#my original post is more about how the sisters deserved to know more than it really changed anything for cole tho like | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mendeshoney · 10 months ago

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you know my weakness is you (act two)

author's note: um...hello? is this thing on? sorry i've been away and that it took me a literal year and a few days to post part two to this story. also i meant to post this eariler but i am at home visiting family so i didn't realize this was not queued to post in est until literally right now. i appreciate everyone's love and patience in the meantime and hope you enjoy!

as a reminder - this character is a WOC and is plus sized bc...well, that's what I know as a person and it's kinda time I start actually trying to write like it. so let's just pretend there's a world where POC plus sized hockey wags can exist, mkay? i'm also manipulating some of the other wags of the team, so, that is also happening.

tags/warnings in no particular order: 18+, angst, enemies to lovers, miscommunication, unintentional secrets, insecurity, original female character, WOC character, consensual unprotected sex

word count: ~14,125

(read act one here)

When Mat sleeps, he dreams of Summer.

Mat dreams of her, craves her, wants nothing more than to have and to hold her.

He dreams of the words his captain spoke to him almost a week ago.

I’m telling you not to take this risk. This whole ‘I hate you but now I like you’ risk. And especially not with Summer.

She can’t go through that again.

And whether you want to admit it or not, there’s something between the two of you, and if it goes wrong, it’s going to be really, really bad.

If you’re not serious about her, leave her alone.

He thinks back through all of the horrible things he’d ever said to her, how even though he knew in his heart he was miles ahead of her shitty ex, he still wasn’t the type of person to deserve her, but dammit, that didn’t mean he wasn’t about to try.

Mat knows that he seriously wants Summer. Wants her desperately, has wanted her since the moment they met even though she pushed him away. And he’d wanted just one chance to prove to her that he’d make it worth her while, and he got more than enough.

Except now, it seemed his captain was going to be the one to put a stop to it.

After Mat had slept with Summer and Anders had given Mat his words of warning, the captain backed it up after practice a couple of days later, making it very clear to Mat how he felt about the idea.

“I can see in your eyes you’re not hearing what I said, so I’ll repeat it. Stay away from Summer.”

Mat had blinked at Anders, completely shocked and also thankful they were having this discussion away from the rest of the team.

“What?”

“Stay away, Mat.” Anders repeated, more serious and almost angry. “It’s not that I don’t like you, and it’s not that I don’t think you’re a good person. But you cannot be with Summer. At all.”

Mat bit back his snarky response, instead choosing his words carefully. “Is this about Sabrina?”

Anders shook his head. “This isn’t about Sabrina. This is about Summer.”

“What, are you in love with her or something?”

That was probably the wrong thing to say. Anders’ nostrils flared and he narrowed his eyes at Mat, jabbing a finger into Mat’s chest.

“Listen, Mat. I’ve known Summer since she was sixteen, she’s been my little sister in every sense of the word just as much as she’s been Sabrina’s, and I’ve seen her go through way too much and put up with way too much to allow you to come in just because she’s suddenly single and you’ve suddenly got the notion that you can do better than her ex boyfriend. I’m telling you right now, based on what I’ve seen? How your dynamic works? You can’t. And I don’t want you dating her.”

“That’s not up to you.” Mat said, moving Anders’ hand away. “That’s Summer’s choice. If she wants to be with me, she can be.”

“Then make it her choice not to be with you.” His captain responded, and it was exactly the ultimatum it sounded like.

“And how do you propose I do that?” Mat bit back sarcastically.

“You’ve been bickering since you met, and you’ve not done a single thing for her that shows that you care about her, or that you like her. Just because you slept with her once doesn’t mean you’re in love and need to be in a relationship. That’s not how it works.”

Mat scoffed. “Why are you speaking to me like I’m a kid?”

“Because you’re acting like one.” Anders spat. “You’re acting like a child who thinks he’s in love after one time.”

“What if I’ve loved her the whole time?” Mat countered, completely serious.

Anders didn’t even blink, just laughed and shook his head. “Love? You’re joking, right? None of what you have is love, Mat. It’s not, it never has been, and it never will be. I’m telling you right now, before you take it any further, before it gets too deep. Stay. Away.”

Before Mat could respond, could tell Anders to either go fuck himself or try to plead his case, his captain walked away, and Mat knew in his gut he meant every word.

But…it already is too deep.

And he’s about to disobey his captain.

Despite her better judgment, Summer finds herself smiling when she walks into the small cafe shop, seeing Mat tucked into a table in the corner with her favorite iced coffee and favorite breakfast plate already ordered and sitting in front of him alongside his own order.

He’d texted her this morning, almost a week since they’d last seen one another, suggesting that they meet up to talk about what had happened in her room at Sabrina’s house.

When he’d given her the best two orgasms she’d ever had in her life, then asked her not to run, admitted to her that he liked her.

Mat Barzal.

Liked her.

The thought made her both giddy and confused at the same time, admittedly completely unfamiliar with the rush of butterflies she’d been feeling everytime she found herself thinking about Mat, or reading a text from him.

They hadn’t seen each other since that time in her bedroom, Mat being too busy with pre-season training and practice, and Summer didn’t completely mind it. She had work as well, and was still helping Sabrina and Anders out with their wedding planning.

Even so, seeing him after a week almost felt like she hadn’t seen him in months, and Summer knew in her heart that was probably something she should pay attention to a little more.

The butterflies, the anticipation, the giddiness - it was all quite a bit considering their history, but there was a part of it that just kind of…made sense?

Sabrina had teased her the night before when she’d been over to help her finalize the floral arrangement details. “It’s like when mom used to tell us that the boys who picked on us only did it because they liked us.”

Summer had laughed a little, and Anders, who had been sitting with them to finalize the boutonniere designs for the men’s tuxedos, had scoffed. “They’re not kids though, babe.”

Anders had seemed…apprehensive, to say the least, about her and Mat, but when Summer had asked him about it, Anders had just said “I’m not worried,” so she left it at that. Whatever it meant.

The closer she got to the table where Mat was sitting though, the more all of her concerns and worries faded away.

Mat looks up as she approaches, pocketing his phone and giving Summer a wide smile. He stands to greet her, his hands cupping her face and offering her sweet kisses, murmuring how he thinks she looks pretty today in between each peck.

She’s sure she’s blushing beneath the bronze of her skin, and the smile she gives him in return is probably showing just how happy she feels at this moment.

“I’m sorry,” she says, “I hope you weren’t waiting long.”

“No need to be sorry princess,” he says. “You’re right on time.”

Summer smiles, taking her seat across from him and taking a sip of her coffee.

Mat watches her with a smile on his face, laying his hand out on the table, palm up. She raises a brow, but puts her hand in his anyway, waiting.

“We should probably talk about all this, shouldn’t we?” He says.

Summer shrugs, “If you want to.”

“I just want to know that you want this, too.” Mat offers, playing with the rings decorating her fingers. “We don’t have to talk, because as far as I’m concerned, if we both want this, then there’s nothing to talk about.”

She assesses Mat quietly as she takes in his words, thinking about the dynamics of their relationship.

“I think we maybe owe it to each other to at least clear the air, don’t you?”

He nods, thumb rubbing the back of her hand gently. “I’ll start. I never hated you, not even a little bit. You got on my nerves a little, but I never hated you. I think I just acted that way because I thought you hated me first.”

Summer blinks a little, not expecting that right away. “I didn’t hate you, Mat.”

“It kind of felt like it.” He admits, but his eyes are playful, letting Summer know he’s not upset by it.

She thinks back to the day they met. His curious gaze as it ran over her body, how back then she couldn’t handle scrutiny like that from anyone, good or bad, because she could only ever see it as bad.

A man like Mat looking at a plus size woman of color like Summer didn’t exactly always spell out happy endings.

She’d let her insecurities get the better of her then, let it push them both into something that maybe neither of them wanted.

But still, they’d gotten here in the end, didn’t they?

“I think I just…I think we got off on the wrong foot.” She admits. “I never hated you either, I think I just felt…unsure.”

“Of me?”

“Maybe you, maybe myself. I don’t know.” She says.

“Well now that it’s established that we don’t hate each other, and that you know that I like you, how do you feel?”

Butterflies.

Anticipation.

Giddiness.

Like a teenager in love for the first time.

Summer ignores all of that and shrugs playfully. “I suppose I might like you, too.”

The kilowatt smile that breaks out on Mat’s face is one Summer is probably going to remember for the rest of her life. He’s looking at her like she just hung the sun, moon, and the stars in the galaxy, crafting the heavens and given it to him.

“I can work with that.” He says, bringing her hand to his lips and kissing the back of it gently. “I’ll be happy to work with that.”

Her heart hammers in her chest, and as they dig into their breakfast, she can’t help but feel like she should’ve made this decision a lot sooner.

Mat wakes up to Summer cuddled against his side, and he quickly silences his alarm, wishing for nothing more than the opportunity to lay in bed with her for the rest of the day - the rest of time at this point.

Carefully, he untangles himself from her, making sure she’s sound asleep and tucked back in while he heads to the bathroom to start getting ready for training and practice. Once he’s brushed his teeth, he heads out and into the kitchen, going about making himself breakfast and getting food ready for Summer for when she wakes up later.

He checks his phone, spotting a text from Anders in the team group chat reminding everyone of the start time today at the facility.

Mat tries not to get pissed off before the day even starts.

Anders has been nothing but a pain in his ass since he and Summer started seeing one another, almost as if he knows Mat never had any intention of listening to him and knows that Summer’s been in his bed nearly every night since that conversation.

Whatever. Mat doesn’t give a shit.

He’s not a kid, Anders isn’t his dad, and he’s not Summer’s keeper. He and Summer can do whatever they want, and if Anders wants to throw his weight around as captain Mat can handle it, but he’s not giving Summer up.

Once he’s about ready to go, he heads back into his bedroom to grab a hoodie and his gym bag, surprised to find that Summer’s awake, laying on her side, putting her phone down and greeting him with a soft smile when he steps inside.

Mat’s heart literally nearly leaps from his chest to lay at her side.

Her curly hair rests on the pillow beneath her like a gentle halo, full breasts pushing at the fabric of Mat’s shirt she wore to bed. His shirt’s risen up a little and is showing a glimpse of the skin of her stomach, the blankets pooled a little bit above her waist.

She beckons Mat to her playfully, and he goes easily, climbing onto the bed and kissing her without a second to waste, slightly surprised by the minty taste of her mouth.

“You've been up long?” He murmurs to her, and she shakes her head.

“Maybe about ten minutes or so?” She says. “I thought you’d already left, so I was getting ready to go see Sabrina.”

“More wedding stuff today?” He asks, bending his head and pushing her hair over her shoulder so he can leave soft kisses on her neck.

She nods, letting out content sounds as his lips move. “Yeah, figuring out the seating chart for Anders’ side.”

Mat pauses at that, and pulls back, staring at Summer curiously. She hadn’t mentioned anything about Anders voicing his recent distaste for Mat to her, but still.

“Has he been different towards you? You know, since we…” His voice trails off.

Summer shakes her head. “Not really? He seemed apprehensive about it, but he hasn’t been different. Why? Has he said something to you?”

Mat hesitates, unsure of what and how much to tell Summer.

“He’s…not exactly happy about the two of us at the minute.” Mat begins, but as he speaks, he can see the fire in Summer’s eyes begin to build. Since he’s all too familiar with where that might lead, he immediately backtracks, making the decision to not tell her the whole truth. “It’s fine, just…maybe don’t talk about us in front of or around him for now, okay?”

“Don’t?” Summer asks, and at the fact that Mat can see the fire dissipate for a little, he nods, still careful with his words.

“Not that I want to keep us a secret, or anything like that, I just don’t want him to say something to you about it, or have him get upset at you. He’s just trying to be a good brother in law, is all, I’m sure. Just let me handle it, okay?”

Summer nods, smiling sweetly. “Okay, I won’t say anything, I promise.”

Mat smiles, kissing her again, not complaining when Summer turns the kiss a little dirty, running her tongue against his lips gently. He pulls away again, quickly checking the time on his phone and smirking when he sees he’s got about fifteen minutes before he absolutely has to leave.

He really only needs five.

When he looks back at her, he’s got a cheshire grin on his face that Summer’s eyes twinkle at.

“Are you still in the same state you went to bed in?” He asks.

Summer smiles, nodding. Mat immediately rips the covers off of her, exposing her bare lower half, and Mat’s cock throbs at the memory.

Last night, after they’d showered and gotten ready for bed, Mat had cuddled up against her, wrapped her in his arms and tried very hard to not focus on how soft she felt against him, about how good it felt to have her there, how warm her body was.

She’d rested her leg on his waist, propping herself open, and Mat had dipped his fingers under the blanket to play with her, his sanity completely disappearing when he felt how wet she was for him. He’d torn her underwear off her not long after, fucking her slow and gentle until she shook in his embrace, his name falling from her lips in satisfaction.

Now, he shuffles himself down the bed till he’s nestled between her beautiful thighs, and Summer looks down at him curiously.

“Thought you had to leave for practice?”

“I’ve got plenty of time,” he says. “Plus, this is way more important than practice.”

Summer starts to protest, maybe to say something smart back to him, but whatever her response was going to be dies on her lips the second Mat’s mouth latches onto her skin.

Summer feels like she’s practically skipping as she heads into Sabrina’s house, bouncing off the balls of her feet in happiness.

After Mat had managed to coax about three orgasms out of her just with his mouth and fingers before leaving for practice this morning, she felt like she could just about do anything. Especially with the way he speaks to her the whole time.

She’d enjoyed bickering with him before all of this, but it wasn’t until she reflected on the first two times they’d fooled around that she realized Mat loves dirty talk, and that he’s particularly good at it.

The second she enters Sabrina’s house though, she shoves those thoughts aside and tries to tone down the happiness, especially with Sabrina staring at Summer like she’s got three heads.

“What are you so chipper about this morning?” Sabrina asks, eyeing her over the rim of her mug as she sips her coffee.

“Nothing,” Summer dismisses all too quickly.

“Mhm,” Sabrina says, raising a brow. “Wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain winger, would it?”

“Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t.” She responds, resting her purse on the counter and going about making a cup of coffee for herself.

“How are you two doing?”

“We’re fine,” Summer says. “Happy.”

“That’s good,” Sabrina says genuinely. “I’m glad. Anders will be happy to know you haven’t killed each other.”

At that, Summer remembers Mat’s words from this morning, and turns to her sister with a slightly serious expression. “Could you maybe…not tell him?”

Sabrina blinks at Summer. “Why?”

“I just…I know how protective he is, and I don’t think he’s a fan of the idea. I just don’t want to put Mat in a bad spot. Could you maybe just…keep it to yourself? About Mat and I?”

“You want me to keep it from my husband that my little sister and his star winger are dating?”

Summer sighs. “Please, Sabi? Just this once, I am asking you not to tell your husband every little thing about your life and mine.”

Sabrina eyes her warily, but agrees. “Alright. But is this because Mat doesn’t want anyone to know you’re dating? Or something else?”

“It’s like I said, Anders is protective, he’s not a fan, and the season’s about to start. I don’t want to put Mat in a bad spot.”

Summer can see that there’s something in Sabrina’s eyes that makes her want to push this more, to understand, but thankfully, she drops it.

Truthfully, she’s not sure where Anders’ apprehension is coming from, or why, but it’s clear he and Mat are at odds about it, and Summer trusts Mat enough to handle it, and enjoy their time together in the meantime.

After practice, as Mat is walking out to his car, he hears Anders’ call his name. Internally, he groans, not wanting to deal with his bullshit right now, but he knows it’s better to just get this over with now so he doesn’t have to put up with it for the rest of the season.

He turns, his face completely deadpan as Anders approaches.

“Did you think about what I said?” Anders asks.

Mat rolls his eyes. “Yeah, been thinking about it non-stop.”

Anders doesn’t look amused. “I wasn’t joking, Mat. I meant it.”

Mat feels the instinct to ball his fists, but he refrains.

He doesn’t care that this is his friend and captain, and doesn't care how long Anders has known Summer. Anders doesn’t get to just rock up and tell Mat who he can and can’t have feelings for.

Whatever Mat and Summer’s relationship was like in the past is theirs to work through, and if Anders doesn’t like it, then fine.

He doesn’t need to fucking know.

“I’m aware.” Mat says. “I took care of it.”

Anders raises an eyebrow. “Took care of what?”

“We’re not together.” Mat says, the lie slipping easily through his teeth. “We’re not dating, not seeing each other, not falling in love, just like you asked. Your precious sister in law is perfectly fine high in her tower.”

Anders stares at him, probably gauging to see if he’s telling the truth, but Mat’s expression doesn’t falter. After a few moments, Anders visibly relaxes. “You two fought again, didn’t you?”

Mat scoffs. “Maybe we did, maybe we didn’t. That’s not the point. The point is you got what you wanted.”

“It’s for the best, Mat.” Anders insists, reaching out to rest a “captainly” hand on Mat’s shoulder, but Mat steps away, shaking his head.

“Whatever. See you tomorrow.”

Mat gets in his car, pulling out of the team lot and heading home, a smug feeling settling in his chest that Anders has no idea Summer will most definitely be waiting for him when he gets there.

“You got a little something on your face, Princess” Mat says, “Riiight…here,” and leaning in, he drops his spoon into his bowl of ice cream, grabs Summer’s face between his hands, and peppers kisses all over her face, working from one corner of her mouth to the other.

Summer giggles wildly beneath his lips, eyes shut tight as she tries to hold onto her own bowl and spoon under the assault of Mat’s kisses.

She felt like her laugh lines were getting deeper and deeper with each passing day she spent with Mat, wrapped up in his embrace or under the constant receiving end of his affection and attention. It had been a little over a month of this now, this work in progress relationship.

From what she knew, things between Anders and Mat were still a bit tense, but Mat reassured her that things were fine. It was just Anders finding it difficult to have a teammate date a family member, Mat had explained to her, and that he just needed time to come to terms with it. Summer could understand, so to be safe, and to make it easier on everyone, she continued to avoid speaking about Mat around Anders, and even shared a little less with Sabrina, just in case.

Knowing Sabrina, it only took a couple of glasses of wine for her to spill the beans, so it was better to say less than say more.

There had been a couple of times that they’d all been at Anders and Sabrina’s house, Summer there for wedding things and Mat there for team things, when they’d sneak off and fool around for a little bit with no one being the wiser, but Summer found it more fun than anything.

They’d just gotten back from a dinner date a little bit ago, Mat making them ice cream sundaes to have for dessert before bed after Summer admitted she had a small craving.

Once he finishes his onslaught of kisses, Mat reaches for the canister of whipped cream, spraying a little more onto her bowl and his own before digging back in.

The TV’s playing a movie on Netflix, and when he turns his attention back to the screen, it brings Summer’s eyes to the time on his DVR box.

