#out here destroying gods and trying to alter the very fabric of reality

[mmothmanners]

My BBEG Aeron (from my homebrew campaign) in his cute little lounge wear. Totally not trying to gaslight, girlboss, and manipulate a PC. He's just a normal guy reading a normal little book.

And definitely not a full lich with a skeletal face under that mirage and charming veneer.

[sserpente]

Ablaze

A/N: I just couldn’t help myself. 🔥

Words: 3010 Warnings: excessive excitement over two seconds of new Loki footage

“Where is he?”

“In the interrogation room, chained up.”

“Good.” Taking a deep breath, you finished your coffee and stood, gathering your documents in the process. This could now be the most important moment in your career—there was no time for failure.

Two days ago, when the TVA received reports of an unknown entity wreaking havoc within the multiverse lineages of the universe, their complaints had fallen on deaf ears. There had not been an incident for years—not until the sudden turmoil of an unrecorded timeline disaffiliating from 2012.

You were still unsure of the origins but it was clear that someone had meddled with the alternate timelines the Avengers had had to create to destroy Thanos. But the stones had all been returned to their receptive points in time, Steve Rogers had made sure of that.

They must have made a mistake somehow—and that mistake was, as of right now, waiting for you in the interrogation room.

It was still unclear how many timelines and universes Loki had travelled to and thrown into turmoil—what knowledge he had acquired and which was not his to possess. He was a dangerous force that needed to be taken care of.

-

Loki arrogantly lifted his chin when the metal door swished open and allowed you to enter. He was sat at the table in the middle of the dimly lit and otherwise empty room, wrists bound together with a pair of handcuffs equalling the technological progress of realms like, in this main timeline destroyed, Asgard—in your world, time was a relative thing, after all. Whatever tricks he could concoct, even he would be powerless against the shiny metal wrapped around his wrists.

His hair was shorter than you remembered it, his usual, intimidating Asgardian attire like you had seen it in various footage of the alien invasion of New York City, replaced with the prison clothes he had been given, leaving his arms bare.

“And what now?” He mused when he spotted you. “Are you here to question me, my dear? To bewitch me? No amount of sweet-talking will get me to comply with your pathetic schemes—whatever they might be.”

You eyed him mutely as you walked towards him, giving him time for his first words directed at your person to sink in. When you sat down, putting your documents on the empty table calmly, you cleared your throat seemingly unaffected.

“No schemes. What we would like to know is how you could escape our main timeline and create an alternate universe messing with the matrix of time and space, Loki.” You began straight away, relinquishing formalities and unnecessary introductions. The God of Mischief looked down, the hint of a mischievous smirk playing on the corners of his thin lips. He hummed before he spoke.

“It appears to be in human nature to thrive for knowledge and elucidation.” His expression hardened, smooth voice growing sharp. His blue eyes locked with yours.  “Even if it is neither your affairs nor place to intervene.”

You had studied psychology in Edinburgh, back in the day. As far as Loki was concerned, you were an impenetrable, strong and fearless woman. Any weakness you revealed to him could be your downfall—and his triumph.

“Whatever the Avengers might or might not have done in order to restore the universe to its right order, they must have missed something, or someone.” You said matter-of-factly, forcing yourself to remain unfazed by the dangerous Trickster in front of you. “Given that at the time of their interference with both the mind and time stone back in 2012, it has come to our attention that another Infinity stone had been removed, opening up an alternate timeline the Avengers were—for some reason—unable to patch up and close.”

Loki raised his eyebrows innocently, responding nothing, however, his scrutinising blue eyes still held you captive in a highly concerning way��� almost as if you were the one being questioned.

“The space stone. The Tesseract?” You probed, a hint of impatience in your voice. You had to keep your composure. Loki hummed once more.

“It must be truly devastating to know the Tesseract within your reach, unable to grasp it.” He remarked scornfully.

“We have no interest in the Tesseract.”

“No?”

“No. What we want is to undo the damage you have done—beginning with returning the Tesseract to its receptive timeline. As far as we are concerned, you should not even exist.”

The space stone was indeed a real problem. As long as your colleagues aimed to locate its whereabouts, Loki would keep the upper hand. You had a feeling they would be wasting both their energy and resources. He had it. You knew he had it. You just needed to prevent him from using it again.

“And yet here I am.” He mocked with a breathy voice, yet again lifting his chin; this time leaning back in his chair.

“And yet here you are,” you repeated. “You endanger the multiverse. Your existence threatens the very fragile fabric of our reality. We cannot let you wander about, regardless of your intentions… which is why we have to keep you prisoner until further notice.”

Loki’s face fell instantly, the sudden anger sparkling in his stunning blue eyes sending the startling sting of an adrenaline rush through your body. Stop. You were not Harleen Quinzel and he was not the Joker. Keep calm.

“I am done being imprisoned. I will not let a group of meagre mortals lock me away because they fear what I am capable of.”

“By the looks of it, you already have.” You retorted.

“You do not wish to incur my wrath.”

“I am willing to take that risk.”

He growled darkly, a menacing smile spreading on his lips as he paused. “I’m gonna burn this place to the ground.”

You scoffed. “If I took every prisoner’s threats at their word, I would not be sitting here right now.”

With a start, Loki shot forward, his fists colliding with the table surface and sending an ear-piercing bang through the empty room, making you flinch and back off.

“You should do well not to underestimate me, you mewling quim.” He spat through gritted teeth. “I am a God. You are all fools if you think you can keep me in custody. Consider this my final warning. Release me or you will face the consequences.”

“I can’t do that, I’m afraid.” You replied, fighting hard to hide the growing shaking in your voice. “I’m not a friend, Loki. But I am no police either. You have not been arrested for any of your crimes here on Earth but solely for attempting to… and succeeding in altering the past and the future. We can’t let that happen again.”

His growl was downright animalistic this time, paired with a menacing harrumph—he refrained from having the last word when you stood, collecting your documents to leave the interrogation room for good. As soon as the door fell shut behind you, you breathed out, tension and fear melting away from you with a start. One of your colleagues was already waiting for you outside.

“How did it go?”

“Terrible, as expected.” You stated, straightening your skirt with trembling fingers. The officer hummed in response.

“I say we give him to the authorities. SHIELD has yet to—“

“SHIELD?” You interrupted. “And what will you tell him, officer? As far as we are concerned, Loki was, as of 2012, taken back to Asgard to face the consequences of his actions. He is not their responsibility anymore. This Loki—wherever he came from—is our issue to deal with.”

-

A full week had gone by since your first encounter with the God of Mischief and you were still no closer to bringing the Tesseract in your possession. Loki was quiet—conspicuously so. Reports from the officers standing guard day in and out spoke of nothing but immobility on his part, for most of the time, he would simply sit on his bed and stare into nothingness, other times he would walk around in his cell like a tiger ready to pounce on his prey… always as if he was planning something.

You had no doubt that he was—which meant that you would have to return to the interrogation room before it was too late, have him brought there one more time and manipulate him into telling you everything you wished to know.

You had studied him, read countless reports on him in a desperate attempt to riddle him out. Loki was a master of magic. SHIELD agents had watched him catch an arrow mid-air, they had witnessed bullets bouncing off of him like rubber balls. Mind control as well as telekinesis and even transformation counted to his powers, he cast frighteningly real illusions, possessed the ability of teleportation and invisibility—not even to mention his supernatural strength, speed, and healing capabilities.

SHIELD might have been, with the Avengers’ help, a match for him but if he ever found a way to free himself from these shackles, you would certainly be no match for him. What was it he had said? It must be truly devastating to know the Tesseract within your reach, unable to grasp it.

A spell must have been concealing the Tesseract from you. Just how would you convince him to cave in? How much time did you have left? Who, after all, could guarantee the guards weren’t just seeing illusions every day?

Perhaps you should try a new strategy and meet him with honesty—even ask for his help, if necessary. If you told Loki what was at stake if you did not protect the very fabric of this complex net of universes tying into one another and life as both he and you knew it could be torn apart, would he relent?

Loki could become a valuable asset in your organisation, use his abilities, for once, for heroism instead of mischief. But would he truly be up for this proposal after your initial conversation?

You had too many questions you did not know the answer to. This ought to change. Tomorrow. For now, you would shut the world out and relax in your own for walls—it was the only way to stay sane working for TVA.

Already wearing your pyjamas, consisting of nothing more than a pair of way too revealing knickers and a black tank top tonight, you made yourself comfortable on the carpeted floor of the bedroom in your flat, grabbing the huge pillow as well as a mug of hot chocolate already waiting for you.

You reached for the remote control to switch on your TV, lazily zapping through the various channels in search for a good film to watch before going to bed when suddenly, a news channel caught your attention.

A brunette reporter, standing in front of a green screen showing footage of a collection of grey concrete buildings on fire, hurried to rattle off the words written on the monitor behind the camera. These… these were the TVA headquarters.

“The fire department assumes the fire was caused by a leaking gas pipe or oil tank, they preclude the possibility of a wilful action towards occupants of the building complex. Until now, the firefighters recovered twenty-two dead bodies, with a final number of deaths not yet confirmed. More than thirty-four people are still missing.”

“No… oh my God, please, no…” Squeezing your eyes shut, you took a few deep and controlled breaths to fend off a panic attack. This wasn’t real. Your headquarters were not on fire. You were dreaming, having a nightmare messing with your mind.

While the greater public had no idea this building was the base of TVA, that this place had become your second home… all of the research, all of the unique technical equipment, all of the documents harbouring records of the complex composition of the multiverse, all of the prisoners you kept from tearing apart your understanding of time… gone, turned to ash.

“Beautiful, is it not? Everything is ablaze.” You screeched, flinching away from the dark figure appearing right next to your cowering form at the foot of your bed and knocking over your mug in the process.

