#and i came out reconciling with parts of faith

[awesome-cookies-and-cream]

Conclave said: when God sings with his creations, will a turtle not be part of the choir?

[ripdragonbeans]

You Win Epilogue // modern!Aemond x Reader

Summary: You and Aemond have always had a solid relationship built in trust and love. All that is challenged when Aemond has to take a class led by Professor Alys Rivers. Once she's gone, though, how do the two of you heal?

TW: p in v, oral (m and f receiving), manipulation, indefinitely

Part 1 • Part 2

It has been two months since you and Aemond have reconciled, for lack of a better term. Things were not great but they weren’t terrible either. Alys still haunted both of you. For you, those images she planted in your head as well as ones that you made up yourself. For Aemond, everything about her haunted him. He desperately wanted Alys out of his head, out of his life, but she lingered like a scent that wouldn’t go away. Every time you touched Aemond you couldn’t help but wonder if Alys touched him the way you did.

Sex was off the table. Aemond had tried, but you had denied him. You couldn’t bring yourself to look at him like that, all vulnerable, because he had been vulnerable with Alys. It disgusted you, how he let her touch him. Not only was she his professor, but there was at least a fifteen year difference. And of course, the face that he betrayed your promise of being faithful.

When Cregan and Jason came out with their own encounters with Professor Alys Rivers, everything became clear. She preyed on other students just like she had with Aemond. A manipulator was what she was.

On one hand, knowing Aemond was not the only one made you feel better, but on the other it made you see red with anger. How dare she use students for her own entertainment like that? The fact that she was only fired was a mercy to her. In your opinion, her whole career should be upended.

“How are you feeling, Pri-” Aemond stopped himself before he called you the once cherished name.

“I’m feeling okay. Just lost in my thoughts, I guess.”

“Can I sit down?” He gestured to the empty seat on the couch.

You smiled at him. “Of course.”

Silently, Aemond took his seat and the two of you sat there in the nice quiet. This was how most of your time was spent now. No touching, no kissing, just being in each other’s presence was enough for now.

You wished things could go back to normal but you know that is impossible. There will always be the memories and knowledge of what happened in the past; something that cannot be undone.

“I miss us,” you whispered.

Aemond gently reached for your hand and when you didn’t pull away he let out a silent sigh of relief. “I miss us, too. If I could do anything to take it all back, I would.”

“I know you would. It’s just all fucked up, huh?”

“Yeah.”

You rubbed your thumb against his knuckles and held on tight. While you couldn’t have everything right off the bat, at least you could still have this.

Three months have passed and slowly but surely things were getting better between the two of you. Physical contact no longer felt tainted and you could hold his hand in public without being afraid.

Alys has been less of a menace in your mind, which you have been grateful for. You moved back in with Aemond but haven't slept in the same bed as him. That's still too much, too intimate for you.

“Do you think we're getting better?” You asked Aemond one day. You were sitting at a cafe table.

“I like to think we are,” he replied. “I'll do whatever it takes.”

“What if it's not enough? What if we can never be happy together again?”

You began to worry. You couldn't imagine a life without Aemond, can't imagine sharing your life with anyone else.

“We are going to make it. I promise, I swear on my mother’s life that we will be okay.”

A single tear ran down your cheek.

Aemond was quick to wipe it away. You leaned into his touch. He was so warm, so familiar, so comforting.

“One step at a time,” you reminded yourself.

Six months had passed and there was laughter again. Laughter and smiles and hugs and kisses. Alys was a dissipating thought to both of you. She wasn't around so she couldn't hurt either of you anymore. Until you ran into her.

 Finally, you and Aemond were going on steady dates at least once a week again. Back at your usual park, it felt nice to return to some sense of normalcy.

“Did you really say that to your professor?” You giggled. “Aemond, that's terrible!”

 He shrugged. “He's a professor, he should have decent knowledge of the subject he's teaching.”

You bumped Aemond with your shoulder and continued walking until he grabbed your hand to stop.

 “She's here,” he whispered. “Why the fuck is she here?”

 You gave him a confused look. “What are you talk - oh.”

 Across the other side of a little bridge was Alys. She was on a run, just like last time. Seeing her made you tense up. Not again. This can't be happening again. Aemond’s hands began to get sweaty and you looked at him with a broken look. You two were doing so well.

 “Oh, the lovely couple,” cooed Alys when she crossed the bridge. She put her hands on her hips and leaned backwards to stretch, extenuating her chest. “I've missed you, Aemond. I'm sure you've missed me. Though I will say I'm surprised to see the two of you together.”

“Shut up, Professor Rivers,” Aemond ground out.

Alys walked up to Aemond, completely ignoring you. “Don't ‘Professor Rivers’ me now, babe. We both know where your true loyalty lies.” She went to touch him arm but Aemond yanked back and stepped closer to you.

“You fucking ruined me.”

“No, babe, you did that yourself.” Alys winked at him then turned to you. “Poor thing, choosing to be with the one who broke your heart. You're such a desperate little thing.”

“Get away from us,” you growled.

Alys cocked her head to the side. “Hm. I see the pup has some bite. Okay, I'll leave you two alone. But don't be surprised when he comes running back to me.” With one last wink to Aemond she was back to her jog.

Silence.

“I hate her,” he mumbled.

You looked down at the ground, too scared to see Aemond’s face. Alys’ taunt played in your head. He wouldn't go back to her. No.

“Is it true?” You hesitantly asked. “Would you go back to her?”

Immediately, Aemond turned to face you and grabbed your other hand. “No. I will never go back to her,” he swore. “Not only did she ruin us and you but she ruined me as well. I refuse to go back to her. You are all I want, all I need.”

Taking a shaky breath, you squeezed his hands. “I believe you, but it's sometimes hard to wrap my head around that.”

“I understand that you wouldn't trust me, and that's okay. I'll wait for you.”

Nine months had gone by and Alys has not shown up again, thankfully. Kisses, hugs, laughter. It was all back. Your trust has grown and your bond has become strong again.

Moving into the same room as Aemond was daunting but you knew it was time to be together again.

“Aemond,” you breathed against his neck. “I need you please.”

You were rocking yourself against him. He was hard underneath and feeling it was glorious. How you had missed this.

Aemond wrapped his arm around your waist. He kissed you back with passion and gentleness. “You will have me, I promise.”

With one smooth movement he locked your ankles around his waist so he could move you to the bedroom. With a flop you fell into the bed, arms open wide for Aemond to lay on top of you.

“Take it all off of me. Please,” you whined.

Without saying anything, he was quick to help you undress and then undress himself. You ran a hand down his chest, loving the feel of him under your hand. Lower you went, grabbing the thickness of his cock.

Aemond groaned as you bent down to give his head a small lick. He moaned as you took him all in your mouth. It felt great to make him feel this good again. You bobbed your head up and down, getting into a steady rhythm. Whatever you couldn't fit in your mouth you use your hand. Droll was dripping from your mouth but you didn't care. When Aemond started shaking, you released him with an obscene pop.

“My turn,” he growled.

Aemond pushed you back on the bed and spread your legs open. He kissed the inside of your thighs before slowly making his way to your core. You clenched around nothing as he began to kiss and pick and suck your clit. He had you arching your back into his touch. He had you moaning his name as he brought you to your first climax. At one point he removed his mouth and replaced it with his fingers, pumping in and out of you. He licked your clit while hitting that special spot inside you over and over again.

“Please, Aemond, I need you inside me,” you mumbled.

He was quick to stop and position himself in front of your entrance. Before he went any farther he asked if you were sure.

“Yes, I'm ready for you,” you told him. “All of you.”

In one swift motion, Aemond sheathed himself inside you. It felt so right like this. You and Aemond were made for each other. There is no other person for either of you.

Together you found a good rhythm, your hips rising up to meet his thrusts. He hit that special spot inside you each time and it had you clenching hard around him.

“Fuck, I can tell you're close,” he rasped. He bent down to capture your lips in a searing kiss. “Will you come for me?”

You nodded your head weakly.

“Good girl.”

Aemond picked up the pace, rutting hard into you. You soon became limp with pleasure, losing the energy to do anything except lay there as Aemond pounded his cock inside you. It was the best thing you have felt in months.

“I'm going to come!” you cried.

“Come for me. Holy fuck -”

Aemond’s thrusts became erratic as you fucked you through your orgasm. All you could see were stars. You vaguely remember him finishing inside you but you were so wrapped up in your own pleasure it was only secondary to you.

He collapsed on top of you, careful not to completely squash you underneath him. Kissing you cheek gently, he rolled over to be next to you. Before he could pull away, you cradled his face and caught him in a passionate kiss. When you broke apart you looked in his eye and saw love.

“I love you, Aemond. And I don't want to let go. Ever,” you almost began crying.

“I love you too, and I promise I won't leave you again,” He pressed another kiss to your forehead. “My Princess,” he murmured.

And for the first time in nine months, your heart filled with love.

[thewriterwithnoplan]

THE TRAITOR'S SOULMATE (2/2)

Summary: Humans once had four legs, four arms, two heads, and two hearts. For humanity's hubris, Zeus struck them in two. You and Luke Castellan are determined to find your way back to each other, but before that can happen, there are things the two of you need to do.

[Part 2 to The Hero's Soulmate]

Soulmate AU: You meet the future version of your soulmate.

Pairing: Luke Castellan x Reader

Word Count: 7378

Warnings: Canon typical warnings, swearing, I use the spelling 'mom' because the series is American but I - and I cannot stress this enough - am not American, she a long one.

A/N: I've loved reading your comments, thank you so much for all the support in part one. I hope you enjoy, because we all deserve a little Luke Castellan every now and then!

Masterlist

Amphitrite had been gifted a premonition and the world was all the worse for it. The dream had come from Apollo or perhaps the Oneiroi or whatever great heart pumped blood and Gods and monsters out into the world.

It did not matter to the Goddess from whom the vision came, for in this dream Amphitrite had watched her husband fall in love and sire a child to a mortal paramour. A precious boy that Poseidon might even one day love, with a taste for the colour blue and a heroism that would grow to rival his namesake. And for the Queen of the Seas, that simply would not do.

It would not be the child’s nor his mortal mother’s fault – she was not Hera after all – and so she would have to punish her husband for the blame would be his. But how was one to punish a King among Gods before his crime even came to be? Why to beat him at his own game, of course.

So, Amphitrite set out to sire her own demigod with the mortal man her husband would hate most. A devout catholic.

Amphitrite stayed with her mortal lover and their half-blood daughter until the girl was all but five.  Far longer than the greater Gods were wont to spend with their offspring. But what a precious babe she had bourn and what a traitorous husband she had back home.

But fate and prophecies and soulmates were such funny things. Inciting chaos. Inviting paradox. Introducing dangers untold.