“Don’t forget we have dinner tomorrow night at Sabrina and Anders’ house.”

Mat groans. “Their pre-wedding late engagement party thing, right?”

Summer hums in confirmation, taking another bite of her ice cream. “Yeah. They didn’t throw one when they first got engaged since they were in Marbella, so they’re having it now while some of Anders’ family is in town for the home opener.”

“Speaking of the home opener,” Mat says, then puts his bowl down, walking off to his room before coming back, an Islanders Pro Shop bag in his hand. He hands it to Summer, who eyes it warily.

“Is this what I think it is?” She asks.

Mat shrugs, grabbing his bowl and digging back in. “What do you think it is?”

“An Islanders branded dildo?”

Mat chokes in surprise as Summer laughs, enjoying how easy it is to make him flustered.

She turns the bag upside down and is only mildly surprised when the jersey falls into her lap, the bright blue and orange and white staring at her like a neon sign.

“Would you prefer that I wear this?” She asks. “Are you going to ask me to only wear this once we get back home?”

Mat laughs, shaking his head as he puts his finally empty bowl to the side. “You wear whatever you want, baby, however you want to wear it.”

Summer smiles at him, then pauses. “Wearing this to the game probably wouldn’t be a good idea, what with Anders and all.”

Mat frowns. He’d clearly forgotten about that part, but shrugs. He reaches over, playing with the hem of Summer’s dress where it rests against her thigh. “Then I suppose you will have to wear it once we get home.”

Summer smirks as Mat moves and wraps a hand around her ankle, maneuvering her until she’s laying with her back on the floor, watching him through curious eyes.

“And what else would you propose I wear?” She asks, watching as Mat removes her underwear and then reaches for the whipped cream canister, squirting out a dollop onto her clit.

“Nothing, if we’re being honest.” He says, rearranging himself to lay between her legs. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Princess, it’s a little rude to talk with my mouth full.”

Summer’s giggles dissipate into moans as Mat’s tongue licks away the whipped cream, the fabric of his jersey gripped tightly between her fingers as he enjoys his second dessert.

Mat leans back against the sofa in Sabrina and Anders’ living room, a little bit of tension leaving his shoulders now that Anders’ family has left and it’s just a few guys from the team, some of Sabrina’s friends, and Summer left behind.

Everyone’s settled into the living room to wind down and chat a little before they all head home, and Mat watches as Anders’ has to keep a hand on Sabrina’s waist while she sits down. Summer told him that she’d had three glasses of wine because of how nervous she still got around Anders’ family, but it hardly affected her throughout the night. Now though, it seemed that since his family was gone, the anxiety and nerves were also gone, and the wine was catching up to her pretty quickly.

Summer was the last to make her way into the living room, and after a quick scan, found the only open seat left was next to Mat on the sofa. He was aware of Anders’ stare the entire time Summer made her way over, only breaking away once Summer sat down and Sabrina said something to him.

Mat barely listened to the conversation going on around him, too aware of the fact that Anders was watching them both like a hawk and that he was trying his best to behave.

At one point, Summer must have started to feel exhausted, because he could hear the way her breathing began to even out, and then, her head gently landed on his shoulder. Tito saw it as well from his spot, and smiled at Mat.

That drew Sabrina’s attention, and she cooed, reaching out to gently wake Summer.

“Been a long day hasn’t it babes?” Sabrina asked, and Summer blinked the sleep out of her eyes.

“Sorry,” she says, then recognizing she’s still leaning against Mat, she blushes, smiling shyly when she repeats “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he assures, trying to seem flippant about it. “I don’t mind.”

“You two are such a cute couple.” Sabrina says through a laugh as she observes them, and the silence that follows is almost deafening.

“Who?” Tito asks stupidly.

“Summer and Mat, obviously.” Sabrina says, and the second it’s out of her mouth, realization hits and her expression changes.

Damn wine.

“I mean-” Sabrina tries to backtrack, but it’s too late.

“Mathew, can I speak to you for a moment? Outside.” Anders says, his tone of voice making it clear that it’s not a request, but a demand.

Anders heads out to the backyard, and Summer looks at Mat wearily. “Mat, you don’t-”

“No, it’s okay, Princess.” He promises, pressing a kiss to her temple and ignoring the apologetic look Sabrina tosses his way. He heads out after Anders without another word, walking up to where he’s waiting by the pool bar.

“What the fuck did you do?” Anders demands, pushing Mat the second he gets closer.

Mat finds restraint deep in his well of patience, deciding it would still not be a good idea to punch his captain in the face.

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ve been seeing Summer? This whole time, you’ve been dating?”

“Maybe we have. What does it matter to you?”

“I told you to stay away from her.” Anders spits, pointing a finger in Mat’s face. “I told you to stay away and you didn’t listen. And you somehow thought hiding this behind my back was a good idea?!”

“And I told you that you didn’t get to tell me who I did and didn’t get to have feelings for.”

Anders laughs bitterly. “Oh so now it’s feelings? At the beginning of all this you said you were in love with her, and now it’s just feelings? Make up your mind, Mat.”

“I do have feelings for her! I do love her!”

“No you fucking don’t,” Anders spits. “You haven’t loved her a single day since you started sneaking around and lying about this relationship.”

“What else was I supposed to do? You made it very clear you didn’t want me around her and I made it very clear that that wasn’t your choice to make. So I did what you asked and let Summer make the choice for us both.”

“What is he talking about?”

Summer’s voice cuts through the night air like a knife to the gut, and Mat turns to find her staring at the both of them.

She looks like an angel, hair blowing in the wind, the skirt of her dress flowing out beside her, the backyard lights casting a heavenly glow around her.

But it’s her face that breaks Mat’s heart. Her face says she heard everything, and even though she’s standing right there, Mat can tell she’s already a million miles away from him.

God dammit.

He couldn’t catch a fucking break today, could he?

“Summer,” Anders says, using his brotherly voice with her. “Go back inside.”

“No,” she says, and the tone of voice she’s using is one she’s only ever used against Mat when they used to be at odds.

That used to feel like a lifetime ago, but Mat knows for sure that it’s probably coming back to him sooner than he’d like.

“Summer-” Anders tries again, but Summer won’t hear it.

“No,” she repeats, taking a step closer to them. “You told him to stay away from me? Tried to stop him from dating me?”

“I was just trying to-”

Summer holds up a hand, effectively silencing Anders, then turns to Mat. “And you. You said you wanted to keep quiet about us until you and Anders reached an understanding. But really, the whole time, you told him we weren’t seeing each other?”

“Summer, I can explain, I-”

“You said you didn’t want to keep us a secret.” She continues talking like Mat never said a single word. “But really, you just didn’t want to be the one keeping a secret. You wanted me to do it for you.”

The night air is suddenly heavy and silent, Anders and Mat staring at the ground in shame, nothing left to say.

Summer scoffs bitterly. “Unbelievable.”

The click of her heels on the pavement has Mat’s head snapping up, his feet immediately moving when he sees she’s walking away. Anders is hot on their heels, following as Summer heads back into the house, noticing Sabrina and the others with their attention on Summer as she heads for her purse, then straight for the door.

“Summer?” Sabrina asks, concerned.

Summer says nothing, and Mat calls for her, but she keeps walking.

The three of them follow Summer out to the driveway, and Mat breaks into a sprint then, managing to get in front of her to block her path.

“Princess please, just listen for a second-”

“Get out of my way, Mathew.” She says.

It’s the tone of voice that almost has him frozen in his spot. There’s no anger, no heat.

Fuck fuck fuck.

“Princess, I-”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Okay, I’m sorry, Summer, I’m so sorry. But you don’t understand, I just wanted us to-”

“It doesn’t matter.” She says, placing a hand on his chest. “I don’t have the energy to deal with this right now. Please move.”

Mat wants to do anything but that, but he knows he probably won’t get anywhere with her about it tonight, so he does as she asks, and steps aside. By the time Anders catches up to them, she’s in her car and backing out of the driveway.

Mat feels like she’s taking his heart with her.

Summer sighs, spinning in the mirror and pursuing her lips as she examines the fifth maid of honor gown Sabrina’s managed to coax her into in the last hour.

They’re at the Vera Wang Bridal House on Fifth Avenue, where Alex, one of Sabrina’s oldest pageant friends and bridesmaids, works as the manager. She’s been diligently helping Sabrina and Summer find the right maid of honor dress with the wedding only a couple of weeks away, and also helping to talk Sabrina out of some of the more less than ideal options.

The dress Summer’s trying on now is in the exact shade of what Sabrina’s been calling “champagne rose gold,” that she picked as one of her wedding colors, a spaghetti strap gown that accentuates Summer’s curves and compliments her shape.

But it still doesn’t feel…well, like something Summer would wear, at least not as the maid of honor to her sister’s wedding.

“I don’t know, Sabi,” she mutters, examining the way the silk falls against her body. “I like it, but it could be better.”

She looks in the mirror towards her sister, the bride to be, watching as she frowns, cocking her head to the side. “You’re right. The Lou's nice on you but the color’s a little off.” Sabrina turns toward the rack of dresses, pointing at one of the racks and then turning to Alex, smiling sweetly when she asks “Can we see the Lourdes, the Joelle, the Evelyne, the Diane, and the Vaness?”

Summer blanches. “Not the Vaness.”

Sabrina raises a perfectly arched eyebrow at her. “Why not?”

“Sabi,” Summer deadpans. “The v-neck on that dress is deeper than the Mariana Trench. My boobs would be all over the place.”

“Your boobs would look amazing in it.” Sabi insists, turning to Alex. “Right?”

Summer sends Alex a pleading look over Sabrina’s head, and Alex smiles, shaking her head. “Your sister’s at least a 38D and the Vaness can barely hold a 36C. I’d say ax the Vaness, and if you want to see a v-neck option, we can look at the Vanetta and the Varun instead. They’re a little more stable.”

Sabrina hums, then nods. “Alright, I’ll accept the alternative.”

“Thank you,” Summer says with a grateful sigh, and Alex sends her a wink before pulling the six gowns off the rack and putting them in Summer’s dressing room before heading back out to join Sabrina.

When Summer shuts the dressing room door, she carefully takes off the gown she has on and puts it back on its hangar before reaching for the next one.

Just as she’s zipping up the Lourdes, her phone vibrates in her purse from where it's resting on the chair beside her. She ignores it, focusing on adjusting the sweetheart neckline and the tulle of the train of the down when it goes off again, and then again, and then again, before it starts to vibrate with the frequency of a phone call.

She assumes it’s their father, calling on behalf of their mother to pester Summer for details on the fitting since Sabrina probably won’t answer.

Sabrina and their mom had gone shopping for her ‘mother of the bride’ dress last week and Sabrina was not pleased after her mother insisted on needing three dresses - one for the ceremony, one for the cocktail hour, and one for the reception. Sabrina was still a little upset, and their dad had been playing the middle man ever since.

Fussing with the zipper with one hand, and reaching blindly in her purse for her phone with the other, Summer answers her phone without even looking, immediately saying “Tata, okay naman kami. You don’t have to keep calling, just tell mom I’ll send her a picture of my dress when I’m done. Lalo lang itong makakainis kay Sabrina.”

From outside her dressing room, she can hear Sabrina snort in agreement.

There’s a small pause on the other line, and for a second Summer worries that she’d been on speakerphone and their mother was about to scream down the line, but then she hears someone clear their throat before they say “I uh…I’m not your dad, and I didn’t understand a lot of that.”

Summer blinks, her heart plummeting to her stomach. She lets go of the zipper of the dress that she’d finally managed to pull up, then slowly pulls her phone away from her ear. When the screen lights up, and the contact name “13” shows up on her phone, she gasps in part shock and part anger, the phone slipping from her hand and clattering to the hardwood floor of her dressing room.

She wasn’t expecting that.

He’d been silent these last couple of weeks, giving her space after everything that had happened, so him calling so suddenly was…strange.

And Summer was definitely not prepared to speak to him today. Especially when she hadn’t sorted out how she felt and how she’d go about handling this ridiculous situation.

The noise alerts Alex and Sabrina, who Summer can hear scramble to their feet before they start knocking on the door.

“Summer,” Sabrina calls. “Are you okay in there?”

“Do you need help?” Alex offers.

Summer takes a deep breath, trying to calm her sudden racing heart and staring at her phone in total offense. She can hear Mat going “Hello? Summer?” and prays Sabrina and Alex can’t hear him at all.

“I’m fine,” Summer croaks out. “Just dropped my phone.”

She quickly bends down, grabbing her phone and ending the call, turning off her phone, and tossing it back into her purse. Quickly, she looks in the mirror, adjusting the dress one final time and fixing her hair.

There’s a slight flush to her cheeks, and she schools her facial expression, pointing at her reflection in the mirror as if to say “Get your shit together,” before squaring her shoulders and opening the door.

“What about this one?” Summer asks, pasting on her best “nothing to see here” smile.

Sabrina and Alex exchange suspicious glances, and Summer promptly ignores them.

And also especially ignores the way her heart hasn’t stopped pounding in her chest since hearing Mat’s voice.

Mat looks down at his phone one more time, then back at Summer’s building.

He hadn’t seen her since everything that had gone down at Sabrina and Anders’ place, and she’d been ignoring his texts and calls, save the one she definitely didn’t mean to answer the other day.

Part of him knows it’s because she’s probably upset at him and Anders for lying to her, but before, when she was upset, he was used to her arguing with him, with her still being around.

All this space and silence was new, and he didn’t like it at all.

As he approaches the front of her building, nerves start to creep in.

What the fuck am I doing here?

The more he wondered, the more he was afraid, the more he thought about her. And the more he thought about her, the more she got under his skin, the more she invaded his dreams, the more he knew he couldn’t waste another second without seeing her, or feeling her one more time.

No matter how badly he may have fucked up.

There’s a buzz, a loud one, that snaps him back into reality, and he’s surprised when “Come on up!” from Summer's cheery voice greets his ears.

He hears another buzz and the snick of the doors unlocking, so he rushes in without a second thought, taking the elevator to Summer’s floor.

When he gets to her door, he knocks tentatively, noticing she’s got some door decoration hanging over her peephole, and Mat feels his gut churn irritably.

“Coming!” Summer calls, and Mat’s heart suddenly starts to thunder in his chest.

Hold the fuck up. Is she expecting someone?

Blood starts to boil in his veins.

She let me in without even knowing who I was.

He can hear her footsteps getting closer to the door.

Is she…is she going on a date?

The thought is irrational, he knows, but he can’t help but worry about it anyway.

There’s a distinct shattering sound that echoes in his ears. Before he even debates if he has the right to think that, let alone even think of asking it, the door opens and Mat’s eyes are graced with the stunning reality of Summer’s natural beauty.

She’s wearing an oversized graphic t-shirt that has him questioning if she’s even wearing pants, and her long beautiful curls are down, stray curls framing her face, and then those chocolate eyes are staring at him in disbelief and he just-

Fuck.

“Hi.” He breathes, heart in his stomach.

God damn she’s so fucking beautiful.

“Mat?” Summer asks, like she doesn’t believe what’s in front of her. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to talk to you.” He begins. “I know it’s been a minute, but-”

“It’s been almost three weeks, actually,” Summer deadpans. “And now isn’t a good time.”

“Expecting someone else?” He all but interrogates, venom quickly seeping into his voice. It’s too easy with Summer, too easy to slip back into their little game, no matter how much he doesn’t want to.

But apparently Summer doesn’t want to either. She gives no indication that she’s heard him, no obvious tell that his irritation is irritating her right back. Her full lips don’t move, remain stoic and perfect and plump and-

God does he want to kiss her.

“Yes, actually.” She tells him. “I have friends coming over, and-”

Mat goes to her before he can think about it. He’s moving into her space, backing her into her apartment and kicking her door shut behind him before he takes her in his arms, spinning them around to press her back into the door and then sinking his hands into her hair, pulling her head back, and kissing her like his life depends on it.

For a moment, time stands still when his lips meet hers. He feels like his universe was knocked off its axis without her, and being close to her again, it’s like everything falls back into place.

All the tension, all the worry, all the “will she, won’t she,” it all falls away and disappears.

The only thing that matters is Summer.

Relief instantly floods his veins when he feels her relax against him, when her hands land on his shoulders, and it dissipates just as quickly when she puts just enough pressure under her hands and pushes him away.

Mat backs up, hands dropping away from her altogether, even though his fingertips tingle with the need to reach for her, to bring her back.

Summer looks angry.

“No.” She says firmly. “Absolutely not.”

No no no no no he thinks. Panics.

“Summer, I-” He begins, watching her walk past him and moves further into her living room.

“No, Mathew. You don’t do what you did and show up here and kiss me and expect me to just forgive you.”

“I’m sorry, I just meant to-”

“I know what you meant. But you still shouldn’t have done it.” Summer spits, all fire and brimstone. “You can’t come here and kiss me like I’m still your dirty little secret.”

“What?” He shakes his head, staring at Summer in disbelief. “You’re not my dirty little secret, Summer. That’s not what this was at all.”

“Yeah,” she rolls her eyes. “Okay.”

“I wanted to tell you the truth,” he insists, swearing, “I just…I just couldn’t.”

“Couldn’t tell me that Anders tried to enforce some stupid rule you didn’t need to listen to because you’re both grown men? Couldn’t tell me that he was being overprotective and that he told you you couldn’t be with me? Couldn’t tell me that you didn’t have the guts to tell him no to his face? What of any of that ‘couldn’t’ you do, Mat?”

Mat frowns. “He’s my captain, Summer.”

“What the fuck does that mean to me? He’s my brother in law. I could’ve handled him on my own, spoken to him and told him to back the fuck off, and Sabrina would’ve told him the same. Instead you made it sound like he knew the whole time but was just having trouble accepting it.”

“You’re right. I handled it terribly, and I’m sorry.”

She stares at him for a second, then nods. “Okay, I accept your apology, now get out.”

His stomach bottoms out. “What?”

“Just leave, Mat.” She says, shaking her head and pointing at her front door behind him. “Just leave.”

He doesn’t know what else to say, doesn’t know what else to do, so he just nods, doing exactly as she asks.

Mat lets out a frustrated groan, dropping down to the ice to lay on his back, pain running through his bones as he shuts his eyes.

He can hear a teammate skating closer to where he lays, before feeling the blade of a stick poke him in the side. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Isn’t that the fucking question of the day?

It had been a week since she’d kicked him out and no matter what he did, he couldn’t get the look on her face out of his head, and he couldn’t escape the lingering tingle on his lips after kissing her after spending so much time away from her.

The reality is that he had Summer, and then he didn’t. And though to everyone else it should seem like that’s normal, that they’ve always been at odds and don’t like each other, it couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Mat never hated Summer at all, and he never wanted to keep her a secret, but he thought that was his only option, the only way to go about finally being able to have her.

And he still ended up losing her anyway.

“Nothing.” Mat mutters, keeping his eyes shut and trying to focus on the freezing surface beneath him, wiggling his toes in his skates.