The pale light of the TV threw eerie shadows on his flawless face, supporting his mischievous and downright threatening gaze. You stumbled back on your hands and knees when Loki took a step forward, briefly eyeing the dark stain spreading on the carpet.

“Hmm, what was that, cocoa? I rather enjoy this Midgardian beverage.”

“You… how did you…” You stuttered, unable to form a functioning sentence. Fear replaced the blood pumping through your veins, your heart pounding at light speed. He was here. How had he even found you?

“Free myself?” He finished nonchalantly. “I warned you not to underestimate me, pet. And what would happen if you caged me like a curiosity.” He added with a dangerous growl.

“W-what… what do you want from me?”

Would he kill you? Take revenge on you for making him a prisoner? To think that only minutes ago, you had considered offering him your alliance… You could not deny the effect he had on your body, your mind, your entire being. It had all started in the interrogation room, when he had seemed to look directly into your soul with those stunning blue eyes of his… his attractiveness and sex appeal only made this worse. You did not want to fear him and yet, you were terrified. Could you possibly explain to him you had meant to return to him tomorrow, proposing him an alternative to a dull cell?

“First and foremost, I will need a place to stay.” Your eyes widened when he produced the handcuffs he had been shackled with seemingly out of thin air and fingered them thoughtfully. Your heart skipped a beat when his scrutinising gaze met yours, a mischievous smirk growing on his lips. “And you, my pet, have, during our little talk, proven to be quite the reliable source of information. I shall use that to my advantage.”

Unable to combat his unnatural speed, you gasped when he stroke and grabbed your wrists firmly, cuffing them together fast and effortlessly. The cold metal on your naked skin made you shiver.

“This is to ensure you don’t rush into mischiefs.” He explained mockingly. “It would be unwise to consider me a role model in your current position.”

“Loki…” You started, willing your voice to sound strong and determined. “You don’t have to do this. Please…”

The God of Mischief chuckled darkly. “Do I not? Now, I have important matters to attend to, my dear, and I can’t have you foiling my plans.” You gasped once more when he cupped your chin, albeit surprisingly tenderly, and forcing you to look him in the eye again. “It appears you are my prisoner now. If I were you, I would not hope for your pathetic little friends to come to your rescue. They are, as of right now, occupied with not burning alive.”

He released you then, moving away from you slowly and reaching for one of the pillows on your bed to shake it out to his liking. Only now did you notice how tired and worn-out he looked, like escaping and wreaking havoc in TVA’s headquarters had demanded all of his strength.

He must have known you were not in the building. How long, you wondered, had he been watching you? While you studied him… had he been studying you, too? What would become of you now? Harley Quinn? Panic rose in your body, making your stomach churn. If Loki truly planned to implant himself in your flat, using it as a hideout, you were all but lost.

Your life as a TVA agent was but a secret one. You had no friends outside of this organisation and barely still kept in touch with your family, if anything to protect them from potential threats. No one would ever find you. Your life was in Loki’s hands.

“Please… please, just don’t hurt me.” You pleaded, your voice barely a whisper. Loki paused, his blue eyes locking with yours once more. He almost seemed… taken aback by your silent confession.

“I have no intention of hurting you.” He said. Oddly, they felt like the most honest words he had spoken to you yet.

He threw the covers back, quite obviously feeling at home already.

You had forgotten you were still cowering on the floor, your arms immobilised by the magic handcuffs. Eyeing the bed longingly, Loki smirked when he noticed your inner struggle, if anything to point out how much he enjoyed having you shudder for fear and reverence before him.

“You are more than welcome to share the bed with me, pet. I will not relinquish the presence of warm female body next to mine as I rest and recover.”

Mutely, you shook your head. But what other choice did you have? To sleep on the hard floor with nothing but a pillow? Trembling, you rose to your feet as gracefully as you could muster with your hands cuffed together, slowly approaching the other side of the bed.

It took you a moment to nestle down, feeling Loki’s eyes on you with every move you made. You did not dare look at him again, fearing your heart would not be able to take it.

With a wave of his hand, Loki switched off the TV, drowning the bedroom in utter darkness, then, you felt the mattress sinking in directly next to you. Breathing heavily, you turned your back to him, curling up like a fetus.

“Good night, (Y/N).” Your heart jumped when he spoke your name with his smooth voice—you could practically hear his scornful smirk behind you. “Sweet dreams.”

There was something about his presence… something alluring. You bit your lower lip, forcing your eyes shut. I have no intention of hurting you. You believed him. Perhaps this was what scared you the most.

-

A/N: I am strongly tempted to write a Part II. I will need some time though.

EDIT: Well, here’s Part II then. xD

Check out my blog to find more Imagines and take a glimpse at my first (to be) published novel! If you enjoyed this story, I would appreciate so much if you supported me on Kofi! ko-fi.com/sserpente ♥

[a-dorin]

black & white | n.m.

word count: 1,854

warnings: smut, cursing, alcohol usage, sexual innuendos

a/n: i suggest listening to star shopping by lil peep because this fits the chapter! the first part is linked below :))

confession - n.m.

instinctively you reached out, your heart sinking as you felt empty space in your bed. eyes snapping open, you sat up in your bed, rubbing your aching temple. maybe you did have a little too much last night. perhaps it was all just a vivid dream.

noel’s lips were only centimeters from yours as he carried you to your room, holding you tightly in his arms. a few hours had passed since you dozed off on the couch. you shot up from a nightmare, nerves bundled, a small sheen of sweat on your forehead. noel stirred awake, inquiring if you would feel better sleeping in your bed. after you nodded slightly, noel scooped you into his arms, holding you tightly. sweet murmurs filled your ears, soothing your wired nerves. 

his strong hands laid you on the bed gently, his touch sending electric waves through you as his hands brushed over the small of your back. static electricity filled the room as noel laid next to you; his hazel eyes almost glowing in the dim light. he swallowed thickly, placing a hand on your cheek. his thumb caressed your skin, your cheeks dusted pink.

lips molded together, your clothes acting a barrier between heated skin. one by one, your articles of clothing were discarded, thrown to the floor. noel’s soft lips pressed all over your neck and chest, you melting under his touch.

shaking your head, you hopped out of bed, pushing the thoughts of last night away. by then, you were sobered up. you clearly recalled noel asking, and you consenting. strands of hair fell into your eyes, your bed head almost uncontrollable. however, your mind was on different things.

what time did noel leave? did he leave a note? your eyes traveled around your room, in search of a note. maybe he left one attached to your phone. you located your phone on your nightstand, disappointment growing as there was no note. there was not a trace of noel left. just the slight scent of him on your sheets.

just as you were about to set your phone back on the surface, your screen lit up, with a message. there were about five other messages, all from earlier this morning. the first started at 6:07 a.m.

noel - i’m such an ass for leaving but my sleep apnea was acting up & i wasn’t able to sleep. plus cody wanted to me to come in to film a few different projects. i’m so sorry.

noel - i’m such an ass

noel - everything about last night was so perfect. i miss you already.

noel - i just didn’t want to wake my girl with my loud ass snores. you’re so cute when you sleep btw.

noel - oh shit.

noel - sorry for calling you my girl. we should probably talk about it.

your heart skipped a beat at the words my girl. yet, your mind began to buzz with anxious thoughts. did noel not want to pursue a relationship with you? did he want to talk about last night? there were quite a few revelations that came to light. after all, noel did admit that he was in love with you. 

yet, a memory from last night popped into your mind. noel’s words rang through your mind. cody would destroy me. frowning, you felt hot tears well up in your eyes, threatening to spill over onto your cheeks. maybe noel wanted to forget everything ever happened. if cody did found out, it would be endgame.

reluctantly, you formulated a response to noel’s series of texts. 

what time do you want to come over? i’m free today. i was going to film but i don’t really feel like it. 

three bubbles popped up underneath your message, signaling that noel was going to respond within seconds. 

noel - i mean, i can come over after i’m done here with cody. again, i’m sorry that i wasn’t there this morning. i can make it up to you baby. do you need anything while i’m out?

just want you here with me. 

noel - i’m on my way. 

instantly, you rushed into the bathroom, brushing through your tangled hair. you were in need of a shower, but since noel was on his way, you knew it wouldn’t be long before he was knocking at your door. instantaneously, you brushed your teeth, gurgled some mouthwash, and washed your face. you slid out of your pajamas, and into a fresh pair of leggings and old t-shirt. it was an old tiny meat gang merch tee, cut so that it was cropped. noel made fun of you for “destroying the masterpiece”, but you preferred the crop fit. 

a soft knocking rang through your apartment, and you rushed to the door. noel stood in the doorway, his eyes raking over your body, “good morning beautiful.” 

noel’s lips brushed your thighs, nipping gently. his eyes were full of lust, a hunger within him that needed to be relinquished. gingerly, he licked up your pussy, taking in the way your lips parted, a moan echoing off the walls. he dove in, holding onto your thighs with a tight grip. 

“uhhhh,” you bit your lip, “hi.”

“that’s all i get?” a small chuckle erupted from noel, he strolled into the apartment, a grocery sack in his hands, “did you sleep okay?”

you shrugged, “eh, it could’ve been better.”

noel frowned slightly, “i know, and i’m sorry. i brought you some snacks. i know you like gushers and fruit roll-ups so i bought you some of those.”

“you’re very sweet,” you felt a wide smile form on your face, “thank you.”

he placed the sack on your coffee table, before turning to you. he pulled you towards him, the space between you almost nonexistent. a slight blush tinged your cheeks, you face a pink hue. noel smirked, “i got you all hot and bothered now, don’t i?”

noel’s hands rested on your hips, his fingers squeezing the fabric of your leggings, “a little bit.”