It took Amphitrite all those years – though seemingly short in her immortality – to realise her fatal error. She had been the one to leave Poseidon. She had been the one to sire a child. She had been the one to drive her husband to the surface and his mortal. And so, the blame was hers to shoulder.

Amphitrite decided that she would be a self-fulfilling prophecy no longer. It was time to venture back below the surface.

In a last fit of guilt, she bestowed her first and final act of mercy unto her mortal lover. She told him everything.

When finally, she had gone back to the sea to reconcile with her husband, the catholic man took his turn to bestow his first and final act of mercy unto his young demigod child.

Against all the teachings of his faith. He abandoned his young daughter at Half-Blood Hill. And let the devil-spawn keep her life.

The Spirit of the Hudson River never did learn to like you. You with your greedy hands, snatching debris from its murky waters. You and your strange sea creature friends who would not dare brave such pollution were it not for your presence. Your pile of war spoils tossed aside like children’s toys. Your strange little bubble of air on the sandy floor of the river, where you stowed your treasures and slept bracketed by water. Were it not for the pollution that slopped against the edge of the river as if it were trying to escape you, the Hudson River Spirit might have chased you and your sea friends and your collection of trinkets out of his waters. But as it were, you made a strangely amicable tenant for a demigod. So, as long as you paid your dues the spirit let you keep your little underwater oasis.

For your first years living there, you made your way in New York City by selling lost things dredged from your river home. Bikes and old weaponry and tarnished jewellery and buckets of coins from across the world. You were careful and you coveted your few precious belongings, but with the rivers bounty, you rarely went hungry.

By the time you were fourteen, you found you could venture further into the city without as many questions. You had met an odd assortment of people whilst selling the lost and unloved things of the river; all who knew someone, who knew someone, who needed another set of hands and so you offered yours. You babysat and cleaned, worked in delis and sandwich shops, helped old women with their groceries and young families mend their clothes. A retired teacher gifted you packets of schoolwork and with little else to fill your hours under the river you took to learning. Your numbers came easier than letters and reading always gave you a hard time but the activities she gave you each time you tended to her balcony garden gave you something to do when the sounds of the city kept you up at night.

All the while you followed Percy Jackson from the recesses of the Hudson. Shuffling your little bubble and its blessedly dry treasures up and then back down the river as he was bounced listlessly from school to school. Watching over him as the mythosphere tried desperately to barge into his little mortal life. Feral harpies that tried to snatch him into the air, great snakes that tried to sneak through air vents and all manner of underworld-born sea creatures that sought to pull him below. You had wrestled and dismembered and slayed them all. Adding their feathers and scales and great weapons to your dragons-hoard.

You were sixteen when you finally knocked on Sally Jackson’s door to introduce yourself. You had spent weeks working yourself up to it, planning your outfit and then fussing over each piece. All your clothes had been gifts and were often a size too big or printed with some generic tagline like Spread peace not hate!; or made entirely from yarn that the old woman whose meals you prepped at the start of each week had gifted you after she had taught you how to crochet; or like the dress you wore now, were sown together from thrifted fabric scraps and embellished with pretty shells and baroque pearls. You had planned the time you would arrive down to the minute so that her oppressive husband would be out, but the hour would not be so late as to make an unexpected visit threatening. You had planned to keep Percy safe while you were away from him by entrusting your friends Clarence the Crab and Emily the Squid to supervise him for the evening.

What you had not planned for was the possibility that Sally Jackson would be the most lovely woman you had ever met. You had been struck dumb by it the moment she opened her door and greeted you with a kind smile. Couldn’t your mother have chosen a mortal as gentle as she to be your parent? Alas, the Gods had never done a thing for you.

“Can I help you, lovely?”

You tried not to burst into tears as you asked, “Mrs. Jackson?”

“Are you alright?” She opened the door wider, leant out and scanned the corridor behind you. “Is there something you need?”

“No ma’am. I’m here about your son, Percy. His father sent me.” A good ambiguous statement that would pique her curiosity but let on nothing about the Gods. Allowing you to spin your tale – that you were Percy’s long-lost step-sister, come to reconnect. 

“Poseidon?” Alas, the Gods had truly never done a thing for you. “Is something wrong? Is Percy, okay?”

“He’s fine Mrs. Jackson, I’ve been keeping him safe.” 

She scanned the hall behind you once more, “You best come in.”

Over a cup of tea, you told Sally Jackson everything.

You liked your home under the river. For lack of a better term, it allowed you to remain liquid. You could follow Percy wherever trouble took him. You could stay up until the city grew quiet for that brief moment before dawn. You could train with the Hudson River Spirit, even if he only entertained you because he enjoyed winning.

You liked your bed made out of stacked wood pallets and a mountain of blankets. You liked your wooden chest of draws stuffed full of trinkets and weapons and the precious few items you owned. You liked this place that you had carved out with your own two hands.

But you also liked your home in the Jackson household. Where there was always music playing. Where it was always warm and dry. Where there would always be some blue-ified food in the oven or blue candy in the mason jars by the sink.

It became your job in the summers to babysit Percy, to keep him away from Gabe and from danger while entertaining his endless need for motion. You took him to art galleries (which he hated) and aquariums (which he loved), to craft fairs (which he tolerated because he liked the things you made) and swimming pools (which he only liked when he won your swimming races).

“What even is a soulmate?” Percy had asked you one day at the park.

“The person with the other half of your soul,” You scrunched your nose up, “Or well, that's what people say.”

“You’re saying I’ve been walking around with half a soul?”

“I didn’t say I believed them,” You rattled your water bottle in front of his face until he took it. “Stay hydrated.”

He frowned at you, “You don’t believe in soulmates?”

“Of course I do, but it's a little more complicated than that, kid.” You took the water bottle back and played with the cap for a moment while you thought. “Think of it like this. You can have two different puzzles that are cut the same way, right? So all the pieces from one will fit with all the pieces from the other. But that doesn’t mean they belong together, the picture doesn’t come out quite right because even though the pieces fit, they don’t necessarily belong to the same puzzle. Maybe that’s what it was like for your mom, like she couldn’t find the pieces that made up her picture and so she went with the ones that fit at the time.”

“You don’t think my mom and dad were soulmates?”

“I never met your father.”

“But he’s your dad too.”

“He’s my mom’s husband. Maybe my mom and dad are soulmates.” Percy didn’t seem to like that answer.  “Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe your mom and my mom each have pieces that fit into your dad's puzzle but neither match his picture, or both. Maybe his picture is a year with your mom and a lifetime with mine and having you. Maybe he needs to collect all those little pieces at the right time when they’re the right shape or he’ll end up with a completely different picture at the end.”

“I kind of understand.” But he gave you a look that said he probably didn’t. “What picture are you making?”

You hid your smile behind the lip of your water bottle, “My soulmates about yay-high, pretty as a magazine cover with dimples and all. I’m collecting my puzzle pieces with you and your mom and this city so that I’ll have half of his picture.”

“If you know who he is, why don’t you just go find him now?”

“Still looking for some pieces, I guess.” You kicked a rock with the toe of your boot. “Souls are fragile. If you go rushing in and trying to jam the pieces in when they’re not shaped right just yet you could damage them.”

“What happens if you do that?”

“It’s probably harder to find each other in the next life. You’ll chip pieces away and your souls won’t fit right.” You shoved your hands into the pockets of your cardigan and pulled out a sandwich, you gave Percy the bigger half.

“Who taught you all this?”

“My mom used to tell me and well, I've thought about it a lot.” You tugged Percy by the back of his shirt so he didn't go stomping through a puddle, he glared. “But anyway, some people think it’s just fate. That you find your soulmate no matter what and it’s a perfect fit either way.”

“It would be easier that way.”

“Sometimes that’s just not how the story goes, kid.”

Percy thought that was the most important thing anyone had ever taught him, but he figured some of the other stuff you taught him came in handy too. You taught him the tricks you learned to work around your dyslexia. You taught him to skip stones and to not throw rocks at seagulls. You taught him to flip off the Empire State Building but only when his mom wasn’t around. You taught him to knit and do a cartwheel and make a good cup of tea to take his mother in the morning. You taught him to chew with his mouth shut and to sword fight with wrapping paper rolls. You taught him to braid hair and throw a punch and say all the swears in Ancient Greek.

And then one day, a Satyr came for Percy Jackson, and there was nothing left for you to teach. 

You wrote Sally a brief letter of warning, picked your way through seven years’ worth of belongings and collapsed your life into a backpack. You said goodbye to Clarence and Emily with a brief promise to visit, pushed a final wave of pollution from the waters and thanked the Hudson River Spirit for his hospitality. He gifted you sixteen perfect round pearls and insisted that he never wanted to see you again. You spent the bus ride to Long Island threading them into a necklace made of fishing wire, tying off each pearl with your teeth. 

It was a tentative tradition between demigod soulmates to exchange gifts upon their first meeting. So few and far between were the possessions of a half-blood that even the smallest bauble would likely mean the world. The practice had died out some over the centuries as the Gods received fewer offerings from mortals and turned to their children for sacrifices. Gift-giving to your soulmate as a demigod became all but synonymous with spitting at the feet of the divine and loudly proclaiming you would make offerings to your soulmate instead. A pearl necklace would be an excellent final addition to the collection of small gifts you had assembled over the years. Let the Gods weep at your feet and beg for scraps if they needed them so much, you would ignore them just as they had ignored you. 

You arrived at Camp far sooner than you might have liked, a few hours past mid-day when hopefully the rest of your ilk would be occupied with meaneal chores and activities. You considered waiting at the crest of the hill for someone to notice you only to find a pine tree planted firmly at its peak where you might have stood. Instead, you make the alarmingly easy trek down to the Big House.

“Chiron!” He had always been your favourite of the two men, currently sat on the porch drinking juice and playing cards. 

“Yes, my girl?” He barely spared you a glance as he shuffled his cards between his weathered hands. He stilled for a moment and then tossed his head back in the way a horse might toss its mane. “My dear!” 

You raised a hand, halfway between a salute and a wave, “Nice to know I haven’t been totally forgotten.”

“Au contraire.” Mr. D stuck his nose up at you. “Which one are you again?” 

“The little one that went missing some seven years ago,” Chiron stood as you climbed the stairs onto the porch. “How are you, my dear? Where have you been?”

“Shouldn’t you be at Yancy Academy?”

Mr. D’s eyes turned sharp in the way that had once made your friends whisper that some days, he was more maniac than man , “And how do you know about that little girl?”

“Percy Jackson is at Yancy,” You smiled at him, all teeth, “How did you think he survived long enough for your baby satyr to find him?” 

“You have been protecting young demi-gods?” Chiron asked wearily. 