“Looks like something.” He hears Tito mutter as he skates closer. “You’re skating like shit today.”

“Thanks for that babe.” Mat deadpans. “Appreciate it.”

“Did you get dumped or something?” Tito asks again.

Mat’s eyes fly open at that, and he lolls his head to the side to glare at him. “Not so fucking loud, dingus.”

“Well is it true or not?” His best friend presses.

“I don’t even know if we were officially together in the first place.”

Across the ice, a loud voice echoes. “You’re not gonna be together in the future either if you don’t get your shit together.”

Mat finds himself shooting up into a sitting position, head spinning to look at his captain, who’s already looking at him with a frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Anders’ mouth presses together in a firm line as he skates closer to Mat and Tito, and when he’s close enough, he jabs Mat in the leg with the blade of his stick. “It means you need to apologize, you idiot.”

Mat just stares at him. “Thought you said you didn’t want me to be around her?”

“I said I didn’t want you to be around her if you weren’t serious about her. You moping around the locker room, skating like shit, acting like you just got divorced - that tells me that I was wrong about all of this, and that shit might be a little serious.”

Mat stays silent. He’s not exactly sure what to tell his captain at this point. A week ago it would’ve been “Fuck you very much,” but he’s pretty sure Anders is trying to…apologize?

He assesses him carefully, then it clicks. “Summer and Sabrina chewed you out, huh?”

Anders doesn’t look impressed. “I got what was coming to me. Looks like you did, too.”

Well that he couldn’t deny.

“I tried to apologize.” Mat admits. “She told me to take a hike.”

Anders scoffs. “Did you expect anything less? And since when do you back down from arguing with her?”

“Like you said, shit’s pretty serious. So…yeah. I backed down and I left when she told me to.”

Tito taps Mat in the leg with his skate gently. “You love her?”

Mat hesitates to answer, not because he’s not sure. He’s pretty sure he does, almost certain, but he’s never said it, not really shown it, and he isn’t sure if Anders is still after his head, so he stays quiet.

Anders sighs. “What do you feel for her, exactly?”

Mat can put it into words, but as he thinks about it, it might not be the best explanation.

I’m pretty sure I’ve been in love with Summer since the day I met her, but she hated me on sight, so I pretended to hate her too. Except then I realized that she actually liked me, and now because I’ve been an idiot I think she actually hates me. And I still think I might be in love with her anyway.

…to be fair, that didn’t sound so bad.

Except, when Mat says those exact words out loud to Anders, silence falls around them, and he realizes several of their teammates, including Tito, were in hearing range, and now everyone’s staring at Mat like they’re waiting for him to disintegrate right in front of them.

“I uh…” Mat begins, falters for a second. “I just mean…”

“I know what you mean.” Anders says, nodding. “You should probably tell her all that yourself though, yeah? Preferably soon. Wedding’s next week, and Sabrina and I are going on our mini honeymoon during the Thanksgiving break, so…do with that what you will.”

Without another word, Anders skates away, and only after Mat casts a scathing look to the rest of his eavesdropping teammates do they follow suit, except for Tito.

Tito shakes his head, tapping Mat’s side with the blade of his stick. “Get your shit together,” he insists, before he skates away too.

Mat sighs, laying back on the ice and letting the cold settle into his bones.

Sabrina and Anders had a beautiful wedding.

Truly, really, they did.

Summer’s heart ached with happiness for her sister.

It was everything Sabrina had wanted, everything she’d worked hard to plan, and through all the stress and breakdowns her older sister had, she was finally married and had the wedding of a lifetime to enjoy and look back on.

And since she and Anders had managed to resolve their issues, she was genuinely happy for him again, too.

She had a feeling she’d find it hard to remain upset at both Mat and Anders, considering the more time she had to think about it, and remembered that men were in fact, stupid, thanks to Sabrina, she did understand both their perspectives.

Anders had known her since she was sixteen and had seen her struggle with her self love, seen her date shitty people, and witnessed every second of her and Mat arguing like their lives depended on it. He was just looking out for her, wanting to protect her and make sure she didn’t go through something like that again, and especially not with someone Anders was friends and teammates with. He had to be around Mat on a frequent basis, and if it went bad between her and him, he would’ve had to tiptoe around them both awkwardly.

Except none of that was his to worry about, or even something Summer expected of him, which he understood now.

The part that had Summer tripped up was the fact that Mat had explicitly said he didn’t want to keep Summer a secret, and how she’d understood, but he ended up keeping her a secret too, and she unknowingly helped him.

Realistically, she did forgive Mat, but she also knows she should’ve been able to move on from it just as easily as she did with Anders. Maybe it was the fact that she expected more from Mat, considering how…intimate they were, but deep down she knew it was just her insecurities rearing their ugly head again.

Before it was the disbelief that he’d been looking at her in appreciation the first time they met, and now it was the uncertainty that he was only doing what he thought was the right thing to do at the moment. That he didn’t keep her a secret from anyone other than Anders and that he didn’t think she was enough to be shown off to the world.

Rationally, she knew it wasn’t anything, that she should be able to just move past it. But irrationally, Summer felt like it was still too good to be true.

Besides, they’d never actually said anything other than that they liked each other. It wasn’t like they’d fallen for one another.

Okay…maybe that’s not entirely true. Summer knew she’d started to, especially the more time they spent together, the more they’d slowly gotten to know one another.

But they never said anything to each other, so…

She’d managed to steer clear of him so far throughout the wedding, avoiding his gaze and purposely putting herself on the opposite side of the room. Right now, she was at the bar, waiting for the bartender to make her a margarita and watching where Sabrina and Anders were greeting their guests.

It was only when she realized after a moment that she didn’t see Mat anywhere that she had a feeling avoiding him wouldn’t be possible much longer.

“Do you think there’s more legs in the world? Or eyes?”

Despite the fact that she’d been expecting him, the absurd yet intriguing question has Summer turning her head to the right, and Mat stands there with a lopsided smile that spells mischief.

Her heart collides into her ribcage in a painful throb. It’s been almost a month since she’s seen Mathew last. He looks just as good, is everything she remembers and desperately tries to forget in the same breath.

Before she can help herself, the corner of her mouth quirks up in a small smile, and she leans against the bar a little, shaking her head. “Is that the best you’ve got?”

He shrugs, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Got your attention, didn’t I?”

She wants to roll her eyes, but refrains, turning her attention back to the bar, grabbing her drink from the bartender with a polite “thank you,” and dropping a five dollar bill in the tip jar next to her elbow.

As she starts to walk away, Summer can feel Mat fall into step with her, and even though she doesn't want for it to happen, her body stiffens, unease seeping into her bones at his proximity.

“I didn’t know if you’d show up to the reception or not.” He confesses, the charm slipping away from his tone.

She shrugs, nonchalant. “It’s my older sister’s wedding. Why wouldn’t I be here?”

“I wasn’t sure if you’d do it to avoid me. Or if you finally decided that you hated me.”

His confession almost makes her falter in her steps. Almost.

“That’s a bit dramatic, considering I remember that I told you that I never hated you in the first place.” She practically bites out, quickening her steps a little.

“Could’ve fooled me. I mean I never saw you after you kicked me out.”

“I’ve been right here.”

“It felt like you were on another planet.”

This time she does stop in her tracks, turning to face him. “What do you expect me to say, Mat? I’m not exactly happy about what happened. I know you apologized, and I get it, I just…I need time to come to terms with it, okay?”

Summer can see Sabrina approaching over his shoulder, and she shakes her head slightly, letting Sabrina know that she can handle this. Thankfully, she nods, and moves to make conversation with another table of her guests.

Mat looks at Summer then, swallowing a lump in his throat. “Tell me what I can do to help then. What do I have to do to make this right? Tell me how to fix this.”

She shakes her head, taking a step back. “You can’t,” she says, already retreating. “You just can’t.”

His eyes burn into her back as she leaves, and heads back to her seat. She’s determined to stay out of Mat’s way and keep her eyes away from his for the rest of the night, no matter how much her heart twists in her chest.

Mat stuffs one hand in the pocket of his hoodie, the other one clutching the bouquet of roses as he crosses the street, approaching Summer’s building for the first time since she kicked him out.

He felt like a bit of a stalker, showing up to her place unannounced again, but he felt like he didn’t know what else to do.

He’d tried asking Anders for advice, and the only thing his captain did was remind Mat that he and Sabrina were leaving on their mini honeymoon, and to take care of it before they got back.

So…this was him fixing it himself. Or trying to anyway.

It takes him an embarrassing amount of time to actually work up the courage to press the call button to her apartment building. This time, when he presses it, instead of Summer letting him up immediately, there’s a small pause, before her soft voice comes through the speaker.

“Mat?”

He pauses, waving awkwardly at the little camera. “Hi.”

Another pause, then he hears Summer sigh. “You’re not going to give up on this, are you?”

“Probably not, no.” Mat answers honestly, running a hand through his hair.

There’s silence, and then the building door buzzes and Mat pauses for a second too long before heading through it, and up to Summer’s apartment.

He only manages to knock once before the door flies open and reveals Summer standing there in jeans, a white tank top, and a black cardigan over it, her feet in fuzzy socks and even fuzzier house slippers.

Still, she looks so fucking beautiful.

Summer has a look on her face that he can’t read, and that in itself scares the shit out of him. He’s experienced every single one of Summer’s emotions, been the target of a few of them too many times to count, but this one is…

Different.

“For you,” he forces himself to say, handing the roses out to her. “As an apology. Or, the start to one.”

Summer eyes the roses, and for a split second Mat thinks he can see the corner of her mouth quirk up in a little smile, but then it’s gone. She takes the roses from him hesitantly, cradling them in her arms and staring at them for a second.

Mat hovers in the doorway, unsure of what to do.

Summer clears her throat, deciding for the both of them. “Are you just going to loiter in my hallway, thirteen? Or do you want to come in?”

The urge he used to instinctively have to roll his eyes is gone, and instead all he can do is nod, crossing over the threshold when she steps aside to let him in.

He toes off his shoes by the door, following her inside. He waits while she puts the roses in a vase, looking at the art on her walls.

When she comes back, they sit on the couch, and Mat takes a small breath.

“Maybe I should go first this time,” Summer says suddenly. He nods, waiting patiently, and she sighs.

“I want to start off by saying that I do forgive you, and that I do understand where you and Anders were coming from, no matter how ridiculous. I think the thing that's kept me upset is that I couldn't tell for myself whether or not you kept me a secret for you, or for Anders.”

“It was for Anders,” he swears. “I would never keep you a secret, Summer. I swear.”

“Okay,” she nods, accepting his answer. “Then with that being said, I don’t want to completely put you on the spot, but what exactly is this?”

“This?” Mat asks, confused.

“You and I,” Summer says. “What are we? Because I’m going to be honest, I’m not really sure.”

“Well, I would like to say you’re my girlfriend, but we didn’t really establish that.” He hesitates, gauging her reaction. “Would you…would you agree that we were dating?”

Summer nods. “Yeah, I thought we were. I thought you were my boyfriend.”

Mat really doesn’t like the past tense she’s using, but ignores it. “Is there anything that's stopping you from thinking that I still am?”

“I just don't know that I'm clear on how you feel, and I would prefer we lay our cards out on the table now.”

“Okay,” he says, turning his body towards her. “That first day that we met, I’d spotted you before I even realized who you were. You came inside with Sabrina, and I could see you from where I was in the kitchen. I was staring at you when you met me, admittedly for probably a long time, because from that very first second, I thought you were beautiful, and I wanted to get to know you.”

Mat can see Summer’s surprised by his admission, but he continues. “I’ve always liked you, and I’ve always been interested, but I was under the impression that you didn't like me, so I just followed your lead. I was jealous of your ex, I was jealous of that random dude from the club, and it was because this whole time I felt like I'd ruined my chances before I even had one. When you were finally single, and we slept together for the first time, it felt like I finally did have that chance, but then Anders stepped in and…well you know the rest.”

Summer’s quiet for a second, observing him, and then she nods. “I knew who you were when we met, it was kind of hard not to. I thought you were cute and I was excited to meet you, but then when I caught you staring, I got insecure. I thought you were judging me, and that's why I shut you out and didn't let you in at first.”

Mat’s heart shatters in his chest.

How could you not see I thought you were the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen? He wants to ask her, How could you not see you had me in the palm of your hands that very first day?

“I thought that there was no way that you would be interested in someone like me, so I put up a wall and thought it would be better to keep you at a distance. I didn't really intend for us to bicker for as long as we did.” Summer admits.

She takes a deep breath, fiddling with her own hands. “When I was with my ex, I was genuinely with him, and then when I wasn't, and you and I slept together, I was genuinely into you. I had a feeling that it might be complicated between you and Anders, and when you suggested not telling him anything at first, I understood, and I still understand, but I'm still having a hard time in my head trying to convince myself that you weren't trying to be malicious.”

Mat moves to reassure her, but the soft smile she gives him stops him. “I know that you weren't, but like I said, that's for me to convince myself of and not you.”

“So…not that I have selective hearing, I’m just trying to get this right. Do you have feelings for me?” Summer laughs softly at his question, but nods, so he continues. “And I have feelings for you. And you forgive me for what happened?”

Summer nods again, “I do.”

“Okay…then…” Mat trails off, unsure of how this is supposed to go.

“Then?”

“Are we…okay?” He asks.

“We’re okay,” Summer says, nodding. There’s a moment where Mat’s relieved, where he feels like he can breathe again, but then she says “But I don’t know if we should get back together. Or…get together, however you want to put it.”

Mat’s heart thumps hard in his chest. “What?”

“Not today. Not right now.” She says, a small shake in her head. “I think…don't you think we need to take a step back?”

“What about a step at a time?” He offers.

Summer blinks. “What?”

“You said we shouldn’t get back together today, and I can see your point. Not today. But maybe…maybe we can just take this a day at a time?”

“Mat…” Summer hesitates, completely unsure. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to know. Not right now. That’s why we can take it a day at a time.”

She eyes him quietly, a million emotions flitting across her face as the seconds pass between the two of them. “What would you even do? Where would we even start?”

“Coffee.” Mat says immediately. “Just coffee. Nothing more, nothing less. Just let me buy you a coffee.”

Summer’s quiet, and for a second, Mat worries she’s going to say no, but then her shoulders relax, and she nods. “Okay, coffee sounds good.”

Three Months Later

“You just wanted me close to a knife when it was in your hand, didn’t you?”

Summer shakes her head with a small laugh, turning the knife around in her hand so she holds the blade between her fingers, placing the handle in Mat’s hand. He takes it, but the hesitancy is still in his gaze, so she idles up beside him, bumping his hip a little before focusing on the kitchen counter.

Mat had admitted that he hadn’t tried Filipino food before when Summer and Sabrina had gone to visit their parents in New Jersey, so she’d offered to cook for him only on the condition he helped out.

Their father, Sonny, had come from the Philippines as a child with their grandparents. Their mother, Shauna, who’d grown up in the Bronx, lost her parents by the time she’d married their dad, and so the girls had mostly grown up with the Maldonado family.

Their grandmother, Soledad - the “S” naming tradition in the family ran deep - had taught the girls how to cook staple dishes when they were young, so Summer could make this in her sleep.

She’d already gone through the meticulous and thorough process of showing Mat how to wash rice and correctly measure for the correct amount of water, and that was currently bubbling away in the rice cooker on her kitchen counter.

Now, she was going to walk him through making the marinade for probably the easiest dish to introduce Mat to when it came to Filipino cuisine - chicken adobo.

“Okay, so I’m going to cut up the onion, but I need you to mince the garlic. We have eight cloves here, and you’re going to take a piece of garlic and put it under your blade,” she instructs, grabbing one of the extra cloves of garlic she’d put aside for practice, and moving it to her board. She places her blade right on top and waits until Mat’s done the same.

“Good, now don’t hesitate, just bring the meat of your fist, pinky side down, onto the back side of the blade, and smash the clove. Just be sure you’re holding the handle of the knife firmly, like this,” Summer says, then brings her hand down, listening to the blade and the satisfying crunch of the garlic clove beneath it.

Mat follows suit on his own clove, and of course, because he’s apparently good at everything, gets it right on the first try. He smiles shyly anyway, waiting for her confirmation, to which she smiles, giving him a quick peck on the lips. “Perfect.”

Mat beams at the praise. “Really?”

“Yeah, so just do that to the other seven, and it’ll be easier to chop those up. Think you can handle it?”

He nods, reaching for another clove, and Summer tosses him the one on her board before grabbing the onion.

They work in a silent tandem, and Summer chances a look at him to find his tongue peeking out from between his lips in concentration.

It makes her heart twinge with something she isn’t totally ready to come to terms with.

They’d been doing this…thing…taking it a day at a time, for the last few months. Mat had taken her out on countless dates, focusing on romancing her the way he would have had they not gotten off on the wrong foot. There had been some sex, not a lot, but whenever they did have sex, it was always intense, and Mat always made a point to reassure Summer every chance he got, in bed and out of it, that he thought she was beautiful, kind, and everything he ever wanted.

Outside of that, Mat had taken her to meet his parents and his sister, and even joined her on her bi-weekly Saturday visits to Anders and Sabrina’s home for family dinners. The captain and his winger were still working on repairing that whole mess, but it was getting better, for the most part.

And now he was here. In her kitchen. Learning how to make her Lola’s chicken adobo.

When she finished with the onion, she tossed everything into a pan with a little vegetable oil, placed it on the stove and fired up the burner. She grabbed a bowl from the cabinet, then brought it over to Mat for him to dump in his minced garlic.

“Pretty good there, thirteen.” She says before guiding him to the sink to wash and dry their hands.

“Okay, now what do I do?”

Summer smiles, pointing at the ingredients next to the stove. There’s shoyu, vinegar, brown sugar, black pepper, chicken stock, peppercorns, and bay leaves. “I need you to measure out the ingredients on the card by the bottles and put them in that little bowl next to it.”

“What? I’m on measuring duty?” He asks, wrinkling his nose with a frown.

Summer leans up and kisses his nose before backing away. “It’s because you’re meticulous, so I trust you.”

He blinks after her kiss, then nods, heading over to his new station with a little more pep in his step.

Summer stirs the onions around since they’ve already started to cook, then grabs the minced garlic and tosses it in before heading to the fridge.

Her Lola’s recipe is usually meant as dinner for two, so she had six pieces of chicken thighs rinsed and pat dry set aside specifically for dinner tonight. Bringing the plate out of the fridge and over to the pan, she grabs a pair of tongs and places each piece skin side down once the onions and garlic get fragrant, allowing them to brown a bit.

She double checks on Mat’s progress, only to find him already done, marinade measuring and poured in the bowl, and his eyes on Summer, watching her with a cheshire smile.

“Look at you,” she muses, going easily to him when he opens his arms, wrapping her own around his waist. “Hope you’re not too attached to your diet.” She teases.

