#feel accomplished. and that's why i like act 6. it's unbelievable out of place with the usual “laws of the narrative”. yet it shows us the | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

juliettalfacharlie · 4 years ago

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Day 4, alt: Visiting a Grave

CW graphic death, gun violence, suicide, acceptance of death, and drugs.

The previous two years, she'd shaken with emotion. First with anger, then grief. Anniversaries weren't necessarily special dates; they weren't anything she looked forward to or dreaded, but it was still jarring to realize how much time had passed. She'd experienced a minute of disbelief when she first recognized it'd been a year since her wife was with her.

It was customary in the Earth Kingdom to show respect only towards elders. When parents lost their children, no vigils were held, for it wasn't acceptable to honour those your junior.

It was a practice that thankfully hadn't taken roots in Republic City. Kya wouldn't have cared, regardless. She was hurting, damnit, and that wasn't lessoned because Lin was three years younger than she.

Now, 1,095 days past her lover's death, Kya was finally in a place of peace. Not with Lin's killer, or the circumstances surrounding it. She didn't believe she'd ever accept that.

The two had been walking out to their car after an evening dinner, and Lin sensed an altercation a block away. Kya sat in the Satomobile while Lin cautiously neared, concerned over a potential mugging or assault. It hadn't felt like anything serious, especially compared to what both women had already seen.

Lin used her seismic sense when she'd crossed half the distance, seeing two figures. One was pressed against the wall, the target, while the other stood in front of them, the instigator.

She treaded as quietly as possible, peeking around the corner to assess the situation.

There were two men, both tall and muscular. The assailant held something Lin originally believed to be a small baton, but as it caught light from the streetlamps, Lin saw it was a handgun. They weren't exceedingly common, due to being new inventions that were quite costly, but the amount of nonbenders in Republic City meant they were more concentrated here compared to other nations.

Lin desperately wished for her old spool of cables, but she'd retired them fifteen years prior, and they'd been gifted to the top metalbending prospect at the time of her departure.

The weapon was pointed at the victim, so any surprise attack risked him firing. She instead went for a civil approach, calling from behind the corner, "Step away and put your weapon down." she instructed, hearing his loud gasp.

"Who's there? Don't come close or I'll shoot!" the attacker yelled. His voice was strained, likely from fear.

"You haven't done anything yet, kid. Just set the gun on the floor, and we can talk about it." she replied, using a tone of placating authority. She displayed power without intimidation; the other man was acting on pure emotions, he needed to feel like he had an ally.

"I don't want to talk. That's not going to do shit to bring back my brother." he said, and Lin heard a head hit the concrete wall.

"Killing someone else won't either. It's also not going to make you feel the pain any less. The only thing it'll accomplish is ending your own life as well." she told him, voice softening just slightly. One constant in life would always be violence, and there would always be people hurt by it. Lin stepped around the corner, hands up in submission.

The gunman yelped, swinging the weapon towards her. "Hey, I know you! You're a cop!" he said, and Lin had a full view of his face. He was young; not boyishly so, but somewhere in his early 20's.

"I'm not an officer anymore, but the experience I have means I know exactly how this can end up. I don't want to see that happen to you; there's so much left to experience." she told him, calm under his pressure.

His hands trembled just so, eyes full of pain. "There would have been if it weren't for him!" he yelled, turning his head to the other man.

His face was bloody but he looked otherwise unharmed. "It's not my fault the idiot overdosed, I just gave him the shit." he argued, and the young man clenched more firmly around the gun.

Lin intervened quickly, taking attention off of the loudmouthed dealer, "I know what it's like to lose a sibling. My younger sister. My mom took her side, so it felt like I was entirely alone, but I found joy in my job. In my hobbies and friends. It made that pain feel much more manageable, and I couldn't be happier right now." she explained, eyes not straying from his face.

"I don't have any of that. I just had him." he said, shaking his head.

"For a long time I didn't either. I held onto my anger for decades, and it prevented me from fully enjoying myself. I don't want that to happen to someone else," she told him, "It wasn't until I was 52, actually, until I let that go. I didn't get closure, and the people who hurt me never apologized, but I saw how much harm it had done to me. Shortly after, I started talking to the woman I came to marry. She's the best person I know; beautiful, kind, insightful, she brought out the best parts in me, and I found myself wanting to be happy for her.

"If it's too difficult to feel joy with yourself, would you pity an old woman and feel it for me? I promise you, this hopelessness isn't permanent." Lin said, watching as the man slowly relaxed his grip and lowered the weapon.

"How about you start by telling me about him, hm?" she encouraged. He kept the weapon up, pointed at her knee, but his shoulders had dropped.

"His name was Mingyu. I was eight when he was born, and I was so excited. We didn't have a lot of money, and mom and dad were always working, so I had to look after him instead of going to school.

"I taught him what I had learned, and he was so smart. I got a job to make sure he could go to school when he turned 6. He was so good at kuai ball.

"We lost our dad this year, and Yu took it so hard. I was too busy with my job to see it, but he at school he started- why didn't I just-" the man finally lowered the gun, eyes welling up.

"Kids make mistakes. It's not your fault that Mingyu slipped." Lin told him, taking a cautious step forward.

The man didn't respond, so she continued to close the distance.

Lin straightened, feeling the distinct thud of metal-soled boots. The police had been called before she showed up.

"Hey, give me the gun and we can keep talking." She urged, and he looked up at her, startled by her change in tone.

"RCPD, hands where I can see them!" an officer behind her bellowed. Lin felt a pit open in her stomach, watching the emotions flash across the man's face.

In a moment the gun was back up, four feet away and aimed right between her eyes. "You lied to me!" he shouted, and pulled the trigger.

Kya had heard the shot, and immediately she knew what had happened. She felt a tug in her soul, similar to the feeling when her mother passed, and she sat in the passengers seat for hours, unable to move.

The man who murdered Lin was only 22. His name was Han. He ended up receiving life in prison for killing the former police chief, compared to the 30 he would have gotten if he killed the drug dealer, but he instead hanged himself in his holding cell. He was survived solely by his mother, and Kya deeply pitied her, but it was because of her son that she was now a widow.

It was unbelievable to imagine Lin losing her life there, in the alleyway fifteen years retired from the police force, instead of the dozen times she'd been severely injured, or the hundreds where she'd faced worse danger. Kya forgot, sometimes, in the beginning. She'd return to the empty house and think Lin must be in the backyard, or wake up in a cold bed expecting the smell of Lin's favoured morning tea, tieguanyin, to have permeated upstairs.

Kya had been so achingly raw with pain. She'd felt nothing like it before, where the jagged edges of her grief made her lash out instead, but for months she hated Lin for having left her. Spirits damn her noble nature.

After five months the wounds finally soothed, but she'd been terribly surprised to feel its return when she visited Lin's grave a year past her demise.

She then felt guilt over her reaction; Lin had told her countless times how Kya had "saved" her. Shown her love, and helped her realize to be cared for wasn't negative. Kya wished so desperately just to speak to her once more. To thank her for all that she gave, and ensure Lin knew how deeply she'd been loved.

The second anniversary was when she felt sorrow, but in the past year she'd received news that wasn't altogether bad. It made the third occurrence pass with far less grief.

Kya had been experiencing chest pains and severe shortness of breath. From her own diagnosis, she surmised her heart was giving out, but a healer in the city confirmed it with ease. There wasn't too much surprise given her age, approaching 84, her lifestyle, not always the healthiest, and the compounding emotional experiences she'd weathered. While she'd never looked forward to death, she found that she was ready for it whenever the time came.

It was almost freeing, sitting in front of Lin's grave without the cloud of overwhelming emotion. She didn't visit her final resting place except for this anniversary, as she'd been buried in the Beifong family's tomb all the way in the Earth Kingdom. Lin had been rigid on tradition that way, even if Toph insisted against it and Su planned to start her own in Zaofu. Kya had only wanted to honour her wishes; being with her mortal body didn't give her a particular sense of closeness. She sensed Lin at random moments regardless of her location, which had been one hint she hadn't yet chosen reincarnation. Her spirit had remained hidden despite thorough searching in the Spirit World, but Kya knew she was only waiting for Kya's time.

And with it nearing, for the first time she faced the gilded headstone with a glimmer of hope.

#kyalin #lin beifong #kya lok #cw mental health #in honour of the Qingming Festival #why did i write so much these were supposed to be like 300 words each #angstpril

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quakerjoe · 6 years ago

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"Why are people so hostile towards President Donald Trump?"

Chris O'Leary:

Before you pass my answer off as “Another Liberal Snowflake” consider that 1.) I'm an independent centrist who has voted Republican way more often in my life than Democrat, and 2.) If you want to call someone who spent the entire decade of his 20’s serving in the Marine Corps a snowflake, I’d be ready to answer the question what did you do with your 20’s?

Why Liberals (And not-so liberals) are against President Trump.

A.) He lies. A LOT. Politifact rates 69% of the words he speaks as “Mostly False or worse” Only 17% of the things he says get a “Mostly True” or better rating. That is an absolutely unbelievable number. How he doesn’t speak more truth by mistake is beyond me. To put it in context, Obama’s rating was 26% mostly false or worse, and I had a problem with that. Many of Trump’s former business associates report that he has always been a compulsive liar, but now he’s the President of the United States, and that’s a problem. And this is a man who expects you to believe him when he points at other people and says “They’re lying”

B.) He’s an authoritarian populist, not a conservative. He advances regressive social policy while proposing to expand federal spending and federalist authority over states, both of which conservatives are supposed to hate.

C.) He pretends at Christianity to court the Religious Right but fails to live anything resembling a Christ-Like Life.

D.) His nationalist “America First” message effectively alienates us and removes us from our place as leaders in the international community.

E.) His ideas on “Keeping us safe” are all thinly veiled ideas to remove our freedoms, he is, after all, an authoritarian first. They also are simply bad ideas.

F.) He couldn’t pass a 3rd-grade civics exam. He doesn't’ know what he’s doing. He doesn't understand how international relations work, he doesn’t understand how federal state or local governments work, and every time someone tries to “Run it like a business” it’s a spectacular failure. See Colorado Springs’ recent history as an example. The Short, Unhappy Life of a Libertarian Paradise And that was a businessman with a MUCH better business track record than Trump. We are talking about a man who lost money owning a freaking gambling casino.

G.) He behaves unethicaly and always has. As a businessman, he constantly left in his wake unpaid contractors and invoices, litigation, broken promises, whatever he could get away with.

H.) He is damaging our relationships with our best international friends while kissing up to nations that do not have our best interests in mind. To his question “Wouldn't’ it be great to have better relations with Russia?” The answer is Yes. But it is RUSSIA who needs to earn that, who must stop doing the things that are damaging to that relationship, or we are simply weaker for it.

I.) He has never seen a shortcut he didn't like, and you can’t take shortcuts in government. “Nuclear Option, Remove the Filibuster, I’ll change the Constitution by Executive Order…Don…what happens when you remove the filibuster and the other side retakes the majority in the Senate? Suddenly want that filibuster back? What happens if you manage to change the Constitution by Executive Order and an Anti-2A President wins the next election?

J.) He behaves and has always behaved as an unabashed racist. Yes, I’ve seen your favorite meme that claims he was never accused of racism before the Democrats…Absolutely false. Donald Trump’s long history of racism, from the 1970s to 2019 See the Central Park 5, the lawsuits and fines resulting from his refusal to lease to black tenants, the 1992 lost appeal trying to overturn penalties for removing black dealers from tables, his remarks to the house native American affairs subcommittee in 1993. The man sees and treats racial groups of people as monoliths.

K.) He is systematically steamrolling regulations specifically designed to keep a disaster like the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis from happening again.

L.) He speaks and acts like a demagogue. He sees the Legislative and Judicial branches of government as inconveniences, blows up at criticism no matter how deserved and actively tries to countermand constitutional processes, not to mention attempts to blackmail and coerce people who are saying negative things about him

M.) His choices for top positions, with the exception of Gen. Mattis, who is a gem, have been horrendous. A secretary of Education without a resume that would get her hired as a small town grammar school principal, A secretary of Energy who didn't know the Department of Energy was responsible for nuclear reserves, an EPA head whose biggest accomplishments to date had been suing the EPA on multiple occasions, an FCC head who while working for Verizon actively lobbied to kill net neutrality, and an Attorney General who thinks pot is “nearly as bad as heroin” and asked Congress for permission to go after legal pot businesses in states where it is legal. (There goes that great Republican States rights rally cry again, right? *Crickets*) An Interim AG after Firing his First AG who’s appointment is probably unconstitutional.

N.) He denies scientific fact. Ever notice that the only people you hear denying climate change are politicians and lobbyists? 99% of actual scientists studying the issue agree that it’s real, man-made and caused by greenhouse gasses. Ever notice that every big disaster movie starts with a bunch of politicians in a room ignoring a scientist's warning?

0.) He does not have the temperament to lead this nation. He is Thin Skinned, childish, and a bully, never mind misogynistic, boorish, rude, and incapable of civil discourse.

P.) He still does not understand that the words he speaks, or tweets, are the official position of 1/3 of the US government, and so does not govern his words. He still thinks when he speaks it’s good ol’ Donald Trump. It’s not. It’s the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. You have probably spread a meme or two around talking about how no president’s every word has ever been dissected before…YES, THEY ALWAYS HAVE. It’s just that every other president in our lifetime has understood the importance of his words and took great care to govern his speech. Trump blurts out whatever comes to his mind then complains when people talk about what a dumb thing that was to say.

Q.) He’s unqualified. If you owned a small business and were looking for someone to manage it, and an unnamed resume came across your desk and you saw 6 bankruptcies, showing a man who had failed to make money running CASINOS, would you hire him? He is a very poor businessman. This is a man it has been estimated would have been worth $10 BILLION more if he’d just taken what his father had given him, invested it in Index Funds and left it alone.

R.) He is President. But he refuses to take a leadership position and understand that he is everyone’s President. Conservatives complain about liberals chanting “Not my President” while Trump himself behaves as if no one but his supporters matter.

S.) He’s a blatant hypocrite. He spent 8 years bitching Obama out for his family trips, or golfing, or any time he took for himself, and what does he do? He was already on his 20th golf outing in APRIL of his 1st year in office. He constantly rants about respect for the military, yet can’t be bothered to attend the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day because of a little rain. (And that excuse about Marine One not being able to fly in the rain is HILARIOUS.)

T.) He’s a misogynist. It's not really ok in this day and age to be a misogynist, but it’s not a huge deal if you’re a private citizen. It’s a pretty big deal if you hate half the people you’re elected to lead. The disdain for women seeps out of his …whatever…. and he just can’t hide it.

U.) Face it. In any other election “Grab Em’ By the Pussy” would have been the end of that candidate’s chances. Back in the 90’s I used to marvel about how Teflon Bill Clinton was. I no longer do. The fact that he managed to slip by on that is as much a statement about how much people hate Hillary Clinton as it is about what is wrong with politics in this country right now.