“It’s not a bad thing baby,” now his lips were brushing yours, noel leaning in. his soft lips crashed into yours, kissing you eagerly. you wrapped your arms around his neck, enjoying the taste of honey on his tongue. he must have had something with honey for breakfast. without warning, noel picked you up by your thighs, carrying you in his arms. you yelped with surprise, earning a laugh from him. he carried you into your room, laying you on the bed gently. 

rather than tug on the hem of your crop top, noel curled up next to you, wrapping his arms around your frame. he laid his head on your chest, exhaling. your fingers laced into his hair, running through the shiny black locks. 

“we should talk,” noel murmured, your actions sending soothing waves over him.

  “talk about what?” your voice was soft.

"i want to talk about us."

"oh," you sucked in a breath. 

a feeling of anxiety crashed into you, your nerves electrified with fear. your mind raced, erratic thoughts zipping through your head. maybe noel was about to tell you that a relationship wouldn't be a good idea. maybe he just wanted to be fuckbuddies. after all, last night was the start of that. 

noel shifted, so that he was on top of you. his hand rested on your cheek, his thumb tracing your cheekbone. his hazel eyes glimmered, his hair messy from you playing with it. his olive skin glowing golden as rays of sunlight filtered through your blinds. nonetheless he looked gorgeous. he was absolutely beautiful in the dim morning light. 

"i want you," noel's voice was small, as if he was anxious as well, "i want you to be mine so bad. look, (y/n), if you don't want something serious right now, i totally respect that. you just got out of relationship recently. i want to be completely transparent with you though. i meant what i said last night. i am in love with you. i am completely, utterly, hopelessly, in love with you. i know that i am not a softie by any means, and typically make fun of this corny love stuff. but god, you just make me feel so many intense feelings. i want to give you the stars. and if i can't do that, i will try my damn best."

you blinked, your heart swelling with joy. this felt like some dream. some vivid, real, dream, "i'm in love with you too, noel. i meant what i said last night, even after a bottle or two. i want you too. i want to be yours."

noel softened, laying down beside you once more. he scooped you into his arms, nuzzling into your collarbone. you welcomed him, snuggling against his body. the two of you dozed off, exhausted. 

blearily, you opened your eyes, the los angeles sun shining in through your curtains. sighing, you sat up, rubbing your eyes. desperately, you glanced to your left. noel wasn't there. it was a dream. a rich dream that felt like reality. tears brimmed your eyelids as you hopped off the mattress, feet hitting the cold hardwood floors. you had sex with noel, half sober. of course, he asked for consent. 

however, the events of the early morning were not so black and white. you clearly recalled noel professing his love for you, the feelings spilling out, pouring into your ears. the two of you dozed off on the couch, where you woke up in the wee hours of the morning from a nightmare. noel carried you to your bed, where the sexual tension was too much to bear. then, the two of you fucked. your thighs ached, your walls sore from his size as you walked towards your mirror. 

gingerly, you lifted up the hem of your shirt. purple and pink hickeys plastered your collarbone and breasts, your fingertips grazing over them. you remembered the way noel's mouth felt against your skin. the way you were putty in his hands. shaking your head, you felt the tears run down your cheeks as you plucked your phone off your nightstand, desperately hoping your screen would light up with a message. 

there was nothing. 

confusion swirled within you like a raging current. you felt like a sailboat in the midst of a hurricane, swaying back and forth, nausea overwhelming your senses. you gripped your nightstand, praying for an anchor. 

best friends professing their love for one another was one thing. almost common. however, having sex right after was a completely different thing. everything was so drastically altered now. did noel know what he did to you? the effect that he left over you?

in a dimly lit apartment, smoke filled the room, a blunt laying on an ashtray. a shadow sighed, scrolling through his social media aimlessly. he was anxiously awaiting the good morningggggg :)))))  message he always received around ten a.m. it was past eleven now, approaching noon. the shadow was a mess, his head aching, his nerves wired. desperately, he wanted to see that message. just so he would know if she was okay. 

that message never came. 

[cramulus]

Trance Dancing - The Rave

by Jason Keehn

(this essay was formerly posted at https://duversity.org/archives/rave.html, but it’s gone, so I’m saving it by copying it here)

Can trance-dancing save the planet

Can you imagine a crazier notion?

Thousands of bored youth pumping themselves up with drugs, going out to huge underground parties and dancing maniacally to electronic rhythms and psychedelic light-shows till dawn.

And this is supposed to help the world?

Shouldn't we be putting our time instead into ecological or political activism, or at least doing some kind of charity work? What about the serious spiritual disciplines that claim to offer the only true path to personal--and thereby social--transformation? What good does all our drug-taking and revelry do for the hundreds of millions of dispossessed, fucked over and starving around the world--not to mention all the untold species and eco-systems being destroyed?

Hard to answer. And yet some of us still have this inescapable feeling, maybe even faith, that what we are doing, confused, silly and commercialised as it often is, is at its core absolutely necessary. . . not just to us, but in the bigger picture, somehow. . .

Why is it that at the peak moments (admittedly rare) of the very best underground house/techno/rave parties, we get this miraculous sense of hope, of possibility, of transformation . . . a feeling that we're actually heading somewhere. . . together. . . towards a brighter future, one worth living in, one where we've returned to some kind of harmony with ourselves, with each other and with our planet as a whole?

Is it "just the drugs," a kind of consensus delusion, or might there be some basis in reality for these feelings, hard to justify as they may seem once we're back out in the normal world?

More dimly sensed than clearly expressed, the feeling for such a possibility permeates the entire global underground dance scene. Thousands of promoters exploit it to inflate their party invites with cheesy techno-spiritual imagery. It inspires and guides much of the music, and some small but key fraction of the hard-core partiers. The rest of the crowds who fill the floors at parties get off on it as a second or third-hand charge that sets the party apart from being just another club, without ever thinking about taking it seriously.

At moments, some hundreds, and maybe even thousands or tens of thousands, of "ravers" have probably found themselves sensing/feeling/wondering that what they were doing might be something really big, something that could really change things at a larger scale.

But of course only people who turn themselves inside out with large amounts of drugs would even conceive the question: Can trance-dancing save the planet?

A few of us, myself included, have made public fools of ourselves already by answering in the affirmative, and even giving some tentative reasons why. Here I want to try to introduce a new way of thinking that complements and deepens what already been proposed by people like Fraser Clarke and Terence McKenna. They see psychedelicized mass trance dances as the only quick, viable antidote to the egotism at the base of the western, techno-industrial mega-machine maniacally chomping away at the life-fabric of the planet.

This different line of thought is based on a simple but profound idea first expressed by the philosopher and teacher of temple dances G. I. Gurdjieff, who died in 1949. His idea is almost completely unknown, outside of his hard to read book All and Everything.

If true, it has staggering implications for ourselves, for our planet, even for our entire solar system. I don't expect anybody to automatically take it as Goddess's given truth, but its worthy of some serious attention.

Energies

As all "ravers" know, there is a mysterious something that makes a rave different from just another club or party-scene. We call this "the vibe"--a mixture of intangibles impossible to find anywhere else, except maybe at a dead show or a rainbow gathering. Roughly put, the vibe consists of: an attitude of openness, sharing, empathy and playfulness; intense, unselfconscious dancing; a collective altered state of consciousness, thanks to the combined effects of specific rhythms, lights and psychedelic drugs; and, at its height, a melding of group feeling and energy into an ecstatic, orgasmic release that feels nothing less than spiritual or religious--albeit in a form that has little resemblance to any type of spirituality or religion we are familiar with.

We all know that "energy" is somehow key to all of this. We know we raise and release energy through our dancing, our feelings, and our interaction on the dance-floor. Energy was one of the main buzzwords of the early English rave scene. The vibe is all about energy--vibration, after all.

But what is this energy? What does it consist of, where does it come from, where does it go? Are there different kinds of energies? Do they have different purposes?

Back around the turn of the century, Gurdjieff and a group of friends travelled back and forth across the Middle East and Central Asia investigating humanity's true history, the nature of the cosmos, and the possibilities for humans to evolve consciously, from their own efforts. In the process, "the seekers of truth," as the group called themselves, also encountered the Masters of Wisdom still alive in that part of the world (the Khwajagan). The Khwajagan were considered to be the bearers of some of the highest spiritual knowledge on the planet, handed down continuously for thousands of years.

One of the focuses of Gurdjieff's research was the transformation of substances and energies--both chemical and subtle--in the human organism. He also learned a large number of temple dances, which he understood as databases in movement intended to preserve ancient knowledge.

Eventually, Gurdjieff returned to the West and presented his synthesis of these searches as a "system of ideas" and a practical method for self-transformation.

Feeding the Moon

Gurdjieff's quest was guided by the basic question, "what is the sense and significance of human life on earth?"

His conclusion, expressed in writing only towards the end of his life, was that humanity does not exist for itself, but to supply the planet, the moon, and the solar system with a particular gradation of energy which they need to thrive and grow. At times he called this principle, "feeding the Moon," though it is not clear whether he meant this literally or merely as a handy symbol.

He believed that the entire universe is in some sense alive and in a process of continuously evolving (and if not evolving, actively devolving). In what could be compared to a cosmic fractal, the universe is in a process of unfolding and giving birth to itself, each birth at a new level mirroring in its unique way that of other levels (known nowadays as the principle of self-similarity). In what Gurdjieff called "the ray of creation," "God" or the Absolute gives birth to universes; universes give birth to stars, which give birth to planets, which give birth to organic life (viruses, bacteria, plants and animals) and to moons. Eventually a planet may become a star, its moon may become a planet in its turn, and "give birth" to its own moon, and so on, ad infinitum.

Just as all plants and animals need a variety of nutrients to exist, grow and reproduce, so our world and its siblings need a very specialised type of substance to fuel their processes--their planetary metabolisms, if you will. Supposedly, this special energetic substance can be produced only by human beings.

