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anerdinallherglory · 3 years

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Approaching Sun (31)

Author’s Note: Surprise readers! I wanted to celebrate the start of Spring Break (a very much needed break) by posting an update sooner than I expected. Also, it’s double the length, too. It’s practically two chapters in one!

Thank you always to my loyal readers. If I do not get back to you, please know that I see every review, every comment, and every mention. I am grateful for all of you!

Also, I have had a few readers tell me of songs they associate with A.S. and I just think that is so cool, because I too, connect music to books and fanfics that I read. I’d like to make a list of all my readers’ songs that they think fit A.S. and share them on my next update as the “soundtrack” for this story. Please let me know yours in the comments or through message.

Pairing: SasuSaku

Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30

Chapter 31: Not Enough

Sakura spun the sword, adjusting it on her left forearm as she pivoted on her heel to bring it around her in another protective arc. The blackness that hovered before her again instantly shielded her enemies from view which could be considered both advantageous and disadvantageous for her.

For the first, Mako and Hisa immediately rushed forward, using the ninjutsu as a cloak. They crisscrossed her, one taking a swipe at her from the front right and the other coming from the left. When Hisa’s blade came from the right, Sakura’s first instinct was to dodge and strike her foe in the side with her fists as she passed. But with her chakra currently restricted, Sakura ducked, pushed up on the handle of her assault weapon with her forearm, and brought her own blade naturally to Hisa’s right flank as she redirected the attack. Sakura hissed in disappointment because the cut was interrupted when she retreated and the result was shallow, not slicing deep enough to incapacitate her. When Hisa took a step back, clutching her flank, Mako suddenly appeared like a breaching shark from the deep only inches before Sakura’s face. He kicked her, quite hard, and Sakura fell into the sand, her weapon tossed aside from the blow. She scrambled for it as Mako grabbed hold of her ankle. She kicked free of his hold, but he was upon he, knees straddling her, and Sakura had no choice but to turn and face him.

He cuffed her hands above her head, saying quietly, “Don’t make this difficult! You will lose your life if you continue to resist. They’ll kill you. Stop struggling!”

Sakura cursed herself for drinking that damn tea, because if she had chakra, she would headbutt his face so far back into his skull that the impact would instantly kill him. Hisa’s face suddenly appeared above Mako’s rights shoulder.

“Killing her is the only option. We don’t have time to hold her hostage,” she chastised Mako with venom in her voice. “We have to get back to base quickly with the news of her death.”

“We could use her. She’s too important to kill immediately.” Came Mako’s response as he sat down hard against her bucking legs.

“We don’t have time for this! The drug effects won’t last on her all the way back to Tanigakure!”

Perfect, Sakura thought. The confirmation she had been looking for. They were in fact the same party of ninja who had attacked her and Sasuke on their journey to Suna. Sakura still wasn’t entirely sure just how many belonged to their group.

“Reach in my pocket for the second dose. We will knock her back out if we have to!” came Mako’s reply, but it was too late. Sakura had been calling, calling, calling her chakra to her wrists this entire time and used that small amount of sudden strength to overpower Mako’s hold, swinging her arms quickly back down to her sides which caused Mako’s own arms to follow. His head hit the ground to the left of her neck and Sakura immediately rolled him, bestriding him the same way he had just held her.

Hisa didn’t hesitate a second as her weapon came swiping horizontally across Sakura’s back. Sakura predicted this and used Mako’s struggling momentum to once again roll him back on top of her. The blade bit into the flesh of his back and he screamed. In the same moment, Sakura used the last of her strength to wedge her knees between herself and Mako’s chest, shoving him out and back toward a surprised Hisa. They both fell tangled back into the shadowy mist, hitting sand somewhere out of sight.

Within seconds, Sakura scrambled toward the lost weapon and the sword she had dropped was within Sakura’s reach. But when she fisted the pommel, a foot stepped down on the blade. The black mist cleared to reveal the eyeless depths of the shadow demon above her.

“Enough of this,” he hissed. Shadows leaked from his eyes, down his face, and crawled down his chest, legs, and over the length of the weapon, icing Sakura’s fingers when they touched the handle. Sakura immediately recoiled in pain as her fingers turned a sickening black. She screamed, backing away from his advancing figure, hand tucked protectively in the crook between her arm and side.

Rage more than fear boiled beneath Sakura’s skin. What sick ninjutsu was this? It reminded her of a combination between Zabuza’s Hidden Mist technique and Shikamaru’s Shadow Control. But the damage was entirely unexpectedt, as if the shadows inside his body were made of a poisonous substance that bleached out the life of whatever it touched. This phantom before her controlled darkness directly, thickening what already existed in the air around them, and then leaking black chakra directly from his body which destroyed whatever came in contact with it. Like the shadows of death itself, Sakura was certain it had stollen all life from her immovable hand.

Sakura cursed and bolted to the left, seeking out the jagged rocks that she had created earlier. She had to test a theory. Sakura slowed as she clutched her hand, listening, keeping an eye on her feet at all times in fear of creeping black, knowing the phantom would pursue.

When his steps came closer, Sakura turned and faced him. A chakra-manipulated path cleared the darkness between them, allowing the two ninja to see each other in the surrounding haze. This confirmed one thing for Sakura: no one, including the ninja user himself, could see through the darkness he created. That was good to know.

Just one more thing then. She waited and the shade sneered as he approached. When he came withing a few feet away, shadows reached for her like grasping fingers. Just as she had seen Temari do all those years ago during the Chunin exams, Sakura backed away until the shadows stopped and retreated back into the skull of the demon who had projected them. She drew a line in the sand, confirming the distance of ten feet between them.

Ha. She thought to herself. Just like Shikamaru’s justsu then. Similarly, it had a limited reach, although it was much shorter than Shikamaru’s range and didn’t seem to be able to use the shadows in the air around it to lengthen or widen. It explained the purpose of the shadows in the air though; the phantom ninja needed to be in close range where individuals couldn’t see the approaching black tentacles of death.

Sakura scoffed. Apparently, this ninja couldn’t measure up to Shikamaru’s intelligence either, considering the fact that she had just figured out how his ninjutsu worked.

There was only one problem, though. Sakura was a close-combat shinobi as well, and her number one battle technique was her chakra enhanced strength. She needed a plan that would allow her to take a different approach.

She ran and her attacker pursued her, thickening the air before her but leaving the trail behind her completely clear.

Suddenly, Mako’s words from earlier came back to her, which gave Sakura an idea. It was the only thing Sakura could think of. She doubled back to where Mako and Hisa had been disposed. She followed the blood in the sand to the precipice of a jagged chunk of earth. When she came upon Mako, Sakura noted that Hisa was already gone, having abandoned him immediately. Hisa was probably blindly searching for Sakura among the shadow-cloaked mountains of ground and sand.

Sakura didn’t have much time. She placed her hand over Mako’s mouth so he wouldn’t scream and give away their location; not that it would do much good. If the phantom had room for a brain somewhere next to that pit of darkness in his skull, he would follow the blood as she had, or trace her tracks in the sand.

Mako, laying on his bloody back in the sand, shot his eyes open when Sakura’s hand pressed down hard on his mouth with her black hand. It was barely more than a useless appendage at this point, but with the help of her good hand, Sakura shoved her fingers in his mouth to silence him. He tried biting them, tearing into her blackened flesh. But Sakura couldn’t feel them at all, the deadening so complete that Sakura was afraid she would never regain use of it again.

With her free hand, Sakura searched Mako’s person. Her hand fisted triumphantly in his back pocket around something long and cylindrical. She pulled it free, praying frantically that it was what she theorized it to be. Bless you for being thorough and for telling me you had it, she thought to Mako as she surveyed the capped yellow injection tube. Whether it was Ashuwa or a second dose of whatever he had put in her tea, Sakura didn’t know. But whatever it was, Mako had revealed its purpose to Hisa which was to incapacitate her again once the current drug in her system stopped working.

Mako squirmed beneath her and Sakura contemplated killing him right then and there. But she just didn’t have time. Lucky bastard. She sprinted from him, the phantom stepping over the boulder in the same moment she darted from the concealed spot.

Did he see what she grabbed? Sakura wasn’t confident but couldn’t stop to try to interpret the eye-less facial expression the ninja wore. Remaining hopeful, she kept running.

Spotting a smaller set of tracks in the sand leaving the location, Sakura followed them, tracing them all the way to their source. When Sakura came upon Hisa, she almost collided with her directly, the blackened air only revealing her in the last second. Hisa didn’t even have a chance to react before Sakura uncapped the needle and dispensed a third of the dose into her neck, enough for her weight. The woman dropped to the ground and Sakura thanked Mako again for designing the perfect drug. Sakura didn’t estimate that she would remain unconscious for long, though, not having the full dose.

Sakura moved quickly. There was only a matter of minutes before the phantom caught up to her once again. Sakura quickly removed the cloak from Hisa’s shoulders and wrapped Hisa’s face covering around her own. She picked up Hisa’s small rapier from the ground.

She turned and walked toward the approaching footsteps, using the black at her back to her advantage this time, thankful for once that it would conceal Hisa’s body completely.

When she came into his view, the ninja balked, taken aback at her familiar presence. “Hisa?” came the hissing whisper. Sakura kept her head down long enough. Long enough to come parallel with him and turn the blade to relieve him of his head.

He ducked as Sakura knew he would. Dropping the shortsword, she came back toward his face with the hidden syringe in the same hand. Like with Hisa, she caught him in the neck with the needle neck, and his black sockets widened as she fully pressed in the plunger.

Deathly black shot out of his eye sockets, gripping her remaining hand with blackness as it traveled up her arm. She cried out in both pain and fury as the medicine injected into the demon’s skin. He screamed and she pulled away as he dropped to his knees.

His consciousness remained momentarily, and Sakura turned, arms limp and useless from damage like Orochimaru’s had been. Turning, Sakura found the sword she had dropped. Bending down, she gripped it between her teeth, the taste of metal and sand coating her tongue. It tasted so, so sweet in that second.

Like another mist demon she remembered, Zabuza Momochi, Sakura wielded the blade between her teeth and pivoted to face this monster who was solely responsible for torturing Isao, spreading hatred and pain, and most of all, underestimating her.

Sakura would never be weak enough that anyone without substance, anyone who couldn’t consider themselves subpar to a legendary Sanin, could dispose of her easily. She didn’t need abilities. She didn’t even need chakra to make it out triumphant in these futile attempts on her life.

“You will regret your choices,” the phantom hissed disorientated. “The next generation won’t be able to handle what is coming.”

Sakura began to advance toward him, ready to mimic Zabuza’s killing blows with a fang-wielded blade. When she reached him, she glared down at him, bloodlust in her veins.

“War is a good thing. Anger is a tool to be used. Vengeance is necessary to strengthen.”

Sakura gripped onto her own blood-bent mind, talking to herself as she looked at this man…beast…whatever he was. And as she had done with Satou, Sakura now too, thought of Sasuke. A person so wrapped in darkness that the darkness presented itself in his very nature.

“You, like everyone else, deserve mercy,” Sakura announced after she dropped the sword from her mouth. Sakura had once blamed herself for being too weak to kill Sasuke, but in this moment, Sakura had an enlightening clarification. When someone so vile deserves death and you can find it in yourself to drop your too-ready hand of justice and offer them a second chance—that is real strength. It’s what Naruto would have done. It’s what Sakura chose to do now.

The man slumped forward, eyes level with the blade that stuck up from the sand. “You will see one day that I am right,” he hissed in finality.

“You have us confused with one another,” she announced to the fading darkness that began to disintegrate into light, the final sign signaling his unconsciousness. Sakura could just make out the sunrise in the east and it was beautiful, pale, and rosy. Sakura pretended it was her victory banner. She also believed it was a sign of hope.

………………………………….

The second chakra pill worked another miracle. Sasuke felt replenished as he practically flew across the sand path in Isao’s memory. He had only run this fast a few times in his life and most recently, it was because of this same scenario. Kido, too, had kidnapped Sakura, and when Sasuke had found out, he had run.

Sasuke cursed himself now for his stupidity. His pride. His mission. He had left in anger and confusion after their kiss, left her alone in Suna despite his promise to never let this sort of thing happen again. Each step he took into the sand was echoed in his mind with an apology. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. He lost count of how many times he said it.

Chakra coursed through his limbs and Sasuke mentally prepared himself for war. Bones enveloped his body, ribs caging around him as he activated an incomplete Susanoo. Purple chakra radiated from him, a threatening beacon to the kidnappers he knew would be nearby.

Sasuke instantly recognized the projections of broken ground that penetrated up from the sand like a golden crown. Unlike in Isao’s shadowy memories, the morning light illuminated each pillar, revealing the sheer length and size of every new peak that Sakura had brought forth with her inhuman strength. Sasuke didn’t even think of concealing his presence; he didn’t need to. He charged into the center of the fray, looking about him everywhere.

He looked behind a few of the crags, eyes finally landing on an individual. Bloody, but not unconscious, Mako lay with his face projected to the sky. His eyes shot open when Sasuke placed a heavy foot on his chest. He wanted to light him up with his Amaterasu and let the flames devour him alive until the ninja was nothing more than the sand beneath him.

Mako groaned and Sasuke unsheathed his katana, stabbing into this ninja’s shoulder. Although he didn’t need to pin him to the ground, it felt good to watch Mako clutch at the blade near his collar bone. The medic ninja was still alive despite his blood loss, but Sasuke relished in the thought that he wouldn’t be for long. Gaara might be mad at him for this later, but Sasuke didn’t care.

“Where is she?” The Uchiha hissed as he sent electricity down the length of his blade into Mako’s chest muscles. He began to spasm.

“Stop!” Mako screamed in pain.

“It will stop when you answer!” he yelled back, losing control of his own emotions. He twisted the metal for emphasis.

“Sasuke, stop!” came a familiar voice and Sasuke’s dropped the blade in shock as Sakura threw her shoulder into him.

“I don’t have enough chakra to spare to heal any more wounds,” she reprimanded him as if she were talking to a patient.

Sasuke blinked in chastisement at the pink-haired woman standing whole before him. He instantly pulled her into his Susanoo, crushing her to his side as he extended the ribcage of the Susanoo to include her. He looked around warily as if he couldn’t quite believe there was no current threat to Sakura’s person. He finally spoke, both relief and annoyance edging his words. “You’re okay?! Where are the others?!”

“I’m fine!” she announced, face suddenly red in embarrassment at their close proximity. Sasuke didn’t notice it at first as he held her back at arm’s length to check her current state. His stomach dropped when he saw her dangling arms, blackened, charred, and bruised. One of them currently had a small halo of green around it and its color paled in comparison to the other.

“Who did this to you?” he rumbled lowly, flashing a red and purple glare back down at Mako, who whimpered pathetically from his wounds. Sakura pulled from his hand and moved in front of the Uchiha, cutting off his direction of blame.

“Not him,” she excused, and her defense thoroughly pissed Sasuke off. Whatever Mako’s role was in this, Sasuke was certain that he was to blame for all of it.

Sasuke did his best to swallow his murdering thirst, eyes landing back on her like a lifeline to his sanity. “Tell me what happened,” he ordered. It was the only words that he could force past his teeth.

“I will explain everything to you, but I need your help first.” She made to step away from him, but Sasuke prevented it. Careful not to aggravate her injuries by touching her arm, Sasuke grabbed her shirt on reflex instead, pulling her back into the safety of the Susanoo.

“It’s okay. We are safe.” she breathed, smiling at him for the first time since he had left her, which brought Sasuke back some soothing clarity of mind. “They are all incapacitated.”

Sasuke’s eyebrow shot up into his bangs. “All of them?”

“It’s insulting that you are surprised,” she nudged him with her shoulder, turning her shoulders to face Mako. She bent to medically assess his new stab wound.

“I wasn’t expecting,” he admitted, but then fell into silence at her targeted look. “I mean, I thought that you were drugged!”

“I am,” she announced, narrowing her eyes further. “But I don’t know how you know that.”

Sasuke cursed at his slip. He couldn’t tell her just yet about how he practically forced Isao to spill all the information earlier. Instead, he said half-truthfully, “I ran into the kid.”

“Isao?” Sakura’s face lit up. “He’s okay? He made it back?” She slumped into the sand at Mako’s side. She practically deflated as her concern for the boy evaporated. “Bless that child.”

Sasuke had to agree. If it weren’t for him, Sasuke wouldn’t have been able to find his teammate this quickly. Even though Sakura hadn’t really needed his help after all. How strange that felt for Sasuke, to not be needed in the ways that he had once been. It was an unexpected jolt to his mindset toward Sakura. She had proved her strength repeatedly to him and he continued to see her as someone to protect.

Before he could even offer an apology, Sakura motioned toward Mako’s body. “My arms are a little preoccupied at the moment. Do you mind flipping him?”

Sasuke’s thoughts instantly darkened at the mention of both her arms and Mako. “What for?”

“I need to look at his back. See how deep the wound is.”

“He doesn’t deserve your help,” he replied instantly, wishing for the ninja to suffer in the same ways he had made his friend.

“I remember a time when you didn’t either,” Sakura replied with a smiling voice, “but I helped you back then, too. Now flip him.”

Sasuke scoffed at her statement, stooped, and flipped the ninja on his stomach. Mako let out a pained groan and Sakura “tsked” at his blatant carelessness. He kneeled beside her, ready to be her hands despite how much he hated the thought of her trying to help him.

“It’s not as deep as I thought. Hold his flesh together,” she ordered and Sasuke did so as she summoned a small stream of chakra to the gray fingertips of her semi-healed hand. The small amount did not last long, but it was enough. Just enough to stop the bleeding.

“Why are you helping me?” Mako asked faintly into the sand, and Sasuke immediately responded for her.

“You don’t need to know, so just shut your mouth so I don’t have to hear your voice.”

Sakura nudged him for his harsh words. “You sure have a lot to say today.” And Sasuke blinked at her again in surprise. She was right; he was talking a lot…for him. He responded with another scoff.

Sakura answered Mako’s question despite Sasuke’s threat. “You believe in war. I believe in peace. We are stronger united than when we are divided. This is how I create peace.”

Sasuke wasn’t following entirely, but he knew that Sakura was referencing words that had been exchanged between them, and Sasuke recognized them as the poison from a mindset consumed in darkness.

Standing again, Sakura said, “The hard part is going to be getting them all back to Sunagakure.”

“What do you mean?” Sasuke asked.

“They’re drugged. Not all of them are dead. They’ll wake soon,” she clarified for him.

Sasuke didn’t even think before saying, “I can remedy that.”

She ignored him, continuing, “We might have to make a couple trips. How many can you carry?”

Sasuke didn’t even respond to that ridiculous notion. Instead, he activated his Rinnegan once more, feeding it with the chakra from the chakra pill. A spiral appeared before them, revealing the central red-dune dimension. Sakura didn’t even have time to protest before Sasuke was throwing Mako’s limp body inside the hole.

“What are you doing?” Sakura asked, confused and stunned by his actions.

“They can remain in this dimension until we make it back to Suna. They can’t flee inside. They have nowhere to go.”

Sakura nodded in understanding. “Good idea!” she praised him, obviously relieved she wasn’t going to have to try to carry anyone with her arms practically useless.

“I’ll take you to the others.”

A female kunoichi Sakura called Hisa was the second to be transported to Kaguya’s center dimension. Then a different sort of being Sasuke considered warily. He didn’t look to be human. Sakura explained that he had been the most dangerous of them all. Sakura believed him to be the ringleader, though she wasn’t sure how many group members he truly led. It was still a confusing web of connections.

Sakura left out the fact that this ninja must be the one to have damaged her arms, but no good would come from Sasuke demanding that she confirm that for him. The Uchiha made a mental note of it as he tossed the unconscious ninja inside, already contemplating on ways to make him talk.

“Is that all?” he asked.

“One more,” she replied, and she led Sasuke toward a small adobe house that he hadn’t noticed before. It was alone in the desert, one wall completely destroyed, revealing the building’s stark clay interior.

Just before they reached the ruins, Sakura stopped when they approached the body of a large man. Sasuke was surprised to find this man not just unconscious; he was dead.

“He hurt Isao,” she defended automatically, ashamed that death had been necessary.

But Sasuke didn’t need an explanation from her. If she wouldn’t have, Saskue was pretty sure that he would have killed him. “Let the sand have him,” he declared, but Sakura shook her head.

“He belongs with them. They must be able to bury and grieve to find peace. We don’t want to give them cause for any further resentment.”

Sasuke wanted to say “you can’t be serious,” but he didn’t feel like arguing, because no matter what Sasuke could come up with to say next, Sakura would still be right in the end. She had a bigger vision in mind that Sasuke couldn’t quite connect sometimes. He just knew that he would always trust her to do the right thing, even if it wasn’t sensible, or in most cases, not what Sasuke would have done.

“Fine,” he declared, opening the portal once more. His breathing became labored as he pushed the effects of the chakra pill. Like with the others, Sasuke dragged the man’s body into the portal.

Sasuke also stepped through, leaving the gateway open between realms. He directed his attention to Mako, ice already coating his next words.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t wander too far from this spot. The dimension is endless and not of our world. You will only lose yourself and die in this place.”

Mako swallowed deeply in fear as he watched Sasuke’s form from his stomach.

“On second thought,” Sasuke sneered under his breath. “Feel free.” The portal closed behind the Uchiha as he exited. He would deal with all of them later, he thought. He needed to get Sakura back to Sunagakure first.

………………………………

Sakura couldn’t help but whimper when her left arm wasn’t responding as quickly to her healing chakra. Her right hand—the very same one she had shoved into Mako’s mouth to keep him from screaming—had almost fully recovered as the medicine suppressing her chakra began to wear off and her healing abilities returned to her. Her left hand, however, was at first very numb, which Sakura knew was a very bad sign. But the longer she worked at healing, the more the pain began to intensify. It was almost unbearable, but Sakura was ultimately relieved at the burning sensation that indicated life. Sakura considered the differences between the two hands and all she could conclude was that distance must have had something to do with it since her right hand had a grabbed the blackened sword at his feet and her left had been near his face when she plunged the needle in his neck.

Sasuke supported her as they walked back to the Sand Village, though he suddenly seemed to her like he was the one that needed supporting. He stumbled in the sand and Sakura removed her good arm from his shoulders.

“I’m good. But are you okay?” she asked, noticing his strenuous breathing for the first time.

“Yes,” he fibbed, and Sakura knew it was a lie the minute he clutched his head to support it.

Redirecting her chakra back to her healed hand, Sakura immediately sought out Sasuke’s brow with her fingertips. He moaned with relief as green chakra lighted over it, but he instantly pushed her hand away. “Heal yourself.”

“What happened?” she responded, ignoring his demand. She found his forehead again. “There’s nothing I can do if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”

“I took two chakra pills. I’ll be fine though. I just need rest.” He removed her hand again.

Sakura inhaled sharply at the confession. “Why did you do that?”

“I had already depleted my chakra reserves when I found out you weren’t in the village. I panicked.”

“Overdosing on chakra pills is one thing,” she scolded, “but using them recklessly to overexert your Rinnegan is another. No matter how much chakra you have, you have limits with the Rinnegan.”