V.) He has one response to a differing opinion. Attack. A good leader listens to criticism, to different points of view, is capable of self-reflection, tries to guide people to his point of view, and when necessary stands his ground and defends his convictions. Any of that sound like Trump? His default is not to Lead, its’ to attack. Scorched Earth. The Jim Acosta reaction is a good example. There was no defense of his convictions when Acosta was asking him repeated questions about his rhetoric on the caravan. His response was to attack Acosta.

W.) He takes credit for everything positive while deflecting blame for everything negative. Look at him with the Stock Market. He’s been bragging about it since day one, and to give credit where credit is due, speculation on coming deregulation early in his presidency did fuel some rapid growth, but to pretend that it’s all him, that we’re not in the 9th year of the longest bull market in history and THEN, when the standard market volatility that deregulation inevitably brings about starts to show up? Yeah. Look at yesterday. Hey! Stock Markets losing because the Democrats won! Do I need to bring out the Stock market chart for the last 10 Years again?

X.) He emboldens the worst among us. Counter-protesters are slammed into by a car while countering actual Nazi rally, and the response is there’s fault on “Both Sides” The media is at fault for a nut job sending them and Donald’s favorite targets pipe bombs. The truth is not all Republicans, not all Trump Supporters are racist, fascist lunatics. Many are just taken in by the bombastic personality and are living in an information bubble made worse by the fact that they unfollow anyone and ignore any source of information that makes them feel uncomfortable. People on the left do that too. The Biggest problem the right has right now is that the worst of the Right is the loudest and the most in your face, and the actual right, especially the Freaking PRESIDENT needs to be standing up and saying No. Those are not our values.

Y.) He seems to think the Constitution of The United States, the document that IS who we are, the document he took an oath to support and defend is some sort of inconvenience. He demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of Constitution, from believing he can alter the 14th through executive order, to thinking The free exercise clause in the first amendment somehow supersedes the establishment clause (not that he really understands either) or that the free exercise clause only applies to Christians. Or his attacks on freedom of expression and the press. He repeatedly makes it clear that if he’s read them, he does not understand Articles 1–3, and that’s something he really should have before he took the job, because they’re not going away.

Z.) I’ll use Z for something I do blame him for, but the rest of us have to carry the blame too. Polarization. This country is more politically polarized than I can remember in my lifetime. Some of you who are a few years older than I may remember how it was in the late 60’s when construction workers in New York were being applauded for beating up hippies, I think it’s pretty close to that right now, but that was before my time. And he is the cause of much of the current level polarization, but also the result. It didn't’ start with Trump. We’ve been going down this road I think since the eruption of the Tea Party in the early years of the Obama Administration. I do hope the tide turns before it gets much worse because the thing that scares me more than anything is what if that keeps going the way it has been? "

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oldsoldierr · 5 years ago

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The Carnation ~ Part 6

summary: the media always told you that the famous art critic bucky barnes is an arrogant, rude playboy and you agree, but something still draws you to him. is there a deeper reason to why he acts the way he does or is he the class A jackass you first met?

art critic!bucky x artist!reader

word count: 1.7k

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The sound of a gun cocking snapped him back to reality. A low, sinister voice followed.

“Hey, James. How’ve you been?”

It was husky and haunting. Bucky felt the cold metal of the gun muzzle against the back of his head. He slowly put up his hands.

“I don’t want any trouble,” he growled. He heard an apathetic chuckle behind him.

“Well I do.” he felt Brock get closer to him.

“You’re gonna do what I want and you’re going to like it,” he snickered.

“Just kill me already. I’m not going to play your game,” Bucky retorted aggressively.

“Oh I think you will.” The brunette could hear the smile in Brock’s voice. He heard some shuffling in the back seat before a paper was slipped into his lap, face down.

“Flip it over.” Brock shoved the gun harder into Bucky’s skull. He begrudgingly turned it over. He regretted it immediately.

There, on the page was a picture of his sister in her kitchen. Bucky moved to cover his mouth. She was smiling blissfully, with no clue she was being photographed. Brock could shoot him, but he wouldn’t allow him to touch his sister.

“Why are you doing this?” he breathed. He knew Brock’s answer.

“I’m not letting you ruin my reputation. I worked hard to get where I am, and you’re not going to try anything. Now, you can take my offer. Or,” Brock equipped a faux sorry voice. “You can kill your lil’, poor, baby Becca. Your move Barnes.” Bucky took a sharp breath.

“What do you want?” The brunette looked into the rear view mirror to Brock grinning like a maniac.

“You’ve got a lot of questions for a dead man.” He leaned in close. Bucky could feel the heat from his ex-manager on his ear.

“I have only one request.”

Brock continued in a menacing whisper. With every word he said Bucky felt like he was losing more and more oxygen. The simple sentence felt as if it was an eternity. When Brock finally pulled away, he only said six words.

“You’ve got a week. Bye now.” he opened the car door, and disappeared into the night.

It was as if he was never there, but the single Polaroid of his sister taunted him, reminding him this wasn’t just a nightmare. Bucky sat completely alone, soaking wet, with not much more than thousands of strings of thoughts choking the air out of him.

