#nike react vision

[demons-and-demigods]

Demons and Demigods Part Eleven: Written Scene #6.5: Sparta

Look, I'm not sure if I should classify this as a written scene or not, so I'm just gonna call it both lore and a scene, but there is a fair bit of proper writing in here, it's just split up between a bunch of hand-wavey bits lmao

Pylos and getting the poison from Frank’s ‘cousins’ goes the same, they get back to the Argo II, chat about Piper’s visions and wtf the deal is with the chained god’s heartbeat in Sparta, Percy makes his comment about ‘send Leo, he’s immune to fire. Shit, I’ll go with some fuckin’ water balloons, Ares and I have tangled before, I’m more than happy to pummel him again,’ Annabeth reigns him in since Piper’s vision showed the two of them, they table the discussion for the moment and decide to just get going. The sea serpent is eyeing them, they decide to fly instead of sail. Off they go to Sparta!

They arrived in Sparta. Piper shared her dream about the giant waiting for them and shit, and Percy crossed his arms. His face darkened, lips twisting into a snarl, and all the pipes in the ship burst. Piper jumped. Somewhere else in the ship, she heard Leo yelp. 

“Carajo mierda! ¿Qué carajo, Percy!” Leo cursed loudly in Spanish as water and various other liquids started to leak through the walls. 

Percy didn’t react. 

“That’s it,” he said darkly, his voice lower than Piper had ever heard it. It rumbled from deep in his chest and she swore she could feel it in her bones. “I’m coming with you.”

Piper tried not to let on just how terrified she was. Percy had always been scary, even without trying to be. But ever since he and Annabeth had returned from Tartarus, it was like Percy was barely able to reign himself in anymore and Annabeth had taken to just watching him with a knowing glint in her eye whereas before she would have stopped him before he went too far. Percy’s mere presence set Piper on edge, her fight-or-flight instinct rearing its head the moment he entered a room. 

Piper knew that he would never hurt her or any of their friends on purpose, but after what Leo had told her about what happened with Nike, well. She just hoped they didn’t ever get caught in the crossfire. 

Right then, Piper was barely resisting the urge to flee as Percy glared at her and Annabeth, daring them to tell him no. Piper tried not to let her legs shake. Annabeth just rolled her eyes and crossed her arms right back. 

“Absolutely not, Seaweed Brain,” Annabeth said sternly and raised an eyebrow at her boyfriend. “Piper and I are more than capable of taking care of ourselves, and as much as I don’t want to leave your side either, Percy, we have to remember what the Giants said. They need the blood of a man and a woman to wake Gaea. If there really is a Giant waiting for us down there, we can’t send one of each; we’d just be giving them exactly what they want.” 

Percy growled low in his throat and Piper jumped when thunder cracked though the sky. 

“I don’t like this any more than you do, Percy, but the thunderstorm and exploding pipes are unnecessary. Honestly, if you don’t stop blowing up the plumbing, I think Leo might strangle you.” Annabeth said with a light laugh as she stepped forward to place her palms flat against his chest. 

Piper watched with wide eyes as Annabeth met Percy furious gaze with an indulgent smile, completely at ease even as the ship rocked from the force of the winds summoned alongside Percy’s storm by his anger. 

Annabeth bounced up on her tiptoes to give Percy a quick kiss. Percy let out a resigned sigh as his face melted into a soft grin. He slumped at the fight visibly drained from him and shook his head. 

“One of these days I’ll remember how futile it is to try and argue with you,” he said with a chuckle, and every trace of his frightening display of anger and power washed away by a kiss from his girlfriend. He sighed again. “I really, really don’t like this,” he said pointedly, “But I know you’re more than capable of handling yourself and I have no right to stop you.” He leaned down and kissed Annabeth languidly, one hand coming up to cup her jaw and the other tangling in her hair. “I guess I should go apologize to Leo and help clean up the mess I made,” he said when they finally parted for air. “Promise me you’ll be safe, Wise Girl.” 

