#no you are ONE now you cannot exist separately your fates are tied forever

[herearedragons]

can we talk about pillars of eternity rangers for a second. what do you mean I have such a strong bond with this animal that our literal souls have fused together and if one of us dies the other will likely follow

also? ghost heart rangers? what do you mean this animal loves me so much that it returned from THE AFTERLIFE to keep hanging out with me so that when we go we go together

WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT

[generouscoffeelove]

THE UNASSEMBLED WORDS

Things not always go your way they never even stay the same but you can make your mind to go with the flow u can make yourself to work within the things but sometimes it's hard to face the reality sometimes you are not ready to accept the situation, we all are never mature enough that we cant cry crying makes your mind healthy but overthinking only leads to depression and stress. People will say whatever will come in their mind but it's not always necessary to carefully listen to their opinions. 

When you are determined to achieve something and deep down you know that the path you chose is right for you then no one can divert our mind from those guts. People will depress you, they will tell you that u r wrong and their opinions are right bcz they can't see a person becoming more successful than they themselves. Nowadays no one is more sincere to you than your parents, not even your relatives.

Sometimes I think about the day when I will achieve my dreams but then what if I have no more plans to move on ? what if i get the person i love but what after that ? as i will be near to it i will forget the hurdles and all the things i lost on the path towards my goal. Man is greedy, his requirements can never be completed bcz he wants more & more. If u want to get to ur dreams u have to listen to yourself only u dont care about the people and even if u hurt them u have no problem but then comes the deceiving part where u think that following your dreams might separate your family from u this fear of losing someone really special in ur life makes ur way turn back. I think it's the law of life u cant live happily if the people around u r sad. A person like me sometimes thinks that leave everything and go get whatever u want but in the end u have to come back. U will never forget where u belong and thats how u feel the existence of love.

 The first love relations with you are of the same blood. But how can u fall for someone so badly ? How can you love someone out there in this world more than those people who raised you ? This love can be of two types. The love relation with Allah and secondly the other with one of his people. How weird it is to think that we pray to get someone else in our lives instead of praying to get Allah’s affection. To be honest, pray for it and you will get the things you love automatically even if you love someone so badly. First put this in your mind that excess of everything is bad. It's only Allah who will give u everything and will never upset u but the people around u can love u the most but can also give u the pain that u cant bear. 

Everything happens for good. Maybe someone in your past who deceived you was there by Allah’s choice to make you strong and to make you prepared that nobody is there with you forever. People will always stay in search to get ur weak points but staying close to Allah will hide all of those mistakes on ur side which u made unexpectedly or even if u knew u should pray to be forgave and he will forgive u try to pray from the core of your heart. Nothing is more peaceful than crying in sujood bcz that is the moment when u feel hopeless and u dont have words to describe the society around u that how u feel. I faced a lot of times when i was compared and i was insulted but all i used to do was to stay silent and secretly in the heart say “ Ya Allah u should answer them”. Sometimes its good to stay quiet bcz the silence makes the people go crazy. The silence is breaked automatically by Allah. He himself shows the people that u were wrong.

 Not always u have to stay silent but when u r being doubted for a wrong reason or the person saying is crossing the limits listen 3 times but the 4th time smack his face. Bcz they deserve it. From my perspective rules should be for everyone, and the strictness u faced should also be embossed on the coming kids. It's not right to scold or insult someone in the middle where everyone is sitting bcz it makes you stressed and this is the fact where suicidal thoughts start to enclave even a young mind. I dont why im even writing this but the point is that i really don't want anyone to interfere in our lives and not even to scold us bcz they dont live with us they don't face the things we are facing right now, they cant live a week with us but after all they are right and they will never like to meet a person with empty pockets. To every individual on this planet earth, money is everything and money can buy happiness even. People will embrace you till the day u have money but the day u fall a little they will not even ask that are u ok or do u need any help. 

Life will change so will the people but the real face of people can only be seen when you stand in a tough time and they turn their backs away from you. We lived a great past life, we went to restaurants, we ate mcdonalds and shopped etc. so what everybody does when they have money. People should really look into themselves and then say a word to other people. At the end i would like to share a small verse with huge meaning from Quran that:

 In surah alam nashra

            “Beshak har mushkil ke baad asani hai”

            “Indeed after every hard time there’s good time”

People will stay with you till you are useful to them. the day u fall in need of help, some will help u only those who were sincere to u maybe it can be those people whom u never even noticed or they were not even in priority but they stand with u, they come into your life as angels. Because you wanted them and they were to be in your life by the grace of Allah. 

As you grow up u learn through experiences u learn to stand after crawling but not at once u fall u cry and then u get up, u stand at ur own. As a kid, u are learning actually u are learning throughout your life; from people and mistakes. U are not living until u fail.

 U learn to live through love and failures. Love is the road which can give u the best memories to laugh and cry on, but the bumps can give u those bruises and wounds which will heal but the pain will last forever. The time is cruel after u lose someone u love, and even more when the loved one becomes part of your routine. U cannot live without food as well as love. It's easy to console the broken person but it's not possible to feel the pain as that person is feeling. During this time the emotions are at level best of depression and stress if u cant be nice to them then better stay away bcz they can even harm themselves.

Love is very important in life. If u love someone but can’t tell bcz of some fear.

The fear can be of being rejected or it can be the matter of pride. The matter of our reputation is very sensitive, especially for a girl. A small mistake can break the entire reputation which was made from long and hard work. But people will only bring up the flaws bcz they need a topic to talk on. More importantly,the thing that matters is peace with the reputation u hold, if u have reputation and money but u still feel alone u are not fine. 

The hardest part in life is to live without the person whom you cry for days and nights but you can't tell bcz u are afraid of losing the reputation u hold. It's not wrong but it's killing u deep inside. U keep smiling but its only breaking you. It's funny cuz u are ruining yourself. Less to be worried bcz u are being destroyed by love. The part that hits hard and it's all about fate. Being compared to a less experienced person is bad bcz u know that the person hasn't faced any of the circumstances as u did.

“A dream is a wish that your heart makes”

For loving someone you don't have to be perfect. U dont have to change yourself bcz u know that person will accept u no matter what. This is the belief that love brings into our soul. Love happens; it never asks you who I should be with. It's the beauty and the magic of eyes which makes u staring. A fact says that if a person misses you they appear in your dream and if you think about someone alot it means that person was thinking about you first. I believe a lot in these facts bcz they happen a lot. The real fun and peace in love is by burning in the fire of awareness. U keep waiting for the other person to make a move but what to do if the other person is waiting for u. 

Okay, I know I'm talking rubbish right now. It's currently 3:14 a.m. and I'm unable to sleep. I'm not in the mood to write in my diary so it's better to keep on writing to keep yourself busy. Life is not in the mood to study all i want to do is to explode up and cry i know why but tears seem to be dried and i no longer have emotions my mind just wants to fall into midnight in a deep conversation with myself or with a trustworthy my heart seems to beat for some reasons that keep giving me the same tensions which i want to remove. It feels like my soul is whirling like a storm. I don't know what to do to scream or to cry or to stay awake or sleep. Sometimes i just want to stay up and think about my future and the choices I'm making but i don't have leisure time. 

