#we pay higher prices for everything it’s not the power move he thinks it is

[kingofmyborrowedheart]

Trump sure is doing a fantastic job at lowering those prices of daily goods, isn’t he?

[saintmeghanmarkle]

JAN MOIR on fire: Meghans become just another pay-per-view plugger turning her high profile into high profit by u/Von_und_zu_

JAN MOIR on fire: Meghan’s become just another pay-per-view plugger turning her high profile into high profit Between not launching her lifestyle brand, not being invited to A-list events and not visiting the UK with her husband, where does Meghan find the time to be an international businesswoman, that is what I want to know.This week, the Duchess of Sussex interrupted her trade and industry schedule to give an interview to the New York Times. How unlike her, is what you are thinking, and I agree.Meghan breached her ongoing quest for privacy, piercing that pearly shell of seclusion and confidentiality, to talk to one of the few publications in the world — along with People magazine, her trusty in-house trumpet — that she knows will treat her waffly pensées and latest commercial undertakings with respect and deference, rather than openly laugh in her face.And so it came to be.\**Meghan would not tell the newspaper how much she put into the brand, nor what ownership percentage she now has in the company, but Cesta confirmed it was a minority stake.So I am guessing that it was sixpence, a free jar of jam and a signed photograph of the Duke and Duchess being presented with their Golden Grifters of 2024 award.Why are we all here? I've lost my thread. Oh, yes — to salute Meghan's 'ability to move merchandise', a talent which was breathlessly admired by the NYT, as if the Duchess were a shiny fashion truck barrelling down the highway of hip.Which, as it turns out, is exactly how she sees herself.\**However, the exiled Duchess has had to wait until now to fully monetise that regal power and fully invest in herself — while also helping struggling fashion brands establish themselves, of course. Of course.'I support designers that I have really great friendships with, and smaller, up-and-coming brands that haven't gotten the attention that they should be getting,' she said.Unknowns such Oscar de La Renta and Givenchy, along with St Ella of McCartney and an obscure apprentice tailor from Milan called Mr G Armani, are all so grateful for her help. As, indeed, are Cesta.\**The Duchess also told the newspaper that, when it comes to being a businesswoman, she is a dolphin, not a shark.And also that she is better than you, but you knew that already.\**Like all influencers — which is what she has become — Meghan always seems to be invested in the higher purpose of self-valourising while imposing her superior taste on the scabby masses for clicks and cash.Look. Plenty of celebrities and even some royals get clothes and accessories for free — but that is not enough for the Sussexes. I imagine long Montecito nights of the soul when Meghan and Harry just burn with pure fury at the thought of anyone else, from handbag maker to napkin embroiderer to dress designer, making money out of them.So perhaps it should be no surprise to anyone that she seems to be turning herself into just another pay-per-view professional plugger, a walking billboard in a perennial marketing campaign for herself, a duchess who has transmogrified her high profile into a high profit, with a price on everything from her ethical diamond earrings to the soles of her shoes.The problem is that, collectively and individually, Harry and Meghan haven't got any actual talent to monetise — all that is left to milk is the very fact of their celebrity itself.For he is a prince who will never be crowned and she is an actress who will never get a part. And it was always, always coming to this sad point. https://ift.tt/2Yd3cUs post link: https://ift.tt/J8CvZrl author: Von_und_zu_ submitted: August 30, 2024 at 04:27AM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit disclaimer: all views + opinions expressed by the author of this post, as well as any comments and reblogs, are solely the author's own; they do not necessarily reflect the views of the administrator of this Tumblr blog. For entertainment only.

[lilacsmothership]

In 1943, there was a piece published by a Polish economist called Michał Kalecki – it’s 7 pages long, there is no mathematics – in a journal called Political Quarterly. It’s called Political Aspects of Full Employment, and he asks the following question: If capitalism produces full employment as a public good for a sustained period of time, what happens to capitalism? One thing that happens is that the “right to manage” by managers becomes questioned because if labour can move costlessly from job to job, then they’re the ones that have the political power, particularly if the macroeconomic framework limits the ability of capital to move around and particularly if you have high social costs which are internalised by the workers themselves and redistributed. You will also generate inflation because if I can move costlessly from job to job because there is very full employment, very tight labour markets, then the only way businesses can pay is if they push up their prices – but I will then say I need more wages. He predicted the 1970s in 1943. His conclusion to this article is what will happen. He says they will find a political economist or two to declare that the situation is manifestly unsound, that books will be produced and reports will be written that say we need a change and that we need to bring back the market. That’s what happened.

Now, follow this one through for another 30 years for me. When you get to the 1970s, let’s think about what the world looks like. Labour share of national income across all OECD countries has never been higher. Capital share has never been lower. Profits were at an all-time low as a correspondence of this. Inflation was high. Political parties were strong, parliaments were strong, central banks were incredibly weak and capital was restricted in its movement. Now what happened for the next 30 years as we reversed all those things and we now live in a world not where we increase the demand for labour, not where we push up wages, not where we create inflation? We’ve created a globalised liberalised integrated world that produces structural deflation across the entire planet. We have chucked, collectively – depending on how you count it – up to 30 trillion dollars into the global money supply since 2009 – and there is no inflation, anywhere. That is an anti-Kalecki world. Basically, capital got organised in the 1970s and finally broke labour’s resistance to the ability to push down wages as a way of restoring the profit share, and they have done this on a global basis. Now, every regime undermines itself eventually. And what we’re seeing now, whether it’s in the form of Trump, whether it’s in the form of AfD, whether it’s in the form of the Front National, is a reaction to this one story – which social democrats have been implicated in heavily – that globalisation benefits everyone, in a world in which it produces manifest inequities and falling if not stangnant wages for the majority of the people that social democrats are supposed to represent.

/…/

So why are the Swedes to blame for this? Here’s the fun part of the story. In 1974, Sweden was the most developed welfare state that there was – this was the social democratic paradise – and capital was feeling the squeeze. So, they came up with a proposal in the trade unions called the wage earners’ fund. And the idea was, we should really just leave social democracy behind and just get to socialism because things are going well, so we are going to declare a certain amount of profits excess profits, and we are going to use trade union money from this excess profit tax to buy the ordinary shares of the capitalists, and eventually, the workers will own everything. We are not going to expropriate them, we are not going to line them up and shoot them, we are going to buy them out. And it’s not even a leveraged buy-out. And here’s the interesting thing: in cash transfer terms, this is an incredible deal, right? Because what you’ve just said to Swedish capital is, we will use your profits to buy your shares, but you get the full value of your shares when we buy you out. It’s a money multiplier. So as a transaction, it’s a brilliant deal – take the deal. But they didn’t take the deal, they fought back. They mobilised, they spend 200 million dollars back then in the 1970s and 1980s advertising, campaigning, mobilising against this. Why? Because you wind back at Kalecki’s point. What this regime does is fundamentally challenge the right of capitalists to be capitalists. You’re taking away their identity, the reason for their existence. It’s not a cash transaction anymore, it’s a fight for who you are and the type of world you want to see. So the Swedes pushed us to the edge. Capital fought back. It started in Sweden, it went to the United Kingdom, it went to the United States, and eventually it caught Europe. And when we opened up the European Monetary Union project, we opened up the world’s largest common free zone of movement for capital – it’s in Europe, not the United States – and the consequences were a giant credit bubble, massively overbanked banking systems, and then a financial crisis that we are still trying to recover from.

— Mark Blyth @ Europe Calling: A New Deal for Europe (a Friedrich Ebert Stiftung event with Mark Blyth, Euclid Tsakalotos, Udo Bullmann, David Schäfer and Viktória Nagy)

I actually read that Kalecki article a while ago and I think I posted a quote from it. He really did basically predict the 1970s in 1943, and it’s really striking that when he described capital’s reaction to a strong welfare state and full employment, he described in 1943 a process that is still happening today.

(via ghost-of-algren)

reposted via because the old quote formatting is fucked up on new tumblr

[humbledbybees]

A tragedy happened and I deleted my post by accident. But here's that long ahh post about Natlan and war,

[This is full of feelings and of dubious coherency but if you like ranting about genshin go at it man]

Starting off with Natlan region design, it's very pretty, colorful and sunny. The problem is not that it's not gloomy and dark but that the tribes don't reflect the conflict that is literally the basis of the AQ.

I quit genshin, I know nothing about 5.3 and idgaf either

Mualanis marketing campaign part of the quest for example, the abyss attacks and there's not even a fence to stop them. And yet we're meant to believe this is something the residents consistently deal with? There's no protocol. It all felt like they just hoped Mualani would be there to handle it. I didn't feel like I was witnessing people try to lead normal lives with their loved ones amidst war instead like I was getting sold a vacation spot. There's something to be said about how the regions in general feel like a travel agency trying to sell something "exotic" to expierience instead of portraying cultures that emerged over generations and literally shape peoples identities, but frankly I am not qualified.

Now let's get into what I hoped the AQ would be, upon seeing the trailer (the one where they introduce the characters specifically) I thought we would see characters feel differently about having to fight for a prize of facing death for their country. Like, Citlali wants nothing to do with it, why? We never find out.

Kachina is a little kid, she idolises the heroes who face the abyss. You think a child getting send into literal Abyss would strike some conflict that isn't purely about whenever she's a clumsy idiot or a resilient warrior. And her death, we already moved on from it, how did her parents react? Did they curse Mauvika? Did the chief who sent her on her way, look at the saurian she left behind and wondered if he could've stopped her? Well! We never find out!

There's no focus on what war takes from you, there's no focus on how after you have to leave your home once nothing is quite the same. None turns away from Mauvika after she sends a child out to battle and fails to bring her back. Their archon fails to protect their most vulnerable and all we get it some forgettable side characters yapping about how Kachina is acc stupid so it makes sense she died bla bla bla.

Let's look at Kinich and Mualani. For a moment I got what I wanted, Mualani pressed Mauvika. She found out her little sister (not literal) is dead and she is rightfully pissed. She is naturally optimistic, she works with people not against them, so she helps Mauvika because the archon is trying and she can see that. But what about Kinich? Why is it that Kachinas death is only used to prop up Mauvika as a leader? Imagine with me here:

Kinich, a man who weighs the cost, hearing Kachina clearly in distress and on the verge of death? Why didn't he question it too? Where's the impact on other characters? What if he decided this isn't fair, this is not Kachinas price to pay? These people live this war everyday and all we get it Mauvika going "don't worry about it pooks <3" and everyone goes: Yep! That makes sense!

So the characters feel entirely disconnected from what is happening, they feel like they're discussing a mutual coworkers accident at the coffee machine not like they're fighting to keep everything they know safe.

And you know what pissed me off the most? The quest where we see how many people died. To my understanding, the longer you take = the higher the number.

It felt like stakes, it felt like stretching yourself too thin to save people. We even get to witness how it affects the average non vision holders and saurians. But what happens then? We forget about it. We run right back to Mauvika and she goes "by the power of friendship!!!!" And suddenly war is an epic battle you fight with your buddies. And her fireballs are SOOOO cool and omg Ajaw shut up!!!! Ur so mean!!!!

.. on my screen, five thousand one hundred thirty seven people died. Then, 3 thousand got revived, two thousand are still dead. We never adress those people beyond some flavour text memorial. They're never mentioned again, the world doesn't move on because it never really changed. Two thousand people are dead and I have to hear paimon screech out "Can we put Ajaw on mute?!"

There's bodies. People and Saurian alike. And I have to move onto glazing Mauvika like this isn't catastrophic? Like war is just something you join for funsies? Like you get to do sick backflips while little dark age plays in the background? Let me say this, I never expected genshin to be great and introspective, it never was. But something about seeing the number, because thats all it was, a number. Just to move on into glazing some redhair waifu and acting like this all was solved by the magic power of friendship. It just, pisses me off so bad.

Let me say, Genshin writing was never good, but now the circus is in town, and its top clown Mauvika is at your service.

TL;DR: genshin sells war as a backdrop to showing off hot waifus with big tits. It pisses me off and I get entirely too in my feelings about it

[foundationsofdecay]

On Vessel and Falling Knives

Canonically, we know that Vessel made a deal with Sleep, a minor and possibly deteriorating god. He gave Vessel a new form and power, and in exchange Vessel would devote himself to worshiping Sleep and provide offerings to bolster His strength. In addition to the songs that he offers as part of this worship, he is also depicted as being a weapon for Sleep. Specifically, he's described as being a figurative sword. Perhaps cutting into our own hearts like a blade through these offerings and rituals is part of this, but there is far more to their turbulent relationship than that.

Let's examine the motivations and earliest stages of this bond through the lens of the financial metaphor of catching a falling knife.

In finance, "catching a falling knife" refers to the strategy of purposefully buying into a stock that is plummeting in value. This carries the risk of it hitting the proverbial floor and staying there, the company possibly folding entirely in the worst-case scenario, but you accept this risk with the hope that the stock's price will rebound and "bounce" back up when it hits that low point, earning you a sweet profit later down the road when you're ready to divest some or all of your investment. Either way, there's almost always going to be a period of time where you will be in the red.

The trick is figuring out the right knife to catch, the one that will end up recovering and become profitable after it reaches its floor. The higher it bounces, obviously, the better. An equally important aspect to this is that you want to make your move when you think the stock is at its lowest point, which is difficult to determine and part of why this is an extremely risky strategy, beyond the difficulty in choosing a knife that isn't going to simply cut through you and continue its downward trajectory.

Sleep, perhaps due to a lack of any great 'currency' of His own due to His lack of great status, has decided that Vessel is the one that He is going to invest in by making this deal. For Sleep, this is especially risky given just how much Vessel is hurting, but He still seems to have decided that Vessel is capable of turning things around and becoming stronger than he was when Sleep found him "already on the ground", thus become something He can profit from. The greater the amount that Sleep initially 'spends' on Vessel, through body modifications and other powers, the greater His later reward, should Vessel prove himself.

Not only that, but if Vessel belonged to Sleep to a great enough degree, if he was His in the end, it would be extremely important that Sleep remains satisfied with this arrangement. If Vessel cannot perform to Sleep's satisfaction, it could prove disastrous. Vessel himself admits that he owes Sleep, has steep debt he needs to pay off, even as Vessel insists that he's giving more in return as it is. Were Sleep to abandon him, or even just pull far enough back, Vessel would likely suffer or completely crumble under the sudden loss. He would effectively become another falling knife.

In the case of Sleep and Vessel, this could also very likely be considered a hostile takeover, with so much of Vessel dependent on Sleep that he has no choice at the time but to keep Him happy and follow His directions. Whether or not they're beneficial for Vessel's long-term health, he's "caught up in [Sleep's] design". Even if he is giving Sleep some kind of profit the way that he believes, there could be other assets - other vessels - that are more appealing. They would be "new weapons to cut those final strings, just to watch [him] fall back". Does Sleep like that, the sway He has over Vessel, this person that was losing all sense of worth before Sleep reached for him and took this huge gamble in raising him up? Does He like how He can "refuse to shelter [Vessel]" despite everything Vessel gives Him in return?

Of course He does. In the end, profit means everything. He needs strength, to gain power. Not just that, though, He needs someone who will be "watching all [His] enemies" and provide security for this newfound power. He needs devoted followers. He needs worship.

What Vessel has to do, at least at the outset, is to become important enough to Sleep that He would never want to let him go, to hold onto him just as tightly as Vessel is holding onto Sleep.

Disclaimer: I am not an investor and avoid personally engaging with the stock market, though I find it morbidly fascinating. Anything I'm referring to when it comes to investment strategy is based on explanations I've gotten from people that do trade, or who are studying to be financial advisors. Make of that what you will when it comes to how I'm discussing those aspects.

Also, I really didn't intend on this being as bleak as it turned out. I guess that's just what thinking about the stock market does to you.

[thedivinefish]

TGIWednesday: They're just lemons!

TGIWednesday News

Seems some of my, dare I say material/sermons/life lessons, stories come from the grocery store and the LA Fitness center/gym and the other day was no exception.  I needed lemons for iced tea that I make every day!  In the produce section of our grocery store were 3 choices, a bag of regular lemons, organic ones (smaller bag of course) and 5 in a bag from New Zealand (Lord in heaven only knows what that cost to ship to the USA) not a single lemon, bag or tag was marked with a price.  I took all 3 to two chatting managers standing about 25 feet away.  It’s not our department they told me.  I was like ok, we’ll it’s your store so could you help me so I can buy your products?  They both gave me a blank stare and reluctantly used their little bar code units on each item and mumbled the price of each one.  I turned around and walked back to where the lemon journey game began and all things being equal I got the organic ones.  Just as I was ready to leave the manager of the whole store gave me a smiling hello as he sees me every day and I said, “None of your lemons are marked with prices, so you may want to address that one.”  He would he assured me.  What’s the moral of the story.  Persist until you succeed.  Try and try again.  Keep going until you get the information you need, the money or even the right lemons.  Never ever give up and make a little daily progress.  As a result of doing that, I see your life getting better better best!  RIP Jimmy Buffett ...singer-songwriter, poet, author, husband, father, grandfather, showman, mogul, billionaire Happy Birthday to all those with birthdays in September! 

**ON DECK** Look for our latest MONEY audio MP3 to drop this month right around the first day of Fall.  We're calling it “High Cotton” and it has over 80 clearings and a run time of 21 minutes. These clearings will support you in collapsing negative, stuck energy and uses the latest word tracks given to me by Spirit to help you rewire your mind to higher abundance frequencies that will allow your intuition to bring in more prosperous opportunities and options. We’ll even have the theme of this month’s Zoom event around High Cotton and improving your abundance for a magical Fall and a better holiday season!  So stay tuned! 