He just wouldn’t accomplish Brock’s request. But the thought of his family’s blood on his hands was so much stronger. How did he get into this shit? He let his forehead fall onto the steering wheel in defeat.

~~~

On the first couple days after, Bucky had been confident he could avoid any of the outcomes. There had got to be, there HAS to be, there always is. But days kept going by, faster than he could fight. His hope for an easy solution, or pretty much any solution, dwindled and was diminished, like a small, pathetic flame.

Before he knew it, it was the morning of the seventh day since that night. Bucky had slaved for hours trying to find some way, some loophole, out of this but he just couldn’t find one. The deadline was approaching quickly and he didn’t have much of a choice.

He sat in his dim living room mulling over his very limited options. Bucky looked like a wreck. His hair was greasy and tangled, his eyes were sunken and dark, he looked like he could’ve just gotten out of a cave he’d lived in for 100 years. He hadn’t been able to get any sleep for three consecutive days.

He had done nothing but think but he still came out empty handed. There was nothing he could do.

Bucky would have to do what Brock wanted. He put his face in his palms as a sob wracked his body. He shuddered in silent tears. They slid off his cheeks and landed on his carpet.

Bucky would have rather been dead than be him at this instant. No matter what he did, someone would die tomorrow. Everything felt heavy.

All he ever wanted was to be an art critic, his dream job since he discovered it. He supposed this was the price. Everything had seemed so perfect, too perfect. He should’ve know. Bucky laughed without humor and took a sip of beer from the bottle. He couldn’t have imagined being in this situation in his worst nightmare. Yet he was still here.

That was Bucky’s last thought before he collapsed onto his couch and blacked out almost instantly.

When he regained consciousness it was the evening. Bucky checked his watch. It was 10:43 pm. Only a little more than one hour until Becca would be killed. It was a ticking time bomb with no way to disable it.

He had a decision to make. In the end, there was only one choice. He had known it all along but it was still endlessly painful. Even to think about it made him feel like his heart was getting cut out.

“I guess it’s time,” The exhausted looking man mumbled. Life was far too long.

He reached for a single pistol placed at the end of the clear glass coffee table. The last resort. Bucky grasped it with a shaky breath and slid on a black leather jacket.

He walked out of the apartment. He got in his car and began driving. He drove as slowly as possible. Maybe that would delay what was about to happen.

He tried to admire the outside world, one he might never see after this. Every tree, bug, person, building. The things he should’ve appreciated more. His destination was now only a little more than five minutes away. Bucky could barely breathe. His arms felt numb.

Four minutes.

Three minutes.

Two minutes.

One minute.

He saw the building coming up. The pit in his stomach grew. Bucky swallowed. If he had stood up at that moment his knees would have buckled. He felt like he was going to pass out but pulled up to the building anyways. He didn’t even bother to park, he just left it there in the middle of the parking lot and climbed out.

He padded his way to the front door. It was locked but Steve had given him a copy of the key before he left. Bucky inserted the key and stepped inside.

The halls were echo-y but not too large. What was though, was the staircase. It seemed to go on forever. Or maybe that was just what it felt like at the time.

With a huff Bucky started his way up. His steps felt heavy. Each one boomed of a man who didn’t have any more strength left in him. He passed two floors, barely registering it. All he knew was what would happen at the third one. He was there the next minute. The adrenaline was catching up to him.

Down the hall he saw the one person he wished to avoid as long as possible. You had come home for a quick change of clothes before leaving for some food. You came out of your apartment and fiddled with your keys a little before locking your door.

You went to keep walking but instead you saw a certain brunette man who had missed his usual visits to the art studio. You figured it was because you had slept with Sam. You still felt guilty. You had been trying to contact him and explain but he never picked up or responded to any of your many texts.

This seemed like the chance you’d been needing to make amends. You were a tad suspicious of why he’d come to your place, or how he even got in but you brushed it off.

As you got closer to him you realized how terrible he looked. He could’ve been a walking corpse. His eyes were swollen and red like he had been crying.

“Bucky!” you ran towards him. “Are you okay? Gosh, come here--” You stopped dead in your tracks.

Bucky had pulled out a gun from his pocket and was pointing it straight at you. You felt all your air leave your lungs. A silence rang through the hall.

“...Bucky?” you breathed. Your confusion laid out on your face. The man in front of you looked as if he might fall apart at any moment.

“S-stay where you are!” He threatened, tears brimming from his eyes. You were still processing what was happening.

“What are you doing?” you asked, fear creeping into your voice. He attempted a smile. It wasn’t ill intended though, it was one of those charming lop-sided grins that you liked, but this one felt different than the rest.

“I’m so sorry,” he choked out, full of remorse, ignoring your question.

“He-he said he’d kill my sister if I didn’t--” He took a breath. You took the opportunity to step toward him hesitantly.

“Bucky, we can figure this out, just please put the gun down.” Your words only made him hold on harder to the handle. He cocked the gun.

“Don’t get any closer to me.” He told you. His eyes were sad and mournful. He looked broken.

“Please,” he begged.

“Okay,” you held eye contact with him. “I won’t.”

He interrupted, “I never meant for you to get swept up into this, I--I just wanted to have a normal life for a little bit, but--” his lip trembled. “--but I shouldn’t have. Now you're gonna hurt for it and I--I’m so sorry. You’re an amazing person, you always figured out a way to make me laugh and--god--your talent, it’s unbelievable. And I know it doesn’t mean much now but, I just needed you to know that you have been the best part of my life--for a while now--and I’m so lucky to have found you. Visit me in hell, if you get the chance.” Bucky breathed out a chuckle.

“D--don’t talk to me as if this is goodbye. We can still change this, we’ll find a way!” you searched his face for anything that could tell you that this was just some mean spirited joke, but it wasn’t there.

Something else seemed to change in his face though you couldn’t quite place it. Bucky’s finger quivered on the trigger, a single twitch away from firing. He gave you an earnest, reassuring look that was contrary to the rest of his body.

With a shaky breath he continued. “I love you.”

He pulled the trigger.

only 2 more chapters(probably)! thank you for the support on my first series! i’m really bored so if anyone wants to hit me up feel free! 💕💕💕

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thevoidwell · 6 years ago

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100 Reasons to Love Vivia Nihar

Inspired by @wrongshatteredrealms and their post about 100 reasons why Destin Karn is their favorite character from Shattered Realms. This post took a while to make, but Vivia really deserves it. It’s quite long, I warn you.

1. She loves her country even after everything the people in it put her through

2. She is a feminist icon

3. Her nickname is “Little Fox” and that’s just adorable

4. She’s so strong in spite of her mental health issues

5. Her mother committed suicide and she still manages to go past the place where it happened all the time without breaking down each time

6. She just cares about Stix so much and would die for her

7. When she realized just how much Serafin has been manipulating her, she tried her best to do something about it

8. She is a pirate princess who also happens to be a lesbian, and honestly you can’t get any cooler than that

9. “Do I look like I care about plums?”

10. “Now would be the right time for the gardener to complain about his plum trees”

11. She has that habit of patting the sides of her face like she’s checking to make sure her mask is in place

12. She calls Merik “Merry” and it makes me laugh every time

13. She’s the Chosen Daughter of the VOID WELL, which nobody thought existed

14. The lack of patience she has with the vizers is amusing, but she takes it to an art form with Serrit Linday and it’s priceless

15. Her annoyed internal monologue about how it seems like five thousand servants have stopped to talk to her, interrupted only by another servant coming to talk to her before she mentally changes the count to five thousand and one

16. All the pining for Stix in her POV chapters with the constant repetition of “Too good for me”

17. When she saves Merik’s life by showing up out of nowhere and cutting off Garren’s head

18. When, upon cutting off Garren’s head, she gloats by saying “Come back from that”

19. Even when Merik constantly misgenders Cam in Windwitch, Vivia still has a hard time believing he’s a girl

20. Later in Bloodwitch when Cam is introduced as a boy, Vivia immediately believes it (Merik, take lessons from your sister)

21. Her own brother thinks she’s intimidating and trying to have him killed, but she really just needs a hug

22. “I could have just as many titles if I wanted”

23. The way that as soon as she realizes Stix is missing, she goes into an absolute panic because what if something happened to her???

24. How she gets chills when Vizer Sotar calls her “My Queen” because no one’s ever called her that before

25. She put in so much work for the under-city but got recognized for none of it

26. She came up with a really awesome speech but didn’t get to say it

27. When Cam is talking about Paladins and magical doorways in Bloodwitch and externally Vivia is like, “Yeah, okay” when internally she’s basically saying, “What in the world is he talking about - ”

28. She completely tricked Merik into believing that the boat miniature was actually representing a Dalmotti trade ship

29. She also tricked Merik into believing that she believed him when he lied about where the miniature was

30. When she’s just so done with Linday in the council meeting and she keeps mentally making her ideal punishment for him even worse

31. Until she’s thinking about how he should be drawn, quartered, eviscerated, and burned to ashes and she gets distracted from the actual meeting

32. How flustered she gets when Stix kisses her on the cheek

33. How she constantly refers to that moment as “the kiss” even though it wasn’t a real kiss because it was so emotional for her

34. She quite literally jumps into a valley filled with seafire to save the people of Lovats

35. When Merik saves her from dying as she plummets through the valley of seafire, she acts like it’s an everyday occurrence and proceeds to just go about her business

36. She has a hard time trusting Cam at first, which makes sense, but as soon as he mentions the message that Stix sent her, Vivia immediately trusts him because it’s better than risking the chance that Stix might not need help

37. “You may lower your water” “Oh may I? I’m so glad to have your permission”

38. She has plans to put more women on the High Council once she’s officially queen

39. When Vivia, a person who has never had a real conversation with Safi, knows within about five seconds that the reason Safi wants Marstok to trade with Nubrevna is because of Merik

40. Over the course of Bloodwitch, she goes from barely interacting with Vizer Sotar to going to talk to him for literally everything and asking for advice and help

41. Anybody could say any random thing and she’d find a way to connect it to the fact that Stix is perfect and amazing

42. When she gets the message from Vaness suggesting a meeting over trade, she just starts laughing because she thinks it’s a trick, then when Stix says she should go she’s like “okay”

43. That kind of infuriating thing where she writes a message to Vaness via the Wordwitched paper after telling the empress she got home safely and we don’t get to know what she said

44. “You can keep [the pencil]. I have others” “As do I. We’re not that poor”

45. How she bickers with Vaness for well over two pages about whose fault it was that the Truce got broken and who needed help more

46. When she thinks Merik is dead, the extent of her reaction is pretty much “Aw, that’s too bad” but when Stix goes missing for a day, she’s in an utter panic and asking Vizer Sotar where she could possibly be

47. How she learns to stop apologizing to Serafin and stop feeling guilty over the things he does to her

48. When she’s anxious over something, she stops and remembers [insert advice from her mother]. It doesn’t sound like a lot but when you remember that the whole country thinks her mother was insane and you remember their mother-daughter relationship, it’s sweet

49. That moment in Bloodwitch where her thought process is basically “I like how Stix always calls me ‘sir,’ it shows we respect each other but not in terms of royalty...wait why is she calling me ‘Your Highness’ now, does she not think we’re friends anymore?...oh thank God she called me ‘Viv,’ we’re friends for sure”

50. Nubrevna needed food, and it wasn’t getting food, so she just decided to steal it

51. She’s unbelievably calm when Merik holds a pistol to her head

52. She tries so hard to stop the Fury but doesn’t realize that the Fury is a reincarnated Paladin who happens to be pretty much immortal

53. For all those times Merik thought about how she treated her crew like servants, you don’t see her chaining people to the deck for 10 hours at a time

54. She is shameless about her piracy because she knows it’s for the greater good of Nubrevna

55. When she orders the generals to do something and they refuse, and she realizes that her crown was taken away and she hadn’t even been there for the vote like...poor Little Fox

56. When she has that realization that Jana had managed to bear with the shadows instead of nurturing them as Serafin had, and that made her even stronger than him

57. “Vivia was ready to be Queen” yes!!!

58. No matter what Merik does, chances are her response would be “ugh” or rolling her eyes because they are Siblings™

59. She doesn’t have as many of the action or fight scenes as the other characters, but I’m still always so excited for her next chapter because she’s just so amazing

60. When she decides it’s time to stop trying to be a good daughter and start trying to be a good ruler

61. When she mentally agrees with Vizer Sotar that Cam’s “door” is, in fact, a wall

62. When she’s simultaneously annoyed and impressed by how much clay and water Vaness put out before their meeting to make her feel safe against the empress’s Ironwitchery

63. That trick she does with the water at the meeting with the vizers

64. She reminds the High Council that it was Jana and not Serafin who signed the Truce, so he should not get the credit

65. When she stands up to her father and says that there is no way he’s fit to lead an army after having almost died

66. “I decide who holds the title of Admiral and I haven’t appointed you”

67. When she basically tells Serafin that he’s a pathetic soldier and he exaggerated all of his accomplishments, like Vivia, you tell him

68. The internal jealousy when she thinks Stix is seeing someone else

69. When she canonically thinks that Vizer Sotar is the only one on the council who has a fully operational brain

70. She does such a good job of pretending that Merik is dead at his funeral

71. For all she was talking about how the meeting with Vaness would be pointless, she actually stayed in touch with the empress and it’s a good thing she did

72. For that matter, she didn’t give up on Vaness’s negotiations when the empress had to end their meeting abruptly to talk to Habim

73. She isn’t physically described too much in the books, so the reader gets to have their own image in their head of what she looks like, more or less

74. Even though she’s proven to be good with a blade, most of the time she honestly doesn’t need one because of her Tidewitchery

75. When she sends Linday off to do something menial just so she can have a moment alone, but (unfortunately) he barks at some servant to do it instead, and she has to put up with Serrit Linday for even longer

76. When she internally calls Linday “slimy”

77. She stays so remarkably composed while the vizers tell her that her throne has been reclaimed by Serafin, even though her life is falling apart

78. She still goes to Jana’s garden sometimes

79. Most of the country thinks she is weak because she’s a woman and because her mother committed suicide, but omg Vivia can GET THINGS DONE

80. When Vaness dropping the pencil is actually reassuring to her because it means that she’s a human and not 100% perfect, 100% of the time

81. Her friendship with Stix is just amazing - so much mutual respect and support

82. Her self-esteem is nonexistent, but Stix trying to boost it always seems to make her day

83. She worked so hard to get the food for Nubrevna that it was so heartbreaking when she realized it was all for nothing

84. For that matter, the same goes for her efforts for the under-city

85. In Windwitch she mentions how she hates spiders, but later she gets a spider off Merik when he doesn’t notice it’s there #SisterlyLove

86. After Stix kisses her on the cheek, she literally just stands there because she’s just so 😍 overwhelmed 😍

87. When Serafin jokes about Vivia possibly having arranged for Vaness’s death and she’s horrified at the idea but externally is like “yeah...ha ha ha”

88. When she was a kid, she found an abandoned room in one of the palace wings and she decorated it herself and called it her fox’s den, which is the cutest thing ever

89. When she realizes that the Void Well is the Void Well and she knows she should bring her father down to heal him but some part of her doesn’t know if she should...she’s just so confused and, I repeat, really needs a hug

90. That moment where she’s so busy that she doesn’t try to put on a façade and Stix actually notices and she’s just so touched

91. When Vivia decides that even though she doesn’t know Cam, there is no way she’s going to stand there and do nothing while Garren cuts off his finger

92. When she has no idea what just happened but she’s glad she saved Merik’s life, so this one time she has no regrets

93. When she is so overwhelmed by all the negative things happening that she thinks to herself that this must be what drowning feels like, and it’s just so painful to read

94. That moment in Windwitch where she’s so scared that something might happen to Merik or her crew and she feels like she’s somewhere between Serafin and Jana and she doesn’t know which side is the better one, so she makes that decision to save the city even though she thinks it’ll kill her

95. When she manages to start over with Merik and put everything in the past

96. How all of her irritation towards the vizers goes out the window whenever she talks to or thinks about Stix

97. How she’s so frustrated by Vaness at first but by the end has a lot of respect for her

98. The way she acts in front of the council in comparison to the way she acts when she’s alone

99. She’s part of Vix, an amazing ship!!!!

100. In conclusion, Vivia is such an incredible character and deserves all the love in the world. Thank you for reading 🙂

#the witchlands #susan dennard #vivia nihar #stacia sotar #serafin nihar #jana nihar #merik nihar #serrit linday #vizer sotar #vaness #safiya fon hasstrel #cam leeri #garren leeri #habim fashayit #vivia x stix #vix #our beloved little fox

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honeychildoz · 6 years ago