Reciprocal Maintenance

Gurdjieff's answer fits into what he called "the doctrine of reciprocal maintenance", the idea that every thing exists only insofar as it supports or "feeds" something else. Everything is part of a vast, interconnected and mutually reinforcing web of life. Or, "everything is something else's lunch," as ecologists like to say. This idea anticipated the science of ecology by at least half a century.

Examples: Bees don't just exist for themselves, they live to pollinate flowers. Algae exists to turn sunlight into more complex molecules, and feed other small creatures, such as plankton and krill. Krill feeds other slightly larger creatures, and even whales. Plants exist to turn sunlight and raw matter into organic compounds, and to feed animals. Worms exist to loosen soil for plants. Bacteria recycle waste into useable raw matter. Predators help to increase the strength and fitness of the herds they prey on by eliminating the weak and sick. Etc. etc.

In the scheme of things, humanity's essential role is that of a transformer of energy.

Human beings, according to this view, exist to serve the cosmic evolutionary process--and not the opposite, as the Bible would have it: that all of creation is merely a resource for us to use and abuse as we see fit.

Our possibilities as human beings are dependent on the degree to which we fulfil this function, a kind of "obligation" which nature imposes on us.

By Gurdjieff's view, this special energy could be produced two different ways: either involuntarily, at the moment of death, when a small "packet" is released into the atmosphere, or voluntarily, in greater or lesser amounts, through spiritual work.

Since Mother Nature, or Gaia, needs a definite quota of this energy from us, she will do whatever is necessary to make sure she gets it. If we don't provide the required intensities while alive, the total number of deaths will have to be increased in such a proportion as to yield the needed amount.

Devolution

Gurdjieff further believed that rather than progressing, the overall quality of human being (as opposed to externalizations like technology, culture, institutions, etc.) has actually been deteriorating over the last umpteen thousands of years, especially in "civilised" societies such as our own. He believed that in the very distant past, before the earliest recorded history, human beings had a much greater presence and power; in a sense, they were bigger, spiritually and existentially, than the vast majority of us today. He also believed that people once had a much greater life-span.

They were energy-pumps.

Gurdjieff had his speculations about what caused this decline in the quality of human being in the very remote past, perhaps even before the destruction of Atlantis (his theory of the "kundabuffer," explored at length in All and Everything). The upshot, though, is that humanity as a whole has "forgotten" how to perform its ecological function in the world--or simply no longer has the necessary juice to do it, which pretty much amounts to the same thing.

So if this is in fact the case--that we human beings generally no longer have the knowledge or ability to "pump" this energy intentionally--Gaia will be forced to increase the total quantity of human death to meet her needs.

This can be accomplished, of course, by 1) increasing the number of human births, and eventually deaths, and 2) by shortening the life-span of existing individuals, or 3) a combination of the two. The net results: Population increase. . . disease, and war.

Following this line of thinking, our increasing inability to properly transform and pump energy means that we have to be treated (by the Gaian mind, if you like) the same way we treat plants and animals, as something to be farmed, bred and harvested. Not a very dignified state of affairs!

So as the qualitative level of human being goes down, the number of human beings, and thereby of human deaths, goes up to account for the difference in energy. And of course, since organisms grow at different rates, with different energy requirements depending on their activities, we can imagine that there might be major fluctuations in the needs for our energies.

The Terror of the Situation

This suggests a radical, and terrifying, view of contemporary history: that the population explosion, famines, plagues, wars and massacres might not be due just to accidental or sociological and political causes but may be induced by the needs of the solar "eco-system" as a whole, with human beings acting for the most part unwittingly to effectuate these needs.

Think about all the horror and insanity that has gone done in the twentieth century, even just in terms of cold numbers: millions killed in World War One, hundreds of thousands wiped out in seconds at Hiroshima and Nagasake alone, millions massacred one way or another in the Nazi concentration camps; supposedly as many as twenty million Russians dying in combat in World War Two, not to mention another twenty million who died in the same period as a result of Stalinist persecution and forced famine. Millions died in the Chinese civil war, six or seven million in Cambodia under Pol Pot. Don't even bother counting all the famines in Africa and South East Asia over the last few decades.

Why the incredible surge of violent death all over the world, paralleled by an equally incredible population explosion? What is up with those peculiar humanoid beings living on the surface of Sol-III?

I'm not going to try to argue the merits of this scheme against other theories. Just chew on it for a while and see how it fits.

And so the picture painted is one of a race of hapless, deluded slaves to some kind of a cosmic food-chain the existence of which we don't even recognise. This is definitely insulting to all our best images of ourselves. But then how do we reconcile all our great assets, our supposed free will, intelligence, and creativity with the dismal facts of what we've done to each other for all of recorded history?

Are we really anything more than automatons most of the time?

Gurdjieff had what might seem to many a horribly bleak, cynical view:

that our ideas of free-will and individuality are a delusion, an image of our potential mistaken for a general fact of our existence. Bluntly put, we are blind products of genetics, conditioning and external influence; on an energetic level, we are next to nothing. We are less, in that sense, than most mammals even.

We have become experts at consuming energy and resources, parasites.

As a civilisation, we no longer transform energy into higher gradients and radiate it back out to the world, we just circulate like little ants in our vast urban hives and manufacture stuff, endless quantities of stuff. We know how to suck energy, make objects, and how to kill. Even if we're not killing each other off at a given moment, we're decimating untold numbers of living beings without even being grateful for their existence.

Sure, for the most part we don't feel ourselves that way, but anybody who's tripped a few times in public places probably had disturbing glimpses--at least--along these lines. We don't see other people--or ourselves--that way, because it's just too hard a vision to live with.

The path of return

This perspective provides a definite way of understanding the connection between our amazingly fucked up global situation and "spirituality"--or the lack thereof. Seen this way, spirituality has less to do with living according to some moral doctrine, or accumulating "spiritual" experiences and states, than with being able to transform and radiate energy of a particular quality.

If it is true that we have been suffering a generalised decline over millennia, all our human institutions must participate in and reflect that decline. So everything we associate with religion, in all its multifarious forms, would generally be a product and mirror of a messed up situation; in other words, just another part of the problem.

At its best, the spiritual component of religious traditions points to a return to what should be our natural base-line of being, something so distant we can barely remember or taste it except at moments of "peak experience," or with the help of psychedelic drugs, or as a result of long, intensive discipline.

Our so-called "salvation" is really more a matter of somehow pulling ourselves back up out of a dysfunctional, disenabled, alienated state to something like a natural way of being--not transcendence or cosmic consciousness or union with God or whatever. We need to re-learn "how to be and to do."

According to Gurdjieff, the two key principles to following this "path of return," were intentional suffering and conscious labour. Through engaging in intentional sufferings and conscious labours we begin again to release the kinds of energies we were intended to give off.

Of course by today's standards, this sounds like a bummer of a philosophy. Isn't life just supposed to be full of fun and games? On the other hand, if we're realistic we know that there's always going to be pain, struggle, suffering in life. If there weren't where would the joy and pleasure and flow be? So maybe rather than seek to escape suffering, or just submit to it blindly, it might make sense to choose your form of suffering and make something out of it.

Intentional suffering. Again, if it's true that we exist in a chronic low-energy state, one of inertia and stasis, it makes sense that in order to get back to a point of being able to consciously transform energy we would need to somehow exercise an enormous effort just to break out of our passivity. "Only super-efforts count." If you're physically weak from illness, it usually takes an extra effort to get to the point of being able to exercise on a regular basis, to return to your previous level of strength. Or as they say, no pain no gain.

This can apply on a lot of levels other than just the physical. Pain can take the form of a kind of moral or spiritual suffering deriving from, say, breaking habits, or confronting bad traits in one's character, or doing exactly that which you least like to do. Suffering in the form of sacrifice is necessary to be there for others, to truly love.

Conscious labour assumes that most of the "work" we do, of whatever nature, is not really conscious to begin with. We are driven by culturally programmed priorities, survival, automatic emotional needs, obsession, neurosis, ego. To work consciously assumes that one must first have become aware of how unconscious one is most of the time, of how automatic most of how our thoughts, feelings, perceptions and actions really are.

To even get to this point itself requires a lot of intentional suffering, because what could make us suffer more than waking up to how we really don't "own" ourselves?

Forms of work

This general process is what people who study Gurdjieff's ideas and methods generally call "work-on-oneself," or just "self-work."

No doubt for many orthodox "Gurdjieffians," this path of return can only occur in the framework of decades of commitment to the "work," in the manner it has been passed down to them.

Much of Gurdjieff's practical teaching consisted of dancing and physical exercises used in combination with meditation and concentration techniques. Some of the dances Gurdjieff himself invented, many were direct copies of the ancient temple dances he found during his travels. (These dances are a closely held secret of existing Gurdjieff groups, and rarely if ever performed in public.)

Other important components of his method were the techniques of "self-observation" and "self-remembering," designed to bring "essence" back into balance with "personality."

What is little known to the world at large, and almost completely suppressed within existing Gurdjieff groups, is that Gurdjieff was interested in and worked with drugs. The references to "active substances" other than alcohol, opium and cocaine in his writings are rare, and even then oblique (he tried to set up a "chemical laboratory" in Russia at one point--for synthesising what?); it is known, but little discussed, that Gurdjieff administered certain substances to some of his students.

The monks of the legendary Sarmoun Brotherhood, whom Gurdjieff spent time with, themselves cultivated and used a psychoactive plant they referred to as the "Herb of Enlightenment." Curiously, Oscar Ichazo, founder of Arica, a 70s psycho-spiritual organisation that also incorporated psychedelics and movement-work, claimed to have accessed the Sarmounis as well.*

Furthermore, we know from Gurdjieff himself that he considered his students "guinea pigs," his groups a laboratory in which he was conducting certain undefined experiments.

