#i just liked the way Gilead sounded but...

[thecapricunt1616]

Balessan - (c.b. oneshot)

𝓢𝓷𝓲𝓹𝓹𝓮𝓽 (𝓶𝓸𝓻𝓮 𝓑𝓣𝓒):“The Cub takes down The Bear at the 20 yard lineee!!” Mikey shouts ferociously, jumping up and pouncing on Carmys chest in a bodyslam. Carm groans, “Ohhh you little cheater- when did we start wrestling?! They don’t do bodyslams in football, kid” he wraps his arms around Mikey, caging him in and tickling his sides, causing him to squeal and laugh wildly.

♡ O.S Inspo: Balessan ; Also known as: Poplar Buds, Balsam Poplar, Balm of Gilead, Mecca, Mecca Balsam, & Bechan - This Magickal herb can be used to bring forth; Love, manifestations, protection, healing, de-stressing, and assisting in healing from the loss of a loved one. Use in love sachets; carry for healing, protection, and mending a broken heart. ♡ Summary: This amazing, big brained, fabulous & wonderful request is inspired from this ask from my beautiful flower @daysofyellowroses - Thank you my love. -- In this O/S You & Carmy spend a day with his nephew at the park!

♡ W/C: 4,200

♡ Posted Date: 03/19/2024

♡ A/N: Aaaa! look at me pumpin' these one shots out like hot cakes!!! Get your requests in folks I have a long weekend ahead hahaha!! This was BEYOND fun to write, thank you so much again Rose for such an amazing request. I hope it's everything you imagined!! I lovee love love writing mushy happy Carmy, he deserves all the love in his life!! I totally see him being the pushover uncle just like this, Happy Meals & Ice Cream for daysss!!! <3

♡ Warnings for BTC: NONE!!! Well... carmy smokes a cigarette at the end? That's all hahah - ***NO USE OF Y/N - AS LITTLE PHYSICAL DESCRIP. AS POSSIBLE - READER IS CALLED 'BLOSSOM' IN THIS O/S :)***

➵ 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐦𝐲 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭 ♡

Carmen had never felt true love before. He didn’t think he’d ever know what that felt like. He’d heard stories of parents meeting their newborn babies for the first time, saying that ‘it was an indescribable feeling of holding the entire world in the palm of your hands.’ And that to him, sounded like bullshit. 

It was sweet and all, but considering the way his mother and father treated he and his siblings growing up- that moment was fleeting at the very least. 

That was what he’d thought, until that is- he got the call that would change his life, forever. 

Sugar and Pete had kept the gender of their baby a secret, Carmy was very excited for them, and though Pete wasn’t his favorite person- he knew in his heart he’d be a great dad. Better then he could ever do at least, so that had eased his mind for the new blood of his family. 

Pete had called to inform him that Sugar had given birth, finally, he thought to himself. He didn’t realize that the labor process could take days. Sugar had went into the hospital on Tuesday, in the early afternoon when her water had broken- it was now 4 pm Thursday evening. It was about time for the kid to make an appearance. 

He’d made his way down to the hospital right away, no questions asked. It was Sugar after all, and after Pete had told him she wasn’t having any visitors, but had requested that he specifically come see her- he wasn’t gonna let her down. 

He’d even stopped at the 24-hour deli convenience store on the way, getting her a club sandwich that she’d been moaning about not being able to have for months - something about pregnant people not being allowed to have lunch meat? He wasn’t sure what that was about. 

When he got in the room, it was so quiet, he could hear his heart thumping in his ears. He wasn’t sure why he was nervous- it’s not like the kid was gonna have an opinion on him…yet. But still, he knew first impressions were important. He also didn’t want to fuck anything up, he wasn’t very sure how to hold a baby- he’d never held Eva when she was young, and he heard babies necks were super floppy, so he was really nervous he’d hurt them by mistake.

“Hey..” he said softly, and Sugar sits up. She looked utterly exhausted, she was pale, her hair was knotted and sweaty all stuck to her forehead, and her eyes were bloodshot from either pain or being so tired, he wasn’t sure which. 

“Bear! You came!” She said quietly, opening her arms for a hug. He walks over to her, carefully wrapping his arms around her as he wasn’t sure if her stomach would be hurting or not, and kissing her cheek lovingly. 

“Y’re amazing Sugar, you did so good, thats fuckin’ crazy- you had a baby, Sug” he tells her, rubbing her arm gently. Carmen didn’t know much about pregnancy and birth, other than what he’d learned from Sugar over the past year or so. The only thing he really knew about the birthing process was what he’d seen on TV, and the fact that birth hurt like an absolute bitch, and that there was no way around it. 

“Thank you…is that-“ she asked, picking up the bag he’d placed next to her on the bed. He smiled a bit, pulling the sandwich out. 

“Club sandwich. Don’t say I never listen to you” he teased and she pouted, tears filling her eyes and she pulled him into another hug. 

“Y’re the best Bear.” She said. “Sorry…I’m gonna be hormonal for like..another year” she laughed a bit. 

He chuckled softly, rubbing her back. “I’m used to it by now.” He teased. 

The door opened, and a nurse wheeled in a bundle of white striped blankets in to the room, lying in a bassinet. 

“Oh! Uncle is here! Okay so baby did great, they’re all set. We got all the bloodwork we needed, took their k shot, everything is looking wonderful. I’ll let you get acquainted” she said, being sure not to give away the baby’s name or gender before they were ready, leaving the little bundle next to Sugars bedside before heading out and closing the door quietly behind her. 

The baby coos, making sweet adorable little noises. Carmen took the bag of food for Sugar, placing it on her bedside table as she carefully picked up her baby, cradling them in her arms. 

Carmen was in awe. Everything about them was so…tiny. So pure, so untouched by the world. He carefully nudged the blanket down so he could get a better view of their face, the babies teeny little hand peeking out. He couldn’t help the small gasp that escaped his lips as the babe curled their whole hand around his forefinger. 

“Sug” he whispered, tears pooling in his eyes and falling to his cheeks before he could try and hold them back. “Oh god…” he said softly, stroking the baby's tiny fingers with his thumb. 

“Michael Anthony Lombardi” she said softly. He looks up at her, jaw dropped. 

It was totally something sugar would do, so sentimental. Naming her first son after her 2 brothers. But now, Carmen felt even more attached to the little guy. He was carrying his name- he had to take care of him, protect him, the same way Michael had done for him. 

Carmen sniffles, kissing her head and resting his cheek on top of it as he looks down at the beautiful little baby. Well- maybe not beautiful physically- yet. Carmen always thought brand new babies looked fairly weird, of course he’d never tell Sugar that, though. 

But, beautiful in the sense that he knew what this baby meant for them, for their family. It was a brand new beginning, and maybe- just maybe…this would be enough to get his mother to clean up her act enough to be the grandmother for this baby how she couldn’t be a mother to he and his siblings.  “Nice to meet you, Mikey” he said with the kind of smile that made his eyes crinkle, vision blurry with tears.

It had been about 6 months since you and Carm had met, and one of the things you loved about him was what an active, engaged uncle he was with his little nephew, Michael. 

He’d grown plenty now since the first time he and the little cub met, being ‘a whole hand and a thumb’ as Mikey proudly told you the time you’d met the little firecracker at the first family dinner you’d attended. 

That little boy was Carmy’s sun, moon, and all of his stars. He was constantly spoiling him with new toys, clothes, taking him out for “Mikey and Bear” days, the kid was the lockscreen on his phone for crying out loud. If you weren’t dating him, with the way he talks about that boy- you’d think he was a single dad. 

Sugar very much appreciated it though, she never wanted to stop working when she’d gotten pregnant, so being able to balance four different days off with 3 adults, rather than just split the duties between her and Pete- it helped their lives as a couple run a lot smoother overall. 

It took a while for Carmy to even introduce you to Mikey. He’d been nervous, reverting to his old ways of ‘waiting for the other shoe to drop’ and nothing would crush him more, then introducing his favorite little guy to someone, getting him used to them, and then them leaving him.

He could handle that rejection- but he damn sure wasn’t gonna subject Mikey to that same pain. If there was one thing Carmen swore, it was to protect the child with everything he had. 

This was the third time you’d be meeting Mikey. Carmy had asked if you wanted to take him to the park together for a picnic after he’d picked him up from school, and of course you agreed. There was no better way to spend the afternoon than sharing snacks with your Bear under the shade of oak trees from the late spring sun, and chasing around Sugars mini-me until he clonked out on the blanket for a nap. 

When you’d arrived to the park to meet them, you spotted Carm’s large black blanket with his backpack and 2 matching big and small Nalgene water bottles, adorned with stickers from different water parks and amusement parks they’d been to together, but he nor Mikey were nowhere to be seen. But you couldn’t miss them with how loud Mikey was being. 

“No! No! I call foul!!” Carm laughed boisterously. You continue on, seeing them come in to view past the blockade of a large tree- to find Carmy rolling in the grass as Mikey tackled him for the football he was holding. 

“The Cub takes down The Bear at the 20 yard lineee!!” Mikey shouts ferociously, jumping up and pouncing on Carmys chest in a bodyslam. 

Carm groans, “Ohhh you little cheater- when did we start wrestling?! They don’t do bodyslams in football, kid” he wraps his arms around Mikey, caging him in and tickling his sides, causing him to squeal and laugh wildly.

“Wow! Uncle Bear has been lacking at the gym, thanks for takin’ care of my light stuff Mikey” you said teasingly with a big smile. 

Mikey quickly got up, running over to you “Blossom!!!” he squealed, crashing into your waist, nearly knocking you over in the process. Blossom had become your nickname in the family, since the first time they’d met you, Carm insisted you’d smelt like cherry blossoms, to which Sugar and Richie agreed, so from then on- you were Blossom. 

“Woah! Kid you’re getting strong huh? Peewee football training been gettin intense?” You give him a big hug. 

Carm chuckled, getting up and dusting the grass and leaves from his hair and shirt, coming over and greeting you with a peck on the lips. “Tell me ‘bout it- Thanks for meeting me, kids got crazy energy today.” He said, ruffling the boys curly soft brown hair lovingly. 

“Nowww can we eat our lunch?” Mikey looked up at him, his pretty blue eyes sparkling in the afternoon light. He really did look like Mikey, and Carmy mixed together in the best way. The Berzatto family genes were mighty strong, at least on the men’s side. 

“Yes Cub. Y’know…you scammed me into a happy meal before we got here, how can you be so starved?” He teased, causing you to giggle. 