“Percy Jackson is a full-time job, I’m afraid,” You tugged at the strap of your backpack, praying you could keep control of the conversation. You had a lot of time under the river to think and this was one of many things you had spent countless hours mulling over. Weighing and considering what story you would tell them – to tell the truth of both your parentage and put Percy in harm's way or to lie and balance your life on its sharp edge. “I found him in Manhattan, he was like a magnet for mythological activity. By the time I’d had enough of rebelling and wanted to come back to camp, I was protecting him from attacks every other week. He wouldn’t have lasted a month. I came back as soon as I could.” 

No matter how many times you played it out in your head, the lies won every time. 

“Kids.” Mr. D threw back the last of his juice.

“Perhaps you should settle back into the Hermes Cabin, dear.” Chiron smiled down at you, the corners of his eyes pinched, “You’ve given myself and Mr. D much to talk about. We’ll settle the issue of your paperwork tomorrow.”

“Of course.” You rustled through your bag, digging up a palm sized statuette that you set onto the table. “Before I forget, I brought you a gift Mr. D.”

“A toy,” He snatched it up. “Oh joy.”

“It’s you, as the mortals’ see you. It’s from the gift shop at the Met.”

“How kind of you, my dear.” Chiron softened, and you watched as even Mr. D’s temper seemed to ease, his hands gentle around the gift as he admired it. 

An unseeing piece of plastic for the God who served as no more than a silent observer over the affairs of the camp. Let him choke on his ego, you thought as you left the pair to their discussion. 

Cabin 11 was blessedly empty when you entered, but your old bunk was not. A pile of clothes was thrown haphazardly across the bedspread. You snatched a sleeping bag and a lumpy pillow from the storage closet and threw them down with your bag. If you could not have the bunk that had been yours at twelve, you would claim the corner that had been yours at five. As you shook out the sleeping bag and pulled out your belongings, you tried not to think of your bed of blankets under the river or Sally Jackson’s couch. 

Instead you turned your mind to the Big House and the conversation that was no doubt happening within. 

You had constructed a perfect image, if you did say so yourself. Grown in ways Mr. D could not have predicted but Chiron would insist he had foreseen. Still a rebellious young woman in the mortal sense, with your scuffed leather boots and ripped jeans. But the parts that had screamed ‘insubordination’ to the Gods were neatly tucked away. Your twin knives strapped to your forearms under the billowing sleeves of your crocheted top, your vicious tongue caged behind a sweet grin, your once sharp stare softened at the edges.

Once you had fashioned yourself so that the Gods could not paint you as a hero, now you fashioned yourself so that they might forget you were an enemy. 

Let Chiron think you were a misunderstood wayward girl scout come home from her self-imposed quest. Let Mr. D think you were a stupid girl who had seen the world beyond the Gods’ protection and finally accepted that you needed them. Let them all think wrong. You had left to protect your brother and returned for one reason only. 

“You’re here.” 

You turned, and there he was, “Luke Castellan.” 

He opened his mouth and then closed it, limbs jerking slightly as if he wasn’t sure whether to move toward you or stay put. He was almost certain you could hear the way his pulse was racing, his heartbeat clanging wildly in his chest as he searched desperately for a suave reply, but everything else seemed lack lustre when you said his name like that.

Your face twisted into something like anger and for a moment he thought he’d messed it all up before your lips curled and you practically spat, “I do like your scar.”

And then he was laughing at you, wild and bewildered and not the least bit contained. Before long you were laughing too, neither of you quite sure what was funny, just so wholly relieved as your chests were flooded with wonder and warmth.

It felt like fireworks and popping candy. Just as he had promised all those years ago. You resisted the urge to throw up on his Converse. 

You might have been crying and he might been too but you weren’t exactly sure because one moment you were both laughing at nothing and the next he was on the floor with you. He held you like he had never held a single thing in his life, like he was lost at sea and you were the only solid thing for miles. He tucked your head under his chin and sucked in great forced breaths that you could feel beneath your cheek. Because he was warm and there and real. And that meant the last seven years, the better part of your life, hadn’t been for nothing. 

 You and Luke make your way to dinner side by side. You had spent the afternoon rambling about your lives, about your meetings with your future selves, about your home under the river, about his responsibilities as a camp counsellor and yours as your brother’s keeper. He told you about Annabeth and Thalia and the rest of his siblings, you told him about your parents and Sally Jackson and your sea friends. You gave him his necklace which he lets you fix in place at the base of his throat – you do not spend a moment too long running your hand up the back of his neck and through his curls. 

He had been almost bashful when he gifted you a watch that matched his, inlaid with twin fragments of mother of pearl taken from the same shell – kind of like your soul had been, he had said. You swear you’ve never owned anything as precious. You let him strap it to your wrist as he tells you about spending a summer diving for it in the lake. And then softly, tentatively, he tells you about his quest.

Luke could have cried from the way you were looking at him alone, so very gently, like you could cradle him with your gaze alone. At a loss for words, you simply whispered, “I am so proud of you.”

His grip is iron-clad and you tell your next story with your face pressed into the side of his neck, pretending you can’t feel him shaking softly. 

When you make your way to dinner you’re both glowing with the soft exhaustion of emotion. You all but lean against one another as you collect your goblets and fill your plates.

The other campers steer clear of you, content to leave Luke to chauffeuring the new kid around. You count yourself lucky, it was only a matter of time until one of the older campers recognised you.

You were almost to the end of the Hermes table – that perfect spot at the end where you might just have a chance of holding a private conversation after dinner – when Chiron interrupted you. 

“Mr. Castellan, I see you’ve acquainted yourself with our newly returned camper.”

“That’s my job, sir.” You tried not to stare at the crooked smile he flashed the centaur. 

“Perhaps you ought to show her how to make an offering,” Chiron says pointedly, “She’s been away for a long time, and it’s your responsibility to treat her as you would any other incoming Camper.”

Luke turned to you, his boyish grin still charming but the mirth leaking out of his eyes, “Of course. Do you remember how it’s done?” 

“I do. Just not a lot of food to be spared in the mortal world.” 

You squinted, the corners of your mouth pulled up in what Chiron would likely mistake for sheepishness. But Luke could see it in your eyes. How your anger had made you pointy in all the places someone your age ought to be soft. He wondered how all the jagged edges of you would feel against all the jagged edges of him. He thought maybe if the two of you were careful, you could make something smooth as sea glass and twice as pretty, together.

You dump a clump of mashed potatoes into the fire with an unconcerned flick of your fork. Luke lops part of his own meal on top of yours, you glare enviously at the reasonable portion he had left on his plate. You hoped the food would burn at the bottom of the braiser. 

“Sorry, sir.” You mocked Luke. He stuck his tongue at you once Chiron had turned his back. 

You hurried to snag the seat at the end of his table, sliding into place across from each other. You flounder for a moment, wondering whether to draw your legs as far under your seat as they will go or bask in the gentle brush of his knee against his leg. You settle for the latter and try not to evaporate under his gaze, as he stares at you even as you start eating.

Luke realised he’d spent too long staring when you all but groaned, “Don’t tell me I have to sacrifice my dinner to you too.” 

He flashed you a grin, then tried to say as nonchalantly as possible,“Is that why you left? So you could enjoy a proper meal every once and a while?”

You stared at him for a long while, “You, future you, told me to leave, to find my brother.”

“Why would I do that? If you had stayed at Camp–”

“That’s almost exactly what I said to you.” You pushed your food around as you stared at a point just beyond his head, he thought for a moment that he could see the neurons firing behind your eyes, like a hundred tiny zaps of lightning, “But I’ve had plenty of time to think about it. And I think you were right to send me away.”

“I don’t think I’ll be hearing that very often.” He dodged the pea you fling at him with a grin. 

“I think maybe if I don’t leave, I won’t become this me or do the things I’ve done and maybe that’s important for us or our future or some past you rewrote by telling me to leave.”

“Seems overly complicated.” 

“I think it’s supposed to be complicated,” You couldn’t help but admire the quiet skill with which he wielded his cutlery, “If it were easy, we would find each other in every universe.”

He paused, knife aloft, “You don’t want to find each other in every universe?”

“It doesn’t matter what I want.” You speared a leaf of spinach onto your fork to hide your scowl behind as you said, “The Gods have made it this way to keep us separated.”

“We’re together now.” 

“Which means they lost.”

Luke watched you for a drawn out heartbeat, then leaned over to transfer the perfect squares of meat he’d been cutting onto your plate. 

You took a long moment to chew before you said, “So, your plan to send me after Percy worked.”

“I thought it was your plan.”

“I forgot to ask you whose plan it was.”

“I say it’s your plan.” He took a long pull from his goblet that left his lips tinted red. 

“It doesn’t matter what you think.” You passed him a napkin before he could ask, “It’s what you will think.”

“Sure, Precious.” He smothers a laugh into the napkin at the way you scrunch your nose at him, “You know, because you're so protective of your food. Like Gollum with the ring.”

“That’s the stupidest explanation for a pet name I’ve ever heard.” But you’re damn near head down on the table as you laughed. “I definitely got the smarter half of our soul.”

“Then it was definitely your plan.”

You’ve still got a hand pressed to your face to conceal your smile when you say, “What about when I meet you? Any words of wisdom?”

“Try not to fall for me. I can tell you’re pretty charmed but it’s really not appropriate. I’m seventeen, and you’re what? Twenty-four?” 

You launched your bread roll at him. You’re twice as incensed when he catches it whilst looking directly at you, “Asshole.”

“Smartass. See, two can play that game.”

Luke can’t help but think you’re just as pretty sneering as you are smiling, like no expression no matter how ugly could detract from your beauty. Maybe you’re like him, he scarcely dared to hope. Maybe you’re something better, another part of him whispered. The way you talk about the Gods and turn your nose up at them, and play their game only when it suits you. 

You weren’t vengeful in the way he was. You weren’t the spitting vicious thing the Camp had liked to pretend you were when you weren’t around to prove otherwise. You were worse and better and everything he needed. You were a storm on the horizon, a snake coiled tight. You were better than just angry. You were disillusioned. Not a product of juvenile resentment but true wrath born of awareness. Not the wild foaming-at-the-mouth kind that he had imagined when he had first heard your name. But the dark carefully contained kind he had seen in the face you would grow into.

This, Luke thought, you were the start of everything.

It’s some weeks later when you stick your hands through the grating of the bunk above Luke as leverage to lean over him and croon, “Up and at ‘em, Pretty Boy.”

He pushed his face out of his pillow, curls sticking up at odd angles as he looked at you half-asleep, “What?”

“Remember? Training?”

“No,” He scrubbed sleep from his eyes, “What did you call me?”

“Sickly.” 

“I don’t think that was it.” He propped his head up on a fist as he smiled at you sleepily. 

