#I have had several dreams where my family is being massacred and/or someone is trying to hurt them | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

capitainelevi · 3 years

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38, 69, or 75 lol but pls do it post Rumbling if you can of course! i just can’t get enough of what their life would be like 😪

Thank you for your ask!! ❤️❤️

Drabble challenge: Followers send a number to your ask and you write a drabble using that sentence/prompt in your piece. "You leave whenever you feel like it.", “Mind if I join you?”, and “I’ve had enough! I want to be alone!”.

Home Once the war ended, there was no need for Petra to ask: Levi would always choose to spend his remaining days by her side. Petra helps Levi heal while they look forward to brighter days. Canon universe. Word count: 2577

She had always been by his side.

Over time, Levi assumed that it would always be that way. He got comfortable as the years went by, despite the danger surrounding their lives. Petra had been his shadow for years, his right hand, to the point where she became an extension of him. The threats they faced together, the sadness, and the loss they shared, consolidated an unbreakable bond between them. Levi trusted Petra with his life, as did she.

Petra was the only one left. The last one to stay by his side. And he was about to lose her.

Sensing death surrounding her, Petra gave her captain a heavyhearted smile. The last thing she would have wanted was for his last memory of her to be of her shedding tears. There was no chance for them after all, no happiness to be found. Not after all they had done. Petra whispered- "Heichou... goodbye." as her vision went black.

Petra opened her eyes abruptly, terrified of the images still floating in her memory. Had she been a titan? No, it must have been a nightmare. Was it even a nightmare? Petra ran her fingers through the pebbles, trying to grasp herself onto reality. The last memory she could recall was of the heartbreak written all over Levi`s face as he silently bid his farewell.

As the mist surrounding her started to fade, Petra caught a glimpse of her captain, standing against a rock, with tears running down his cheek. A feeling of relief washed over her as she crawled her way to him, her legs too weak for her to stand on. Petra threw herself in his arms, squeezing him in a tight embrace, trying to convince herself that it was all real. That they had made it. Feeling Levi`s arms wrap around her trembling form let her tears run freely down her cheeks, and Levi let her cry against his neck.

"Is this over?"

Levi ran his hand up and down her back in an attempt to soothe her, not being able to grasp what Petra must have felt just mere minutes ago. He was still wary about it all being over. They had known nothing but fighting for survival for all those years, and he could not grasp the idea of peace.

"I don`t know."

Levi could not recall the events leading up to him laying on a hospital bed with Petra asleep in a chair next to him. Embraces, more tears, people yelling, Petra clinging to his neck, the way to the hospital, they all felt like a dream. Was Eren truly gone?

"Heichou, you`re awake."

The first thing Levi observed was the tiredness written on her face, the dark circles surrounding the hopeful look in her eyes, and he wondered just how long he had been asleep. He just nodded at her, his throat too dry for him to form any words. As if reading his thoughts, Petra put the water cup against his dry lips, and he nodded again in thanks.

"Everyone came to visit, but you`ve been out for three days."

Without giving it a second thought, Levi worded the first thing sitting on the tip of his tongue- "Is Eren gone?"

Petra just nodded, feeling grief wash over her at the image of the hopeful boy that looked up to her for guidance all those years ago. The boy that she involuntary helped massacre most of the world population.

"Did he come to you, Heichou?"

That was no surprise to Petra. Eren must have known there was nothing he could have said to the both of them that would convince them that his actions were the right ones. Nothing that would make the two of them feel like their squad`s sacrifice to protect him had not all been in vain.

"I think there is no need for formalities anymore, Petra. I`m retiring.”

Petra felt a wave of nostalgia hit her at his words, but she supposed she should have expected that. She tried not to let anxiety overcome her as the thoughts of his imminent departure took hold of her. Petra gathered all her courage to ask him about his future. Their future, she hoped.

"I suppose you`re right, Levi. What will you do now?"

Levi took his time to answer, but at the end of it, he was sure of his decision. There was no turning back for him. No regrets.

"Paradise`s not home for me anymore."

Petra was aware of the lump forming in her throat at hearing his words, troubled by the idea that the home they sacrificed so much to protect could not be called home anymore by the person she admired the most. But at a careful reflection, Petra was unsure if she had that same devotion towards Paradise as the first day she pledged her life to protect it. She tried to keep the tears at bay, at the thought of a life without Levi in it.

"Petra, you don`t need to ask. You already know this."

She had trouble containing the smile forming on her lips as a sense of relief washed over her. Her captain knew her so well. Not my superior anymore, she had to remind herself. Now that their mission was over, Petra hoped that something beautiful could blossom between the two of them, but she was content just by being by his side until the end of their time. Her love for Levi had always been strong, and while she knew feelings were not his forte, Petra saw that at the very least, Levi cared deeply for her.

"Where will we go?"

Levi just shrugged, the idea of a future still strange for him. He never expected to make it out of the war alive, and now, he had something to look forward to and someone to accompany him along the road. He was pleased Petra was going to be by his side, even if for a little while. But at the same time, his heart was conflicted. She deserved better than anything he ever had to offer her. But he would not take the choice away from her.

"Marley`s not a shithole, at least. It can be a start."

Petra listened to Levi debate what choices they had by himself while her thoughts were occupied with the words she needed to put together in her letter to her father. Her father had always been supportive of her choice of joining the military, and Petra prayed she would also be supportive of her following her heart this time.

Their conversation was cut short as the doctor entered the room, and when Petra tried to leave to give them privacy, Levi stopped her. He felt like she needed to know what his future struggles would be. Petra was relieved when the doctor emphasized how lucky Levi had been not to have a spinal injury, but the damage to his leg was still severe. She made a silent promise to him that she would be there by his side through his rehabilitation, no matter how much that took.

Petra let him rest as she went to get everything ready for their departure, leaving an agitated Levi behind her. "You can`t do all this shit by yourself."- he had argued with her, but she declined his offer to help her. As soon as the door closed behind her, Petra grinned, overjoyed at the idea of a future with him, even if that meant putting up with his foul mouth for many years to come.

As soon as Levi was well enough to leave the hospital, they both presented their resignation to their queen, anxious to put that life behind them. It made Levi`s stomach churn at being called a hero, but for Petra`s sake, he just kept quiet while the military praised their actions. Levi squeezed his fists so hard he could feel his skin bleeding thinking of all the countless lives that were lost in vain. That he indirectly played a part in. One look at Petra, and he knew she felt the same as him.

They both preferred the quietness of countryside life and using their savings, along with the money they accepted from Historia after many arguments they were able to afford a small house, comfortable enough for the two of them. But the surprise came when they started working on redecorating the house, and Levi popped a question which made her drop the paintbrush from her hand.

"How do you feel about kids?"

Petra`s mouth fell open, unsure of what to make of his question and the indifference plastered on his face as he asked her something she dared not think about. She had always loved children, but the military life she chose and motherhood were two dreams that she felt she could not achieve together. Petra tried not to get ahead of herself and picture holding a baby with her amber eyes and his raven hair in her arms before she knew what he meant.

"I haven`t given much thought about it, but I`ve always loved children."

Levi shook his head, frustrated at his lousy wording. He had hoped Petra would have picked up on his request. "Not kids. Teenagers."

"Teenagers?"

As Levi talked about Gabi and Falco losing their families and how, while they were still brats, they were still good enough kids who could come live with them, Petra could not help but smile. She had made a good choice. Levi Ackerman was a good man through and through. They welcomed the children into their new home as soon as the house was ready for them. Having the kids there, it gave them purpose.

But the next weeks had been hard on all of them, as Levi`s rehabilitation process was going to be long and hard on him. The wounds he suffered took a toll on him, as he went from being Humanity`s Strongest Soldier to someone with not enough strength to use a crutch yet, all in a matter of days. But Petra was determined to help him through it as best as she could.

Their days were filled with frustration, yelling, and cusses, and their nights were silent, with only the ghost of their former comrades and friends keeping them company. When the children asked if Levi was alright, Petra tried her best to put on a smile and explain to them that it was hard for him, but they would overcome it together. She had to believe that.

It was a particularly rough day when Levi finally snapped at her. His leg hurt like a bitch, his arms were sore, and he was tired of Petra`s optimism. He wished he could take the crutch and put all his frustrations and anger in it and use it to smash everything in the room to bits.

"I’ve had enough! I want to be alone!"

He regretted the words coming out of his mouth instantly as he saw Petra`s face twist in hurt. She left the room without taking a second glimpse at him, and when he tried to yell for her to come back, he had no words for her. Sometimes, Levi thought he must have been doing it on purpose, pushing her away in the hope she could chase the life that she deserves. Petra was the best woman he had ever met, and he had nothing to offer her. Nothing but anger and frustrations. He pictured her alongside a handsome, tall husband and a child in her arms, and he regretted keeping her by his side even more.

But Petra had never complained to him. No matter how many words he threw at her, how angry he was at life and himself, she never answered back, and she never blamed him for his roughness. He truly felt like he never deserved her.

Gathering all the courage he had left, Levi went to look for her and attempt to apologize to her, but he knew there were high chances he would mess that up as well. Levi once again wondered how Petra put up with him. He found her working on her candles, a hobby Petra had gotten into since they moved into the cabin. The villagers were ecstatic when Petra opened up a stand for Sunday market, and Levi had to admit he enjoyed the fresh smell her candles brought to the house.

"Mind if I join you?"

Petra just nodded, but she chose to work in silence while he watched her. Her eyes widened in surprise when he asked if he could help her, and while she was unsure of his crafting skills, they needed to put their fight behind them. She understood how hard it was on him, but she was at a loss in how to handle him. But she was confident in her decision to stay by his side, no matter what.

As expected, Levi had managed to make a mess of their kitchen in an instant, and Petra burst into laughter when his eye twitched at the sight. She knew an unexperimented Levi and candle making in his kitchen would be a recipe for disaster, but it was well worth it. Even with the chaos they now had to clean up. Hearing her laughter for the first time in months made him realize how much he had missed it.

"I`m sorry, Levi, I don`t think my clients would appreciate the products."- Petra giggled as she examined the attempted candle.

"Then they have shit taste."

They cleaned in silence until Levi cleared his throat to get her attention. Petra waited for Levi to gather his thoughts, and when no words came out of his mouth, she took hold of the conversation. She never wanted him to feel bad about what had happened.

"We don`t need to talk about this, Levi. It`s okay"

But his next words took Petra by surprise- "You leave whenever you feel like it."

Petra didn`t raise her sight from the floor as she barely whispered- "What would you have me do?"

Levi felt his blood boil with anger at seeing the woman he cared for more than he would ever admit put up with him. He both wished for Petra to leave him and stay by his side until he drew his last breath.- "Anything, Petra. I deserve it. Fucking yell at me, get angry, fuck, even leave me. Go be happy."

Petra tried to contain her sorrow, but she could feel the tears running down her cheeks. She wished Levi would see she would never find happiness without him by her side.

"But I am happy, Levi. I just want to stay with you."

"Stupid girl."

But it was her choice, and he was not going to push her away. Seeing Levi smile at her for the first time in months only made her cry harder, and she threw herself in his arms when he called for her. Levi let her cry for as long as she needed, the mess in the kitchen soon forgotten.

They spent the rest of the evening in front of the fireplace, with a cup of tea in hand. Levi thought it was about time he asked the question, and he put his cup down and straightened his back.

"Maybe we should open up a teashop."

Petra was adding more wood to the fire, but Levi could feel her smile as she answered- "I think I`d like that."

ao3

#ahh sorry for the delay I`ve been a bit busy #rivetra #petra ral #rivetra fanfiction #rivetra fanfic #my writing #I hope you like it!!

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narutogwriting · 3 years

Text

Daylight

Pairing: Naruto Uzumaki x Sasuke Uchiha (kinda?)

CW: none

Length: 1.7k+

Summary: Sasuke's been living in darkness for so long. Now he sees Daylight.

Inspired by Daylight by Taylor Swift

A bit of a rewrite of what happens immediately after Sasuke and Naruto's battle

Just bros being bros<3

Darkness. He’s surrounded by darkness, but somehow he can make out the things around him. And he thinks that this makes no sense that he can see in the dark so he must be dreaming, but it feels so real. And it’s because it is real, the feelings. The memories.

It’s all playing out before him, his family slaughtered in front of his eyes. His brother’s words filling his heart with hate. Orochimaru whispering promises of power in his ear and Itachi dropping dead at his feet. Obito telling him the truth about the Uchiha massacre.

It’s all playing out before him all at once in and overwhelming succession. Over and over and over again and he can feel it. He can feel the darkness closing in on him more and more and he’s sure he’ll drown in it, and he wants to drown in it. Let the darkness close in on him, swallow him whole. He doesn’t care anymore. All he’s known is the darkness for so long, that it’s familiar. It’s what his heart longs for.

And then he sees himself, a child, walking in the blackness. He remembers that well, remembers what it was like to be all alone, suffering and it was like no one could see him. He couldn’t see anything, anyone else, in the blackness.

He’s watching himself at seven years old feeling the way he did now at sixteen, and he thinks it’s never going to change. Nothing is ever going to get better, and he’s sick and tired of fighting it.

He can feel himself leaving his body, and he welcomes it. Welcomes the thought of being nothing, ceasing to exist.

But then he sees it. Somethings caught his seven year old self's attention. His young eyes are looking at something with longing and confusion and hope.

Sasuke looks too, because he wants that. He needs that, needs something to hold onto and hope for because he doesn’t think he can do this anymore. So he looks and he’s blinded by a brightness breaking through the dark. And the brightness is saying his name, calling for him.

Sasuke knows he has a choice and he has to make it now. The dark night or the daylight. And he chooses to walk into the sun.

His eyes open, and he’s in the Valley of the End, and he remembers now why he’s here, remembers what had happened.

His head turns when he hears his name again.

“I thought I lost you for a second.” Naruto’s voice is familiar and comforting, wrapping around him like a blanket. “I’ve been calling your name. Could you hear me?”

Sasuke could.

He feels a weird sensation, looks down and sees his arm has been blown right off. He expects pain, but there is none. He doesn’t feel anything but a tugging in his heart, like it’s trying to lift something heavy off of itself.

“So, I’m your one and only friend, huh?” Naruto asks, teasing, and Sasuke looks back at him. His arm is gone too, and their blood is draining out, trickling down the ground and pooling together. He looks worn, exhausted, and Sasuke imagines he must look the same. But despite this, despite everything, Naruto is smiling. That dumb idiot is always smiling.

“Why?” Sasuke demands, his voice weak and raspy, but he’s angry. He’s so fucking angry because now he remembers. He was so close to accomplishing everything, to entering the darkness completely, but Naruto never let him. “Why would you go through all this to stop me? When all my other ties were severed, I could never severe them with you. WHY!?”

Naruto’s laughing, because of course he is, and Sasuke wants to hit him again, but he knows if he moves, he’ll quickly bleed out.

“Is this what it takes to get you to talk? Your body can’t move, so now your mouth won’t stop?” Naruto’s teasing him, like this is all funny, some kind of joke, and Sasuke can’t understand it. He’s never understood how Naruto could find it in him to smile and laugh through everything. “You’re my friend, Sasuke.”

Naruto’s quieter now, more serious, and Sasuke’s staring at him intensely. That’s what Naruto’s always said, but what does it mean? What is it to be his friend?

And he can’t help but ask, demanding an answer. The words Naruto’s spoken to him over and over and over again since they were twelves years old. Friends.

A small smile tugs at Naruto’s lips. He finally turns to look at Sasuke too, and their eyes meet. Sasuke sucks in a breath, and something inside of him feels hopeful. This look that Naruto’s giving him, this moment they’re living in. Sasuke never wants to leave it, he thinks. He wants his life to be this. Always this.

“I couldn’t explain it to you…” Naruto admits. “I can’t understand it myself, what I feel for you. It’s just…” He considers Sasuke for a moment, his blue eye is searching Sasuke’s dark one, looking for something, and Sasuke hopes he can find it.

“I look at you, Sasuke. I see your pain, everything that you’re trying to hold by yourself. I see your loneliness, your hatred, your anger. I see your hurt, and it just… It hurts me.” And Sasuke can see it’s true, see the agony in Naruto’s eyes as he looks at Sasuke, looking at him like he’s all Naruto can see.

“It hurts, Sasuke. It hurts inside so fucking much, even more than any of my own pain ever did… I see you like this, and it’s unbearable. I just want to take it all from you. I’d gladly take all of your pain for the rest of my life if it meant you never had to hurt again.”

Finally, finally Sasuke gets it. He knows exactly what Naruto is talking about because he’s felt that too.

Since he was seven years old, he would see Naruto acting stupid, trying to get attention. He was so annoying, but Sasuke could never ignore him, and he was never sure why. He was drawn to something about Naruto.

They lived in a cruel village, shunned and outcasted by those who should have been protecting them, and now Sasuke knew it was because the very foundation of the Leaf was built on oppression and persecution. Naruto and Sasuke were set up to fail from the very beginning and yet…

Sasuke could see now what he could never before. From the beginning, he and Naruto… They were intertwined. They were always meant to cross paths, to be each other’s friend and each other’s rival. They were always meant to save each other.

Or maybe, even more, Naruto was always meant to save Sasuke.

“Is this heaven?”

The words bring Sasuke to, and he snickers despite himself.

“We fell asleep… We can’t even die right.”

“I can’t move! Dammit! I was going to hit you again!”

And now Sasuke’s laughing harder than ever, and Naruto is yelling something at him and Sasuke thinks this is right where he’s supposed to be.

“Dammit Sasuke! I’ll hit you again and again! No matter how many times it takes to get it through your skull!”

Naruto’s as passionate and loud as ever, and Sasuke wonders how he still has all this energy.

“I admit it, Naruto. I lost.”

And Naruto stops yelling then, staring at Sasuke with furrowed brows and a perplexed expression.

“Do you still think that’s what this is about? Winning and losing?” Sasuke doesn’t answer, so Naruto continues. “This is about being your friend, Sasuke. Saving you from yourself, just like you helped to save me from myself all those years ago.... Your pain, the betrayal… I understand now, Sasuke. I understand why you felt you had to do everything you did. I can’t blame you”

It’s Sasuke’s turn to be confused now, because he never imagined someone would understand why he left the Leaf, why he’d become who he was. He thought it was inexcusable, and now Naruto won’t even cast blame on Sasuke like he deserves?

“I get it now Sasuke. That’s why I’m going to do whatever I can to make it right, to take away your pain once and for all.” And Naruto is gazing into Sasuke’s eyes so intensely that Sasuke feels like he has to look away, but he’s locked on Naruto, completely lost in him.

“If you want to give up, be done with it, then we can die right here. I’ll take your hand and walk into the darkness with you.”

Sasuke’s speechless, unable to even take a breath as he stares at the blond idiot. The words are heavy, permanent, but Naruto doesn’t even flinch as he says them. “If you want to never return to Konoha again, I’ll go with you Sasuke. Wherever you go in this world, I will follow you. Or, if you want to change things, we will. Side by side, we can rebuild Konoha from the ground up. We can change this world together, Sasuke.

And Sasuke again wonders why. Why would Naruto sacrifice all of this for him? Why would Naruto stand by his side? Why was Sasuke Naruto’s friend?

“What about your dream? I thought you wanted to be hokage. But you would die with me?”

Naruto smiles, a sad smile full of pain and tenderness all at once.

“How could I ever become Hokage if I can’t even save my friend?”

Maybe their pain, their loneliness, their always feeling like outsiders has all been so they could belong here, together. They used to be just kids, alone and hurt and in pain, looking for something to help them make sense of the world. And now they had it in each other.

I will understand your pain from now on, Naruto, Sasuke promises to himself as he looks at the blond who’s shining so bright Sasuke almost needs to cover his eyes. All of your hurt, I’ll take that from you, too. And we can help each other heal. Together, like you said.

And Sasuke thinks that yeah, Naruto was right. This was heaven, laying by his side and knowing that neither one of them truly had to be alone. Not anymore.

Sasuke had spent the majority of his life living in an eternal darkness. And now, looking at Naruto, all he could see was Daylight.

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capituloperdido1 · 3 years

Text

ACOSAS

Chapter 4

Happy Wednesday everyone! i apologize for the following chapter, it might be a little slow because i am trying to move some of the plot forward.

I will make it up to you guys with a Mor and Emerie one-shot that will come up later today or early tomorrow! Let me know if you want to be tagged in that.

As always, enjoy and let me know if you want to be tagged!

Warnings: Mentions of violence, anxiety attacks.

Gwyn had awoken at sunrise; she had dreamt of her sister again, the last two weeks had been a repetition of the dream. After the night she had accidentally made a bargain with Azriel, she had begun to cope with the weight of the dream much better.

She put on her Valkyrie leathers on, ignoring the need in her chest to knock at Azriel's door. The shadowsinger had been practically sleeping at her door each night, waiting for her to scream, talk or run out of the door startled.

Today was different, she had awoken conscious that what she had seen in her dream was not reality. She had decided once her eyes were open that she would not bother Azriel, even if his company helped ease the terror in her guts as she thought of the voice of her sister pleading and screaming.

Today, she had decided to go run at the beach.

Gwyn had grown accustomed to roam in the palace by herself, and even leave without anyone to the coliseum and the gardens. The palace at the top of the Lux city seemed to have no one around at any time; that made her feel comfortable, and safe.

Walking down the sidewalk towards the beach, Gwyn admires the view of the dawn's sky in the reflection of the salt-water. There was such beauty on the Day Court, the waters were clearer, the grass and trees fertile and strong, the animals seemed to have brighter colors in their skins. She did not remember much of her time in Sangravah, but she knew that unlike the Night and the Day court, the temple had lacked brightness and color. Or maybe that was just how her mind remembered, she didn't know.

The beach of Lux was as white as every wall in every corner of the city, the sand was soft, the seashells were pink and purple. She wondered how other courts did not become envious at the sight of such magnificent landscapes. Rhysand had the biggest court and Tarquin the best weather, but there was no doubt that Helion had built the court to be the best at everything else.