Annabeth smiled. “Of course I will, Seaweed Brain. You’re still not getting rid of me that easily.” She gave him one more quick kiss before waving him off as they both laughed. She watched her boyfriend disappear around the corner with a tender look on her face. 

Then, she sighed and turned to Piper, her face settling into a determined mask. “Come on,” she said. “We’d better get going before he decides he’s coming anyway, my reasoning be damned.” 

Annabeth and Piper head off to do their thing. Very little changes here. Their conversation on the hill goes a little differently since Annabeth isn’t afraid of Percy and the Akhlys thing (actually she thought it was pretty hot, Percy offering to kill a goddess for her). Annabeth had told Piper some of the stuff that happened Down There, but the ‘ranked list of scary things that happened’ is more Piper’s thing than Annabeth’s. Annabeth was scared, of course, never of Percy, though, but rather of y’know, the possibility of dying and not making it back to their friends and losing Percy and stuff like that. When she talked about scary things Percy had done, it wasn’t with fear, it was always with admiration and love and a lot of ‘gods, I love him’s thrown in. Piper was the one to label his actions scary. Annabeth mooned over them. 

So when Piper is like “You’re thinking about Percy,” and they have their little feelings talk, Annabeth doesn’t talk about how he scared her standing there at the edge of Chaos threatening a goddess, but instead she talks about how incredible it was to watch him reduce a goddess to begging for mercy, how much she loved him for being willing to do whatever it took for them to make it out of there, how thrilling the knowledge was that he’d have killed Akhlys if she’d asked him to, how exhilarating it felt to have that kind of power and control over a situation. 

Piper is trying very hard not to freak out. Because seriously. What the fuck, Annabeth. But she manages to keep her cool (at least outwardly) and then there’s the surge of fear and the topic shifts and Annabeth mentions how terrifying it was to be blinded and separated from Percy by the arai, the bone-deep fear she’d felt when Bob healed her and she saw Percy on the ground, covered in blood and barely hanging on as he struggled to breathe, learning that he was dying of gorgon’s blood and there was nothing Bob could do to help him. Piper comforts her and then they notice the flame geysers. 

They go to check those out, Annabeth is frustrated she can’t find a pattern, Piper figures out they’re not logical, they’re emotional, and she jumps down the hole. Annabeth follows a moment later after she anchored a rope and Piper cut off the dragon head spouting the flames. They realize it’s a temple of fear, not just of Ares, and it’s fucking with their emotions. The Giant appears to taunt them, and they take off running. 

Annabeth is spiraling, she is definitely having a Very Not Good Time. Piper is doing her best to snap Annabeth out of it, but Mimas is Not helping and it's just a rough time all around. Mimas keeps taunting them, Piper keeps quipping right back. She talks about her godly brothers, Deimos and Phobos, and then Mimas makes his mistake. 

He insults Damasen. 

Annabeth attacks him in a fury and does some serious damage in her rage. 

Things go south for them again. Piper coaches Annabeth to stop trying to plan and just feel things, listen to her gut. Annabeth admits that she doesn’t think she can do that. 

Piper tells her to focus on getting revenge for Bob and Damasen. 

Annabeth is quiet for a moment, and then she says, “I’m good now,” and commits terrible acts of violence against Mimas <3 

Piper makes her sacrifice to the makhai, only since she doesn’t have the cornucopia, she instead slices her forearm and lets her blood drip onto the statue. Then she frees the makhai, they make their deal with her, and Mimas dies. 

Piper and Annabeth haul ass back to the Argo II and then they continue on their way. 

A few days later, after heading back out to sea and deciding to sail instead of fly while Jason was down for the count, they got caught in a massive storm. 

[notmuchtoconceal]

American culture is an athlete worship cult. Nike, the Goddess of Personified Victory, is their patron.