Mat scoffs. “As if.”

“You’re right,” Summer agrees, running her hands under his shirt and caressing the hard muscle of his abdomen. “You don’t really need it.”

She feels him flex under her fingers and she laughs, looking up to find him smirking down at her, the heat in his eyes evident. “Well I kinda need it, gotta stay in shape to keep up with you at night.”

As if to remind her, her body’s muscles choose that moment to remind her of their ache, and Summer flushes, pushing away from Mat to head back to her place on the stove.

“Well,” she begins, flipping the chicken over. “I appreciate your dedication. Can you bring over the marinade?”

He nods, grabbing the bowl and carefully idling up beside her.

“Okay, now you’re just gonna pour it over everything, but make sure you cover each piece of chicken when you go.” She watches as Mat follows her instruction, and once he’s done, she shakes the pan a little, lowers the temperature a smidge, then covers it with a lid.

“Now what?” He asks, looking around. She’d already washed and set the rice to cook in the rice cooker on her counter, but he didn’t see any additional food lying around.

“Well, we have to let it cook for about fifteen minutes, and then we add the finishing touches, and then we eat!”

She ushers him back toward the stove to wash their hands again. It was something she’d learned as a kid, washing her hands after every step in cooking, and she hoped Mat didn’t think it was weird or strange.

He didn’t seem to mind though, going easily along and washing and drying his hands beside her without complaint.

“So…we have fifteen minutes to ourselves?” He asks, setting up a timer on his phone.

Summer raises a brow at him in suspicion. “Yes…why?”

Mat smirks, leaning with his hip against the sink when he reaches for Summer. “Cause I’ve been thinking about eating your pussy since this morning. Can I?”

He takes her in his arms before she can answer, and then he’s kissing her neck, hands wrapping around her waist and down to her ass, palming the flesh in his hands. She moans a little when his teeth nip at her neck, and she has to push him away to be able to back up and out of his space. “Mat, we shouldn’t, we-”

“Please baby,” he pleads, taking a step and crowding her back against the counter. “Just this once?” She feels his hands creep at the hem of her dress - the easiest thing to wear around him, especially when they tend to have moments like this - his fingers bunching it up to her stomach when he drops to his knees.

Summer finds herself automatically grabbing the material between her fingers, nodding her head and lifting her hips away from the counter for Mat to pull her underwear down her legs. She doesn’t miss the smile that crosses his face when he runs the lace through his fingers, and stuffs the fabric in the pocket of his jeans.

“Jump up on the counter, baby.” He says, waiting for Summer to settle onto the counter before pulling her forward, her butt resting on the edge of the counter. Mat grabs one of her barstools from the other side and places it right in front of her before taking a seat, pressing “start” on the timer on his phone.

He feels like he could drool a little at the sight of her open and bare for him, the prettiest shade of pink shining at him like a neon sign saying “just for you.”

Not another second passes before he’s burying his face into her pussy, Summer letting out a blissful and content sigh as her body relaxes and Mat settles her feet on his shoulders, gently circling his hand around her ankles and encouraging her to wrap her legs around his head, to pull him in closer.

She doesn’t, not right away, anyway, too wrapped up in the feeling of Mat’s tongue. He squeezes her ankle once, trying to get her attention, and all Summer can manage is to loll her head to the side to peek at him. He rises up a little, speaking against her skin, not wanting to be too far from her.

“Wrap those beautiful legs around my head, baby.”

All she can manage is a nod, and Mat returns to his task, moaning when her warm thighs touch either side of his face, his shoulders under her knees and her beautiful calves resting on his back. He can feel when she locks her ankles behind him and he settles in closer, relaxing against her as his mouth continues to devour her pussy, her arousal dripping down his chin.

He feels her nails scratch against his scalp when her hands dive into his hair, fingers gripping his curls and lightly tugging. Mat knows those tugs by heart now, which one means to keep going, which ones mean to ease up, which ones mean she’s loving it and not to stop or she’ll kill him.

“Mat,” she whimpers, her thighs squeezing his head and he nods, bringing his hands up to squeeze her breasts, loving when her hands cover his, holding onto him.

He says nothing, just focuses on keeping his pace and the way Summer’s body reacts to his mouth, beginning to feel her start to shake under him as she gets closer and closer to her orgasm.

Right when Mat thinks she’s going to grip his hair tighter, letting him know that she’s about to come, she suddenly sits up, pushing him back gently.

“Baby?” He asks, confused.

“Get up,” she says, and he’s up and off the stool in a second, approaching her carefully. He’s only a little surprised when she reaches for the waistband of his jeans, making quick work of the button and the zipper. By the time Mat’s brain catches up to him and finally understands what Summer wants, she’s got her hands in the waistband of his briefs, pulling them down while Mat’s cock springs free.

He watches as her pupils blow out wide, and smirks a little. Gently, he places a finger under her chin, coaxing her gaze back to his face. He kisses her a couple of times while crowding into her space, resting his cock against her soaked pussy while she chases the taste of herself on his tongue.

Mat grips her waist, pulling her a little further to the edge of the counter, gently moving his hips.

“Needy girl,” he playfully chastises. “Won’t even let me finish eating that pretty pussy because you’re so desperate for cock.”

Her eyes flash up at him, her playful spitfire in her eyes at his dirty talk. Mat’s found out that this is the kind of push and pull she prefers most, when he teases her or says dirty things and she can fight him back on it in a way that doesn’t cost them both.

Mat can see that she wants to talk back, but she bites her lip to refrain herself.

“Use your words pretty girl,” he says, grinding his cock against her. “Ask me nicely.”

“Please give me your cock,” Summer replies obediently. “I need it.”

Mat smiles, murmuring a soft “Good girl,” then he’s moving his hips back until the tip of his cock catches at her entrance and pushes in slowly, watching Summer’s face the whole time.

He loves this part, loves watching the way her whole body relaxes, watching the way her eyes flutter shut and her beautiful mouth parts just a little as her body welcomes him. He leans forward, capturing her lips in a gentle kiss as he bottoms out, waiting for her to adjust to him.

He’s learned he loves that part, too - how no matter how many times they’ve done this so far, she always seems to need a minute to adjust to him. But whenever she did, she took him so well that they could go at it over and over again till their muscles were sore.

While he waits for her to adjust, he takes a quick glance over at her stove, then at his phone, checking the time. Nothing’s burning, but he’s still only got about five or so minutes left.

Mat turns back to her, bending his head and burying his face into Summer’s neck, leaving filthy open mouthed kisses, speaking in between.

“Are you okay if we make this quick? Since we are cooking and all.”

That seems to bring her back to reality just a little, because he can feel her nod, and then she’s locking her ankles behind his back again, pulling him in closer - her usual sign that she’s ready for whatever Mat gives her.

He carefully pulls back before pushing back in, setting a pace he knows is enough to bring Summer to orgasm in no time. Summer lays back on the counter, and Mat’s hands immediately go to her breasts, cupping them through the material before yanking it down, smirking to himself when he finds she’s not wearing a bra.

Mat leans down, sucking a nipple into his mouth and drawing a soft whine from Summer’s lips. A whine that tells him that she’s definitely going to come in no time if he keeps it up.

He laps at her skin with his tongue, sucking at her skin as his hips piston in and out of her, moaning when he feels her squeeze down on him as her breath catches in her throat. Her back bends and he keeps his pace, his own orgasm quickly approaching as Summer comes around him, squeezing his cock in a vice grip and wrapping her legs tighter around his waist.

He comes a few seconds later, buried deep inside and his mouth still latched to her, tongue soothing over the now bruised skin.

His favorite part is this, the moment right after they fuck - how she seems so content to just lay there with him and let him hold her, let him stay inside her till he’s either ready to go again or ready to help clean her up or drag them both to the shower.

They catch their breath for a moment, Mat just staring down at her, admiring her beautiful curves, her full breasts, the curve of her belly. He traces his hands down her stomach, gently caressing her skin, rubbing at where he’s still buried inside her.

Her breath catches in her throat at the same time the timer goes off on his phone, and they both jump, Mat slipping out of her suddenly, and they both hiss at the loss.

“Well,” Summer says through a small sigh, “Looks like lunch is ready.”

Mat frowns. “But I already ate?”

Summer blinks at him, and when he smirks playfully, wagging his eyebrows, she rolls her eyes, slowly sitting up. “Funny, thirteen.”

He leans in for a kiss, and she softens, going lax in his embrace. Between kisses, Mat can feel his heart hammering in his rib cage, and he murmurs “I love you, Summer,” before he can stop himself.

She pauses for a second, lips frozen against his, and he backs up, gauging her reaction. She’s shocked, that much is obvious, and Mat can see the hesitation, so he leans in, kisses the tip of her nose, then her cheeks.

“You don’t have to say it back,” he says, “I can wait as long as you need me to. I just wanted to make sure I laid all my cards out on the table.”

She leans back, looking into his eyes. Mat knows what she’s looking for, knows she’s trying to make sure he’s being genuine, but he’s pretty sure he’s got hearts in his eyes, so she’s probably going to find what she’s looking for pretty quick.

“Mat…” She says, his name soft and syrupy on her lips.

“I love you,” he repeats again, leaning in to kiss her again. “And you can tell me when you’re ready.”

He pulls away, heading toward the stove to finish up, but Summer takes him by surprise, pulling him back to her and kissing him like her life depends on it, wrapping her arms around his neck and drawing him close.

“I’m ready,” she says between kisses. “I love you.”

#mat barzal #mathew barzal #mat barzal imagine #mat barzal fic #mat barzal smut #mat barzal blurb #mat barzal x ofc #mathew barzal x ofc #mat barzal x woc!ofc #mathew barzal x woc!ofc #original female character #enemies to lovers #mendeshoney masterlist

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cheeserobin · 8 months ago

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Suren Darga deserved better 2.0

clarification: this post is resubmitted because I had already touched this same topic in Spanish, everything is original.

WARNING: English is not my first language, I am sorry for any spelling mistakes that may appear below.

Any DC fan or Damian fan knows the joke about DC forgetting their friends, which is sadly funny. Luckily that's what we ( the fandom ) are here for, to not let characters with potential be forgotten thanks to evil editors.

Now what happened to Suren Darga?. I'm not kidding when I say that the kid seems to have been left in a giant void for everyone after his last appearance, because his wiki the only thing it says about him is this:

"Suren Darga is the son of Den Darga and the prince of the Lu'un Darga."

And I'm not exaggerating

And they also put him as “Supervillain”, ok.

Suren was forgotten and I have a feeling that wasn't the idea mainly, not only because he has a whole interesting past that should have been seen but also his team, trio or whatever he may have had with Maya and Damian looked so…real. They were going to be even if it was allies and great friends.

Plus after his end of the world disaster, showing his very fucked up daddy issues and receiving possibly the most painful punch in the face of his life.

He was to have a long, but sincere arc of redemption.

And let's not forget that Suren at the time helped Damian's development as much as Damian helped Suren's development. He and Maya changed for the better thanks to the fifth Robin in that same comic.

Maya was going to follow her father's path of blood, having Damian as her first victim as revenge. Luckily for both of them, Damian proved that he changed and that she could do it too, preventing her from getting her hands dirty like her father and becoming his older sister.

And I think Suren goes one step further. Maya herself says: “Man, you guys have so much in common”.

Suren was going to do the end of the world to give honor to his family, but also for the infinite and pure love of a child that he had for his father, but Robin knowing that feeling of hunger for affection and family understanding stopped him making him see that there are simply shitty parents who do more harm than good. That he knew what that was like and that he should let go of that toxic environment before he became something worse. They were so alike that Robin just couldn't leave him alone.

In short, I apply the “AMIGA DATE CUENTA” (FRIEND BE AWARE).

And I think for Damian's development it felt good for him to help these characters who were in a dark place like he once was to realize that he really became a better person who wanted to help others unconditionally. that that R of redemption in his chest was for something and worth his effort.

But this does not end happily for Suren. We never knew if he really moved away from the shadow of his family and to forge his own story or if he is still in contact with his only friends until now and if we go further, is he still alive? The worst part of this is that the writers/publishers would have no excuse to leave him behind saying “He's not an interesting character” since his origin story, coming back from the dead which could have caused him another trauma and conflict and his VERY GENIUS connection with magic do make him interesting, VERY interesting.

But DC doesn't agree with that, so the last we have of this kid is this panel of him smiling going on a new adventure, an adventure we never saw come to light.

“It NEVER ends” how funny.

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wasted-women · 1 year ago

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ROUND 1A, MATCH 1 OUT OF 8!

Causes of Death & Propaganda Under the Cut:

Jiang Yanli

Cause of Death: Stabbed; Self-sacrifice to save her brother.

Propaganda:

she's your pfp that's got to count for something

I love JYL don't get me wrong! But also. She is solely written as a part of the male characters and does not get much in her own right. She is Wei Wuxian's older sect sister, or Jiang Cheng's sister, or Jin Zixuan's fiance/wife, or Jin Ling's mother he never got to know. Even what characterization people give her (like liking soup/cooking or standing up for her family despite being gentle) are things that have to do with her brothers. I wish we got more of her in her own right.

AND ALSO. ALSO??? HER DEATH MAKES. NO SENSE. Okay first of all - she was in Lanling grieving for her very recently dead husband & taking care of her newborn baby. Who would let that woman out of Lanling????? WHY???? How did she get out of there SO FAST????? She doesn't have a sword/isn't a cultivator (at least in MDZS) so she couldn't have flown. And then after she got there WHO LET HER JUST OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BATTLEFIELD???? WHY DID SHE GO THERE???? Even if there was a short part of her saying "I need to talk to Wei Wuxian about how he killed my husband and I'm going to get there no matter what" would've clarified things a little bc it's like okay she needs to go there even if we don't know how. Where are my answers MXTX, where are my answers????

Qin Su

Cause of Death: Suicide; Stabbed herself with a knife. (NOTE: In some versions of the story, she was being controlled and thus forced to kill herself.

Propaganda:

I'm fairly certain this character was only created as set dressing for the main villain's tragedy. We get zero insight into her inner life, zero hints that any such inner life might even exist, and after she dies basically no other named character other than the aforementioned villain is shown to be majorly affected by her death, even those who logically should have meaningful relationships with her.

Compared to the other two main female characters in this series (who are also fridged) Jiang Yanli and Wen Qing, Qin Su is probably the least aggravating because she's barely in the show and has very little character that we see. But I still think it's worth noting. I really wish that she could've survived and been there in Guanyin Temple IT COULD'VE BEEN COOL OKAY.

Wen Qing

Cause of Death: Executed; Burned to ashes.

Propaganda:

The fact that Wen Qing is the character that originally said the thing about "I'm sorry" and "Thank you", which is repeated multiple times in the post-resurrection parts of the series, but is so rarely mentioned by name is so aggravating! She's such an important part of the plot that did SO MANY THINGS but just basically disappears after her death!!! The only time I really remember her being mentioned is when her brother, Wen Ning, mentions her integral role in the golden core reveal. Jiang Yanli's ghost haunts the series after her death, but Wen Qing's really doesn't, and that's so fucked up to me. She even dies during the same time that Wen Ning does, but then it's revealed he survived (well, "survived", he is a zombie, but he was that beforehand too) SO WHY COULDN'T SHE HAVE SURVIVED TOO????

#wasted women poll #jiang yanli #wen qing #qin su #mo dao zu shi #the grandmaster of demonic cultivation #the founder of diabolism #chen qing ling #the untamed #poll bracket #poll tournament #character polls #polls #round 1 #round 1a

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pimento-playing-hopscotch · 2 months ago

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Did any show have a pilot like LS had a pilot? I think not!

So I started watching LS in between seasons 3 and 4, with only have ever watched maybe just the pilot of OG 911.

Because of that, my impression from og 911 off of tumblr is a mixed bag of — ANGELA BASSETT!! Shit, do people really get duct taped to their seats in airplanes? Aww, remember when Jennifer Love Hewitt was in Sister Act 2? Lowkey get the hype after seeing Peter Krause in the spirit tunnel of Jennifer Hudson’s show; that man does indeed seem precious! The main guy is not American irl but does a very good accent so you wouldn’t know it… adorable child… a woman had a snake wrapped around her neck in the pilot… and that is the extent of my knowledge on og 911.

BUT I do know that og 911 wasn’t canceled to make room for LS, and that LS is very far from a carbon copy of it.

Making the Nashville show all the more insulting (and I’m paraphrasing someone else’s post, but Don Sharpe does sound like the fakest name ever. Like posts that stick in your brain — the post of Penn Badgley’s name sounds like it was made up on the spot when he saw a pen and a badge on someone’s desk — Don Sharpe feels like that level of line-of-sight fake name.

Which cannot be said for Owen Strand, or TK Strand, or really anyone in LS!

They are originals, and I thought, I could bitch and mutter about the Nashville show… or I could watch the LS pilot, which really said, “You think you’ve seen a pilot? I will SHOW you a pilot”.

And here are my unedited ramblings during said pilot…

All for want of a microwave burrito!!

I mean really sir — you are clearly above the age of someone with no attention span. But then, I never got into the football thing despite having two very into football parents, so I maybe just don’t get it.

“Oh, gig me” you know I’m glad to have the captions on my TV, cause otherwise I would have been like — what’d he say??

GRACE!!!!

How great is Grace — amazing Grace, indeed.

(I promise I’m not trying to make this about season five — but the way they wrote her off for season five is so beyond insulting. Like I don’t blame Sierra for a minute, Fox deserves all the blame and more. And I agree they shouldn’t have killed her off, but the Grace Ryder we knew for sixty episodes would never leave for anything unless she absolutely had to and leave her husband and child behind for months and be unreachable by phone (and no; because she felt the call of the Lord is NOT an “she absolutely had to”. Because her father’s health took a turn for the worst and her mother was taking him to the Mayo clinic; THAT is “she absolutely had to” and she would have taken her child with her; which would’ve fed into Judd feeling lost and isolated and been better than them treating Charlie as an afterthought in season five).

Okay back to pilot— JUDD!!

(Also, Grace would’ve been back in a second if knew Tommy was so sick or for Judd’s swearing-in ceremony)

Okay, NOW I’m back… damn, that is a huge fire.

It’s going good, they’re getting done… and Grace tells Judd they store ammonium nitrate at this facility.

Judd is Simba seeing all the wildebeests coming-

Now can we talk about how good this pilot is???

Judd is literally steps away from his crew when it all goes to hell. His life is spared when he gets blown back, but theirs aren’t.

Grace hears all this over the phone and has NO CLUE whether or not she’s just heard the love of her life die in real time.

“LADDER 126. PLEASE RESPOND”. This is how you do a pilot yall….

Six months later, we’re in Manhattan, baby!

TURNOUTS TK!! BABY TK IN HIS NEW YORK TURNOUTS!!