As she began stretching for her run, she heard the roaring sound of steps behind her. A spark lit up in her chest, hoping for a certain winged-male to come up behind her.

-I see the shadowsinger finally left your side- Amanecer said.

Disappointed, but happy to have some company, she looked at the female with bright eyes, - i think its the other way around, i finally left his side-

Amanecer took seat besides her, her training clothes were the color aesthetic of the court; white, gold and beige combined in her leathers. Her long locks were tied with a black band in the back of her head. -Do you mind if i train with you?- she said.

-Not at all, i am used to having someone around anyways-.

As they stretched, Gwyn began practicing some breathing exercises for long-distance training. Valkyries had developed different breathing patterns for different types of training; each one of them to control your mind and muscles to sustain whatever work they would be put under.

-When Helion mentioned you were training as a Valkyrie i did not believe him- Amanecer said, -It has been centuries since someone recognized them as warriors. After they were massacred, it was as if everyone forgot about them. I thought no one had any records of them, i see i was wrong-.

-Did you know them?- Gwyn asked.

Amanecer smiled, -my girlfriend was a Valkyrie, her name was Fortis, she was also from Lux; she worked in the court with Helion and my mother. I was able to train with the Valkyries, i studied with them and almost became one. -

-Why didn't you?-

-I tried, but i was not able to pass the final test- Amanecer responded.

Gwyn frowned, -I have not heard of a final test in the Valkyrie records i have-.

-That's because this court has most of the records, Helion was able to save their scrolls after they were massacred. We have them in a special part of this library-.

Gwyn felt her eyes open wide and her mouth gaping, -Can i see them?! I have been searching for more stories about them! I want to be able to honor them in our training back home-.

Amanecer's eyes found hers, her smile spreading as she heard Gwyn -I will take you there after we take our run- She said as she stood, - i will also teach you how to continue to focus on your breathing as you exercise, that will help your organs get stronger. It will help you channel the strength of your movements-. Amanecer began running as she finished her sentence, not looking back.

Gwyn followed her, writing down all the questions she would ask the female later in the morning in her mind.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

-Look at this bastard- someone said. -He believes he has the right to see the light, he should be kept here all day. No one should be able to see him, it would shame our family-.

Male laughter startled him a he opened his eyes.

He was ready to dream about it today, he always was ready.

But as his eyes opened in the dream he did not see himself kneeling in the ground looking up at his brothers; he was standing, looking down at a frail boy with long-curly hair and small broken wings.

The boy looked up, his honey-golden eyes and sharp features revealing the face of his brother.

Cassian was looking up to him, blood on his nose, his hands extended towards Azriel as voices besides him laughed.

Azriel heard a bump, and another body was placed besides Cassian. Long, dirty blonde hair and small female body keeled in front of him.

Mor.

Her brown eyes showed despair, they looked at him pleading. She trembled as she saw him.

Both kids looked at him with fear; their bodies bruised and bloody, their hands extended.

He realized as he moved his hands towards them that he was not in control of his own body. That these were not his actions.

In his right hand he had a lit up torch, in his left he had oil.

One male grabbed Cassians hand's, pullling towards Azriel.

Unable to do or say anything, he dropped oil on top Cassians hands, he neared the torch to his tiny hands...

As Cassian screamed in pain, Azriel tried and failed to stop, move away from his brother.

But he couldn't.

It wasn't long until he did the same to Mor, watching her fall into her knees as the pain of being burnt consumed her.

In his mind, he screamed and tried with all his might to move away from them, to stop inflicting pain.

But as Azriel saw Cassian's and Mor's hands being burnt to open flesh, he realized that he was in the body of one of his brothers. He was finally the monster he always thought himself to be.

Shooting upright Azriel lifted himself from the bed, startled and with tears in his eyes. He moved towards the bathroom, looking for cold water that would confirm this was real.

He remember how vivid and real that dream had been, the smell of the room, the feeling of the torch and the oil in his skin. As if the dream had been a reality.

But looking down to his hands he confirmed that it had been just that. A dream.

As he prepared himself a bath, he began recalling every instance of the dream. It had not been normal, the realistic feel, the fact that he was seeing Cassian and Mor so clearly.

He had met Mor as a teen, never as a child.

Something was wrong.

He had begun to suspected when Gwyn told him that the nightmares with her sister had continued, that they got more and more realistic as each night passed. As if with each passing night, the dreams became more the reality; and one day, neither of them would be able to awake from his nightmares.

Azriel had never dreamt of being the one inflicting pain. Whenever he dreamt about his brothers or his mom being burnt, he was on the sidelines doing nothing. He was never torturing.

Something was wrong, and he would find out. Before the nightmares would make him and Gwyn never sleep again.

-.-.-.-.-.-.

Valkyries lived all across Prythian, they had a temple in every court, and all high lords had been forced to recognized them as warriors. According to the books Amanecer had lent her, Valkyries had been around for millennia; they had fought besides the High King, had endured the first wars and some of them had made it to some of the wars of the last five centuries.

To the world, they had been eradicated after a surprise attack in the war of five hundred years. Some of them had survived the war, going into exile from all societies. A few of the high lords of the time, Autumn, Dawn, Spring, and Night had trashed or burnt every record of their existence. Others, like the Summer and Day court, had taken the scrolls and weapons from certain temples in their courts into safe-houses.

There were theories that the attack had been an inside job from some courts that wanted to stop the females from gaining popularity among women in patriarchal societies.

In the night court, according to the law of 300 years ago, spreading the story of the Valkyries was prohibited and would be punished by death.

Some high lords had fought side by side with the warriors; Helion had been one of them. One of the scrolls revealed that the High Lord had mandated that all young women would have training in at least one form of Valkyrie fighting style. He had even made a female unit just for his safety.

As she read, she realized that all of Prythian had done an excellent job of forgetting the power and influence of the female warriors. Amanecer had explained that everything they owned concerning the Valkyries had to be protected because of certain groups that wanted to erase them from history.

The book she currently read revealed several locations around the country where temples had existed. Each Valkyrie temple specialized in one form of fighting, they trained for different weather conditions, enemies and defense strategies according to where the temple was located.

A symbol marked with silver ink marked the temple Gwyn guessed was the principle one, across borders of the Spring and Summer court:

The temple of Ivor is in a forest thick with trees, slippery leaves, and rough vines; with a hot and humid temperature. The combined scent of vegetation, moisture, soil, and decaying plants and wood will be overbearing as you walk towards it. The location of Ivor had been decided in order to maintain people away from it.

Ivor is a place were only few warriors live at, but all warriors must survive.

There is a creature, deep in this forest that will test your bravery and will. Not many are able to survive it.

Only the worthy will pass to Ivor, only the worthy will become Valkyrie.

Heavy and slow footsteps pulled her out of her reading trance, as she lifted her head, she was welcomed with the sight of a winged male with a face looking towards the floor and hair covering his honey eyes.

-What's wrong?- she asked him

He took a moment to respond, walking closer to her and closing some distance between them. -I had a bad night- he said quietly.

She stood, bringing a chair to her current space of work and tapping it so he would sit next to her. -Do you want to talk about it?-

-No.- He said, quiet and harsh.

-Hmm.... would you like to go relieve some stress?- she said, trying to lighten his mood.

-If you don't mind, i would like to go train right now. Maybe that would help- he answered.

She smiled slightly, and nodded. -Go Azriel, i am sure i can be by myself a little longer.-

Without saying anything else, Azriel turned his back to her and walked out of the library and left.

Gwyn tried to go back to reading, tried to involve herself into the story as much as she could. But she was failing to read more than one sentence without thinking back to Azriel and his sad eyes.

She was worried about him.

He took everything that happened to him too hard.

He thought of himself so low.

Sometimes, she worried that he would not be able to move on. That he was not going to ever be happy.

She stood, putting the books in a pile she would likely not come back to until the next day.

She walks toward the door with one goal in mind: she is going to make Azriel smile, no matter what.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

The rock weights are heavy against Azriels sweaty shoulders, he squats low for the fiftieth time, trying to feel the pain as he releases all his emotions through the exercise.

He has been training for two hours, running, lifting, jumping and swimming. Doing everything in his power to stop thinking, stop picturing the nightmare in his mind.

He has not been able to.

-Oi! you're going to break your back if you lift more rocks man- Helion says.

He looks towards the high lord, dressed in his typical white robes and golden accessories. He carries a small envelope, he is coming towards him.

-I have good news my friend- he says, extending the paper towards him.

Azriel grabs the paper, and opens it without responding to Helion.

-It's an invitation to the next big event of Prythian, Cassian and Nesta are finally doing it. - Helion says,

Azriel had guessed that neither Cassian nor Nesta were going to come and give the invitation personally. They were probably too busy to stop by and check on them. Besides, the ceremony would be in less than a month; they were seeing them soon.

Azriel was glad that Cassian was not here, if he saw his brother he would probably fall down to his knees and beg him to forgive him. Forgive him for something he had not yet done.

-Thank you, Helion- Azriel said, going back to his training.

-What's got your wings on a twist now? - Helion asked

He rolled his eyes in response, -nothing, stop being such a busy body-

Helion smiled, getting dangerously close to him, -you use to like it when i was a busy body-.

Azriel couldn't help but to look at him amused, -stop flirting, you can't handle me- he dropped the weights and walked towards the water station. -Actually, i do have a question.... Have you had any unusual dreams, as of late? Anything that seems too real, to be true?-

The male looked at him surprised, -well... yeah. The last few weeks I've had terrible nightmares, I've barely been able to sleep-

-When did they start exactly-

-Well... when Rhys informed me that you guys were coming. At first they were just glimpses during my afternoon nap, but lately is every time i sleep. I feel like i am inside of the dream, actually living it. But, i wonder, why are you asking me?-

Azriel served the High Lord a cup of water, pouring one for himself, - Gwyn and i have been having them as well. She has been dreaming about the same thing nonstop. getting progressively worse. In my case, well, i had a nightmare that was out of the ordinary yesterday-.

-So what's the hunch?- Helion said.

-They are not normal, i think someone.... or something is causing them. And i think it has to do with the trove, the fact that we are looking for it. I think we should be careful, if there something that we should've learned by now is that magic is not subjective to what we know. There is so much that exists, so much we don't know about it. And we also have so much enemies, that we should not be surprised if they are doing something to us for trying to get somewhere we should not.-

Helion nodded, - alright, tell me what to do. I will help in any way i can, you're the spy after all-.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Azriel was stretching when Gwyn arrived.

She had guessed that he needed time by himself, but she was not giving up on talking to him yet.

-It seems as if an earthquake passed through this training field- she said, walking towards him.

He smiles as he looks up towards her, -I had to try out the equipment, before you go ahead and break it-.

Her heart flutters as he sees the half smile he throws her way, she had come all this way to make him smile and she had done it in less than two minutes. -I do not break the equipment, it is simply bad quality and using ti properly destroys it. The Night court is just too cheap to buy it-.

He stood, walking towards her as he used a towel to wipe the sweat off his brow. -I will tell your High Lord and Lady that you just called him cheap-

-You would not dare!- she said.

-Try me.-

She dropped her gaze slightly, feeling the heat rising to her cheeks at his proximity. -Are you... feeling better?- she asks, trying to ignore the filthy thoughts in her mind at the sight of the beautiful sweaty male in front of her.

His smile falters, -a little... I needed to sweat it out.-

-What happened? You were really affected by it- she says.

He stays quiet, looking deeply at her.

A minute passes, he does not answer. Instead, he exhales and says -we are working on our bargain today, there is something i want to show you-.

He does not want you to know, she realizes.

She drops the subject and smiles, -where? are we going today?-

-We are going to a board walk around the city, later tonight. It has some shops open, but it won't be crowded- he explains. -then tomorrow we can try to practice going near my mom. If you are comfortable flying towards the Night Court with me-.

-You know i wont back down, sounds like a deal shadowsinger- she said, leaving him to start getting ready for the night.

She wished she had Nesta besides her to get ready.

Nesta could've told her how in the mother she was to put on the dress she had in front of her.

The deep green gown decorated with white flowers had been a gift from her friend, who had encouraged to wear something other than her training clothes and her priestess robe. The dress was long, and it seem to be loose fitted with a somewhat tight bodice. The trick was to tight it in the back, the straps of the dress were supposed to form a corset like back that would be tight according to the body of the person using it.

She was nervous, freaking out even.

She could not believe she was finally going to a city, walking around with people besides her.

Two months ago this would have not happened, she would've never left the library. But now here she was, getting ready to hang out with the man she loved while also wearing normal clothes.

Gwyn looked at herself in the mirror, looking at the dress falling down to her knees, the long crimson hair that she had brushed so it would fall straight around her face. She looked different, powerful, pretty, happy.

Something is missing, she thought as she went towards her jewelry box.

She had not worn the pendant since it had arrived in her room all those months ago in solstice, it was the first gift she had received in the two years she had been in the library.

It was her most priced possession.

As she placed the flower pendant in her neck, she dreamt of finding whoever had given it to her. She had asked Nesta and Emerie about, both looking confused when she mentioned how it had arrived to her rooms.

The necklace was beautiful, the golden flower had a small amethyst stone as the center of the pendant making it delicate and elegant.

She looked at herself again, and smiled.

She gathered her courage and left the rooms, hoping this night would also bring her courage to get closer to the man waiting for her at the entrance of the palace.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

The sky in Lux was rather overwhelming, during the day it was bright and it shined excessively. At night, the stars seemed like another sun came into view, many parts of the city did not need to use oil lamps to light up their streets, the stars bright enough.

Azriel hated seeing something so bright when he was trying to be as broody as possible.

Even with all the hours at the training field, he had not been able to forget or evade the pain in his chest as he thought of the dream that haunted him.

He was such a hypocrite, two weeks ago he followed Gwyn everywhere to make sure she would not suffer from her nightmares. But here he was, burying himself in his feelings and ignoring anyone who wanted to help him.

He knew Helion and Gwyn would not judge him by his dream, but he was too embarrassed and angry at himself to tell anyone what he had seen.

He should be smarter, knowing it was just that... a dream.

But it had felt so real.

He had actually wanted to send a letter to Cassian to ask if he was okay.

Mor... he would evade Mor for a little while more. When he saw her again he would probably not talk about his dream, but they would finally have that talk he had needed for so long.

Azriel ran his fingers through his hair, pulling some strands to make himself distract that feeling in his chest that had been messing with him since the morning.

He would start investigating, the dreams were not normal. There was something wrong and he would find out what, before he could see anyone else being hurt by his hands in his dreams.

He exhaled, letting his mind travel to the flashback of the dream. Drowning himself in the pain of being alive.

The doors at the palace entrance opened, and a gust of wind settling him into reality.

Light, fast step sounded nearer as he lifted his head.

-I am so sorry I'm late, i could not find this damn exit anywhere- Gwyn said.

His eyes widened as he took her in.

His shadows darken and begged him to fly towards her, embrace her.

She had change out of her training outfit into a beautiful green dress, her hair down and flowing as she ran towards him.

But what caught his attention was not the dress, or the shoes.

The priestess wore the pendant he had given her in solstice. The golden chain jumping up and down in her neck as she neared him.

He thought he heard Gwyn say something as she stopped in front of him. But he was not listening, focusing his stare in the neck of the woman in front of him.

Something in his chest fluttered, happiness rising in him for the first time in the day.

His stupid male pride growing, Gwyn was wearing something of his around her neck.

A declaration his mind was not ready to understand but his heart pushed forward.

He finally moved his eyes to see her, chocked with how only three weeks of being in a new court has made Gwyn shine so brightly.

She seems happier, stronger, and even more beautiful.

He feels a smile appearing in his face, broad and full as he takes her deep blue eyes looking at him.

She is so brave.

She catches him smiling, and her eyes shine even brighter. A smile of plump lips and white teeth forming on her angelic face.

Right there, makes a promise to himself to try harder, to follow her example.

To do anything to bring her to smile like that again and again until it sticks forever.

TAGLIST: @imsointobooks , @gwynkyrie , @trashforazriel

#gwyn acotar #gwynriel #gwyneth berdara #azriel #azriel fanfic #fanfic #acotar #post acosf #nesta archeron #nesta and gwyn #acotar fanfiction

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narutogu · 3 years

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Daylight

REPOST ON MY SIDE BLOG BECAUSE I COULDN’T FIND IT IN THE TAGS

FIND MORE OF MY WRITING @narutogwriting

Pairing: Naruto Uzumaki x Sasuke Uchiha

CW: none

Length: 1.7k+

Summary: Sasuke’s been living in darkness for so long. Now he sees Daylight.

Inspired by Daylight by Taylor Swift

A bit of a rewrite of what happens immediately after Sasuke and Naruto’s battle in the end of the series

Just bros being bros<3

He can feel himself leaving his body, and he welcomes it. Welcomes the thought of being nothing, ceasing to exist.

But then he sees it. Somethings caught his seven year old self’s attention. His young eyes are looking at something with longing and confusion and hope.

Sasuke knows he has a choice and he has to make it now. The dark night or the daylight. And he chooses to walk into the sun.

His eyes open, and he’s in the Valley of the End, and he remembers now why he’s here, remembers what had happened.

His head turns when he hears his name again.

“I thought I lost you for a second.” Naruto’s voice is familiar and comforting, wrapping around him like a blanket. “I’ve been calling your name. Could you hear me?”

Sasuke could.

Naruto’s laughing, because of course he is, and Sasuke wants to hit him again, but he knows if he moves, he’ll quickly bleed out.

Naruto’s quieter now, more serious, and Sasuke’s staring at him intensely. That’s what Naruto’s always said, but what does it mean? What is it to be his friend?

And he can’t help but ask, demanding an answer. The words Naruto’s spoken to him over and over and over again since they were twelves years old. Friends.

Finally, finally Sasuke gets it. He knows exactly what Naruto is talking about because he’s felt that too.

Or maybe, even more, Naruto was always meant to save Sasuke.

“Is this heaven?”

The words bring Sasuke to, and he snickers despite himself.

“We fell asleep… We can’t even die right.”

“I can’t move! Dammit! I was going to hit you again!”

And now Sasuke’s laughing harder than ever, and Naruto is yelling something at him and Sasuke thinks this is right where he’s supposed to be.

“Dammit Sasuke! I’ll hit you again and again! No matter how many times it takes to get it through your skull!”

Naruto’s as passionate and loud as ever, and Sasuke wonders how he still has all this energy.

“I admit it, Naruto. I lost.”

And Naruto stops yelling then, staring at Sasuke with furrowed brows and a perplexed expression.

“Do you still think that’s what this is about? Winning and losing?” Sasuke doesn’t answer, so Naruto continues. “This is about being your friend, Sasuke. Saving you from yourself, just like you helped to save me from myself all those years ago…. Your pain, the betrayal… I understand now, Sasuke. I understand why you felt you had to do everything you did. I can’t blame you”

“If you want to give up, be done with it, then we can die right here. I’ll take your hand and walk into the darkness with you.”

And Sasuke again wonders why. Why would Naruto sacrifice all of this for him? Why would Naruto stand by his side? Why was Sasuke Naruto’s friend?

“What about your dream? I thought you wanted to be hokage. But you would die with me?”

Naruto smiles, a sad smile full of pain and tenderness all at once.

“How could I ever become Hokage if I can’t even save my friend?”

And Sasuke thinks that yeah, Naruto was right. This was heaven, laying by his side and knowing that neither one of them truly had to be alone. Not anymore.

Sasuke had spent the majority of his life living in an eternal darkness. And now, looking at Naruto, all he could see was Daylight.

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a-secret-bolton-vampire · 3 years

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Daenerys Stormborn, Part 1: From Pentos, to Vaes Dothrak, from Qarth, to Slaver's Bay

I've decided since this tiny post; I'll write about Dany. But there's so much I can talk about that I will most likely write between other essays (unless I feel otherwise). Daenerys Targaryen is my favourite character in ASOIAF. She's an incredibly complex character, and one whose fate interests me quite a lot. Of all the endings in the show, Dany's made me the saddest and angriest. Not only did they rush and make her turn a "twist" that happened on a dime, but it fed into the Mad Queen theories that I really despised.

Can't a powerful women with dragons not go mad with power and become prone to hysteria? Also, can said woman not be murdered by her lover/nephew as a way to give said lover more pain instead of having any meaningful end to her arc? And can said woman not have been "an insane tyrant the whole time"? I may one day vent on season 8, but I won't. Instead, I want to attempt to make sense of the ending we saw in the show, and how it applies to the books. Bit by bit, I will build up to Dany's ultimate role in the series. But first, we need to set the groundwork for it.

(CW: Rape)

The Last Dragon

The first we see of Daenerys, she is a very shy girl who was under the thumb of her physically and psychologically abusive brother Viserys. With no agency, she was married off as essentially a marital slave to be raped by Khal Drogo. However, after some meaningful dragon dreams, Dany began to try and take advantage of her surroundings to give herself power. Of course, Viserys didn't like this very much. Dany was everything Viserys wasn't.

Whereas Viserys was incredibly narcissistic and had no real feelings for anyone other than himself, Daenerys shows empathy to those lower than her. While Viserys was prone to violent outbursts of intense rage and did not think things through very well, Dany is more measured, perceptive, and intelligent (not to say she's infallible, nobody in this world is infallible). As Daenerys became more and more loved by Drogo and the Dothraki, Viserys found himself jealous that she was better received than him, the lawful heir to the Targaryen dynasty.

This culminated in Viserys threatening to cut Rhaego out from her, and Drogo pouring molten gold onto his face to kill him. Good riddance, fuck Viserys. Anyways, she then tries to convince Drogo to cross the narrow sea to invade Westeros, but he stubbornly refuses until an assassin hired by Robert attempts to poison her and is caught, at which point he vows to do so. In her first real experience with war, when the khalasar sacks a Lhazareen village, Dany is disturbed to see all the innocent men being massacred and the women being gang raped, so she decides to take the women under her protection, which earns her resentment from some of Drogo's bloodriders.