When’s the last time we fished together?  If you had to think about it, it’s been too long!  Reach out today and get on my schedule.  Folks always say, “you’re so busy” and I always say “yes, but I’ll always make time for you!” Appointments View Calendar First, Then Pay and Schedule  15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins

TGIWednesday Video Download

~ I WILL PERSIST UNTIL I SUCCEED  ~ I believe, think, know and feel that if I will just release my past, stay fully present in the moment and lean into the future everything will improve. I am ready, willing and able to persist until I succeed, turn noes into yeses and stay in a place of undeterred determination, I will reach my goals.  I know, when, where, how and why to remember that life is not checkers but more like chess and I will make steady, calculated and timely moves until I succeed.  I am asking in all languages and throughout all timelines and so it is.  Know that if you’ll make a little daily progress that the rest of your life will be the best of your life! 

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The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Hello Jimmy … I really enjoyed my appointment with you on Aug 25th. I’ve been interested in your work for several years , while enjoying the MP3’s that I purchased. That day ,I had lost power due to a storm here in Michigan, and was so glad I had enough battery power for our call. Your kind and gentle approach helped me relax, and has made a profound change in my life. I feel more confident and at ease. Totally worth it and so beneficial.  I hope you and your family did ok during this latest hurricane. My brother in law in Sarasota got through it without losing power. I would hope that you did as well. The storm surge is always so scary for the coast line communities. I definitely joined in for prayers to lessen the storm.   I’ll look forward to hearing your marvelous voice and pure energy again soon.  All my best, Roger

Fish Food 

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Tell the Fish - 365 Daily Inspirations and Affirmations - by Jimmy Mack Own this e-book so that you can read inspiration every day!

SEPTEMBER 6TH "Today I will have the spirit of my favorite animal. I will keep open to infinite possibility to a great victory, abundance and favor that will unfold today in every aspect of my life. Here and now I will remember that my future is greater than my past and the rest of my life will improve."   

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Below is list of over 35 titles in the MyBeliefWorks Clearings audio series, monthly Zoom clearing call replays and Guided Energy Processess. Find a topic that addresses your issue(s), click on the link to read more. We had a lot of help downloading & channeling these over the years & they keep getting better and we are ALWAYS working on the next one. Don’t forget… you can share these with your immediate friends and family.

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[divinefishingtips]

TGIWednesday: They're just lemons!

TGIWednesday News

Seems some of my, dare I say material/sermons/life lessons, stories come from the grocery store and the LA Fitness center/gym and the other day was no exception.  I needed lemons for iced tea that I make every day!  In the produce section of our grocery store were 3 choices, a bag of regular lemons, organic ones (smaller bag of course) and 5 in a bag from New Zealand (Lord in heaven only knows what that cost to ship to the USA) not a single lemon, bag or tag was marked with a price.  I took all 3 to two chatting managers standing about 25 feet away.  It’s not our department they told me.  I was like ok, we’ll it’s your store so could you help me so I can buy your products?  They both gave me a blank stare and reluctantly used their little bar code units on each item and mumbled the price of each one.  I turned around and walked back to where the lemon journey game began and all things being equal I got the organic ones.  Just as I was ready to leave the manager of the whole store gave me a smiling hello as he sees me every day and I said, “None of your lemons are marked with prices, so you may want to address that one.”  He would he assured me.  What’s the moral of the story.  Persist until you succeed.  Try and try again.  Keep going until you get the information you need, the money or even the right lemons.  Never ever give up and make a little daily progress.  As a result of doing that, I see your life getting better better best!  RIP Jimmy Buffett ...singer-songwriter, poet, author, husband, father, grandfather, showman, mogul, billionaire Happy Birthday to all those with birthdays in September! 

**ON DECK** Look for our latest MONEY audio MP3 to drop this month right around the first day of Fall.  We're calling it “High Cotton” and it has over 80 clearings and a run time of 21 minutes. These clearings will support you in collapsing negative, stuck energy and uses the latest word tracks given to me by Spirit to help you rewire your mind to higher abundance frequencies that will allow your intuition to bring in more prosperous opportunities and options. We’ll even have the theme of this month’s Zoom event around High Cotton and improving your abundance for a magical Fall and a better holiday season!  So stay tuned! 

When’s the last time we fished together?  If you had to think about it, it’s been too long!  Reach out today and get on my schedule.  Folks always say, “you’re so busy” and I always say “yes, but I’ll always make time for you!” Appointments View Calendar First, Then Pay and Schedule  15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins

TGIWednesday Video Download

~ I WILL PERSIST UNTIL I SUCCEED  ~ I believe, think, know and feel that if I will just release my past, stay fully present in the moment and lean into the future everything will improve. I am ready, willing and able to persist until I succeed, turn noes into yeses and stay in a place of undeterred determination, I will reach my goals.  I know, when, where, how and why to remember that life is not checkers but more like chess and I will make steady, calculated and timely moves until I succeed.  I am asking in all languages and throughout all timelines and so it is.  Know that if you’ll make a little daily progress that the rest of your life will be the best of your life! 

FREE Live Appearances

Your Divine Uniqueness With host Moncef Akfir TAKING LIVE CALLERS **NEW DATE** THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 7TH 2:00PM Eastern Time  Register below to access the call in details. FREE TO REGISTER HERE

Watch and listen to hundreds of Radio Show replays for FREE here in the archives from the Jimmy Mack Healing Radio show.

https://thejimmymackhealingshow.com/

Fish Food 

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Hello Jimmy … I really enjoyed my appointment with you on Aug 25th. I’ve been interested in your work for several years , while enjoying the MP3’s that I purchased. That day ,I had lost power due to a storm here in Michigan, and was so glad I had enough battery power for our call. Your kind and gentle approach helped me relax, and has made a profound change in my life. I feel more confident and at ease. Totally worth it and so beneficial.  I hope you and your family did ok during this latest hurricane. My brother in law in Sarasota got through it without losing power. I would hope that you did as well. The storm surge is always so scary for the coast line communities. I definitely joined in for prayers to lessen the storm.   I’ll look forward to hearing your marvelous voice and pure energy again soon.  All my best, Roger

Fish Food 

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Tell the Fish - 365 Daily Inspirations and Affirmations - by Jimmy Mack Own this e-book so that you can read inspiration every day!

SEPTEMBER 6TH "Today I will have the spirit of my favorite animal. I will keep open to infinite possibility to a great victory, abundance and favor that will unfold today in every aspect of my life. Here and now I will remember that my future is greater than my past and the rest of my life will improve."   

Receive 24/7 Prayers from Jimmy

Your name will be added to a special VIP Prayer list where Jimmy will use his intelligent computer software, src4you which runs 24/7, to delete the negative and increase the strength of the positive creating a higher probability of favorable outcomes for you.  

In addition, throughout the full 30-days, Jimmy will be dialing into your energetic signature each day upon rising and make certain that you are a clear yes, unclear to no and running forward before you start your day. He is doing the heavy lifting for you around 3am NY time while most of you are asleep in order to smooth out your way and increase your most favorable life outcomes.

*Upon sending an email request after your purchase, you can receive a one-time sample/example of the software analysis. Most clients have had amazing results and outcomes!  

You can add yourself and those living in your immediate household and yes you can include pets! Merely include everyone’s names and Jimmy will add them to his daily prayers.

You can run this monthly and stop at any time after the 30 days is up, you will have the opportunity to renew and update your list each month but are under no obligation. I believe you will experience magical transformations and make progress every day!  SUBSCRIPTION AUTO-RENEWAL ($95/mo - save $5) Purchase a recurring subscription  Update your prayers monthly. You can cancel or pause anytime.

Use PayPal for subscription Click here  Use Stripe for subscription Click here.  Could you use a private session? Are you feeling extra-crispy?  If so, you can now  Book Appointments... View Availability First, Then Pay 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins  

30-Days of Prayer - $99

**Can't See The Full Email? Click Here to View Online**

?Visit our ?NEW O?nline ?TRAININ?G? CENTER

We have finally completed the migration of the Mastery & Practitioner Certification Courses and are now opening up the BRAND NEW ONLINE TRAINING CENTER!  All are welcome to create a FREE account to access the NEW and IMPROVED MLF Basic Training Course and also know that the Anchors Away, Masterclass and both Mastery & Practitioner courses have been UPGRADED with new information & lessons!

   Visit now, Click Here!

The Fish Market

Below is list of over 35 titles in the MyBeliefWorks Clearings audio series, monthly Zoom clearing call replays and Guided Energy Processess. Find a topic that addresses your issue(s), click on the link to read more. We had a lot of help downloading & channeling these over the years & they keep getting better and we are ALWAYS working on the next one. Don’t forget… you can share these with your immediate friends and family.

Freedom from Abuse Overcoming Addiction Receiving Abundance Body Scan: Head to Toe Healing Bountiful Harvest Igniting Creative Spark Discovering Your Destiny Daily GPS Reset Releasing Dark Energies/Fears Crossroads -Decision Making Diet & Exercise Support Education & Learning Support Empowering the Empath Enthusiasm for Life Financial Windfall Gold Coin: Money in All Forms Healing Family Relationships Healing Body Disorders Joy of Money

IRS Stress & Taxes Relieving Holiday Stress Increasing Intuition Easing IRS Stress & Taxes Lucky 777  Finding Love & Romance Mental Stress Positive Money Mindset Moving Forward from Past Chronic Pain Relief Pet Healing Support Improving Sales & Success Improving Sex Improving Sleep Pro$perity Unlocked Traveling with Ease Treasure Chest Work & Career Success Weight Loss Support Restoring Youth & Vitality

We now offer digital Gift Certificates for gift-giving. Gift a free session, daily prayers or clearing audios/videos to someone special.  You simply select the denomination that matches the gift you'd like to give from the options on this page amounts from $19 - $225.

Buy Gift Certificates here

THZ Quantum Frequency Wand "Future medicine will be the medicine of frequencies." - Albert Einstein USE CODE: TSG10 (10% off) >> Best price, SHOP HERE  

Healing and Grounding Mats for all occasions  Yes even Lily my cat uses the pet one!   View Grounding Mats here Use code: MyLiquidFishfs for Free Shipping View Full Zoom Replay Collection  The 5 Anchors Process The Purple Rain Process The Magical Golden Key

**We are NOT involved in the sales or shipping process of the 3rd party items, please contact them directly. 

TGIFunny

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Jimmy Mack | Appointments ???Transformational Healing of Body, Mind? & Spirit, People, Places, Pets & Situations!? ? View Availability First, Then Pay 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins Search FAQ Create Your FREE MEMBERS Account  Clearing Audio Downloads? and eBooks Get Certified in MLF Mastery or Practitioner Watch Free Videos on YouTube Radio Show Archives Healing and Grounding Mats ...enter code: MyLiquidFishfs at checkout for Free shipping! http://www.jimmymackhealingshop.com www.jimmymackhealing.com Copyright ©1998-2023 All Rights Reserved

[365dailyaffirmations]

TGIWednesday: They're just lemons!

TGIWednesday News

Seems some of my, dare I say material/sermons/life lessons, stories come from the grocery store and the LA Fitness center/gym and the other day was no exception.  I needed lemons for iced tea that I make every day!  In the produce section of our grocery store were 3 choices, a bag of regular lemons, organic ones (smaller bag of course) and 5 in a bag from New Zealand (Lord in heaven only knows what that cost to ship to the USA) not a single lemon, bag or tag was marked with a price.  I took all 3 to two chatting managers standing about 25 feet away.  It’s not our department they told me.  I was like ok, we’ll it’s your store so could you help me so I can buy your products?  They both gave me a blank stare and reluctantly used their little bar code units on each item and mumbled the price of each one.  I turned around and walked back to where the lemon journey game began and all things being equal I got the organic ones.  Just as I was ready to leave the manager of the whole store gave me a smiling hello as he sees me every day and I said, “None of your lemons are marked with prices, so you may want to address that one.”  He would he assured me.  What’s the moral of the story.  Persist until you succeed.  Try and try again.  Keep going until you get the information you need, the money or even the right lemons.  Never ever give up and make a little daily progress.  As a result of doing that, I see your life getting better better best!  RIP Jimmy Buffett ...singer-songwriter, poet, author, husband, father, grandfather, showman, mogul, billionaire Happy Birthday to all those with birthdays in September! 

**ON DECK** Look for our latest MONEY audio MP3 to drop this month right around the first day of Fall.  We're calling it “High Cotton” and it has over 80 clearings and a run time of 21 minutes. These clearings will support you in collapsing negative, stuck energy and uses the latest word tracks given to me by Spirit to help you rewire your mind to higher abundance frequencies that will allow your intuition to bring in more prosperous opportunities and options. We’ll even have the theme of this month’s Zoom event around High Cotton and improving your abundance for a magical Fall and a better holiday season!  So stay tuned! 

When’s the last time we fished together?  If you had to think about it, it’s been too long!  Reach out today and get on my schedule.  Folks always say, “you’re so busy” and I always say “yes, but I’ll always make time for you!” Appointments View Calendar First, Then Pay and Schedule  15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins

TGIWednesday Video Download

~ I WILL PERSIST UNTIL I SUCCEED  ~ I believe, think, know and feel that if I will just release my past, stay fully present in the moment and lean into the future everything will improve. I am ready, willing and able to persist until I succeed, turn noes into yeses and stay in a place of undeterred determination, I will reach my goals.  I know, when, where, how and why to remember that life is not checkers but more like chess and I will make steady, calculated and timely moves until I succeed.  I am asking in all languages and throughout all timelines and so it is.  Know that if you’ll make a little daily progress that the rest of your life will be the best of your life! 

FREE Live Appearances

Your Divine Uniqueness With host Moncef Akfir TAKING LIVE CALLERS **NEW DATE** THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 7TH 2:00PM Eastern Time  Register below to access the call in details. FREE TO REGISTER HERE

Watch and listen to hundreds of Radio Show replays for FREE here in the archives from the Jimmy Mack Healing Radio show.

https://thejimmymackhealingshow.com/

Fish Food 

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Hello Jimmy … I really enjoyed my appointment with you on Aug 25th. I’ve been interested in your work for several years , while enjoying the MP3’s that I purchased. That day ,I had lost power due to a storm here in Michigan, and was so glad I had enough battery power for our call. Your kind and gentle approach helped me relax, and has made a profound change in my life. I feel more confident and at ease. Totally worth it and so beneficial.  I hope you and your family did ok during this latest hurricane. My brother in law in Sarasota got through it without losing power. I would hope that you did as well. The storm surge is always so scary for the coast line communities. I definitely joined in for prayers to lessen the storm.   I’ll look forward to hearing your marvelous voice and pure energy again soon.  All my best, Roger

Fish Food 

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Tell the Fish - 365 Daily Inspirations and Affirmations - by Jimmy Mack Own this e-book so that you can read inspiration every day!

SEPTEMBER 6TH "Today I will have the spirit of my favorite animal. I will keep open to infinite possibility to a great victory, abundance and favor that will unfold today in every aspect of my life. Here and now I will remember that my future is greater than my past and the rest of my life will improve."   

Receive 24/7 Prayers from Jimmy

Your name will be added to a special VIP Prayer list where Jimmy will use his intelligent computer software, src4you which runs 24/7, to delete the negative and increase the strength of the positive creating a higher probability of favorable outcomes for you.  

In addition, throughout the full 30-days, Jimmy will be dialing into your energetic signature each day upon rising and make certain that you are a clear yes, unclear to no and running forward before you start your day. He is doing the heavy lifting for you around 3am NY time while most of you are asleep in order to smooth out your way and increase your most favorable life outcomes.

*Upon sending an email request after your purchase, you can receive a one-time sample/example of the software analysis. Most clients have had amazing results and outcomes!  

You can add yourself and those living in your immediate household and yes you can include pets! Merely include everyone’s names and Jimmy will add them to his daily prayers.

You can run this monthly and stop at any time after the 30 days is up, you will have the opportunity to renew and update your list each month but are under no obligation. I believe you will experience magical transformations and make progress every day!  SUBSCRIPTION AUTO-RENEWAL ($95/mo - save $5) Purchase a recurring subscription  Update your prayers monthly. You can cancel or pause anytime.

Use PayPal for subscription Click here  Use Stripe for subscription Click here.  Could you use a private session? Are you feeling extra-crispy?  If so, you can now  Book Appointments... View Availability First, Then Pay 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins  

30-Days of Prayer - $99

**Can't See The Full Email? Click Here to View Online**

?Visit our ?NEW O?nline ?TRAININ?G? CENTER

We have finally completed the migration of the Mastery & Practitioner Certification Courses and are now opening up the BRAND NEW ONLINE TRAINING CENTER!  All are welcome to create a FREE account to access the NEW and IMPROVED MLF Basic Training Course and also know that the Anchors Away, Masterclass and both Mastery & Practitioner courses have been UPGRADED with new information & lessons!

   Visit now, Click Here!

The Fish Market

Below is list of over 35 titles in the MyBeliefWorks Clearings audio series, monthly Zoom clearing call replays and Guided Energy Processess. Find a topic that addresses your issue(s), click on the link to read more. We had a lot of help downloading & channeling these over the years & they keep getting better and we are ALWAYS working on the next one. Don’t forget… you can share these with your immediate friends and family.

Freedom from Abuse Overcoming Addiction Receiving Abundance Body Scan: Head to Toe Healing Bountiful Harvest Igniting Creative Spark Discovering Your Destiny Daily GPS Reset Releasing Dark Energies/Fears Crossroads -Decision Making Diet & Exercise Support Education & Learning Support Empowering the Empath Enthusiasm for Life Financial Windfall Gold Coin: Money in All Forms Healing Family Relationships Healing Body Disorders Joy of Money

IRS Stress & Taxes Relieving Holiday Stress Increasing Intuition Easing IRS Stress & Taxes Lucky 777  Finding Love & Romance Mental Stress Positive Money Mindset Moving Forward from Past Chronic Pain Relief Pet Healing Support Improving Sales & Success Improving Sex Improving Sleep Pro$perity Unlocked Traveling with Ease Treasure Chest Work & Career Success Weight Loss Support Restoring Youth & Vitality

We now offer digital Gift Certificates for gift-giving. Gift a free session, daily prayers or clearing audios/videos to someone special.  You simply select the denomination that matches the gift you'd like to give from the options on this page amounts from $19 - $225.