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"Why are people so hostile towards President Donald Trump?" Chris O'Leary:

1.) I'm an independent centrist who has voted Republican way more often in my life than Democrat, and 2.) If you want to call someone who spent the entire decade of his 20’s serving in the Marine Corps a snowflake, I’d be ready to answer the question what did you do with your 20’s?

Why Liberals (And not-so liberals) are against President Trump.

C.) He pretends at Christianity to court the Religious Right but fails to live anything resembling a Christ-Like Life.

D.) His nationalist “America First” message effectively alienates us and removes us from our place as leaders in the international community.

E.) His ideas on “Keeping us safe” are all thinly veiled ideas to remove our freedoms, he is, after all, an authoritarian first. They also are simply bad ideas.

G.) He behaves unethicaly and always has. As a businessman, he constantly left in his wake unpaid contractors and invoices, litigation, broken promises, whatever he could get away with.

K.) He is systematically steamrolling regulations specifically designed to keep a disaster like the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis from happening again.

0.) He does not have the temperament to lead this nation. He is Thin Skinned, childish, and a bully, never mind misogynistic, boorish, rude, and incapable of civil discourse.

*snagged from a friends wall:

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quietly0bsessed · 7 years ago

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13 Reasons Why S2|Tyler

*disclaimer: spoilers ahead*

*disclaimer 2: I’m emotionally exhausted. Please no anonymous hate comments about my thoughts on gun violence and gun control. these are my opinions. thank you for respecting that.*

I am so disappointed with how they ended season 2.

1. It was irresponsible. And it was extremely dangerous to portray Clay confronting Tyler outside of the school like that. How fucking dare they show that. PSA: Do not EVER confront someone with a gun intending to commit murder. Hide. Protect yourself. Call the police.

2. I felt so hard for Tyler until that last scene. I cried for him. He was violently bullied. Raped. He was isolated by everyone, including the people involved with the tapes. While all the other characters seemed to get a redemption arc or storyline, Tyler was pushed further into darkness. That hurt so much to watch. The way he was cruelly treated hurt. So. Much. It was obvious where they were going with his character and that they wanted to include a storyline about mass shootings. But, in my opinion, the guns ended up overshadowing the rape scene (which happens more often than is discussed/reported).

3. Gun violence and mass shootings is a reality here in the US. We can’t go a month without another tragedy occurring. After seeing such a fucked up scene in the bathroom ... idk, how did you feel after watching that scene? How did you feel when he proceeded to gathers up his guns? All I thought was... “I get it.” And that is toxic as fuck and is not adding anything productive to this discussion.

4. In my opinion, the writers gave mass shooters a sympathetic face. A reason for committing such a heinous crime. The reality of the situation is, not all mass shooters commit these acts after being bullied. Some do, this is true. But not all. This narrative is so dangerous. Anyone remember the whole “walk up, not out” deal? Where teens were shamed for staging the walk-out in response to all the mass shootings happening in schools, instead of “walking up to the disturbed students and standing up to bullying” or whatever bullshit? Yeah this fucking scene is adding fuel to that garbage fire of an argument. These kids should not be shamed for staging a walk-out when the adults are doing nothing to change the laws to keep them safer in schools. I agree that we need to end bullying. But that alone is not going to end mass shootings.

5. Like seriously WTF are the 13 Reasons Why writers trying to accomplish here? Not all mass shooters have a reason. Some of them are just supremely fucked up. Yes... they all need help. But while we work on getting these kids the help they need, we need to take immediate steps and action to prevent all citizens from accessing semi automatic weapons. We need strict gun control laws in place. Period.

6. They chose to get the kid who was violently raped, and consistently bullied, and isolated by everyone, to commit this crime. For what? So we can start feeling empathy for mass shooters? Am I supposed to feel empathy for the kid who murdered 10 people in Texas? For the kid who murdered elementary school children at Sandy Hook? This whole gun story arc diminished from the tragedy of his story. I may change my mind later, but that’s how I feel right now. Maybe it’s because I’m so exhausted. Tired. Terrified. I feel angry at how easily this happens in this country. And how frequently.

7. Throughout the entirety of season 2 until the last fucking scene (and even a lot of season 1), I felt so so bad for Tyler. All I wanted was a character to hug him and say “I’ll be your friend.” It was so frustrating, so unbelievably heartbreaking to watch.

8. These kids need help, that’s a fact. And more needs to be done in regards to talking about mental illness. More needs to be done to end bullying. But that alone won’t prevent mass shootings. Making it fucking difficult/nearly impossible to access guns will help end mass shootings.

9. So now. How am I supposed to feel about Tyler’s character? This character that, until the very last scene, I literally cried for? Does his character deserve a redemption storyline? Are they going to spend all of season 3 back-paddling and trying to explain away all the damage they had done, the same way they did about suicide in season 2?

10. Fuck this show.

#13 reasons season 2 #13 reasons why #tyler down #13 reasons spoilers

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bangchanshehe · 8 years ago

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Handsome Disaster pt. 6

Summary: When the school bad boy and womanizer Hoseok turns his attention on you it’s hard to ignore. Especially with your best friends being in a relationship and living five doors down from each other.

Genre: Angst/Smut/Romance

Word Count: 2.9k

The two of you walked out into the living room and found Minhyuk and Sera cooking in the kitchen. Your stomach rumbled and turned, making you wince at the hunger pains. Hoseok heard your stomach and noticed your discomfort and immediately sat you down at the table and brought you a plate of eggs and toast. You immediately began to scrape up whatever you could with your fork and devoured your toast. When you finished your plate Hoseok took it to the kitchen and brought back a pain pill and coffee.

“Take this for your pain, I know you have to hurt worse than I do” Hoseok commanded

You rolled your eyes out of sheer pettiness and took the pills as you were told. Hoseok stood up and walked into your room and you watched confused as to why he went back inside. When he came out a minute later he had your laptop in his hands. He opened it up and pressed the power key and waited for the log in screen to appear. When it turned on and the log-in screen prompted for a password turned it in your direction, physically asking for you to allow him access. You logged on and he took it back without saying a word.

“What are you doing?” you asked and he just looked up at you before he began typing away, when he finished he finally acknowledged your question.

“I’m dropping your math class and transferring you to my math class.” He finally said.

“But if I drop the class then it looks like I’m running away from him and I don’t want him to have that satisfaction” you said and Hoseok scoffed at you.

“I would never tell someone to give up on something that I knew they could deal with.”

“I can deal with this” you spit back

“Angel, those boys are infamous on this campus for doing the sick shit that Shownu tried to do to you at the fight. That won’t be his final attempt if you continue to go to that class.” He said patiently and softly. “The only way that you can be safe from him and the rest of those fucking losers is if you stick by my side.”

He put his hand on your head as if he were trying to comfort you instead of argue with you and you physically relaxed some. He placed the computer in front of you.

“Ultimately the choice is yours. But, I can’t help you if I can’t reach you.” he said

You contemplated the choice that you wanted to make and then finally came to a conclusion a few minutes later. You switched classes to be with Hoseok. You showed him your new schedule and he smiled at you like you had made an impressive accomplishment.

The next day at school is seemed like people were whispering about you. Everywhere that you turned you felt like eyes would follow and conversations would get quiet.

You were walking to class when a girl with a skimpy dress code approached you. You could smell her cheap perfume and see her makeup lines around her chin. You mentally laughed at her overenthusiastic taste in smell and poor makeup skill. If she was approaching you about anything you knew exactly who it was about. The one and only-

“Is it true that you’re dating Hoseok?” she asked with an attitude that insinuated disgust and disbelief that he would date someone like you.

“What?” you asked back annoyed by the girl’s poor manners and ridiculous question.

“Are you dating Hoseok or not?” she asked one more time clearly and loudly like you were deaf

You laughed at her strange question and walked away from her. You didn’t have to answer her, there was nothing going on between Hoseok and you. And frankly it was none of her business if you were dating him. As you were walking away she caught up to you and grabbed a hold of your forearm and pulled you close to her.

“I guess it doesn’t matter if I come over to his apartment later then?” she asked with a sickening smile “You see Hoseok and I have plans tonight and a little bird told me that you like sticking around in places that you’re unwanted.”

You looked over at her and pulled your arm away from her starling her and making her step back from you.

“Hoseok and I are just friends, not that it’s any of your business,” You said back “and I really don’t give a damn about your plans.”

You walked away from her irritated and angry. Why did girls feel like they need to fight over Hoseok and publicly announce that they were going to have sex with him? And why is there a rumor going around that you were unwanted around Hoseok? It wasn’t that, that made you angry though. It was the fact that people thought that it was so unbelievable that a perfectly attractive guy like Hoseok would be interested in you. That you weren’t pretty enough, or skinny enough or apparently slutty enough to be with someone like him. It frustrated you thinking about how dense these girls were to think that they were actually important to him, not like he wasn’t hooking up with someone else every other day of the week.

You reached your first class and as per usual Hoseok was standing in the hallway with his friends who you now recognized to be the host at the fight. Hoseok spotted you and clapped his friend on the back as he headed towards you. You really weren’t in the mood to be around anyone, since bimbo of the day decided to ruin the rest of your morning. Hoseok gave you a smile but you just ignored it.

Hoseok noticed your weird behavior but just let it go, deciding not to question you. When you walked into the auditorium Hoseok walked in front leading the way to the isle that you usually sat at. But instead of following him you moved to the next isle up and sat at the end of the row, as far away from Hoseok as possible. He didn’t notice that you weren’t next to him until he sat down and spotted you across the class. You could feel him looking at you but you ignored his gaze and busied yourself with reviewing notes from last week. You felt your phone vibrate and checked your new text message

Unknown: Why aren’t you sitting next to me? What’s wrong?

You scoffed at your phone and looked up at Hoseok to see him giving you a concerned look. You saved his phone number and then replied back to him

You: Someone made me angry, just give me some space to cool off.

You shut off your phone not caring if Hoseok replied or not and refocused on your notes.

The rest of class went by like a breeze and successfully allowed you to take your mind off of things. When the professor dismissed everyone Hoseok packed up and stood by your desk. You let out a sigh and gave him a small apologetic smile. You were starting to feel bad about acting so mean to him. He really did nothing wrong and it wasn’t his fault for what happened this morning.

“Care to tell me what’s made you so angry Angel?” he asked and you nodded your head

“Not here, let’s go talk somewhere else”

“We have thirty minutes until our next class want to go get some coffee from the café?” he asked and you shook your head. If anything would officially calm you down it would be a hot cup of sweet coffee.

The two of you walked out of the building and across campus to the small café, and the whole time you could feel the gazes of people who stared too long at the two of you. Girls would whisper to each other and point at the two of you and guys would look you up and down like you were a piece of meat.

You walked into the café and immediately relaxed once you inhaled the smell of the bold coffee beans and heard the sound of the smooth coffee shop jazz music. The two of you placed your order for your drinks and chose a small table in the corner of the room away from the other people.

“So what happened?” he asked you after patiently waiting. You let out a sigh before you began reliving the events of this morning.

“I don’t know her name, but some girl came up to me earlier this morning and flaunted in my face how the two of you were going to hook up later after she asked me if the two of us were a couple.” You let out all at once

“And that’s why you ignored me?” he asked in disbelief

“I’m sorry, I was taking my frustrations out on you.” you said defeated

“It’s okay but, why were you so mad?” he asked with a small expectant look on his face

You thought about how you could answer his question as honest as possible without sounding pathetic or desperate. You cleared your throat before you responded to his question.

“She basically insinuated, that it was impossible for me to get a guy like you.” you said looking down at your hands resting on top of the table.

Hoseok reached forward and took a hold of your chin and tilted your head up to look in his eyes. He looked concerned and serious and slightly disappointed in you. You looked around the room and avoided eye contact with him.

“Angel, I’m lucky enough to be able to have you as a friend, but it would be a miracle if I could have a woman as beautiful and as strong as you. No man is worthy of someone as precious as you.”

When he finished his sentence you finally looked up at Hoseok and saw nothing but seriousness in his face. Not a trace of him seemed like he was just saying those things to you to make you feel better about yourself. Hoseok continued to stare at you with your face in his hand when the barista stopped by your table and dropped off your coffees.

“You two are a really cute campus couple.” She mentioned with a smile just before retreating back to the counter.

After she mentioned it Hoseok let go of your chin with a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. You felt awkward and didn’t know what to do other than take a sip of your coffee, so you drank and drank until your coffee was practically empty. Your silence was broken by the sound of someone clearing their throat and approaching your table. You looked up to see a very awkward Shownu standing near and looking at you apologetically. Your heart began to race and you shifted in your seat uncomfortable by his presence. Hoseok saw you change demeanor and turned around to see what was making you so uncomfortable, just to come face-to-face with the first person on the top of his list to beat the living hell out of. He stood up from his chair and Shownu immediately took a step backwards and put his hands up in surrender. He looked over to you as if he was silently pleading you for help and you gave him a look of absolute annoyance.

“All I want to do is speak with you for a minute and apologize.” He said to you looking over Hoseok.

You took one last sip of your coffee before you stood up from your chair. Hoseok turned around and gave you a look of confusion.

“Wait you’re not actually going to listen to this scum bag are you?” he asked in disbelief

“I’m just going to listen to what he has to say and then cut off all ties. This…will be my closure from him.” You said softly just for Hoseok to hear, after a pause for thought he finally nodded his head.

“Don’t go far” he said.

You turned to Shownu and sat at a booth just a few feet away from where you and Hoseok sat. You could see Hoseok nosily staring at the two of you trying to assess the conversation that the two of you were having. Shownu looked down at his lap and didn’t dare look up at you the entire time that he sat across from you.

“I just wanted to say that I am incredibly sorry for my behavior the other night.” He started and took a deep breath before continuing. “I was way too drunk to be in my right mind and I did some things that are unforgivable and I will live with for the rest of my life.” He finally looked up at you and he looked scared.

“I know that nothing that I say or do can ever fix the mistakes that I made Friday night, but I wanted to just let you know that I am deeply, deeply sorry about what I’ve done to you.” Shownu reached for you across the table and took a hold of your hand. You tried to pull away from him but his firm grip kept your hand inside of his. Hoseok immediately noticed his aggression and ran to your booth and took a hold of Shownu’s wrist, glaring daggers down at him.

“You fucking let her go right now or I swear to fucking god I will end your life you piece of shit.” Hoseok growled through his teeth.

You were scared by Hoseok’s intimidating stance and hold on Shownu. Shownu looked up at Hoseok with straight fear. You could tell by the look on his face that he knew that he stepped the line again and would surely pay for it this time. Slowly Shownu let go of your hand and you held it close to your body, messaging away the ache from his tight grip.

“Why are you even concerned? You’re not her boyfriend, just let me talk to her.” Shownu finally said back showing his irritation with Hoseok’s interference.

“This woman means a lot more to me than you think. So how about you disappear and never speak to her again. And if you do try to contact her I’ll come find you personally.” Hoseok threatened.

Shownu looked at Hoseok and then down at you waiting for you to refute any of what Hoseok said to him. After a few seconds of waiting and no reply from you he finally shook his head

“Fine…But when he fucks shit up, because we both know he will I’ll be waiting.” he said before he got up and walked away from the two of you.

You watched him as he moved quickly away from the two of you and when you heard the door to the shop close behind him you exhaled and relaxed in your seat, with him officially gone. Hoseok took Shownu’s place across from you and waited to settle down before he spoke again.

“I was telling the truth” he said in a small voice

“That you would beat him to a pulp? Yeah, I think we know.” You said sarcastically

“No…I mean… when I said that you mean a lot to me. I was telling the truth.” He clarified

You didn’t know how to respond so you stayed quiet until he would further elaborate what he meant.

“And I want you to allow me to show you just how much you mean to me” he looked up at you hopeful

“What do you mean?” you asked digging for more information

“I want us to date. Officially.” He stated nervously

“No offense, but you don’t seem like you really do the whole relationship thing…”

“And I don’t, or I haven’t before… but I really want to try with you.”

