Heads Up: This may be the darkest post I’ll ever make on here.

I don’t know if this post is going to get me in trouble somehow, but there are a few things I want to get off my chest.

Before I begin, I would like to give a trigger warning/content warning for emotional abuse, threats of physical abuse, and suicidal thoughts.

So I’ve come to the realization that my mother may have emotionally abused my older brother and I when we were kids, and I think she still abuses us as adults. I’m not 100% sure if any of the information I’m going to provide will be substantial evidence of emotional abuse, so I decided to make a post to see if anyone can confirm or deny that any of these points are a sign of abuse.

Point #1: When my brother and I were kids/teenagers, we’d regularly bad mouth/bad talk our mother. You know, typical kid/teenager stuff. And you know what her response was 8-9 times out of 10? She’d threaten to slap us in our mouths and/or put soap in our mouths.

For the record, she never acted on these threats, but she said this so often that to this day, I’m afraid that she’ll one day follow through with her threats and hit me/my brother.

The only, and I mean only reason she doesn’t threaten to slap us that much anymore (yes, she still threatens to slap my brother. She did this either at the end of May or earlier this month) was because my father had to tell her to stop threatening us. As for the soap in the mouth part, she only stopped saying that because I put liquid hand soap in my mouth myself to get back at her for threatening to put soap in my mouth. Yeah, I did the deed for her, and let me tell you, liquid hand soap does NOT taste good.

Point #2: I believe there was one time during our childhoods where our mom threatened to not make dinner for us if we didn’t help her take care of her farm animals. And she that because we told her/clearly showed her that we did not want to help her take care of her animals.

Now if any of the animals belonged to my brother or I, I can understand her frustration towards us for not wanting to help her take care of them (still doesn’t excuse what she said, though), but like I said, these were her animals that she bought for herself (she probably claimed and would still claim that the animals are family pets, but in reality, she’s the only one who wanted/wants to get them). And how many animals did she have at the time? Around 10-20 of them if you combined the total number of rabbits, the total number of chickens, and the total number of dogs she had.

Keep in mind that she only did this once, but I still think it’s extremely fucked up to threaten your kids with no dinner if they don’t help you with something, especially if they’ve made it clear that they do not want to help you.

Point #3: As previously stated, our mother would have us help her take care of the animals, but we did not enjoy this whatsoever (we do love the animals, but we don’t like having to take care of animals that aren’t ours, and still don’t like doing that today), so we’d try to tell her that we didn’t want to help. She did not take “no” for an answer. She didn’t try to hit us or anything, but she’d get angry if we told her “no, we don’t want to help take care of the animals”, and basically forced us to help her by telling us that the animals need to eat, drink, and be let outside. Yes, mom, they do need to eat and drink, and they should be allowed to go outside if it’s safe to do so, but they’re your animals. You wanted them, and we didn’t, so we shouldn’t have to be forced to help you. If you wanted to teach us to be responsible pet owners, you could have done it in a much better way like, oh I don’t know, asking us if we wanted to get a pet and going forward from there, not forcing us to take care of your fucking pets every single day?!

This has to be some form of guilt tripping/manipulation. It just HAS to be.

It got worse when I developed a fear of germs/illnesses after an incident with a stomach bug when I was 12 (I didn’t go to the hospital or anything, but the experience was so unpleasant that it traumatized me. I still have a fear of germs/illnesses today, but I have gotten a lot better at keeping my anxiety under control). She still wanted me to help her, and she told me that I was making excuses when I told her that I didn’t want to touch the animals or anything in their cages (or at least I think she did, but she must of, because my brother started saying the same thing to me around my late childhood to early teenage years. I think she made him believe that anxiety was an excuse to not do anything for someone, even though that is 100% a false statement.)

And you want to know something that may be more fucked up than that? I live in New England, where temperatures in the winter can drop in the negatives in the early morning and at night, and I get cold very easily, and she Still. Made Us. Help Her. Even when there was ice on the ground. She got mad if we tried to tell her that we didn’t want to go and help her because it was cold out. At least she told us to be careful not to slip on the ice...

Oh yeah, and she would make us help her in the summer too, even when temperatures would rise up into the 90s and 100s (in Fahrenheit), which is very possible in New England and in my state. If we tried to tell her that we didn’t want to help her because it was hot out, she’d get angry at us.

Point #4: When I first began to show signs of anxiety/an anxiety disorder, and whenever tried to tell her that I was scared/nervous about something, she’d tell that it was all in my head. She doesn’t say that anymore, but that’s because she switched to telling me that I was making myself feel that way.

And she stills says that to me sometimes. She said that to me several times when I was a teenager, and she still says that to me now that I’m an adult.

And if that isn’t shitty enough, whenever I would start crying because I was scared about something such as failing a test or going on stage to perform in a concert with my school choir, she’d tell me to stop acting like a baby.

And she still says that to me from time to time. She said this to me when I got nervous about my Clinical Hematology final exam last month.

Yeah, she pretty much insulted me when I was a kid, and this wasn’t the only thing she would say to me. If I tried to tell her what was bothering me, she’d sometimes tell me “whining isn’t going to solve anything”. I WASN’T WHINING YOU FUCKING BITCH. I WAS TRYING TO TELL YOU WHAT WAS BOTHERING ME. I KNOW I COULDN’T CONTROL 99% OF THE THINGS I WAS NERVOUS ABOUT, BUT YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO BE AN ASSHOLE ABOUT IT.

Sorry, that statement just pisses me off, and like the “stop being a baby” comment, she still says this to me from time to time today.

Going back to when my brother and I tried to tell her that we didn’t want to help her, she often called us lazy because we didn’t want to help her. She tended to say this about my brother more than me, but she’s called me lazy in the past as well. Hell, she did this to my FATHER, and STILL does this to him, all because he doesn’t want to help her take care of her animals. She still calls my brother lazy too, and often complains about no one wanting to help her when she goes out to take care of the animals by herself.

I’m pretty sure she’s completely unaware of the fact that no one wants to help her because she doesn’t ask us nicely, and never took “no” for an answer when we told her “no” back in our childhoods.

This last part may not be a sign of abuse, but two of the nicknames she gave to me as a kid were “shenanigans” and “shenany ganany”, both of which were based on my real first name. I say that this may not be a sign of abuse because I don’t recall telling her to stop calling me that, nor do I think she did this in an attempt to insult me, but she’d call me either one of those two nicknames fairly often. i don’t think she calls me either one of these anymore, but I’ve decided that I dislike both of these childhood nicknames, so if she does it again, I’ll try to tell her to stop and see what happens.

Point #5: My mom would regularly brush off any and all mental issues I had when I was young, as evidenced by the things I mentioned in Point #4. The only time she even tried to care about them was when I would tell someone at school that I wanted to kill myself, and even then, all she would say in response to me saying things like that would be “stop saying that, or they’ll take you away from home” (she says this because apparently, my school did consider calling someone to take me away from her and my dad).

She still brushes me off, too. Fairly recently, when I tried to tell her that I hated myself (I have very high levels of self-hatred that go as far back as when I was a kid), she told me I was being silly, and then walked away to let the dog in. She did not come back to talk to me about my self-hatred. She just went into the living room and sat down to watch TV with the dog.

She says that quite often, by the way, that I’m being silly/ridiculous when I try to talk about my dark thoughts with her.

Point #6: Like the last part of Point #4, I don’t know if this counts as a form of abuse, but my mom basically tried to cram her love for animals down my brother and I’s throats, even when we showed little to no interest in animals. Evidence can be found in Points #2 and 3. I bring this up because recently, my mom told me that she was surprised by the fact that I wanted to become a medical lab technician because she thought I would’ve wanted to be a veterinarian.

Now my question to her is this: When the fuck did I EVER say that I wanted to be a veterinarian, and when I have EVER showed any form of interest in animal medicine? I was offended by this, because I’m convinced that she tried to encourage me to become the very thing she failed to become: a vet.

I wouldn’t be surprised if she thought my brother would’ve wanted to become a vet, and is surprised that he’d rather work with motor vehicles instead.

I’m sure I’m missing a few points from this post, but I’ve been writing this for 2-3 hours now, and I really need to get ready for bed. If I remember anything else, I’ll come back to this post and add them here.

So, what do you think? Are these signs of emotional abuse?

P.S. Please let me know if I need to add anymore trigger warnings/content warnings to this post and the tags. The last thing i want to do is trigger bad memories in anyone whose been through a similar situation.

P.P.S. I’ve never acted on my suicidal thoughts as a kid or teenager, and still haven’t as an adult. I do not plan to commit suicide anytime soon.

The Season 2A Trailer except it’s just shots we haven’t seen yet and grouped them together based on which shots I think are going to be in the same episode

(Bonus shots at the bottom I didn’t think went together/wasnt sure about)

40 (almost kiss) + 54 (secret relationship)? 🥰

Being in bed at 12:00 am will not stop me, I guess. Bonus Getting Together, I guess. Spent 3 or so hours at this. Ops.

Post S4. This is a disgusting amount of fluff. Unbeta'd (but self proof-read) as I wrote this from 12 am to 3:30 am.

On AO3

Years In The Making

Not that he believed it, but he was sure most people around him would say it was meant to be; something fated somewhere to happen somehow. Eddie didn't really believe that.

What he did believe was that they may have been too afraid (or maybe too repressed, in his case) to see what was going on, what had been growing for a long while. Years, maybe?

But getting shot (again) had given him a good shake, and he could say he'd been almost disappointed to see Ana by his bedside. No fault of her own, of course not, but...

He was pretty sure of what he wanted at that moment.

Breaking things off with her hadn't been that difficult, or painful, a couple of weeks after his return home. Ana's disappointment was clear, but she seemed to know as well as he did that they weren't going anywhere as a couple. With a promise to stay in touch, she walked out of his home one last time.

Now all he had to do was talk to Buck.

-

Buck had been cagey for the first few days when Eddie had asked him about Taylor. It took about a week and a couple of beers for him to blurt out, "She kissed me then ran out." He fidgeted for a couple of minutes. "Then she came back and we talked through it."

Eddie's heart sank, but he still put on a smile for the sake of his friend (if that was all that he would be for Buck, he'd make do). "And?"

"And we are at very different stages when it comes to romance." Buck shrugged, but the tiny frown was right there between his brows. "She became a good friend, but damn, we wouldn't have lasted as a couple."

Buck finished his beer and turned to Eddie, though not looking beyond the water bottle he was holding in his one good hand.

"She, uh... She isn't quite who I want." Buck cleared his throat, abruptly standing up and walking away from the dining table to place his empty bottle in the recyclable bin. "How is Ana, by the way?"

Eddie accepted the deflection well enough, watching as Buck stood by the doorway with his arms crossed, a stance that tried to project calm. Eddie doubted he was anywhere near it; he never enjoyed talking about failed relationships (including those that never took off).

"We broke up last week," he replied easily, standing up to refill his bottle in the kitchen. "Don't worry," he added, seeing the wide-eyed surprise (and dare he say, hope?) in Buck's expression. "It was pretty amicable and even. We both saw we weren't going to get anywhere and decided to split."

"Okay," Buck whispered, following him into the kitchen. "You okay?"

Eddie nodded, smiling. "Yeah, I'm fine." Though he had to ask... "Who is it?" Buck's confused, scrunched-up expression was pretty damn cute, making him look a little bit more like the Golden Retriever pup Hen and Chimney often compared him to. "You said Taylor isn't who you want, so who is it?"

"Eddie," he said on a groan, though he simply leaned against the counter instead of answering.

"See," Eddie spoke with a new bout of confidence (maybe just as ill-placed as the excitement he was starting to feel), standing against the sink across from Buck. "I'm kind of hoping for a specific answer here."

Buck didn't reply. Eddie had barely even noticed a shift in Buck's expression before he moved into his space, pressing a hard kiss against his lips, a huge contrast to how softly his hands cradled his head and how careful he was to not press against the sling and his injured shoulder.

Eddie wasn't sure if the bottle ended up on the sink or on the floor by their feet. What mattered was that he managed to get his hand on Buck's neck, drawing him even closer.

(Not that Buck let either of them press too close, and god, he loved him.

And he was distantly aware that he should be at least a little freaked out over the thought after one kiss - their first kiss - but, well... Years in the making and all that.)

-

One kiss became two, became many, and Eddie could see the same feelings reflected in Buck's blue eyes. Belonging, a finally and a home.

There was no need to go beyond kissing and cuddling, both of them content to sit even closer together, hands intertwined whenever they could.

It was... Soft in a way Eddie hadn't had in so long, intimate in ways he thought he wouldn't experience.

-

And they weren't subtle, weren't actively trying to keep anything a secret. Eddie was still off work, doing his PT as he should and Buck had been staying at his house (their home, he couldn't help but think every time) since Eddie got out of the hospital anyway.

But two months passed and the only two people aware of the change in their relationship were Christopher and Carla because they found them cuddled up on the couch, Eddie knocked out by painkillers and then too out of it to deny anything when his son questioned him about it.

(Christopher had simply nodded with a mumbled "Good" and left it at that. They still had no idea what that was about.)

The sling had come off a few days ago, though he still couldn't do that much, and it was driving Eddie up a wall. Buck was at the station, and he didn't want to think about the conniption he'd have if he drove there.

He knocked on Christopher's bedroom door, opening it slowly to see his son smiling at him from where he sat with his book.

"Hey, buddy." It was impossible not to smile back, feeling the all-encompassing warmth at the fact that he was still here, could see his son growing up for a while longer. "What do you say we pay a visit to the station?"

The frown he got for that was so much like Shannon's that he didn't know what to do with the pang in his chest. There was no guilt, not then, over the fact he missed her. He just did, she should be able to see how much their kid was growing, how much like her he could be sometimes. And maybe she was, if the afterlife turned out to be a thing after all.

"You are not supposed to drive."

And that tone was way too much like Buck's, just this morning, for Eddie to hold back his laughter.

"I was thinking we could take an Uber." He shrugged with his left shoulder. He might have been desperate to get out of the house, but he wasn't stupid; he didn't want pain and he didn't want to end up lectured by the entire team once he got there. "What do you say?"

Christopher considered it for a moment, then placed his bookmark and got up. "Let's go!"

-

"You better not have come in your car, Eddie!"

He rolled his eyes at the very much expected exclamation as Christopher giggled beside him.

"Don't worry, Buck," the kid said, walking ahead as Buck came downstairs. "I didn't let him drive."

"Thank God for you, kid," Buck said, kneeling on one knee to give Chris a hug. "Your dad is stubborn, he probably would have driven here if it weren't for you."

"Hey!" There was no real annoyance in his protest, but Eddie still said, "I get enough sass from my kid, don't you start, too."

Buck, in such a show of maturity, stuck out his tongue at him before turning to Christopher once again.

"Come on, buddy, let's go see the fun people."

Chris' laughter echoed in the station, and Eddie let the light atmosphere carry him upstairs to the loft where he was greeted by the rest of the team with hugs, and some friendly pats on (thankfully) his uninjured shoulder.

Chimney and Hen immediately walked with Christopher to the pinball machine, and Bobby had given him a plate of leftover breakfast to carry wherever he ended up sitting.

He chose the couch, where Buck had already made himself comfortable again and was currently watching the trio at the machine. They could hear Hen encouraging Chris to beat Chim's high score.

"Hey you," Buck greeted softly, an arm going around his shoulders as Eddie adjusted himself.

"Hey yourself." Buck glanced at the other side of the loft, then pressed a quick peck to his lips. Apparently, everyone was sufficiently distracted. "How are you?"

"So far so good." He took one of the biscuits from Eddie's plate, quickly popping it into his mouth as if Eddie hadn't sat here to share them. "I'd ask how your day is going, but it's obvious you're bored out of your mind."

Eddie groaned, letting his head fall back against Buck's arm. He was beyond bored, at this point, and no amount of movies or video games had helped. Buck's chuckle beside him was another pretty good incentive to get out of the house.

He turned his head to face him, his own expression undoubtedly soft as he took in the man that had been by his side for so long and for so many things already.

Buck's expression softened even more, somehow, his smile bright as the sun and even warmer. He leaned closer and-

And what sounded like a very undignified squeak interrupted their almost-kiss, causing Eddie to huff in mild annoyance and turn around.

Chimney stood by the dining table, gaping at them. Bobby was still in the kitchen and turned to look at them at the sound of Chimney's squeak.

"What's wrong, Chim?" Hen asked, frowning all the way from the pinball machine (where Christopher continued to play).

"They..." He gestured between the two of them. "Since when are you two together?!" He ignored Hen's own surprised exclamation. "They were about to kiss!"

"Yeah," Eddie confirmed, nonchalantly making himself comfortable in Buck's arms in the new position so he could look at the rest of their team. "And you had to ruin the mood."

Buck hid his face in his hair, and Eddie could hear the quiet snickering. They really thought the others would have caught up after two months of visiting Eddie at least once every few days.

"What about Ana?"

"We broke up two months ago, man."

"And Taylor?"

"Dude, we never started dating in the first place." The exasperation was clear in Buck's voice. "She's really just a friend."

Chimney nodded, satisfied for the time being. They had no doubt that there would be more questions later.

"When did this even happen?" Hen asked this time, walking over with Christopher.

"Two months ago," Chris answered before either of them could, smiling a little too innocently. "A week or something after Dad broke up with Miss Flores."

Eddie had no idea Christopher knew that level of details, but he had definitely been out of it when he told him. Maybe he said more than he remembered.

"Well," Bobby finally spoke up, walking over to their little family unit on the couch, now that Christopher was tucked on Eddie's other side. "I'm happy for you two." Eddie could feel whatever tension had been on Buck's body (not that there was much in the first place) drain out of him at Bobby's words. "And we can deal with HR and paperwork once you're back at the station," he added, directed at Eddie. Bobby's smile was genuinely warm, putting him even further at ease.

Years in the making. Maybe it was obvious to everyone else, but Eddie wouldn't change a thing about the road they took to get here. It had been hard and full of hurt, but what they had was solid and them and it was definitely worth it all.

Including the cheering, clapping, and whistles of everyone else when Buck pressed a kiss to his lips right there and then simply because he could.

Aunt Mimi's Influence & The Jim McCartney Hypocrisy - a response

Hiya @quacka-quacka - some of the posts you included here (x) were written by me, and this isn’t a bitchy call-out and im not annoyed at you or anything, but I literally just wanted to respond to and clarify some of my points. I see a lot of similar arguments to yours floating around tumblr, so your post is really just more of a framework that id like to use to address some broader responses; this post isn’t entirely just directed at you or anything, so if I get off track from your initial post, thats why <3

Reading back on some of things I wrote (which can originally be found here (x)), I cringe. I disagree with, and take back some of my statements - though with others, I still agree with what I said, I just feel I should have been more articulate. I think when I wrote that though, I was still at a point where I was a little nervous with Tumblr, and hadn’t really come to any convinced conclusions regarding the Beatles as people, so I was very hesitant to make any sweeping statements. But to add some clarity to some of my points:

My intention when I say Mimi was abusive (or at the very least, a negative impact on Johns mental well-being) is not to deny that there was any love between them, and it is not to vilify her. But I just think if we want to understand John, and understand what led to a lot of his insecurity and abandonment issues that followed him throughout his life, we have to recognise the influence Mimi Smiths upbringing might have had on John.

I get this quite often, where I say Mimi was abusive, and people take that to mean that I hate Mimi, or that I don’t think she loved John, or that she was the only negative impact on his life - I dont mean any of these things. Im not contemptuous towards Mimi, and im not without any measure of empathy for her - but that doesn’t negate the argument that Mimi could be cruel and damaging towards John.

Verbal/emotional abuse is difficult to recognise and measure - if our partners hit us, its easier to recognise that something is wrong. Mimi never hit John, but there is still plenty to suggest abusive patterns of behaviour in her upbringing of John. But as you also invoked in your post, there is still plenty to suggest she could also be a loving and caring parent. We should recognise though that love and cruelty can co-exist, neither necessarily negates the other. But if we want to understand what events in Johns childhood led to him growing up to become a deeply insecure, abusive, and mentally ill adult, we should be discussing Mimi too. We shouldn't just brush off Mimi's impact by saying things along the lines, "There was this incident where she did something wonderful for John" or "John allegedly called her every week until he died" - these are notable and should be taken into account when discussing Mimi, but they are not the totality of her influence on him.

But perhaps she was the best parenting John could’ve accessed at that time - Alf wasn’t around, and though Julia Baird portrayed her mother in a glorified-light, im not really sure how accurate that portrayal is, or whether she was just being idealistic. I wouldn’t know if John might have turned out to be more mentally and emotionally stable if he had been raised by Alf or Julia, but its not really something im interested in deeply contemplating, because its not something that could ever really be confirmed. But I am more drawn towards believing that Mimi probably was the best parent John could’ve been raised by at that time, though that doesn’t mean I can’t acknowledge she still had a negative influence John, even if worse parents exist.

I also accept that Mimi was raising a child in the 40s and 50s, and to add to this, John could be a pretty disruptive adolescent. I understand that, and I do think its true that we shouldn’t judge people from a modern standard - but im not interested in judging her, I only aim to understand her influence and impact upon John, of which I feel was largely negative.

