#Thera Min

[koreanboybands]

𝙉𝘼𝘾𝙄𝙁𝙄𝘾 𝙓 𝘼𝙏𝙀𝙀𝙕 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐍𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄 ! Assistant Manager Choi San's PICK! Moisturize and elasticize the skin from deep inside Nessific Origin Red Salicylic Acid Toner

𝙉𝘼𝘾𝙄𝙁𝙄𝘾 𝙓 𝘼𝙏𝙀𝙀𝙕 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐍𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄! Assistant Manager Song Min-ki's PICK! Moisturize your skin from the first step of skin care with Nacific Milk Cream Toner #nacific

𝙉𝘼𝘾𝙄𝙁𝙄𝘾 𝙓 𝘼𝙏𝙀𝙀𝙕 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐍𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄! Deputy Director Choi Jong-ho's PICK! Soft and refreshing care with black food Nacific Blackhead All Kill Pack

𝙉𝘼𝘾𝙄𝙁𝙄𝘾 𝙓 𝘼𝙏𝙀𝙀𝙕 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐍𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄! Employee Wooyoung Jeong's PICK! Care your skin gently with Ahabaha Necific Pink Ahabaha Serum

𝙉𝘼𝘾𝙄𝙁𝙄𝘾 𝙓 𝘼𝙏𝙀𝙀𝙕 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐍𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄! Assistant Manager Jeong Yun-ho's PICK! Necific milk cream with 100-hour moisture locking effect as soft as milk #nacific

𝙉𝘼𝘾𝙄𝙁𝙄𝘾 𝙓 𝘼𝙏𝙀𝙀𝙕 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐍𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄! Team leader Seonghwa Park’s PICK! 100-hour high moisturizing, non-drying milk thera necific milk cream ampoule

𝙉𝘼𝘾𝙄𝙁𝙄𝘾 𝙓 𝘼𝙏𝙀𝙀𝙕 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐍𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄! Employee Yeosang Kang's PICK! Nacific milk cream that is sticky and soft like milk #nacific

𝙉𝘼𝘾𝙄𝙁𝙄𝘾 𝙓 𝘼𝙏𝙀𝙀𝙕 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐍𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄! Team Leader Hongjoong Kim’s PICK! Soft and smooth dead skin care Nacific Origin Red Salicylic Acid Serum

[30-before-30-but-im-27]

Greek Islands, Cyprus, Jordan & France - Full Itinerary

This summer I made one of my life goals come true and travelled for 3 weeks to 5 countries (the 4 I was meant to visit originally + an accidental stopover in Austria) including Greek mainland and island hopping as well as visiting one of the 7 Wonders of the World, Petra in Jordan.

ATHENS - GREECE

Official gov tourism website https://www.visitgreece.gr/mainland/attica/athens/ 

Day 1

Take a 40 min bus from the airport

Temple of Olympian Zeus - Acropolis & Slopes Pass

Hadrian’s Arch - FREE

Theatre of Dionysus - Pass

Ruins of Asklepieion and Stoa of Eumenes - Pass

Odeon of Herodes Atticus - Pass

Acropolis of Athens - Pass

Erechtheoin - Pass

Temple of Athene Nike - Pass

Parthenon - Pass

Acropolis Museum - €15

Coming down the hill Areios Lagos (ancient law court) - FREE

Ancient Agora of Athens  - Pass

Temple of Hephaestus (at the ancient agora) - Pass

Monastiraki Square - FREE

Hadrian’s Library - Pass

Day 2

Plaka - FREE

Zappeion Garden - FREE

Ethnikos Kipos (Athens national garden) - FREE

Kalamaki Beach - FREE

Day 3

The Prison of Socrates - FREE

Church of Saint Demetrios Loumbardiaris - FREE

Pnyx - FREE

Philopappou Hill - FREE

Flight from Athens to Santorini

SANTORINI - GREECE

Day 1

Thera (Fira) day out - 30 min bus (€2)

Three Bells of Fira - FREE

Black sand beach - FREE

Day 2

Day trip to Oia

Day 3

Ancient Fira - £5

Ferry to Heraklion

HERAKLION - GREECE

Day 1

Beach day - FREE

Day 2

Venetian port Heraklion - FREE

Old Town - FREE

Day 3

Knossos Palace - £15

Heraklion Archaeological Museum - Included in the ticket

Day 4

Take the bus to Chania, 2 hours 30 min https://www.allincrete.com/buses-timetables/ around £15

CHANIA - GREECE

Day 1

Old Venetian Port of Chania - FREE

Lighthouse of Chania - FREE

Boat Trip - many depart daily from the port for £25

Day 2

Chania International Airport flight to Paphos

PAPHOS - CYPRUS

Day 1

Take a 25 min taxi to the hotel

Explore Paphos Old Town - FREE

Day 2

- Venus Beach - FREE

Day 3

Archaeological Site of the Tombs of the Kings - £2

Day 4

Archaeological Site of Nea Paphos - £4

Paphos Castle - FREE

Forty Columns Fortress - PAID

Paphos Mosaics - PAID

House of Dionysus - PAID

Villa of Theseus - PAID

House of Orpheus - PAID

Agora - PAID

Lighthouse - FREE

Day 5

Flight to Amman Queen Alia International Airport

AMMAN - JORDAN

Day 1

Take a bus from the airport (departs every 30 min) 

Roman Theatre - JORDAN PASS

Folklore Museum - JORDAN PASS

Amman Citadel: Open Cistern, Palace - JORDAN PASS

King Abdullah I Mosque - FREE

Rainbow Street - FREE

JORDAN PASS (includes visa) https://jordanpass.jo/Contents/Prices.aspx 

Day 2

Take a bus from Amman to Petra 6:30 am takes 3 hours arrival 9:30 am https://www.jett.com.jo/en 

PETRA - JORDAN

Day 2

Petra Tourist Office - FREE

Petra Museum - included in the JORDAN PASS

Siq (the Treasury) trail, then Jabal Haroun trail, then the climb up 900 steps Ad-Dier Monastery Hike - JORDAN PASS

Take a 40 JOD taxi to Wadi Rum Visitor Centre

WADI RUM - JORDAN

Day 2 Continued

Pick up from Wadi Rum Visitor Centre for 5 JOD organised by the camp (let them know arrival time one day prior to the stay)

Check-in at Desert Magic Camp & Resort Ad Disah Road 1, 77110 Wadi Rum, Jordan

Traditional dinner - 13 JOD

Day 3

Jeep tour of the desert (regular 4 hours) - 22 JOD

5 JOD jeep ride back to Wadi Rum Visitor Centre

Take a bus back to Amman

AMMAN - JORDAN

Day 3 Continued

Dinner at Hashem Restaurant

Day 4

Swim in the Dead Sea - Amman Beach - Dead Sea - FREE or ask your hotel for a private driver around 80 JOD for two people with access to a private beach at one of the resorts

The Baptism Site of Jesus Christ https://www.baptismsite.com/operating-hours-a-entrance-fees/ - 12 JOD

Flight to Paphos then flight to France Marseille Provence Airport 

MARSEILLE - FRANCE

Day 1

Chateau d’If via boat - €6 transport not included 

Day 2

Palais Longchamp - FREE

Cathedral La Major - FREE

Basilica of Notre-Dame of la Garde - FREE

Flight from Marseille Provence Airport back to the UK

[therapardalis]

becomelions·:

-

He wasn’t exactly disappointed about how this was turning. Her expertise was known, just unexpected in the moment because he didn’t entirely think on asking her. Rumlow was rather used to coming up with plans, or at least a start of one, on his own before bringing it up to his team where they may work together to finish the final pieces before going to Fury or Pierce to show what they had in order to get the green light to go. This needed to be figured out and it seemed they were getting closer. It made his own thoughts of what had happened earlier slip from his min as he was going through this over in his head. He figured why not show he understood with his own form of historical knowledge that he had learned growing up. Hell, he did still study different tactics and had to as a SEAL anyway to make sure he was doing a proper job in any situation. 

The chuckle makes him pause as his brow arches, looking over at her. “What’s that for?” He asks with a small smirk of his own as he fully turns to look at her, his pacing stopped. “I don’t think anything would be as dramatic.” Rumlow half mumbles as he walks back towards her. “I can pull up the topographic maps, satellite images of the cliffs before we go. Hell, I think he might prefer knowing we know the cliff before we bring it over to him. After that, yeah I’d prefer you be there. That way he knows I’m not making any shit up when it comes to this. Besides, he’s gonna know I didn’t think of the shit tunnel.” 

Admittedly, then it came to Thera’s long history there were some silly questions. Or more exactly assumptions. She knew an awful lot about an awful lot, but not everything - she’d only been in one place at any given time. Fortunately for Brock, quite a lot of those places had been in medieval Europe, living in or near castles exactly like this. “Mm ...” Her glance flicked up again at Brock’s murmur, “Let’s keep it that way.”

In a perfect world this was going to be an easy in-easy out, but she always preferred to run a mission half a dozen times on paper before their boots even thought about hitting the ground.

“It’s a few centuries since it was built, some of the cliff might have worn away. Don’t want to show up expecting it to cover us and it won’t.” Yes, she did just unconsciously use the word ‘us’, but it was another detail to be sure of before they began. “Also saves carrying climbing gear just to find we don’t need it after all.” There was that ‘we’ again. Thera stretched, popping her her neck, and looked at the images again. “I’ve got an idea for reconnaissance if the satellite doesn’t give us what we need.”

[pinch-of-saffron]

almost forgot to post this atact  @donomon‘s bard Thera Min. i couldnt not draw her with that name

[spacewingcat-studios]

“That’s improper!” Thera Min  © donomon

”How does this spell go again??” Halcyon © rumminov

[kiyoobi]

we all are small particles holding very tightly together in a very large universe // k.bakugou  III

Rating: MA

Pairing(s): Tamaki Amajiki x fem!reader, Bakugou Katsuki x fem!reader

Warnings: hurt/comfort, heavy angst, emotional cheating, major character death, smut, body horror/graphic injuries, trauma, ptsd, sinkhole accident, medical trauma, hospital scenes 

wc: 9.7k

Summary: ahaha

a/n: hello this is my third part, ive finally hit my 20k min requirement for @mybigbangacademia yay!!!!!!!!!! enjoy, like, reblog, comment, gimme a lil kudos on ao3 (link in title) and as always...

minors dni

For authorized eyes only, Level Eight Clearance and Above required.

Mission Report: Musutafu Sinkhole Incident, 02/03/2xxx

On March 2nd, 2xxx a sinkhole in the Musutafu district occurred at 17:52. There were fourteen casualties, including Pro-Hero Suneater. Forty-eight other civilians and heroes were rushed to nearby hospitals for injuries ranging from severe to devastating. Twelve had minimal injuries. Twenty-two are still missing. Numbers of victims are rising every day. Rescue efforts are still ongoing, the city blocks have been shut down and quarantined as fire and rescue fight the elements. 

The sinkhole originally had been three blocks wide and three hundred twenty-seven feet deep. The original cause is still unknown, this investigation is ongoing but suspicions are that unstable water and sewages systems and years of poor foundation may be the cause. As soon as this emergency was dispatched, teams of heroes and sidekicks alongside fire and rescue had surrounded the area and began their rescued efforts. Surrounding the sinkhole, medics awaited for any survivors. The main concern was finding pedestrians and securing any unstable sections. Rescue heroes had been struggling with the amount of debris and noise made, making rescue efforts difficult. This raised the emergency level to a code black. Broken electricity lines quickly became a concern once the burst water and sewage pipes made contact. Many injuries that flooded the medic tents ranged from crush injuries, mild concussions, DOA (dead on arrival), or electrocution. Medic tents were busy and over filled for the next few days after the disaster, hospital emergency rooms flooded with drastic injuries.  

Section five of the sinkhole had collapsed at 21:04, engulfing an ambulance truck, a petrol station, several civilian cars, a news station car, and two heroes: Shadow Step and Suneater. The collapsed section had sunken down an estimated one hundred more feet. Flooding, debris, collapsed vehicules and a small building had made rescue efforts all the more difficult. Investigations are ongoing to find the cause of this particular section caving in, however due to instability of the sinkhole, causes are still unknown. 

Pro-hero Suneater and his sidekick Shadow Step had fallen into the collapsed section, with Tamaki Amajiki breaking his sidekick’s fall. Initial findings found that an ambulance had fallen too with them, threatening their safety as it was caught on metal piping. Reports found that the ambulance had slipped from the broken pipes due to the insecure structuring and water flooding, and the heroes were trapped underneath an ambulance for approximately sixty-seven hours. Suneater had heroically saved himself and Shadow Step under an oyster shell he had manifested. However due to his extensive injuries, his protection against the ambulance truck was fragile and weakening. 

Unbeknownst to them, Suneater’s wireless earpiece had not been shattered from their initial fall and impact as he had believed. His last moments alive were recorded, lasting for an approximate four thousand five hundred and sixty minutes. 

A team looking for the hero pair had been listening from a nearby zone in hopes of finding their location and saving them. Overhearing the grave condition Suneater was in, they knew they had a limited time before his quirk would cease working and both heroes would be crushed by the ambulance truck. 

Said team of those heroes, all who are now currently in ongoing trauma therapy for the disaster and loss of their fellow number six hero are:

Number one hero Lemillion

Number two hero Deku

Number three hero Shouto

Number four hero Dynamite

Number five hero Hawks

Number sixteen hero Earphone Jack

The following is an excerpt of Suneater’s autopsy report:

Japanese Male, Twenty-seven years old, 179 centimeters, weighing approximately 87.9 kilograms. Pronounced dead on scene. 

Traumatic cervical spine injuries had led to the extreme possibility of paralysis from these severe injuries. 

Higher falls were associated with hemorrhage as well as rib fractures and various organ injuries. Organ injury patterns did not differ based on work status. The presence of equipment misuse or malfunction were not associated with more deaths upon impact. Suneater was not killed on impact. 

He suffered extensive injuries, a broken arm, a broken leg and fractures of a number of ribs. Evidence of a pneumothorax was found due to a broken rib. A gash in his left thigh confirmed witness reports that a metal drainage pipe had stabbed through the upper rectus femoris muscle and shattered parts of the left femur. 

Cause of death was blunt force trauma from the falling vehicle, with signs of tracheal collapse and the C2 vertebrae crushed.

End excerpt.

Due to Suneater’s broadcast from his receiver, evidence corroborated the accident reports. Shadow Step was to activate their quirk to switch positions with the ambulance that had been threatening to crush them both. After much debate Shadow Step finally agrees to Suneater’s plan, resulting in his death and their recovery. 

Unfortunately, Shadow Step was not found immediately. The depression had been filling with sewage and rushing water from the broken water mains quickly flooding the area. Section Three had concaved and fallen to what experts estimate at least one hundred feet. Mud, collapsed cars, debris, had all made rescue efforts more difficult. Shadow Step was stranded at the bottom of the sinkhole for two more days without food or clean water. Dynamite, part of this rescue team, had been the one to find Shadow Step. 

They were found at the scene emaciated with open cuts and wounds, a concussion, extreme exhaustion, infection in trauma fractures found in the left humerus, dislocated shoulder, broken collarbone, broken arm, broken ribs from impact, and a metal pipe in their upper left leg. Since Suneater’s transmission was the only record found, events that went underway with Shadow Step are unclear, although given the traumatic rescue, assumptions can be made about how critical and dire their situation was. Medical analysis showed they consumed gasoline, presumably from the petrol station that caved in with Section Three, and presumably because they confused it with water in all of the hysterics. Currently they are in an induced medical coma as they recover from surgery. They are not expected to return to work within the next few months. Attempts to find their soulmate are still under way. 

The origins of the sinkhole are still under investigation. Villains are found to not be involved. 

-(-)-

A sea of nothing. Everywhere it is dark. 

You can feel the warm water underneath your back, gently rocking you back to sleep. Everything is quiet. You quite like the quiet. You float aimlessly. To be honest, you think you can live like this for the rest of your life. Are you even alive? Perhaps it’s purgatory. It’s certainly not heaven. Or maybe it is, you wonder. You really don’t care. 

-(-)-

Maybe you do care. Where are you going anyway? Is this really heaven? Are you dead? You feel salt in your throat, burning your trachea and esophagus. There really isn’t anything to do here. What even is here?

You’re sick, but wasn’t there a proverb you read once that said the sick wouldn’t be sick anymore? Whatever, you supposed. You wiggle your toes in the warm water, floating aimlessly still. 

-(-)-

Your mind is empty. Or maybe it’s anesthetized, so you wouldn’t feel the gaping wound it’s become. One day I’ll cry, you tell yourself with a faint smile. One day, I might care that I am dying. 

-(-)-

Am I real?

-(-)-

Everything hurts. Nothing hurts at all. 

You want to look, look and see where you’re going, where you are, but your eyes sting every time you even try to open your swollen lids. Instead, you settle for touch, using your fingertips to feel warm waves lapping around your floating body. You realize one of your arms is bandaged to your chest, the other in a sling. Slowly it comes back to you in flashes:

Falling. 

Screaming

The force of the ground beneath you and Tamaki. 

Tamaki…

You want to cry out but there’s a tube in your throat, choking you. 

You want to move but your muscles won’t listen. 

Bambi. 

The waves under you feel softer, drier. Linen. 

Bambi. 

Your eyes open. 