“Again? Wow Carm, you’re going softer and softer as the days go by” you teased, sitting down with he and Mikey on the comfortable blanket under the shade of the trees.

“Well it’s hard to tell him no. Did you know he got a 100% on his spelling test t’day? Mikey, tell Blossom how to spell ‘water’ ” he told him with a grin. 

Mikey looks over proudly “w-a-t…” he stops for a moment, looking at Carmy nervously. 

“You got it bud, keep goin’- sound it out, what’s next?” Carmy encourages gently. 

“E! It's E! w-a-t-e-r!” Mikey finishes proudly and you both clap for him excitedly. 

“Oh my goodness! You are such a smart boy. Good job Mikey!” You gush, giving him a high five. 

“That’s right the smartest. First spelling test of the year, and you nailed it bud!!” Carmy praised, hugging him and kissing his head sweetly. 

“Mommy’s gonna be so excited!” He said, sitting crisscross as he opened up his pb&j Carm packed for him. 

“She’s gonna be stoked, Cub. Absolutely stoked” you told him, taking the sandwich Carm had offered you. 

“Oh! Blossom I learned a new joke- listen, so you say who’s there when I say ‘knock knock’ got it?” Mikey asks and you nod with a smile. 

“Alright, thank you for my lines ahead of time, Cub” you joked, earning a chuckle out of Carmen who had surely heard this joke one million times since he’d learned it, considering he saw the kid no less then 5 days a week. 

“Knock knock!” Mikey said, looking at you expectantly. 

“I’m doing the dishes” you said, causing Mikey to burst into adorable giggles and Carm to follow suit since he couldn’t help himself when Mikey got started. 

“Nooo! Blossom!” He giggled “you say ‘who’s there’ this time, ok?” He said and you nod. 

“Okay, okay. I’ll make sure to be not so busy this time.” You teased with a giggle. 

“Knock knooock!” He said again. 

“Hold on just a second! I need to feed mister mittens- my cat!” You said and he laughs again, shaking his head. 

“You promised! Blossom! It’s ‘who’s there!’ “ he giggled. 

“Okayyy! Okay! Whoooos there?” You oblige. 

“Harry!!!” He said happily, popping a grape in his mouth. 

“I don’t know a Harry- so scram!” You teased and he laughed so hard he snorted, causing you and Carmy to crack up in a fit of laughs together. 

“You’re bad at jokes Blossom, here watch, Bear will do it right f’me. Bear, knock knock” he looks over at Carm. 

“Who’s there, Cub?” He said, taking a bite of his own sandwich. 

“Harry” he smiled big, “listen blossom” Mikey urges, causing you to giggle. 

“Harry who” Carm said with a large grin.  “Harry up and open the door it’s raining out here!!!” Mikey said, bursting in to a fit of giggles which of course caused you and Carm to join.

“Ready or not here I come!” You hear Carmy say. You hold your finger to your lips, holding Mikey tightly in your lap in the tube slide so you both won’t fall and give up your ingenious hiding spot the two of you had come up with.

“Shhh! We gotta be quiet Cub or he’s gonna find us- the bear will eat you!” you joked and he covered his mouth quickly to contain his giggles.

“Where are youuuu!” Carmy called from the other side of the playground, you giggled quietly to yourself. 

“We picked a good spot bud!” you whisper proudly and he nods, hugging your arm sweetly. Leg suddenly cramps up from being in such an awkward position in a tube meant for children much shorter then you, and you gasp quietly, moving your foot to relieve it but in the struggle- your flip-flop slips off, sliding down the tube slide and you hear it thump on the ground below, blowing up your hiding spot. 

You and Mikey look at eachother as you hear Carm laugh, “Ohhhh! Dead!! You’re both dead!” he said and you quickly lift Mikey behind you. 

“Go Mikey! Save yourself he’s gonna eat you!!!” you laugh and he scrambles out of the tube as Carm climbs up from the bottom, grabbing your bare foot.

You squeal in laughter as he pulls you down the slide by your feet, catching you at the bottom and kissing all over your face and neck, nibbling as he goes. “You’ve been caught” he growls playfully, pinning your arms above your head and kissing where your shirt rode up over your stomach leaving playful lovebites on your hips.

“Hey!” Mikey yells, running up and hugging Carms leg, hanging on it like a little monkey. “Thats my best friend! Leave her alone you big grizzly bear!” he yells through his giggles, playfully hitting Carmys leg.

“Ohhhh you’re dead Cub, dead meat buddy” he pulled away from you, scooping Mikey up and swinging him around. “Y’think y’can just beat up y’re best uncle mm little man?” he holds him upside down by his legs holding him carefully and dangling him in front of your face causing him to laugh wildly. “I present your savior Blossom, he’s been defeated” he sways him teasingly causing him to laugh more.

  “Oh noooo! Cub! The Bear got you! I forgot to tell you….he and I were working together in secret- mwahaha!!” you laugh evilly, tickling his exposed belly and he wiggles screeching in laughter.

“Not fair- Not fair!!!” he said between giggles. Carm carefully laid him on your lap so he wouldn’t get sick from being upside down and checks his watch for the time.

“Alright- we got 15 minutes, do we want swings, slide, or playing a game?” Carmy asked, causing Mikey to whine. 

“Noooo! Bear! It’s not time yet!!! It’s not even dark” he pouted, pointing at the sun, causing Carm to smile. 

“Y’re right, its not dark, but bein’ a big man in kindergarten means you got big man responsibilities now, like goin’ home and doin’ homework w’Dad yeah? He’s gonna be waitin’ on you, Dad’s not a man I can reason with m’friend, Higher rank on the totem” he ruffled his hair. 

“Fiiiine” Mikey grumbled. “I wanna do swings, race me-” he jumps up from your lap, sprinting towards the swingset.

“Wha- hey! You’re supposed to say 1,2,3, go! Those are the rules cheater!” Carmy laughs as he jogs after him. You slipped on your flipflop, going after the two boys.

“I beat you! See Blossom my new shoes make me so fast!” Mikey called to you proudly, hopping up and sitting in the swing as Carmy finally caught up.

“I did! Super fast Mikey!” you agreed with a giggle making your way up to the swingset. 

“Oh! Oh! Blossom, let’s see who can get higher!” Mikey said happily and you oblige, sitting on the swing next to him.

“Alright, Bear- you’re the judge I guess” you smiled, starting to pump your legs.

“I’m a tough critic, I expect perfect form outta you” he teased, sitting down on the picnic table in front of the swingset as he watched. 

“I’m gonna win” Mikey said confidently, already getting a few feet higher then you had. 

You giggled, “Yeah- cause you had a head start” you counter, pumping your legs harder trying to gain more momentum.

“It’s lookin’ good for Mikey babe, keep it up kid y’re doin’ great” Carm encouraged, resting his hands behind his head and stretching his legs out as he watched. 

“Bear can I jump off and you catch me?” Mikey asked hopefully to which Carmen laughs.

“Noooo way kiddo, I’m not takin’ a trip to the ER t’night, I got work in the morning and either i’ll end up hurt, or y’mother will kill me” he said, causing you to laugh as well.

“You’re gonna break your neck kid, don’t do that at school, did that once as a kid and I broke my ankle” you giggled, gasping as your flipflop flew off once again and hit Carmen right over the top of the head, causing you and Mikey to burst out in a fit of giggles.

“Hey!” Carm said, rubbing his head jokingly with a chuckle.”Those things are proving to be a horrible choice of park footwear, baby” he snorts, setting the shoe next to him on the bench for when you got off.

“I’m sorry! My work shoes were a worse choice and these are all I had in my locker” you giggled, the wind whipping your hair as you get higher and higher in the air.

“Bear! Bear! Look how high I am!!!” Mikey said proudly to which Carm nods with a big grin.

“That’s right bud! Y’re so high right now, bet you could touch an airplane if it was flyin’ over huh?” he said, digging his phone out of his pocket to take a video. “Say hi to Mommy!” he said and Mikey laughed happily, waving at Carm.

“Hiiii Mommy! I love you!” he said sweetly with a giggle. “Am I beating Blossom? Huh Bear? Am I higher?” he said and Carm chuckled.

“Mhmm- sorry baby, I think Mikey has ya beat this time around,” he said, ending the video and slipping his phone back in his pocket.

“Well how could I beat the best huh?” you mused, stopping pumping your legs so your swing would slow. 

“I told you!” Mikey giggled, digging his heels into the woodchips to come to a hard stop and running up to Carmy, giving him a big hug. “Can we get ice cream bear?” he asked and Carm laughed, shaking his head.

“You don’t stop, huh kiddo? No ice cream, It’ll spoil y’r dinner. How ‘bout, if y’really good at school this week- When I get you on Friday, we’ll go you ‘n me yeah?” he pats his back and Mikey nods with a pout.

“Pinky promise” He holds up his pinky and Carmy hooks his own around it, kissing Mikeys hand, and Mikey kisses his. 

“See? Deal” he ruffled his brunette curls and got up, grabbing the flip flop and coming up to you, crouching down grabbing your leg and kissing down your calf causing you to giggle before he carefully put the flip flop on your foot.

“I want a piggyback!” Mikey said, jumping on Carmys back to which he caught his balance with his forearm.

“Woah! Okay! Alright piggyback it is bud but y’gotta tell me yeah? We don’t want anyone gettin’ hurt” he told him, hiking him up on his waist as he stood up, Mikey wrapping his arms around his neck securely.

“Ok I’ll tell you next time” he replied. You hopped off the swing, taking Carmy’s hand and interlacing your fingers as you walked, swinging your hands together happily. The weather was absolutely perfect today. Not a cloud in the sky, perfect humidity, 72 degrees, you were surprised there weren’t more people here at the park other than the fact it was a Wednesday afternoon.

The three of you made your way back over to the blanket, and Carmy gently sets Mikey down to fold it up and pack up his backpack with the remainder of the food we couldn’t finish. “Blossom look! Look! I can jump so high in my new shoes!” Mikey said, tugging your pants to look at him and you obliged, keeping him busy as Carm tried to get everything situated to pack into the car. 

“Alright little jumping bean, time to go home d’you wanna race to the car, or I’ll carry you?” He asked, putting on his backpack and carrying Mikeys for him.

“Race- 123go!” Mikey said quickly before taking off and you laughed. Carm shakes his head with a smile, holding your hand as you both walked after him to the car. 