“It was my only choice,” he defended sharply, obviously masking his embarrassment with annoyance.

Sakura placed her glowing palm over his eyes, now certain of the source of his discomfort. Sasuke made to move her hand away once more, but she fussed like a mother when he tried. “Let me have my way, or we’ll be here longer.”

Sasuke released a small laugh that sounded like another scoff. Only Team 7 could tell the difference between Sasuke’s derisiveness and his sense of humor. Sakura couldn’t believe he had the energy to laugh. But then something changed in the air around them and Sasuke grew very serious as he inhaled—the type of inhale someone made before having something important to say.

Sasuke finally managed to grab her fingers and he tugged them away after Sakura was satisfied with his treatment. But he didn’t let go. Instead, he held them for a moment that suggested tenderness. It was different from how their hands had brushed so many times before, like how they rested them against each other as they watched Suna’s desert sunset. This time, it was more like how Sasuke had held her hand between them in the medicine preparation room.

Finally working up the courage, Sasuke looked down at her feet and said, “I’m sorry.”

Sakura stared at the firm hold his fingers had on hers in wonder. And the truly amazing part was that he stillwasn’t letting go. “For what?” she whispered, not knowing what else to say for fear of him moving away.

“For leaving you behind in Suna. For leaving in anger. For not being there and letting this happen.”

Sakura didn’t let him continue. “Sasuke,” she began, catching his guilty eyes with her own. “You don’t have to worry about me anymore. I hope I have proved that to you, today. Please don’t burden yourself with worry for me. I can carry my own burdens and some. You already have the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

Sasuke searched her eyes with his. Sakura knew this was a rare occasion. Not many people would see the Uchiha open, unguarded, with care etched in every feature of his expression.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said suddenly, still holding her fingers tightly, and Sakura felt the whole world suddenly still around them. Even the desert wind seemed to stop. Was this the Sasuke she had always known was inside, no matter how roughly he displayed himself to the world?

“I’m sorry for what happened,” Sakura interrupted, afraid for another impending denial of her feelings. She knew what was coming and she didn’t want this small moment to end. “I won’t do that again.”

He paused and Sakura wondered if he was unsettled by the open acknowledgement of her stollen kiss.

He sighed and Sakura’s stomach dropped. She felt him hesitate, saw it in his face. But he resolved himself, declaring, “I came to a conclusion while I was away, and I have to say this while I have the nerve.”

Sakura nodded, ready for disappointment. She was more afraid of what he would say next than she had ever felt going toe-to-toe with her enemies just moments ago.

“Can it be enough for us to care for one another?” he asked, desperation cloaked with mock annoyance on his breath. “Can it just be enough for us to be friends as long as we are in each other’s lives sometimes? Can it be enough for us to be united in the same goal?”

Sakura’s heart sank and unhappiness hit her like the wave she was expecting. Tears threatened to brim her eyelids, but Sakura swallowed them down. Would he ever not be this thickheaded and stubborn? Would he ever let them be what they could be? Whether or not Sakura was simply high on victory or if she was genuinely losing her meekness in Sasuke’s presence, Sakura wasn’t sure.

She removed her hand from his. “Is it enough for you?” she finally asked, taking a step away from him. But he caught her fingers again, pulling her back gently to face him.

“Is that a no?” he asked emotionlessly, but Sakura saw the struggle in his eyes.

“When the answer becomes ‘yes’ for you, I will accept it as mine as well.” She pulled away, firmly this time. He couldn’t respond. Sakura knew why: he wanted to put this on her; he was always putting it back on her, afraid “because of her,” hesitant “because of her.” These were his excuses, but Sakura wouldn’t give him an out this time. It was his turn to choose.

They both knew that it was far too late for Sasuke to pretend he didn’t love her in the same way that Sakura loved him. But Sakura had learned that people love in many ways and not all people wanted to express that love romantically. Kissing Sasuke had been a mistake. She hated to call it that, but it was the truth of it. She didn’t want to steal from him what he wasn’t ready to give—what he wasn’t at peace with. It was his turn; he now knew where she stood.

………………………………..

When they finally made it back to the Hidden Sand Village, Kankuro was there to intercept them just as Sasuke had expected he would. The puppet-wielding ninja was beside himself with worry at seeing Sakura’s injuries, insisting that Sakura promptly return to the hospital. Sakura had insisted she tend to her own wounds back in their lodgings so she could rest. She immediately requested to see Isao, but Kankuro insisted she get some rest first.

It wasn’t until Sasuke insisted that he have an audience with him and Gaara, that he left Sakura to her own desires. As they parted, Sasuke tried to say something or grab her eyes with his, but she didn’t look at him. Not even once. And Sasuke ran his hand exhaustedly through his hair. He couldn’t think about them right now. A conference with the Kazekage would be the perfect distraction.

Gaara, miraculously, had returned before he and Sakura had, and Sasuke wondered just how fast news could travel. Sasuke privately joked with himself that the desert shared its secrets with the Kazekage. The wind and sand must speak to him if he found out things so quickly. It was a hypothesis that could explain a lot at least.

Sasuke shook his head as he followed Kankuro into the Kazekage’s office. He must be getting delirious from the effects of the chakra pills.

“Sasuke,” came Gaara’s raspy acknowledgement when the Uchiha stepped into the room. Gaara was surprisingly alone, which relieved Sasuke. He thought he would have to face Gaara with the “support” of his council. It would be easier to speak of recent events if only Gaara and Kankuro were present.

Sasuke nodded respectfully despite his feelings of resentment toward the two men at the moment for having let Sakura be kidnapped under their watch. As a ninja that was a part of this unpredictable shinobi world, Sasuke knew his anger was unjustified, but he wanted to be mad at anyone and everyone right now. 99% of his own anger was directed at himself, because Sasuke knew that he was more responsible for what happened than the Kazekage and his brother were. The Kazekage had been trying to be proactive and prevent something like this from happening. It just didn’t turn out that way.

The Kazekage seemed to share Sasuke concern for discreetness, because he cloaked the room in sand as he had done the first day of Sasuke arrival. It filled every crevice, thickening to soundproof the room.

Sasuke opened the portal into Kaguya’s central dimension without further delay. He walked into the vortex, not surprised the group remained exactly where he had left them. The only difference was that they were conscious, a fact that slightly irked the Uchiha.

One by one, he grabbed each ninja, tossing them forward into the Kazekage’s domain. Hisa clutched at her dead counterpart, holding onto the deceased brute. Sasuke found grim satisfaction in Mako’s subdued, yielding persona. Being present before the Kazekage was far more terrifying than being stuck in a desolate dimension.

But the individual that held both Sasuke and the Kazekage’s attention was the wraith-like individual that bled darkness from a small spot on his neck. It was his only injury.

Gaara carefully considered him, crossing his arms and surveying him emotionlessly as he did most enemies that he regarded.

Darkness suddenly began to ooze from the man’s eye sockets and Sasuke’s temper suddenly flared. He looked to Gaara, and the ninja nodded his permission.

“Only demons don’t seem to know when they’re in the presence of other demons. Shall I show you hell?”

Sasuke’s eye suddenly began to bleed as he formed the tiger seal for fire release. “Amaterasu!”

The black flames clung to the phantom, incinerating what Sasuke realized was dark masses of sinewing, vaporized flesh. The phantom hissed. Then screamed, then began to plead for mercy. Hisa began to cry and Mako turned his face away from their leader.

Gaara came up beside Sasuke to speak to the wraith as he writhed. Sasuke released the Amaterasu and the flames receded.

The Kazekage crouched, an arm on his knee. “From one demon to another, I urge you to leave your shadows behind in hell and step out into the light. Only demons desire war. And war breeds more demons.”

Sasuke clutched his eye in silent suffering, and Gaara dismissed him. “I’ll handle the rest. I’ll let you know what we find out.”

Sasuke nodded, not waiting for any further excuses to depart. He had delivered them into the Kazekage’s care. But what those ninja didn’t know was that Sakura’s mercy held Sasuke more confined than it did the Kazekage, a demon just as he had said, whose territory had been breached.

……………………

Sakura was finishing binding her tender left hand in medical bandaging, using up the last of her burn solvent that she had created at Suna’s hospital, when Sasuke walked in.

He opened the door, caught her eyes with his, and tried to hide the bloody track down his face from her with his hand. She was on her feet instantly, pulling him to the bed that he had staked his claim on.

She felt his forehead and it was hot, too hot. He had done it this time. She sighed, summoning the small reserve of chakra behind the diamond mark on her forehead.

She expected Sasuke to scold her for using what little she had left on him, but he didn’t seem to notice in his extreme exhaustion. “Thank you,” he whispered, and Sakura retreated to fetch water for him.

He gulped it greedily and Sakura helped him shrug out of his outer layer of clothing. Sand fell from his hair and clothes in the same way hers had earlier. “I’m better now,” he whispered, the first words spoken between them since their disagreement in the desert.

Sakura nodded, making to move away, but he grabbed her hand for the third time that day.

“Don’t be angry,” he begged, his exhaustion making him suddenly careless to conceal his true intentions with fake displeasure and irritation.

“Why do you think I am angry?” she asked emotionlessly.

“I just want what’s best for you. I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered in defeat. This side of Sasuke startled Sakura. He was becoming more undefended, open with emotions in a way she had never seen him before. Was it because he didn’t have anything to hide anymore? Was he past his denials and his pretending?

“I know,” she squeezed his hand back. “But your concerns are groundless.”

“Tell me how,” he pleaded.

She sat beside him on his bed, and he tilted his ear to her, never removing his hand from hers. She took a breath and told him the truth. Told him everything he needed to know. “I do not love you sacrificially, Sasuke. I do not choose you knowing that my life or happiness could be forfeit by doing so. I choose you because I can keep up with you. Because something like your absence wouldn’t be enough to determine my permanent happiness. I will choose to go on, content with only the thought that I know you are out there somewhere loving me if that is all that I have in the moment.”

She took a breath and continued before he could respond. “I am strong enough to handle whatever comes my way as a result of loving you. And I have absolutely no doubts in my feelings, my happiness, and what I am willing to compromise to be with the person I love most.”

Sakura reached tenderly to turn his face to hers and their eyes met. She touched his forehead in the same way he had done to her many times before. “That person is you,” she reassured him, offering him a sincere smile as she removed her hand from his forehead.

Then Sasuke leaned forward. Very close to her, and Sakura bit her lip to keep from reaching for his with her own. “Is all of that true?” he requested again, suddenly breathless. And Sakura knew later that it was just to be sure before what came next.

“Yes,” she breathed. And she didn’t have to reach for him, because he was suddenly reaching for her. His hand found her chin and Sakura waited for his choice. She waited for him to move. And he did.

“Then my answer is no; it’s not enough for me either.” When his lips carefully parted her own, Sakura knew without a doubt that he had decided to find some way possible for them, a path where he could choose her, too.

#approaching sun #sasusaku #sasusakufanfiction #ssfanfiction #sakura hiden #sasuke shinden #naruto fanfiction #sasuke and sakura #Sakura Haruno #sakura uchiha #Sasuke Uchiha

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lifeofresulullah · 3 years

Text

The Life of The Prophet Muhammad(pbuh): Before His Birth, His Birth and His Childhood

Death of Hazrat Amina

After spending a month in Medina with her son, the Master of the Universe (PBUH), Hazrat Amina decided to return to Mecca. They said their goodbyes to their relatives and left the city.

There were three travelers in this desert: Hazrat Amina, her glorious son, and Umm Ayman. They were all considered exceptional in the spiritual realm. The breeze of longing and separation was blowing close by.

Hazrat Amina’s eyes resembled a stream of overflowing water when she thought about her husband who passed away at a very young age during the first months of their marriage. Our Holy Prophet (PBUH) could not bear seeing his saintly mother’s teardrops; thus he began to cry ardently as well. His garment was soaked by his teardrops that fell like the rain.

Instantly, Hazrat Amina became ill while they were halfway through the road. Our Holy Prophet (PBUH) and Umm Ayman were alarmed. What could they do in the face of an illness that was only getting worse in its intensity of pain?

They had no solution other than to encamp underneath a tree’s shade that was 23 miles to the south of Medina. Strength and stamina had withdrawn from Hazrat Amina’s knees as she collapsed onto the ground without being able to contain herself. They covered her. Hazrat Amina was sweating due to the severity of her illness. Our Beloved Prophet’s (PBUH) teardrops fell out of fear of losing her and remaining motherless. It was as if everything came to a halt. There was no sound, and stillness dominated the sky.

Hazrat Amina lay on the ground in a weak state.

At one point, our Holy Prophet (PBUH) was able to collect himself and he asked his mother, “How are you, dear mother?”

The mother, whose heart was a trove of compassion, did not want her only child to be upset. In order not to rouse to her dear son the fact that she quivered with intense pain, she answered, "I am fine, my dear, nothing is wrong”.

She lost consciousness after speaking those few words. This illness had now wrested her energy to speak. At one point, she was heard to have said “water”. Our Holy Prophet (PBUH) brought water to his beloved mother at the speed of an arrow being sprung from its bow.

Hazrat Amina drank the water. She held the container of water and her beloved child’s very soft hands. She opened her eyes. She looked at our Holy Prophet’s (PBUH) face that radiated noor (light) to her heart’s content, and caressed his hands with her motherly compassion.

At one point, the Master of the Universe (PBUH) slightly straightened out his mother’s position and put her head on his lap. The holy tears that dripped from his eyes were falling on his mother’s shoulders like April rain.

In addition to the anguish of losing her husband, was she now going to have to bid farewell to her son? This was an intolerable agony and an unbearable heartache. She was tormented more by this separation than the illness that she had been afflicted with. Yet, what could she do? This was an unchangeable decree of the Divine fate.

Hazrat Amina now understood that she could not be saved from this illness. In her final moment, with a feeling of deep longing, she looked at her radiant child’s face that shone like the sun, and as she smelled his hands to her heart’s content, the following words spilled from her tongue:

“You are the son of the man who was saved from the terrible arrow of death with Allah’s help and beneficence and in exchange for a hundred camels. May Allah render you glorious and relentless. If what I have seen in my dreams is true, then you will be sent as a Prophet by Allah to inform the sons of Adam of what is lawful and unlawful, and upon this, you will possess majesty and many gifts. You will be sent to complete the submission and religion of our forefather, Ibrahim. Allah is going to protect and withhold you and nations from idol worshipping and idols. Every living being will die and everything new will wear out. Everyone who becomes old will disappear. Everything is ephemeral, everything will leave. Yes, I am going to die as well. However, my name will remain forever because I have given birth to an immaculate child and am leaving a memorable and auspicious person behind me”.

After speaking these painful and foretelling words, Hazrat Amina’s eyes lapsed and she surrendered her soul to Allah.

Place: The Abwa Village, which is located in between Medina and Mecca.

Date: 576 AD.

Hazrat Amina’s Burial

Our Beloved Prophet (PBUH) and Umm Ayman were frozen. In fact, their tongues were stiff. It was only our Holy Prophet’s (PBUH) tears that spoke.

At one point, Umm Ayman was able to collect herself and she wiped the saintly child’s tears. Afterwards, she nestled and tried to comfort him. She said, “Do not be sad, and do not cry, my precious, Muhammad. We must surrender to Divine fate. Both life and possessions belong to Him. Everything has been entrusted to us; He takes back a trust just as He has given it”.

Our Beloved Prophet (PBUH) took a deep breath and said, “I know. I will always submit to His authority. However, a mother’s face is unforgettable. I am sad that I will never be able to see her face again”. Afterwards, he immediately gathered himself, wiped his tears, and said to Ummi Ayman “Alright, she surrendered that trust to its owner. We should submit her corpse to the soil so that she can be in peace”.

They submitted the corpse of the world’s most fortunate mother, Hazrat Amina, to the bosom of the earth. Considering the fact that she gave birth to the Master of the Universe (PBUH), who knows how and at what heights her soul rejoiced with the angels.

After the Burial

The duty of taking this precious orphan to Mecca had fallen on his nanny, Umm Ayman.

With all her effort, Umm Ayman was doing everything she could throughout the entire journey to not have him feel that he had been left motherless. She nestled him as if he was her own child and tried to comfort him. In fact, our Holy Prophet (PBUH) accepted her as a mother and began to refer to her with that title. Much later, he would pay her the compliment of being “the mother who came after my mother” each time he saw her.

Both Motherless and Fatherless!

The radiant-faced Master of the Universe (PBUH) was now an orphan without a father and mother. However, he had a true guardian and patron. That Guard kept our Holy Prophet (PBUH) under His impeccable custody and complete supervision and protected him from all kinds of danger and trouble throughout the his entire life.

We are reminded of this particular incident in the verse, “Did your Lord not find you an orphan and give you shelter and care?”

Years later, during the Hudaybiya Umrah, in the sixth year of the Hijra, the Master of the Universe (PBUH) passed through Abwa once more. With Allah’s permission, he visited his mother’s grave and tidied it up with his hands. Afterwards, he cried out of deep emotion.

The Sahaba (his companions) also cried after seeing his tears of longing and asked, “Oh Messenger of Allah, why are you crying?”

Our Holy Prophet (PBUH) responded, “I remembered the compassion and mercy that my mother showed me and that is why I cried”.

The wisdom behind their early death

This question may come to mind here:

“Why did God Almighty not let his venerable mother and father see his prophethood and why they were not able to be Muslim?”

Badiuzzaman Said Nursi answers this question in his book “The Letters,” in The Risale-i Nur Collection:

“Through His munificence, in order to gratify the Noble Prophet (Upon whom be blessings and peace's sentiments), Almighty God did not put His Noble Beloved’s parents under any obligation to him. His mercy required that to make them happy and to please His Noble Beloved, He did not take them from the rank of parenthood and put them in that of spiritual offspring; He did not place his parents and grandfather among his community. However, He bestowed on them the merit, virtues, and happiness of his community. Indeed, if an exalted field marshal's father, who has the rank of captain, entered his presence, he would be overwhelmed by two opposing emotions. So, compassionately, the king does not post the father to the retinue of his elevated lieutenant, the field marshal.”

THE ISSUE OF THE BELIEF OF THE PARENTS OF THE PROPHET

Islamic scholars agree that:

"None of the noble individuals of the chain coming from Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) to Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon them) was indifferent to the true religion and none of them blemished their heart with shirk (idol-worship, to associate anyone or anything with Allah) and kufr (disbelief, blasphemy)"

Many Islamic scholars put forward with clear evidence that Prophet Muhammad’s (pbuh) parents will be among the people of salvation in the afterlife, through similar explanations. We can list those explanations as follows:

1) His parents, Hazrat Abdullah and Hazrat Amina, passed away long before their son undertook the task of the prophethood. So, they lived in the period of (fatrat) interregnum and they are regarded as people of interregnum. There is no torment of Hell for those who died during the period of interregnum.

One day someone asked a well-known scholar Sharaf al-Din al-Munawi, "Are our prophet’s parents in Hell?"

Al-Munawi replied, "They passed away during the interregnum. There is no torment before sending down a Prophet"

It is well defined in the Quran and hadith (saying or tradition of the Prophet Muhammad) that no one who did not hear an invitation of a Prophet will have torment in the afterlife. It is also known that no previous Prophet’s invitation reached Prophet Muhammad’s (pbuh) parents. So, we can say that they will have no torment in the afterlife and they are among the people of salvation.

2) There is no information that the Prophet’s parents were in shirk and kufr. On the contrary, they were among the “Hanif” people who were practicing the beliefs and traditions coming from their grandfather Prophet Ibrahim (pbuh), like Zayd Ibn Amr Ibn Nufayl, Waraqa Ibn Nawfal and others.

3) Another piece of evidence that they were not in shirk is a hadith of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), "I come from a continuous line of clean fathers and always mothers"

In the Quran, people of shirk is defined as “unclean people”. Since cleanness and uncleanness, faith and shirk, believers and unbelievers are opposites, and when we consider the above hadith, we must accept that no one from the ancestors of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was in shirk.

In short, “While Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is said to be a mercy to the universe by Allah, it would not be logical and harmonious with good manners to think that his parents, who carried him in their bodies before the sun of prophethood was born would be deprived of the prosperity and light of their sun. The parents of the Messenger of Allah lived in the Period of Ignorance (Jahiliyyah). They did not live during the time of the prophethood of Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh).”

Then, a believer should know and accept the following:

“The parents of Allah’s Messenger are surely from the people of salvation, people of Paradise and people of belief. Surely Allah Almighty will not hurt His dear messenger’s tender and compassionate heart.”

The following stanza expresses that truth in a nice way:

While the sun of the two worlds were in the sign of bliss

How would Allah not give his parents honor?

Oh my heart! Look at the diver with equitable eyes

Would he take the pearl and throw away the mother-of pearl?

Its Meaning:

Is it possible that God Almighty will not honor the Prophet’s mother and father while Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh), who is the sun of the both worlds, is in the sign of happiness?

O my heart! Look mercifully at the diver! Is it possible that he will take the pearl and throw away the mother-of-pearl?