As for the comparison I made towards Mimi and Livia Soprano, I cringe at that now and in retrospect, I don’t really agree - but at the time, it felt like a framework to understand Mimi from. In my defence though, I never intended for it to be taken literally (and I might not have even gotten to the point in the show where Livia tries to get Tony whacked lol), but I do still agree with it in the sense that Mimi could be a derogatory and upsetting force, and as Cynthia Lennon once said of her, “She was hard to please, easily disappointed, and she would make it known” - which isn’t dissimilar to Livia Soprano. Is it a bit of a cringe comparison? Yeah. But do I still agree? To some degree, yes, albeit only as a hyperbole. (Perhaps its notable that David Chase even based Livia off of his own mother; he admits too that his portrayal of her is inaccurate, but again, its a framework to project onto).

Another point id like to address, is the argument that its unfair to criticise Mimi whilst remaining uncritical of someone like Jim McCartney. I personally do criticise Jim (and ive spoken in the past about him hitting Paul, but also the amount of control he had over Paul). But I don't think its as simple as were just choosing to vilify one party (Mimi) whilst allowing the other (Jim) a pass.

To elaborate, im less vocally critical of someone like Alf Lennon, not because I think him abandoning John is fine and he gets a pass - but just because there isn’t much to say or analyse with him. He left, it wasn’t right, and im sure it hurt John in the long run (as we see in this interview (x), it instilled an insecurity in him), but there really just isn’t all that much to say about his parenting, other then that he was abandoning. I can’t analyse much there.

And to some degree, id say the same is true for Jim McCartney. Not that he was an abandoning parent (because he wasn’t), but that I just don’t have as much to say about him, cause I don’t have that much access information on him. Whilst I recognise that there are a few anecdotes here and there alluding to or outright remarking abusive behaviour from Jim McCartney, there just isn’t as much of it - and so there just isn’t tons for me to analyse about him, because for the most part Paul and Mike have tried to maintain an idealistic image of their upbringing, with the exception of their mothers death, and the occasional “slip up” in interviews. Thats not to say I think Jim was a perfect parent, or that he didn’t negatively influence Paul, or that he wasn’t abusive - because interviews like this (x) suggest otherwise. But I just tend to refrain from discussing his influence on Paul, because quite simply: I just don’t know enough. If there were more quotes denoting abusive behaviour from him, id probably have about as much to say on him as I do with Mimi - but there just aren’t, and so theres only so much I can say about him and his relationship with Paul.

And whilst I get what people are saying when they compare the criticisms of Mimi to the lack of criticisms towards Jim, I just feel like it can often be used almost just to shut down the conversation about Mimi's influence, and that just feels deceptive and dismissive to me. I get what people are saying in illustrating the point that its hypocritical to remain passive to, or even as you pointed out in your post, to dismiss Jims behaviours - but as ive illustrated above, I don't think its an active decision every person is making, I just think its that there isn't much information on him, which makes discussing him more of a task. I have made efforts to research Jim McCartney more thoroughly, and to try and get a more nuanced and clear understanding of his personality - but even after having read Angie McCartneys book ("My Long And Winding Road"), as well as any other extract I can find relating to Jim, I just don't have a clear picture of who he was as a parent. Whereas with Mimi, I have access to consistent anecdotal information on her from the likes of John, Paul, George, Cynthia, Julia Baird, Pete Shotton etc. and ive tried to take all their information on her into account whilst forming an opinion on her; overall ive been able to come to a far more nuanced conclusion concerning Mimi then I have with Jim.

I have more elaborated in more detail my thoughts on Aunt Mimis influence in this post (x) if anyone is interested in reading that.

TL;DR - I have no contempt towards Mimi, and I do believe she genuinely loved and cared for John - but that doesn't mean I don't feel she could still be a damaging influence towards him. And the reason why I don't tend to discuss in as much depth the influence people like Jim McCartney had upon Paul, is just because there aren't as many accounts of him, and there just isn't as much information on him, and so I really just can't come to a thorough conclusion on him.

I saw a post the other day about ghosts and funeral rites/burial customs and wanted to comment on it, but I can’t find it right now. So, musings will be here. I’ve read a lot of folklore and mythology over the years, and these are just a snippet of what I’m aware of.

The majority of funerary traditions relate to doing everything possible so that the deceased person’s soul will properly pass on to the afterlife and not stick around. These vary greatly between cultures and religions.

Traditionally, these rites tend to focus on “natural” deaths - illness, old age, severe injuries from accidents or war. Unnatural deaths like murder, suicide (this one depends on culture), execution, deaths at sea or in water are often treated differently. Sometimes, illness related deaths were also treated differently, particularly if tuberculosis, leprosy, or plague caused the death.

This is going to be long. So line break here:

First and foremost, the majority of cultures and religions believe that funerary and/or burial rites are absolutely necessary for the soul to be at rest. A lot of older traditions believe that if a dead body cannot be recovered, such as being lost at sea, that the soul will not be able to find rest. Some cultures made rites to try to appease those souls. Some just found ways to ward them off.

I grew up Catholic. Ghosts aren’t really talked about for Catholics as most confirmed hauntings get affiliated with demonic entities. However, it’s possible for a soul to end up in Purgatory before passing on to Heaven (other than being a place of suffering where sins are cleansed, there aren’t many descriptions of it). Last rites are designed to ensure sins are forgiven so that the person in question will not have to deal with that. It’s possible some ghosts are in Purgatory. Also, blessed burial grounds are important as a way to protect the body. Note: Limbo and Purgatory are not the same thing.

Moving on to different religions/cultural customs.

There are varying traditions throughout Europe regarding mourning the dead. Some state mourning can’t occur until the body was prepared for the viewing/wake/funeral as doing so before hand attracts unsavory entities that could take the deceased’s soul. Other stories warn that grieving in general could cause the newly dead to linger as they want to comfort their living relatives. Other myths state that too much grieving is the problem.

A Prussian story warns against this. A woman grieved for her lover who never returned from war. Her grief summoned her lover, who appeared to her one night, and whisked her away to join him in death. A Hungarian legend talks about an entity called a Lidérc, specifically the ördögszerető type (different entities can be referred to as a Lidérc). In some tales, excessive grief would summon it, and it would pray upon the still living in a similar fashion to a succubus or Incubus.

The covering of mirrors in a home where someone passed away shows up in a lot of different cultures. The length of time they need to be covers varies, but most of the time this was done to prevent the departed’s soul from being trapped in the mirror. In Europe at least, part of this was probably influenced by the Roman belief that mirrors reflected the soul.

Clocks are sometimes stopped when a person dies. The superstition states that if the spirit of the deceased sees that time is still passing, they’ll want to linger.

It’s also used to be common to place coins on the eyes of the deceased and/or place a coin in the mouth in a variety of cultures to take with them to the afterlife. Greek myth states that the coins were needed to pay the ferry to reach the afterlife, and those that couldn’t wandered the shores of Styx as ghosts for 100 years. However, the custom was most likely started as a way hide certain unsettling aspects of decay.

The ancient Greeks had very elaborate burial rites which were done to ensure the deceased properly passed on. The mythological figure of Sisyphus managed to escape the afterlife by having his wife not preform funeral/burial rites on his body. Some sources state ancient Greeks would clean the bones of the dead 3 years after burial, and this was partly done to check for Vrykolakas. While Vrykolakas are now considered to be vampiric, they are traditionally more of a Revanant - something trapped between the living and the dead, kind of like a zombie. A Vrykolakas could be made from simply not carrying out proper funeral/burial rites, but there are also tales that they could be created due to something left unfulfilled or to seek revenge. While I can’t find a lot of details about it, the festival of Nemeseia (which might or might not the same thing as or part of the Genesia festival) was, at least in part, a way to help ward off the vengeance of the dead. The third day of the Anthestria festival involved food offerings to the dead, and may also have acted as a way to appease souls.

The term Maschalismos refers to physically preventing the dead from rising again. In ancient Greece, the most widely documented example of this was to mutilate the corpse of a murder victim so if that person became a Vrykolakas, they wouldn’t be able to do much. But this tradition has been found throughout the world, and can be as simple as laying the corpse face down or as elaborate as putting pins or rocks in the body. The “vampire burials” fall under this category.

In part of Russia, mourners who followed the procession to burial place would sometimes wear masks to prevent the dead from recognizing them. In parts of Scandinavia, the dead were removed from a house through a newly made hole in the wall which was then fixed. The belief was that the spirit could only enter back into a building through the entrance/hole it left through.

In parts of China, the family of the deceased would make a contract to “buy” the burial plot from the local gods and spirits which is very unique. But just like in Europe, improper burials, incomplete rites, and revenge can cause a haunting. Also, it was believed that ghosts and some evil spirits could only move in straight lines and can be tricked by false walls/doors, so Chinese architecture and road design often reflected this. I also recently read that some cemeteries had mazes near the entrance for a similar reason, but I can’t place where I found it.

In a related note, those in Europe who were denied burial in hallowed ground such as executed criminals, were often buried at crossroads. At least part of this was to prevent the spirit of the dead from finding its way back to town and causing a haunting.

The last thing I want to touch on are the ghosts involving women who died in childbirth, stillborn children, and children who died shortly after birth. This shows up a lot in Asian folklore, but there are also similar tales from ancient Mesopotamia, the Aztecs, and of course, Europe. Ghosts of women who died in childbirth are usually considered vengeful and very dangerous. Some cultures have rituals to try to appease their souls to prevent their formation. Others don’t. In a lot of cultures, the ghosts of stillborn children and, specifically, unbaptized children are said to spread illness. .... I’m currently remembering that there’s ritualistic magic in part of south east Asia that uses persevered.... ah... either aborted or stillborn babies because of the folklore aspects regarding the ghosts formed from them.

Loki’s Line About Betraying Everyone

I need to talk about this line (spoiler: I’m not happy about it). I was going to just include this in the full episode response post I’m working on, but it got long enough that I decided to make it its own.

First of all, here’s the full quote: "I betrayed everyone who ever loved me. I betrayed my father, my brother, my home. I know what I did. And I know why I did it. And that's not who I am anymore."

Y'all, I'm less emotional about it now but this line fucked me up when I first heard it. It hit me like a ton of bricks while watching the episode for the first time because I was actually doing fine and wasn't significantly bothered by anything up until that point, and then came that line and I suddenly almost felt physically ill. I actually wrote up a post about it that night but never posted it because it was essentially just a lot of screaming, so I've now taken pieces of that and formed a hopefully more coherent post (though it still contains a good amount of screaming). So, I get that the idea that Loki’s betrayed Thor over and over is a Commonly Accepted Thing. It's really a lot more complicated than that, and there are a lot of gray areas involved, but fine, I'll give them that one. But - when did Loki betray his father? When did Loki betray his home?? I’m not just mad about it, this is...a legitimate question. I mean with the father thing, I guess the only thing could be the nursing home in Ragnarok/taking the throne from him? Which is irrelevant anyway because this Loki didn’t do that and doesn't even know it happened in the main timeline?? And besides, it PALES, like, hilariously, in comparison to any one of multiple things Odin did to him before that (not counting any fanon here - just the canon things that we know of!) I am just so confused, especially about the betraying Asgard thing. WHEN? LITERALLY WHEN? Guys, there is no film in which that took place.

If I trusted the narrative, I would say the most logical thing to conclude - at least about the betraying Asgard part - is that this is a setup for Loki to later realize he actually saved Asgard by causing Ragnarok (because that's the closest thing I can think of to "betraying his home"), which could even tie into something about, idk, helping him realize he’s capable of being a hero? (or something) and it would be a good follow-up to the moment he found out about Ragnarok in episode 2, but...fuck, the way these lines were framed it really doesn't feel like anything like that is going to happen. I could be wrong, but these just didn't strike me as lines that are at any point going to be contradicted or even revisited.

And moving onto another part of the quote - "I know why I did it." Uh, I guess good for Loki for apparently knowing that...but the audience sure doesn't?? This is something we're just now being told and have not been shown at all?? I have a feeling Loki thinks he knows why but it unfortunately doesn't have anything to do with some of the biggest actual reasons, which are the abuses done to him that helped make him who he is. Even more unfortunately, I also have a feeling the creators are on roughly the same page as Loki here. So yeah, that's a real shame.

The core problem here seems to be where the writers are coming from, and @iamanartichoke worded it really well here, so I’m just going to quote her: “either the writing is being lazy by oversimplifying Loki’s motives, or it’s being deliberately misleading in order to retcon the character, or the writers genuinely believe that’s what happened, which implies a misunderstanding of Loki’s character kinda from the get-go - at least on what drives his villainy and what fuels his anger, which are pretty significant things.” I do think there’s a slight chance they were using Loki as an unreliable narrator here and the audience was supposed to pick up on the subtext (more on that at the end of this post), but I doubt it, and I think it’s very likely one or more of the options listed in the quote. 

Honestly, I can explain Loki's line about betrayal (and his general lack of acknowledgement of his own trauma/legit grievances against his family) pretty easily in-universe. It makes sense that Loki himself would frame things as him betraying everyone who's ever loved him as if they never did anything to wrong him first, or that he would try to ignore what Thanos did to him in favor of putting all the blame on himself (coping with his trauma and loss of control by denying it). Or hell, maybe he would even straight up subconsciously invent a betrayal that never even happened, like the one about his home. I can totally understand Loki seeing the events of his life that way! That all lines up with his complete lack of self-worth, and to have him 1) recognize his mistakes and take responsibility for them (which has happened at this point in the show), but then progress on to 2) realize he isn't solely to blame for literally everything, and 3) recognize the role of his family and others in understanding why he is the way he is - that would be a very satisfying arc and is the natural direction that the story should take in episode 6. The problem is, I don't think the show is going that way. I think we're either supposed to take it at face value that Loki did in fact betray everybody who ever loved him (as if Loki is a reliable narrator when he's most certainly an unreliable one), or the audience is supposed to figure out that Loki's an unreliable narrator here - but the latter won't work, because the creators have to follow through on that subtext at some point and actually do something to indicate that what Loki said wasn't 100% true, and it doesn't feel like they're going to. You can't expect your audience to put any weight on subtext or even pick up on it in the first place if you never actually confirm anything, and your audience won't know your narrator is unreliable unless you tell them. If Loki being an unreliable narrator in that specific moment was their intention, only a small subset of fans are going to pick up on it. So the way they're framing it so far, the audience is simply going to see it the same way Loki does and not realize it's incorrect. 

Unfortunately, as stated earlier, I think the most likely explanation is that the writers either don’t understand Loki, are being lazy, or are deliberately retconning. So while I take a degree of comfort in the in-universe explanation, it’s pretty damn infuriating to consider where the writer’s minds were probably at in reality, and how this set of lines is presenting Loki to the casual audience. 

Tagging @iamanartichoke and @delyth88 if you guys have any thoughts?

Helping Hands

Pairing: Barbatos x Reader

Word Count: 5,526

Preview: The royal butler decides to pay you a visit when he hears that your back is acting up.

However, when he offers to give you a massage, things get a little out of hand.

** Please note that this is a cross-posting **

This chapter is also being posted on 7/10/2020 as a part of my “Devil Doms” series on AO3.

Obviously, you’re not as close to the residents of the Demon King’s Palace, or the other exchange students, as you are with the demon brothers. That’s to be expected, considering you literally live with the seven demons, and are pretty much around them at all times.

However, your relationships with the others are far from distant.

In fact, for the last two months, Diavolo and Barbatos have been inviting you over for tea every Sunday evening.

At first, you’d found it a bit strange to partake in a tea party so late in the day, and on a Sunday no less, but you’ve grown quite fond of your quiet evenings with the Devildom Prince and his faithful butler. Usually conversation is pleasant. Diavolo loves to ask you about your experiences in the human world, and never gets enough of your stories—even if it’s just you retelling simple parts of your day.

It has also been a good opportunity to get to know Diavolo and Barbatos more. Diavolo is very forthcoming with any information you’d like to know, but still tends to have this…front about him. Like he’s willing to let you in, but just not too deep. After all, he is the ruler of the Devildom, so you don’t blame him for keeping certain things to himself.

Barbatos…also feels like a puzzle, but a puzzle that with time, he will gladly let you put together. In the past month, you’ve managed to learn an array of information about him—his favorite foods, what he likes to drink, what he does when he’s not tending to Diavolo, etc.

Apparently, he enjoys baking, reading, and taking long, hot baths. He’s always formal out of habit, but ever so slowly has begun to shed such formality with you—making little remarks that would have seemed out of character in the past, but are becoming much more frequent nowadays.

In fact, last week when you’d showed up exhausted, he’d quipped about whether you were having any “late nights” with the brothers. The twinkle in his eye had confirmed that yes, he was implying it in a sexual manner, and Diavolo’s full belly laugh when he’d seen the shock and embarrassment on your face had echoed throughout the entire castle.

So, least to say, you and Barbatos are starting to get along quite well.

Unfortunately…you’re not sure that you’ll be able to make your weekly tea tonight—on account of the fact that you can barely walk.

Hand pressed against your lower back, you openly groan in pain as you press to your feet. You need to get to your DDD to let the two know of your predicament, but of course you’d managed to leave your phone on the other side of the room.

With your body curved at a horribly awkward angle, you stagger your way across the wooden floor. You think the source of your problem is a kink in your neck, that is throwing your entire body out of alignment, but you can’t say for sure considering everything hurts.

Sighing, you unlock your DDD and open up the messaging app. You click into your chat with the royals.

You: Hi there. I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it tonight. I’m not feeling too well…

It only takes a few seconds before Diavolo responds.

Diavolo: I was actually just about to text you. Something quite urgent came up, so I’m unavailable this evening.

Diavolo: Also, I’m so sorry to hear you’re not feeling well! Please, be sure to get rest and take care of yourself!

Smiling at his kind words, you respond with your gratitude. A moment later, you see ellipses pop up at the bottom of the chat, but they soon disappear. No message comes through, and you frown a little. However, after another few seconds, you receive a new notification.

A text from Barbatos, but outside of the group chat the two of you share with Diavolo.

Barbatos: May I ask what’s the matter? I was intending to still invite you over for tea since I enjoy your company regardless.

Barbatos: If you’re ill, however, I’d like to know if there’s anything I can do to help.

You’d be lying if you said a small part of you didn’t swoon at his concern, and the declaration of the fact that he enjoys having you around.

You: I have a kink in my back, and it’s honestly affecting my ability to do…anything, at the moment. I would have loved to have tea with you, though.

Barbatos responds right away.

Barbatos: If it’s alright with you, I’d be more than happy to bring the tea to you instead. Lord Diavolo has already departed for the evening, and I have nothing else to do.

Barbatos: Plus, I’ve heard that I’m a pretty skilled masseuse, as well. I may be able to assist with your current ailment.

Your heart flutters a bit at the idea of letting Barbatos massage you, since you’ve yet to be physical with the butler beyond hugs, but you can’t deny how appealing a massage sounds right about now. Your muscles are oh so sore, and at this point, you should be accepting any type of help you can get.

You: I don’t want to impose, but that sounds wonderful…

Barbatos: Think nothing of it. I will be over shortly. Do not feel the need to come and greet me, I shall ask Lucifer to guide me to your room.

You text back your confirmation before stumbling back to your bed—rolling onto the messy sheets with a pained hiss as you wait for Barbatos to arrive.

Only 20 or so minutes later, you hear the sound of knuckles wrapping against your bedroom door.

“Y/N?” It’s Lucifer’s voice. “Barbatos is here to see you.”

“Come in,” you call, knowing full well that you probably look a mess—laying belly down on your mattress with one leg hiked high, and one arm hanging low. It’s the comfiest position you could find, though.

Lucifer turns the knob and steps into the room first, a frown tugging at his lips when he notes how you’re positioned on your bed. Barbatos follows him in, worry in his eyes as well, but he still manages to smile.

“My, you weren’t kidding when you mentioned having a kink in your back.”

“I think death is approaching,” you respond, overly dramatic, and your words have both Barbatos and Lucifer chuckling.

“I shall leave you two to enjoy your tea. Please contact me if you need anything.”

“Thank you, Lucifer.”

With that, the Avatar of Pride makes his way from your room—closing the door behind him. Now, it’s just you and Barbatos.

“I think the tea may have to wait,” he comments, moving to set the basket he’d brought with him on the table at the far side of your room. You note that it’s woven wood—practically a picnic basket, and smile a little. How cute.

Forgetting about your pain for a moment, you watch as the butler opens the basket up and reaches inside. You expect him to produce some tea cups, or saucers, but instead he pulls out what looks to be a bottle of oil.

Realization strikes you, and your cheeks begin to heat up.

“You know, Barbatos, you really don’t need to give me a massage…,” you tell him quietly, mumbling the words as you watch him begin to roll up his sleeves. He’s dressed more casually than usual—his overcoat and tie nowhere to be found. Instead, he’s simply donning his green button up shirt, and a pair of black slacks.

It’s…a good look on him. Especially with the sleeves folded neatly up to his elbows. And when he slowly plucks off his white gloves, revealing fingernails painted the same color as the highlights in his hair, you feel your heart skip a beat.

“It’s clear that you’re in desperate need of one, and I already reassured you that you’re not imposing,” he tells you, making his way to your side with the bottle of oil in his hands. Per usual, there’s a pleasant smile on his face as he surveys you.