The ride back was full of laughter and singing Bluey songs, of course. That was Mikey’s favorite show at the moment, and you couldn’t help but smile at the way Carmy sang with Mikey along to every word. Carmy had even gotten a little Bluey air freshener that hung on his rearview mirror, just another little piece of Mikey that hung around, alongside his carseat that permanently lived in the back, the polaroid of him, sugar, and Mikey on his dash, the many toys scattered along the backseat. It was more than clear that the little guy held his entire heart in the palms of his hands. 

“Alright buckaroo” Carmy said as he pulls into sugars driveway. Mikey unbuckles himself, flinging forward and wrapping you into a hug. 

“Bye awesome blossom, thanks for playing with me” he said sweetly. You smiled, ruffling his hair and wrapping your arms around him.

“We’ll do it again soon, bud. Be good yeah? Listen t’your momma” You told him, patting his back. Carmy got out, grabbing his bluey backpack for him, helping him out of the car and carrying him up the steps, opening up the door and heading in to drop him off.

You opened up the center console, digging out Carm’s cigarettes and a lighter, knowing he was gonna be craving one bad when he got back in the car. Sugar didn’t even have to ask, as soon as the baby was born- if he was gonna be around the baby he wasn’t smoking until after he’d left, so there was absolutely no chance of any secondhand smoke being passed on to him.

Cracking the window, you lit it, taking a drag as he shuts the door behind him and comes back to the car. You offered the cigarette between your fingers and he smiled, taking it after he buckled his seatbelt. “Have I reminded you today, how much I love you my perfect angel” He leaned in, giving you a sweet lingering kiss on the lips. 

You smiled, humming softly at the sweet gesture. “Yes- well- not in person today, but, you did text me - good morning, I love you when you went to work, so that counts” he smiled as he took a drag, backing out of the driveway carefully. 

“Well, I love you baby, What are we doin’ f’r dinner? Am I cookin’ er we goin out?” he cracks his window, ashing his cigarette before having another drag, resting his tattooed hand on your thigh, stroking gently as he drove.

“I’m in the mood for some Berzatto Family Pasta” you hum, resting your hand out the window to feel the cool kiss of the spring evening breeze.  “Family pasta it is, Blossom”

[sarahowritesostucky]

📖"The Commander's Omega"

Rated: Explicit

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Bucky Barnes

Tags: alpha/omega, dystopia, sex slavery, forced breeding, mutilation, rape, corporal punishment, fascism, hurt/comfort, power imbalance, mpreg, age gap (38/23), mentions of abortion, miscarriage

Summary: After years of a mass infertility crisis, the United States is overtaken by religious fanatics, and Bucky Barnes finds himself thrust into a brutal world of survival. When he's discovered to be fertile, he's forced to serve as a vessel: a caste of omegas who bear children for the political elite.

Chapter V. Shredder

Story Masterlist

Before:

Bucky rushes to the bathroom when the cramps get too painful, sure that something bad—he doesn’t know what, just something—is going to happen. He pulls down his pants and sits on the toilet, hand pressed against his belly. He’s barely started to swell. It’s only noticeable to him because he was always in such good shape before. Twenty weeks is finally enough to make him look pregnant, at least when he has his clothes off.

“Ah!” He cries out, trying to stifle the sound as pain flashes through him. He can’t let the Putnams hear, he can’t. His insides hurt in a way that they’re definitely not supposed to, and Bucky feels scared. Even though he’s almost twenty two-years old and it’s ridiculous, he wishes that his mom was here with him. She’d know what to do. And even if she didn’t, he’d still be with his mom, not all alone in the Putnams' cold basement bathroom. 

He removes his hand from his stomach and reaches between his legs with trembling fingers. When he brings them back forward to look, there’s fresh blood. Bucky whimpers. 

Red. He’s so fucking sick of red.

-

It takes almost two hours, but eventually Bucky’s body pushes out the baby—though “baby” is a strong word for it. It’s small and bloody, the size of a lemon. And it’s shaped wrong. Bucky catches it in his hands before it can fall into the toilet water. Something about that just seems so wrong. He can’t let it go in there, even if it’s just going to be buried or thrown away in the end. For now it’s his, and he’ll treat it the way it deserves.

“Hey,” he whispers tearily to it, once the cramping’s gone away and he’s just left cold and messy and alone. He pulls his pants back up and lies down on the cool bathroom tile, using the bathmat as a sort of pillow. In his hand he cups the fetus, mournful in a way he never thought he could be for something he never wanted in the first place. “M’sorry,” he tells it. “I tried.”

He really had. Having a baby is the only way for a criminally-convicted omega like him to avoid being sent away. And he’s only got five years to do it. After eight months with the Putnams, he’d been excited to get pregnant—Not because he’d wanted to be violated and knocked-up and forced to give away a child, but because it gave him hope that he might be able to avoid the toxic wasteland of the colonies. If he can’t produce a baby for Gilead, that’s where he’ll go.

Eventually, he has to gather the courage to get himself up off the bathroom floor and cleaned off. He unrolls a bunch of toilet paper and lays the fetus on it, not knowing what else to do. Then he runs a bath and gets in, and watches as the water turns pink.

Downstairs, Commander and Mrs. Putnam are having their Sunday morning breakfast. The table’s covered with tureens of sausages and eggs and waffles—more food than the two of them will ever eat. Once they’re done, the household staff will get to split what’s left. Bucky walks into the dining room to the sight of the Commander on his tablet and Mrs. Putnam pouring herself more orange juice. He waits quietly by the doorway to be noticed.

“Ofwarren,” Mrs. Putnam says when she notices him. “Good morning! Blessed be the fruit.” Her face lights up with a smile for Bucky, something it’s only done since she found out that he’s pregnant.

Bucky can’t bring himself to speak, nerves twisting his guts into knots. 

As if he senses this, Commander Warren looks up from his tablet. “Did you want to take some breakfast from the table?” he asks amicably. 

Ever since Bucky’s pregnancy was discovered, he’s been allowed to eat as much as he wants, whenever he wants. No more waiting for prescribed meal times. It’s a privilege that he’s going to miss. “No,” he whispers. “No, thank you. I um, I have something I have to tell you.” God, he’s never been so nervous in his life. What will they do to him?

Both the Putnams are paying attention to him now. They still have pleasant sets to their faces. Not for long. “What is it?” Mrs. Putnam asks.

Bucky has to try several times before he can force enough air past his vocal cords. “I … I lost the baby.”

Complete, utter silence. Commander Warren sets his tablet down, eyes immediately flicking to his wife. Mrs. Putnam has tightened her fingers around her orange juice glass so hard that Bucky fears it might break.

“I’m so sorry!” he says hurriedly, because he is. God, he is! He’s scared shitless right now. “I-I didn’t—”

“Get out of here,” Mrs. Putnam gasps. She sounds like the air’s been punched out of her. When Bucky doesn’t immediately move, her eyes darken and she smacks the table, rattling the silverware. “Get out!”

Bucky turns and runs from the room.

-

A servant comes down to the basement later, to take the fetus away. Bucky never does find out what they do with it.

After:

Bucky takes to spending the evenings with Steve in his office. It’s nice. As the weather gets colder, Steve makes a habit of keeping a fire going in the fireplace, and each night, Bucky pulls one of the couches a little closer to the hearth to read. He goes through several science fiction novels before he finally has the courage to take down a book about politics—old politics, from how the world used to be, but still interesting. It’d been written by some liberal pundit, and Bucky finds himself smirking once or twice while he reads.

Steve looks up from where he’s working at his desk, smiling at Bucky when he notices him. “What’s funny?” he asks.

Bucky tenses up. “What? Nothing.” Steve quirks an eyebrow, and Bucky shifts uncomfortably. “It’s just a joke in here,” he excuses, indicating the book. He doesn’t mention how the joke is at the expense of Christian nationalists. The book had been written back when The Faithful were still worth making fun of. “It’s nothing,” he says again, and averts his eyes back to his reading.

Steve sighs. Bucky hears the desk chair roll out, and then Steve is coming over to sit next to him on the couch. He doesn’t get too close, which Bucky is grateful for (Commander Warren would’ve been demanding blow jobs by now). But so far, Steve has proven to be about as different from Commander Warren as a man could be. “Bucky,” Steve says. “I wish you wouldn’t be nervous of me.”

Bucky’s eyes flick over, not quite making it up to Steve’s face. “Sorry,” he murmurs.

“No, that’s not—” Steve huffs, frustrated. “You don’t need to apologize.”

Bucky has to cut himself off from immediately saying ‘sorry’ again. Old habits. He sets the book over the arm of the couch, saving his spot. “I’m not used to this,” he admits. 

“What do you mean?”

He purses his lips, still unable to meet Steve’s eyes. “I dunno. Just … You don’t get mad at me about stuff, okay? You let me come in here and, and read.” He says ‘read’ in a whisper, like it’s something awful, not to be uttered aloud. “You eat meals at the table with everyone else, and you talk to me. And you haven’t—” he cuts off uncomfortably.

“What?” Steve cants his head. “I haven’t what?”

Bucky shakes his head. “You’re just different. I don’t know what to expect with you.” He nearly jumps when Steve’s hand comes over and envelops his own on top of the couch cushion. It’s large and warm, and the simple contact makes goosebumps prick to the surface of Bucky’s skin.

 “You can expect to be treated like a human being,” Steve tells him. “Because that’s what you are.”

Bucky winces. “M’not used to that either.”

“I’dve hoped you could trust me a little better by now,” Steve chides, eyeing up Bucky’s book pointedly. “I told you my household is different.”

“Yeah but you never explained what that means,” Bucky snaps. “I mean, that could mean anything. You know?”

“What do you want to ask me, then?” Steve challenges. “You can ask questions, Bucky.”

“Well aren’t you—” he cuts himself off, shocked at the reckless question he almost lets slip through his lips.

“Aren’t I what?” Steve presses, staring him down. “Ask me, Bucky. Ask the question.”

Bucky looks him in the eye, confused and scared, unable to get the words out for a few more long seconds. Then, finally, he breathes, “... Aren’t you a True Believer?” Steve gets very still, his expression like stone, and for one terrible, all-consuming instant, Bucky is sure that he’s signed his own death warrant. “I’m sorry!” he blurts, sure that he’s finally done it; he’s finally said the thing that’s going to get him executed, or sent off to the col—

“I’m not.”