Hard times will not stay with you forever but at every point of ur life they will make u realize that don't forget where u belong and what u survived in ur past. U can never forget your past bcz ur weakness makes u strong. It's better not to expect alot from people. They can bring u disappointment only or a bit of what u were expecting. U cant eat when ur hands are tied u have to make a move to eat and feed your hunger nobody else is going to do this for you.

 Be independent. It's an easy sentence with two words to say but it requires all of your life to be courageous enough to face the coming hurdles. U are going to face many challenges .

“if ur life got harder congratulations !! u just leveled up”.

 Smile even if there are 1000 reasons not too but this time during these days it seems to me as if I'm the shining star alone in the sky where clouds are trying to dull my spark but i keep shining the clouds hide me but then i come back. The mechanism of nature also teaches you many lessons of life. If you think deeply, the sun teaches you that after every dusk there is dawn. The sky can't show the glitter of stars without night. The moon tells you it's good to go through phases. The black clouds teach u that when u are loaded after going through many stages its ok to let everything pour out through tears. The average rain can bring happiness to the beings on earth they will feel calm but if it rains more than normal it destroys the belongings of human.Similarly, if we cry normally it freshens our mind but the excess of it leads to depression and damage of internal conditions and peace.

“Excess of everything is bad”

I don't know when girls felt peaceful in their lives, enjoyed and cherished the most beautiful moments of their lives. All the time they have to worry about something even if it's health,dressing,family,friends or some sort of harassment. She cant feel free to live. Talking to a male about life and studies is a crime and is considered something related to flirting and to be feel ashamed on. Something for which the parents can't speak on if they want to. The people thinking in this way for someone's daughter should think that in future they will also have daughters and what if this will happen to them. If today you consider someone else your daughter or sister honestly u have a peaceful and beautiful future.

But if u see girls as some material to be used and thrown u were born to be wrong then even if u say urself muslim or human look at ur habits and inner person it is more worse than animal. You have to change yourself first to change the people around you.

[diariesofthehermit]

The Ecology of Black Liberation

It is hard to be Black. It is harder still when you choose not to numb yourself to the world but to take it all in. The pain that exists within this body is already acute, yet the pain that exists within the world-body is still magnitudes greater. As tempting as it may be, however, it is best not to be numb. Pain is a warning, a signal for danger, and those who do not feel pain cannot sense the arrival of hurt and of death before it is too late. Therefore I have no choice; I must feel. And as I am not separate from the world, I must feel Her pain too; Her aches are my aches, Her hurt is my hurt and our death is one. 

What do we suppose liberation to be? Liberation from poverty, from misogyny, from homophobia or racism? What good is it to be liberated into a dead world, one that does not support life of any class, gender, sexuality or race? I suspect that for many, liberation is equivalent to equality, a levelling of the political/social/economic playing field within our society. As I get older, however, I become more and more sympathetic to the view that Malcolm X espoused in his Nation of Islam days: the “world” of western civilization is fucked, and there’s no hope for anyone integrating into it, equally or not. To be “liberated” is to liberate yourself from a doomed society and to build your own. My attraction to this mindset, however, is tempered by the growing twenty-first century truth that there is no longer any place left to build: if indeed our current global, capitalist civilization has not covered every inch of the world itself then its shadow surely does. Fate, now, is collective; the destiny of all life is forever intertwined. 

If you’ll forgive the apparent digression, I need now to talk about trees. Trees are, after all, essential to Black liberation (as are all ‘things’ essential to life); to put it another way, the fates of Black people are tied directly to the fates of trees. To do violence to them is, in a very real way, to do violence to me, my family and my community. To think otherwise is to operate under the basic misconception that Nature and people are somehow independent, separate entities. 

I recently read an academic study titled “Deforestation and World Population Sustainability: a Quantitative Analysis.” It emphasized, first, the importance of trees to the earth’s life and civilizations: they prove indispensable to our existence through the production of oxygen and the cleansing of the atmosphere, maintenance of the soil, regulation of our water cycle and, a key factor given our contemporary crisis, the regulation of our planet’s climate by keeping its carbon in them instead of in our atmosphere, where it would accelerate the already lethal pace of planetary warming. “Trees and forests are our best atmosphere cleaners” the authors wrote, “and, due to the key role that they play in the terrestrial ecosystem, it is highly unlikely to imagine the survival of many species, including ours, on the Earth without them. In this sense, the debate on climate change will be almost obsolete in case of a global deforestation of the planet.” Obsolete, note, because we’d all be among the dying or dead.

The authors of the study then used multiple variables, such as the world human population, the amount of earth covered by forest, the growth rate of the human species, the rate at which we extract resources from the environment, the projected rate of technological improvement in resource extraction, the renewability of those resources and those resources carrying capacity to calculate the survivability our current society. They gave us twenty to forty years before “catastrophic collapse” spelled the end of human civilization and perhaps of the human species itself, with an “optimistic” 10% chance of human society continuing if we can begin in earnest to expand our civilization into the solar system and harvest its resources. 

We all know, however, that if the wealthiest and most industrialized nations began to expand their societies into space, that Black people are going to have a hell of a hard time getting there. Of course, it’s hard to accurately predict the future. Any model of the times to come that depends on future human behavior or expected rates of technical progress is inherently fallible. We may very well survive much longer than that. There is also the alternative, however: considering that we are not only harming our forests, but the soil, the oceans, our atmosphere and indeed the entire biosphere itself, perhaps their calculations of civilization’s end times are not too far off. Perhaps they’ll come sooner. Who knows? The future itself is an unknown. Yet, what we can perhaps say with certainty is that the possibility for total extinction, or at the very least the extinction of human civilization, is now very real. We are not discussing an end of a civilization, or of a society, but of human society itself. Forever. It is an existential threat that the “wretched of the earth”, the poor and the marginalized, cannot afford to ignore. We do not, after all, deserve this fate. We did not bring the world to this point. But do Black revolutionaries have time to discuss it? Is it not best to leave such things to those who have the privilege to worry about the global environment and not whether a police officer will kill them at a traffic stop, or after barging into their home in the middle of the night based on bad intel? I would argue that, in regards to this threat and any other, white people can and will not save us. Have you seen the news on climate change? White people cannot save themselves- they cannot even agree amongst themselves if the threat exists. 

Yet the global working classes (even those who carry the label of “white”), the marginalized and the colonized, do not have the privilege of these debates. Wealth will not insulate us from the worst. We have seen Katrina, and how its effects upon communities were proportionate to their wealth and racial make-up, and we should understand that Katrina is just the first sign of what's to come. Already, the air we breathe, the food we consume and the water we drink have a detrimental relationship with the life-spans of the urban poor; the very earth is weaponized against us. For the moment She has only fired warning shots and her real rage is barely apparent. It is, however, on the horizon. Who will feel it worst, I wonder? 

The authors of the study offer us some hope aside from Star-Trek like voyages into space. According to them, we live in an “economical” society, which tends to value the welfare of a few privileged components over that of the entire system. Extrapolating a bit, it is indeed clear that not only do we see “humanity” as somehow separable from nature, but that the wealthy and powerful in particular have conceptualized themselves as a group apart from the rest of us, well, peasants as well. What is needed, according to the study’s authors, is a transformation into a society that values the whole as much as the parts and that works for the sake of the all instead of the few. Such a society does not make false dichotomies between people and nature, or between the proletariat and the nation, or even between nations themselves. We are all integrated into a single system in which each part supports the existence of all the others, and to understand one person in their fullness is to, by necessity, see the whole. 