Awww…. There’s a lot I can say about Owen and TK, but one thing I love is that you can tell they’re already close (not just because they work together, but also, seriously — if TK resented his dad that much, he didn’t have to be a firefighter, first of all. And second of all, he REALLY didn’t have to work at his dad’s house if he didn’t want to).

But he adores his dad, and he has clearly been waiting for a time to tell him he’s proposing.

And he knows Owen Strand will have an opinion — and it seeps out a little bit when Owen points out that TK doesn’t live with the person he plans to propose to — but Owen truly adores his kid so much, and keeps that to himself.

(Other things that I always think of during this part; how both Owen’s second marriage and TK and Alex’s relationship both lasted less than a year).

Like, my headcanon is that Gwyn and Enzo had been together for ten years (although fandom Enzo will always be better than canon Enzo; canon Enzo confounds me so much because it’s like… have you guys forgotten Gwyneth Morgan entirely?? She wouldn’t give that joker the time of day) but that Owen was like oh I will SHOW you who is over it — and that him and Lorraine were not together very long before they got married and it didn’t last.

Much like TK and Alex — like I put that at they’ve been together seven months or so— and that TK has definitely brought up moving in together, but Alex held him off, because he was never serious about TK the way TK was.

Poor boy just wants to be loved like that so bad!!

“God, I love New York”. Okay little more season five talk; I know they tried to mirror this line in the finale, but to me this is showing Owen has had no growth at all; like yes, Owen loves New York. But Owen wouldn’t choose New York over everyone who means anything to him, especially when his son has taken on raising his little brother!!

“My son’s getting engaged tonight. Will I make it to the wedding?” Owen :’(

This makes me think of the Joseph Gordon-Levitt movie where he’s told he has cancer and he’s so confused, “But I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. I… recycle”.

And back to TK who’s apart to have his heart ripped out in a very nice looking restaurant…

HEAD PLONK!!! The first head plonk and it’s with Alex?? I like to think Alex wasn’t a completely evil person, he just didn’t think what they was that serious, but he’s about to hurt our boy so bad and HE DOES NOT DESERVE THAT HEAD PLONK!!!

Awww sweet baby TK, I just want to pull him out of the screen and save him from this!!!

Deputy Chief Radford!!

Okay I know Owen is waxing poetic about South Tower he has on his desk… but all I can wonder is what is in that smoothie.

Like he’s already late; did he make them wait while he made himself a gray smoothie??

Radford offers him the job!!

And we learn that Owen rebuilt his house after 9/11, and there are 48 firehouses in Austin.

Owen is very confused when the department of justice lady says she’s there because Austin has had an inclusivity problem and Owen is like, “I am… not diverse???? Was was Laurie on Cougar Town right all along when she said, “All you need to fix minority problems is a really pretty white woman”?

(He didn’t say that last part, but she was calling out the white savior teacher movies; I can never decide if I want to recommend Cougar town or not; on one hand, it’s Bill Lawrence so the comedy is sharp for at least the first four seasons, but also, the alcohol thing… sorry, back to this).

Anyway— Radford says they need someone who’s not Texas to come and bring a new team together. Owen turns him down, citing his son is here and he’s lived here since he was a teenager (and yet they really thought the way to end his story was for him to go back to New York ALONE; I’m sorry I’m still not over that).

Owen says no; Radford stares at him for what feels like a weirdly long time without blinking, then gives him his card.

The scene. THE SCENE.

Owen asks a passing firefighter where TK is, and she says they were going to ask him the same thing.

Owen goes to his son’s place and doesn’t get an answer at the door; he calls his house and tells them to get over with the battering ram.

TK IS ON THE FLOOR SURROUNDED BY PILLS!!!

(Also — I have hulu with ads so got a minute; New York rent is no joke, but also, firefighting is a well paid job; so thinking why does TK have his own place, I would say there’s a chance he could afford it on his own, and beyond that, he has two parents with good jobs who would co-sign his lease in a second; and it’s my own headcanon after rehab in 2017, his mom was like; yeah you’re not having any more shitty roommates, you’re living by yourself and we’ll help).

He's in cardiac arrest; god this is intense but so good!!

Owen stabs the Narcan into his baby boy… and it works!!

TK’s back!!

Just like when he wakes from his coma, the first thing he does is start calling for his dad!!

When Owen started rocking him and TK is just tearfully apologizing… my heart!!

The rooftop scene!! First time we see TK in a hoodie.

“You tried to kill yourself?” “No”… ohhhh sweet boy… to quote Hilary Duff; “you’re not fooling no one, you’re not even fooling you…”

Alex is the worst. I try to give him nuance, but also, he is the worst to hurt TK like this!!

The neck squeeze; I have written almost half a million words on these based on the neck squeeze and their later head plonk alone.

TK truly seems like a little kid around his dad so much this first season; is he gonna get in trouble?? I just want to hug him so bad and not let go.

Owen might love New York, but there is more important things, like getting his kid away from his environment (also more important things; being there for his son when he becomes a parent. But I digress).

Okay it really strikes me that their sign says “Drive Friendly; the Texas way” when Texas reputedly has very bad driving going on there; are they not a highway full of thirteen-year-olds?

They’ve arrived at the 126; darkened and with an enormous memorial on the sidewalk.

Now, can we talk about how Don Sharpe’s beloved son will never be THIS beloved son??

TK has been hurt so badly. He is so mad at the world, and has been in a car for days with his dad, who was most likely going between trying not to make him talk about it and trying to buck him up (and being that it’s TK, probably spending every stop just getting him to eat something).

TK has so much anger; but as soon as they’re there, that all dissolves and is replaced by this feeling of… they’re in the wrong for being here.

They can’t do this.

They can’t add to the pain of the people who have lost these men.

TK, even when he’s hurting, is truly the sweetest, most empathetic soul with the biggest heart, and no Nashville son could ever compare!!

“You know me. I tread very lightly”. Oh, Owen. Two things no one would ever accuse you of having; chill or subtlety.

Mateo!!

Owen sees Mateo working his little behind off to clean the handles of Radford’s car (which also; why does Radford need a driver to drive his lazy ass around??)

All the resumes that Radford has brought Owen are from all over the state; Owen tells him he’s casting a slightly wider net.

Marjan!! “I’m allergic to poor leadership”. I love her so much; and I wish they had developed the friendship more between her and TK (like it always stands out to me we see one on one scenes with Marjan and Mateo, Judd, Carlos, lots with Paul… why didn’t we ever see Marjan and TK? Why are they the friends who don’t hang??)

Owen asks Mateo why he bothered to clean the inside of the door handles; who would know? “I would, sir”. We also learn that Mateo has set records in the field, but flunked out due to the written exam four times.

All the hugs for Mateo when Owen tells him he’s not stupid and Mateo replies, “I’m not?” Because he’s not!! And it’s clear no one has ever told him that before!! Or that he’s thorough and relentless, like Owen tells him.

TK warns Owen bringing in “this guy” people around there will lose their minds… and we meet Paul!!

I love the Jax story, but I wish they could have done it earlier so it wasn’t shoehorned in at the end (main thought when watching the Paul interview)

Judd!!

We learn that Judd was in the hospital for six weeks but he says “I’m good now”. Owen disagrees, because he hasn’t completed his CSID (I can’t find what this would be that isn’t an autoimmune disorder, but the gist is; Judd hasn’t done therapy).

And he doesn’t plan to. And he isn’t thrilled he had to have this interview in the first place, and he tells Owen that.

Owen corrects him that this isn’t an interview; he wanted to meet Judd to see if he’s ready to come back. And now, Owen knows for certain that he isn’t.

Okay, I totally remembered part of this wrong; I thought the “we-are-the-world” line came from Billy Tyson, (cause let’s face it, Billy sucks) in my mind that wasn’t Judd!

But also this Judd is very different from the Judd we know, and it’s understandable. He’s been through something unthinkable, and on top of everything taken away from him, this outsider has been given the authority to take his job away from him too.

(Have I said too any times this is how you do a pilot? Cause this is how YOU DO A PILOT).

The Strand house!! The first we see of this; and they’re stunned the whole house is $4500.

Also I get a kick out of Owen declaring Brooklyn real estate is “dumb”.

I do question how TK is surprised that Owen expects him to live there too; Owen, why didn’t this come up on the drive??

(Because the drive was a lot of “TK?” “I don’t want to talk about it” as he turns his headphones up).

“My only priority right now is that you live”. Dad Owen is truly the best Owen (I promise I’ll stop bitching about the finale, but… c’mon, son).

And after TK is off to his meeting, we meet Michelle.

Like, the first season is honestly so good; they did so much with ten episodes; but Michelle is… like I feel bad that I do not like her character but especially watching this know that Dustin in fact didn’t actually do anything to Iris, I don’t know…

But Michelle does meet a little boy with asthma and gives his dad the number for her group.

Also… before we get to the best part of the Iris storyline.. she says it’s Iris’s 28th birthday, and Carlos said he was a couple years behind her in school, so that would make Carlos 25 or 26, right around TK’s same age??

Like Carlos feels older than TK but I don’t think he is…

And finally… CARLOS!!!!

Carlos Tomas Reyes is in the building!!

Or the street rather but he has arrived!!

Also — I do not for one second believe that they knew from the start they wanted Iris to be Carlos’s wife.

Like I don’t hate the secret marriage storyline, but them saying oh it was always the plan- they were talking out of their ass.

“I’m not an Uber” “I wasn’t planning to tip”. Sassmaster Carlos, I see you…

And their first call is guys doing stupid things with petty revenge and there’s a very hot pepper.

Nancy!!

I mean Michelle is there, but we see Nancy! And Tim!

And there’s a weird debate between Michelle and Owen; which, hush up, Owen. This is clearly a medical call.

Michelle is able to help the guy, and her and Owen have this weird game recognizes game look.

Idk their dynamic is weird, but I do remember a post of when TK thought Carlos might be married to Michelle and thought “babe; my dad totally wanted to bang your wife when we first moved here!”

And we are at Casa Ryder — which brings to question… how old is Grace supposed to be?

Like obviously she’s younger than Judd, but I feel in these early episodes they dressed her like oh she’s in her thirties, she’s just a few years younger than him… and eventually they were like nah fuck that, she’s ten years younger than him, they were adults when they met, live with it.

At least that’s what I gather from their origin story episode… but this still looks like they’re trying to up Grace’s age to make it closer to Judd’s.

But seriously — Grace and Judd are so good together!

Judd is telling her that Owen won’t let him come back because he had the audacity to say that Judd has PTSD he’s not dealing with, when anyone can plainly see that JUDD IS FINE.

And Grace knows this isn’t true, and I love her telling him, “I know you’re not trying to tell a black woman how rough life in Texas is”.

But she and Judd have such a respect for one another and they are so good together (and I love Judd huffing he will NOT be building Owen a pool deck like he did when he was trying to win over Grace’s father).

Back at the firehouse, we’re about to learn how militantly Owen takes his skincare regimen.

But Paul is receptive, and appreciative, because previously, guys in his house have walked on eggshells around him.

“You should be expected to be treated like any other guy around here. I have three commitments to my people. Anyone who clocks in will also clock out. Everybody gets a fair shake, and no one, I mean no one, gets left behind on skincare”. Wise words from Owen Strand.

Ohh this is a big one. The call in the rain!!

There’s that Officer Reyes again, running to introduce himself to who will be his father in law!

He fills Owen in on the accident, tells him the doors are too smashed to get her out, a news crew is there, and that he looks darn good wet (Carlos doesn’t say that. But Carlos really looks good wet).

The woman inside the car is unconscious and there’s gas in the water.

Marjan finds the woman in the car is pregnant, the she tells them that she has a child outside of the womb, who was in a carseat in the back.

Paul has found the outside baby; he’s up in the tree in his car seat.

Owen climbs up the ladder to get him — and there’s the harrowing moment of the car seat falls but that’s okay because Owen has the baby!!

He returns the baby to his mother and they’re taken away in the ambulance.

More looks between Michelle and Owen (we should take the time to talk about how awesome Tommy is. And how glad I am that even when Tommy was single, there was never anything but friendship and mutual respect between her and Owen).

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY….

“He’s an impressive guy”.

“He’s my dad”.

SOULMATES!! SOULMATES ARE MEETING HERE!!!

They spoke their first words to each other!!! (do you ever stop to think we never got our “he’s an impressive guy” “he’s my husband” moment? Yeah me neither).

Also there’s a nod between TK and Owen, because TK, baby boy is a little scattered, lots has been going on, and he’s happy his dad is good at his job… unlike the wet officer next to him, whose face consists of “I hear nothing. Not the rain on the ground, not the beating of my own heart”

This boy is gone. This boy is full on Meg Ryan in you’ve got mail. He’s taken. He got his soulmate picked out and everything.

And he’s at the bar with them after, but he’s lurking. He’s not at the table when Mateo brags they’re trending as #TheDreamTeam and Owens tells them no phones at the table and toasts the future of the 126, and the memory of the old.

The first mineral water mention!!

Recently I made an ask to a very helpful person on here who explained where that term came from, because I do live in the states and never heard anyone say mineral water before this show.

But my beloveds, Owen and TK (there’s a take that they weren’t close before coming to Austin which confuses me because… if they weren’t, TK could have said no when his dad told him they were moving but also; that is a kid who loves his dad).

HEAD PLONK!!! THE GOOD ONE THIS TIME!!

Like I have a fic with 63 chapters that I started with this scene in mind…

Also Owen and TK give me such Sheriff and Stiles vibes from Teen Wolf; where the kid is just as protective of his dad as his dad is of him and I love that so much!!

And Owen chickening out from telling TK about his diagnosis… which on the one hand, they’re in public but also it’s like… Owen do not keep these things from him!!

Also you can definitely see Carlos lurking when Owen and TK are talking. Like I always wonder if Carlos sent Michelle over to ask Owen to dance so he could ask TK.

But also would Carlos voice that he wants to ask TK to dance?

For a third, but also; what was going through Carlos’s head when he saw the head plonk. Like… did he just put his head on his dad’s shoulder… in public?? Adults don’t do that!!

For where Carlos’s relationship with his own father was at this point, I imagine that moment making him spin a bit.

Judd and Grace arrive… and Judd is NOT happy when he sees Owen at the bar.

He wants to leave, and identifies that’s Owen, but Grace tells him tough, there’s enough dance floor for everybody.

Michelle is back. I’m sorry Liv Tyler I just… like I love Tommy so much, and it just feels like she is missed in the ten episodes when it’s Michelle.

But she has goaded Owen into getting up and now he and the new members of the 126 are line dancing.

And this makes me think of that bts scene that goes around every now and then of them practicing this, where Ronen is just in a tank top and Natatcha’s dog is wandering around while they’re dancing… but now here it is….

(Insert music from the Krusty Krab training video)

CARLOS ASKS TK TO DANCE!!!

HE IS SO BRAVE!!!

Carlos-closed-off-I’ll-keep-my-emotions-right-here-and-then-I’ll-die-Reyes, he sees the cute firefighter and he asks him to dance!!

And TK says yes!!

And Carlos leads him out to the floor… where TK promptly turns out of time with everyone else… but my heart!!

These two babies are so precious!!

Outside of the birth of Tarlos.. ahh they are precious… Owen sees Judd and Grace at the bar.

And Owen is hit with the not-feel-goods and a reminder that yes, he has cancer.

Grace!! Grace goes and introduces herself to Owen and tells him she’s Judd’s wife. She tells Owen that he and Judd are a lot alike and are future besties (she mayyyybe didn’t say that last part”.

“You know that saving people is like oxygen to him. And he’s suffocating”.

Grace asks Owen to save Judd; he tells her to have Judd to come to the 126 the next day.

Grace is just amazing. I love her so much (and it was right there for how to write her off in a way that didn’t piss all over her character; her dad’s health was established in season four as not good. She and her father were repairing their relationship. Her father has health needs that take them outside of Texas. She wants to go to be there for her daddy. She takes Charlie. It’s still tough for Judd to get her on the phone, yet not massively insulting to her character!)

Judd did show up to the 126 the next day… but he wants to fight Owen so bad. Owen says he married up like Judd did with TK’s mother, but the second time was… and doesn’t finish (my lore is that Lorraine was a physical therapist or something like that in her late 20’s).

Owen tells Judd he has cancer!!

I mean, not like tells him tells him; Judd was already storming out because he thinks that Owen trashed the memory of Judd’s team who died like they were never there.

Then Owen says he has cancer, and Judd is the only person besides the doctor who gave Owen the news who knows. But he has to face that eventually, like Judd has to face what he lost.

Aww Judd calls him cap for the first time! And he says he’s scared he won’t get the monster back in its cage if he does face it. And he apologizes, but says this won’t work out.

And he’s walking out of the house that used to be his when he sees it.

That Owen didn’t throw out every memory of his old team.

He put them on the wall where everyone can see, and where Judd is reminded that he got to walk away and they didn’t.

(Seriously, this pilot is SO GOOD).

Judd sinks to his knees and Owen kicks everyone out. Owen tells him he put one up just like it when he lost his team after 9/11; so they’d see the faces of those lost every time they’d leave on a call. So they won’t ever be forgotten; and neither will Judd’s men.

My heart; Owen kneels down next to Judd and tells him he’s been injured and the monster will come out one way or the other.

The lard cookies!! The widow and little girl of one of the fallen 126 have come, bearing cookies because they saw him save a baby on the news.

Owen tries to turn them down but Judd doesn’t let him; and Owen acquiesces and eats the cookie after being told that their family legacy is lard.

Old Town Road; remember when this song was everywhere?

Baby TK and his muscles!!! (I should stop calling him that, but he looks so much younger; also in season five TK really did look super muscley)

There’s Mateo cleaning the inside of the handles on the truck.

A call comes in, and we see that Judd is back at the wheel of the firetruck.

THAT. IS. HOW. YOU. DO. A. MOTHERFUCKING. PILOT!!!!

Like it is so good and it makes me you love each and every one of these characters already (except Michelle. Which I feel bad in saying. I’m curious what everyone else’s feelings on Michelle are).

But this is just… this is how you do a pilot.

(And another thing; LS had Owen and TK, where Owen let TK down when he was younger but there’s always been love and it’s clearly stronger now than it once was; and I’ve gathered on 911 the Buck character didn’t have good parents and his captain is his surrogate dad; so why are Don Sharpe and his son so special??)

Really can’t stop making fun of 911 Nashville… but it makes me very grateful we got as much of LS as we did!!

And that is my two cents....

#911 lone star #911 ls pilot #cause that is a pilot #also sorry for this being so long #call me the girl who doesn;t even go here in mean girls #because I have a lot of feelings about this

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sag-dab-sar · 5 months ago

Text

Day 1 of Hellenic Polytheism

Who was the first deity you began worshipping? Do you still worship them now? If this has been answered before: how has your worship changed since last year?—by @wisdom-devotee

I started studying and believing in paganism at age 16ish and attempted to worship "The God & The Goddess" as the Wiccan book I picked up at Barnes & Nobles instructed me to.... and it was just not working. Then the book (or a second book I forget) mentioned "faces of The God and The Goddess," and how I was "allowed" to worship them in different faces. So I thought that might fit better.