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heliophilial · 3 years

Text

𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒖𝒔 . (a tbz 3rd year anniversary special)

genre :angst ,fluff (more of brotherhood)

group and member involved :the boyz ,all members are involved !

between :the whole group and thebs hello cuties <3

warnings :u may or may not cry but i cried typing this so gluck ig HWUJDF

word count :844 (i didn’t count my notes to thebs and the boys in)

brief description :when all seems dull ,when times are grey ,it is only when we are together that the world gains its colour .theres no one else like you ,no one else like us ,theres really nothing like us .

playlist :literally just nothing like us by justin bieber like a 1 hr loop or smth ,depends on how long u take to read this

before you continue to read also please note that ‘we’ refers to thebs here !!

quiet .peaceful .light snores of the members filled the dorm .the room filled with nothing but darkness .black shade hovering over the members faces .they had just wrapped up a little celebration in the living room with cakes and party poppers to celebrate their 3rd year together not long ago .shortly after wrapping up the party ,they had fallen asleep on the couch ,all lying on one another comfortably .

sangyeon slowly blinked his eyes open .he rubbed his eyes and slowly unwrapped eric's hands from his waist and placed chanhee's legs that were on his lap onto the space of the sofa that he had previously occupied .careful to not wake the members up .

he looked at the members' sleeping forms and smiled ,glad that they were finally able to catch some rest after their packed schedules .he walked to the kitchen to fetch himself a glass of water and at the corner of his eyes ,he spotted a glimmering light .he placed his glass down and approached the light that was so very alluring for some reason .

there on the shelf of where all their awards have been placed on ,laid a book with its contents blinding his eyes with its bright light .he inspected the book for a while before proceeding to open it with caution .

inside the book ,there were sketches of the key moments the members have shared together such as their debut stage ,their first ever music show award as well as their first ever full length album promos .as he flipped to the first page that displayed their first moment together ,there were harsh winds blowing past him and a force from the book pulled him towards the page and right into it .

he looked at the 12 boys on stage ,introducing themselves for the first time to the whole wide world .and he looked at them with pride and honour in his eyes ,the boys' who had no idea what being idols would be like for themselves ,clueless of what the future had in store for them .he looked at them from the bottom of the stage and sucked in a breath ,"wow we've really grown a lot ."he thought .

after they had introduced themselves as a group and individually ,the sight in front of him suddenly pauses and his attention gets diverted to the door to his right .

he walked into the room .

he gets transported to the very first time they cried together ,over the pain ,over the stress ,over the tiredness of it all .

he looked at the 12 boys shedding tears of pain .he swallowed the lump in his throat ,the feelings of helplessness ,confusion ,fear coming washing over him once again as he sees the very moment they broke down .

tears flows down his face ,and that my friends are tears of the caretaker ,the leader ,the person whom the members depend on ,lee sangyeon .

as heavy as the weight he carried ,the tears poured like a fierce and powerful waterfall .

and then the door right next to him yet again invites him to step into yet another memory .

he steps onto the stage of road to kingdom ,and as he looks ahead the ending poses of all their road to kingdom stages are there right in front of him .all the members still and not moving ,just statures .

he walks down the long stretch ,as he looks at the legacy they left behind ,the power and strength ,the confidence from these stages that the members have gained progressively with each stage .

as he finally reaches the other end of the stage ,the screen opens up to when they had their 'the stealer'promotions .where they had their wins .

his smile grew wider and wider as he walked through all the performances they have done for the stealer and all the trophies they have gotten from the era .

and finally he reached another door .a door with a question mark on it .

he opens the door ,to pitch black .

darkness ,just darkness .and the fear in sangyeon grew ,"what does this darkness mean ?what is it gonna be for us ?"

suddenly , the door creaks open to reveal the members one by one .

sangyeon looks up at them and suddenly the fear stops ,hes no longer afraid as he looks into their eyes .

they ran to him and extended their hands out to him .

he proceeds to embrace all the members into a big tight group hug .drops of colour starts to paint the room ,slowly forming a picture showing the many stages they have performed ,every milestone theyve achieved ,the concerts ,every moment with their fans ,every moment together ,every vlives .everything starts out when theyre together .

we opened the door carefully ,proceeding to join our hands together and form a circle surrounding the boys .as we cried tears of joy and pride ,we hugged each other as well and this is when we knew

"theres nothing like us ,theres nothing like you and me ,together through the storm ."

for thebs

thank you for being one of the most caring ,loving ,welcoming and inclusive fandoms ever .to all the thebs all around thw world ,thank you for supporting them and giving them love as well .i love yall <3 lets protect them at all costs ♡

for my beloved boys

hello my loves ❤ik its 12 am in korea already but i still just wanna type this for you !so there's really a lot of things i want to say to you ,im sure many of us have already said whatever im about to say but i will still say it to remind you or to let you know that ,yes ,you do make me feel that way ,you do make me feel those kinds of feelings .

i dont know how ,like no nothing at all can show how grateful i am towards you .i cant tell you how many times there were this year when i just got beaten up (mentally)to the point that i couldnt even have the energy to stand back up and continue life normally .but whenever these times come ,ik i just know even though youre not here physically ,i know you want me to stop crying ,i know you would want me to stop hurting myself and i know you would stay with me even when my walls come crashing down onto me .you made me feel the greatest kind of happiness possible ,i never knew that this feeling was even possible to feel until i met you .

there was never a moment when i regretted stanning you ,supporting you and giving you all my heart and soul ,my energy ,everything .i just want you to know that you are so special ,so wonderful ,so incredibly talented ,so hardworking ,so beautiful ,just the most amazing bunch of people ever .ive never seen people so passionate ,so ready to help ,so genuinely loving and caring towards the people who love them .

i know its hard to be an idol ,and i know that its especially hard to even speak your mind ,speak what you wanna say without having the media chase you down .but i just wanna let you know that we are and will be by your sides forever .no matter what happens ,im sure ,very sure u know that u can run right back into our arms like how uve always welcome us back into urs .u are the people who made me feel the most bizarre feelings ,beyond happiness ,beyond joy ,beyond euphoria ,beyond all the feelings ive ever felt in my whole 16 years of living .

we are so proud of you of how far youve come ,how much youve accomplished .im so so proud ,so so happy to be able to call myself a fan of yours ,a theb ,someone who so dearly supports you .and i really hope you know that .i would wish for there to never be an end to this .for all i know ,im in this shit for life ,forever ,till the end .

im just so happy because of you ,i feel joy ,i see the light in life ,the reasons to live ,so much more prominent to me now because of you .there will come one day ,when we can finally see each other face to face and i can finally shout out to you ,my words of gratitude ,my words of thanks and my words filled with love and affection for you and just see your faces .but till then ,please take good good care of urselves ,rest well and eat well okay !we're always here ,remember !❤

its really been a rocky and crazy ride these 3 years ,you my friend ,are indeed the best character i can ever invite into my story 💜i hope youre sleeping tight ,i love you so much more than words can ever describe .with that ,happy 3 years to my favourites ,my loves ,my bbs ,my shining lights ,my everything ,happy 3 years to the boyz ❤💜💙💛 - berinne

#deobiwritersnet #the boyz #theb #deobi #the boyz angst #the boyz fluff #happytheboyzday #the boyz imagines

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butterflies-dragons · 4 years

Note

Hey according to grrm tyrion is said to be a good villain? What do you think about Tyrion? Is he a villain or anti hero? If he is a good villain then why he will be hand of king? Do you think grrm means something different?

Back in 1999, this is what GRRM said:

Amazon.com: Do you have a favorite character?

Martin: I've got to admit I kind of like Tyrion Lannister. He's the villain of course, but hey, there's nothing like a good villain.

[Source]

Over the years, GRRM also has said:

2000:

Tyrion is Martin's favorite character, but from the perspective of House Stark, he's certainly a villain -- someone once said that a villain was a hero on the other side.

[Source]

2006:

He also answered some questions, and had some interesting things to say. He repeatedly emphasized that he prefers to write grey characters, because in real life people are complex; no one is pure evil or pure good. Fiction tends to divide people into heroes who do no wrong and villains who go home and kick their dogs and beat their wives, but that reality is much different. He cited a soldier who heroically saves his friends' lives, but then goes home and beats his wife. Which is he, hero or villain? Martin said both and that neither act cancels out the other.

(...)

So he said that he likes to paint characters in shades of grey (recurring theme of the weekend, yay! so refreshing from these damn didactic TV show runners... anyway....). And that even what seem like the most horrific people have other sides, aren't pure caricatures of evil, that even Hitler had his nice moments. And he wanted to explore what might cause that kind of villainy, because no one just wakes up and says “I want to be evil today.”

[Source]

2007:

The concept of heroes and villains is a false dichotomy, in George's opinion. Real human beings are a mixture of good and evil.

[Source]

2008:

FAVORITE WILD CARDS CHARACTERS

(...)

I also loved Jetboy. Although he only appeared in that one story, he set the tone for much that followed. Even so, I might have to pass him over for Gregg Hartmann. A good story needs a good villain, and Gregg was our best, with a story arc that went all the way from book one through book fifteen.

[Source]

[What was the hardest death to write?]

The Red Wedding was the hardest thing I´ve ever written.I don´t know that I have actually enjoyed any of them. Even when you kill a bad guy, it can be hard... he´s one of your ¨children¨too. Besides, good villains are hard to find, and you always have the nagging doubt that maybe you´ll need him down the line.

[Source]

2011:

Much as I admire Tolkien, and I do admire Tolkien — he’s been a huge influence on me, and his Lord of the Rings is the mountain that leans over every other fantasy written since and shaped all of modern fantasy — there are things about it, the whole concept of the Dark Lord, and good guys battling bad guys, Good versus Evil, while brilliantly handled in Tolkien, in the hands of many Tolkien successors, it has become kind of a cartoon. We don’t need any more Dark Lords, we don’t need any more, ‘Here are the good guys, they’re in white, there are the bad guys, they’re in black. And also, they’re really ugly, the bad guys.

It is certainly a genuine, legitimate topic as the core of fantasy, but I think the battle between Good and Evil is waged within the individual human hearts. We all have good in us and we all have evil in us, and we may do a wonderful good act on Tuesday and a horrible, selfish, bad act on Wednesday, and to me, that’s the great human drama of fiction. I believe in gray characters, as I’ve said before. We all have good and evil in us and there are very few pure paragons and there are very few orcs. A villain is a hero of the other side, as someone said once, and I think there’s a great deal of truth to that, and that’s the interesting thing. In the case of war, that kind of situation, so I think some of that is definitely what I’m aiming at.

[Source]

2020:

Dwelling where I am now, deep in the heart of Westeros, I find myself surrounded by my characters, the children of my mind and heart and soul. They are real to me, as I write them, and I struggle to make them real to my readers as well. All of them are flawed, from the best to the worst. They do heroic things, they do selfish things. Some are strong and some are weak, some smart and some stupid. The smartest may do stupid things. The bravest may have moments when their courage fails. Great harms may be done from the noblest motives, great good from motives vile and venal. Life is like that, and art should reflect that, if it is to remain true. Ours is a world of contradiction and unintended consequences.

[Source]

As you can see, when GRRM refers to Tyrion as a “good villain”, he is saying that he is not a caricature of a villain, he is not a cartoon, he is not all black, ugly and evil, etc.

Tyrion is a villain, there is no doubt about it. GRRM is all about grey characters, but he called Tyrion plainly a villain, more than once.

I have a favorite villain too, she was a great villain, the actress that played her was superb, and the name of the character has an special meaning for me. I present to you: Carmen Lucia Moreira de Souza Araújo...

...Also known as ¡CARMINHA!

She was the modern version of the evil stepmother. The main antagonist of the TV Series called Avenida Brasil (Brazil Avenue).

But at the end of the story Carminha survives, goes to jail, serves her sentence, and ends up living the life she tried so hard to avoid throughout the series: poverty. She literally ends up living in a garbage dump...

...And she also reconciles with her stepdaughter Rita, the protagonist, they both forgive each other and continue with their lives...

So, if we follow the hints that the Show gave us, Tyrion may survive but he will end up living the life he tried so hard to avoid throughout the series. He will work doing good things for the realm but he won’t get ANY recognition or appreciation for those good deeds. He won’t be part of the History books, he will remain anonymous and eventually he will be forgotten... Or worse, he will only be remembered as the monster he always denied being...

Thanks for your message.

#anon ask #grrm #tyrion lannister #villains

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aboveallarescuer · 4 years

Text

GRRM interviews about (or mentioning) Dany - Part 1

I went to So Spake Martin and collected excerpts of GRRM's interviews that talked about Dany in some way. Some observations here:

I didn't have access to broken/unavailable links or newspapers that require subscription.

I didn't get video or podcast interviews, only ones that were written down.

I also added some excerpts about how he enjoys grey characters or how he wants to be "realistic" and other topics that may relate ... not necessarily to Dany's character, but to his writing in general. It may be useful for some metas, even if they should not be divorced from the actual text.

I didn't mind collecting interviews about the same topic.

Maybe I did a poor job collecting these interviews or the SSM is incomplete, but, in any case, there are still several key interviews missing; I couldn't find the ones about how GRRM relates to Dany's character or how he wishes the Targaryens were black, for instance.

Even with these limitations in mind, there is still quite a bit to dig into here.

November 1998

The Targaryens have heavily interbred, like the Ptolemys of Egypt. As any horse or dog breeder can tell you, interbreeding accentuates both flaws and virtues, and pushes a lineage toward the extremes. Also, there's sometimes a fine line between madness and greatness. Daeron I, the boy king who led a war of conquest, and even the saintly Baelor I could also be considered "mad," if seen in a different light. ((And I must confess, I love grey characters, and those who can be interperted in many different ways. Both as a reader and a writer, I want complexity and subtlety in my fiction))

December 1998

Was it a conscious decision to paint things in grey, killing off good guys, etc.

Definitely a conscious decision. Both as a reader and a writer, I prefer my plots to be unpredictable and my characters to be painted in shades of grey, rather than in blacks and whites.

July 1999

Just out of being curious how a writer goes about his work -- do you generally write a certain POVs chapters in batches? Or are Dany's chapters, given how generally unconnected they are to the rest of the books as she goes along her own plot thread, easier to do that way? I suppose the momentum can help with a tough character.

Yes, I generally get in a groove on a particular character and write several chapters or chunks of chapters at once, before hitting a wall. When I do hit a wall, I switch to another character. Some characters are easier to write and some harder, however. Dany and Bran have always been toughest, maybe because they are heaviest on the magical elements... also, Bran is the youngest of POV kids, and very restricted as well because of his legs. At the other end of the spectrum, the Tyrion chapters often seem to write themselves. The same was true for Ned.

Jon was not born "more than 1 year" before Dany... probably closer to eight or nine months or thereabouts.

November 1999

Also, just how much impact did the Rhoynar have on the modern customs of Dorne? Beyond the gender-blind inheritance laws, the couple of Rhoynish gods that smallfolk might have turned into saints or angelic-type beings, and perhaps the round shields, that is. In particular, given that Nymeria was a warrior-queen, is there a certain amazon tradition?

The Rhoynar did impact Dorne in a number of ways, some of which will be revealed in later books. Women definitely have more rights in Dorne, but I would not call it an "Amazon" tradition, necessarily. Nymeria had more in common with someone like Daenerys or Joan d'Arc than with Brienne or Xena the Warrior Princess.

September 2000

It has been my intention from the start to gradually bring up the amount of magic in each successive volume of A Song of Ice and Fire, and that will continue. I will not rule out the possibility of a certain amount of "behind the scenes" magic, either. But while sorcerous events may impact on my characters, as with Renly or Lord Beric or Dany, their choices must ultimately remain their own.

November 2000

This third Targaryen might very well be -not- a Targaryen, to quote his exact words... "Three heads of the dragon... yes... but the third will not nessesarily BE a Targaryen..."

He mentioned his frustration that Tranter books don't have maps since Tranter tends to describe journeys using ALL the available landmarks (I also stupidly complained about there not being a map of the landmass Dany's on in the books, and he VERY politely pointed out to me that there was one in SoS [O the shame!]).

December 2000

NG: A Song of Ice and Fire undergoes a very interesting progression over its first three volumes, from a relatively clear scenario of Good (the Starks) fighting Evil (the Lannisters) to a much more ambiguous one, in which the Lannisters are much better understood, and moral certainties are less easily attainable. Are you deliberately defying the conventions and assumptions of neo-Tolkienian Fantasy here?

GRRM: Guilty as charged.

The battle between good and evil is a legitimate theme for a Fantasy (or for any work of fiction, for that matter), but in real life that battle is fought chiefly in the individual human heart. Too many contemporary Fantasies take the easy way out by externalizing the struggle, so the heroic protagonists need only smite the evil minions of the dark power to win the day. And you can tell the evil minions, because they're inevitably ugly and they all wear black.

I wanted to stand much of that on its head.

In real life, the hardest aspect of the battle between good and evil is determining which is which.

NG: You've frequently expressed admiration for Jack Vance. How Vancean is A Song of Ice and Fire in conception and style? In particular, does the narrative thread featuring the exotic wanderings of Daenerys Targaryen function in part as a tribute to Vance, to his picaresque inventiveness?

GRRM: Jack Vance is the greatest living SF writer, in my opinion, and one of the few who is also a master of Fantasy. His The Dying Earth (1950) was one of the seminal books in the history of modern Fantasy, and I would rank him right up there with Tolkien, Dunsany, Leiber, and T.H. White as one of the fathers of the genre.

All that being said, I don't think A Song of Ice and Fire is particularly Vancean. Vance has his voice and I have mine. I couldn't write like Vance even if I tried... and I did try, once. The first Haviland Tuf story, "A Beast for Norn," was my attempt to capture some of Vance's effects, and Tuf is a very Vancean hero, a distant cousin to Magnus Ridolph, perhaps. But what that experiment taught me was that only Jack Vance can write like Jack Vance

NG: Three more volumes of A Song of Ice and Fire wait to be written. What shape do you expect them to take, and are their titles finalized as yet?

GRRM: Yes, three more volumes remain. The series could almost be considered as two linked trilogies, although I tend to think of it more as one long story. The next book, A Dance With Dragons, will focus on the return of Daenerys Targaryen to Westeros, and the conflicts that creates. After that comes The Winds of Winter. I have been calling the final volume A Time For Wolves, but I am not happy with that title and will probably change it if I can come up with one that I like better.

You tend to write protagonists with strongly negative personality quirks, people who certainly don't fit the standard mold of a hero. People like Tuf in the Tuf Voyaging series, and Stannis and Tyrion inSong of Ice and Fire. Do you deliberately inject your characters with unattractive elements to make readers consciously think about whether they like them and why?

Martin: [Laughs.] Well, I don't know that I'd choose the word "unappealing," but I look for ways to make my characters real and to make them human, characters who have good and bad, noble and selfish, well-mixed in their natures. Yes, I do certainly want people to think about the characters, and not just react with a knee-jerk. I read too much fiction myself in which you encounter characters who are very stereotyped. They're heroic-hero and dastardly-villain, and they're completely black or completely white. And that's boring, so far as I'm concerned. It's also unreal. If you look at real human history, even the darkest villains had some good things about them. Perhaps they were courageous, or perhaps they were occasionally compassionate to an enemy. Even our greatest heroes had weaknesses and flaws.

There seem to be two different styles competing throughout the series: historical fantasy in the Seven Kingdoms series, and a softer Roger Zelazny/Arabian Nights style for the scenes abroad. Is there a conscious split between the two for you, or is it just an aspect of the setting?

Martin: I try to vary the style to fit each of the characters. Each character should have his or her own internal voice, since we're inside their heads. But certainly the setting has great impact. Dany is moving through exotic realms that are perhaps stranger to us than Westeros, which is more based in the medieval history with which we're more familiar in the West, so perhaps those chapters seem more colorful and fanciful.

You do tend to be very brutal to your characters.

Martin: Well, yes. But you know, I think there's a requirement, even in fantasy--it comes from a realm of the imagination and is based on fanciful worlds, but there's still a necessity to tell the truth, to try to reflect some true things about the world we live in. There's an inherent dishonesty to the sort of fantasy that too many people have done, where there's a giant war that rips the world apart, but no one that we know is ever really seriously inconvenienced by this. You see the devastated villages where unnamed peasants have lived, and they're all dead, but the heroes just breeze through, killing people at every hand, surviving those dire situations. There's a falsehood to that that troubles me. A writer can choose not to write about war. You don't have to write about war if that's not a subject that interests you, or you find it too brutal. But if you are going to write about war, I think you need to tell the truth about it, and the truth is that people die, and people die in ugly ways, and even some of the good guys die, even people who are loved.

June 2001

I'm a bit concerned about Dany's skills as a commander. To succeed with the invasion of Westeros, I believe she will need a lot of sound military advice (both tactically and strategically). What's your thoughts on this issue?

She will need counsel, yes... she will also need to learn to tell the good counsel from the bad, which is perhaps the hardest task of all.

Was it difficult to you when you wrote Dany's scene with the slavers in SOS? Was that one of the moments where the character spoke to you and changer their direction? Cause for me that act of Dany's seemed out of character. I know she dislikes slavery, but she must have killed an awful lot of innocent people there, plus her motives to me seemed suspect. Yes she freed the slaves, but she also got a large army for nothing. And right after she left the slavery started up again.

Dany is still very young. She has lessons to learn. That was one of them. It is not as easy to do good as it might seem, no matter how noble your intentions.

February 2002

1. Was Mirri Maz Duur telling the truth when she told Daenerys Targaryen that the latter could never have children again?

I am sure Dany would like to know. Prophecy can be a tricky business.

3. Is Daenerys Targaryen or anyone in her entourage able to tell whether her dragons are male or female? (Is the question relevant to dragons?)

Not yet.

4. Daenerys Targaryen believed that her brother Rhaegar loved Lyanna Stark. Does she also believe that Lyanna Stark returned this love?

Dany is not sure what to believe.

5. Since all of their mothers died, who gave Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen and Tyrion Lannister their names?

Mothers can name a child before birth, or during, or after, even while they are dying. Dany was most like named by her mother, Tyrion by his father, Jon by Ned.

March 2002

3) Is your world round. I mean if Dany traveled far enough east couldnt she come to the other side of westeros?

Yes, the world is round. Might be a little larger than ours, though. I was thinking more like Vance's Big Planet.... but don't hold me to that.

Oh, stupid fan question. I've been trying to get a visual of what the Quarth look like in my mind. In terms of what race they might be in our world. Tall and pale but I don't believe their hair color was mentioned. Would they be Western European looking? Slavic? Whenever their culture is mentioned I always think of either Persian or Indians.

I have tried to mix and match ethnic and cultural traits in creating my imaginary fantasy peoples, so there are no direct one-for-one correspodences. The Dothraki, for example, are based in part on the Mongols, the Alans, and the Huns, but their skin coloring is Amerindian. The Qartheen are an even more exotic hybrid, and offhand I don't recall where I got all the cuttings.

April 2002

[Shaun] How do you view Dany's place in the series. She seems an heroic character to me, but the writeups on the back covers always speak of her as a villain...

[+GeorgeRRMartin] to shaun ignore the blurbs on the back cover and make up your own mind who is the hero and who is the villain

[Erix] Dany will be betrayes 3 times. Did ser Jorah betray here once for money? so does this make it 2 betrayels so far?

[+GeorgeRRMartin] to erix no comment (twice!)

He said that in his original plan (when he wanted to write a trilogy) the Red Wedding would take place in book one, and Dany's landing in Westeros in book two. Now he says that Dany's arrival in Westeros will take place in book 5, A Dance with Dragons.

December 2003

Shaw: You created Jon as a bastard and an outcast from the get-go. Yet he's also one of the most attractive characters. Did you choose to make Jon a bastard to make him more attractive as an "underdog," or was his bastard birth central to the shaping of his character itself?

Martin: Almost all the characters have problems in some way. Very few of my major viewpoint characters have all the answers or have an easy path through life. They all have burdens to bear. Some of them are women in a society that doesn't necessarily value women or give them a lot of power or independence. Tyrion of course is a dwarf which has its own challenges. Dany is an exile, powerless, penniless, at the mercy of other people, and Jon is a bastard. These things shape their characters. Your experiences in life, your place in life inevitably is going to change who you are.

Shaw: As the novels unfold, Jon becomes increasingly identified with the northern cold and ice, just as Dany is closely tied to the southern heat and fire. Will these two ultimately embody the central image of the series, Ice and Fire?

Martin: That's certainly one way to interpret it. That's for my readers to argue out. That may be one possible meaning. There may be a secondary meaning, or a tertiary meaning as well.

Shaw: Are all the Targaryans immune to fire?

Martin: No, no Targaryans are immune to fire. The thing with Dany and the dragons, that was just a one-time magical event, very special and unique. The Targaryans can tolerate a bit more heat than most ordinary people, they like really hot baths and things like that, but that doesn't mean they're totally immune to fire, no. Dragons, on the other hand, are pretty much immune to fire.

February 2004

Jon and Dany will be the two focal characters of AFfC (in the sort of way in which Ned was the focal character of AGoT).

May 2005

He doesn't feel that it's fair to call his work gratuitous. He wants the reader to live vicariously though his books (a function of fantasy writing), feel the characters emotions. If a character is at a feast, he wants the reader to smell the food, experience Dany's discomfort at being served an unappetizing dish. The same with the sex scenes-he wants his readers to feel like they are there.

