total war. And we must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured.

My fellow Americans. We have to be different than this. America has to be better than this. And I believe America is so much better than this. Just look around. Here we stand in the shadow of the Capitol dome, as was mentioned earlier, completed amid the Civil War, when the union itself was literally hanging in the balance. Yet we endured, we prevailed.

Here we stand looking out in the great mall where Dr. King spoke of his dream. Here we stand, where 108 years ago, at another inaugural, thousands of protesters tried to block brave women marching for the right to vote. And today we marked the swearing in of the first woman in American history elected to national office: Vice President Kamala Harris. Don't tell me things can't change.

Here we stand across the Potomac from Arlington Cemetery, where heroes who gave the last full measure of devotion rest in eternal peace. And here we stand just days after a riotous mob thought they could use violence to silence the will of the people, to stop the work of our democracy, to drive us from this sacred ground.

It did not happen. It will never happen. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Not ever.

To all those who supported our campaign, I'm humbled by the faith you've placed in us. To all those who did not support us, let me say this. Hear me out as we move forward. Take a measure of me and my heart. If you still disagree so be it. That's democracy. That's America. The right to dissent, peaceably, the guardrails of our republic is perhaps this nation's greatest strength.

Yet hear me clearly: disagreement must not lead to disunion. And I pledge this to you, I will be a president for all Americans. All Americans. And I promise you I will fight as hard for those who did not support me as for those who did.

Many centuries ago. Saint Augustine, a saint in my church, wrote to the people was a multitude defined by the common objects of their love. Defined by the common objects of their love. What are the common objects we as Americans love, that define us as Americans? I think we know. Opportunity, security, liberty, dignity, respect, honor and yes, the truth.

Recent weeks and months have taught us a painful lesson. There is truth and there are lies, lies told for power and for profit. And each of us has a duty and responsibility, as citizens, as Americans, and especially as leaders, leaders who have pledged to honor our Constitution and protect our nation, to defend the truth and defeat the lies.

Look, I understand that many of my fellow Americans view the future with fear and trepidation. I understand they worry about their jobs. I understand, like my dad, they lay in bed at night, staring at the ceiling, wondering, can I keep my health care? Can I pay my mortgage? Thinking about their families, about what comes next. I promise you, I get it.

But the answer is not to turn inward, to retreat into competing factions, distrusting those who don't look like look like you or worship the way you do, or don't get their news from the same sources you do. We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal. We can do this if we open our souls instead of hardening our hearts. If we show a little tolerance and humility, and if we're willing to stand in the other person's shoes, as my mom would say, just for a moment, stand in their shoes. Because here's the thing about life. There's no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days, when you need a hand. There are other days when we're called to lend a hand. That's how it has to be. That's what we do for one another. And if we are this way, our country will be stronger, more prosperous, more ready for the future. And we can still disagree.

My fellow Americans, in the work ahead of us, we're going to need each other. We need all our strength to to persevere through this dark winter. We're entering what may be the toughest and deadliest period of the virus. We must set aside politics and finally face this pandemic as One Nation. One Nation.

And I promise you this, as the Bible says, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” We will get through this together. Together.

Look, folks, all my colleagues I served with in the House of the Senate up there, we all understand the world is watching, watching all of us today. So here's my message to those beyond our borders. America has been tested and we've come out stronger for it. We will repair our alliances and engage with the world once again. Not to meet yesterday's challenges, but today's and tomorrow's challenges. And we’ll lead, not merely by the example of our power, but by the power of our example.

We'll be a strong and trusted partner for peace, progress and security. Look, you all know, we've been through so much in this nation. And my first act as president, I’d like to ask you to join me in a moment of silent prayer to remember all those who we lost this past year to the pandemic. Those four hundred thousand fellow Americans, moms, dads, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, friends, neighbors and coworkers. We will honor them by becoming the people and the nation we know we can and should be. So I ask you, let's say a silent prayer for those who've lost their lives, those left behind and for our country.

Amen.

Folks, this is a time of testing. We face an attack on our democracy and on truth, a raging virus, growing inequity, the sting of systemic racism, a climate in crisis, America's role in the world. Any one of these will be enough to challenge us in profound ways. But the fact is, we face them all at once, presenting this nation with one of the gravest responsibilities we've had. Now we're going to be tested. Are we going to step up? All of us? It’s time for boldness, for there is so much to do. And this is certain, I promise you, we will be judged, you and I, by how we resolve these cascading crises of our era.

Will we rise to the occasion, is the question. Will we master this rare and difficult hour? Will we meet our obligations and pass along a new and better world to our children? I believe we must. I'm sure you do as well. I believe we will. And when we do, we'll write the next great chapter in the history of the United States of America. The American story. A story that might sound something like a song that means a lot to me. It's called American Anthem. There's one verse that stands out, at least for me, and it goes like this:

The work and prayers of a century have brought us to this day.