Buy Gift Certificates here

THZ Quantum Frequency Wand "Future medicine will be the medicine of frequencies." - Albert Einstein USE CODE: TSG10 (10% off) >> Best price, SHOP HERE  

Healing and Grounding Mats for all occasions  Yes even Lily my cat uses the pet one!   View Grounding Mats here Use code: MyLiquidFishfs for Free Shipping View Full Zoom Replay Collection  The 5 Anchors Process The Purple Rain Process The Magical Golden Key

**We are NOT involved in the sales or shipping process of the 3rd party items, please contact them directly. 

TGIFunny

Share

Tweet

Forward

Pinterest

Jimmy Mack | Appointments ???Transformational Healing of Body, Mind? & Spirit, People, Places, Pets & Situations!? ? View Availability First, Then Pay 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins Search FAQ Create Your FREE MEMBERS Account  Clearing Audio Downloads? and eBooks Get Certified in MLF Mastery or Practitioner Watch Free Videos on YouTube Radio Show Archives Healing and Grounding Mats ...enter code: MyLiquidFishfs at checkout for Free shipping! http://www.jimmymackhealingshop.com www.jimmymackhealing.com Copyright ©1998-2023 All Rights Reserved

[agentrouka-blog]

How do you interpret the blood orange symbolism during the Arya Sansa argument scene ?

Hi anon!

I don’t think the blood oranges in that scene can be divorced from how GRRM uses them with Doran Martell in the water gardens, the place where children play and mingle freely, where the elder Daenerys said wise words to her son:

She could not tell the highborn from the low. Naked, they were only children. All innocent, all vulnerable, all deserving of long life, love, protection. 'There is your realm,' she told her son and heir, 'remember them, in everything you do.' My own mother said those same words to me when I was old enough to leave the pools. It is an easy thing for a prince to call the spears, but in the end the children pay the price. For their sake, the wise prince will wage no war without good cause, nor any war he cannot hope to win. (ADWD, The Watcher)

Parents teaching their children to protect children. To be responsible when in power.

We see this break down painfully with Doran and Ned.

They are both fathers who sacrifice their familial relationships in the service of secrecy and higher purposes. Doran is disconnected from Arianne and Quentyn both, the former distrusts him, the latter feel fatally afraid of disappointing him. The lack of communication even affects his relationship with the Sand Snakes. 

Doran watches the children play in the water, but around him the blood oranges plop onto the marble and herald the “drumbeat of boots on marble”. They are overripe, and yet he hesitates, waits, wordless. Ever wordless. He won’t move, but he also won’t speak, and so others begin making moves around him. 

Doran and Ned failed the same parental communication class.

Ned neglects his daughters for his “mission” in KL, he treats them unequally, fails to help them navigate the trauma they have endured at the Trident, fails to mitigate the growing conflict between them, just utterly fails to provide them with vital information about the danger they are in.

They lash out against each other, Sansa with words, Arya with violence. The fruit stains Arya's fingers, Sansa's face and dress. Arya has a "bloody hand" and attacks the wrong person for the crime that angers her. Sansa's weirwood face and the red stain in her lap hint at her helpless fury at Joffrey after Ned's execution, at her objectification and abuse at the hands of her enemies. Their future paths are written in the juice of the blood orange.

It echoes the past that has Ned in its thrall:

The slim, sad girl who wore a crown of pale blue roses and a white gown spattered with gore could only be Lyanna. (ACOK, Theon V)

Ned still fails to help them solve this conflict, once again distracted by his mission. It will return when they reunite, and they'll have to resolve it themselves and move forward.

The blood orange reappears, not coincidentally, when Littlefinger helps Sansa work through some of his conspiring to see Joffrey killed. He remakes himself her father and serves her fruit after arriving at his Keep. She rejects the pomegranate and chooses a pear. Later, mid-explanation, they share a blood orange.

Lord Petyr loosened a seed with the point of his dagger. "You must miss your father terribly, I know. Lord Eddard was a brave man, honest and loyal . . . but quite a hopeless player." He brought the seed to his mouth with the knife. "In King's Landing, there are two sorts of people. The players and the pieces."

"And I was a piece?" She dreaded the answer. (...)

"Did I say that?" Lord Petyr cut the blood orange in two with his dagger and offered half to Sansa. "The lads are far too treacherous to be part of any such scheme . . . and Osmund has become especially unreliable since he joined the Kingsguard. That white cloak does things to a man, I find. Even a man like him." He tilted his chin back and squeezed the blood orange, so the juice ran down into his mouth. "I love the juice but I loathe the sticky fingers," he complained, wiping his hands. "Clean hands, Sansa. Whatever you do, make certain your hands are clean."

Sansa spooned up some juice from her own orange. "But if it wasn't the Kettleblacks and it wasn't Ser Dontos . . . you weren't even in the city, and it couldn't have been Tyrion . . ." (ASOS, Sansa VI)

Pieces and players. Littlefinger will underestimate Sansa in a fatal way.

The juice does not stain Sansa, but it does stain Littlefinger. He conspired against Ned and helped bring about his doom, then he absconded with his daughter to make her a key in his own revenge fantasy: a replacement Cat whose claim will help him control the Vale, the North and eventually the whole Realm. But blinded by his own vanity, he cannot help but brag. He begins teaching her to follow clues and figure out who a culprit might be. Hmmdy Hmm. I sense another breakdown in this "parental" relationship in the future when these wise words from father to daughter bear fruit. Probably in a context with the way the sisters were stained by blood orange before: two Stark daughters, seeking justice, connected to solving a puzzle. Perhaps even connected to the secret of Jon, or to Sansa’s own marital/fertility arc. Definitely connected to Arya’s arc of justice v. vengeance.

For Doran Martell, the blood oranges seem to imply a certain derailment of his planning and plotting.

The blood oranges are well past ripe," the prince observed in a weary voice, when the captain rolled him onto the terrace.

After that he did not speak again for hours.

It was true about the oranges. A few had fallen to burst open on the pale pink marble. The sharp sweet smell of them filled Hotah's nostrils each time he took a breath. (...) For a long while the only sounds were the children splashing in the pools and fountains, and once a soft plop as another orange dropped onto the terrace to burst. Then, from the far side of the palace, the captain heard the faint drumbeat of boots on marble. (AFFC, The Captain of Guards)

Not speaking, a very Doran thing to do. The oranges drop and burst of their own volition, past the point of use, and they herald the drumbeat of boots. It's the sound of events growing volatile, of Doran's slow game of seeking justice and vengeance for Elia coming undone in the face of a moving world. He tells no one anything. So they make their own moves. His nieces demand and threaten, his daughter is plotting behind his back, his people are burning for justice, and as we learn, his son pays for Doran's mission with his life. 

Unlike cyvasse pieces, human beings have a mind of their own and begin to move of their own volition. Just the act of not involving them can be its own motivation.

Crawl back to Sunspear defeated, with my tail between my legs? His father's disappointment would be more than Quentyn could bear, and the scorn of the Sand Snakes would be withering. Doran Martell had put the fate of Dorne into his hands, he could not fail him, not whilst life remained. (ADWD, The Merchant's Man)

His father would speak no word of rebuke, Quentyn knew, but the disappointment would be there in his eyes. His sister would be scornful, the Sand Snakes would mock him with smiles sharp as swords, and Lord Yronwood, his second father, who had sent his own son along to keep him safe … (ADWD, The Spurned Suitor)

That same compromised relationship to his children affects Arianne. It affects the relationship of his children to each other. Instead of united by a common purpose, they are left distrustful of each other, isolated in their risk-taking. Same with the Sandsnakes, who threaten to make unilateral moves and likely will in the future. They have their own complex parental relationships with Oberyn, if Obara is anything to go by. 

Considering she is the one whose footsteps replace the plopping of the blood oranges, I actually think she will be the “Snake” to turn things around, like Arya and Sansa. Choose the children and protect them, the way Oberyn failed to do for her. She is the only one who does not partake of this gruesome meal, after all:

Tyene declined Ricasso's toast with a murmur and Lady Nym with a flick of a hand. Obara let them fill her cup to the brim, then upended it to spill the red wine on the floor. When a serving girl knelt to wipe up the spilled wine, Obara left the hall. After a moment Princess Arianne excused herself and went after her. Obara would never turn her rage on the little princess, Hotah knew. They are cousins, and she loves her well.

The feast continued late into the night, presided over by the grinning skull on its pillar of black marble. Seven courses were served, in honor of the seven gods and the seven brothers of the Kingsguard. The soup was made with eggs and lemons, the long green peppers stuffed with cheese and onions. There were lamprey pies, capons glazed with honey, a whiskerfish from the bottom of the Greenblood that was so big it took four serving men to carry it to table. After that came a savory snake stew, chunks of seven different sorts of snake slow-simmered with dragon peppers and blood oranges and a dash of venom to give it a good bite. The stew was fiery hot, Hotah knew, though he tasted none of it. Sherbet followed, to cool the tongue. For the sweet, each guest was served a skull of spun sugar. When the crust was broken, they found sweet custard inside and bits of plum and cherry. (ADWD, The Watcher)

Gregor Clegane died of poison. HIS skull was not broken.

The child believed to be Aegon, Elia and Oberyn all died with their skulls crushed. There are several instances that mention Aegon’s spattered brains. This dessert is macabre beyond belief.

Obara doesn’t crack a little skull. The others do. Arianne already has, in a way, with Myrcella, an innocent child paying for her own secret plan. We’ll see where it leads the slow-simmered Snakes.

There’s a third interesting parental image involving blood oranges. Cersei and Tommen: 

The next morning she broke her fast with Tommen. The boy seemed much subdued; ministering to Pate had served its purpose, it would seem. They ate fried eggs, fried bread, bacon, and some blood oranges newly come by ship from Dorne. Her son was attended by his kittens. As she watched the cats frolic about his feet, Cersei felt a little better. No harm will ever come to Tommen whilst I still live. She would kill half the lords in Westeros and all the common people, if that was what it took to keep him safe. (AFFC, Cersei VIII)

Cersei is furiously protective of Tommen, even while being a terrible parent to him. He is traumatized because she punished his whipping boy. She cannot appreciate his sweet nature. The idea of him seems more important that the reality of her soft-hearted boy. Even while trying to protect him, she dismantles his trust in her. And she feels the greatest threats from Tyrion or the Tyrells, but it is the presence of the kittens (reminiscent of little Rhaenys) and the blood oranges (directly from Dorne) that stand out here. 

Will it be the Sandsnakes that Doran is sending North to KL that endanger him in the name of vengeance? Will it be Jon Connington, making unilateral choices for Aegon, ignoring his “son’s” input in a fatal way? Or will it be the consequences of Cersei’s own neglect? 

In a way, Cersei is already her own worst punishment: she sacrifices her relationship with Tommen for the higher purpose of protecting him. It’s unlikely he’ll live long enough to move beyond that. What will she remember of the time she had with her children, in the time she has left? 

Anyway. 

That’s sort of my current blood orange take. :) 

[thefanficmonster]

Partner

Ethan Winters (Resident Evil Biohazard) x Reader (Gender Neutral)

Warnings: Spoilers for Resident Evil 8:Village, Swearing, Mentions of injury

Genre: Angsty Fluff, Comfort

Summary: Following the final battle in the Dimitrescu Castle, Ethan is surprised to stumble upon a person who witnessed the whole debacle, offering him a safe place to patch up his wounds and rest for a little while.

Requested by Anon. Hi dear! Thank you so much for your request! So sorry you’ve had to wait so long but here it finally is! Hope you come across it and enjoy reading it! Love, Vy ❤

“That was...something else.“ Ethan Winters mutters to himself as he limps his way out of the Dimitrescu Castle which is now vacant in terms of residence - his doing. He killed Alcina Dimitrescu and her daughters, all arguably in self defense and with little guilt to follow. However, plenty of trauma’s definitely attached to him following the horrific events he had to go through and the things he had to see between the walls of those luxurious rooms hiding dark secrets of the vampires who took pleasure in torturing people, and wreaking havoc over the villagers who feared them.

“At least they won’t hurt anyone any longer.“ He tells himself, giving the monster of a structure one final look before he continues back towards the center of the village where he’s gonna rethink what he’s got to do next, gather his bearings, take a breath and keep going. He has no other option but to keep going, he won’t allow himself to quit no matter what danger he faces. In his mind, he’s convinced himself that he’s already seen the worst, it’s easier on him that way, it suppresses the fear he’d feel otherwise. The last thing he wants is to think what’s in store for him ahead, he’d rather focus on what’s up to him to do next.

“And we can’t thank you enough.“

The sudden presence of an unfamiliar voice startles him, causing him to whip out his gun and point it in the direction it came from. However, he quickly finds his deadly tight grip loosening ever so slightly because he realizes he’s pointing the barrel at a very human-looking and seemingly harmless person.

“Who are you? Who’s ‘we’?“ Ethan still refuses to let his guard down though, just cause it may not be a life or death situation, doesn’t mean this person won’t bring him trouble and Lord knows that’s the last thing he needs right now.

On instinct, the person takes a step back, “I speak on the behalf of all the remaining villagers. I mean, it was only a matter of time before we too became victims in the Dimitrescu Castle basement. I was next, actually, but the commotion you created allowed for me to escape. I owe you my life, foreigner.“ The speak hurriedly and in a hushed tone, as if the fear of their torturers overhearing them still lives within them despite the monsters being deceased.

“Glad I could help you.“ He nods curtly, remaining at the distance of seven feet between them, “My name’s Ethan Winters by the way.“

They give him the tiniest of smiles, “Y/N L/N, pleased to meet you.” Their gaze gives him a quick onceover, assessing the damage the horrors of the castle have inflicted on him. Their eyes widen in shock at the many bleeding wounds all over his body but what appears to rattle them most is the severe injury that’s causing his limp as well as the missing finger - a poorly wrapped would that has surprisingly not started getting infected yet. “Look, I know you don’t trust me, but I don’t trust you to take care of yourself either. I live in that windmill over there in the outskirts, come with me, I’ll help you with...well, with all that. You seem rather hopeless at medical care.”

While he could refuse their offer, he wouldn’t be able to deny the fact that they’re right - he knows the basics of first aid, but his injuries are far too gone for simple first aid, especially when taken into account that he doesn’t even have any supplies. How he’s not died from blood loss is a surprise to him as much as it is to them.

“What’s my guarantee you won’t turn on me?“ He finally asks after a decent amount of time contemplating it.

They shrug, “You have none. But, you have the guarantee that if I turn on you, you’ll be the one coming out of that altercation alive.” Their gaze sizes up the guns he’s got on him, emphasizing their point.

Suddenly, Ethan feels sorta ridiculous - after all, guns or no guns, he could probably take on them easily with just his knife. Regardless, no one can blame him for being cautious. “Fine.“ He mutters, “But please don’t turn on me, I’ve already had one hell of a day.“

Y/N nods, motioning for him to follow them, “I promise I won’t.”

                                                               *  *  *

“Wow, what a back-stabber! Some friends you have, Winters.“ Y/N comments as they set down a cup of tea on the small wooden table in front of the freshly patched up Ethan.

Turns out, he made the right move by trusting them - they used to be the village’s main nurse until it all went to hell and they went to hide in the shadows of their windmill where they, as evidenced, still are today. That being said, not only did they have all the necessary equipment to fix him up, but they also had the skills and knowledge needed to use that equipment.

“There are those friends who borrow money from you and never pay you back and there are those who shoot your wife randomly while you two are trying to have dinner. Two types of friends out there really.“ He sighs, his tired, a thousand yard stare following the path of the steam levitating from the cup that’s been placed in front of him. “I have no time to dwell on that right now though. My daughter is in grave danger and I have no idea where I should even start looking for her.“

Y/N sits down on a chair opposite his, “Well, you’ve already defeated one of the village Lords looking for Rose, process of elimination should reveal where she is - wherever she is, it has to be one of the Lords’ residence. Mother Miranda trusted Lady Dimitrescu most so it’s a wonder why she wasn’t there, but then again, Heisenberg’s factory is damn near impenetrable, one cannot enter unless he wants them to so she could have entrusted her precious cargo to him.”

“How do I get to that fucker?“ Ethan tightens his hand into a fist, squeezing so tightly his knuckles turn white. There’s so much within him, so much that’s happened to him, so much in such a short amount of time and he’s had no time to deal with any of it. He’s a volcano waiting to erupt, but he has to do so at the right time - in front of the right danger to show he’s not hopeless or weak as his opponent may think. “Where do I find him?“

“He’s in the outskirts too just on the other side of the village.“ They sigh, regretting every word they are saying since they know they are just feeding him information on how to get himself in the worst kind of danger he’s probably ever been in. “That key you have, it’s not complete to access his quarters yet. By the looks of it...“ they observe the key Ethan has placed on the table, “You can only get to Lord Donna Beneviento’s estate, and I wouldn’t suggest heading there before you heal at least a bit more. Her and her dolls are a real nightmare. Of course, I haven’t experienced it for myself, but the stories are enough to get an idea.“

“So you’re telling me I have to waste my time with the little fish before I can finally get to Rose? You know how long that’ll take? You know how long she’ll have to be at the mercy of a fucking lunatic until I can finally save her?!“ Ethan snaps, banging his fist against the table, bad idea considering his hand’s been just patched up. The impact sends a jolt of pain up his arm that makes him hiss.