You hope that you’re not blushing brightly enough for him to notice.

“It’s just that…I’ve never had a massage before, so…,” you trail off, and it’s not a lie. Massages have always seemed like a luxury to you, so you’ve never gone out of your way to get one, despite how much you’ve heard about their wonders.

“Ah,” Barbatos hums, a look of understanding in his eyes. “Well, we can always stop if it has an adverse effect on the situation. And I of course want you to feel comfortable.”

His words put your mind at ease. He’s always so kind, no matter who he’s talking to, or who is watching.

“So…how do we…start?” you ask, feeling far too awkward. You already have a suspicion that you know what he’s going to say, and yet—

“Are you mobile enough to take your shirt off?”

Ah, yep, there it is.

If there was any hope of hiding your blush before, there’s certainly none now. And yes, you’re aware that Barbatos is only offering to do this because you’re friends, and because you’re in pain. There should be no reason to be embarrassed by the situation, and yet you are.

You take a second to try and calm your mind.

“I…I think I can--,” you eventually say, attempting to sit up. However, as soon as you place your palms on the mattress and try to push yourself up, a bolt of pain shoots straight down your spine, and a high-pitched cry falls from your lips.

Barbatos’ hand is immediately on your back—a gesture of comfort. The warmth from his palm soaks through your t-shirt, and a small part of you wishes that he’d make a point of touching you more often.

“Well, I will take that as a resounding no.”

There’s a perplexed frown on his face as he looks at you—his worry deepening by the second.

“Can you lift your arms, at the very least?”

You grunt, miraculously managing to lift both of your arms above your head. Barbatos breathes a laugh, the position a little amusing. You’re beginning to look like a horrible contortionist.

“Would you be opposed to me undressing you?” Your brain short circuits for a moment. “Since you were able to lift your arms, it’s likely the easiest option at this point.”

“Sure,” you respond without hesitation. You’re desperately trying to keep your wits about you, and yet, you can’t help the way your body jolts when you feel Barbatos’ fingers grip the hem of your shirt.

He pauses for a moment.

“Did I startle you?”

“No…,” you grumble, causing him to laugh. He drags his hands upwards—the t-shirt slowly peeling up your back. When he gets near your breasts, you manage to inch your body off the mattress so it doesn’t get…well, caught.

Of course, as Barbatos pulls the fabric past your chest, you also realize that you hadn’t bothered to put on a bra today—entirely due to the fact that 1. Your body was too stiff to attempt even putting one on, and 2. Bras suck.

So now here you are—Barbatos finally ridding you of your shirt—which means you’re entirely bare from the waist up. Oh, and the only thing saving you from being completely naked in front of the royal butler is the pair of shorts you’re wearing, which suddenly feel far too short, and far too tight for comfort.

“Are you alright?” he questions. His hand settles between your shoulder blades, and you feel goosebumps rise on your flesh. You’re so used to the sensation of his soft gloves, that the skin on skin contact is making you react in ways you hadn’t expected…

“I’m okay,” you respond, nodding a little. You move your arms so they’re folded beneath your cheek, and you carefully turn your head—facing yourself away from Barbatos. The last thing you want is him seeing how red you’ve become.

“If so, then I’ll begin,” he says. You hear him pop open the cap on the bottle, and you take a quiet breath—trying to prepare yourself. “If you ever feel uncomfortable, please let me know.”

“Will do, Barb.”

You mumble the words without thinking, and it takes your brain a second to realize what you’ve said.

“I-I mean--,” your words cut off, breath hitching as Barbatos grips your sides. He moves his hands gently against your back, spreading the oil on his palms across your soft skin.

“Barb?” he echoes, chuckling to himself. “That’s a first.”

“I--,” you shiver as he continues rubbing his hands up and down your spine. Apparently, you’re much more sensitive to touch than you’d realized. Just great. “—just…I mean. Slip of the tongue?”

“You may call me “Barb” if you so wish,” he responds, and you can hear the amusement lining his tone. The demon drags his hands back up to your shoulders, his thumbs kneading at the tense muscles near your neck, and whine leaves your lips.

“Good or bad?” he questions, and as another shiver rakes up your spine, you realize just how fucked you are. Your body, of course, aches beneath the surface, but your skin is just so sensitive. It takes all of your willpower to keep from writhing against the sheets as he continues his ministrations—rubbing circles between your shoulder blades.

“Um…a little of both?”

He hums considerately at your comment, his eyes surveying you closely. Even as you attempt to stifle the instinctive reactions of your body, there’s a subtle twitch of your muscles—a small intake of breath, or a flex of your toes.

When he reaches your mid-back—his fingers curling around your sides as he presses his thumbs into the muscles near your spine—he hears you gasp. Your body stiffens, fingers digging into the sheets near your head. Barbatos debates stopping, but…he gets the feeling that you’re not in pain.

As the thought occurs to him, a little bit of heat rise to his face. Until now, he hadn’t thought twice about your current position, or the fact that he’s touching you so intimately, but…

Barbatos swallows, yet his hands continue on their journey down the length of your back. He works slowly, doing his best to thoroughly rub every inch of skin—hoping to soothe the tight muscles that lay beneath. Perhaps if he focuses on the task at hand, he’ll forget about the little whines that spill from your lips, or the way your body shivers beneath his fingers.

As Barbatos faces his own dilemma, you find yourself rapidly descending into insanity. Each second that ticks by with the demon butler’s hands roaming your body has tendrils of heat snaking through your limbs. As much as you attempt to ignore the way his touches are making you feel, it’s nearly impossible.

Quicker than you had expected, you feel arousal beginning to pool between your legs. You’d hadn’t intended to get turned on by the massage, but here you are—desperately trying to smother the array of embarrassing sounds that have built in your chest.

However, the instant Barbatos’ hands move to your lower back—thumbs pressing into the muscles near your spine—your lips part.

“Fuck,” you moan, your body curving into the mattress. Your toes curl, knees bending as your calves lift from the sheets.

Barbatos’ hands still. You go stiff, all of the blood in your body rushing to your face.

“I…Barbatos, I am so sorry, I—”

“I’ve never witnessed anyone react to a massage so…vocally,” he says, picking his words carefully. His fingers coast up your sides, once against making you shiver, and you bite your lip to keep from gasping when you feel his hair tickle your cheek.

“Would you prefer if I stopped now?” The words are whispered into your ear. You can feel his hot breath on your skin—the curl of his fingers around your ribcage as he holds you—and your heartbeat quickens.

“I…I don’t want you to stop,” you respond honestly, voice quiet. “But I’m not sure I can stop myself either…”

“I never could have imagined that you would be so affected by a simple massage,” he chuckles, his fingers giving you a little squeeze as he leans back, retaking his standing position beside you. You release a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding.

“I didn’t realize I would be either…I don’t blame you if you want to stop.”

“As long as you’re alright, I would like to keep going,” he informs you, his palms coasting down either side of your spine until his grip is once again settled near the sensitive spot on your tailbone. You keen as his hands cup either side of your ass, thumbs working into the tense muscles at the center of your back.

“Hah…,” your fingers once again grip the sheets. Now that Barbatos has addressed your reactions to his touches, you feel a bit more playful. “Are you actually enjoying my reactions?”

He chuckles. “Would it be inappropriate if I said yes?”

The gears in your head grind to a halt. Your tongue pokes out to wet your lips. That’s not what you had expected.

“…Really?”

“Perhaps it is a bit disgraceful for me to admit, but…,” his movements still, his fingers flexing and giving your ass the lightest of squeezes. “…I would very much enjoy it if we could continue.”

You’re surprised to hear such words from him, but you’d be lying if you said they didn’t excite you.

You nod your consent. “Go ahead.”

Barbatos reaches for the bottle of oil at his feet, pouring a little more into his hands. You jolt when his palms encase one of your thighs—his touch dragging down your leg until he gets to your ankle. He then repeats the action on your other leg, a smile tugging at his lips as he notes your body’s instinctual response to his touches.

However, he doesn’t make comment. Instead, he focuses on working at the muscles in your thighs—his thumbs carving a path down the center of the supple flesh. As he does so, you become acutely aware of how close his fingers are to your clothed womanhood.

The realization causes more wetness to pool between your legs, and you bite your lip, wondering exactly how much longer you’ll be able to withstand the massage before you finally crack.

You want to say that your current affliction is entirely your fault—that it’s solely a product of your oversensitive body’s reaction to the massage—but you know it’s not. Barbatos is obviously getting something out of this situation as well, and that something definitely bridges beyond the pride of being a good masseuse.  

Your toes curl as he works at the muscles in your calves—a sigh heavy with need passing through your parted lips.

You want him to touch you more. Where you’re aching to be touched.

“Barb--,” you start, mentally preparing yourself for the embarrassing question you’re about to ask, but you never get there. Barbatos presses his fingers into the back of your knee, and a moan tears from your throat.

The butler pauses, his gaze turning to your face. Until now, you’ve spent the massage facing away from him, but when he glances up, he finds that you’re returning his stare. Your entire face is red, bottom lip tugged between your teeth as a clear sign of your embarrassment. However, he can tell by the look in your eyes—your pupils blown wide—that you’re aroused.

His heart thumps painfully against his ribs.

“Barb, I--,” you don’t know what to say, entirely out of sorts. You’re ashamed, and horny, and a part of you wants to run away, but another part wants him to continue forever.

“Y/N,” he drags you out of your inner turmoil by speaking your name. One of his hands reaches forward, cupping your cheek. He leans in, your faces mere inches apart, and you finally notice the blush on his cheeks. It’s subtle, but there.

His gaze falls to your lips.

“May I kiss you?”

“Yes,” you breathe immediately, and he closes the gap without second thought.

The kiss is tender—a little hesitant, but full of need, and not just from you. Sighing pleasantly, you mold your lips with his once more, and then again, but before you can turn the kisses into a full out make out session, you feel Barbatos’ palm on your ass.

His hand moves downward, sneaking between your snug thighs. When he presses his digits against your clothed sex, you can’t help the lewd gasp that leaves you. Your hips instinctively grind against him, seeking more friction, and you feel him smile.

“Shall I stop?” he whispers.

“No, don’t,” you shake your head, and Barbatos leans in, pressing a soft kiss to your cheek. He’s pleased to hear those words.

Sitting back, Barbatos surveys you—watching you closely as he drags two of his fingers down the seam of your shorts. He hadn’t noticed before, but your arousal is already soaked into the dark fabric—a clear sign that you’d been enjoying his touches up until now.

When he finds that special bundle of nerves, drawing out another quiet cry falling from your lips, he chuckles. You bury your head in your folded arms, hips rocking back against his fingers.

“Ah, shit,” you breathe, unable to help yourself. You’re already so stupidly pent up from the massage—even him touching you through your shorts feels delicious. And Barbatos can’t help but get hard at the sight of you—your almost naked body curving against the mattress as you lift your hips and rock your pussy back and forth on his digits.

Reaching his free hand down, the demon butler gently squeezes your ass, relishing the little moan it draws from you. He helplessly craves to hear more of your sounds.

His fingers leave your clit, but before you can think to whine at the lost, you feel his digits curl around the crotch of your shorts. You freeze, heart hammering against your ribs, but don’t indicate for him to stop. While you’re nervous, you want this.

And Barbatos makes note of your reaction, giving you a few ample seconds to express any discontent. However, you do not, and so the butler tugs your shorts to the side, revealing your womanhood. You bite your lip, wriggling as his other hand slips beneath your shorts—once again taking hold of your ass without the fabric barrier.

As he holds you steady, two of his digits once more slide between your slick folds, gathering your arousal. You expect him to go back to rubbing your clit, but instead he curls his fingers into your pussy, and a gasp falls from your lips.

“Oh, fuck, Barb.” You groan. Your fingers take hold of the bed sheets, lip tugging between your teeth as you feel him experimentally pump his fingers in and out of you—stretching out your wet walls.

He moves slowly—testing the waters, and you clench around him—enjoying the girth of his fingers. Barbatos can’t take his eyes off of you.

“Is this alright?” he questions, curling his digits. The action has you moaning, and you nod your head.

“More, please.”

Barbatos breathes out through his nose at that, a little amused at the sound of your need.

Kneeling against the edge of the mattress to get a better angle, Barbatos begins picking up his pace. His fingers curl against your walls, and he smiles when he finds your sensitive spot—a surprised gasp escaping you. Immediately your stomach is curving into the mattress—hips pressing back as you attempt to take him deeper.

Barbatos gives your ass a squeeze, eyes sparkling. He debates asking if you’re feeling good, but he already knows the answer.

With his finger still fucking into you—your hips now rocking back ever so slightly to meet him—Barbatos moves his other hand between your legs. His thumb rests against your clit, drawing languid circles, and your breath catches.

“Fuck,” you bite the word out, muscles tensing. The demon butler feels your pussy clench around his fingers—orgasm quickly rising to the surface.

“Barb, please,” you whine, tugging at the sheets. Your heart is racing, breathless pants falling from your lips. Always one to please, Barbatos is more than happy to oblige. He presses against your clit harder, rubbing quicker, and in less than a minute, you’re coming undone for him.

Moan slipping past your lips, you tumble into your orgasm. Your pussy contracts around his still moving fingers, waves of pleasure rolling throughout your body. The butler doesn’t pull his digits from inside of you until he sees your body go slack against the sheets.

“You’re certainly one hell of a masseuse,” you mumble once you’ve regained your bearings, causing him to chuckle.

“I can assure you most of my clients don’t end up with my fingers inside of them.”

“No?” you question, a playful post-orgasm glow on your face as you turn to look at him. He smiles fondly at the sight of your pleasantly flushed cheeks.

“No,” he reassures, eyes creasing as he seats himself on the mattress beside you. For a moment, the two of you simply stare at each other, a sense of peace settling over the two of you. Then, your gaze falls to his lap. The tent against his slacks is quite obvious.

Noting where your eyes have strayed, Barbatos has the humility to blush.

“I apologize for my…reaction,” he quickly excuses himself, glancing away. “I assure you I didn’t intend to take advantage of you.”

Instead of responding, you press onto your hands and knees and turn to face him. With your face dangerously close to his crotch, you bat your eyelashes up at him innocently.

“If you don’t mind, I’d be perfectly alright with helping you in return, Barbatos.”

The butler looks shocked at the offer, but after a few seconds, he lifts a hand and gently cards it through your hair—a soft look of hunger in his eyes.

“Only if you wish.”

Smiling, you immediately prop onto your elbows—knees folding on the bed beneath you—and reach out to fiddle with his pants. Within seconds, you’ve managed to free his length. Your hand immediately wraps around the base of his shaft, and Barbatos closes his eyes at the sensation, taking a deep breath.

You smile at his pleased reaction, your mouth moving to press a kiss against his slit before you stick out your tongue and roll it around the head of his cock. And when you take him into your mouth—your hand still fisted around the lower half of his length, stroking languidly—his breath catches. The fingers in your hair grip a bit tighter.

You giggle around his cock.

“Good?” you question, pulling off. Your hand moves in bolder strokes against him, making up for the absence of your mouth as you turn to stare up at the demon. There’s a blush dusting his cheeks.

“I believe you’re asking a question you already know the answer to,” he responds, tongue darting out to wet his lips. You smile cheekily at his words, fingers tightening ever-so-slightly around his length. You see his jaw clench.

“Good.”

Turning, you once more take the tip of his cock between your lips. You focus yourself on pleasing Barbatos—alternating between trailing your tongue against him, and sucking him into your mouth. The combination of your hand pumping his shaft, and your mouth concentrating on his head is quite honestly devastating, and within minutes the demon butler finds himself nearing his release.

“Y/N,” he warns, his voice slightly strained. He gives your roots a little tug, and you release him from your mouth with an audible pop. You’re seriously going to drive him crazy.

“Yes?” you question, your hand continuing to stroke him. You feel his cock jump in your grip.

“Stay like this,” he says, keeping his hold on your hair. You take that as a sign to get him off with just your hand, and you don’t complain. If that’s his preference, then you’re more than happy to go with it.

Aware of his impending orgasm, you simply continue your ministrations—your fist pumping his shaft until he finally reaches his breaking point. With a shaky breath, Barbatos spills his seed into your hand. His chest rises and falls quickly as you pump him through his orgasm without missing a beat.

You only stop when he’s milked dry—his length beginning to go soft in your grasp.

“Is that fair payment for the massage?” you ask, looking up at him with a smile. He loosens his grip on your hair—his hand moving to cup your cheek as he stares at you. You can see the post-orgasm satisfaction swimming in his green eyes.

“No payment was required,” he tells you honestly. “But yes, that was very much enjoyable.”

A warm feeling of contentment settling in your chest, you move to sit up, but pause when you realize that you’re still topless. Eyes going wide, you cross your arms over your chest, face heating up, and Barbatos chuckles.

“After all we’ve experienced together tonight, you’re suddenly coy about me seeing your breasts?”

“You hush,” you tell him, swinging your legs off the side of the bed. You reach down to fetch your discarded t-shirt, and when you stand straight, an arm wraps around your waist from behind.

“You’re covered in oil, so I would suggest showering,” Barbatos tells you, pressing a soft kiss to your hair. The contact is only for a brief moment—his touch disappearing as he separates himself, taking a step back—and yet your heart flutters. “I’ll prepare the tea while you clean up.”

“Okay…,” you agree, glancing over your shoulder at him. He’s smiling pleasantly, looking far too put together for someone that just came a minute before. There’s not a hair out of place on his head—or even a stain on his trousers.

How unfair.

Turning, you head into your bathroom to rinse off, and Barbatos immediately busies himself with readying your beverages for the evening.

By the time you return from your shower—t-shirt back in place, and a towel atop your damp hair, the room is set up for a tea party. Barbatos is seated on one side of the table, casually surveying a book that you’d left on your desk. One you’d borrowed from Satan.

“I hope you don’t mind me taking up so much of your evening,” he says when he spots you, setting down the reading material.

“Not at all,” you say, moving to join him. Despite the newly shared intimacy between the two of you, the atmosphere feels comfortable, and you’re grateful for that.

Standing, Barbatos pours you both a cup of tea, and things fall into place as usual. You spend a long while chatting—catching up on events of the previous week, and talking about whatever topics cross your mind. By the time the snacks are gone, and the tea has gone cold, it’s quite late.

“I apologize for staying until such an hour,” he says as you help him clean the table. The screen of your DDD indicates that it’s already past 11. You shake your head.

“Seriously, Barb, it’s no big deal. I lost track of time too.”

He can’t help but chuckle at your nickname for him. It’s a nickname that will be solely reserved for you to say.

“Still, it is a school night. I’d best not stay any longer, or I fear Lucifer will have my head.”

“Well, I can’t exactly disagree with that,” you respond with a laugh, holding your arms in front of you. Your eyes trail on him as he finishes packing the basket he’d arrived with. He then picks it up, and starts for your door. You quietly follow after him.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” you ask, although you already know you will. Of course you will—Barbatos is always at RAD during the week.

Nonetheless, the demon butler smiles at you.

“Yes, I look forward to seeing you.”

With that, he grasps the doorknob and pulls your door open. However, he makes it only one step into the hall before he pauses, turning back to face you.

“Oh, and Y/N?”

You blink. “Hmm?”

“If you’d ever like another massage, please don’t hesitate to let me know. It seems to have worked wonders for you.”

A playful grin pulls at his lips, and he’s gone before you are able to fully digest his words. It takes you a good few seconds to realize what he means—your eyes looking down at yourself, and registering that you’re standing and walking without a sliver of pain.

“Ah!” you say, shocked, and you swear you hear him laugh from up the hall.

— one with the force

the phantom menace ii: 4.6k words

AU: What if the Clone Wars never happened, but instead Darth Sidious cast aside the Rule of Two, forging a new way for the Sith and began amassing an army of Sith warriors to overthrow the Jedi and the Republic?

A/N: (not my gif) (excerpt below is from The Clone Wars: Wild Space by Karen Miller, slightly altered to fit the story). hello beautiful friends! the beautiful gif credit goes to @pixelahsoka. this chapter has a LOT of content so just keep that in mind! also, kind of cheesy ending but whatever, hehe. also, yes, to confirm, obi-wan and rhea are a force dyad. however, it will (hopefully) be better than the sequels, bc i felt like it just came out of nowhere. their romance will be a slow-burn to them actually accepting it, with them still being at least semi-romantical along the way, so look forward to that! this chapter is filled with a lot of fluff, and a very angsty ending. this is the last chapter set during the phantom menace, so the next chapter will be set during attack of the clones, where most of the AU aspect will begin to pick up! comment below or send me an ask if you would like to join the taglist and be notified about the upcoming chapters! again, i am so grateful that you are even reading this, and if you feel compelled to do so, please reblog this post so your mutuals can read it as well! i love you all:) masterlist

mentions: death, blood, fighting, MAJOR angst, force connection, sadness.

The Master and Apprentice began their departure from the Jedi Temple on their Naboo, and Obi-Wan did not think it wise. 

Not after the Dathomirian man had appeared on that Maker-forsaken dustball with a red lightsaber, which only meant one thing – the Sith had returned.

He breathed in the pale glow of the planet’s moon, not taking time to look up and watch the stars glitter above, instead making short strides behind Qui-Gon, the shadow of the Naboo ship creeping its way across to cover them in more darkness, further darkening Obi-Wan’s mood and attitude towards the continuation of this ill-fated mission. 