“She’s fighting the intubation,” a voice says next to you. 

“Welcome back,” another says. “Relax for just a moment, babe, we are going to remove your breathing tube.” You gag as they remove the foreign object, coughing violently as soon as you’re free. 

Bambi. 

You struggle to speak, your voice is gone and every word feels like your vocal chords are grating against each other. 

“Oh honey, shhhh.” The ICU nurse dabs your eyes, you’re crying. Why are you crying?   “It’s okay, it’s okay. You’ve been under for a while, you shouldn’t push yourself to talking just yet. Your doctors will be in soon.” You look at them wildly, not understanding where you are and what’s going on. The lights are too bright, the machines next to you, too loud. You try to flail your arms but one is tied to your chest, the other manages to smack an orderly right on the cheek. 

“Sedate her.” The orderly is quick to strap down your free arm while a team of medical staff moves swiftly around you. “Three milligrams of midazolam-,” Your muscles loosen and it’s harder to keep your eyes open. 

Bambi. 

For the next week you’re in and out of consciousness. No one tells you anything suffice for the TV in your hospital room playing the news, over and over they tell the public the horrid news. You watch Tamaki’s memorial from your bed, veins pumping with sedatives to keep you from breaking down again. You watch his parents cry, unable to yourself. Lemillion gives a beautiful speech, so do others who know your fiancé. Knew. You correct this mentally over and over, but you never seem to get it right. After the news broadcasts, you watch trashy talk show hosts gossip about you. The police told you nothing was released, and yet here they are skepulating on who your mystery soulmate is. They tell all of Japan how you’re such a monster for letting Tamaki die, and your eyes flit to the hordes of cards and flowers sent to your bedroom, the fruit baskets that you cannot stomach to eat. 

You don’t cry. You can’t. You really want a cigarette. You press that little grey button for more morphine instead. 

Nurses and doctors filter in and out, updating you on your recovery. A few more weeks and your collarbone will be all set to go! Your O2 sats are rising! You might be weaned off this drip in a few more days! 

“Why can’t you guys use the doctors with the healing quirks?” Your voice is hoarse, barely used, words slurring. You watch your med team stiffen, not used to hearing you speak. You suppose that’s what happens when you wake up screaming every morning, only shutting up when you’re pumped full of drugs. 

“What?” You snap, “What aren’t you telling me??”

“The infection in your bone is spreading, even with the antibiotics and the surgeries planned for this week… we don’t believe it’ll be the same after. You wouldn’t be able to walk or run on that leg like you did before.”

Before . Before you and your fiancé were trapped. Before he died. Before when you didn’t even have a soulmate. 

“What’re you saying?” You look down to your hand and play with the blanket covering your bottom half.

“With the progression of this infection, and with your career, we believe it’s best to proceed with an above knee amputation.” Your face grows hot and your tongue is numb.

“No, I don’t give you permission.” Your jaw locks. 

The surgeon hesitates, “I’m afraid that isn’t up to you. The law requires that in the current state you’re in, medical decisions aren’t up only up to you; your soulmate must also be involved in the decision.” Soulmate. 

“I don’t-,” You pause, almost delivering the same four words you’ve been telling everyone for years. I don’t have a soulmate. “I don’t understand. That isn’t fair.”

“It’s the law, honey” another doctor says sympathetically. “Your soulmate has to be onboard with this decision and even then, we highly recommend amputation. This infection can spread and all of your major organs could start to fail-.”

She talks and talks. All of it just angers you. 

You feel like screaming. And so you do. 

You scream until your throat burns, until your lungs scream for you to stop. You throw with your one good arm what you can at the idiots, cursing them and letting out the years of anger and frustration that’s been bubbling forth underneath your skin. You hate them. You hate them so much, you hate everything. You activate your quirk, not having done that since Tamaki, throwing chairs and medical equipment at them. Satisfaction is quickly lost when they start to restrain you, giving you a dosage to knock your quirk and yourself out. 

-(-)-

For the first time in a while, you see him. Blonde tufts of hair swaying with the gentle breeze, a pink sky and a calm ocean in front of you both. His hair looks soft, like it’s only gotten the saltwater and ocean air to style it today instead of the expensive ass pomade he probably uses every day. You’ve always wondered how it felt, or maybe you didn’t. You can’t really remember how things were before. Before you had a soulmate. Were you always destined for Katsuki? What changed?  In any case, you wonder how long it usually takes the hero to style himself for his shifts. It used to take you an hour, on good days? Thirty minutes. You’re not gonna have that opportunity for a while now, you suppose. 

When you walk, both of your legs work. You can feel the sand between your toes, sinking under your weight until it finds its way to finally support you. Fuck, you should’ve taken more vacations.  You should’ve taken that time off and felt the salt for real, feel the way the sun baked it all day just for you to dip your feet in the cool seawater. The sound of the waves draws your attention out toward the sea, a warm breeze hugs your arms and wraps around your legs. 

You don’t look at him, the nerves in your belly tightening conflict with the warm excitement in your chest to see him after so long. It’s been so long. You didn’t realize how long you’ve been keeping track. Instead you look down at his hands resting at his sides, relaxed. They look soft… warm. You wonder if they’d feel like the sand beneath your feet. It doesn’t take long before you’re right next to him. Butterflies. They’re squeezing around your gut. You make the mistake of glancing at him, heart skipping to see his eyes have already found you. 

You don’t really know what to say to him.

“What do you put in your hair when you’re on call?” Inwardly you roll your eyes at yourself, it’s a stupid question. But it’s the first time you talk to him in your dreams. Really talk to him. It’s the first time you acknowledge him as your soulmate in a dream. Those nightmares you both had, both of you never acknowledging what they could possibly ever mean, they don’t count. You still can’t decipher the meaning of those monsters, and you’re afraid to know. You’ve never gotten a chance to thank him properly. And he, you. 

Bakugou doesn’t hide his surprise well, his lips part softly in confusion and he furrows his brow. “It’s a hair pomade-” Your sudden burst of laughter cuts him off and he scowls, “ What?!” You continue to belly laugh, shaking your head, unable to stop yourself. He watches you laugh so hard that your belly aches and your smile hurts. He watches when your laughter turns to tears streaming down your cheeks, his soft smile curling downwards with concern. 

Katsuki stands, towering over you. His hands grab your hips and he pulls you in as you cry, sobbing into his chest all the while. You can feel him soothing you, rubbing his hand up and down your back, his nose at the crown of your hair taking in the scent of your conditioner. Your skin smells like the hospital Irish Springs soap. He sways you both, right in his arms. His heart beats right against your ear, a reminder of his love for you. You try not to think of him, but all you can think of is how it was to lay on Tamaki’s chest and feel and hear his heart slowly fading beneath his uniform. 

Tears swell in your eyes. “You haven’t come to see me,” you sob. Your fists ball by his sides and as much as you want to pull away, you lean all your weight into him. He smells like vanilla and cinnamon sugar, like the warm sugary pastry treats you ate in the States during the summer. “Why?”

Katsuki  holds you, swaying and rocking you both gently. The waves lap at your toes, you wonder when the last time you stepped on a real beach was. You think about how it’s too late. 

“I have,” he admits in a low voice. “I’ve been there.”

Out of surprise, you jerk back to look at him. “What? What do you mean?”

“I usually leave when the docs show up; didn’t really think you’d want me there to be honest, Bambi.” 

“Why wouldn’t I?” You pull more away from him, anger flashing now. “Why do you think I would rather be alone in a godforsaken hospital room?”

His jaw tenses and he steps forward into the space you created, his hands surprisingly gentle as they squeeze your hips. “Bambi-”

“Shut up.” Your eyes narrows, “Don’t call me that. You know they’re going to take my leg?” Bakugou’s eyes glances down as you speak. “They won’t even listen to me! They refuse to, all because the fucking law says that my fucking soulmate has to give their permission too. I never have a choice. Everything is decided for me.”

“What’s so wrong about losing your leg, huh?” Katsuki snaps, “There’s nothing wrong with having one less limb. This is about your life, you idiot!” 

“It’s my leg ! I cannot and will not go through with this amputation. You need to tell them that you agree with me!” With each step you move backwards, Katsuki refuses to let you get far. 

“So fucking what!? Who gives a fuck if you lose your leg?”

“You’re kidding me right?” You glare at him, “You think no one would give a fuck? Tell me, Dynamite, would you still love me so fucking much if I weren’t the spectacular Shadow Step? If I weren’t able to train as much and-.” 

“Oh shut the fuck up,” Bakugou groans and rolls his eyes at you. “Shut the fuck up. You think I give a shit?”

“All your life you gave a shit! You always sneered down at people who are weaker than you! Fucking bully, I don’t know why you of all people are my soulmate.” You laugh bitterly, spewing out hateful words you don’t even mean. 

Bakugou doesn’t even flinch, instead he keeps stepping in that space you keep leaving between you both. “Yeah? You know me then, huh?”

“Yes,” you spit out. “Tamaki should not have been the one to have died.” Shut up, shut up, shut up.

Katsuki nods, his jaw clenched tightly as your fists pound against his chest. “And it shouldn’t have been me either. You were the one who convinced me to go back. It should have been you down there.” 

“You don’t,” Katsuki catches your eyes and shakes his head gently. “You don’t know me.” Angry tears, fat and hot tears burn your cheeks now. Every step you pull back from him, you can feel the magnetism of the universe forcing you back in. 

“I don’t want to get to know you,” you spew out. “I don’t want you. I wasn’t supposed to have a soulmate. You ruined that for me!” 

“You can deny me all you want, sweetheart. But we are made from the same stardust, and you can’t get rid of that.” 

“Oh sure, it’s meant to be.” You roll your eyes sarcastically and shove yourself away from him, “But it’s not meant to last.” 

“Fuck you, you can’t tell me what this is. My love is there. It’s there and you can’t take that away from me,” Katsuki points his finger at you, accusatory. “It might not change anything and it’s definitely not gonna save anything, but it’s there.”

“Ignore it!” You swat his hands away when you slip in the sand, “If I can ignore this, so can you.” 

“Bullshit,” he challenges. “You can barely ignore this, how can you ignore the stupid fucking magnetic pull between us??” Katsuki stops chasing after you for a moment, and rubs his face tiredly. 

“I love you,” He says. 

“It’ll pass.”

“Bullshit,” Katsuki glares back at you. “That’s how I know you don’t even know half of how any of this works. Do you know how hard it is, watching for most of my life seeing you with others? Watching you say over and over how you’re not tied to me? Denying me at every chance? Do you know what that’s like?” 

You can’t reply, tears block your airway and your words and you look away towards the ocean instead.

“Ya feel alone? Imagine how I felt for the past twenty something fucking years, then you can tell me how lonely you feel right now. I am next to you, and I still feel lonely. I am next to my soulmate who finally, after seeing me in their dreams for months, is talking back to me. I’m homesick, all the time.” This time his voice cracks, and you feel your own heart doing the same. “I can go anywhere I want, except home.”

Longing for a home that doesn’t exist.

“And you’re still denying me .”

“I wouldn’t be,” you tear your eyes away from the waves and look up at his. “If you haven’t kept leaving the goddamn hospital room.” It’s a weak ass excuse, and you know it. You know the sting of your words is still hurting him, you can’t take them back. 

“Well, you’ve been rejecting me your entire life. Why would you suddenly wanna see me, dummy?” His left hand caresses your cheek and thumbs away at stray tears. It’s too intimate, you don’t deserve it and all you can think about is Tamaki being crushed under that ambulance. You step back. 

“I can’t, I can’t just move on. I still love him,” your voice cracks and more tears begin to spill from your eyes. God, please stop crying. I’m so sick of crying. 

“I know,” he holds onto you tightly. “I’m not asking for you to stop loving him.” I just want to be the reason you choose to keep living each day. 

“But you love me,” you cry into his chest. “I need you to stop loving me.” You know this isn’t how it works, you know because for the first in forever you feel whole as he caresses you tightly. 

“You know I can’t, Bambi. I haven’t been in love with anybody, and never shall ,” he whispers. “ Unless it should be with you.”

“Please,” you start to push your palms against his chest and pull away. “I need time, I can’t just… I don’t know you well, Katsuki. It’s too much, my leg, the accident, you…” 

“I know, I know you need time. I don’t want to push you, Bambi. But I can’t just leave you alone,” His hands caress your tear-stained cheeks, his eyes are soft as his love for you. “Let me take on your pain too, you shouldn’t have to carry it all on your own.”

You don’t wanna talk anymore about your feelings. Not with anyone and certainly not Bakugou right now, it’s too confusing. “You don’t have the compression sleeve.” You take his hand away from your cheek, and childishly you squeeze his fingers as you observe them. There aren’t any calluses on his fingers. His skin is perfectly smooth. No imperfections. 

He doesn’t answer and you look up at him, he knows you’re evading. You know you’re evading. You both were just arguing, but you’re exhausted and you really just wanna stop fighting. 

“Do you not know?” Katsuki asks, stepping back and searching for your expression, his left hand drums their fingers against your arm. Confusion rocks through you. 

“Know what?” Your skin bristles and you feel yourself being pulled now as your consciousness starts to awaken. “Katsuki!” Panic sets in and then fear, you feel it all over again. It’s hot and makes you restless, like any second you might split. “I’m waking up, please don’t- please don’t leave me.”

You both step forward, holding tightly onto each other as you start to wake up. “You sure?” His voice is gruff in your ear. 

No, you’re not. 

“Yes.” 

-(-)-

Your head is pounding and your mouth is dry. It’s probably been a day or two since you flipped your shit out on the medical staff. Mentally you take note to send them a fruit basket as an apology. 

Everything is dim with exception for the machinery lights keeping you steady; your hand squeezes involuntarily and you feel something else. Katsuki . His hand is warm, gruff, weathered by his years in service. He’s still sound asleep, and you stare in awe with the fact the soulmates don’t wake up at the same time. Still tucked in, you don’t have to make much movement to know that the nurses have changed the bandaging on your leg again. Bakugou doesn’t stir when you adjust your hospital bed, and certainly doesn’t make it known if he’s awake when you can’t help but let out soft groans as you sit up for the first time in weeks. 

Healing bruises and cuts score your arms and your ribs still ache. Instead of pressing for more morphine, your other hand tightens its grip on Katsuki’s, and in his sleep he squeezes back. A small smile starts to grow but quickly it fades away. 

Grief still racks deep in your chest. A low moan slips out from deep in your lungs when you think too much about the accident and Tamaki, so you don’t think about it at all. You have to. 

So you think about food instead. Fried dough, grilled meat, roasted vegetables doused in olive oil and salt, sweets that forces you to down a glass of water or milk. Your stomach growls. 

You press your call button and it is a few moments before an older nurse walks in. He’s tall, with dark skin, cropped hair and kind eyes. You silently hold a finger to your lips and pointedly look at the sleeping man by your side. He nods in understanding. 

“Have I missed breakfast?” You whisper. 

“You missed dinner,” He whispers back with a quiet laugh. “I can sneak you some snacks. How are you feeling? An appetite is a good thing. We can remove the feeding tube then in a couple of weeks.” 

“Feeding tube?”

“It’s been placed surgically in your belly. You’ve been out for a while, sweetie. Doctors asked to be reassigned after your last episode,” he smiles again. He’s just joking, you’re sure of it. He has a kind smile. “It’ll also make it harder for you to hit me.”

You don’t understand what he means, but looking at his face in the dim hospital room and you start to see the healing bruise on his jaw. It dawns on you that you did punch him, right around the first time you woke up. “Oh fuck, I’m so sorry!” 

“No need,” he laughs and starts to check your vitals, the scratch of his pen soothing to your ears. “You give a mean left hook, good to know you’re one of Japan’s finest.” Not really , you think. You were a B level hero before that stepped down to be a sidekick to a high ranking hero. 

Who is now, currently, dead. 

“You’re lucky you’re not in psych,” he fiddles with some tubes near your belly button. “Some of the higher ranking surgeons fought for you, asking for some sympathy. Although, you are still on quirk restraints. Can’t win them all.” 

You don’t respond, feeling a low weight of guilt building at your belly. “Can you get him a blanket, please?” you whisper. 

“Sure thing,” the orderly nods as he checks the morphine drip. “We can try to give you some solid foods, but there’s soup and rice left, I can sneak in some orange slices if you’d like.”

“‘T’s fine,” you hear a low voice grumble beside you. “I’ll get ‘er something from the convenience store across the street.” Katsuki stretches, letting out a soft whine that you almost have to strain your ears to hear. 

Your hand squeezes his tightly, and tears spring in your eyes when he squeezes back. “Hi.”

“Hi yourself,” he subtly brings you knuckles to his lips and you feel how soft they are. “I’ll be back, what do you wanna eat?”

“It’s fine you don’t have to leave-” He starts to get up again and you panic. You don’t want to be alone. Please don’t leave me alone. 

“No, it’ll be better than this cold ass hospital shit.” Bakugou pointedly looks at the nurse and scowls. 

Instead of being offended, he laughs. “High cholesterol and artificial sweeteners isn’t all that great either for her.”

Touché. 

“Please,” you whisper to him. “Don’t go.”

You pleasingly stare into his eyes, already feeling yourself pitifully shaking at the mere thought of being alone again. 