“I get it, I understand, Ethan. But you are a lot less likely to get to your daughter if you’re dead, you know.“ Y/N cautiously explains, their eyes narrowing a bit as they wait for the pearl white bandages to soak crimson, sighing in relief when they don’t. “Speaking of how likely you may or may not be to get to her on time, I’d also have to mention your odds would be significantly higher if you were to receive help from someone else. You’d need someone to have your back throughout all the shit you’re about to go through, especially Heisenberg’s factory where two eyes are not enough to track each and every threat that might pounce at you.“

Calmer now, Ethan gives them a puzzled look, “What are you suggesting?“

“I’m suggesting - well, I’m offering you my partnership.“ They explain, watching his expression change to one of knowing and understanding. “Of course, you’d have to give up one of those guns and hand it down to me, but I think that’s a small price to pay in exchange for an extra pair of eyes and limbs to guard and help you.“

Ethan’s first instinct is to decline. He can’t afford to see another person dying around him or because of him, he wouldn’t be able to stand it. But then again, just like he had no guarantee they wouldn’t turn on him, he has none that they’ll die. Of course, he’ll do everything in his power to keep them and himself alive and they don’t seem like they are in it to half-ass it either. Quite the contrary, they seem perfectly determined and ready to face the same shit he’s about to.

“What do you get in return?“ He asks, his gaze suspiciously measuring each line on their face to gauge their true intentions. He’s a complete stranger to them, they’d have no reason to be this selfless for him, it’s obvious they are aiming at something bigger.

Y/N scoffs, leaning back in their chair with a small bitter smile on their face, their gaze resting on the tabletop and avoiding his, “You really wanna know? I want my revenge - revenge for what they did to this village, to me, to so many people I cared about and to those I didn’t even know. But...” they trail off, pausing to sigh out a heavy sigh before continuing, “But I also wanna redeem myself. I knew I should’ve done all in my power to stop them when their havoc was still on the rise, I knew I should’ve done more, but I didn’t. And now I’ll die trying.”

“You won’t die.“ He says sharply, barely a second after the last word left their lips, “I won’t allow it.“ He adds, taking a bit of the edge off his voice.

Their eyes come up to meet his, searching for what he means, “Does that mean...“

“It sure does, partner.“ Within the blink of an eye, his pistol is on the table, fully loaded and free for their taking, “You just give a green light and we’re off.“

Y/N lets out a sound between a laugh and a gasp as their hands quickly wrap around the gun, looking at it in disbelief before whispering a quick ‘thank you’. Ethan allows them to marvel at it for a bit longer but they don’t wait another second. “Get your ass up, Winters. We have monsters to kill.”

He needn’t be told twice

[ouyangzizhensdad]

Do you think LWJ took the advantage of being a Young Master of a prominent clan to publicly display the people he hates? (We know who that is) I saw someone claim about it and It's haunting my head.

Hi anon,

I’ll start first by saying that I think the novel does, to a degree, understand that there are people who have, to use Bourdieu’s terms, forms of ‘capitals’ that others do not and integrate that into the narrative and character dynamics. LWJ has not only capital due to his position as a gongzi and the son of a Leader (then later, as heir-in-line) to one of the prominent clans, but also due to his stellar reputation and fighting abilities (and to a degree, the fact he is a man). All this allows him to have a wider range of actions that are considered ‘acceptable/legitimate’ versus another person with different or lesser forms of capital--think for instance of the reaction and consequences when LWJ challenges what powerful men are saying (making up) about WWX versus when daughter-of-a-servant MianMian does the same. However, I find it weird to frame that as LWJ “getting away” with something--with his character, it’s more like he is able to have an opinion or stand up against injustices with less chances of getting punished and ridiculed for it.

Now, if it is about Jiang Cheng, it is kind of a myopic argument to be saying that LWJ “gets away” with “publicly hating JC”. First because by that point JC is technically even higher in the social hierarchy, being a literal Sect Leader. But it’s also weird to phrase this as “publicly hating JC”: LWJ is not running around badmouthing JC or the Jiang sect--the pettiest we see him is when he doesn’t silence LJY when he engages in gossip about JC. Instead we see LWJ standing up against JC when the situation calls for it, which is not the same. Of course, as JC does, it can be considered as an inherent ‘insult’ since it makes JC ‘lose face’ but I think there is a difference. And it’s not like JC does not get away with being impolite towards LWJ and the Lan sect, something we see at Dafan Mountain.

We know with the MXY altercation that JC was ready to kill him on sight for using modao (”Do you have any last words?”/“Break his legs? Haven’t I told you? If you see this sort of evil and crooked practice, kill the cultivator and feed him to your dogs!”). After LWJ intercepts, we have this exchange showing JC being impolite to a degree that prompts LJY to call him out for it, only bringing more disrespect for the Lans from JC:

He raised one brow and spoke, “Hanguang-Jun, you sure live up to your reputation of ‘being wherever the chaos is’. So, you had time to come to this remote area today?” [..] Right now, Jiang Cheng really didn’t seem too polite as he said the words in such a tone. Even the juniors who came following Lan Wangji did not seem comfortable hearing it.

Lan Jingyi spoke straightforwardly, “Isn’t Jiang-zongzhu here as well?”

Jiang Cheng replied grimly, “Tsk, do you really think that you should butt in when your seniors are conversing? The GusuLan Sect has always been known for its respectful conduct. Is this really how it teaches its disciples?”

It is imo more true to say that, due to LWJ’s higher and respected position in society, JC is not able to use his usual means of responding to someone challenging his decisions and thus making him lose face.This is again something we see during this altercation.

LWJ silences JL after he dismisses his mistreatment of other cultivators with the deity-binding nets. LWJ destroys the entirety of the diety-binding nets JC and JL were using to give JL an advantage over the other cultivators competing, something they were only able to do because of the Jiang and Jin sects considerable power and wealth. Is it daring of LWJ? Sure. Would he be able to do so without consequences if he was someone else? Probably unlikely, especially when we’re talking about JC. But is that ‘getting away’ with something? It’s literally the opposite scenario: LWJ is using his own status and capital to make it so that JL (and JC) are not getting away with what they are doing (although there are, in actuality, no consequences for their behaviours; they are just forced to give up on JL’s unfair advantages. Hell, LWJ even offers to pay for the nets he destroys, which I guess can also be taken as a baller move). What’s more, the novel even takes the time to point out that, if LWJ were not such a strong cultivator, JC might have pushed aside the risks of offending LXC and physically confronted him (let’s appreciate how this also serves as well-integrated exposition for their weapons).

Jin Ling’s grim expression was exactly the same as his uncle’s, “What can I do? It was their own fault for stepping into the traps. I’ll solve everything after I finish capturing the prey.”

Lan Wangji frowned. Jin Ling was about to speak again, but he suddenly realized that, shockingly, he could neither open his mouth nor make any sounds.

[...]

The man spoke in a low voice, “Not long ago, a blue sword flew over and destroyed the deity-binding nets that you had set up.”

Jiang Cheng glanced at Lan Wangji harshly, his displease plastered all over his face, “How many were broken?”

[...]

Although four hundred deity-binding nets were a whopping price, it wasn’t too much for the YunmengJiang Sect. Nonetheless, losing the nets were a small matter, but losing face was not. With Lan Wangji’s actions, Jiang Cheng felt a whirlpool of anger at the bottom of his heart, rising higher by every second. He narrowed his eyes, his left hand casually stroking the ring on his right hand’s index finger.

[...]

However, after stroking it for a while, Jiang Cheng compelled himself to restrain his hostility.

Although he was displeased, as the leader of a sect, he needed to take more things into consideration, which meant that he couldn’t be as impulsive as Jin Ling. After the fall of the QingheNie Sect, among the Three Great Sects, the LanlingJin Sect and the GusuLan Sect were quite close due to the personal relationship between the two leaders. By leading the YunmengJiang Sect alone, he was already in an isolated situation among the three. Hanguang-Jun, or Lan Wangji, was quite a prestigious cultivator, while his elder brother Zewu-Jun, or Lan Xichen, was the leader of the GusuLan Sect. The two brothers had always been on good terms with each other. It was best to not openly dispute with Lan Wangji.

Also, Jiang Cheng’s sword, “Sandu (三毒, Sāndú),” had never made actual contact with Lan Wangji’s sword, “Bichen,” and it was not yet decidable whose hands would the deer die on. Although he owned the powerful ring, “Zidian (紫电 Zǐdiàn),” a family heirloom of his, Lan Wangji’s guqin, “Wangji”, was also known for its abilities. The thing that Jiang Cheng hated the most was to be disadvantageous during a fight. Without complete confidence in his success, he would not consider fighting with Lan Wangji.

Now if it is about Su She, again what does LWJ truly do?

He silences him in the Demon-slaughtering cave? Although we’d be hard-pressed to believe LWJ respects Su She after what he’s seen him do in the Xuanwu Cave, the guy is literally trying to get everyone there killed and being a smartass to WWX while at it. And if it had been extremely disrespectful of him, LQR could have lifted the spell--something once again that the novel points out. When it dissolves into a game of calling out between the MolingSu sect and the GusuLan sect, LWJ does not say anything, even if, as LJY points out, Su She was imitating him. It’s only when WWX starts going that LWJ takes part by acquiescing to the truths WWX lays out (which are, yes, damning for the Su She and the MolingSu sect). But again, there are layers to what WWX is doing: he’s not only trying to expose what is going on, but anger Su She into revealing he still has his spiritual powers as proof of what he has worked out. So while WWX and LWJ are being by some measures disrespectful, there is a point to how they are going at it.

Touching his chin, he grinned, “Well I was worried that you’d get mad if I asked him too many things in front of you, wasn’t I? But since you’ve told me to ask him already, I’ll go ahead and ask. Lan Zhan?”

Lan Wangji, “Mn.”

Wei Wuxian, “The MolingSu Sect was a sect that branched off from the GusuLan Sect, right?”

Lan Wangji, “Mn.”

Wei Wuxian, “Although it branched off, the MolingSu Sect’s techniques still used the GusuLan Sect’s techniques ‘as reference’, right?”

Lan Wangji, “Yes.”

Wei Wuxian, “One of the GusuLan Sect’s techniques, the Sound of Vanquish, has the effect of exorcising evil. Amongst them, the seven-stringed guqin was the most powerful, and so there is the greatest number of people who cultivate through the guqin. The MolingSu Sect did the same, and the guqin is the most common in their sect as well, is that correct?”

Lan Wangji, “That is correct.”

Wei Wuxian, “Although the MolingSu Sect’s leader left the GusuLan Sect with knowledge of its techniques when he founded his own sect, is own guqin skills weren’t anything special, and the disciples he taught often make many mistakes too, right?”

Lan Wangji answered with honesty, “Yes.”

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji went on back and forth, speaking as though nobody was around. More and more people realized that they weren’t only mocking Su She, but rather taking something apart. Thus, they began to listen more carefully.

Next, Wei Wuxian slowed down, “… And that means, even when a section of the battle melodies that the MolingSu Sect played when killing corpses on Mass Grave Hill was wrong, the GusuLan Sect wouldn’t find it unusual, and only think that they made a mistake because of their inferior techniques and remembered the sheet music wrong, not taking the time to notice whether it was an accidental mistake or a mistake on purpose. Is this the case?”

Hearing the last question, Su She’s pupils shrunk. The hand he placed on the hilt of his sword was suddenly lined with veins. The blade of the sword was already half-an-inch unsheathed. On the other hand, Lan Wangji lifted his eyes at the same time. Both Wei Wuxian and he saw the sense of understanding in each other’s eyes.

He stated one word at a time, “This is the case.”

Su She unsheathed his sword with a clang. Wei Wuxian moved the blade of the sword to the side with two fingers and smiled, “What are you doing? Don’t forget. You’ve lost all your spiritual powers. Would threatening me like this do anything?”

Sword raised in his hand, Su She could neither attack nor put it down. He clenched his teeth, “Aiming at me for so long—just what are you trying to imply?”

As much as we love to talk about LWJ’s hidden sass and pettiness, he does not seem to ever be disrespectful without a reason, and it’s usually in the process of standing up for others. Reading his character as an illustration of a man in a position of privilege and power getting away with things is a little bit of a reach--particularly when JC is literally right there. 

[kai-writes-fan-fiction]

In Hiding Part 4/?

Hey loves! Sorry it took so long for me to write part 4, I’ve had school and band. I like this chapter, so I hope you do too!

Word count: 1566

Warnings: Really un graphic violence, mentions of undiagnosed PTSD, OCD, and depression, and my inability to write good endings

The last 30 minutes on the Quinjet were pure hell. Tony kept trying to grill you, and you didn’t respond, which motivated him to ask even more questions.

Finally, he rolled his eyes and asked, “Where are your parents?”

Hundreds of locked-away memories flooded your mind. Your parents had sold you to HYDRA at age 5. You didn't know much about your parents or their identities.

After he asked about your parents, you broke eye contact and looked anywhere but into someone's eyes.

“I see.” Tony scowled but continued asking more questions, but you weren't in the mood, even more now than before.

You eventually drifted off into a daydream as Tony’s questions slurred together. You dreamt about what your life could've been if you had parents and weren't mutant. You could still have parents; you wouldn't have sustained all of that torture at HYDRA, and you would've gotten to go to school!

School, something many take for granted. You didn't have any higher education, and being 15 and more innovative and 99.99% of the world, it was a moot point. Still, being among everyday people, having friends, and discovering your passions, would be amazing.

Snaps in your face brought you back, courtesy of Tony.

“Kid. Kid! Hello?” He snapped in your face.

You had returned to Earth and- hey, look at that! Tony is within head butting distance. Maybe it'd get him to shut up, or would Loki attack again? He was staring at you from the back of the jet, unmoving, eyes trying to predict your following movements.

“KID!” Tony shouted.

You'd had enough of hearing him in your face, so you turned back to him, made eye contact, and-

“Don’t do that, girl.” Loki snarled from his seat.

Tony turned to him and cocked his head.

“She was going to headbutt you, obviously. Don't get within 5 feet of her.”

Tony thanked him quietly and sat in his seat, glaring at you. You made eye contact with him once more, and you smirked.

The rest of the ride was quiet, save for a few tiny pockets of conversation and Tony coming up with more dumb questions, which you elected to ignore.

——————————

You had finally reached the compound, and all you could think about was your impending doom.

Steve picked you up again, as your restraints render you immobile. You fell limp in his arms, head dangling. You were so tired and so worried.

Steve carried you into the compound and to a room, or rather, a cell. The space was empty except for a cot in the corner and a sink. The wall next to the door sported a one-way mirror.

“You’ll stay in here; Stark wants to ask you more questions; he’ll be in here soon.” He put you down on the floor, and you looked up to him. He uncuffed you and swiftly ran out in fear of you trying to bolt again.

Little did you know, he and many of the other team members were staring at you from the other side of the glass, observing you in attempts to understand how you worked and your erotic behavior.

The room was made of something that made you powerless, and the walls were a blinding white. There weren’t any windows, and a single notepad and pencil lay on the bed.

You sat in the center of the room for 5 minutes, staying stationary. Once more, scenarios of what the Avengers might do to you crowded your mind. Tears came again, and you sobbed quietly. Everything hurt, and you were once again reminded that you'd been awake for almost 24 hours. So you carefully laid yourself out on the ground, being mindful of your bruises, and cried there.

—————Avengers POV—————

“So- uh- what do we do now?” Steve pointed to you, still crying on the floor.

“Poor thing,” Wanda remarked, frowning.

“Poor thing? She may be a child, but she's evil!” Tony scoffed.

“She could be a beneficial asset to the team,” Nat suggested.

“I don’t trust her.” Tony crossed his arms and looked back to your shaking figure.

“Tony, I kinda volunteered to go talk to her.” Steve turns back to him. “She's got a notepad, and if she doesn’t open up, we’ll send someone else in.”

“Why the hell did you volunteer me? Kid hates me; it's obvious.”

“Just go see if you can get anything out of her, Tony,” Natasha ordered.

“Fine.” He rolled his eyes, stepping into your cell.

—————Your POV—————

Tony Stark stepped into your cell, the door shut with a loud ‘thud.’ His intentions were unclear, so you backed into a corner. He crouched in front of you and looked into your puffy, red eyes.

Now that the two of you weren't fighting, he noticed how truly young you were; you still had that childlike glimmer in your bright blue eyes. You had been turned into a villain, but it wasn’t your fault.

“Hey, kid.”

You didn’t respond, just blinked. He grabbed the notepad and pencil on the bed.

“Since we haven’t heard you speak, we put this here for you to write on. Do you know how to write?”

Of course, you knew how to write. You stared at Stark, annoyed that he thought you couldn’t write, and slowly nodded your head.

He handed you the notepad and pencil and asked your name, which he knew. He was trying to create a sense of normalcy for you.

“(Y/N)” You wrote.

“You have great handwriting and a beautiful name (Y/N).” He said, reaching for your hand.

You winced when Tony touched you and quickly brushed him off.

“Understood.” Tony moved back and asked you, “Did HYDRA give you your powers?”

“I don’t think so. I was young. I don’t know.” You wrote. You did know, however. You were born with powers, and that’s why your parents sold you. You were too much to handle, and many people were willing to pay hefty prices for you.

You weren’t fond of visiting HYDRA memories, let alone talking about them. Memories of being tortured plagued your dreams every night, and it seems that HYDRA had found a way to torture you even after you escaped.

Often loud noises would bring back memories, as would needles and human contact.

“I want my clothes back.” You wrote. You thought they might bring some semblance of home, a piece of you to hold, and you’d be able to smell your apartment and yourself.

Tony nodded. “I’ll see what I can do. Do you need anything else?”

You shook your head and wrote, “Please leave now. And don’t stare at me from the window. It's creepy.”

Tony chuckled. “Ok, Banner is going to come to check on you at some point.”

You nodded and waved your hand towards the door, signaling him to leave.

Tony slowly got up, and you stared silently as he left the cell. Before he shut the door, he looked back to you, stationary on the floor, staring up at him. Once he was gone, you stared into the mirror, not at yourself but any unsuspecting souls behind it.

Once you thought the sufficient amount of staring was reached, you got up and went to the bed at the far corner of your cell. It was perpendicular to the door, so you could see if anyone entered and be ready to defend yourself.