Another bit of information that I found interesting- we *WILL* hear about the POVs who will not have front stage as it were, but will have it in ADwD. The reports of those chars will be somewhat garbled and messy as can be expected from any news that has travelled that distance and is that important. ex) Varys' manipulation of the Dany information, or Theon's skinning of the miller's information (we didn't know it wasn't Bran and Rickon until later). *THOSE* are the kind of reports we will see in AFFC about the missing POVs. We will get information on them, but have no idea which parts, if any, are correct.

I have some more things to add about things I asked, but I will probably trickle out things as I sober up and recall them. :p

The following will show up in ADwD:

Arya, Bran, Jon, Dany, Tyrion, and Asha (she will be in both books, as she gets involved in affairs of the North)

[Note: Spoiler POV redacted] has the most number of chapters in AFFC, while Dany has the most in ADwD. Also, the number of Tyrion chapters is going up from 4 to 7 in ADwD (his storyline is basically beinbg expanded).

GRRM said Dany and the Wall is excluded. That removes Dany and probably Tyrion plus the Wall which presumably means Jon and Davos.

Dragons will deal with Daenerys and the North. He decided to split by character, rather than in the middle of the story, as he wanted a complete book, rather than FfC part I and II.

This is no hoax.

I swear it by ice and fire. I swear that I will never post again should this prove false. I swear I will never touch wine again, if it is not true.

George said it is done.

But he had to make a major change. It had grown too large.

Daenerys will not appear. There will be little if any action in the North. Those chapters will be moved into the next book, which should come out shortly thereafter.

AFFC will be the size of AGoT.

The next book will still be called aDwD. (Dany will be in it after all).

That being said, Dany will be presented with a map of the world from a fellow whose name I cannot remember because the pronunciation was very odd indeed.

There was some talk about the Targaryen bloodline and how it worked when there weren't enough siblings to marry. Uncle might marry niece or aunt, nephew. There were also cousins in that family at one time.

Dany has more chapters than anyone. He also said that Dany's love life is going to become "extremely complex"

Parris has proclaimed that Arya cannot die! (No, she wasn't there :( but he mentioned it when someone said that he's not allowed to kill Dany)

So yeah, in short, book not done but soon, lots of Dany, the Ironborn, and the Dornish, and Renly and Loras were INDEED knocking boots.

October 2005

The main point of discussion was the reason for the five-year wait since A Storm of Swords. I'm sure most of you know this already but, briefly, he wanted a 5-year gap between ASOS and ADWD to allow the kids to grow up. Some characters, mainly the children and Daenerys, really benefited from this, but most of the other characters suffered and the book was degenerating into a flashback-fest. After about a year he decided that wasn't working, ditched everything, and started again.

November 2005

His analogy is that the series is a symphony and each book is a movement, and explained that he likes each character arc to have some sort of finale in each book, whether it's on a cliffhanger, or a completion of some phase of the character's story arc (or death hehe). Ultimately, he decided to divide it geographically as you all know, since Dany's story is taking place in Martinland's China, and the rest is taking place in Martinland's England.

One man asked whether George ever learns of people naming their kids after his characters. He pointed the guy to his website, where he even has baby pictures of Sansas, Aryas, even a Daenarys, Nymeria, Eddard, Bran, Chataya, and several Cerseis. He won't take credit for the Jons, though (hehe). It was great; someone in the audience made a crack about Cersei, and someone else said "as long as they aren't twins"). He mentioned meeting a little girl whose parents had named her Daenarys and he made a joke about how she was really going to hate spelling that when she gets to first grade. He also once got a letter from a 23-year-old girl named Lya whose mother said she was named after a character in one of his stories (A Song for Lya) and wanted to know who the heck Lya was. George sent her a copy! Hehe. He said he finds it flattering overall, but thinks it's a bad idea when the story isn't done yet and some of the characters will come to a bad end, and then those parents will be pissed with him!

He was asked or mentioned most of the stuff that's already been covered, but one thing he talked about that I found particularly interesting was Romanticism. He said that he is a romantic, in the classical sense. He said the trouble with being a romantic is that from a very early age you keep having your face smashed into the harshness of reality. That things aren't always fair, bad things happen to good people, etc. He said it's a realists world, so romantics are burned quite often. This theme of romantic idealism conflicting with harsh reality is something he finds very dramatic and compelling, and he weaves it into his work. Specifically he mentioned that the Knight exemplifies this, as the chivalric code is one of the most idealistic out there, protection of the weak, paragon of all that is good, fighting for truth and justice. The reality was that they were people, and therefore could do horrible cruel things, rape, pillage, wanton killing, made all the more striking or horrifying because it was in complete opposition to what they were "supposed" to be. Really interesting stuff.

At the San Diego signing, I asked GRRM at the Q&A, "Besides Dany's dragons, have all the Targaryen dragons been descendants of Aegon the Conquerors three?" GRRM answered "yes".

And that one of the things he regrets losing from the POV split is that he was doing point and counterpoint with the Dany and Cersei scenes--showing how each was ruling in their turn.

Q: 5-year gap?

A: It worked for characters like Arya and Dany but not so much for the adults or those who had a lot of action coming. He was writing chapters where Jon thought, "Well, not a lot has happened these past five years, it's been kinda nice." And Cersei chapters where she thought, "Well, I've had to kill sooo many people the last five years." So he ended up dropping it. He said he would have done it sooner if he hadn't told so many fans about it. And there is no gap anymore. "If a twelve-year old has to conquer the world, then so be it."

(Petyr is just Peter, for example.)

Some he did say during the course of the evening:

Cersei = Sir-say

Jaime = Jamie (I think that was obvious but just in case)

Sansa = Sahn-sa

Tyrion = Tear-ion

Arya = Ar-Ya (Ex, Are ya?)

Daenerys = Dane-err-is

TARGARYEN KINGS

SUBMITTED BY: AMOKA

[Note: The following information was sent to Amok for his contribution to the Fantasy Flight Games artbook.]

These are all Targaryens, of course, so there should be a strong family resemblence from portrait to portrait. All of them (except as noted) will have the purple eyes and silver-gold hair for which House Targaryen is noted. All of them should be wearing crowns... the same crown in many of the pix, though it will change once or twice along the way, as noted.

The hard part will be making each of the kings an individual, despite the similarities, and evoking each one's character through facial features, pose, clothing, background, and other elements in the portrait.

Here's the lineup:

DAENERYS I. Daenerys Stormborn. No description necessary, I assume. Show her wearing the three-headed dragon crown she was given in Qarth, as described in A CLASH OF KING. Might be good to include the three dragons in the picture. Show them very young, as hatchings, one in her lap, one wrapped around her arm and shoulder, one flying just above her.

January 2006

He repeatedly emphasized that he prefers to write grey characters, because in real life people are complex; no one is pure evil or pure good. Fiction tends to divide people into heroes who do no wrong and villains who go home and kick their dogs and beat their wives, but that reality is much different. He cited a soldier who heroically saves his friends' lives, but then goes home and beats his wife. Which is he, hero or villain? Martin said both and that neither act cancels out the other.

February 2006

NAERYS TARGARYEN

SUBMITTED BY: AMOKA

[Note: The following continues GRRM's series of descriptions of notable Targaryens (and Targaryen bastards) for Amoka.]

The sister of King Aegon the Unworthy and Prince Aemon the Dragonknight was beautiful as well, but hers was a very fine and delicate beauty, almost unworldy. She was a wisp of a woman, smaller even than Dany (to whom she bears a certain resemblence), very slender, with big purple eyes and fine, pale, porcelain skin, near translucent. Naerys had none of Dany's strength, however.

July 2006

George regrets that Cersei and Dany will not be contrasted directly. I told him of how some dedicated boarders try to defeat him and piece together a timeline. George replied that he tries to keep it vague.

He likes the extra breathing room to flesh out the characters. Bran didn't have any chapters and Dany's ending was different. Now he likes the way she ended. I think he actually may be doing more with Dany.

SPOILER: Possible for ADWD

The second Dance of Dragons does not have to mean Dany's invasion.

Geroge stopped himself short and said he shouldn't say anymore. The response came because of my question of whether the dance would take place in ADWD because AFFC and ADWD parallel. So now my friends, speculate away.

February 2007

Some other bits of info from Q&A: In Song, he considers Bran the hardest viewpoint character to write, while Tyrion is the easiest. The Red Wedding was partly based on a historical event in Scotland called the Black Dinner. His biggest lament in splitting A Feast for Crows from A Dance with Dragons is the parallels he was drawing between Circe and Daenerys.

E. His dragons have no front limbs -- just rear legs and wings. He said that although the traditional depiction of dragons as six limbed creatures has become a staple of fantasy -- the fact that no animal in nature has ever evolved in such a way always bothered him. As a sci-fi writer originally, he insists on the depiction of the dragons with just four limbs. I never heard that before and though it was pretty neat.. In addition, he said that although AsoIaF dragons are intelligent, they cannot speak and will never evolve into the sort of dragons we see in Tolkien or Le Guin. Specifically he said’ Drogon is never going to share witty aphorisms with Dany. The Targaryens rule by Fire and Blood and that is what the dragons represent in the story". I guess the power icon is more Nedly for them than some of us thought when they were first rolled out back in AfoD.

F. Cersei and Daenerys are intended as parallel characters --each exploring a different approach to how a woman would rule in a male dominated, medieval-inspired fantasy world.

May 2007

GRRM: Well, the next book out is A Dance with Dragons, of course, and that's the fifth book of the series but in some ways it's really 4B, as those of you who follow the series knows that A Feast for Crows got so big I had to pull it in half. I split it not by chopping it right in the middle but I split it by characters. The one I'm working on now is going to have an awful lot of the characters that that aren't in A Feast for Crows, it's going to have a lot of Jon Snow, a lot of Daenerys, a fair amount of Davos, and it's going to have have a lot of "me" -- Tyrion, who is your favorite, and my favorite, so I'm enjoying writing a lot of those right now.

And you know I got phone calls from people at the studio afterwards saying, "There is a way to make this as a feature. There's a way to do it as a movie. You could just take Jon Snow and Daenerys and just concentrate on them and get rid of some of the minor characters." And it just, it was kind of appalling because, much as I love Jon Snow and Daenerys, I didn't want to lose the other characters. I mean this is an epic and the only way we could conceive of doing it properly was to tell it as a series. And you can't do it as a series where's it interrupted every twenty minutes by a commercial for toothpaste. And you can't do it where I'd have Tyrion saying the things he says and doing the things he says, all of which network TV would have had a huge problem with.

So we really felt from the beginning that the best way to do this was on HBO or possibly Showtime.

August 2007

Just because I still love Popinjay and the Turtle and my other Wild Cards characters does not mean I have stopped loving Arya and Tyrion and Dany.

April 2008

BERBERS AND DANY

[Did the unrest during the transition between Arab and Berber rule inspire Dany's storyline?]

No. Sounds fascinating, but I'm afraid I don't have enough experience with the Berbers or their history to draw on them for inspiration.

July 2008

GRRM was asked the typical question, of where the idea for ASOIAF had come from. He replied that in the summer of 1991, when he was working as a Hollywood screenwriter, in a gap between assignments he began work on a new novel, a sf novel called Avalon ( personal note, no I would not swap it for ASOIAF, but I would have loved to have read it), set in his future history universe. And somehow, he found himself writing the first chapter of AGOT, about the direwolf pups un the snow. And after that came a second chapter and pretty soon he spent the whole summer writing AGOT.

From there he started to plan a trilogy, since there were 3 main conflicts ( Starks/Lannisters; Dany; and the Others) it felt it would neatly fit into a trilogy (ah!), but like Tolkien said, the tale grew in the telling.

April 2010

GRRM said he regretted mentioning the eye color of any of his characters. He also noted that as a brown-eyed person, he finds it annoying that brown-eyed characters are always portrayed as ordinary, while the doers of great deeds always have blue or hazel eyes or something - he notes that he himself was somewhat guilty of this with the violet eyes of Dany or the red eyes of Melisandre.

(25) Any particular storyline he is enjoying right now?

He said that Dany's storyline is emerging in increasing importance. But he is struggling with the Meereenese Knot. So he can't say he is enjoying it. But he is really enjoying writing Arya's story. He could write an entire novel of it. He could write an entire YA novel about her...(at this point the audience starting clapping and calling out YES! DO IT!)...but her entire story isn't part of the greater novel. He has 12 novels worth of info for this book and its hard to fit it all in.

February 2011

Sam Thielman: So, why did "A Dance With Dragons" take longer to write than the other books in the series?

George R. R. Martin: Well, you know, that's a good question and I'm not sure I have an easy answer for that. #1, none of the books have been exactly fast, I mean, I'm a slow writer, I've always been a slow writer, and the books are huge. I mean, they're three, four, five times the size of most novels being published. And they have extremely complex interweaving storylines. I remember back when I did the first book, 'A Game of Thrones,' Asimov's Magazine wanted to publish an excerpt and I pulled out the Daenerys storyline from the first book, and they published that as an excerpt, and after I pulled out all the Daenerys chapters and put them together for Asimov's, I did a word count and discovered, technically, I had a novel, just about Daenerys. I'm never gonna be one of those writers who has a book a year, or two books a year like some of my colleagues do. I simply can't write that fast. I do a lot of polishing and revising, and it's a big task.

July 2011

Tad: Question: Do you purposely start a character as bad so you can later kill them?

GRRM: No. What is bad? Bad is a label. We are human beings with heroism and self-interest and avarice in us and any human is capable of great good or great wrong. In Poland a couple of weeks ago I was reading about the history of Auschwitz – there were startling interviews with the people there. The guards had done unthinkable atrocities, but these were ordinary people. What allowed them to do this kind of evil? Then you read accounts of acts of outrageous heroism, yet the people are criminals or swindlers, one crime or another, but when forced to make a choice they make a heroic choice. This is what fascinated me about the human animal. A lot of fantasy turns on good and evil – but my take on it is that it’s fought within the human heart every day, and that’s the more interesting take. I don’t think life is that simple.

Tad: All of us work with multiple viewpoints – I hear this next question a lot: with story-driven plots, how do you decide which character viewpoint to write from – do you write several characters, taste them, then decide?

GRRM: No, not several, at least not intentionally. I had more choice early in the series, I frequently had situations where 2 or 3 were present at the same time. But as it’s progressed they have dispersed, so I need to be in the viewpoint of whoever’s there. There are some cases when I have a choice and in that case, I weigh which one. Without talking exactly about "The Mereenese Knot" – I’m not going to talk exactly about it, but but [there was a time when] a number of viewpoints were coming together in Mereen for a number of events, and I was wrestling with order and viewpoint. The different points-of-view had different sources of knowledge and I never could quite solve it. I was rewriting the same chapter over and over again – this, that, viewpoint? – spinning my wheels. It was one of the more troublesome thickets I encountered. There’s a resolution not to introduce new viewpoint characters, but the way I finally dealt with things was with Barristan, I introduced him as a viewpoint character as though he’d been there all along. That enabled me to clear away some of the brush.

Tad: Question: do you choose characters because they will provide you with a viewpoint or something characterful?

GRRM: Actually, no. I try to give each viewpoint character an arc of his own, and ideally I would like to think that you could pull the material out – in the early books I was able to pull out the Daenerys chapters and publish them separately as a novella, and I won a Hugo Award for that. It'd be great if I could pull out each [character-arc] and it would resemble a story. In some cases a character died and that was a very short story. My prologue and epilogue characters always die but even then I try to give them a story.

Your books, especially recently, are full of women trying to exert power in a male dominated world who have to compromise themselves along the way. Are you trying to make a feminist statement?

You could certainly interpret it that way. I don't presume to say I'm making a statement of this type or that type. But it is certainly a patriarchal society, I am trying to explore some of the ramifications of that. I try to write women as people, just as I try to write any other characters. Strong and weak, and brave and cowardly, and noble and selfish. It has been very gratifying to me how many women read my work and how much they like at least some of my female characters.

The one thing I must confess to being frustrated by is the first Tyion chapter where you set up this expectation that he’s going to meet Dany, and I got excited. Then about 600 pages later I’m realizing, “OK, that’s not gonna happen, at least not in this book.”

Yeah, it’s the “kind of bring ’em together but don’t give them the confirmation.” In some ways it’s not so different than the sexual tension in TV shows — are Catherine and Vincent [on Beauty and the Beast] finally going to kiss? Same philosophy. This is the kind of stuff I wrestle with. I could have ended the next chapter: Tyrion gets off the boat and there’s Dany. But the journey itself has its own interest.

There’s a point in the series where you feel like you’re reading a bunch of separate stories. Toward the end of Dance, you feel the threads starting to come back together. Is that accurate?

That’s certainly the intent, and always was the intent. Tolkien was my great model for much of this. Although I differ from Tolkien in important ways, I’m second to no one in my respect for him. If you look at Lord of the Rings, it begins with a tight focus and all the characters are together. Then by end of the first book the Fellowship splits up and they have different adventures. I did the same thing. Everybody is at Winterfell in the beginning except for Dany, then they split up into groups, and ultimately those split up too. The intent was to fan out, then curve and come back together. Finding the point where that turn begins has been one of the issues I’ve wrestled with.

There was a fair amount of explicit sex in the series and some fans of the books were taken aback.

One of the reasons I wanted to do this with HBO is that I wanted to keep the sex. We had some real problems because Dany is only 13 in the books, and that’s based on medieval history. They didn’t have this concept of adolescence or the teenage years. You were a child or you were an adult. And the onset of sexual maturity meant you were an adult. So I reflected that in the books. But then when you go to film it you run into people going crazy about child pornography and there’s actual laws about how you can’t depict a 13 year old having sex even if you have an 18 year old acting the part — it’s illegal in the United Kingdom. So we ended up with a 22 year old portraying an 18 year old, instead of an 18 year old portraying a 13 year old. If we decided to lose the sex we could have kept the original ages. And once you change the age of one character you have to change the ages of all the characters, and change the date of the war [that dethroned the Mad King]. The fact we made all these changes indicates how important we thought sex was.

References the chapbook with the first three Dany chapters from 2005 and that it offers insight as to how much the book has changed since then.

There's been an interesting discussion on our forum concerning "orientalism" as it's expressed in your work, and one question it's led to among readers is whether you've ever considered a foreign point of view characters in Essos, to give a different window into events there.

No, this story is about Westeros. Those other lands are important only as they reflect on Westeros.

Part of the difficulty of this particular novel was what you called the "Meereenese Knot", trying to get everything to happen in just the right order, pulling various plot strands together in one place, and part of the solution was the addition of another point of view character. Was this something where you tried writing it from a number of different point of views before settling on a new one? Did you actively resist adding a new character?

The Meerenese Knot related to everyone reaching Dany. There's a series of events that have to occur in Meereen, things that are significant. She has various problems to deal with at the start: dealing with the slavers, threats of war, the Sons of the Harpy, and so on. At the same time, there's all of these characters trying to get to her. So the problem was to figure out who should reach her and in what order, and what events should happen by the time they've reached her. I kept coming up with different answers and I kept having to rewrite different versions and then not being satisfied with the dynamics until I found something that was satisfactory. I thought that solution worked well, but it was not my first choice.

There's a Dany scene in the book which is actually one of the oldest chapters in the book that goes back almost ten years now. When I was contemplating the five year gap [Martin laughs here, with some chagrin], that chapter was supposed to be the first Daenerys chapter in the book. Then it became the second chapter, and then the third chapter, and it kept getting pushed back as I inserted more things into it. I've rewritten that chapter so much that it ended in many different ways.

There's a certain time frame of the chronology where you can compare to A Feast for Crows and even A Storm of Swords and figure out when they would reach Meereen and the relative time frames of each departure and each arrival. But that doesn't necessarily lead to the most dramatic story. So you look at it and try and figure out how to do it. I also wanted to get across how difficult and dangerous it was to travel like this. There are many storms that will wreck your ship, there are dangerous lands in between where there are pirates and corsairs, and all that stuff. It's not like hopping on a 747, where you get on and then step off the plane a few hours later. So all of these considerations went into the Meereenese Knot.

Then there's showing things after [an important event], which proved to be very difficult. I tried it with one point of view character, but this was an outsider who could only guess at what was going on, and then I tried it with a different character and it was also difficult. The big solution was when I hit on adding a new point of view character who could give the perspective this part of the story needed.

March 2012

If you listen to the CBC interview which you'll see the link for under General ASOIAF, much of what he said was repeated tonight. He admitted Tyrion was his favourite, and if he was having dinner with 3 characters, they would be Tyrion, Maester Aemon and then he thought of Arya, but feared she would throw food at him, so he'd go with Dany, because she's hot!

June 2012

Near the end of the signing, a man presented Martin with two books and his daughter. “This is Daenerys,” he told Martin, “I sent you a letter about her five years ago.” Daenerys, a squirmy blonde in a pink jacket, looked about five years old. “Hello there,” Martin said, “do you like dragons?” She nodded, and they made room for the next fan.

Now that we know how the "Meereenese knot" played out, what was the problem with this? For example, was it the order in which Dany met various characters, or who, when, and how someone would try to take the dragons?

Now I can explain things. It was a confluence of many, many factors: lets start with the offer from Xaro to give Dany ships, the refusal of which then leads to Qarth's declaration of war. Then there's the marriage of Daenerys to pacify the city. Then there's the arrival of the Yunkish army at the gates of Meereen, there's the order of arrival of various people going her way (Tyrion, Quentyn, Victarion, Aegon, Marwyn, etc.), and then there's Daario, this dangerous sellsword and the question of whether Dany really wants him or not, there's hte plague, there's Drogon's return to Meereen...

All of these things were balls I had thrown up into the air, and they're all linked and chronologically entwined. The return of Drogon to the city was something I explored as happening at different times. For example, I wrote three different versions of Quentyn's arrival at Meereen: one where he arrived long before Dany's marriage, one where he arrived much later, and one where he arrived just the day before the marriage (which is how it ended up being in the novel). And I had to write all three versions to be able to compare and see how these different arrival points affected the stories of the other characters. Including the story of a character who actually hasn't arrived yet.

October 2012

What's exciting to me about this session is that in this conversation, Martin talks at length about craft. He's been in the business of telling stories for many decades -- as a television writer and as a writer of fiction -- and he has a great deal to say about what works and what doesn't in different mediums. How is information conveyed to the audience (or the reader)? How do you keep sophisticated audiences on their toes? How do you create worlds in which most characters have to choose between the best of many bad options? How do you examine power from the perspective of outsiders, rejects and those who are constrained by conventional wisdom? Martin shared the insights of someone who has been contemplating these questions -- practically and philosophically -- for a very long time.

About midway through the podcast, there's a interesting discussion of his use of "close third person" narration and why that's effective in the creation of memorable characters. It's also interesting to note that he doesn't write the chapters in the order in which they appear in the books, and that he may write four or five Tyrion chapters before stopping and switching to another character. (Another fun fact that emerged -- and I'm sure hardcore "ASoIaF" fans already knew this -- Martin originally signed a contract for a book trilogy. I'm betting his publishers aren't sad he's now working on the sixth book in that "trilogy.")