To understand how idols and foreign gods get demonized throughout history, we can use this as a teaching moment. Picture being a nerd bullied by jocks (very difficult for most of you, I know.) Picture coming to the realization that jocks like to win. That some jocks are so singlemindedly fixated on winning, the resulting tunnel-vision makes them look possessed. Imagine in the resulting fallout reinforcing your own Ideal, or Highest Value (which one operates under and is motivated by, even Athiestically -- be it Love, Peace, Truth, Rationality, Desire, Freedom, the concept of You) and finding the courage, strength and active willpower to move on and continue to live in accordance with Your Beliefs, manifesting them into the world through Right Action which is authentic decision-making.

Now, imagine not really believing what you claim to believe. Imagine wanting to be kidnapped and indocrinated into the other team/tribe. Imagine wanting to be a winner, but being too weak, lazy or stupid to admit this is what you want, because you lack the strength to break your dependence on the false cult you were born into. Imagine doubling down and reinforcing to yourself that winning is bad and anyone who wants to win is evil. Imagine being terrified by the life and vitality manifest in even the most casual egoic striving of a more successful male. Imagine forming an inverse (read: Satanic) winner cult where you worship the concept of losing. Losing is right and being a loser is good. Not in the quasi-ironic sense of being an underdog and aware you were dealt a bad hand, for we implicitly understand an underdog to be playing the same game, but maybe developing more novel strategies or training harder. No. Imagine destroying yourself and worshipping failure because that seems easier than taking the difficult steps to change yourself and become the man you want.

Imagine singling out a single aspect of Divinity, for the Godhead is the Totality, and trying to live a life with that piece missing. Imagine living a life where you're constantly denying yourself success in all its forms because you've convinced yourself it's against your religion and feeling shame and self-disgust anytime you find yourself in a position to "win" by exploiting an opening or finding someone weaker.

Imagine making your own Devil, for you fail to realize the Devil is an aspect of God. That the men who bullied you were simply one-step above you and reacting to something within themselves through you. As if jocks really were the one-dimensional untouchable ideals you think they are, and the ones who feel like losers and beat you not themselves highly insecure, motivated desperately to be "winners" (at whose game, I ask you?) because they feel like losers. In a sense, all you've done is consent to be their shadow. You took the bait. You didn't think you can be one of them, but hating them brings you closer, at the cost of your soul.

Those who've done this spurn living symbiosis and have become plague carriers and parasites. A man who really worships Victory is Playing His Own Game, winning at His Own Life. He doesn't struggle with the difficulties of being both a player and a piece on the board because he's living in accord with his own Truth and performing Right Action.

Loser worship of this sort is what is historically known as "Necromancy", which like most words describing spiritual topics has two contradictory meanings. Christians are definitionally Necromancers in one sense, for their belief system revolves around the continuous process of Ressurection. A Necromancer in the opposite sense intended here is simply a worshipper of death. A hater of Life. One who sees Darkness as a means to revel in ignorance, rape minds and poison the land to deny you your autonomy and lived potential.

These people are the most stupid, worthless, miserable fuckers you will ever meet. They're Satanists in the worst sense of the word, not Adversarial to lead to Truth, but simply to spread their disease and kill whatever spark of life still exists within their empty husks cause any stimulation of the nerves which isn't rape is endless agony.

One who is in tune with Death in a positive sense sees it as a contrast and a complement to Life, much like a women to a man, or the geothermically inactive moon to the ever-fissuring sun. They don't wanna help you pass on or transition, they just want you and everything else to be fucking dead.

Understanding this, you can now play a fun game, seeing what might come up applying this information to any previously contradictory or volatile aspect of any world religion of your chosing, or just on people who are really annoying!

[thesavageislander]

Eric B. & Rakim - "In The Ghetto"...(remix).