In the abyss, it was dark. Hot. No water. No food. No one. No one except for your dead fiancé underneath you and that fucking ambulance. In the abyss, you could barely walk to find help. You couldn’t even see, not even your own hand centimeters from your face. In the dark, you truly believed you might die too. And that Tamaki’s plan was all for nought. All for nothing. You’ve never been so afraid of being alone before. 

He squeezes your hand three times, a promise. 

-(-)-

Bakugou doesn’t allow you to eat the hospital food during your recovery, despite the glowing reviews from other patients who swing by on their walkers and wheelchairs. He cooks big batches of soup, plain and bland at first when you threw up that night you woke up. Katsuki rolls his eyes at you when you critique his skill, boldly telling you that you wouldn’t even be able to handle his best. Bakugou helps clean the vomit out of your hair as the nurses helped you clean up, though. 

After a few days, your palate comes back and your stomach strengthens. You learn he’s an excellent cook, it’s a hobby of his when he’s not out on the streets fighting crime. You think about the frozen dinners and convenience store bento boxes you ate before, only cooking for Tamaki so he can be prepared for the day. You don’t remember the last time someone cooked for you. 

Doctors, every day, tell you they need to operate. You’re stubborn, pretending you don’t feel the infection making you weaker and pretending that the morphine is enough to mask the white hot pain in your leg. You want them to make a plan, a better plan. You want them to do their fucking jobs. 

Every time they leave, you’re angry. Angry they refuse to find the medical technology to save your leg. Angry that you are faced with this choice in the first place. Angry that Tamaki is dead and you have to be burdened with living. Angry. Angry. Angry. 

“You keep scowling like that, your face is gonna get uglier.” Bakugou aggressively rubs the crease out from between your eyebrows with his thumb. 

“Shut up,” you snap your head away from his touch, without any true malice towards him.

He knows this too, and laughs. “My ma used to tell me that all the time.”

“Yeah and you should’ve listened, it’s irreversible now.” 

You’re not used to this side of Katsuki. The lighter part of him. You remember reading a book last summer where the main character said her best friend had two personas, the persona he showed everyone and his naked persona, the one only she saw. You suppose that calling this side of Katsuki the Naked Katsuki is awkward and too suggestive, but it’s true. He makes you smile right after bawling your eyes out. He makes you smile when you really don’t want to, teasing you when the corners of your scowl start to upturn. 

You wonder where Naked Katsuki was during high school and why he had a stick up his ass for so long back then. 

On the fourth day, you feel the weakest. You’re eating, you’ve even begun to drink coffee again. But the pain has gotten worse and you hear the charting nurses start to talk about your blood toxicity levels. 

The doctors leave again, glancing at an unusually quiet Bakugou while you silently fume. Katsuki stays quiet, knowing better than to interrupt your oncoming rant. 

“Why do you do that?” You look towards the man, scowling as he just sits there in that stupid fucking chair. 

“What?” He asks, as if he doesn’t fucking know. Maybe he doesn’t, you really don’t give a shit though. You’re fucking pissed and you’re gonna let him know it. 

“Not say anything,” you roll your eyes. “You know that they need my soulmate’s agreement, I’m the only one fighting for my leg! If you’re not on my side, you’re against me!” Your hands pound at the sides of your thighs and you muster up the energy to glare at him. 

He takes in a deep sigh, “They’re right though. You’re not gonna make it through the night.” Katsuki looks at you plainly, and it’s written all over his face that he thinks you’re being ridiculous. 

This only infuriates you more and you jerk your shoulder out from under his hand. “Don’t touch me, you’re wrong! They can heal me, they don’t want to-”

“And why do you think so, sweetheart? Because after they cut through all the necrotic bone and tissue to save that stupid leg, you think you’ll be able to stand on it? Let alone sleep with that kind of pain every night?”

“The fuck do you know?? I can take it, my leg can recover!”

“When did you get so insufferably egotistical to think that you know more than the medical professionals?” Bakugou replies sarcastically with a dry laugh. “You need to say yes. They’re just going to wait until you slip back into another fucking coma so they can cut the damned thing off anyway.”

“Not if you-”

“Not if I, what? Why do you think I should agree with you? Because you’re my soulmate? Bullshit, you’re being stupid.” Ouch. 

“Me?? Stupid??”

“Yes!” He groans and gets out of the hospital chair he sleeps on at times, “What’s so goddamn awful about not having a leg? Hah?? What makes you think you’re too weak to recover from that?? What makes you think anyone is weaker for choosing amputation than living miserably for the rest of his life?!”

Silence falls between you both and you muster the courage to look at his arm again, the same compression sleeve that’s always there when he’s off duty. Every time you saw it, you felt something was off. It dawns on you slowly. 

“I don’t think anyone is weak for choosing amputation,” you reply quietly. 

He responds with a scoff, “Right.” 

“When?” You ask softly, tears sprout again in your eyes. 

“Can’t fucking believe you never noticed,” he scoffs. “It was after the War. During it actually. Near the final stretch, Shigaraki got me. That’s when I lost my arm.” No emotion in his voice, he’s moved on from this tragedy. It’s just a part of Katsuki now. 

“But… your quirk…”

He sits on the edge of your bed, carefully not to pull on any of your tubes, “Right before it happened, I was able to make all of my sweat turn to nitroglycerin, not just from the palms of my hands. Fucking bad miracle, I guess.” He looks down at his hands now, thinking deeply about what had happened and where he is now. “I have a special team who made my prosthesis so I can keep working. Only a handful people know about this, Deku, old Aizawa, the idiots who make my suits, some other shitty people and now… you.” 

“You hide it?” 

“Management.” It’s enough of an explanation. You’ve seen how dirty and unfair the hero industry is. It breaks your heart to think of the seventeen year old kid who lost his arm and nearly had his career along with life ended. You remember hearing about his death proclamation when you were on the other side of the battlefield, and you remember the sweet relief you felt when you heard you hadn’t lost your shitty classmate after all. It’s a lot on a young man’s shoulder to have his entire world changed, for a society that tells him to not brandish his war wounds with pride. 

You have more questions. More to ask him, more to know. But all of your words fall flat, they die on your tongue and you stay quiet. Shame is all you feel. 

“Your… hero suit is pretty revealing though,” you finally muster up, grimacing at yourself when you hear the heart monitor beeping slightly faster. “How does no one notice?”

He smirks at you, “No more revealing than Shitty Hair. Or Goody Two Shoes, Yaoyorozu.” Bakugou slips off the compression sleeve and scooches in closer to show off his prosthetic. It’s life-like, down to the minute details that no one would bother to notice. 

“So why the sleeve?” You ask, catching yourself still tracing the prosthetic before pulling yourself away. Thoughts of what your own might look if you go through with this surgery race through your mind, and only heightens your anxiety. 

Bakugou is quiet, mulling over his answer. “The short answer is that it helps with the pain.”

“And the long answer?”

“The doctors fucked up my arm trying to give me a second chance, they were worried that my career might end and there was still a war to fight.”

“We were just kids though,” you whisper. You weren’t on the frontlines of the war, you were in with the third wave of heroes and students. You didn’t see what happened firsthand, but you saw the horrific aftermath. They did a good job keeping this intel a secret, you can only imagine what other horrifying injuries they kept hidden from you and the public. 

“Yeah well, they nearly ended me while trying to save me. One of my surgeons finally kicked their asses and got them in line, saved what they could of my shoulder and my stump.” Before you can ask, he steps in closer and helps raise your hospital bed up so you can sit up straight. “I think his protégé is on your team now. Yours won’t look at fucked up as mine, but…”

Katuski removes the prosthetic with a click of a button you can’t see, which must be part of the seamless design from his support team. “The docs can tell you better, and more, but this is called the residual limb. Others call it a stump.” His fingers delicately show off what’s left of his arm as he opens up this new part of him to you. The scarring is an angry red, stained purple closed to the incision points. It looks painful. You tell him so. 

“It ain’t always,” he admits. “It’s worse at night.”

“But the sleeve helps?” You ask. He gently takes hold of your wrist with his other hand, it’s heavy and dwarfing your own, and he holds you against him. His skin is warm, soft. You can almost feel his pain in your own arm. 

“Sometimes. I don’t completely understand the tech. It’s all experimental.” He must be in pain all of the time.

“I’ll be in pain all the time then,” you say this quietly, but it sounds almost like a question. You can feel the aches he does, the sheer amount of pain that burns through muscles and skin he no longer has. 

“I’ve felt your pain all my life,” he steps in closer and embraces you with his one arm. “Every night, I’ve felt it and I need you to know that as your friend, I will always help you with it. Tomorrow will be better.” As your friend. That’s enough to give you peace of mind. It’s enough to release that tension in your chest. 

“And what if it isn’t?” You start to cry, wanting to wiggle your toes in a leg that won’t let you. 

“Then tomorrow,” he kisses your temple. “We will say it again. And again. Until it is. Okay?”

“Okay,” you nod as the tears stream down your face. You hold onto each other tightly, silently bonding your promise as friends. You're going to lose your leg tonight. 

-(-)-

The next two weeks, all you do is sleep. Sometimes Katsuki appears in your dreams, talking about his day and work. Mostly about work. You both find it hard to talk about anything else. When you’re not asleep, you stare out the window. 

Not many people visit. Friends were really friends of Tamaki, and you are just a reminder that he is no longer here. Family doesn’t exist for you anymore, they haven’t for years. Tamaki was your family. 

Workmates didn’t see you either, why should they? Your career in the past five years declined, if they associated with you so would their careers. All you had was Tamaki. So no, you didn’t see much except for your team of surgeons and your hospital assigned therapist that you really can’t stand because you apparently need to cry about shit now. 

When you’re discharged, you weren’t expecting anyone, and yet when you saw that familiar shade of blonde awaiting you, the floodgates opened. 

He takes you back to your apartment, dusty and cold from being empty for so long. You cried and cried. Katsuki, to your surprise, cried with you. It’s truly then, you understand the bond of a soulmate. Your pain is his, his pain is yours. Tears are shared, never are you truly alone. He stays with you that first night, sleeping on the floor of your living room while you sleep on the couch, refusing to be in the bed that you once shared with Tamaki. 

It isn’t until you start to wake up screaming, dreaming about the ambulance crushing you, dreaming about Tamaki’s corpse laying cold underneath you, that you and Katsuki decide to sleep somewhere else. 

He sets you up at Izuku Midoriya’s home, a lovely townhome smack dab in the middle of downtown. Midoriya is more than happy to help, insisting you take his bed. You think about how often he used to blush in high school, and how he didn’t even bat an eye when you mentioned you needed to be close to the bathroom at night or else you’ll piss his bed. 

“All the more reason for you to take my room,” he kindly smiles at you. “The bathroom is right there.”

“Don’t argue, Bambi. It’s useless.” There’s bags under Katsuki’s eyes. He hasn’t slept much lately. Guilt settles in pretty quickly. 

So you take the bed. Each night, you carefully balance your crutches against the mattress and take your opioids. The pain is all you can think about right now. And you hate that you’re so annoyed by this, but Bakugou insists on sleeping on an air mattress right at the foot of your bed. You hate how much you rely on others, you hate how much you need this, you hate that you’re angry. Angry. Angry. Angry. 

He’s patient though. The man you see now, isn’t who you thought he was. Back in your school days, Katsuki was a firecracker who was set off at any small inconvenience. Now, all he does is roll his eyes if you snap at him. Sometimes he doesn’t even react, just patiently checks your bandaging and helps you stretch even when you really want to fucking sleep. He follows your surgeons’ instructions to a tee, memorizing the numbers to call if you have any concerns and memorizing your medicines and dosages when you need a prescription refill. The times that you do elicit a reaction from him are usually because he’s had a long day at work and taking care of a stubborn and bitter soulmate is just a little much for him that day. Which usually means you end up feeling guilty for being such a shitty person. 

You learn a lot about Bakugou in the first six weeks after your amputation. You learn how he dealt with his phantom pain, how he learned how to ask for help, how he had to adjust to being a hero again. Another surprise was how often he called his ma and pa (and that he calls them that to their faces instead of “old man” and “ugly hag”), nearly every night if not every other night, the softness behind his gruff voice as he fights with parents over when he’s going to bring his soulmate over. You learn that he cooks a lot, and really well too, despite the bland soup he gave you initially. Deku, the up and coming number one hero, can barely handle boiling water without burning it, while Katsuki easily flies through the kitchen. 

“You’re a natural,” you muse. He convinced you to eat downstairs, getting you used to moving around again. 

If it were up to you, you’d probably wallow all day in Midoriya’s room and sleep. Or chain smoke shittt cigarettes in his bathroom, exhaling all of the smoke outside his small window. You’ve been caught doing that already when you nearly fell and caused a commotion. Izuku was madly apologizing with a deep blush at seeing you in a towel, even though it was clearly your fault. Katuski was not amused. You haven’t seen that damn pack of cigarettes since. 

Concern furrows your brows and you bite the inside of your cheek. “How did… losing your arm affect your cooking?”

“I was shit at cutting vegetables,” he answers bluntly, smiling softly when you snort. “It took me a while to get back into it. A chef in my support group helped me out, giving me advice and all.” 

“Support group? You actually did that?”

“I still do,” he feeds you another serving. The steam from the food warms your cheeks and makes your mouth water. No one, aside from your parents, has ever cooked for you. 

“Why??”

He raises an eyebrow at you, “Really. You’re asking me why I, after a traumatic event in my life, attended a therapy group with individuals who went through something similar?”

Bakugou laughs when you tell him to shut the fuck up. 

-(-)-

“Why did it take you guys so long to find us?” You ask on the day you get your first prosthetic leg.

Bakugou’s jaw tenses and you watch his hands squeeze his steering wheel. “There was a lot of noise, too much for Earjack. With all of the falling debris, unstable grounding, it was just… a perfect accident.” A bad miracle. “Once we lost Amajiki’s earpiece, there wasn’t any indication of your whereabouts.” You noticed this about Bakugou, the way his voice changes into something serious when work is brought up. A soldier. 

You don’t remember them finding you. In your psych rotations for your final year of school, you heard about how the brain shuts down from trauma and can try to help the person heal by simply forgetting events occurred. This was corroborated by your therapist too, although you need to find a better once because she fucking sucks ass and agrees with Bakugou that you need to quit smoking. 

You weren’t allowed to read the reports though, following the accident. It was a thick file, that’s all that Bakugou tells you. He doesn’t talk about that night he found you. One night you find Deku vulnerable and alone after a shift at work, sifting through paperwork that needed to be filed and faxed over the next morning. He was clearly uncomfortable with speaking on the matter too. Midoriya answers your questions though, telling you how hard it was on Bakugou. He never slept, he worked straight through. The only thing that gave him hope of your survival was that he didn’t feel your soul leaving. 

“You can feel that?” You whispered. Izuku nods, not speaking more on that topic either. 

“Kacchan… he never gave up. He was going to die finding you.” You’re glad he didn’t. But a significant part of you died down there. And you don’t know if you would ever get that back. 

-(-)-

Bakugou takes a leave of absence after he files the soulmate forms, declaring officially and legally that you both are bonded. Of course this really isn’t true. Bonded soulmates requires sexual intercourse. And well… you both are just friends. 

However to legally have you under his medical insurance, he lies for you. Your ID comes in the next week, a holographic heart next to the heart that says you’re an organ donor. Under another shadow, but instead of leaving you cold, you feel relief. Relief from the hot pain of being alone and defenseless. Relief that you can finally breathe. 

He doesn’t say anything about the holographic heart next to his red one either, he doesn’t even talk to you directly when the mail comes in with your new IDs. You’re not sure if it’s embarrassment, pride, sadness, or just plain bitterness. You’re not really sure if you want to know. What you do know is that you’re grateful that he doesn’t make a big deal out of it, and cooks you a hearty pasta meal that night to celebrate your new insurance. 

Six months after the amputation, you’ve been fitted with a prosthetic and you’re walking again. It used to be “walking”, managing only a few feet at a time without wobbling or needing your wheelchair again. But now you can walk. You can walk. 

Some days are good. Some days are really good. Some days aren’t. 

Your first fall, Bakugou stares while you laugh loudly at yourself. You forgot you didn’t have a leg, and put all your weight onto your left side as you turned the corner of the grocery aisle. It’s the first time you see him blush, and for a moment you think he’s embarrassed by the scene you’re making in the middle of this grocery store, until you realize it’s the first time you’ve laughed this loudly in months. He helps you back up again. 

On your worst days, Bakugou lies with you in bed while you grieve. Grieve for your leg, grieve for your dead fiancé, grieve for your losses. 

You become closer, it’s natural when he’s the one who takes you to your appointments with your prosthetist and talks about your scar tissue. It’s natural when he’s the one who coaxes you to sleep, rubbing your back with his lips pressed against your temple. You two become friends. It’s friends who bring you comfort when you feel sick, when you feel like the weight of the world is too much and you and they both know the best thing to do is just lay in bed and watch shitty movies all day. You become friends. You’re friends. Good ones at that. 

When Bakugou finally goes back to work, leaving you alone, you realize how much you both talk. You text all day, updating him of the meaningless things you do. Shitty reality TV shows become a hobby of yours while you practice your core exercises, and despite Bakugou’s claims he doesn’t give a shit, he always listens to you when you talk about them. He comes for lunch every day, even when he’s across the city. Katsuki pretends to not watch your silly little shows while you eat his food.