Eventually, Martin zeroes in on his least favorite thing in any story: Predictability. But he admits that it's "very hard" to shake up the audience, which has grown more sophisticated with every passing decade. When he was writing for the revived "Twilight Zone" in the '80s, for example, network executives wanted the producers to end episodes with a twist of some kind, as the original Rod Serling series had often done. But the audience "could see all these twist endings coming a mile away," Martin said.

He also spoke about his fascination with power and with hierarchies that appear stable but are actually anything but. He mentioned reading a history of Jerusalem in which a mad ruler began killing dozens of courtiers and ordering the hands chopped off the women of the court.

"Why doesn't the captain of the guard say to the sergeant, 'This guy is [expletive] nuts?'" Martin said. "'We have swords! Why don't we kill him instead?'"

But loyalties -- clan loyalties, family loyalties, strategic alliances -- are powerful influences in the lives of Martin's characters, and their personal desires and their traditional duties or roles are often in conflict. And those kinds of unresolvable dilemmas are at the heart of what makes his stories resonate with those of us who didn't begin fighting with swords as children.

Paraphrasing Faulkner, Martin said "the only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself." And that's a scenario that is very familiar to anyone who's ever visited Westeros, either as a reader or a viewer of the HBO drama.

Is A Song of Ice and Fire a parallelism or a criticism to our society?

No. My work is not an allegory to our days. If I wanted to write about the financial crisis or the conflict in Syria, I would write about the financial crisis or the conflict in Syria, without any metaphor. However, it’s true that in my novels appear several elements which we can find in world history. Things such as power, sex, pain… I have grown up as a science fiction reader, and it was my first love, even before fantasy. But science fiction, then, presented an idealistic world: the space, a bright future, but unluckily that optimism disappeared very quickly and the future wasn’t as good as we had expected. Nowadays, science fiction is very pessimistic and talks about dystopias: about a polluted world, about a rotten world… Of course I would prefer to be part of another world; a better world, but I can’t. Perhaps winter is not coming only to Winterfell, but in the real world.

March 2013

The readers are unhappy with leaving out the five-year gap?

Well no, some of the storylines from Feast for Crows. I get complaints sometimes that nothing happens — but they're defining "nothing," I think, differently than I am. I don't think it all has to battles and sword fights and assassinations. Character development and [people] changing is good, and there are some tough things in there that I think a lot of writers skip over. I'm glad I didn't skip over these things.

[For example], things that Arya is learning. The things Bran is learning. Learning is not inherently an interesting thing to write about. It's not an easy thing to write about. In the movies, they always handle it with a montage. Rocky can't run very fast. He can't catch the chicken. But then you do a montage, and you cut a lot of images together, and now only a minute later in the film, Rocky is really strong and he is catching the chicken.

It’s a lot harder [in real life]. Sometimes in my own life, I wish I could play a montage of my life. I want to get in shape now. So let’s do a montage, and boom — I'll be fifty pounds lighter and in good shape, and it will only take me a minute with some montage of me lifting weights and running, shoving away the steak and having a salad. But of course in real life, you don't get to montage. You have to go through it day by day.

And that has been interesting, you know. Jon Snow as Lord Commander. Dany as Queen, struggling with rule. So many books don't do that. There is a sense when you're writing something in high fantasy, you're in a dialogue with all the other high fantasy writers that have written. And there is always this presumption that if you are a good man, you will be a good king. [Like] Tolkien — in Return of the King, Aragorn comes back and becomes king, and then [we read that] "he ruled wisely for three hundred years." Okay, fine. It is easy to write that sentence, “He ruled wisely”.

What does that mean, he ruled wisely? What were his tax policies? What did he do when two lords were making war on each other? Or barbarians were coming in from the North? What was his immigration policy? What about equal rights for Orcs? I mean did he just pursue a genocidal policy, "Let’s kill all these fucking Orcs who are still left over"? Or did he try to redeem them? You never actually see the nitty-gritty of ruling.

I guess there is an element of fantasy readers that don't want to see that. I find that fascinating. Seeing someone like Dany actually trying to deal with the vestments of being a queen and getting factions and guilds and [managing the] economy. They burnt all the fields [in Meereen]. They've got nothing to import any more. They're not getting any money. I find this stuff interesting. And fortunately, enough of my readers who love the books do as well.

And meanwhile, you've got Daenerys visiting more Eurasian and Middle Eastern cultures.

And that has generated its controversy too. I answer that one to in my blog. I know some of the people who are coming at this from a political or racial angle just seem to completely disregard the logistics of the thing here. I talk about what's in the books. The books are what I write. What I’m responsible for.

Slavery in the ancient world, and slavery in the medieval world, was not race-based. You could lose a war if you were a Spartan, and if you lost a war you could end up a slave in Athens, or vice versa. You could get in debt, and wind up a slave. And that’s what I tried to depict, in my books, that kind of slavery.

So the people that Dany frees in the slaver cities are of many different ethnicities, and that’s been fairly explicit in the books. But of course when David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] and his crew are filming that scene [of Daenerys being carried by freed slaves], they are filming it in Morocco, and they put out a call for 800 extras. That’s a lot of extras. They hired the people who turned up. Extras don't get paid very much. I did an extra gig once, and got like $40 a day.

It's probably actually less in Morocco since you don't have to pay quite the same rate. If you're giving 800 Moroccans 40 bucks each, you're not going to fly in 100 Irishman just to balance the racial background here. We had enough trouble meeting our budget anyway.

I know for some readers, they don’t care about this shit. But these things are about budget and realism, and things you can actually do. You are shooting the scene in a day. You don't have a lot of time to [worry] about that, and as someone who has worked in television this kind of stuff is very important to me. I don't know if that is answer or not. I made that answer, and some people weren't pleased with that answer, I know. They are very upset about that.

August 2013

Amid reports of a dramatic uptrend in babies named “Khaleesi” and tourism to Dubrovnik, Croatia (aka King's Landing), we're guessing George R. R. Martin doesn’t need much of an introduction.

AC: How do you decide what you're going to work on, whose voice you're going to work in today?

GM: Well, I don't write the chapters in the order in which you read them. I get into a character’s voice. It's always difficult to switch gears, actually. When I do make that transition from one character to another, I usually struggle for a few days trying to get back the voice of the character I'm just returning to after some hiatus. But once I get into it, I tend to write not just one chapter by that character, but three or four. So I'll be writing Jon Snow chapters, and I'll carry that Jon Snow sequence as far as I can. And then at some point, maybe I'll get stuck or not be sure what I should do next, or maybe I've just gotten way ahead of all of the other characters in the books, so I need to sort of rein myself in and make myself switch from Jon Snow to Sansa or Daenerys or somebody like that.

November 2013

We can't leave Martin without pressing him for his thoughts on which of his characters keeps the best table. Would it be the wealthy, sun-loving Martell family with their Mediterranean-leaning flatbreads, olives and spiced snake? The sensualist Tyrion Lannister? Or the moveable feast of the court of Daenerys Targaryen with its duck eggs and dog sausage?

"Oh, Illyrio Mopatis, the magister, no question. Just watch out for the mushrooms."

March 2014

Was it a big shift for you, when you were writing the scenes that take place at Winterfell and suddenly you have the Daenerys scene, with an entirely different location?

Pretty early on, in the summer of ‘91, I had the Daenerys stuff. I knew she was on another continent. I think I had already drawn a map by then – and she wasn’t on it. I’d just drawn the map of the one continent that would come to be called Westeros. But she was in exile, and I knew that, and that was sort of the one departure from the structure. It’s something I borrowed from Tolkien, in terms of the initial structure of the book. If you look at Lord of the Rings, everything begins in the Shire with Bilbo’s birthday party. You have a very small focus. You have a map of the Shire right in the beginning of the book – you think it’s the entire world. And then they get outside it. They cross the Shire, which seems epic in itself. And then the world keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And then they add more and more characters, and then those characters split up. I essentially looked at the master there and adopted the same structure. Everything in AGame of Thrones begins in Winterfell. Everybody is together there and then you meet more people and, ultimately, they’re split apart and they go in different directions. But the one departure from that, right from the first, was Daenerys, who was always separate. It’s almost as if Tolkien, in addition to having Bilbo, had thrown in an occasional Faramir chapter, right from the beginning of the book.

Although Daenerys is hooked into Winterfell, because we hear talk of her family, the Targaryen family, early on.

You see overlaps. Daenerys is getting married, and Robert gets the report that Daenerys has just gotten married and reacts to that and the threat that it poses.

Fortunately, the books were best sellers, I didn’t need the money, you know, so I could just say no. Other people wanted to take the approach of, there are so many characters, so many stories, we have to settle on one. Let’s make it all about Jon Snow. Or Dany. Or Tyrion. Or Bran. But that didn’t work, either, because the stories are all inter-related. They separate but they come together again. But it did get me thinking about it, and it got me thinking about how this could be done, and the answer I came up with is – it can be done for television. It can’t be done as a feature film or a series of feature films. So television. But not network television. I’d worked in television. The Twilight Zone. Beauty and the Beast. I knew what was in these books, the sex scenes, the violence, the beheadings, the massacres. They’re not going to put that on Friday night at eight o’clock, where they always stick fantasies. Both of the shows that I was on, Twilight Zone and Beauty and the Beast, Friday night at eight o’clock. They think, "Fantasy? Kids!" So I wasn’t going to do a network show. But I’d been watching HBO. The Sopranos. Rome. Deadwood. It seemed to me an HBO show, a series where each book was an entire season, was the way to do it. So when I sat down with David and Dan at that meeting at the Palm, which started out as a lunch meeting and turned into a dinner meeting, and they said the same thing, then I suddenly knew we’re on the same wavelength here.

June 2014

Q: What can you tell us about a warg dragon rider?

A: There is no history/precedent for someone warging a dragon. There is a rich history of the mythical bond between dragon and rider. There have been instances of dragons responding to their riders even from very far away (hmm) which shows it is a true and very strong bond. We will learn more about this. Keep reading (we hear “keep writing” from the back of the room).

Q: What is your favorite line in ASOIAF?

A: I can’t single out one line but my favorite passage is Septon Meribald’s speech about war in… what was it? (crowd yells out Feast for Crows).

November 2014

For people who are not familiar with your work, the series takes place in an imaginary world. There is a struggle for control of the kingdom. This dynastic war is essentially one of three main plot lines. There are the other plot lines involving these sort of superhuman characters, and then there’s the exiled Targaryen daughter who seeks the return of her ancient throne. Why those three main plot lines?

Well, of course, the two outlying ones — the things going on north of the Wall, and then there is Targaryen on the other continent with her dragons — are of course the ice and fire of the title, “A Song of Ice and Fire.” The central stuff — the stuff that’s happening in the middle, in King’s Landing, the capital of the seven kingdoms — is much more based on historical events, historical fiction.

Pop culture has grabbed “Game of Thrones.” It’s been featured in “The Simpsons” and “South Park.” What goes through your mind when you see these references?

Well, I think it’s tremendously cool, of course. It’s nice to be doing something that everybody is so aware of and that has entered the cultural zeitgeist in that manner. The only aspect of it that really astonishes me is not that the characters and the story is being parodied or referenced in these various places but the extent at which I personally am. I mean, when I see myself as a character on “South Park” or I see Bobby Moynihan imitating me with the suspenders and the hat on “Saturday Night Live,” when I see companies selling Halloween costumes, not Halloween costumes to be Jon Snow or Daenerys but Halloween costumes to be me, that’s pretty freaky. That’s something I could never have anticipated, and I just don’t know what to think of it.

May 2015

Still, it’s only natural that there’s a few characters Martin would have liked to have seen on the show that did not make it in.

“Strong Belwas, who was part of Dany’s entourage,” Martin said. “I understand why he was cut, but I kind of miss him.” In the books, the massive eunuch warrior is a former pit fighter who joins Dany in Qarth. Belwas’ story elements have essentially been combined with the character of Daario, who is arguably more essential to Dany’s journey.

June 2015

I explained that in my own head, Yandel is in King's Landing, clutching his book, showing up each day for an audience with the king... and each day being told perhaps the next day. Except on those occasions where, you know, they tell him the king's getting married today, and then whoops, Joffrey is dead, etc.

I also noted that of course, given how he wrote about the reign of Aerys and and the rebellion, that if Aegon or Daenerys take King's Landing he may indeed end up having his head chopped off... George seemed interested in the idea, I think. :P

May 2016

4. GRRM and Picacio both made the joke about "you need to pay the artist" and such regarding general fan fiction. And then GRRM said he has issued some sub-licenses to things like art and games, etc. GRRM also mentioned that HBO owns the rights to the exact likenesses of the tv version of the story, meaning, no art can be made where Dany looks like Emilia. He was very careful in avoiding a real link in feeling between him and HBO even though he was asked about it twice. Then GRRM mentioned, and Picacio joined in, how GRRM knew the show would overtake the books. Not too much new.

Reactions after the episode

c. Dany on Drogon seemed random and a repeat of previous seasons.

d. Others loved Dany on Drogon.

December 2016

And the most revealing: he said that for Winds, Winter is the darkest time 'where things die' and many characters will go dark places.

At last I was able to ask him the question I had sent for the tombola. I have always been fascinated by how ASOIAF embodies the theories put forward by Acemoglu and Robinson about countries with extractive institutions (which hamper development). So my question was: Why do you think the political institutions in the Seven Kingdoms are so weak? His answer: the Kingdom was unified with dragons, so the Targaryen's flaw was to create an absolute monarchy highly dependent on them, with the small council not designed to be a real check and balance. So, without dragons it took a sneeze, a wildly incompetent and megalomaniac king, a love struck prince, a brutal civil war, a dissolute king that didn't really know what to do with the throne and then chaos. Interesting answer.

July 2017

To a certain degree, also, it’s so intertwined, tragically and unfortunately, with the character histories. Daenerys doesn’t get to where she is unless she’s sold as a child bride, effectively a slave.

And I should point out, and you probably know this if you’ve read the books and watched the show, Daenerys’ wedding night is quite different than it was portrayed in the books. Again, indeed, we had an original pilot where the part of Daenerys was recast, and what we filmed the first time, when Tamzin Merchant was playing the role, it was much more true to the books. It was the scene as written in the books. So that got changed between the original pilot and the later pilot. You’d have to talk to David and Dan about that.

I had all these meetings saying, “There’s too many characters, it’s too big — Jon Snow is the central character. We’ll eliminate all the other characters and we’ll make it about Jon Snow.” Or “Daenerys is the central character. We’ll eliminate everyone else and make the movie about Daenerys.” And I turned down all those deals.

When you’re walking down the street in Santa Fe, do new character or historical details just pop into your head?

Sometimes it happens to me on long-distance drives. When I was younger I loved to take road trips, and get in the car and drive for two days to get to L.A. or Kansas City or St. Louis or Texas. And on the road, I would think a lot about that. In 1993, I think it was, I visited France for the first time. I had begunGame of Thrones two years before in ‘91 and I had to put it aside because television was happening. And for some reason, I had rented a car, I was driving all around Brittany and the roads of France to these little medieval villages and I was seeing castles, and somehow that just got me going again. I was thinking about Tyrion and Jon Snow and Daenerys and my head was full of Game of Thrones stuff.

You’re in unusual territory, with your characters very much still in your hands but also out in the world being interpreted for TV. Are you able to have walls in your mind such that your Daenerys, say, is your Daenerys, and Emilia Clarke’s Daenerys is hers and the show’s?

I’ve arrived at that point. The walls are up in my mind. I don’t know that I was necessarily there from the beginning. At some points, when David and Dan and I had discussions about what way we should go in, I would always favor sticking with the books, while they would favor making changes. I think one of the biggest ones would probably be when they made the decision not to bring Catelyn Stark back as Lady Stoneheart. That was probably the first major diversion of the show from the books and, you know, I argued against that, and David and Dan made that decision.

In my version of the story, Catelyn Stark is re-imbued with a kind of life and becomes this vengeful wight who galvanizes a group of people around her and is trying to exact her revenge on the riverlands. David and Dan made a decision not to go in that direction in their story, pursuing other threads. But both of them are equally valid, I think, because Catelyn Stark is a fictional character and she doesn’t exist. You can tell either story about her.

Is there anything we didn’t get to talk about?

I suppose there are issues we could have explored more with the whole question of sexual violence and women — it’s a complicated and fraught issue. To re-address that point a little, I do a lot of book signings, and I think I have probably more women readers than male readers right now. Only slightly, but it’s probably 55 percent, 45 percent, but I see women readers at things and they love my women characters. I’m very proud of the creation of Arya and Catelyn and Sansa and Brienne and Daenerys and Cersei and all of them. It’s one of the things that gives me the most satisfaction, that they’ve been so well-received as characters, especially by women readers who are often not served.

August 2017

- My question about Daenerys was chosen as the third question (I was lucky!) but he refused to answer it lol … I asked “How old was Daenerys when she left the house with the red door, and was it located close to the palace of the Sealord of Braavos?” (thanks Butterfly for suggesting it to me) I don’t know why he refused to answer about her age, but about the house with the red door he said there will be more revelations about it in future books.

- He was asked to comment about the differences between the book and show characters, particularly Daenerys. GRRM ignored all the other characters and talked only about Daenerys - he said that the show one is older because there are laws in USA that prevent minors from having sex scenes so the decision was made to age Daenerys. Otherwise, book Daenerys and show Daenerys “are very similar” and “Emilia Clarke did a fantastic job”. (I guess he can’t really say negative things about the show, can he?)

- “Will Jorah ever get out of the friendzone?” (side-eyeing the person who asked this). GRRM: “I would not bet on it.”

August 2018

Q: if you did have a child what would you name him or her?

A: “I don’t know... probably Not Daenerys”

November 2018

“I have tried to make it explicit in the novels that the dragons are destructive forces, and Dany (Daenerys Targaryen) has found that out as she tried to rule the city of Meereen and be queen there.

“She has the power to destroy, she can wipe out entire cities, and we certainly see that in Fire and Blood, we see the dragons wiping out entire armies, wiping out towns and cities, destroying them, but that doesn’t necessarily enable you to rule — it just enables you to destroy.”

[...] “If you read Fire and Blood, you’ll know there’s definitely a bond between the dragons and their riders and the dragons will not accept just any rider,” says Martin. “Some people try to take a dragon wind up being eaten or burned to death instead, so the dragons are terribly fussy about who rides them.”

[...] The prince defeated the threat in the North by driving his sword through his wife’s heart. Will Jon have to do the same to Daenerys? Or is she the prince, Azor Ahai, reborn? Martin suggests all may not be as it seems.

“The Targaryens have certain gifts and yes, taking the dragons and dragon riding and dragon breeding was one of them,” he says. “But the other gift was an occasional Targaryen had prophetic powers and could see glimpses of the future, which they didn’t always necessarily properly interpret because, you know, they were fragmentary and sometimes symbolic.

“But to what extent did they share those gifts, what did he see, what prompted him to do all this? These are things I find really interesting to ponder.

What was interesting from The Guardian interview you did, is this book — as daunting as it would seem for most authors to attempt, and as tough as Winds has been for you — this was curiously easy for you to write. Yes. Partly because it’s linear. Although it covers 150 years or so, it’s very straightforward — here’s what happened in the year 30, here’s what happened in 25. In Winds, I have like 10 different novels and I’m juggling the timeline — here’s what’s happening to Tyrion, here’s what’s happening to Dany, and how they intersect. That’s far more complicated.

August 2019

On the fame thing, does it ever feel surreal to stop and think about the reach that your work has had? I mean, couples meet through Game of Thrones, there are Thrones-themed wedding ceremonies, and babies are named after your characters. Is that something you ever dwell on and think to yourself 'God, my work has had this massive effect on people?'

It's very gratifying when you get letters, emails, and hear stories like that. They definitely do name children after my characters and send me pictures of their babies.

People also name their dogs, cats, iguanas, after my characters. Sometimes, it’s a little surreal. I often wonder about all the young Daenerys’ out there because kindergarten teachers will hate me because they have to spell it!

#daenerys targaryen #resources #grrm #valyrianscrolls

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atendersun-archived · 3 years

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“You’re really cute…when you let yourself talk about things you love.” Absent-mindedly Sullivan complimented him, leaning on his hand. Happily he has been listening to a passionate rant of information. Every little rabbit hole Muus brain brought to him, all the fun stories. It was really nice. To get to hear the real him. “I hope we can talk about things you like again. So I can see you that happy more often.”

Besides him rested numerous plastic containers with barriers that many used to store fishing lures in. His on he other hand were labeled with different initials and numbers that marked his uniquely thought out storing system. Inside many of them were a variety of miniature items made from materials such as polymer clay, felt, shrinkable plastic, and wood. Resting on his lap as he spoke freely on his most recent passion was a notebook that he had been doodling out ideas for additional items to be made later on.

Words also appeared to be etched in between sketches with great significance yet he managed to multitask in conversation so swiftly that none of them parted through his lips as he went on with his attempt at describing to the other what it was that he aimed to do with all of us uniquely made miniatures. Amongst the growing list of adjectives was the term 'passionate', which he would later find a tad bit of humor in due to the fact that he would then begin to speak openly about what he aimed to do with an idea that had only just recently popped into his head earlier in the week.

"Sully", he began, "Do you know what a diorama is? That is kind of like what I am making, but they are going to be more like how I think the inside of a Poké Ball, or a Polly Pocket shell would be."

How exactly he wanted to approach that idea was still being determined in his drawings. He hadn't yet decided if he wanted to store his ideas inside something as simply as a tiny house, or to up the difficulty by trying put his hand at making something akin to the inside of the brain instead. If he was willing to really do his research, and figure out how to even begin adding it in, he'd have pushed it even further by including in some sort of musical trait into it as if they were very unusual music boxes.

"I've been feeling very out of touch with myself. That's why.. I am making these little houses, I guess, for the parts of me that stand out the most. That way they have places to be that are not only of their own, but also that are safe to be in as well. That way I can kind only just focus on the parts of me that are here right now instead of feeling all of the feelings of all of me's at the same time."

Showing seemed easier than risking confusion with his long string of words, so he ceased moving the pen across paper long enough for him to switch out the pad entirely for the most filled of all of the bins with the marking of the number sixteen across the top. That had been the first one he wanted to work on out of reluctancy to really even begin thinking about what he would've used to describe himself during other core moments in his life, but also because he had been really weighed down the most by pings of jealousy and resentment that he knew were stirring from the loneliness and guilt that blossomed into fruition as a teenager.

"These one's are all the things that I see when I think of me at sixteen. This one is an itty bitty version of Aime Jr. Aime was my best friend that moved away to France, but b- before that, he gived me a hedgehog that I named after him. Once I even had a real hedgehog that I named Baby Aime, but I'll probably save him for later 'cause I got him when I was older. I still have him, by the way. The stuffed animal that is. He's very beat up looking from having gone to lots of things with me before I kind of out grew bringing him along, but.. I do still like to think back on when I still had Aime around all those many years ago."