“Hoseok you hook up with people almost every day and are so unattached to who you sleep with… how do I know that you can really be faithful to me?” you asked

“What do you want me to do to prove it to you?” he asked searching for a glimpse of acceptance

“I don’t know.” You said and looked up at the ceiling and thought of a solution.

“If I can go thirty days without sleeping with anyone will you give me a chance?” he asked with a small smile, and you laughed

“If you can go thirty days without sleeping with someone I will consider giving you a chance.” You clarified back.

Hoseok processed what you said back to him with a small grimace that it wasn’t exactly a acceptance but not a rejection and shook his head once.

“Okay. Deal.” He said confidently with a wide grin.

He stuck out his pinky finger to complete the promise and smiled down at his coffee. He picked up the cup and finished the rest of the contents in one gulp and then placed it back down on the table.

“Come one, we’ve got to go to class now” he said sliding out of the booth and picking up your backpack on the way.

You watched him as he held your backpack and his own and thought about the last five minutes. You laughed quietly to yourself in shock and disbelief.

“What the fuck did I just agree to?” you whispered to yourself.

NEXT PART

#kpop fanfiction #kpop series #kpop romance #kpop scenarios #monsta x #monsta x wonho #monsta x hoseok #wonho #hoseok #shin hoseok #shownu #monsta x shownu #monsta x scenario #monsta x fanfiction #monsta x series

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ltworld · 5 years ago

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Revelation, Coronavirus, and the Mark of the Beast: How Should Christians Read the Bible’s Most Fascinating Book? Part 3

Kevin DeYoung

I started this series when the whole world was talking about COVID-19, and some people were wondering if the signs of Revelation were unfolding—or would soon unfold—before our eyes. That’s what prompted these three posts on how to read the book of Revelation. Let me bring this short series to a close by trying to explain what may be the most famous sign in Revelation: the mark of the beast.

In order to understand the mark of the beast in Revelation 13:18, we need to see what is happening in the rest of the chapter. In the first half of chapter 13, we’re introduced to a beast from the sea. This beast is broadly representative of the political sphere. In the second half of chapter 13, we are introduced to a beast from the earth. This beast is broadly representative of the religious sphere. If the first beast is the perversion of the state, the second beast is the perversion of true worship.

With that as a basic outline, let’s go verse by verse through the second half of the chapter. Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon (v. 11).

This imagery comes from Daniel 8 where Daniel sees a vision of a ram with two horns. That’s where the picture comes from, but what it points to is a counterfeit Christ. This beast looks like Christ, the lamb, but speaks the lies of the dragon, that is, the Devil.

Remember, the first beast is the perversion of the state, and the second beast is the perversion of Christianity. We shouldn’t expect false religion to appear immediately and obviously false. We should expect other religions to talk about love and morality. We should expect there to be many similarities, some real and some perceived, between true Christianity and false Christianity. We should expect false Christian cults and perversions to speak highly of Jesus. We should expect them to talk about the cross. We should expect similar religious language and themes, which is why we must be wise. The beast may look a lamb, but if you are discerning, you will hear that the voice is the voice of a dragon.

It exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence, and makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed (v. 12).

The second beast is an accomplice to the first. He acts on his behalf and leads people to worship him. In the first century there was a large imperial cult. There were priests and sacred rituals and officials insisting on the deity of the emperor. They encouraged, and sometimes made mandatory, the worship of the state. Religion is at its worst when it does nothing but lends credence to and encourages support of the corrupt and blasphemous state.

We all feel the need to experience something bigger than ourselves. We all want to touch transcendence. We were created to worship God. There is something hard-wired in all humans that compels us to search after the divine or find something spiritual. That’s the good news. God made us for God.

The bad news is the human heart is an idol factory. We find God in all the wrong places. The Devil is perfectly happy to have everyone searching for God. He is entirely content to have all of us on a spiritual journey looking for transcendence. There’s a reason hardly anyone is an atheist. The Devil doesn’t care if people believe in God. He just doesn’t want people to believe in and be satisfied in Jesus Christ. So if we can find a religious-like feeling in political activism or spirituality in the entertainment industry or experience transcendence in art or make a god out of the family, then the Devil has won. The second beast lives wherever the Devil entices people to worship something man-made, to make an idolatrous image out of anything other than Jesus Christ, who alone is the image of the invisible God.

It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people, and by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast it deceives those who dwell on earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived (vv. 13-14).

The second beast is a false prophet. Three times, Revelation makes reference to the beast and the false prophet (16:13; 19:20; 20:10). The second beast is the Minister of Propaganda, deceiving people to follow after the first beast. In verse 11, we saw the second beast as a false Christ. Now we see him as a false Elijah. Elijah, you recall, called down fire from heaven to burn up the sacrifices in full view of the prophets of Baal. The beast can do impressive feats just like Elijah. Don’t think false religion will appear worthless. Idolatry will boast of great accomplishments, even miracles. The priests of Egypt had their secret arts too. Don’t be impressed with mere signs unless they point to the Son that you might be impressed with him.

And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain (v. 15).

“He was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast.” In other words, the second beast persuades the world that the image of the first beast is truly God. In the first century, this meant that the religious establishment convinced people that they should worship statues and images of Caesar. In our day, the beast may not directly instruct us to worship the state or the president, but he still functions as the mouthpiece for the Devil. He entices us to make money the desire of our hearts. He convinces us that sex will be most fulfilling when it is most free of commitment and ethical norms. He lies to us about the lasting value of fame and power and professional success and academic prestige. The beast gives breath to these things so that they seem god-like in our eyes. We must have them. We will not be happy or fulfilled or valuable without them.

Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name (vv. 16-17).

No one knows exactly where this imagery comes from or if it even has allusion to anything in the first century. It cold be an allusion to slave’s branding, or soldier’s tattoo, or some practice of compulsory idol worship developing in the first century. Any or all of these may serve as background imagery for these verses, but the mark in reality is not a visible mark. It is an invisible spiritual mark. The righteous and believing have the Father’s name written on their foreheads, and the wicked and unbelieving have the name of the beast. In both case we are talking about a spiritual mark, an invisible stamp of approval. This verse has nothing to do with bar codes or UPC labels or credit card numbers or Social Security numbers. The point of these verses is much simpler: if you don’t compromise with the worldly system, you will suffer. In the first century, this meant that your refusal to worship Caesar (to be spiritually identified with the beast) could mean persecution or discrimination or alienation. The world has a way of operating and when we choose a different way, we must be prepared for setbacks, strange looks, and often shame and suffering.

This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666 (v. 18).

This is probably the most debated verse in Revelation. It certainly is the verse that has produced the most fruitless debate. All sorts of numerical schemes have been concocted in various languages to try to decode 666. Here’s a list of referents I’ve seen for 666: Caligula, Domitian, Caesar God, Lateinos (the Roman Empire), “beast,” Antemus, Phoebus, Gensericus, Balaam, Mohammed, Martin Luther, Oliver Cromwell, Kaiser (Wilhelm), Hitler, the Nicolaitans, Euanthas, Teitan (Titans), the initials of the Roman emperors from Julius Caesar to Vespasian (minus Otho and Vitellius), the triangular number of 36 which is the triangular number of 8 which is significant because 8 is associated with Gnosticism or because the Antichrist in Revelation 17 is called the eighth king, the Latin Kingdom, the Italian Church, various Popes, all the Popes, the phrase “Vicar of the Son of God” and phrases like it, Ronald Reagan, and William Jefferson Clinton. I’m sure there are more.

All of these solutions are calculated by a process known as gematria. In the ancient world every letter corresponded to a number, just like A might equal 1, and B equal 2, C equal 3, and so on. The numbering scheme was often more complicated, but that’s the idea. Every letter could also be a number, so names could be translated into numbers. Kevin, for example, in our simplified scheme would be 11+5+22+9+14, which equals 61. That’s gematria. And people did use it in the ancient world, more than we think. There’s a text that identifies Jesus’s gematria name as 888, which is supposed to be significant because 8 is the number of re-creation. So through all sorts of complicated gematria calculations in different languages, people have come up with all the names in the list above.

Some of the names in the list are absurd. Most of the interpretations are not widely followed. The only name that has really gotten a strong following is Nero. If you take the Greek Neron Kaisar and transliterate it into Hebrew you get 50+200+6+50 and then 100+60+200, all of which together equals 666.

A possible corroboration for this view can be found in the Latin version of his name. Neron Kaiser transliterated in Latin gives you 616, which is the number of the beast in some alternative manuscripts (also the area code for Grand Rapids, Michigan). Nero fits with the story line of Revelation better than the other alternatives. Nero killed himself in AD 68, but it was rumored that he would come back to life or was still living, just like the beast received a fatal wound that was healed. So, according to many scholars, 666 is most logically a reference to Nero. And by putting Nero in the form of a riddle like this, it protected the Christians from charges of sedition and further persecution.

So the number of the beast could refer to Nero. That’s the most plausible person to be connected with 666. But there are also problems with the calculation.

First, it is far from certain that most of John’s audience would have known Hebrew. Some were probably Jewish Christians who understood Hebrew, but most certainly, many were not. So relying on your readers to not only know gematria but also transliterate a name into another language they may not have known seems like a poor way to communicate, unless John wasn’t interested in his audience knowing the answer to the puzzle.

Second, to come up with 666, you have to spell Neron Kaisar incorrectly in Hebrew. You have to leave out a yodh, which some claim was an acceptable spelling, but it was certainly not the normal usage.

Third, none of the early church fathers calculated Neron Kaisar from 666. There is a fifth-century document that calculates Nero, but it uses the word antichristus to get 616.

Fourth, verse 18 does not call us to solve a riddle. When it says, “let him calculate the number,” the solution is given in the next line. The number is 666. We are not told to solve the question of 666. We are told that 666 is the answer to the question. More on that in a moment.

Fifth, finding hidden, precise meanings in numbers is not the way numbers work in Revelation. The imagery in Revelation is broader and less exact. The church is symbolized with pictures (the 24 elders, the two witnesses, the woman) and a number (144,000). The church age is symbolized by pictures (the measured temple, the trampled witnesses, the woman protected in the wilderness) and numbers (42 months, 1260 days, 3 ½ years). Likewise, false religion is symbolized by a picture (the beast) and a number (666). In each case, the pictures and numbers mean something, but they refer to general truths, not to specific people or referents.

Sixth, if dozens of names can be calculated from 666, how effective is this means of communication? As one author puts it, it doesn’t tell us much that a certain key fits the lock, if it’s a lock that works with almost any key. I once came across these three tongue-in-cheek “rules” for calculating the number of the beast: if the proper name doesn’t work, add a title; if Greek doesn’t work try Hebrew or Latin; if that doesn’t work try a different spelling. That’s more or less the approach most people take, and it yields a hundred different answers.

So if 666 isn’t code for Nero or anyone else, what does it mean? Here’s my humble opinion (he said humbly!): 666 is not meant to be a riddle hiding the name of the beast; 666 is simply the name and number of the beast. The number 666 is man’s number (cf. 21:17). You could understand this to mean “666 is a number of a man” or “666 is the number of man.” I think it’s the latter.

What have we seen with this second beast? He is a counterfeit. He leads people into false religion. So how do you express numerically counterfeit religion? 7 is the number of perfection and holy completion in the book of Revelation (7 churches, 7 lampstands, 7 eyes, 7 seals, 7 trumpets, and so on). The number 6, then, would be the number of imperfection and unholy incompletion. If 7 is the number for God, then 6 is the number of that most resembles, but is not, God—namely, man.

In other words, 666 is man’s counterfeit to the holy Trinity of 777. The Africa Bible Commentary puts it well:

The beast seems to be near perfection and almost messianic; it is, after all, a caricature of the Lamb who was slain (13:3, 11, 13). But it is not perfect, and that makes all the difference. It is actually diabolically and utterly opposed to God (13:4). The number 666 represents a threefold falling short of perfection (dragon: 6, beast: 6, false prophet: 6). But it is close to perfection, and has most of the hallmarks of truth, and so can easily deceive. No wonder wisdom is required!

All of which is to say, whatever you think of the way the medical establishment and the media and our politicians have handled this global pandemic, the mark of the beast is not going to be found in an implanted microchip. If, however, doctors or politicians or members of the media or anyone else, for that matter, elevates himself to a position of Godlike authority and knowledge, then that is what Revelation warns Christians against. Whatever or whomever appears as true Christianity in order to draw us away to some human counterfeit, that is the work of the beast, and his number is 666.

Note: This post was first published through The Gospel Coalition website.

#deyoung #revelation

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thesundaymorningpost · 8 years ago

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The Sunday Morning Post

September 3, 2017 10th Edition

Current News:

Yuri on Ice: ShitBang

On August 31st, if you love Yuri on Ice, your feed may have blown up with stories and artwork created as a means for writers and artists to come together and work on a project together.

What is the Shit Bang you ask? It is an amazing event for writers and artists to come together and write and draw about the amazing anime we all love: Yuri!!! On Ice! But a little more than that this is a direct - non-hateful - response to THAT blog. You know the one I’m talking about. Yup. THAT one. - @yoi-shit-bang

The amount of stories and artwork has been astounding. From one-shots, to multi-chapters, all written by amazing authors. Then there is all the amazing artwork that has come with it, by some amazing and very talented artists.

Please keep in mind that many subjects may trigger, please read all tags before reading a story.

Story Recommendation: we have loved the stars too fondly by @thehandsingsweapon

“We live in a blue planet that circles around a ball of fire next to a moon that moves the sea, and you don’t believe in miracles?”

After an academic career at MIT and Oxford, Yuuri Katsuki eschews job offers at places like NASA and CERN to go work at the Very Large Array in what Phichit Chulanont lovingly calls The Actual Middle of Nowhere, New Mexico, monitoring radio frequencies from light-years away. He's loved the stars for as long as he can remember, and the universe feels so big sometimes that Yuuri is sure it would be a cruel mistake for humans to be all alone.

Enter the latest scientist to join the staff of the VLA, enigmatic Russian genius Victor Nikiforov, around whom Yuuri’s entire universe seems to bend to make room, and the strange, recurring dreams Yuuri keeps having, where something like love carries him across the stars.

Does love travel faster than light? Do souls?

“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”

"Yuri, on Stars!! This lovely short story will resonate with anyone that lives the heavens. Dreamscapes thought to be a figment of Yuuri's imagination turn out to be a more real than tangible science, and Viktor is patient with all his insecurities. With just the right amount of angst to give it depth, this vignette will take you into the endless cosmos!" - @darkrivertempest

Artist Spotlight:

we have loved the stars too fondly by @shadhahvar

Comic:

Good boy by @floccinaucinihilipilificationa (Click title to reblog)

Support:

This week’s Ko-Fi shout-out goes to Discoursemoth | @lowercasewrites (Click to buy coffee)

im sei! im a non-passing trans boy with unsupportive parents, and im using this account primarily to pay for things that could help me pass better, such as a packer and binder. you obviously dont have to donate but i would really appreciate it!

Patreon: YukiPri | @yukipri (Click name to become a patreon)

Hey there!! Thanks so much for visiting my Patreon. I'm Kazu, also YukiPri on Tumblr. I'm currently a freelance translator and illustrator who is HOPING to support myself primarily through art. My passion is telling my own unique stories through visual media, and I love world-building, costume design, and overall extensively over-thinking all of my stories. This patreon is a step towards hopefully better sustaining myself off of art so I can continue to grow as a professional artist and produce content that you can enjoy! I am unbelievably grateful to every patron who helps me continue to do what I love doing. My wish is for the majority of my work to remain public, but I also desperately need to support myself, and also have a variety of content that I'm not comfortable posting publicly for various reasons. As thanks for your support, my patrons will get access to exclusive content, including WIPs/sketches, previews, art progress/tutorials, higher resolution art, early access, and nsfw content!

Fun and Games:

10 Questions Every Fic Writer Secretly Wants to be Asked by @wyseink (Click Title to reblog)