He falters, his mouth still open from the next preemptive apology he’d been about to fling out. “What?” he says weakly, trying to figure out how to put “I’m not” into a context that makes any kind of sense—because what Steve’s just said could get him arrested, could get him put to death, and Bucky and all the rest of his household reassigned to another Commander. But fraught seconds tick by, and he comes up with nothing, the “I’m not” hanging in the air between them like a baited hook with no fish, like a noose waiting to be filled. “S-steve?” he whispers. “I don’t understand. You’re n—”

“Not a True Believer,” Steve finishes for him, nodding somberly. He’s deathly serious, Bucky realizes, and he’s looking at Bucky in a way that says he’s completely aware of the vulnerable position in which he’s just put himself, by admitting it. He watches Bucky appraisingly. “And I get the feeling you’re not, either.”

Bucky doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t have the courage that Steve does. He can’t just … just make himself say it. Not out loud. “But you’re a Commander,” he blurts. “How did you get to be a Commander if you weren’t … if you aren’t a—”

“I worked my way up,” Steve says. “I joined the Sons of Jacob before congress was assassinated. I pretended.”

Bucky can hardly believe what he’s hearing. Steve is admitting to treason right now, and he’s admitting it to Bucky. “But why?” 

Steve’s expression turns guarded as he measures out his words. “Because it was my mission,” he says. “It still is.”

“Mission?”

He nods. “We knew something big was in the works, just not how big. I didn’t know—” He cuts himself off, looking pained. “We were put in place to infiltrate the Party of The Faithful. To assess the threat, to try and stop whatever they were planning.”

“We?” Bucky echoes. “Who is ‘we’?”

Steve shakes his head. “I can’t tell you any more, I’m sorry."

Too late, Bucky wants to say. Steve’s told him too much already. “So you’re just telling me this? That you’re some kind of a … a what? A sleeper agent?” He scowls. “You and what army?”

“It doesn’t take an army,” Steve snaps, surprising Bucky with the quiet vitriol in his voice.

Bucky blinks at him, sees the regret flash across his face, and realizes something. “Natasha and Sam,” he breathes, clocking the slight widening of Steve’s pupils. “And Clint, and Sharon?” Steve’s lips thin but he nods, and Bucky exhales hugely. “Well shit.” 

“It’s okay, Buck. We’re very careful.”

He scoffs, feeling dazed. “So, all five of you,” he says weakly. He can’t imagine what Steve and just a few other people could possibly achieve, what they could possibly do to overthrow the whole regime. Gilead is the new United States. A fledgling nation, sure, but with all the same resources that its predecessor had, and more: Weapons, infrastructure, military, a secret police, an extensive surveillance apparatus. From what little Bucky’s been able to garner these past few years, the only states remaining free of it all are Alaska and the West Coast coalition.

He sits there with Steve in thick, uncomfortable silence for a moment, the crackling of the fire in the hearth the only sound to accompany his racing thoughts.

“Buck?” Steve says gently. “Are you going to be okay?”

One glance up at the alpha’s face is all it takes for Bucky to realize what it is he’s really asking: are you going to keep this to yourself? “Yeah,” Bucky says. “Yeah, I’m good.” He offers Steve what he hopes is a reassuring look. “I’m glad.”

Steve’s shoulders relax, and he offers Bucky a tight-lipped smile that is commiserating, if not altogether pleasant. “Okay. Good.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

Steve pats him on the knee and then gets up from the couch to return to his desk on the other side of the office. He resumes working on his computer, and Bucky picks up his book to resume reading. Or at least he tries to, but the words on the pages blur together meaninglessly. All he can think about now is how Steve—his new Commander, the man who owns him, whom Bucky’s been renamed after—is a member of the resistance.

Steve somehow gets a hold of Bucky’s medical records. He brings it up in discussion on another night spent together in the library. “You had a baby?” he blurts out, from over at his desk.

Bucky’s eyes shoot up. “What?”

Steve guiltily indicates the folder he’s been reading through. “They gave me your medical records.”

Bucky frowns. “Oh.”

“Sorry. I wasn’t trying to invade your privacy.” Bucky snorts, and Steve flusters and clears his throat. “I just … Well, I’m supposed to schedule a doctor’s appointment for you every three months.”

“Oh. Right.” Bucky remembers that the Putnams had done that as well. It was how he’d confirmed he was pregnant in the first place. “Um, I miscarried,” he mumbles.

Steve’s expression dissolves into something too close to pity for Bucky’s liking. “I’m so sorry, Bucky.”

Bucky shrugs from over his book. “I wasn’t that far along.” 

With the fertility crisis being what it is, he’s known a lot of other omegas to miscarry far later on in their pregnancies, or to give birth to non-viable babies that die gasping and shriveled soon after birth. Just the other week, all the neighborhood vessels had been escorted to OfJoseph’s house to see her through the labor and delivery ritual. But once the caretakers pulled the baby out and got a look at it, the fancy party that’d been set up for Commander and Mrs. Lowe in the downstairs parlor had ended in stricken silence and tears.

“It’s not like I was attached or anything,” Bucky says. “And it needed to die.”

Steve balks. “What?”

“It was a shredder. You could tell. Things weren’t … growing right.” Bucky averts his eyes back down to his book, hating to remember. If he’d carried to term, it just would’ve been declared an ‘unbaby’ and gotten rid of. “It was better that it died,” he says.

Steve doesn’t say anything.

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[dystopiandramaqueen]

Midnight Whispers

Nick x June fanfic

Chapter 1:

June was bathing Holly when she got the call. Her cellphone buzzed against the tile floor of the bathroom. June's hands were covered in baby shampoo, her fingers lathering Holly's dark curls as she turned to look.

Her eyes widened when she saw Tuello's name on her lock-screen.

Tuello had gotten her safely to the west coast, proving he wasn't useless after all. June checked in once a month, begging him to call if he heard anything from Nick, anything at all. 

"Just a second, sweetie, Mommy's gotta take this." She whispered, rinsing her hands in the warm bath water and patting them dry on her jeans. 

June picked up on the third ring, her stomach knotted in a mix of anxiety and hope. She barely dared to breathe as she accepted the call, holding the phone to her ear. "Is he ok?"

Tuello laughed softly under his breath. "He is."

June held the phone with her left cheek while she lifted Holly out of the bath onto her hip, reaching for a towel to wrap around her. It was impossible to keep the impatience out of her voice. "Well, did he contact you, or..."

Tuello went into business mode, telling June everything he knew, which wasn't much. Nick had disappeared, off Gilead's radar. It was radio silence for weeks. Long enough for the man hunt to calm down. Tuello shared that Nick did reach out, earlier this week, from a new number. Nick didn't share any more than he had to. No location, no plans. He just asked Tuello to tell June he was safe. 

A wrinkle appeared between June's eyebrows. "That's it?"

Tuello nodded. "I'm sorry I don't have more to tell you. In cases like these, no news is often the best news." 

June nodded, shivering a little. You mean if he was on the wall, we'd know. Jesus Christ. 

She thanked him for the information and hung up. She swallowed the lump in her throat, returning her attention to Holly. "Daddy's ok."

Holly wasn't worried. She sucked her thumb, her cheek pressed to June's chest.

June had to struggle to keep her eyes focused. He's ok. Or at least...he was ok a few days ago. Fuck. 

June had compartmentalized her loneliness the past 6 months, locking it away in a tiny box and burying it deep. She lived and breathed for Holly. 

Tuello's refugee relocation program afforded her a small apartment and a stipend that was more than enough for groceries. June was used to living with nothing. All she needed was her daughter. 

But now, after Tuello's call, June couldn't put Nick out of her mind. Where was he? Was he ok? Had they found him? She shuddered to think what would they do to a Commander who went AWOL.

June got Holly into her flannel footed pajamas, brushed her two pearly teeth, but was unable to lay her down. Holly didn't mind. She snuggled closer, snoring happily on June's chest. 

June tried counting her breaths. She tried focusing on the tiny heartbeat next to her own. But none of the grounding techniques worked. 

All she could think of was him. 

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

Hours later, June sat up in a cold sweat. 

Holly stirred a little, popping her thumb into her mouth and sucking softly. 

June stroked the soft brown curls on her daughter's head, thankful that Holly was a deep sleeper. Kid could sleep through a hurricane. 

June stood up, gently transferring Holly to her toddler bed. 

Holly flipped onto her tummy, snoring contentedly as June adjusted her purple fleece blanket. June crept out of the room quietly, stooping to pick up a few loose toys on her way out. She pulled the bedroom door shut. 

Knock-Knock-Knock

June froze. She pulled her cellphone out of her pocket. 11:11 pm. 

Her eyebrows cinched together as she made her way to the kitchen, pulling a butcher's knife from the block. She approached the door, wishing she had a peep hole. Her heart was thundering in her chest. She listened for a long moment, until whoever-it-was knocked again, tentatively. 

Knock-Knock

It didn't sound like Police, or Eyes. It was too soft for that. Like if she didn't open, whoever it was would leave her in peace and never return. Something in her body screamed at her to open the door.

June reached for the door handle with her left hand, the knife gripped firmly in her right. 

What she saw through the opening took her breath away. She'd dreamed this moment so many times before, but she needed it to be real this time.

It was him, Nick Blaine, at her door. 

He was thinner than she remembered. Pale, with dark shadows under eyes heavy with exhaustion. But even worn as he was, his face softened the moment their eyes met. She read so much in his expression. He didn't know if it was ok that he was here. He hadn't wanted to risk her safety by calling. He hoped this was ok. He'd leave if it wasn't.

June's hands shook as she unlocked the security chain between them. She prayed silently in her head. Please be real. Please be real. 

As soon as she had the door open, Nick's eyes widened when he saw the knife in her hand. After a silent beat, they both smiled, letting the tension melt away. June was always a few seconds away from killing him. It felt totally in character, like when he showed up unannounced at the Globe. "Oh God. Sorry. Let me..."

June told him to come in, and returned the knife to the kitchen. Nick closed and locked the door behind him, standing awkwardly in the entryway. June rushed back, but slowed to a stop a few feet away, not wanting to overwhelm him. 

Nick fidgeted with his ring finger, which June noticed was conspicuously naked.

June searched for a new beginning. A place to start. She noticed the snow on his black jacket and held out her hands. "Let me hang this up for you."

Nick smirked, also not surprised that June was already trying to get him out of his clothes. He shrugged out of his coat, handing it over obediently, glad to be given some direction. 

June hung his coat up, still finding herself lost for words.  

Nick seemed to sense her distress, stepping closer and placing his hands gently on her arms. The fine hairs on June's skin stood at his touch, reaching for him like she wanted to. 

Nick's mouth fell open, but he closed it again. He was just as lost as she was. 

And then they realized, they weren't lost at all. 