From there, he very excitedly hopped from one item to another; explaining each one's individual meaning before immediately following it up with another. In his chatter, he went on to describe making miniature versions of the favorite books he used to beg his older brother to read to him since they always seemed to be easier to understand when he heard them in a voice other than his own. Or how he simply just did so to not so secretly trick his sibling into sharing the bed with him long enough for him to drift off to sleep with him at his side instead of alone.

Also happily presented were tiny versions of some standard looking Valentine's Day cards and some even tinier stickers he designed and cut out using an x-acto blade. Both were heavily enjoyed by him during that time in his life since he held such largely positive feelings towards things that were either cute, or were associated with love in any way. His dream back then had always been to experience a fairytale love like he watched in movies, or heard about in songs by Taylor Swift songs, as he knew that his chances of that were not necessarily as high as they may have been if not for his perceived sensitivity and slowness.

And while he was still somewhat still shifting through the hurt of his plan to make that kind of dream come true didn't work out as intended, that was not the only reason he purposely chose to keep his focus on making items he associated with himself instead of himself in association with the person he was dating at the time in his life. His decision to do so had not been made out of a lack of love for that individual, but rather because he wanted to keep the home he was making for the boy he once was be one crafted from as much self love as he possibly could have.

"There's still lots of other things I could maybe make to go into the home for the Muu that was the littlest, I guess. Like if I made things relevant to dating for the first time, since th- that was a very core thing for me when I was only sixteen. I don't.. really want to though, because I feel.. like that is where a lot of the guilt of being me comes from to begin with, an- and I don't want to stick him into the house for him right back into those feelings all over again. Of not.. loving in the right way, or of making things harder than they needed to be even if maybe I didn't mean for it to be that way. I'm.. making these little houses, or whatever they're gonna be, so these littler versions of me get to be tucked away into spots of healing. That's why I- I am maybe making all of these things, but not even use all of 'em, because I want to make sure the space is happy for them. I don't.. want them to cry because something doesn't feel safe."

Even in the seriousness of his words, he never strayed away from wanting to ramble on more regarding the thoughtfulness behind his intentions. What he was working on was obviously of great importance to him. Even more than that, he seemed to have been so caught up in his own motivation that he'd failed to even really notice how expressive his body language and facial features became when he shared on about even just the smallest of things that brought life into him at such a young, impressionable age.

Or at least he hadn't until receiving the compliment offered by the other male. Out of what seemed to be embarrassment, the blond instinctively pulled a hand away from sorting through his miscellaneous items to pull the fabric of his shirt up to protectively cover the lower half of his face. In reality, however, he was more so hiding away the surprisingly boyish grin that silenced his moving lips. As well as the growing shade of pink that existed around the nose that sat above them. He was still very much getting used to being spoken to as if his company was desired rather than being hypervigilant of the backhandedness that came from people spending time with him out of obligation or manipulation rather than genuine companionship. Unlike in the many months prior, though, he at least found himself really enjoying the affirming words of endearment offered by the raven.

"Oh, thank you.. I'm not very good at talking about myself a lot of the time. Or of even just.. knowing myself, but you.. you know, th- that is something we can at least, kind of.. learn together maybe?"

#sully i am sorry but you broke the man #also rip the dash for this #tw long post #tximidity

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mycreativereach · 3 years

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The Birth of Oron

Colossus’ raw power, wolverines’ adamantine claws, Captain America's unbreakable shield, the powers of the Greek gods, and the hierarchy of the archangels. These are but a few to name of the heroes I would watch growing up.

I was always a fanboy for superheroes, especially marvel. I had my time with DC, but I was always more drawn to the stories of the X-men or other superheroes within the realm of the marvel universe. Other means of fantasy such as Lord of The Rings and anime such as one-punch man and Dragonball Z played a part as well, but it was a few that stemmed from my childhood that allowed me to develop Oron the character you read today.

Colossus

To say that fantasy and heroes have had a slight impact on my novel is an understatement. I remember getting up early Saturday mornings, roughly around 8 am, to catch a list of cartoon shows that would appear on Fox. Over a few years, the shows had moved around and switched but I always remember waiting to watch the 90’s nostalgic marvel show x-men. The always progressive stories of wolverine’s trust issues and macho feud with cyclops, gambit’s Casanova chivalrous tendencies towards rogue, and Professor X’s forever dilemma of accepting the very humans who hate him while teaching mutants to be at peace with civilization was what I loved about the show. I couldn’t wait to rush to the carpet in front of my tv and sit for two half-hour episodes. At the time wolverine had been my favorite mutant and marvel character for that matter and still is. But the character that helped shape Oron was colossus. I remember seeing him for the first time, his mutant power of being able to enwrap himself in metal which tremendously increased his raw strength and power reeled me in. His character traits of being a humble Russian farmer with roots of loyalty and fighting for good is also what attached me to him even further. From that point on until this very day, colossus is still one of my top favorite marvel characters and has also helped pave the way for me to creating my character Oron. I knew I wanted Orons characteristics to be someone who came across as hard and cold on the outside because of the lore I had built around him, but I wasn’t exactly sure how I wanted him to look. Eventually between coming across colossus combined with my love for bodybuilding and the aesthetics that bodybuilders bring is ultimately the reason why I created Oron to have more of a menacing appeal to my readers. But as for the color of Orons skin, it’s funny that Oron turned to be blue. I have gotten feedback both negative and even some positive saying Dr. Manhattan has played a role in this decision I made. They are similar in some respects but in all honesty, it had nothing to do with that character. The sole reason is that I like the color blue and decided to go with a lighter or sky blue. Navy blue is my favorite to be exact, but I Liked a light shade of blue that looked on Oron and then decided to keep it. I had gone through several other stages of Oron with different colors and patterns and other anatomical appearances, but I felt none of them looked well enough as the color that he ultimately ended up with.

Sarevok

Another character that played a role in the creation of Oron was the main antagonist of the well-known RPG-pc game from the 1990s Sarevok Anchev from Baldur’s Gate. Still one of my favorite villains ever, Sarevok had the menacing appeal of height, increased strength, and malice that caused him to be feared. But it was his assured intelligence and allured determination that made me enjoy his character. Although I like the version of Sarevok from Baldur’s gate, it is the expansion to Shadows of Amn in Throne of Bhaal that was the version that piqued my interest for Oron. Sarevok at this point comes forward to help his brother, the main protagonist in the entire storyline. The evil aura still emanated from Sarevok but as you play out the game, or read the books, you, in turn, find out that even though this once archrival of yours had been your most bitter enemy was nowhere to help you even with the ominous characteristics he still had. This helped give me an idea to develop Orons past as being one of sorrow and negativity while helping Aurelia and although being a stern teacher, Oron meant the best for Aurelia. There were certain differences between the characters but also some similarities as well in the ways of how they displayed their care for the person they trying to help and the determination and confidence they expressed through their cold hard demeanors with Orons being more serious and Sarevoks attitude animating more of a serious but sinister malevolence.

Marvels Cosmic Hierarchy

Getting older I started to really dive into the cosmic hierarchies of Marvel. The vast powers in the universe always intrigued me as to how powerful they could become and how different beings would clash against one another. Being limited to the capabilities we have as humans always made these stronger beings look much more appealing because I knew it was physically impossible to achieve their prominence of power. Characters like Galactus or the In-Betweener from the marvel cosmic hierarchy would always possess jaw-dropping crazy abilities and crash with other beings of good or evil in the universe. I wanted to adapt powers such as this into my storyline, but I wanted to also make sure the readers knew that no matter how powerful one could seem, everything in my universe can be defeated. We might look at Oron and think that he’s a God of some sort, an undefeatable being with extraordinary abilities. But the truth is Oron could be matched by other relevant powers as well. In Marvels Hierarchy, the order of power is laid out for you to see who is the strongest and weakest of that order, although it's subject to change at times since some beings get stronger and others weaker. But what I enjoy is that even though there is an order of strength of power that doesn’t mean someone of weaker status can’t defeat another being of higher ranking. Because there are so many factors that help accumulate the ranking status of powers you are never fully solidified in that position and can be destroyed. As Marvel fans would know, we saw this when master order and lord chaos put aside their differences and joined together to destroy the living tribunal who was considered the second to the one-above-all who is the strongest entity in the marvel universe. Another example was how the Knull, the divine leader of the symbiotes, such as the one called venom from Spider-Man appeared from the multi-verse and decapitated a celestial, who were known to be some of the strongest beings in the multi-verse at the time. As much as there are hierarchies sometimes there are powers that seem to have been forgotten or hidden away to avoid detection. And even though there is a list of hierarchical power such as the one Oron is a part of you maybe never be truly undefeatable with other powerful beings that roam the universe.

Greek Gods of Old

Another form of lore that helped shaped my character Oron was the tales of the Greek Gods from Mount Olympus. The many stories and fiery battles between themselves and also the titans intrigued me the most out of the many legends they were a part of. Their supremacy and dominance over Earth and its inhabitants were similar to what I wanted to implement in how Oron was perceived. Each Greek god had a role to play in part to help civilization keep structured. They each had an array of followers, some more than others, and had cities dedicated to their names. They were worshipped and in term bestowed their blessings upon the strongest of their followers and warriors. But Out of all the gods I always gravitated towards Poseidon and Hercules the most. Poseidon’s because of the wisdom yet commanding presence the god held and Hercules because of the demi-gods valiant heart and brute strength. So, you can say these didn’t exactly correctly tie with Oron but there are similar traits from these characters and the motions of the Greek Gods that inspired some of the character traits in Oron. Although Oron is a hard-pressed individual he still flows with wisdom from the amount of experience he has gained from his years of life as Poseidon expressed through his many gatherings with other Gods and mainly Zeus. Oron’s strength seems to be unmatched and comes off as an omnipotent figure, similar to Hercules, to the people of Earth. As you read along in the novel you come to see Orons shortcomings and also weaknesses which were important for me to show. But whatever Greek God it was, even though they were far beyond mortals, they could have weaknesses emotionally and physically. You could be strong-willed and mentally equipped but even the Gods can be shaken just like when they had to battle the titans for their freedom.

Christian Biblical Hierarchy and its Powers

Growing up I was brought into a family with moderate practice of the Catholic Christian religion. Every Sunday for several years we would go to church and celebrate the name of God like a lot of other Christian families and live our lives as close to those religious morals. Needless to say, as I got older I drifted farther away from the specific ideological catholic beliefs when it came to how we were created. I still did and currently have a belief that there is some sort of greater being in the universe, but I have concluded that I have no idea what it is. For all I know it could be some greater intelligence that has no shape or form. It could be some superior alien race that decided to use humans as a test subject for their own means of biological experimentation. Or maybe we collided with other forms of substances and we weren’t the direct creation from any being at all, just a number of substances colliding together which then took billions of years to create our bacterial organisms that finally evolved into what we are today. Personally, I don’t believe in the latter of the possibilities, I think there is some sort of greater being or spirit, intelligence, or energy, whatever you want to call it, but have no idea what it is. But as I started to sway away from Catholicism the stories of the archangels and powers within the bible didn’t leave my mind so easily. Reading upon how God created the Earth and then the archangels and other stories such as Able and Kane piqued my interest. This was the foundation for the background lore of Illithesium and also my wanting to add Oron to a hierarchy of characters that belonged to the Christian religion but with my own twist. God's love with the strength of Michael and Lucifer's fallen grace would play a role in Illithesium and Oron but differently from how the bible displays it. Oron and these characters were beings of great power, yes, but they could be destroyed and were not immortal as we learned growing up in religion class. They had physical forms and could be spoken to although through a language far beyond our capabilities. Their legendary powers displayed in the bible also are showcased but in a way that it could be explained and understood in a more somewhat scientific down-to-earth method. Adding Oron to the lore of characters that I grew up reading about and knowing with adding many different featured twists was creatively fun. And the lore thickens as I’m currently writing the second book which you’ll get to see hopefully sooner rather than later.

My Love for Bodybuilding

As I mentioned up above, bodybuilding has been a part of my life since I was 18 and has allowed me to view life in a specific way. If you want results, then you need to go out and earn them by taking necessary calculated actions in order to have success. By doing this over years I build a physique I had once admired and still admire, for myself through hard work and dedication. Involving myself in bodybuilding and reading upon bodybuilders and strength lifters is what really caused me to adopt a specific look to my character Oron. Now not all my characters look as big as Oron as I want physiological diversity in my novels, but the results one can get from weightlifting and the many ways you can build your body are shown through all my characters. But the reason why I chose Oron to not only be tall and broad but heavily muscular was to give an idea of what a superior being far beyond human capabilities can look like at physical peak performance. But an even bigger and more lasting impression I wanted to leave on my readers was that even the mightiest and biggest beings have demons they have nestled inside them. The strongest of us also have skeletons in their closet they’d like to forget that always come back to eventually haunt us. It was to show that it's normal to have to face your fears and to overcome them. It was a combination of respecting the hard work and ethic that goes into building a body as bodybuilders do, whether they be natural or not, and the strength that has to be applied to overcome the adversity of everyday life obstacles, injuries, and more. And to know that a being that may be tall and strong with power none the likes have seen before can still be shattered as nothing in the universe was made to be perfect and will eventually break under certain pressure.

Last Thoughts

Oron became a staple in the Illithesium novel and to find out more you’d of course have to read up on the book to see what happens. I hope you enjoyed the character of Oron as much as I did create him and giving him life while watching him grow throughout the novel.

If you liked what you read here or have any questions, comment below or send me an email and I’d be happy to chat with you!

#adam zomparelli #oron #illithesium #illithesium: the awakening

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thecagedsong · 4 years

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Cool, so one of my fandoms is having a really bad day, and since I care about Fablehaven until this monster of a fanfic gets finished, how about some wholesome meta? I don’t really care what the drama was about, so don’t tell me. We’re all a little high strung, and I tend to take disagreements personally in a way that I’m working on, and don’t need to be involved in.

Now that that disclaimer is out of the way, who wants to talk about the Five crowns? Because I had a 14 hour car ride yesterday, listening to the second half of Evening Star and Shadow Plague, and I am so ready to let you all in on the code I cracked. I found the unifying magic diagram of the Fablehaven verse. The key to ultimate satisfaction, and if there was a magic research journal in universe, I would post this in and win the Top Magic Nerd of this Century award. My goal is to make this as accepted canon as possible, because I am ridiculously right. No characters involved, so no drama except of the scolastic kind, relying on heavy references to canon.

Ready?

SO, I made a pretty big claim. But I’ve been toying with this theory since before Dragonwatch three came out. I need some reviews before I inform Brand Mull that I’ve cracked his secret and won the game. If this symbol isn’t on the spine of the Journal of Secrets, what is even the point.

A good symbol does three things: identifies the pieces you are dealing with, helps the viewer reach a new understanding about the pieces, and map onto the cultural understandings of the audience. aka a cross with four quadrants of airplane, mitochondria, love, and toe nails is a terrible symbol. See common memes for usually pretty good symbols and graphs.

So you got five crowns right? That means you have a pentagon and a five pointed star, and the biggest trick was figuring out where each crown went, and how they related to each other.

Examine five-part belief systems, see where the crowns match, unifying symbol explains everything, move on. Easy.

NO.

You wanna know why?

BECAUSE FIVE POINTED STARS AS SYMBOLS ARE MORE WORTHLESS THAN AAA BATTERIES FOR WATCHING TELEVISION

Okay, a bit of an exaggeration, obviously they are very useful for things like organizing systems within a single body. Who functions as the head, the shield arm, the pivot foot, etc. But the point of that diagram is that they are equally important and dependent to every other part. Which doesn’t work when the different groups keep trying to break each other’s kneecaps (see b5: fairies v demons).

It also falls apart on the five-piece cultural scale. The most well-known 5-piece cultural scale is obviously the chinese elements: Fire Wood Water Metal Earth.

Now, I don’t pretend to be an expert on those at all. But it all broke down on fire, TBH. Were dragons fire? But a large point was that their breath weapons weren’t always fire. Were demons fire? Even the ones covered in sludge. Were demons earth? Was the underking earth? All I got were fairies as water, in the end. If someone wants to give that a go, be my guest.

I drew so many pentagrams trying to figure it out, and it never worked. No matter the arrangement, it never told me more about the crowns except that there were five of them. I was about to despair.

But then the muses sang: The Forgotten Crown.

(That’s the title of my thesis, btw)

Like I said, five pointed stars were trash for this system, but what if I added another crown, one that no one bothers to count, because by their nature, they can’t do anything. That’s right:

The Forgotten Crown of the Fair Folk.

The symbol slipped into place like sharp pointy things into Warren. And now I can get to the real meta after sharing this image:

Isn’t it beautiful? After I cracked this code, I showed it to my little sister. She smiled contentedly, calling it satisfying. It is so satisfying. It speaks to so many levels of understanding.

First, I depicted for you, we have the morality and the terrain triangles.

Morality triangle is the easiest, if you feel uncomfortable labeling drown-happy naiads as good and all demons as evil, congrats, thinking about the nature of good and evil is precisely what Mull was going for. Since I am suddenly one of those people, I’m going to be using the creation/destruction dichotomy, but acknowledge that both of those work.

Fairies can be most easily understood when Kendra asked the Fairy Queen what she should do with her life. She’s an unlimited fount of the Fairy Queen’s own power, allowed to do whatever she wants, and the Fairy Queen tells her to nurture life. Be fruitful, put good things in the world, help people grow. Their goal is to create, their magic is defensive, beauty is wonderful for its own sake. The better you are at respecting and nurturing life, the stronger your magic is. Dryads are responsible for the whole forest, and throughout the series they are seen as more powerful and serious than fairies, which can make the plants they interact with grow and hamadryads, who are connected only to their tree. Certainly more powerful than the petty, waterbound naiads.

Ganalus’s speech to Seth about his own nature is where you can understand demons in this world. They like to destroy and torture, they find amusement in things like plague and clipping live beings to their belts and dragging them around. They are driven by the need for more power and control. Their nature is to harm and break apart, and that has its place in this world, but we care about the stuff and people here, so mortals and fairies have got to keep these punks in check.

And of course, the Fair Folk. Here’s where this triangle gets fun. The worst of the worst gets to be Demon King, the best of the best get stronger fairy powers. That means the most neutral of the neutral get to be the leader of the Fair Folk. We’ve heard references to the main city of the Fair Folk: Selona, somewhere in Europe, and a mysterious exert that I’ve seen images of with Lord Dagrel that I’m trying to pin down. I’m posing that their powers come from being neutral. They talk about the terrible consequences of the last time they went to war, what if it the equivalent of their fallen state, when they break their neutrality, and changes them fundamentally.

This breaks down the most, but they are the Forgotten Crown for a reason. They hold themselves apart from issues of the other crowns. No one even remembers that they have a crown, because as Seth and Celebrant have shown, who cares? They aren’t going to do anything about it. Everyone collectively forgot/don’t care about them. But their abilities are equal in strength to the others, but different in use, and less valued by those who have battles to fight. Their neutrality puts them exactly between good and evil, creation and destruction. They take the choice not to act, and there is power there too.

Next is the Terrain Creatures.

Sky giants control the sky, obviously. Thronis and his ability to control the weather, their height, while their feet are on the ground, far as we know, everything important happens in the sky.

Underking gets under the ground, again, obvious. Different from the other two points of the terrain triangle in that there is a lot of creature classifactions in their domain, but think of how big the surface of the earth is, underneath it, all theirs.

Dragons, they dwell in the sky and below the surface, putting them in both. Water dragons and Dromadus both primarily function beneath the surface, and their wings let them be in the sky. while not stronger necessarily than the other terrain crowns in their own domains, they are top of the food chain for the creatures living on the ground, and could probably take out the undead that venture near the surface, and I have high hopes for seeing a Sky Giant v Dragon in the next book.

Cool, we got our organization of information. We learn something about them based on their placements within the triangles. But is that our symbol? No! Symbols are different than graphs, we should be able to squeeze ridiculous amounts of meaning from them, and we aren’t done yet. The two triangles map really, really well together.

What does the placement of the two triangles together tell us about the individual components?

a WHOLE TON. This is what makes this symbol the most satisfying, the triangles create two separate categorizations of their powers and abilities, but they inform each other. The morality of the terrain beings, and the domains of morality beings.

Dragons run the whole spectrum from creation to destruction. We see a lot more of the destruction dragons, because our kids are in a war, but Raxtus hits really close to the Fairies and can heal and grow with his breath weapon. We also have wizards, who chose mortality for the ability to use magic to create. All the way to effing Navarog, honorary demon. They run every shade of the creation/destruction spectrum. We also see dragons that don’t depend on destruction because we know that there are some that agreed to behave if it meant they weren’t shoved into sanctuaries.

Sky giants, the group we know the least about, are good enough that their queen was deemed able to be the caretaker of a dragon sanctuary, so no inherent thirst for destruction and chaos. But they run the neutral side of creation, they weren’t going to step in to stop the demons, they like magic and creating from what we know of thronis, but they fit right here.

Underking - fall between neutral destruction. The underking wasn’t orchestrating the opening of the demon prison. They crave life, its a food source, but more than that, they want to endure. They might fall closer to demons in their taste for extinguishing life, but they need their wanting of life to continue existing. They might have individual prizes and desires for life, but because they depend on wanting life for their own continued existence, they will never organize themselves into taking over the world. Congrats, you’re only half as destructive as demons.

The morality on the terrain is much easier to see blatantly. Fairies have wings, but in no way do they control the sky, and they live on the ground. Demons...I’m sure some of them fly, but they tend to prefer caves like Granulas and pits like Jubaya and Kurisok. Prefer the night, though the light doesn’t harm them. Fittingly, the Fair Folk do not have the ability to fly on their own, and they live on the ground, not under it.

sO SATISFying how those fit together. Are you weeping yet? This is harmony on the organizational level.

But I claimed this was the perfect symbol, the ultimate. There is one more layer describing how every piece relates to every other piece, per the best symbols.

Opposites

This is the least defined level of interaction, and each line is unique, while still being opposite its counterpart. We’ll start with the ones we have the least information about and go from there.

Demon/sky giant: We know nothing, at the moment. They have never commented on each other, and have never interacted. Why didn’t sky giants show up to the Zzyzx party? Who knows! So I’m going to speculate here, and propose that they just really can’t stand each other’s presence. Demons stay away from sky giants, because giants are way bigger than them, and it is hard to feel powerful when you only come up to their knee, and sky giants don’t like demons because...eww, demons.

Fair Folk/Dragon: We know that there are Fair Folk at all seven dragon sanctuaries. We know that the Fair Folk were there long before the sanctuaries were created. Fair Folk neutrality let both parties trust the dragons to part of their watch. It also seems that Dragons have a very difficult time staying neutral. We’ve seen a lot of flavors of dragon, but the one flavor we haven’t seen, possibly by its nature, is a neutral dragon. The closest we came was Dromadus, who was an abstaining pacifist for two books, but kept lending help to the innocent and those aligned with the innocent. His neutrality broke literally the week someone asked him to break it.

Fascinatingly, the talents of the Fair Folk are actually the closest analog to the breath weapons of the dragons. One unique ability, can be augmented by training, can do something unique to the characteristics of the user. This is enough to make their uses of magic foils for each other in ways that they can’t be with the other races. In fact, they take human shape, their wizards act a lot like the talents of the Fair Folk.