–—————————

It must've been an hour or so until Banner walked into your cell. You jumped up from the bed and pushed yourself into a corner. He frowned and set down what he was carrying, which was a tray of food and your clothing.

He stepped away from said items, and you scrambled to grab them, scared he’d take them back. You backed yourself into your corner once more, shielding yourself with your clothing.

“Hey, (Y/N). Remember me?”

You scowled. You remembered him, and you weren't very fond of the memories you shared with him.

You didn't move, eyes still trained on him. He kneeled about 5 feet away from you, not wanting to startle you.

His voice was low and soft when he asked, “Can I come closer?”

You stared, not knowing how to answer. Would Bruce hurt you again? Could you trust him? It didn’t look like he was holding anything more to hurt you. You allowed yourself to creep closer, slowly inching towards him.

“See, baby steps.” He looked towards the window. You assumed some people were still watching the two of you.

You let yourself come closer, until you were about a foot away from him.

“Can I touch your hand?” He reached out and touched you, but you winced and pulled your hand away. You still didn’t trust him, you would need a whole lot more prof before letting him, or anyone for that matter, touch you.

“Ok, I’m going to go now, get some sleep.” He stood and turned away from you, heading to the exit.

He stepped out, and turned off the lights in your room. It was almost pitch black, except for a dim light coming through the window. You climbed into the bed, and stared up at the ceiling. You were exhausted, but sleep refused to come.

It must have been 45 minutes when you finally drifted off to a restless sleep. You dreamt about what would meet you in the morning.

Tag list: @sweetpeaflower01 @kinny-away @mangobangi @cumulonimbus34 @oakiedokie @moonbaejpeg @coollemonsaresour @screechingshepherddeputygoth @trinity-1002107 @padmoonyfeorge @laurenced1l @vaaalexandra

[amiedala]

SOMETHING DEEPER

CHAPTER 4: An Open Wound

RATING: Explicit (18+ ONLY!!!)

WARNINGS: sexual content, canon-compliant violence, graphic descriptions of violence, mentions of past abuse/trauma

SUMMARY:  “I don’t expect you to follow what I say. I’m not a dictator, and I have no interest in becoming one. But if a single one of you brings danger to this planet you claim to love to hurt me or my wife,” Din continues, and the way his lips shape around the word wife makes something warm and wet unhinge in Nova, “there will be no place in this galaxy where you can hide from me.”

If you're a newcomer, my fic "Something More" is the first installment of this story! <3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: hello my loves and happy Something Deeper Saturday! this chapter is truly a whirlwind, it's hard and sweet and intense and simple all at once. there are very graphic descriptions of violence and death in the one (in the form of Force visions, no one's actually dying, I PROMISE!!!), so please be aware that there is potentially triggering material in what you're about to read. it mentions past abuse and dives pretty deep into current violence, so please just read with caution! i hope you enjoy this journey—i certainly did writing it! more notes at the end!!! <3

*

Mandalore isn’t a ghost town.

Not how Nova originally thought, anyway. The throne room is filled with wary, armored people. Some are the guards that usually stand watch outside, through the giant palace doors. Nova recognizes Koska Reeves and Axe Woves from the brief, charged encounters she’s had with each of them. Bo-Katan is there, of course, regal and pristine, her shoulders pushed back, her red hair impeccable. There are a handful of villagers that Nova’s seen in passing, but besides the few faces she recognizes, most of the people gathered in the throne room have been hidden somewhere on Mandalore, away from this strange Capitol, away from the everyday. Half of them are without armor, without impressive beskar helmets to hide their wary expressions. Bo-Katan’s icy, measured gaze is clearly a popular currency on Mandalore, because every single person in this room looks skeptical at best and enraged at worst. Nova keeps her eyes on Din, who’s decided to stand at the helm of the dais instead of taking a seat on the beskar throne, watching his every movement to ensure he’s safe up there, and that he stays unharmed.

“I want...to be your leader,” Din says, his voice quiet but earnest. He sounds like he’s incredulous at his own words, like he’s reading off a script he’s never seen before. But there’s power hidden underneath whatever’s scaring him, an undercurrent that Nova knows is unfettered, genuine passion. “I wasn’t raised in the way of Mandalore. Not in the ways that you were—”

“Clearly,” Koska whispers, and the Mnadalorians standing closest to her proximity offer uncharacteristic smiles and snorts. Nova steps forward, but Bo-Katan raises her sharp hand at her side, and they immediately fall silent.

Din looks back at Nova, and for the first time, she can see the fear in his eyes. She nods, encouragingly, even though she has absolutely no clue what point he’s trying to make. Every time she closes her eyes, even if it’s only for a heartbeat, she sees the strange, young hologram of her face, with the word MURDER, MURDER, MURDER flashing back at her, a ceaseless and terrible pattern. Nervously, she shifts her weight from one foot to the other, realizing that she’s the only person in this room who isn’t outfitted in Mandalorian regalia. Her black shirt has remnants of dust on the sleeves from the amphitheater. Her pants saw their best days weeks ago. Her shawl, the only proof that she wears any sort of allegiance to the throne, Mandalorian blue and regal, is thrown haphazardly over her rounded shoulders. The boots on her feet are older than her relationship with Din, picked up planets and planets ago, somewhere sunny and warm and an entire lifetime away. When Din’s panicked brown eyes find hers again, Nova smiles, taking a half-step forward, trying to portray anything other than her own frenzied state, the hammering heartbeat that could likely be heard outside of the palace.

“I didn’t ask for this,” Din finally continues, turning back to the crowd. Even from this angle, with most of his face obscured, Nova knows how hard it is for him to stand here, in front of dozens of people, without his helmet, how many rules he thinks he’s breaking, how this must feel like agony. He reaches for the Darksaber hanging on his belt, and when it ignites, every single face in the room is on Din, on that horrific, captivating blade of electricity and death. “I won this in battle. Twice. Both were accidents,” He inhales heavily, studying the flickering, wicked blade. “But they still happened. I wasn’t born on Mandalore. I wasn’t raised here, either. I’ve given some of you this speech before, when I first took the throne.” He exhales through his nose, and Nova wets her dry lips. Her throat feels like the middle of the day on Tatooine, parched and treacherous. “I...I am not a Mandalorian in the way that you’re Mandalorians.” Nova chances another half-step forward, letting the captive, tensioned room blur in her vision as she just focuses on Din. There’s a tremor in his voice, something alive and unsteady, something she only notices because she’s spent over a year studying every inch of him, memorizing Din right down to his bloodstream. “I follow a Creed that you don’t. I’ve spent most of my life trying...trying to be a good soldier, a true Mandalorian. I know I’m not the leader you wanted. I’m not even sure if I’m the leader I wanted. But I’m the one we’ve got, at least for right now. And—” Din exhales sharply, his breath strained, and Nova knows he’s suppressing a sigh, “I swear, I will try my best to do right by this planet. But—but I’m not only the reigning Mand’alor. I’m—”

“Right,” Axe interjects, but there's no malice in his tone. Nova stiffens, crossing her arms over her chest, staring over at him. But he doesn’t look threatening. His smile seems genuine, like he;s just attempting to get Din to lighten up. “And a bounty hunter. A damn good one, at that. He’s caught me twice.”

“Three times,” Nova corrects, and her eyes go wide when she realizes that everyone’s attention is now on her. “But,” she continues, rather nervously, trying to square back her shoulders in a shoddy imitation of Bo-Katan to not display that nervousness, “Din hasn’t been just a bounty hunter in a long time.”

Din sheathes the Darksaber, and instead turns his outstretched hand to Nova. Heart pounding, she slides her hand into his large, gloved one, trying not to show the massive tremble in her fingers. Quietly, he reaches for the Skywaker lightsaber hanging from her belt, and when Nova hesitates, he lets her hand close over the grip instead. Bo-Katan moves forward, so quickly Nova doesn’t even notice, and when she ignites the crisp, illuminated blue blade, half of the people gathered in the throne room draw a weapon. Nova’s expecting Bo-Katan to do the same, but she raises one impeccable eyebrow and turns back towards the room.

“Stop,” she says, and immediately, the majority of the room lowers whatever weapon of choice they’re gripping. Nova manages a tiny, stuttered breath. “She’s not going to hurt us.”

“She,” a voice says from the back of the room, “is wanted by multiple parties. Contacts all over the galaxy will pay a pretty price for Andromeda Maluev, you know. I accepted the cult member as Mand’alor. I accepted you standing down from the throne, Bo-Katan. I will not accept harboring a criminal,” he continues, voice as icy as Hoth, “and a Jedi, at that.”

Din moves forward, all tension, all rage, but Bo-Katan holds up that same, steady hand, and the man making his way across the foreground halts in the same beat that Din does. Nova pulls her own lightsaber back, pocketing it, pulling the shawl higher over her shoulders, trying to unclench her jaw before all of her teeth break off in her mouth. She’s tired. So tired. Exhausted, slogging through this conversation, her heartbeat accelerating, stars shooting out behind her eyes. And still, this time, when she closes them, all she sees is MURDER, MURDER, MURDER.

“Her name,” Bo-Katan returns, measured and cool, “is Novalise Djarin. And yes, she is wanted by both the scum that still survived after the Empire’s demise, and a middleman somewhere in between which we cannot identify yet. Yes, she is a Jedi, or at least is certainly heading in that way. Yes, I stood down from the title. But that wasn’t because I was weak, or because I wanted them on the throne.”

“Bo-Katan—”

“Nova,” Bo-Katan interjects, “I’ve got this.” She steps off the lowest stair on the dias, posture perfect, right arm curled around her distinctive helmet. Everything in her screams royalty, regality. Behind her eyes is a fire so much stronger than the ice in her voice. “I didn’t want this. Neither did you. But Din won the Darksaber, fair and square. And Mandalore isn’t what it used to be. None of us are, either. We’re good at surviving, but we’re even better at fighting. And I believe,” she says, pointedly, glancing over at Din, who’s still coiled in an attack position, “that was the point our Mand’alor was getting to. So let him finish. With your mouths closed.”

The man who spoke, wizened but grizzled, exhales angrily through his nose, but his mouth stays clamped shut. Bo-Katan stands at attention, nodding back at Din.

“War is coming,” Din continues stiffly, and half of the people crowded around the room roll their eyes or mutter under their breath.

“War is always coming,” another woman enunciates, “it’s what the galaxy knows best.”

“War is coming,” Din repeats, and Nova has to force herself to unfurl her palms. Before she can even try to jump to his aid, though, he walks down the steps and presses his flat palm against the holotable. Reflected in the glittering dome above them is thousands of pixels of blue light. Nova’s juvenile mugshot is up there for the entire room to see, but so are statistics from every mission they’ve engaged in, anything even remotely related to the Order. Hundreds of faces swarm the screen, all with interwoven lines connecting them to other profiles and rotating planets. There, at the center of the screen, is the First Order’s name in menacing, large letters. Underneath are the silhouettes of Luke, Nova, and Grogu. When Din opens his mouth this time, his words are vivid and clear. “I know that Mandalore has been razed and sieged. I know that in your eyes, I’m not one of you. I know that none of you signed up for another battle. But I also know that fighting,” Din says, his voice weary, but his dark eyebrow raised, “is what’s in our blood. All of us.”

“I won’t follow a ruler who isn’t a true Mandalorian,” the same man finally continues. He steps towards them, and his face is angry and ghastly in the flickering blue light. His rage is barely concealed, and Nova’s hand flies unconsciously to the lightsaber hanging from her belt. “And I certainly won’t protect a Jedi who doesn’t belong here.”

“Well, then,” Nova says, and she’s so bone-dead tired that she doesn’t realize she’s the one who’s speaking until the second word is out of her mouth, “good thing I can protect myself.” She chances a glance at Din, who could very easily be aggravated at her stoking the fire. The only thing written across his face, though, is pride. Nova’s eyes flicker over to Bo-Katan, who is somehow, unbelievably, wearing the same exact expression.

Din slams his fist down on the holotable, sending all of the blue light back into the atmosphere it came from. The low light of the war room is returned to its usual state, but no one speaks. “I don’t expect you to follow what I say. I’m not a dictator, and I have no interest in becoming one. But if a single one of you brings danger to this planet you claim to love to hurt me or my wife,” Din continues, and the way his lips shape around the word wife makes something warm and wet unhinge in Nova, “there will be no place in this galaxy where you can hide from me.”

Still, no one moves.

“Mand’alor,” Bo-Katan snaps, icily, all of her usual vigor and venom back in her voice, and it’s like she’s given an order no one can deny. Half of the Mandalorians nod in wary agreement, and the other half keep their low mumbles close to their chests, all of them shuffling out of the throne room, presumably to disperse outside. When the heavy door closes shut, with only the three of them remaining, Bo-Katan turns back to Nova. Din is already climbing the steps back up the dais where the menacing beskar throne sits to retrieve his fallen helmet. When he pulls it back over his handsome face, it’s like closing an open wound.

Nova looks at Bo-Katan, who doesn’t look nearly as threatening in this low light. Her hair is slightly ruffled, and the hard set of her jaw is tense, electric. “Bo-Katan,” Nova whispers, and her gaze snaps impeccably back to Nova’s. “Thank you,” Nova continues, earnest, “for defending me. Defending us. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I did,” Bo-Katan counters, but there’s the ghost of a small smile on her beautiful, cold face. “They were wrong, and they needed to hear that. See? I’m not always a total bitch.”

The word—so commonplace, so foreign—sounds absolutely ludicrous coming out of her mouth that it makes Nova laugh out loud. The sound is both musical and jarring, and the tension held in Bo-Katan’s shoulders evaporates, even if it’s only momentarily.

“Noted,” Nova says, smiling. Maker and all the stars above, she’s exhausted. Bo-Katan glances back at Din, armored and impenetrable, and then back at Nova.

“You need sleep,” Bo-Katan allows, pulling her own helmet back over her head. “Both of you. I’ll stay down here and monitor any incoming correspondence. I’m too wired to go to bed anytime soon.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I do,” Bo-Katan interrupts, and her usual edge is back in her tone. “And I will. Go.” She raises that commanding arm again, and Nova’s too exhausted to resist. She wants to take a shower and wash the last few days off of her, and then sleep for three more. Her scar hurts. Her shoulders ache. Her head feels impossibly heavy. Silently, she lets Din lead her over to the heavy double doors, her ears buzzing with fatigue, but before they step into the hall, Nova hears her name chase her across the war room. In tandem, she and Din turn, watching Bo-Katan ignite the blue holotable. There’s something unreadable about her, even under the helmet. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Bo-Katan says, finally, and the heaviness of her words is louder than the doors when they close on her impenetrable face.

*

Steam from the shower fills the entire fresher. It’s wet and hot, the humidity seeping deep into Nova’s skin, burrowing under the residual ache from the last few days, nestling between her cold bones from the chill back on Ahch-To, the frigidity back on Hoth. Din joins her once he wrestles off the rest of the armor, and before Nova can explain she wants him, but it’s impossible right now with how exhausted she is, how she can barely keep her eyes open, Din wordlessly lathers up his hands with her favorite, clean-smelling soap, gently raking the suds through her hair.

Nova sighs in the silence, letting her shoulders hunch over, her body weight alleviated by sagging against the warm shower walls and by the soft grip Din has on her arms, making sure she stays upward. For what feels like years, they stand together under the warm running water, reveling in the steam, the heat, without either of them needing to say anything. Din wraps Nova’s long hair up in the freshly washed towel, while she dries off the residual runoff down her arms, her thighs.

The room is cool and dark in the blue twilight, that same fog and haze sinking over the horizon. Wherever the rest of the Mandalorians went, they’ve all but disappeared off the face of the planet. Everything is an eerie kind of quiet, no bugs, no animals, no clamor, nothing that signifies any kind of sentient life outside of the castle. Most nights, that kind of awful silence makes Nova wired, like it permeates even into her dreams, but not here, not now. She has what feels like years’ worth of sleep to catch up on, and the second that Din pulls back the fluffy, silk comforter on their giant bed, Nova steps out of the towel and into the soft cocoon. Din’s barely even settled up behind her before she drifts off somewhere peaceful, somewhere that’s not here.

*

She sleeps. For hours, maybe days, Nova sleeps. It’s dreamless and empty, warm and safe. Usually, nightmares flicker and flash through her mind, her legs sprinting away from whatever menace or threat is chasing her, but not tonight. Nothing wakes Nova up, not the strange quiet, not Din tossing next to her, not the immeasurable weight of saving the galaxy on her shoulders. She sleeps, uninterrupted and powerfully, swaddled up under the light blue blankets that are somehow keeping all the bad things away.

In the end, it’s not a nightmare that startles her away, nor is it Din’s unshaven face pressing into the crook of her neck. It’s the sleepy, quiet beeping of her commlink, which has somehow been removed from its usual place on her wrist and is buried under the extra pillows that stand sentinel over their bed when neither Nova or Din is there.

Din, at this very moment, is also nowhere to be found, and Nova rakes a hand through her hair, tries and fails to suppress a yawn, and digs through the array of pillows on the floor until she can see the bright, red light. “Hello?” she asks, her voice still off somewhere in dreamland, and she rubs sleep from her eyes as she collapses down on the bed, body still stuck in sleep.

“Hey,” Nova hears, and it’s halfway through another yawn before she realizes it’s Cara calling. “Listen, I’d love to actually catch up, but—”

“You have news?” Nova asks, suddenly wide awake. She smooths the comforter out under her hand, crossing one of her legs underneath the other. Outside, the sky is dark.

“I have news,” Cara confirms, grimly. “I know Wedge called you to Hoth a week or so ago because there was a prison break somewhere outside of my jurisdiction.”

Nova nods before she remembers Cara can’t see her. “Yeah,” she adds, belatedly. “Yeah, but no one seemed suspicious or in league with the Order, and it was a holding cell full of minor offenders, so it was kind of a dead end.”

“Well, it was,” Cara sighs, “until it wasn’t. We were right, kind of, because no one who escaped was linked to the First Order. But the night after that prison break happened, your photo with your old name and manufactured crimes popped up as a hit from the Guild.”