I am for, and will always be for, the existence and welfare of the Black community. I would just like to point out that without a healthy planet there are no communities, Black or white, and that Black liberation without planetary liberation is nonexistent. We live and die with our mother; we live and die, in fact, with trees. Which is a wonder, because I’m willing to bet that most of the diaspora in industrialized nations, living our lives so characterized by atomization and isolation, walk by them every day without a second thought. Your true body, though, does not end with your body. I challenge you: the next time you walk down a park, a block or a city street, notice the trees. They are you. One being, one fate. 

Link to quoted study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63657-6.pdf

[aminiatureworld]

May I request a one-shot where Legolas is sleeping (recovering from an injury and is in Imladris) and Aragorn is sitting next to him, watching over him and like braiding a strand of his hair??? tooth rotting fluff please!!! Thank you xoxo (strictly platonic)

Sorry for the wait, I hope that this wasn’t too long coming! I tried to make this as fluffy as possible, so I hope it’s up to code! I hope that you like what I’ve wrote and thank you for following me and reading what I write.

Ao3 link in reblog

           Aragorn was born for many things, so everyone kept telling him at least, but waiting wasn’t one such thing. Whether it’d been for food, information, or even the simplest thing as waiting for the sun to rise on an autumn day, Aragorn found waiting wasn’t in his nature. Thus it should’ve been no surprise to either him, or the rest of the Fellowship, when he found himself sitting in the sickroom, his legs bouncing with unspent energy.

          It wasn’t that he wanted to be in this predicament. He didn’t even want to be in Imlandris, commonly known as Rivendell, wanted to be out on the road. But Legolas had taken an arrow in the leg, and the shaft had broken off, requiring the crooked stone arrowhead to be dug out by hand, a dangerous, nearly always fatal procedure, unless done by the kind of specialists and magic wielders as existed in the land of the elves. The surgery had gone smoothly enough, and the elf was most definitely on the mend, out of danger to the great relief of Aragorn and the other members of the Fellowship. However rest was still needed and thus Aragorn found himself sitting, weeks having already drifted past during the elf’s convalescence, wondering why Legolas took so stupidly long to heal. Not that Aragorn seriously considered dragging him out of bed early or leaving him. Legolas was a friend, more than that, a companion, one of the Fellowship, and Aragorn would have no one left behind or put into danger because of his own smothered impatience.

          Glancing over at the elf Aragorn pick up a strand of his hair. He liked the long hair of the elves, would’ve grown his own brown locks down his back if it were practical, or even possible, as Aragorn didn’t seem to have to cut his hair to keep it at length, it stayed as it was, sedate and a bit drab. Splitting Legolas’s hair into strands Aragorn was a bit too lost in his thoughts to notice the familiar pattern of crossing hair over hair. Braiding was an old practice for Aragorn, though he wasn’t quite sure where he’d picked it up. Maybe from Arwen. Either way, it was a sort of habit he’d grown into, and now he found himself back at it, braiding Legolas’s hair in all sorts of ways.

          How well Aragorn knew Legolas now. How long ago it seemed since he’d run into that young elf. There’d always been a bond of brotherhood between the two, even right at the beginning, and Aragorn now could scarcely imagine a time when he didn’t have the elf to talk to, to trade secrets, wishes, and burdens with. The grateful feeling of relief he’d felt at the news that his brother in all but blood was going to be alright was overwhelming, and had spent him spiraling in thoughts as to how much he really loved Legolas, and how Aragorn had found family in the most unexpected of places.

          “I assume my leg hasn’t turned green.” The semi sarcastic voice drew Aragorn out of his ponderings, and he looked at Legolas, who sleepily blinked his eyes. “I’d sit up and check, but I don’t want to ruin the work of art you’re turning my hair into right now.” Aragorn chuckled at this, knowing full well that Legolas didn’t really care one way or another what his hair was turning into.

          “You leg has indeed failed to turn green, I’m sorry to tell you but you’re still stuck on this quest with us.”

          “Just as well, I couldn’t imagine the frightful looks I’d get from the other elves if I was laid off, I bet even the trees would bow their heads in shame.”

          “Never about you, I promise that.” Aragorn replied, smiling, happy that he was bantering once more with Legolas. Surely that meant the elf felt much better, for Legolas only bantered in his good moods, otherwise contenting himself with cryptic musings about nature, musings he’d once admitted to Aragorn he made more incomprehensible to annoy Boromir. “I don’t think anyone could be ashamed or doubt your determination after you nearly killed yourself chasing after an orc like that, you knew it was a trap and the band was going to turn around the minute you were separated.” His expression grew more serious. “Bravado is all well and good elf, but I’d not have you die, especially not from such a foolish act.”

          “Perhaps it was a bit reckless,” Legolas admitted, not looking the least bit contrite, “but I honestly thought I could handle it, you’ve seen me take on much more than orcs after all, you know that I’m capable.”

          “Not when you’re being reckless, it clouds your judgement, I know those tricks of yours take great skills and concentration.” Aragorn shook his head. “I’m not about to forbid you anything, you’re older than I am, know the risks, but I’m only going to remind you that you’re not alone, and that many would mourn your passing… I first among them.” He admitted after a pause.

          “That’s a beautiful braid you’ve made.” Legolas smiled, before taking Aragorn’s hand in his, causing the braid to unwind a bit without the hair being fastened or tied up. “I promise I won’t forget my family, for the Valar have brought us together of that I am sure. But trust my judgement more, after all like you said I am older than you. I’ll not rush into danger like that again since it worries you so much, but you cannot stop my combat antics forever, and you know that. So trust in me, and in destiny, the gods, and in Fate. All will be well. We’ll succeed in our quest, and I’ll not be leaving anytime soon.”

          “Thank you.” Aragorn smiled, and Legolas returned the gesture in a mirrored grin.

          “Now, since it’s going to be a while, why don’t you get some ribbons and ties and finally show me how the braids you make out of rope translate to real hair. And don’t you dare mess up.” Aragorn laughed and got up to search for such ties, his heart filled with relief and love, grateful to the entire universe and everything in it that this family he found wasn’t going to shrink.

[grumpyhedgehogs]

Cosmic Waste

I’ve lurked in the Star Wars fandom for years and I’m finally going to change that tonight. Also, the working title of this is ‘obi-wan suffers forever and i love it.’

~

Vader can be forgiven for not realizing the fact that this is, in fact, reality and not a dream purely based on the fact that half his nightmares start on Tatooine. The shift of sand beneath his boots, the heat trapped against his skin underneath his dark robes, the light piercing into his retinas; it’s all exactly as he’s dreamed ever since Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi saved him from this pitiful planet. He’s striven to tear away from the terrible excuse he had for an existence ever since he left and now here he is, back where he started.

Or, not exactly where he started. Anakin Skywalker never once tread foot in the Sand Wastes, the stories his mother was willing to let slip enough to terrify the stupid child he had been away from the edge of unknown territory. Maybe if he’d been here long as a young man, maybe if he’d come back after the Jedi Order fell, maybe then he would have--

But that’s not true. Vader knows it as soon as he turns his thoughts to the concept; he’d never out of his own volition enter the Sand Wastes. It was one piece of advice his mother gave him that stuck with him through his Fall. 