I don't think Dany was quite aware of what war and conquest would look like until the village, and she was horrified by what she saw. During the sack, Drogo was wounded slaying Khal Ogo, and with Dany's urging, one of the women she took under her protection, Mirri Maz Duur, agreed to heal his wound. Of course, being a maegi, she is hated and not trusted by the Dothraki. Regardless, Mirri heals Drogo's wounds and they continue on until Drogo collapses from a fever, having removed the poultice of his wound.

From there, Dany's hold on the khalasar is weakening. Her power is really tied to Drogo's, as Dothraki society is extremely misogynistic and views women as lesser beings. Desperate to save him, she turns to Mirri for any magic she could use to heal him. This decision is what finally breaks the khalasar, several of the bloodriders try to kill her, and in that time, another one of the women Dany rescued, Eroeh, was gang raped and murdered by Jhaqo and Pono. The result is Daenerys being left with what can't be more than 100 people out of the original 100,000 or so people in the khalasar.

However, Dany suffers another crushing loss; her child Rhaego. While Mirri says that death may pay for life, and she sacrifices Drogo's horse, the real price was Dany's unborn child. She did so because Rhaego was to be the stallion who mounts the world, a prophesied leader of all Dothraki who would become a great conqueror. In addition, Drogo is "healed", but permanently left in a catatonic state. When Dany asks Mirri when he will be back to normal, Mirri says;

"When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east," said Mirri Maz Duur. "When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Then he will return, and not before."

Dany seems to take this to mean "never", and is heartbroken, so she mercy kills him by smothering him with a pillow.

Throughout the first book, Dany has a series of dreams and visions involving dragons, the most telling of which was her "wake the dragon" fever dream she had during Mirri's ritual. As a result, and to get vengeance for her husband and child, Dany decides to tie Mirri on a stake to Drogo's funeral pyre, as well as placing the dragon eggs with Drogo. Then, when it is lit, and Mirri burns alive, Dany walks into the flames. Everyone thinks she is mad, that she is out of her mind, but Dany seems to think this is all part of her destiny.

And sure enough, when the fire burns out, she is unburnt (save for her hair), and she has three newly hatched dragons. The "wake the dragon" dream also features, near the end, her opening the red door of the house she stayed in as a young child in Braavos, and finding herself under the visor of Rhaegar's helmet, as Jorah repeats "the last dragon". Dany's journey in the first book is about taking control of herself and her family's legacy.

Early on, she realizes that Viserys will never conquer the Seven Kingdoms, and although Viserys originally had Dany marry Drogo to get an army of his own, the khalasar eventually became Dany's army. And when Viserys died, Dany decided it was her responsibility to do what he could not; take back the Iron Throne for her family. And then, at her absolute lowest, when she has lost practically the entire khalasar, her husband, her child, she gains three dragons.

Viserys believed that his name made him a Targaryen, that being King meant he was a true Targaryen. His anger was a tool to assert his dominance as a Targaryen, to get others to bend to his will. He has immense pride for his family, which turned into unchecked narcissism. But for all his talk, Viserys was no true Targaryen, and no true dragon. Dany even thinks this just after he dies.

He was no dragon, Dany thought, curiously calm. Fire cannot kill a dragon.

Dany has brought dragons back to the world, a symbol of the power Targaryens had, back to life. She was not killed by the fire of Drogo's pyre (of course, she isn't fireproof, this was a one time weird occurrence). She is a true dragon, a true Targaryen, who is truly following in the footsteps of her family.

The Lost Dragon

During the Drogo pyre fire (hah), a red comet appeared in the sky. Believing that she has a bigger purpose, and that the comet was sent for her, she and her khalasar follow it, into the Red Waste. Despite thinking this is a sign for her future, she is mostly lost and unsure what to do. With enemies all around, the Red Waste is the only way to go. They find the abandoned city of what she calls Vaes Tolorro, and she sends out her bloodriders to look for what is around.

Eventually, Jhogo returns with three representatives of Qarth; Xaro Xhoan Daxos, Pyat Pree, and Quaithe. They bring her back to Qarth, where she is showered with gifts and given part of Xaro's own palace to stay at. She begs an audience with the Pureborn, the descendants of the kings and queens of Qarth, but they reject her plea for aid in conquering Westeros. Xaro meanwhile suggests marriage, but only as a means to steal her dragons for himself. Quaithe gives very cryptic and vague as hell prophecies to Dany.

With no one left to turn to for aid, Dany decides to seek answers from the warlocks at the House of the Undying, drinking shade of the evening and having numerous visions. When she finally finds the Undying, they seem to be trying to steal her life force, only for Drogon to set them alight. After that, with no way to leave Qarth and refusal to be sent off with any ships, Dany is stuck, and is the subject of an assassination attempt by the Sorrowful Men, sent by Pyat Pree, only for it to be thwarted thanks to Barristan.

On surface level, Dany's ACOK arc is less eventful and straightforward than AGOT; she remains in roughly a single location the entire time, with only two major events occurring (the Undying visions & the attempted assassination). However, after such a journey in AGOT, it makes sense for her story to slow down a bit before speeding back up in ASOS. After finally embracing the responsibility of carrying the Targaryen legacy her brother failed to live to, Dany now has to deal with the fact of how important she is and what her next moves are.

Despite Qarth being so beautiful and splendid, with seemingly everyone ready to provide aid for her quest to conquer Westeros, it is all an illusion. They see someone who is now one of the most powerful people in the world, someone they can use to manipulate for their own ends and gain power for themselves. Quaithe tells Dany as much:

Last of the three seekers to depart was Quaithe the shadowbinder. From her Dany received only a warning. "Beware," the woman in the red lacquer mask said. "Of whom?" "Of all. They shall come day and night to see the wonder that has been born again into the world, and when they see they shall lust. For dragons are fire made flesh, and fire is power."

Dany thinks to herself that there must've been a reason the comet led her to Qarth, as part of her belief that she is heavily tied to destiny.

"The comet led me to Qarth for a reason. I had hoped to find my army here, but it seems that will not be. What else remains, I ask myself?"

So what was the reason she was in Qarth? In my opinion, it was partly to teach her a lesson in not trusting people, but mostly knowledge. The House of the Undying is a massive moment in the series, as it lays out many future events of the series before us (and her!) that are very cryptic and hard to uncover. I will one day examine the full scope of the visions of the Undying, but I want to focus on the narrative reason for this.

Daenerys has a strong sense of destiny. The hatching of the dragons, the red comet, the visions, they all have to mean something, lead toward this grand destiny of hers. I think that a lot (but not all) of the visions Dany experiences are relevant to her future, and lay out a lot of what she will experience/do in the last two books. The prophecies she learns (especially concerning being the "slayer of lies", "three treasons", "three fires", and "three mounts") stay with her into ADWD, where Quaithe once again appears and asks she remember the Undying.

Prophecies are also very common in Greek tragedies, and also appears in Macbeth, a tragedy written by Shakespeare, wherein Macbeth seeks out the knowledge of the witches again out of fear that he will lose his position as king. Daenerys is aware that there will be three treasons committed against her, as well as three fires she will light, and three mounts she will ride, and that there are three heads of the dragon. She constantly considers in ADWD whether these prophecies are coming true, that she finds confusing and suspicious, frustrated even.

In short, the Undying is not just a window into the future, but more of an exploration of the effect prophecy has on a young person like Daenerys who so strongly believes in destiny. She also learns in a vision of Rhaegar about something called "the song of ice and fire", which seems to be extremely significant, and that she will be at the centre of the climactic events of the series.

In the end, it is not herself or the Qartheen who get her out of Qarth, but a disguised Barristan Selmy, sent with three ships by Illyrio to bring her back to Pentos. Dissatisfied with her time in Qarth, she decides to return to Pentos with Barristan... but Pentos is not where she ends up, not even close.

The New Dragon

After leaving Qarth and the return west, Jorah, mistrustful of Illyrio, instead convinces Dany to turn the ships to Astapor and buy Unsullied slave soldiers to help in her conquest of Westeros. Stopping by Astapor, she finds a hellish place, red bricks, tortured slaves, and narcissistic slave masters who have no regard or empathy for anyone other than themselves. Disgusted by what she has seen, Dany formulates a plan entirely in her own head; she decides to buy all the Unsullied by giving Drogon over to Kraznys.

Only she didn't. She only did that to gain control of the Unsullied, before burning the masters and freeing all the slaves. As she tells Xaro later in ADWD, despite being surrounded by slaves with the Dothraki and in Qarth, she did not see how horrible it could be until she got to Astapor and saw how the slaves were tortured. She had the power to try to end it, and decided to take it upon her hands. So instead of heading to Westeros, she decides to liberate Yunkai and Meereen as well.

It's easy to be frustrated at Dany's Essos arc, especially since it doesn't really interact with the Westerosi plot where the majority of the action is taking place, but I think it's important that Dany repeatedly is given an option to go to Westeros, but instead stays in Essos. Progressions in real life are rarely linear, and I applaud GRRM for being able to have clear character arcs while not having the progression be entirely linear and staying true to life.

After Astapor, Yunkai fears what will happen to them as she approaches and hires two sellsword companies for aid. Instead, Dany purposefully lies to the Yunkish envoy and the sellswords, and gives the later wine to get drunk on (and an offer to join her) while she attacks at night. Daario, a lieutenant of the Stormcrows, is won over by Daenerys, kills his fellow captains, and defects to her side. Yunkai is defeated, and the slaves are let go. However, unlike Astapor, Dany does not put an end to the Wise Masters. For this, she is hailed by the freedmen as "mhysa!" or "mother". The Second Sons also join Daenerys after the battle.

Then they move on to Meereen, who has decided to crucify a little slave girl for each mile as a marker from Yunkai to Meereen. When she arrives, the Meereenese champion is easily defeated, and Mero, the former captain of the Second Sons, attempts to kill Dany in her camp, but is promptly killed by Arstan Whitebeard, who is then revealed to be Barristan, who reveals Jorah has been spying on Daenerys for King Robert.

Daenerys takes Meereen and crucifies the 162 Great Masters as retribution for the 162 slave girls crucified. When Barristan explains why he did not tell her who he was, she accepts and forgives him, but she finds she cannot forgive Jorah and banishes him. And of course, instead of leaving for Westeros, she decides to stay in Meereen, after learning that Astapor has been left in the hands of a butcher king named Cleon, overthrowing a council she had instilled when she left, and proposing war against Yunkai, which she just liberated.

Worried about what the effects would be if she simply left Meereen for Westeros, she decides to stay in Meereen and rule as its queen. I decided to call this section "the new dragon" because of Daenerys dismantling an institution her own ancestors helped found. The Ghiscari of Old Ghis had slavery of their own, which they ended up teaching to their new conquerors, the Valyrians. Then, after the Doom, slavery continued again, only this time it was now being practiced by the Free Cities, who are in constant trading with the masters of Slaver's Bay.

As she notes, they keep to the Ghiscari gods, and their symbol is of the harpy, a symbol of Old Ghis, but they no longer speak Ghiscari, instead speaking High Valyrian. Slavery was something the dragonlords of Old Valyria engaged in routinely, and that legacy is still all over Essos. In a way, she is undoing the sins of her ancestors past, and trying to make the world a better place and fighting injustice by using her dragons.

In contrast to ACOK, where she seems as yet undecided on what exactly her destiny is, she seems to be taking control of it in ASOS, becoming Mhysa, the Breaker of Chains, a saviour to those who have been enslaved. It is at this point that she starts to gain a serious following, one that I only assume will continue to grow in Essos. Because of her actions in fighting against slavery, she not only becomes a real saviour to the freedmen, but she also becomes a messianic figure to the followers of R'hllor, as a reincarnation of Azor Ahai.

This is where Dany goes from being simply the last Targaryen, the last dragon, and into a legendary, almost mythic, god-like figure. In my future essays, I will expand upon this aspect of her, since it is going to be really important moving forward, but the start of that is here in ASOS. And thus, this will be where I am concluding part 1. AGOT had Daenerys starting low, but eventually learning to rise up and realize she has to be the one to carry on the Targaryen legacy, after knowing Viserys would never live up to it.

ACOK had Dany questioning her destiny, as well as figuring out what her next step is after the miraculous birth of her dragons. And ASOS concludes her act 1 arc, by having her take control of her destiny and becoming a truly legendary figure who is changing the world. In part 2, I will be discussing in depth the thematic and personal struggles Daenerys faces as she is ruling Meereen in ADWD, and what those struggles and their resolution means for her future.

#asoiaf #asoiaf meta #daenerys targaryen #daenerys stormborn #house targaryen #asoiaf character arcs #essos #mother of dragons

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sweetkale · 3 years

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all evidence that points towards Magneto being Jewish before it was first explicitly established in 1991

!!None of this is my writing!! It’s a useful but outdated source that I merely revised to replace the G slur. It was written by Rivka Jacobs and the original can be found at http://www.alara.net/opeople/xbooks/magjew.html

The Magneto Is Jewish FAQ (revised 11/9/98)

Rivka Jacobs

(1) In Uncanny #113 (Classic X-Men #19), the added material has Magneto on Asteroid M, talking about the deaths of Magda, Anya, and he mentions Auschwitz for the first time. "I endured one death camp ... in Auschwitz ... I will not see another people fear what they do not understand and destroy what they fear." Uncanny #113 is from 1978. The additional scenes were included in 1988's Classic X-Men #19. So, we know Magnus was at Auschwitz, a death camp, not just a concentration camp. (Many fans [and writers] seem to get the two types of camps confused). There could have been a number of reasons he was at Auschwitz: he was a Polish political prisoner, a Russian prisoner of war, a member of the French underground, a homosexual from Germany, Roma, or, with a high probability, a Jew. (Out of 1.5 million victims of Auschwitz, between 1.1 and 1.2 million were Jews).

(2) In Uncanny #150 (one of my favorites) Magneto mentions, in a fight with Cyclops, "I know something of grief. Search throughout my homeland, you will find NONE who bear my name. Mine was a large family, and it was slaughtered ... without mercy, without remorse." So that eliminates German homosexual and French partisan, because the entire familes of such prisoners were not slaughtered throughout an entire "homeland." After Magneto thinks he has killed Kitty, he says: "I remember my own childhood ... the gas chambers at Auschwitz, the guards joking as they herded my family to their death. As our lives were nothing to them, so human lives became nothing to me." Storm is about to blast him for "killing" Kitty, and she says, "If you have a diety, butcher, pray to it!" Magneto answers, "As a boy, I believed. As a boy, I turned my back on god forever." So now we know that Magnus is not a political prisoner (German political prisoners were sent to camps on German soil, like Dachau, or Bergen-Belsen), he is not Polish, since whole Polish families were not herded to the gas chambers. The Poles were not the target of pre-meditated Nazi genocide. While the Russian people were the target of genocide, only Russian POWs were in Auschwitz, not whole families. So, we are now left with only two groups of people that Magnus could be from, the Roma and the Jews. Uncanny #150 is from Oct. 1981; already Magnus says something very interesting here. He says he "remembers" the gas chambers of Auschwitz, "remembers" his family being herded, he "remembers" the guards joking. Fact: no one remembers the gas chambers of Auschwitz except in two ways (or three if you believe the dead can speak to the living), either you were a Nazi SS guard or doctor or official, or you were a member of the Sonderkommando. The Sonderkommando, Jewish prisoners who were forced by the Nazis -- in all the death camps -- to do the dirty work of killing. It was Nazi official policy. The Jews, the lowest of the low to the Nazis, in Auschwitz hierarchy, followed by the Russians, and then the Roma, the Jews would be the ones to lead the victims to the gas chamber, to haul the bodies from the gas chambers to the ovens, to burn and bury the dead. The Jews would pull the teeth of the corpses, cut the hair, pile the bodies three at a time on the retorts of the ovens in just the right way. The Sonderkommando had a few kapos (overseers) who were German and Polish prisoners, criminals from civil prisons in Germany and Poland. During the summer of 1944, 19 Russian POWs from Mauthausen were sent to augment the Auschwitz Sonderkommando. Totally documented, on paper and by eye witness accounts. All other members of the Auschwitz Sonderkommando were Jews.

(3) In Uncanny #161, Sept. 1982, we have the story of Xavier's trip to Israel. There he meets Magnus for the first time. However, it should be noted that the entire story is a Charlie-dream, while he is with Lilandra. In Uncanny #161 we see for the first and last time Magnus' tattoo from Auschwitz. His number is #214782. Xavier says, "That tattoo, Magnus, were you ...?" Magnus answers, "Auschwitz. I grew up there." So now we know that Magneto was first in Auschwitz as a very young person, but we can't pinpoint the age yet. Also, his number is high for someone who was there from the beginning of the camp. The first Polish prisoners, like author Wieslaw Kielar, had very low numbers, like in the 200s. Sonderkommando survivor Filip Muller's number was in the 20,000s. He arrived in early 1942. Magnus' number is a standard number, however, without the A of the 1944 arrivals, or the Z of the Roma, or the other special classification symbols. Of course the penciller didn't know these details. So a standard Auschwitz number, which is too big, but it doesn't tell us anything.

4) Vision and the Scarlet Witch, Vol. 1, #4. Magneto has just found out Wanda and Pietro are his children. (This is from Feb. 1983). He is on the moon, in the Inhuman city of Attilan, telling VIsion about his youth. "I was born into a time and place ... Android ... where both man and mutant were persecuted for being ... different." Picture of the Auschwitz camp, guards tormenting emaciated prisoners, one of whom displays a very prominent and exaggerated Star of David on his clothing. Remember Jews and Roma were kept apart in the camp. In the next panel, however, Magneto sort-of goes into a fantasy. He says, "But unlike the other victims, I possessed the power to fight back." He imagines he's hurling Nazi tanks away with magnetic energy. What's this? In 1983, the reader doesn't know what to make of this. Keep in mind, he's meeting with Wanda, Pietro, Vision, and Crystal, and has held Luna for the first time. Is he exaggerating? Showing off for them?

(5) Now for the second most important comic proving Magneto is Jewish, Uncanny #199, Nov. 1985. Magneto with Lee Forrester and Kitty Pryde arrive at the National Holocaust Memorial in Washington, DC. (It's not really Lee, but Mystique, trying to capture Magneto). Magneto has been having an affair with Lee, he loves her. He brings her to the Holocaust Memorial? Why? Fun date, huh? Why, because he has no other family. These people are his family. Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. (The Roma have their own name for the genocide, and their own gatherings, with their own rituals and customs. Magneto has no reason to go to a Jewish gathering if he isn't Jewish). Lee/Mystique says: "Man's inhumanity to man ... how easily the race kills." Magneto answers: "Then, Lee, it was the Jews. My nightmare has ever been that tomorrow it will be Mutants." Why would he say that, why wouldn't he mention another ethnic group, if he weren't Jewish? Next, Magneto tells Kitty EXACTLY how to address the gathering in order to get information about dead or missing family members. How does Magneto know how to do this? Isn't it obvious that he's done this before? Why would he address a Jewish Holocaust gathering looking for information about his family if his family weren't Jewish? (And it is a Jewish gathering, besides the use of the word Holocaust, a speaker says in the background: "... the systematic institutionalized extermination of one people by another."). Kitty asks about her great-aunt Chava, who died at Auschwitz, and Magneto is recognized by two survivors, Ruth and David Shulman, two Jewish survivors. (Shul is another name for synagogue -- Shulman means man of the temple, or man of the synagogue). They remember Magneto as a youth in Auschwitz, and say he helped them survive. And witness him as having been there. (No implanted memories, please). They testify that he " ... Had been at that accursed place from the very start..."

Later, Mystique reveals herself, and arrests Magneto in front of all these people. Magneto says that he recognizes no authority. "My land ...all the countries of the world ... turned their back on me and mine when we were condemned to Hitler's death camps. Therefore, in return, I have sworn to deny them." So let's clear this up ... the Roma were not persecuted in Greece, the Greek Jewish community was decimated. A small number of Roma and Jews in Rumania were exiled to a new border country called "Transnistria" but the remainder of the Roma were left alone. Several hundred thousand of them. 350,000 Rumanian Jews were savagely murdered throughout the country. In Slovakia, the Roma were left alone, the Slovakian Jews were among the first sent to Auschwitz. After the Slovakian uprising was crushed in 1944, several hundred Roma who had courageously helped in the rebellion were murdered, along with the remainder of the Jews of Slovakia. Bulgaria did not persecute its Romani people. Bulgaria, although resisting deportations of its Jews, persecuted them locally. In the Netherlands, only the "wandering" Roma who were captured in camps and wagons were deported, about 500. The remaining who had bought homes or found shelter with neighbors, were left alone. The Netherlands is where Gabrielle Haller comes from -- in under two years 100,000 Dutch Jews were deported, most were killed. I could go on. There is no other people who were hunted everywhere the Nazis went or had influence but the Jews. There is no other people who had the gates of escape cut off after the war started, but the European Jews. Magneto's reasoning is based on this most extreme situation.

(6) Uncanny #211, Nov. 1986. The Mutant Massacre. Page 9 -- Betsy Braddock has just come in from discovering what happened to a wounded Morlock, who has just died. Magneto, Storm, and Wolverine are standing there in Xavier's infirmary. Betsy says, "... I saw a cadre of super-beings ... massacring every living thing in the Morlock tunnels." Magneto reacts immediately, out of pure emotion. "NO! The horrors of my childhood, born again...only this time, Mutants are the victims, instead of Jews." What else does this mean? He's talking about HIS childhood, he's making a parallel. If he weren't Jewish, he wouldn't have said Jews, he would have said Roma. The two groups of people are not interchangeable.