Planet Earth was my place of birth

Born to be the soul controller of the universe

Besides the part of the map I hit first

Any a rhyme that I can adapt when it gets worst

The rough gets going, the going gets rough

When I start flowing, the mic might bust

The next state, I shake from the power I generate

People in Cali used to think it was earthquakes

'Cause times was hard on the Boulevard

So I vote God and never get scarred and gauled

But it seems like I'm locked in hell

Looking over the edge but the R never fell

A trip to slip 'cause my Nikes got grip

Stand on my own two feet and come equip

Any stage I'm seen on, a mic I fiend on

I stand alone and need nothing to lean on

Going for self wit a long way to go

So much to say but I still flow slow

I come correct and I won't look back

'Cause it ain't where you're from, it's where you're at

Even the (ghetto)

I learn to relax in my room and escape from New York

And return through the womb of the world as a thought

Thinking how hard it was to be born

Me being queen wit no physical form

Millions have settled wit one destination

To reach the best part, it's life creation

9 months later, a job well done

Make way, 'cause here I come

Since I made it this far, I can't stop now

There's a will and a way and I got to know how

To be all I can be and more

And see all there is to see before

Called and go back to the essence

It's a lot to learn so I study my lessons

I thought the ghetto was the worst that could happen to me

I'm glad I listen when my father was rapping to me

'Cause back in the days, they lived in caves

Exile from the original man, a straight way

Now that's what I call hard times

I rather be here to exercise the mind

Then I take a thought around the world twice

From knowledge to born back to knowledge precise

Across the desert, that's how to store a radiant

But they couldn't cave me in 'cause I'm the Asiant

Reaching for the city, a Mecca, visit medina

Visions of Neffertiti then I seen a

Mind keeps traveling, I'll be back after I

Stop and think about the brothers and sisters in Africa

Return the thought through the eye of a needle

For miles I thought and I just fought the people

Under the dark skies on a dark side

Not only there but right here's an apartheid

So now is the time for us to react

Take a trip through the mind and when you get back

Understand you're third eye seen all of that

It ain't where you're from, it's where you're at

Even the (ghetto)

Even the (ghetto)

No more props, I want property

In every borough, nobody's stopping me

Because I'm thorough, rhymes are making real estate for me to own

Wherever I bless a microphone

007 is back and relaxing

On poignant reacting and ready for action

I'm so low key that you might not see me

Incognito and taking it easy

Quiet, it's kept on a hush hush

In front of a crowd, I get loud, there's a bumrush

Be calm, keep a low pro, and play the background

Over the wack rapper, put the mic back down

So rip it, break it in half, go head and slam it

'Cause when it's time to build, I'm a mechanic

I'm bonding and mending, attaching and blending

So many solos, there is no ending

People in my neighborhood, they know I'm good

From London to Hollywood, wherever I stood

Footprints remain on stage ever since

As I walk the street, I leave fossils and dents

When I had sex, I left my name on necks

My trademark was left throughout the projects

I used to get rich when I played celo

When I rolled 4, 5, 6, they go we know

So I collect my cash then slide

I got my back, my gun's on my side

It shouldn't have to be like that

I guess it ain't where you're from, it's where you're at

Even the (ghetto)

I'm from the (ghetto)

Word up, peace

[nikedrive]

Chapter 15: Ignite

[From Nike Drive, an ongoing crossover fanfiction.]

previous chapter

Where are the most hollow of your bones, those that could snap at a touch? Tell me, and I will fill their airy spaces with oxygen and flame.

Jaegerjaquez’s receive was smooth, but so high. Duibhne hadn’t made him work for it, and he, in turn, was passing like he didn’t want her to work for it either. Might be a bit of condescension there, in that height. Kalypso didn’t care.

She settled beneath the ball, watching it drop toward her. Watching Jaegerjaquez stalk through his approach. Watching, with the very edge of her vision, Yang at the opposite attack line.

Yang left his positioning early, before the set had even reached her hands, gliding back into the dig zone. Prick--not like there was an alternative set for her, not with just the one hitter and him already charging through the most basic possible approach. Still.

Kalypso considered, for an instant, a dump.

Think about each other.

Earn this, she thought, teeth gritted, and set Jaegerjaquez the high outside he clearly loved and that--in fairness--she’d promised him.