‘The Sand Wastes can drive the sanest man mad.’

Vader can still hear his mother’s voice when he looks about him; the dunes stretch on for miles as a glance, and heat rises off them in sickeningly thick waves. As he wipes sweat from his brow, Vader watches in fascination as the drops of moisture simply evaporates right off of his glove. This desert wrings a person out like a sponge, and the Wastes are the worst of it.

If he touches any part of his own skin with his mech hand, Vader muses, he might burn right through to flesh at this point. He’ll have to get out of the heat soon or risk heatstroke and an addled mind from the sun.

If only Master could see me now he’d laugh himself into a heart attack, the old fool, Vader thinks and must resist the urge to hiss in anger. He’s not sure exactly what’s happening here, why this dream has lasted so long, but he’s had enough of these games. His Master is manipulative at best and sadistic at worst (not that that’s a very far stretch) and he knows if anyone is behind his consciousness’s sudden ability to produce truly vivid horrors, it is his Master.

Obi-Wan used to keep our quarters close to freezing, says a traitorous little voice in the back of his mind, one that has persisted in becoming louder and louder these few weeks, and Vader smothers it with righteous vigor. But it always comes back. 

He’d keep blankets on the couch for when you were cold; he’d say-

“It’s easier to come in out of the cold than to escape the heat within,” Vader mutters. “Yeah, yeah. Fat lot of good that wisdom did him in the end.”

The old ache in his chest throbs with new life at the thought and Vader crushes that ruthlessly, too.

Presently, he stops. His thoughts are too emotional and he’s not looking where he’s going and by the Force, will this blasted sand ever end? The horizon seems to stretch for miles.

Focus. Pull yourself out of this.

He’s had enough of this game. When he wakes up, he and his Master will certainly have words.

The old man’s getting to be too much trouble than he’s worth anyway. 

Vader closes his eyes, breathes deeply and lets the Force roll over him. In his sleep it should at least be muffled, but his connection is as loud as ever. The Force pulls at his mind, swirling around and through the Sith. Vader almost smiles, but some strange feeling simply refuses to let him sink into the Force.

What--

The Force is dark, as it has been since that fateful day all those years ago-- but this darkness is true. It feeds into his anger, his pain simmering too close to the surface and instead of reflecting it back off of the Light of a surviving few, swallows Vader’s emotions with a hunger that speaks of a deep wealth of rage, an all-consuming pool of Dark that threatens to devour the world. 

Vader almost jumps at the revelation, his training sessions with his new Master the only thing that stops him from stumbling back in shock.

The Force has never belonged so fully to the Dark when he has been alive; it has been very grey, of course, but the few lights left in the galaxy-- Yoda, for one, although Vader also suspects Mace Windu and Shaak Ti might have made it out alive, to say nothing of Ahsoka-- are bright and burning, lighting the path of the Jedi through the darkness. 

Or they were bright. This Dark is something completely unfamiliar. It licks at his consciousness, seeps in and twists about Vader’s heart, trying to whisper poison in his ears. He feels his own power in the Force surge in response and knows without seeing that his eyes flare orange where they are usually gleaming yellow. 

Vader forces the Dark Side back, ripping free of its seduction as he physically thrusts himself forward, only his years of experience stopping him from falling face first into the scalding sands. He has never felt this way; he has never needed to separate himself from the Force, Light or Dark; he has always been in control, always had the ability to bend the Force to his will, has never been overwhelmed by its power. Now, Vader feels very close to an edge he previously never would have considered existed. 

There’s something wrong here.

This is not home.

You’re not dreaming.

“Yeah, no banthakark,” Vader mutters to himself. The Dark sings around him, responding to his ample connection to the Force, and Vader is left with no choice but to accept that this is reality. Something has happened when he wasn’t looking-- possibly the meddling of his Master, or possibly Vader was too deep in his meditation to recognize a Force nexus opening close by, and wouldn’t Obi-Wan get a laugh out of that--  

Obi-Wan.

An old instruction, given with a sense of safety and comfort, floats through Vader’s mind. ‘Search your feelings, padawan. Trust in the Force.’

Without a second thought, Vader does. Ready as he is now, the Force cannot make the Sith falter underneath it’s pull. He resists the undertow, searching, looking, hoping to find what he has not in all this time.

A brief, bright spark in the Darkness. A star about to go out, a candle burning too low, guttering. A warmth that melts the ice in Vader’s bones, a sense of such grief it chokes him.

The Force sings in Vader’s heart and the Dark Side recedes in a way Vader has not felt since-- since--

Where? Where, after all these years-- 

In the end, he is so very close.

The Darkness Vader thought just moments ago to be all-encompassing is banished even further from the Sand Wastes as he locks eyes with the man Vader had thought all but lost.

He crosses three sand dunes in a matter of seconds, his childhood memories making it easy for him not to sink into the sands that want to suck him in, wring his bones dry. But as he bounds across the Sand Wastes, Vader cannot appreciate the deadly nature of his home, cannot think about his new Master’s mechanisms, the fact this may be a test or a punishment or a dream--

Because here he is. Here is Obi-Wan Kenobi.

He is almost exactly as Vader remembers; his hair shines copper and golden in the light of twin suns Vader never wanted to shine upon his old Master. His eyes are the brightest blue Vader has ever seen. His palms are worn but soft and Vader knows what their weight will feel like when they rest on his shoulders. His robe is dusty, but underneath all the dirt, it is brown and familiar and comfortably threadbare.

He is almost exactly as Vader never wished he was; his mouth is a thin line, his brow is wrinkled and strained, his face is gaunt. His shoulders hold some great, terrible weight he cannot let slip, even for a moment. There is tragedy etched in his every line. He is battle-worn and tired and so very alone.

Obi-Wan, who had up until the moment Vader moved been watching from a distance, startles back now as Vader lands before him. Sand sprays out from beneath his boots and Obi-Wan jerks in surprise as the dust billows between them, head turning as if looking for somewhere to run, somewhere to flee. Vader steps towards him again, hands coming up to waist height-- he doesn’t know what he wants to do just yet-- but Kenobi throws his own hand forward.

“Don’t,” he rasps and oh, but his voice is just as Vader remembers it, “I know-- what you are. You’re not him. You can’t trick me into thinking you-- that you’re--”

His Master never stumbled over his words. Poised, precise, Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi could cut a man to pieces with a few well-placed words. This man--

This is not your home.

This is not your Obi-Wan.

Isn’t he?

“You’re not Anakin Skywalker,” the man who could be no one but Obi-Wan Kenobi says. His hand never strays towards his lightsaber even as Lord Vader approaches slowly. His eyes are sharp, though, and follow the Sith’s every move intently. “You are not my Anakin.”

“No.” Vader takes a great risk to rest a palm as gently as he can against the Jedi’s face. The black of his clothes looks so dark against his pale cheek.

“But you,” Vader decides, feeling the Dark in him swell with a roar of satisfaction, “are my Obi-Wan.”

[altumvidetur]

Good Omens: Crowley/Aziraphale Fic Recs

So, I was thinking about the coronavirus pandemic and what I could do to help people out. I’m isolated because I’m at higher risk, so I can’t really offer to go out for my elderly neighbors or my family… but I thought I could try to help keep people entertained.