He tells you that you need to listen to your therapist and get a real fucking hobby (his words not hers), and encourages you by sending you coffee shops and boba tea places to try. Bakugou starts with places nearby, a small ten minute walk for you at most. But as you gain more and more endurance, and the more you get used to walking on your prosthetic, the farther the recommendations go. Soon you find yourself going to the train stations again, sometimes you take a second to enjoy the parks you walk by. You can’t stand that he was right, and now you’re not napping as much anymore. 

You find yourself at the tea shop where Bakugou took you from what seems like a million years ago, resting and trying to massage your leg from the walk there. Bakugou texted you cancelling to meet you there, there was an emergent situation at work and he was called to arrive on scene. This used to bother you, but now it just drives you to get back into work again. You miss it. You miss being useful. It’s here at the tea shop, reading the newspaper, that you see it. The apartment listing. 

The very apartment you had shared and lived in with Tamaki, is back on the market now. It startles you to see it again, in the fucking newspaper too of all places, like it’s still the twentieth fucking century. You wonder if you keep staring at it, if you’ll cry or feel something . Instead you feel empty. 

You’re not really sure what that means. 

At your support groups and in therapy, you admit to thinking about Tamaki every day. All throughout the months, you talk about the nightmares you have surrounding his death. It haunts you, his ghost. You still smell his body wash sometimes, always in passing, always enough to leave you longing and never enough for you to fully remember his scent. Sometimes you swear he’s right next to you as you wake, softly snoring after a long shift. It makes you sad. That’s what you tell your therapist and your support group. In reality, you feel guilt. Guilt that you’re alive and he isn’t. 

Guilty that you’re with your soulmate, like he wanted you to, but in a weird fucking platonic dance as you both struggle to maintain the facade of friendship. 

“Have you been to see him?” Your therapist asks, watching you play with a squeeze toy. 

“What do you mean?” His ashes are with his parents, you really don’t want to make that drive. They haven’t reached out to you since the accident. And to be honest, they really didn’t like you despite what Tamaki said. You really wish you could tell his ass that right now, you’d be so smug about it too and everything. 

“Have you visited his grave?” She clarifies. 

No, you haven’t. And you didn’t want to. Bakugou and you fought that night, not a serious fight but enough to make you mad and not talk to him for the rest of the night. He thinks you should go. You think you need to just move on. 

It’s been almost a year anyway. 

You can walk with a barely noticeable limp. He’s even helped you to train now to get back into hero work. Hero , you don’t want to be a fucking sidekick again. You’ve been working with a new support tech team and a specialist prosthetist for a leg to help you move with your quirk. The fact that you have now leveled up to having more than one prosthetic makes you proud. You’re done walking, now you can run. You don’t cry as much anymore, you don’t cringe walking down the streets of Musutafu anymore. You’ve even stopped reading the articles surrounding the sinkhole accident, knowing that obsessing over “what if’s” will not bring back Tamaki or your leg (at least, you stopped doing this in the middle of the night now. Sometimes you forget your silly little therapy tactics and dive back into the news reports and tabloids to read with your morning coffee). 

You can feel yourself growing stronger. 

You don’t need to do this. 

It’s not gonna solve anything. He will still be dead… 

“Why do you even care?” You ask him the next morning, annoyed that he’s ignoring you and didn’t make you breakfast like usual. You’ve been forced to eat a bowl of cereal like some common roommate. 

“He was your fiancé,” Bakugou scoffs. “You couldn’t attend his funeral, you haven’t seen him since-”

“Since I killed him?” You angrily drop your spoon in your bowl and get up, not feeling that hungry anymore. 

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I was going to say.” Katsuki rolls his eyes at you, knowing better than to follow you to your room to wallow. 

You can’t visit his grave. And this makes you angry. You can’t, because it means having to be faced with the fact that you’re starting to feel something towards Katsuki. Living together has been doing that to you. It’s hard, hard to ignore the magnetic pull between you both and hard to pretend it doesn’t hurt you when he goes on dates like his friends suggest sometimes. On top of that, it’s watching him leave each morning and being so fucking scared that he might not come back. You don’t know how you can manage that. You don’t know if what you feel for Katsuki is love or something far deeper. Whatever it is or isn’t, if this is how you feel now , you cannot imagine the pain of losing him later. Shinju comes to mind, the little girl destined to be with Tamaki forever only to be ripped away from him. You’ve had dreams of losing your family and friends in horrible deaths, and you’ve woken up with absolute dread in your heart. But a soulmate’s death, you never quite understood the depth of. Not until now. And that thought scares the shit out of you. 

The fight is never resolved, and you don’t visit Tamaki’s grave. Instead, you decide to find a new place to live on your own. 

-(-)-

[markantonys]

towers of midnight chapter 17-29

juilin is leaving for tar valon with the 3 aes sedai 😭 as are egeanin and domon. so every single character in mat’s plotline who ever showed opposition and/or a backbone towards tuon/the seanchan are leaving in one fell swoop huh? perfectly allowing mat to bury his head even deeper in the sand now that none of the people who’ve been directly harmed by tuon/the seanchan (thera, the aes sedai, egeanin) will be around anymore to make him remember that his beloved wife is evil. not that their presence ever did much of that anyway.

also, i can’t believe my beloved rarepair thom/juilin is splitting up! devastating! the other week i was thinking about the series’ longest-running duo and came to the grim conclusion that it’s rand and min (books 6-14, since i assume they’ll STILL be together in 14 since min has nowhere else to go) with elayne and nynaeve in second (books 2-9), but Actually it’s thom and juilin (books 4-13)!

“‘highness,’ seta said, ‘is it true? you’re going to allow these to roam free of you?’ ‘best to be rid of them,’ mat said, wincing at her choice of titles for him.” oh there i was thinking he was going to be wincing at her referring to human beings (the aes sedai) as “these” but no

and he goes on and on about how sorry he feels for the sul’dam for finding out they can channel. the fucking sul’dam, they’re who he feels sorry for, not any one of the people they’ve enslaved, two of whom are standing right there with him. he shows the sul’dam more empathy here than he showed the aes sedai when tuon put collars on them in KOD.

“maybe someday you two can convince tuon of the truth [that she and other sul’dam can channel]. help me find a way to fix this without causing the empire to collapse.” WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK MAT???? THIS IS THE EMPIRE WHO HAS INVADED YOUR HOMELAND AND YOU’RE WORRIED ABOUT IT COLLAPSING???? the second half of the chapter is elayne fretting about the seanchan invading andor after tarmon gai’don, and mat going “i don’t want the truth about my evil wife to hurt her feelings or make her evil slave empire collapse uwu” is such a disgusting contrast. this is NOT my mat. my mat hates authority and imperialism and slavery and injustice and invaders and would jump at the chance to destabilize the seanchan empire (which was supposed to be the WHOLE POINT of the sul’dam secret and now you’re telling me that we hope they can handle that secret delicately in a way that won’t interfere with the empire going about its day?). and i can’t blame sanderson for it because rj already did this to mat and assassinated his character in COT and KOD. the great and good man who risked his own escape to free windfinders enslaved by the seanchan would be even more disgusted by the subsequent books’ mat than i am.

“learning that they could channel, worrying they might be a danger to everyone around them. that’s how rand felt, mat thought. poor fool.” normally i would be over the moon and crying my eyes out over mat showing so much empathy and understanding towards rand finding out he could channel (how far he’s come from his initial reaction in tgh!) but i’m too mad about the above bullet point, and the fact that mat is thinking about the sul’dam in this passage and how he feels sorry for them. you know what else rand has felt, mat? fear of being collared and enslaved by people like your beloved evil wife!

“[egeanin] did not like mat, for all he had done to save her skin. maybe it was because he had not let her take charge, or maybe because she had been forced to act like his lover.” or maybe because you’re constantly swooning over and simpering for the woman who stripped her of her name.

joline thanks mat for giving them horses and he’s all smug about it. it is so annoying how Those Ungrateful Women keep being forced by the narrative to be polite to mat, apologize to him, thank him for things etc. and he’s rarely made to do the same for them despite having always been just as bad if not worse in the rudeness and disrespect department (again, rj did this too - elayne and nynaeve have to apologize to mat for not thanking him for saving them in tear and elayne thanks him very sincerely after the gholam, but to my memory he never once has to apologize for being condescending and treating them like helpless children (i’m thinking more his attitude in LOC-ACOS bc in tear okay fair yeah they did actually need his help))

mat gives joline some nice pastries as a parting gift but it turns out that they’re pranked with something that’ll turn her mouth blue, so that’s very kind and mature of him

“he had a sinking feeling that the aes sedai had wrapped poor egwene up in their schemes so soundly that she would never escape. he had half a mind to ride up there himself and see if he could get her out. but he had other tasks. egwene would have to see to herself for now. she was a capable girl; she could probably handle it without him for a while.” 🙄🙄 mat’s hero complex was sooooomewhat amusing (and at times a little sweet) in the early books, but it has gone on FAR too long. especially when at this point in the series egwene has worked SO HARD and achieved SO MUCH yet still struggles to have others recognize her authority and competence because of how young she is - it’s incredibly frustrating to see people she cares about who SHOULD trust her also treat her like a child in over her head.

for this and the past couple of bullet points: mat has learned NOTHING. his attitudes towards women and towards aes sedai are WORSE than they were at the beginning of the series (once again, rj is responsible for this and sanderson just continued the trend he was given to work with). we have faile bending over backwards to think about how sorry she is for being so mean in the past, birgitte berating elayne for getting people killed because of her plan with the black ajah house (more on that in a bit), yet mat is allowed to continue all his shitty attitudes completely unchecked.

in conclusion, gofundme tuition money to enroll mat in a women’s studies course

“had that frightened wisp of a woman really been the panarch of tarabon? mat had seen mice that were less timid.” she was ENSLAVED and TRAUMATIZED by YOUR WIFE, MAT.

mat thinks oh so generously that maybe he can talk to tuon and get egeanin reinstated, because by now i guess he has fully bought into the seanchan hierarchy and believes that regaining/maintaining your proper place within it is desirable, rather than that the whole system is fucked and should be burned to the ground. “first you’ll need to convince tuon not to make you da’covale. he was half convinced she intended to see him as her servant, husband or not.” SLAVE, mat. da’covale are SLAVES. this just confirms our suspicions that the narrative has forgotten that channelers aren’t the only ones who get enslaved by the seanchan. didn’t you hear? da’covale are actually just servants!

now back to elayne thank GOD. that was definitely the worst mat section since KOD (at least his first chapter in TGS only had misogyny and not also pro-imperialism-and-slavery).

elayne is walking in the rooftop gardens which has a view of the lower gardens. “it was in those gardens that she had first met rand. she pressed a hand to her belly.” 🥺

now we have birgitte berating elayne for taking risks because apparently elayne can’t even take a fucking walk in her own garden? birgitte points out that elayne could lose a limb or get severe brain damage and still live to give birth to healthy children, which is fair enough, but then says, “and what about the people around you? give you no thought to the danger you could cause them?” “i feel bad for vandene and sareitha. and for those men who died to rescue me. don’t dare imply that i feel no responsibility for them! ...we discussed this, birgitte. we decided that there was no way i could have known that chesmal and the others would arrive as they did.” “we decided that there was no use arguing any further.” like ugh this exchange just feels like pandering to all the elayne haters who were so mad at her for having the audacity to get kidnapped after a genuinely well thought out plan - WHICH BIRGITTE WAS IN ON so why the fuck is she now acting like elayne just went haring off unsupervised - went unpredictably awry. to my memory birgitte didn’t at all blame elayne during KOD???? she was exasperated (yet also full of admiration) that elayne never once felt afraid during the whole ordeal, but i don’t believe she ever felt that it was elayne’s fault or anything like that. it just feels like an uncharacteristically low blow for birgitte to bring this up to guilt elayne into being more careful (yes, elayne’s the one who references the specific incident, but since they’ve clearly argued about it many times, birgitte likely knew what she was doing by saying “give you no thought to the danger you could cause the people around you”). can you imagine if a character used the deaths at dumai’s wells to guilt rand into being more careful? that would be an extremely shitty move, wouldn’t it? why the hell does elayne get victim blamed, both within the narrative and in the fandom, for her kidnapping but rand doesn’t? no, we all know why. like for real, if you asked WOT fans who was to blame for the deaths at dumai’s wells, everybody would say elaida or galina, yet if you asked who was to blame for the deaths after full moon street, a good chunk if not the majority would say elayne instead of chesmal and the other black sisters who, you know, were the ones actually kidnapping and killing people.

anyway. elayne wants the kin to be stationed in andor so that andor can offer/have access to traveling (which will be charged for) and healing (which will be free, elayne says very adamantly). clever clever! part of the reason is because she wants all the resources she can have at her disposal when the seanchan inevitably try to invade andor after the last battle. “she suspected that those who claimed to be artur hawkwing’s successors would never be satisfied until they held all that had once belonged to their ancestor.” glad to see that one (1) character is still considering the seanchan to be an enemy and serious threat. 2 because egwene does too.

but she also wants channelers who will fight in battles - she won’t force the kin to do that. “the only thing she could think of was the black tower. it was on andor’s soil...what would happen to them if rand died? dared she try to claim them? dared she wait for someone else to?” OOOOOOH this is an intriguing prospect!! and man, how much easier would it have been if rand had been in charge of the black tower all this time instead of going “i don’t trust taim at all. i think i will give him free rein over hundreds of dangerous male channelers and never check in on him.” then the black tower would be solidly behind him and he could just be like “everybody this is your new stepmom elayne, do whatever she wants” and all would be well.

“a careful trap using the asha’man and wise ones, and perrin could hit the Children so hard that they shattered. he could maybe even destroy them permanently as a group.” why do i feel like he’s going to decide not to do this for Moral Reasons and this is going to end up as another instance of “evil group is perfectly poised to be destroyed permanently but our protagonist intervenes to prevent it from happening”

“berelain pursed perfect lips. light, but the woman was beautiful! ...why had the creator made people as perfect as berelain?” faile? u good fam?

faile and berelain agree to pretend to be friends to put a stop to the rumors that berelain slept with perrin. WHAT was the goddamn POINT of this entire plotline? the fact that so many other characters have had min viewings/prophetic dreams/etc. foreshadowing all this epic shit and then perrin’s bird viewing was just that he was going to spend the majority of the series in a completely pointless love triangle that 2/3 of the involved parties did not want to be involved in and that ended up affecting absolutely no aspect of the story lmao i’m wondering if the show would even bother with this because a) removing it would affect nothing and b) with show!perrin’s extra trauma from killing laila the perrin/faile relationship will have plenty of obstacles already without needing to include the berelain love triangle.

MATLAYNE REUNION!!!!!!!!!!!! SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP!!!!!!!!!!! thankfully i read this a few days after the previous mat chapter so my annoyance at him had cooled and i could appreciate the reunion properly! we are diving into this chapter in extreme detail, let’s go.

mat shaves off his beard and is careful in his clothing selection before meeting with elayne 😌 although he picks out a respectable plain coat and then spends the rest of the chapter anxious and self-conscious and fretting that he should’ve picked a nicer coat to see elayne, baby boy! there is symbolism about the fact that mat was constantly wearing over-the-top lacy fancy clothes around tylin and tuon, but now he changes back into a normal coat to see elayne. because she sees and appreciates him for who he is and he doesn’t feel the need to add any false ornamentation or change himself around her! (altho she does kinda make fun of his coat later lmao)

“one of the holes had a bloodstain around it, but that had mostly been washed out. it was a nice coat.” literally “mat is even wearing his formal leather jacket” “it’s the one without any blood on it”

“just because a man marries someone doesn’t mean he suddenly becomes bloody nobility.” “mat, that’s actually exactly how it works.” kdjfg

mat wishes that his luck would for once see him, among other things, off somewhere with a pretty serving girl on his knee instead of, among other things, being married to a seanchan high lady. another one for the “mat is gonna cheat on tuon so fast” file folder

the band is getting attention in caemlyn because they’re the largest single group outside the walls, because they’re as organized and disciplined as a regular army, and also because they’re led by “a personal friend of the dragon reborn.” everyone in caemlyn knows mat is rand’s ~Personal Friend~ aka sugar baby (and mat’s men keep bragging about it and he wishes they wouldn’t jkfg)

guybon (random beautiful man who showed up out of nowhere with a huge army for elayne in the eleventh hour, aka the guy invented to fill the mat-and-the-band shaped hole in the story) meets mat to escort him. “too bad he had such a pretty face. a life in the military would probably end up wrecking that.” #BiMatRights

among the many rumors in caemlyn about mat, one is that he “won the dragon reborn the loyalty of the aiel” (by killing couladin), caemlyn is spinning out romantic tales about rand and mat’s devotion to each other!

talmanes is “crestfallen” that mat tells him to stay outside while he and thom go in to meet with elayne, and mat promises to introduce him to elayne later. talmanes really wants to meet his bff’s wife!