Having just left the council’s chambers, he felt immense frustration, not only at the council, but at his Master as well. Not only was he ready to face the Jedi Trials which the council seemed to be denying him the right to, now his Master was all too eager to take on the latest lifeform they had picked up on their Naboo adventures, a boy believed to be the Chosen One by his Master.  

Not only was the boy too old, but Obi-Wan could sense it just as the council had – a great fear was buried deep within this Anakin Skywalker. A fear that was all consuming, and was growing slowly within him since they had left Tatooine and the boy’s mother behind.

Why could his master not sense it as he and the council did? Did he just assume ignorance for the possibilities to witness the forthcoming of a prophecy? He never understood his Master’s obsession with the old Jedi prophecies. It was an area of interest he sorely lacked, something that he felt put a strain on his relationship with Qui-Gon, something he realized that Qui-Gon probably wished Obi-Wan was intrigued by, but both of them knew that their Master-Apprentice relationship would never be like that of Dooku and Qui-Gon. 

Rhea, however, had been Dooku’s apprentice and shared a similar, if not less, affinity for the supernatural and old ways of the Jedi. Perhaps he could pay her a visit once his mission was completed, or even send her a message over their datapads like they used to before they got increasingly more busy as padawans. 

Surprise began to grow in him when he saw Rhea standing on the platform beside the ship. She had been waiting on him. As Qui-Gon began to speak to Anakin privately, Obi-Wan ran over to her with a small grin on his face. He should have known she would be here, for every time he simply thought of her, it seemed she was always nearby, as if she were watching over him.

“What are you doing here?” He beamed.

Obi-Wan couldn’t help but notice the blush dusting her cheeks, even in the shadow of the ship. 

“I couldn’t just let you leave without saying goodbye, now could I?”

“You said goodbye to me before the council meeting.”

Rhea rolled her eyes, groaning in annoyance before she began to simper quietly, punching him in the shoulder. “Well, yes, but I couldn’t give you this in front of the council, now could I?”  She held out her arms, opening them in anticipation for one of their rare hugs. When they were younglings, it was of course more sociably acceptable for them to embrace, however as the years began to pass and after many scoldings from each of their masters, they hid it away for special occasions or the few moments they would ever share alone, which were few and far between.

Obi-Wan buried his face in her shoulder, breathing in the sort of meadowy scent she always seemed to carry, as if she were the greatest meadow within the galaxy, filled with thousands of flowers constantly doused by the warm air and golden sunshine, only to be damped by a cool spring rain. She was a wonder, in his eyes.

Rhea’s arms wrapped around his neck as he lifted his head so he could carefully place his chin on top of her head, ever so sweetly. She equally breathed him in, sighing as she inhaled the overwhelming musk of rain, leather and perhaps even some old oak and a few of his dusty books. He always did become overly invested in his new findings, nose deep in his studies, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.

The two stood there for but a moment, taking every part of each other in as if it were the last time they would see each other, and to Rhea, she felt like it was.

“Promise.. promise you’ll come back?” Obi-Wan pulled away, simpering down at her with a twinkle in his eyes.

“When have I ever not?”

Rhea scowled for a second, her face quickly softening once more. “Just promise me, you idiot.”

“Fine, I promise you, dearest.”

She rolled her eyes at the nickname, breathing out a short laugh, before launching herself further into his arms, her fingers lacing through his shortly buzzed hair. Now for this, well, she wasn’t sure what Master Windu would have to say if he saw her like this, but she knew that it would be a deep scolding. It seemed so stupidly forbidden for her to just be lacing her fingers through his hair, but she paid no mind to the Jedi Code in the moment. 

Rhea was his dearest, and he her Ben, and yet, the pain of the loss of her Master still fresh on her mind, reminded her why she could not become attached to this overly-complex relationship the two padawans shared. 

It’s time to let go. 

And yet, she couldn’t. And neither could he.

╔═━────━▒ ۞ ▒━────━═╗

Obi-Wan Kenobi sat on the Queen’s ship while they flew through hyperspace back to Naboo. It seemed such a foolish idea to be returning to the invaded planet, but he did as he was told just as he always did, and followed the willful lead of his master. They were but a small force, two Jedi, a Queen and a handful of her people. What could they really do? If the Sith really had returned, could they really defeat them as well as an entire army?

The Queen had suggested they call upon the aid of the Gungans, but Obi-Wan questioned if that would work as well. The Gungans seemed to have a deeply seeded hatred for the people of Naboo, as it was obvious that in the past the former had treated the other like insolent fools. He wasn’t sure that he could disagree after spending so much time around Jar Jar Binks.

A light bit of laughter echoed in his mind, and it sounded like Rhea. He must have just imagined talking to her, Rhea giggling at his comments and avidly agreeing while coming up with her own quippy comment.

Obi-Wan could not help but miss the girl.

Alone in his small room aboard the ship, he tried closing his eyes so as to meditate, folding his hands together as he crossed his legs, breathe in, breathe out.

But she was still there.

Get out of my head.

He thought almost mockingly, knowing that she surely couldn’t be listening to his thoughts from such far a distance.

Why don’t you get out of mine, Ben?

Obi-Wan was shaken. There was absolutely no way-

I’m still here. Could you help me get out? You’re thinking about me too much, and I’m a little offended that you’re annoyed of my presence.

Obi-Wan then snapped his eyes open, and there sitting in front of him was none other than his dearest, greatest life companion, Rhea Illyria, with a smile of a thousand stars.

╔═━────━▒ ۞ ▒━────━═╗

Rhea Illyria sat on her bed in her quarters inside the Jedi Temple, breathing in, breathing out, as she performed her daily morning meditation. She knew many other padawans and younglings who hated the act of meditation, but she found it rather peaceful, a time to focus on the energy of the Force, to feel it moving around her and all other life forms.

She, however, became momentarily distracted by the thought of Obi-Wan Kenobi and his departure back to Naboo. She sighed, wishing she could have gone with him. There was something in the Force, something that felt like a warning about the planet of Naboo, and those who invaded. No, not the invaders... The ones controlling the invaders, pulling the strings. Who were they? The Sith? Or was it something... something much greater and evil in all forms and aspects?

Rhea worried for Obi-Wan and his mission, and she couldn’t help the thoughts consuming her not only of the danger of his mission, but of the padawan and their untold and unseen embrace. 

However, there was a nagging feeling in her gut. The Force pulling her towards something... No, someone.

She could just reach out, and suddenly her eyes were meet with the galaxy, planets dancing by as the stars glimmered all around her. She was walking among them, slowly, as if moving through the tides of the deepest oceans.

Breathe in, breathe out. What is the Force pushing you towards?

Rhea could see something ahead, a silver shape slowly getting closer as she continued to wade her way through stars and the black dusts of the galaxy.

Someone was thinking intensely. Someone was annoyed.

She couldn’t help but giggle at the notion of the Gungans being quite unintelligent creatures, or at least Jar Jar Binks, the creature someone was thinking about.

The closer Rhea got to the shape, she noticed it took the form of the ship from Naboo, the ship that carried its queen, the ship that carried him.

Someone was Obi-Wan.

This had to be some dream, she thought. She must have drifted into some sleep while she was meditating. But at the same moment she drifted through space, she breathed in, and could feel the sheets of her bed curl around her fingers, sense the starflower in the corner of her window, could smell the caf she so desperately needed each day after her meditations.

Despite trying to refocus on her true surroundings, Rhea became lost in the stars once more when something pushed back against her.

Get out of my head.

Rhea huffed, and began to more faster, willing the stars around her to move, to allow her closer access to the ship. She continued to wade and move through slowly, yet determined.

Why don’t you get out of mine, Ben?

She could feel his confusion, and despite her own, she couldn’t help but find some joy in this strange place. How she was able to drift through the stars to the other padawan was certainly not a normal occurrence among the Jedi, nor within the Force.

He couldn’t believe she was there either. He was thinking about her, thinking about how he missed her, which tugged at something within her she had never noticed before.

Her fingers finally grace the cool metal of the ship, however, they moved through its surface, and she was able to pass through, allowing the Force to guide her to her dear friend.

At the same time, he became frustrated by her presence distracting him from his own meditation.

I’m still here. Could you help me get out? You’re thinking about me too much, and I’m a little offended that you’re annoyed of my presence.

She was no longer floating within the ship, and instead now found herself grounded, sitting cross legged across Obi-Wan.

╔═━────━▒ ۞ ▒━────━═╗

“Ho-how are you even here? I must be dreaming, there is no way that this could possibly be real. I mean, have you ever read about Jedi being able to communicate with each other over vast distances such as this? This is simply impossible!”  Obi-Wan rambled, tugging at his chin, brow furrowed as his mouth gaped slightly at the sight of Rhea.

She however, rolled her eyes, unamused this time by his consistent desire for the knowledge of just about everything. This had to be under the category he loved the least, and she treasured the most – the supernatural ongoings of the Force.

“Ben!” She finally shouted, smacking him on his forehead to get his attention.

This brought Obi-Wan to attention, but also caused both padawans to touch their forehead and hand respectively.

“How did you do that!” “How did I do that?”

Rhea and Obi-Wan were, to say the least, perplexed and befuddled by the situation before them. Obi-Wan, deciding the best course of action was to hypothesize how this anomaly could have occurred in the Force, decided they should each ask one another questions regarding just how this had happened.

“What were you doing when this,” he motioned between them, “happened?” Rhea bit her bottom lip, furrowing her brow just as he had. “I was meditating. It’s morning back at the Temple, so I was doing my morning meditations...” Obi-Wan’s hand remained on his chin, his forefinger rubbing incessantly across his upper lip. 

“As was I. Continue, please,” he spoke so softly, she almost wondered if he was trying to be quiet so no one would hear them and come looking.

“Well, my meditations were interrupted by thoughts of you.” Obi-Wan paused his menstruations, his eyes darting to meet hers.

“You were thinking about me?” 

“Well, yes–” “Why?” She grew flustered, a growing pain pounding in her chest, sharp and yet harsh. Her hands began to sweat as she started to wring them out like some old tunic on washing day, her eyes swooping to avoid his ever piercing-blue gaze.

“I don’t know, why were you thinking about me!” She retorted.

It was one of the few times Obi-Wan got speechless and she could not help but gleam with pride at catching his tongue. She knew this trait would probably die with age, the older her got the further he became closer to the title of a silver tongued master, however she knew she would look back on this moment and know she had trumped him at his own game.

“I–” However, he never got a singular thought out, as Qui-Gon began to shout Obi-Wan’s name like he were some incessant father trying to find his son after a long game of hide-and-go-seek.

Obi-Wan cursed under his breath, a moment of panic coursing through him, but when he looked back from the door to Rhea, she was gone, and he once again was alone, feeling a strange and overwhelming sense of sadness.

╔═━────━▒ ۞ ▒━────━═╗

Rhea tried to continue her day as usual, but her gut instinct inside of her told her that there was something more to her apparent Force projection than it just being that. No... she knew there was something more to this event that had just occurred in not only her life, but Obi-Wan’s. Everything felt like it was going to change.

Unfocused in her training with Mace Windu, he scolded her throughout the day, noting her lack of focus and charging her with consistent complaints about her lack of balance. 

How could she feel balanced? How was she supposed to feel balance after she lacked control over her own capabilities through the Force? How could she feel balance when it had alluded her since the day her Master abandoned her for a life without her as his apprentice? 

How could she feel balance without anyone there to guide her? “The Force, guide you, it will.” 

Rhea nearly ran over Master Yoda who now stood in the Temple’s halls in front of her, smiling just as knowingly as he had every day she could remember. 

“Master Yoda, I didn’t see you there.” “Loud your thoughts are. Many things on your mind, are there not?” 

Rhea could not help but feel guilty and caught. Surely though, Master Yoda could be the one to help her. She had so many questions weighing her down, aching to be asked, and yet she felt ashamed to even think them to herself. Now, it seemed that there were those who were listening. 

“Master, I just feel so lost.”

Yoda hummed, chuckling to himself as if he held all the secrets of the world to himself and would just become amused by the ongoings of the beings around him.

“Come with me, you will.” Yoda motioned for her to follow him, as he guided her toward the meditation room. He sat down on a small chair meant for younglings, and she sat adjacent from him, not really knowing if a meditation session was going to help. After all, it’s what got her into this conundrum.

“Close you eyes. Focus not on your surroundings, but the Force.”

Rhea breathed in, breathed out, closing her eyes as she began to let go of her surroundings, allowing them to fade away. 

“See what is in the Force that troubles you, and tell me what it is.” 

She wasn’t sure if she should reach out again. What if she connected with another Jedi like she had with Obi-Wan? But surely, that would not happen. She had been thinking of him, just as she was now.

Images then began to flow through her mind. A beautiful green planet under siege by the droid armies of the Separatists, a cloaked man with a red lightsaber watching over her as she slept, Dooku the day he left her without even looking behind, her connection with Obi-Wan earlier that morning, him falling...

“I see the droid armies invading Naboo.. A Sith watching over me. Dooku leaving the Jedi Order.... and..”

“More there is?”

“Yes..” Rhea whispered, but she couldn’t focus on the grainy voice of Yoda. She kept reaching out, as if pulling the Force towards her like a rope, trying to yank it so it would release all of its secrets it was holding from her.

And into the Force she fell.

Everything around her was blurry, she couldn’t focus on anything except the strength of the Dark Side coursing before her. It was Obi-Wan. And he had given into all of his anger and hatred, an overwhelming tsunami of darkness coating every inch of him and not it began to creep upon her, splashing her with the emotions flowing out of him.

No, he cannot give into this. She thought, watching as he fell into the pool of darkness waiting to swallow him whole.

╔═━────━▒ ۞ ▒━────━═╗

His master was dead. 

Obi-Wan watched as Qui-Gon crumpled to the floor, and he screamed in agony as he was trapped behind the laser shield, hopelessly witnessing the death of his Master.  And he could not help the growing rage and hatred that began to engulf his entire being, becoming greater with each second as he practically jumped, ready for the laser shield to move so he could slaughter this hunter before him, this Sith, this darkness.

His face twitched, his mouth curling downward into a snarl, complete loathe shining in his eyes which now darkened as he turned his gaze upon the Dathomirian. 

The Sith trailed before him like some wild beast waiting for its prey, stalking like some dark creature.

A moment before the laser shields even began to move once again, Obi-Wan ignited his lightsaber, seconds before a red bladed lightsaber was ignited as well. The shields moved, and Obi-Wan raised his saber, going to strike the beast of red and darkness down, going to strike for the kill out of the rage and hatred in his heart.

The darkness was consuming him, but Obi-Wan did not care. How could he care now? His master was dead, and this creature seemed a powerful foe within the Force, something that should be put down for the sake of the Republic and the safety of its citizens.... something that should pay for its crimes against the Jedi, it’s crimes against him.

He blocked every twist and twirl it made with its lightsaber, blocking its attacks by pushing back against it with more fervent and less coordinated attacks. If he could only strike it down... 

Obi-Wan lifted his lightsaber, slashing through the center of its double-bladed saber, cutting the pieces in half as one went out. He flipped over the creature, slashing at his center and sorrowfully missing him by an inch. 

This creature was quick, but he had to be quicker, he had to be. What would his Master say if he failed him? What would Rhea say if he were to fall, just as Qui-Gon had moments ago? He would not dare break a promise to her.

The creature kicked him in the face, but he did not let it affect him, instead holding out his lightsaber in front of him, looking for the best place to strike him down.  As their blades locked, Obi-Wan gritted his teeth as he pushed against the creature, his eyes glaring deeply into those sickly-yellow ones, now pushing down against his blade. Anger filled him, and rage too, however, the Sith lifted its hand, using the Force and propelling him across the room, and into the shaft. Obi-Wan grabbed ahold of a light as he began to fall, holding on for dear life as the Sith once again began to trail above him, stalking like a creature in the night. He watched helplessly as it kicked his lightsaber down into the shaft, the weapon, his life, now falling down just as hopelessly as he felt. 

Obi-Wan had to keep on holding on. He had to get back up there, he had to avenge his Master’s death. 

No.

As the Sith caused sparks to rain down from above onto him, attempting to get him to lose grip and fall, Obi-Wan could hear her speaking to him.

Do not give into the darkness. Do not give into the anger or hate. Rise above.

A second voice this time came.

Trust only in the Force.

Qui-Gon.

Rise above. 

And for a moment, Obi-Wan closed his eyes. Rhea was there, almost floating before him, but he couldn’t see anything around her, only she was in his mind. 

I will stand together with you. Rise above. 

“It occurred to Obi-Wan then, with a clarity that was startling, given the dark side hurricane howling through him, that Yoda was wrong about the dangers of attachment. Or at least that he wasn’t altogether right. It was true that attachment could weaken a Jedi’s resolve. But it could also strengthen it … as he was strengthened now by his love for Qui-Gon, and Rhea. Without them he would have failed long before this moment. And so, leaning on them, he continued to fight.”

And so, Obi-Wan opened his eyes, using the Force to propel him upwards as he jumped, landing behind the Sith and now focusing his energy, not through the Dark Side, but now back through the Force, allowing it to guide him now. Qui-Gon’s fallen lightsaber now flew into his hand as he landed, and with a swift movement of his wrist, Obi-Wan cut through the Dathomirian man, ending the terrors he had caused, as he fell down the shaft, thus causing yet another fall in the rise of the Sith.

For a moment he stood and just breathed, thanking the Force for his strength found in his love for his Master and friend.

Obi-Wan, sensing his Master’s lifeforce still flickering within him, ran to his side, cradling his head as gently as he could, holding onto some form of hope that his Master could still live. 

“It’s... it’s too late.”

“No, no!” 

“Obi-Wan..” Qui-Gon croaked, as best he could, the color draining from his face slowly, marking him with death as his lifeforce continued to flicker, dimming with each passing second. “Promise... promise me you will train the boy.”

“Yes, master..” Obi-Wan wept in response. Qui-Gon raise his hand to wipe his tears, and Obi-Wan rested his cheek lightly against his finger, wishing that this wasn’t the end.

“He is... the Chosen One. He will bring balance. Train him. Help him. You and Rhea must help him....”

Obi-Wan now momentarily forgot his grief, filled with confusion at the mention of his friend. 

“Rhea and I? Master, what do you–”

“There is more to the prophecy than what you know..”

“What, Master, I–”

Qui-Gon hushed him, before uttering his final words. “Train him.” He uttered his final breath, and Obi-Wan, cradling him, felt as if he were destined for some infinite sadness.

╔═━────━▒ ۞ ▒━────━═╗

Rhea supposed Naboo was a truly beautiful planet, one to behold amongst the galaxy, but it seemed so bleak and somber now with the death of Master Qui-Gon Jinn. 

She watched the pyre his body laid upon gather with flames that rose to meet the stars in the sky, the smoke dancing among the small lights glittering above.

Standing beside the young boy from Tatooine who introduced himself as Anakin Skywalker, she listened silently to the loss of sound in the Force that was Qui-Gon’s lifeforce. They all felt it, the small darkness that passed over them at the loss of such a wise Jedi.

Obi-Wan stood on the other side of Anakin, who looking up to him, asked, “What will happen to me now?”

“The council has granted me permission to train you. You will be a Jedi, I promise.”

Rhea still could not believe that Obi-Wan had not only become a Jedi Knight, but had also defeated and killed a Sith lord. How they had come to rise again, was still a mystery, but it caused a shroud of confusion and chaos to flow through the Force.

It was hard for Rhea to muddle through, her mind now more clouded and confused than ever, the events having transpired seeming to all be connected — Dooku leaving the Order, the Chosen One supposedly being found, the Sith returning, her bond with Obi-Wan...

It all seemed too obvious in her mind to not be connected, but Mace Windu continued to tell her to be mindful of her thoughts, even if he didn’t know of her bond with Obi-Wan, he still saw her point of view as a quick jump to conclusions.

As the procession ended and people began to filter out from the area of the funeral pyre, she stayed even as little Anakin left along with the other Jedi, staying by Obi-Wan’s side, just as she had promised.

“You’re still here.”

He said, nonchalantly, not even bothering to turn to face her.

Rhea looked up, turning her gaze to fixate on his face. He looked... tired, almost old, held down not only by exhaustion but by the overwhelming sense of loss and sadness which was now being carried by the duty he felt to honor his masters final wish.

“Just as I said I would always be. Right by your side.”

He sighed, turning to look down upon her, his blue eyes meeting with her darker ones.

“So, you really were there, speaking to me.”

“I suppose I was.”

The two were silent for a moment, simply staring into each other’s eyes as if understanding everything they wished to say. Rhea reached up, cupping his cheek softly as tears began to fall down his face.

She then got up on her tippy toes, being much shorter than him, and placed a slow kiss on his forehead, soft and lovingly and holding every hope she had within her.

Obi-Wan sighed softly, “We can’t tell anyone about this bond. Not until I have figured out what exactly it is.”

“We.”

“What?”

“Not until we have figured out what exactly it is. We’re in this together. I told you this already, but you don’t seem to be getting it through your thick skull. I stand by you. Always.”

Discussing Anna’s development and story in Frozen 2.