Nova’s heart sinks. Something suffocating is blocking her airway, and she tries to swallow past the feeling before she can exhale. “What does that mean?” she manages, barely, hand fluttering around her necklace, pressing into the embossed star.

“Someone’s setting you up,” Cara continues, and her voice is gentler than Nova’s ever heard it. “Someone who likely knows you or Din, knows how to get under your skin. The reason why this is so dangerous is because whoever did it knows exactly what they’re doing. I’ve tried, and Karga has tried, but we can’t even identify where the hit originated from, let alone who put it out. We’re not going to stop looking, but it’s going to be hard to figure out who did it. And because the warrant is for you alive or dead…” Cara trails off, the silence buzzing and dangerous.

Nova closes her eyes before she fills in the blanks. “I’m going to be in danger anywhere I go.”

“Listen,” Cara tries, but it’s too late. Nova’s still exhausted, she’s in pain, she has no idea where Din went, and all she wants to do is to bury her face in Grogu’s head and smell his sweet, reassuring baby smell. Her heart aches. “Novalise, I’m not going to let them get to you. You have some of the strongest forces in the galaxy who’ve got your back.”

“Yeah,” Nova whispers, “and I appreciate that, Cara, I do, so much, but—but Mandalore isn’t exactly a safe haven, either. The planet knows I can use the Force, and besides that, most of the people Din’s supposed to be ruling hate our guts. I’m not scared of being left to defend myself, because it’s kind of what I’ve learned to be best at. But with what you’re telling me, there’s not a single safe place left in the galaxy for me right now.”

Cara’s silence is deafening. Nova’s heart sinks just a little bit deeper, swimming around somewhere in her stomach. “It’s not forever,” she says, but her voice is a little too glum to be anywhere near reassuring.

“I’m so tired,” Nova admits, feeling tears bubbling up at the corners of her eyes. “And I can’t rest, because that’s when someone can get me. I mean—what would you do, if you were me, Cara?”

Nova can hear Cara moving, a soft rustle underneath the comm. When she speaks again, her voice is low and clear, like she’s telling a secret that only Nova can hear. “I would do what we both know you’re going to do. You’re the rebel girl, remember?” She pauses. “So rebel.”

Nova watches as the comm clicks off, everything in her body electric, a live wire. Before she can bolt to Kicker, or try to find where Din’s hidden in the chambers of the palace, or call Wedge and tell him she’s coming back to Hoth, the door opens, and Din walks in.

“Hi,” Nova breathes, suddenly very aware she’s not wearing any clothes, which is completely ridiculous, because Din has seen, ravaged, and worshipped every inch of it. “Where were you?”

She watches as Din crosses over the floor, the low light of the day catching on his armor. He sighs, moving closer to Nova until he’s standing in between her open legs. Halfheartedly, he hooks his fingers under the rim of the helmet, but gives up completely the second Nova’s hands reach to pull it off instead. Underneath, his mustache isn’t manicured, his hair has been weighed down by the metal, and he looks about as exhausted as she feels.

“Ruling,” Din says, tiredly, and there’s a flint to it Nova hardly hears. He lets out a small scoff in the silence, and she reaches out the smooth palm of her right hand for his cheek to nestle against. “Trying to get the people of this planet to recognize I’m not here to destroy it, or that you—we’re not the enemy.” He catches his slip almost as quickly as it comes out of his mouth, but still, Nova’s heart sinks deep down in her chest again. “I didn’t—look, Nova, I’m not blaming you—”

“It’s okay,” she whispers, even though they both know it’s not. For a second, Din just stares at her, and then he presses his forehead against hers. The warmth his skin gives off is almost enough to make her forget about where they are, about the people that refuse to see her as an ally, about having to save the galaxy from forces that want her dead or for their own malicious intent. “They’ll come around,” she offers, her voice barely there, and Din shakes his head, his hair rustling against Nova’s forehead.

“What if they don’t?” Din asks, and by the weight in his voice, it’s clear he’s not just talking about Mandalore accepting her as the Mand’alor’s riduur, as an ally, as on their side, but about the infiltrated Guild that’s out to kill her, and the First Order that’s out for worse.

Nova’s quiet for a long time, just listening to him breathe, trying to map both of their heartbeats, yearning for the constellations hiding above the hazy Mandalore sky. “What if we can’t do it?” she whispers, her mouth hollow, her head aching. “Any of this? What if we can’t pull this off, Din?” She doesn’t point out the specifics, the weight of planets hanging over both of their heads. They both know what she means. The silence is horrible, but Nova keeps her eyes closed, just like she used to, predicting every move Din will make in the dark.

“Then we don’t,” Din breathes back, and Nova’s about to resist, tears springing back to life in her eyes, and then Din’s mouth is on hers and nothing else matters. She lets him sprawl her back on the bed, the smooth satin coaxing and cool under her skin. Stars are burning out behind her eyes, the same celestial imprints that flood through hyperspace, something more, something deeper, something beyond this planet, this moment, this darkness. When Din’s mouth leaves Nova’s, her eyes stay shut, and his lips trail down to her ear. “I’d give everything else up but you.”

They both know he’s lying—Din’s heart is too big, Nova’s purpose is too bright—but neither of them say it out loud. Nova keeps his words in the hollow of her mouth, something shiny and devastating, a supernova or a pearl.

Din kisses Nova like he’s never had her before, low and desperate. It’s an echo of what happened in the amphitheater just hours ago, but it’s sustained, huge, warm. His mouth is made to devour, and if he’s whispering anything to feel the silence, Nova can’t hear it. She’s focused on where his kisses are trailing, desperate and hot and everything she didn’t know she needed. It’s freezing in here, but he’s so warm, his body heat louder than the cold.

“Kiss me,” Din whispers, his voice rough, a plea. One of his hands comes up and braces against Nova’s chin, not an order, but a question. She reaches towards his neck, trying to pull him down, to anchor their bodies together. It’s dark in their room. Without the stars shining above, it’s even darker.

She’s so tired. Still, even after all that rest, it’s like the exhaustion has permeated Nova straight down to her bones. She shudders and sighs as Din moves down her naked body, his lips planting kisses that she doesn’t know she needs until he’s already there. It’s easy and devastating and wonderful and crushing all at once. When Nova tries to return the favor, Din gently pushes her down, mumbling something about taking care of her.

It’s sweet. So sweet, even, that she’s on the verge of tears. Nova would do anything to stay here forever, to feel her husband’s lips on her bare skin, washing away all of the horror, the trauma, the darkness. She doesn’t open her eyes, even though she wants to. Din’s spent so much time without his helmet to appear like one of the people that call themselves Mandalorians, and she wants to give him back every single second of the time that prying eyes stole away.

Before long, Nova’s already close—her orgasm bubbling up quietly, without fanfare, without dramatics, just because Din knows exactly how to make her body sing—and when she taps at his arm to let him know, his mouth unlatches from the small hickies he’s leaving on the terrain of her bare stomach, and moves in between her thighs.

Effortlessly, he hold her legs up, hooking both of them around his shoulders so that his tongue can stay anchored in place. Nova moans, a quiet, radiant thing, and Din’s tongue finds exactly where she needs it to go. It pulses there, on the sweetest of spots, over and over again until she’s finished.

Breathless, she claws at his pants again, but Din shakes his head, his mouth dropping to her forehead as he pulls her into bed. “Rest, Nova,” he whispers, his voice faraway, a deep rumble. He pulls her in against his body, warm and soothing, and both of them are out before their heads hit their pillow.

*

Din’s asleep next to her, his slow, even breaths barely anything even in all the silence. Nova wants to fall back to sleep, but she knows she can’t. Her heartbeat is running itself rampant, and she’s a tangle of wants and needs, everything pulled in opposite directions. As quietly as she can, she slides herself out from the protective warmth of Din’s arms and the comforter, gently placing her feet on the floor. Even in the cool darkness of the night, her wardrobe, sleek but huge, has nothing but clothes in the same shades of Mandalorian blue, of beskar silver, but right now, Novalise doesn’t want to be a Mandalorian. She doesn’t want to be royalty, doesn’t want to be a figurehead. She doesn’t exactly want to be a Rebel either, because both titles mean the ultimate fate of the Outer Rim and beyond in her hands, so she settles for somewhere in between.

When she’s all dressed—black monochrome right down to her scuffed boots, in a weak imitation of the Luke Skywalker style—she braids the top half of her hair back, sleek and functional, and chooses a shawl buried at the back of her closet, underneath all of the Mandalorian haze of clothing. It’s a stormy grey that shimmers with the silver her husband wears when the fabric catches the light. If you pay close enough attention to the shawl, small, intentional stitches of rust and orange are woven into the fabric, hidden, furious, tiny flames.

Not exactly Mandalorian, but not entirely Rebel, either. And when Nova looks at herself in the mirror, studying the way her eyes flash with all that fire she was so certain was gone a few minutes ago, she sees herself right down to the quick, the high wire in between—she looks something like a Jedi.

So she pulls the Skywalker family lightsaber out of the hook on her door and pulls it to her belt loop, watching as the metal sways and dances in the low light. The weapon seems ancient, like something from another world. Something holy, even though she knows Luke Skywalker is a man and not a myth.

When she closes the bedroom door behind her, Din doesn’t even move. Usually, Nova’s the loud and clumsy one, worlds more obnoxious than Din’s practiced quiet, but she’s grown into her stealth over the last few weeks, especially living here, in a palace that has more rooms than the planet does people. It’s strange and eerie here at night, down the sprawling marble stairs, and she takes the first corridor she can find, just trying to walk off some of the pressure, to put her head back on her shoulders.

It’s lit only by candlelight, an archaic, flickering warmth, so in contrast to the rest of the steel and metal that Mandalore is made up of. It’s like she’s stepped into something that’s been around for years, even though she knows that it’s not possible. Mandalore was sieged, usurped, sieged again, razed and brought to the ground, destroyed. The planet’s atmosphere is mostly ash and haze, all that leftover war from years ago. But this part of the palace looks older, like a tomb that somehow survived.

It’s too creepy, Nova decides, even though the curious part of her is itching to explore it. She wants to pore through every aspect of it, try to find remnants of lost Mandalore, like her father used to unearth texts, like her mother used to excavate history. Before the war, before the Alliance was necessary, before all this death and darkness. When Nova comes out the other end of the corridor, she’s right next to the intimidating double doors of the war room, the holiest place Mandalore has. She pulls her shawl a little closer to her body, trying to retain the warmth she left back upstairs, trying to hold onto a memory more than anything tangible.

Nova isn’t intending to slip into the war room, let alone walk towards the sprawling dais that holds the beskar throne, but she does. It’s still quiet, so quiet, and the dark is coaxing her closer, pulling her up the steps, something beyond a simple want or need. She has the sneaking suspicion that she’s not supposed to be in here, not this late, not without Din, not when she has no legal or physical right to this place, but when she sits down on the throne, something deeper echoes out from within her chest.

It feels like a hymn and a battle cry. Before she has a second to adjust, to rationalize anything, everything becomes starry and disconnected. It’s been so long since she had a Force vision this immediate, this intense, and it hurls her through the proverbial hyperspace, everything dropping away.

It takes three steps forward in this strange, terrifying liminal space before Nova can even identify what’s scaring her. It’s the same kind of evil she felt way back on Takodana, before she was married to the ruler of a planet, before she even knew it was her destiny to be both Rebel and Jedi. There’s a mask she doesn’t recognize, twisted and devious. Behind its menacing, blank expression is something horrifying. Looking into the visor, it’s like her own soul is being fractured into pieces.

It’s humanoid until it’s not. The figure wearing the mask of destruction is tall, easily a foot taller than she is, horrible and menacing. But when the lightsaber they’re using ignites, it’s scarier than the vision of the person at all. It’s awful. It looks like it was forged out of lava, menacing red, the blade flickering and hissing in a way that’s somehow even more terrifying than the stark contrast of the Darksaber’s blade. Nova gasps, the light too bright, too sudden, and she can feel the residual thud on the floor, even in the vision. She knows when she comes out of it, she’ll be hurt, but the blade is getting closer. It looks like a giant rapier, a sword made only for evil things. At the hilt, spraying out in both directions, the blade extends. When the figure in the mask swings, it’s without remorse, so quick, so terrible.

But Nova’s not the target. She rolls away, out of the strike zone, and then she hears Luke Skywalker’s voice cutting through the darkness. She turns, and suddenly she’s not in the horror of the vision, anymore. She doesn’t know where she is. The ground looks icy, like Hoth, but there’s red powder spit everywhere, vomited across giant salt deposits. It’s so bright that her hand comes up in front of her eyes, and when she lowers it, Luke is gone. She’s gone, too. She turns around, hair whipping in the furious wind, trying to find where her name is being cried, and she trips over a mound on the salty ground, and when she falls to her knees, it’s a person, newly slain. The blood is so red, redder than the powder, redder than the evil lightsaber. It drowns through the lines on her hands, slips through her long fingers. She screams, trying to back up from the body, and then she realizes it’s Bo-Katan, gurgling through the slit in her throat, and when Nova tries desperately, in vain, to buffer the blood spilled, Luke Skywalker calls her name again.

But it’s not Luke. It is him—for a second, for the tiniest fraction of a moment—but then it’s not. His lightsaber floods with red, cancelling out the green light. The hallway flickers, once, twice, and then Darth Vader is charging towards her, and all Nova can hear is her blood pounding frantically in her ears and his heavy breathing through his mask, the sound that used to fill all of her nightmares. She’s slamming on the door at the other end of the hallway, and when it opens, the only person standing there isn’t a person at all, but a small alien baby all of two feet tall, green and adorable, and Nova drops her body around her son, protective and sobbing, curling every single inch of her around his tiny little frame, trying to shield him from Vader’s wrath, but when she cries, the vision changes again.

She can feel the motion sickness bubbling up in her stomach, horrible and nauseating. When Nova lands, she doesn’t open her eyes. She’s seen more than enough. Even right now, in the middle of her Force vision, all she wants to do is go back to sleep. She can feel the ache she slept away burrowing right back into her bones. Her scar is pulsing, enraged and angry. The headache she spent the last two and a half weeks fighting off is back, radiating straight down to behind her left eye. It’s all too much, and she can’t look. She doesn’t want to see anything else.

“Novalise,” she hears again, and the only reason she opens her eyes this time is because it’s her mother speaking. Her mother, who only ever called her Andromeda. Her mother, who spent half her life in the stars. Her mother, long dead. Her mother, who never got to know this version of her daughter, this Jedi-in-training, royal Rebel Girl that just desperately needs a hug from her mom.

“Mom,” she cries, and it’s so white. Everything here is antiseptic and deafening. It doesn’t even look like a planet, or even a room, or anything at all. She’s not even sure if there’s a floor, but Nova starts running like she’s never ran before in her life. Her breath is ragged and coming out in bursts. The jiggle in her chest and thighs burn under her speed, but she doesn’t care. She’s racing towards her mother, towards open arms, towards everything she’s been cheated out of for the last ten years.

It lasts for a second. Just a second. The figure is Piper Maluev, her skin dark and radiant, her hair down to her waist. Her lips are wide open and welcoming, her eyes crinkled at the seams. She’s tall and radiant and strong, and she’s everything Nova’s missed for nearly half her life.

And then it isn’t Piper. It’s not Luke, either, or Darth Vader, or whoever the dark, terrible, masked figure was. It’s not her usual nightmare transformation of Jacterr Calican. It’s not Bo-Katan, convulsing and dying. It’s Din. Just for a moment, a tiny fraction of relief, and then it’s not Din, either.

It’s a woman Nova’s never seen before, and her hand is clamped firmly around Nova’s windpipe. Like it’s nothing, she pulls her right off the disappearing floor and choking the life out of her. Her eyes are light but so terrifyingly menacing, her hair is a mess of a dark blonde. She’s pale and awful and her face is gleeful as she pulls the life out of Nova, a sucking, open wound.

She can’t talk. She doesn’t even want to plead for her life. If she’s this close to death anyway, and she just saw her mother, Nova figures there’s a pretty damn good chance that both of her parents are just over the other side. The woman is so happy to be killing Nova off, she doesn’t want to fight it. When her grip recedes, just for a half a second, Nova chokes out a confession that makes everything else grind to a halt.

It’s four words. Barely anything. Tears are streaming down her cheeks when her lips finally open. “I want my mom.”

Then she’s being dropped onto the floor, which very much exists now, and the light room filled with nothingness curls away, receding like it’s being burned. It’s dark in here, the tiled floor slippery and treacherous. In the background, there’s a makeshift trophy made from what looks like bones. Nova’s gasping for air, fighting back with a newfound vigor, kicking her legs helplessly to try and get some leverage on this woman who wants her dead, when, suddenly, she’s at eye level with her.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” she seethes, a terrifying smile still spread across her horrible, beautiful face. “When I find you, you’re going to be begging for your life instead of your death.”

“Who—who are you?” Nova manages, through agony. Her shoulders hurt. Her headache feels like it’s trying to split her jaw in half. Her scar feels like it’s being reopened. Everything is torture, and she can’t even breathe.

“You’ll see,” the woman whispers, and her voice is so deadly that Nova internally corrects every time she’s ever called Bo-Katan venomous. Bo-Katan Kryze is a flower. One of the iridescent, gorgeous ones, that lined all the brush on Yavin, the ones Nova’s spent years pressing into the pages of every journal she’s ever owned. She’s kind and lovely and Nova’s very best friend, and when she gets out of this alive, Nova’s going to tell Bo-Katan that. “I’m going to enjoy killing you, Andromeda.”

Nova heaves one giant breath into her lungs, trying to muster up anything that she can, even if it’s just more air. “I—” she starts, and the woman smiles again, loaded and dangerous. “I—I already did that, you miserable bitch,” Nova manages, and when she’s slammed into the awful floor, it’s worth it. There’s some kind of desperation behind the woman’s eyes, now and when her hand finds Nova’s throat again, she spits in her face.