(7) New Mutants #49, March 1987. Magneto is dreaming. It is an entire page representation of the massacre of his family. Here we see for the first time, his family -- father, mother, sister -- as they were gunned down in front of open graves. The family members are dressed in middle class urban clothes. No peasant dress, no Roma clothing. (And it is not a cliche. Roma women always wore, at this time, their flowing skirts and distinctive scarves and clothing, similar to the Bosnian women of today). Being massacred with Magnus' family is a mixed group of people. Men in bowler hats and suits, one old woman in a long skirt. One man in a bowler hat has the side-locks of the devout Jew, but the other people could be anyone. Poles or Jews or Roma. It's Magnus and his family who are out of place. They are well-dressed, Magnus's sister in a proper school uniform with the prim collar. Every picture I've seen of the German Rom show: a people of color, having left India and Armenia five- to six-hundred years ago, the men wearing Fedoras (favorite style of hat) and normal suits and ties, and the women and girls always dressed in the long skirts and distinctive flowered scarves. The boys wear a mixture of urban short pants but scarf belts, some have socks, some don't. New Mutants #49, page 17, could show some Roma in the crowd, but Magnus' family members are definitely not Romani in this picture.

(8) X-Men Classics #12, back-up story, Aug. 1987. The actual scenes of Magneto's escape from Auschwitz. "And with World War II ending... the Third Reich defeated...it's guards wanted no witnesses left...to tell the tale of this horror..." Picture of an SS soldier about to shoot a fallen and stricken Madga. "He had been there from the start ..." Magnus has just slammed a wooden beam into the head of the SS soldier. "Grown to manhood within its electrified barbed wire fence. If he was to die, it would not be in this abattoir ... and not without a fight!" Magnus grabs a terrified Magda by the hand and drags her with him in his escape. (a) The war is almost over, it is winter, it is the winter of 1944-1945. The Roma were gone by 1945. All the Roma women were gone. Only 4 clerks, high-status friends of Nazi officials in Camp I, were left. The Romani camp was murdered in the gas chambers in August 1944. (b) This scene, by Claremont and Bolton, is completely accurate. It takes place on Jan. 20, 1945, two days after thecamp was evacuated and the Death marches began. Some 70 of the Sonderkommando were kept to help destroy the evidence of the death factory, before they were to be killed. Some 200 women from the woman's camp, Jews, were chosen to fill in the huge pits where bodies were burned. They had to haul ashes, break up human bones, all in the coldest part of winter. The SS soldiers sent back on Jan. 20th were sent to kill the women. That is exactly what you see in this comic book, because Claremont and Bolton took the time and cared enough, to do their research. Magneto was saving Magda becasue at that point, he wasn't the target, yet. If they were out by the burial pits to the northwest of the camp, that is a point close to the forest. It just makes sense.

(9) New Mutants #61, March 1988. On page 22, Magneto is alone, kneeling over the dead body of Doug Ramsey, thinking thoughts only the reader can see. This is one moment he would not misrepresent anything, to himself especially. He says, "An ill wind is coming ... they are registering mutants ... like they once registered my people in Poland ...! Who knows what horrors await us." Only the Jews were registered, and forced to wear armbands with the Star of David on them, in Poland (at the end of 1939). Efforts to murder the Polska Roma (the Polish Roma) began in 1942, but they weren't registered first. Young Magnus wouldn't have known about any of that in any case-- he was already at Auschwitz by 1942. He would only have known that "my people" the Jewish people in Poland, including the German Jews who had already been deported there in the first months of the War, were registered.

(10) Classic X-Men #19, March 1988, back-up story. Magneto is apparently working for the CIA hunting Nazis. He is about to be betrayed by them, and his lady love of that time, Isabelle, is about to be murdered. But as he is apprehending a Nazi war criminal he gets one of his massive headaches. "Pain," he thinks, "again indescribable." "Worse than the bite of the kapo's whip. The murder of parents and family, the death of a child ... the loss of a beloved wife!" So here we see that Magneto was the victim of kapos. He could not have been a kapo. He was too young anyway, as we've seen. He grew up in Auschwitz. Here he says the murder of parents, and family. The parents separate, gunned down. The remainder of his family, no doubt sent to the gas chambers later, while he was in the Sonderkommando. Remember what he said in UX #150, his entire family wiped out. So as a Jew in the Sonderkommando he not only watched his family die, he helped kill them. How can any other comic book character ever come close to Magneto for dramatic intensity, but only if he is a Jew.

(11) X-Factor Annual #4, 1989. Doom challenges Magneto to a duel of wills, with a helmet that pulls out unpleasant memories and torments the wearer. Who will crack first? Magneto takes his turn -- Doom describes what he sees, "...after the ignoble defeat of the Nazis in Germany, you and the woman Magda you rescued, fled the prison camp Auschwitz, in Poland."

"Auschwitz, where your family had perished --living skeletons -- and you had grown to manhood amid horrors most men could not conceive." First, Doom confirms that Magnus and Magda "fled" or escaped Auschwitz before liberation and after the Roma camp was murdered. Then he describes some of Magneto's family perishing, as living skeletons, at Auschwitz. They could either have been kept as prisoners, or brought in, starving, from ghettoes in Poland and gassed. They could have been either Roma or Jews. But then it's Doom's turn to wear the helmet. Doom's Romani heritage is discussed at great length. Doom is proud to be a Rom, he knows he is a Rom. Why would he not acknowledge that Magneto is also a Rom? Why did he say your family, implying your people, to Magneto? Not "our" people?

(12) And now the most important evidence, and just about my favorite X-Men comic, Uncanny #274, from March 1991. In the Savage Land, the entire comic is told from the point of view of Magneto. It is a first person narrative, he is talking directly to us, the readers. He is not exaggerating, he is not showing off. The writing is elegant and wonderful ... "My life's ambition has been to safeguard my fellow mutants," Magneto says. "Zaladane has no such compunction. And I hear the echo of Der Fuhrer's voice in the radio of memory, smell the awful stench of the sick and dying as the cattle cars brought the comdemned to Auschwitz. I wear red, the color of blood, in tribute to their lost lives. And the harder I try to cast it aside, to find a gentler path ... the more irresistibly I'm drawn back. I should have died myself with those I loved. Instead, I carted the bodies by the hundreds, by the thousands ... from the death house to the crematorium ... and the ashes to the burial ground. Asking now what I could not then ... why was I spared?!" So there it is. He describes his job at Auschwitz. That is it. This is no vague job description, this is what the Sonderkommando did. This is fundamental to the history of the Holocaust, to the history of Nazi Germany. Making the Jews the ones who had to do all the dirty work in the death camps.

Marvel cannot say they have their own version of Holocaust history. What kind of reasoning is that? Where do the editors and writers of Marvel get off making up their own history of the Holocaust? Where do they draw the line? Has any reader out there ever seen any major publisher or entertainment outfit, outside Neo-Nazi groups and the Militias or Far Right Splinter groups, who just took it upon themselves to change a Jew into a Romany and change Holocaust and Auschwitz history to make it fit? Magneto says it here, he was a member of the Sonderkommando. He was not a kapo. He was not a Russian POW. He was a Jew! On page 14 of UXM #274, Magneto is dreaming again. He again sees his family being gunned down. He again feels what it was like to be buried alive. Rogue wakes him up.

(13) Uncanny X-Men #275, April 1991, which concludes the Savage Land story from UXM #274, referred to above, also contains confirmation as to what happened to young Magnus. Magneto says, directly to the reader, in diary-like narration, as he uses the last strength of his emaciated body to push away his captors, "They think me beaten, finished. A mistake many have made in the past. As I found the strength, as a boy, to survive being machine-gunned and buried alive, and later the unimaginable horror of Auschwitz ... so do I find it in me, here and now, to break free."

(14) X-Men Vol. 2, No. 2, Nov. 1991. The beginning of the end for Magneto. But on page 24 he says to Moira MacTaggart, who has seemingly betrayed him, and enraged him, "Of course not. You worked for the betterment of the world and the race. I heard those same rationales as a boy, in the Auschwitz Death Camp. From Dr. Joseph Mengele himself!" Mengele's first victims were the Roma, he liked the Roma. He brought the children candy and extra food. And in August of 1944, after trying unsuccessfully to save the Romani Family Camp (also for his own experimental purposes) Mengele obeyed his orders and vigorously hunted down and helped exterminate all remaining Roma. He then dissected those of most interest to him, and sent body parts to Berlin. Then he turned his attention to the Jews of Auschwitz. Only his Jewish victims have survived. His Romani victims, those transfered out of the camp in the spring and summer of 1944, have rarely come forward. If Magneto is alive in Auschwitz after the start of 1945, and he personally heard Dr. Mengele, he is a Jew.

Magneto is a Jew especially since Mengele would have been one of his supervisors in the Sonderkommando.

(15) X-Men, Vol. 2, No. 3, Dec. 1991 -- Magneto to Xavier, "You speak to the best in humanity. I have endured the worst. You imagine the reality of the Holocaust, of the Nazi Death Camps. I grew up in one." Magneto says The Holocaust. This is the translation of SHOAH, and was first used after the war, and popularized by Eli Wiesel. It means the Jewish Holocaust. One can say the Romani genocide, and today sometimes you'll hear the Romani holocaust, or the Russian holocaust, or the holocaust perpetrated against the mentally ill and the handicapped. (Nazi pre-meditated genocide was really only carried to the fullest extreme against three groups, the first were the mentally ill and the handicapped, who were the first victims of genocide. The second and third groups were the Jews and the Roma). But the Holocaust is what Jewish people say when they refer to the calculated campaign of Nazi Germany to kill every Jew in the world. (They actually made lists of every country in the Western world, and all the Jewish populations. They made no such list for any other people). Nazi Germany succeeded in killing almost 6 million of their foremost victims, until the Third Reich was defeated.

(16) X-Factor #92, July, 1993. Havok and X-Factor are battling Cortez and the Acolytes, in this opening chapter of Fatal Attractions. Cortez is ranting about the "flatscans" and how mutants have to subjugate them. Havok says, "Out to destroy the "inferior" race ... in Magneto's name? Don't you know what an insult that is to the memory of the very man you claim to worship? Fifty years ago, Magnus barely survived a Holocaust that destroyed almost all of his people: all because some lunatic took it upon himself to decide who deserved to live ... and who didn't. Where's the sense in resurrecting that kind of evil ... in the name of one of its victims?!" Cortez answers, "You've seen this place Havok! You've seen the sentinels! You tell me ... where's the sense in letting the flatscans do to the mutants what Hitler did to the Jews? ..." Cortez has done research on Magneto, he says the Jews, as a parallel metaphor. Why say that, if Magneto isn't Jewish?

(17) Then comes the infamous Unlimited #2. This is a long and involved FAQ I've got going here, so I won't go into detail at the moment. But the bottom line is, everything that Gabrielle Haller says about Magneto's history is false. I don't want to go line by line over it now. Everything! Danzig was not annexed. It was a Free City, under League of Nations protection, that voted itself a Nazi government and welcomed the Nazi troops in like liberators. Gauleiter Forster, the extremely anti-Semitic Nazi leader of Danzig ordered all 10,000 Jews of Danzig to be kicked out of the city in 1939, not the Roma. The Jews. Auschwitz wasn't opened as a Polish political prisoner camp until the summer of 1940, not 1939. The Roma were sent to German municipal camps, in Germany and the Greater Reich, as early as 1933. But they were not sent to Auschwitz from Germany until 1943. The only people who were in a work camp in Auschwitz before it opened were 300 Jews from the town of Auschwitz who were forced to transform a collection of horse stables and army barracks into the Polish prisoner camp. "Genocide, extermination ..." of Poles? No. The Polish people suffered terribly, and were considered "sub-human" by the Nazis. Millions of Polish citizens were killed throughout the course of the war, as soldiers, as slave laborers, as underground fighters, as members of the intelligentsia. But this was Nazi suppression of a conquered country, not planned genocide. Roma, Yes. The homosexuals, no. Not genocide. Persecution and imprisonment. Treated terribly. But people weren't sent to the gas chambers just because they were homosexuals. And "intellectuals" ? (How could Nicieza have written this?) Intellectuals were targets of genocide? Well, I hardly think so, since Goebbels, and Albert Speer, and even Mengele were considered intellectuals.

No one was sent to the gas chambers, or was shot in an open grave, or was tortured and murdered JUST because they happened to be an intellectual. Thousands of Polish citizens who were members of the intelligentsia (the educated class, the vanguard or elite of the educated class), were murdered in the first months of the war. But there was no planned campaign to hunt down every intellectual in Europe and exterminate them. The mentally ill and handicapped, the Jews, and the Roma were the primary targets of Nazi genocide. The Russians came next. Everything Haller says about Magneto in Unlimited #2 contradicts most of Magneto's history as presented in 15 years worth of comics.

(18) Until recently, when, in Road to Onslaught, Marvel once again published that outrageous Gabrielle Haller speech about Magneto like they were proud of it (??) the next references in the Age of Apocalypse comics portrayed Magneto once again as Jewish. In X-Men Vol. 2, No. 40, where David Haller, Legion, pulls Magneto's memories out, you see young Magnus with the men, standing behind and below a high, barred window. This is an accurate portrayal of the quarters of the Sonderkommando at Auschwitz I. At Auschwitz I, only the Sonderkommando (other than prisoners awaiting execution) were kept in isolated basement cells, the windows of which were high, barred, and as seen from the outside, half-below ground level.

And why is Magneto in Israel anyway? How could he have come there? Well, why would a Romany go to Israel when at least 30,000 Roma lived in Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s? And many more Rom formed a thriving community in Paris. Why not just go home to his own clan and tribe? Roma have a complex system of extended familes, clans, and tribes. Why go to Israel to "find himself" or find his "soul"? A German Jew had no place to go but somewhere else. A Polish Jew definitely had no place to go back to, since some Polish fanatics continued to murder returning Holocaust survivors well into the late 1940s. Any Jew can emigrate to Israel, under the Law of Return. All Magneto had to do was show them the tattoo on his arm. And he was home. (And in case some of you were wondering, as some of us have discussed, with the exception of the Muslim Bosnians, only the Jews of Europe practiced circumcision. It was a religious rite, not a medical procedure. Only Jewish men and boys were circumcised among the prisoners at Auschwitz. The Nazis already knew what Magneto was. He was chosen for the Sonderkommando, he was Jewish. He was not pretending to be a Jew. He wasn't misidentified as a Jew. He was a circumcised, young Jewish man). Furthermore, Magnus at this time had forged papers, that identified him as "Erik Magnus Lehnsherr." He could have immigrated to any country in the world, including the United States! If he were Roma, and didn't want to self-identify as such, why not go to America? Why go to the one country that represents enormous pain for modern Roma -- i.e., the Rom today deeply resent the focus on Israel, and the support Israel enjoys among nations of the Western world, while the Roma continue to be persecuted and ignored.

(19) In Astonishing X-Men #3, formerly Uncanny, from May 1995, we have the most clear reference to Magneto's being Jewish, written by Scott Lobdell. Magneto has just hit Bishop, and is helping him to his feet. He says, "Long before Xavier died ... before this point of divergence ... I stood by helplessly as millions of my people were led to slaughter in the name of 'genetic purity." Now the AOA is not a what-if story. It is a divergent timeline. Magneto says, before the timeline diverged. What other people were lead by the millions, led to the slaughter, in the name of genetic purity? Many people suffered and died in World War II. 250,000 to 500,000 Roma were murdered. Millions of Russians and Poles during the course of the invasions, and in political violence, and in acts of pure murder, were exterminated. But only the European Jews were "led to the slaughter" in the millions because of one man's racial beliefs. Only the Jews of Europe Persecutionand incarceration are not the same as genocide and extermination.

20) X-Men #72, cover date February 1998, published in mid-December 1997. This comic book makes a significant contribution to Magneto's history. Basically, the book reveals that the name *Erik Lehnsherr* which was revealed by Gabrielle Haller in Unlimited #2 to be Magneto's real name, is fake, and so Haller's assertion that Magneto is a *Sinte* Rom was based on false and forged identity papers.

The scenario begins with Gabrielle Haller, lying on her bed, working on a lap- top computer, writing the American Sen. Kelly, begging him to help find and secure the release of Charles Xavier. Sabra, the Israeli super-hero, a mutant and Mossad agent, suddenly appears floating in the air outside Haller's balcony doors. Haller has just pushed open the doors, saying, "You're too important to lose, Charles. I will see you ... FREE?" And Sabra says, "Sometimes, Ambassador Haller ... freedom, like the truth, is little more than an illusion. Don't you think?"

Sabra has come to Haller with information. She says to Gabrielle Haller: "I"m sure you recall shocking the world when you announced that you had UNDENIABLE proof ofMagneto's identity as Erik Lehnsherr. The undeniable has just been DENIED." Sabra then goes on to show Haller, and the readers, the file on a master forger named George Odekirk. In this file, apparently, is a computer analysis of the identity papers of Erik Lehnsherr, which shows that Odekirk forged those documents. Haller says, "He created Erik Lehnsherr? If this is true ... you must take me to him! He could be our only link to Magneto's true identity ... our last chance to stop him once and for all!"

But just as Sabra is flying Haller to the Transylvanian Alps, to meet with Odekirk, the scene switches to Odekirk, who is working on another forged passport, sitting in bed while his wife sleeps beside him. Suddenly, Odekirk looks up -- he has a visitor. It's Magneto, in full costume.

Magneto is floating in the air. He surrounds Odekirk's bed with his magnetic energy, and uses his power to keep Odekirk's wife unconscious. He says, "You failed me." Odekirk responds, "Please ... please, my wife ..." Magneto answers, "She will sleep the sleep of the innocent. She has done nothing ... but you ... YOU, my friend, have BETRAYED me." Odekirk protests his innocence, and then Magneto makes this remarkable speech: "Do you remember what you promised me the night I came to you, torn and filthy, nearly a quarter century ago? I was searching for my beloved MAGDA, determined not to lose her as I had lost so many others in the fire that engulfed all of Europe during my childhood. The authorities were in pursuit of me for the "crime" of avenging my daughter's murder. I was willing to deny who I was ... everything that my family died for ... so that I could find one woman ... so that I would not be caged AGAIN. The Erik Lehnsherr fabrication was a convenient means of ensuring that. You swore that the forged papers were FLAWLESS, that your skills were unsurpassed... but now, you have proven to be a liability. Your work has been called into queston by my enemies, and they will trace Erik Lehnsherr the Sinte BACK to you." Odekirk protests, "That is impossible! That forgery was impeccable! My work is ... " Magneto answers: "It was not ENOUGH! You gave birth to Erik Lehnsherr, Odekirk. And tonight, you have killed him. My secrets shall die with him. All that remains now ... is MAGNUS."

This scene says, subtly but clearly, that Magnus denied who he was, gave up everything his famly died for, to take the false identity of a Sinte Rom named Erik Lehnsherr. Since this entire FAQ has gone into great detail showing exactly how and why Magnus was born Jewish, it seems there is no doubt now, that Magneto's family and he himself, were Jews. Magnus would not say he denied *everything* his family died for, by taking a Romani identity, if his family were indeed Roma. As I pointed out above, only the Jews and Roms were targeted as entire peoples, and killed for no reason other than they were Jews and Roms. Magnus was either one, or the other. Since in XM #72, it is revealed that he is NOT a Rom, we must conclude he was born a Jew.

There are several continuity problems that arise from the revelations of XM #72. Several unanswered questions:

1) How much of Haller's speech (Unlimited #2) was based information contained in Odekirk's forgery, how much was based on what she personally knew, and how much did she "fabricate" herself? She makes a large number of mistakes, about nearly every aspect of Magneto's history and life. She also gets her Holocaust history and dates wrong. Did she perhaps add her own *facts* to what she found in those old identity papers? Was she perhaps trying to make the story coherent? As in, trying to make what she knew about Magnus and his history fit what she learned about *Erik Lehnsherr*? For example, where she says, on page 19 of Unlimited #2, "...Lehnsherr had taken to calling himself MAGNUS ... as if by choosing his MIDDLE name, he could bring some semblance of BALANCE and SIMPLICITY to his haunted life." This is Haller's supposition -- the reason he was calling himself MAGNUS in Israel. She knew him as Magnus back then, she had just found out, his full name was supposedly *Erik Lehnsherr.* Did she try to splice together the information?

2) While XM #72 makes it clear why Magnus cloaked himself in this false identity and ethnic background initially, what is not so understandable is why he continued to maintain that false identity after his search for Magda was over, and he immigrated to Israel. Did he use the forged *Erik Lehnsherr* passport to enter Israel? Why would he use a false identity and ethnic background to enter Israel, when he was a Jew?

3) Why would Magnus continue to use the Erik Lehnsherr identity during the Age of Apocalypse, especially since he publicly identified with being a Jew? (Astonishing X-Men #3, quoted above.)

4) Magnus worked for at least one intelligence agency, most likely the CIA (Classic X-Men #19). He then hunted dangerous mutants, for his own mysterious purposes, as shown in a brief cameo in Generation X #10 -- which was a memory belonging to Sean Cassidy, telepathically accessed by Emma Frost. During the time he was working for the CIA, his code-name was Magneto. In Classic X-Men #19, he is called only Magneto. In Generaton X #10, Interpol agent Sean Cassidy doesn't know who the man is who is helping him track down Arcady (the future Omega Red). Emma Frost, commenting from the present as a psionic guide to Cassidy's memories, calls the man *Erik Lehnsherr.* But the question is, after he left Israel, did Magnus use the false identity Erik Lehnsherr?

5) During the time that Magneto tried to follow Xavier's path, roughly from UXM #196 through UXM #253, and New Mutants issues #35 through #75, including UXM #188, NM #21, #23, #24, #26, #28, and #29, he referred to himself as Magnus, and others like Storm and Kitty Pryde called him Magnus. Even though he was disguised as Michael Xavier for the outside world, the X-Men and their associates all knew Magneto as Magnus. During this time, Magnus also identified strongly with his Jewish and Jewish Holocaust history. The question now is, what happened to the *Erik Lehnsherr the SInte* identity during this time?