According to J. G. Bennett, one of his major students and better interpreters, Gurdjieff experimented continuously with his ideas, techniques and overall approach. While Gurdjieff always talked about his system, it was never fixed in a way that most of his followers seem to believe and dogmatically transmit it to others.

If everything Gurdjieff did was a kind of living laboratory, how does anybody know what were really the goals and working hypotheses and what was just part of the experiment? What if he kept certain pieces of his puzzle secret, knowing perhaps they were too explosive to make public at the time?

The new trance dance

Here is a radically new take on Gurdjieff's philosophy and mission, one that has a direct bearing on our neo-psychedelic-rave subculture:

Is it possible that trance-dancing is one of the most basic forms of intentional suffering and conscious labour?

Is it possible that such dancing, performed by the right people in the right way with the right intentions, is capable of producing exactly that same energy Gurdjieff believed Mother Nature needs from us? Could it be that the use of psychedelics in conjunction with intensive dancing to certain specific rhythms, by a new breed of individuals, may be a way to fill our cosmic obligation without the life-long spiritual training otherwise required?

My intuition is that this is indeed the case--unlikely as it may seem to all the "old school" esotericists and spiritualists.

Perhaps, in fact, we are not really now at the point of being able to do this--being "youthful" as we are, and prone to all the naiveté and follies of youth. But this may be what a certain number of us are instinctively moving toward. Maybe this is just that mysterious something we cross over into as we're peaking and pulsing together on the dance-floor.

Think about tribal trance dances. What better description could you think of for endurance dancing to the point of fainting in the service of the gods than intentional suffering and conscious labour?

Under different names, tribal peoples seem to commonly believe that their dances are essential to the gods, a form of offering, sacrifice, or service. Something necessary to keep the balance, to keep the rain falling, to keep the sun coming up, to keep things moving. That's why they're sacred dances. And so maybe it's not just the form of the dance that's sacred, or even what the dancers experience, it's in what they do: the energy they collectively release.

Isn't it odd that just when most of the cultures that still do this are either being destroyed or forgetting their own traditions, just at that same moment a whole tribalistic, "neo-shamanic" dance craze develops among western youth?

Consider: How does someone behave who has a deep instinct, but in whom that instinct has been muffled by hundreds or thousands of years of habitual suppression and invalidation? Perhaps every now and then the instinct manifests itself in a crude, awkward outburst, only to be quickly silenced by the embarrassed ego and the lack of any proper name or place for it in surrounding society.

In some of Bennett's writings on this whole theme, there is a tendency to paint the "feeding the Moon" scenario in extremes: either one is energetically inert and useless; or else one sacrifices one's life to spiritual work and helps to make up for everyone else's lack.

But must it be such a dichotomy? Maybe that's how it tends to be nowadays, but maybe it wasn't always if people used to "be more" than they are today. Maybe once upon a time (and still in some remaining aboriginal cultures), you didn't have to be a spiritual athlete, a specialist (monk, shaman, priest/priestess, etc.), to return your two or three "cents" to Nature.

Maybe even now, everyone can return some energy, given the right circumstances and maybe the right "assisting factors" too.

And what about the effect of psycho-active substances? If there is anything we know about psychedelics for sure, it is that they act as catalysts. They temporarily shift our system's mode of functioning, our rate of vibration, and enable transformations that are otherwise difficult to achieve--again passing. But what if that transformation, in tandem with the right kind of dancing and mindset, is just enough to enable the release of some special energy?

Does it matter that much whether we're in that state all the time, or just that we have regular access to it and can use it to do what we need to do?

Sure, we have no tradition of sacred dance, and few ravers dance till they drop, few dance with conscious devotional feeling or intent. What we do have, or at least aspire to, is a basic attitude that sets the tone when we come together for our celebrations: Peace-Love-Unity-Respect. Not bad for a point of departure.

And yet, just how conscious do you have to be of your intent if your instinct IS your intent? Maybe as we get high and move together our intent resurfaces into consciousness, and for those few sweet timeless moments we actually DO it, . . . and then we drift back down into consensus reality where there is no name for it, and the veils gradually cover it all up and soon we once again think we were there for nothing more than a good time and some cool music.

But the taste and scent of that ineffable "juice" still lingers, and it keeps us going in the days ahead, going back to more parties, wearing the clothes we associate with it, compulsively getting high and listening to mix tapes round the clock, searching for that rare synchronicity of time, place, people and music where it might magically happen again.

In some of his late writings, Bennett speculated that recent decades are seeing the birth of a new kind of person, maybe even a new race of sorts, with spiritual capacities different from the rest of society.

Could that be us?

And just what is that "juice," that energy, that special nutrient so needed for all things to live and grow in harmony? That erotic radiant mix of thankfulness, joy, and compassion that just wants to fuck the entire cosmos? Could it be . . . L-O-V-E?

OK, admittedly there are a lot of big ifs here. To try to prove that

a) human beings do give off energy when they die;

b) that some can give off an equivalent kind of energy intentionally while still alive;

c) that most of us don't or can't do this anymore;

d) that people could once upon a time do it better;

e) that the planet or the moon or the solar system requires this energy;

f) that if they don't get it human birth and death will automatically be increased with no say on our side;

g) that this energy can be produced through trance dancing among tribal peoples; and

h) that this energy can also be produced by teenagers dancing at parties with the help of drugs. . .

To try to prove, or even argue, all of that would be at least another article in itself. . . or more realistically, the basis for a life-time of research.

[inquisitor-julia]

what do your inquisitors plan to do with Solas?

hmmm well if they get the chance to deal with Solas in da4 (and are not replaced 100% by a new protagonist) then originally 7/9 of them were going to try to redeem him in some way....but with the implications of the red lyrium idol being involved in his plans (via that minute long teaser trailer) I’m not entirely sure how they’ll feel anymore? I think most of them will stick to wanting to save him from himself if possible but all of them would choose the safety of Thedas over Solas if forced to make that choice...so that went to a dark place but anyway.

Personally I don’t feel that the veil coming down is inherently a bad thing just...whatever rip off the band-aid solution Solas has come up with is a little extreme for Thedas to deal with all at once. And honestly Solas, my dude last time you altered the fabric of reality you didn’t like the result and have been kicking yourself ever since. I think the veil needs to and will come down but I also think this requires a delicate approach so that people have time to adapt? I firmly believe that whether you support Solas or not in da4 the veil will be gone by the end and the next game will be about dealing with the fallout of that event. But that’s my personal feeling and you asked about my Inquisitors ^^”

Nayeli Trevelyan: Being a mage herself she always wanted to know more about magic and the fade, spirits and demons, everything about being a mage. Solas was happy to share his expertise with her and they were fast friends! In trespasser she chose to try to redeem Solas. She wants to save her friend but if the cost of that salvation is too high for thedas to pay she may have to put her personal feelings aside. She wants to help him but more than anything she has to protect the people she loves, her family, the innocent people of thedas…. However I intend to try my best to keep thedas and Solas safe because I don’t want my Inquisitor to have to kill her friend/mentor it would devastate her because she firmly believes that she can do it all….but the reality of the situation might not be kind to her beliefs…

Wren Lavellan: it’s Complicated™ and really I’m not sure so I might be figuring that out as I try to explain how she feels about everything….here goes…Wren is my Inquisitor who romanced Solas. Wren loves him and she would have done just about anything for him at one point BUT the break up and two years apart have hardened her heart a bit. Does she still love him? With all of her heart, unconditionally, without a doubt. Does she want to save him? Yes if there is a chance she will take it and stubbornly refuse to give up on that hope. If there is nothing to be done for him, no redemption, what would she be willing to sacrifice in the end? She would readily sacrifice herself to save thedas, she would even sacrifice her heart and fight the man she loves to save innocents, but she would not sacrifice thedas to save Solas. She hopes against hope that it won’t come to that and that he can still be reasoned with but she will do what she must for her people and all people of thedas. She is a healer before anything else and she only wants to help everyone but that may not be possible this time and “sometimes the healer has the bloodiest hands” as it were…and part of a keeper’s duty is to protect the elves from the dread wolf. Wren has some hard decisions ahead of her and for my part I just want her to be happy and if I can do that without killing everyone in thedas then I will jump at the chance because I love Wren a lot??

Rosemary Lavellan: has no time to run around trying to save someone already intent on fucking up...again. Rosemary is less connected to Dalish tradition than most seeing as her mother was a city elf who joined clan Lavellan when Rosemary was still a baby. Rosemary has always had two kinds of education in the way elves should be because she grew up mentored by those with two very different perspectives. Unlike most of the Dalish children, Rosemary never thought the stories about the pantheon all that inspiring and in fact Rosemary is more inclined to say that she’s Andrastian like her mother. This is all to say that to her Solas is simply a man like any other and the fact that he’s a figure from the stories of her childhood makes no difference to her. He’s a man who made mistakes and already destroyed the world once and she’s not about to let him do it again no matter what. Rosemary got along with Solas in inquisition but upon learning about his plan and the apparent inherent casualties that would result she immediately opposed him. Rosemary is a mother and her entire goal in Inquisition is to keep her son safe, Solas is endangering that safety with his plans and Rosemary refuses to let that happen. If she has to fight another “god” to keep her son (and now Josephine as well) safe she will do so, without hesitation. That’s something I think Solas knew when he met her in Trespasser, he’d never have expected any different from her, she’s only a mother protecting her child from a monster.

