#parched rivers run

[rmeow]

commission art for @ totos_headset on twitter

fanfiction Parched Rivers Run by skadii on ao3

#ff7 #ffvii #cloud strife #zack fair #zakkura #crisis core #clack #ff7 remake #ffvii zack #parched rivers run #prr

[idlenight]

I'm curios- what are the reasons from the demo that you like hg? It can be under the cut if you want to avoid people getting spoilers!

I will use any excuse to blab about HG, you are an enabler anon.

WARNING: Public Revelations Demo spoilers (for route 4.2) under the cut

Secondary warning of a LOT of text lmao.

hgsib variable.... i am obsessed w/ u.

You are Hollow Ground. You wake up in the middle of the night because you're a little parched. You untangle yourself from your polycule to go to the kitchen and get a drink.

There, sitting on your kitchen counter, is the villain that had previously refused to show up to the meeting you invited them to and send their assistant instead. They are in full armor, you are in your robes (a little underdressed for this meeting).

They offer you a cup of your own coffee that they just made.

Personally? I would be alerting my bodyguards polycule to the intrusion. But no HG just, rolls with the punches. I respect that.

But to get into the actual nitty gritty and the Connections(tm) to sidestep, focusing on the friendly + mind conversation because that's what I saw in my run.

In the friendly conversation where sidestep takes their helm off you get so much insight into HG's relationship with their sibling.

"Believe it or not," you start, *if ((suit_terrifying) or (hgterrified))   realizing how absurd this must sound, "I do believe it will be more advantageous to work together than be enemies." "You have certainly proven that you would be a bad enemy to have," Hollow Ground admits. *if hgreveal   "And I'm glad you're being sensible about this." The smile is real, as is the relief.   *if hgmind     "I wouldn't want us to be at odds. Not now."

a boss or hunter also gets this piece of dialogue that im unwell about:

  "Oh I know exactly who would," Hollow Ground says, voice sharper than it has been so far tonight. "Lord Ember. That San Francisco fuck has been making moves on my territory. I wasn't sure if you were one of his plants until tonight."   *if hgreveal     ${hghis} ${eyes} meet yours. Certainty. You're on ${hghis} side in this.

'Certainty. You're on [their] side in this.' <- homie immediately willing to believe step is on their side because they're probably his sibling, why wouldn't they be?

With a thief step, this dialogue comes up

  "Sometimes I can't be bothered though." You stare ${hghim} down, seeing how much leeway you have with your little stunt. "With the whole research thing. Is that going to be an issue?"   "You..." Hollow Ground groans.   *if hgmind     "You really haven't changed one bit, have you?"   *elseif hgreveal     "This feels far too familiar."

and the mindtalk + being defensive:

    "So what?" Your tone matches ${hghis}, because you have never once backed down from an argument. "Are you seriously surprised?"     "I shouldn't be, you always were a little shit." The words are out, flat on the table between you, coins not heads or tails but on the edge, spinning freely.

HG's youngest sibling confirmed to have been a little shit. (this dynamic was made for River 'born to be a shithead little brother' Becker fr fr)

Although my favorite part of the mind talk is this:

  *selectable_if (protected) #"You saved me," I gasp, focusing on that. "Why?"     "You saved me," you gasp, trying to swallow the taste of blood and drowning. "Why would you do that?" $!{hghe} must have known what you were trying to do. You're not sure if Hollow Ground is a telepath, but there is some form of mental powers at play here, that you could feel. Something...     "Hell if I know," ${hghe} @{hgsv lies|lie} and you know that now. Can taste the lie, not because your minds are entangled but because you can see it in ${hghis} eyes.     *if hg_relationship = "dangerous telepath"       "I should have let you drown like last time."       "But you didn't," you retort, wiping your mouth. "You know something."     *else       "Liar," you retort, wiping your mouth.

"You don't know?" You can sense the disbelief, ${hghis} eyes narrowing. "Fuck. Of course. That makes sense. Too much sense." "No it doesn't," you protest. "Do you remember anything?" Hollow Ground leans forward, too insistent now, almost reaching out to touch. You lean back, putting space between you despite the protection of your armor. "About what?" Why are you the one being interrogated? What did you see in there? What did you feel? "Your childhood." The words land heavily, and you almost laugh. As if you were ever a child.

The way that i am obsessed with ["dialogue" he lied] in texts. ALso ugh, HG leaning forward, wanting to touch sidestep. To make sure they're real? to comfort them? to comfort themself? They want sidestep to be their sibling so bad, need it to be true.