“mat stepped up to the door, taking a deep breath. he had fought in dozens of skirmishes and battles without growing nervous. now his hands were shaking.” he’s so nervous to finally see his crush again 🥺

“his eyes found elayne immediately...she looked radiant in a gown of deep red and gold. beautiful, full red lips that mat would not have minded kissing, if he had not been a married man. her red-gold hair seemed to shimmer in the hearthlight, and her cheeks were full of color.” THIS IS SO ROMANTIC AND FOR WHAT????? good GOD mat!!! he is straight up IN LOVE with her!! (also, another one for the “mat is gonna cheat on tuon so fast” file folder)

RADIANT!!! mat thinks elayne looks RADIANT!!! he’s never described TUON as radiant. also, conveniently placed light source to make a character’s hair shimmer my beloved

“‘thom, i’m so glad that you’re all right!’ elayne grabbed him in an embrace. ‘hello, dear one,’ thom said fondly. ‘i hear you’ve done well for yourself, and for andor.’” 🥺🥺

elayne is crying! she’s so happy to see them!! but we don’t get a matlayne hug even tho elayne hugs thom and birgitte hugs mat 😔

elayne thanks mat for all he’s done for her, and despite how sulky he was about not getting thanks and kisses from her sooner, now he just says “it really wasn’t anything, you know, elayne.” and when she apologizes for making him wait so long for a meeting he says “it’s nothing. you’re busy.” and when she offers to let the band move closer to the city and apologizes that there’s no room for them within the walls he says “that won’t be needed. letting us move closer is kind enough. thank you.” 1 page back with elayne and he’s already 10x better about being polite and respecting women! unlike when joline thanked him earlier, he doesn’t show or feel a hint of smugness about elayne thanking him now! she truly does bring out the best in him and i’ll always be bitter that he got punted off to a wife who turns him into the worst possible version of himself.

“‘burn me. you’re queen! how’s that feel?’ elayne laughed, finally releasing thom. ‘such a way with words you have, mat.’” they’re married!

mat says he’s not going to bow to elayne or bother with “your majesty” nonsense and elayne says she wouldn’t expect it, unless they’re in public because there she has to keep up appearances for the people. “‘i suppose that’s true,’ mat agreed. it did make sense.” he loves his wife so much and is now completely willing to bow to her in public and understands why it’s important that he do so! growth! trophy husband (complimentary) behavior! and, importantly, unlike with tuon, he does NOT intend to bow and scrape to elayne in private. literally a prime example of the “someone who will respect you in public but speak freely to you in private” ideal partner for a high-profile leader that egwene described to us previously!

MAT FINDS OUT ABOUT THE BABIES AAAAAAHHHH

“he looked accusingly at elayne. ‘does rand know about this?’” a bold attitude from someone who knows FULL WELL that rand has been fucking min for the past few months lmao i think sanderson’s mat forgot he had all those visions because he does not react in any way or think about rand and min at all or scratch his head wondering how rand has the time to fuck so many people. a common symptom of the series, whenever one of rand’s relationships is relevant to a scene, everybody present in that scene (including rand himself) forgets the other two exist.

“she laughed. ‘i should hope he isn’t too surprised.’ ‘burn me!’ mat said. ‘he’s the father!’” the fact that elayne’s been so secretive about the babydaddy’s identity but trusts mat enough to tell him straight off the bat 🥺 also, i will call bullshit if mat doesn’t say a word about this to rand when they see each other next book (tho at least “i should hope he isn’t too surprised” gives mat sooooome leeway in believing rand might already know)

okay let’s take inventory here

people who currently know elayne is pregnant with rand’s babies: elayne, mat, aviendha, min, nynaeve, egwene, thom, birgitte

people who currently do not know elayne is pregnant with rand’s babies: rand

like this POOR MAN lmao!! someone PLEASE tell him my god!

“how had becoming queen made elayne less high-and-mighty? had he missed something? she actually seemed agreeable now! well, that was unfair. there were times when she had been agreeable before. they had merely been mixed between times when she had been ordering mat around.” mat acknowledging that elayne was never that bad and he judged her too harshly! we love to see it!!

“he found himself smiling as thom related [the whole story since ebou dar]...mat almost thought himself a hero, listening to thom.” mat is smiling about getting to sit with elayne and catch up with her! elayne listening to the things he’s been through makes him feel like a hero!

“right before thom got to the part about tuon’s marriage words, however, mat coughed and cut in.” and he hastens thru the rest of the story and doesn’t mention the marriage LMAO he doesn’t want elayne to know he’s married. because he’s in love with her! “thom eyed mat with amusement.” and thom knows it!

“what trouble have you gotten yourself into, matrim cauthon?” “that’s not fair at all. i’m not the one who gets into trouble. if i-” “you’re not going to mention my getting captured in the stone of tear again, are you?” “of course not. that happened ages ago. i barely remember it.” THEY’RE MARRIED YOUR HONOR

“she laughed, the pretty sound ringing in the room. he felt himself blushing.” 🚨🚨🚨 ELAYNE MADE MAT BLUSH!!!!! 🚨🚨🚨 and he thinks her laugh is pretty!!!!!

like literally the way he thinks about elayne is SO MUCH MORE ROMANTIC than the way he thinks about tuon i can’t TAKE it!!!

“‘mat, i could kiss you,’ she declared. ‘this is exactly what i needed!’ mat blinked. what?” JSKDFHG AAAAAAAHHHHH and birgitte says “you’ll have to watch yourself, elayne. rand will be jealous.” BIRGITTE STRAIGHT UP CALLING OUT THE VIBES BETWEEN THEM LMAO but rest assured rand won’t be jealous if elayne kisses mat, birgitte! that would be his dream come true!

mat and elayne have some interesting negotiations about the use of the dragons! the final deal they settle on is: elayne will provide the money and resources to produce the dragons, 3/4 of them will go to andor and 1/4 to the band, elayne gets the band in a renewable 1-year contract but can’t force them to fight in any battle mat doesn’t want them to participate in, and elayne can have mat’s medallion for 3 days to study it.

“i don’t like having men who could leave me at any time.” “you know i won’t hold them back merely to spite you. i’ll do what’s right.” “what you see as being right.” “every man should have that option.” “few men use it wisely.” “we want it anyway. we demand it.” “you have it.” ❤️

but initially elayne wants the band to be part of andor and given a commission there permanently and to be officially backed by her, which i would’ve loved so much!!!! unfortunately, mat turns it down, in part because he doesn’t want the band beholden to anybody (which is fair), but not only for that reason. “it was actually tempting. just a little. but it did not matter. he did not think elayne would be happy to have him in her realm once she knew of his relationship with the seanchan. he meant to return to tuon eventually, somehow. if only to work out what she really felt about him.” SIGHHHHH. all tuon does is cut mat off from all his other loved ones. this passage implies that he’s pretty much turned fully traitor to the westlands and is aware that most of his friends will hate him for it, yet he still doesn’t manage to reach enough awareness to, you know, feel bad about it, or to have any guilt over the fact that tuon would collar elayne as soon as she met her (and swallow up her nation and people to boot).

but then mat does think that he has no intention of giving the seanchan access to the dragons, so that’s good! maybe not full traitor, then. like gawyn, he’s trying to straddle both sides at once lmao

“elayne raised an eyebrow at him. yes, she had become a queen. just like that.” ❤️❤️

“‘a serving man,’ mat said. ‘you know, to take care of my clothing. you’d do a better job of picking than i would.’ elayne looked at his coat, then up at his hair. ‘that,’ she said, ‘i’ll give you regardless of how the other negotiations go.’” “if you need to borrow money to buy a new coat, the crown can lend you some. considering your station, you really should dress more nicely.” and then elayne says she’ll see that mat gets a noble title. sugar mama elayne is out in full force!! god bless. all i want is for mat to be the sugar baby of both the queen of andor and the dragon reborn, it’s my greatest dream (and hey, there have been multiple instances where both rand and elayne have been mentioned as being able to cover mat’s expenses and give him noble titles so it’s all but canon anyway!)

mat tells elayne that the gholam is in caemlyn. we love to see characters sharing important information with each other about things that could be a danger to them!

elayne shares her plans to use the band to move on the sun throne, and mat is fine with it and even thinks it’s a good use for the band while he’s off rescuing moiraine! “i agree to that, but elayne, the band has to be free to fight in the last battle, however rand wants.” they said mat is a bad friend to rand and always runs away from him, i said bitch WHERE

elayne invites mat and thom to dinner later ❤️ and talmanes, at mat’s request. “taking dinner with you will have him dancing all the way back to the camp.” jkdfjgh

“thom spared a paternal kiss for her cheek before parting - good that it was paternal! mat had heard some things about those two that he did not want to believe. with thom old enough to be her grandfather, no less.” LMAO sanderson directly calling out whatever the fuck rj did with elayne and thom back in tfoh hjfkg i love it

“‘that went well,’ mat decided, hands on hips. ‘i worried she wouldn’t bite, but i think i reeled her in pretty well.’ thom laughed, clapping him on the shoulder. ‘what?’ mat demanded. thom just chuckled.” mat is the “anything for you beyonce” vine for elayne and thom knows it!

“‘might i suggest you move the ring to the third finger of your left hand?’ ‘you may suggest it,’ nynaeve said, but did not move the ring.” djkfjg icon

we see nynaeve’s test with the 100 weaves and it’s a wonderful full circle moment from her accepted test! i see her point that it’s important that she care about the people she’s protecting more than her own status and whether or not she’s raised to the shawl, but i’m still fresh off my annoyance at rand’s “you’re better because you’re Not Like Other Aes Sedai” speech and so i also see the aes sedai’s point that it IS important to remain calm in a crisis and it IS important to know how to prioritize and focus on your main quest - sure going off on a sidequest to save people in need would be more important than the main quest of doing a silly little weave to complete a test, but those people aren’t actually real and thus the test IS more important (and in most of the scenes we saw, the weave she was supposed to perform did end up saving the situation anyway). i love that nynaeve wants to save everyone but i do think she needs to learn that she can’t (a lot of WOT characters need to learn that, notably mat). but it is an interesting contrast to the mentality of some other characters and really shows that she could never be a large-scale leader like rand, egwene, and elayne, who by now are practiced in placing the greater good above individuals. and aes sedai DO have to focus on the greater good as well, that’s kinda the whole point of their organization, so just because that’s not how nynaeve is, i don’t think it’s fair to say that she’s Better than the other aes sedai, only that it’s not the right career path for her lmao

but of course it was shitty of the testers to purposely make the visions so cruel and to test nynaeve more brutally than anybody else would be, and of course nynaeve is right to say “i wonder if we sometimes put the white tower - as an institution - before the people we serve. i wonder if we let it become a goal in itself, instead of a means to help us achieve greater goals.” but then the rest of the speech strays too close to “women who don’t get married and have families are inherently less empathetic than those who do” for my liking, so overall the jury’s out.

i will say, it’s interesting how nynaeve and gawyn both choose concern for individuals over concern for a greater cause, yet the narrative (or at the very least the fandom) seems to reward nynaeve for it and criticize gawyn. something something gender roles women are supposed to be caregivers in the private sphere and men leaders in the public sphere something

also, nynaeve used balefire! i’ve been wondering if she ever would again. every now and then i go, “hey, remember that time nynaeve used balefire in TDR and it was literally never mentioned again?” glad to finally see that loop closed haha also, it’s totally fair for her to get in trouble for using an extremely dangerous and illegal weave (again, i agree with her that she may have to use balefire in the last battle, but the dangers in the testing visions weren’t real) and honestly i’m surprised the other aes sedai let it go so easily, but not complaining because the last battle is coming and things have gotta move along.

nynaeve gets myrelle’s bond from lan!!!!! i genuinely wasn’t sure if that would happen since i was never spoiled about it, though i assumed it was a pretty safe bet that it would. “do not press me. in the morning, i swear the three oaths. i’m free of them for one more night.” JDKFJGHJ DAMN

oh also i forgot to say: a chunk of nynaeve’s braid got burned off and it’s now too short to tug! heartbreaking! rip to a legend! as far as rj’s overused turns of phrase go, i always loved the braid tugging bc it’s so specific to nynaeve and her personality (birgitte’s done it occasionally but the narrator will usually remark that it reminds them of nynaeve). but Smoothing Skirts as a universal thing that every woman in the world does as a sign of hidden anxiety or annoyance, on the other hand...........

“so elayne is queen. that must make rand happy.” thank you perrin for a randlayne crumb!

perrin at the prospect of fighting the whitecloaks: “he felt a strange reluctance. it seemed such a waste to kill so many who could fight against the shadow.” see? i knew he was gonna wuss out of destroying the whitecloaks once and for all. sigh. yeah yeah they need all the hands they can get in the last battle but still. sigh.

“several sources indicate that [rand] has sued [the seanchan’s] leader for peace.” “but what did he do to his hand?” perrin is so worried about rand and his hand 🥺

you know what? i think balwer has earned a place in my favorite tertiary character list. he’s so uptight yet sneaky i love him. seeing as my favorite tertiary character list consists of balwer, lini, essande, mistress harfor, and norry, i think my favorite genre of minor character is just “no-nonsense senior citizens” jdkfg (and verin! tho she’s a secondary character not tertiary)

morgase finally finds out gaebril was a forsaken and used compulsion on her!!!! 😭😭 she gives such a powerful speech about it, but it’s wasted on fucking tallanvor. literally morgase is like “so i just found out that i was mind controlled by a forsaken” and tallanvor’s only reaction is “so you didn’t actually love him? nice, that means i have a chance with you!” fuck OFF dude. what i wouldn’t give for this moment to have been between morgase and lini instead, would’ve been so much more powerful. (update: a few chapter later i realized that lini was among the group kidnapped by the whitecloaks, so she actually couldn’t have been present for this scene. but still.) the tallanvor/morgase romance is so unnecessary!! sure it’d be nice for morgase to finally have someone who loves her selflessly, but as we can see from his reaction here, tallanvor doesn’t, despite all his whining about how he’s so good at loving her from afar and not expecting anything from her. you’ve been hassling her to get her to admit she’s into you for multiple books!

“i think thom and gareth loved me, but as something to be held and cared for, then released. i didn’t think you’d ever let go.” “i won’t.” is that...........supposed to be romantic? i would way rather a partner who holds and cares for and then releases me lmao that sounds great!

speaking of partners who won’t ever let go: “other than things to do with egwene, what is it that you want?” “nothing. she’s everything.” jkjfg every WOT secondary character who’s the love interest of a more important character be like

and now bryne does elayne dirty and gives galad too much credit: “you always were the passionate one, gawyn. like your mother and your sister. impulsive, never calculating like your brother...perhaps i spoke wrong - galad may not be calculating, but he isn’t impulsive. to be impulsive is to act without careful thought; galad has given everything a great deal of thought.” it’s not like elayne has become a powerhouse politician and galad has gotten brainwashed by a cult or anything! throughout this book, there’s been such a narrative of elayne being impulsive and not thinking things through, but that’s completely not true - obviously she takes massive risks, but they’re ALWAYS calculated and planned out fairly carefully beforehand, even if things end up going unexpectedly awry once the plan is in motion (more on this in a bit)

“find out who you would be without egwene, and then figure out how to fit her into that.” i love this. now can somebody PLEASE give this advice to min?

mat lists some rumors from the current caemlyn rumor mill, one of which is that rand “visited women in their sleep, getting them with child” hjdkfhgj CRYING everybody wants rand carnally and assumes that everybody else has had rand carnally. also, feel like this implies people are totally suspecting he’s elayne’s babydaddy despite her efforts to the contrary. add “the entire population of caemlyn” to the list of people who suspect, at least, that elayne is pregnant with rand’s babies.

“mat had offered to come up with a backstory for his act, but thom had coughed and said that he already had one worked out.” and later, “mat? i don’t know what you mean, my good woman. my name is garard, a simple beggar who has a quite interesting past, if you care to listen to it” let mat share his dramatic backstories you bastards!!!

what’s the point of noal. i know that he’s jain farstrider, and i don’t dislike him (he does add a fun Weird Grandpa vibe to the group) but he’s just such a random addition to the party. especially to be given the important narrative place of one of moiraine’s 3 rescuers! she’s gonna see them and be like “thom! mat! and............some old guy i’ve never met before!”

“and what of rand? mat saw him sitting on a fine chair, staring down at the floor in front of himself in a dark room, a single lamp flickering. he looked worn and exhausted, his eyes wide, his expression grim. mat shook his head to dispel that image as well. poor rand.” 😭😭❤️❤️ mat loves and misses and worries about rand so much!! “mat is a bad friend to rand and abandons him and never shows him any empathy or understanding” WHOMST??? also, i will note that hilariously in the prior paragraph mat thought about perrin and only said that an image appeared and he banished it, he did not describe a single thing going on in that vision unlike the rand vision. mat is always so much more hung up on the rand visions than he is on the perrin visions or than perrin is on the rand visions.

“mat did not want to go back. there was no tuon back in the two rivers.” sweet, then i’m sprinting back to the two rivers. “light, well, he would have to figure out what to do with tuon. but he did not want to be rid of her. if she were still with him, he would let her call him toy without complaining.” 🙄🤮 like, every single thought mat ever has about tuon ALWAYS feels so jarringly out of character and nonsensical.

the phenomenon of plays (slash operas) has arrived in caemlyn! perfect for mat’s post-last-battle life as a playwright in caemlyn under sugar mama elayne’s patronage!