Because I don’t have an AO3 account right now, I’ve been compiling fic recs for my own amusement for a year or so. And I thought – maybe that’s the time to share these with everyone? So everyone will have plenty of things to read while they have to stay at home, or even to escape anxiety a little bit if you’re forced to go out.

Of course, these cater to my own tastes, so you may find stuff you don’t like around here. I never include works in progress. The Mature and Explicit works will be in italic. I ask you to READ THE WORK’S TAGS before continuing, so you won’t find anything that makes you uncomfortable.

Let’s go for the Ineffable Husbands fanfics!

In Nomine, by tinsnip

The first time he’d given in to the impulse to just make up a name, he’d felt a bit odd about it. But everything had gone so smoothly. He’d been able to just go in and eat and then leave and it hadn’t mattered at all, the human hadn’t really wanted to know his name, they’d just wanted something to peg him by while he was there.

And so: Fell. Ezra Fell. Ms Azee Phale. Mme A Zinnia File. A Z Fell, bookseller.

That last one has stuck around the longest, now. He’s grown rather attached to it.

A... A... what begins with A?

Aziraphale makes dinner reservations for himself and Crowley, and is a bit thoughtless. Silly business.

swimming in your ocean (i can get pretty sidetracked), by tinsnip

Under him, Aziraphale makes a soft, deep sound.

He lets go, leaves his lips just where they are. “You’re sweet. You taste sweet.”

Apparently Aziraphale isn’t up to making words right now.

***

Three little chapters of happy smut. Immortal genderless beings assuming mostly-human forms would, I figure, have a bit of a different approach to sex. They've got no particular drive, and all the time in the world. Getting sidetracked is part of the fun.

Eyes Closed, by tinsnip

Aziraphale makes love with his eyes closed.

Crowley doesn’t.

Bad Habits, by tinsnip

Clearly, both Crowley and Aziraphale used to smoke. We know this. We’ve been told this by Mr. Gaiman.

I’d be very surprised if either of them still does. But the reasons for this, and the methods by which their statuses changed, are different.

Notably: Crowley cheats. Aziraphale doesn't.

Like light, refracted, by tinsnip

Full steam ahead, decided Crowley: “I think we should get naked.”

Ethereal/occult lovemaking of the rather fluffy variety.

tell me all the ways, by tinsnip

Crowley was out in the garden.

Aziraphale was in his study, most definitely not looking out the window.

Really. Really. One little speck of sentiment: was it so much to ask?

what a way to make a living, by attheborder

Without any more assignments coming from Downstairs, Crowley is struck with a bad case of the doldrums.

It takes a bit of trial and error, but eventually a solution is found.

(Or: the one where Crowley becomes an Uber driver.)

summer and his pleasures, by witching

for summer and his pleasures wait on thee, and thou away, the very birds are mute; or if they sing, ‘tis with so dull a cheer, that leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near. // william shakespeare, sonnet 97

absence makes the heart grow fonder, and crowley and aziraphale’s hearts were plenty fond to begin with. a story told through phone calls while they are separated for work-related reasons.

nothing but the wild rain, by Raven

"The internet, Aziraphale!" Crowley says. "This is what the internet is for. This is, quite literally, what the internet is for."

"Oh," Aziraphale says, and Crowley knows, he just knows, that Aziraphale is going to say something about how it's jolly useful for hard-to-find first editions and tickets for the Last Night of the Proms.

or, Aziraphale and Crowley find sex confusing.

Forever, by goodomensblog

Heaven’s execution chamber was elegant, magnificent - and bare. Polished floors gleamed, immaculate; their cleanliness made it impossible to guess at the atrocities committed upon them. Clean, white walls glared, and a window as large as the room was tall, teased of freedom just out of reach.

At the center of it all, was a chair.

And upon that chair, an angel sat.

Across the cold, stark room - too far from the angel - a demon knelt, bound.

The ropes burned, and Crowley hissed, hunching his shoulders as he turned his head up. The angel, his wrists tied to the chair, met and held his stare.

No, it couldn’t - it wasn’t - this wasn’t right.

Confused and in pain, Crowley called, “Angel, you alright?”

Aziraphale’s light hair appeared white in the harshly lit room, and his face had gone pale; but at Crowley’s call he sat up in the chair, bound hands giving a feeble wave.

London. 1944., by AliceinSpace

The air ripples and stars blink in and out of existence as the fabric of the universe creates a loophole in the middle of the street. A figure drops unceremoniously from that loophole and hits the pavement in a tangle of limbs.

"-is that a gunshot wound?”

Or the one in which a fatally injured Crowley runs to the only place that makes sense: a bookshop in Soho.

Of Eclairs, Feathers and Complex Reactions to Trauma, by oneatatime

“Do you know,” Aziraphale said, his voice muffled in the shoulder of Crowley’s jacket, “that when humans go through trauma, they can be quite calm and competent throughout, but then the terror comes out later, as it must?

Take My Hand, Take My Whole Life Too, by Demorra

He didn’t want to think about the bookshop. It hurt in a way that was entirely too visceral to be angelic, and entirely too earth shattering to be human. It was the love of several hundred years, burned up in an instant. It shouldn’t have mattered, not if he were truly angelic. But he shed a few silent tears anyway and felt somewhat better for it. All things considered, it wasn’t the end of the world.

No, that had been much more complicated.

And yet, somehow so very mundanely human. No great battle, no heavenly sounding of horns or hordes of demons. Just a choice, a choice not between Good and Evil, but between darkness and light, hope and despair, fear and… and love…

the mortifying ordeal of being known (biblically), by FlipSpring

"Relax, angel, it's not much worse. It's just our bodies. It's not like we enfolded or anything." ~ Crowley, in 500 AD, after having physical sex with Aziraphale for the first time, blissfully unaware that he has just foreshadowed himself into a corner

*

Crowley procrastinates on his feelings by taking a 5-year nightmare nap after the End Of The World. Aziraphale comes in like, "dude wake the fuck up, also, do you wanna metaphysically bang maybe? no pressure." and then Crowley loses his goddamn mind, because he is a delicately-stacked bundle of neuroses in black skinny jeans.

Also they have breakfast and check in on Tadfield.

Re-Recalled, by Jennistar

Halfway through an argument, Aziraphale gets accidentally discorporated and doesn't come back. Crowley does the sensible thing and panics.

Luminosity, by bethagain

A quick trip to bless someone with a miracle takes a wrong turn, and Aziraphale and Crowley are stuck overnight in rural Iceland. The northern lights are beautiful, but it turns out demons, cold-blooded, tend to seize up when it's freezing out. Aziraphale finds a way to get him warm again.

i don’t know how to stay tender with this much blood in my mouth, by Princex_N

(Summary by me: the one in which Crowley has been living with chronic pain for thousands of  years.)

Queen’s Greatest Hits, by BuzzCat

Good Omens fanfic with no coherent through-line between fics aside from each one is inspired in one way or another by a Queen song, listed in the notes for each fic.

i know i’ve kissed you before (but i didn’t do it right), by gallantrejoinder

They'd given it a go once. Ages ago. And they'd both agreed it wasn't for them.

the whole damned world seemed upside down, by citadelofswords

(Summary by me: facing the odds and moving on with the world.)

Leaves of Grass, by Laura Shapiro

(Summary by me: the world is saved, and now they’re left to explore each other.)