In fact is sidestep dismisses it (our memories got entangled. it's nothing more than that), then HG begs them to answer the question anyway, and are very clearly unwilling to let it go even though they won't force the answer because they're at a disadvantage.

  #"No," I say, which is technically not a lie. "Why?"     "No," you say, which is technically not a lie. No childhood unless you count being newly decanted, fumbling your way through the world before your memory implant. "Why?"     "Because you remind me of someone." Hollow Ground looks directly at you, eyes narrowing. "Someone who I thought I had lost long ago. Someone who should be dead."     "Some people don't stay dead forever," you joke with your grimmest smile, but ${hghe} @{hgsv takes|take} it the wrong way, eagerly leaning forward.     "Could it be...?" A pause, ${hghis} fingers tapping nervously against the table. "You would have been in your early teens. There was an... attack. They called it an accident, but nobody was fooled. You had been arrested, they said you suffered an overdose. They never let us claim the body, so I always figured it was police brutality. Didn't want us to see the evidence. I never thought there was a chance that you were alive?"

You can feel the hope radiating from ${hghim}. An old wound, reopened. Someone who loved ${hghis} *if afab   little sister *elseif amab   little brother *else   younger sibling and is now hoping that ${hghe} had been wrong all along. That there is a chance there had been no death. No body. Just someone disappeared into the system for whatever nefarious purposes. Someone who might be sitting at the table across from ${hghim}. Maybe. Hope. The most powerful and addictive of drugs. *if (((amab) and (gender = "woman")) or ((afab) and (gender = "man")))   You know in your heart that it is wrong. Not just because you are a Re-Gene and never were a child. But because the child you saw in ${hghis} mind had been a @{amab little girl.|little boy.} And you never would have been. Not back then.

Hollow Ground loved their younger sibling, Hollow Ground hopes that they are wrong. They want to be wrong, they need to be. For a chance that their sibling can still be alive, sitting in front of them now, breathing.

I could go on but this is already long enough lmao. Thanks for coming to another one of my TEDtalks ✌️.

#fhr #fallen hero #hollow ground #fhr hollow ground #idle chatter #asks #fallen hero revelations

[eirianerisdar]

I'd love to hear something about The Ransom of the House of Fëanor! Any part of it you feel like.

Thanks for the ask!

Director's cut, from Chapter 2 of The Ransom of the House of Fëanor. For the uninitiated, The Ransom of the House of Fëanor is a canon-divergent AU set in the waning years of the Third age and the early years of the Fourth. Maglor runs east in the War of the Ring to warn Rivendell of approaching Balrogs out of the remnant of Angmar, and Elrond goes to the Ring of Doom to sue for the return of the House of Fëanor.

The following excerpt covers Glorfindel and the warriors of Rivendell fighting a losing battle at Bruinen, and Maglor's arrival.

======

The fire of the Balrogs had advanced, and Glorfindel and his companies leapt to meet it.

That had been five days ago.

Five days, and every step of ground given towards the Bruinen hard-fought; Glorfindel, his throat dry, his golden helm battered, his shield arm numb, had cleaved a Balrog’s head from its neck even as its war-hammer struck Asfaloth from under him.

He had heard Asfaloth scream, and Glorfindel’s heart had screamed with him. Glorfindel would have died then, with six orcs leaping at him curled there on the scorched grass, if his guards had not leapt in and hauled him clear.

There had been no time to grieve his faithful steed. The fire was coming.

There had been no time to grieve his faithful steed. The fire was coming.

It does not stop coming, not even now.

Most of the warriors of Rivendell are on foot now, their horses burned or killed or moved to the rearguard, even more exhausted than their riders. The Bruinen laps at Glorfindel’s ankles; they have been pushed back to the point of the ford.

He hears Lindir sing desperately beside him – young, kind-faced Lindir, who had been born after the Battle of the Last Alliance and only seen combat at Fornost as a youth.

Lindir is calling desperately on songs of old – ancient battle songs of Beleriand, which he must have only learned sung in the Hall of Fire – never with the rasp of blood between his teeth and the leaden weight of a sword in his hand.

Glorfindel raises his voice to sing with him, as do many of their ragged company, singing of star-flame and the might of the Noldor even as they are pushed back across Bruinen, even as the fires of the Balrogs send smoke to choke down the singers’ parched throats, and the song falters–

A new voice arises from the west, rich, golden and ringing with power, and the Balrogs pause at the edge of the river–

And out of the smoke and the flame and the burning trees by the Great East Road strides a figure out of memory, the light of the Trees blazing ancient from clear grey eyes, harpsong in his hands and a song of triumph on his lips.

Glorfindel would have thought he was dreaming, if the very air did not shiver to this new apparition’s voice.