6) Why, now, after so many years, did Magneto find it necessary to kill George Odekirk in order to protect his identity? We know why he took the false name and ethnic background to begin with. But we have no evidence that he continued to use *Erik Lehnhserr*, during each stage of his pre-Magneto career. After he became Magneto, after all the battles with the X-Men, after the events of Fatal Attractions, after the mind-wipe and the appearance of Joseph, after Onslaught, why would Magnus be so concerned with protecting his true identity? Was he trying to protect the memory of his family? Has he maintained contact with pre-Holocaust family grave sites, or places where he once lived? Is he worried that the very bones of his ancestors might be violated by those looking for his genetic material? Then there's Anya, his beloved daughter -- she was never Anya *Lehnsherr*. Her last name is now unknown -- is Magneto trying to protect something concerning her? George Odekirk wouldn't be the only witness to Magneto's true identity, either. What about those Carpathian villagers, who accepted Auschwitz escapees Magnus and Magda in 1945? Did anyone in Vinnitsa who knew Magnus' true last name survive his burst of electromagnetic radiation? What about Ruth and David Shulman, who knew him at Auschwitz, and recognized him, in UXM #199?

These, and other unanswered questions, remain.

By removing the *Erik Lehnsherr the Sinte* identity, fixing that particular retcon from Unlimited #2, and leaving the rest of Magneto's history intact, writer Joe Kelly and editor Bob Harras have not officially stated that Magneto was born Jewish, and was a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz. But, as was the case during the years Chris Claremont wrote the character, the references to Magneto's Jewish identity are there, subtle and at the same time, obvious.

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hellfireinfrozenlands · 4 years

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Hi!! I'm here for that NIF breakdown of why the massacre of the Chiyan army and Prince Qi's death was inevitable? I know i miss a lot of the subtext that doesn't explicitly happen on screen, so i'd love to hear your thoughts on the villains ^^

Hello! I didn't think you'd actually take up the offer :) Spoiler ahead!

Xia Jiang:

I'll start with Xia Jiang first because he is the easiest. As shown in ep38, Prince Qi suggested to get rip of the Xuan Jing Bureau. The Emperor dismissed that suggestion completely but Xia Jiang overheard that and felt threatened by Prince Qi. The thing is, even if he never overhear that conversation, he would still find a way to get rip of Prince Qi. If Prince Qi become Emperor, being the righteous and benevolent person that people said he was, Prince Qi would never approve of the way the bureau works, the torture, the killing, etc.. And since the bureau is working directly for the Emperor and the main reason why everyone is scared of them is because the bureau is trusted by the Emperor. So even if Prince Qi never suggest to get rip of Xuan Jing Bureau or if he still keep them around during his reign somehow, isn't disuse and mistrust amount to the same thing as disposal? Xia Jiang is a smart guy, he probably saw this coming. The conversation he overheard is only a reminder of his eventually demise.

Xie Yu:

By the time of the massacre, Xie Yu would have been the brother-in-law of the Emperor for about 11-12 years. He is an ambitious guy, always aiming for the highest power. He picked the current Crown Prince because it's easy for him to manipulate and control the court (funny enough, I think the Emperor pick him as Crown Prince for the same reason). Somehow, he was always losing to Lin Xie by a small margin. His wife is the Emperor's half-sister, whereas Jin Yang and the Emperor were full siblings. Xie Yu is a general (he was in the Chiyan army at one point too!) but comparing to Lin Xie, he was not as well-known and didn't achieve as much. It was probably frustrating for him seeing the other brother-in-law of the Emperor having all the influence and respect at the court. For him to gain more power, he would need to get rip of his competitors and become Da Liang's main defender. The Chiyan massacre killed two birds with one stone. Xie Yu is a simple guy; he just want power and honour for his family, both of which were very important back then.

It never stated explicitly how the alliance between Xie Yu and Xia Jiang came to be but I would bet it was Xia Jiang who approached Xie Yu first.

The Emperor:

Okay, to talk about the Emperor we need to talk about Prince Qi first. Here are what we know of Prince Qi:

- He was the Emperor's oldest son. Given that the Empress, the official wife, doesn't have any surviving son, the Crown Prince position would normally goes to the firstborn son, unless the mother of that prince's background is unsuitable. We don't know if Prince Qi ever become an official Crown Prince or not, but since it's inevitable, I would say the ministers and generals in the court would treat him like a Crown Prince regardless. That means if the Emperor is ill or absent, all the officials would turn to Prince Qi for leadership.

- Prince Qi's mother was the sister of the general who not only had the biggest and mightiest army in the country with long list of achievements to boost, he was also the Emperor's close friend and brother-in-law through his sister and wife (that's one messed up family O.o). I assume Lin Xie's words and actions would influence the court greatly. And Prince Qi no doubt had his uncle's support.

- Prince Qi himself was also a kind, smart and well-loved prince. In ep46, Prince Yu said that no one can become a second Prince Qi and no matter how hard Prince Jing try, he cannot compete with Prince Qi. Hell, even the Emperor himself said so (ep46). Prince Qi was the brightest, outshone all other princes and the Emperor too. Let's say if the Emperor and Prince Qi has different approach on an issue one day in court, whose idea do you think the ministers most likely lean towards to?

To sum, Prince Qi was this magnificent prince who is a better suited Emperor than the Emperor himself. Since so many people were willing to die to defend for Prince Qi's innocent, I would say he had the support of most ministers and generals in the court. He was loved by the people. He had the support, or at least approval, of the Emperor's own uncle and Li Chong, a scholar held in high esteem by many (this implied by Grand Princess Liyang in ep 51) (Li Chong is the person whose books Prince Yu want to gift to MCS in ep 2). His material uncle was this general who had held sway in the court. Etc etc... Not to mention he was good looking (said by Marquis Yan Que in ep34) and young. Prince Jing was 19 when the massacre happened so I'd say Prince Qi was in his mid 20s and the Emperor maybe in his mid 40s, perfect time to have a midlife crisis!

Putting aside the Emperor's suspicious nature, if you're in the Emperor's shoes, won't you feel inferior standing next to such prince? Many of your subjects rather listening to your son than you (ep 53), whether that son is the Crown Prince or not didn't matter. Your close friends (Yan Que and Lin Xie) sang praises of this son. It seemed as though everyone is just waiting for you to die and pass the throne to your son who will undoubtedly be a better Emperor than you will ever dream of. All of this insecurities of the Emperor you can see in the last conversation he had with MCS in ep 53. He said the perfect world that Lin Xie wish for no one can achieve that for him, not even Prince Qi. Lin Xie and Yan Que helped the Emperor with the rebellion against his father(?) and brothers to ascend the throne. They put all their hopes and dreams on the Emperor's shoulder but he couldn't give them that utopia (I disagree, but that should be for another time). They were disappointed, or so the Emperor assumed, but then they gained new hope in the form of Prince Qi. Once again, they put all their hopes and dreams on this young prince (Yan Que praised Prince Qi on several occasions and that's when he already dead, imagine what's it like when he was still alive) and unintentionally abandoned their friend, the Emperor. At that point, the Emperor was like a phone being pushed aside by a better model. He felt insecure but he couldn't show it because the Emperor isn't supposed to show weakness. Nonetheless, Xie Yu and Xia Jiang saw through him and they manipulated his insecurity and doubt to their advantage. The Emperor rebelled to get his throne, so he had no reason to assume Prince Qi wouldn't do the same. And the massacre happened.

The saddest part is that all of this could be prevented if only Prince Qi and the Emperor understand each other. If Prince Qi could understand his father, he could see the insecurity and how his presence affect his father's self-esteem. He could dial back a bit, maybe not challenging his father's decisions all the time and maybe not do it publicly. If the Emperor could understand his son, he would know that Prince Qi only did these things because he cared for the people and not because he didn't respect his father (or maybe he did, I don't know). Prince Qi had no reason to rebel with all the supports he had. There was no better candidate than him; all he needed to do is to be patience and prepare for his ascension. And to his father who had to fight tooth and nail to get to where he is now, Prince Qi's inevitable ascension is a something to be envy of. That's why to me, Prince Qi's last words, 'Father doesn't understand son, son doesn't understand father' is very poignant.

I need to shut up now, otherwise I will go on forever. I highly recommend you to watch the conversation between MCS and the Emperor in ep 53 again but try to look from the Emperor's perspective. It's an eye opener.

One of reasons Nirvana in Fire is great is its villains. They are very human and even though they are people living in a stringent and traditional period, I'm sure you know someone who have some of their traits. Eg. if you're a CEO and your company is about to be disbanded, wouldn't you try to save it no matter what? The reason why the consequences of their actions are so great is because of the power and position they hold which amplify the outcomes ten-fold.

P.S NIF is a show with a lot of subtleties. This is how I interpret the implications, feel free to drop your interpretation! And please correct me if I make any mistake. English is not my first language so I hope this makes sense!

P.P.S I want to add pictures to this post to make my point but I don't know how orz

#Nirvana in Fire

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shuttershocky · 4 years

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I haven’t been able to write lately due to a mix of personal stuff and *waves hands* the current global situation which sucks, but I still feel like writing something down so I guess I’m just gonna be cringy and self-indulgent and blather on about Aozaki Adoption in bullet points

Of course, I’m still going to include Rin, but in the original one-shots, I just skipped over how she got added to the Hollow Shrine. Now that I’m trying to actually string a plot together, I have to do it right. That part I’m still working on, Rin’s upbringing and personality make it difficult.

If I could do this fanfic in a visual medium I’d show Touko being unable to properly see her reflection in mirrors, like she’s looking at herself through broken glass. A huge part of why I would think Touko would be taken with Sakura is because of the former’s ability to come back from the dead. it’s a noted thing in the Nasuverse that a soul changing bodies is an imperfect process and eventually a soul gets corrupted like data being copied too many times (which is what happened to Roa), but Touko got around this somehow without using True Magic. I want to make it so that the price she pays instead is a quiet existential crisis, that after so many puppet bodies, even if she knows that it technically doesn’t matter if she’s truly Touko Aozaki or not if she has all the memories and skills, she still wonders whether she IS still that young girl that got booted from her family.

The intention is that Touko grows attached to Sakura because she sees a bit of herself in the younger girl, at least, after some projecting. By helping Sakura, Touko would be able to emotionally connect to the young girl she used to be, before all the puppet bodies and people she’s killed. Touko needs that connection because no matter what her knowledge of logic and philosophy tells her, she still can’t shake off the existential dread of feeling like she’s basically an object only carrying on the function of Touko Aozaki. Looking at Sakura makes her feel... human. It doesn’t matter if Touko can’t see herself through a mirror, she can look at Sakura and go “That was me”, if that makes any sense.

I’ve been trying to figure out if I want them to visit Misaki Town or not. The setting of 2000-2001 means there’s no events from kara No Kyoukai nor Fate/Stay Night to use, but there is Melty Blood. I’ve been thinking of using the Tatari’s power to make nightmares come alive to write a few horror chapters in the vein of Silent Hill (I ADORE how it does psychological horror), but also I’m questioning if I really want to go there and do that. While Silent Hill portrays the horrors of sexual abuse (the loneliness, the self-blame, the terror of seeing your own bed) better than 90% of anything, that’s not really something I want to do, but that’s where an encounter with the Night of Wallachia would go given Sakura’s backstory.

I was seesawing between using Zouken (he doesn’t die that easily) or somehow getting Kirei and Gilgamesh involved to act as the main antagonists, but I decided against both. I know the one enemy Touko and the Hollow Shrine stand no chance of beating in a fight: Barthomeloi Lorelei. She’s eventually going to be the main antagonist, I plan to get her involved later on by having Touko recklessly rob the Clocktower for an artifact in an attempt to treat Sakura’s conditions (and thus make her lose face as the Clock Tower’s vice director) then have Zouken sell them out by using the worms still hiding inside Sakura to locate the Hollow Shrine, either that or get Shiki Tohno involved somehow since she hates his guts.

The Mystic Eyes of Death Perception present a really big writing problem where basically any monster threat I can throw in while waiting for the antagonists to arrive can be instantly solved by Shiki Ryougi. In fact, I’m still struggling to come up with a better reason for why Shiki doesn’t just destroy the grail fragments and worms inside Sakura other than the worms having changed Sakura’s physiology so thoroughly their death lines are too closely entwined with hers and Ryougi refuses to attempt to cut them out because of the risk.

I’m definitely doing the Shadow, but I need 1.) A power source that’s not the grail 2.) A reason to draw it out this early and a way to fight it back into dormancy since I currently can’t think of any other way to sever it from Sakura without Rule Breaker.

To differentiate it from Heaven’s Feel, I wanna take a different approach where the Shadow is something Sakura willingly indulges and indeed has full control over its powers. It’s gonna be vastly nerfed since no grail with infinite mana, but I think with a large enough mana source Sakura could massacre say, a bunch of Clock Tower Sealing Enforcers.

Specifically, I want that choice to stem from a conversation Sakura has with Shiki. By this point, the Clock Tower is closing in and Sakura’s been conversing with the Shadow in her dreams, and though her better life in the hollow Shrine means she’s not in the same desperate situation she is in HF, she’s also willing to do whatever it takes to protect this new life she obtained through a miracle. So Sakura is going to ask Shiki “Shiki-san... have you ever killed before?” and Shiki would say yes. then Sakura asks “Would you kill again?” and Shiki solemnly answers “if I have to, yes.” which makes Sakura make up her mind that the Shadow would be something she needs to be able to use and control as a trump card.

As to what makes Sakura use it, I’m obviously going to kill Touko in front of her. I just need to have a strong excuse to have Sakura NOT know that dying is not that big of a problem for Touko. Currently, my idea is lifting from Fate/Stay Night and having Touko keep that a secret because adult mages can attempt to read Sakura’s mind, and Touko needs the surprise factor of her death immunity so that her enemies will try to kill her instead of imprisoning or sealing her.

My current outline is almost all rather dark plot points, but I tend to gravitate towards jokes and fluffy writing so I’m expecting the tone to lighten up a lot when I get around to actually writing them. It’s worked that way in the first few chapters.

Dealing with Sakura’s psyche is a little difficult since I have no idea how much of her anger and resentment should stay after she’s found this better life. I’m using Fujino as a reference, where there’s this simmering rage beneath Fujino, even as she speaks kindly and talks girls out of suicide.

It’s especially difficult when I’m trying to flesh out her relationship with Rin. I know for sure I want Rin to be taken in by the Hollow Shrine only because Sakura wants her there, I want to use Sakura thinking of Rin as her hero in this fic, and how she’ll drag Rin back to the Hollow Shrine to reunite them. but I also want there to be that resentment. That anger. Rin would be someone who’s reluctant to give up on the ideals of a mage, and even more reluctant to give up the Tohsaka name and legacy, which Sakura would despise. I want there to be this torrent of conflicting feelings where Sakura thinks the world of her older sister who’s so beautiful and talented and perfect, and yet still feels resentment over Rin being kept by the family over her, and how Rin doesn’t really want to give up on being a Tohsaka. Meanwhile I’m putting Rin on the guilt trip train. It wasn’t her fault of course (remember in this fic Rin and Sakura are only 13 and 12 years old), mage culture is a bitch and she was just a child, but still. I want Rin to be just as conflicted, where she’s happy they’re back together (even if Sakura had to force it to happen) and massively guilty over what happened to her younger sister AND even more guilty that she knows the Tohsaka treated Sakura cruelly, but the Tohsaka ways are so deeply ingrained into her that she doesn’t want to give up such an enormous part of her identity.

Rin and Sakura are going to fight a couple of times. Sometimes physically. But at the end of the day I still want a lot of positives to come from giving them a relationship again. I want their sibling relationship to be one of the core focuses of the fic, and specifically I want them to contrast Touko and Aoko’s relationship. Touko is not going to like Rin at first and is only having her onboard because it’s what Sakura wants, but also I kinda want to use Rin and Sakura as a way for Touko to see how things between her and Aoko might have been different.

Speaking of which, I really need a translation of Mahoyo to come out so I can do that last bullet point more effectively.

Currently most of the interactions Sakura’s had with the Hollow Shrine have been with Touko and mikiya, but I want her to have fleshed out relationships with the others too. Azaka could be her senpai in magecraft and she in turn would be the most protective of Sakura. Shiki would have Sakura babysit Mana a lot as she’s still in college and has to study (and Shiki would grow fond of her cooking), while Fujino would have the quietest and yet most comfortable relationship with Sakura.

I’m doing this thing where Sakura’s fine control over her magical energy isn’t very good because of her altered circuits, so I’m making that the main motivation for how she discovers and wants to train in archery (she was vice-captain and then captain of the archery club in FSN and FHA after all), she loves the feeling of control and precision, of firing an arrow and knowing it will hit bullseye before it lands, as opposed to having to constantly struggle to keep a spell active or it crumbles before it finishes its process.

I’m still keeping the story of Rin and Sakura meeting Shirou by chucking him into a river, just need to figure out how to organically insert it back into the plot. it’s too funny to let go.

I don’t know if I want to do Taiga and Shiki as rival yakuza, but it’s definitely something I’m considering. it’s just too fun. I want to make something like how Taiga’s nickname of “Tiger of Fuyuki” is actually a serious yakuza nickname for her (that her students then caught on without context), so her rival Shiki becomes the “Dragon of Mifune”

Thanks to Case Files I know mages having deadly car chases actually isn’t all that uncommon which opens up a ton of new avenues for how I could get Sakura to be in a car with Touko in a car chase. i’d have Sakura follow Touko’s instructions and overturn the cars chasing them. Sakura’s worried and asks if they’re hurt, and Touko goes “Don’t worry, they’re Clock Tower mages, they’ll be fine.” and then one of the overturned cars explodes and when Sakura turns to look Touko gently points sakura’s face forward and says “Eyes on the road,” Later that night, the news reveals no one was killed. Somehow.

I want to do the Jewel Sword of Zelretch but I don’t know how just yet.

I’m going to poke a lot of fun at the fact that Touko says she has no issues but one of her main puppets that she battles with is literally modeled to look like Aoko. I might even have Touko talk to the puppet once in a while when she’s bored.

Still debating on when exactly Sakura is going to start calling Touko “Mom” and what she would have to do to earn that. Also, do we know when Aoi Tohsaka died? I can’t recall a specific year and I’m trying to get all the dates straight.

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mythicallore · 5 years

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The Terrifying Case of the Demon of Brownsville Road

There isn’t much that is more frightening than a haunting for those who have experienced one. To be at the mercy of supernatural forces that one cannot see or touch, or even fully understand, can be a truly life-changing, traumatic event. Yet even more terrifying are those cases that go beyond a mere haunting, to encompass malevolent forces of a decidedly more demonic nature. One such case allegedly occurred in a quiet town in Pennsylvania, where a family had their peaceful life in the house of their dreams turned into a nightmare, plagued by a vicious demon that crawled out from some realm of the damned.

In December of 1988 a Bob Cranmer and his family bought the house of their dreams, a beautiful 105-year-old Victorian house in a quiet neighborhood at 3406 Brownsville Road in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which Bob had long wanted to live in. They allegedly got it at an unbelievably good price as well, with the seller taking their initial low offer without any bidding ensuing, and all things told they were all very excited when they finally moved in. It was almost too good to be true, and it perhaps was, as it would soon become very apparent to them that something was very off about the place, and this would go on to evolve into a perilous experience in supernatural terror.

According to Cranmer, things had gotten rather odd before they had even fully moved in, with him finding his young son crying inexplicably on the stairs one day as they were looking around the property. At the time he had written it off as just a minor episode, but things got steadily more bizarre after the move was completed. This began with a simple, unshakable feeling of being watched at all times, and an indefinable sense that something just wasn’t right, despite the fact that the house looked on the surface to be very normal. It was a sense that something weird was roiling and churning under the charming veneer, and everyone felt it. Cranmer would say of this strange and ominous foreboding:

From the first, Lesa and I always had the feeling that we were not alone in that house, that we were being watched by someone, or something. I can remember the sensation so clearly. We felt surrounded by the past, as if we were almost living in it, that we were only temporary ‘visitors,’ tolerated for the time being—who would eventually be expelled.

This soon graduated to actual paranormal activity, which started off quite innocuously enough, such as lights turning on and off by themselves, objects strangely misplaced, and other small oddities like a pull-chain for a hanging light always found wound around the light rather than in a hanging position. It was strange, but all such minor anomalies that they could almost be written off as their imagination playing games with them, but it became a lot more frightening when this intensified to loud banging on the floor and walls and anomalous footsteps roaming through the house when no one was there. Even scarier still were instances when items were found smashed or broken, including a bent out of shape crucifix that was found dumped on the floor as if tossed there.

In addition to this, there seemed to be something very wrong with a room in the house they called “The Blue Room,” so named because it possessed blue wallpaper and a blue rug, but according to the children who slept there it also possessed some sort of malevolent supernatural force. Indeed, on many occasions the children absolutely refused to sleep in the room, or at times even go near it, complaining that there was something bad in there, and whatever this presence was began to make itself visible as a shadowy entity wreathed in what looked like a black mist and usually followed around by a foul stench, at first sighted solely within the confines of the Blue Room.

One of the most frightening encounters with this strange apparition was when Cranmer’s son in law saw a hulking shadow form looming over one of the children’s beds, after which it had scurried away into a darkened crawlspace to vanish, and on another occasion Cranmer’s grandson saw it and broke down crying, upon which the inconsolable child screamed “Monster, monster will get me!” This would go on for years, and according to Cranmer this entity would become bolder and more violent as time went on. It would appear in other areas of the house and could even be heard crawling through the walls and crawlspaces of the home at night. Additionally, everyone in the family began experiencing rather ferocious attacks from unseen hands, especially in the vicinity of The Blue Room, that would leave scratches and bruises, in one case even a massive set of claw marks on the chest of one of the sons.