Their final opposite string: physical appearance. Fair Folk are attractive (symetrical) humans. Dragons are hulking reptiles of scale and claw meant to let everyone who can see them know who is the top predator around. Fair folk are disarmingly beautiful.

Fairy/Underking: The dichotomy that we know the most about because it’s the one the protagonists find themselves on opposite side of. I could double the length of this post talking about these opposite foils, but this is already ridiculously long, so I’ll keep it brief. Consult upcoming thesis for full analysis.

Most obvious aspect of this line? They literally cannot co-exist, one must overpower the other. Nova Songs are consumed by darkness, while crown-fueled Kendra literally turns the undead into bones and dust. The darkness and light can’t balance like the demon cursed area + Fairy shrine stone did in Shadow Plague, there is no middle ground.

While fairies and demons make the creation-destruction spectrum, Fairy and Underking make the Life-death line. Unicorns, who have so much life and youth that lectoblixes overdose to death on them, and the undead that give up the joys light and live to continue. Because Death lasts as long as life.

And finally my favorite line of opposites, their crowns functions in exactly the opposite ways. The under-crown does not share power. It accumulates, you become one of consciousness of the crown. They swallow you up, and you will never take power from them. They will continue. Meanwhile the Fairy crown has had several owners, as identified by Risenmay in dw2. And the Fairy Crown shares magic in a way that the other crowns don’t. The fairy Queen shared her magic with Kendra, yes, but she also shared it with her husband. All the male fairies fell with the Fairy King, turning permanently into imps. Unless the Fairy Queen isn’t being honest about how that happened, that meant that the male half of the kingdom was under the authority of her husband when he fell. Which makes sense for this crown. One person can’t make a new person on their own, they have to have a male and a female genetic coding. For the crown that is all about creating and preserving life, that power isn’t meant to be wielded alone. The Fairy crown can share, can give, while the Undercrown can consume and take. They are complete opposites in this.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading through this preliminary thesis. Counterpoints, additions, and commentary are welcome. I want to flesh this out a little more before sending my transcendent, beautiful, unifying symbol to Mull and have him announce that I have officially cracked the code. Really tho, the fact that I can pull this together into a unifying symbol is pretty cool in terms of Mull’s worldbuilding.

Well...only works if he acknowledges the forgotten crown. Dragonwatch 5: the Crown of Selona. I can’t wait.

#Fablehaven #Dragonwatch #meta #five crowns #the Forgotten crown #Dragons #Sky Giants #Fairies #Underking #Fairy Queen #Demon King #Demons #Fair Folk

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rose-sunlight · 4 years

Text

Can You See The Sparks?

Pairings: Jake Peralta/Amy Santiago, Ray Holt/Kevin Cozner, Charles Boyle/Genevieve Mirren-Carter, Sharon Jeffords/Terry Jeffords

Warnings: One mention of childbirth (non-graphic)

Summary: The Squad get together for a Fourth of July party!

A/n: This is for the @b99fandomevents Summer 2020 Fic Exchange written for @impossiblyizzy! Hope you enjoy!

One thing that Jake had never known throughout his years of knowing Captain Holt and his husband: they had the biggest back yard he’d ever seen growing up in the rough parts of Brooklyn. They had a large brick patio, and their garden was surrounded by a stereotypical white picket fence. The grass was perfectly watered, and Jake knew that Kevin had probably calculated the exact amount of water his grass needed to get that specific shade of green, Jake wouldn’t expect anything less.

Upon seeing their yard for the first time in daylight, he’d immediately suggested a Fourth of July party around their house. What with the arrival of the latest Nine-Nine baby, Mac, Amy was desperate to get out of the house, meaning their tradition of going to the Peralta-Santiago household would have to be put on hold so the new parents could finally feel more—well, human.

It wasn’t that Amy didn’t want to host, Amy loved hosting parties and conversing with her colleagues, but when she had a screaming baby attached to her, wailing because the noise, or the lack of his father by their side (yes, Mac had turned into a daddy’s boy), or the lack of food being delivered directly to him. When Holt and Kevin had agreed to his suggestion, and invites had been given to the squad and their families, he could feel Amy’s tension around the holiday ease and evaporate, even after Mac had thrown up on her uniform before she left for work.

So, here they were, on the Fourth of July, surrounded by the Squad, their family members, and pets. Although most dogs had been left at home (Charles and Genevieve could not bring their six dogs through Kevin’s freshly vacuumed house). Diaz had however fought to bring Arlo, considering him as her plus one as she had no family members coming. So, on their perfect green grass that had probably cut with nail clippers, Cheddar chased after Arlo, brushing past the legs of Terry and his wife, arms slung around each other as they watched the twins and Ava play tag with Nikolaj and Iggy.

The kids careered around a large oak tree at the back of the garden, spinning around as they laughed, running back towards where Charles and Genevieve manned the barbeque, all different assortments of traditional American foods sizzling on the grill. That wasn’t all, though, as Kevin was cooking pizzas and making potato salad, cakes, casseroles and more. Kevin worked side-by-side in a comfortable silence with Rosa as she made cocktails for the adults.

“Can you pass the potatoes?” Kevin asked, quietly and without small talk. He was observant, and throughout their years of small conversations, Kevin knew all too well that Rosa hated small talk.

She passed them wordlessly, watching him as he began to chop them up for the potato salad.

Rosa hovered as she went to pick up the cocktails, turning to Kevin once more, “What made you change your mind about us?” She asked, “I mean, you hate cops.” Her mannerisms were blunt, Kevin knew she wasn’t trying to offend; she was just a very direct person, and he respected that more than he did others. He did, however, had to think about her question.

When did he start to trust his husbands co-workers? “I don’t hate the individuals. I dislike some aspects and prejudices in the system, yes, but I never hated anyone.”

“Oh.”

“If I had to pinpoint the moment my feelings around the nine-nine changed, it would be mine and Raymond’s anniversary, when Charles taught him how to cook. It was quite memorable.”

Rosa nodded “Oh,” She said again, unsure how to either end the conversation or continue it “well, I am…glad you don’t. Like, hate us, anymore.” She responded in her most sincere voice.

Kevin nodded towards the drinks on the side “Those cocktails can go on the table outside. Use coasters, though, please.”

Rosa nodded, leaving their kitchen and passing the living room, where Amy and Jake were sat with Holt, Gina, Scully and Hitchcock. Surprisingly, through the first few months of Mac’s life, Hitchcock and Scully had been surprisingly attentive towards Mac and Amy. Jake would never admit it, but Scully was responsible when it came to children, and he did feel bad that his two kids refused to talk to him since they had grown up.

Mac sat with wide eyes searching around the room, looking up at his grandpa Ray, who was bouncing him on his lap. Amy didn’t think she’d ever seen her Captain so relaxed and smiling, cooing down at the baby occasionally in between leisurely conversations with the small gathering sitting in his living room. Granted, his kind of cooing was a lot more observant than most, saying things like “did you know you have the perfect weight for your age right now? Yes, you do, McClane, you’re perfect!”. Holt and Kevin were the only ones who would call Mac by his full name, which made it personal to his grandpa and grandad (because if we don’t have separate names, Jake, how will he call for us individually?).

The food began to pile high on the outside table, and soon enough, everyone was called to eat. Specifically for this gathering, Kevin had brought a smaller table for the kids to eat at, and was enjoying watching all the kids have their own conversations at the table, most lead and dominated by Iggy, whose presence was as infectious as her mothers, who was also leading the conversation at the adults table. Kevin looked down towards Mac, who had been passed to him now, and adjusted the baby so he was more upright on Kevin’s knee, his arm wrapped around Mac’s torso protectively. Kevin smiled at the thought of Mac joining the kids table in a few years, and smiled even larger at being able to watch him grow. Raymond offered him the bowl of salad he had prepared previously, knowing he wouldn’t eat the burgers or anything that greasy. He gratefully accepted, and settled into a cycle of eating his food then paying attention to Mac.

“Oh, wait, it’s nearly seven, we need to be at the field at nine p.m.,” Amy said, nervously checking her watch

Charles, ever the time-sensitive character, began to sweat and fidget in his chair, eating his burger as quick as possible—he had wanted some more unique 4th of July food to be served, but Holt had restricted him to strictly traditional meats, “oh, uhm, it’s fine, if we leave now, we can probably make the end, right?” He turned to his partner, who took his hand and calmed him down.

Gina groaned, “Oh my god, you guys, don’t get your panties in a twist. We’ll be fine, if we’re late we can commandeer a bus or something.”

“How long does it take to get to the park?” Amy ignored Gina and directed her question to Kevin, her eyebrows furrowed.

Kevin checked his own watch “Only a seventeen minute walk. We’ll be fine, Amy.” His voice was reassuring, and so she relaxed, nodding happily. When it was time to go, Holt disappeared into their back room, digging through the things he had brought for the kids, and reaching the best fourth of July tradition—sparklers. He handed them out to the kids (with parental consent, of course,) and watched them happily hold the unlit sticks as Kevin went around and lit them.

Cagney and Lacey began to act out a wand battle worthy of being in Harry Potter, crying out curses that made Jake start to laugh too, practically begging Amy for a sparkler too. She nodded with a laugh, and watched him childishly join in with the twins in their battle.

Nikolaj and Ava, despite their five-year age gap, wrote each other’s names with the sparklers, and then began to circle and dance with the sparks, all the time being warned to be careful by their dads. Iggy was in her own world, twirling around like a princess, dancing with her sparkler like she was a ballerina preforming for the masses.

Mac watched all the pretty lights from his stroller, making grabbing gestures and watching his dad dancing around with Cagney and Lacey. Amy noticed, when she checked on him for the fifteenth time, that he was laughing, full on laughing, for the first time. His giggles were indistinguishable from those of the other kids, but she started cooing, and Mac laughed harder, looking at his dad dancing around.

“Jake!” She called out to her husband, who span around “Jake! Jake! Look, he’s laughing!” She excitedly informed him, and Jake looked to Mac, and felt his heart burst. His son was laughing at him. He’d smiled before, but at four months old, he was uncontrollably giggling.

Uncle Charles appeared, phone in hand, “Ohh! I captured the moment, Jakey, don’t worry!” He patted Jake on the back

“Thanks, Charles.”

The group set off walking to the park, the kids taking turns pushing Mac’s stroller, giving Amy and Jake a break, even if they had to make sure the stroller wouldn’t capsize.

Amy was talking with Sharon, who, throughout her journey into motherhood, had been a source of comfort. They often bonded over their experience of labour at the precinct, too, even if Sharon didn’t have to give birth there.

“You’re doing good,” Sharon reassured her, “when we had our first babies, we had almost no clue what to do. You’ve either done your research or are a complete natural.”

Gina nodded, the one and only time a compliment regarding Amy had ever slipped from her lips “Yeah, I mean, when Iggy was Mac’s age I was neck-deep in barf and decaf coffee.”

Amy blushed; compliments on her parenting had become the most gratifying thing to hear (other than ‘don’t worry, I’ll feed him this time’, of course). She found herself a little lost for words, but regained them fairly quickly “Well, I had younger brothers and little nieces and nephews growing up. And I read almost every book there was on…everything. Wasn’t prepared for birth, though.”

Sharon and Gina both winced “Yeah, they don’t put that in the lovey-dovey books, do they? If they did, I don’t think a single woman would want to go through that.” Sharon said

Amy could only laugh her agreement, hoping that the word ‘episiotomy’ would fall out of her memory and vocabulary one day.

When they arrived at the fireworks, the carnival was already in full swing. Terry had been bribed by all three daughter’s pleading eyes, and so far, all three had won a teddy bear (the biggest from the surprisingly easy strength test), and Terry was out a good twenty-five dollars on games and fair-rides. Gina probably had lost the same amount, although she had spent everything on the rides; Iggy never really wanted anything from the games booths, which must be a first for any child ever, Gina had tried to convince them. Charles was out much more, and Nikolaj was now a proud owner of a tiger, teddy bear, and a DIY crystal kit. He’d also been on every ride conceivable with his parents, and was currently sharing a huge wad of cotton candy three-ways.

Holt and Kevin watched as the kids came up to them after every win, proudly displaying their new item for the pair to hold while they went off to do another ride. Holt would smile, and actually mean it. After Ava dropped off her final win, a mock-forensics kit, she turned to sit in between the two of them.

“I want to be like you and daddy, Uncle Ray!” She had told him (Ava called them Uncle Ray and Uncle Kevin, because grandpa never felt right for the Jeffords family), and Holt had wrapped his arm around her and let her snuggle in close—for warmth only, he was sure.

“Really? Well, I have a few friends at the academy, Ava, I will make sure that they have a spot open for the class of twenty-thirty-six.” He said it deadpan, as he often did, but Kevin knew there was a touch of sincerity to his promise too.

“Promise?” Ava had asked, extending a gloved finger.

Holt looked at his husband, who was smiling back “Oh, I suppose I do promise.” He said, shaking her pinkie finger with his. She skipped off to tell her dad, leaving the couple alone.

Kevin laughed as Terry listened intently to Ava relaying the story, before looking to Raymond “Do you ever think about how we have managed to adopt a fully-fledged, albeit slightly delayed, adult, and somehow become entwined in others’ lives, so much so that we are now uncles and grandparents?” He asked.

Raymond pondered for a second, watching the separate families “yes, it is odd.”

“Do you ever regret not having kids….adopting them?”

“It was never allowed when we were in our prime.”

Kevin nodded, looking towards where Ray was staring Jake, grabbing Amy by the waist and kissing her softly, while still keeping one hand on the stroller, “I know. I just sometimes wonder how it would be different.”

“I do too. But, although we are late, I do think of Peralta like a son. We’ve watched him grow over these few years, from a childish boy to a grown, responsible man with a family. Who is still a childish thorn in my side, if I am honest. I think that describes having a child perfectly; watching them grow.” Raymond seemed sentimental—to anyone else, his voice remained unwavering, but to Kevin, he could sense the fondness, the same fondness that he himself carried.

“I would not change it, either.”

“I know you wouldn’t. He’s strangely ours.”

Nikolaj came running up to them, barrelling into their conversation with brazen confidence, the same type his father and mother had, “Mister Kevin! Mister Raymond! The fireworks are going to start!” He had run off as soon as he had arrived. He never called them uncle or grandpa, but that was okay, because Kevin and Holt both knew he had issues with attaching himself to others due to his past. They never asked it of him, anyway. Kevin stood up, dusting off his pants, and began to grab the various toys left with them, before parents came to try and help them out.

The squad and their families all huddled in a muddy and cold field, making sure they didn’t lose anyone in the massive crowd forming, most kids sitting on the shoulders of adults. Jake had Iggy on his, who was pulling his hair softly to direct him on where to go, all the time giggling as he obliged to her requests, before standing next to Amy.

The display was amazing, colours of red, white and blue flashing across the starry night sky canvas, painting it in different colours before sharply dissipating. The crowd would let out ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ every time something vaguely interesting happened, and Jake couldn’t help but join in, looking to Amy, whose face was perfectly illuminated in a glowing bright light. He squeezed Iggy’s hand, yelling up to her.

“Can you see the sparks, Iggy?” He was looking at Amy, who had rolled her eyes at the cheesy joke, but for Iggy the meaning was the fireworks, obviously.

“Yeah, Uncle Jake!”

Amy wrapped a hand around his waist, allowing herself to be embraced, dodging Iggy’s leg as it swung in the air “Eyes on the fireworks, Peralta.”

Jake leaned into her touch, “Baby, you’re a firework. Katy Perry, she’s always right.” Amy giggled, but it was drowned out by another loud boom. Mac had big ear protectors on, but his eyes still flickered across the sky. Amy’s heart swelled again, her family surrounding her as the fireworks spurred on.

She was so glad that they were invited to Holt and Kevin’s. This was just perfect.

Little did they know, Holt and Kevin had already decided between themselves to make this a tradition to carry on for decades.

masterlist| submit a request here

#brooklyn nine nine #peraltiago #ray holt #jake x amy #jake peralta #amy santiago #peraltiago fanfiction #peraltiago fanfic #b99 summer 2020 fic exchange #b99fandomevents

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eternitas-archive · 4 years

Text

Oh one more thing before I leave

It’s just my two cents but I really gotta speak it into the world.

This is gonna be LONG so here have a read more

You all are hypocritical cherry pickers that want fandoms and communities to cater to your interests and morals

And let me tell you honey, that is gonna ruin not only your own experience, but everyone elses.

Lemme adress some things

Why y’all so ready to cry wolf when someone ages up a character?

The discourse is probably as old as this fucking community. It happens every other month and I am sick of it. “If you age up characters you are a pedo uvu sorry I don’t make the rules.” yes you do. You literally made up your own fucking rules about this. “Well you are shipping with a minor!” they’re aged up. “But you still ship with a minor!!”

Okay by that logic, why are we allowing all these other shippers doing their thing? The people that ship with Sans from Undertale that is a skeleton? I mean he is still just a skeleton linking him strongly to the image of death so necrophilia much?

What about the people shipping with inanimate objects? The people shipping with transformers? Those are aliens and or vehicles? Yeah that is mechanophilia.

What about people who ship with f/os that have animalistic features? I mean they are mainly antropomorphic but they still are animals. Beastiality

“No wait that is all dif-”

How about the people shipping with villains and criminals? Clearly that means they endorse that shit irl.

What about the people that ship with people MUUUCH older than them? some millenia or hundreds of years? or just 20? clearly endorse predatory behavior

While we’re at it what’s up with people shipping with divine beings? Angels? Demons? Sounds like blatant blasphemy to me

Do I want you to double down so you can prove yourself right? NO! I want you to understand that you guys are cherry picking and not understanding correlation between topics! Are there legit pedos on tumblr? yes. is it a strangers job to care for all the minors out there? no? If I go into a park it is not my job to hold an eye out for all kids that there are. I am not their parent, guardian or otherwise a person with any responsibility towards them. Same for people on the internet. I will do my shit and keep to myself. and if I happen to enjoy stuff for myself that is my right. Do I halt at a red light bc I want to be a good example for kids so they don’t learn bad behavior? Can I stop every person that crosses a red light and hold them a long ass lecture about how they endorse dangers in the streets? No.

“But there are minors on the internet!” Yes, I am aware, they will always be, always have been, your point?

“We need to make a safe space for the kids!” No we don’t? people need to follow the Terms of Service of a platform and honestly most people that reblog nsfw stuff even clearly state that minors should not interact.

“No like, YOU need to be on your best behavior bc there could be a minor anywhere!”

Since when did I become these minors parent? Since when did someone push these kids into my lap and say “your responsibility now”?

You need to understand that you can’t always just get upset at stuff EXISTING

nsfw fics are usually tagged and marked accordingly, most people that engage in a lot of nsfw stuff usually have “minors don’t interact” on their blog somewhere. Some even BLOCK people that follow them and are clear minors, that’s some DEDICATION.

But I have seen posts catering to FUCKING WRITERS saying “pls keep nsfw out of ur imagines and reader fics :)))) for the minors, otherwise I cant reblog it.” If you want to cater to your minor audience sure, but I can not stress enough how you can not tell others how to run their shit. Yes, you can suggest that to the imagine writers or writers in general but it is their right to say “no I run it like I want to” and proceed with their shit. And there is nothing you can do about it. Besides if minors really want some nsfw, trust me they WILL find it. Should we therefore police everyone and stuck them into horny jail? No.

“haha look at this lame ass adult getting upset they can’t be predatory anymore bc they are being called out on their pedophilia”

Idk how to tell you that it’s none of your fucking buisness what my personal history is and that you have no claim outside of “aging up is pedophilia” but sure go off, bc I am “upset I can not be predatory” anymore and not just outraged people are throwing around unreasonable claims.

Why would I even age up a character if pedophilia is about being into MINORS? Why would I age a character up if the WHOLE THING about pedophilia is that they are kids????

“Okay but then it’s predatory!” There is a point that depictions of an adult dating someione who is “barely legal” normalizes predatory behavior, but honestly, why is that MY responsibility? And who says I age them up to be barely legal? My social media/tumblr/ selfship experience is a very private thing. It’s a very personal thing, so why tf do I need to cater it to people who are NOT ME? When I do that it’s because I want to do it, not because I need to fill some moral obligations. (and yet I can say that YES caring about lgbt, other religious, non white selfshippers and boosting them is something generally people should do)

Like there is a thing about fiction. It doesn’t age like normal people. When I started to love one of my f/os we were the same age. The series eventually ended, it didn’t progress in real time, so I grew up while they stayed their age. And guess what! none of this backstory is any of your god damn buisness!! I don’t OWE it to you as much as writers and others don’t owe their trauma to you just so you can “give them permission” to deal with their trauma through selfshipping or writing. Who do you think you fucking are?

Fiction is not reality. And I am sick being stuck in medevial dark ages europe where people believed everything on a stage to be real life. Where actors were not allowed to exist and the people that did act and depicted a bad guy were generally shunned and hated by everyone bc they didn’t distinguish between fiction and reality.

Does fiction have an effect on reality? Yes. Jaws had repurcussions. Even the german novella “Die Leiden des jungen Werthers” had about a dozen suicides following the lead of the main character. 50 shades had an effect. 13 reasons why had an effect. But that doesn’t mean what you believe it means.

In the end I can not take the role of these minors parents to educate them and look after them. It shouldn’t be my job. And yes there are a lot of scummy adults on the internet. Like a LOT. But you need to understand that the internet will NEVER be a child safe place. And most adults take precautions already!

But fics aren’t for morality lessons. Fics aren’t for sex education. Fics aren’t there to be a fucking HOLY BOOK. Fics are just creative writing. And selfshippers are just there to have a bad time. And if they act out SURE call them out but otherwise just leave them tf alone?

“No no, what you write is what you actively endorse uvu”

Then say good bye to Horror and thriller. Say good by to books involving cheating. Say good bye to books in which anyone ever gets harmed. Say good bye to books ever even mentioning any problematic topic that isn’t 100% uwu pure

“Wait no that is different-”

How is it? Is it only problematic when you get off of it? Is that your argument? Are we going the christian route of condemning being sexually free and enjoying something that is legit a very important thing to a lot of people? (yes to asexuals their LACK of sexual attraction can also be a very important topic bc they have the right to express that without being condemed for not wanting to BONE or not being able to get horny by looking at bodies.)

Yes the over fetishization of certain topics is problematic, yes there is a lot of toxicity when it comes to porn and that shit, but kinks are just kinks.

“So you say pedophilia is just a kink!”

No. Pedophilia is aweful and no child should ever suffer through that sort of exploitation.

“But you say rape is just a kink!”

No. Real life rape is aweful and whoever rapes another human being deserves death full stop.

“You just said-”

YES! I know what I said! A lot of people hate real life stuff that they endorse in fiction. Some people are into pissing and shitting into each other! Some people are into hardcore bondage! And they all have their own histories, their own lifes and it’s their fucking thing? Do I want death on all rapists? Yes. Do I sometimes have questionable fantasies that might involve non con or dubious consent? Yes, so? Do I have my reasons for that? Yes, it’s none of your gd buisness?