They were home. 

Nick moved first, caressing June's cheek with the tips of his fingers. June's mouth fell open as the breath left her body. His touch felt good. So good. She'd forgotten the sparks in his fingertips. 

Nick cupped her cheeks with both hands, leaning in to kiss her softly. 

Hot tears burned June's eyelids as she melted into his kiss. Nick stood perfectly still, kissing June deeper with each touch of their lips. His hands tangled in her hair, and she felt it then. How hard he was holding himself back. 

A switch flipped. THE switch. The same one that drove her to his apartment that first night, and the one that drove her hand into his pants at the Globe. 

June stepped back, her dark, lidded eyes locking on Nick's. Taking in the beauty of his kiss-swollen lips.

She took Nick's hand, leading him to the bedroom. 

[complexhaystack]

Late to the party, but been binge watching The Handmaid's Tale! It is such a well written drama with so many layers and nuances. I've only just started S3, and haven't read the book... But I have some thoughts, particularly about Luke.

I've seen some reddit posts describing Luke as passive. I believe his role goes beyond that - his behaviours are a milder version of the extreme male chauvinism we see in Gilead.

Luke ends up staying with three women (at least up till where I watched :p) in Canada. While this on the surface seems to show his patience and kindness, his role in the house becomes a milder parallel to the Commanders in Gilead in several ways:

- In a scene where the four eat around a table, the three women have to watch Luke's mood for some time - as Luke presses Emily because he is inconvenienced by her presence. Heck about Emily's trauma, or that she risked her life to bring his wife's child over. A man is inconvenienced and something must be done. Thankfully Moira is assertive enough, but she also has to rein Luke in rather than Luke having sufficient EQ to rein himself in, while the other two women are uncomfortable. This echoes how the women in Gilead homes constantly have to watch for the man's cue and mood, and adapt their behaviours around him.

- The fact that Luke presses Emily for answers before she's ready to speak - also shows that he does not understand the gravity of the trauma that the three women before him have faced. He wants answers and he expects her to answer. Sounds familiar? (Yes sir)

- The above also indicates that under stress, he externalises how he feels as someone else's responsibility (usually a woman in the scenes he's in). This is done more subtly than the Gilead villainous men, because Luke is generally shown as kind. He is irritated at Emily because he's reminded of June. He says his wife is trying to eff up his life when he's the one who cheated. Once again, these are much milder, but also echoes of how the men in THT have low emotional immaturity and generally blame others for their situations or feelings. (The exception is Nick, but that's a whole other discussion on how he attunes to June's needs and allows her alot of space to be vulnerable.)

- Luke's passivity is reflected in many areas of his life in Canada and pre-Gilead. He laughs off the increasing restrictions placed on women (like signing off forms for June, or saying dismissively he'll take care of her). In Canada, I presume he works, but so does say, Moira - yet the caregiving of baby Nichole is left primarily to her (that is, his passivity is also in falling to stereotyped gender roles). Moira takes up a job at another refugee posting, actively helping people from Gilead where possible. She also sits and flips through thick binders for a long time to find out whether her gf was alive. In contrast, Luke appears quite content to let news come to him most of the time (even getting his mail Moira had to get it for him). June also once said that he never learnt how to use the dishwasher properly. This sense of passivity and honestly, entitlement - while the women around him are either proactive or helping Luke do things reminds us also of how Commanders in Gilead basically don't do much themselves, their households are primarily kept up by a legion of women in different roles. (Of course, what they do is to inflate their self importance by "working" to control these women.)

- It might be a minor point, but I also find it interesting that in his interaction with Waterford when Luke tried to hit him, his main concern was "you rape my wife!". While this is a legitimate concern, this also partially can be seen as a very subtle and normalised way of Luke positioning June as his woman, and something of his has been violated. He doesn't go up to Waterford to ask how or where June is, or that she's being held captive by him, or demand that she be let go. This point is again a very subtle one - Luke's focus appears to be on (1) June being violated by this man, and (2) an empty threat that he'll fight Waterford. Both in a sense a matter of potential male pride, which we also see echoed in Gilead's awful harsh consequences for adultery by a woman (because the man is cuckolded).

In other words, Luke got out of Gilead early, but his own almost invisible chauvinism (because of how normalised it is) makes males like him in the story complicit in some ways of how Gilead came to be.

I don't take issue with Luke not trying extreme ways to get back to Gilead to save Hannah and June, he might not have the guts to become a hero - and that's okay, most normal people don't. But his role in the story reminds us of how smaller echoes of extreme chauvinism can play out. I think if he did not manage to escape Gilead, perhaps he might have found he could adapt quite well to its regime.

Perhaps there'll be further development of his character, but at this point in time while watching, he sure is in the unlikeable bucket.

[scarlettatg]

The Handmaid’s Tale

Thoughts on 505 and 506

Even before Gilead June had doubts and insecurities about her relationship with Luke which I think is completely normal, but what has always been interesting to me is that the flashbacks that weren’t her idealized memories of her family, were about the red flags of her relationship with Luke. How they met, June’s guilt over the infidelity, Moira and Holly’s warnings and his reactions to when Gilead started taking over. Season 4 was even more brutal in terms of showing how out of touch he unfortunately was and even with these “changes” in Season 5 I still see the same issues being portrayed.

When I watched episode 505 this particular scene came to mind. In the bowling alley when Luke starts singing there’s a look of doubt and sadness that reminded me of the look she had in episode 207 after she walks in on Luke screaming into Annie’s voicemail. June looks back at Jayden and that’s when we see her expression. It’s kind of hard not to associate Jayden to Nick. I would love to think she’s probably thinking about the fact that she’s in love with Nick and maybe she was, but the show loves to make it seem like June doesn’t think about him (which I believe it’s impossible) but in this particular case I think it has more to do with Hannah. June has always felt that Luke’s love is conditioned to her ability to be a mother and we have seen that portrayed in the show. The fact that she couldn’t save Hannah and bring her back to Luke weighs heavily on her. The whole dancing sequence and the way it was shot seemed idealized like the flashbacks she used to have of Luke and Hannah. It felt like a dream or like the title of the episode, a fairytale. Even though by the end of the scene there is a connection between Luke and June I keep feeling that connection is in a way centered on guilt than in the love she had before. Ironically by the end of the episode they end up once again separated in the woods.

Then in the next episode, we see these 2 characters physically together (like the title of the episode) but it felt like they were more apart than ever. I think the cages symbolize the striking contrast of having them together but separated by those huge cages. There’s just so much space around them yet they’re trapped with each other - by who they are now and how much they’ve changed. Luke is now seeing and feeling a small part of what June went through and June is in complete control, disassociating to her survival self. She’s not worried about herself, she’s worried about him.

I'm sorry. Sorry. I just... it's just when I... When I think of you in places like this, by yourself, I just wish... I wish I could've been the kinda guy that could've come and got ya. And I know how that sounds, I just... I just wish I could've been with you through that.

You were with me. You were.

In this interaction Luke is clearly and obviously panicking. He’s frustrated because he knows once again there’s nothing he can do. His inability to save and protect June is once again out in the open. So he gets mad. He says I’m sorry I’m being such a man about it. This comment made me think that I’ve always seen Luke as written to be a subtle misogynistic character product of being raised in a patriarchal society. And just like in our society some people see it some people don’t. We expect Luke to be prepared (at least somewhat) but he clearly isn’t. Then we see June and everything she’s gone through and it’s painful and frustrating to watch her babysitting someone who doesn’t seem to at least acknowledge that this has to be triggering for her. I’m not saying he isn’t worried about her, he obviously is but it’s more about how he feels in that moment. Obviously June doesn’t show it and that makes him feel even more inadequate.

The second thing he says is how he wished he could be that guy. It’s a constant guilt Luke has had to live with and 2 episodes ago Serena pointed it out bluntly. This is what gets him mad at Serena not the things Serena’s done to June but the things he couldn’t/didn’t do. There’s no way that in between the lines who both of them are thinking about is Nick. June knows the risks and the things he did for her and Luke recently got more confirmation that Nick took care of her in ways he couldn’t. I don’t want to be unfair so I will point out that there were times Nick had to literally stand by knowing June was being abused and he couldn’t do anything; but he did sacrifice himself for her safety and paid for it as well. She also did say on the tape that Nick helped her to survive. June’s expression when she tells him that he was with her is interesting. It gave me the impression she really didn’t mean what she was saying and he didn’t believe her either.

You listen to me, okay? Okay. Okay. Last time when we were apart... No matter what happened, I never gave up hope. And you never gave up hope, because we knew... we just knew... that we would find each other again. So, we're just gonna do that again. Right? I love you. I love you. And we are gonna do that again. Do you understand? Yeah, we're... we're gonna stay alive. That's right.

This is one of my least favorite lines of the whole series. (Both dislikes in the whole series for me are in this season and it’s simply because it seems like a change of narrative and storyline). I had issues with it because it makes no sense with what I have been shown in terms of June and her longing for Luke, which is basically non existent. Every scene of her thinking back to him was always conditioned to Hannah.

In Episode 105 she says why does it feel like I’m cheating on Luke? This was the first time she went to Nick’s apartment ordered by Serena. It was something she had no choice in the matter like all the other ceremonies before and she didn’t think of those as cheating on Luke. She also still believed he was dead. I took it as she wanted and was attracted to Nick which we saw since their first interaction. The flashback to Luke in this episode shows the first time they were together and the awkwardness between them since they were being unfaithful and it contrasts to the second time June goes to Nick willingly. She says she felt invincible the same way Luke had described the way she looked in her in the picture when he met her at the food truck. Luke told her he looked invincible, Nick made her feel it.

In Episode 307 she sees Luke with Nicole at the protest on the TV. She longs for him in a way and says she wishes she could be held and told her name, things we know Nick who just had left for the front did for her many times before and she kept doing even after she knew Luke was alive. But let’s take Nick out of the equation. She saw him, she longs for him; yet that flashback is to the night they made Hannah. This is also when she sends him the tape where she says she’s embarrassed, because she knows she’s being unfaithful just like Luke had done with Annie; and where she says Nicole was made out of love and that it was Nick who helped her to survive.

In Episode 405 she reminisced about their first time again while Janine and Steven are having sex. It isn’t an intimate setting, they’re in the middle of a war front. She believes that what Janine is doing is wrong so I have no idea why she thought back to that.