It was so disgustingly cute that you had to turn your back when you said, “Just meet me there.” 

Luke’s freshly showered and holding an apple core when he deigns to join you in the forest. He tossed the apple at you and you caught it without thinking. You fake gag at him as you throw it further into the forest. 

You wiped your hands against his shoulder as you say, “I’m not sure if an apple core counts but that was dangerously close to an Ancient Greek proposal, Castellan.”

“I got hungry.” He shrugged. You squared off across the clearing, stretching as you warmed yourselves up for the ensuing sparring match. 

“You’re going to have to do better than that.”

“Is this you rejecting me?” He landed an open hand on his chest and staggered backward. “You wound me, Precious!”

“Was that you proposing? Because I’m,” You wiped your hand again for good measure, scrunching your nose up, “Disgusted.”

“You would be honoured if I had just proposed to you.” 

“You should be nicer to me.”

“And go easy on you just because you’re my soulmate? Unlikely.”

“Because, asshole, I’m the one who got you out of chores this morning, or have you forgotten already. You seemed rather grateful for your little sleep-in.”

He unsheathed his sword and twirled it round in his hand, “You’re a bad influence.” 

“Like you weren’t ready to worship the ground I walk on when I told Chiron you needed to get my training up to speed.” 

“Do you want me to tell you, you’re brilliant?” He pointed his sword toward you with that grin that made you want to hold him down just so you could admire it longer. “You’re brilliant.”

“You’re stalling.” You pull your knives out, one from your boot, the other from your belt. You miss your old clothes with their pretty sleeves and their personality, your camp shirt seems a poor trade in comparison. 

“Stalling? Me?” Luke scoffed. “Never!”

“Don’t you have a counsellor meeting at half-past?”

“I do, so please don’t feel bad when you lose. I only have half an hour to wrap this up. You understand.”

“Who’s fault is that Mr. Just-five-more-minutes?”

He gasped in mock offence and lunged forward, his sword swinging at you in a great arch. You leapt back, out of his range, then ducked low and rushed toward him. Luke was quick, in a viciously smooth move he swept his sword at you again. You brought your knives together, bracing as the impact ricocheted up your arms. Admittedly, you were at a great disadvantage given that you were reluctant to throw a knife at Luke’s head – even though he’d demonstrated an impressive ability to swipe your wayward throws out of the air – and that he had an additional several feet of reach on you.

Luke feigned to the right, you lashed out at his left side and narrowly avoided his sword as it came down at you. He whistled slowly as both of you backed up to circle each other for a moment. 

“You’ve got moves, I’ll give you that.” 

And so the dance went on. Luke struck, you parried or slipped out of his blade's path with a flourish. You struck, Luke swung his sword and slipped around your blows. Finally, you found the chink in his precious armour. He fell back to his right foot when he deflected a blow. You jerked forward. You jabbed the knife clutched in your left hand toward him as you moved in with the right. Just as you hooked a foot around the back of his leg, Luke’s sword made contact with your left shoulder slicing through sleeve and skin. Luke fell backward with a sharp hiss, his sword flying to the side.

In the end you had laid him out flat in twenty minutes. Luke Castellan had spent the last seven years fighting to win. You had spent them fighting to survive. You supposed it didn’t hurt that the greatest swordsman to enter Camp Half-Blood in nearly three centuries was reluctant to let anything sharp or pointed anywhere near you. You secretly thought he might have been going easy on you for being his soulmate after all. You collapsed on the forest floor beside him, your chest heaving to draw in oxygen. 

“I’m sorry about your shirt,” Luke huffed. 

“Orange isn’t really my colour.”

He turned to you with a wink, “Oh but it is.” 

You wave your hand through the air.

“I’ve gotten very good at putting broken things back together over the years.” He tried not to look at the line of stitching that ran from the ankle of your jeans to the rips at your knee. You tried not to look at his cheek. Instead you reached out and trailed your hands across his necklace where the pearls sat snuggly at the base of his throat. 

“You’re wonderful.” He brushed his knuckles down your shoulder and they came away red. “Even covered in blood you’re the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen.” 

You groaned, “Sweetness, you can’t just say–”

“You call me Sweetness when you visit me.” He whispered it like it was his greatest secret. You traced up his throat to his cheek and pressed your thumb into his dimpled cheek. “You’re still being wonderful. I can’t think when you’re–”

“Wonderful?”

“Okay, Smartass.” He sighed up at the sky, then pulled the both of you to your feet, “Enough lounging, we need to get that cut checked.” 

You let him dust the dirt from you and resheath your knives, one in your boot, the other in your belt. Silently revelling in the gentle way he tugs you this way and that. You were well on your way to the infirmary, shoulders bumping and fingers just barely brushing, before he spoke again.

“Where does it come from? The nickname.”

“Sweetness?” 

He looked away from you and squinted off into the distance, as if you were suddenly too bright to look at, “Yeah.”

“My mom used to tell me this story about meeting her soulmate. She probably meant Poseidon, but at the time I thought it was about my dad,” The back of Luke’s hand bumped into yours again, his fingers catching yours, his gaze resolutely ahead but you were definitely holding hands. “She said it felt like swallowing lightning and gorging yourself on popping candy. Like sweetness.”

“You like popping candy?”

“It’s my favourite.” You gave him a queer look as if to say, it’s not yours, you utter heathen?

Luke laughed at you all the way to the Apollo Cabin as he listed all the reasons it was the sub-par candy option. Nonetheless, when you emerge from the infirmary, he unloads a fistful of little packets he’d pinched from the candy bowl when the Apollo kids’ hadn’t been looking.

“Who has sub-par candy options now, Sweetness?” You teased, your mouth crackling merrily.

“Keep calling me that and you can have all the terrible candy you want.”

“Try some,” You shoved a packet toward him, because if he kept saying silly things like that and looking at you the way he was you were liable to do or say something equally as stupid. “You’ve got half my soul, maybe it’s our favourite.”

“I don’t think they had popping candy when we had one soul,” He flicks the packet held between your fingers. “And aren’t you the one who says we’re puzzle pieces not halves?”

“You have been listening to me!”

“Hard not to.”

“Asshole.” You flashed your teeth at him.

“Smartass.” He said, but the bite wasn’t there. He was watching you again, in that way he did sometimes before he said something stupid that made you want to throw yourself in the lake or run back to Manhattan or do something equally as stupid, like kiss him. “You–”

You twisted your hand in the front of his shirt and jerked him toward you, the little sachet crinkling in your fist. For a heartbeat, you were both silent, an inch away and staring as if you could will the other to be the one to press forward. But then he closed his eyes and Luke Castellan was kissing you. Like lightning and popping candy. With all the elegance of two lovestruck teenage fools and all the heat of two people who knew they had all the time in the world but still couldn’t bear to waste a second of it. His hand held you by the chin and then splayed lightly across your cheek and tucked hair softly behind your ear. You were only just reaching for the mess of curls at the back of his head when someone wolf whistles.

“My favourite.” Luke grinned, licked his lips and then turned. Hands stuffed in his pockets and a big stupid grin stretched across his face, as he shouted at you, “Stay out of trouble.”

You flip off the Aphrodite kid who’d whistled at you, and hurried back to the Apollo Cabin. You and Luke Castellan were going to need a lot more popping candy. 

You’re in the lake, encased in an air bubble, sprawled out side by side with your backs against the sand, when Luke tells you what he’s done. That mere weeks before your arrival he had done the unthinkable. He had robbed the King of the Gods blind and betrayed half the Pantheon in doing so. You weren't sure whether to laugh or cry.

You had simply laid there, silently, for what had felt like aeons to Luke but maybe that had only been because he had to keep reminding himself not to hold his breath. He wasn’t drowning. You weren’t going to turn him in. He hadn’t just blown his whole plan and his life with his soulmate in one fell swoop. He just had to keep breathing and wait for you to say something. He thinks that maybe your mother had passed on some divine knack for diplomacy as Queen of the Sea with the way you seem to turn the issue of his betrayal over and over in your head. 

After a while, you reach your arm toward the bubble and the sky. For a brief, terrifying moment, Luke thinks you’re going to pull the lake down on him. When you don’t Luke spends another infinite second wondering whether he would just let you do it. 

He tosses the thought aside and focuses on the coin weaving between your knuckles. Like magic, it appears and disappears around the bends of your fingers but it wasn't real magic, just you fidgeting. He pressed his lips together and tried not to think about you at the bottom of the Hudson River, flipping your coin and turning over the issue of your soulmate and your brother and the camp you’d left behind. What is it you had said? You’d had plenty of time to think about those things. 

Maybe that's what you need now – time. He’s about to offer it to you, offer to swim his way back to shore so you can think, even if he'd probably drown on the way. He’d give you all the time in the world if he had it. 

But then you finally speak, the golden drachma rolling between your fingers, “If you hurt my brother, soulmate or not, I will kill you.”

“I am your soulmate.” He insisted as the implication made his skin itch.

“You are.” Your smile was so gentle it almost felt sad. “So you understand that my love for him comes before my hatred of the Gods. If you have put him in danger wit–”

“We get married.” He blurted. “We have a future. I woke you, when you visited me. That must mean I win.”

“It means, if that’s the path we’re even on, if those people are even the versions of us that we become… maybe you don’t hurt Percy.”

“I won’t.” He swore and you weren’t sure how to ignore the half of your soul that lies so sweetly. “I wouldn’t.”

“Maybe.” You swallowed like you’d been chewing glass your whole life, and someone had finally offered you something substantial to sink your teeth into. “Maybe if we leave now, there’s a world in which I don’t have to pick between my blood and my soul.”

Luke was quiet for a long moment, “We could recruit him. You said it yourself, he’ll be more powerful than any of us.”

“He’s twelve.”

“He’s the son of Poseidon.”

“He’s twelve.”

“You were twelve when you left to protect him.”

“And look how that turned out,” Your grin was brittle, but he swore you were still the loveliest creature he’d ever laid eyes on. “I’m sat here planning to betray everything I was raised to follow.”

“You’re going to follow me?”

Your eyes traced the shape of his jaw, his nose, his scar. You looked pained, “I fear I would follow you into much worse, Luke Castellan.”

“I’m trying to lead you to something better.” He reached for your hand, took the drachma from your fingers, and pressed a slow, soft kiss to your palm. He smiled and there were dimples in his cheeks and tears in his eyes as he whispered, “We can try for better.”

“Leave Percy.” You pressed your fingers to his cheek, “Let him come to camp, let him join us when he’s ready.”

“You’re sure he’ll join us?”

“He will, I know it. We just need to let him see the Gods’ apathy for himself.” And you sighed. Luke wondered how many lifetimes your souls had seen, how many times you had searched for each other, how many times you had been torn apart. You sound ancient when you say, “You and I have seen more than enough.”