It all always boils down to entitlement. Y’all need to understand that you can’t just run around demanding everyone to cater to your bullshit. You can not run around accusing people of pedophilia just because they would like to see themselves date a fictional character, but in their age.

If it makes you uncomfortable then don’t follow and interact with those people but you don’t need to pretend to have some moral high ground so you are the better person. You can just... have dislikes?

Even so, as I make this post I can not speak in broad terms because each case, each person is individual. Maybe some get off on shit and endorse it, how should I know? Maybe someone out there is fighting for not policing and censoring stuff because they actively want more pedo content, I don’t know, I am not the CIA or FBI?

It’s also none of my buisness. Is it aweful that these people exist? yeah. Are they prone to be on tumblr? probably? Are they that selfshipper that ages up their f/o so they can smooch? Unlikely.

People have their reasons. Their backstories, and none of that should have to be layed open just to get a strangers “okay” for shipping with the fictional character that makes them happy.

so uuuh before I leave

tldr: y’all full of shit and aging up is not pedophilia, you are just trying to give yourself some moral highground. you sound like a flatearther lol.

Gates closed, bitches

#and with that I abandon this sideblog for good. gbyeeeeee y'all insufferableeeeeee #except for aurora #she is a sweetheart and i support her

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marvelouscaptainrogers · 5 years

Text

Teachers and Lovers

Requested?: Yes

Summary: Reader and Bucky are called in to teach some teen aspiring SHIELD recruits for a week. One students question brings up a confession between the two. That confession leads to an evening together, where they learn each others bodies, kinks, and weaknesses.

Warnings: NSFW!!! 18+. Basically porn with a plot. Smut. Swearing. Daddy kink. Unprotected sex. Dom! Bucky. A lot of talk about cum tbh.

Characters: Bucky x Reader

“Good lord. It’s too early for this shit.” You mumble, sipping your coffee from your chair behind the desk. Bucky is stood behind you, his back against the blackboard as he chuckles.

“Come on, Agent Y/L/N. You’re excited to be a teacher aren’t you?” He Asks. With a dramatic eye roll, you turn to look at him.

“Hardly... Why the hell am I here again? Couldn’t Steve come do this? Jeez.” You say, guzzling more coffee.

It was a quarter past 8 AM, and you were in a new classroom designated for teaching aspiring SHIELD recruits over the summer. You weren’t going to be doing it full time, just until Agent Hill was fully recovered after being injured on a mission. You’re set to be doing it for a week.

Tony knew how much trouble you and Bucky could get into if you were left alone for more than ten minutes, so he thought it was a terrible idea leaving you both in a room with twenty-something teenagers under your watch, but Steve of course is the shot-caller. He knows you and Bucky are rambunctious and mischievous, but he also knows that you both are two of the highest trained individuals on the team, you being trained in the red room, and Bucky being trained by Hydra. Steve had no doubt in his mind that you both were the perfect fit for the job.

“Ouch. Am I really that bad, doll? Come on. You get to hang out with me for eight hours a day, every day this week. Aren’t you excited?” He asks, pinching your cheek playfully. You swat his hand away, giving him a death glare.

“It’s not you that I’m bothered by. Whoever thought it was a good idea to put me in charge of a bunch of kids should probably be fired.” You say.

“Well, first, it was Steve’s idea and he’s in charge. I don’t think he can fire himself, doll. Second, you wanna know why you were his first choice?” Bucky Says. You turn your gaze to him, brow quirked questioningly.

“He said, and I quote, you don’t put up with any BS from rowdy teens, and he knew you’d be the best at the discipline side of things,” Says Bucky.

“Okay. I can understand that. So if I’m handling the discipline side of it, what side are you handling?” You ask with a laugh.

“Me? Well, I am here for moral support first and foremost. And more than that, I’m gonna let you be the bad guy, whip these kids in shape, then I can have some fun.” He says with a smile. You scoff in response, smacking his arm playfully.

“I see. So they’ll hate me but they’ll love you!” You say, and Bucky’s face lights up as he laughs, placing his hand on your lower back.

“Oh come on, doll. It’s not that bad. Besides, do you even care if they hate you?” He Asks.

“No. Not really. If they hate me then that means I’m doing my job.” You say, turning around and seeing all of the kids sat around in their individual desks, laughing and socializing.

“Okay. What time is it... 8:30? Let’s get this show on the road.” You say, placing your coffee on the desk and standing up.

“Alright guys lets-...” You start, not even being heard over the loud voices of the kids. You roll your eyes, glancing at Bucky, who is smirking deviously.

“Oh. Here she comes... Here comes the she-devil...” He says, his voice coming out in a sing-song type of tone. You shake your head with a laugh, turning back to the kids.

“HEY! THIS AIN’T SOCIAL HOUR! Class starts at 8:30! When that clock hits 8:30, you’d better be dead quiet, and have all of your supplies out, ready to get to work. Am I clear?” You Ask. The classroom was so quiet you could hear Bucky quietly laughing behind you, his hand hiding his face.

“I asked, are we clear? I ask, you answer. That’s how that works.” You say.

“Yes ma’am!” They all reply simultaneously.

“Good! That’s what I like to hear. I’m Agent Y/L/N, and this is my co-teacher, Sergeant Barnes.” You say with a smirk as you look over at him. A smile graces his features at the familiar old name.

“We’re gonna be your teachers this week until Agent Hill gets back. Let’s jump right in and get through roll call, then we can get started.” You say. Each student raises their hand as they call out ‘here!’, and you mark off each as you go.

“Peter Park-... Oh for fucks sake... He’s here too? Jesus. Peter Parker?” You call out, hearing no response.

“I don’t think he’s-“

“Sorry I’m late! I’m so sorry!” Peter yells, running through the door frantically. He hands you a slip of notebook paper.

“H-Hi, Agent Y/L/N. I’m so sorry. Mr. Stark had-“

“I’m gonna stop you at ‘Stark’, just sit down Peter. Please don’t be late again.” You say. He nods quickly, shyly waving a Bucky as he makes his way to his desk.

After roll call is finished, you put those papers aside, and your eye catches on one girl in the middle of the class with her hand raised. You look at her as Bucky hands you one of the books for the class.

“Yes?” You Ask her.

“Hey so are you guys together?” She asks, pointing to you and Bucky. You’re taken aback by the brazenness of the question. Bucky scoffs behind you, looking at you, then back to the younger girl.

“I wish.” He Says. Your stomach fills with butterflies as you quietly giggle.

“Your name was Sarah, right?” You Ask.

“Yes ma’am.”

“Well, no. We are not together. Sergeant Barnes just likes to flirt... Now, no more questions unless it’s about something in this book. Let’s get started.” You say, flipping open the handbook and getting the lesson going.

A few hours later, the academic part of the class was over, and it was time for the training portion, for which you all headed outside to the track.

“Okay! First things first, if you’re gonna be kicking ass for long periods of time, you’ve got to have good stamina. So, to get that, you’re gonna start with ten laps. After that, you get a water break before we move on to the next exercise. Let’s go!” You yell. The kids all start running the track, some of them starting off fast, some starting with a jog. Meanwhile, you and Bucky are stood over to the side, leaned against a brick wall. Both you and Bucky are sporting your favorite sunglasses, keeping the sun out of your eyes as you talk.

“So, ‘I wish’. What was that about?” You ask with a laugh. Bucky smirks over at you, then turning back to face ahead of him.

“You know exactly what it was about.” He Says. His metal arm brushes against your flesh one, sending chills all over you, even though it is hotter than sin outside.

“No. No actually I don’t. I’m gonna need you to explain it to me.” You say. He lets out a laugh, his eyes moving to focus on you once more.

“Any straight guy would break his back to get with you, doll. You’re every man’s wet dream. So yeah, I wish we were a thing. But, I know you like your freedom and whatnot so-“

“Hold on, what? Are you telling me you’re into me, Barnes?” You ask, pushing your back off the wall and turning your body to fully face him.

“Any guy would-“

“I’m not asking about any guy. I’m asking about you. Are you into me?” You Ask. Bucky smirks, turning his own body to face yours.

“Yes, Doll. I’m not sure how much more obvious I can be about it.” He Says. You laugh and shake your head, looking back at him.

“You have to tell me this now? I can’t kiss you here because we’ve got twenty something kids watching our every move. And we did just tell them that we’re not together.” You say.

“Yeah... Might be a little confusing if we start making out, right?” He says, smirking down at you as he moves closer. With a hand on his chest, you move away from him, even though you want nothing more than for him to push you against the wall and kiss you like his life depends on it.

“The kids, Barnes. Watch the kids. We’re working... But if you walk me to my room later, I’m sure we could work this out then.” You say, sipping your water.

“You got yourself a deal, sweetheart.”

Later on, at 4:30, class was dismissed. You and Bucky congratulated each student for doing a great job on the first day, before Bucky leads you to the living quarters.

Once the elevator gets to the right floor, you both exit and walk down the hall, approaching your door.

“So, we have no students around and no one to tell us what to do... It’s just us, all alone in this nice big hallway.” Bucky says, looking around the space before his eyes land on you. Your own eyes nearly roll out of your head as you smirk up at him.

“Just shut up and kiss me already, Barnes.” You say. Bucky’s eyes seem to turn a shade darker as he pulls your body to his, your lips coming together in a searing hot kiss. Finally.

His tongue swipes your bottom lip, and you happily allow him entrance to explore your mouth, which also gives you the chance to explore his. With his body flush against your own, he pushes your back against your door, his hips grinding against yours as your fingers move into his hair, gently tugging it. He lets out a low growl at the feeling, turning your doorknob and pushing you inside.

As soon as the door closes, you’re practically ripping his shirt over his head. As soon as his body comes into view, you shuffle on your feet, clenching your thighs a bit, already imagining how it will feel to have his bare chest pressed against your own. Bucky moves closer to you, placing his hand on your jaw as the pad of his thumb swipes your bottom lip.

“My pretty girl. You already look so wrecked and I haven’t even touched you yet.” He says, his fingers moving from your face, down the column of your throat, and over your collar bones. You close your eyes, letting yourself get lost in the feeling of his touch.

All is calm until the loud sound of ripping fabric fills your ears, making you gasp as your eyes fly open. He had ripped your shirt straight down the middle, pushing it off your arms to let the torn article hit the floor. You feel the pink in your cheeks travel down your neck and chest, turning you completely flushed as your breathing grows shallow. Bucky’s gaze has now darkened completely, his hands resting on your bare waist.

“Tell me what you want, baby. You gotta talk to me.” He says, leaning in to suck and nibble at your neck. Your hands rest on his biceps, feeling both the flesh and metal moving beneath your fingers.

“I... I want you, Bucky.” You stutter. You can already feel him smirking against your neck, his teeth sinking into the flesh there, eliciting a hiss from you before he licks and sucks at the area, soothing the sting. He quickly picks you up by your hips and throws you on the bed, catching you off guard. When he crawls back on top of you, his lips are on yours in a second. Parting your legs with his hands, he lays his body between them, and doesn’t hesitate to grind his denim covered member against you. The friction you received was only the slightest bit satisfying, but you couldn’t help the small whimper that fell from your lips.

“God you’re perfect. I can’t wait to taste you baby.” He says, leaving open mouthed kisses all over your chest. When you feel the cold metal of his hand sliding under your back, it elicits a gasp from you. The temperature contrast between his hands is leaving your senses in a whirlwind.

Once he unclasps your bra, you pull it away from your frame and drop it to the floor. Almost instantly, his hands are going up your ribcage, cupping your breasts and massaging them.

At this point, your body is practically crying for more. So much that you fear you may start crying if he doesn’t do something.

“Bucky, please. I need you so bad.” You whine.

“Shhh... Patience baby. I’ll give you what you need.” He says, before leaning down and taking your nipple between his lips. Your back arches almost instantly, feeling his tongue swirling around and flicking the bud as he softly sucks on it. As he releases it, he leans down and gives it a tiny bite, winking and smirking at you as he does, then switching to the other nipple, giving it the same treatment.

As his lips are still wrapped around the pink bud, he grinds his hips against you, hard. Letting you feel the shape and size of his erection even through his jeans and your own.

“Daddy!” You moan, the term falling from your lips almost effortlessly. Bucky pulls away from your skin, looking at you in shock of what you just said.

“Run that by me again, princess. I don’t think I heard you right.” He says with a smug look on his features.

“Daddy...” You say quietly, almost a whisper.

“Ah ah ah. A little louder for me, baby. Let me hear it.” He Says.

“Daddy, please!” You moan. With that, Bucky let’s put a deep, dark chuckle, that you’d swear nearly made your ovaries burst into flames.

“Oh, kitten... You want daddy’s cock? Huh? You want daddy to fuck you and give you my load?” He Says, all the while his fingers are undoing your belt and jeans.

“Fuck daddy, please!” You whine. Bucky pulls your jeans down slowly, pressing his lips to your belly.

“I need you to say it baby. Tell me you want me to fuck you. Tell me you want my load.” He says, finally dropping your jeans to the floor. He settles your legs over his shoulders, his lips trailing over the soft skin on your inner thigh.

“Yes! I want you to fuck me! I want you to cum inside me daddy, please!” You whine. Bucky bites his bottom lip as he moves his mouth maybe a centimeter away from your slit. He inhales a deep, quiet breath. The act of him smelling you seems so taboo, so utterly filthy, and you know your juices must be dripping onto the bed at this point.

“God baby you smell so fucking good. Want me to taste you?” He Asks. You’re so deprived at the moment that all you can manage to get out is a long, ‘mhmm’ in response.

“Pull these legs back baby, hold them for me. Let me see this pretty pussy.” He says. With those words, your skin turns a bright pink, and your core clenches. Your whole body feels like you’re lying in a bed of hot embers with the way your skin is heating up.

You don’t hesitate to quickly pull your legs back, your knees almost touching your chest as your hands hold them in place.

“Fuck. There you go, princess. God you look so good like this. Spread open and ready for my cock.” He says. Finally, after what feels like ages to you, his mouth attaches to your clit, sending shivers over your entire body as your eyes roll back into your head.

“Daddy! Oh my... Fuck! Fuck yes!” You scream. Bucky is looking up at you, with his cock so hard against the restraints of his jeans that it’s becoming painful.

Seeing you completely spread open and ready to do whatever he tells you has opened up something completely primal within him, and he hopes that you don’t ask him to stop, because he’s not sure if he can.

“Daddy! More! Please more!”

Bucky moves his metal arm from the back of your thigh, to your soaking hole, slipping a thick, cold metal finger inside you. Having your legs pulled back allows him to find your g-spot pretty much the second he glides his finger in.

The sound of him slurping and sucking on your cunt only turns you on more. He goes from sucking on your clit, to viciously flicking his tongue over the little bundle of nerves. When he adds a second finger, you pretty much know you’re done for.

“Daddy! G-Gonna cum!” You scream. Bucky hums against you, wordlessly telling you to let go, and once his fingers curled inside you, that’s exactly what you did. Your nails sink into the back of your quivering thighs, and your head falls back against the pillows. Your eyes flutter closed as the heat in your core spreads over your entire body.

Bucky licks, sucks, and fingers you through your high. Once your moans start growing a little quieter, and your hips start to move away from him, he slows his ministrations, removing his fingers from you and giving a few soft kitten licks.

Once he comes up, he’s caught off guard when your fingers wrap around his metal wrist, bringing his fingers up, and you wrap your lips around them. This time, it was Bucky’s turn to feel the chills going up his spine, watching you gazing up at him and cleaning your cum off of his fingers.

Once you’re satisfied with the cleanliness, you release his wrist, and he moves on top of you, kissing you deeply. He nearly moans when he feels your fingers fumbling with his belt, finally getting it open with only a little struggle seeing as you’re not looking. You then undo the button and zipper. Just that bit of extra room is a relief for Bucky, but when he feels your soft, delicate fingers slip inside the waistband of his boxers, his breath hitches in his throat. You wrap your hand around him, and you’re stunned by his thickness.

“Daddy... You’re so fucking big.” You whine against his lips. He smirks down at you, nearly groaning when your thumb brushed over his tip.

“Yeah? You want daddy’s big cock in this pretty pussy?” He asks, every word sounding like poetry from his lips.

“Yes! Please!” You moan. Bucky pecks your lips once more before sitting up, and quickly ridding himself of his last two articles of clothing.

You could tell by feeling him that he was huge, but fuck. Seeing him fully nude, chiseled torso, thick muscular thighs, sculpted arms, both flesh and metal, He was perfect. When he started stroking himself with his flesh hand, you nearly let out a moan. It was better than watching porn.

“Ready for me, princess?” He asks, settling between your legs and gently running his tip over your clit.

“Yes daddy! I’m so ready for you! Please fuck me!” You moan. Bucky feels just how ready you are, seeing you wetness coating his tip as he teases you.

“Who does this pussy belong to baby?” He Asks. The words nearly get stuck in your throat. Bucky doesn’t like the hesitation in your answer, so he decides to take his teasing even further, slipping just his tip inside you, before pulling out and doing it again.

“Come on baby. Answer me. Who does this pretty pussy belong to?” He Asks.

“You, daddy! This pussy is yours! Just please!” You scream.

Satisfied with your answer, Bucky wastes no time before guiding his cock past your entrance, your soaking walls wrapping around him perfectly.

“Daddy! Oh fuck! Your cock feels so good! Daddy, please!” You scream.

“Fuuuuck. You’re so god damn tight, princess. Do you hear how wet you are baby?” He Asks. After he mentions it, you start to notice the audible squelch every time he moves deeper inside you. The sounds only turn you on more, making you even more of a mess than you already were as he bottoms out inside you.

“Fuck. You’re such a good girl for your daddy. You take my cock so well.” He says, finally pulling his hips back, and quickly snapping them forward.

“Ahhh! Daddy!” You scream, your nails dragging down his chest.

“You want it slow? Or do you want it hard?” He asks, pressing a soft kiss to your chest.

“Hard. I want it hard, daddy.” You moan. Upon getting your answer, Bucky pulls your legs over his shoulders for the second time this evening, and he starts ramming into you.

“Oh my god! Daddy! A-Ahhhh!” You scream. You can feel him so deep inside you. When he presses his hand to your lower belly, he hits your g-spot with striking accuracy, and you’re not sure how he could possible expect you to hold on. He feels too good, and he’s hitting every spot just right. Your eyes flutter closed as your head rests against the pillows.

“No baby. Look at me. I wanna see you. Let me see those pretty eyes baby. You’re such a good girl for your daddy. You look so beautiful when you’re getting fucked.” He says, resulting in a long whine from you.

“Daddy! Oh god! Fuck! I-I can’t! I’m gonna c-cum!” You scream. Bucky lets out a deep groan, fucking into you deeper and faster.

“Do it, baby. Cum on daddy’s cock. Let me feel it.” He says, his voice coming out a few octaves lower than usual.

With Bucky’s permission, you can’t hold back your second orgasm no matter how hard you tried. Your body was far too wound up, and Bucky knew it. When he felt your walls fluttering and tightening around him, he nearly fell into his own release, but no. He wasn’t finished with you yet, but when he saw the layers of your cum covering his cock, he had to slow down, both to let you come down, and to fight of his own orgasm that was threatening to approach.

“D-Daddy... Fuck.” You moan, coming down from your high. Bucky pulls out of you slowly, kissing your trembling thighs before moving them off of his shoulders and laying them back on the bed.

“Are you okay baby?” He asks, leaning on to kiss your jawline.

“Mhmm.” You mumble, your soft hands moving over his chest.

“More, daddy.” You keen. Bucky beams down at you, amazed at how fucked out you are, but you’re still asking for more.

“You want more, princess?” He asks, sucking on your collar bone as you nod.

“C’mere.” He says, rolling onto his back and pulling you to straddle him.

“You wanna ride daddy’s cock?” He Asks. He gets all the answer he needs when a playful giggle escapes you and you grind your soaking pussy along his length.

“Yes daddy.” You reply.

“Fuck. Do it, baby. Ride me.” He says, gripping your hips in his hands. He lifts you up, and he watches you take him between your fingers, lining him up before sinking down on him, the wet heat of you welcoming him once more.

“Oh god... Daddy.” You whine, your clit pressing against the neatly trimmed patch of hair at his base. You grind your hips on him a few times before leaning forward, your hands pressing into his chest as you start rocking your hips onto him. Bucky looks down to where you’re connected, groaning at the way his cock glistens when it’s covered in your wetness.

“Fuck, princess. So good. You like riding your daddy’s cock?” He Asks, one of his hands leaving you for only a moment, before landing a hard smack on your ass. He feels your hips tremble against him when he spanks you, and you let out a loud moan.

“You like it when I spank you baby?” He asks, his hips coming up to thrust into you in perfect time with your movements.

“Yes daddy! Spank me again!” You scream. Bucky has no problem giving you what you want, landing another hard smack on your ass.

“God! Fuck! Daddy! Oh my... Ahhh!” You scream. Bucky feels his orgasm fast approaching, leading to him taking matters back into his own hands.

He removes your palms from his chest, pulling your body down against his as he digs his heels into the bed, and starts fucking into you hard, fast, and deep. Bucky watches your face, mouth agape, eyes half closed, and your skin tinted pink and covered in a thin sheen of sweat. He watches you reach you hand between your bodies, rubbing fast circles around your clit as your head falls onto his shoulder.

“D-Daddy! G-Gonna... FUUUUUCK!” You scream, as the heat in your pussy returns for the third time, your nails dragging down his chest.

Bucky feels your body tensing in his arms, and your cunt clamping down on him. He knows it won’t be long for him either.

He knows you’ve finally started to come down when your moans are replaced with whines and whimpers, and you start sucking on his neck.

“Daddy, please. Please cum inside me. I wanna feel it.” You say. Bucky wraps his arms tighter around you, groaning as his thrusts grow sloppy. When he feels your lips against his ear, he knows he’s done for.

“Please daddy. Fill my pretty pussy with your cum.” You whisper. Bucky releases with a loud groan, burying himself in you to the hilt, and painting your insides with thick ribbons of hot cream.

“Daddyyyy...” You whine, slowly moving your hips on him as he empties his load inside you.

“Fuck baby. Oh fuck...” He says, watching as his cum drips out of you, and covers his length.

“Oh fuck baby. You’re dripping. Oh my god.” Bucky Says, his hands gripping your thighs, as he watches you move slowly on top of him.

“Mmm. Feels so good...” You whine, sinking all the way down onto him to finish him off.

“Holy fuck... You’re a fucking goddess, baby. Shit.” Bucky Says, earning that same playful giggle in response as you slowly pull off of him, and remnants of him start dripping from your soaking walls, onto his lower belly.

“Oh fuck baby. You look so good with my cum dripping out of you.” He says, watching as you swipe your finger across his belly, collecting the cream on your finger and bringing it to your mouth, tasting the beautiful combined taste of both you and him.

“Jesus fucking Christ. With this view, you’re about to get me hard again, princess.” He Says. He hears you giggle, before leaning down, kissing his lips.

“Good, then you can fill me up all over again, Daddy.” You say. A deep growl rumbles deep in Bucky’s chest as he rolls you over onto your back.

“If you want it, princess, then you’ll get it.”

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