In Episode 406 which is called Vows interestingly enough, we get the flashback where Moira says that Luke left Annie because she couldn’t conceive. We then see June talking to Luke about their and his vows with Annie asking what if she can’t give him kids, if she disappoints him or isn’t who he thought she’d be. Which is interesting given the context that she comes back a completely different person and without Hannah. She even says it to Moira on the boat. She didn’t want to come back to him without Hannah and you can see how worthless she feels when she tells him I’m sorry it’s just me.

She also says she never gave up hope and well she did many times and after season 3 she was suicidal, and in season 4 she tells Aunt Lydia to kill her.

After her first escape, what happened with Omar, her pregnancy and Nick’s marriage she was extremely hopeless. June has always had the will to fight and has drawn strength not only from Nick but from her friends. After planning Angel’s Flight she had nothing left to lose and her plan wasn’t to escape. Luke even questioned her decision to stay making it about him not realizing June stayed behind for Hannah. In season 4 she runs back to Nick while she was scared of going back to Luke. Nick didn’t save June, she saved herself but he tried to help and his love helped her survive. That has been a constant for 4 seasons. We see her struggling to connect and it’s not until 409 that we see a semblance of peace and safety when she sees Nick. I know it was also a struggle for Luke to connect with her but I think it’s because unfortunately he expected her to simply go back to who she was and she doesn’t feel safe enough to open herself to him. He expects her to be someone she isn’t.

I can understand the moment they’re in, about to die but the lines could’ve been entirely different and still been accurate to the storyline. I don’t doubt June loves Luke, but she’s not in love with him and we can see it clearly even in this intent to reconnect. Even Luke doesn’t seem to buy it. That conversation made me think of the way she spoke to Hannah in 210 when she’s giving her hope so that she can go back to her other parents. As much as they seem to be trying to change the direction of the storyline it makes no sense and in between those lines I can still see the remnants of the same issues I saw in past seasons.

[tao-of-osblaine]

So the first 3 times I watched 5x08, I just assumed it was Lawrence who sent the disc to June as a dangling carrot for NB. But then when Tuello calls June at the end, he says that the “metadata on your video helped tremendously” (thank you, subtitles) which reminded me of him telling Nick in 5x02 that the ‘file he pulled together on Hannah was good.’

5x02 // 5x08

Nick has always tried to help with Hannah but has been laying low because of Mackenzie being all over his ass. It makes so much more sense that Nick would try to get the info to June, especially since he knows from 5x02 that she’s been handing the intel over to Tuello. And if anyone in Gilead can communicate through metadata, it’s Nick.

Nick might be “on board” with NB to some degree, but he would do anything to keep June and Holly/Nichole out of Gilead 2.0, especially after catching on to the way Lawrence was baiting him later on. Just like Lawrence sabotaged Nick in 4x05 and he ended up having to bomb his girlfriend, Nick would blow up Lawrence’s plans in a heartbeat to protect his family and help June. // parallel with the sound of the fighter jets bombing Chicago and the jets near Hannah’s school at the end.

Nick knows Tuello and Lawrence both have their own agendas and he’s not falling for either of them. Tuello fights for his country, Lawrence fights for his legacy, and Nick will forever fight for his family. Sometimes it’s metadata, sometimes it’s holding Fred at gunpoint 🤷🏻‍♀️

Obviously all the plans are going to fall apart and all kinds of shit will hit the fan, but…

Osblaine is very much alive ❤️🔥

[sometimesoliloquy]

“The high criminal court of Gilead, in a special overnight session, found you, Commander Putnam, guilty of apostasy, sins of the flesh.”

The use of  “apostasy" here (aside from Nick just making it somehow sound really sexy,) I found very interesting. At first read it’s merely official Gilead-speak for "you fucked up the faux religious Gilead rules, bro".  But on a deeper level, I think "apostasy" -- a falling away, a withdrawal, a defection; the formal disaffiliation from, abandonment of, or renunciation of a religion by a person, or embracing an opinion that is contrary to one's previous religious beliefs.--is really about Nick’s arc.

We know Nick' has been disillusioned with Gilead for a long time, if he was ever was a  true believer (in Pryce’s masked utopian image of it). But through the seasons we see the evolution of what he does with that disillusionment. In 1x03, he tells June "You can’t change anything about this. This is going to end the same, no matter what you do, so there's no use trying to be tough, or brave. Brave isn’t part of any of this. Everybody breaks. Everybody." The statement and the way he says it speaks of personal experience. We don't know exactly at what point or how, but somewhere along the way, the Sons of Jacob, Gilead, broke him. He believed that regardless of what he did nothing would change, and the only thing he had left was plain survival: the instinct to put his head down and keep going. Then he saw the consequences of Fred's abuse, and it drove him to become an eye, seeing the chance to maybe make a small difference. When he meets June, I think one of the reasons he's drawn to her is that she doesn't let Gilead break her. They knock her down but she keeps getting back up. He admires her strength, and it challenges and pushes him further.

She gives him something more to live for ("what else is there to live for?") and fight for: love, family. And he suffers for these connections he makes, like he was afraid of ("it's better not to form attachments") but they also make him braver, drive him to take more risks, to do increasingly more and more. At this point he's certainly facilitated the deaths of abusers and rapists, but actually killing Putnam is the most active roll he's taken, the first time that we've seen him really get his hands (or his face and shirt) dirty. He's growing more and more fed up, and we can see it on his face, in his actions. But the more active he becomes, and the more his mask slips, the more dangerous it also is. The irony is that the official charges Nick recites are the two crimes that Gilead would execute him for, that he is “guilty” of. And they're also the very reason he's here, doing this.

Nick’s apostasy is his renunciation of Gilead—this has already happened in his heart and mind, and yet he’s still stuck physically in Gilead: playing a role, trying to make those commander shoes fit and change what he can from the inside. However it seems he could be teetering on the precipice of completing his apostasy arc—the formal disaffiliation and abandonment of his Gilead life. Rose and the pregnant surely complicate this, but there is still a lot we don't know about her and about their marriage. In whatever form it comes in, personally, I think he just needs a little push.

[nickblaine]

What are your thoughts on the Luke/June dynamic and Nick/Rose dynamic in the finale? It sounds like Luke wasn’t as annoying and I feel bad for Rose

Luke had his patronizing moments toward June, and their relationship still strikes me as familial more than romantic. but i get the sense he's grown a bit by this episode. his sacrifice at the end was a mature choice to make and also pretty moving.

i always expected the writers to give Luke a gracious happy ending (not as June’s husband, just in general)... but now i'm not so sure. there was heavy emphasis on his promise to find June again someday, which in TV land doesn't bode well for any character. regardless, i think this is a real separation and even if they do find each other someday, i don't think their relationship will exist in the form it's in now, if that makes sense. i believe this was a fitting ending for the s4/s5 version of June and Luke.

Nick and Rose are very similar to June/Luke in a lot of ways. they have that same bond that feels more familial than romantic, but still strong. Rose is certainly devastated by the realization that Nick will never love her the way he loves June. and i think it hurts Nick to hurt her. he genuinely tried to "make the gilead shoes fit" but in the end he can't. i think he truly loves Rose, just not the same way he loves June. and to let her down like that feels like a failure to him. their scene together carried a lot of closure too, though i don't know how that's going to play out next year since they have a child on the way. but much like the June/Luke ending, it does seem like the end of Nick and Rose as we know them.

all in all i feel like both of these relationships have fundamentally changed as of this episode and even if they come back together, it's never going to be the same.

[juneandnick]

5x06 : Together (My POV)

After being captured at the border, June and Luke find themselves in a van: destination unknown. Luke completely freaks out while June seems impassive.

They are photographed as if they were arrested by the police for a crime: a frontal shot and a profile shot. Then they are locked up individually in cages.

Scarlet noticed something very interesting about the cages: The striking contrast of having them together but separated. It only shows where their marriage is at.

The Gilead's doctor to Aunt Lydia: Now Esther will be transferred to the high-risk obstetrics hospital and she will be there on bedrest, until term. She is pregnant of three weeks after being raped by Putnam, a day before she was posted. Aunt Lydia is shocked because the ceremony is sacred. Is that all that shocks her?

In cages, Luke panics and annoys June until she loses her temper. Because he is complaining. Because once again June must reassure him and tries to keep her cool. A parallel with S4E08, when they are in the kitchen eating, he told her: I am really sorry about today. About coming to court and … But at least now I know everything. And maybe we can just move on. I mean, if you want to talk to me about anything to do with Hannah or … All right. Well, I am here. I do not know what to do. I am trying. Just tell me. He whines. She gets up and tries to comfort him.

When June says to Luke I survived, I wonder if it is a parallel with S3E05, about Nick: I need you to know that Nichole was born out of love. Her real name is Holly. Her father is a driver named Nick. He helped me to survive. Or nothing to do with it.

At the same time, Luke confides: I just wish I could have been the kinda guy that could have come and got ya. And I know how that sounds, I just wish I could have been with you through that. As Alwaysnyc14 wrote, there is an elephant in the room. Maybe it is time for these two to have a honest conversation about Nick. At least, this latter did it with Rose. I am crossing my fingers for season 6.

June and Luke joke in the cage before the housekeepers arrive. Once again she should think before to talk: You tell your boss he has to call Commander Lawrence or Commander Blaine. After S5E01, it was incredibly stupid. Did not she learn that in Gilead, if they ever really are at Gilead, she can not trust anyone? Even less hooded men. She gives names without thinking it might get them in trouble.

What the hell Luke was thinking when he tried to escape? No comment.

At Lawrence's house, Nick cannot hide his disgust at Warren's remarks. Which does not escape Joseph. So the plans for New Bethlehem seem compromised.

Joseph: It is a good example for young Commander Blaine. Accept when you have been outplayed. Nick: I am learning a lot from the both of you.

Was it a secret code between these two? A sort of: Our dearest friend, you have no idea that your hour has just struck. It will only be a formality. I really love it.

June to Luke: Last time when we were apart… No matter what happened, I never gave up hope. And you never gave up hope. Because we knew, we just knew that we would find each other again. So, we are gonna do that again. Right?

About it, I already shared my point of view.

Later, they are separated because he is legal, they do not want him. I wonder if this line: We stay together is a sort of wink to Let's stay together that he sang in the previous episode. The two struggle because they do not want to be separated.

Interesting fact about the symbolic of their marriage: Resistancerising56.

I did not know there were restaurants in Gilead. Anyway, this is where the story continues. Guardians arrive and take by force Warren outside. Nick kills him because officially Gilead found him guilty of apostasy and sins of the flesh. There is a parallel with S4E10. Before to die, Warren says: But I have a baby on the way! Before to die Fred said: I have a son! A son! And on S5E02, Warren said to Serena: Fred was like a brother to me. True or not they had the same destiny.