What shall be our legacy? What will our children say?

Let me know in my heart when my days are through.

America, America, I gave my best to you.

Let's add. Let us add our own work and prayers to the unfolding story of our great nation. If we do this, then when our days are through, our children and our children's children will say of us: They gave their best, they did their duty, they healed a broken land.

My fellow Americans, I close the day where I began, with a sacred oath before God and all of you. I give you my word, I will always level with you. I will defend the Constitution. I'll defend our democracy. I'll defend America and I will give all, all of you. Keep everything I do in your service, thinking not of power, but of possibilities, not of personal interest, but the public good. And together we shall write an American story of hope, not fear. Of unity, not division. Of light, not darkness. A story of decency and dignity, love and healing, greatness and goodness. May this be the story that guides us. The story that inspires us and the story that tells ages yet to come that we answered the call of history. We met the moment. Democracy and hope, truth and justice did not die on our watch, but thrived. That America secured liberty at home and stood once again as a beacon to the world. That is what we owe our forbearers, one another and generations to follow.

So, with purpose and resolve, we turn to those tasks of our time. Sustained by faith, driven by conviction, devoted to one another and the country we love with all our hearts. May God bless America and may God protect our troops. Thank you, America.

#Inauguration #BidenInauguration #PresidentBiden #Potus

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nyxicnymph · 3 years

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Horizon and Edge

#4: The Never-Ending Show

Bright lights. People are staring at me. Cameras filming me without permission. This is my worst nightmare!

I’m screaming, but no one hears me. WHY AM I HERE?!

Suddenly, someone is up in my face. He--I assume that he’s a he--is wearing a black and green outfit, with what appears to be night-vision goggles, so you can’t easily identify gender, or see his eyes.

He asks me, “Are you ready to play a game?”

I say, “Nnnnnnn....”

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.” He turns to the crowd. “Now, how shall we put her through her paces?”

Someone yells, “Make her recite poetry!”

I shudder. I do NOT like poetry. And someone knows that.

“Ah, yes,” he says, “Poetry. You must recite a set of poetry, of your choice. You may even recite your own poetry. You must recite three pieces, at least eight lines, of any type.” He pauses. “The only exception to the eight-line rule is haikus.”

I stare at him.

He stares right back. “You must start... Now.”

I think frantically. What am I going to recite?!

Haikus. I can do haikus. Five, seven, five. No rhyme necessary.

I take a deep breath. “I stare at the sky,

Wondering about the night,

Moonlight and starlight.”

That’s the first one. I’ll do one more haiku, and end with something... else.

I close my eyes. “My hands open wide,

reaching for inspiration,

but cannot find it.”

This one last one... I hope I can do it.

“Rena's ring, ran away

Ran away to be safe.

Rena's rage, roars greatly

And asks the ring to abate.

Rena's ring, returns today

Rena’s rage roar fades away.

Rena's ring, returned at last,

Rena's rage, restored in the past.”

I stop. That’s the end of the poem, which I wrote for a school assignment about alliteration. But it works great here, too.

The guy contemplates me. “Hmm... That was some good poetry, what a way to finish the show! Am I right, everyone?”

The audience cheers, while I blink confusedly. But I thought that it had just started?

The show dude continues speaking: “Tune in next time, when you’ll hear me say...”

The world distorts around me, and everything goes... fuzzy, for lack of a better word.

“Welcome to the Never-Ending Show!”

“NO!” I yell. It’s been reset. I have to do the poetry all over again!!!

“Are you ready to play a game?”

“NOOO!”

“Well, too bad,” he says. “You’re going to play one anyway. How should we put our guest to the test?”

“A super high obstacle course! With spikes!”

“NOPE!” I yell, and attempt to walk off the stage.

The host grabs me around the waist with inhuman speed, and sets me right back onstage. “Ah, ah, ah. You can’t leave yet! You have to take the Hightly-rated Obstacle Course, With Spikes!”

I’m all of a sudden standing at the beginning. I see the path they mean for me to take, fraught with perilous balancing sections, and walls of fire. Oh, and spikes. Because I need more injuries, in the case of...GULP. Falling.

But... I also see another path. It’s a little trickier, and I’ll have to rely on some jungle-gym experience, but there’s less chance of dying... I hope.

I hear the buzzer ring, and I take off, heading in the “correct” direction, until I grab a metal support beam, and swing. The obstacle course goes halfway around the stage. I’ll get there way faster like this.

Until he starts pressing buttons.