Athena popped into my head immediately for "The Goddess." No contemplation just immediately in my head— as if she wasn't allowing anyone else. [I did research for "The God" and chose Thoth.] I printed out little pictures of them and pasted them onto the Wiccan "God & Goddess" symbols I had made earlier. I discovered very quickly I was a hard polytheist.

I 100% believe she was present at my birth.

🏺🦉My Journey With Athena🦉🏺

Wiccan God (orange) & Goddess (grey) homemade symbols

Pasting on images of Athena & Thoth

The altar photos are like 4 generations away from the original file which is probably lost in an old hard drive which is why they look like they were taken with a potato. I believe this is the exact image I used for Athena:

I dedicated all of my education to her in High School. She helped me get my High School Diploma, which I was not sure I would achieve. An altar from 2012:

Helped me through my Bachelor's Degree.

Here she is (owl) on my 1st year (freshman) desk is 2013, next to Inana and Thoth

And an altar in April 2017, three days before the presentation of my undergraduate thesis 4th year (senior), with my trusty Chicago Style Manual.

She helped me through my Master's Degree. An altar from November of 2018, kind of begging for her help when I felt I might be close to failing a course. I swear I then practically got a miracle from her in that course. She gave me more strength than I probably deserved.

A bit after this altar I started referring to her with the epithet Ergane meaning "worker" in November of 2018, since the epithet related to education & career goals.

Yes, she is still with me to this day! This is the most recent shrine I had her on.

She has my graduation tassels of HS, B.S, M.A on her spear; two pin things that represent scholastic achievements on her chest; a sash with three dots representing three professional certifications I obtained; beads representing continuing education courses on her shield. The adornment process started in 2019 and finished in 2020 at "her request" and she is "loud" when she wants something (I rarely get UPG link so it was... a lot). I wanted to make the sash and beads less ad hoc but haven't come up with anything and simply wanted to make her happy. I have one more scholastic thing to add but I have to finish the orientation process first and well disability is limiting that. If my disability improves hopefully there will be more things to add in the future.

I have I think 4, maybe 5, statues of her, two of which are idols. One of which my sister bought for me while in Greece

I have some "UPG" right now that I'm working through about the epithet Phrónēsis link and some other stuff with her that I'll keep to myself for now.

Side Note: I focused on a Hellenic Theos for this post, I don't know if I'll be also including my other primary pantheon Sumerian or other two traditions for the rest of the days

#polytheism #paganism #helpol #hellenic polytheism #athena #athena deity #ofthetheoi #yes day 1 is late shush #31 days of helpol

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partially-controlled-chaos · 29 days ago

Note

Rook Story Time number 15

Thank you @revoltingbones for the ask and I apologize for how long it took me to get to this! I genuinely planned for this to be a drabble, but I saw an opportunity for a tiny bit of pre-Veilguard Rookanis and I took it and ran. Any opportunity I have to yap about my Rook will always be taken. So what was originally about 500 words turned into almost 6,000 and I’m very sorry. I also know the prompt was about Rook breaking the law, but the big (an absolutely brutal, but well deserved, murder) crime was committed off paper but is mentioned and then a smaller crime (petty, but well deserved, theft) happens in this drabble. Tiny bit of Rookanis at the end. Also, if you’d like to read the WIP I’ll probably never finish about the justifiable murder, it can be found here. For a bit of context and backstory for my Rook, I made a post that you can find here. But for a quick run down, Tavriel is an elf originally from Arlathan that was captured and served as a slave in Vyrantium for a little over a decade. She eventually escapes and makes her way back to Arlathan where she joins the Veil Jumpers. And finally, list to the prompt list can be found here. Anyway, I also have this posted to AO3 since this turned into a full fic, so if you're prefer to read it there, you can find that link here! Full fic below the cut!

Fates Collide

Pairing: Pre-Veilguard Lucanis Dellamorte/Rook that doesn't go by Rook yet

Rating: T (Little bit of blood and itty bitty swearing)

Word Count: 5.8k

Generally speaking, Tavriel would say that she was very much a rule follower as long as it both served a purpose and kept her out of the ever watchful eye of authority. After spending a good portion of her life as a slave, chained and captive in a cage, she learned very quickly that survival required her to listen and obey until the time was right to act otherwise. Think and plan and stay out of trouble before making a move. It wasn’t flashy or heroic, but it had kept her alive thus far.

Head down. Eyes forward. Mouth shut. Move quickly and silently. Stick to the shadows and, most importantly, blend in with the crowd.

They were a very simple set of rules, but had turned into an internal code to live by. These rules would also keep her safe now that she had escaped and was almost free. The winding streets of Vyrantium were the final hurdle to jump before she would be out of the city and on the path towards home for the first time in over a decade. As she walked briskly, she would have been able to taste the crisp air of the forest on her tongue if her senses weren’t assaulted by the foul stench of the city’s underbelly. The stench of decay, neglect, and sewage was strong in the back streets and alleyways; a much different side of the supposed ‘sister jewel’ of the Tevinter Imperium.

The streets where covered in mysteriously murky pools of something and littered with debris. She stepped quickly over broken bottles and shards of glass, avoided the puddles as best as possible, and had to move carefully over or around people slumped against walls or leaning against each other.

Despite the filth and traffic, Tavriel practically glided down the streets of Vyrantium’s inner district; moving swiftly and silently under cover of cloak and night. Although her feet were bare and her clothes little more than rags, she moved gracefully without a sound and was generally unseen as she stuck to the shadows that were cast from nearby buildings. Her head was pointed towards her feet, covered in the hood of a tattered cloak she’d swiped off a drunken man a few streets back, but her eyes were fixed forward as they scanned her surroundings.

She didn’t know where she was going, having never actually been in the city, but her instincts had served her well for now. She avoided groups of people and would redirect course if there were too many lingering for her liking. However, sticking to the dark streets and shadowy corners certainly presented danger for a scrawny elf traveling alone and one who had very little experience with city customs, especially given just how many potential bandits and seedy criminals lurker around the corner. But, it also allowed her to slip by unnoticed.

Taking a sharp turn after she spotted a small group of very drunk men heading her way, Tavriel flitted through another side street with the hopes it would lead her closer to the city’s edge and away from any prowlers. They outnumbered her enough to know she couldn’t fight them off if they swarmed. One she could handle, perhaps two, but years of neglect left her thin, weak, and not well suited for an alleyway brawl. Not to mention she had no weapons on hand in the event something were to happen. Instead, she chose to play it safe and avoid the group altogether and risk back tracking the way she came. The end of the alley was much brighter than the other streets she’d passed through, which only made her move faster.

However, she stopped in her tracks when she reached the end of the alley, suddenly dumped out of darkness and into a warmly lit market place. She found the sight odd, given just how late it was, but Tevinter customs were still a mystery to her. Stalls littered the area and were filled with goods and wares for sale. People were everywhere; talking, bargaining, negotiation, yelling. For a moment, she was starstruck and a bit overwhelmed. Tavriel was no stranger to large crowds, given that she was frequently a means of entertainment for her master and associates, but this was different. The people here were not gathered for entertainment, but merely to trade goods and services for negotiated coin.

The logical portion of her brain screamed at her to push through the crowd and to keep moving towards her goal, but sudden curiosity and the growling hunger in her stomach was louder. Scents of fresh meats, sweet fruits, and potent spices filled her nostrils, making her mouth water and the gnawing pain in her abdomen increase. It had been so long since Tavriel had bitten into food that wasn’t gristly scraps or half rotten that she had almost forgotten that food could be enjoyed and savored. She ached to sink her teeth into something fresh.

“Blend in with the crowd.” She whispered to herself, seemingly justifying her sudden change of pace. Surely she would attract too much attention if she just started forcing her way through the crowded market, so it would be beneficial to browse the stalls as she meandered to the opposite side.

She started with the stalls closest to her as her eyes swept over the offerings at each table, admittedly enjoying the shiny baubles and trinkets for sale. One vendor sold silk scarves supposedly imported from Minrathous, but it took only half a glance to realize they were fakes. Tavriel’s master had expensive tastes and although she was never allowed such luxuries, she did learn how to quickly spot fraudulent silks and faux porcelain. A second stall sold very expensive gold chalices inlaid with jewels, or they supposedly did. The green flecks at the base of the goblets were telltale signs they were actually copper and the shining rubies and emeralds were no more than colored glass poorly fitted to the metal. Customers saw merchants while Tavriel saw desperate people trying to make quick coin.

Tavriel continued her walk through the stalls, silently taking note of the various scams and schemes being sold as genuine loot to unsuspecting customers. Gold coin flowed freely and easily between merchant and buyer with very few hiccups from unfulfilled negotiations. Eventually, she made her way to stalls selling fresh produce and meats where there were fewer negotiations and more purchases. Dried sausages hung from rafters, fruits were stacked in high pyramids, vegetables spread across plush velvet, and even a few fresh pots of herbs were scattered about. She found the market quite odd to be seated in the middle of the squalor, but even the destitute needed to eat sometimes.

The hunger pains in her stomach tickled at her spine, painfully reminding her of all the times she was denied food, making her wonder if she was somehow beneath destitute. Her pace slowed and she eventually came to a stop in front of a fruit vendor. The man had wonderfully large stacks of fresh produce, yet her eye was drawn to a display of yellow skinned pears. Tavriel ran calloused fingertips along the skin of the fruit, marveling at the tender skin that was speckled with brown flecks, showing that the fruit was ripe and practically begging to be eaten.

“Oi!” A gruff voice called to her from behind the stall, “Unless yer buyin’, keep yer filthy hands off, knife-ear. Leave!” Wordlessly, Tavriel snaked her hand back underneath her cloak and bowed her head towards the merchant. Once she was out of earshot, she hissed a very quiet dirthara-ma to the man and continued snaking her way through the market.

By the time she reached the opposite end of the night market, Tavriel was facing the direction she had come from. She scoffed as she realized she’d gotten turned around, and quickly surveyed the area to find an alternate course. Instead, she found a pair of hooded figures approaching the market, setting her on high alert. Tall and lean, the figures were clad in red and black. One carryied a mage staff and the other had a short sword holstered to their hip. Every vein in her body burned as they stepped closer, the increasing hum of the blood magic they wielded threatened to set her body ablaze. She was unlucky enough to know how it felt to have her blood twisted and manipulated by the dark magic and it certainly wasn’t something she wanted to experience again.

“Fucking Venatori.” She whispered as she quickly slipped through the crowd to avoid contact and to hopefully become lost among the people.

Tavriel was certain the Venatori mages would scan the market for her, but she had to be careful in her escape. Bolt or make a scene and they would spot her immediately. Wait too long and she’d be dragged back to her masters house for punishment. No matter her course of action, Tavriel knew the Venatori wouldn’t rest until they had either dragged her back kicking and screaming, or found her corpse in some dark alley. She was a wanted woman, after all.

Her master was a mid-ranking member of the Venatori cult, which specialized in blood magic and dark rituals. She had been on the receiving end of a range of blood magic experiments from her master. Ways to improve the craft, bend a persons mind to the will of the caster, a method of torture, a fountain of youth; all had to tested and studied before they would be put into practice and Tavriel was the rather unlucky candidate for such experiments. Cut open as her blood was manipulated and twisted within her veins, her master wanting to see what exactly happened to the body when the magic was performed. It was a near nightly ritual at this point; cut open and stitched back together again and again.

Eventually, when her body could no longer handle such experiments, her master had agreed to an exchange of sorts with a higher ranking Venatori leader; some witch in the upper city that practically fed off the craft and was particularly fond of the youthful benefits of the magic. She couldn’t remember the name that had been whispered in hushed meetings she’d listened in on, but it was certainly a worse option than living with her master. Tavriel had been set to be sold to the witch for a high sum of coin when the sun rose in the morning, but the elf had other plans.

The night was still a blur of sorts, her memory foggy from adrenaline and pure terror, but the blood that stained her clothes beneath the stolen cloak was a verification of sorts that Tavriel had indeed murdered her master only a few hours ago and hadn’t merely imagined it. It was hazy, but she remembered a flash of steel, a gargled scream as a dagger pierced his flesh over and over again, and her dominant arm was suspiciously sore.

Although she had been successful in slitting the man’s throat, the two had made enough commotion in the struggle for control to alert a few of the apprentice Venatori mages that had a tendency to slink around the estate in the evenings. When she had been caught, Tavriel still had the blood stained knife in hand and was straddling the rapidly cooling body when the apprentices had burst in the room. Given that the mages weren’t as experienced as some of the others, she had slipped away rather easily. One of the mages had fallen to her blade, but the weapon itself was lost in the struggle.

She had managed to outrun the group of proper Venatori cultists that had picked up her trail soon afterwards until she made it to the heart of the city and eventually became lost with the crowd. Tavriel twisted through people, gently nudging her way between patrons in an attempt to slip out a separate exit. The idea was quickly diminished when another set of cultists stepped into the market from the archway leading down a dark corridor, forcing her to redirect once again. Unfortunately, she found her way beside the pear seller once again.

“I thought I said leave!” The vendor yelled, catching the attention of others, “A damned thief is what you are!” Tavriel glared at the man at the accusation, having stolen nothing her entire time in the market, but the anger was short lived when she heard shouting in the distance.

“There!” One of the Venatori shouted, nudging their parter with a shove on the arm, “The one in the cloak!” One of the mages lifted their staff and red, pulsating magic beginning to swirl around the globe attached to the top as the second group began heading her way. Tavriel growled softly at her blown cover, forcing herself to think fast.

“Maker take you, round-ear.” She hissed to the vendor with bared teeth before swiftly sweeping her foot towards the leg of the table that held the man’s precious fruit. With a bit of force, the leg of the table crumpled to the ground and the piles of fresh fruit rolled quickly to the ground, much to the dismay of the vendor. The falling fruit made the crowd watching the spectacle back away slightly, forming a very thin wall between Tavriel and the Venatori which allowed her a very small window to get a head start.

For good measure and a final snub to the man, she swiped one of the fresh pears and stuffed it in the inner pocket of her cloak. If the vendor was going to accuse her of theft, she may as well steal from the thick headed vendor that had blown her cover. She turned on her heels, her flesh tearing at the sudden friction against stone, and sprinted back through the entrance she’d come through originally. With harsh shoves and shouts for people to move, Tavriel strong armed her way through the crowd until she was dumped back out onto a main street.

From there, Tavriel ran as fast as her feet would carry her, twisting and winding through crowded streets and sharp corners in an attempt to evade her assailants. Her lungs burned with exertion as she took in sucking breaths and the bottoms of her feet ached as they pounded away at the cobblestones below. When she was younger and had more muscle mass to her frame, back before her capture, Tavriel was as fast as wind. The way she zipped through trees and over brush was almost an art, but now she was much slower and not nearly as graceful.

And yet, she was still faster than the Venatori on her tail. Very quickly, the voices behind her quieted down the more twists and turns she made, but were still too close to her liking. Now that she was flitting across proper streets, she was making more ground across the city than before and soon found herself in a much more subdued section of town. Her legs began to burn and shake and she steadily began to slow, forcing her to take cover until the threat had passed and she could regain a bit of strength.

Tavriel ducked into an alcove and pressed her body against the brick wall as far as she could go, even standing on her toes to blend in with the shadows. It took a bit of effort, but she eventually slowed her breathing enough to where she could hear the sounds of the city over her gasps. She stayed eerily silent until she was certain the last of the Venatori had passed her by, surprised to see that they didn’t think to look in dark corners, but certainly was grateful. A gentle breeze picked up, bringing the scent of salt and water to her senses as she let the air cool her flushed skin.

With the threat of the cultists temporarily taken care of, Tavriel slipped the pear she had swiped from the market out of her pocket and simply observed the piece of fruit. Her eyes fluttered closed as she inhaled against the skin, the smell and feeling that prickled across her skin was almost euphoric. Her front teeth bit into the flesh, easily slicing through the meat of the fruit as juice dribbled down her chin. Tears welled along her eyelids as she devoured the pear, threatening to stream down her cheeks. It had been oh so long since she’d had something so pure and unsullied that she almost wasn’t sure what to do with herself. She ate as much as she could, biting and nibbling on any edible part that she could to satiate the hunger in her ribs.

As she finished the pear, she dropped the core to the ground and wiped her hands along her clothing, being mindful to avoid the splotches of blood. Tavriel hoped that this would only be the first of many moments to come where she could enjoy food once more and perhaps know what it was like to have a warm, fully belly.

Tavriel peered around the stone wall she was using for shelter, making sure everything was clear before stepping back out onto the streets. She pulled her hood over her head once more, synching it close to her chin and tightly around her shoulders and set off towards her destination. She returned to her usual stance of a bowed head and forward facing eyes, her steps once again falling silent against the ground.

The next few moments were spent walking in relative silence, not a single person or hooded cultist in sight and her only company was the occasional rat that scurried beside her until they dipped into a gutter. Most of the excitement for the evening had been focused on the inner most part of the city, something about a gala her master had been warned to stay away from, and seemingly most of the residents of Vyrantium had attended or gone towards that side of town. This left the outer streets uninhabited and easy to sneak through. However, a singular man stepped out from behind a storefront, quickly cutting in front of her and heading in the same direction. There was nowhere to cut to the side to avoid the man, and turning back would lose many hard fought steps towards progress. Instead, Tavriel stayed behind the man and observed to determine what would be the best option.

The man ahead of her was a medium height and lean, yet had definitive muscles underneath the rather peculiar outfit he was wearing. There were glints of gold that shone in the lights above, glittering in the stitching of the outfit, and the leather and silks appeared genuine from the distance. Although impeccably made and no doubt crafted by an expensive tailor, it certainly wasn’t the typical style for a citizen of Vyrantium. He looked more like someone who was pretending to be a local to blend in; much like herself. Probably a tourist. She picked up her pace in an attempt to pass by the man, not wanting to make the stranger assume she was following.

“Meet me at the docks, bah! The man has a death wish.” The man grumbled to himself as she drew closer, “I need a drink.” His voice was rich and velvety with a rather thick accent. Antivan, perhaps? Tavriel struggled to remember just how the accent sounded, but it was certainly familiar. The man was doused with a rather strong cologne that was certainly more pleasant than the smell of decay she was used to, but certainly not from Tevinter. Definitely a tourist.

“Excuse me, saer.” She whispered as she surpassed the man, stealing a glance to his features before bowing her head to appear respectful. Beautifully dark hair that was pulled in a tight knot, tanned skin, blue eyes, and the faintest hint of stubble rested on his chin made him a rather attractive tourist that could certainly ruin lives with his gaze alone. The man gave a single nod as a response and stepped to the side briefly to allow her to pass and she couldn’t help but notice the slight curl in his lip as he glanced towards her.