A continuation of Sisterly Love: How Frozen 2 Actually Got it Right and I Seek the Truth: Who Anna Really is. It terms of the first post, I feel as though I forgot to address Anna the claim that Anna needed her own story that didn’t involve Elsa, and I wanted to expand more on some points. And for the second post, I wanted to better clarify what I was trying to say. All this comes into play because I want to address some criticisms made towards Anna’s story in Frozen 2.

I often hear the following criticisms (summarized) from hard-core Anna fans.

Anna’s scenes and story was removed to focus more on Elsa.

Anna needed a separate story; Elsa got one, why not her?

Frozen’s creators are lying when they say that Frozen is about sisters.

Elsa doesn’t respect Anna.

Again, as I said in my first analysis, I’m not going to say that these are wrong assumptions make or opinions to have. Everyone’s opinions are valid. All I want to do here, is offer a different perspective.

Elephant in the Room: Elsa is more Popular

I’m not going to deny, as much as it breaks my heart, that Elsa is the more popular sister. Not that I feel that Elsa doesn’t deserve the praise or that the praise isn’t warranted, I also love Elsa very much. Elsa’s story just resonated more with audiences and Disney corp takes advantage of that in full blast. However, I do not believe, at all, that Jen Lee, Chris Buck and the Lopezes favor Elsa over Anna.

In fact, they have spoken out many times on how much they love and adore Anna (many people even argue that they have actually have a bias for her with everything that they say). Anna gets the final scene to destroy the dam, she gets to become Queen, and is given all the credit in saving Arendelle by Elsa (more on this later). So the claim that Anna’s scenes were removed because they wanted more Elsa, just doesn’t sit well with me at all. 

Anna’s Story is Perfect.

I know, I’m making a big claim here; but I’ll stand by it firmly. I discussed in Seeking the Truth: Who Anna Really Is why I felt this song did not capture who Anna was. Let me summarize: The Anna in this song is shows a lot of contempt towards her parents, which doesn’t sit well with me. Anna is a person who shows unconditional love and gives everyone a chance. The only time when she shows any sort of anger towards someone is when they try to hurt the people she loves; and from what we see in Frozen, Anna never felt this way about Agnarr and Iduna. In fact, as we see in Olaf’s Frozen Adventure, neither Anna nor Elsa have ill feelings for their parents; quite the contrary, they miss them dearly.

I know that many people have strong feelings about Iduna and Agnarr’s actions in Frozen and some feel that Frozen 2 did not address these actions. This I feel is a whole post on its own, so I’ll go into more detail about their actions and why I feel Anna and Elsa don’t feel angry towards them in another post.

However, the aspect that Anna felt like her parents didn’t trust her is indeed addressed in Forest of Shadows, the book that Jen Lee and Chris Buck helped create; and its addressed much better here than what they were going for in I Seek the Truth. Anna feels that her parents (and Elsa) didn’t trust her enough, and thus Anna feels that she has no worth. The reason I feel that this story aspect was cut was not because they wanted more Elsa; In fact, Jen Lee talks about how the scene where Elsa shows their parents praising Anna was very hard to cut for her.

This was cut, in my opinion,  because this is story concept that requires much more attention. Because the focus in Frozen 2 is the origin of Elsa’s powers and why Anna doesn’t have them, you can’t have two huge concepts competing with each other on the same screen. Which is probably why they encouraged this idea in Forest of Shadows. They didn’t want to let go of this aspect of Anna’s development, so they dedicated a whole book that explores it and focuses on it, which is what it deserves.

Thus, we’re left with what story they did give Anna in Frozen 2; her fear of change. Many will say how they feel Anna is over obsessed with Elsa; but many fail to understand why. Jen Lee commented on how Anna at the beginning of Frozen 2 has everything she ever wanted. She reconnected with her sister, she has a loving and supportive boyfriend, and she now had an endless amount of friends. In Frozen, Anna had nothing to lose so that is why she was much more daring. But now; she can lose everything. Anna knows this, and is terrified.

So the question becomes - why does Anna fearing the loss of her new family balance better with the overall story than Anna questioning her self worth?

Elsa is being called to something greater - but if Elsa leaves, what will become of Anna? This is why this story concept matches better. She fears for Elsa’s life; Elsa is branching out and could get hurt and Anna doesn’t know how to handle the idea of being alone (yet). This is why she misunderstands what Kristoff is trying to say; she’s paranoid that he wants to leave her, thus she ends up alone again. In Frozen, she sought out love, in Frozen 2 she could lose that love she found.

Frozen is all about  twists, and Frozen 2 is no exception. At first, we believe its all about Elsa finding out her purpose alone; and Elsa agrees with our first interpretation. This is why she pushes Anna away. But then, Elsa and the audience realize that no, its not just about Elsa. So what becomes of Anna? She realizes that this destiny wasn’t just about Elsa’s calling; it was Anna’s as well. She needed to accept change because it is not only about Elsa finding her true purpose. As I said, the focus in Frozen 2 is the origin of Elsa’s powers and also why Anna doesn’t have them. Anna is meant to be the fifth spirit with Elsa; the heroic side, while Elsa is the mythic. With this story, Anna is more directly involved with the overarching plot. So, there is no separate story for Elsa; its Anna’s as well.

This completely combats the claim that Frozen is lying about its sisterly theme; here, Anna is just as important as Elsa; and Elsa even recognizes it. Which leads into the next point -

Elsa Doesn’t Respect Anna.

I talked about this in Sisterly Love. So, I’ll rephrase this point here. While Elsa, at first, like the audience, felt that this was her calling and didn’t want Anna to get hurt, she pushes her away. But then, Elsa realizes her mistake.

“You saved me, again…Arendelle did not fall...The Spirits all agree that Arendelle deserves to stand, with you…You did what was right....Well actually, a bridge has two sides. And mother had two daughters. We did this together. We will continue to do this together.”

Consider Elsa’s words carefully here. She says Arendelle did not fall. She however, did not say “I stopped the wave and saved Arendelle.”  Instead, she goes on to praise Anna. She is inferring that the saving of Arendelle is not credited to herself, but to the choices that ANNA made.  Elsa basically confirms here that she did not save Arendelle because of her own choice, but because the spirits told her that they want Arendelle to stand with Anna.

Here, as I stated in my previous analysis, shows that Elsa now recognizes that this was Anna’s destiny as well and indirectly apologizes to her. She now recognizes that Anna did not need powers in order to save Arendelle or protect herself. Thus, this proves that Elsa does not only come to respect Anna, but feels that she is the best choice for Arendelle as Queen, more than she was. Elsa puts Anna above her in stature.

Love Me Blue | Bucky Barnes x Reader (Janmashtami)

My Masterlist

Series Masterlist

Summary: When you were younger, you had always dreamed of falling in love with someone who would love you like Lord Krishna loved Radha. A dream that once felt as though it was silly no longer felt that way. 

Word Count: 4400+

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Tamilian!Hindu!Reader

Warnings: MINIMAL TAMIL SONG LYRICS (I’m more than happy to translate!) & TAMIL CULTURE, References to Hinduism, PTSD, Insomnia, Endgame References.

A/N: This is my entry for @bucky-smiles​‘s 3K Diversity Writing Challenge! My prompt was to write a fic with a Hindu reader. I decided to write this fic with a Tamilian reader because I am Tamilian. I was born in Sri Lanka and my mother’s side of the family are Hindu. Although I consider myself an agnostic theist, I do enjoy reading the epics of Mahabharata and Ramayana. I hope everyone had a wonderful Janmashtami. Along with Lord Krishna himself, it’s also @jalapenobarnes​‘ birthday this weekend so please go shower Saran with all the love. This one’s for you, my chellam! <3 Pics are off of Pinterest! 

Bucky Barnes watched curiously as he sat cross-legged on the tiled floor of your living quarters, splashing a handful of water on the bright green banana leaf that you had laid out in front of him. 

Even though your apartment had a designated dining room with an oak wood table and chairs, he wondered why you preferred to be eating on the living room floor. Not to mention the way you had chosen to serve him on a banana leaf than a plate. 

As much as he found it bizarre, he was also curious about the traditions that you seemed to follow. Not just through the way you ate your meals, but also the way you honored your dead best friend and the way you had filled your apartment with idols and paintings of your Hindu God. It came as a surprise to him that someone as young and well-educated as yourself could even hold onto the traditions that you had been raised with despite having settled away from your home for years. 

Bucky had been surprised to find that as the decades had progressed, traditions had evolved with the emergence of a post-modern society. The way people had practiced religion had also evolved with time, but the way you practiced yours seemed to be the same as the way his own mother had practiced hers back in the day. 

You did not conform to modern life for the sake of it, and he found that inspiring. The old Bucky who had always been fascinated by all that science had to offer would probably disagree with you. But having lived a whole century as one of HYDRA’s science experiments made him wish that he could return to the pre-modern society that he had been born into. He hated confirming with the status quo as much as the next guy, but seeing you made him realize that he did not need to force himself to confirm either. He could be himself, as long as he could figure out who exactly he was meant to be. 

“According to my grandmother, eating off of a banana leaf is a lot more healthier than eating off of a plate. Apparently the nutrients in the leaf can mix with the food.” You explained to him as you served him some of the rice, careful not to overcrowd the banana leaf. You knew that he was unfamiliar with the dishes, but also appreciated that he was willing to try out a new cuisine at this witching hour. “She said that it’s good for the immune system, prevents intestinal ulcers, skin diseases… soothes the stomach, helps with digestion and prevents kidney stones.” 

He nodded, understandably. “Right…” He agreed, not having the heart to tell you that the super soldier serum in his body ensured that his cells would constantly regenerate and prevent him from falling ill. Nevertheless, he found your endearment quite refreshing. You really did treat him like he was Sergeant James Barnes of the 107th and not the Winter Soldier, and he was grateful for that. 

“We’re used to eating off of the leaf during special occasions or when we have guests.” You added. “There’s a Buddhist and Hindu philosophy... Atithi Devo Bhava. It literally means that the guests must be given the same respect as you would give to your Gods. And since you’re my guest tonight, you get the banana leaf.” 

“I’m no God, Y/N.” Bucky clarified, sighing as he ran his metal hand through his greasy hair. “I’m a human being, a brainwashed assassin, a weapon of destruction who brought so much pain in people’s lives. I don’t deserve to be treated with so much respect.” 

“Bucky…” You frowned at his words before shaking your head. “As the one who spent most of my life studying the life of Sergeant James Barnes of the 107th, I beg to differ. I know that you have a lot of internalized guilt about those days and I don’t blame you for that. But you can’t let the Winter Soldier define who you are. You’re more than who you used to be when you were brainwashed. It wasn’t who you were.” 

“To be honest, I don’t even think I know who I am anymore…” He admitted, a truth that he hadn’t told anyone else at the compound but felt that he could trust you with.. “But I know for sure that I don’t deserve to be respected like you respect your God.” 

“You should let me be the judge of that. My concept of God is actually quite different from the Abrahamic religions that you happen to be familiar with.” You protested with a soft chuckle, crossing your legs to sit across from him. “My grandmother once told me that Lord Krishna… being the God of love and compassion, he’s always present in one’s heart. Wherever there’s love, he’s always there. If there’s love in your heart, he’s there. And that makes you just as Godly as anyone else.”  

“I’m the world’s longest prisoner of war who spent most of my life imprisoned in a cryofreezer. There’s nothing Godly about the life that I’ve had to live.” He shook his head. “If anything, I’m a symbol of pain and suffering.” 

“Well, Lord Krishna was born in prison.” You remarked. “His life was meant to be filled with so much love… It started on Janmashtami, in a prison cell where his parents were locked up by his own maternal uncle. Even in all that pain and suffering, the betrayal that Lord Krishna’s parents had to face… they were blessed with a child who was the incarnate of the supreme God himself. All that pain and suffering led to some kind of reward, and I’m sure you’ll get yours in due time. Sri Krishna never discriminates, and he forgives those who are truly remorseful of their sins. He’s the God of compassion after all.” 

Bucky could not help but chuckle softly at your words. For every word of self-hatred that came out of his mouth, you had your own rebuttal that was rooted in your faith. He was left with no choice but to accept his defeat and give in to being treated as your guest for the night. It was the least he could do other than make use of that computer he had been given to catch up with the world by looking up Lord Krishna. “So, what’s on the menu for tonight?”

“Okay!” You exclaimed, pointing to the rice dish that you had placed in the center of the leaf. “Ven pongal, basically made from rice and yellow lentils. It’s also got some peppercorns, cumin, turmeric, ginger, curry leaves and cashews that I fried in some clarified butter. That’s why it smells so good. Don’t worry about the spices though. This is probably the mildest dish I’ve ever eaten in my life.” 

Bucky nodded as he looked up at you. “Do you make this often?”

“It’s a traditional breakfast food in South India, but it also makes for the ultimate comfort food when I’m missing home.” You replied with a shrug of your shoulders before grabbing the bowl of sambar and pouring it over the rice. “Now this might be a little spicy for you. But it’s the side dish of all side dishes. Sambar, basically a mixed vegetable stew with lentils and spices. Great with most South Indian breakfast foods.” 

“And what about the rest?” He asked as he eyed the remainder of the delicacies that you had laid out before him. He could not deny that the warm aroma that wafted up his nostrils made them much more appetizing. Despite it being past midnight, he was starved. 

“Medhu vada… deep fried lentil fritters, coconut chutney to dip ‘em in… and kesari, dessert made from semolina.” You pointed to the items as you placed them on the banana leaf. “I hope you don’t mind eating with your hand. We don’t really use utensils and I kind of forgot to pick some up. If it makes you feel any better, the right hand is commonly used to eat so…” You motioned towards his hand. “Dig in?”

He raised his eyebrow at your words. “I guess that was very convenient for me.” He joked before looking down at the food and back at you. “Aren’t you going to eat with me?”

You chuckled softly before shrugging at his question. “It’s alright, Bucky. I can eat after you. It’s not polite to eat before the guest.”

“Y/N, come on… you just said that you made all of this food because you were feeling homesick. I can’t eat all of this without you.” He clarified with a smile. 

You looked down at your lap in embarrassment as you felt your cheeks heat up. “I kind of only bought one banana leaf because I thought I would be the one eating all of this food.” You told him, shamelessly. “I didn't think I would have company, not that I don’t want you here or anything. I invited you to eat but… my grandmother says it’s rude to eat right out of the serving bowls if you’re going to be serving the food to someone else. I don’t mind waiting until you’re done and helping myself to your leftovers.” 

A part of him could not believe how bound you were to your grandmother’s words, especially when it came to your dining etiquette. Despite the fact that your grandmother had been someone to hold you back from your potential, he admired that you still respected her enough to follow through with the culture that she had taught you. 

“Fine, then if you don’t mind…” He reached down to grab a dollop of the pongal and sambar with his thumb and two fingers, carefully holding his hand up towards your mouth. “Let me at least feed you.”

Your eyes grew wide at his gesture and you found your cheeks heating up in embarrassment once again. “Um…” You gulped, not knowing how to react to that. A part of you wanted to accept his offer, but the pitter patter against your heart mimicked the rain against your window and caused you to become very nervous. 

As much as you had denied it when you were around the rest of the team, you knew that you did have a slight crush on Sergeant James Barnes of the 107th Infantry Regiment when you had first watched through the archival footage from the war. After all, who wouldn’t. At that time, you had believed that he was dead so it didn’t mean much. But now he was very much alive and sitting right before you. He was certainly a good looking man who’s smile could light up the world, and unbeknownst to you he had just lit up yours. 

You had spent years studying his life, along with the rest of The Howling Commandos, in the name of academic curiosity. But you could not deny that now seeing him in person changed how you really felt about this man. Not many people who studied historical figures had the chance to see them face to face. But this had happened to you twice now, and it still felt surreal. Bucky Barnes really was sitting on the floor of your living quarters, about to feed you a bite of your most favourite South Indian comfort food. What kind of idiot would you be not to accept it? 

You accepted the bite of food that Bucky had offered you, bringing your hand over to cover your mouth as you chewed. Your lips curling into a small smile as your eyes glazed over, you looked down at your lap. 

For some reason, eating from this man’s hand had made you miss your father quite so much. Seven years it had been since he had passed away. You never even got to say goodbye, the last time you had spoken on the phone being an argument that you had ended abruptly by hanging up on him. Had you known what was going to happen just hours later, you would have done things differently. You would have cherished the last moments you got to share with your father. Hell, you would have even prevented him from dying the way he did. But it was all too late now. 

Perhaps you suffered from internalized guilt just as much as the super soldier who sat before you, for you did feel partially responsible for your father’s death. Being an agent who was meant to save the world and all, you couldn’t even manage to save your own father. While this did once make you doubt your skills as an agent, you could not deny that you would give anything to be able to do right by the man who had raised you to be anything more than a typical Indian farm girl. But for now, all you had to do was exist for the sake of existing and accept the position that you had been given. Do the right thing, just as your father had taught you. 

When you had been five years old, your grandmother had told you the story of how Lord Krishna was married to more than sixteen thousand women. She had told you that he married every woman who loved him. He loved them back just as much too, being the God of love after all. But the woman he loved the most, he hadn’t even been married to her. Radha Rani was the love of his life. She was his soulmate. Despite not being married, their love for each other was so pure and eternal. 

It was then you told your father, in your childish little voice, “Appa, I want someone to love me like Lord Krishna loved Radha.” 

Now as you swallowed the bite that Bucky Barnes had fed you, you couldn't help but look over his broad shoulders. Up on the wall behind him you had hung one of the many paintings of Radha and Krishna that you owned. But in that particular one, Radha and Krishna were affectionately gazing into each other’s eyes while feeding each other. 

It didn’t seem like a sign to you then, but you prayed for some things to be made clearer in due time. After all, you were going to be here for a while. If Lord Krishna was really going to bless you with the kind of love that makes you blue after all of that pain and suffering, then you might as well accept it like you had just accepted that bite of food from Bucky. 

“Tell me the truth, Bucky.” You looked over at the man who sat next to you on the couch, his legs crossed as he leaned against the armrest. “Why are you even up at this hour?” 

Bucky Barnes looked over at you and let out a sigh, not knowing if lying to you about his insomnia would sell. After all, you seemed to know him better than he knew himself despite the fact that you had met just yesterday. While he feared that admitting the truth would cause you to become weary of him, he knew better than to lie to the woman who was in a position of authority. He had to be transparent with you, mainly because he didn’t have the heart to lie to you. 

“I can’t sleep.” He admitted, biting down on his bottom lip as he sat up straight, his elbows resting against his thighs as he covered his face with his hands. “I haven’t slept properly in a while, ever since I moved into the compound really. Every night I go to bed at a reasonable time. But I still end up waking up at this strange hour because of some nightmare.” 

Leaning over to rest your hand on his shoulder, you wanted to give him a squeeze. But you were quick to realize that his left shoulder was vibranium, so instead you moved your hand to rub his back. “Have you talked to Sam about it?” 

Not that you would assume that his friendship with Sam was anything like his friendship with Steve. As someone who had your own demons, you knew that it was not that easy to confide in someone about something like this. But you were well aware that Sam had some experience offering support groups to veterans who suffered from PTSD during his time working at the VA back in DC. He seemed to be much more equipped to handle something like this than you were, no doubt about that. But since you were now the boss around here, you knew that something needed to be done to address the mental health of your heroes.  

Bucky shook his head. “He’s always been weary of me, Y/N. I don’t think I should worry him about this. The last thing I want is for anyone to think that the Winter Soldier is still in me when he’s not.” 

“Sam can be an asshole at times… but he means well. He cares a lot about his friends, and that includes you and me.” You admitted. “But I know what you mean. What you’re going through, it’s not easy. You’ve had to deal with a lifetime’s worth of torture under HYDRA, along with the whole thing with the blip. The world has changed so much that it’s not all that easy to keep up with anymore.” 

He looked up at you and frowned. “I feel so lost, you know? Like I don’t know where I should start. I’ve missed out on seventy years of… life. The life that I knew before the war is gone and the life that I had since then… is full of torture and bloodshed. I’m just lost in the midst of it all.”

“Bucky, you do know that… if you ever want to talk about anything that has to do with history or what happened in the world during those seventy years, you can just talk to me about it, right? I may have a Master’s degree on The Howling Commandos but I do know a thing or two about what happened in the world after the war.” You offered, finally cracking a smile. “I can definitely help you out with catching up with times.” 

He chuckled softly at your words. “Is that how you and Steve… became friends?” 

You felt your cheeks heat up in embarrassment at the mention of Captain America, a man whom you had respected and aided in the recovery of until Natasha had decided to set the two of you up on a date. It was a brief fling while the two of you had worked together in DC. But once you had realized it wasn’t going to work, you had ended things amicably. While you had remained friends and you had helped him catch up with the world, things had changed so much around you. 

“Yeah, I guess.” You admitted with a shrug. “He needed someone to catch him up to the world and Fury realized that he hired a history major. I think it worked out for all of us.” Looking back now, you only felt blessed to have known Steve Rogers. He was not only an inspiration, but also one of your closest friends. “And that’s why I’m offering to help.”

“But how could you help me, Y/N?” He asked. “What can you possibly do to help me come to terms with who I am?”