And then she’s out of it. Hurtled out of it, actually, like a dying starfighter in the middle of space. She gasps and heaves on the floor, and as her sight comes back, her breathing does, too. Her head is still killing her. Her shoulders feel like they’re trying to carry the entire weight of Mandalore. Her scar is awful, white-hot and painful to the touch. Somewhere, distantly, her knees hurt like she’s fallen to them, and when she gains back her sense of sight and the feeling of her life being choked out of her body subsides, Nova realizes she has fallen to them. She’s fallen a lot, actually, down multiple steps leading to the floor from the raised platform where she was once sitting in the beskar throne. Nova shudders, inhaling through a terrible wheeze, curling her legs up close to her chest, trying to shake off the absolute shitshow that just hurtled her through the most traumatic Force vision she’s ever had.

“You,” comes a booming, rueful voice, and when Nova’s eyes flutter open, she’s expecting it to be the malicious, purple-haired woman from her vision. Her eyes take a second to adjust, her left one throbbing from the horrid ache pulsing behind it, and when she finally locates the source, it’s the miserable man from the gathering earlier.

“Can I help you?” Nova asks, her voice shooting up at the end, on the verge of tears.

“You aren’t supposed to be up there,” he spits, and Nova squints up at the throne she’d just fallen from.

“I know,” she whispers, dully. She presses a shaking hand to the ache behind her eye, trying to shut out this conversation like she wishes she’d ignored the vision. She tries to stand up, but her knees are too bruised to sustain pulling her to her feet, so she just slumps back against the step she’s on, trying to muster all the strength she has in her exhausted body to not break down. “I’m sorry,” Nova tacks on, the words barely there. “I—I wasn’t intending to sit here, or even come in the room, it just—”

“Happened,” he finishes, oddly calm. His voice sounds closer. Much closer. Nova opens her right eye, and he’s only at the bottom of the staircase. There’s something so wretched and dangerous about the energy he’s giving off, and she wants to run, but she’s in no position to even stand, let alone fight him off, so she just sits there, curling her knees into her chest, pulling her shawl as tight as she can against her upper body. “You’re an abomination.”

A laugh, the traitorous thing, bubbles up inside Nova’s throat. It’s not funny. It’s not. It’s pathetic, and likely racially motivated, but she can’t help herself. Her ribs ache, like they got banged up in her distant fall down these sharp, steep marble steps. “That, surprisingly, is not the first time I’ve been called an abomination in my life.”

“Do you know what the Jedi did to our people, little girl?” He’s angry. Nova can hear it in his voice. And normally, it would scare her, trigger her fight or flight reflex, keep her moving, but after her paranormal face-off with two of the scariest figures she’s ever seen, this one isn’t really that high up on our list. “I do. You were eradicated for good reason. You scorched our planet down to nothing, and now you and your cult leader husband come back here and try to take over? Not on my watch.”

Nova can feel him getting closer. He’s so much bigger than she is, up close, tall and buff, menacing and taut. She weakly pulls her hand away from her eye, trying to at the very least give him her full attention, but she’s so fucking tired. It’s in her bones, at this point. She doesn’t want to be royalty. She doesn’t want to be a Rebel. And, in contrast to what the man in front of her is screaming, she doesn’t want to be a Jedi.

She wants to be the Novalise she was on Naator, with nothing but domesticity and yellow leaves and pink skies. She wants to be the protector she was out there in hyperspace. And, for the first time in ten years, she wants to be Andromeda Maluev, fifteen and gleeful, running around Yavin knowing the stars were her destiny and that evil could always be defeated.

“I don’t even want to be here,” Nova whispers, finally, and it’s like something inside her breaks.

“Good,” the man spits, “then we’re in agreement.” And then his hands are yanking away the hood of her shawl and tangling in her braided hair. Nova’s scream gets cut off as she’s thrown down the rest of the stairs, like her body’s giving up. She chokes out something horrible, fighting to get to her bruised, banged up knees, sore from the fall, aching from the blissful time riding Din’s face less than an hour ago, but she can’t summon the strength. Somewhere, she knows Luke Skywalker is yelling at her to use the Force, but Nova’s had enough force today to last a lifetime. When she’s kicked in the stomach, brutal and awful, she just curls in on herself, hoping her death isn’t a slow one. He startles towards her again, ripping her shawl off of her body, clawing at the meat of her upper arm, and something snaps inside of her. If she’s going to die, really die, it’s not because she succumbed to the injuries this rabid Mandalorian is giving her to try and put the blame on her shoulders. She survived Moff Gideon. She survived Din and Grogu leaving her. She survived her parents dying. And she survived the abuse of Jacterr Calican’s awful hands. Novalise can survive this.

When her lightsaber roars to life in her hands, it’s not only Nova swinging. She can feel the weight of what it being the Skywalker family lightsaber, of Luke and Leia before her, of his father before him, of all the generations yet to come to wield this weapon, this holy sword, this impossible thing. It takes all of her energy, a brilliant beam of blue light, and then she falls to the floor, knowing that even if this is where it ends, that she fought back.

Everything next comes in flashes. It’s in these tiny fractals like what happened when the Crest had died right over Dagobah and crashed to the surface. She sees a blade ignite, and in between the rhythm of her fading in and out of consciousness, Nova thinks she’s just watching herself fight the man back. Suddenly, he drops to the floor, his body nothing but dead weight, and she wants to scream, but she’s back out. It’s horrible and deafening. She’s being scooped up, she can feel that. She’s crying. She’s definitely crying. There are voices, loud ones. When she has enough strength to open her eyes again, Din is slamming his gloved fist against the airlock on Kicker, his voice frantic. She can’t make out what he’s saying, though, and another face appears above her. Din gently transfers Nova’s limp body into someone else’s arms, and when Nova looks up, it’s Bo-Katan, her face so panicked it’s almost impossible to recognize who it is.

“Nova, you gotta stay awake,” Bo-Katan whispers, her palm slapping softly at Nova’s cheek. “C’mon, I mean it. If you die here on this planet you hate, I will haunt you in the afterlife. I swear, you have to stay awake.”

“I don’t—” Nova starts, and Bo-Katan shakes her head.

“You literally should not be talking,” Bo-Katan says, her eyesight dipping to Nova’s neck. Her eyes widen for a second and then her smooth fingers ghost over the outline. Nova coughs at her light touch, and she realizes that the marks from the vision she had of being choked within an inch of her life are here, that they followed her back out of the vision and into this moment. “Nova, no, shut up, I’m serious—”

“I don’t—don’t hate Mandalore,” she manages, her voice sounding like shards of glass, and Bo-Katan offers her a hasty, worried smile.

“You do,” Bo-Katan argues, but her voice is so gentle. “But don’t worry, princess, we’re getting you the hell off of it. No complaints now that you’re off Mandalore, you got it? The second you got here, I knew both of you wanted to leave.”

Din’s at her side again, and Bo-Katan kneels down, gently placing Nova in her familiar tangle of blankets and pillows. Nova’s eyes close again, and when they slide back open, Bo-Katan is standing, trading worried glances and hushed tones with Din.

Nova’s head hurts. So bad. It’s splitting down the middle of her skull, actually, but all she can do is press a hand over her eye and try to block out the familiar low light of the ship that smells more like home than this entire planet ever had.

“Listen, about what I told you back on Hoth—”

“It’s fine,” Din cuts her off, and his next few words are warbled. “I get it. Your allegiance is to Mandalore, not to us.”

Nova can’t hear Bo-Katan’s answer. In fact, she’s not even sure if there’s even words being spoken, because the next time she looks up, Bo-Katan is just staring down at her, incredibly concerned, such an obvious change from her usually stoic expression. Nova’s whole body feels like it’s on fire. She’s exhausted. Bo-Katan kneels down again, just for a split second, to pull the loose end of Nova’s shawl over the rest of her folded body. Nova wants to cry.

“Flower,” she garbles, nonsensically. She’s trying to tell Bo-Katan that she’s sorry for all the animosity, that she trusts her, and more than that, she likes her. It doesn't make a single lick of sense to anyone outside of Nova’s head, but Bo-Katan offers a tiny smile anyway.

“Here,” Din says, stiffly, holding out the sheathed blade of the Darksaber to Bo-Katan. Nova’s eyes flutter closed, just for a beat, and when they open back up, Bo-Katan is pushing the weapon back into Din’s grip.

“It’s not mine,” she insists. “Besides, you’re not getting out of it that easy. You’ll be back.”

“Bo-Katan—”

“Take care of her,” Bo-Katan interrupts. Nova blacks out again until they’re up in hyperspace. Din’s body is shielding her from the cold, his limbs draped all over the places that hurt the least. When she opens her eyes, they’re floating through the cosmos, and all her eyes can see is sweet, sweet stardust.

*

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*

[extravalgant]

the seven main schools (+ astral & shadow) as flowers

NOTE: i did not dive too deep into researching for this and most of the information i got for this post i got from this site . please dont come after me if i get a meaning wrong IM TRYING MY BEST!!! moving on

this is going to be a LONG POST so sit tight

myth - clematis (also known as traveller’s joy, old man’s beard)

i chose clematis mainly for its meaning: representing artifice, ingenuity and mental beauty. i think part of being a conjurer means that the world is only as big as you make it, and part of it is utilizing your imagination to its fullest extent. mental beauty and ingenuity go hand in hand with being creative, but artifice, in this flower symbolism, means to be cunning or be deceitful. i also think this comes from cyrus drake also being your teacher, which means he would teach in a style that would want you to exploit the weaknesses of the creatures that you summon (that being, calling their true name) in order for them to do your bidding. 

“Myth dwells between Fire and Ice, for that is where the shadows lie, and Myths are the shadowy forms of thought made real.”

storm - gladiolus (also known as a sword lily)

urgh.... storm was such a hard school to choose a flower for @_@ according to the wizard101 site storm is also based on creativity, but since we already had that sort of meaning attached to myth, i decided to go with the next best thing which is that gladiolus represents strength, strong character, honor and moral integrity. i feel like it’s pretty well known fact that storm is a hitting school, and a pretty well known one at that - their reputation as a power school is pervasive through all wizarding circles. i feel like this is also where a diviner’s sense of pride comes from - being able to one-hit ko enemies and brandish your power proudly. 

amazingly enough, the wizard101 site also addresses this, saying that, “the Storm School will train its student wizards to do a lot of damage. Storm Wizards have the ability to unleash high amounts of damage from an early level, which is good, but they place too much emphasis on power, and therefore suffer in terms of accuracy.”

placing too much emphasis on power... very interesting indeed

death - papaver (poppy)

death was ALSO a super hard school to pick a flower for. i debated between the dracula, the poppy, and the spider lily before deciding to settle with the poppy. I chose poppies in particular because “Poppies have long been used as a symbol of sleep, peace, and death: Sleep because the opium extracted from them is a sedative, and death because of the common blood-red color of the red poppy in particular.” source 

I FEEL AS IF THE SPIDER LILY WOULD HAVE BEEN TOO EASY OF A CHOICE but i wanted to encompass all the meanings that death has and has been associated with. some people associate death with peace (at being in a “”better place””), and some people sometimes to describe it as “sleeping” to a younger audience with no death awareness. also heres a nice little excerpt from the w101 site: “Death is about ending and closure. All things pass eventually, and time cannot be held back forever. Wizards devoted to Death Magic, known as Necromancers, understand this fact about everything around them and strive to face it without fear.”

ice - magnolia 

as soon as i saw this flower and its description it was PERFECT for ice. magnolias represent longevity and perseverance, due to the fact that magnolias are believed to have existed even at the beginning of time. the ice schools main theme is about persistance - which is to say, that if you’re patient and determined, you will collect the fruits of your labor in the end. 

the school page even says this, noting that “The Ice School will train its student wizards to take high amounts of damage and survive.” To thaumaturges, it is simply about surviving to see the end of the battle, and that’s what their play style involves. both magnolias and thaumaturges have that in common : persist and survive.

fire - ixora (also known as jungle flame, flame of the woods)

it was also hard choosing a plant for fire, seeing as so many plants can be described as “passionate” in a symbolic sense. it was between this and orange tulips, but i felt that both the names “jungle flame” and “flame of the woods” both fit fire’s theme. that being said, ixora’s represent passion - the core of fire’s development and description. it is the “bright, burning flame of raw emotion sweeping over everything.” (w101)

fire wizards mainly utilize damage over time spells, which reminds me that a frog boiling in a pot will leap immediately out of the water if its too hot, but will stay until it dies if the water’s temperature reaches steadily. while fire’s general message are that it may consume everything it touches, and how pyromancers are quick to anger and tempestuous, fire plays the longer game by slow roasting their enemies until it is too late for them.

balance - cosmos

when i saw this flower and its meanings there was literally no chance any other flower could compare omg

balance is described as finding the equality of everything and harmony. they are described as broad-minded, taught to be considerate of all things, as well as their own place in the world they live in. cosmos, in this case, represent order, peace, modesty and harmony -- all things which are important to a balance wizard. balance thrives in the company of others, simply because it was made in mind to help others in the heat of battle. “The Balance School will train its student wizards to be effective in group play.” (w101)

however as a result, they may appear as stand-offish and impassive, unable to choose a side or make a choice. such is life when you’re raised to consider all factors of every choice you make - every decision feels heavy.

life - achillea (also known as yarrow)

named after the greek hero achilles, legends would say that his soldiers would treat their wounds with this. source 

i chose achillea for life simply for the fact that it represents healing and protection, as well as it being used it being a versatile plant used to treat a variety of maladies or sicknesses - it’s been used as a medicinal plant for a long time across the world. 

life embodies “the spirit, the force of awareness and existence. It is about constant growth and movement.” (w101). theurgists are described as having simple pleasures in life, in revelling in the idea of the living, breathing, planet around you. it utilizes the song of creation, using it to weave life where there was none previously. it definitely has powerful roots in the canon storyline - i just wish it was utilized more through its play style. 

(astral) star - aster (also known as starwort, frost flower)

ok i dont have a deep meaning for this im sorry . i mainly chose aster simply because “aster” is derived from the Greek word “astron”, which means “star”, and because of the shape of its flowers. pretty simple reason but ill try my best to do it justice

however, aster is represented by patience and elegance -- star magic may be a lesser form of sun magic, simply because it is meant to power yourself rather than your spells. i think theres something inherently elegant about an aura wrapping itself around your figure, bending to the whim of your spells, as it both enhances your health or your spells. 

(astral) sun - datura (also known as devil’s trumpet)

Datura symbolizes power and caution. It is a powerful and deadly plant, but also a major religious and cultural symbol.

i chose datura’s for sun because sun is all about power -- datura is highly poisonous and very dangerous to be around. the main deal of the sun school is that they use spells to make their own stronger - it has the “power to endure, power to persevere, and power to change”. we don’t get much of a canon explanation for how sun magic works outside of battles, but i imagine that you have to be careful with sun magic, because as we know - absolute power corrupts absolutely. aint that neat

(astral) moon - protea

protea’s represent ingenuity, diversity, transformation and courage. a big part of moon magic is that it is all about change. changing your spells, your body, your thoughts -- it is symbolized by the moon because it goes through many changes (the tides, the phases of the moon, etc).

i feel as if moon magic might be one of the harder magics to master out of all the astral schools - the transformation into something else may not come as easy as star auras, or that it simply may be too hard on the caster in question, having to change their physical appearances and battle tactics to fit into a new one.

shadow - rhododendron

rhododendron’s represent temptation, caution and danger. 

despite how pretty it looks, the stems, leaves, and flowers can be poisonous to humans and pets if ingested. i feel as if that describes shadow perfectly -- the pleasant sight of these pretty flowers is enough to entice a person (wizard) forward, but you must be careful with how you handle this plant, or else you will end up facing dire consequences. (backlash)

shadow magic as a whole can be very tempting to those who seek it -- offering power that scales above others. but it is an advanced magic, and those who seek to play with it often end up paying the price with their lives (in this case, morganthe was crushed underneath the weight of power that shadow gave her). shadow can give you an upper hand, however, if used right -- and the wizard, for the most part, is using it right. 

shadow is mainly a cautionary tale of not playing with higher, advanced, magics with the wrong intentions.

[nebraska-is-a-myth]

innocence never lasts - crime au

I’m back boys with another part, were getting closer to war time now dudes. This takes place before part 3 just if you wanted to get a better understanding of the timeline. 

part 1 & 2 & 5

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Wilbur came to town on an invitation from the masked man himself

Dream had enticed the brit with promises of riches and power, and he already had connections within the city so really what had he to lose

Wilbur was supplied with a small team, he was in charge of one of the larger drug trades and production companies on the east side of the city. His job was to eliminate any competition and regain complete control of the eastern drug exchange, how he did that was completely up to him. 

However, when dream sent a duo of teenage criminals to his door, Wilbur was less than impressed

“Dream, how do you expect me to run a drug cartel when two thirds of the cartel are fucking children”

“You'll figure it out dude, I believe in you.”

“No this isn't an ‘I believe in you’ situation dream, they aren't even allowed to drink in this country let alone kill a bunch of drug lords that by the way, are probably predators!”

“Admittedly, yes, they are a little young. But Tommy is one of the best kids I know, everything he knows he either learnt from me or the blood god himself.”

“Wait?” Wilbur moves his eye in front of the peep hole in his front door to inspect the blond on the right. “This Kid is technos?” He watches him pull a face at the shorter boy before punching him in the arm.

“Yup.”

“And you're okay with that?”

“It's a long story but yes.”

Wilbur looks back through the peephole at the smaller of the two and distantly hears “What if we just stab him” through the thin wood of his door. The older brit shakes his head and turns back into his living room

“And who's the kid threatening to stab me”

“Friend of Tommy's, I think. And don't worry about the stabbing, it's probably his way of saying he likes you or something.”

“If any of these kids die it's on you green man.”

“I can live with that.”