The Sacred and the Profane, by afrai

(POPULLI.NET link) Somewhere else, the happy ending was different. AU.

Be Ye Therefore Merciful, by AmberDiceless

Crowley does something utterly unexpected, and Aziraphale must face an opponent who cannot be thwarted. Hints of pre-A/C.

Full Circle, by Hekateras

Nothing lasts forever and the final Apocalypse can only be delayed for so long.

There is a school of thought that says you cannot fight fate.

And another that claims there's no such thing as predestination, only those powerful enough to make your choices for you - if you let them.

Aziraphale puts both to the test.

Living Arrangements, by afrai

(POPULLI.NET link) Everyone is more or less human, even when they aren't.

Nanny Knows Best, by DictionaryWrites

Summary by me: an exploration of Crowley’s experience as Warlock’s nanny. 

From the Top (Say Your Lines Once More), by CoffeeStars

Crowley lives and dies and wakes up to repeat the cycle. And every single time Aziraphale is there, a different face and new memories.

Manchester Lost, by Moczo

(FF.Net Link)  -an ensemble sequel to the novel- Our heroes have managed to make things worse, as the Apocalypse is starting up... again. Drama! Action! Humor! Adventure! Tea! Suspense! Snark! Romance!

[revpauljbern]

Ongoing Biblical studies this week with Author Rev. Paul J. Bern....

The Apostle Paul Concludes His Message

[Acts chapter 13, verses 32-41]

For a website view, click here :-)

As we left off last week in our ongoing studies of the writings of the apostle Luke, the apostle Paul was delivering his first message at the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch, a city in what is now central Turkey. Paul's first sermon was of great effect, convincing many Jews and Gentiles alike that the Lord Jesus had been, and always will be, the risen Son of God. This week as we move on to part 3 of Acts chapter 13, Paul is about to wrap up his message for that Sabbath morning. So let's take up where we left off last week, beginning at verse 32.

“32) 'We tell you the good news: What God promised our ancestors 33) he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm: ‘You are my son; today I have become your father.’ 34) God raised him from the dead so that he will never be subject to decay. As God has said, ‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David.’ 35) So it is also stated elsewhere: ‘You will not let your holy one see decay.’ 36) Now when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his ancestors and his body decayed. 37) But the one whom God raised from the dead did not see decay. 38) Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. 39) Through him everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses. 40) Take care that what the prophets have said does not happen to you: 41) ‘Look, you scoffers, wonder and perish, for I am going to do something in your days that you would never believe,  even if someone told you.’” (Acts 13, verses 32-41)

Paul's statement in verses 32 and 33 were prophetic in nature. That is, they proclaimed the Word of God and made it applicable to that present situation. In this case, Paul was preaching about the resurrection of Jesus Christ as he showed how his resurrection had been prophesied previously. God's promise to the ancestors of those in the congregation was spelled out in Isaiah 53: 4-7, and I quote, “4) Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. 5) But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6) We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7) He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.” This passage of scripture was exactly what Paul was talking about.

As you all can clearly see from the above passage of scripture, the prophet Isaiah was foretelling the crucifixion of Christ. He then ties that into Psalm 2: 7, “You are my son; today I have become your father.” Though the world rejected Christ's message and then executed him, Paul is proclaiming the absolute truth of the Gospel to the entire congregation, both Jew and Gentile, something that had been unthinkable to himself and the congregation, owing to Paul's prior reputation as a merciless persecutor of the faithful. The day Christ was crucified, and his subsequent resurrection on the morning of the third day afterwards, cemented his status forever as the Savior of humankind. “God raised him from the dead so that he will never be subject to decay. As God has said, ‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David.’ “ This is a reference to Saul, Israel's first king, anointing David as a young soldier in 1st Samuel chapter 16 (starting at verse 1, for those who want to look that up).

“36) Now when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his ancestors and his body decayed. 37) But the one whom God raised from the dead did not see decay.” When King David's life was at an end, he was buried and his body decayed in the ground just like everyone else's. That includes other religious leaders of the past such as Buddha and Mohammad. Christ is the sole exception to this unpleasant fact of life and the reason for our faith! “I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses.” There it is in a nutshell, people, Christianity summarized in 2 little sentences. Everybody has a problem with sin, which is simply defined as deliberate disobedience to God, or of refusal to believe in His existence or in Christ. Sin separates us from God our creator, rendering us unable to enter into eternal life with him when our bodies wear out and die. I would compare this to something like a broken-down car that cannot be repaired, or for which no parts are available. Just as there is nothing that can be done for a broken down old car or truck, so God can do nothing with human souls who refuse to serve their Maker.

The ultimate fate for those who refuse to believe, and there are a lot of them out there, is spelled out by Paul in verse 41, where he quotes from Habakkuk 1: 5: “Look, you scoffers, wonder and perish, for I am going to do something in your days that you would never believe,  even if someone told you.” There are those individuals who are going to be bound and determined to go their own way in life, thinking only of themselves. They stubbornly refuse to listen to anyone, they can't be taught anything, and their anthem is the old song from the 1960's, “I did it my way”. Jesus prophesied about these people when he said to the Twelve and the others with them, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matt. 7: 13-14) Jesus truly is going to perform some works “that you would never believe, even if someone told you.” Meaning, even if Jesus himself came and personally told a scoffer of his truths, they still wouldn't believe it. And so I give you all a solemn warning – the eternal life that you expect after your demise will not be forthcoming if you do not believe in the risen Christ. That fact bears some very careful though over the course of this coming week. And next week we'll conclude our study of Acts thirteen.

[kingdomcomefic]

Sleep

The hardest part is letting go of your dreams... It rang like bells through the Empty.  Castiel.

In the section of the Empty known to it’s keeper as Betwixt slumbering beings shifted.  Castiel!