Cranmer became convinced that this was no mere ghost, but rather a demon, which he calls “Molech,”and he tried reading the bible and putting up religious imagery to ward it off, but this seemed to make the entity absolutely furious. Cranmer claims that it would rip the Bible from his hands, scratch at his neck, destroy rosaries, and twist and warp crucifixes, further convincing him that this was a demonic force to be reckoned with. It also seemed to absolutely loathe the film The Passion of the Christ, turning off the TV and raising a ruckus whenever it was on. Family members who wore crucifixes in a vain attempt to keep the apparition at bay would sometimes find them removed from their bodies or even folded in half as if they “had been placed in a vise and bent with pliers.” Making it all even creepier was that a hidden room was found behind a wall, obviously at one point sealed up for reasons unknown, and when they opened up the partition hiding it there were found various toys from the Cranmer children, although how they had gotten in there was inexplicable.

This went on for years, with the situation taking its mental toll on the family, until finally Cranmer realized that he needed help, and reached out to the Catholic Church with his problem. Over the course of two years a procession of Bishops and priests would visit the home to carry out exorcisms and masses, in many cases witnessing the paranormal activity themselves, and there were also paranormal investigators who visited the home. Most notably was the investigator Ryan Buell from A&E’s Paranormal State, who would claim during his investigation that he had seen a crucifix bent in half right before his eyes and that he had also witnessed blood appear on the walls. One of the priests who visited the home also reported blood flowing down the stairs when he attempted to douse them with holy water. It would not be until 2006 that the house was finally deemed to be clear of its demonic presence, after which Cranmer would continue living there and pen a 2014 book chronicling his experiences there, called The Demon of Brownsville Road, the publication of which he says was fraught with setbacks and difficulties, as if something did not want it to be written.

During his research of the area, Cranmer claims that he discovered several sinister details of the home that serve to somewhat illuminate why it is so evil. In his book he writes that a massacre had occurred on the land back in the 1700s when a settler woman and her children were mercilessly slaughtered by Native Americans and that the bodies had been buried where the house stands. He also claims that an immigrant laborer who had helped build the house had cursed it because the owner had owed him money, and that a doctor had once operated in the home carrying out illegal abortions. All of this further shrouds the house in darkness as an ominous place with a dark past, and a place where a demon would seem right at home. Indeed, Cranmer has remained convinced that it was a demon, and not a ghost, saying:

A ghost, if you believe in them, is generally the soul of a person who passed on in some tragic event or something. A demon is actually the opposite of an angel. The existence of this thing manifested itself in a much different way than a ghost would. A ghost is generally reliving some type of event that took place during a life. Sometimes they can interact with people that are alive. In our case, this was a demonic, evil, malicious, malevolent spirit that interacted with us on a regular basis and it wanted to hurt us. It wanted to drive us out of the house. There was no pretense of it being some kind of a lost soul.

Cranmer’s book was very popular upon release, earning him various interviews and TV appearances, and was widely touted as one of the most harrowing real hauntings on record, yet there has been quite a lot of skepticism aimed at the account as well. While some of the facts outlined in the book add up, the main problem is that some of the people who had lived in the home before the Cranmers moved in, or in some cases their descendants, have denied there having ever been any sort of strange paranormal activity in the house. This seems rather odd considering if the house’s history was so grim as to attract to itself a demon or hauntings, then this should have been going on for decades. Yet there was nothing unusual at all reported. One former resident named Karen Dwyer, who lived at the house for 7 years in the 1950s and 60s, has said:

My mother never said anything about the house being haunted. My grandmother never said anything about the house being haunted. And my grandfather never said anything about the house being haunted. If he wants to go and write it from 1988 and go forward, do it; I don’t care. But if you want to lie about other people and things that happened before that, well no, that’s not right.

This caused many critics to accuse Cranmer of fabricating the whole thing, of trying to pass off a work of fiction as a real account for the publicity and fame, but Cranmer fired back by accusing these people of hiding the truth in order to save their own reputations, and also to aid in selling the house, as no one would want to buy a home with such a history of hauntings. Cranmer has said of this:

People are always concerned that they can be held legally liable if they do not reveal to buyers problems of a spiritual nature with a house, – which I discovered is not the case in Pennsylvania. Their reactions are obviously intended to cover up the deception used in selling the house, both in 1979 and 1988. The house was not officially sold in 1941 by the original owners, but was purchased via a Sheriff’s sale. The house sat empty then for an extended period and became known as the haunted house by the local children who ventured into it.

Cranmer has also defended himself by claiming that there is one woman he spoke to, a Barbara Wagner, who told him there had indeed been substantial paranormal activity at the house before it was sold to the Cranmers, and a neighborhood man also confirmed that it was known as a haunted place. There was yet another elderly witness he spoke to who had been just a toddler when she lived there, but who could clearly remember having shoes thrown at her by unseen hands. Even in the face of skepticism and criticism, Cranmer has been adamant that his tale is a true and accurate depiction of events, and has even gone on record as offering to take a lie detector test if those disputing his claims do it as well.

In the meantime, Cranmer has had a rough go of things since the release of his book. In 2015 his son David died, and that same year his wife spiraled into a deep depression, resulting in the disintegration of their marriage. Through it all he has continued to stand by his account of these events, resolutely defying naysayers, and continues to do interviews and appearances about his experiences at that evil house, where he still lives. We are left to ponder many questions. What really happened to Bob Cranmer and his family at that sinister house? How much of the experiences he tells of in his book are based on factual events and how much is fabricated? If all of this really did happen, then what was it and what did it want? Was this a case of ghosts, poltergeists, or as Cranmer himself believes, an actual demon? Why did this supernatural activity gravitate towards this place and what role did its macabre history play in it all? These are questions that still evade adequate answers, and the case of the Brownsville Demon remains an unsolved curiosity.

#supernatural #paranormal #ghost #demon

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mmuschi · 5 years

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Midnight Calls

This is an old, out of character but well written royai fic from my ao3. This was one of my first fics i have ever posted... but it never got posted here

you can find in on ao3 here.

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The cries of a small child rang out in the in the city on the edge of Ishval. They were terrified cries, terrified of what was happening. The child was too young to understand what was happening to their country, the devastation occurring in their country.

A mother yells for her child, fear and worry heavily evident in her cries for her child. As she ran for her child, a wall was made from Alchemy to separate the two. A cry of frustrated and faint thumps of fists against the man-made wall were the only sounds for several seconds. The sharp noise of guns loading rang out across the street. There was a desperate cry from the mother; she merely wanted to see her child live on. There were blond hair soldier’s on either side of the wall shooting the family of two. Once the two were dead, the open fire ceased. There was metallic smelling silence. The smell of blood was so strong it was almost enough to make one sick to their stomach. Around this city, there were scorched bodied, ones that have been blown up so their identity was unable to be made out, and finally the bodies killed by a sniper. All this carnage because there was a simple order to annihilate an entire race of human beings. What gave them the right to determine who was worthy to live on? Suddenly, the cries of pain and horrified screams broke the silence. It was a sickening sound, one that could make a grown man feel the urge to vomit. Riza Hawkeye was at the top of tall building, staring down at the disgusting wreckage her people have caused. The noises, the smell, that the dead Ishvalans gave off disgusted her. She hated her Kührer, her country, the military, the alchemists, and herself. They were monsters; she couldn’t stand it. The Ishvalan town was filled with blood splattered on walls, bodies scattered about, severed limbs, ruined buildings due to alchemy, walls built by alchemy, and there was fire in various places. The fire was worst of all; She carried the alchemy with her where ever she went. Her father created this alchemy to bring good to the world, but it has only brought destruction and sorrow. The man who yields this alchemy, Riza trusted him, but it’s not like he can go against direct orders. Her father made a power nobody should possess.

The feeling of bile rising in Riza's throat finally awoke her from her horrendous nightmare. She didn't even have time to fully recover from her drowsy state and her brutal dreams before she had to hurry to the bathroom. The scent of the bodies and blood was still all she could smell. As soon as she made it past the doorway of the bathroom, she fell to her knees in front of the toilet and coughed up the bile. She sat there for several more minutes, allowing her body to wake up. By then, she realized her face was wet with tears. She wiped her face with her hands in feeble attempts to dry her cheeks of tears. The blonde woman slowly stood and made her way to where her phone was. She stopped in front of it and stared for a few seconds at it. She used her sleeve of her pajama shirt to dry her face from tears before lifting the phone to her now dry face. She dialed in a number and waited in silence. The other end picked up after several long moments of ringing.

“Hello?” A masculine voice replied, slightly hoarse from exhaustion.

“Colonel Mustang. Sorry to disturb you at this hour, but why aren’t you asleep in the first place?” Riza replied, trying to keep her shaky voice calm and steady. She was doing a decent job at it and it was barely noticeable.

“Its fine, Lieutenant Hawkeye. I was just working on papers I still must do. May I ask you why you are up at about twelve in the morning?” Mustang knew why she was up. She called him whenever her nightmares got to a point where she needed outside comfort, otherwise she would cope on her own.

“Black had to go outside.” She lied simply she pulled a chair over as quietly as humanly possible. Once she was sitting, Black hopped up into her lap. Her hand found its way to her dogs head, and she carefully scratched behind his ears.

“We both know that isn’t true, Lieutenant. Was it your nightmares?” The flame alchemist replied, voice gentle.

“Yes.” Riza’s voice was soft; she didn’t want to admit it. She didn’t even know why she called him of all people every time these petrifying dreams. She could have called Rebecca or someone else. But no, she called her superior. She was bothering him for the selfish reason of just wanting to hear his voice.

“How bad was it tonight?” Roy questioned, concern faintly lacing his tone. He typically was concerned with her well being considering how he trusted her the most out of everyone. She was the one to always watch his back.

“I’ve had worse.” Riza leaned back in her chair a little bit, keeping the phone to her face as her brown eyes closed. “There was a lot of blood. The stench was overwhelming.” She spoke, feeling her body shudder at the thought.

“How about you go back to bed and try to sleep again.” The black-haired man suggested calmly. When he received nothing but silence, he let out a sigh.

“I-Yes Colonel.” The sniper barely kept the disappointment from her voice. Without another word and hung the phone up where it belongs. She sat there for several moments, lips turning into a frown. She placed Black on the ground before making her way back to her bed. How could she possibly think the Colonel would want to talk to her at midnight. She sat down and pulled her dog onto the bed with her. She sat there, petting his fur. She wasn’t going to try and sleep, that stench and the images of the massacre haunting her mind. She sat like this, holding Black to her body, savoring the warmth her animal companion provided. There was a knock at the door, a shockingly familiar. Leaving Black on the bed, she slowly gliding to the door. As she passed by the foot of her bed, she grabbed a coat and slipped it on. She reached the door and lifted a gun that was conveniently placed on a small table next to her door. She opened the door slowly, holding her gun at the ready to shoot.

“Whoa there, Lieutenant. Its just me.” An even more familiar voice spoke, ending the sentence with a faint chuckle. Slowly, Riza set the gun down back where she grabbed it from. She opened the door fully and raised her hand to her head in a salute.

“Colonel Mustang. What are you doing here, Sir?” She questioned as the man proceeded past her into her small house.

“You seem like you could use someone other than Black to be with right now.” Roy replied simply as he took off his coat. He wasn’t in his military clothing for once, rather a simple shirt, coat, and plain black pants. Riza closed the door and turned around.

“You came to comfort me?” Riza was deeply confused at his slight sentiment. When he nodded, a smile tugged at her lips and she forced herself to look away to regain composer. When she looked back up at him she had her typical stoic face.

“You are my Lieutenant, why wouldn’t I. besides, you wouldn’t be having these dreams if it weren’t for me offering you this job.” Roy explained to her smoothly before shrugging his shoulders, lifting his hands like its not that big of a deal.

“And you wouldn’t have been able to offer me this position had it not been for me, am I correct?” She was the reason he could practice and use his flame alchemy. She was basically his alchemy. She held it on her back. A chuckle escaped the man in front of her. By now she was facing him, and he was the same.

“As cunning as ever.” His voice had an amused edge to it and it helped Riza relax more. He held out his hand. “Let’s get you to bed.” He suggested to her, offering her a small smile. They often did this back in Ishval, let each other comfort the other, informing the other they are not a monster and only following orders, telling the other it will be over soon, lying to the other by saying it will be worth it. Riza let her hand rest in his and he guided her back to her bed and sat down on the edge.

“Thank you, Roy.” Riza’s voice was soft and low with drowsiness. She climbed onto her bed and sat down next to him. He had made himself at home with his back to the wall for support. She crawled over and sat next to him.

“Want to elaborate on your dream?” The flame alchemist pondered to his Lieutenant. Since their hands had gotten separated in the actions in which the two were climbing into bed, Roy took this change to take her hand back into his. He knew just how hard this was on her, for he had participated the same amount if not more in the extermination of the Ishvalans. He wanted to do anything he could to aid in her healing process.

“It started… with a mother running for her child and bring stopped by one of Armstrong’s walls. They shot both to death. Colonel, the smell. That stench of blood, of burnt flesh. I cant seem to get rid of it.” As she explained the explained the scents, her eyes began to fill with tears and her breathing quickened. She was starting to panic; the smell still took over all her senses, even when not being a present scent.

Simply nodding, Roy shifted his body, so he could comfortably pull her head tenderly to his chest. They both ended up moving so she was in his lab and his hands rested in her back, rubbing it gently. Her hands clenched his shirt as she attempted to calm herself.

“Roy, I can’t believe I killed children. I took them from this earth when it was not my job. I shouldn’t have. I should have quit. I killed innocent people. I tore families apart. I don’t know how to even live with myself.” Her eyes closed, and tears slipped down her face as she lets out a soft sob. Roy pressed his lips to the top of her head as he held her close to him, letting her get everything out of her system. It was not exactly a kiss, so Riza didn’t even notice it. After several minutes of her softly sobbing, her crying died down.

“Riza, you had no choice in the matter. Being a soldier means taking lives, yes, but nobody could have foreseen us doing such a dreadful act.” Roy’s voice was gently and slightly cooing to try and make her feel a little better. Riza sat there in his lap for a few more minutes before lifting her head from his chest.

“Th-thank you Roy.” She gave him a smile despite her wet eyes and cheeks. She went to go wipe her face with her hand but there were already hands doing that for her. Roy was gently drying her face with his oddly caring hands.

“Let’s get you to bed so you can sleep.” Roy’s suggestion was almost more like a demand, but his voice was very tender about it. When Riza nodded, he helped her move so she was laying down. He climbed off the bed and helped her get under the covers even if she didn’t need the help. Her hand reached out and grabbed his hand.

“You are staying, right?” Riza intentionally made her voice meek to try and get her Colonel to stay with her. Maybe his presence would make the nightmares go away. Roy stared at her for a minute before letting out a sigh and shook his head.

“If you insist.” The flame alchemist slowly made his way back into bed with her. As soon as he was uncomfortable laying down next to her, Riza was slightly snuggled into his chest. His arm rested around her waist, holding her as close as she wished. When his dark gaze lowered to look down at the female against his chest, he noticed her eyes slowly closing. A smile tugged at his lips.

“I don’t know why you came, but thank you Colonel.” Riza’s words were airy as she fell asleep. Once she was asleep, Roy pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“Maybe I can tell you why later when I gain some courage. How about that, Riza.” He replied, knowing she couldn’t hear him. He then closed his eyes and let sleep take his conscious.

#fullmetal alchemist #fullmetal alchemist brotherhood #fma #fmab #royai #roy mustang #riza hawkeye #tw: death #riza is s o out of character but i love this fic #this smth ive written vv well

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darthlordcommie · 4 years

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What is Redemption?

Redemption: The act of saving or being saved from sin or evil.

So, I’m going to talk about four characters who are often talked about in regards to redemption. Those four are: Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, Severus Snape, Zuko, and Ben Solo/Kylo Ren. I’ll be discussing them in that order. I’ll be starting with why they went down the dark paths they went on, what they did during that time, and finally, their “redemptions”.

Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader

So, in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, we encounter Anakin Skywalker at age 22. He spent the first 9 years of his life as a slave, and the next 13 years as a child soldier, while also being groomed by an abuser, aka, Palpatine. When he was 19, the Clone Wars began, and he spent the majority of those three years on the front lines of that conflict, racking up notoriety and trauma. So, when we meet him again in RotS, he is: 22, suffering from PTSD, has been groomed to be abused for over a decade, and lacking a sufficient support system. When he has dreams about his wife, who he loves, dying, he panics, partly because the last time he had dreams like this, it ended with his mother dying in his arms. So, he goes to Yoda for advice on his visions, and gets told that there’s nothing he can do, and not to mourn for the person who’s going to die. Anakin does not like that answer. But he sits on it, until Palpatine reveals himself as a Sith Lord and tells Anakin that he has the power to save Padme. Anakin goes and tells the Jedi, with the one he tells having spent years as somewhat hostile to him, and they go and confront him. When he arrives, Anakin sees the man he had believed to be his friend and mentor on the ground, and Mace Windu, who he was not close to, about to murder him without due process, or anything. And finally, when he’s just about driven mad with fear over Padme’s possible death, Anakin strikes Windu, and joins Palpatine. And we all know how that went.

Over the next 2 decades, Anakin, now Darth Vader, spent his time killing subordinates who angered him and doing whatever Palpatine told him to do. That is known to have included mass murder, torture, genocide, and all manner of military action against innocent planets. (I am not specifically mentioning Alderaan, as while Vader didn’t do anything to stop it, he also wasn’t in charge of the Death Star at any time, so he is very much complicit, but the responsibility for the order isn’t his) When he finds out that Luke, his son, is alive and running around the galaxy, he tries to recruit him. But even then, he is following Palpatine’s orders, as he is still completely obedient to him.

During the climax of Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Darth Vader is confronted by Luke. At this point, Luke does not say “I forgive you”. He says “I love you.” He doesn’t absolve Vader of his sins, because that’s impossible. He offers his hand to his father, because he loves him, even knowing the horrific things Vader has done. And at the end, when he has to choose between obedience and his son’s life, Vader chooses his son, and kills Palpatine, being mortally wounded in the process. As Luke tries to save him, Anakin tells Luke “You already have.” Does this mean that Anakin is redeemed? No. He did good things before becoming Darth Vader, and he did bad things after becoming Vader. But he is saved, because he has chosen to be a good person. If he had lived, would he have done things to try and make up for his crimes? Very likely. But he didn’t, and his choice was not so much redemption, as it was a recognition that he didn’t have to be the monster. At the end, Darth Vader wasn’t redeemed, but he was a good man once more. And he died that way.

Severus Snape

So, prior to the events of the Harry Potter books, Snape was a Half-Blood who grew up in the Muggle world in an abusive household. When he was 9, he met Lily Evans, a Muggleborn with magic, who became his first friend. When he was 11, he went to Hogwarts, and joined Slytherin, quickly becoming one of the most notable practitioners of Dark Magic in that house. He made friends with people like Mulciber, Avery, and Rosier, and over his Hogwarts career, became known as a future Death Eater. He was also someone who had a rivalry with James Potter, and was, at least on one occasion when they were 15, flat out bullied by James. On that occasion, when Lily attempted to defend him, he called her a “Mudblood”, a known slur for Muggleborns. After this event, Lily ended their friendship for good, because she couldn’t keep ignoring that he was growing up to become a wizard Nazi. What was his response to the girl he fancied cutting ties with him for being a bigot? It was to join the magic Nazis right out of school.

Snape spent years fighting Voldemort’s war to conquer the world, to the point where he told his master of a prophecy of the one person who could defeat him. This was when things happened. Because the person Voldemort believed to be his greatest threat was the son of Lily Evans, no Lily Potter, Snape went to Dumbledore, because he didn’t want Lily to die. He didn’t care about James, and he didn’t care about Lily’s infant son Harry. So, the events of October 31st, 1981 happened, and Harry was left the only survivor. Snape spent the next decade bullying students in Potions classes, until Harry arrived in 1991. At which point Snape promptly began bullying him for no other reason than being his parents’ son, and bullied him along with several other students for years, to the point where he was one of his students’, Neville Longbottom’s, greatest fear.

At the end, Snape helped the good guys by getting them the Sword of Gryffindor, and telling them that Harry’s scar was a Horcrux. However, he only did so because Voldemort killed Lily, and resented the world because he didn’t have Lily for his entire life. He even resented Lily for rejecting him. So, at the end, he helped cause Voldemort’s death, but did he redeem himself? No, because he never felt remorse for what he had done, and in fact blamed others.

Zuko

So, Zuko was born and raised into an abusive family, and was abused for literal years by his father Ozai. This culminated in physical abuse, leaving a permanent scar across Zuko’s face, while he was exiled and sent on an impossible mission. At this point, Zuko became obsessed with trying to regain his father’s love, denying the truth that he had never had it to begin with.

During this time, Zuko hunts Avatar Aang across the world, desperately trying to capture him and end the world’s last hope at stopping the Fire Nation’s conquest. In addition, he also assisted in the capture of Ba Sing Se, the capital of the Earth Kingdom. Afterwards, he returns to the Fire Nation, and sends an assassin after Aang.

However, he slowly realizes that what he got wasn’t what he wanted, and after he finds out that Ozai intended to use Sozin’s Comet to wipe out the Earth Kingdom, Zuko turns his back on his family, and joins Aang. During this time he trains Aang in firebending, helps Katara put her demons to rest, and helps Sokka rescue Suki and Hakoda from prison, before ultimately battling Azula and saving Katara’s life in the climax. So, was Zuko redeemed? Yes, because he recognized that he had done wrong, fixed what he had done, and spent the rest of his life trying to do the right thing.

Ben Solo/Kylo Ren

So, Ben Solo was raised by his parents, Han and Leia, until sometime in his teen years, when he began training to be a Jedi under his uncle Luke. Due to events that happened, Ben slaughtered his fellow students and joined the First Order, dedicating himself to Supreme Leader Snoke as Kylo Ren.

At this point in time, Kylo Ren’s actions have included assisting in the capturing of numerous planets, the murder of multiple unarmed civilians, multiple counts of torture, the massacre of the New Republic, killing his father Han, killing Snoke to achieve control over the First Order, and the attempted wipeout of the Resistance and killing of his mother.