He turned his head and whispered in the scarce distance between you, “What do you propose?” 

“We leave. As soon as anyone catches on, we take anyone who agrees with us and flee.” You brought his hand to your mouth and pressed your lips to his knuckles firmly, “We can plot your revenge and plan my new world on the way.”

Luke feels ancient when he promises, “Okay, on the way then.”

But he swears, as you lean forward and kiss him, that no matter how many times you do it this lifetime or in all the lifetimes until this story – of you and Luke Castellan – became ancient, it would still never stop feeling like the first time.

Like lightning and popping candy.

Tag List:

@emelia07 @star611 @7s3ven @kissingyourgrl @myxticmoon @shermanno @moonsficrec @soleilgrec

[ozwriterchick]

Back to Us - Chapter 1

Summary: Y'/n wakes after an accident to her Avengers team-mates. But something isn't quite right and only Steve and Tony can see it.

Characters/Relationships: Steve Rogers x Reader; Tony Stark; Natasha Romanoff; Other Avengers Characters

Content warnings: Mentions of an accident (no details yet); If I missed any, let me know

Back to Us Masterlist

Dividers by @firefly-graphics

Word count: 1030 (approx.)

Present Day, Stark County Hospital

The monitor beep droned on and on.  10 days they’d been waiting for you to wake up.

The Avengers were there as well, in the - thanks to Tony Stark - not so small hospital room which still seemed too crowded.  They were all praying that you would wake up soon.  Some were re-living their part in what had occurred and trying to work out if they could have done anything differently.

Others were thinking back over the last few years they had known you and re-visiting all the wonderful memories you’d made together.

Steve sat in the chair closest to the bed, his head in his hands as he tried to reconcile what was happening.  He was hoping that you would wake up soon.  The doctor had told them that your brain and body needed the rest and the longer it let you do that, the better it was all round.  Steve wasn’t sure he believed that but he put his faith in the medical experts that were looking after you 24/7.

All of a sudden Steve’s head shot up.  He was sure he’d just felt you move your hand.  Your hand that had been still for the last 10 days.  He watched and waited for it to happen again.  Just as he was about to give up in despair, your hand moved on the bed.

He called out your name, leading the rest of the Avengers to look up and also see your hand moving.  Next you gingerly opened your eyes, a little at a time, the lights glaring down on you making you squint after having them closed for so long.

“She’s awake, I’ll go get the doctor” Steve almost yelled, leaping out of his chair and heading out the door of your room.

You winced as he did so, your head hurting just a bit, you imagined from being asleep for so long.  You wondered how long you had been asleep and moreso, how you got here in the first place.

“Hey kid, how do you feel?” Tony asked.

“Like I got hit by a truck.  What happened?” you asked, looking around the room at all the expectant faces around you. “And what are you all doing here?”

Tony levelled his gaze at you, as if trying to decide how much to share right now.  His decision was easy really – you’d just woken up, you didn’t need to hear a lot of the gory details of what happened. 

“Never mind that right now, we’ll de-brief once you’re back at the compound.  You need to concentrate on getting back to 100%” he said.

The door to your room opened and you looked up to see Nat wandering in with a cup of coffee in her hand.  Your mouth salivated and you hoped she’d brought it for you but that hope deflated when you saw her raise the cup to her lips. 

“Hey Y/n” she said. “It’s good to see you awake.  Oh and sorry, doc says no coffee for you just yet” and with that, she downed the rest of the black liquid. “Don’t worry, when you can have coffee, I’ll get you a proper one, not this hospital stuff.”

You chuckled at her, your head still hurting just a smidge.  “How long was I out?” you asked?

Before she had a chance to respond, Steve returned with the Doctor, who greeted you with a smile on his face, and in his voice.  “Well, good morning sleepy head.  So, you’ve been in a coma since the accident.  It’s been about 10 days so far.”

You looked around at your team-mates in the room.  “Accident? Tony, what happened?”

“Let’s not worry about that right now” the Doctor said.  Turning to the others, “Ok, now that she’s awake, you all have to leave so we can run some more tests.”

Steve looked back at the Doctor and responded. “I’m staying.”

“Me too” came from Tony.

The Doctor shook his head and told them all again that Y/n needed some rest and that they could all come back later, once all the tests were run and that maybe he’d have some more information about her progress.

Tony rolled his eyes and said “If you insist Doc.  Y/n, we’ll be back.”

She looked back at him, with fondness in her eyes. “Yes, please go, do something productive.  I’m sure you all have better things to do than baby-sit me.”

Steve looked at you softly. “At least one of us has been here 24/7 since the accident.”

Noticing the change in his expression and voice, Y/n replied “Wow, I thought you all had other things going on in your lives.  I’ll be fine, right Doc?”

The Doctor nodded.  ��Besides, sitting around here while I’m in and out of the room, having who knows what tests and being poked and prodded will be no fun for anyone, including me.  And if I know I’m keeping you from the important things in your life, I’d be very annoyed.” Y/n continued.

Tony’s eyes narrowed as he listened to what you were saying and something clicked in his brain.

Steve started to protest “But Y/n, you are…”

“Ok Avengers, let’s go” he interrupted Steve.  “You too Cap.”

The rest of the Avengers say goodbye one by one and walk out, leaving just you, Tony & Steve in the room with the Doctor.

You could see Steve’s reluctance to leave, which was so like him, he really looked after his team in all areas of their lives.  “Captain Rogers, your watch here has ended, you can go too.  I’m sure you have some hot date to get to” she teased.

Steve exchanged a concerned glance with Tony who nodded slightly. Kissing you on the forehead, he left the room.

“I’m glad you’re awake Y/n” Steve began.  “We’ll talk more once you’ve had your tests.”  With that, he leaned in and you noticed a moment’s hesitation from him before he landed a kiss on your cheek and walked out the door.

You were left a little confused because that was a very personal gesture that you'd expect from Tony, but that was not like Steve at all.

Chapter 2

Tag List: @wolfbeanpotion

[berriesandcherry]

I don’t like the idea of Jaehaera surviving. I've many people say her death came out of nowhere and was purely for shock value. Do I think she deserved to die? Of course not—but in a fictional story, every death serves a purpose.

George has a pattern where no usurper or their line survives. Maegor’s didn’t, Aegon II’s didn’t, the Bloodstone Emperor’s didn’t, Jonos Arryn’s didn’t, and the Boltons likely won’t either. It’s not just about Jaehaera; it’s part of a larger narrative. The story punishes usurpers, and Jaehaera was doomed from the start.

Beyond that, her death reinforced Aegon III’s isolation and the darkness of his reign under the regents. Had she lived, she wouldn’t have had much narrative impact, as she was largely sidelined even before her death. Keeping her alive would have contradicted the story’s pattern of punishing usurpers and, ironically, make Aegon even more miserable. Plus, she and Aegon wouldn’t have had children, which means major historical events wouldn’t have happened—no Unwin resigning, no Daerons bringing Dorne into the realm, no Baelor the Blessed reconciling the Crown and the Faith, no Blackfyre Rebellion, no Golden Company, no alliance with Tyrosh, and so much more.

One could argue that Jaehaera’s death would shape history more than anything she might have done had she lived.

[nieded]

Writing in 2024

Every year, I try and do a blog post about the things I've written in 2024, how I felt about it all, and if I learned anything. This year, it really didn't feel like I had done a lot until I went back and looked at my AO3. Then I realized I had actually written a ton, a whopping 80,000 words worth.

So beneath the cut, I'll break this down into three categories: Zines, #RR, and FTH.

Zines

Some of these fics I wrote in 2023, but I didn't post them until 2024 due to exclusivity rules, but I'll include them in this list. After the rush of Season 2, I signed up for as many zines as possible. I had the fever, and the only cure was more zines! I also had some insane executive functioning fairy (who would abandon me by summer), who inspired me to write, edit, and submit everything on time. Wild.

Wartime Correspondence, 1.5k, Teen, for Pin Me Up Vol. 2 - featuring pin-up Aziraphale!

In Good Faith, 1.7k ,Teen, for Twin Passions: A Bildad Zine - a missing scene from Job

The Thing With Feathers, 2.6k, Gen, for In Love With My Car Vol. 2 - a fic about reconciling post-S2 ft. wonderful artwork by Cat_Clawz

Best In Show, 1.4k Gen, for It Began In A Garden - where an angel and a demon enjoy retirement in the South Downs, ft incredible artwork by eglantine-c

and my favorite because Warlock lives forever rent free in my head

Falling Upwards, 2.1k, Gen, for Above Below and the Common Ground - an epistolary fic about Warlock and Crowley reuniting post-S2.

#RAINBOWROAD

Simultaneously, I was posting the final installment of #RR, 0-60 in 3.5, 49k, Teen.

I had intended to end the series with Fools Rush In, so I treat all of this as bonus content. Think of it like DVD extras. There's a very loose plot. It's basically me shitposting right up until the end. I had so much fun sharing this with everyone!

I also need to shout out @literarion, who just finished posting the #RR podfic. She has been working on it for over a year, and posting literally took all year from January to December. She never said it, but I did worry she wanted to murder me when I said I had written another part.

Lit, in my opinion, is the shining example of the talent, creativity, and generosity in the Good Omens fandom. The fact that she creates these podfics that are so high quality and makes fic accessible for more people is really fucking cool. It was also incredible for me to hear my words sound like sports broadcasts and TV interviews.

I've written a lot about how overwhelmed I get when I think about all the people who have contributed to the #RR universe, but I do want to say it again. Thank you.

Fandom Trumps Hate

Then, right around the time I wrapped up all the zines and #RR, I signed up for Fandom Trumps Hate. This was my first year doing it, and it was such a fun experience! I am floored by the generosity of people. It was also incredible to take direct prompts and brainstorm ideas with everyone. None of the final products were at all like I imagined in the beginning, but I think that goes to show the liquid nature of writing sometimes.

That said, when I started FTH, I was coming off the high of finishing all these other projects and feeling extremely productive. This summer, however, I was hit with the most severe, longest bout of depression I've experienced. I came off of several medications. My dog got cancer. Every ounce of energy I had I channeled into existing. I would have given anything to have the ability to write, but I couldn't.

Just when I finally got my feet under myself, I was offered a promotion. It was October. My boss took me out for coffee one random Monday and offered me a position I had been applying for, for years. I was excited and also stressed out because I knew I would be taking on a lot of responsibility at a time when my life felt very tenuous, but it was also an oportunity I could not miss.

FTH was heavy on my mind. In true ADHD fashion, the stress of starting a new job kicked my butt into gear. I had been slowly plugging along on all the fics over the summer but ended up reworking every single one of them. And each fic was wildly different from the other.

This also gave me the opportunity to explore a couple of ideas I had turning over in my brain for quite some time.