There are a lot of fic questions that float around online, but rarely do they ever ask specific questions about the fics themselves. Ask any writer one or more of these ten questions to learn more about the fic and show support.

1. Of the fics you’ve written, which is your favorite and why?

2. Which scene was your favorite to write in [title of fic]?

3. Which part of [title] was hardest to write?

4. If you could change anything in [title], what would it be?

5. Did you make an outline for [title]? Did you stick to it?

6. Which scenes did you cut, and which were added in [title]?

7. Who was your favorite character to write in [title]?

8. Which came first, the title or the fic?

9. Which idea came to you first in [title]?

10. What are some facts readers may not know about [title]?

Story Prompt:

Monochrome by @diamondwinters An AU where people who are sad, down, depressed cannot hide it. Whenever you get sad, you start to loose your color. Your skin turns pale, your eyes loose their color, and turn gray or white, and your hair turns gray. Like an old black and white tv show, you loose all your color when you’re very sad. A little bit of sadness might dim your natural colors, but you wouldn’t loose them. It’s during a time when you feel heart broken, or very depressed that you go Monochrome. Such as a big break up, a death of a loved one, deep depression, etc. Monochrome is the medical term used by the doctors in this AU to describe turning gray in a world of color.

Some people who are unable to get happy, may use make-up, contacts, and hair color to hide the fact that they’re depressed, but eventually even those things will loose their color and will need to be replaced.

The best thing to do is to find your happiness. Be with friends, and family who can help you bring your color back. The brighter you are, the more vivid your colors are, the happier you are.

Art Prompt:

Imagine your OTP by @bumble-beany

Person A: Are you awake?

Person B: I am now

Person A: I was just wondering...

Person A: What do you think it'd be like to be a pregnant male seahorse?

Person B: Really?! You woke me up for that?

W.I.P. Motivation:

Liquor Stash by @severeminx

I want him.

When the full realization hit him, Yuri felt as though he couldn’t breathe. Detached and fleeting thoughts that had passed through his mind finally took shape in these three words at that exact moment. The I being himself, Yuri Plisetsky, age 17, a Russian figure skater with a list of impressive accomplishments to his name that seemed pretty pointless right now given the context. The want being desire, the need to bury himself, the thought to consume, but never actually act out except behind locked doors in empty beds or shower stalls. The him being the person standing across from Yuri sipping coffee from a take-away cup with creased brows, the low sunlight hitting his face just so to light up his otherwise dark eyes. Someone he considered to be his best friend, who came all the way from Almaty just to spend a week with him and who was blissfully unaware of the fucking turmoil Yuri was feeling in the pit of his stomach. Or at least, Yuri hoped he was unaware.

In which Yuri Plisetsky invites Otabek Altin over to stay with him in Saint Petersburg, freaks out over his feelings and delves into Lilia's liquor stash.

Please go read and support this artist. They are looking for kudos and comments to get them back into finishing this fantastic story!

Fandom Week: (Click each line to go to blog)

Zarkon Week! September 3rd - 9th.

Yuri on Ice Music Week! September 4th - 11th

NSFW Yuri Plisetsky Week! September 11th - 17th.

Guang-Hong Week! Voting will be Sept 15th - 21st

SeungChuchu Week! October 16th - 23rd.

Help Wanted:

Needed: Tumblr theme editor. Please contact Diamond Winters for details.

Story recommendations!! If you find a story that you absolutely love, and you want to see it get some recognition, please submit a link to it with a 2-3 sentence review of the story. This way it could get in the spotlight in a future edition of the SMP. Requirements are that it’s completed, or a one-shot.

Artist Spotlight!! If you find a piece of artwork that needs more love, please submit a link to it so it may be considered for future spotlights in the future.

WIP Motivation: Please send your support to these writers or artist to encourage them to continue their story or artwork. No good story or piece of art should be left unfinished. - If you know of a good story that hasn’t been updated in a while, and would like to offer encouragement to the author, please let me know, so that I can link to their story here.

If there is ever any section of the Sunday Morning Post that you feel you can contribute too, please send an Ask or Submit to either the SMP, or @d2diamond so that it has a chance at making in a future post. Thank you!

#The Sunday Morning Post #Writing #Artist #Fanfiction #Original Stories #Yuri on Ice #Shit-posting

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theuberthinker · 6 years ago

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Sometimes you just have to applaud.

A person asked the question, "Why are people so hostile towards President Donald Trump?"

Before you pass my answer off as “Another Liberal Snowflake” consider that

1.) I'm an independent centrist who has voted Republican way more often in my life than Democrat, and

2.) If you want to call someone who spent the entire decade of his 20’s serving in the Marine Corps a snowflake, I’d be ready to answer the question what did you do with your 20’s?

Why Liberals (And not-so liberals) are against President Trump.

C.) He pretends at Christianity to court the Religious Right but fails to live anything resembling a Christ-Like Life.

D.) His nationalist “America First” message effectively alienates us and removes us from our place as leaders in the international community.

E.) His ideas on “Keeping us safe” are all thinly veiled ideas to remove our freedoms, he is, after all, an authoritarian first. They also are simply bad ideas.

G.) He behaves unethically and always has. As a businessman, he constantly left in his wake unpaid contractors and invoices, litigation, broken promises, whatever he could get away with.

K.) He is systematically steamrolling regulations specifically designed to keep a disaster like the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis from happening again.

0.) He does not have the temperament to lead this nation. He is Thin Skinned, childish, and a bully, never mind misogynistic, boorish, rude, and incapable of civil discourse.

- Chris O’Leary

This Occupy Democrats post ended up in my news feed a little bit ago- and I had to comment on this. Chris hits the nail square on the head with one swing of the metaphorical hammer. He, to put it simply, just GETS it, and it’s a wonderful thing.

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oumakokichi · 8 years ago

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Ohhh can I ask what do you like about kiibo? He's one of my faves but I don't see many people talk about him

I absolutely would love the chance to talk about Kiiboagain! The biggest piece of meta I got to write on him was quite a long timeago, and it really is a shame that people don’t talk about him as much. It’snot as if he’s unpopular, exactly, but it seems like most people are onlyinterested in the “cute robot” aspect rather than the things Kiiboactually represents in the game and the things he accomplishes in Chapter 6.

Obviously I’ll be discussing Chapters 5 and 6 prettyin-depth, so there’ll be massive spoilers for the whole game. Please only readif you’re comfortable with that!

I think part of the main reason why there’s so littlediscussion about Kiibo is because his main time to shine doesn’t really comeuntil Chapter 5. I myself didn’t particularly have an opinion on him one way orthe other before that. Similar to Tsumugi, he stays mostly on the back-burner inall the previous chapters. He’s certainly level-headed and reasonable duringthe trials, but he’s very much on the outskirts of things, never part of eitherthe friendships or conflicts the other characters are having with each other.

Thankfully though, ndrv3 does much better than itspredecessors (in my opinion) of giving most of the characters a more fair andeven amount of screen time. Characters who received their fair share ofdevelopment in earlier chapters and then passed away aren’t around by Chapter5, so that allowed Kiibo to finally take the stage and receive a lot more focusafter five chapters of mostly only being brought up to either say somethinguseful to the trial or get robo-bullied.

Chapter 5 is the first opportunity we have to reallyinteract with Kiibo in a plot context, not counting FTEs. While it’s somethingthat was alluded to plenty in the other chapters, Chapter 5 finally reallyhighlights exactly how much Kiibo questions his own existence as it’s viewed byeveryone else. In a game all about how “lies become reality” and “perception iseverything,” he’s genuinely worried over the thought that others perceive himas little more than just “The Robot™” despite all his efforts to ask that theytreat him as one of the group.

Kiibo wants to be regarded as an individual, not a machineor a wacky exaggerated trope, even if that’s what the other characters keeptrying to delegate him to. Even if he can’t be human, per se, he’d at leastlike to be thought of as someone who’s not out of the ordinary. That’s part ofwhy he hates the mecha genre so much, in fact.

If he had his way, he’d honestly prefer to be an ordinaryhigh school student, just like the rest of them—and that, in a game where manyof the characters prefer talent and competitionand excelling above all else, is interesting. It’s not often that normalcy isany of the character’s desired goal; more often, it’s a curse that they’retrying to escape from. But it works well as a theme for Kiibo because being arobot is something he has literally no control over, something that arguablydoesn’t even count as a “talent” in the first place.

Kiibo is so desperate to settle the matter of how he’sperceived that he’s in fact almost reckless with it. He actually volunteers tolie under the press in order to see whether the sensor on it will detect him asa “human” or an “object.” When Ouma gives the group the electric hammers Miumade for him, explaining that they work on machines and electronics but not onpeople, Kiibo actually contemplates using one on himself in order to test howMiu actually saw him—something Ouma advises against, since if it turns out hewas regarded as a machine and not a person, his circuits would completely fry.

These things are, of course, not uncommon to robotcharacters in fiction. They’re themes that have been done before, but I ratherlike the serious twist things take with Kiibo’s self-perception anyway inChapter 5. It adds a level of understanding to the reason why he’s been so onthe outskirts of the group; unlike Tsumugi, who keeps herself on the outskirtsbecause she purposely wants to be an observer, Kiibo has simply felt excludedfrom the start and always will feel excluded,on some level. I feel for these kinds of characters deeply, and that’s probablythe point at which I went from being neutral about him to quite liking him.

The fact that he was actually the most objective and fairestcharacter in the Chapter 5 trial earned him huge points, too. That was where hetruly began showing some of his protagonist potential, in my opinion. Assomeone who wants to be treated fairly and “like one of the group,” it reallydoes speak volumes to Kiibo’s character that he honestly, 100% believes thateveryone else should receive that kind of fair and equal treatment, too. Evensomeone like Ouma, who was being viewed in almost entirely antagonistic termsby the rest of the group and who they believed to be a literal “Junko 2.0.”

Even after using the Hope’s Peak remember light, Kiibo wasthe only one in the group who actually wanted to talk to Ouma, rather thanMomota in Chapter 5. He went to the machinery bay with the intention of seeingif he could have a face-to-face talk with him instead of having to rely on theentire dr1-style “let’s talk down the big bad villain from despair” plan thatthey had set for the next day. I still wonder what would’ve actually happenedif he’d managed to convince Ouma to let him in to talk, too—he didn’t succeedbecause Maki was already in the machinery bay at the time, but I feel likethings could’ve turned out drastically different if he’d managed to talk withOuma for himself.

That fair objectivity of Kiibo’s is one of my favoritequalities, moreso since it’s something that seems to be natural and inherent tohim, rather than something Tsumugi oranyone else programmed into his character. It’s so distinctly… well, I’mlooking for a good comparison and I keep coming back to Hufflepuff. Fair,hard-working, earnest, and unbelievably loyal, both to the people he caresabout and what he believes in—these are all traits that embody Kiibo as acharacter.

While these traits are definitely positive things, they canalso be unbelievably scary when carried to their full potential. After losinghis ahoge and severing his connection with the ndrv3 audience, Kiibo finallyhas an opportunity to think for himself and make his own decisions, without anyinterruptions or subconscious urges not to do so. And he’s the only character after Chapter 5 who looksat Momota and Ouma’s sacrifice, and decides to put a stop to the killing gameonce and for all, with his own two hands.

This is a cold, ruthless decision coming from a characterwho has looked at all the options as fairly as possible and determined that thekilling game will not stop unless he takes this course of action. When Kiibomade up his mind to end everything himself once and for all was pretty much thepoint where I went from just liking him to lovinghim. Stripped away of the audience’s interference or Tsumugi’s plans for him,Kiibo is someone who at his core was not entirely dissimilar to Ouma—if anything,he was even more willing to make sacrifices than Ouma was, because Kiibo was absolutely willing to blow up the wholeschool and everyone in it by sunrise if Saihara couldn’t find any other way ofstopping the killing game by exposing the truth.

This reflects a loyalty to his ideals and to the sacrificesMomota and Ouma left behind that goes very, very deep. I have a huge soft spotfor loyal characters, moreso loyal characters who do questionable things forthe sake of their loyalty—Juzo and Mukuro are both super high on my characterranking for that exact reason. Kiibo’s unwavering decision to do anything ittook to end the killing game made him incredibly likable for me, especiallysince, in the end… he was right. It turned out that blowing up Saishuu Academyand giving the audience an ending that was neither hope nor despair was theonly possible way to break the cycle of “hope vs. despair” that had been goingon for 53 seasons.

Once the trial begins and Kiibo has his ahoge and his linkwith the audience restored, Chapter 6 is a journey of him stepping into theprotagonist role at first, saying all the wrong things and falling into all thewrong pitfalls of the “hope vs. despair” cycle, and acting every bit the sortof Naegi-like, inspirational, hope-giving protagonist that Tsumugi set him upto be. Just as Ouma was very much set up by Tsumugi to be “despair,” aJunko-like figure to take the fall in her original plans, Kiibo was set up verysimilarly to be “hope.”

But “hope” within the killing game, especially “hope” asTsumugi wanted it to reflect the Hope’s Peak arc, is a false hope. All it doesis enable the same cycle to keep repeating. And that’s something Saihara pointsout, touching on the fact that the ndrv3 audience arguably wants to see “hope”even more than “despair,” as “hope” is heavily implied to be the choice thatkept winning the most in the past 53 seasons of the killing game.

Like Ouma, Kiibo rejects his intended role in the end, andthat’s exactly what I love about him the most, I think. Despite being someonewho was set up to be a puppet on a string every step of the way, Kiibo rejectedthat “hope” and instead was willing to stand with everyone and lay down hislife in order to end the killing game. Even though he had every reason to keeparguing, even though his “inner voice” kept telling him that “hope” was theright choice, he ignored all of that and instead consciously chose to tryending the killing game once again.

There’s also the matter of Kiibo’s self-sacrificing streak amile wide, which is something I always wind up falling for in DR characters andsomething that inevitably hurts me, since they always die. Characters whosacrifice themselves for the sake of others’ happiness do not get to have agood time in DR, ever. And Kiibo’s sacrifice at the end of the game goes soun-commented on most of the time, because Saihara and the others assume that itwas more the outside world’s doing.

But looking back at the final execution, at Kiibo’s concernas he saw Saihara and the other survivors under the rubble, and the slight smileon his face as he flew up higher to the dome to self-destruct in order to givethem all a chance to live on, I can’t help but feel that it was Kiibo’s doing,rather than the audience’s directly. Some small part of Kiibo still left inthere wanted more than anything for the rest of them to have a chance atliving.

In the end, the will to live on is the smallest and mostgenuine form of hope that there is, in my opinion at least. The “hope” thatTeam DR and the killing game audience wanted was false, but Kiibo was notmistaken about wanting there to at least be some way for Saihara and the othersurvivors to keep living. In a game featuring many, many suicidal and depressedcharacters, Kiibo is ultimately the one that presents them with the opportunityto keep living, so that they don’t haveto sacrifice their lives. Even if the road ahead of them is bound to be harshand painful, he wanted them to have the option to walk down it in the firstplace and to be able to find a reason, any reason, to keep living.

This has gotten pretty long so I’ll leave it for now, but I’mglad I had the chance to talk about Kiibo because he’s honestly such a goodcharacter. The last two chapters of ndrv3 succeeded in making him go from acharacter I was completely neutral about to one of my absolute favorite DRcharacters of all-time—because contrary to how he seemed initially, he wound upbeing one of the best subversions of Naegi’s original character and the entireHope’s Peak arc.

Thank you both for asking! I’m always glad to meet morepeople who really like Kiibo, so this was fun!

#ndrv3 #drv3 #new danganronpa v3 #kiibo #keebo #ndrv3 spoilers //#my meta #okay to reblog #i love kiibo with all my heart #anonymous

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toldnews-blog · 7 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/politics/watch-bernie-sanders-says-you-cannot-go-too-far-on-the-issue-of-climate-change/

WATCH: Bernie Sanders says 'you cannot go too far on the issue of climate change'

Transcript for Bernie Sanders says ‘you cannot go too far on the issue of climate change’