Can Kylo Ren be redeemed? No, because unlike Vader, who took the chance of changing when a hand was offered to him, Kylo has repeatedly denied any chance of returning to the side of good, once by murdering his own father, who was unarmed and trying to save him.

So there. That’s my take on redemption, who’s been redeemed and who hasn’t, and why.

#star wars #harry potter #darth vader #kylo ren #prince zuko #atla #severus snape #anti snape #anti kylo #kylo stans and snape stans don't interact #I will ignore you

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golden-witch · 5 years

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I wrote an incredibly long character study for Sayo for an RP group. I am deciding to share because some fans have difficultly figuring her out because of Ryukishi’s writing style, which is honestly understandable. I hope y’all enjoy! I have some other writings about Sayo you could also check out. More under read-more.

Sayo was once a happy girl whose suffering transformed her into a woman with a polarized personality and a warped sense of justice. She has suffered emotional abuse at the hands of the Ushiromiya family and their associates. Born an orphan, she grew up neglected and without friends that weren’t imaginary. Daydreaming was a means of entertainment and escapism for Sayo. She created her own mental safe space called the Golden Land in order to cope with her miserable life. This would develop into a spiritual way of thinking and ultimately become the land of the dead in Sayo’s conceptualization of religion.

It was always Sayo’s desire to blend fantasy with reality. Even as a little girl, she tried to bring her imagination to life by inventing the Golden Witch, a supposed ghost who haunted the halls of the mansion where she worked. Sayo would use this as a means to empower herself. Beatrice was a persona she assumed, and under her name, Sayo would pull pranks and cause mischief for the inhabitants of Rokkenjima both to enhance the veracity of the witch’s legend and to vent her anger towards the staff and her family for mistreating her.

Sayo’s more vindictive personality traits would increase as she grew older. Although she had begun to impersonate the witch for fun, it became a power fantasy for her, and her acting would become dangerous. Sayo’s fear of abandonment caused her to cling to Battler Ushiromiya, and when he left the island, the hateful side of her began to fester. She anxiously waited for his return and blamed him for tragedies which befell her during their separation because he promised to save her from Rokkenjima. She became vengeful towards Battler and chose him as the target of her murder-suicide game, an ultimate act of retribution for leaving her to suffer.

The knowledge Sayo uncovered during Battler’s absence radically transformed the way she viewed herself. She was never satisfied with herself and had many suspicions about her body but learning the truth about her background was catastrophic. She considers herself deeply undeserving of other’s affection out of disgust towards herself-- largely affected by the circumstances of her birth; she is an illegitimate child and a product of incest with disfigured sex organs due to an accident she sustained. Personal difficulty with discerning her gender causes her to suffer from an identity crisis so severe that she doesn’t view herself as human. This complex results in Sayo calling herself “furniture”, a being below humans whose sole purpose is servitute. Furniture can never know love, but they can still dream of what it feels like to love and be loved-- a torturous existence where all romantic endeavors end in tragedy.

Love is a very important concept to Sayo. She has troubles with introversion and as a result forms bonds so deep that they are integral parts of her being. She values relationships over material things and feels so strongly about connecting to others that she will go to great lengths to solidify relationships. While endearing, it has more dangerous side effects including possessiveness; once Sayo has become close to someone, she does everything in her power to avoid abandonment. This goes to extreme lengths in the story, where Sayo prefers to commit murder and suicide in order to prevent her loved ones from abandoning her.

Sayo is extremely sensitive towards the prospect of people discovering the state of her body and mind. She seeks to fulfill other’s desires before her own and is terrified of traits which displease them. She pushes these left over thoughts and feelings onto a series of personas to categorize them. They are Shannon, Kanon, and the witch, Beatrice. It should be noted that Sayo does not have DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder), rather she establishes characters to roleplay and does so convincingly.

‘Shannon’ is the work name Sayo wears while serving the Ushiromiya family as a maid. She has been developed into a persona, an idealized form of femininity. Shannon is a demure, heartfelt girl whose desire is to retire to domestic life with her husband and children. She is meant to fulfill Sayo’s fantasy of becoming a woman and a wife. Her concept of womanhood is limited and very gendered, bordering on stereotypical.

‘Kanon’ is a male alter-ego (once an imaginary friend) who Sayo adopted due to her struggle with gender identity because of her unclear biological sex. He is her vision of what a boy should be like; crass, cold and impersonal, a protective persona meant to shield Shannon’s vulnerabilities. He is especially resentful of love and magic because of Sayo’s partial realization that her fantasies have a dark side. The traits Sayo gave to Shannon and Kanon are very polarizing, and the two often debate in her daydreams as she considers who she wants to be and what steps she must take to achieve that. Kanon opposes the massacre and wishes for life on Rokkenjima to continue as normal so that he can fulfill his relationship with Jessica, in part, and because he tries to be satisfied with his lot in life. When Sayo realizes that this is impossible due to the discoveries about her background, Kanon advocates for suicide rather than murder. He fails to convince Sayo because he is ultimately more passive and less dominant that the Shannon persona. This also causes Kanon to die during the duel.

‘Beatrice’ is the character Sayo play-acts as to fulfill a power fantasy. Beatrice represents the sadistic, vindictive side of Sayo’s psyche, traits she rarely displays in Shannon or Kanon. While operating under her Beatrice persona, Sayo channels her mischievous side into ‘magic’, pranks which vary from harmless to murderous. Beatrice embodies lost hopes and dreams for Sayo; for example, her voluptuous form, her sexual prowess, and her role as the family head are all impossible for Sayo to have. Beatrice is an unreachable ideal for Sayo. An interesting aspect I have noticed about Beatrice is her behavior, which is neither overly feminine (like Shannon) or masculine (like Kanon). Sayo blended these traits to create a woman who didn’t fit neatly into the two boxes of gender stereotypes.

It is in this persona that Sayo commits her murder-suicide plot; Beatrice is the judge, juror, and executioner sent to cleanse the sins of Rokkenjima. She will kill the family and taken them with her to the Golden Land. She is almost godly, sent to Rokkenjima to enact divine justice.

The Golden Land and magic are religious concepts to Sayo which she has developed extensively over the years. She has a bit of a god-complex over the island as its master and believes, with conviction, that killing herself and her loved ones will transport them to this private heaven. Sayo will act on any means to actualize this dream and has no qualms with manipulating or hurting others to see her plans to fruition. She has decided this is the only way she can ever be happy. This includes grooming a child into a cult following with Beatrice as a sort of religious figure. While it began as an innocent game, Sayo warped Beatrice’s lore to brainwash Maria into believing that death was the only way to end her mother’s abuse instead of acting in Maria’s best interest and trying to intervene. She is incredibly passive and waits for miracles to change fate, miracles which would unfortunately never occur. At the end of the series, she realizes that she could have been more proactive in changing her life and others.

Sayo becomes a changed person after the events of Episode 6. She has finally accepted her mistakes and realized what she could have done to avoid Rokkenjima’s tragedy. In the Episode 8 manga, which I HIGHLY recommend reading (bc its better than the vn lol), she is able to confront a hysterical Ange and convince her that suicide and self destruction is not the answer to anyone’s problems. Sayo fully forgives the family for their actions and is able to move on, finally achieving peace in the afterlife where she exists happily with Battler.

You can find more writings about Sayo in my writings page.

#my posts #sayo yasuda #umineko #umineko spoilers #writings

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plutoandpolaris · 5 years

Text

Fantasy AU: Reconditioning

After the events of The Oracle, Marvin meets face to face with the King for the first time, only to find that he is the only one who survived the attack on his home.

(For those unaware, The Oracle is a story I wrote for Dark Puppetry, and can also be found in my channel in the JSE Writer’s Discord, which @egopocalypse runs. It’s not really necessary to understand this fic, however.)

Warnings: Blood and death mention, imprisonment, starvation/dehydration, manipulation, mind control.

Never had he thought he’d prefer the flames of the stake, but after spending a hellish eternity in the suffocating darkness of the castle’s dungeon, he’d do anything to once again feel warmth on his skin. For all he knew, he might not have even been in a dungeon. Maybe it was a tower, or maybe he was already dead and this was the punishment he’d earned for being a ‘wicked sorcerer.’ He’d marked out the size of his cell, running his hands along the walls until he’d mapped a small four by four foot square. He never could reach the ceiling, and by the cold draft that blew in throughw the cracks in the mortar, he could only assume it was somewhere high above him. There was no cell door, not that he could feel, only the same coarse walls penning him in on all sides.

Every so often food appeared in the center of the room, usually bread or hard tack, water accompanying it once every other day. The first day the water came he’d accidentally knocked over the pitcher while fumbling in the darkness and had to wait another two days to get water again. He thought he should’ve died from that alone, but it seemed obvious that while whoever was keeping him here had a vested interest in keeping him alive, they were not in the market of making it comfortable.

He’d expected to be put in the same kind of magic suppressing binds the Vitralians used to stop their captives from escaping, but he was subjected to no such thing. They seemed to enjoy watching him sit, throwing every single spell he knew at the cell walls to no avail. He’d tried pulling the bricks apart with telekinesis, teleporting himself outside the cell, various curses and hexes to make the walls crumble, but they just absorbed it all like nothing had even happened.

Eventually he stopped trying, spending his days curled fitfully in a corner, trying to sleep. It didn’t come easy, and even when he did manage to drift off, he was immediately startled awake again by the nightmares. The attack on his temple had taught him to take his dreams seriously, but he had no idea what his were supposed to mean. Vague shadows, unintelligible whispers, a clawed hand wrapped tight around his throat. The strangest of all, however, was how each ended: A man in leather armor, knelt in a battle torn field, a single red lilly cradled gently in his hands. The man’s face was always shadowed, slightly distorted, each feature blurred just enough to make identifying him impossible.

Then one day, a light shone into his cell and he screamed.

After so long in complete darkness, the soft beam of lantern light sent his eyes ablaze with a burning pain. He screwed them shut, shuffling backwards until his back hit the wall. He could hear the heavy footsteps as they entered his cell, a rough hand clamping down around his arm and yanking him up, half leading, half dragging him away. He tried to keep track of where he was going, memorize the castle’s layout in preparation for an escape, but the light still burned his eyes every time he tried to pry them open, making the efforts ultimately futile.

They climbed a few flights of stairs, heading down a narrow passage and into an adjacent corridor. Only then did he finally manage to crack his eyes open slightly, peering around the space. It was a long straight hallway, heavy curtains pulled tight on every window, each door shut and locked. The paintings on the walls were nearly indistinguishable in the darkness, but he could feel several sets of eyes on him the farther they walked. The smell was sickly sweet, a mixture of dead flowers and something sharper. His stomach roiled, although that could’ve just been the starvation talking.

They stopped at one of the doors for just a moment before he was unceremoniously thrown inside, the door shut tightly behind him.

This room was also pitch black, but for once Marvin relished in it. At least now he could open his eyes without pain. Open them he did, scanning the room as well as he could as dark shapes blurred in and out of his vision. He couldn’t make out anything concrete save for the twin pinpricks of green light glowering at him in the darkness.

He didn’t realize they were eyes until they blinked.

The realization sent him scrambling back, reaching for the door, only to realize that it had disappeared. A low, amused chuckle reverberated through the room, vibrating in his bones.

“͟L͏ea̡v̵ing̢ ͜so͜ s͏o҉oǹ ar̶e we͞? ̴Pit҉y̶.”

His blood froze in his veins at the voice, hand trembling as it fell silently away from the empty wall where the doorknob once was. He could hear heavy footsteps making their way toward him, ceasing with a light thud as whoever was with him took a seat. A match sizzled, lighting up the room for a moment before it was placed in a nearby oil lamp.

Sitting before him was the King of the Black Forest, a sly smile on his face and a small black blade held delicately in his hands.

Marvin wasn’t very familiar with demons, not really. They didn’t leave their island very often, especially not after the war. Even with the rematch primed and ready, he’d never actually seen one in person.

He’d expected them to be taller, somehow.

The King was crouched down low in his chair like a snake poised to strike, the room filling with a soft tinkling as his many rings tapped against the metal of the blade, enunciating the silence.

A silver serpent coiled around his left thumb, the shining metal glittering in the lantern light.

He was small, wiry, all long limbs and sharp bones. But in the long shadows cast by the dim lights, green eyes roiling with a carefully tempered, steel sharp rage, Marvin could believe all the stories he’d been told without question.

“D͏o̕ y̧ou̶ kn͞ơw̶ w̨h̀ý y҉o͞u aré h͞ere, ̸M̶ar͝v̡in?̢ Ẃh̴y I͡ ͠ha͟d͝ ͘you̸ ͜l҉if̵t̸ed̶ ͞f͟r̢o͞m̴ ͏p̴e̢rdi̛t̶ion?͜” ͡

The temple massacre flashed through his mind, his friends and family stuck like pigs or carted off to be burned. Why had he been saved?

“What happened to the rest of them?!” Marvin demanded, pulling himself to his feet and staring defiantly into the King’s bemused expression, ignoring the terror pooling in his chest.

The other paused, pulling a small cord from his tunic pocket and tossing it on the ground in between them.

It was one of the belts the temple priests used to wear to services, near unraveling, charred black at the ends.

“͘Ev͝er̢y ͟last͟ o̢ne o̸f ̷t̨hem̷, ̀de͢ad.̵” ̛

Deep down, Marvin knew no one else had survived. But he’d held on to the hope that maybe someone had gotten away, appeased the Vitralian quartermasters and was spared, something.

He took a tentative step forward, picking up the cord in his shaking hands and holding it into the light.

“Why me? Why?! There were children, expecting mothers, good people, and you chose me?”

Y҉ou ̧h͝ave͞ so͞m̸et͢hi̛ng̸ ͠th́e o͟t̨her̴s ̸d̴id no̢t͜.͏ A͡ ̀gi͝fţ. D̕i̧vi̷nat͜i̸on,͡ p̕rop̀h̵ecy҉. Th͞is͝ ́m̨ak͞es̕ y͡o͢u us̀efu͞l̶ ҉t҉o͝ m͜e.”́ ̴

Marvin’s eyes widened. He’d had prophetic dreams since he was young, but they’d never been good for much of anything. He couldn’t control when he’d have them or decipher what they meant until it was too late.

He shook his head loosely, dumbfounded.

H̵ave you ̵e̴v̀e͟r ̴f͢elt ̡a͘b͜a͜nd̴òned, M͞a̴r͘vi̧n? By ͏y҉our̷ fam͢íl̨y, p̛erha̵ps͏?̵ ҉O̷r͏ ev̷e҉n the ̵h͡e̸a̸v̶e͡ns t̵he҉m͝s̡e͡lve̴s?” ͜

The King stood from his chair, blade held loosely in his hand, fingertips ghosting over the razor sharp edge.

“T̛he ̴gód͜s̛ ̕are i҉nhe̷rent͟lỳ sel̶f͞ish c̛re̵a̕tures͜, ̀wa͏tc͝h́ing҉ théįr m̴ewl̢iņg ̛wo̷r̨shippérs d̀ie b͜y th̸e ̀thous̛ánds̢, ́their̛ h͠and̶s dr̛en̸ch̢ed͠ in҉ ͢t͘h́e̛ ͞blo͜o͜d̸ of̕ ̕a̶ll͞ ́t̷ho͟şȩ wh̡o̢ called ͟o͡u͏t for h̷eĺp but͝ we͟re ca̡sţ a͢w̛a͘y.̴”

He crouched in front of Marvin, cocking his head to the side almost sympathetically.

“B̷ut ̢I͜ ͡am̴ şo̷ ͢m̶u͢c͝h͘ mor̀e͢ ̴th̷an a ̀g̴od͟, an҉d̢ ̕Ì ͝c̵an̨ giv̧e̛ y̷ou҉ ̶ever̸y̵t͞h͠i̢n̸g͠ ͘you’ve e̡ve͘r w̡an͘t̸ed.͟”͜ ͠

The King’s eyes were much worse up close. Irises dipped in poison, the black scleras so reflective Marvin could see his own terrified face in them.

“All I want is my family back.” he said, voice shaking, back pressed as close to the wall as he could get it. It wasn’t far enough.

“Is̷ th́a͡t̷ rea̛l͟ly w̵hat yo͞u ͡w҉ant?͜ B̕ecaus͡e ̨I ҉c̛ąn ́s͘e͡e͡ ̴t͡he̶ d̶e̛sir͡e͡s ́of y̴o͟u͜r̕ hea͘rt̛,͏ Ḿąr̨v̢in. I kn̶ow ̵the ͞ánge̛ŗ th́a͘t̀ plag͏u̴es ̛y̢o҉u.”͝

The King leaned forward even further, ghosting the tip of his blade against Marvin’s heaving sternum.

He didn’t want revenge, never had. It one of the five tenets of mysticism: Revenge is a fruitless endeavor and a waste of magic. Never let hatred sully your heart.

He’d had to memorize all of them to become an apprentice magician in the temple. Yet the more the King talked, the more his words began to make sense.

Anger coiled tight around his bones, pooling in his chest and dripping down into the pit of his stomach. Marvin could feel the slight echo to the King’s words, pounding with every beat of his heart, and the thought that he working some sort of suggestion spell crossed Marvin’s mind.

He mentally pushed back against it, but it was the equivalent of swimming against a swift ocean pulling you out to sea. He’d never seen anything like it.

With most suggestion magic, once you recognize that someone’s trying to influence you, you can push back and dismantle the spell without much trouble. This, however, was something much different. It blew past the protective wards in his head without even slowing down, speaking in a voice that sounded so much like his own, flooding into his thoughts like an infectious disease.

Why would he need his family back if he could have every single Vitralian quartermaster burned in the dirt like he had been. He’d do it himself, watching as the flesh burned off their bones and pooled into a puddle of fat and blood at his feet. He’d set their whole damned capitol city ablaze, watching as their famous marble towers toppled one by one.

Marvin shook his head as hard as he could, attempting to dislodge the false thoughts from his mind. He could feel the King’s eyes on him, watching in tempered delight as the young magician fought against his influence.

Every time Marvin pushed back, more cropped up somewhere else. It was less of a suggestion spell and more of an order, taking over his thoughts one by one until he didn’t have anything left to fight with. He was burning through his magic reserves quickly, the effort boiling in his veins.

“A͢nd I҉’d͏ ͟le̸t you ̵do ̛th̀e hǫno̴rs to҉ò,” The King said, watching him struggle, a sharp toothed grin stretching across his face. “All ̶you ̡have͜ ̸t͠ơ ̨do i̡ş joiǹ t͢he ͠w͏i͠n̕n͝in̢g̸ si͟d̡e in̶ t̴h͏is͝ litt̨l͜e s͞qu͜ab͜b̵le ̛of o͘urs.̧”͝

W̨i̸tḩ ̸y̷o̡u͏, ̶we’ļl ͝b͡e ̸t̷w͡o ̧s̛t̀eps̕ ahe͞ad. W̡h́en my ̶ar̨mi̴es ręduc̛e̶ ͠their ̨pìti̕fu͟l͠ cìt̛ies ͠t̸ò ̛du̢s͠t̷, y̶o҉ù’͞l̀ĺ ͝ha̕v̵e t̕he ͝Ki҉n͝g҉’̶s̀ ̢qua͢rt͜e͏rm̕a̴s͠te̢r͟s͝ to ̶d̴o͏ ͠wit̵h ̶as͘ you͢ ҉wi҉s͟h.”

He leaned back on his heels, watching as Marvin slumped back against the wall, his reserves spent, all resistance shredded in a matter of minutes. It was working.

Anti could see the anger as it settled into his eyes, turning the blue cold and tempered, sharp as steel. The suggestions had been ludicrously easy, as he’d expected. Inspiring hatred was simple, all you had to do was amplify what was already there. No one was without anger, no heart left pure. All he had to do was find the spark and nurture it into a flame.

It wouldn’t last forever, of course. No spell does, not really. Marvin would begin to doubt himself, become terrified at the malice that had seeped into his thoughts. But Anti could wait. Sure, it would clash with Marvin’s morality at first, but every moral compass could be tampered with if you had enough time.

For a power as useful as divination, Anti could wait.

I’́d̵ e̶ve͘n ̀g̕i͞ve y̶o̸u ̛the͏ one̕ th̵at҉ o͏rde̛red t͏ḩe ̕de͘s̡tŕu̕c̡t̛ìón ̧of yo͟u͞r temp̨l͡e̛ ̢to be͢gi̛n wit̀ḩ.̴ Matthiu̵s Org̀arḑ,̛ t͝h̶e ̵Vi̡t͘r̨al͢ia̛n ̶a̵rm͝y͢’s favor͝i̷t̶e l҉i̶t͟tl̷e ̕at͏t̀a̷ck͏ d̀og.͞”͏ ͠

He stood, extending out a hand expectantly, watching with veiled glee as Marvin took it without hesitation.

Anti pulled him up, stumbling backwards slightly as Marvin immediately collapsed back onto the ground, banging his knees off the floor and coughing deep within his throat.

“͏W̛ore ͠y͢ours͞el͏f ̧o҉u͘t҉,͡ did̷ ̛yo͜u?” Anti said, letting out a long sigh, crouching back down to be level with the magicians nearly unconscious, heaving form. “This ͏co̢ul̵d ̀all ͞ha̵ve͏ ͘b̧ee̴n a͏v҉o̕i̸ded ͜i̧f͟ ͜yòu̕ ̢wou̷ld ̴jus̀t҉ st͟op̨ ͜f̨i̛g̢htin̡g me.”

Just another little suggestion spell for good measure. Couldn’t hurt.

Without Marvin actively pushing back against him, the suggestion seeped into his head without any resistance whatsoever. Anti could iron out all the little details later. For now, he had one of the world's most powerful diviners wrapped around his finger, and that was as good a start as any.