Let it run, 7.6k, Explicit, for Ambra - body shop/mechanic AU. Ambra wanted something hyper specific, and y'all know I love infodumping about cars. This was a really fun way to show the mundane side of cars because truthfully, I do tire writing about Ferraris and McLarens. This is so closely aligned to the life I live.

We know what we are but not what we may be, 5.3k Gen, for lynn99999 - an outsider POV fic from the perspective of Lesley, the International Express Man, who has to deliver a message to Heaven. Man, admittedly, this was both the hardest and easiest fic to write. The prompt was about a lost package inspired by lynn99999 #RR's books getting lost in the mail. I had so many ideas that I had started and scrapped, but once I landed on the final premise, I had the rough draft done in two days. Humans interacting with the Ineffables is my favorite canon trope.

Might have gone, but what for?, 5k, Explicit, for joyeousness - a 1941 fic. Hey, do you want something sad??? Many years ago, I decided I would only write happy endings (and happy endings *wink wink wink*) even though I love writing angst. So for that reason, I think this story is incomplete because it ends on an unresolved note. After S2, I had this idea churning in my brain on repeat. When I ran it by joyeousness, and they gave me the green light, I was excited to get it down in words. And yep, it ended up being as brutal as I imagined.

Under Pressure, 6.5k, Teen, for She_Jedi - in which Remy (from SDU) and Warlock (from Ground Control) meet. Let's be real. I know it says this is a gift for She_Jedi, but they really did me a favor by letting me write this. Originally, they wanted a continuation of Ground Control, and I had been sitting on this idea of having Remy, an OC from another Good Omens fic I wrote, meet Warlock. I wrote these two series around the same time, and clearly I was going through something since I wrote so much about fucking postgraduate education. I was in my pre-F1 / post-grad-school-traumatized-professional phase. So it was really fun to revisit this when both Remy and Warlock were a little older. I mean, yeah, writing is just one big projection, and I'm staring in the mirror.

2025

My goal next year is honestly to read more. I usually do a companion post with all the fic I've read through the year, and I rarely read anything in 2024. I hate that. A lot. So if you have a fic you desperately want to share, please reblog or drop a comment!

I also potentially have a silly little #RR fic in the pipeline. Maybe.

[monstersinthecosmos]

Within our constant scholarship of "Is Marius really as atheistic as he thinks he is?" I submit this part from when he first meets Avicus and Mael -

"No, listen to me, both of you," [Avicus] said in a kindly rather deep voice. "Don't go on with this quarrel. However we came to the Dark Blood, either through lies or violence, it has made us immortal. Are we to be so ungrateful?" "I'm not ungrateful," I said, "but I owe my debt to fate, not to Mael."

I've been thinking recently about Anne's constant struggle with religion vs faith and I think we talk about this more with the Catholic characters because it comes out a bit more literally and their stories are often tangled into questions of Christian dogma but there's so much of this with Marius, as well, and the way he kinda-sorta treats Akasha like a goddess even though he denies it, and here he's so desperate to distance himself from Mael that he'd rather blame it on something magical like fate.

What I love about the dynamic between him and Mael, too, is that for Mael, who had perhaps seen PROOF of the Teskhamen's powers in different ways, it's never a question of "faith" for him because it's something he's seen and experienced and just accepts as fact. And he spends the entire year trying to convince Marius of this, and perhaps Marius's staunch atheism & reason are the only things getting him through that experience. But the moment HE meets Teskhamen he's also having his entire worldview shattered, and now he's the one who has seen it with his own eyes and knows that this is Something.

The concept of religion as a practice vs believing that there is Something is all over these books, and we've discussed many times how you can track it against Anne's off-again-on-again relationship with the church. So even from book to book it feels like the rules change, even the same character will go back and forth on it, or someone like Marius who, at times wants to participate in ritual or put reason aside, even though he denies it to himself, as he struggles with this knowledge that he witnessed something while he's unable to reconcile it with how much harm has come to him from religious people.

So anyway, I've been thinking about that a lot recently, and this part really stuck out to me.

I am not practicing religion in the way I worship Akasha. Mael also doesn't get credit for my destruction, it was fate.

Trauma can make you such a hypocrite sometimes.

[nerdygaymormon]

so you're staying you stay in church out of fear?

Why someone stays or leaves can be complex, that is true for me.

The person who asked that question wanted to know why I didn't leave the church when I figured out I am gay. I was a teenager in the 1980's, so yes, I stayed in the closet and at church, at least partly, out of fear. Same for my twenties when I lived in LDS communities.

I was dependent on my family as a teen. I didn't want to lose the tuition and credits I'd paid for at the church schools. I didn't want to lose my job. Being gay felt like having a secret which would destroy everything in my life if other people discovered it.

Being Mormon was part of my identity and how I viewed the world. I didn't hear positive things about queer people or have any examples of gay people who had positively navigated life.

You may think of me as a coward and that I should've been braver. Maybe so, but it was my life and I did what seemed best for me according to my understandings at the time.

Let me share a story with you. My freshman year of college, I had a roommate who became my best friend. At the end of the semester he came out to me as bi, and I to him as gay, and for a little while we were boyfriend and boyfriend. I was making plans for that summer, We would transfer to another school, I would say goodbye to my family, and we'd walk away from the LDS Church. I was willing to give up the certainty of the life I had for this shot at happiness. He felt too much dissonance from his Mormon upbringing and he turned us into the bishop, which crushed me. I was put on probation and had to check in weekly with the bishop for a few months or else get kicked out of college, get outed to my family, and lose everything without anything to show for it. I share this to show that I was willing to give up everything I knew if it looked like there was a reason to do so.

There's positive benefits to being a member of this faith community, there are spiritual experiences I've had which are important to me, but don't think that because I am currently a member of the LDS Church means I agree with everything the church teaches. There's things I can't reconcile between my identities of being gay and being Mormon, and I now understand the harm that happened to me from when I believed the hurtful things church taught about people like me.

I get why people keep asking me some form of the question about why I'm a gay Mormon, it seems like an oxymoron and is not the usual path. It feels vulnerable to be open in sharing these very personal thoughts and feelings, and I share in hopes it creates greater understanding.

[paperstorm]

As much as I Iove both Carlos and TK's wedding vows and how perfect they were for both of them, I think its the Jewish vows that really took me out at the knees. I'd never heard them before and how do you recover from "With this ring you are made holy to me. For I do love you as my soul"??!!! And I just love TK saying them to Carlos in particular. Even though its never explicitly mentioned in the show I can easily see the religious part of Carlos's upbringing being a part of why he felt wrong about his sexuality for so long. And to go from that mindset to on your wedding day being told that you are holy?? I can't imagine how profound that must feel.

It made me think of this, that Rafa commented on Ronen's instagram when he came out.

You're so right, religion was undoubtedly a part of Carlos's trauma, and I love the fact that he didn't wear his cross necklace for two seasons and then started wearing it in season three, implying that he distanced himself from his faith for a while but then found a way to reconcile it, because it's clearly something that was important to him and it's so heartbreaking to think that for a time, he felt like he was wrong or broken or unsalvageable because of how some people in his religion made him feel. Their love being referred to as holy on his wedding day probably meant everything to him, and it's so beautiful that it came from traditional wedding vows from a different religion. The two of them truly coming together and blending their lives and committing to each other forever.

[buffyfan145]

This is mostly me making an educated guess-wish so I know very well that it may not come true but I'm still putting it out into the world anyway for there might be a chance it does 🤭

S2 covers with the Fall Of Eregion and may, most likely, end with the forging of the One. Or it may happen next season. So, in S3, we may get to see the beginning of the Black Years with Sauron expanding his dominion over Middle Earth, creating the Nazgûl, the retreating of the Elves and, because of the show's compressed timeline, ends with his defeat at the hands of the Numenoreans. S4 covers his time as Zigûr in Numenor and its subsequent fall whereas S5 will deal with the arrival of the Faithful, the establishment of Arnor and Gondor, the formation of the Last Alliance culminating with the Battle Of Dagorlad and the siege of Barad-dûr.

Now, this is where the guessing ends and my wishful thinking begins: Galadriel will remain with Sauron for most of S3. I started thinking of it after I came across the theory of them ending up in each other's company at the end of S2. Charlie did say that Sauron will never stop trying to get Galadriel to join him so he might do that in the next season, tempting her when she is with him though we know she won't join him for real. In the end, she might escape either by herself or with the Stranger (who may or may not be Gandalf)'s help and reunite with Celeborn. S4 will have her reconciling with Celeborn, finding Lothlórien, etc. But we will have plenty of shipping content by then and, if we are lucky, then who knows the mental bond between Haladriel might continue until the very end of the show when the ring is parted from him. Most of this is motivated by the continued emphasis on their connection, the foundation of which was laid in the very beginning, and only encouraged by the team.

Let's see what the future has in store. I am prepared for all outcomes but I would like to be proven right for a change.

That's a really great theory!!! 😀 It fits with what I've been thinking too and other fans, including non-shippers think as season 3 should be his "King of Men" season and we find out who the 9 are including the Witch King of Angmar. I actually think he won't make the One Ring till the end of season 3 and due to whatever happens that season, and of course the shipper part of me thinks that losing her again adds to him creating it. Like I've said in other posts we got to see the whole season 2 to get a clearer grasp of what could be coming and we could be wrong, but there's still a chance.

[alternatehistoryworlds]

A happier life for Henry VIII's children: Part 3.

Edward was the son of King Henry VIII of England and his third wife Jane Seymour. The birth of a healthy boy was a great miracle and joy not only for his father, but for the whole of England. Edward's childhood was happy, because he had his own mother with him, who with her gentle voice could calm and support him. But it did not last long, in 1547 the boy had to grow up sharply and take on his children's shoulders the responsibility for the whole country, because his father Henry VIII died. His older sister Mary, Queen of France, became regent until the little king came of age. Mary ruled in her brother's place for 8 years. In addition, Mary and Jane did not allow the latter's brothers to influence the young king. Edward and Thomas Seymour were angry about this and they even tried to remove Mary from power, but they failed. The Queen of France uncovered the plot and sent them both to the Tower for life. In 1557 Mary's regency ended and she returned to France, and Edward became the rightful ruler of his state. Two years earlier the king had become interested in Protestantism, and secretly from his mother and sister he began to study it. At a council, he told his lords that he wished all England to convert to this religion, and most of his advisors supported his idea. The Queen Dowager of England tried several times to dissuade her son, but he became angry and made it clear that he would not allow her to interfere in his affairs of state. Queen Mary of France also did not lag behind and tried to return her brother to Catholicism and her attempts were not successful. But there were also those who disagreed, and because of this there were riots and rebellions in the country, the rioters demanded that the king left his venture and returned to the true faith. However, the king was not deterred by their demands, Edward managed to quell the rebellions and to appease his subjects, he declared in public that he would be tolerant and let them believe what they wanted. And to reconcile Catholics and Protestants, Edward promised to marry a Catholic princess, but their children would be Protestants, and to marry his other older sister Elizabeth to a Protestant. In 1558, the princess married the eldest son of the King of Sweden and left England for good. The king himself married Mary Stuart a year later. The marriage between the King of England and the Scottish Queen was a very successful and cohesive one. Mary appointed her consort as her companion and they lived on two countries.