Luca Lavellan:  His best friend in the Inquisition (not counting Dorian) is confusingly and surprisingly enough Solas. However, neither Solas or Luca would actually say they were friends. Luca is drawn to the vast knowledge Solas has and Solas is happy to share. Sometimes they debate, and anyone who will listen to Luca talk is someone he’ll spend time with. Luca is all too happy to play pranks on Solas with Sera. He also tends to question every opinion or thought the man ever voices which is pretty irritating for Solas at times. But typically the decisions Luca makes are ones that Solas approves of and really they don’t disagree on anything too major. They aren’t aware of it themselves but they spend a lot of time together just talking about every academic subject under the sun. They would say that they don’t particularly like each other though. When Luca told Solas he would redeem him and try to save him it was as much a shock to him as it was to Solas and i imagine they both stared at each other in confusion for a solid minute both trying to figure out if they’d heard Luca correctly….but that would have been a much less dramatic scene than the one we were given lol 

Katarina Cadash: two dwarves that have an interest in magic and an elven mage walk into a rotunda- jokes aside that’s essentially why Solas and Kat got along. At first, Katarina was as wary of magic as many dwarves are but after being around mages in the Inquisition she began to trust it. Then she met Dagna, another dwarf who left Orzammar like Kat did, and the two were fast friends (who only blew up a little bit of the ramparts by accident stop being dramatic, Cullen). To Kat’s surprise Solas was usually happy to discuss whatever she and Dagna were working on and even add some ideas of his own to their work (initially surprising Kat in that he could actually be fun), in fact the three could often be found chatting in the rotunda about magical theory. So Kat and Solas grew to be close friends along with Dagna. After the revelations in Trespasser Kat wanted to try to redeem Solas simply because he was her friend. She also has to believe that even if they work against each other somehow she, Dagna, and Solas can come up with some alternate plan to deal with the veil just by putting their heads together like they used to all that time ago. Kat’s frustration is that since Solas isn’t telling her everything she feels like she’s trying to solve a puzzle with half the pieces but she’s determined to try. However, like my other inquisitors, if it comes down to it she’ll put Thedas first.

Pippa Cadash: she just.....never got along with Solas at all to begin with so deciding not to redeem him wasn’t a surprise for either of them tbh (also haven’t finished her playthrough so potentially more on her feelings later)

Evander Trevelyan: haven’t finished his playthrough but i think he’ll redeem Solas...just because Evander is just.....naive i guess? not really naive just...good.... he just wants to believe the best of everyone and he wants to believe that Solas doesn’t want to do this and hurt so many people. But again....it would hurt Evander’s kind spirit but if he had to he’d choose the safety of Thedas over Solas

Yvainne Adaar: she’ll try to redeem Solas but tbh I need to flesh out her character more before I fully understand why....it will likely stem from the suffering her mother endured in being a saarebas under the qun and the fact that fear of magic as an aberration from the norm is what brought her mother such suffering. Tearing the veil down would bring magic back and maybe then everyone would have to face it as the new normal and mages (especially qunari mages) wouldn’t need to suffer anymore. However, as much as she wants to live in a world like that, Yvainne is not willing to sacrifice the lives of innocents to get there and she will try to redeem Solas but if she can’t then she won’t hesitate to do what must be done.

Wow that got really lengthy ^^”

Thanks for the ask though!! :D

[nobodyfamousposts]

There's still a lot about Fu we don't know, but I can't help but feel he isn't a great guardian. He thinks someone helping an old man up is a good enough reason to give the power to destroy anything they want. Marinette is a great Ladybug, but she's a teenager. Were there really no adults who would be better suited to take on the responsibility of fighting akumas? Some of which having god like powers! Just seems he didn't put enough thought into choosing the heroes.

True. He clearly has a history we haven’t been shown yet. I for one would like to know more about this “one mistake” he’s supposedly made in the course of over 150+ years.

That said, you have a point about his Guardianship. It may be because he IS the last one left and there was likely much that he wasn’t informed of before everyone else perished. He could read the ancient text, but he didn’t know what was in it until Marinette brought it to him. He didn’t know the ingredients for the transformation potions prior to getting the book and it was Marinette who figured out the secret ingredient.

It admittedly made sense to make Marinette Ladybug given the secret test of character he gave her and what it cost her to help him, but it does beg to question if he really had been just wandering around Paris putting himself in difficult situations just waiting for someone at some point to step in and help him. It seems like a poor use of his time and resources.

Not to mention that he IS leaving the fate of the world itself to teenagers. Yes, it’s a common trope, we get that. Yes, there’s the reasoning of the innocence of youth, the next generation, passing the torch, helping them and seeing how they grow, etc and all that. But there’s usually some indication of mentoring and teaching that goes hand in hand with this sort of thing, and we’re not actually seeing him do much in the way of either for Marinette and Adrien at this point.

It’s season 3. They just faced HAWK MOTH in person. He kicked their butts despite by all accounts having no in-story justification to. He was stronger physically and in terms of powers despite the fact that our two heroes have been clearly more physically active and are supposed to have the two ultimate and most powerful of the Miraculous. So why are they so weak in comparison? And if they are this outmatched, why isn’t Fu setting up some sort of training or something for them by this point? Maybe unlock some of those great powers we’re repeatedly told these specific two Miraculous are supposed to have?

I’m hearing that he’s finally made his intent clear to make Marinette the next Guardian of the Miraculous, which seems fitting, particularly because SHE seems to be the one discovering the most about them and doing the Guardian’s job at this point. But we’re not seeing him follow through. We’re not seeing any indication of Marientte regularly meeting with him outside of akuma attacks to do training or initiation or anything to prepare her for this very vital role. It may just be another case of them telling and not showing us, but it honestly seems more like it’s not happening at all, much like any sort of training for the kids so they don’t accidentally get themselves killed fighting monsters that can literally erase people from existence, control nature, and alter the fabric of reality.

I’m not saying that picking an adult would be a better choice. I’m saying that if you’re picking someone to do these things, shouldn’t you at least make sure they can actually handle it after you do?

The problem here isn’t just that he didn’t put much thought into picking the heroes, it’s that he hasn’t done much to help them BE heroes. They went the entirety of season 1 with no help, no guidance, and no training. They were having to teach themselves how to fight and use their powers appropriately before Fu finally saw fit to reveal himself to either of them and only because he HAD to due to Tikki’s insistence because of outside circumstances. If he had his way, he never would have been revealed at all. And I understand the need for secrecy, I really do. But his secret tests of character were simple tasks that tested how nice these kids were when they weren’t superheroes with special powers but ultimately said very little for their mental state or ability to manage once they were.

We saw how Marinette initially panicked. We saw how she didn’t give up in the end though she really wanted to. And that says a lot about her strength and determination. But imagine if the Miraculous was given to someone else who flat out COULD NOT handle it and ended up getting killed just because they were nice enough to help a guy cross a street and said guy thought it would be a good idea?

For instance, the Lucky Charm ability is quite frankly the most roundabout, confusing, and overly complicated power of all the Miraculous. The fact that Marinette is able to make use of it is impressive and admirable, but it’s been stated that her “Lucky Vision” is just the inner working of her own mind and not a special ability of the Ladybug Miraculous itself. That means that unless the Lucky Charm changes depending on the user, there stands a very good chance that anyone else who tried to be Ladybug in her stead would have died in that first battle because they would have wasted time and likely make a mistake trying to make sense of what the hell they had been given.

I know I’m being harsh here, but as it stands, the fact that Marinette and Adrien have managed as well as they have for going on three seasons is frankly a miracle in and of itself.

[dontcallmecarrie]

I come bearing ENDGAME SPOILERS with my shatterpoints! So, in Endgame the Avengers have to time travel to get the Infinity Stones (cause current Thanos destroyed them). With that, they basically create new time lines in the years 2012 and '14. One shatterpoint idea is through some accident(?) with the machine they also land in 1 or both of TWIFFON or NV 'verses. They (the travelers) try to complete the mission within the 'verses with more problems than expected. JARVIS anyone? *evil laugh* p/1.

p/2 TWIFFON and/or NV Tony go to Canon Tony’s ‘verse potentially with backup (Legion or not) either just after Thanos snaps his fingers with Inf. Stones (Inf. War), before everyone does the time travel (and meets little Morgan, Canon Tony’s daughter via Pepper) or as 2014 Thanos travels forward in time to present and now everyone is confused but everyone destroys Thanos and Tony does not have to sacrifice himself and die to save the universe. Fun times after.

p/3 Kinda goes of the previous part. Tony & Legion or NV Maria w/ Tony come through and decimate Thanos and army hilariously easily or just in really weird ways. This is supposed to be a crack story. Afterwards the Tonys both trade stories about all the necessary and not necessary stuff. There is no death except for Thanos and flunkies. The End.

…welp, suddenly I’m very glad I’ve been lowkey noping out of canon because what. Aren’t Infinity Stones supposed to be these super powerful things that alter the fabric of reality? How the heck does Thanos— 

You know what? Never mind, guess I’ll find out later. But wow, am I so glad I’m throwing canon out the window for TWiFFON after Siberia because what even.

As for the latter part of your ask, and the potential AU it’d spawn: even if I have yet to see the movie [and won’t until after I graduate at this rate, probably], I think I have an idea of how something like this would go down. [Though, sidenote for nomenclature— for me, shatterpoints are ‘this is where I turned right at this point in the story, this is how it would’ve looked like if I had turned left’ things.]

under the cut, because I get rambly.

Here’s the thing: remember how I outlined TWiFFON a long while back, and am not planning on changing the big things anytime soon? Yeah, that’s going to be a factor. Because my take on Thanos had me imagining him as this faceless, terrifying shadowy Destroyer of Worlds with a never-ending legion of Chitauri at his disposal, and courted Death with the ashes of the planets he decimated.

So this is the Thanos that TWiFFON!Tony remembers dealing with.

[and it’s also why there’s rumors of a ‘Terran Empire’ already making rounds so soon afterwards, because the rest of the galaxy is just kinda collectively going ‘WTF what do you mean this backwater dirtball took down the goddamn Mad Titan’— but that’s an story for another day]

What I’m saying is, if anyone from canon shows up, there would be just a metric buttload of miscommunication going on, especially at first. Even more so if anyone from Team Cap shows up.