Her steps were hurried as she continued down the street, but she couldn’t help but think about how she must appear to others after seeing the visceral reaction from the smartly dressed stranger. Tavriel was certain dirty, freckles covered in dirt and grime from years of neglect, her copper hair was stringy and matted in places, green eyes dull from a lack of proper nutrition, not to mention how thin she was for the same reasons. She shook the idea from her head as she crossed the street and slipped into another alley. Her appearance could wait for when she was safe.

As she stepped quickly down the alley, the heady scent of ocean and fish grew stronger. Over the sounds of her steps, she could faintly hear the rhythmic slap of water against wood and stone and a few squawks of early morning gulls that waited for the boats to arrive in the harbor.

“The docks.” She whispered. From there, she picked up speed, ready to reach the edge of the city. Soon, she was fully sprinting once again and her heart began to race.

Tavriel thought that if she could slip onto the docks quietly, then just maybe she could sneak aboard a ship and leave the city that way. Although she would have preferred to not be taken on an excursion that took her further from Arlathan, Tavriel was certain that anywhere in the world was better than where she’d just escaped from. Her feet travelled faster against the cobblestones as the sounds of waves became louder, adrenaline coursing through her veins as the taste of freedom was at her lips. She was close; a few turns were the only thing keeping her from the edge of the city.

With a final turn, Tavriel rounded another corner to slip between two buildings, but was blindsided when she ran head-on into a solid, almost unmovable, object in her path. She hit the ground hard, knocking the air from her lungs as her back collided with the solid stone that had previously been below her feet. Thankfully, she missed cracking her head open on a stone and instead bruised a rib. A loud groan escaped her lips as she scrambled to gather her surroundings and roll onto her side. As she glanced upwards, she found with absolute horror that instead of clashing into a building, she had slammed head first into a person.

“Mierda!” A man’s voice shouted from above her, clearly upset with their collision.

The man, short in stature, whipped around quickly as his brows knitted together, upper lip curling into a snarl as his hand instinctively reach for the knife strapped to his chest, unsheathing it partly. His tanned skin was mostly clean shaven with a bit of shadow scattered across his lower jaw. His hair was short and slicked back, coming to a neat point at the base of his neck and was dressed from the neck down in luxuriously rich, black leather.

Tavriel managed to scrambled to her hands and knees, her body trembling as she dared to meet his gaze. Her bottom lip quivered lightly as a single tear slipped down her cheek. After all her suffering and the fight it took to get this far in the night, she could almost laugh at the fact she was about to be done in by a stranger in a back alley because she was too stupid to pay attention to where she was going. If there was some sort of poetic justice in the entire ordeal, she couldn’t see it.

She watched as the man’s expression changed from anger to something resembling pity in a few short moments and clicked the knife strapped to his chest back into its sheath. Taking gentle steps, he approached her slowly, one hand crossing over his torso to press against his ribcage, the other extending forward and being offered to Tavriel. He bent forward, wincing slightly at a presumable pain in his side as he inched closer towards the trembling elf, his palm facing upwards. Tavriel kept her eyes on his, watching his expression for something, anything, to read for his intentions.

Eventually, her eyes traveled down the length of his arm, noting the cuts and slashes in the thick leather, and finally settled on his bloodstained gloves. Covered in blood, cut to hell and back along his leathers as well as a few slices to his face, and nursing injured ribs made it very obvious that this man had been in a fight. She must have been staring for too long when she man gave a quick nod towards his outstretched hand, urging her to take it.

Tavriel’s hand shook slightly as she finally placed her hand in his palm, allowing him to pull her onto her feet. His other hand came to reach towards her side, his fingers lightly catching the edge of her cloak and moving it just slightly to reveal the blood stains underneath. His eyes narrowed as he made his observations, making her heart almost stop beating and her breath to catch in her throat.

“Are you hurt?” He asked softly, eyes quickly glancing over the blood stains on her clothing before moving to the scarring along her wrists. A bright pink, fleshy scar wrapped around the wrist he was holding, a result of one of the many experiments her master had used her for. Matching sets of scars were littered across her body, but were thankfully obscured for now. Her wrists were also home to a set of red rashes caused from years of shackles and chains. Tavriel quickly shook her head, hoping to slip away as soon as possible, but also thankful for the unexpected kindness.

“You’re certain?” He asked again, his gaze flicked up to meet hers. His eyes were brown and soft, a calming warmth radiating from them. She’d almost find it soothing if she wasn’t absolutely terrified by the number of knifes he had strapped to his body.

“Just a scrape,” Tavriel said quietly, “from the fall.”

“Forgive me. I really should look where I am going next time.” The man offered a gentle smile, hoping to ease some of her discomfort. His voice was soft and smooth, matching the accent of the man she’d passed on the street not too long ago.

“Have you come from the Forfex estate?” He asked suddenly, still holding her hand in his as he turned her wrist to presumably observe her markings.

She felt her heart beat against her chest at the sudden question. Tavriel knew of Ambrose Forfex and had fortunately never met him, but she knew his reputation and his hobbies. As a cruel man and a wicked blood mage, Ambrose held an unnerving fascination with hair and wig making. There had been a point in time where he was in regular contact with her own master, but letters between the two mages had become scarce as they rose through Venatori ranks.

As for why this stranger was asking if she came from there, she wasn’t sure of an answer. Tavriel considered lying, thinking that maybe he was hunting runaways from the wigmaker to return them into his ‘care’, but with his thumb pressed against the pulse point on her wrist, he’d know if she was lying. His eyes flicked to hers again in an anticipation of an answer, making Tavriel lick her lips quickly before speaking.

“No.” Was all she managed to muster.

“Good. I would avoid the area, if I were you.” He said as he released her hand, “Things have gotten a bit hairy.” She wasn’t sure if he was trying to make a pun or simply didn’t see the irony in his statement, but she would have laughed if she wasn’t so nervous. She loved a good pun.

They stood together in an awkward silence for a moment, neither not knowing quite what to do. Although Tavriel had freed herself from her master, there was no hiding from the surprisingly kind stranger that she was a servant. Still unsure of his motives, she was wary to begin walking away without being dismissed. She was heavily outmatched and it would take a simple flick of his wrist and one of his many knives to cut her life short.

Thankfully, he answered the dilemma for her. Stepping to the side, one hand returned to his ribs while the other motioned for her to pass him and head in the direction she was running before slamming into his backside. She gave a single nod and averted her gaze as she carefully stepped forward and past the man.

Head down. Eyes forward. Breathe.

He stepped softly behind her, the soles of his bloodstained boots thumping lightly behind her. By the time they reached the end of the alley, they were both standing on the sidewalks of the main road. To the left, Tavriel could catch a glimpse of the docks and the ships in the harbor. To the right, there were a few more buildings to pass before the road lead to a dark path leading to a small patch of woods. It wasn’t Arlathan, but she was much more comfortable traveling through a darkened wood than trying to sneak aboard a boat. In the forest, she could blend in and move naturally. It was also a much more direct path home than going around the entire northeastern peninsula of Thedas.

She stepped softly as she turned towards the forest, hoping the man would not follow. As she stepped away, he stood still in his tracks, his head swiveling slowly as he took in his surroundings. Tavriel had gotten a few steps away from the man before he spoke again, more casually this time.

“You have’t seen another man walking around have you?” He called after her, “Dark hair. Dressed like a peacock.” Tavriel stopped herself and turned back to face the man. Her brows came together as she considered his question.

“A peacock?” She repeated, unsure if she’d heard him correctly.

“Well,” he said with a small chuckle, “not a literal one. I’m looking for my cousin.” So he was looking for the man she’d passed earlier. She could see the resemblance. Similar bone structure and they both seemingly had the same slight bend to the nose.

“The tourist.” She said more to herself than the man, although the words came past her lips. Thankfully the man let out a genuine laugh at the response.

“Glad to know I’m not the only one who thinks so. I told him that before we left for the evening, but he didn’t believe me.” He still had a light smile on his face as he continued, “I take it you’ve seen him, then?”

“I did, saer.” She said with a light nod, remembering her place in the world, “A few streets back. He mentioned the docks. Said he needed a drink.”

“Of course he goes to the taverns.” The man grumbled as he stepped towards her again, “Either way, thank you. Give me your hand, if you will. I always pay for good information.”

Tavriel hesitated, but held out her hand much more quickly than the last time he had offered. He flipped her hand over until her palm faced the lightening sky and held it in place as he opposite hand went digging in a small coin purse connected to his hip. She flinched at a flash of silver, but relaxed when she realized he was holding a silver sovereign between his forefinger and thumb.

“For something warm to eat.” He said as he showed it to her, letting the silver catch in the light before lightly placing it in her open palm. He dug around the coin purse again and this time produced a single gold piece, “For somewhere safe to sleep tonight.” He emphasized while placing the higher value coin in her grasp as well.

“T-thank you, saer.” Tavriel stammered as she stared at the coins in her hand, “But I can’t-” The man cut her off with a wave of his free hand.

“Yes, you can.” He said softly, curling her fingers over the coins and giving them a light squeeze before releasing his grasp, “You’ve been most helpful. And please, get somewhere safe. There are too many Venatori lurking around this city.”

Tavriel nodded in response before thanking the man again, carefully tucking the precious coins in the pocket of her cloak and pulling the fabric taught around her. With a final smile and bow of his head, the unusually generous man parted ways and headed towards the dock, presumably to find his cousin. She stood there for a moment, considering all that had transpired, and called out to the man a final time.

“Elfroot!” Her voice carried across the distance between them, thankfully catching his attention and making the man turn back towards her.

“I’m sorry?” He asked, confused by her single-worded statement.

“Elfroot.” Tavriel repeated, “It’ll numb the area and help with the pain.” She motioned to his injured ribs and many cuts with a quick flick of her finger. A genuine smile licked at the corner of his lips as he gave another bow of his head as thanks, meeting her gaze once more as he turned away and headed towards a warmly lit tavern on the waters edge.

With his back turned, Tavriel headed off in the opposite direction towards the wood. For now, she wanted to be fully out of the city before attempting to eat or sleep. The call of the trees would make her feel much more safe than a dusty inn, but she was grateful for the coin. As she made the final steps in the right direction and placed her feet on true soil for the first time in well over a decade, she felt a small feeling of warmth with the man’s actions. It had been such a long time since she’d experienced kindness, particularly from strangers, and it made her believe that perhaps there was still good in the world and the hope that she could really, truly be free.

#lucanis dellamorte #lucanis x rook #lucanis x f!rook #named rook #this is rook but before she gets the name rook #little itty bit of rookanis #really its a chance meeting between the two #pre-veilguard #happens during the exact moment of the wigmaker job #also if you haven't read the wigmaker job please go read it because its amazing #illario is here but for like 10 seconds #also lucanis is never mentioned by name but i promise it's him #dragon age the veilguard #dragon age veilguard #datv #rook ask game #ask game #tag game

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yamayuandadu · 1 year ago

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The fabrication of a storm god: Susanoo, Taishakuten (Indra) and their histories

When I found this ask in my inbox recently, I initially admittedly wanted to only give a short, dismissive response. After all, the similarity between these two is completely superficial. And, truth to be told, it’s more a vague similarity between how they are presented as “storm gods” by questionable online sources than between their actual roles. However, I quickly realized that would not accomplish much. The best way to counter misconceptions is to show reality is more interesting - and in the case of complex figures with long histories, this requires time and effort. The response, like the recent Tamamo no Mae one, kept growing as a result, and evolved into a fully blown unplanned post. Under the cut, you will find a brief examination of the origin of the erroneous notion that Susanoo was ever understood a “storm god”, as well as a summary of his character character, the main deities linked to him in the Japanese “middle ages”, and finally his fate after the Meiji restoration. In the second half, I deal with the Japanese reception of Indra. While not actually related to Susanoo, he is nonetheless a complex deity worth exploring, even though it feels like he’s not particularly appreciated by hobbyists and his central role in medieval cosmology hardly gets acknowledged.

Victorian confabulations and Meiji mirages: the fabrication of a storm god

Susanoo vanquishing Yamata no Orochi, as depicted by Yoshitoshi Tsukioka (wikimedia commons)

Contrary to what you might have seen in numerous online sources of dubious quality, Susanoo is not a “storm god” (let alone a “thunder god” more specifically). Nothing to that effect shows up in standard points of reference like Encyclopedia of Shinto, and even Wikipedia despite arbitrarily putting him in the weather god category only musters a single 2000 paper which I’ve never seen cited in subsequent Susanoo research as “evidence” of a weather connection.

The most recent in depth treatments of Susanoo in English are a section of Bernard Faure’s monograph Rage and Ravage and David Weiss’ The God Susanoo and Korea in Japan’s Cultural Memory: Ancient Myths and Modern Empire. The former at no point makes any claims pertaining to the weather while discussing him. The latter notes the view that Susanoo was a “storm god” enjoyed some popularity in the late nineteenth century because of the influence of the now long abandoned school of “nature mythology”, in which deities are only ever representations of natural phenomena. This theory was originally formulated by Edward Burnett Tylor, who basically admitted no actual Japanese sources ever present him as a “storm god”, but that this character is nonetheless evident in his vibes (obviously not how he phrased it, but his study deserves no more dignified summary). Tylor’s nonsense was subsequently taken up by a certain Edmund Buckle, who randomly connected his forerunner’s oc with Indra because I guess all weather gods are basically interchangeable (there’s an interesting point to be made about how they’re the one group of male deities who are often treated in poor quality scholarship the way goddesses usually are). By 1899, the theory reached Japan, where it caused a prolonged academic debacle. However, it seems supporters of this view, much like in the west, were the followers of the long since abandoned notion of “nature mythology”. Among the theory’s opponents were researchers such as Masaharu Anesaki. As far as I can tell, it’s essentially irrelevant today.

The oldest available information about Susanoo’s actual character comes from the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki. I don’t think that needs to be discussed here in detail. Even though I often overestimate other people’s familiarity with mythology I think it’s fair to say everyone with just a passing interest in Japan knows at least the basics of the myths about his conflict with his sister Amaterasu, his banishment, and subsequent victory over the serpent Yamata no Orochi. It will suffice to say the oldest recorded mythical image of him is that of an ambivalent deity, a heroic monster slayer on one hand, a transgressor and exile on the other. This polarity remains a core part of him for the rest of his history. The other early sources dealing with Susanoo are various fudoki, regional records. They indicate that in the eighth century he already was connected with diseases. Later on in the Heian period, he also came to be associated with purification. Or to be more precise - he came to be viewed as the archetypal target of purification, in a way. His misdeeds from classical mythology became examples of deeds requiring such ceremonies, performed variously by courtly ritual specialists like the Nakatomi clan, Buddhist clergy, or onmyōdō masters. He also functioned as a jinushi, a “landholder deity” of often ambivalent character tied to a specific location, and an araburugami, a “raging god” defined by causing havoc out of hubris (as opposed to malice).

Gozu Tennō and others: the network of medieval Susanoo Susanoo’s character developed through the Japanese “middle ages” in no small part through associations with other deities, typically caused by his incorporation into Buddhism.

A composite Susanoo-Gozu Tennō, as depicted by Sadahide Utagawa (Östasiatiska Museet, Stockholm)

The single most important figure he came to be linked with was by far Gozu Tennō, the “Bull-Headed Heavenly King”. While religious and literary texts present him as a deity from India, the guardian of the Jetavana monastery, and he was even furnished with an artificial Sanskrit name, Gomagriva Devaraja, his origin is actually uncertain. It’s possible he was inspired by a misreading of a passage from the travelog of the Chinese monk Faxian (c. 337-442). He visited Jetavana in the early fifth century, and reported that there was a statue of a bull next to the monastery’s door, before moving on to describing the supposed first image of the Buddha, which according to him was made from legendary “ox-head sandalwood” and impervious to fire. Confusion between these two passages might have led to the creation of an ox-headed deity. Other proposals are present in scholarship too, but ultimately the matter remains unclear. What is evident is that Susanoo and Gozu Tennō shared many similarities: the latter also was an archetypal “raging deity”, and he too was linked with pestilence. An argument can be made that he was the disease spirit par excellence in medieval Japan, in fact. When properly worshiped, he was supposed to protect the faithful from illnesses, as expected from a deity of this variety. They also shared an association with foreign lands: Gozu Tennō primarily with India, but also with China and Korea, while Susanoo just with Korea, due to a Nihon Shoki episode where he travels to the kingdom of Silla. Yet another point of connection is that both were simultaneously recognized as manifestations of Yakushi (the “medicine Buddha”). Therefore, it comes as no surprise that at the Gion shrine in Kyoto, and in many other locations across Japan, the two were identified fully.

However, the link was at times conceptualized differently than as interchangeability between the two. For instance, Kaneyoshi Ichijō’s treatise Kuji Kongen (公事根源; “Roots of Court Administration and Ceremonies”) Gozu Tennō is merely an “acolyte” (warawabe, 童部) of Susanoo. Granted, this author eventually came to view them as identical himself, which shows how fluid medieval theology could be.

A humorous depiction of Susanoo and Kushinadahime serving pieces of Yamata no Orochi prepared like grilled eel (Ōta Memorial Museum of Art; reproduced here for educational purposes only)

The identification between Susanoo and Gozu Tennō also extended to their wives, respectively Kushinadahime and Harisaijo (波梨采女), as evident for example in the Shaku Nihongi. The latter was regarded as a daughter of the dragon king Sāgara. Things are made slightly awkward by the Nihon Shoki Sanso, where she is a manifestation of Yamata no Orochi (one of the multiple cases of putting a positive spin on the snake). Susanoo in the guise of Gozu Tennō thus effectively marries his nemesis. The marriage itself is a subject of a number of myths. According to Hoki Naiden (簠簋内伝), an onmyōdō manual, the “heavenly emperor” (Taishakuten, one would presume, based on information I’ll discuss later) de facto played the role of a matchmaker between Harisaijo and Gozu Tennō. When the latter was lamenting that due to his monstrous, yaksha-like form - he had the head of a bull - he will never find love, a bird sent by the celestial ruler informed him that it would be appropriate for him and Sāgara’s daughter to get married. This suggestion then evidently works out just fine, and the couple subsequently have eight children, the Hachiōji (八王子, “eight princes”) over the course of thirty seven years.

Hyōbi (wikimedia commons)

There are multiple slightly divergent traditions about the identities of the children. The most notable variable is that a goddess named Jadokkeshin (蛇毒気神; also read Dadokuke no kami; “deity of poisonous snake breath”) sometimes appears among them, sometimes is treated as an independent deity serving Gozu Tennō, and sometimes takes the role of his spouse (in at least one case with Harisaijo quite literally relegated to the role of his ex). She is also identified with the astral deity Hyōbi (豹尾, “leopard tail”) and by extension with Ketu.