When Wilbur opens the door again, Tommy has his head in his hands and sighs as Tubbo puts a knife to his throat.

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It's a week in and Wilbur has considered shooting the both of them more than he would like to admit.

He's not really one for killing children, but he's not a fan of being outnumbered by the little fuckers. So to make it even he calls up some of his contacts in the city.

He almost regrets it immediately when Tommy asks who the furry is

Wilbur tries to hide his laugh when the blond boy says this, but in the child's defense, Who the fuck wears a fox mask

Fundy and Eret get along fine after their first meeting and Wilbur is just happy he doesn't have to sit around and listen to Tommy and Tubbo argue over who can fit more breadsticks in their mouth without breaking any on his own anymore.

The drug business continues under Wilbur's power and surprisingly, no one dies. They take down competitors and pump out more and more supplies to companies that are willing to pay higher prices than ever. He hates to say it, but maybe he's glad he took this job from Dream

That is until Tommy almost punches his front door down at 1am covered in smoke and blood, Tubbo barely breathing on the porch next to him.

Wilbur panics and shoves the both of them in the back seats of his car, instructing a shaken Tommy to put pressure on Tubbos wounds as he floors it to the nearest hospital. He can deal with the repercussions of running red lights after he comes up with a plan to get through the hospital without being noticed. Sure maybe Wilbur wasn't on anyone's radar yet, but Tommy definitely was, and who knows how many people Tubbo has actually stabbed.

Dream has to have some sort of protocol for something like this, a secret entrance or a codeword or something. He reaches to grab his phone from his jean pocket and swears as he realizes he left it on charge on his night stand, looks like he's on his own for this one. He can do this, just focus and fucking drive Wilbur

When he gets to the hospital he parks right out front in a place where he definitely isn't supposed to be and helps Tommy and Tubbo out of the car and practically has to carry the brunet through the front doors. As soon as he walks in he knows people know, they've been on the news more than once and it's not difficult to keep up with the city's most wanted list these days, but Tommy's limping now and he knows the adrenaline is wearing off so he drags tubbos bleeding body up to the front desk and swallows his pride.

“Help them, please.”

The woman at the front desk looks Wilbur directly in the eyes, sees the way tears are building there and switches her gaze between the two younger boys.

“Please.”

The woman takes a breath and nods. “We need help here.”

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

A few hours later when both boys are patched up and on the mend the doctor lets him in the room. Tubbo is out and hopped up on pain meds, recovering from smoke inhalation and a shrapnel wound on his left side. Doc said it looked worse than it is, he was only out to let his chest ease up a little. Tommy's wounds on the other hand were a little more permanent.

He’s sat on the bed next to Tuboos watching his chest rise and fall. There were bandages wrapping around his left leg, a mix of shrapnel and soft burn marks underneath, and his right arm is in a sling meaning he wouldn't be able walk on his own for a while. Wilbur sits next to him but Tommy doesn't stop watching Tubbos breathing.

“They almost put him on a ventilator.”

Tommy says it so softly, Wilbur almost doesn't recognize it was him at first. He's got a few stitches on his forehead where a purpling bruise blooms underneath, he almost doesn't want to know what happened. Almost.

“What happened Tommy.”

“What, not even gonna compliment my wheels.” He gestures to the right where Wilbur sees a small black wheelchair next to Tommy's bed and he tries not to choke on his breath. He hates being right sometimes.

Tommy sighs and closes his eyes, his head droops and Wilbur rests a comforting hand on the young boy's shoulder.

“It was one of the warehouses on the outer perimeter of the east side, Tubbo had asked me to help him take stock, it was already late and he thought if we both did it we could catch the last bus home together.”

He imagines the two of them dancing to stupid music and running around the warehouse playing tag or something stupid, it wouldn't be the first time.

“We weren't even halfway done before one of the alarms went off, didn't think much of it, smoke alarms go off all the time for stupid shit right. Didn't even reach the office before the first blast. Was a Molotov I think, probably what set the alarms off, no idea what turned the warehouse into a fucking bomb though.”

“Something exploded, don't know what but it got both of us. Landed on my shoulder real good. We ran to the back entrance, or as close as we could get before another blast went off, fucking ceiling came down on me. Hurt like a bitch but at least it's nothing permanent. Think I was out for a bit, not for long but long enough for Tubbo to hurt himself trying to get shit off me. ‘Rest is a bit of a blur to be honest, don't remember much between getting hit and ending up at your door.”

Wilbur takes a deep breath and shakes his head, it's not gunna help anyone if he starts getting emotional right now.

“Who would have done this.”

“That's the thing, I got a call about two minit's before the alarm went off from the master arsonist himself asking where I was. He never calls me will, not once. I didn't even know he had my fucking phone number.”

“Wait, why would sapnap want to blow up one of our warehouses.”

“I don't know, but Will, I lied. He asked if were were out on any jobs and I fucking lied I don't know why but I told him me and Tubbo were playing fucking video games at home, and not two minits later the place where I told him we weren't goes up in fucking flames.”

Wilbur sits in silence and looks between the two injured boys. He can't help but feel fury building in his chest, he doesn't care about the thousands of dollars lost in the fire, couldn't give less of a shit about Dreams fucking money. He’s angry that two teenage boys had been ambushed in an attack at a warehouse that his employer had promised were protected. God only knows what would have happened if Wilbur hadn't been home. He tries not to think about what would have happened if Tommy hadn't been there either, he stands and tries to get the image of Tubbo being trapped in that warehouse out of his head.

 He grinds his teeth together in confusion and anger hopes to god Tommy's wrong.

“Where are you going.”

Tommy looks up and meets Wilbur's eyes, the young boy sees the fury burning in them, he knows the older brit is mad and to be honest, he doesn't blame him. He watches Wilbur walk round to Tubbos bedside and picks up his cracked phone, he doesn't mention the way he’s sees Wilbur's hands shake.

“Ill be back okay, I've got a phone call to make.”

[middleofnowhere92]

Ranking all ATLA Villains/Antagonists from worst to best (by someone who loves villains)

This post was inspired by this ask 

Warning: I swear quite a bit in this post and I’m a dumbass, not an ATLA scholar, so take this with a grain of salt. Also I have no idea wtf my ranking criteria was. I assigned arbitrary and meaningless points like Dumbledore giving all the points to Gryffindor at the end of the year. 

Iroh

 I have a secret for you...Iroh is an antagonist.... Say it with me... Iroh is an antagonist. For the people in the back, IROH IS AN ANTAGONIST. He’s not particularly good at at it, but he belongs on this list. Primary reason being, his siege on Ba Sing Se, which was a major battle in the 100 year war and all the other things he did in the war to become a general. If he was good at being a villain, he would at least have the decency to conquer the city, but as Ozai points out, Iroh excels at tea and failure. When we see Iroh in Book 1, He’s a very chill antagonist for the same reason a lot of our other antagonists are (June, the Yuyan Archers, Combustion man etc)-they are helping a villain achieve their goal. In Iroh’s case, he does help Zuko in many ways ( like sneaking him onto Zhao’s ship) and these in turn help Zuko get closer to his goal of capturing Aang. I love Iroh as a character, but he’s not good at being an antagonist, which is why he is ranked the worst. 

Circus Trainer

This man is straight up, evil. I like villains, but I do not like this man. He’s cruel and not in a fun way, which is why he’s near the bottom of the list. The whole point of being a villain is to be cool and do bad things, but he’s not even a little fun to watch. He’s the least interesting to look at... 

Yon Rha

This man is a coward. Like how did he lead the Southern Raiders? He went soft when he got old. He was more savage back in the day. Like this man is a firebender, but he cowers from Zuko before Katara even pops up. He needs to grow a pair. Like Katara said man is pa-thet-ic. 

The Rough Rhinos (ignoring the comics)

They get points for creating my favorite antagonist, Jet. But the first time we see these clowns in the show, the gang just rides away on Appa, easily avoiding them. And then the gang easily defeats them in their next run in. These clowns are good at destroying things, but not really fighting or pursuing others. 

Ozai

I expected more from this man. He was hyped up for three seasons and I just didn’t feel like he was smart enough to be the bad guy for the whole ass show.  The man clearly doesn’t think for himself or show up throughout the series doing  menacing things. The final agni kai overshadowed Ozai and Aang’s showdown. That’s the theme, Azula outshines a grown man as the star villain of the show. He does get some points for his fashion and flair for the dramatic. 

Mai's Uncle (Boiling Rock Warden)

This man, is a dumbass with the reflexes of a sloth. Suki overpowered him in 2 seconds flat. How is this grown man getting defeated by a little nugget like Suki? She was only holding his wrist. He could have just kicked her? Like you are a prison warden, look alive man! And he should have captured Zuko’s little ass and sent him right over to Ozai to get some street cred, but instead he just gets pissed cause Zuko broke up with Mai? First lesson in being a villain/antagonist- power over everything (including family). He does get points for ordering them to cut the line. That’s straight savage. 

Xin Fu and Yu

Toph gets it right, these are two dunderheads. How did they not hear Toph bending metal? They react almost as slowly as the Boiling Rock Warden, letting Toph easily overtake them. They are two skilled benders and they didn’t even stand a chance. 

General Fong

This man gets points for being a bat shit crazy. And I think he’s one of the first non fire nation antagonists we see in the show, so points for him. He’s an underrated antagonist. He does cool bending and his emotional manipulation to get Aang into the Avatar state is A+ villain work. 

Azulon

Azulon gets villain points for keeping the war going. He didn’t fuck it up like Ozai. But Azulon gets his villainness handed to him on a platter, he didn’t really do much, besides maintain status quo. We do get the scene where Ozai asks for the throne. But I don’t think Azulon assumed Ozai was going to kill Zuko. Azulon was trying to make a point, that Ozai’s request was absurd, but he obviously didn’t know Ozai well enough...

Koh

Koh almost didn’t make the list. I don’t really consider him to be an antagonist. Aang came to him asking for information and Koh was trying to do what he does..steal faces. He was just vibing. I included him on this list, because he antagonized us (the viewers). Dude is easily the most terrifying part of the show. 

Ghashiun

He muzzled Appa! He’s not ranked high on this list, because he didn’t know Appa was Aang’s so he wasn’t intentionally trying to fuck with the Avatar. I do like the sandbenders as a whole. They just run around causing chaos with their cool bending. This character, however, loses points, because when he is confronted about stealing Appa, he gets defensive and tries to lie. If you do something bad, at least have the balls to own up to it. 

Wan Shi Tong

Gets points for his flair for the dramatic a la Ozai. I did like Wan Shi Tong’s logic around not giving the gaang information: “You think you're the first person to believe their war was justified?!” He had more brain cells than some of our other villains/antagonists, but was also dumb too? Sokka pretty easily outsmarted him. This Spirit has been alive forever, he shouldn’t be outsmarted by a child. 

The Old Man

Oooof. I almost put him in the number one spot tbh. He did us and Haru so dirty. Like he could have died,but he turned in the person that saved him??? He gets points for shock value and pettiness. I personally think Jet should take him out...

June

June gets points for being a bad bitch. I like her vibe. She’ll do anything as long as you’re paying her the right price and I can respect that. She isn’t higher on the list, because she is executing someone else’s plan, not her own. 

The Yuyan Archers

Speaking of bad bitches, the Yuyan Archers are so cool and I wish they got more screen time! We see very few antagonists that can keep up with Aang the way that this group does. They add a bit of spice and a different flavor to what we know about Fire Nation fighting styles, which I approve of. I hope we see more of them in future ATLA projects. They aren’t higher up, because they are still doing someone else’s bidding. If they had their own leader and their own agenda, that would be some cool shit. 

Combustion Man

This man gets points for giving the gaang a lot of trouble. As viewers, we really worry about whether they will be able to defeat him. I like that he has a different style of bending, which in and of itself is terrifying. He still doesn’t make it up higher on the list, because he’s still doing someone else’s (Zuko’s) bidding.

Rig Warden

On second thought, I may have him ranked a little too high. But oh well, fuck it. He gets many many points for being voiced by George Takei. This man also gets points for having general villain swag. He is sassy and I am here for it. He’s highly effective at crushing the souls of the Earthbenders on the rig. Also, he does not stutter when Haru throws those rocks at him.Came at him full force which is what all the other himbos on this list should have been doing when these children played them! He outright told Katara he was gonna kill her “You’re one mistake away from dying where you stand.” Loses points for begging as he’s dragged off the rig. Go down with some dignity!

The Southern Raiders

So the Southern Raiders get ranked separately from Yon Rha, because he led them towards the end of their conquest. I think they started under Sozin’s reign. This group gets ranked fairly high, because they were very effective at their task. They came, they saw, they decimated-leaving the SWT defenseless and barely able to sustain itself. 

Mai

I like Mai and wish I could rank her higher. I like her knives, they are very cool form of defense that was unique to her. I also love how she just immediately flung arrows at Aang, no hesitation. She does get style points, her aesthetic is everything. Her one liners are pretty funny, “You’re so colorful, you’re making me nauseous.”  She lacks in her commitment. Anytime anything inconveniences her she’s just like eh, no thanks. Hardcore antagonists need to be have some dedication to their cause, which Mai does not.  I feel like she would eventually run out of weapons in a longer battle, which would be a big issue for her. 

Long Feng

Gets instant points for villain swag, creepy vibe and sass. This man kept news of a whole war from Ba Sing Se, even though the city was filled with refugees? Long Feng had his work cut out for him. He loses points, because he lets the children get away with too much. He should have locked down Aaang and co immediately, because they were trouble as soon as they rolled up. Also, he should have fought Azula. He let a fourteen year old take his whole career away. He was never even a player.

Sozin

Sozin gets a  large amount of hypothetical points from being the one to start it all. He’s the one who initiated the 100 year war. He did not play around. He used that comet to its maximum potential. Also he has a dragon, which is fucking cool. He gets bad bitch points for leaving Roku on the exploding island. Like that’s a power move right there. He wiped out the air nomads and invaded the Southern Water Tribe, which is why his successors  are ranked much lower on the list. They really didn’t do shit.

Hama

Gets points for being a waterbender, which is something cool that we hadn’t seen in a villain yet. She also gets points for executing her own deranged agenda. I would love to see her and Jet link up, cause that would have been chaos. She also gets heaps of points for inventing bloodbending. Many of the villains of this list can barely think and homegirl has big brain energy. She is cunning and quick, like when she utilizes Sokka and Aang to attack Katara. I like her general bruja (witch) vibes. She gets more points because she does not motherfucking stutter when Katara figures her out, she just starts bloodbending immediately. She really enjoys her power and I can’t blame her for it. She’s a baddie and she knows it. More points for Hama, because she gets Katara to carry on her legacy (whether she wants to or not) and goes off to jail with her dignity. She’s an all-star villain and I love to see it. She loses a few points, because her bloodbending is limited to the full moon, but she still has her waterbending which is terrifying enough...

Dai Li

Like the rig warden, I probably ranked these himbos too high, but I love them as henchmen. Their bending is amazing, they are sneaky and they can brainwash you? Like fuck me up man. They really are just a joy to watch and their betrayal of Long Feng is so unexpected. This group really creates the creepy/ominous aesthetic the creators were going for in Ba Sing Se. Don’t think their bending is good? They one upped Toph and almost had her, but Jet saved her at the last second. 

Zhao

I feel like Zhao’s characterization is inconsistent (sometimes he has a bad temper, sometimes he doesn’t?) which makes him hard to rank, but let’s do it anyway. He gets points for being voiced by the guy that played Lucius Malfoy, like yaaas work that Slytherin aesthetic. Gets points for using the Yuyan Archers. Loses a lot of points in his fight with Aang, like that child was obviously baiting him. He has a lot of ambition and actually has to work to his rise to power, which he obviously relishes. He’s the perfect antagonist for Zuko. He accomplished his goal of frying the fish/moon and he actually captures Aang. I think the writers added in his hot temper later on, because they realized he was too competent and had to give him a flaw. 

Zuko

Ohhh my morally confused prince, Where do we even start? Zuko gets a lot of points for his sheer determination. I would love to see an unhinged Zuko without Iroh. Zuko’s tenacity and unpredictability make him a fantastic antagonist. Iroh and Azula try to control Zuko, but they never really know what he’s gonna do next and neither do we as the viewers. He’s near the top of the list, because even with so many struggles he kept Aang on the run for two seasons. I like that he actually struggled to be good. He obviously loses points for joining the good guys, but we still love him. 

Jet

Speaking of morally grey, cue up Jet’s theme music. He gets instant points for swag and cool swords. Like the Yuyan archers, Jet is one of the few antagonists we see that can keep up with Aang. Like Zuko, Jet’s dedication to his cause get him high on this list, because he will defeat the Fire Nation at any cause. The creators lose points for being cowards and killing him off. We saw plenty of other people (Sokka) get hit with similar rocks and not die. Jet is a fantastic antagonist with a backstory that the audience can sympathize with. He loses points for not being more versatile in his tactics. I’ve written more on this here. 

Ty Lee

Katara is terrified of her, do I need to elaborate? Ty Lee by far has the scariest skill set on the show. It’s too easy for people to underestimate her. Katara and Suki make that mistake once and then never do it again. Like Toph, Ty Lee knows to wait for the right time to strike, making her highly effective at taking out our favorite benders and whole groups of benders (The Terra Team). Her betrayal of Azula is ICONIC and unexpected, but as always, Ty Lee knows just the right time to strike. I think Ty and Mai were perfectly capable of getting away at the Boiling Rock and I’m disappointed they were captured so easily. 

Azula

Look down, you’re talking to your highness. Can’t see her? She’s the reason for your blindness. 

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Azula is the baddest bitch in the game. PERIODT. She is ruthless, cunning and powerful. Her lightning bending is at a whole other level. She is the smartest person on this list. She takes Ba Sing Se from the inside out, utilizes the Da Li perfectly and has antagonized Zuko from the beginning. As far as I’m concerned, she was made to be Firelord.