“the queen sat with a calm demeanor, watching the play. at times, birgitte felt more like a nursemaid than a bodyguard. how did you protect a woman who seemed, at times, so determined to see herself dead?” she’s literally just sitting in a chair watching a play birgitte fucking RELAX. the other characters’ overprotectiveness of elayne is FAR more annoying than her viewing-induced plot armor recklessness has ever been! birgitte complains about feeling like a nursemaid - well, maybe elayne would consult with you about her dangerous plans more if you treated her as an intelligent adult rather a foolhardy child! birgitte is not buttering my bread this book, i have to say.

she does redeem herself a bit a moment later tho: “and yet, elayne was also so very capable. like tonight; she’d somehow convinced her most bitter rival to attend this play...it whispered of a political maneuver by elayne that was thirteen steps more subtle than birgitte had a mind for. she shook her head. elayne was a queen. volatility and all. she’d be good for andor.” that’s my girl! ❤️❤️ (but also, elayne is not “volatile” lmao?? sure, she has her moments of letting out a single primal scream of frustration, but on the whole she’s very good at keeping an outwardly even temper when it’s important to do so.)

mat arrives to see birgitte, but birgitte’s first assumption is that he’s here to see elayne. she knows they’re married! “birgitte held up two fingers to order drinks - [the bartender] knew that she took milk these days” the mental image of the captain-general walking into bars and going “bartender, i want a glass of your best milk” is SENDING me jkfjgh

also, reason #783745 why mat should be elayne’s warder. can you imagine the act of love it would’ve been for mat to swear off drinking for 9 months because he worries it might have a negative effect on the babies thru the bond? 🥺

“one in a thousand is good odds. for me.” “bloody ashes. you’re as bad as elayne!” 1) mat and elayne are the same and they are married ❤️ 2) this is exactly what’s so infuriating about the narrative and the fandom punishing elayne for “recklessness” - because they reward mat for the very same thing. mat is just as bad if not worse when it comes to coming up with wild dangerous plans, yet his plot-mandated protagonist ta’veren luck plot armor means that they almost always work out, or that if they go wrong it’s in a way that still allows them to work out in the end (like the escape from ebou dar). elayne will have a very solid plan that goes awry due to unforeseen circumstances, while mat will just charge into something with half a plan cobbled together with duct tape and then it works out, with the result that everyone’s like “elayne is so stupid and reckless and gets people killed! i love when mat makes crazy plans that work out against all odds!”

“could she, perhaps, give one of the copies to mat? he’d never know, since he couldn’t channel himself...no, she thought, squashing that temptation before it could fly too high. she had promised to return mat’s medallion, and she would. not some copy that didn’t work as well.” ❤️

elayne disguises herself as a forsaken as a means of getting the black sisters to spill information to her. this is genuinely clever! and it works exactly as intended for quite some time until the impossible-to-foresee betrayal of the secretary! and even when things do go awry, elayne holds her own against 3 black ajah and 2 other darkfriends fantastically well! and she did 100% intend to tell birgitte about the plan, but birgitte was out drinking with mat, so why does the narrative later insist that elayne’s at fault for going behind birgitte’s back? she literally wasn’t there! granted, elayne does think “well on the plus side if birgitte’s not here then she can’t object to my plan!” rather than waiting to do the plan at a different time after birgitte comes back, but like maybe she wouldn’t feel the need to think that way if birgitte treated her like an intelligent adult rather than a foolhardy child.

elayne learns that darkfriends are hunting mat and is so worried!! ❤️ and also that the shadow is planning an invasion of andor, uh oh..........noooo andor is like the LAST place that hasn’t yet been invaded by either the shadow or the seanchan! caemlyn is my only Home Base in a series where all the characters are wandering around and making me feel adrift because i never did like travel-based fantasy series where there’s no Home Base! it’s gotta stay strong! it’s gotta!

mat comes charging in with birgitte after she sensed elayne was in danger! protective husband!!!

speaking of protective husbands, gawyn fends off an assassin from egwene’s room and goes to check on her and gets caught in the traps she’d laid to catch the assassin jdkfjg peak comedy. once again, i sympathize with both sides of the argument - gawyn’s interference let the assassins know that egwene’s onto them and cost her the element of surprise, but he wasn’t actively Trying to interfere, he just went to have a quick look in her corridor to reassure himself that all was well bc he was anxious and then unintentionally ended up fighting an assassin. i agree more with egwene, bc gawyn wasn’t even supposed to be in that corridor in the first place since he’d promised not to, but i do understand his being anxious and wanting to check on his beloved. (and i forget whether or not he was aware that egwene had set up traps in her room? if not, then his anxiety would be doubly understandable bc he’d think she was leaving her rooms completely unguarded and vulnerable with assassins walking the tower.)

“her cheeks were flushed with anger at him. that made her even more beautiful than usual.” gawyn’s just exposing his kinks to us huh jhdkfjg

gawyn goes to caemlyn!!! he’s gonna see elayne!!!! i’m gonna get my reunion!!!!!

“birgitte stood in the doorway, mat in the room beyond. he’d stepped out for melfane’s inspection, but otherwise he’d hovered near her almost as protectively as birgitte.” HUSBAND BEHAVIOR!!!! 😭😭😭 where is talmanes to tease mat for being husbandly when you need him?

“we don’t have time for much, these days. risks must be taken.” exactly! the last fucking battle is nigh, if you all hadn’t noticed! nigh, i tell you!! elayne can’t afford to just sit in a glass tower not taking any risks! fandom shits on elayne for unintentionally endangering others by risking her own life to accomplish necessary goals, yet they’d think just the same if she sent other people to take those risks in her stead. if elayne HADN’T gone into the black ajah house, it would be all “elayne’s such a coward sending other people to die in her place” like if you don’t want elayne to go up against the black ajah herself but would also criticize her for sending others to do it, what do you want her to do, just ignore the black ajah and let them get away with whatever?

“you made me your warder, but you won’t let me protect you! how can i be your bodyguard if you won’t tell me when you’re putting yourself in danger?” she TRIED to and you WEREN’T THERE, birgitte! and she DID tell you the whole plan for the black ajah house incident and you AGREED - reluctantly, but you did agree - to let her go in without you! i definitely feel like there’s an attempt to retroactively make the black ajah house incident be elayne’s fault in-narrative in a way that it wasn’t at all in KOD.

“at that moment, a scarf-wrapped head appeared in the doorway. mat had his eyes closed. ‘you covered up?’” see? mat is so much more respectful of women when he’s around elayne! doesn’t even consider trying to sneak a glance of her naked!

elayne warns mat that darkfriends are after him and tells him to be careful ❤️

“‘well,’ mat said, shrugging, ‘you’re alive, and three of them are dead. seems like a reasonably good outcome.’” fucking thank you mat for acknowledging that elayne accomplished something rather than getting on her case about taking risks! king!!

“‘mat,’ she said, taking off his medallion. ‘here, it’s time i gave this back. you should know that it probably saved my life tonight.’” ❤️❤️ this is now TWICE that mat’s medallion has saved elayne’s life (with the first being the gholam in ebou dar) this ship literally writes itself! [nynaeve voice] why aren’t they married!

of all my should-have-been ships, mat/elayne truly does feel like The One That Got Away. obviously rand/mat and elayne/avi would never ACTUALLY have happened canonically in the books (tho avilayne is a shoe-in for the show and i can’t wait!) but mat/elayne absolutely could have happened within the heteronormative confines of canon. and they spend more time together and have more relationship development than elayne has with her actual love interest, and elayne fills the same “everything he thought he hated” tropes as mat’s actual love interest but in a much better and more effective way and challenges his prejudices about channelers rather than enforces them.

i once put this whole canon matlayne scenario in the replies of a previous recap, but you’re gonna hear it again! SO they could’ve had their Big Damn Kiss and love confession post-gholam in acos and then fucked and then got tragically separated, and elayne having to leave mat behind in ebou dar for the sake of getting the kin away from the seanchan would’ve been a beautiful angsty heart vs. duty moment for her. then elayne finds out she’s pregnant, mat’s escape from ebou dar now has the concrete goal of wanting to get back to caemlyn and elayne, and then they finally reunite in this book and mat finds out he’s gonna be a dad and he realizes that the idea of commitment and kids doesn’t make him feel leashed anymore because he loves elayne and the twins and wants to have that family and knows that elayne would never deny him his freedom like tuon would and now mat has had actual positive and believable growth as a person and character! maybe he could even also become her warder for a “hates aes sedai -> warder to an aes sedai” arc, esp since he’s always been so obsessed with protecting elayne and there was so much foreshadowing of Warder Mat that went nowhere! and elayne gets her challenging-preconceptions-of-mat arc expanded and gets to actually have her babydaddy around for at least a few days of her pregnancy! i love randlayne with my whole heart, but if canon insisted on doing them so absolutely dirty, then i would’ve preferred a meaty matlayne storyline like this. (and again, rand/mat/elayne/avi is Actually the way, but i’m thinking specifically in terms of what would have been genuinely plausible for rj to write.)

anyway, back on topic. slayer wins the award for most pointless WOT villain. literally every single time he shows up i go “wow i completely forgot this guy existed” jfgk and he’s rand’s (and galad’s) presumed-dead uncle who is actually alive and has somehow become evil and somehow has TAR powers! that should’ve been interesting!

we see rand again, but again it’s from min’s pov. can i get some rand pov please? he feels like too MUCH of a jesus figure in this book, with us just seeing him perform miracles etc. from other people’s povs rather than actually getting to be in his head and see how HE’S feeling post-epiphany.

rand goes back to bandar eban intending to fix the starvation he shrugged at and ran away from in the previous book. min keeps simpering that it wasn’t his fault and that he isn’t responsible for the people he literally rules and, when a domani is rightfully angry with him, yells at the guy that rand is too busy and has had more important things to deal with, though rand cuts her off and accepts blame. she was always enabling him or avoiding him when he was at his worst, and now that the time has come to make amends for the bad things he did, she tries to coddle him and shield him from any blame or regret. whereas i just bet that elayne and aviendha would go “yes you did a bad thing but you’re a good person and you can fix it” because they understand leadership and responsibility and honor.

rand still refers to tam as “tam” instead of “my father”! even post-epiphany, even now that he’s reconnected with his humanity! smh!

rand to min: “you’re more vital than them all [the kings, aiel chiefs, aes sedai, asha’man, and ta’veren who follow him]. you remind me who i am.” FOOTAGE! NOT! FUCKING! FOUND!!!!! tam was the one who got him back in touch with himself! nynaeve, mat, perrin, egwene, and elayne were the ones rand was thinking about in the last book when missing his old life and hating how much he’s changed! min does not KNOW who he is because all she’s interested in is having sex with him and never wants to actually have meaningful conversations with him! she met the sheepherder fucking ONCE let’s not act like she’s the only one who can remind him of who he is!

“besides, you think more clearly than most of those who call themselves my counselors.” footage not found, she’s incapable of thinking about a single thing but rand and how hot she wants to look for him. “you could be a queen, if you wished it.” LMAO elayne has not been out here busting her ass for the past 6 books only for rand to claim that useless helpless skill-less min could be a queen! she would not last one HOUR in elayne’s shoes!

“all i wish for is you, stupid looby.” yeah, we know, min. we know.

and then rand’s like hey i wish you didn’t call me names so much and min’s like “well life’s tough isn’t it” what a supportive partner. not that mat/tuon hasn’t already clearly shown us that the narrative does not understand the difference between “cute nicknames to call your partner” and “continuing to call your partner nicknames they have told you they don’t like or want to be called”

min really does exist only to provide outsider pov of rand. the vast majority of her pov chapters since joining him could be summarized without having to even mention her hardly at all. because she never actually DOES anything, she just sits there watching other people do things and tells us about it. she’s a narrator, not a participant. in this scene, rand and the domani are hard at work getting the city back in order and min doesn’t even HELP she literally just sits on a crate and watches everyone else work! i hate her so much. elayne and aviendha would be rolling up their sleeves and going right into the thick of it!

“i have heard some of what these men in white have done in the wetlands. i think they wear white to hide what is dark inside of them.” go off edarra! “we shouldn’t be fighting them, not with the last battle coming. if we squabble among ourselves, we will lose to the dark one.” “i would like to have seen someone suggest that to you when [the shaido] still held your wife!” go OFF edarra!

and so perrin wusses out of killing the whitecloaks, as i predicted, however they’re gonna have a lil trial and that actually sounds fun, i’m excited! but that’s getting a little ahead, so back to earlier in the chapter.

GALAD AND BERELAIN ARE IMMEDIATELY SMITTEN WITH EACH OTHER JKFJG I’M HOLLERING hot people supremacy! the bisexual population of randland is shaking! literally the parks and rec “they would make the most beautiful super baby, but what if super baby became too powerful?” meme!

“‘elayne’s fine,’ perrin said gruffly. ‘last i heard - which was only a few days back - she’d secured her claim to the throne. i wouldn’t be surprised if she’s looking to marry rand by now. if she can pull him away from whatever realm he’s conquering.’” thank you perrin for another randlayne crumb but also i’m hollering again jdkfgj poor elayne has worked so hard to keep her relationship with rand under wraps and perrin is out here blabbing about it to two entire armies! perrin and min shaking hands meme on spilling every single detail of elayne’s personal life to half the continent

ok but like fuck man i would LOOOOVE to see randlayne go public now that elayne’s secured the throne and doesn’t have to worry as much about being seen as tdr’s puppet. they would be the power couple of randland!!! even moreso than berelain and galad!! crying over the wasted potential!! tho i guess making it known (or at least heavily suspected) that the babies are the dragon reborn’s kids is still definitely a concern since it would put targets on their backs. but if so many people already fucking know anyway then what is there to lose lmao

also, it makes me incredibly smug that pretty much every single one of rand’s friends would definitely be team randlayne over team rand/min if given a choice - elayne is mat, nynaeve, and egwene’s bestie, and perrin at least knows her from a few weeks in the stone as opposed to min whom he met for a day. egwene has no idea rand even has a relationship with min, and mat seems to have forgotten he saw them fucking and perrin doesn’t seem to have ever seen min and rand being romantic since he’s so confident rand’s going to marry elayne (which leads me to conclude that he thinks about rand way less than mat does and thus has way fewer visions of him)

“had aybara intended insult by indicating a relationship between elayne and the dragon reborn? unfortunately, galad knew his sister all too well. she was impulsive, and she had shown an unseemly fascination with young al’thor. ‘my sister may do as she wishes,’ galad said, surprised at how easily he contained his annoyance at both her and the dragon reborn.” oh i can’t wait for galad and gawyn to both show up at the palace and be like “elayne! what’s new?” and she goes “oh, this is my husband the dragon reborn and my husband the general of the dragon’s armies and my wife an aiel channeler, and also i’m pregnant with the dragon reborn’s twins!” and they just lose their shit

perrin’s like “the whitecloaks attacked me and killed my friend” “the woman who was with you?” “no, a wolf” kfgk cracking up over this (i should note that is an approximation of the conversation, not a transcription hjdkf)

“wolves hate shadowspawn” “and how do you know this” [silence] why is this entire conversation so funny!!

and then galad’s like “ok well i don’t think that killing a wolf is grounds for murder so........” he’s so tired, can’t help but sympathize with him a little in this convo jdkfjgh

“he glanced at [berelain] for a moment, and found her blushing as she regarded him. it was faint, but he was sure he saw it. he found himself blushing as well.” oh my god wholesome!!!! the 2 sexiest characters on the continent (objectively, anyway - in my heart i know it’s actually rand and elayne who hold those crowns) turning into shy blushing messes because of each other, i’m! 🥺

morgase-galad reunion!!!! “that was his stepmother. that red-gold hair he had tugged as a child. that face, so beautiful and strong. those eyes. those were her eyes.” “hesitantly, galad reached out and touched the apparition on the cheek. the skin was warm.” “she cut off as he seized her in an embrace.” 😭😭😭😭

galad HAS redeemed himself somewhat in this chapter, mostly because i am a sucker for his and morgase’s relationship (and also because his new thing with berelain is adorable). however, still thrilled to see morgase drag his ass a little bit: “i’m taking you back to my camp, mother. then we can discuss the way you were treated by [perrin].” “an order, galad? have i no say in the matter? ... i have more to fear from your...associates than from perrin aybara.” you tell him!

galad and perrin decide to have morgase be the judge in perrin’s trial. “both men turned to morgase. she stood in her simple yellow dress, looking more a queen by the moment.” ❤️❤️❤️ i do love morgase’s arc! i just wish it had been less trauma porn-y during the middle books, and also that tallanvor did not exist.

“[egwene] loathed [the seanchan] with a hatred that sometimes worried her.” you hold onto that hatred egwene! everybody else is going soft on them, you better hold onto that hatred!

scenes of egwene absolutely owning the hall my beloved! “‘i believe the hall acts in wisdom,’ egwene said, speaking very carefully. the sitters turned to her. some looked relieved. those who were more familiar with her, however, looked suspicious.” that’s my girl! ❤️❤️

the hall doesn’t want egwene having control over the war against the shadow, so they propose that they have sole control over the war and egwene have sole control over dealing with monarchs. but then SIKE the dragon reborn IS a monarch since he’s the king of illian, so egwene has sole control over dealing with him!! cackling and pumping my fist!