Eric Tuchman says: We have to remember that as much as we love Nick he is not a boy scout. Over the years he has seen Gilead corrupted and perverted by men like Putnam, who have exploited it and used it for their own pleasure and gain. So to Nick's mind, this is a justified execution. He did what he dreamed to do to Fred.

In S5E01, Rose seems to understand June’s revenge to Fred. Even if, it is not really clear what she exactly knows. Nevertheless, she seemed to be a support for Nick.

But in this episode, Rose cries and says: I am worried about the kind of person this makes you. Turnaround situation. She is frightened and disapproves.

Resistancerising56 noticed something very interesting but about the title of the episode. Contrary to what one might think it is not about June and Luke. It is about June and Nick. Because: Their only concern is the well-being of their children.

It seems there is no doubt that Nick is the father of Rose's child.

June gets out from the bus with Ezra and face to face with Serena, who forced her to pray on her knees. I pray for our children. I pray that my daughters live a life of peace. A life without all of this hate and violence. Give them a life, give them a happy life. And, dear God, may they do better than we did. Serena answers Amen and shoots Ezra in the chest. Before to go on the run with June.

Personally I find it unhealthy to maintain the June / Serena relationship.

Music by Adam Taylor

- I Survived ❤️

- Separated Again ❤️

Source Pictures: Screenshots (by me)

[olderthannetfic]

I think a lot of people that are into omega verse or at least don't mind it had a 'to each their own, but not for me phase'.

Ultimately, it's just another AU that can be styled in a myriad of different ways. I like the power dynamics, the kink, the trope subversions, the angst and the additional level of complication. But that's because I generally like that in my AUs and fics.

There is of course a bio essentialism scale to it. The one thing I absolutely cannot stand are plots that start with an independent and self-determined omega who then gets told that the alphas and betas in their lives know better than them and the plot 'proves them right'. The omega took surpressants that have some nasty side effects and their circle of friends find out and now their staging an intervention because surpressants are illegal and harmful and you don't know what you're doing and what's best for yourself. I hate it. I have read the 'the plot proves them right' version of this, where the protagonist becomes meek little thing, a little to far a couple of times, because I do like the version where the plot proves them wrong.

I just don't get why that's an interesting plot to read/write? It slaps of bio essentialism, pro life, lack of bodily autonomy, ultimately really lack of any autonomy for omegas/women. It's like reading the Hamdmaid's Tale but you start in the resistance get captured and slowly start to see that Gilead was right all along without a glimpse of dissonance after 2 days of initial stumbles. It doesn't make sense to me. It makes my hair stand on end.

It really doesn't read like kink and I'm usually pretty good at spotting that, also there are kinky versions of that and they sound different. Same for fics that are deliberately dark and aware of that, that explore the visceral horror of your mind being changed like that. Maybe the point is that it is meta level horror? But it seems unlikely to me.

Can cognitive dissonance allow for someone that actually support those values to write M/M omega verse romance on ao3? Doesn't seem unlikely, now that I've written out the possibility. Not common, of course, but not wholly impossible either.

--

I find those fics tedious, but it's laughable to think we can always spot other people's kinks in how they write.

[valiantarcher]

Some assorted and random thoughts on Defy by Tricia Mingerink.

I didn't expect the Brandi POV but I liked it. It was a wild ride with her learning how to defend herself (yay!), killing Kent in defense of herself and Jamie (nooo), riding to battle in disguise (...it was not the best idea, but it was also completely understandable and she had an important role to play), etc. but it was fun to have her perspective more directly. That said, I am taking her internal complaint about Leith dragging his feet on courting Renna just as an exaggeration because she's mad at him and not a legitimate criticism that she has.

I really appreciated how concerned Leith was for Martyn and still wanting to save him, even at the beginning, and then it just built from there.

Respen's motivations and goals never really were pinned down, leaving me feeling like he got inconsistent characterization and was not a convincing or well-drawn villain. ALSO! Pretty much everything we learned about him in Deny was dropped again without comment or further explanation??? Like, his dead son came up once and then his wife actually became more important, but the implied back stories with Leith and Uncle Abel and Aunt Mara? Zilch.

It seemed very sudden for Leith to go from turning around in the Waste in one section to dying in the Waste in the next, like there was an intervening part missing

I felt sorry for Martyn. Not only was he dealing with Leith's betrayal, the punishment he got from Respen for not stopping Leith, and the responsibility of making sure Renna doesn't escape, he also had to follow her everywhere and listen to her talking without complaint AND DO DISHES WITH HER. And it just gets worse from there.

"What would Leith think if he learned she'd killed?" HE'D BE SO SAD FOR HER AND THAT SHE HAD TO DO THAT AND GIVE HER A HUG AND HELP HER UNDERSTAND HOW TO GET THROUGH IT. AND THEN HE DID! Also, that cave sounds gorgeous (and I appreciated the rock chip being a Chekov's gun).

I think anyone who stuck it out for so long as a Blade trainee without losing his (ill-conceived) plan of revenge or his morals of not having to kill as Jamie had would be at least mostly as stubborn as you, Brandi.

I *knew* the Leader was going to be the cousin that Leith had "killed" - it was an easy way to get Renna's family's blood immediately off his hands. :| It also felt like some of the information, such as the royal family's bodies being carried off at night (men of Jabesh Gilead allusion, yes!), should've been foreshadowed so we didn't have to just suddenly realise that Leith wasn't actually as 'good' at being a Blade as he'd always been painted. >.>

UGH. Brandi's trust in Leith being broken was so painful, especially on top of her faith taking a beating.

Actually, really the only things I liked about the entire Eagle Heights section was Shad's "restraining the Blade" and Brandi getting to give her cousin what-for.

Something really bothered me about Renna's comparisons to Esther. For one thing, she wasn't given the choice to marry the king to save her people. What she was given was the choice to intercede for her people at the risk of her life or to keep silent and know that her people would be saved by another means while she might not; the choice of whether to potentially lose her life in the short term by doing the right thing in speaking up or to lose it later by doing the wrong thing in keeping silent. The dilemma Renna seems to be facing is whether it's right to do the wrong thing for the right end or not, with the added trouble of trying to determine whether marrying Respen was unwise, unpleasant, or simply wrong - and then with her thinking it was maybe God's will for her to marry Respen without even considering II Corinthians 6:14 (or I Corinthians 7:14-16, for a possibly contrasting point) seemed kind of odd. I think it all just got a bit muddied, especially because her moral concerns seem to fold once she thought Leith was dead.

'Kay' definitely seemed a tie-in for a later book, just as the info about Keeven and Adelaide seemed to be purely a tie-in to the 3.5 novella.

BRANDI LEADING THE CHARGE AND SPURRING THE RIDERS ONWARD WHEN THEY FALTER AND ALMOST FAIL!!!

I don't think Keeven has the marks of a good king - but he does have this over Tirian, that he listens to counsel.

Despite how traumatising the execution scene in Defy was, I actually liked the pre-execution scenes for both Renna and Leith. I especially appreciated the conversation about Heaven where Leith asks Renna to fill in some of the holes of his knowledge and the beautiful pictures of Renna's parents rejoicing over Leith and Leith getting to meet Daniel.

I don't know that I would equate Leith's torture with being counted worthy to suffer for Christ's sake? Granted, the line about where someone suffers as Christian vs. suffering for being a Christian seems unclear often, but it seemed (as best as one could tell about Respen, which was not great) like he was being tortured simply because he'd gone against Respen, not for his faith. On the flip side, the reason why Leith had surrendered himself instead of trying to break Renna out was to try to finally break through to Martyn, so in that respect he was suffering for being a Christian. Still, that bit didn't seem to sit quite right with me.

I was frustrated that the Resistance had been so tight-lipped about Eagle Heights' existence when Renna probably would've had a totally different perspective on the 'marrying to stop persecution' idea if she'd known just how vibrant and large the church in Eagle Heights (not to mention if she'd known about Keevan not being as dead as they thought and thus the legitimate heir), and then it got worse when Brandi realised that Lord Emmelin's perspective would've been completely different if he'd known Keevan was alive and that his life might've been saved. :|

"[Martyn] deserves to be uncomfortable." NO! NOT IN THIS WAY! Not when they've both been trying to show Christ's love to Martyn, not when they've both been trying to convince Martyn that Leith has turned his back on Respen and the Blades not for love of Renna but because of God's love to him, not when Leith is so desperate to reach Martyn that his body is being broken for him in an echo of what Jesus suffered for us! They've already made him plenty uncomfortable with the gospel, and that should be the ONLY offense given what's going on and their goal. It just made the romance seem like a cheapening of the deeper love that should be the focus. :/ And, yes, Leith and Renna shone far more in their care and compassion (Renna doing the dishes to give even a bit of a sabbath rest for the kitchen staff! Renna healing Martyn and Ranson! Leith searching out Brandi and helping her process Kent's death! Leith letting Jamie know he'd done his best!) and love for others (including each other - when Leith asks Renna to be strong for him and then the conversation about Heaven, of course!) than when they started getting romantic. :|

Actually, I would like to lodge a general complaint about the couples having no sense of decorum and what was appropriate to a situation; I know they were about to go into war, but couldn't have Jolene and Shadrach said goodbye when they were NOT right in front of all of the men (and boys and Brandi) Shadrach was captaining? :|

I really hope that Renna didn't get mad at Jamie after she finished caring for the wounded. He was already feeling bad enough and what else could he have done? He did all that he could to keep Brandi safe and the only reason he wasn't by her side in the gate was because he was rescuing Leith and Renna.

Overall, I enjoyed Defy better than Deny but I still did not enjoy it near as much as Dare.

Bonus: I kept misspelling Keevan as Keaven, which I eventually realised would rhyme with Heaven, and now I want to just call him Kevin.

[thethistlegirlwrites]

What are some common elements of stories you are tired of seeing? What would you avoid writing about?

What themes would you like to write about that you feel don’t get explored very often?

Favorite dialogue in your wip? (If asked more than once, respond with a new piece each time)

What is some of the best writing advice you’ve read or received? Why does it work for you?

How do you come up with character names? Do the names have a special meaning? If so, what are they?

What writers have inspired you with their use of language? What are some of your favorite quotes?

Thank you for the ask!

What are some common elements of stories you are tired of seeing? What would you avoid writing about?