Granted, by now, everyone in TWiFFON’s just kinda kicking back and relaxing [except for Tony, who’s never, ever going to live this down]. Plus, with everything else they’ve dealt with, it’d take a lot to faze them.

So when portals start showing up, they take it in stride.

And when the shattered remnants of the team that was supposed to defend the world tumble through, Tony’s more than happy to help compare notes— and that’s when the whole ‘huh, looks like your Infinity Stones don’t work the way ours do, ours are six cosmic singularities that’ve been around since like the Big Bang and will probably be still kicking when the heat death of the universe rolls around’ thing comes out.

There’d be metric amounts of shade being thrown around, too. Intentional or not, because while the team in TWiFFON’s still kinda ticked off at Team Cap, they wouldn’t rub anything in to these guys— but there’s always things that slip out. Like, ‘what, you never looked into that tech as an option?’ and ‘so that’s what would’ve happened if I had just done this’ and seeing the could-have-beens would…not be particularly pleasant to the canon crew, I think. 

Even more so, when they get wind of who the TWiFFON team had to fight. And Tony in particular would be in a very specific sort of hell, hearing JARVIS and finding out just how important his AI were to saving the day […sure, apparently they also had latent Skynet and HAL tendencies, but still]. 

[also, this is also definitely the AU where JARVIS would stealthily upload a copy of himself to canon!Tony somehow, because obviously, nobody’s been taking good care of his creator and clearly this was a situation that needed remedying—but that’s a headache for another time]

Wait, no— Tony’s not the only one who’s in hell. Everyone who ever gave Tony a hard time about Ultron is also seeing this, and it’s a bizarre mix of vindication and the worst sort of agony to find out that Tony’s plan would have worked. 

That’s only if the canon crew showed up after the Final Battle arc, though. If there’s time travel mixed into this, things either wouldn’t be very different [again, canon only really going out the window after Siberia— anything before AoU would be fair game].

As for how anything would look like in LTTR…

First things first, yep, it’s now definitely a cracky AU. It was supposed to be an angsty character backstory thing, I’m still not quite sure where the plot came from. Maria Stark nee Carbonell and her son are both terrifying, terrifying people, and [kinda spoilery, but] Thanos is going to kinda get oneshotted/ ‘taken care of’ by the Woman From Italy or some other faceless Elder God from Night Vale’s inky depths. 

[again, bear in mind the mental image I have of Thanos, prior to watching Infinity War/Endgame/etc]

…but you know what could very possibly happen, in one timeline? 

After recovering from the car accident, Maria Stark has been just traveling through time and space, trying to find her home dimension with Bucky in tow. 

…it’s a work in progress. But Maria refuses to give up until they’re back home, and Bucky’s tagging along because why not. Also because she saved him and she’s helping him get a handle on some of the powers he may or may not have ended up getting from the ‘forced to be the embodiment of Desert Bluffs’ thing, there’s that, too.

They’re two powerful and rather chaotic entities, and typically don’t try to meddle too much because, again, they just want to go home, but.

When they tumble out of a portal to see the Avengers desperately trying to fight Thanos, they would most definitely step in, and that’s the story of how a budding eldritch abomination just kinda shows up to oneshot their Big Bad, wave at Iron Man, and leave, with only a dead body as proof that they were ever there.

Dr. Strange would get a migraine, and, upon further investigation, look at Tony very oddly for several months afterwards. But hey, happily ever after, since Thanos doesn’t have the chance to even think about snapping his fingers.

Oh—there’s another thing about Maria Stark: she’s very, very big on family, and will raise hell in their defense. [gee I wonder who Tony takes after more] 

also, if it helps any for the mental image on how she is about family: picture How it Should Have Ended’s Darth Vader whenever there’s so much as a hint that he could be a father. Just change the gender, and you’ve pretty much got Maria.

What this also means, however, is that her reactions can go a bit…overboard, at times. 

Such as the discovery that apparently, in one timeline, she has a granddaughter? 

Well. 

Let’s just say it does not go well for Thanos, in that particular reality.

.

again, have yet to see Infinity War, or Endgame. I probably botched something, but this is how a crossover would probably go down in my AUs.

[threshprince]

Burning Bright

Word count:  2,165

Summary:  Karissa has a secret she's been keeping from Eddie and the Symbiote... and has now peaked the interested of the fearsome God of the Symbiotes: Knull has returned to this world to take it. Can she stop Knull from using her gift to destroy the universe?

Notes: A Self Indulgent Selfshipping Fanfic with Eddie and the Venom Symbiote!  I've wanted to write something involving Knull for quite a while and that time is now! I know some people dislike the run but I'm simply enthralled by it and love it. It's something I'm very much into and sometimes wish more people were so I wanted to pay homage to it in some kind of way! Thank you Donny Cates, Ryan Stegman and the rest of the team for the amazing (and heart-wrenching) story so far! All in all, enjoy~

Burning Bright is also on AO3

Chapter One: Tenebris

God Is Coming.

Those three simple words altered the course of the future once more.

A gasp escaped her bolting upwards from the mattress feeling the sweat roll off of her. Karissa grasped at the sheets trying to ground herself to the fact that it had been just a dream. Her muscles tensed and her knuckles white she gazed out into the night sky that only garnered a peek of the stars from the apartment window.

Her eyes wearily turned to the body next to her as her sudden movement didn't seem to wake him. Good thing, as he surely needed the rest. Though otherworldly ivory eyes gleamed in the light that did pour through the window at her.

They were safe. They both were.

It was just a dream.

The viscous being brought their thin head over to her making a bizarre questioning noise that was akin to a trill or a purr. Their mass began to slowly envelop her shaky form giving Karissa the comfort she needed in that time.

"I'm okay, dearest... I'm okay... just a nightmare." Karissa cradled the Symbiote against her bosom gently tracing their skin with her nails. Their eyes squinted in content as they noticed how worked up she had gotten. They could sense the tenseness within and coaxed her to lay back down with thin appendages.

Her head was still fogged with dread as if an ominous threat was looming over her head. Despite the Symbiote's light nuzzles bringing her back to reality she still felt herself tremble. She had never had that vivid of a dream in her life.

Especially with one that was supposed to be still imprisoned.

Swallowing thickly she allowed her muscles to calm even if they trembled and stared at Eddie as he slept soundly. She hoped that she wouldn't have to worry about them as much as she did. Considering the incident with a god Eddie had gradually been working on the mental strain that it caused him.

She allowed herself to settle and felt the drowsiness overtake her being as exhaustion set in.

-

A piercing roar jolted her from her hour long slumber as it cracked the sky. She awoke in panic hoping it was just her imagination frantically darting her eyes around the room. Shifting in her arms she felt the Symbiote shift their head upwards to her.

A look of dread painted her face realizing their once pure eyes were now a bloody crimson. Their voice distorted as if being commanded to say so.

"GOD IS COMING."

"No-!" Came the voice of Eddie from her side as he looked just as petrified. "No this can't be happening..."

Karissa watched warily as the Symbiote drifted towards the window to peer out muttering in their alien language. It was as if they were being drawn to it as she desperately held them back from it.

"Dear no!" Karissa cried out trying to get them to snap out of it.

"No dammit! Not again! He shouldn't be here!" Eddie bunched his fists up tightly trying to quell the rage and fear within him. Karissa sucked in a breath trying to calm the anxiety within her getting up to embrace him with the Symbiote between them both.

"You stay. We have to keep you safe at all costs, Karissa." Eddie murmured taking in the scent of her hair as if it were the last thing he would.

"I refuse! Last time you disappeared and almost were killed! I'm not going to lose you to him again!"

"We know you feel helpless... but we can't risk you getting hurt. You-"

A deafening screech came overhead as the apartment rumbled like an earthquake from the impact outside. Terrified screams filled the air as chaos seemed to ring through the streets. Clasping their ears from the roar she felt Eddie rip himself away from her in desperation.

"He's here! Stay inside, Karissa!" Eddie pleaded desperately in a hurry before the Symbiote reformed around him. Lunging through the window and letting the webbing that he had shot out to a surrounding building bringing him down to the source.

Everything was happening so fast as she wished she could heed his words. Her safety meant nothing if she didn't lend them some sort of help. Looking at her trembling hands she wondered if she finally had a chance to prove her worth and save them. The power she had within her all this time and had been practicing in secret. She could save them this time, she could with this power at her disposal.

Her legs carried her now to the door before swinging it open feeling another rumble shake the building. Karissa flinched and headed down the stairs as fast as her legs could take her. Tears welled up in her eyes trying to get herself down to the lobby as fast as she possibly could muster.

Out of breath she reached ground floor wearily leading herself outside as she was finally met with what was happening. The sight of her boyfriend being grounded as the Symbiote shielded his body. Knull looming above advancing him threateningly and against her better judgment she burst out into the street.

Feeling the heat within her palms and the warmth flood her core her eyes glowed white as she aimed her trembling hands towards the god.

"LEAVE THEM ALONE!"

A beam of light shot through her palms as it sped towards him but the trajectory had gone off course with how hard she had been shaking. Shooting past his shoulder and into the Grendel it screeched being hit. Knull faltered in pain with his approach as his chilling gaze rested upon her.

"Aren't you right on cue... you see, Eddie and I have been having a little chat all about you. I didn't expect you to come out of hiding however..." Knull sneered wickedly regaining his composure. "... How wonderful."

"K-Karissa!? What... how-? We told you to stay inside! You stay AWAY from her!" Eddie grit his teeth in fury getting back up to slash at him. The God simply caught his wrist effortlessly and threw him aside causing him to hit the brick of a surrounding building.

"How futile. It seems you won't learn to stay down, host. It's what you've been known for after all. I'll deal with you at a later date." Knull stated ominously before his gaze turned back to the shaken woman still standing her ground.

"Where were we before we were rudely interrupted? I suggest you listen well, My child... you too Eddie Brock."