He hit it straight at Yang, like he was firing a gun at the other outside’s chest.

Kalypso didn’t see him swing, frankly--she was already under the net, sinking into the setter’s spot on Yang’s side, waiting. High outside sets were going to give her plenty of time to get over here, and plenty of time, therefore, to give Yang all sorts of cheeky little tidbits to chase.

Low arc, tight backspin--it couldn’t be more opposite. She had very little time, and he had even less--

Challenge.

Sure. He wanted a breakneck tempo, she’d deliver.

Kalypso jumped to meet Yang’s pass, and fired a quick shoot set toward him. He was airborne, waiting; if she’d slowed the pace down at all, he’d have landed before the ball reached him.

His hit pounded off Jaegerjaquez’s passing platform, high again, backspun elegantly.

Kalypso slid beneath it and set him another high outside. This one, though, he didn’t smash straight into Yang. He cut, and without a doubt would have taken the rally if Kalypso hadn’t been most of the way to the setter’s spot and therefore been directly in the crossfire.

She took it overhand, ungrounded, off balance because she’d been mostly past the cut’s trajectory when it sliced past. Her own jerking, cancelled momentum nearly put her on the ground, and when Yang came surging after her high recovery in a full approach, she got out of his way by scrambling back under the net.

Jaegerjaquez was caught flat-footed. Yang’s hit pounded off the line behind him.

“Fuck’s sake,” snapped Jaegerjaquez.

“Unlucky,” purred Yang, very clearly not meaning it.

Kalypso shook out her hands and took up the setting spot on Jaegerjaquez’s side again. Duibhne was readying another serve. She put a hand behind her back for Jaegerjaquez again, ring finger and thumb touching to call a 32 set this time. She raised her other hand to her chest to call the same for Yang--

“Hell no,” snarled Jaegerjaquez from behind her.

Duibhne tossed for the serve before she had time to react.

The receive came high again. She had more than enough time for indignation, and then to see him start the same approach she’d seen half a hundred times already. He wanted a hut, again, and if she set him anything else, she’d blow the entire rally.

She set him his fucking hut. He hit it hard and square, not quite straight at Yang but not far enough to make him move more than a step. Kalypso, with all the time from that high floaty set to kill, was already waiting for the pass. Frustration started to boil in her stomach.

She wanted to play. To play, not to stroll through these hollow motions. She wanted to work, to risk something, to feel something. Jaegerjaquez was better off Flaring, better off tilted, if he was just gonna be another Duibhne otherwise.

Yang, on the other hand--

Another low pass from him, so low a taller setter might struggle. It gave her nearly no time to think--but enough time, just enough, to see.

He hadn’t started his approach. She’d called a 32. His pass all but demanded another viciously fast tempo, but--

Kalypso set the 32, and Yang glided into it, hammering the ball into the shallow middle. Jaegerjaquez got there. High, again, out-of-system but very workable…if all he wanted was a hut. It was almost leisurely, getting into position to set him.

His hit was good--but not good enough to justify the uncontested way it slammed into the floor of the court. Yang, opposite, had straightened up out of readiness even before Jaegerjaquez had contacted the ball. His coin-gold eyes narrowed dismissively. The echo of the hit off the floor didn’t hide his scoff.

No, thought Kalypso, desperation churning into bile. No, don’t stop playing!

And with that plea, that panic, came the full force of her Lamb chemistry.

She’d do anything to keep him playing, wouldn’t she? She could give Jaegerjaquez hut sets and Yang anything, whatever he wanted, she’d do anything they asked--

She bit down on instinct. A sharp burst of pain, a wash of metallic wetness in her mouth--Kalypso swallowed, tried not to choke. As she slid under the net, she didn’t look at Yang, and she didn’t give him any set signal either. I’ll do it myself, she thought, in a fury now that wasn’t about the men anymore. I’ll play whether you do or not. I’m going to play. You can’t stop me.

Even if the traitorous Lamb within her throttled her about it, she’d play.