A column of flame erupts right in front of me, nearly searing off my bangs. I yelp, and go around it. Then there is a storm of arrows, and a truly diabolical moment with some tesla arcs and metal wires. I finally reach the end, turn towards the host, and raise a pinky finger at him. Thank you, Annemarie.

The host chuckles. “We couldn’t let you have an easy win. That would have been boring. But, now, the show’s over. Good night, everyone, and tune in next time, when you’ll hear me say...”

The weird distortion happens again, and again I hear him say:

“Welcome to the Never-Ending Show!”

I scream at the ceiling. This is truly my worst nightmare.

**********************************************

I’ve been through so much tonight. They’ve made me swim with sharks, dance in front of people, do a VR skydiving simulation... The list goes on. I can’t catch a break. They even made me parse a sentence, without textbook help. That wasn’t so much a nightmare as much as me making shtuff up, and then screaming at the host.

I’m panting on the floor. The whole thing has just reset, again, and I’m waiting for my next trial.

POOF!

I jump, and almost yell. Edge is right in front of me, holding his index finger to his lips in the “shh” sign.

I never understood that sign. One finger does not keep someone’s mouth from running. Heck, in some cases, a whole two hands and a roll of duct tape wouldn’t do that. Not naming any names... *Cough, cough* Liam.

Anyway, I see him do that, and then he disappears. But not with a poof. He just fades, so I’m pretty sure he just turned invisible.

Right in my ear, I hear, “Just stay calm. I’m going to fix this.”

I nod ever-so-slightly. I feel a whisper of wind, and know that he’s gone. I stand up and turn towards the host. I dunno what Edge is going to do, but I know what I’ve been itching to do ever since the tesla arcs.

I walk up to the host. “Hey, Mr. Host-dude.”

He turns to me. “Yes? We haven’t picked the task yet.”

I smile sinisterly. “But I have.”

He cocks his head. “Oh, really?” A skeptic if I’ve ever met one.

I flip my hair. “Yeah, it’s called, ‘What’s Super-hard and Can Be Shoved into a Super-jerk’s Face?’”

He strokes his chin, and I adjust my stance ever-so-slightly. Super-jerk is super-dumb.

“I haven’t heard of that one. Is it a game of riddles?”

I shake my head. “I’ll show you. Just come a little closer...”

He leans in... and I punch him in the mask-covered face.

He recovers and looks in my direction... or where I used to be. I run across the stage and jump off.

“HAILEY!” Edge yells at me. I just wink over my shoulder. I have no idea where he is, but, he’ll probably grab the bad guy, and keep me from being torn to pieces.

Probably.

I turn around, just in time to see Edge pummel the host, ripping through an illusion. Oh, boy. The real version of the host is super creepy. I’m mildly creeped out.

Edge is unphased, and continues to beat the host.

“You need to quit forcing people into living their nightmares, Nightmare Host!”

Well, at least his name makes sense.

Edge puts his foot in the small of Nightmare Host’s back, and raises his hands up. They begin to glow golden light, and then he aims at the villain, slashes through the air, and Nightmare Host vanishes.

The world distorts one last time, and I’m back in the dark street. I’m on my knees, peering at the world confusedly. A second later, I realize that Edge is right beside me, panting. He sounds like he just ran two consecutive marathons.

“Are you okay? Did you kill that guy?” I pause. “How long was I in there?”

He sits up a little straighter. “I didn’t kill him. I don’t do that. I simply banished him for a while. When he comes back, he’ll be powerless, and in jail.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m okay, just drained. That power takes a lot of energy, that’s all.” He stands up, only a little unsteady on his feet. He pulls me up as well. “You were only in there for a few minutes. It only seemed longer because it was a mindscape. He made it seem longer than it actually was.”

I nod. “Thanks for getting me out of there. If you hadn’t, I probably would have lost my mind.”

He looks at the sky above us. “And then I would have had to fight you, and get you out from under his control.”

I shudder. “I hate being controlled and manipulated,” I say. “And I’m glad that you don’t have to that.”

“Me, too.”

I begin to walk. “Guess I’ll see you around.”

“I guess so. Try and stay out of super-trouble,” he warns.

I turn around and roll my eyes. “I already do that. It’s trying to get trouble to stay away from me that’s the problem.” I pause, thinking to myself, This was the first time.

He chuckles. “Maybe you’re the trouble.”

I retort. “Sure, I’m trouble. Just my life.”

He smiles. “You better get home. You look like you need some sleep.”

I turn towards home, and remark, “After that game show of doom? Uh, yeah.”

He laughs again, then disappears.

Me, I head home.

#horizon and edge #h&e #hailey jardin #kaylee quintant #bethany harvord #erik quintant #Hero Edge #my story #original story #send me asks

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