The crowd kind of likes you I want to get your take because there was a lot of criticism about your 2016 campaign and sexual assault harassment allegations against top male campaign staffers. You’ve addressed it. You said it won’t happen again and that obviously you’re busy. Meghan and I have been in campaigns and we understand that the candidate is not where everybody is all the time. Have you gotten rid of all the top male staffers that have been accused and what are you doing more specifically? I believe we have, to answer your question. And second of all, when I ran for re-election in have the just in 2018 we established I think the strongest protocol against sexual harassment and that is being incorporated into this presidential campaign. I was embarrassed by that. We’re going to do everything we can to make sure that it doesn’t happen, and we have very strong safeguards in place. Senator, Amy klobuchar is getting a lot of heat for being a tough boss and difficult to work with, but there have actually been a lot of stories about you being a tough boss. In 2015 there was an article quoting staffers saying you were unbelievably abusive. You yelled during meetings. You were a . Why do you think that those kind of stories weren’t getting as much attention as senator cloeb Cloe’s is? I don’t think in that particular story had a name attached to it. Des Moines register asked you questions about it as well. But there wasn’t one person with their name on it. I have been in public life for 30 years and I’ve had hundreds of employees and I think the vast majority of employees will tell you that they enjoyed working with me, they were proud of what we’ve accomplished together. This, unfortunately — and I know Amy very well and I think these — you know, this is what media does. We should be talking about the major issues facing our country. We should be talking about climate change and the future of the planet. Right. You do understand it’s my job though to ask the difference in your perspective between Amy as a boss and you as a boss? This was one article written in one Vermont paper. It did not have, as I recall, one person who’s — one person’s name being mentioned. So after 20 years, 30 years in politics, there are some people who may have been disgruntled and may have been angry with me. That’s my answer. But in general if you talk to the people who work with me, many have been around me for years and decades and find me as a pretty good employer. We’re in sync today because I do want to talk about climate change. Alexandria ocasio-cortez worked with you and she claimed that the looming threat of climate change that continues to exacerbate global conflicts has gotten so dire that it is a legitimate question to ask whether it’s moral for people to have children now. Does she have a point there, or is that too radical? Well, obviously that’s an enormously personal choice that every couple is going to have to make. But this is what I will say, I will say that I am embarrassed that we have a president who refuses to even acknowledge the reality of climate change, and in my own personal opinion, I’ve been talking to scientists all over the world, if we do not get our act together and take on the fossil fuel industry and transform our energy system away from fossil fuel into energy efficiency and sustainable energy, the planet that we are going to be leaving our kids and our grandchildren — and Jane and I have seven grandchildren — will become increasingly unhealthy and uninhabitable. Given that reality, it seems to me the job we have to do is to immediately grasp the magnitude of the problem and transform our energy system to save the planet. Now, in terms of a couple’s decisions they make, that is their decision. Couples make a lot of decisions in terms of whether they’re going to have kids. Often it’s economic and there are other factors as well. Does the green new deal go too far? No. You cannot go too far on the issue of climate change. The future of the planet is at stake, okay? Bernie, Bernie — We have, according to the best scientists in the world, we have 12 years to begin substanley cutting carbon emissions before there will be ir rarable damage to the planet. I talked to some folks who were in paradise, California. Remember the terrible, terrible fire that wiped out the whole community — I got to go again, Bernie. We have another commercial. I’m sorry. I hope that you’ll join me to — I’m going to start a movement to get all the weather men to report, it’s 6 degrees outside, there’s snow and also the polar caps have moved further, whatever. If the weather men would do that I think people would be paying attention more, wouldn’t you? Let’s start a movement on that. Let’s do that. Okay, we’ll be back with more of senator Bernie Sanders. Announcer: Days after the verdict was handed down in the Sarah stern murder case, “20/20” rs taking you back to the beginning. Liam was a childhood friend of Sarah’s. The mystery surrounded her decision appearance. They they believe Sarah had jumped and I just started screaming. A father’s search for answers. Right away you were You just get that feeling that something happened. And the shocking confession caught on video. I choke her out, drag her into the back, put her in a bathroom. It’s a two-hour “20/20” event with new details and new interviews about the murder that shook small town America to its core. “With friends like these” airs tonight at 9:00, 8:00 central on ABC. There’s nothing quite as magical as staying at a Disney Resort hotel. So Imagine… Complimentary rides to and from the Park… Even extra time with your family in the Park. And now, you can save up to 30% on rooms at select Walt Disney World Resort hotels. 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This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

#election news #indian politics #political news #political news articles #politics news #US politics

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kimmibers · 9 years ago

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SasuHina - His Beauty and Her Beast - Chapter 6

Sasuke flinched as the cloth made contact with his shirtless back again. Hinata had helped him back to the mansion and was currently tending to his wounds. He was currently lay shirtless on his stomach on the bed with his head in his arms. He kept his gaze on her however, carefully watching her. Waiting for her to show any emotion about the attempted abduction, she had yet to talk since they'd sent a note via his hawk to the Hokage tower (both their phones had been damaged beyond recognition in the blast).

“Sorry.” He heard Hinata mutter as he involuntary flinched again. “I need to clean your back before I can heal your wounds.”

“It's ok, keep going.” He groaned out as she yet again swept the cloth over his back after she'd cleaned it off in a bowl beside her. He knew this needed to be done so there was no point in prolonging the process. Squeezing the blankets in to his hands he tried to attempt to hide his discomfort from Hinata, she felt guilty enough without hearing his pain.

Hearing her tell him she'd finished cleaning his back Sasuke breathed out a sigh of relief and loosed his grip on her sheets.

“Hinata,” He held her wrist pulling her up the bed so he could see her face more clearly, “Tell me honestly, are you ok?” Hinata's gaze looked away from his immediately at his question and she removed her arm away from his grasp.

“It's not my first abduction attempt I've been through, Sasuke. These eyes and my birthright are a curse as much as a privilege.” Hinata stepped away from the bed, “I-I wish I could be like you and fear nothing.”

“That's ridiculous,” He bluntly protested, “everyone fears something, we wouldn't be human if we didn't.”

“But you don't act like you fear anything. Back there you...you saved me without thinking of yourself. What if...What if she'd hit one of your vital organs? What if she'd-”

“Hinata stop! You're thinking irrationally.” Sasuke sat up on his knees wanting to see her face more clearly, “You can't live your life by 'what if'. You think I don't get scared? You're wrong!” Hinata gave him a look of 'yeah right', “ok. I'm shit scared I'm gonna get these votes and what then? I bring back my clan? What if history only repeats itself? What if the Uchiha are destined to be Konoha's destruction again and again?”

“That won't happen!” Hinata sat on the bed next to Sasuke, placing her hand on his face she pried his gaze to look in hers.

“How can you know that? I'm not like Naruto, what if- what if I'm the next Madara?” Hinata sat perfectly still choosing her words deliberately.

“I'm glad.” She told him finally breaking the silence between them, “I'm glad you're not like Naruto.” Now it was his turn to give her the look of 'yeah right', “If someone would of told me a year ago I would consider you one of my closest friends I would of laughed, but I do. I really do, Sasuke. You're not like Naruto, you're right and that's what makes you the perfect clan leader. You have so much to teach the next generation, not just jutsu but life lessons too. You've been down a difficult path and yet you've still found your way home. You're not a saint, Kami knows,” They both smiled, “And yet you're surrounded by people who care for you no matter what. Naruto, Sakura, Kakashi, and myself will always be here for you.”

“Ok ok. Enough of the pep talk.” Sasuke chuckled awkwardly and lay back down on the bed. Sasuke looked over his shoulder gazing at Hinata as she began healing his back. At least now she had a slight smile on her face that he could see thanks to the green glow illuminating her skin and created shadows on her face. For a while they stayed silent so Hinata could concentrate.

“So...What's your fear?” Sasuke asked her after some time.

“My fear?” Hinata peaked at Sasuke's gaze then back to the remaining wound on his back, “My fear

is loosing someone else I love because I did nothing.”

“That's easy to rectify.”

“How so?”

“That's all in the mind, training could easily remedy that. I'll help you if you like.”

“You don't suggest isolating myself?” Hinata questioned.

“No.” He stated frankly, “You say I'm surrounded by people who care for me yes? Well you are even more so. Your team, my team, hell all the rookies, your clan, your sister...Me.” He added shyly. “Isolating yourself accomplishes nothing but loneliness. I...I couldn't allow you to go through that.” Hinata's eyes widened at his words and a slight blush coated her cheeks. He cared for Hinata as a friend, he told himself, and he was just doing what Naruto had done for him right. Right?

Hearing the door to the bedroom opening Sasuke jumped off the bed, paying no heed to the fact he'd just opened the last remaining wound on his back, his main priority was to protect Hinata. The dark shadow from the hallway stepped into the light seeping from the room to reveal Sakura.

“Oh? I'm sorry...Am I interrupting? I knocked but no one was answering and I-” Sakura bumbled her words and her face grew flushed.

“No, no Sakura. We was just- I-I was just healing Sasuke's back.” Hinata had cleared the room by the time she'd finished her sentence and guiding Sakura in to the room, “Y-You should take over. You have better skills than me.” Sasuke could sense there was some unspoken words between them, some 'girl code' that he had no hope of deciphering.

Suddenly being shirtless in front of Sakura felt far too revealing. Strange that in front of Hinata he'd felt comfortable? Maybe because he knew Hinata wouldn't ogle his body like Sakura was currently doing.

“I-Is that ok with you Sasuke?” Hinata asked.

“Hn.” He sat himself on her bed and covered his chest with a spare blanket. “Wait! Where are you going?” Sasuke asked. He didn't want to be alone in the room with Sakura and the thought of something happening to Hinata while he couldn't keep an eye on her brought with it an overwhelming fear.

“Hinata's just going for a shower Sasuke.” Sakura looked at Sasuke as if she was seeing him in a totally different light.

Silently Sasuke nodded his head and tried to look nonchalant. Hearing the door close behind Hinata he shut his eyes trying to suppress the sense of dread at being left alone in a room with Sakura. He flinched when he felt her weight behind him, why did this feel so wrong? Sakura was his friend but he also knew she wanted more from him and he couldn't give her that. He'd tried to tell her so many times through out the years, he just didn't and couldn't see her in that way, he'd tried! When they got back from the war, he'd convinced himself she'd deserved his love, proven herself worthy of it by standing up for him through everything but he soon came to realise he was hurting her more. He just couldn't love her, no matter how hard he tried, he'd confessed as much to Naruto. Naruto had been the one to tell him you couldn't force yourself to love someone, that's not love and if that's how he felt he should leave Sakura be and let her move on. That's why he'd left on his '3 year redemption mission', he'd wanted to give Sakura the time to find love, someone she deserved and yet here she was still pining for him.

“Sakura.” His voice came out gruff with emotion. This was going to be hard he knew, but he had to tell Sakura the truth. She deserved as much.

“It's ok Sasuke, I know.” She whispered. He didn't know when she'd started to heal him but he could feel her chakra entering his system, stitching his muscles back together.

“What do you mean, you know?” Sasuke asked confused by her words.

“I've watched you for most my life, despite what you think I can read you like a book. You don't have to say it Sasuke, I know there's nothing between us.”

“That's not true. You'll always be my friend Sakura...I hope.” Sasuke looked over his shoulder to judge her expression. Sakura gave him a small smile and nodded her head.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Isn't that what friends do? Pry in to each others lives.” Sasuke smirked at Sakura's half hearted chuckle.

“How do you feel about Hinata?”

“Hinata?” He sat up straight at her name alone.

“It's just...I've noticed you act differently around her, she calms you I think. Now I think about it you're so similar it's easy to see how you've become-”

“Friends.” Sasuke felt he needed to clarify that point and fast.

“Friends then. But as one friend to another let me give you a little advice,” She told him gently, “Don't be an idiot like Naruto. If you feel something more for her, act on it, don't let her slip through your finger's. Hinata is...one in a million.”

“And you wouldn't mind that? Seeing me and Hinata...” Sasuke trailed off, he couldn't bring himself to say more.

“I...Hinata is one of my dearest friends and with you I see her happy again. Since the war she's been distant with everyone and yet you've brought her out of her shell again.” Sakura began to laugh at how unbelievable that was, “Who knew Sasuke Uchiha and Hinata Hyuga could be such close friends? Not me that's for sure.”

“We are an unlikely duo.” He agreed smirking at the image in his head of the two of them.

“She makes you happy, you make her happy and as both your friends that's all I want. I would never stand in the way of your happiness Sasuke.” Sakura gave his hand a squeeze. Sasuke looked down at their joined hands and smiled. He was lucky to have a friend such as Sakura, he knew before now but this moment made it all the more clear.

“Thank you Sakura.” In that moment he did something he never thought he'd do; he hugged her. It wasn't a romantic hug in any sense but it was enough to convey his thanks, he hoped. As he pulled away he saw the blush on Sakura's face and felt her hand on his bare chest pushing him back.

“Yes...Well.” She coughed, “I..I should go to my room.” She stood up off the bed and walked in a trance like state to the door, “Oh. I forgot, Naruto and Kakashi will be here in the morning. They're having a meeting with Hiashi Hyuga, he heard what happened here. Actually he saw the smoke coming from the building and well he's not happy, he wants the best protection for his daughter. I was told to give you this also.” Sakura handed him a note and saying her goodnight left the room.

Sasuke looked down at note in the scruffiest writing he'd ever seen.

“Naruto.” He mumbled to himself and rolled his eyes. His best friend really needed to work on his penmanship for when he became Hokage. The note didn't have a specific name to who it was addressed to but Sakura had said it was for him. Opening the note he began to read:

Teme!

We're puling an all nighter to try and figure out more details of why someone would come after Hinata! Hiashi has a rod up his arse saying we're not taking this threat seriously! So as of now you're Hinata's protection detail! Got it! She goes nowhere without you! Or else I'm dead!!!

Hiashi is scarier than you!!!

Kakashi has organised for some guys to come check out the house to make sure it's safe and to start fixing it in the morning. We'll be there too in the morning, tell Hinata to make pancakes I need food!! So hungry!!!

Sasuke shook his head at Naruto's letter, so typical of his friend to be thinking of his stomach at such a time. He glanced at Hinata's bedside clock and noted it was now 3am. Hinata had still yet to return from her shower, what did he do? Knock on the door? Wait for her?

Looking down at himself he decided first thing first was definitely changing out of his dirty clothes and grabbing a shirt. Walking down the hallway to his room he passed the bathroom he could hear the shower still on, pausing for a moment to listen for anything suspicious, instead he heard the muffled singing of Hinata. He didn't want to embarrass her by alerting her to his presence so carried on walking to his own room.

Quickly throwing away his ruined clothes, he clothed himself in some of his more baggier clothes. Before putting on his new t-shirt he inspected his back in the mirror, 3 more scars to add to the collection he thought to himself. At least these ones he could be proud of, he imagined kids from his clan asking him 'how'd you get that one?' what could he say? That one was from when I killed my brother Itachi. Oh and this one is from when I'd tried to kill uncle Naruto. He growled at himself in his mind and hastily put on his t-shirt.

Walking out his bedroom he noticed the door to the bathroom was slightly a jar and the light turned off.

“Hinata?” He knocked on her door quietly in case Sakura was already sleeping.

“Just a sec.” He heard the panic in her voice followed by something falling to the floor.

“Are you ok?” He called through the door, his hand on the handle ready to go in.

“Y-Yes! J-Just stubbed my toe on the bed. C-Come in.”

Sasuke slowly opened the door to see Hinata sat in the end of the bed she was wearing some baggy trousers, much like his own and a vest top. She had her head in such a way to be able to have her hair over one shoulder while she tried to dry it with a small towel.

“Sorry to interrupt but Sakura gave me this, I thought you might want to see it as it's to do with you.” He handed her over the note off Naruto.

He watched her carefully reading each word; the way she smiled so easily at Naruto's words had his stomach twisting in an odd sensation.

“O-Ok. How's your back?” She asked him, handing him back the note.

“Better. Thanks.” Why was this so awkward? He asked himself.

“I'm not really tired are you?”

“Not really.” He admitted.

“D-do you think you could stay with me?”

“Er-”

“I mean...Not with me,” She blushed, realising the implication of her words, “I just mean, I d-don't want to be alone r-right now. May-Maybe we could watch a movie downstairs or-?”

“Sure. But not-”

“Love stories. I know.” She smiled. “I was thinking something we both like, how about Lord of the Rings?”

“Now you tell me! They made movies of the books? Do you know how long those books are?” He pretended to be annoyed and rolled his eyes making her chuckle.

“They've made lots of movies while you were...away.” Sasuke couldn't help but laugh.

“Alright I'll grab snacks and drinks, meet you downstairs in a minute.” He told her while leaving her room.

“Hey Sasuke?”

“Yeah?” He looked back.

“Thank you.”

“Hey guys!-”

“Shhh.” Sakura peaked her head around the kitchen door frame, “They're sleeping.” She pointed in the front room.

“Who's sleeping?” Naruto asked puzzled.

“Who do you think Baka?” Sakura responded like Naruto had asked the dumbest question in the world.

As Naruto walked stealthily passed the lounge they couldn't help but look in with its door open it was just too tempting. They were able to see the two dark haired figures of Sasuke and Hinata on the couch. Hinata's head leant on Sasuke's shoulder and Sasuke's head leaning on hers.

Naruto paused at the door momentarily shocked, Sakura grabbed hold of his jacket sleeve and pulled him in to the kitchen.

“What? When?” Naruto asked urgently.

“Are you really that surprised? We both saw how different he's been since Hinata moved in.”

“Yes but he's-they're..” Naruto interlocked his hands hoping what he couldn't convey in words he could with gestures. “And you're ok with this?”

“Why wouldn't I be?” Sakura challenged. “Sasuke said they're just friends when we spoke last night anyway.”