Jane of England(1560 - 1618). Duchess of Angoulême. In 1578 she married her cousin Charles. Their married life was not a happy one. After the birth of their last child, the couple finally drifted apart and stopped living together. Four children were born in the marriage.

Henry IX of England(1561 - 1611). King of England, Ireland and Scotland. In 1589 he became King of England, and in 1600 of Scotland. In 1605 he proclaimed himself king of Great Britain. He was married, but did not love his wife, during their marriage he never touched her. Also the king had a mistress who bore him 5 children out of wedlock: Mary, Edward, Elizabeth, Grace and James. Died at the age of 51 of bubonic plague.

James I of England(1563 - 1627). King of Great Britain. Inherited from his older brother, as the latter had no legitimate children. Also, unlike Henry, he loved his wife and never cheated on her. Husband of Elizabeth of Denmark, father of 11 children: Edward VII, Sophia, Charles, George, Isabella, Joan, Frederick, Barbara, Henrietta, Arabella and Robert.

Mary of England(1564 - 1590). Mary was given in marriage to her cousin at the age of 18. The marriage produced 4 children. In 1590, Mary contracted pneumonia and died on the anniversary of her father's death.

Elizabeth of England(1567 - 1570). In 1570, the princess caught cold, contracted pneumonia and died at the age of 3.

Margaret of England(1569 - 1624). She was married twice, but both her husbands died shortly after the marriage. After the death of her second husband, Margaret declared that she would never marry again. She founded a charitable foundation and helped anyone in need, she especially focused on helping women and children.

Edward of England(1572 - 1586). Duke of Somerset and Albany. From birth had poor health. Died at the age of 14 from smallpox.

Richard of England(1575 - 1655). Duke of Somerset and Albany. After the death of his brother in 1586 all his titles passed to him. The Prince was noted for his good health and poetic ability. During his lifetime he became a famous poet. In 1600 he married Elizabeth Howard, after the wedding Richard and Elizabeth removed from the court and began to live a happy and quiet family life. The marriage produced 7 children: Mary, William, Edward, Philip, Anne, Catherine, and Nicholas.

Jane Seymour loved her daughter-in-law as her own daughter, the dowager queen liked to spend time in the circle of her grandchildren. On her son, she had almost no influence, but the king loved his mother and because of respect sometimes listened to her advice. Jane died in 1565, and Edward was greatly grieved by her death. Mary, more than anyone else, understood how her brother felt and despite their differences on matters of religion, came to England to give him moral support. In the end, they finally reconciled. Edward VI was a king beloved by the nobility and the people. For most of his reign, he tried to try on Catholics and Protestants and prevent religious warfare within the country. On top of that, the king gave shelter and protection to Protestants who had fled religious persecution. Edward VI died of tuberculosis in 1589. He was buried in Westminster Abbey next to his parents and other family members. Eleven years later, his wife Mary Stuart was buried next to him.

[zhoras-bitch]

My Playchoices MCs #11

There's been a lot of Bloodbound on my dash lately and it made me want to shake off the dust from my BB headcanons. This Evita, my precious little ball of depression and existential dread. If you know who I named her after, you get a cookie. Also, yes, I stole her middle name from @gaiuskamilah. Headcanons under the cut.

First | Previous | Next | All

Was almost a literature major, but went into communications instead after her parents vetoed the idea with, ‘You’ll never get a job with that degree!’ 

She does like social sciences, but her real passion is stuffy old books (affectionate). Specifically, she is partial to deep, dark, sometimes surreal and maybe a little tedious works. I can see her reading Dostoevsky, Camus, Unamuno etc.

Besides Spanish and English, can speak decent French and Portuguese.

Went back here to add that she's a trans woman after this headcanon has completely taken over my brain.

Evita's Bloodkeeper abilities began to manifest when she was very young, way before her transition and before she even knew she was trans. The visions started caming to her in the form of dreams, and seeing how bloody and cruel vampire history is, those dreams were often pretty fucked up. So Evita was a perpetually tired and kind of jumpy kid and teen. Thankfully, she didn't remember most of those dreams back then.

Evita grew up in a Catholic family, so the existence of vampires and their whole lore were hard for her to reconcile. By the end of book 3, she's not even sure what she believes in anymore.

Doesn’t like lying and is kind of bad at it.

Her wardrobe is kind of dull. Evita's style is business casual, with no bright colours or flashy patterns. She wears a lot of black and even more button-up shirts.

Prefers tea to coffee.

Very much asexual, cannot determine whether her feelings are romantic or platonic to save her life.

She had a… relationship with Lily where they were toeing the line between friends and lovers for years. And then Lily died before they could figure it out.

Yeah, the series finale is not really a happy ending for her. Post book 3 Evita is a total wreck. She's going through a crisis of faith, her best friend is dead, and without her, Evita feels like the last thread that connected her to her humanity is gone.

On the bright side, Adrian promotes her to be the representative of Raines Corps. internationally (yay?). Evita uses the opportunity to travel around Europe and other parts of the world. For a while, I think she distances herself from Adrian, Kamilah and Jax. She needs the time to just reflect.

During that time, she finds purpose in seeking out newly turned and just lone vampires and helping them navigate their new life. If there's s risk they might turn Feral, she gives them her own brand, a lily. She didn't plan to rule over them or anything, but over the years she kind of naturally starts being referred to as the leader of her own clan.

Gaius and she have a... relationship. They meet when Evita is traveling in Europe sometime after the finale. And they find themselves in a similar place psychologically: struggling to understand who the fuck they even are and what they are supposed to do with their lives. Like with Lily, it's all on the verge of romantic and platonic (that's a theme with Evita). And with their long ass vampire lifespans, it probably takes them decades to figure it out.

[offsidekineticist]

For owlcatober prompt #6, "family"

CW: grief, loss of a family member, referenced nonverbal episode, estrangement, lack of closure, spiders mentioned

The Sixth of Lamashan

You hate this day: the sixth of Lamashan. You hated it when it was just Ascendance Day to you, just a day when Iomedae's faithful ran around with toy swords to celebrate their goddess passing the test of the Starstone. But now you hate it for what it does to Thay every year.

"A birthday on Ascendance Day–that must've been rough when he was a kid."

"Not really–it wasn't nearly as popular in Brastlewark as it is here, so his birthday easily overshadowed it."

He always takes today off from his storytelling. Instead he comes downstairs and quietly prepares a cup of tea for himself before returning to your room. He doesn't speak during this process, even if spoken to. Sometimes you think he's lost in memories. Sometimes you think it's one of his nonverbal episodes. Whatever the case, it is in silence that he goes to your room and settles down in a rocking chair with the same book he reads every year: On Fighting Demons, by Regill Derenge.

"Wait–you have a brother? What the fuck–I've known you for thirty fucking years and you never told me you have a fucking brother?"

"Well it hardly matters now that he's dead, now, does it?"

You hate it. You hate seeing him in pain, but you especially hate seeing him in pain over someone who doesn't deserve it–and from everything your husband has told you, Regill Derenge doesn't deserve shit from Thay. Even ignoring the fact that he was a hellknight (though you're not sure why you'd ignore that), the guy apparently sat down to settle his affairs and didn't think Thay deserved so much as a notification of his death. Thay only found out because one of the other expats from Brastlewark heard about it from her sister and offered her condolences. Because apparently the local newspaper in Brastlewark got a notification and an obituary to publish, but Thay? Why the fuck should he be told his little brother was dead?

"Don't hold it against him–we parted on difficult terms. I was rather cruel to him. I understand why he wouldn't want to see me again."

"He didn't have to see you again. He just had to write a fucking letter for you to read after he died."

Thay still hasn't read that obituary. There's something in there he's afraid to see. He won't say what, but from the way he tenses up when you ask about it, you can guess: it has something to do with Rivad.

"Was he there? Was he there, Thay?"

"I don't know. If he was, I don't want to know."

So every year, like clockwork, you send the kids out to play at being knights with the Iomedaeans while you sit in the kitchen and stare at the wall and wait, because your husband is mourning his asshole brother who didn't bother reconciling and might have fucking tortured him.

"It's my own fault–I tried writing to him once, but the letter came back and…I gave up. I should have tried harder to find him."

"Thay, you lived in the same fucking house for a hundred fucking years. You're not the one who should have tried harder."  

It's always long after dark, the kids sound asleep, by the time you hear the door open. His eyes are always dark from crying–they don't get red because his blood is gray–and he always apologizes for keeping you up so late. You sometimes answer with words. You always answer with a hug.

"Does it help? The book, I mean."

"I don't know. I can't hear him when I read it. Maybe I'm not listening closely enough. Maybe I've forgotten what he sounded like. Or maybe he changed so much that I just don't know what he sounded like anymore."

You lead him to bed and let him rest his head on your chest. He falls asleep listening to your heartbeat while you card your hands through his hair. Sometimes he quietly cries himself to sleep. Sometimes he tells you stories as he drifts off–the time Regill made Thay sneak into a pub for their first drinks, or how Regill used to just lay down and take naps wherever he felt like, or how Regill was terrified of spiders, and whenever he found one in their bedroom Thay would carry it outside and then regale his brother with tales of the itsy bitsy spider's grisly grisly death.

"You never actually killed them?"

"Of course not. I considered them my friends."

"..."

"I was a very lonely child."

You always stay awake until he's sound asleep, keeping vigil against some unknown threat, some monster made of grief. And every year, lying in the dark listening to the sound of Thay's breathing, you become more convinced that Thay deserved a better brother, and Regill deserved worse one. You know not every hellknight goes to hell after death, but if there's any justice in the world, Regill did. And every year, on the sixth of Lamashan, you hope the devils of hell are as creative as you are, because he deserves to suffer for what he's still doing to Thay.