Oh boy, you really know how to ask them...at this point I guess the thing I'm most done with is 'special' characters who have some kind of magical power that makes them the chosen one. That and the 'strong' female characters who do things that male characters would never get away with and are praised for it. I have ZERO problem with morally grey female characters *cough cough Emma, Sierra, even Maira to some extent* but I want the complexities and fallout of their choices to at least be as realistic as someone would demand from a male character.

What themes would you like to write about that you feel don’t get explored very often?

I will NEVER get enough found family, in whatever way shape or form it arrives. It's becoming more common in books now, but I still want more. Redemption arcs that are meaningful explorations of change and based in more than just a 'I pulled your pigtails because I love you' kind of explanation. And a WHOLE lot more stories that play with characters' internal hypocrisies and ask the reader to consider if maybe they share some of the same.

Favorite dialogue in your wip? (If asked more than once, respond with a new piece each time)

“Magic is stronger near the rifts, but it also remembers what it lost. There is bitterness in it now, and it passes that pain on to its wielder.”

What is some of the best writing advice you’ve read or received? Why does it work for you?

Print your entire first draft, or at least pull it up in a split screen window next to a blank document, and fully rewrite the second draft. It forces me to think through every single word choice and every bit of the action, and I don't feel bound to what is already there like I would if I was editing the document with words already in it.

How do you come up with character names? Do the names have a special meaning? If so, what are they?

Sometimes, they just sound good. Occasionally, there's a meaning, either an in-joke to myself about where the character originated or the literal meaning of the name itself, but most of the time they just pop into my head as the 'right' sound for the character. The right names are essential to me being able to write a character well, I have to have one for them or the story won't be able to start.

What writers have inspired you with their use of language? What are some of your favorite quotes?

I tend to pull out themes more so than the ways writers use their words (notable exception, the time I read Nicholas Nickelby in three days and then everything I wrote sounded Dickensian for a week), but I remember a quote from the book "Gilead" by Marilynne Robinson absolutely destroying me when I read it in college. Something about ash, maybe, all I know is I was crying on my bunk an hour before a class started.

Possibly it's this one but I'm not entirely sure. “It has seemed to me sometimes as though the Lord breathes on this poor gray ember of Creation and it turns to radiance - for a moment or a year or the span of a life. And then it sinks back into itself again, and to look at it no one would know it had anything to do with fire, or light .... Wherever you turn your eyes the world can shine like transfiguration. You don't have to bring a thing to it except a little willingness to see. Only, who could have the courage to see it? .... Theologians talk about a prevenient grace that precedes grace itself and allows us to accept it. I think there must also be a prevenient courage that allows us to be brave - that is, to acknowledge that there is more beauty than our eyes can bear, that precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm.”

From this ask game!

[bookdepositori]

Recently finished Gilead, my second Marilynne Robinson book. I really loved this one, but I’m not really sure how to talk about it if I’m entirely honest. It’s a really unique book.

The book is conceptualized as a long-form letter written by a pastor to be read by his young son once he’s reached adulthood. Along with stories from his life, the pastor introspects on religion and his own mortality throughout. The entire book is written as if you’re reading this letter, with the only pauses being the occasional line break where the pastor himself is taking a break from writing.

I really got a lot out of this book, but due to its format, I’m not really sure how to go about talking about it in any way more complicated than me just saying it was good. It has a very specific goal in mind and it accomplishes it amazingly. This book is an incredible character study and you are allowed a very intimate proximity to its central character. The pastor probably isn’t someone I would agree with on many things in real life, but this book left me with a really deep understanding of him and how his beliefs have developed.

This was a really interesting turn from Housekeeping, Robinson’s previous novel. Housekeeping is sometimes characterized by some as a book that uses intricate prose in place of things like story or character writing. Though Gilead is a book that is technically comprised entirely from dialogue and focused on authenticity. Everything written in Gilead is written in the way I believe the pastor would have wrote it. It’s such a hard shift from the often abstract imagery presented in Housekeeping and it’s a testament to Robinson’s command over the medium that she could make such a confident stylistic shift like this.

I loved this book, but it maybe wasn’t the best one to pick up after such a long reading hiatus. As it’s such a conversational book, I wanted to fully absorb everything the pastor told me and I ended up only reading a handful of pages a day, which is part of why it took so long to write this. I absolutely recommend this book if any part of this sounds interesting to you, it’s an entirely unique experience.

[iwasbored777]

The way Janine talked to Naomi sounded exactly like June talking to Serena back in Gilead. I have a feeling that she did it not just because she isn't finally done with Gilead but to honour June too, she thought June was going to get killed and she didn't want to submit to anyone anymore because all her other friends died or got hurt and she knew she will suffer the same fate one day whether she's playing nice or not. She thought June will die a rebel and she wanted to die like that too, because basically everyone who is/was in Gilead gets killed by the Eye so she wanted others to remember her as a rebel not a victim. My heart broke when they took her and she was numb. She HAS to survive I can't watch this show without her.

[dystopiandramaqueen]

I came across some takes on the scene in the last episode where Tuello is telling June about Nick having turned him down. I've just watched the finale too and it clicked in my mind. This is going to sound like a conspiracy theory but what if running June over was set up by Mark? Made to look like it was done by Gilead! To coerce Nick into working with him. Mark said to June it'd be good to have a win, he hoped she'd be able to convince Nick, but it didn't work. After hearing what Nick had to say, no way June would push him anymore. So what if Mark decided to use June instead? It worked like a charm clearly, and Nick was unsure about the whole ordeal as well not 2 seconds after signing the contract. To echo Nick, Tuello is (sort of) a politician and has his own agenda. That Tuello would consider to be bigger than June or anyone else.

Sounds like a conspiracy but I'm not sure to get it out of my head!

It's crossed my mind.

Politicians have their own agenda.

They don't give a shit about Osblaine, only about increasing their power.

Totally possible.

While I have the mic, let me also slip in my other two pet Tuello theories, which I prefer to !evil Tuello

Mark (Joshua Blaine) Tuello- secretly Nick's brother, the dead alcoholic trauma story was a cover to get him sympathy as he got embedded in the Sons- and Nick and his brother Josh are brothers in the CIA, working from both sides of the border to bring down Gilead.

And the other is just a low key, never to be enacted repressed bisexual longing. Which I am 100% into as long as Tuello isn't !evil or !Josh

[scarlettatg]

The Handmaid’s Tale

Parallels in episode 506 Together

Episode 104 Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum:

Look, I'm sorry this is happening to you. I wish.

You wish what? What do you wish?

Episode 506 Together:

I'm sorry. Sorry. I just... it's just when I... When I think of you in places like this, by yourself, I just wish... I wish I could've been the kinda guy that could've come and got ya. And I know how that sounds, I just... I just wish I could've been with you through that.

You were with me. You were.

It’s interesting to me how both men tell June I wish, implying they wished they could do more. Nick doesn’t finish his statement maybe because he knows he can’t do much but he apologizes for the situation June is in showing empathy and understanding to what she’s going through; especially after her emotional meltdown in the car minutes before. Nick tried to protect her, he tired to get her out of Gilead; he gave her love and he made her feel safe enough to be vulnerable. Helping June had risks and he paid for them, but he also had to stand by unable to do anything, knowing there were times she was being mistreated and times where he had to make horrible choices. Nick was completely selfless, letting her and his daughter go believing the right place for her was to be out of Gilead always assuming she would go back to Luke. By contrast Luke couldn’t do any of the things Nick was able to do so he waited, expecting and needing her to come back to him. Expecting things to be the way they were before. Luke wants June to be ok and safe but he believes the way June is ok is by being who she was before. In season 4 we really see how he he’s unable to understand. This season we can see him trying and accepting this new version of June, but for the wrong reasons. He simply doesn’t want to lose her so he’ll accept things he wouldn’t have before and he will try to mold himself to her; just like she has had to mold herself to him. He feels inadequate for not being able to take care of June like Serena implied Nick did in episode 504. Luke is experiencing for the first time what June experienced for 7 years and he makes it about how he feels, so she feels she has to make him feel better. When she says that he was with her it appears her expression doesn’t match her words and there’s a sadness between them. It’s like they appear to be Together while being miles apart. June thought about Luke in terms of her family and what she lost. The one that was able to be with her and be that kind of guy, was Nick.

I also think it’s interesting that in that moment with Nick, without really knowing anything about him other than he’s a guardian, she was extremely vulnerable in the car. Then after he apologizes she was defiant. His mask slips when he tells her that he wished showing vulnerability. For June that wasn’t enough so she left him there with his hand outstretched and got out of the car on her own. She didn’t cater to him, she didn’t feel threatened or scared by his presence and the fact that he is a guardian. There was a level of trust there because he could’ve had her arrested and so could she. Throughout season 5 we still haven’t seen June feel comfortable enough to be this way with Luke.

Episode 104 Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum:

I can help you. It could be the only way for you. If Waterford can't get you pregnant, they won't blame him. It'll be your fault. It'll only take a few minutes, honey.

Episode 506 Together:

I was just wondering... I, of course, have spoken to Ryan and Al an is about this, who encouraged me.

Encouraged you to do what?

To ask if you would like to have dinner with me...

Episode 104 Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum:

It has been so hard. Being alone in that room all the time. I know Mrs. Waterford is, is trying to teach me a lesson. I know. I know she's right. I have so many flaws. But it has been so long. I'm afraid I'm starting to give up. I certainly wouldn't want to give up. Like my friend.

Episode 506 Together:

Bear witness. She's taken so much away from me. I need to see it. I need to see the end. I want to tell my son that I know what happened to his father's killer. That she's gone from the Earth.

Episode 104 Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum:

There was an Offred before me. She helped me find my way out. She's dead. She's alive. She is me. We are Handmaids. Nolite te bastardes carborundorum, bitches.

Episode 506 Together:

Even if it is the slightest discomfort, Ezra will bring you home immediately.

Oh, I know

Episode 101 Offred

Someone is watching. Here, someone is always watching. Nothing can change. It all has to look the same. Because I intend to survive for her. Her name is Hannah. My husband was Luke. My name is June

Episode 506 Together

I'm going for a walk.

Well, no, it's too cold. And Dr. Landers said you need to rest.

Perhaps we need to organize a conversation between you and Commander Lawrence... Absolutely not. You need to rest. Your baby needs to rest. That's final.

Al an is.

Go to your room.

Episode 103 Late: A rose is a rose, except here. Here it has to mean something.

Episode 208 A Woman’s Work: And thank you for the flower.

Episode 506 Together: I just love that the more you cut back some flowers, the more they bloom.