“Teme spoke about feelings?”

“I do have them you know.”

The two friends turned to see Sasuke who was currently leant on the door frame.

“You're awake?”

“You wish me to answer that ridiculous question?” Sasuke sighed and walked over to Sakura so she could hand him a coffee.

“How's Hinata?” She enquired.

“Sleeping.” He answered simply. They each sat at the table, each with their own drinks. “So what's the plan? I assume Kakashi has one?”

“Er yeah. He's called back any Hyuga from their missions in case who ever tried to abduct Hinata were after her Byakugan.”

“The way the puppet was talking I highly doubt that.” Sasuke spoke over his drink.

“Either way Hanabi is still on her mission and Hiashi wants her back.” Naruto told them.

“Hinata will be happy about that.” Sakura spoke.

“Kakashi and Hiashi want Hinata to stay here still-”

“She wasn't going anywhere else Dobe.”

Naruto glanced over to Sakura to judge her reaction to what Sasuke had said but saw her nodding in agreement with him instead of hurt expressions he'd expected to see.

“Hinata mentioned something last night, she said this wasn't the first abduction attempt on her, how many has there been?” Sasuke looked over at Naruto expectantly.

“I can't tell you that, it's classified. Need to know only.”

“Well I need to know Naruto.”

“But I can't-”

“Naruto!” Sasuke slammed his hand on the table. The three of them sat still for a moment to see if Sasuke's sudden outburst had awoken Hinata. Sasuke sighed in exasperation and looked over at his best friend. “Look Naruto,” He began again, this time in a calm manner, “I need to know this, Hinata is under my protection, under my roof, if something were to happen to her it's on me. I won't let that happen. I need to know if this is just another attempt or if something more sinister is at work, you understand?”

Naruto nodded his head and began to tell Sasuke and Sakura officially everyone knew of only one abduction attempt know as 'The Hyuga Affair'. He explained how Hinata had been turning 3 at the time; Konoha and Kumogakure were to sigh a peace treaty, but that had been a cover up. The head ninja of the Kumogakure attempted to abduct Hinata in order to obtain the secrets of the Byakugan. However Hiashi Hyuga dispatched of the shinobi, saving Hinata himself. In the aftermath, Kumogakure denied any accusations of abduction and in retaliation demanded the body of Hiashi for compensation. Hiashi's younger brother and identical twin Hizashi decided to go in his brother's place despite Hiashi's protests. Hizashi knew Kumogakure would be fooled and his curse seal would safe guard the secrets of the Byakugan and would not only save his brother's life but also prevent a war between the two nations.

Sasuke was piecing together a lot about Hinata's past and character. Her word's from last night repeated themselves in his mind; ' My fear is loosing someone else I love because I did nothing'. He realised then Hinata blamed herself for not only Neji's death, but her uncle's too. How could he show her how wrong she was?

Sakura was right, Hinata and himself had many similarities regarding their childhoods; They'd lost their older brothers, both of whom had sacrificed themselves for them. They'd each grown up in a powerful clan, bringing with it not only family but as Hinata had said a birthright that was also a curse; the notion they could be stronger and better than the rest by their genes alone. Neither of them had been able to meet their fathers high expectations growing up, from what little news Sasuke had gathered it seemed Hinata had earned her father's respect since the war though.

“Wait you said officially.” Sakura interrupted his train of thought, “What's the unofficial number?”

“8, well 9 after last night.” Hinata answered alerting her presence to them.

“Come on.” Sasuke strode over to her and took hold of her hand, leading her out the kitchen.

“Where we going? I've not had any breakfast yet.” She protested.

“It's time to train.” Sasuke answered her in a monotone voice.

Sakura and Naruto glanced at each other for a second before their chairs squeaked along the floor with their sudden burst of moment, both following after Hinata and Sasuke.

#SasuHina #sasuhina fanfic #sasuke x hinata #sasukexhinata #his beauty and her beast #My writing #fanfiction #fanfic

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gypsyrover-ghost · 7 years ago

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wink wink

thoughts on darkness by winkie pratney, that i happened to take some encouragement from upon reflection this week... Walking in Darkness I am no prophet, nor am I the son of a prophet, but I do believe we're headed for some very dark times in this decade. I really believe in some places it's going to be rough to be a Christian. In many nations believers have already faced trouble and pressure. But what I want to look at here is a "dark time" that doesn't result from the persecution of the world.

This is something that will happen to every single Christian who wants to be involved in the work of God, or to any Christian who has truly set his heart on pleasing God. It is not a problem that comes from other people - and it is not necessarily a problem that comes from the demonic world. It can very well come to Christians from God Himself.

"Who among you fears the Lord? Who obeys the voice of His Servant? Who walks in darkness and has no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely upon his God. Look, all you who kindle a fire, who encircle yourselves with sparks; walk in the light of your fire and in the sparks you have kindled - this you shall have from My hand: you shall lie down in torment." (Is. 50:10-11 NKJV)

When I first read this passage, I assume it was written to an unbeliever. After all, it deals with darkness. I knew of only three kinds of darkness mentioned in Scripture and, well, everybody knows that darkness comes only to unbelievers! Perhaps it meant the darkness of sin. After all, the Bible does say: "Men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." (John 3:19)

Secondly, there is a darkness in the Bible that is really ignorance, and the opposite of this darkness is the word "light." This is one of the most basic statements about God in the entire Bible: "God is light and in Him is no darkness at all." (1 John 1:5)

Then, thirdly, demonic power is sometimes referred to as "the power of darkness" (Luke 22:53; Acts 26:18; Eph. 6:12; Col. 1:13).

But the darkness Isaiah spoke of doesn't refer to any of those things. The strange thing about this verse (and this kind of darkness) is that it happens only to people who are walking with God and who love God. It happens to people who are not messing around with sin, and who are not ignorant. There is a darkness that can come to men and women of God that has nothing to do with sin, that has nothing to do with lack of wisdom, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the devil. And the tragedy is, when this darkness comes upon certain people of God, they don't understand what it is and it nearly wipes them out.

Everyone who has set his heart on serving God will have this darkness come at some point. Has it happened to you? You wake up one day to find all spiritual feelings gone. You pray and nothing seems to happen. You read your Bible, and you understand the words -but there is no light. You search your heart and find nothing to match what you are going through. You rebuke the devil, you ask others for prayer, you go to hear your favorite Christian speaker - and nothing happens. No counsel seems to help. No answers answer.

St. John of the Cross called it "the dark night of the soul." Tozer called it "the ministry of the night" Spurgeon preached about "the child of light walking in darkness."Each writer dealt with this differently, but the experience is common. It is not darkness of wrong or guilt or demonic oppression. It is not sin. It is instead an inexplicable sense of loss and uncertainty. It is above all a withdrawn sense of the presence of God.

What Does Darkness Look Like?

The first thing that happens is this: There's a strange sense of emptiness in your life. There's no sign of God. You sit in services and take your usual notes. The message is great, but there is no answering chord of response in your heart. When everyone else is feeling something, you don't feel anything.

So you pray. You get on your knees and tell God you don't feel so good. Prayer usually "changes things," it is said, but this time there seems to be no light from heaven! So you go to hear teaching that has always excited you, fully expecting inspiration to flow like streams of living water - and nothing! You walk out of the service in which everyone else "touched God" and say to yourself: "What in the world have I done?"

Perhaps, you think, it is unconfessed sin. You apologize to everybody. You write letters of confession to your grade school teachers. You go through everything you can possibly think of' but it's still the same. Nothing.

Then you think: "Ah ha! Of course. It's the devil! I haven't taken my authority in Christ." So you do. And? Still nothing.

What you are going through is not new. It came to every major man or woman of God in Scripture. It came to Abraham when he stood waiting for God to accept his sacrifice (Gen. 15:12). It came to Moses on the mountain waiting to receive the Commandments in the "thick darkness" where God was (Duet. 5:22). It came to Job when he "looked for good" and "evil came" (Job 30:26). It came to David when the bottom seemed to drop out of his world.

It came to the prophets and they wept. It came to the godly kings and they humbled themselves. One dark day it even came to Jesus, the Son of God Himself. And if you set your heart to seek God, this darkness will also come to you. You will not be exempt. You will not escape it. It is an essential factor in a deep and thorough Christian experience.

Even in nature you know it's true. Nothing can live in unbroken sunshine. There must be the cycles of the night, and days of clouds and rain. Light and darkness are both essential for plant growth. Non-stop sunshine only creates a desert. What is true in the seasons of nature is also true in the seasons of the spirit. Summer is beautiful, but winter must always come. Don't be surprised at the darkness. Jesus will help you walk in it sooner or later.

Dealing With Feeling

An unsaved girl who had been attending a Christian college once asked me a profound question: Do Christians really love Christ or do they just love the good feelings that come from loving Christ?"

Job faced the same question when his world fell apart and God did not seem to answer. Sheltered in the personal care of God, he had walked secure in the knowledge that God his Friend was also his Provider and Protector. He, too, was a man who feared the Lord, who walked in obedience, who trusted Him. Satan's challenge to God over Job was simple. He said, in effect: "Sure Job loves and worships you. Why not? You give him everything he wants! Take away the presents and he'll be just the same as one of my crowd." So God let Satan test Job. And Job came through - but barely.

Job faced the darkness that is the most fearsome of all to the child of God. Not the darkness of sin, ignorance, or the demonic, but the divine darkness - the darkness of the withdrawn sense of the presence of God.

What can you do to get out of this darkness? Nothing. Nothing at all. There is nothing you can do to get out of the darkness if it is God who put you into it. That is why all your usual remedies fail, all your counselors draw a blank, and all your frustrated attempts come to an eventual exhausted end.

The darkness of God is given by Him, and it will not lift until it has accomplished its work in your soul. Jacob was left alone" in the darkness and "a man wrestled with him until daybreak. " (Gen. 32:24)

You cannot escape it, but you can surely live through it.

What do you do when you are going through the darkness? You say, "Lord, I know that this is a hard place. But what shall I do?" Nothing. Silence.

"Well," you say, "at least show me what to do." Nothing. Yet what is this person in Isaiah 50:10 doing? Look carefully: he is walking.

The first thing you must do when the darkness comes is to do your duty, to keep going in the same direction you were going when the darkness came. You must continue your daily routine.

What did God say to you before you went into the darkness? What was your call when the voice of Cod was clear? Then do it still. Keep on walking. Nothing has changed on the path except your perception of it. Do your duty nevertheless, and keep walking even when the lights go out.

Let him who has no light trust in the name of the Lord. "The name of the Lord is a strong tower the righteous runs into it and is safe" (Prov. 18:10) and "...those who know Thy name will put their trust in Thee." (Ps, 9:10) His name is descriptive of what He is - and He is there. He is the uncreated, unchanging, unshakable God. He is what He always is, and He has not changed in the darkness. He is not missing because you cannot see Him. God is committed in everlasting covenant to you. He is faithful and will remain faithful yesterday, today and forever (Heb. 13:8)

You're to get on your knees and say: "O God, I don't feel You. I don't get any zap from You. I don't feel Your presence. But You're there nevertheless because Your Word doesn't change. Amen.

"Here is something else you can do: In this time of darkness, go over in your mind what God has already done in your life. Those things aren't just little dreams in the back of your head - they really did happen. God really did do them. Now you are going to have to remember them.

Remember what His character is like. When you can't see the way, open the Book and read again what He is like. Recall what God has already done. What have you seen of God in your own experience? Once you said, I have seen His hand, I know what He is like and I am committed to Him forever." Did you really mean that?

Others before you have walked in the darkness. They too, have found that faith is not something you hold but someone who holds you.

The Danger Of False Fire

St. John of the Cross had some rare insight on walking through this "dark night of the soul." He said, "The way in which they are to conduct themselves in this night is not to devote themselves to reasoning and meditation, since this is not the time for it, but to allow the soul to remain in peace and quietness, although it may seem clear to them that they are doing nothing, and are wasting their time, and although it mayappear to them that it is because of their weakness that they have no desire to think of anything. The truth is that they will be doing quite sufficient if they have patience and persevere in prayer without making any effort."

Isaiah 50 contains a solemn warning: You cannot take matters into your own hands! If God does not bring you light, you must not make your own. But some have tried to do just that.

"If God is not going to speak," they say in anger, "then I am going ahead anyway: If He won't show me the light, I will make my own." What they are saying is, "O.K., God, if You're not going to guide me, I'm going to guide myself."

What you have then is an extremely brief and temporary light. It cannot last and will only leave you blinded. Don't do it. Don't make the foolish and futile mistake of lighting your own fire. If God has put you into the darkness, let it do its work in your soul. He got you in - and you can trust Him to take you out. If you light your own little match and then go and do your own thing, you will see in that man made light a destruction of much that God has for you. Walk in what God as already given you to do and remain faithful until new light comes.

The Purpose Of Darkness

You might be wondering, "Why is God doing this to me? How long will it last? How come when I talk to Him He doesn't answer? Why am I not getting any revelation in my life?"

Probably because this is the only way God has of teaching you some very important lessons. And those lessons are basically: Will you obey Him whether you feel like it or not? Will you do what He asks you to do? Will you hold onto the truth He's given you, whether you feel He's there or not?

You say, "Of course I will!"

But how about with no sense of His presence?

Some of you have convictions that God has written and locked into your heart. You think these are so strong, so unshakable that you will never, ever doubt them. Then the darkness comes and you start asking questions. Are these convictions really true or not? What you will find out is whether you really do believe them. The darkness will test your convictions. And the only thing left when the darkness lifts from your life is what you really do believe.

How about your consecration? You had a wonderful experience, perhaps in a church service one time. A totally incredible, miraculous, fantastic thing happened. You wish you had a movie so you could play it back every day of your life. On that day you said, "Lord, I know You've called me. I'm giving my life to You. Hear me, Lord, I dedicate my life to You. I'll never turn back.

"Then darkness comes.How long will the darkness last? A week? Maybe more. Maybe a year. But when the darkness has finished its work in you, everything that can be shaken will be shaken, and only what is firm, real, and solid shall remain.

Light At The End Of The Tunnel

Darkness comes to reveal our need of God and God alone. Don't fret over your helplessness and your emptiness - they will be riches to you. God says, "I will give you the treasures of darkness." (Is. 45:3)

When I was a little boy my sister and I sometimes rode into town on the train. Early New Zealand railroad cars had no interior lights in the daytime, so when we entered a tunnel the car would become totally dark for a brief time.

Do you know what happens in such darkness? The pupils of your eyes, which in the sunshine shrink almost to pinpoints, expand wider and wider in the darkness. And when the train suddenly bursts out the other side of the tunnel, the brightness of the world outside is astonishing!

And so with the darkness of God. We do not know or appreciate the brightness of the light we already walk in until we enter this discipline of God. We have absorbed so much that our spiritual perception has shrunk to a pinpoint. We have been given so much that we cannot appreciate what has been shown us. And then God puts us like children onto His train and runs it into the darkness.

But this darkness you are in is only a tunnel. The train is on a sure journey. It is headed without fail to the place you need to be, and the Engineer knows all of the way. This tunnel is not eternal. You will not remain in darkness forever. And ultimately you will come out of the darkness into a greater sense of light than you had when you went in.

Holding The Hand Of God

God is the One who dwells in thick darkness (Duet. 5:22). The darkness and the light are alike to Him (Ps. 139:12). There are treasures that can be found only in such darkness, for there He will show you things about Himself and about yourself that you will never learn any other way.

Remember, you will find wonderful things in that darkness! You will hear the voice of God at the end of the tunnel saying, "Well done, you good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord." We must ask God for courage to go through the darkness ahead. This is necessary because God is going to prepare His people to obey no matter how they feel. You will go through it, beloved - but make the most of it! He will speak to you in that very silence.

When I was a child I remember reading a small plaque that hung on my grandfather's wall. I was not a Christian when I first read it, but I'll never forget the words inscribed there:

I said to the man who stood at the gate of the years,

"Give me a light that I may walk safely into the unknown." He said to me, "Go out into the darkness And put your hand into the hand of God And He shall be to you brighter than a light And safer than a known way." Winkie Pratney 3/20/2012

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