[myrfing]

i think there was a fun. subversion or whatever with venat. for years people believed she held her godhood over our heads in some way and dragged people into being her chosen ones with chosen missions, but in the end her goal was to fight that sort of destiny. amaurotines believed they had a preordained holy mission in life, that they were born to perfectly create and manage a perfect world, and she took that mission from their hands and smashed it to irreparable pieces when such a duty became too difficult to keep on against…well just time and the great universe. she saw all the nicks and the cracks that had been there since the beginning and how people couldnt reconcile them then nor now when shit hit the fan, when the Second Coming Came and all their imperfections were suddenly weighed and so many feared failure and feared eternal hell, so she grabbed it and threw it out before it consumed them. in a way i get why this rubs some people the wrong way because she did destroy a “great work”, and there is comfort in being born as something and being born to do something and being guranteed safety and peace so long as you meet seemingly inherent conditions. but for those who felt like they didn’t belong to this essential definition and duty, or disagreed with the mission from the first place, and even for those who longed to belong to this definiton, who became destructively obsessed with a perfection that they could never achieve nor maintain as just another-people-who-existed-for-a-time, she was like. nope enough of that and blew it up.

and she’d only ever extended her blessing as a well-wish to people who fought against what felt like destiny, to people who challenged the ideas of what people are or are doomed to be…every choice to keep going in the msq was the wol’s. it wasn’t faith or accordance she demanded of us, it was faith she had in us the other way around, a similar faith a mentor or a parent has in you when they say, okay go pursue what you want; your life is your own, even if it isn’t perfect, even if it means you’ll go through hardships, and you’ve never given me a reason to believe you couldn’t figure it out. and that explains why so many of her “chosen” had conflicting viewpoints and and why we had fought against each other and had to come to understand each other instead of being a perfect gods angels army. the leap of faith was on her part. it never mattered if you hated or loved her or believed in or rebelled against her because it was your life

[roman-catholic-mass-readings]

22nd October >> Mass Readings (Except USA)

Tuesday, Twenty Ninth Week in Ordinary Time 

or

Pope Saint John Paul II.

Tuesday, Twenty Ninth Week in Ordinary Time 

(Liturgical Colour: Green. Year: B(II))

First Reading Ephesians 2:12-22 In Christ you are no longer aliens, but citizens like us.

Do not forget that you had no Christ and were excluded from membership of Israel, aliens with no part in the covenants with their Promise; you were immersed in this world, without hope and without God. But now in Christ Jesus, you that used to be so far apart from us have been brought very close, by the blood of Christ. For he is the peace between us, and has made the two into one and broken down the barrier which used to keep them apart, actually destroying in his own person the hostility caused by the rules and decrees of the Law. This was to create one single New Man in himself out of the two of them and by restoring peace through the cross, to unite them both in a single Body and reconcile them with God: in his own person he killed the hostility. Later he came to bring the good news of peace, peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near at hand. Through him, both of us have in the one Spirit our way to come to the Father. So you are no longer aliens or foreign visitors: you are citizens like all the saints, and part of God’s household. You are part of a building that has the apostles and prophets for its foundations, and Christ Jesus himself for its main cornerstone. As every structure is aligned on him, all grow into one holy temple in the Lord; and you too, in him, are being built into a house where God lives, in the Spirit.

The Word of the Lord

R/ Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm Psalm 84(85):9-14

R/ The Lord speaks peace to his people.

I will hear what the Lord God has to say, a voice that speaks of peace. His help is near for those who fear him and his glory will dwell in our land.

R/ The Lord speaks peace to his people.

Mercy and faithfulness have met; justice and peace have embraced. Faithfulness shall spring from the earth and justice look down from heaven.

R/ The Lord speaks peace to his people.

The Lord will make us prosper and our earth shall yield its fruit. Justice shall march before him and peace shall follow his steps.

R/ The Lord speaks peace to his people.

Gospel Acclamation cf. Luke 8:15

Alleluia, alleluia! Blessed are those who, with a noble and generous heart, take the word of God to themselves and yield a harvest through their perseverance. Alleluia!

Or: Luke 21:36

Alleluia, alleluia! Stay awake, praying at all times for the strength to stand with confidence before the Son of Man. Alleluia!

Gospel Luke 12:35-38 Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit.

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘See that you are dressed for action and have your lamps lit. Be like men waiting for their master to return from the wedding feast, ready to open the door as soon as he comes and knocks. Happy those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. I tell you solemnly, he will put on an apron, sit them down at table and wait on them. It may be in the second watch he comes, or in the third, but happy those servants if he finds them ready.’

The Gospel of the Lord

R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

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

Pope Saint John Paul II

(Liturgical Colour: White. Year: B(II))

(Readings for the memorial)

(There is a choice today between the readings for the ferial day (Tuesday) and those for the memorial. The ferial readings are recommended unless pastoral reasons suggest otherwise)

First Reading Isaiah 52:7-10 Rejoice, for the Lord is consoling his people.

How beautiful on the mountains, are the feet of one who brings good news, who heralds peace, brings happiness, proclaims salvation, and tells Zion, ‘Your God is king!’

Listen! Your watchmen raise their voices, they shout for joy together, for they see the Lord face to face, as he returns to Zion.

Break into shouts of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem; for the Lord is consoling his people, redeeming Jerusalem.

The Lord bares his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.

The Word of the Lord

R/ Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm Psalm 95(96):1-3,7-8,10

R/ Proclaim the wonders of the Lord among all the peoples.

O sing a new song to the Lord, sing to the Lord all the earth. O sing to the Lord, bless his name.

R/ Proclaim the wonders of the Lord among all the peoples.

Proclaim his help day by day, tell among the nations his glory and his wonders among all the peoples.

R/ Proclaim the wonders of the Lord among all the peoples.

Give the Lord, you families of peoples, give the Lord glory and power; give the Lord the glory of his name.

R/ Proclaim the wonders of the Lord among all the peoples.

Proclaim to the nations: ‘God is king.’ The world he made firm in its place; he will judge the peoples in fairness.

R/ Proclaim the wonders of the Lord among all the peoples.

Gospel Acclamation John 10:14

Alleluia, alleluia! I am the good shepherd, says the Lord; I know my own sheep and my own know me. Alleluia!

Gospel John 21:15-17 Feed my lambs, feed my sheep.

Jesus showed himself to his disciples, and after they had eaten he said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these others do?’ He answered, ‘Yes Lord, you know I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my lambs.’ A second time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He replied, ‘Yes, Lord, you know I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Look after my sheep.’ Then he said to him a third time, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter was upset that he asked him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ and said, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep.’

The Gospel of the Lord

R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

[thelostsoliloquy]

I can't believe that I am sat here, writing about this.

On 16th October 2024, the death of Liam Payne was announced. I type this listening to If I Could Fly. At first I didn't believe the news. I opened Instagram and saw it being reported by the Hollywood Reporter, I had to double check that it wasn't a parody account. I head to Twitter and at that moment my younger brother calls me to find out whether the news is true or not. It turned out to be true.

I have been in a state of shock for the last two days. How do I reconcile this? I didn't think that I would live to see this day. The day when a member of One Direction would pass away, if anything I didn't think that it would happen until I was late in life, perhaps telling my own grandchildren of One Direction.

It's so, so hard and difficult because I don't think that I have the words to describe how I am feeling. It is affecting me in ways in which i never could have foreseen. At first I thought I would be ok, though since yesterday evening, something changed. A sadness came over me overtaking the disbelief, the realisation that this is indeed true.

I grew up with Liam and One Direction. I've been following them from the start. i've watched them grow up and i've been growing up alongside them. it is the first time in my life that i am experiencing the death of someone in my own generation who had an impact and influence on my life. Heck, they changed my life. A massive part of who i am is them, Liam. I remember being in school reading the magazines, tweets and any information that I could get my hands on about the boys. Listening to their music, watching their music videos, interviews and laughing at their jokes with my own friends. It was the best of times. I didn't have a care in the world and the most fun I ever had, One Direction were part of that. Sitting in class and pretending that the boys were with us, imagining what it would be like to meet them, what we would say to them, waiting outside their hotels for hours, chasing their cars and tour busses, all for a smile, a wave, any sort of interaction. I don't know what it was, why I craved to just be noticed by them in any way. They all seemed larger than life, like these untouchable figures, messiah like.

i don't know how much sense i am even making because i am just typing this all out as I think, in hopes that i can somehow make sense of it all and how i'm feeling. I think what it is is nostalgia and longing. I look back to my teenager years and i feel like those were the last times that i was truly happy and carefree. I had so much life in me and so much faith looking ahead to the future and all the possibilities, and One Direction played a huge part of that. They sound tracked those years of my life whether i was doing my homework, walking to college, sitting on the bus, revising, walking to university, they were always there in the background.

One Direction made growing up easier. They made me feel seen, heard and understood. A little less alone. When I would be down or sad, I would listen to them. They were a huge defining part of my youth straight into my adulthood. To this day. In recent years i look back to lockdown in 2020. I remember being in Abu Dhabi and feeling so lost, scared, alone. I felt as though i had no one. Certainly wasn't the first time. And I remember I turned to One Direction. Listening to their albums, watching all their videos, the one direction journey on X factor on youtube, This Is Us, Where We Are stadium concert in Italy, their interviews and video diaries. Almost 10 years on, and they gave me that comfort and protection and made me feel happy, they gave me something which no one in my life was able to. They got me through yet again, one of the hardest times in my life so far and I know they will continue to do going forward.

I'm getting emotional writing this because i'm realising just how much they actually meant to me. I feel like I alway knew but now im truly able to understand the gravity of their impact. This is where the connection is built and what makes Liam's death so devastating for me. I know people laugh and make a joke of it, how i'm grieving a person that i never met and i don't even know. But he's always been a part of my life in a unique way, this is the fan connection after all. And now my world feels different and it will never be the same. I think i always had that hope in me that one day One Direction would reunite, i truly believed it would happen and now with this news, I know it never will. And just will not be the same watching their videos and listening to their music, the lives of every person who ever loved the boys and One Direction is forever changed.

I'm realising that what i experienced and lived in my youth truly was special and magical and will never happen again but its such a fundamental and core part of me that will always remain. Maybe what makes me sad is realising that those were the happiest and best days of my life and nothing in the future will ever match to that time period in my life. The way my friends and i would bond and laugh over One Direction was something else. And my family thinking i am crazy.

And well Liam... He was the catalyst for me. Even before Justin Bieber, the fan girl in me came alive the day he auditioned for X Factor when he was 14 , i still remember wanting him to go through but he didn't and then he came back and i supported him once again. He was my first favourite member of One Direction, even before Harry. It was he who I loved the most during the X Factor days and what made me a fan of One Direction and even during the first two albums. And now this is the first time where i am witnessing the death of an artist whom i had loved, love.

I am devastated and feel like from henceforth my life will be different. I can never listen to their music in the same way. What happened to Liam is a Shakespearean tragedy. I think in the days and weeks and probably even months to come, i will still process this. I'm just really struggling in a way in which i thought i wouldn't. But yeah, Liam, this band they raised me. There's a connection there for life. And I can't believe i am now having to say good bye.

friday 18 October 2024