“Well, I had Steve read through the Internet a lot and make a list of all the things he wanted to try… like Thai food and Sherlock Holmes. I know that you’re not going on any missions right now. You’re just hanging around the compound and trying to kill time, right? I’d say… make use of the computers we have here, learn as much as you can. We can talk about it. But don’t ever think that you’re alone in this.” 

The Internet was a great place to start learning, right? Surely, Bucky had been apprehensive about taking that step. But he needed to be given a little push. Thankfully, he now had you for that. “I guess I can do that.” He gave in, for he was starting to get bored of the facility’s gym. 

“There is something that needs to be done about your nightmares though.” You pointed out. “This compound needs an on-site therapist. I need one. You need one. Wanda needs one. We all need one after all this crap that we’ve had to deal with.” You made a mental note to make some calls in the morning, but for now you knew that your attention should be on the super soldier. “But right now, you really need to get some sleep.” 

Bucky shook his head in defeat. “I can’t seem to fall asleep in my bed, Y/N. Believe me, I’ve tried… for many nights. I guess I just have to suck it up and kill time until the morning.” 

You raised your eyebrow at his words before crossing your arms against your chest. “What? Do you need me to sing you a lullaby or something?” You asked him, teasingly. 

He laughed at your question before shaking his head. “As if that’s ever going to work on me…” 

“Is that a challenge, Sergeant Barnes?” 

Bucky Barnes had no clue how it even happened. Just twenty-four hours ago, the two of you had been strangers who had nothing in common except for the fact that you both shared a past that had been perfectly entwined somehow. But now you were sitting against the headboard of his queen sized bed in the living quarters adjacent to yours, his head resting against your lap as he shut his eyes. 

Your soft hands running through his silky dark hair, you sang the words that you had pretty much memorized by now. It was a lullaby that your grandmother had sung to you when you were younger, written about how Lord Krishna himself had fallen asleep after a long day of playing around his village. 

Ayarpadi Maaligaiyil

Thaai Madiyil Kandrinai Pol

Maaya Kannan Thoongugindraan, Thaalelo

Ayarpadi Maaligaiyil

Thaai Madiyil Kandrinai Pol

Maaya Kannan Thoongugindraan, Thaalelo

Avan Vaai Niraiya Mannai Undu

Mandalathai Kaattiya Pin

Oiveduthu Thoongugindraan, Aaraaro

Oiveduthu Thoongugindraan, Aaraaro

Ayarpadi Maaligaiyil

Thaai Madiyil Kandrinai Pol

Maaya Kannan Thoongugindraan, Thaalelo

Pinnalitta Gopiyarin Kannathile Kannam Ittu

Mannavan Pol Leelai Seidhaan Thaalelo

Pinnalitta Gopiyarin Kannathile Kannam Ittu

Mannavan Pol Leelai Seidhaan Thaalelo

Andha Mandhirathil Avar Uranga

Mayakkathile Ivan Uranga

Mandalame Urangudhammaa Aaraaro

Mandalame Urangudhammaa Aaraaro

Ayarpadi Maaligaiyil

Thaai Madiyil Kandrinai Pol

Maaya Kannan Thoongugindraan, Thaalelo

Bucky Barnes had no clue how it even happened. But as he listened to the melody of your lullaby, he had drifted off into a deep slumber. When he woke up the next day, he found that you were gone. But he knew that you were the one to thank for helping him sleep after many months of waking up from nightmares. 

As the weeks went by, you and Bucky had become quite close. As most of the team were gone for days at a time because of their respective missions, the two of you often found yourselves being the only ones remaining at the compound. Despite your loneliness, you somehow found comfort in each other. 

Your free time was usually spent cooking up a storm in the common kitchen, and Bucky found himself frequently joining you for your meals. He had taken quite the liking to South Indian cuisine, but he had also kept his promise of making you a completely vegetarian Wakandan meal - something that he apparently prepared by video-calling the Queen Mother of Wakanda herself and asking her for recipes. 

“Does this mean you have diplomatic immunity? Being the adoptive child of Queen Ramonda and all…” You had joked. “They call you the White Wolf, don’t they?” 

“Did you ever have to use your diplomatic immunity?” He had asked you mockingly. “Being the daughter of an Indian diplomat after all.” 

“Bucky, could you please give Queen Ramonda my regards? Let her know that Agent Y/L/N, the daughter of Ambassador Y/L/N, sends her regards and thanks the royal family for all of their help.” You hadn’t been all that familiar with the Wakandan royal family during the reign of King T’Chaka, but it was only after his death did you have the chance to work closely with them. After all, you understood the pain that they had been dealing with all too well. 

Bucky was not familiar with why you seemed to know them so well. He had just assumed it must be because of your career in diplomacy before you became an agent. He did not think much of it though, at least not until he had told Shuri that you gave their family your regards. 

While the truth behind your relationship with the Wakandan royal family had certainly shaken him to his core, he did not make it known that he knew about it. After all, it was a huge part of your own personal life and you were just his boss. He did not feel the need to let you know that he knew something about you that you might not have wanted you to know. But instead, he continued to learn more about you and the culture that you were raised in. 

The Internet was a great place when it came to catching up with the world. He had read just about everything he could get his hands on, from history to literature and science. While he tried to keep up with how much the world had changed, he had also read as much as he could about your religion. 

He often joined you on your visits to the temple in the city after noticing that you made it a habit to go there every Friday. When Janmashtami came around, Bucky had offered to help you paint footprints from your front door to your shrine of Lord Krishna. 

According to your grandmother, the tradition of painting baby footprints was done believing that Lord Krishna would follow them and enter your home. You had been doing that every single year on Janmashtami for as long as you could remember. But that year, you just knew. It was the first year that Krishna had entered your home for real.

His Name Was Isaac - Ch. 2

Fanfic summary: During a mission to avenge his mother’s death, Isaac hunts down the men responsible for her murder and kills them off one-by-one, only to discover that his last target is taking refuge among the Van der Linde gang. In an attempt to kill them, Isaac attacks the gang and unknowingly becomes enemies with his own father, who is in the process of fighting his own battle for redemption.

Point of view: third-person

Author’s note: Just wanted to say thank you guys for all the support you gave on the first chapter. I’m definitely excited to write more for you and I hope you’ll stick around for future parts :)

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This story is also on AO3

TWO MONTHS LATER

AURORA BASIN, WEST ELIZABETH

Blackwater.

It was so close.

Dutch could see it.

Somewhere beyond those trees, all the way over the eastern horizon and past the Great Plains, lay the city that started all this. The city that caused the Van der Linde gang to transform from a simple band of outcasts... into a group of killers willing to do anything for a wad of cash.

But was anyone surprised? Probably not.

After Hosea finally succumbed to his illness five years ago, any glimmer of humanity that remained among them instantly vanished. Dutch took full control over the gang and immediately started heading back out west, eager to return to New Austin. Meanwhile, his mental health deteriorated rapidly into a state of paranoia, greed, and an incessant need for power... and the fact that Marston eventually left did little to help matters either. 

At the moment, the only original gang members to remain at Dutch’s side were Bill Williamson, Micah Bell, and of course... Arthur Morgan.

Nobody ever questioned Bill or Micah’s sense of loyalty -- they rarely expressed any emotions suggesting otherwise, after all -- but to everyone’s surprise, Arthur decided to stay.

Some of the rumors said he stayed simply because he had no other family to return to. Others implied that he was waiting for Dutch to follow in Hosea’s footsteps before swooping in to become the new leader. But in reality... the reason Arthur had yet to abandon Dutch was mostly due to sentiment.

Despite everything Dutch had done over these past eight years, Arthur could still see a part of the old him lingering inside. Behind all the ravings and robbing and killing, Arthur could sense that there was something more human at Dutch’s core -- something more fatherly -- and he knew it would disappear completely if he left. So, against better judgement, Arthur stayed.

It probably seemed foolish to other people, to stick around like this. But those rare moments when the old Dutch would break through and remind Arthur of the good ol’ days definitely made it worth it. He had nothing else to care about nowadays, and it wasn’t like Arthur could just leave the gang behind. He was old now -- or at least older than before -- and even if he did abandon Dutch, he doubted he’d have enough time to start a new life for himself.

Right now, the only thing Arthur could do was accept that he was destined to be an outlaw for life... and he had.

Putting his tangled thoughts aside for a moment, Arthur returned to the task at hand and roamed down the short corridor, making his way through the derelict cabin as he went to meet Dutch in the living room.

This cabin was nice, Arthur thought, for a place that had been abandoned for so long. He and Micah found it sitting in the middle of nowhere while hunting for food at Aurora’s Basin, and decided it would be the best place to set up their new camp. At least until they finally made their move on Blackwater.

Though, Arthur couldn’t deny that he was worried for Dutch’s wellbeing. Ever since the gang first settled here, the man practically locked himself in the cabin and rarely ever came out. 

And whenever he did come out, he always looked so pale. Tired. Sickly, even. Not even close to the man Arthur knew eight years ago. He could’ve sworn that Dutch’s hair was getting grayer every time he saw him, and the way his eyes often stared blankly into the distance did nothing to help ease Arthur’s nerves.

He just hoped it wasn’t too late to bring Dutch back from the edge. He might’ve been a total madman these days, but... even then, he was still like a father to Arthur. And as his son, the last thing he wanted was to see him lose himself completely.

He just feared it might have been too late already.

Finally arriving at the living room, Arthur sauntered through the narrow wooden archway and walked up to Dutch, only to be greeted by a depressing scene.

It was completely dark in here.

All the candles had been snuffed out, the fireplace lay cold with ashes, and the lamp on the ceiling did nothing but swing despondently in the chilling breeze.

At the moment, the only source of light in the room was the one in front of Dutch himself. It was a tall, somewhat cracked window that sat right underneath a broken pendulum clock, and it had a torn bundle of curtains dancing gently around it.

There was an array of pale, white sunbeams pouring through its dusty glass currently, and with the way they embraced Dutch’s figure, he looked like nothing more than a silhouette relaxing in an old rocking chair. 

Arthur took a few steps towards the man, hoping to check up on him.

“...Dutch?” He called out quietly. “You, um... wanted to see me?”

The older man slowly glanced over his shoulder at the sound of his name, silently beckoning his friend to come closer once he saw who it was.

When Arthur was at his side, Dutch presented a used handkerchief to him and held it up in the light, making sure the other man could see the blood splatters staining its white fabric.

Arthur eyed the handkerchief with a sorrowful gaze, letting out a morose sigh.

“You ain’t doin’ too good, huh.”

Dutch coughed a few times, his voice raspy from the irritation. “What gave it away?”

Pressing his hands against the armrests, Dutch steadily pushed himself up from the chair and rose to his feet, still facing the window as he continued to talk.

“I’m... I’m dying, son.” He said, almost sounding apologetic. “I can feel it. It won’t be long now before you and Micah are the ones in charge of this gang, and I’m buried in the ground.”

Arthur was admittedly grief-stricken by the news, but did his best to hide it and simply carried on with the conversation.

“...You really think Micah would share that kinda power with me? You know how that man is.”

Dutch put his hands on his hips. “Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know.”

“Well, with all respect, Dutch, I ain’t too comfortable with lettin’ the future of this gang depend on a ‘maybe.”

“Neither am I,” the older man agreed, “but I don’t know what else to do, Arthur. Even after all these years, you and Micah continue to butt heads like a pair of deer who’ve got their antlers tangled. If I’m gonna leave this world in peace, I need to know that you and Micah can work together. Otherwise...”

Dutch’s voice trailed off, leaving Arthur with a sense of dread in his gut.

“Well...” he picked up, “I don’t know what’s gonna happen.”

Arthur shrugged in uncertainty, leaning against the wall. “So... what d’you wanna do?”

The other man returned to his rocking chair, allowing himself to sink into the flat cushion.

“Nothing. Not yet, at least. For now, we just do things the way we’ve always done them. We head for Blackwater, and we focus on the bank. My death is a bridge we’ll cross once we get to it. In the meantime, though...” Dutch gave Arthur a pleading look, “just try to cooperate with Micah, would you? For my sake. The future of this gang may depend on it.”

The younger outlaw crossed his arms, reluctant to agree but still complying nonetheless.

“...Of course, Dutch.” Arthur replied. “For your sake. I doubt it’ll be easy, though.”

That seemed to please the older man. “Thank you, son. Thank you.”

Leaning back in his chair, Dutch let his head fall back and stretched his legs out, gazing aimlessly through the open window once again.

“Oh... I wish Hosea were here. We had our disagreements from time to time, but no one knew how to keep people together quite like that old boy. It ain’t been the same since he died.”

Arthur shook his head with a sigh. “No, it hasn’t. I just wish John was here, too.”

Dutch glowered at the mention of Marston’s name. “Pfft. That man was a traitor. We’re better off without him.”

“Maybe,” Arthur conceded, “but he was still family.”

“Family don’t turn their back on you, Arthur.” Dutch countered. “If we’re going to survive this year, we’ve got to stick together. You, me, Micah, Bill, Mackintosh -- everyone. We can’t let what happened at Beaver Hollow happen again. You understand?”

The younger man hesitated to answer, unable to deny his skepticism about Dutch’s leadership.

“...I understand.” He replied regardless. The other man managed to display a small smile.

“I knew you would, Arthur.” Dutch said, shutting his eyes in order to get some rest as the day gradually came to an end. “You was always there through thick and thin. Even after John abandoned us and Hosea passed, you stuck around. You’ve been loyal from the start, and that means the world to me. Never forget that.”

Arthur pushed himself off the wall and began heading for the cabin’s front door, letting Dutch get some sleep. 