“he will need a firm, familiar hand” suddenly i am hoping that the show beefing up randgwene will result in some kinky Authority Issues and Asserting Dominance late-series fics for them jkfjg

egwene also gets a proposal passed that meetings of the hall can’t convene without every sitter and the amyrlin present (unless someone can’t be found or has sent word directly that they can’t attend), so no more secret meetings where some sitters can sneakily get things passed without their opponents there to prevent it (such as siuan’s deposition)

“the last battle is here. i will not withdraw my proposal. either you will stand now, or you will be known - through all time - as one of those who refused. at the dusk of an age, can you not stand for openness and light?” no one does inspirational and/or guilt-trip-y speeches like egwene! ❤️

i don’t caaaaare about ituralde. he was introduced way too late in the story for me to get invested. his plotlines should’ve gone to bashere instead, i care about bashere! bashere’s actually been super underused the past few books, now that i think about it. probably because a new great general was invented to get all these plotlines!

“[morgase] remembered her first impressions of [galad], long ago when she’d married his father. the young child had simply been part of the deal, and while morgase had adopted him, she had always worried that he felt less loved than his siblings.” 🥺

“[as a child, galad had been] quick to point out when someone did something wrong. but unlike other children - elayne especially - he had not used his knowledge as a weapon.” no need to do elayne like that wtf! she’s one of the most generous and empathetic characters in the series, not someone who weaponizes other people’s mistakes! the only person she does that to (besides her enemies ofc) is mat, but a) he usually starts it and b) egwene and nynaeve, who ARE judgmental in this way, influenced her attitude towards him, and even so she was always much fairer to him than nynaeve was.

“galad, listen to yourself. you name them witches? you went to train with them, perhaps to become a warder!” get his ass!

“what is the point of this, mother?” “to make you think, son. in ways that i should have encouraged before, rather than leaving you to your simple illusions. life is not so easy as the toss of a coin, one side or the other.” get his ass! “the Children like to speak of the light protecting them, of guiding their judgment and leading people to justice. that isn’t how it works, galad...sometimes a good man can do wrong. at times, it is appropriate to punish him. at other times, punishment serves nobody, and the best thing to do is to let him continue and learn.” get his ass! such a great convo, but i can’t believe that a 30-year-old adult needs this explained to him lmao galad’s Lawful Goodness really does stretch credibility at times.

tam tells perrin that aes sedai have summoned him to see rand, so we get a nice little timeline matchup milestone here

elayne is carried on a litter to the city walls to watch the dragon demonstration because she promised melfane that she’d stay off her feet but NOT that she’d stay in her bedroom jkjfg i love her!!! an icon!

“she spared a moment to feel guilty for making the poor men, in dress uniform, carry her through this early-summer heat. but these men would ride to battle in her name; they could stand a little warm weather. how often did guardsmen get the honor of carrying their queen, anyway?” this feels like the type of Spoiled Entitled Noble Caricature that mat thinks elayne is but that we have never seen elayne to be in her own pov (or in non-mat povs). i just keep getting the sense that sanderson doesn’t like elayne lmao or is exaggerating/criticizing her flaws in a way that doesn’t feel true to rj’s elayne.

the theme of this recap is: is sanderson actually being harder on elayne than rj was, or have i just by now seen so much elayne hate online that it makes me extra hypersensitive to even the tiniest perceived criticism of her?

“she had to find a way to seize the sun throne without mixing to much in the local House politics.” okay, so sounds like it would be a great time to have a randlayne reunion in cairhien so rand can publicly give her the sun throne and the cairhienin nobility won’t be able to say shit about it (since elayne has said earlier in this book that openly accepting THIS throne as a gift from rand is no problem at all, unlike the lion throne). i always love to see elayne shine on her own and am excited to find out how she snags the sun throne, don’t get me wrong, i’m just saying that throughout this series, so many things would get done so much faster and more easily if characters actually made use of Traveling/TAR to be in constant contact with each other so they can lend each other a hand sometimes! and if rand ever actually bothered to pop in and visit his own girlfriend from time to time!

“someone [on the next tower over] raised a hat into the air and waved at her. mat wanted to watch from the tower with the working dragon, it seemed. foolhardy man. what if the thing exploded like a nightflower?” mat waves at elayne! elayne is worried about mat being too close to the dragon!

“elayne focused on [the people in the other tower] with the glass. one carried a small torch. mat watched with a curious expression.” elayne i see you going “oh let me look through my little looking glass so i can see the dragon” and then just checking out mat instead

“mat was holding his ears and scowling, which gave elayne a smile. he really should have watched from her tower.” elayne wishes mat was in her tower with her 😌

and so cannons have been invented! i will end the recap with an ominous quote from birgitte on the nature of warfare: “the world just changed, elayne. it just changed in a very large way. i have a terrible feeling that it’s only the beginning.”

[ennael]

First batch of Artfight drawings! I was in the Steampunk team this year :) Thank for letting me play with your characters and for your attacks as well! -The lady playing the bagpipe is Thera Min by @donomon (and she is still my favourite OC of this artfight! ) -The two nice guys hugging are Kiki and Sacha by @aimthrice (I didn’t see they weren’t playing this year, Oops ^^’) -The girl with the magic orb is January/Nalani by @misspeya (Pretty happy with the face shading) -The gentlman in the white suit is Wilau by... Wilau ! (Glad I made a suit!) -The two brown haired with the trumpet are Vateris and Pragi by @pouzingarou (I even made a background for once !) -Last but not least, the old vampire gentleman is Emil by @solsticine (Saddly, I didn’t make him justice...)

[moviesandmania]

Things 4 - USA, 2017 - preview of micro-budget alien invasion pic

Things 4 – USA, 2017 – preview of micro-budget alien invasion pic

Things 4 is a 2017 American science-fiction comedy-horror anthology feature film about invading things from outer space.

Written and directed by Dennis Devine (The Haunting of La Llorona; Alice in Murderland; Vampires of Sorority Row; Don’t Look in the Cellar) and Thera Min (who also co-stars), the Sterling Entertainment production also stars Andrea Martina (Vampire Club 3D), Kelly Erin Decker (

[omniishambles]

"Jonathan? I'm looking for a buyer for a statue of Min."

Random Starters || Accepting!

   “Min? Min...now, isn’t he the fellow with the-”

 Jonathan stopped abruptly, glancing up at Thera with a mixture of soft horror and suspicion as his brain filtered the information through that he’d been racking it for. 

 The God of Fertility. The one who was always depicted as having his- well.

 Was she mucking him about? Was she? It was bloody hard to tell with Thera and for the moment she seemed entirely sincere. He cleared his throat swiftly, loudly, reaching up to scratch the back of his head as though it was nothing. Nothing at all.

   “With the ah- ahem- yes, well, you know, of course, I’m sure- not to say that you’re into that sort of thing! But there’s some odd people about who go for it. Collecting, that is. Obviously.”

 He made a point of adjusting his tie- or rather of fiddling with it awkwardly and leaving it just as loose as it was a moment before- so he didn’t have to look at her.

   “Yes, I rather think I know someone who knows someone who’d be interested.”

[rebrandtdebibls]

Gelukkige beeld van ons laaste Groot Keiser Don Aldo: Sparta en Athene. Vooraanstaande onder die state wat nooit tirannie ervaar het nie, was Sparta, 'n feit wat selfs in die oudheid opgemerk is.

Dit was uitsonderlik in hierdie en in baie ander opsigte, waarvan sommige reeds opgemerk is: dit het min kolonies uitgestuur, net na Taras (Tarentum) in die 8ste eeu en in die prehistoriese tydperk - na die Egeïese eilande Thera en Melos. Dit was onversterk en nooit volledig gesinoekiseer in die fisiese sin nie. En dit het, uitsonderlik onder Griekse state, daarin geslaag om 'n buurman van vergelykbare grootte met geweld te onderwerp en vir eeue vas te hou. Die buurman was Messenia, wat in die 8ste eeu sy onafhanklikheid aan Sparta verloor het en dit eers in die 360's herwin het. Dit was bowenal die Messense faktor wat die eienaardige ontwikkeling van Sparta bepaal het, want dit het Spartane gedwing om hul instellings aan te pas om 'n permanent vyandige onderdanebevolking te hanteer. Ten spyte van Sparta se militêre prominensie onder Griekse state,

wat die primêre feit daaroor is, Sparta se ontwikkeling

is veral moeilik om op te spoor. Dit is so deels omdat

daar is min Argaïese of Klassieke Spartaanse inskripsies.

Nog belangriker, daar is baie min egte Spartan-geskiedenis wat deur Spartane geskryf is (daar was geen Spartaanse Herodotus of Thucydides nie, alhoewel albei mans diep gefassineer was deur Sparta, soos die meeste Grieke inderdaad was). En deels is dit so omdat-'n verwante punt-"tra uitgevind het was veral aktief by Sparta. Reeds vroeg in 'n 3de eeu vind 'n mens "lakoniseerders in ander state (die wd is afgelei van "Laconia, die naam vir die Spartaan van Lacedaemon, en dui op kulturele bewondering Sport en sy instellings). Die Spartaanse tradisie in denke kan deur die eeue opgespoor word tot in die moderne tyd, alhoewel dit nog nooit neergekom het op 'n enkele b definieerbare stel idees nie. In die intellektuele wêreld van die 4de eeu vC, toe baie van die mees betekenisvolle woorde oor Sparta blykbaar saamgestel is, is Sparta, net onder die invloed van idealistiese filosowe wat 'n oplossing vir burgerlike wanorde soek, feitlik verander in 'n snelskrif vir 'n suiwer gemeenskap vry van sta (interne onenigheid en gevegte) met gelykheid van grondbesit en ander utopiese kenmerke wat nooit in die historiese Sparta of enige ander plek bestaan ​​het nie, In die Romeinse penod het Sparta 'n toeriste-aantreklikheid geword, 'n plek van antieke, half-uitgedinkte rituele . Dit was ook die tydperk toe Sparta, die lewende legende, bewustelik handel dryf en fantasieë oor sy groot verlede uitgevoer het (in die Hellenistiese die weermag enigsins. Eerste Boek van Makkabeërs vind 'n mens selfs die idee wat ernstig na vore gebring is dat die Jode en Spartane op dieselfde manier in was) . As daar in die huidige afdeling meer oor Athene as oor Sparta gesê word, is dit nie omdat Athene intrinsiek belangriker was nie, maar omdat die hoeveelheid bruikbare einde daaroor onvergelykbaar groter is.

Ter kompensasie vir hierdie gebrek aan bewyse oor Sparta is daar twee items van kardinale belang: 'n buitengewone dokument oor die vroeë Spartaanse grondwet en staat, bewaar deur die Griekse skrywer Plutarchus (die "Groot Rhetra"), en die poësie van die 7de-eeuse Spartaanse digter Tyrtacus. Tyrtacus het poësie geskryf in elegiese koeplette (afwisselende heksameter- en pentameter-reëls) ten einde vir simposiums. Baie daarvan is militêr van karakter en verskans die hopliete-etiek in 'n ontwikkelde vorm in 'n tyd toe Sparta en Argos mekaar se kele beslaan het. Tyrtacus se poësie wat in 1980 gepubliseer is, het die moderne skeptisisme beslis weerlê oor die vraag of Sparta en Argos mekaar militêr kon konfronteer as

vroeg as die 660's). Sparta het twee konings gehad, of basileis. As dit reg is dat hierdie titel bloot oorerflike adellikes met verklaarde prerogatiewe aandui, was dit oorspronklik een van die minder merkwaardige aspekte daarvan. Dit is egter vreemd dat die nommer twee so permanent verskans moes gewees het. In ander opsigte het die Sparta wat uit die Donker Eeu ontstaan ​​het, baie standaardkenmerke gehad, soos 'n vegtervergadering gebaseer op gemeenskaplike eet in "messes syssitia ('n stelsel analoog aan die simposiumstelsel), en 'n raad van ouderlinge. Landdroste wat efore genoem word, was uniek. aan Sparta en sy uitlopers, maar daar is niks intrinsiek vreemd aan formele magistrasies nie. Die Rhetra is 'n beweerde reaksie deur die Delphiese orakel

aan die wetgewer Lycurgus rondom die 9de of 8ste eeu vC. Die Rhetra gee voor om die magte van die verskillende Spartaanse groepe en individue wat so pas genoem is, te definieer. Dit begin egter deur te sê dat die stamme "gestam" (of behou) moet word, die Grieks is 'n soort woordspeling en die obes ('n woord vir 'n lokaliteit) moet "gehoorsaam" word. Dit is desperaat duister, maar in 'n 8ste-eeuse konteks behoort dit na 'n soort politieke sinoësisme te verwys (Sparta, soos gesê, was ver fisies gesinokiseer). Die stamme en obes moet die eenhede van burgerlike organisasie wees. Die Rhetra eis die instelling van 'n raad met die konings en stipuleer gereelde vergaderings vir die Vergadering (iets wat eers later by Athene getuig is). 'n Belangrike slotklousule blyk vas te sê dat die mense, of damos, die mag sal hê. Tog 'n ruiter na die Rhetra, wat verband hou met laat 8ste eeuse konings Theopompus en Polydorus, sê dat, as die mense skeef kies, die ouderlinge en konings ontbinders sal wees. 'n Gedig van Tyrtacus eggo beide dele van hierdie

dokument, ruiter sowel as Rhetra Die Rhetra is 'n voorbarige grondwetlike dokument, as dit uit die 9de of vroeë 8ste eeu dateer, en om hierdie en ander redes (Delphi was nie aktief nie en skryfwerk was algemeen veel voor die middel van die 8ste eeu ) is algemene praktyk om die hele dokument of Dait van dokumente 'n eeu of twee later te dateer. Op hierdie siening, wat nie hier gevolg word nie, is die Rhetra self, met sy Mipulasie van magte vir die (hopliete) damos 'n 7de

eeu manifestasie van hopliet serliver in werklikheid, dit verteenwoordig 'n soort Spartaanse alternatief vir tranny Die verwysings na stamme en obes word dan gesien as deel van hervorming van die burgerliggaam en van die weermag, vergelykbaar met en nie veel vroeër as stamveranderinge chewhere ( sien hieronder vir Cleisthenes). Die ruiter dateer dan uit 'n selfs latere tydperk, toe Spartaanse militêre eerbetoon 'n reaksionêre heraanpassing van die magsbalans gevra het. Hierdie siening, wat behels dat Theopompus en Polydorus tot die 7de eeu vanaf die 8ste gedateer word en nog meer arbitrêr aan hulle die aktiwiteit wat deur die Rhetra eerder as die ruiter veronderstel word, doen te veel geweld aan die beste chronologiese bewyse (dié van Thucydides en Herodotusi, en 'n siening in terme van 8ste-eeuse politieke sinoësisme behoort voorkeur te geniet. Wat die beweerde weermaghervorming betref, kan niks Die beste rekonstruksie is nouliks meer as 'n kreatiewe versinsel uit Hellenistiese bewyse wat oor 'n Spartaanse godsdiensfees gehandel het, maar niks reguit te doen gehad het met

Dit was beslis in die 8ste eeu dat Sparta die stap geneem het om dit uniek te maak onder Griekse state. Dit het reeds in die Donker Eeu tot semi-onderwerp gedwing. of "perioikic," status 'n aantal van sy meer onmiddellike bure. Toe, in die tweede helfte van die 8ste eeu, het dit die grootskaalse verowering van Messenië onderneem (e. 735 715). Een gevolg, wat reeds opgemerk is, was die uitvoer van 'n ongewenste groep, die Partheniai, na Taras. Dit was seuns van Spartaanse moeders en nie-Spartaanse vaders wat voortgeplant is tydens die afwesigheid in Messenia van die Spartaanse vegter-elite. 'n Nog belangriker gevolg van die verowering van Messenië, "goed om te ploeg en goed om te skoffel" soos Tyrtacus dit gestel het, was die verkryging van 'n groot stuk vrugbare grond en die skepping van 'n permanent diensbare arbeidsmag, die "helote." soos die verowerde Messeniërs nou genoem is. Die helote was staatslawe, vasgehou deur geweld en vrees. 'n 7de-eeuse opstand deur die Messeniërs (die "Tweede Messeense Oorlog") is eers na dekades van gevegte en met die hulp (sekerlik) van die nuwe hopliet-taktiek doodgemaak. Die verhouding van haat en uitbuiting (die belots het die helfte van hul produseer aan Sparta) was die bepalende kenmerk in Spartaanse interne lewe. Spartan-vegters eweknieë (homoiol) is voortaan onderwerp aan 'n streng militêre opleiding, die agoge, om hulle in staat te stel om die Messeense helote te hanteer, wie se landbou-arbeid die Spartane die ontspanning vir hul militêre opleiding en lewenstyl verskaf het - 'n berugte boosaardige sirkel. Die agoge en die Sparta wat dit voortgebring het, kan die beste vergelykend verstaan ​​word deur te verwys na die soort manlike inisiasie seremonies en rituele wat in ander vegtersamelewings gevind word. Tot en met die Tweede Messense Oorlog was Sparta se politieke instellings en kulturele lewe soortgelyk aan dié in ander state. Dit het 'n artistieke tradisie van sy eie gehad en het digters soos Alcman, Terpander en Tyrtacus gasvryheid gelewer of gegee. Maar nou het Spartaanse instellings 'n nuwe, somber, militêre oriëntasie gekry. Sosiale sanksies soos die verlies van burgerstatus was die gevolg van lafhartigheid in die geveg; 'n stelsel van homoseksuele paarbinding het die normale hoplietbindings op 'n vlak van woeste intensiteit gehandhaaf, en die ekonomiese surplus verskaf deur die baie grond wat deur die helote gewerk is, is gebruik om die elite-instelling van die syssitia te finansier, met verlies aan volle burger status vir mans wat nie aan hul "gemorsrekening" kon voldoen nie. Die agoge het Sparta egter getransformeer en dit van ander state onderskei.