His limb extended in a grotesque manner towards her rapidly as she panicked and shot another ray of light at him. His hand simply split in two avoiding the weaker attack as tendrils began wrapping themselves around her legs and arms faster than she could react.

"No! Let me go!" Karissa cried trying to struggle away before she was yanked forward into his embrace. Coils of himself keeping her trapped like a fly caught in a net as she trembled at his touch along her jawline.

"Yes, you are the one... such a powerful light emanating from you. I sensed you before on this earth when my presence was known here last. I had known you were close to my child. I saw you in the memories I had tried to burn... but it proved futile in the end." Knull preached on while she wavered in his grip. "This power was enough to wound me temporarily confirming my suspicions. This wretched light within you is a threat to my conquest... but, I have decided your powers could be of use to me as well. Your shine reaches far through the cosmos and pierces the void. You will be cleansed in my darkness personally as my weapon to further reclaim what is mine."

The Symbiote reformed around Eddie surging into a rage as they continued to listen on to this. It was as if Eddie's blood was boiling underneath the skin as Venom's form bulked up even further than it was before.

"YOU WILL DO NO SUCH THING TO HER!!!"

Blinded like a bull ready to charge his muscles tensed as if he was only one hairpin away from tearing into the god. Though he knew he would have to tear Karissa away from his clutches. He couldn't fail her. He wasn't going to lose someone he loved twice to the hands of this repulsive being.

Charging forth he tore through the street he slammed into Knull swiping at him furiously to release her. His form was punctured and torn through yet never seem to lose grip on her.

"Having fun? You know this won't work... I'm far away from you. We've been over this, My child."

"DON'T PATRONIZE US!" Venom roared as Knull's shape-shifting form continued to shift away and keeping Karissa out of the onslaught of blows.

"You know you cannot touch me yet you still try... pitiful. Stay down where you belong." Knull's hand swiftly clamped against his skull as an ancient power flooded their collected mind. The Symbiote screeched feeling the burn that Knull was once again trying to inflict upon them as Eddie felt it tear through his psyche.

"STOP IT!" Karissa desperately sobbed out trying to struggle in his grasp but still being immobilized by Knull's mass.

Once Eddie's other split from him Knull had let go as they collapsed to their hands and knees in agony. Knull simply turned his heel to the Grendel as it opened up to invite their deity within. A tight tug made him stop in his tracks as Venom's claw clenched against the threads of fabric. "Still you fight the inevitable? You won't prevail." The threads began to slip away from his grip thinning and sliding from the cracks. Venom's grip now empty as his head stung and was still foggy with lingering pain.

"VENOM!!" Karissa screamed his name as the dragon stitched itself up for voyage obscuring vision from them.

The God Dragon made a mighty raucous screech as it rattled even the Symbiote that was grounded from the sound as it splayed it's wings for flight. Venom couldn't just lay there and shot a thick strand of webbing against the skin of the Grendel.

Pushing off the ground and beginning the rapid ascent Venom was tugged along into the sky holding on for dear life. The heavy gusts of wind covered the scream that he let aloud from how quick they had shot up into the atmosphere. He had to grab onto the hide if he wanted to save her struggling to fight the turbulence. There was a brief instance of black that covered around the webbing as the milky pearlescent eyes widened in horror. Snipping the webbing free they were now in free fall as the Grendel sped towards the stars and beyond the clouds into the stratosphere.

"KARISSAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!" Venom howled in agony as he desperately reached for the sky.

Falling back to Earth the sheer panic of trying to slow themselves down as buildings began to start to get closer. Venom shot out webbing to catch his fall as it latched onto the side of a building nearest to him. It stopped him from falling but the force of the stop made him fly back and upwards and hit the stone leaving a sizable crack. Almost like a bungee Venom was flung up and down a few times before settling and dangling.

They stayed together like this defeated as a numbing feeling set inside of them. Venom failed yet another person that he promised to always protect and keep safe. After an hour of dangling they both had the strength to finally swing towards a building to sit on the ledge staring at the bright lights of the city below. The sirens of police and ambulances a few blocks away from what happened with The Grendel.

They both said nothing to each other sharing their grief as a unit. No words needed to be spoken as Venom's claws dug into the limestone. The sun began to peek from the horizon as the dawn of a new day greeted them but they only wished it hadn't come. She wasn't here to see it with them.

The Symbiote peeled back from Eddie's head as silent tears fell from his cheeks. His outfit morphed out into the guilt riddled face of his Other as they pressed their forehead against his. Eddie's trembling hands came up to cradle their face hearing them made a high pitched noise of distress. Their minds ached as one from the after effects of Knull's power tearing through their collective conscious. They both held each other closely glad to be whole but knew the last piece of the puzzle was lost to them. Eddie cracked open his steel blue eyes as they were weary with fatigue and despair but yet had a newfound fire lit with clouded vengeance.

"We'll get her back, Love. We will."

[a-streetlight-in-the-heat]

Fire. Now.

I take a look around. I'm a little disoriented, I guess, but the very next second, I know exactly where I am and why I'm here. On the control panel, various lights are signaling the process. I know, out there, ships are hovering over National City. Daxamite soldiers are terrorizing innocent civilians, just for being free citizens of the planet the invaders claim.

My earpiece crackles and I hear J'onn, then the President. J'onn sounds pained. He knows what I feel. Not because he's psychic, but because he has lost a planet, just like the Daxamites, just like Kara, lone survivors of worlds altered beyond recognition or destroyed altogether.

J'onn knows and he feels my pain, mixed with his own, but he also knows what I have to do, what he would have to do, were he in my place. Kara looks at me and I see the terrified child, she once was, in her eyes. She has cried a few tears of relief upon hearing that Lena Luthor had escaped Rhea's ship safely, along with her mother and Henshaw.

Kara is probably the purest soul I know and I wish she could rush back to the Fortress of Solitude now, to bring them back home. I have offered the way out. She shouldn't be in this position, in this dilemma. The positron cannon is powered, aimed at the ship and ready to fire, the President is urging and from outside, I can hear the hint of the chaos on the streets.

I can hear it, so Kara can hear all of it. The rebellion inspired by Cat Grant's call to action, parents dying trying to protect their children, civilians begging for mercy and others standing up against the invaders. Kara can hear it all. It's tearing something inside of her apart, but she won't leave. She's dressed in her famous Supergirl suit, but around just me, she doesn't have to play the tough hero.

She's here, unmistakably Kara Danvers, and with me, unwilling to leave my side. Maybe she is more of a soldier, than we give her credit for. She could be with Lena now, but she's with me and I catch myself thanking a god, I had sworn myself not to believe in, for her. For letting her arrive on Earth and grow up to be the incredible person she is.

She looks at me with the ghost of Krypton in her mind's eye and I'm not even sure if it's my hand or hers hovering over the big red button on the control panel. If pushed now, this button will end the Daxamite invasion, but also kill everyone still on that ship, evaporate them.

Something in my chest is screaming in agony and frustration, because it's not just Mon El up there. In order to abandon him there, Lillian had closed the portal on not only him, but also the woman I love like I never thought I could love. Her and I promised each other a lifetime of firsts and now I'm on the verge of destroying the possibility of any kind of future with her, of destroying her.

I can't. President Marsdin is telling me how it's not my choice, how it's my duty to fire. Now. And I don't know, if it's Kara's hand or mine, leveling down, closer to the button, close enough to touch it. Supergirl holds my gaze and we share this agony, tonight. It's one human life or potentially planet Earth. We know what we have to do. The hand is on the button, ready to let gravity do the rest.

Just stop holding back and this will all be over. Queen Rhea and her only son will cease to exist and the Daxamites will scatter all around the universe, again. Just pushing this button, just letting that hand be pushed down on it, that's all it takes. That's what I have to do. Sacrifice my love to prevent further casualties, more wounded and the possible enslavement of mankind. Kara is here with me, not up there with Mon El.

#

“It's okay. Shh, it's okay, wake up. You're safe.”, the voice I've been dying to hear tears through the fabric of my nightmare, through to me, and it allows me to leave the horror, to join her in reality, in our bed. As I open my eyes, she's there. She's not on a Daxamite ship and I'm not at the DEO. The invasion is over and we are home. Kara was on that ship, not her and the Kryptonian made it home and made the Daxamites leave Earth forever.

I'm not in charge of a positron cannon. I'm home with my girl, Kara's spare cape between us to remind us she's safe, too, because we've both needed that a lot, these past few weeks after the invasion.

“I dreamed it was you on the ship and me in charge of destroying it.”, I tell her and just her being there makes it better. She's close and she's alive and well, and we've both had this type of nightmare every night, ever since. Kara has them, too and who knows who else got away with scars on their souls. People will never forget this. Like it's engraved in the core of the planet now. The city itself looks like a wounded soldier. Its inhabitants are patching it up, getting help from outside the city, rebuilding it, repairing what can be saved. Life goes on, it has to and it's over!

My breathing slowly returns to normal and my love snuggles close and I stare up at the ceiling. It's over, I remind myself, again. The people I love are okay. Just maybe, things are going to be alright. They have to be. We're alive and we'll continue on. It's what we do. It's part of that future we are blessed with. Some didn't get that lucky. For them, we have to make the best of it. Protect the planet they died defending, make it the best place possible. They gave their lives for this cause, for all of us.

If you actually read this, consider me super-moved (No pun intended, because that would go to the top of my list of bad puns, as @lmfeldt would probably confirm.). I wrote this one last night, like on the spot. First thing I’ve really finished, ever. Kinda proud of myself? A little bit?

So, on to  what I was going to say: the POV is intentionally ambiguous. It works for both Alex and Maggie, I think. Correct me, please, if I’m wrong. I feel like the trauma of all the sh*t going down in National City won’t be addressed,  on the show. We have fanfic writers for that, I guess.

this work on AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11154210