Another figure who was closely linked with Susanoo in the middle ages was Matarajin. This tradition was associated with Gakuen-ji. In a local legend, Susanoo started to be called Matarajin after being buried underneath it. I won’t dwell much on Matarajin here since I already wrote a lot about him, and will write even more in the near future, so it will suffice to say the two share a connection to diseases. In Matarajin’s case it is the most pronounced in the “ox festival” still held in modern times at Kōryū-ji.

Shinra Myōjin (wikimedia commons)

Connections between Susanoo and Matarajin’s fellow Tendai old man disease-related deities Sekizan Myōjin and Shinra Myōjin are documented too. Bernard Faure argues that in fact it was Shinra Myōjin who first developed such an association, and it was only transferred to Matarajin as well because of the numerous analogies between them.

A distinct tradition regarding Susanoo developed in the theology of Ise (“Ryōbu shintō”), which as expected was Amaterasu-centric (but also Dainichi-centric!). He came to be linked with Mara and Devadatta as a representation of “fundamental ignorance”, with the conflict between him and Amaterasy gaining an additional Buddhist dimension. At the same time, in the noh play Dairokuten (第六天), which deals with Jōkei’s pilgrimage to Ise, Susanoo appears to protect this monk from Mara. Evidently, in this context Susanoo and Amaterasu are hardly opposed to each other, seeing as the former de facto intervenes on behalf of the latter.

While the notion of rivalry between the siblings obviously did not vanish in the middle ages, and in fact new myths about it started to circulate (in one Matarajin assists Susanoo), it can be argued that it was ultimately the new conflict between Amaterasu and Mara that was central to many medieval theologies. While she and Susanoo could be portrayed as antagonistic, there is a case to be made that there were more similarities between medieval ideas about them than there were differences. That was not meant to last, though.

Later developments

The tradition of associating Susanoo with assorted medieval deities first came under criticism in the eighteenth century. Sadakage Amano, an early proponent of kokugaku ("national learning", an early Japanese nationalist ideology) ideas, wrote a treatise dealing with this matter, Gozu Tennō Ben (牛頭天王辨, “Clarification on Gozu Tennō”). Its core premise is that monks and shrine priests alike are deceptively trying to present “foreign” deities as identical with “native” ones. This point was further developed in the nineteenth century by another kokugaku big name, Atsutane Hirata.

Hirata's self portrait (wikimedia commons)

He reaffirmed that presenting Susanoo and Gozu Tennō as related deities was a nefarious plot, and blamed Kibi no Makibi for starting it. He argued that Makibi spent too much time in China and as a result forsake a pristinely Japanese way of thinking (whatever that wouldn't entail). As a result, when he heard the legend of ox-head sandalwood, which was believed to grow on the mythical continent Uttarakuru and cure diseases, he turned it into a deity, who he subsequently brought to Japan. Then he identified him with Susanoo to increase his prestige.

Was that the historical truth? Kibi no Makibi was an envoy to China and spent around 20 years on the mainland, that much is undeniable. However, the only connection between him and Gozu Tennō I was able to track down is a local legend pertaining to Mount Hiromine in which he meets this deity in a dream, though.

Ultimately like most of Hirata’s writing, his theory consists virtually entirely of confabulations, mostly motivated by extreme levels of xenophobia. Rather ironic for a movement which originally largely developed among the most hardcore neo-Confucian thinkers in Japan. Granted, that’s hardly the only baffling thing about them. The best way to understand what was going on in the heads of kokugaku proponents is to recall how contemporary marble bust profile pic “the west has fallen” trads or Bible literalist creationists function, and adjust that image for the specifics of the Edo period.

Still, kokugaku theories, nonsensical as they were, kept developing, and finally gained government support after the Meiji revolution. In 1868, the Council of State proclaimed that shrines can no longer use “inappropriate” names to refer to their deities. Gozu Tennō was the only example brought up directly, in part possibly because with the reestablishment of the power of the emperor and the rise of the imperial cult it was viewed as suspicious that a deity unrelated to the imperial court had the moniker of tennō (written with different signs, though). The edict also contains a blanket ban on any name with the element gongen. As a result of the new policies numerous locations had to be renamed, and for the most part the history of Gozu Tennō came to an end. He and his peers eventually came back into the spotlight in the second half of the twentieth century as subjects of scholarly inquiries, and the field of study of medieval and early modern Japanese religions is now booming, with entire monographs and articles published in multiple languages each year, but that’s another story.

The history of Susanoo obviously did not end in the 1860s, though. What followed was probably the single darkest page in it, an era of intense efforts to make him identical with Dangun, the legendary founder of Korea. The goal was explicitly to justify Japanese colonial control over Korea through faux-spiritual means. Since Japanese colonial domination of Korea is a relatively recent and deeply serious historical issue compared to what I cover most of the time, I feel it would be inappropriate to deal with it in the same article as medieval literature which ultimately lacks much of a tangible impact on the modern world, so I hope you won’t mind I don’t go deeper into the detail here.

With the matter of Susanoo now settled, let’s move on to Indra. The two were never associated with each other, but the latter developed an equally vibrant network of roles and associated deities around him as Susanoo after being transmitted to Japan.

From Indra to Taishakuten

A typical Hindu depiction of thousand-eyed Indra (wikimedia commons)

Indra has a long and complex history, so long he is in fact attested a handful of times in bronze age cuneiform already as one of the notoriously mysterious non-Hurrian Mitanni deities (sic), invoked as personal deities of the royal house in a lengthy treaty oath. This makes him one of the very few “bridges” between my two major normally disconnected interests (the “cuneiform world” on one hand, and East Asian religions and art on the other).

The biggest early text corpus dealing with Indra are the Vedas, where he is the single most frequently mentioned deity, with quite literally hundreds of hymns praising him. Naturally, he remained a part of the history of Hinduism later on, and today he is still well known thanks to his role in popular epics like Ramayana. His relevance is not limited to this system of beliefs alone, though. He has a small (negative) role in the Avesta (see here), and he was embraced by various schools of Buddhism across much of Asia.

In early Buddhism, the prestige of Indra was not particularly great. This obviously reflects the fact that the formative years of Buddhism were also a period of Indra’s relative decline as an actively worshiped god back at home at the expense of deities central in contemporary Hinduism like Vishnu and Shiva. However, he surprisingly regained some of his original prestige thanks to developments which occurred outside of India. This is well documented in East Asia in particular. I’ll only cover his Japanese reception here - therefore, through most of the rest of the article I will use his Japanese name, Taishakuten (帝釈天), accordingly. Buddhism emphasizes not Indra’s warlike side and his battles with asuras, let alone a connection with the weather, but rather his role as a heavenly ruler. He keeps epithets related to his 1000 eyes, but to the best of my knowledge this is not really reflected in Buddhist art, especially not in Japan. Another role retained by him in Buddhism is that of a directional deity, the protector of the east.

Something that’s worth highlighting is that asuras in general just aren’t that big of a deal in Japanese Buddhism. Outside of enumerations of non-human sentient beings, only Rahu and Ketu have a substantial role, and that’s more because they’re astral deities rather than because they’re asuras. Otherwise the entire category is about as opaque as mahoragas (when you look up “mahoraga” online 99% results are a Jujutsu Kaisen character, as it turns out, which speaks volumes about their general obscurity) and the like. Hard to make opposition to them the focus of a major deity when even gandharvas have a bigger role to play.

I can only think of a handful of major references to battles between Taishakuten and asuras in Japanese literature: an offhand comment in Heike Monogatari (courtesy of Kenreimon-in), a passage from the Taiheiki where Jōkei (who you already met earlier in this article) has the privilege to watch the parties involved reenact the conflict for his benefit, and a myth cited by Annen with no source provided, possibly invented by him. The innovation is that Marici (Marishiten) is a major combatant on the side of the devas, something with no parallel in any other source, whether Buddhist or Hindu. Rahu is singled out among the asuras as an enemy of Taishakuten, but that’s hardly unparalleled.

The conventional image of Taishakuten

A conventional depiction of Taishakuten (wikimedia commons)

For the average Japanese person through much of the country’s history, the most frequent exposure to Taishakuten were standardized oath formulas (kishōmon). These followed a strict hierarchy of deities: Taishakuten, Bonten (Brahma) and the four heavenly kings first, then king Enma, Godo Daishin (Wudao Dashen), Taizan Fukun and other underworld officials (sometimes assisted by astral figures), then kami and representations of Buddhas tied to specific localities (for example the great Buddha of Tōdai-ji), and sometimes various religiously significant historical figures like prince Shotoku or Buddhist patriarchs. Obviously, Taishakuten’s elevated position reflects his role as a heavenly ruler - the “heavenly emperor”, tentei (天帝).

The residence of Taishakuten is the heaven of the thirty three devas (忉利天, Tōriten, a calque from Sanskrit Trāyastriṃśa). It is located on Mount Sumeru, the center of the world according to Buddhist cosmology. Sources from the Heian period indicate the existence of a belief Taishakuten’s heaven is unique in that women could be reborn in it after death without first reincarnating as men. This distinction was otherwise only attributed to the pure land of Maitreya. Note it was not Taishakuten himself who was responsible for guaranteeing that, though, but rather the bodhisattva Fugen, who was particularly popular among Heian court ladies.

Karai Tenjin (wikimedia commons)

Taishakuiten’s major position in the Buddhist-influenced cosmos is also evident in literary compositions focused on other deities. For example, in the Dōken Shōnin Meidoki (道賢上人冥途記, “Record of Dōken Shōnin’s Experience of the Other World”), a version of the legend of Michizane, his revenge is supported by Taishakuten, who gives him a new name, Nihon Dajō Itoku Ten (日本太政威徳天). This is meant to show his banishment was a religious transgression, and we also learn that the emperor responsible for it, Daigo, fell into hell as a result. However, esoteric Buddhism is also credited with calming Michizane down - as he explains himself, “bodhisattvas (...) were there, and they enthusiastically propagated the esoteric teachings. Because I liked these teachings very much, one-tenth of my deeply seated enmity from my past was reduced.” This obviously goes against the more common legend where being enshrined pacifies Michizabe entirely. In the Dōken version he announces that the enshrined deity, who he calls Karai Taiki Dokuō (火雷大気毒王; “King of Fire-Thunder and Poisonous Air”), is merely his messenger #3 (#1 and #2 are not mentioned).

The closest thing I can think of to Taishakuten being associated with the weather in Japanese sources occurs in a version of the Michizane legend, too: in another variant, Michizane states it was Taishakuten alone who permitted him to enact his vengeance and entrusted him with commanding 105000 thunder gods (in the Dōken Shōnin Meidoki there are 168000 attendants instead, “poisonous dragons, evil demons, deities of water and fire, thunder and lightning, the director of the wind, the master of the rain, and other poisonous, harmful, and evil deities”) and causing disasters.

From emperor to heaven to controller of fate

Due to his prominent cosmological role Taishakuten is also described in many sources as a controller of fate responsible for determining the lifespans of living beings. Sometimes, in this capacity he basically overlaps with king Enma - for example, Shishi Yaloan, a Buddhist encyclopedia from the eleventh century, states that he also possesses a mirror in which he can check on his subjects. A local tradition from Tateyama states that he lives on the Taishaku Peak of Mt. Tate, simultaneously regarded as an entrance to Buddhist hell. However, while Enma and the other kings of hell generally stay there, Taishakuten takes a more proactive role, seeking information about the good and bad deeds of the living. Initially, it was believed that a survey of the whole world was conducted on his behalf by the four heavenly kings, but by the tenth century, a belief that he performs it himself every four months himself developed.

The famously unconventional depiction of Taishakuten from Shibamata Taishakuten, still distributed today in the form of ofuda (wikimedia commons)

In the Edo period, Taishakuten as a controller of fate developed a connection with deities associated with the tradition of kōshin nights. In this context he became the deity the three worms living in every person’s body report their good and bad deeds to. Temples associated with him, like Shibamata Taishakuten (famous among other things for its unconventional images of the eponymous deity), were historically a popular destination for pilgrimages tied to kōshin celebrations.

While the fate connection ultimately came to the forefront in Japan, it would be unfair to say it entirely superseded the original heavenly role. As a matter of fact, it was the fact that Taishakuten was a “heavenly emperor” (tentei) that made him such a good fit for kōshin.

The elusive "emissary of Taishaku" As early as in the Muromachi period, yet another deity came to be viewed as responsible for Taishakuten's survey of the world in a variant tradition: one of the so-called “ambulatory deities” (遊行神, yugyōjin; “ambulatory” as in “wandering”, not in the medical sense) , Ten’ichi(jin) (天一神; also read Nakagami), literally “the first deity of heaven”. He was regarded as a “vassal” of Taishakuten and the commander of the Twelve Heavenly Generals. Each of his cyclical surveys of the world lasted 44 days (four times five days for each of the main directions and then four times six for the intermediate ones). That was followed by sixteen days during which he reported the vices and virtues he recorded to Taishakuten in heaven, with his own underling Nichiyū(jin) (日遊神; “playing sun deity”) descending to earth instead. During Tenichi’s absence, which started with a day referred to as Ten’ichi tenjō (天一天上), directional taboos pertaining to various astral deities, which normally had to be countered with a practice known as “changing directions” (方違え, katatagae), did not apply.

Taishaku Shisha (top right) and his peers accompanying Dakiniten (wikimedia commons)

Another interesting thing about Ten’ichi is that he was identified with an elusive deity known simply as Taishaku Shisha (帝釈使者), literally “emissary of Taishaku”. At first glance this doesn’t really sound interesting - after all, Taishaku Shisha’s name sounds exactly like what Ten’ichi does - but completely unexpectedly, the former actually belongs to the entourage of Dakiniten. His attributes make him resemble officials of the underworld, though he is never portrayed as menacing, always as benign, and his duty is to report the good and bad deeds to his superiors, much like Ten’ichi does. He additionally functions as a god of wisdom, which according to Bernard Faure might reflect Dakiniten’s link to the bodhisattva Monju, famous due to an association with this concept.

Curiously, while Taishaku Shisha is at least nominally a member of a group of four “acolytes” of Dakiniten alongside Tennyoshi (天女子; “heavenly maiden”; holds a bow), Shakunyoshi (赤女子; “red maiden”; holds a halberd and a “seduction jewel”, aikei-gyoku, 愛敬玉) and Kokunyoshi (黒女子; “black maiden”; holds a sword and a black jewel), he is sometimes described as de facto separate from them. Perhaps the fact his very name links him with another deity has something to do with that. Also, he is absent from the origin myth of the three maidens, who according to Hoki Naiden flew to Japan from India. According to Bernard Faure, it is possible his roles overlapped in part with Dakiniten’s own emissaries, the tengu Tonyūgyō (頓遊行; brings happiness) and Suyochisō (須臾馳走; brings longevity).

Dakiniten, “demon kings” and Amaterasu: the network of Taishakuten

Dakiniten (wikimedia commons)

Taishakuten’s connection with Dakiniten goes beyond the figure of Taishaku Shisa. The Mizōukyo (未曽有經) contains a myth according to which a fox once tricked Indra into accepting the animal as his master is recorded. It serves as an explanation for the notably fox-like Dakiniten’s elevated role in the royal ascension rite devised by Shingon priests (it was still performed in the 19th century, emperor Meiji was the first to abstain from it). In folk beliefs Taishakuten was also sometimes assigned the role of the “master of the foxes”, which normally belonged to her instead.

The link to these animals according to Bernard Faure might have reflected a more ambivalent perception of Taishakuten than usually expected. The other possible piece of evidence in favor of this interpretation is a poem which proclaims that he and Tsuno Daishi, the demonic manifestation of Ryōgen, look “like brothers”. The latter is a complex figure, but it will suffice to say here that historically he was sometimes perceived as a “demon king” (魔王, maō). On the other hand, the original holder of this title, the “Demon King of the Sixth Heaven” (in other words, Mara) was said to offer his blood to Taishakuten on “blood-shunning days” (地幅, chi-imbi). In practical terms, this meant a religious prohibition on the drawing of blood, acupuncture and moxibustion on a specific day, different each month. I need to stress here that even though figures such as Dakiniten and the “demon kings” obviously originated in the realm of demonology - respectively as a flesh-eating, vital essence-stealing demon and as the tempter of the Buddha - they eventually developed much more complex and nuanced characters. Therefore, it is not unexpected major deities appear in association with them. In the middle ages, even Amaterasu was frequently linked with them. Funnily enough, in contrast with Susanoo Amaterasu does have a connection to Taishakuten as well. Tenshō Daijin Kuketsu (天照大神口決; “Oral Transmission.Pertaining to the Great Goddess Amaterasu”) from 1328 states that she corresponds to him - but also to Bonten, Shōten (Ganesha), the kushōjin (倶生神; these would take a bit to explain), king Enma and Godō Daijin. Granted, another roughly contemporary treatise, Reikiki, instead proclaims Taishakuten, the “heavenly emperor” (tentei; just like in the later kōshin tradition) the “kami-body” of Toyouke, the outer shrine Ise deity. However, these matters ultimately go beyond the scope of this response. Stay tuned for my article about medieval Amaterasu to find out more!

Bibliography

Ryūichi Abe, Women and the “Heike Nōkyō”: the Dragon Princess, the Jewel and the Buddha

Bernard Faure, The Fluid Pantheon (Gods of Medieval Japan vol. 1)

Idem, Protectors and Predators (Gods of Medieval Japan vol. 2)

Idem, Rage and Ravage (Gods of Medieval Japan vol. 3)

Gerald Gromer, A Year in Seventeenth-Century Kyoto. Edo-Period Writings on Annual Ceremonies, Festivals, and Customs

Takuya Hino, The Daoist Facet of Kinpusen and Sugawara no Michizane Worship in the Dōken Shōnin Meidoki: A Translation of the Dōken Shōnin Meidoki

Nobumi Iyanaga, Medieval Shintō as a Form of 'Japanese Hinduism': An Attempt at Understanding Early Medieval Shintō

William Lindsey, Religion and the Good Life: Motivation, Myth, and Metaphor in a Tokugawa Female Lifestyle Guide

Fabio Rambelli, Before the First Buddha: Medieval Japanese Cosmogony and the Quest for the Primeval Kami

Hiroo Satō, Wrathful Deities and Saving Deities in: Fabio Rambelli and Mark Teeuwen (eds.), Buddhas and Kami in Japan. Honji Suijaku as a Combinatory Paradigm

Idem, The Emergence of Shinkoku (Land of the Gods) Ideology in Japan in: Henk Blezer and Mark Teeuwen (eds.), Challenging Paradigms. Buddhism and Nativism: Framing Identity Discourse in Buddhist Environments

David Weiss, The God Susanoo and Korea in Japan’s Cultural Memory: Ancient Myths and Modern Empire.

#susanoo #taishakuten #japanese esoteric buddhism #japanese mythology

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