She did not look at Jaegerjaquez, not while she flashed him the two-fingered gun sign of a fast outside call. His Flare in answer hit her like a heatwave, but who fucking cared?

Abarai served.

Yang passed high.

Kalypso snarled as she watched that slow ball descend toward her, as Yang stalled his approach, forcing the high slow set in return. The blue-hot Flare from the opposite side of the court might as well have been her own. She set him the hut, and because she was still playing, she burst under the net as if it mattered that she got there fast, as if Jaegerjaquez wasn’t going to send her the slowest pass in the world.

He didn’t surprise her, tragically.

It was a savage hit from Yang, and Jaegerjaquez barely got under it. A small part of her blinked through the bitterness and recognized that a high in-system pass off of that hit was not really something to be furious about. If Kalypso’s set was just a bit higher, just a bit slower, just a bit wider in response, Jaegerjaquez probably mistook that for gratitude. Appreciation. Submission, even.

More fool him.

The set left her hands, and hunger took over. One step--under the net--one wide lunge to cover the distance, two quick and silent steps together to chamber the upward burst--

It worked because he wasn’t paying attention, because he was hitting mechanically, because he never in a hundred years expected his setter in a pepper drill to shove his hit back down his own throat. The ball hit the ground before they did.

Triumph flooded her, and no one’s chemistry could drown it.

Her momentum sideways hadn’t been canceled, and she landed with a bit of a stagger, heart hammering, half-blind with adrenaline and the sizzling interference of Flares.

“Oy.”

The sound came out of him like a bullet. It hit the Lamb within her in the gut, and Kalypso had to fight a bit for breath. Jaegerjaquez’s huge blue eyes held shock that was seconds from curdling into murder.

“Don’t you want to play?” she demanded.

“Get off my court,” said Yang quietly behind her. Kalypso whirled, thunderstruck--and realized he was talking to Duibhne, who was for some reason halfway to the attack line, looking like he was squaring up for some kind of fight.

“Yah,” she said to him, backing up to duck under the net to Jaegerjaquez’s side. “Serve, go on.”

Duibhne stopped, staring from her to Jaegerjaquez, tension crackling off him in a Flare of his own. Why the fuck that was happening, anyone’s guess. At least Yang wasn’t--

“Are you so desperate to be worked like a dog?”

Kalypso met those narrowed golden eyes and smothered the Lamb’s ‘yes’ that tried to come out of her throat. The answer was ‘yes’, but not that chemical, collared kind.

“Work me,” she said to Yang, and folded over into readiness. Could Duibhne get on with it already? “I get vicious if I’m bored.”

“Tch.”

“Fucking play,” Kalypso snapped, to that snarl behind her and to the whole gymnasium.

For the first time, Jaegerjaquez’s receive came to her low. He bolted past her out of the reception zone before it came off her hands, his Flare tearing at her skin, stinging her eyes.

Across the net, the black serration of Yang’s Flare answered like it never had before.

Yes. Yes. Finally.

next chapter

[1975vintagelove]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Nike React Vision Light Solar Flare Heather Women's 8 NNB.

[astarryhorice]

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[njean1980]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Nike React Vision D/MSIX Beige Pastel Colors Running Shoe Sneaker Size 7.5.

[candrak]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Authentic The Nike React Vision Light Bone Terra Blush Photo Blue.

[cdekultura]

Nike React Vision Summer Brights #wakeupnrun #nrc #nikeplus #running #run #bcn #spain #workout #nike #nikereact #nikereactvision D/MS/X #dmsx

[spechie]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Nike Men’s Running Shoes.

[xpected-style]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Air max. Women’s size 7 white and blue.

[kortefootwear]

Nike React Vision

[1975vintagelove]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Nike React Vision Light Solar Flare Heather Women's 8 NNB.

[astarryhorice]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Nike React Vision Running Shoes.

[njean1980]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Nike React Vision D/MSIX Beige Pastel Colors Running Shoe Sneaker Size 7.5.