“I won’t, Dutch. I won’t.”

~~~~~~~~~~

SAINT DENIS

GASKILL RESIDENCE

AFTERNOON

“...Gaskill...” Isaac murmured to himself, reading the small note in his hand.

He glanced up at the house in front of him, making sure this was the right place.

“Yep,” he confirmed, talking to his horse. “I think we’re here, Aldo.”

Leaving Aldo at the hitching post, Isaac said goodbye to the majestic creature and stuffed the note back into his pocket, strolling up to the front porch.

The property wasn’t as big as some of the others Isaac had seen along the way, but he still thought it looked rather cozy. It had a total of two stories and was decorated with loads of flowers, trees, grass, and a small water fountain that stood elegantly on the front lawn. There were a few birds perched on the edge of it at the moment, and they chirped happily as the cool water trickled onto their feathers, causing them to flutter their wings joyfully.

As for the house itself, if Isaac’s information was correct, then it belonged to an author by the name of Leslie Dupont. Though, according to the research he’d done, that was just a pen name. 

Her actual name was Mary-Beth Gaskill, and word on the street was that she used to be part of the Van der Linde gang... the very same gang Isaac had been tracking down for these past two months.

He had to admit, this “Dutch van der Linde” figure was proving rather difficult to find. For a while now, he had been jumping from person to person -- town to town -- just trying to get even the smallest lead.

At first, Isaac paid a visit to a general store owner named Simon Pearson who apparently used to be the gang’s cook. He talked with him for a while and shared a few drinks, only to realize that the man had a talent for speaking a lot without actually saying anything substantial. 

Afterwards, he tracked down another ex-member by the name of Tilly Pierre. She appeared friendly enough and was somewhat more willing to communicate, but Isaac hardly got a word out of her before her husband shooed him away. Didn’t want suspicious folks hanging around their family, he said.

And as if that wasn’t tiresome enough already, Isaac found himself talking to a preacher called Orville Swanson who seemed to have nothing but bad memories of Dutch, and kept going on about how much Isaac reminded him of one of the gang members.

At this point, Isaac was just hoping that this Gaskill woman actually existed. It seemed like every lead he followed up would end up with more questions than answers, and all the people he talked to so far had been less than eager to speak about their experiences with him.

If Miss Gaskill didn’t have anything valuable to give him, he had no idea where he would turn next.

Stepping up to the front door, Isaac gave it a few firm knocks and waited patiently in the garden, eager to speak with this woman. After a moment or two, the door swung open from the inside, revealing Ms. Gaskill herself. 

She was a lot more presentable than Isaac expected. In contrast to the rugged, hardened, mean-spirited woman he had been anticipating, Ms. Gaskill actually seemed quite sweet. She had a romantic twinkle in her eye and carried a very inquisitive nature, giving her the look of someone who enjoyed reading books and drinking tea as opposed to the ex-outlaw Isaac heard she was.

“Arthur--!” Ms. Gaskill greeted excitedly, only to cut herself off once she got a better look at her visitor’s face. “Oh, um...” a flustered chuckle escaped her, “s-sorry, mister. I... mistook you for someone else.”

Isaac smiled. “No worries. That seems to happen a lot nowadays.”

The woman cleared her throat. “Can I... can I help you, sir?”

“Yes, actually. Um...” the young man double-checked his note, “...are you Mary-Beth Gaskill?”

She nodded, immediately picking up on the fact that he used her real name. “I am. Who might you be?”

“My name’s Isaac. I apologize for interruptin’ your day like this, but... I was wonderin’ if I could ask you a few questions.”

“What about?”

Isaac hesitated for a second, unsure about how to broach the subject. “...It’s...it’s about the Van der Linde gang. I’ve heard that you used to run with them back in the day, and I was hopin’ you might be able to provide some answers. I’m lookin’ for them, you see.”

To Isaac’s surprise, the response actually seemed to earn him a more colloquial temperament from Ms. Gaskill, as opposed to the suspicious nature his previous visits induced. 

“Ah... I think I understand. Of course, of course. Come on in. I’d be happy to help.”

“Thank you, madam. I’ll just be a minute.”

Pushing the door completely open, Ms. Gaskill allowed Isaac to walk in as she made her way to the sitting area, preparing something for them to drink.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?” She offered.

Isaac shut the front door behind him, removing his hat. “That’d be lovely.”

Mary-Beth beamed at him, gesturing to the multiple chairs that had been arranged around the room. “Please, have a seat. Make yourself at home.”

Taking in his surroundings, Isaac sat down next to a rather nice end table and placed his hat on his lap, gazing at the decorations scattered throughout the house. 

Isaac already pegged Mary-Beth for a bookworm, but he had no idea just how into it she truly was. There were numerous bookshelves filled to the brim with horror stories, mysteries, comedies, tragedies... but most of all, romances.

They seemed to occupy the shelves more than any other genre, and just by looking at the small ribbons sticking out from between their pages, it was evident that Mary-Beth was busy working her way through quite a few of them at the same time. He wondered what that said about her as a person.

“Here you go,” Ms. Gaskill said as she handed him a cup of coffee, breaking Isaac out of his thoughts. “Careful, it’s hot.”

Isaac gently brought the cup into his grasp, holding it securely as the smell of freshly-brewed coffee beans reached his nose. “Thank you.”

Giving him a smile in response, Mary-Beth retrieved her own cup of coffee before taking a seat across from the young man, admittedly intrigued by his motive for being here.

“So...” she started, “you’re lookin’ for the Van der Linde gang. May I ask why?”

Isaac took a sip. “Well, truth be told, I ain’t really concerned about the whole gang. I’m just lookin’ for a specific person who I’ve been told is with them.”

Ms. Gaskill formed her own conclusion. “So, you’re a bounty hunter?”

“In a way, I guess. Only difference is I’m not doing this for the money. My reasons are more personal.”

The young woman nodded in understanding. “I see. And how did you know I used to be with them?”

“Your friend Mr. Swanson directed me to you.”

A nostalgic look spread across Mary-Beth’s face at the sound of Swanson’s name. 

“Oh, Mr. Swanson...” she reminisced warmly, “it’s been many years since I last saw him, but he was always so kind. Lost, perhaps, but kind. How is he nowadays?”

“He’s doin’ well, I think,” Isaac answered honestly. “He’s a minister now, up in New York. I don’t know what he was like when you knew him, but... Swanson seemed to be content with his life, if a bit remorseful.”

“That’s good to hear,” Ms. Gaskill said, her expression dimming slightly afterwards. “Too many of my friends from the old days ended up dead, missing, or just straight-up insane... so I’m glad that at least someone besides Tilly turned out okay.”

She downed some of her coffee, changing the subject. “But enough about that. You said you had questions about the Van der Linde gang?”

“I do.”

“Well...” Mary-Beth set her coffee down, “what would you like to know?”

Isaac decided to start at the top, inquiring about the leader himself.

“...What kind of a man is Dutch van der Linde?” He asked. “What can I expect from him?”

Ms. Gaskill chuckled at the question. “I used to ask myself the same thing everyday.”

Isaac smirked. “He’s unpredictable, I take it?”

“Understatement of the century. Though, to be fair, Dutch wasn’t always like that. When I first joined their gang, he actually saved me. A couple of men had just caught me stealin’ from them and were chasing me over the hills until Dutch scared them off. He was so generous back then. So passionate.”

“Yeah?” Isaac noted. “How so?”

Mary-Beth leaned forward, gesturing with her hands. “Well, even though Dutch was technically an outlaw, he never really came across as one. He was more like a teacher, or a guardian. A father even, to some. He loved us all, and we loved him, but...”

A melancholic sigh escaped the young woman. “...things just... spiraled out of control. As the years passed by, civilization began to spread, the law started killin’ our people, and eventually, Dutch just... snapped. In the end, he was more akin to a tyrant than anything, and the gang fell apart within a few short months. That was when I decided to run away with my friends, but... not everyone made it.”

Mary-Beth’s expression sank with sorrow, causing Isaac to blurt out an apology.

“I-I’m sorry, Ms. Gaskill. I didn’t mean to bring up any bad memories.”

“No, no, it’s fine.” She reassured. “I just wish things could’ve turned out differently, y’know? Not everyone in the gang was rotten. Some of them were actually quite wonderful... but it’s rarely the good ones who survive. I’m just surprised to hear that the Van der Linde gang is still going. I thought the rest of them would’ve scattered to the winds by now.”

Isaac drank some more of his coffee. “D’you have any idea where I could find them?”

Ms. Gaskill thought for a moment. “Well, if there’s anythin’ I know about Dutch, it’s that he probably headed back to the west.”

The young man quirked a brow. “The west? That’s a pretty big region. You have any specific states in mind? Or cities? Anything that could narrow it down?”

“Hmm... Dutch used to talk a lot about New Austin,” she suggested. “Apparently, he’s quite fond of the desert. Said it made him feel closer to the sky. I know he was always eyeballin’ that town Blackwater, too.”

“Blackwater...” Isaac repeated, mentally marking the town as his next point of interest. “I’ve been there a few times. Do you know why he’d be hangin’ around there?”

Mary-Beth shrugged. “No idea. All I know is that eight years ago, a ferry job in Blackwater nearly finished the whole gang. Perhaps Dutch feels like he has unfinished business there. Probably sees the town as a trophy he never got to win.”

“Hmm... that makes sense. And what about his numbers? How many men did Dutch have when you was with him?”

The woman conjured up a quick estimation. “Roughly two dozen, I think. Possibly a few more. But I can’t imagine he has that many people following him around these days, considerin’ how maniacal he was when I last saw him.”

“I see. So, he’s likely got a good chunk of people with him.”

The young man finished his coffee and placed the empty mug on the end table, preparing to leave.

“Well, I think I’ve gotten all the answers I needed, Ms. Gaskill. Thanks for takin’ the time to help me out. I really appreciate it.”

Mary-Beth smiled sincerely. “Anytime. It was good to talk about the old days, no matter how chaotic they might’ve been. I just hope you can find whomever it is you’re lookin’ for. Are they a friend of yours?”

Isaac chuckled. “Hardly. Quite the opposite, actually.”

“Ah. So you’re trackin’ down an enemy. Well, be careful out there, then. Things may be more civilized nowadays, but many gangs still roam the country. Not to mention that Dutch himself is exceptionally dangerous. Stay safe during your search.”

The man rose to his feet, heading to the door. “I will. Believe me. Oh, and um... Ms. Gaskill?” Isaac threw a look of gratitude at her, putting his hat back on before stepping out into the sun. “Thanks for the coffee.”

Free Read I hope you love my short story below.  If so, please review it on my twitter account or here. @lindeenen.  Enjoy THIRTEEN By Linda Deenen Thirteen claps, fingers fully extended, not to fast, not too slow, followed by thirteen emphatic blinks. This is how I start every new activity. It’s not lost on me how ridiculous I appear to anyone forced to watch this senseless ritual.  Hell, I don’t want to watch this senseless ritual, let alone perform it, but I’m powerless to stop.  Two years ago, after the death of my husband, the clapping started.  Thirteen, no more no less.   Yes, of course, I saw my doctor. (My boss politely insisted.) Doc assured me it was a traumatic stress disorder manifested from my grief and said I should give it time.   Time didn’t help. Instead of getting rid of the clapping, my routine expanded to include thirteen comically precise blinks, performed immediately post clap. This new affliction didn’t garner as much sympathy,as you might think. People around me, now suspecting it was an attention getting tactic, were becoming annoyed. My physician soon recommended I speak to a psychiatrist to help resolve the internal conflict I was having.  Personally, I think she was incapable of sitting through one more appointment with me and passed me on for another to bear. Thirteen claps and thirteen blinks.  The psychiatrist found it fascinating. The specific number and precise aspect of my affliction were things he hadn’t encountered before, but was certain we could figure out together.   “Do you feel uneasy if you don’t clap thirteen times exactly?” he asks me, inquisitive eyes boring into mine.  “Have you tried twelve times to see if that would work as well?”   A lock of dark hair breaks away from the carefully coiffed style and slides attractively over his arched eyebrow. His lips are pursed, expression concerned, his head nodding encouragingly as I explain I’m unaware of when the clapping will start or stop. He appears less sympathetic when I reveal that the act leaves me no more or less satisfied than I’d been before. Neither did it relieve stress nor create euphoria. His jaw drops with outright disbelief, when I mention that the episodes occur even while I’m sleeping and actually wake me up. “Most, uh, no, that’s not right.” He struggles “Really, I have to say all of the syndromes I’ve treated over the years were initiated by the patient.  They might be in denial and blame something else, but ultimately, with my help, they realize they’ve created these behaviors to counteract a buildup of anxiety within them. “   He shifts his bulk uncomfortably in the massive black leather chair and feigns interest in a small squeak from the cushion. I assume he’s searching for the correct words to tell me I’m crazy. Not a surprise really, I suspected as much and would actually be happy with a confirmation. “Ahem” Having given up on the inscrutable creak, he clears his throat and pontificates.  “The subconscious mind is quite capable of bringing things to the surface when we aren’t paying attention, for example,” he gestures sideways, “sleeping.   Thoughts, memories, that kind of thing, but initiating gross motor movements, like clapping, shouldn’t happen.” He lowers his chin and peers at me from under his bushy eyebrows. I smile and shrug.   “You’re likely waking up anyway when you start the clapping routine.” The corners of his mouth turn up as he intertwines his fingers and rests them on his plentiful paunch certain the mystery is solved. “Do you understand?” I understand. He thinks I’m either faking or exaggerating. Been there, heard that. I smile and shrug. He glances at his watch, probably hoping my session is finished.  It isn’t, there’s still an hour left.  He emits a loud sigh. “I won’t be able to help you if you aren’t open with me and since you either can’t or won’t discuss your feelings, I think we should try hypnotherapy.”  He stands up smoothing out the wrinkles in his tan linen pants. “Why don’t we move to the couch so you can lie down.” I knew I shouldn’t be flip, but given his pompous attitude, I can’t help myself.  As soon as the clapping and blinking stops… I smile and shrug. He rubs roughly at his scalp as if something there is bothering him. Mission accomplished, I stand up and move to the couch. When the clapping and blinking allows, I close my eyes and focus on his voice directing me to relax. I’m just acknowledging that the tone and cadence of his voice might actually put me to sleep, when I hear him insisting that I open my eyes. When I do, he’s standing above me, forcefully snapping his fingers and calling my name. I want to sit up in response to his emphatic request, but I’m unable to comply.  None of my muscles respond, not even to clap or blink.   I’m not unsympathetic to his distress at my not obeying his demands, but this is something I haven’t experienced before… inertia. My life has changed dramatically in the two years since my husband’s death, and not for the better. I lost my job for spending too much time performing a ritual that not only disrupted my performance but that of all those around me. Worse than the job was the loss of my constant companion, my beloved Australian Sheppard, Kitty, who stood by my side at the funeral home and the gravesite, giving me support.   Yeah, that one sucked, but my clapping and blinking was eating up so much of my time, I had none left to take him on walks or even feed him.   Grab his bowl – blinking – get the leash – clapping – put on a shoe, blinking, etc., you get the picture, and It’s not like I just left him on a street corner or something. Hmm… well I guess I kind of did. I gave him to the homeless guy who had installed himself at the off ramp near my home.  It seemed like a win – win to me.  Kitty would get walked back and forth all day and the homeless guy would attract more sympathy because he had another mouth to feed. My point being, it seemed to the doctors and even to me, that at least some of these events should have caused me stress, but, not so.  Except for the clapping and blinking, I’m having the time of my life.  Of course, I am using the life word loosely, because the here and now is where I am.   Sleeping, I don’t dream, awake, I have no memories or regrets and I don’t waste any time looking forward.   Emerging from my self-indulgent reverie, I notice the psychiatrist is red in the face and has given up snapping. Maybe his fingers cramped? But he still, obviously wants me to get my ass off his couch. I give it a try and, surprise, surprise, the clapping starts, only this time, it’s not thirteen precise claps, it’s a frantic slapping of limp palm flesh against limp palm flesh, in a flurry of unstoppable blows.  What the hell, this is fantastic.  I can hardly wait for the blinking to start. The psychiatrist, apparently unwilling to wait for the astonishing show my blinking will make, grabs my hands, which immediately puts a stop to the clapping.   I wait. I wait.   Nope, no blinking starts.  A shiver of disappointment at having been denied this heretofore unseen spectacle, rushes through me.  Seriously, what is wrong with me? I’ve obviously given up control to the seriously stricken psychiatrist, because he has raised me up from his couch, taking time for a quick glance to make sure I haven’t soiled his lounge, and moved me forward to my previous perch by his desk. Suprisingly,  he doesn’t reclaim his position of authority upon his leather throne, but maintains his unwelcome hold on my appendages and kneels before me like a peasant in supplication. I want to look away but for the first time in recent memory, I have a shaky, queasy feeling I assume is the one called, anxiety.  Fearful now, my heart beats fit to burst, and I desperately try to pry my fingers out of his sweaty grip. “Don’t panic,” his warm breath flutters on my cheek and he moves his hands on top of mine, pressing them heavily into my thighs.   I’m positive if he releases them,  thirteen claps will appear, but he doesn’t give them a chance.  As if reading my thoughts, he presses harder into my legs. “I can see you’re feeling uneasy, but I would like you to do something for me” his insipid, half smile looks hopeful. Not likely, my inside voice quips, but focusing is getting tough. Another time, I might have enjoyed the wobbliness of feeling semi drunk but now, I am concerned. Uneasy? I’ll see your uneasy and raise you one hysteria. Heat is streaking up my limbs, threatening to vaporize me. I have a primal urge to flee.  I order my legs to stand, but not one neuron makes an effort to perform this feat and I remain a prisoner in my body. “Can you  picture your husband, before he became ill. While his body was being ravaged by cancer, you had many conversations with him about his impending death and how much he wanted you to survive.”  I could feel the hair on the back of my head moving softly back and forth.  Was he patting me? I really need to leave. Even the years of clapping, blinking, clapping, blinking, did not distress me llike this, in this moment, I’m terrified.  I don’t know why, but I can definitely identify this emotion as terror.  What’s happening? Dully, I understand that while I have been focusing on my terror and need to get out of here, a sticky, heavy haze has oozed in my right ear and is blanketing my thoughts.   Nope, not happening, no friggin way. I’m in control and I ‘m going to leave. I see now, I made a huge mistake coming here today and as I am apologizing to the doctor for taking up his valuable time (huge effort expended vocalizing that lie by the way), he interrupts me. “Julie, you know this body is not yours” he proclaims loudly as he stands, hands on hips, legs spread defiantly. “What the #**k?  I don’t have to sit here and listen to these ravings.” Well, ultimately I do, because nothing works yet, no feet, no legs and definitely no arms or I’d clock him up the side of his head - no hollow apology to follow. “Julianna, now is the time to assert yourself.”  He looks remarkably like a tent gospel healer ,raising his arms over his head while making this proclamation.  I wonder stupidly if my smiling might help him out. He seems pretty upset. “If you don’t at least try, you’ll remain a prisoner of this pseudo-personality for the rest of your life.” I’m having trouble figuring out who the heck he’s talking to, or about, since my focus is still slipping.  I don’t like being called Julianna. My name is Julie. Why’s he not calling me Julie? “Your husband showered you with his love and trusted you to recover.  You’ve let him down.”  The doc is sitting on the side of his desk now accenting his points by pounding on the dark wood. I’m furious. “Stop it.  Stop talking to me!  We’re happy the way we….” What? What did I say?  We?  We who? “No, I misspoke, I meant I. I’m happy the way I am.” But still he continues. “Under hypnosis, I met the real Julianna. I know you want to be free.  You told me that when Tom died, it felt safer to let Julie take over, and I understand that impulse.”  His voice feels cool, like a summers rain, soothing, but dangerous, as if concealing a shaft of lightening, waiting to strike. I just know this train isn’t stopping any time soon.  The doctor adjusts his tie, tugs on the gold tip of his belt, confident, and gaining momentum. “Julianna, you didn’t just hide, you disappeared and when you wanted to come back, it was too late.  Julie was too strong.  She has no interest in your life and does whatever amuses her day to day. “ “One day you managed to push through enough to make your hands clap.  Thirteen times. One for each year you and Tom were married.  But no one paid attention and focused on the other signs Julie was exhibiting.  They couldn’t know clapping was just the tip of the iceberg.  You got a little stronger when Julie’s boss forced her to see a doctor and you were able to move your eyelids as well.”   He slides down to a squat in front of me and I see him touch my knee, but I don’t feel it. Funny. “You’d have won this battle eventually Julianna, but it might have taken years.  Now, with hypnotherapy, I’ve seen you and I won’t let that happen.  The time is now, Julianna, now, please.” I’m using all accessible effort to keep my sluggish attention on the shrink because I deem him to be the immediate threat. Wrong! All this time, covertly, I’m being pressed gently, but steadily out of the light and into a dim corridor of interminable length. My heart rate quickens but then I realize, it doesn’t feel that bad, being in the cool dark, and for a second or 2,  I’m seduced into relaxing the emotional control I’ve maintained for two years. With my eyes closed, I see a crack has appeared in my wall. I know I need to shore it up but a friendly soft breeze floats across my cerebellum and feels amazing. I succumb and allow myself to be beguiled and soothed. When the sensation ends, a deep sigh escapes my lips and I try to raise myself to my former level of attention.  It’s not there! I try again, squinting my face with effort, but I can make nothing work. Within that brief respite, I allowed myself to be conveyed.  Now you’d think I would have an answer to “Conveyed where?” but I don’t.  I’ve no sense of what or where I am, except for the certainty that I’m in a confinement.  Am I doing this? I whisper to myself. I attempt to sense the edges of my inky cubby; it feels the size of a postage stamp. A tiny stamp hidden away in the corner of some museum, never to be found.  Sounds are all dampened and dull, as if the energy has been sucked out of them. Adrenaline floods my system in fear of my invisible shackles; it pumps and beats looking for a way to escape my body. I can scarcely make out the form of the psychiatrist now.  He appears to still be talking. No surprise there, I reassure myself as I impotently battle to maintain control. With no limbs available to me, my battleground is the grey matter nestled in my skull.   With sticky toes, I climb one wiggly hill after the other, moving forward to the front, where I used to live.  Each footfall squishes deeper, preventing me from gaining ground. I rest, trying to sense the doctor. I find him, an indistinct presence, very close. But now, I discern he’s got a smile on his face, and he’s holding someone’s hand, saying “Welcome back Julianna.” My vision goes black, I want to reach up to see if my eyes have been gouged out, but my hands are stuck in the viscous guck separating the lobes. The effort is too much. It’s all too much and as I allow my cheek to finally rest on the neural tissue and dendrites that surround me, I hardly notice as I disappear.

Staying healthy & helping others in this weird time we live in

(updated March 31, 2020 for more up-to-date links and information)

I’m not normally one for serious posts, but I did want to make a post about the present situation (mostly in the US, but elsewhere too!) -- because it’s important to stay informed about COVID-19/novel coronavirus, especially when there’s so much misinformation out there:

Wash your hands. I know everyone keeps saying this, but it really is one of the most effective things you can do for reducing the spread of disease. Wash your hands with soap, often, for at least 20 seconds. Soap breaks up oil, destroys the cells of many viruses and bacteria, and gloms on to other particles on your hands, helping to get them really clean. It’s worth doing. Social distancing, not touching your face, staying home as much as possible, changing and washing clothes right away when you do come home, and disinfecting commonly-used spaces and surfaces in your home as often as possible are other things you can and should do. [source: CDC guidelines]

Be mindful of others. Many of us on tumblr here are young and so are less likely to suffer a serious case of COVID-19. But just because you’re not experiencing symptoms, or have mild symptoms, does not mean you should not be thinking of others’ wellbeing. Grandparents, older parents, the immune-comprimised (such as those with cancer or other immune-deficiencies), and those with certain health conditions are at risk more than the rest of us. So protect them as much as you can. Practice those good health tips always, but especially in spaces you may share with those who may be at greater risk. And also, be considerate of those with jobs that don’t allow them to isolate, like grocery store employees and bus drivers; this is extra hard for them, so do what you can to be kind, courteous, and considerate to them for all they’re doing for the rest of us [source: CDC at-risk statement].

Be responsible when shopping. If you can, have some food and necessities at home -- ideally enough to get through a week or two. Don’t panic-buy, and don’t hoard. A package of disinfectant wipes or spray, and some soap, will get you through; if you’re unable to find these items, you can often find soaps for refillable bottles at natural stores or online. Don’t fill your cart with toilet paper or sanitizer, which just denies others these items and stops them from protecting the community. And practice good health practices while in the store (remember, this is a common area! be considerate of hardworking employees, and other shoppers).

Help as much as you can. The elderly and people with weakened immune systems may be scared right now. You might be scared. Your parents or siblings or friends or coworkers might be scared. Stay in touch with people -- find ways to connect remotely so you and those you care about don’t feel isolated. Be supportive of those who are struggling to handle this. Donate blood through the Red Cross, or supplies like masks and gloves to hospitals, if you’re able to. And if you can, help those who need it; do a grocery run for someone who’s at risk, help them disinfect, or just call someone who may need cheering up. And don’t be afraid to ask for help if you need it.

Don’t panic. But also, don’t ignore the situation. Try to stay up to date with things, and be aware of your local situation. There’s so much misinformation out there, so be critical of what you see. Avoid falling into pitfalls of prejudice. And take care, and be kind! Everything’s going to be okay if we all look after ourselves and one another.

Check under the cut for links to helpful health & safety advice, news, and discussions about COVID-19:

Where to find updates and well-sourced information:

updates from the CDC and WHO

for those in the US and Canada, this website has done an incredible job of monitoring cases, news, school closings, and other information in real-time

Helpful discussions with reliable information:

reporting by Last Week Tonight -- part 1 || part 2 || part 3

the Sawbones podcast (hosted by Dr. Sydney McElroy & Justin McElroy) has 3 really good episodes discussing the origin of the virus, the role of quarantine in containing the spread of illnesses, and the current state of the COVID-19 pandemic as of March 22nd

tips for talking to your kids about COVID-19