Ears perked up. To so many in Betwixt that name was familiar. Some had been sent there by the angel Castiel. Some had followed him when he was the new God. Some had worked alongside him. One of them had loved him. Something in Betwixt shifted, and the denizens felt a sensation like a bedfellow had gotten up and left the room. There was an odd absence that rippled and rumbled through those beings sleeping there, but most were too deeply under, and they slipped back into nothingness.  The one who had loved Castiel fought the sensation of sinking back into the subconscious of the being that presided over them. Gedvalorth, Lord of the Empty, slumbered out of necessity. His brand of madness came from existing too long. He enjoyed sleeping because it kept the pain away. The longer he was awake the longer he had to fight the burning that coursed through him. He would have moments of lucidity, but given time he’d slip into hysteria and then into full insanity. He’d be useless, and somebody had to mind the souls here.  The Empty wasn’t really empty, after all. There were innumerable demons and angels there. From the war in heaven to some demons who sacrificed themselves for some greater good he couldn’t fathom, Gedvalorth kept them in their places. The demons received his nightmares. Twisted dreams screamed through their rest in flashes of blood, ichor, violence, and gore. The angels received his fantasies and dreams of flying, skies, colorful gardens, and light.  In the Betwixt, it was different. Angels and demons were both sorted there because some angels had committed atrocities, and some demons had saved the world a time or two, though their numbers were fewer. This grey area was Gedvalorth’s least favorite. While they got both his nightmares and his dreams they were unpredictable. Several times he had prepared a space for Castiel to rest, but God had yanked him back just in time to keep him on the earthly plane. It caused him a lot of restlessness, and driven him close to losing his control.  While the empty was meant to be nothingness, it still was full of the mass of dead angels and demons and needed someone to guard the place. Once, a few millennia ago, those that came to his domain were all awake and they all tried to exist together in a wild new dimension. Keeping the peace was far more than Gedvalorth had been able to handle and he went completely mad. It was then, in a moment of lucid thought that he put all of the residents in a deep sleep and erased everything. He brought back the void that existed before there were angels and demons, and then let himself slip into the drift of all that came to inhabit his world.  As soon as a being entered the Empty they would be lulled to sleep and there they would stay for all eternity, feeding into the dreams of the master of the realm. No one had ever woken up before, until Castiel’s name was heard echoing through a place long without sound nor stir. Gedvalorth cursed that name and all of the anxiety that it had brought him. Soon he felt Castiel’s awareness and Gedvalorth knew that he’d have to address this issue.  “Hello? Hello! Hello? Hello!” Castiel cried out. He wandered around in what looked like nothingness, being followed by the veiled form of Gedvalorth as he wandered trying to find who it was that could have been calling his name. In just moments he would meet Gedvalorth face to face and have a strange exchange with him. Ultimately Castiel would escape, his presence so abrasive to the lord of this place that he would be expelled.  Meanwhile, deep down in darkness the creature that came to call herself Meg had awoken inside a comatose consciousness. Dwelling in Betwixt was strange enough of a fate for her, as she’d never truly considered herself as any bit of good. She’d made a joke about that once before, but Meg didn’t think that the universe would have taken notice of the good deeds she’d done. She’d seen both the good and the bad sides  of Gedvalorth’s subconscious, and she felt like she’d been so still for so long. Then she heard, chiming like a miracle, the name Castiel.  She reached for that name, and she fought her slumber. Her eyes opened but she found that she couldn’t move. She was awake, but immobile. all she could see was pitch. She knew there were others around her, and that they’d mostly all been there forever. Some felt new, but she was in a pool of weariness. It was all she could do just to keep her eyes open, but she was trying.  Whatever passed for her muscles tensed as she fought against the force that was holding her in the place she was. She’d never experienced sleep paralysis, but this was definitely what it must be like. She took one deep, unneeded breath into lungs that were not much more than a concept and jerked upright as she sat up in darkness, only to find Castiel standing before her.  “You,” he said, aghast.  “Yeah, me. What is this?” she asked looking up to see only more darkness.  “This is the Empty, you were in Betwixt, your boyfriend just left. Yada, yada, yada.”  She glared at the entity she now realized only looked like Castiel and said, “He’s not my boyfriend. I’m dead. No boyfriends for dead girls.”  “Sounds like a song. Well, whatever you were, he’s gone. Time to go back to sleep now, sweetheart,” Gedvalorth stretched and yawned before tilting his head too far to the right. His neck gave a sickening pop and he smiled, showing too many teeth. “Do you like lullabies? Or should I break out the bed time tales?” “I’m not going back to sleep.” She sat herself down with her legs crossed in front of her at her ankles, arms propping her up. “I like this feeling. I want to roll around in it a little. It’s been a while.”  “No, you don’t understand, you cannot be awake now. I can’t handle the...pain,” Gedvalorth said pointing to his head. “Oh, golly, mister. Then I guess you just have to send me to Castiel then,” Meg purred.  “You and your ilk are more trouble than you’re worth!” Gedvalorth said scratching mindlessly at one part of his arm. “Very well, then. I’ll let you go, but no more! And if you want back in here...You’ll just have to die for it.” “Trust me, that will be a long, long time from now,” she said standing up and stepping toward him. “There’s no place like home, Toto,” she mumbled. In an instant she was in the Empty and then she was in the real world. She stood in a thicket looking around to try to get her barrings. To her left she saw Castiel trudging off toward a roadway, but she was too far out for him to hear her call to him. In what seemed like a blink he was gone, and she was left staring after the point he disappeared into the opposite treeline. 

———————————————————————

Kiss the Void

This place is spinnin', spinnin' around into the void. Feel like I'm bein' pulled into a black hole. This crazy feelin's screwin' with my head. I'm overloadin' and my gauges are red. 

In the Empty most beings were at rest, but Gedvalorth tossed and turned, in and out of sleep. Something was coming. His most pleasant dreams were now wrapped in anxiety, and his nightmares were repetitive loops of inescapable horrors. Gedvalorth was the glue that held the Empty together. The stability of the place was tied directly to his own mental balance. 

In the beginning when Gedvalorth and the Empty had come to be It had just been his own. For what humans would call thousands of years he drifted in the stillness, only him and his dreams. He felt weightless, unfettered, peaceful, and whole. Then they came. Sometimes singularly, sometimes in clusters of hundreds, they invaded his sanctuary. These loud, demanding creatures called themselves angels. They hammered him with questions, they shouted at each other they fought among themselves and they just kept on coming. 

Gedvalorth felt his agitation growing. He found himself prone to hysterical bouts of laughter, then just as suddenly he would scream and lash out in rage at the nearest being to him. The ever present nag of the angels in his realm and his consciousness were breaking him. There was no getting adjusted to the new tenants, and just when he thought things couldn’t get any worse, there were new creatures that began to arrive. 

These things were called demons. They were dark and menacing and they snapped and snarled at everything and everyone. They fought with the angels and they fought with each other and they coiled around Gedvalorth whispering torments in his ears. They brought violence and gore into his mind and he began to imagine that he saw these things happening right before his eyes. He saw the terrors that the demons went through in Hell and he saw the pain they caused in this place called Earth. 

In addition to all of the chaos he began to sense the dimensions bordering his own. He began to feel the cataclysms that was impending apocalypse. He could sense it coming from a few thousand years away. It came to him clearly in messages from the angels and the sense he had of impending doom. He could feel the trembling of differing realities, even as his own threatened to shake apart.

The Empty was so close to collapse. The noise was drowning him. Gedvalorth now flowed from catatonic, to shrieking laughter, to roaring anger. He was out of control, and he could feel the Empty, his beloved home, beginning to fray. In a rare moment of clarity, Gedvalorth focused all of his energy on the occupants of his realm and he forced them all into a deep slumber. With the voices all quieted, Gedvalorth now enveloped them in his own subconscious, splitting his pleasant dreams and his horrific nightmares with the demons. Keeping them all separate and sleeping calmed him and finally he drifted off to sleep himself. 

As long as the souls in the Empty slept, he could be at peace and he could dwell within his nothingness in tranquility. More demons and angels entered the Empty, all instantly put to sleep. In his steady state, his curiosity was peaked by the angels that he noticed entering his world who were more wicked than just. He put them in a particular category he called Betwixt. Soon there were a few demons there, too, who had committed some unselfish, kind acts before their deaths. These were even more surprising to him. Still they slept in peace, colorful worlds dancing before them. Sometimes he found it funny that a place called the Empty was, in fact, full. 

That is, until something woke the angel Castiel from his sleep in Betwixt. Then Gedvalorth was forced awake and could feel his calm mind begin to twist. He pleaded with Castiel but in the end he was forced to expel him for the stability of his entire domain. He barely had time to blink before a demon woman had taken advantage of Gedvalorth’s weak moment and woken herself. He let her go almost immediately, and as soon as she was gone he tried to fall back into his dreaming. 