Die helot-faktor het meer as Sparta se interne lewe beïnvloed. Telkens weer is veranderinge op Sparta afgedwing op die gebied van buitelandse beleid. Dit kon nie gereelde militêre aktiwiteite ver van die huis af waag nie, want dit sou behels dat 'n groot bevolking van ontevrede belots (wat Spartane met sewe teen een oorskry het) agtergelaat word. 'n Oplossing, wat soms deur avontuurlustige Spartaanse bevelvoerders probeer word, was selektiewe stemreg aan helots. Tog het dit senuwee gevra wat selfs die Spartane nie gehad het nie: by een geleentheid het 2 000 helote wat vryheid belowe is en om die tempels gelei is, verdwyn, en niemand het ooit uitgevind wat met hulle gebeur het nie. Sommige persoon of persone het klaarblyklik tweede gedagtes gehad. Die Griekse historikus Xenophon, wat geen vyand van Sparta was nie, sê

[iamcinema]

Things 4 (2017) | Dennis Devine, Thera Min

“Monsters are real, they came from outer space and they are here to destroy the world - unless we can stop them. “

[yourboatholiday]

Looking for a Greece boat journey? Set sail to Kos Island, Dodecanese pearl!

Island rich in history and beautiful beaches, Kos is also and above all a perfect starting point for all yachtsmen who intend to sail the waters of the Dodecanese or head towards the Turkish coast.

CONTACT US FOR YOUR CHARTER FROM KOS

Where is Kos located?

This island is located in the heart of the Dodecanese, one of the famous Greek archipelagos located in the Aegean Sea. The Dodecanese refers to the group of islands bordered to the west by the island of Crete and the Cyclades archipelago, to the north by the Samo and Ikaria islands, and to the east by the Turkey coasts.

After Rhodes, Kos is one of the biggest islands of this archipelago and is also one of the most accredited by international tourism.

How to get to the island?

To reach Kos during summer you will have several flights available both direct and with a stopover in Athens. Over the years the airlines, due to the increasing tourist demand, have in fact intensified the routes from Europe to the international airport of Kos.

Ferries are the best alternative to the plane. They connect Kos with the remaining islands of the Dodecanese, but also to the Cyclades, Crete and Athens, and the main coastal cities of Greece.

What is the best 7 days boat itinerary from Kos?

Here’s our recommended week sailing itinerary from Kos, in Greece: Day 1: set sail from Kos Marina spending the day getting acquainted with the boat between a dive and a welcome cocktail; Day 2 –  3: let’s discover Kos island, its beaches, and its archeological beauties! Day 4: head to south direction to meet Nisyros island and its volcano; Day 5: route to Rhodes island to discover its magic atmosphere; Day 6: let’s circumnavigate the tiny and picturesque Symi island; Day 7: back to Kos Marina for your relaxing last day on the island;

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What ports to sail or take refuge for the night from?

The island of Kos is also well equipped with marinas, especially along its southern coast.

The two main ports are located near the city of Kos, on the island, side facing east and are Kos Marina, capable of accommodating up to 250 boats with a maximum length up to 80 meters and a maximum draft of 5 meters, and Mandraki Port, smaller but still well served, it offers 60 berths up to 70 meters in length.

Moving along the south-facing coast we find the small port of Kardamena Marina with its 12 berths for boats with a maximum length up to 60 meters and a maximum draft of 3.5 meters. Here the nearby beach of the same name as Kardamena is certainly worth a visit for its golden sand and wonderful inlets.

Finally, in the southwestern area is located the Kamares Marina, a large harbor for boats up to 60 meters long and a maximum draft of 8 meters, located in the city of Kamari. This area is famous for being home to the ruins of Thera, an ancient city located on the top of Thera Mountain.

What attractions does it offer its visitors?

The numerous points of interest of Kos begin already in its main port where the remains of the fifteenth-century Castle of the Knights stand. It is not the classic medieval fortress perched on a hill but rather a fort surrounded by walls from which you can enjoy a view of the town and, beyond the sea, on the coasts of Turkey.

Remaining in the city of Kos, in the square of Plateia Platanou, you can admire the most famous tree on the island, called the tree of Hippocrates because, according to the myth, it was under this plane tree that this famous character taught his students

If you are interested in archeology, be sure to walk along with the island’s most famous archaeological site, Asklepieion, a religious center dedicated to the cult of Asclepius, god of healing. It was founded in the 3rd century BC. as a medical school and treatment center.

Finally, the village of Zia is certainly worth a visit, a village located on a hill among olive trees, vines, and figs, which enjoys an extraordinary panoramic view of the nearby islands and Turkey. From Zia, you can walk to the top of Mount Dikeos, the highest in Kos.

What beaches are not to be missed?

According to many guides and tour operators, the best beaches of the Dodecanese are located in Kos, long beaches of fine golden sand bathed by a crystalline sea. Among the many you can reach floating on the sea comfortably relaxed on your boat, certainly include those of Kritika and Lambi, sandy beaches not far from the center of Kos city.

However, if you are looking for more secluded and “exotic” ones, you will have to head to the southwestern tip of the island. In this area there are in fact beaches such as Paradise beach, remote and quiet, Kefalos, a sandy beach more than 6 km long, Camel beach, bordered by two cliffs and suitable for diving, and Agios Theologos, a beach loved by surfers.

What could be a possible 7-day itinerary from Kos?

At Your Boat Holiday, we specialize in preparing and managing itineraries tailored to our customer’s requests and preferences. What you see below is just one of the many possible itineraries that our company usually organizes in the Greek Dodecanese islands:

Day 1: set sail from Kos Marina spending the day getting acquainted with the boat between a dive and a welcome cocktail;

Day 2 –  3: let’s discover Kos island, its beaches, and its archeological beauties!

Day 4: head to south direction to meet Nisyros island and its volcano;

Day 5: route to Rhodes island to discover its magic atmosphere;

Day 6: let’s circumnavigate the tiny and picturesque Symi island;

Day 7: back to Kos Marina for your relaxing last day on the island;

For any information regarding this or another possible itinerary, do not hesitate to contact us! We will be happy to answer all your questions.

Contact  now YBH Charter Brokers:

You can contact us by sending an email at ask@yourboatholiday.com or by phone, calling +39 33436 00997, available also on WhatsApp for both calls and texting.

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[rozlynnwaltz]

The Crew of the Fair wind Have to escape a group of Villains.

Fast Paced Action Chase

2 min

View Continuity Boards: HERE

An excerpt from my story Theras.

[pt-thierryn]

Bootcamp ..... Before the corona lock-down.

Als onderdeel van de postgraduaat “functional training” opleiding, een bootcamp georganiseerd. (https://functionaltraining.academy/index.html) Jammer door de corona uitbraak heeft het voorlopig niet meer kunnen plaatsvinden.

Kijk er naar terug naar uit ...... eenmaal alles terug in orde komt

Aantal deelnemers: 8 personen

Benodigd materiaal:

4 autobanden (2 lichte en 2 zwaardere) 4 Thera banden (2 lichte en 2 zwaardere) 12 kegels om parcours uit te zetten 55 wasknijpers (48 + 7 reserve)

De bootcamp bestaat uit 4 onderdelen:

1.   De opwarming (18min)

Bestaat uit 12 oefeningen, elk voor 1 min waarbij na 30 sec wordt gewisseld van been, arm of richting. Deze zorgen voor dynamische mobilisatie, opwarming van de spieren en verhoogde hartslag.

Gevolgd door 2 spelletjes, “Peg Tag” en “1 leg Partner Push Over”. Deze zorgen naast het opwarmen ook voor het groepsgevoel en fun factor.

2.   De kern (36min)

De kern is opgebouwd uit een parcour die bestaat uit een zone A en een zone B die 20 meter van elkaar liggen. Tussen deze zones staan 3 kegels op elk 5 meter afstand.

De training bestaat uit 4 ronden van telkens 2 oefeningen: 1 oefening met een thera band in zone A en 1 oefening met een autoband in zone B.

We hebben 2 groepen van 4 mensen van gelijkwaardige fitness niveau. Het is de bedoeling een ronde met de ganse groep als 1ste te volbrengen.

Alle spelers bevinden zich bij zone A. Bij het startsignaal van de trainer begint speler 1 van elke groep met de voorziene oefening en moet zo snel als mogelijk de voorgeschreven herhalingen uitvoeren. LET OP: dit steeds onder de voorwaarde van een correcte techniek!!! Eenmaal hij daarmee klaar is, loopt hij naar kegel 1.

Pas dan begint speler 2 met dezelfde oefening, steeds zo snel als mogelijk. De andere spelers moedigen elkaar aan terwijl ze rusten. Als speler 2 hiermee klaar is loopt hij naar kegel 1, geeft een “high five” aan speler 1 en die loopt verder naar kegel 2.

Daarna begint speler 3 met de oefening, loopt dan naar kegel 1 als hij klaar is en geeft een “high five” aan speler 2. Die loopt verder naar kegel 2 waar hij een “high five” geeft aan speler 1 die dan verder loopt naar kegel 3.

Zo hetzelfde voor speler 4 waarbij speler 1 uiteindelijk aankomt aan zone B en daar de voorgeschreven oefening zo snel als mogelijk uitvoert.

Eenmaal speler 1 klaar is loopt hij helemaal terug naar zone A waarbij hij ieder medespeler die hij tegenkomt een “high Five” geeft. Die andere spelers lopen zo op hun beurt een kegel verder waardoor elke speler op zijn beurt aankomt in zone B, de voorziene oefening uitvoert en terug naar zone A loopt met de nodige “high fives” aan de andere spelers.

Als speler 4 uiteindelijk aankomt in zone A stopt het circuit en heeft deze groep de ronde gewonnen.

Enkel bij ronde 4 wordt er met de volledige groep (2 per 2) de oefening van zone A uitgevoerd om dan samen in shuffle run (met volgorde kegels:  1 / 1-2 / 1-2-3 / 1-2-3-4) naar zone B te gaan. Hier wordt er gezamenlijk oefening van zone B uitgevoerd en samen terug naar zone A. Dit is tevens het einde van de kern.

3.   De eindronde: Tabbata circuit (4min)

Het circuit bestaat uit 4 oefeningen van 20sec werken en 10sec rust. Het circuit wordt 2 maal herhaald.

Het is de bedoeling men hier nu kort voluit gaat en de hartslag even naar maximaal laat gaan. Daarna is er de cooling-down!

4.   De cooling-down (10min)

Bestaat uit 2 mobilisatie oefeningen  en 9 stretch oefeningen waarbij we de spieren en de hartslag terug tot rust laten komen.

Daarna is er nog een gezonde versnapering voorzien met een gezellige babbel als afsluiter

Bootcamp oefeningen:

1.   De 12 opwarmingsoefeningen Tussen elke oefening 15sec actieve rust ter plaatse trappelen (+uitleg nieuwe oefening)

Mobility Single Leg Backwards Foot Reach With Forward Knee Hip Height Reach: 2 X 30sec elke kant

Mobility Step Forward And Back, Crossover High To Low Woodchop:  2 X 30sec elke kant

Ter plaatse huppelen: 30sec traag => 30sec sneller

Achterwaarts trappen met hiel tegen bil: 30sec traag => 30sec sneller

High knees: 30sec traag => 30sec sneller

Jumping Jacks: 30sec traag => 30sec sneller

Squats: 30sec => 30sec Jump squat

Lunges afwisselen van been: 30sec => 30sec met draai bovenlichaam naar voorste been.

Inchworm: 30sec => 30sec Inchworm + push-up

Polsen losmaken: 15sec => 15sec andere richting

Rechtstaan op de tenen naar rechtstaan op de hielen: 40sec

Armcirkels die steeds groter worden: 30sec => 30sec in andere richting

2.   Peg Tag

Elke deelnemer begint met 6 wasknijpers die op hun kleding zijn vastgemaakt. De deelnemers bevinden zich binnen een gemarkeerd gebied van 6m op 6m waar zij moeten rondrennen.

Bij het woord "Go" moeten de deelnemers een wasknijper van iemand anders stelen en aan zichzelf vastpinnen. De persoon met de meeste knijpers aan het einde van de rondetijd van 90seconden wordt tot winnaar uitgeroepen.

Verdeel de wasknijpers opnieuw en herhaal maar keer de regel om: ze moeten hun wasknijpers nu op iemand anders leggen. Dit keer is de winnaar diegene met het minste aantal.

3.   1 leg Partner Push Over

Er worden 4 groepjes gemaakt van 2 mensen. De partners beginnen met hun linkerbeen van de grond en staan tegenover elkaar met de handen tegen elkaar gedrukt. Door nu tegen elkaar te duwen is het de bedoeling om  je partner uit balans te halen, te dwingen om op beide voeten te gaan staan of te springen. Na een aantal pogingen herhaal je dat met de rechterbeen. In de volgende week doe je dezelfde oefening maar nu worden de binnenkant van de voeten van de been die van de grond is tegen elkaar gedrukt en hoe je elkaar niet vast met de handen.

4.   Kern

Circuit 1:

A.   ZONE A: 10 X Resistance Band Squat and Overhead Press Regressie: lichtere band, minder diepe squat Progressie: zwaardere band, diepere squat

B.   Zone B: 10 X Tyre Lateral Jump Throughs Regressie: in en over de band stappen, niet springen Progressie: heen en weer de band springen zonder in het midden

C.   Terugkeren: achterwaarts lopen

Circuit 2:

A.   ZONE A: 10 X Resistance Band Bent Over Row Regressie: lichtere band, minder diep buigen Progressie: zwaardere band

B.   Zone B: 10 X Dead Tyre Slam Regressie: lichtere band. Band enkel tot borst hoogte brengen, minder krachtig naar beneden slaan Progressie: zwaardere band. Krachtiger naar beneden slaan, op de tenen of zelfs In de lucht springen met band in bovenste positie

C.   Terugkeren lateral ape walks, halverwege wisselen van kant (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGQKj3XiE_w)

Circuit 3:

A.   ZONE A: 10 X Resistance Band Biceps Curls Regressie: lichtere band, minder diepe squat Progressie: zwaardere band, diepere squat

B.   Zone B: 10 X Tyre Triceps Dips Regressie: met geplooide benen, niet zo diep doorzakken Progressie: een been van de grond, dieper zakken

C.   Terugkeren: voorwaartse jump

Circuit 4:

A.   ZONE A: 10 X Resistance Band Seesaw Regressie: lichtere band, minder diepe squat, niet volledig boven het hoofd Progressie: zwaardere band, diepere squat, sneller tempo

B.   Zone B: 10 X Tyre Push-Ups Regressie: op knieën,  van een hogere positie Progressie: lagere positie, eindpositie (grond) even aanhouden

C.   Terugkeren: Partner Wheelbarrow Crawl, halverwege wisselen

5.   De eindronde: Tabbata circuit

A.   Tabbata voor week 1 en 3

Star Jumps / Power Jacks 20sec

Rust 10sec

Mountain Climbers 20sec

Rust 10sec

Speed Skater 20sec

Rust 10sec

Plank Shoulder Tap 20sec

Rust 10 sec

B.   Tabbata voor week 2 en 4

Partner squats 20sec

Rust 10sec

Staande schuine buikspieren (knee-to-elbows) 20sec

Rust 10sec

Jumping Lunge20sec

Rust 10 sec

Partner High 5 Plank 20sec

Rust 10 sec

6.   De cooling-down

Mobility Backward Crossover Step To Overhead Reach

Stretch Neck - Upper Trap

Stretch Neck – Sideways

Stretch Forearms -Standing

Stretch Backside Shoulder

Stretch Extension Back, Shoulders & Latissimus Dorsi - Kneeling - Single Hand Oblique

Stretch Extension Back, Trapezius & Shoulders - Kneeling – Rotation

Sprinter pose stretch

Stretch Hamstring – Standing

Stretch Quadriceps - Standing

[justgetfitnikki]

Save this FULL BODY BAND WORKOUT you can do anywhere! Don't forget to save, share or comment to see more ♥️. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ❌VOTE❌ for the next workout in the comments A or B: 🅰️ No equipment workout 🅱️ HIIT workout *I'll send you a message when I post the workout you vote for! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ 𝗣𝗦. 🍓🌄🍳 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗣𝗢𝗗𝗖𝗔𝗦𝗧: "𝗗𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗳𝗮𝘀𝘁? 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴!" (Link in bio) ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ABOUT THIS WORKOUT: 🔥 I'm using a thera band 🔥 because I'm not using DBs I focus on higher reps and tempo (slower or faster) 🔥I do these as a circuit with no rest time in between 🔥reps: 15-20 per exercise or side 🔥workout time: 10-30+ min depending on how many rounds you do ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Wearing @ryderwear ♥️! Code NIKKI10 to save! Size & fit details in my highlights! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ #homeexercises #fullbodyworkout #theraband #hotelworkout #homeworkout #homeworkouts #athomeworkouts #justgetfitworkout