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How to determine if something is bullshit (a short guide): ask the following questions: 

(1) Are there sources included with the statement? (2) Are the sources credible (namely, are they from a primary source, such as a research group, recognized health agency, or other medical institution)? (3) Can I find more than one account of the information? (4) Is the statement objective (meaning ‘based on fact’, rather than subjective or ‘based on emotion or feeling’, which creates a bias)?

If the answer to any of those 4 questions is “no”, there’s a chance the information could be bullshit, OR, at the very least, it may be incomplete.

In health news, be skeptical of things involving very small test groups (a test on 12 people does not speak for the general public!) or made by for-profit laboratories. Big pharma can make great things, but it can also be unethical. Read the literature from sources that are not invested in the product (again, the CDC, WHO, and FDA are good places to start) to get a better sense of how reliable, safe, or effective a thing is.

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

Speaking of misinformation...:

There is not yet a vaccine or official treatment for COVID-19, though work is in progress around the world.

No, you can’t protect yourself with a detox treatment (and shame on the influencers pushing this).

No, you cannot “self-test” for COVID-19 by holding your breath. The claim that you can self-test by attempting to hold your breath for 10 seconds is a social media hoax which gained some traction when it was perpetuated on Fox News. It has been completely debunked.

Be skeptical of home tests. Produced primarily by Everlywell, they are expensive, and the chance for a false negative is very high (they require swabbing VERY far up your own nose, which is painful and difficult to do on yourself if you’re not a medical professional or someone with experience doing so). If you’re worried that you may be sick, call your doctor; there are also lots of drive-in testing locations around the country.

Hand sanitizers made with only essential oils do not work -- essential oils do not disinfect. Beware of DIY hand sanitizer, as it is easy to make an ineffective one. Soap and water are the most effective means of disinfecting your hands.

It’s unclear if ibuprofen can worsen cases of COVID-19 -- this information was circulated by the French Health Minister, but there is no scientific data to support their claim. Ibuprofen is probably still safe to take. If you have any doubts, then you can take Tylenol, paracetamol, naproxen sodium, or aspirin instead.

COVID-19 has nothing to do with beer or eating meat.

Beware of conspiracy theories in general.

Beware of phishing scams pretending to be official press releases. Many appear from fake CDC emails.

Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites are struggling to stop misinformation campaigns. Don’t consider these sites a reliable source of information -- look for the primary source to confirm what you see online, and do what you can to report or remove false information.

Beware articles or sources that use the current situation to excuse discrimination or prejudice. It is wrong to blame Asians and Asian culture for COVID-19 -- that’s just racism. Similarly, stories blaming migrants are just as wrongly biased.

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*** Note: I’m not a doctor or any other type of medical professional. I am a geologist who knows a lot about source evaluation and is worried about people being misinformed

Good morning, friends. It’s been a whole hot minute since I ruined that FIHA guy for everyone by scrutinizing and over-analyzing every sentence he’s ever said, because what can I say, I have weird hobbies. So we’re going to do that. But before we jump down this rabbit-hole, I just want to clarify one thing. I’ll probably wind up using a lot of certain language in this post. Talking about a lot of “is” and “isn’t”, “should” and “shouldn’t”, things that “will” and “won’t” work. Just know I’m not trying to dunk on anyone else’s portrayal here. The last thing I want to do is discourage anybody’s work. This is based on my interpretation of the character solely. So, with that out of the way:

 I do so love taking every chance I get to bring up this screenshot. Why? I don’t know, maybe I’m a glutton for punishment. But among other things, it establishes love - a happy relationship, a partnership, something in which Nagito can feel safe and secure and cared for - as the thing he wants more than anything else in the world. So let’s talk about why that’s nearly unattainable for him!  

 Since Nagito loves books, let’s use those to try and make some sense of all this. Think of where he’s at now, mentally and emotionally, as book one. The final book - the endgame - is him being happy and settled in that place he wants to be. So how is he supposed to get there? Well, all the books in between. There are lessons to be learned, adventures to be had. He needs to grow and change. See, it’s not really a matter of “wow this person loves me, how cool”, because something as simple as that can still crumble the shaky foundation upon which his entire philosophy and view of the world sits.

 You may have noticed this, but Nagito’s life has been, uh...c͞ha͜ot̢ic̷. He’s been tortured, kidnapped, terminally ill, lost everyone he’s ever cared for, left all alone to deal with it all. He needs a way to process all this, and a reason to keep on living. And I think you know where I’m going with this. No matter what else, Nagito believes in Hope. And in order for Hope to exist, so must despair, or else Hope is worthless. And we can’t have that. Some people are worthy to bring about that Hope, some are not. Nagito has firmly planted himself in the latter category, due to all the pain his luck has caused. (And by extension, pardon the gratuitous use of my own headcanon, all the pain he caused, owing to how he blames himself for it’s existence, seeing it as a punishment for his very first instance of tragic luck - the death of his childhood pet, which he feels responsible for.) Remember, he needs this. He needs to believe that hope will follow despair, that bad luck serves to precede good, that for all the scum out there like him, there’s someone capable of undoing it all; or at least, capable of making it into something worthwhile. He needs to.

 Enter the person whose affection Nagito wants. He could only ever love someone who is full of hope. In fact, he’s even said as much. So, that’s the kind of person whose love he’d want in return. Let’s say, he finds that in someone. Wow! Cool! Except, for someone that wonderful, their love is worth a great deal. Which means it can’t be given to just anyone. Which means they must be somehow justified in giving it to him. Which is impossible, because he’s worthless garbage that’s only good for bringing about misery. He must be, because if he isn’t, then he truly is a victim of circumstance. Because if that’s the case, perhaps luck truly is random and not a balanced force. And if that’s true, then all those horrible things he’s seen truly were all happenstance. Which means that good luck will not always follow bad, which means hope may not always follow despair, which means life itself is just one traumatising disappointment after another, and after being tortured, and kidnapped, and diagnosed with a terminal illness, and worst of all, losing everyone he’s ever loved until he’s all alone in the world, what’s the point of even living? It’s not just that he is worthless, it’s that he must be.

 Do you see the dilemma? 

 Nagito relies so deeply on this shaky, unsteady philosophy, that if it crumbles away, he will probably lose his grip on reality. And though Danganronpa practically confirms hope, despair and luck to be tangible and real, if somewhat abstract, concepts; even Nagito’s dependence on it is supposed to be seen as, ah, Much. So how can he accept the love he so desperately needs, if he can never deserve it?

 And that, at last, brings us to the apotheosis of this whole post. Entirely too many words in. Whoops. 

 So, how should one react when faced with Nagito’s vitriolic, cruel, verbal self-flagellation? How ought one go about changing his mind without completely shattering him? Or, to put it another way: what do when he starts up on his bullshit?

 I’ve seen various writers, muses and such go about this different ways. Often to the tune of: “No ur not”. Which is not a bad or reductive response, to be clear. It’s the most obvious reaction, I think most people with a shred of empathy would say something to that effect. Of course he’s not useless scum with nothing to offer anybody - it’s true and you should say it. It would probably even make him feel nice for a moment. 

 What I’m getting at is: it’s just not very constructive. 

 Remember how I mentioned the books? I don’t know of a series where you can read the first book, skip to the last, and nothing in between matters. You’re just going to wind up confused and frustrated, just like many people are with him. Ultimately, Nagito will probably just smile and say something like “haha you’re too nice to me”, but with a simple “but you’re not trash” approach, nothing’s really going to change. He’s not going to give up his self-deprecating ways. His mindset won’t be altered. He’ll just think you’re humouring him or something. The road for him to accept someone’s love easily and readily is long, and takes patience. Rather than committing to an uphill battle, might I humbly suggest, instead, just leading him there willingly, step by step? So little by little, that even as his entire wold view is chipped away, he’ll have the chance to replace it with something stronger. 

 Banning him from ever saying anything bad about himself probably won’t help. If anything, he’ll just feel he needs to bury his true feelings deeper because they’re so annoying and troublesome. There’s a simpler, much better way to at least get him on the right track. Rather than denying him his point of view, just make it look a little nicer. Like, yeah, maybe he’s trash, but like, quality trash. Less stinky leftovers, more, a lottery ticket someone accidentally dropped in the bin. It still sounds callous, but we’re taking baby steps here. 

 I mean, I’m sure there’s lots of ways to approach this, but what I’m saying is: dealing with him takes a great deal of patience and kindness. And if he gets too difficult to argue with, then don’t. Sometimes small gestures and physical affection can speak volumes. It really is a page-by-page process, and sometimes, it might seem like he’s learned the next lesson, only to forget it again. Progress isn’t linear. And his hatred for himself isn’t something he can sternly be talked out of. Really, nobody can. That kind of change comes from inside, and it can start without others even knowing.

 So, I supposed the point is...please be patient with him? I guess? I mean, he’s such a difficult and frustrating guy to deal with at times. But he’s also committed, loyal, kind, selfless, hardworking, playful, and so, so loving. And I’m not really sure how this post went from an examination of how Nagito’s world view obstructs his ability to receive love, to “deAR GOD SOMEONE PLEASE JUST PAT HIM AND TELL HIM HE’S GOOD, I’M BEGGING” but there you have it.

New Post has been published on Present Truth

New Post has been published on https://presenttruth.info/fear-not-coronavirus-precautions/

Fear Not! Coronavirus Precautions!

“Grace be with you, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love” (2 John 3).

I pray that you are doing well despite the perilous times in which we are living.

I am a first responder with our volunteer fire department. I just wanted to share a few things with you about the caronavirus that were shared with our department.

First of all, Thus saith the Lord, “Fear not!” This phrase is found 63 times in the Bible.

“Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32).

“Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” (Matthew 6:25-34).

“And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28).

“He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet. Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation” (Psalms 91:1-16).

“No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD” (Isaiah 54:17).

“But now thus saith the LORD that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee” (Isaiah 43:1, 2).

“Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness” (Isaiah 41:10).

For a study on trusting the Lord for everything, please read the following article.

The Faith of the Son of God – Jun-Jul 2018

Paul exclaimed, “I live by the faith of the Son of God” (Galatians 2:20). Wait a minute, I know we are to “…walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7), but Paul talks about “the faith of” God’s Son, not his own faith. …Read More

Some Precautions

1) Wash your hands often. Hands are the number one carrier of germs and viruses.

2) Avoid touching your mouth, nose, and eyes.

3) Drink lots of water. The caronavirus first attaches in your throat, and cannot survive well in warm temperatures. It can be washed down to the stomach by warm water where it will be killed by your stomach acid. If you have a sore throat gargle with warm salt water, and drink lots of water.

4) Monitor yourself and others with a thermometer, preferably one that does not need to touch the patient.

5) Stay at least six feet away from anyone who has symptoms of caronavirus without protection. Protection will include gloves, mask, eye protection, and a gown. Even with these precautions, limit all contact, and carefully remove and dispose of the protection, then wash your clothes, shower, and change into clean clothes. Spray the bottom of your shoes with a disinfectant like Lysol, before entering your vehicle or house after you have been exposed to coronavirus.

According to the CDC Website here are some things you should watch for.

Watch for symptoms Reported illnesses have ranged from mild symptoms to severe illness and death for confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases. The following symptoms may appear 2-14 days after exposure.*

Fever

Cough

Shortness of breath

*This is based on what has been seen previously as the incubation period of MERS-CoV viruses.

If you develop emergency warning signs for COVID-19 get medical attention immediately. Emergency warning signs include*:

Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath

Persistent pain or pressure in the chest

New confusion or inability to arouse

Bluish lips or face

*This list is not all inclusive. Please consult your medical provider for any other symptoms that are severe or concerning.

If you suspect someone to be a carrier of the caronavirus, they will probably not be transported to the hospital unless they have emergency warning signs.

Currently, President Trump is requesting that you avoid gatherings of more than ten people, and avoid unnecessary travel.

I am not giving you everything you need to know about this, so check your trusted news sources for more information.

The best preparation you can make is to draw near to God. “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded” (James 4:8).

There are a lot of promises of protection in the Bible for us, claim them and believe them for you and your family. If there is known sin in your life, ask God to remove it, then ask Him to reveal more light. Watch and pray is the instruction Jesus gave His disciples before their faith was severely tried.

As students of the Bible we should not be surprised by things like this. There are a lot of potential events behind the scenes that might explain why this is going on right now. The bottom line is, Satan is behind it all.

“…Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time” (Revelation 12:12).

The final conflict will be over worship. Read Revelation 13. God’s Ten Commandments are split into two sections, 1-4 deal with worship to God, 5-10 deal with how we treat people. The primary commandments that will be involved in this final conflict revolve around commandments 1 and 4.

On February 18, 1890 there was a Breckenridge Sunday Bill presented to the House of Representatives in the United States. Here is a portion of what this bill entailed.

“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That it shall be unlawful for any person or corporation, or employee of any person or corporation in the District of Columbia, to perform any secular labor or business, or to cause the same to be performed by any person in their employment on Sunday, except works of necessity or mercy; nor shall it be lawful for any person or corporation to receive pay for labor or services performed or rendered in violation of this act…”

JO Corliss testified before the house in opposition to this bill saying,

“…In this connection let me say, gentlemen, that the District of Columbia has just the same kind of a Sunday law as that of Ohio. This law of the District of Columbia was in force when this book was issued which I hold in my hand, which was April 1, 1868; and I am told that this law (which I will read) was re-enacted in 1874. I now quote from the law. Section 1 provides that- ‘If any person shall DENY THE TRINITY, he shall, for the first offense, be bored through the tongue, and fined twenty pounds; … and for the second offense, the offender being thereof convict as aforesaid, shall be stigmatized by burning on the forehead with the letter B, and fined forty pounds; and for the third offense, the offender being thereof convict as aforesaid, shall suffer death, without the benefit of the clergy.’ Section 10 of the same law has this:- ‘No person whatever shall do any bodily labor on the Lord’s day, commonly called Sunday …’ Now, gentlemen, that law has never been repealed.” (Arguments on the Breckinridge Sunday Bill, by AT Jones, pages 3,13).

Friends, we are living in perilous times. The Lord is coming soon. The final crisis will be over worship, and the two primary aspects that will be brought to law will cause people to violate God’s Ten Commandment Laws on the true God we worship, and the day on which we worship. How those will be brought to play in forbidding people to buy or sell unless they violate these Laws is yet to be seen. But pay attention, friends, it is coming. Make sure you know who you worship, and worship Him in Spirit and in Truth, and worship Him in part by resting “the Sabbath day according to the Commandment” (Luke 23:56).

Please read these booklets: God’s Love on Trial, National ID and the Mark of the Beast, and The Mark of the Beast.

Farewell my Brothers and Sisters. God bless you and keep you.

“For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen” (Ephesians 3:14-21).

In Christian Love, Your Brother in Christ, Lynnford Beachy

You are Wrong about Lotor

The advertisements for this season promised to blur the lines between good and evil and delivered exactly that. By the conclusion of Voltron Legendary Defender season Six our paladins have apparently killed the only true hero in this show, destroyed their only access point to unlimited clean energy, and kickstarted a civil war in the Galra Empire. Team Voltron, has become the villains.

What’s that?

Doesn’t sound like we watched the same show?

Let me explain.

The writing and framing this season were truly incredible. Meticulously calculated to provide just the right information at just the right time to draw the exact wrong conclusions. It aims to provoke a violent emotional reaction in the viewer and discourage them from thinking critically about what they’re seeing. Even better, it’s a double trick, as additionally, our protagonists in the show fall into the same trap. It’s so incredibly meta, to have your audience make the same, independent conclusion as your characters.

It’s emotional manipulation at it’s cruelest, and this is only the first of the one-two punch that’s due to land it’s second hit next season.

Because team Voltron is wrong about Lotor, and so are you.

To cut to the chase, the story the narrative wants you to conclude, is that Lotor is keeping a group of Alteans hostage to systematically drain them of quintessence for use in his experiments.

I’m going to tell you right now, that’s not what’s happening.

Romelle is either hopelessly naive or malicious: she straight up admits to only knowing parts of the truth. Suspiciously, she is the first and only person Keith and Krolia encounter, but just so happens to be the only person privy to the ‘dark secrets’ of the colony. What luck! Of course, they must avoid interacting with the other Alteans who reside in the colony, as nobody else would believe Romelle if she told them. Convenient.  As far as I am concerned, everything she tells them that was not also directly witnessed by Krolia and Keith is suspect.

Speaking of, how is it, exactly, that we know Lotor is extracting quintessence from these people? Hmm? Do we have any concrete proof? No. Keith jumps to conclusions. Keith shoots first and asks questions later.

Upon discovering the emaciated Alteans in the pods Keith immediately declares that Lotor must be harvesting their quintessence. We see no actual quintessence in the lab, and by the accumulation of dust it appears that the facility has been unused for quite some time. Logically, the quintessence that the blade intercepted, and that Keith and Krolia have been seeking the source of, had to have come from somewhere, but that place isn’t this lab. But, this is no time for logic; Keith, Krolia and Romelle race off to the Castle of Lions to confront Lotor.

Sendak was absolutely correct when he said that the paladin’s greatest weakness was that they value the lives of others. Because just the suggestion that some innocent people may have lost their lives is enough to prompt the paladins to ambush someone, guns drawn, who has thus far proved himself a powerful and valuable ally. They ask Lotor exactly zero questions and don’t allow him the time to explain themselves. And it was the idea alone that caused them to act, because at no point did they seek out any proof whatsoever!

Allura alone I will grant some leeway in her reaction.

I 100% understand why Allura reacted the way she did, after all the shit she’s been through. She’s only just managed to feel that not all Galra are as monstrous as Zarkon. She’s fallen in love with his own son, and she’s hoping with everything she has that he’s really a good person. I’m sure there was still some residual fear there, it can’t have been more than two years from her perspective since everything she’s known and loved was taken from her. It takes so long to shake a trauma like she’s been through, and many people never fully do. And when she discovers that Lotor has been hiding the existence of other Alteans from her? That he admits to having to sacrifice a few? That fear and anger flared up.

It’s conspicuous, that circumstances conspire to both render Lotor unconscious and to remove him from the castle before he can explain himself. He doesn’t even hear half of the things that he’s been accused of doing and so wouldn’t know to deny them. No one ever, at any point, asks Lotor if he’s been harvesting quintessence from living Alteans. We’re left waiting to hear his side of things, and then, the next thing he says referencing Team Voltron is this:

“Zethrid, Ezor, my deepest apologies for lying to you both. But in order to gain the princess’s trust, and make the paladins of Voltron believe we were truly at odds, it had to be done.”

This comes at an interesting place in the narrative. Seemingly confirming that Lotor has been manipulating Team Voltron the whole time, and thus invalidating the sincerity of any of his prior actions since splitting from his generals. Because it follows immediately upon the horrific accusations he was denied the chance to refute it also tricks us into thinking he’s admitting to them. After all, if he’s been faking this entire time, what couldn’t he be capable of? Except. This apology is itself a lie.

In fact, regardless of whatever understanding Lotor and Axca have between them, it is impossible for them to have been working together at any point between Axca’s betrayal at Daibazaal and The Generals allying themselves with Haggar; after the point in which Allura and Team Voltron began extending some trust to Lotor. While it’s possible - even probable - that Lotor and Axca may have had contingency plans for faking a split between the generals and Lotor, and some of those plans may have included attempting an alliance with Voltron, there are far too many moving pieces for all that transpired between them to have been planned ahead of time. Far too many opportunities for one or all of them to have died. And, consistently, Lotor puts his own survival and that of his loyal allies above all other priorities.

Simply put, if the generals hadn’t been recruited by Haggar they would have been executed. If Axca was loyal to Lotor at this point she would have had no good reason to risk her life by returning to the empire, especially when Lotor had just killed Zarkon.

He says this when he does because he needs Ezor and Zethrid to not fight him over returning to the Castle of Lions. His words towards his generals, notably using ‘power’ instead of ‘peace’, are chosen to convince them to work with him again and to give the impression that he has control of the situation and a plan - which he absolutely does not.

We know this is a facade, because the moment Lotor comes face to face - or ship to lion - with Allura again he drops it and reverts to language and mannerisms he’s been using before with her. But he’s doing this openly in front of his generals and they’re visibly perplexed.

Lotor rushes back to the Castle of Lions to attempt to reason with Allura. He loves her, and he's willing to put aside his pride and plead with her in front of both of their teams. You can hear the panic in his voice as he tries to hold it together.

And then Allura accuses Lotor of being worse than Zarkon. Everything after that, isn't really him. He has a mental breakdown. He’s had every support ripped away, and 10,000 years worth of repressed pain and anguish come crashing down on him. He's lost everything that matters to him, had the one person he though he could trust, the woman he loves, accuse him of his own greatest fear, and he's hurting.

In meta about prior seasons I’ve seen it expressed that it’s a miracle that Lotor escaped his upbringing as apparently put together as he did. He’s paranoid, and occasionally willing to go against his own moral code if it means surviving another day, but surprisingly stable.

Well, it turns out he isn’t. Lotor fairly obviously has some degree of mental illness, and it unfortunately contributes to his decline in the season finale. At the risk of getting too personal in a fandom meta post, Lotor’s breakdown is eerily familiar to me - and I would expect many other fans with experience with mental health issues as well. I too have had crisis like that, complete with screaming, ranting and threatening to kill everyone who’s ever even so much as looked at you funny.

This whole situation went to hell because team Voltron has a history of making decisions based on emotions rather than logic. So far, it’s worked out pretty alright for them, but that’s about to change. They’ve lost their home, their best chance for stability and avoiding a civil war in the Galra Empire, and a loyal friend. Because they let their emotions get the best of them and couldn’t take fifteen minutes to sort out their facts from their fears.

The only negative thing. The only negative thing Lotor admits to, is that ‘many Alteans perished in [his] quest to unlock the mysteries of quintessence.’ He does not say how they died, he does not say he killed them, he doesn’t even say that their deaths were intentional. For all we know, they died in a lab accident. Those Alteans in pods? Among the many functions pods like those are established to have in VLD are healing and cryopreservation. We don’t even know that those people are the deceased Alteans in question. We don’t even know if they’re dead!

The one and only time we see the blue quintessence used as intended in show is when Lotor uses the last of his supply of it to energize his Sincline ship and attempts to pass through the gate for the first time. In response to Zethrid’s concern that this is the last of their concentrated quintessence Lotor states that once they get into the rift they will have access to an unlimited amount of it. Therefore, it stands to reason that the white quintessence found in the rift contains the same properties as the blue of unknown origin. But that the yellow and purple the Empire uses apparently does not.  Lotor doesn't need the quintessence in the rift for the empire: he needs it for the Alteans. He's not manipulating anyone, his goals are the same as theirs: peace and free energy for the universe. While it’s likely the blue quintessence does have some relation to the colony, whatever that is, there is currenly no evidence whatsoever that it’s being extracted from sentient beings. He’s clearly looking for a replacement source as it is. He likely wanted to tell Allura about the Altean colony, but felt he needed to secure reliable access to the quintessence field before he could do so.

So what’s this second punch that’s going to land next season?

If you haven’t guessed already, think how this is actually going to turn out. Because we know Romelle is wrong, whether on purpose or by accident. She basically conspired to kill the man who did everything in his power to save her people and her culture. And she did so by turning his friends against him.

How are the paladins going to feel when they realize this? How is Allura going to feel? She left Lotor to die in the rift. After he begged her to see reason. After he confessed his feelings for her. After she fell in love with him.

Ultimately, despite what many people expected, and indeed what many people are saying, Lotor has never intentionally manipulated the paladins and he didn’t betray Team Voltron.

Allow me to repeat myself:

Lotor didn’t betray Team Voltron

They betrayed him.

Sincere thanks to all my fandom family in the Lotura 18+ discord. Nearly all of the conclusions reached in this meta were origionally hashed out during chat sessions. Love you all, and I hope for anyone disheartened by s6 this meta can give you a bit of hope for the future.

I sincerely believe, that when all things are said and done, Voltron: Legendary Defender is going to go down as one of the best shows ever created.