This was supposed to be a quick little backstory thing but n o it took me two months to write.

(Taglist)

@egopocalypse @shadowsonthemoon @epicfangirl01 @kitnkas @mijako98 @anothermarkiplierfan @iris-the-asparagus @bunchofdoodlesinspace @spicydanhowell @ekhoecho @awkward-bullshit @amockingbirdslament @acuriousquail @hollenka99

Please let me know if you’d like to be added or taken off! Several of the blogs on my taglist don’t seem to be around anymore or changed their username, so be sure to let me know of any changes!

#jacksepticeye #jacksepticeye fanfiction #marvin the magnificent #antisepticeye #antisepticeye fanfiction #pluto’s fantasy au #pluto’s writings

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ghostmartyr · 5 years

Text

SnK 111 Thoughts

If this chapter doesn’t have forty pages of chibi Eren wandering through the woods asking where his nii-san is, what even is the point.

(The point is Drama.

Intrigue.

Fluid.)

Thanks, I hate it?

So yikes, we have a proper ballgame going and everything is awful leading into the ninth inning. It’s going to be extra innings with Paradis’ chief closer out of commission, up against their rival team. Truly one for the record books, people.

First thing is actually first, where the manga, in a fit of hysterics, gives me something I wanted: Numbers.

Over a hundred people have joined Eren’s side, deserting their posts. The suspicion is that they’ve done this out of the belief that the people with the power to rain down armageddon are maybe the safest shadows to hide under, and hey, with all the waffling their government has done about solving the problem of the whole world wanting them dead, why not?

For the larger groups, everything makes a simple amount of sense.

Eren has power, so people gather behind him.

Eren has power, so Paradis will yield to it for the sake of survival.

It’s a bit of a horrifying story, and one that I always take some joy in seeing. There comes a point where individuals have so much power where the only thing stopping them from changing the world however they see fit is their own boundaries.

Whatever Eren’s boundaries are, they’ve changed. He’s willing to kill children for the sake of his mission.

He is the most powerful card Paradis has, and without him, they have nothing.

Leaving them stuck doing whatever he wants them to.

It’s a similar tactic to the one he uses to drag the Survey Corps into his massacre; they need Eren, so they have no choice but to come support him in the choices he’s made as an individual. Everything else falls away in the face of the power Eren wields.

Yeah, the head of their government has been assassinated by his cult. Along with several other lives.

So?

Does that fundamentally change anything?

Does Paradis somehow need the Founding Titan less now that their command is facing disarray?

For a story so often pointing out that if you don’t fight, you can’t win, it’s pretty damn... something that the main character has all but removed the ability of a party he’s allied with to fight. They can’t resist him, and he knows it, and he’s exploiting it at his convenience.

Putting Zeke’s location on the negotiating table is cute, and a nice stall tactic in theory, but for all that Pixis says it’s not submission, Paradis is powerless.

If they don’t conduct rumbling experiments, they have no protection against the world.

They can’t conduct rumbling experiments unless they let the Yeager Bros come into contact.

If the Yeager Bros come into contact, they can do whatever the hell they want.

Which they have already been doing, so picture all of this, only more.

Pixis’ decision is really the only one he can make if he doesn’t want their people at each other’s throats. They can’t publicize how their one and only hope is willing to dismantle their government. They can’t publicize that they can’t trust their military to be acting in the interests that the government puts forth.

There’s a delicate balance here, with the balance being a complete lie because security has already toppled off and discovered that there’s no net below.

Their only prayer is someone swooping in and placing a trampoline down below before the crushing fall is completed, and there’s no guarantee of even that much happening.

If Zeke and Eren don’t want to help, no one can actually force them.

Zeke is one of two living humans in the world who can power the Founding Titan.

Eren currently has the Founding Titan.

They can’t kill Eren outside of a controlled environment, or else the Founding Titan will go who knows where. With Eren’s pile of abilities he’s nommed, fighting to subdue him will be next to impossible. With the added limitation of doing everything they can to avoid killing him?

Armin brings it up as a point of faith; if Eren has the Founding Titan, it shouldn’t matter what Zeke wants out of it.

Eren now has a cult who doesn’t blink twice at assassinating key government officials. Even if it doesn’t matter what Zeke wants, what Eren wants, or is at least willing to put up with, is heavily alarming.

“No, no, we’re not submitting. We’re negotiating.

What do you mean the only thing we have is something we’d have to hand over anyway to get what we want.”

Like.

Hell, man, talk the good game all you want to keep morale up, but you people and your entire society now rise and fall at the whim of a man who has put no effort into making himself look trustworthy.

So, you know.

Ganbatte.

Other special numbers include thirty soldiers + Levi standing in between Eren and Zeke once Eren finds Zeke, Hange, and three unnamed soldiers who are either about to be very dead, very traitor, or the coolest NPC badasses ever.

Meanwhile, Eren still has a hundred.

Just trailing around after him.

With bombs.

Considering Eren could kill most all of those people (except Levi and Hange) without help, I repeat the theme of this post that Paradis is so beyond screwed it has actually become laughable.

Another fun thing of note that only I care about is that even if Eren can’t get to Zeke, he might be able to get to Historia, and Nile appears to be in charge of her security.

The reason only I care about this is because Nile is in charge of her security, and Nile has been fed the story of Historia and NPC Farmer Guy being totes in love 5evr.

(NPC Farmer Guy has no name and no face. I declare him Red Shirt-san, and also reallllllly fucking dead. Especially if my crack theory of the carriage from last chapter rushing off to Historia was correct, meaning that Pieck, theoretically having tracked the carriages, is going to pay the Queen a visit.

Bye Nate.

(his name’s Nate your canon is invalid))

Briefly defending my descent into self-interest, Historia getting zero panels and barely any hearsay about her is driving me nuts for all sorts of reasons.

Two people (count them, two), in the entire world, are capable of drawing out the power of the Founding Titan. One of them is an untrustworthy dick. The other is Historia.

Historia, when last seen under extreme emotional duress, was of the opinion of, “fuck humanity titans did nothing wrong.”

As we can plainly see from her expression at the end of 107, there is nothing but blue skies and happiness going through her boundless considerations of humanity now, and she is most assuredly, definitely on their side as all of her friends ditch her in the middle of the woods and never visit or mention any concern for her except that one guy who has taken up murdering children, and he possibly did that in active defiance of concern for what problems it might cause her.

What could possibly go wrong.

There are about three people who hold the fate of Eldia in their hands, and we know what none of them are thinking. They also all have a much more casual relationship with murder than most of the rest of the cast.

What I’m trying to say is that Paradis your politics are boring because your livelihood hinges on three catastrophically emotionally damaged people, and all of the story’s energy is going towards keeping those people away from thought bubbles or general illumination.

If Historia, Eren, and Zeke decide that you guys die............ you die.

You possibly should have invested more in strategies that weren’t so entirely dependent on renegade children following orders.

Okay okay, enough pointing and laughing at the futility of government in shounen. Mikasa! How you liking your entire page of dialogue! Does it feel good? Does it make up for the gaping hole Eren being a nutcase is causing?

Of course it does!

I don’t know how I feel about Kiyomi, but I am glad that her relationship with Mikasa is so obvious in its self-interest. Mikasa isn’t being yanked around; she knows this person caring about her blood hasn’t translated to caring about her people.

Whatever Mikasa’s genes, Paradis is her home, and she considers herself as Eldian as anyone on it.

What’s interesting in that conversation is that Hizuru is still doing what it can to avoid being an ally of Paradis. They’re letting this one clan mess around, but unless results can be produced, the whole scheme is dead to them.

...

You know. Paradis had better start hoping that there’s still some massive secret to the Titans, because with the current knowledge available, they are just... so incredibly screwed on so many different levels.

I’m inclined to think that Kiyomi wanting Mikasa safe is one of the few shreds of honesty she has left. I’m an optimist. A child connected to the days of honor long gone... hey, it’s a romantic concept, even conniving foxes can have one last hurrah in them.

But also, Mikasa just doesn’t deserve people piling more lies on her.

A promise to protect someone calls to her heart. I’m sure Mikasa has thought those words to herself many times; whatever happens to Paradis, her priority has always been her family. Not a blood family, like Kiyomi holds on to, but one bound to her with ties of steel.

Only now her family is at odds.

Mikasa might care more about her family than anything else, but in practice, she’s a compassionate, responsible young woman. She can’t turn her back on the world just because her family has. She’s going to bleed herself dry trying to do the best for both of them.

That’s not a happy thought, because even if Mikasa, with all her strength and ability, fights for anyone in this conflict with all her heart, the concept of winning is a far off dream. Her supernatural gifts don’t make the world turn. Her gifts simply mean she might survive when everything around her explodes.

Yuck.

And also hey, Connie, I love you man, but you turn those angry eyes away from Mikasa pronto.

Then we’ve got the many trials of Nicolo.

Featuring Gabi and Falco.

...

I don’t wanna. I can skip this part.

Uggghgghghhgh.

Hell, this is a lot faster than I thought this disaster would come out, and it’s a lot grimmer than I really want and in general just ow.

Nicolo is a prisoner of war. He is allowed to cook. He finds light in cooking for people like Sasha. He’s Marleyan, and Eldians are devils, but being around them, his heart softens to them, and his role becomes something more complicated.

As a soldier, fighting the demons of Paradis is just what you do.

As a person, fighting people like Sasha, Jean, and Connie...

With a heavy heart, he can hand off laced wine to their superiors. He can continue to operate as a soldier fighting against Paradis. But the very thought of Connie and Jean being caught up in that sends him into a panic, and he falls back on racist rhetoric to cover it up.

Rhetoric his heart isn’t even in anymore, because more than killing, Nicolo finds himself in cooking. In bringing people happiness.

And Gabi killed the person who shows him that. The person who gave him solace from the hell of war.

It doesn’t matter that she’s a child, or a Warrior Candidate, or anything but the person who killed Sasha.

She cares about Falco’s life. That comes to stand as another condemnation of her. She knows what it is to care about someone? She’s valued enough that this boy is willing to jump in front of a blow meant for her?

Did she think the person she killed wasn’t?

It’s destructive and awful, and Gabi finally has a defense for herself that isn’t just brainwashed rage at the island. That girl? The one she shot? That’s the girl who shot someone she knew. Guards who watched over Warrior Candidates training, in charge of penning up Eldians, but they were still people Gabi saw a home in.

She can’t justify the loss of Sasha, but she can justify shooting back, especially at someone who just clubbed Falco in the head.

But she’s still just a brainwashed child.

Sasha’s father watches two people, profoundly touched by his daughter, ripping each other apart because they’re in pain. Sasha changes Nicolo for the better. Sasha and her path in life is what’s breaking this child.

A child is calling his daughter a devil. She’s been brought into this conflict and all she sees is the enemy, and the good there must be in fighting that enemy.

Gabi doesn’t even try to fight back when Sasha’s father holds up the knife.

She’s bleeding and in tears, and for one of the only times, she isn’t reacting with violence. She’s just a stunned little kid, wondering if the people who’ve fed and housed her on this island of evil are about to kill her. Like she killed the daughter they loved so much.

Of course the man who raised Sasha doesn’t lay a finger on her.

Of course the man who has to physically hold down his child to try to force her to stop eating so she won’t die of starvation later understands how hard the world is.

Horrific things have happened.

He isn’t going to bring one more into this world.

And Gabi... from the very start, she’s been the most passionate about becoming a Warrior. She’s going to follow in her cousin’s footsteps. She’ll commit war crimes, she’ll take on a death sentence, she’ll do whatever it takes. She’s a Warrior.

She’s a kid.

She doesn’t want these kind people to hate her.

Kaya reacts the same way Gabi has to everything so far. She charges in with the only weapon she can find, trying to kill the problem because the emotional strain of what’s actually going on is too big for her young heart to take.

Kaya, who really has been kind. Who’s the reason they’re here. Who’s been trying to get her and Falco home.

Kaya’s in tears, and Falco’s unconscious and bleeding.

All because of what Gabi’s done.

Nicolo sees the same thing.

That’s why he comes clean.

The world is such a cruel place.

They’ve got to spare the beauty where they find it.

I’m not going to touch that plot bomb, because the manga can do it for me in future chapters. Zeke having a bunch of government officials drink his spinal fluid is honestly on par with every other thing he’s done, so. One more point to the Paradis Screwed column.

So last word goes to Mikasa.

I mentioned in the chapter where Louise and Mikasa talked that Louise had seen Mikasa’s strength impact her life, but completely missed the kindness behind that strength. Mikasa is terrifying as a soldier. She’s cold and relentless.

As a person, she will ask the child who killed her friends to see her wounds, and hold her close to keep another child from hurting her.

Mikasa is kind.

Gabi has met so many good people on this island, and all of them are in tears.

It’s funny and sad that Mikasa and Armin take her into the back room to calm down. For all their lives practically, they’ve been looking after a reckless wild child who gets into fights they have to finish for him.

Gabi is as driven and passionate and full of anguish as Eren as a child, and now she’s with two of the people who know that.

Armin and Mikasa might not know how to help Eren, but they can help this little girl.

And Mikasa can keep another little girl from knowing what it’s like to knife someone in the back because they killed someone you love.

Welcome to Emotions.

Where everything is absolutely awful except maybe the people feeling them.

#Shingeki no Kyojin #SnK 111 #Mikasa Ackerman #tl;dr #chapter post

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selenelavellan · 6 years

Text

Atlantithan pt 2

Part One

Dirthamen, Falon’din, Mana’din, and Glory are @feynites

The ache of seeing Longing after so long apart lingers in Selenes chest for days after the encounter.

She hesitates to say she is tempted to find him again, but....her mind fills with memories she had thought long forgotten. Despite the comforting darkness of her home, her eyes keep drifting upwards during patrols. Recalling the days when they used to frolic in the warmth of shallow afternoon waters. How he used to enjoy stretching out on sheets of ice in the north. Those few months when they had been caught up in the errant thoughts of a pod of whales and discovered just how extensive the migration patterns had become.

Before Purpose had found them, and dragged Longing back to his family.

Selene frowns in distaste as she recalls how little resistance he had given to that particular demand, and turns back to her routes. Careful to not let her mind drift too far, paying attention to the flow of magic around her and ensuring the energies are moving as they should.

There is a large, glowing jellyfish waiting near where one of her wards used to be.

Where she had first found Deceit.

“What are you doing here, Longing?” She asks quietly, still shrouded in the shadows only a few feet from him.

“We had found you here before,” he answers, voice echoing through the empty space around them. “It seemed likely you would return, at some point.”

“You should not be here.”

“I have no fear of monsters,” He assures her.

Selene bites down on her bottom lip, contemplating her options. Even if she leaves now, old habits would suggest he would just wait for her again. Which means she may need to design a new route, a new pattern of wards to keep them all hidden from prying eyes. Glory won't be happy to hear about that.

“Why now?” She asks instead. “It has been centuries. Why search for me now?”

“Falon'din has died.”

Selene blinks.

“I...don't know who that is,” She admits. “Does their death mean your family's empire is finally over?”

“Falon'din is...Falon'din was the name chosen for Purpose. The empire will continue on; my daughter has decided to step in to deter potential power vacuums.”

A sharp sting of betrayal races through Selene as she darts out of the shadows, spines and eyes alight with fury and sticking out in all directions from her back, arms, and tail.

“You had a child?!”

She knows she is glowing more brightly than he is, making her into a target in these waters but the shock of his words keep her from being able to hold back as clouds of emotions pour out of her.

He doesn't answer right away. Preoccupied with her sudden presence she imagines. With the change in her appearance; no longer soft and warm and welcoming but instead in this new body with its defense mechanisms and naturally occurring armor with glamours enchanted into it to cover the scars of her ‘death’.

“...Yes,” he finally manages. “I think you would like her.”

“I think she will not like me when I strangle the life out of her other parent-you bonded to another?! You knew I was still alive, just as I knew you were and you went and-and-gods you just went and got right on with your life without me I suppose! Just found someone more useful to you-better suited to your families plans and-and-and-!”

“I did not bond with another,” Longing says slowly. “I did not procreate to make a daughter. She found me, and I raised her on my own.”

Selenes eyes dim, her shoulders relaxing slightly with the admission.

“...she found you?”

“Yes.”

“And she did not have a mother? No Nanae or other parental figure?”

“That is correct.”

She lets out a low breath, finally pulling the light back into herself as she settles her nerves.

“...What is her name?”

Longing considers for a moment before answering. “I suppose it is Mana'din, now.”

Selene nods slowly, arms crossed loosely over her stomach. “Ok..Well...Congratulations, I guess.”

“You would have been a good mother,” Longing declares bluntly, nearly knocking her off balance.

She can feel her face begin to warm, her scales turning a pale pink rather than their usual purple hue. “That's-I wouldn't-...” She sighs. “Yeah. Shame about all that pesky murderous massacre business.”

“I am sorry for that.”

“I know you are,” She admits. “But it doesn't change what happened.”

He stills for a moment, considering.

And then he shifts back into an elf. Tail and limbs long and sleek, with an appearance nearly identical to those of Fear and Deceit.

Near enough that she asks about them.

“They are aspects of myself,” He says.

Selene drifts around him in thought “I don't understand. If you are you, how are they also you? How do Fear and Deceit form from Longing?”

“There...was an incident,” he explains in familiarly vague terms. “I have not gone by Longing in some time now.”

“Oh? What is your new name?”

“I am called Dirthamen.”

She nods, finishing her slow circle.

“Do you like it?”

“I have grown accustomed to it.”

She nods again.

“When I was searching, there were no spirits or rumors of anyone named Devotion. Is there another name you are using as well?”

“There is,” She hums.

“Will you share it with me?”

Selene tilts her head in consideration.

“No. I do not trust you to have it,” She admits.

She can feel his mood drop through their bond, as physically close as they are right now, and a small niggling feeling of guilt rises in her chest.

“...yet,” she finally adds.

He perks up slightly at the addendum, and she has to resist the urge to giggle at the familiar quirk. It is adorable, and the desire to pull him into her arms is not a small one.

“I have missed you,” She whispers instead.

“Come back with me,” he offers.

“Absolutely not.”

Dirthamen lets out a soft sigh, and rests his head on her shoulder. The spines recede as he does, and Selene mildly wonders if her body might not be particularly traitorous on this front, now. He slides a finger curiously down another spine, watching as it twitches slightly in response.

“My brother can no longer hurt you.”

“Your brother was not the only danger in Atlantithan,” She points out.

“I will keep you safe,” he promises, lips pressed gently to the skin of her shoulder, and Selene shivers at the sudden warming sensation that spreads through her at the contact.

“I do not wish to be kept safe. I wish to live freely.”

Dirthamen lets out a soft sigh, and does not push the matter further. Instead, he settles against her, slowly wrapping her in arms and limbs and holding her tightly to him.

There is not much use in hiding the joy his swell of affection spikes in her, so she doesn't bother. For a moment, she closes her eyes and allows herself to relax into him, letting him embrace her the way he wishes, as she pulls the shadows around the two of them in case of any passerby's.

She lets him pull her thoughts into the same stream his own are occupying; warm waters and laughter and touches that ignite hidden pleasures in secret coves and tides they used to sneak away to for days on end. Memories of the elation he felt as a father, to the pride he found in his daughters strength, to the loss he felt when she left to fill the hole his brother had left in the empire. Selene finds the holes left in him, gaps that ooze an all too familiar substance, wounds that might never heal, a loneliness that echoes her own after they had last been separated. Their own bond thickens; strings of light stitching seams that did not use to exist. She can see Fear and Deceit; one wandering the dreaming, the other sitting in a throne with a false face hidden beneath a mask, and for a moment they look back at her in turn, and she can see her Longing reflected back in each set of their eyes.

Aspects.

She understands a little better, now.

He pulls her back up, lips resting against her own. Not quite a kiss, but a closeness they've both ached for for too long. Their bond reaffirming with each passing moment as his fingers link through hers, his aura expanding around them and swirling with her shadows in a way that lets her feel his weight falling away from him. Her own follows with it, tensions and tears eased by his presence, by his touch, by his mind.

“Vhenan,” he sighs against her mouth, affection turning back to love, to trust, to promises of days to come.

As though nothing had ever happened.

Selenes eyes open.

“That is not my name,” She murmurs, twisting away from his grip. He releases her immediately, floating in the same spot they had been occupying together only a second ago.

Foolish, she thinks.

“Longing, I can not...” She sighs. “Dirthamen, I can't just continue as though nothing happened. As though we are still where we were then. I am not that person. You may not love what I have become.”

His head turns to the side, considering. “You could be right,” He admits, and she feels something in her go cold. “But I do not think I could truly stop loving you, all the same.”

“You don't know that-”

“Are you so concerned the scars you are trying to hide will repulse me?” he interrupts “Or is that you are worried you may not love what I have become?”

She swallows.

She could not stop loving him, no matter what he has done. She knows; she has spent the last several centuries trying to do exactly that, and after less than a day together she is already nearly willing to forgive him.

It is a dangerous notion.

Not just for her, but for the family she has formed for herself. For the others that she keeps safe. For the people who run from the city and seek refuge in her waters.

“I am covered in more damage than you have seen,” She evades. “In truth, there is very little of my stomach left that is not made of scar tissue.”

“You have yet to be perturbed by a single one of my forms; yet you believe I would not be attracted to you because of a discrepancy in the texture of your skin?”

“I think you would be conflicted when you realized it was caused by your own twin soul.”

Dirthamen swallows, eyes and fingers drifting down to graze lightly over her stomach. “I...”

Selene sighs, swimming back and away from him. “I need to get back to my patrols.”

“May I visit you again?”

She hesitates. If Glory were to find out he were so close, and that it is her fault...

“In the dreaming,” She finally answers.

He accepts her offer, and shifts back into a significantly less noticeable jellyfish as he begins his trek back towards the city.

She spares him one last glance, her own fingers drifting where his had, and lets out a long breath.

Time to go back to work.

#atlantithan au #dirthalene

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