His sleep was shallow, his mind troubled. He was awake enough to sense an upheaval. Someone was tearing realities open and he felt his anxiousness rise. He could see the wave of darkness coming, and though he would manage to slip under he could not truly rest. Yes, something was coming, and Gedvalorth, mad lord of the Empty, was frightened.

[nellie-elizabeth]

Outlander: Surrender (3x02)

Fergus!!!! My darling!!!

Cons:

Honestly, this episode was pretty close to perfect. The one thing I have in the "cons" column is more a question about how they've chosen to pace this season. In the books, the time with Claire would be spent with her in her late forties with adult Brianna in Scotland, like how last season ended. By going back and focusing chronologically on Claire's life, we're not going to get as much build over time of Claire's decision to go back and find Jamie again (I know, shocking spoiler, right?). This also means probably less screen-time with Brianna and Roger before the fateful moment of separation between Claire and Brianna. In last season's finale, I found Brianna a little one-note, and I was looking forward to getting some more time with her to flesh out the character a bit. She's really important moving forward, and I don't want the TV show to skimp on Brianna Randall just in the interests of focusing more on Claire and Jamie, as much as I like them.

Pros:

Literally, though, this episode was great. To start with Claire and Frank, they finally rekindle their sex life, but it seems pretty clear that Claire is thinking of Jamie whenever she's with Frank, and he eventually calls her on it. They go back to having a sexless marriage, although they are still amiable and still both love their daughter greatly. We also see Claire make the decision to go to medical school. As she sits down in her first class, she is ostracized by her fellow students, and the professor seems intent on ignoring her existence. She is approached by Joe Abernathy, a black medical student. The two share a brief moment of bonding over their shared isolation.

I'm tempted to point out here that the stuff in 18th century Scotland is more interesting than what's going on in 20th century America. Because, yeah, duh. But that doesn't discount any of the lovely character work that's being done in these scenes. Frank is a lot more easy to hate in the books. Here, you can kind of feel for his situation. It's not that he feels he deserves sex from his wife whenever he wants it... it's more like he signed up for a certain life, and even when that certain life was thrown completely out the window, he agreed to be patient and loving with the expectation that some sort of equilibrium could be reached. On the other hand you have Claire, who loves her daughter deeply and is doing her best to integrate into her life, but she can't magically forget the past or give Frank whatever he wants. Frank is going to have to accept the fact that Claire is giving as much of herself as she is capable of giving. It's a hard pill to swallow, and I like that I feel real sympathy for Frank in this situation. I mean I don't feel too devastated, but still. He's not some monster.

There's this wonderful theme going on in this episode that ties together Claire's plot and Jamie's, and that's the idea of moving on after losing a loved one. I feel like so few romances really deal with the subject of life after love. Jamie and Claire are both scarred and irreparably changed by losing each other, but that does not mean their lives are over. Claire has her daughter, and is making choices to improve her life and be a part of something bigger than herself by going to medical school. And Jamie...

Well, let's just say Jamie takes Claire's loss a little harder. At least, on the surface. And you can't really blame him, can you? Claire returned to a relatively cushy life with a man who cares for her and wants to protect her, and she has Bree to remind her of Jamie and give her a piece of him. Jamie, meanwhile, is living in a cave on his family's property because he's still a wanted Jacobite fugitive. He's basically cut himself off from all of society, only poking in occasionally to see Jenny, Ian, Fergus, and the rest of the kids. However, a horrible incident occurs and changes Jamie's mindset. A group of Redcoats come dangerously close to Jamie's hideout, and Fergus leads them away by taunting them. They hold him down and cut off his hand in punishment, while Jamie looks on, horrified. Jamie is able to rush him to the house after the Redcoats leave, and Fergus lives, although he is now an amputee. Jamie decides he cannot keep putting his family in danger. He arranges with an unwilling Jenny that she should turn him in, thus getting Jamie arrested while Ian and Jenny will be safe from retribution for harboring a fugitive, and will actually get the reward money for his capture. The episode ends with Jamie being taken away.

Oh man. So much to discuss.

So, like I said, the common theme here is moving on with your life after the loss of a loved one. Jamie is not so good at that, letting himself grow wild and un-groomed, barely speaking with anybody on the rare occasions he actually emerges from the cave, and brushing off Fergus and Jenny when they attempt to reach out to him. He's an utter mess. However, in a very touching moment towards the end of the episode, we see how the experience with Fergus has woken him to the fact that he still has people he loves in this world. He allows Mary MacNab to come visit him in his cave right before he is set to be "sold out" by Jenny and taken to prison. She shaves him and cuts his hair, returning him in outward appearance to the Jamie we've known for most of the show. And then Mary and Jamie have sex. We get a very chaste fade-away, actually, which I thought was an interesting contrast to the somewhat prolonged sex scenes between Claire and Frank. But it makes a lot of sense - Frank and Claire are not connecting on an emotional level, as badly as Frank might want them to be. Jamie and Mary, on the other hand, are both going in to this encounter with no false pretense. Mary wants to offer something to Jamie that she also needs herself, being a widow. A moment of connection that, while less than what they both had with their lost spouses, is still something new, and precious in its own way.

Jenny is one of my favorites. Great acting from Laura Donnelly in this episode, especially at the end. Jamie and Jenny have to act out a scene wherein Jamie is coming home and they're seeing each other for the first time, and then Jamie is shocked and hurt at Jenny's betrayal, and Jenny says that he brought this on himself. Donnelly plays this moment with all the pain and rage Jenny must surely be feeling, even as she's acting for the sake of the ruse. When she says she'll never forgive him, we're left wondering if there's any truth to that line.

And now to Fergus. Oh my God I love him so much. It's so sad to think that this is probably the last we'll see of young Fergus, as he's been recast for the older version of the character. But here, he's at his finest. Jamie spends several years in the cave, so in this episode we have a teenaged Fergus instead of a little boy of twelve. Speaking of talented acting, Romann Berrux does an amazing job with a slightly older Fergus who has been living in Scotland as he grows to adulthood. His accent is still mostly French, but he's adjusted it to add some Scots sounds as well. Very impressive. And he manages to keep that wide-eyed trickster vibe while being realistically an older and more brash kid.

But let's get to the thing that I really want to talk about, which is Fergus leading the soldiers away from Jamie, losing his hand, and then being an adorable sweetheart about it. Everything about this sequence was lifted from the book, and I was so happy to see all of my favorite elements being included. It's heartbreaking to see Jamie's reaction, of course, but this moment of terror is what snaps him out of it and gets him back to the present day. He jumps into survival mode, and once he hears Fergus will live, he drops to his knees in a potent mixture of grief and relief. And then he tells Fergus that he reminds him that he has someone to live for. The scene from the book that I really hoped they would include (and they did!) is where Fergus reminds Jamie that in Paris, Jamie promised that should Fergus die while in Jamie's service, Jamie would pray for him... but if Fergus lost an ear or a hand, Jamie would care for him forever. In one fell swoop, as Fergus says, he has become a "man of leisure." Oh man just kill me now this was so adorable.

As a book reader, I have a fair idea of what's coming up in the next episode. So even though I'm sad to be saying goodbye to young Fergus, I'm beyond excited to start being properly acquainted with another favorite of mine - Lord John Grey!

9/10