Maglor son of Fëanor steps into the Bruinen beside Glorfindel as orcs flee up the curve of the northwest bank towards the Balrogs there.

“Hello,” Maglor says quite calmly. He has stopped singing for the moment, though his left hand plays ever-cascading silver notes from his harp that seem to press the flames back towards the orc-companies. “I would advise retreating to the southeast bank. The river is about to rise.”

Glorfindel stares at the golden helm, the silver scale-armour of the First Age in the style favoured by the Fëanorian smiths, and last of all at the thin-lipped mirthless smile of Maglor Fëanorion himself.

There is no time or space to think of kinslayings, of the remnant of Gondolin that had fallen to Fëanorian blades in Sirion. Glorfindel and Maglor move to the southeast bank of the Bruinen, the last of the Elven warriors scrambling wide-eyed and staring up beside them.

The first wave of orcs rally and wade into the ford, shouting foul words in the language of Sauron–

–Beside Glorfindel, Maglor tilts his head as though listening to something, a hint of pride curling at his lips–

–A roar from upstream, and Maglor, eyes aflame, raises his hand and brings it down on his harp and sings a word so powerful it sounds like thunder–

Water.

Foaming, roiling, thundering water, the river woken from sleep, flaring red and gold in the dusk light as it cleaves into the orcs at the river, burying them in foam and spray and current. Here and there in the white-capped waves the images of horses raise their heads, snorting noses and tossing manes in the maelstrom.

When the wave passes, the Balrogs on the opposite bank have retreated to the woods, standing there amongst the blazing trees with their remaining orc-host around them, watching, wary.

Glorfindel looks at the tall, dark-haired Elf beside him. He opens his mouth. Nothing comes out.

Maglor lowers his harp and smiles.

“Ahh, the horses were a nice touch,” he says. “Elrond really has outdone himself. I only added volume, you know.”

Glorfindel stares at him. The warriors around them are regrouping, seeing to the wounded, and though many stop to stare, the golden-haired captain and the raven-haired harpist stand mostly in a pocket of solitude.

“The songs said you’d faded away,” Glorfindel says after a moment. His hand tightens on his sword.

Maglor’s smile is sharp – far sharper than the last time Glorfindel had met him, Ages of the world ago at a feast in Tirion.

“I know,” Maglor says. “I wrote them. You can stop hefting your sword like I’m going to kill you now. There is no Silmaril here, and we have a common enemy.”

“Forgive me if I find it somewhat difficult to trust you,” Glorfindel says. “There are many who regret doing so. Most of them are dead.”

Maglor flinches, and Glorfindel should not be as pleased about that as he is.

The first Balrog steps out from under the trees across the river.

“I am here because the song of this Age is ending,” Maglor says quietly. “I know my wrongs cannot be changed. But I am here because I will not allow the forces of Sauron to enter Imladris. I am here because of Elrond.”

There is such a depth of sorrow and regret and longing in that last word that Glorfindel finds himself quite unable to retort. And now in this moment of quiet, he can see the exhaustion that pulls at the edge of the other’s gaze. Maglor son of Fëanor had stopped at nothing to come here, it seems.

“Come,” Glorfindel says, as the first Balrog steps into the ford, great hissing clouds of steam rising around its flaming foot. “It will be a long night, and your song will be needed.”

======

Director's commentary:

This is an example of one of my favourite techniques to use while writing large expanded set pieces: changing the camera's depth of frame and focus.

When I first planned this chapter of Ransom I considered how best to introduce Maglor, because while the introductory chapter was mostly from Maglor's POV, this section in chapter 2 comes after an increasingly desperate build-up from Glorfindel's POV as he cedes ground southwards towards Rivendell.

One thing Tolkien makes very clear in The Silmarillion is that the Elves that have seen the light of the Trees are different. The sons of Fëanor, especially, hold a part of his unshielded flame. I wanted to make Maglor's entrance hold all the significance that an Elf of his history and power could, and yet make the shadow of the kinslayings hang over this meeting. Maglor has killed Glorfindel's people in Sirion. Glorfindel knows this. But they must put that aside to defend Rivendell.

I framed this entire scene to be lit solely by the fire of the forest on the northwest bank of Brunien. Glorfindel and the warriors of Rivendell, pushed back to the Ford; Maglor, a conquering ghost striding out of flame.

The camera so far has been in a wide shot; the flaming trees, the river, the chilling demonstration of the power of Maglor's song. But the camera zooms in on Glorfindel and Maglor next; they have to work out their dynamic in a few short moments, because we as readers have to figure out their dynamic in the same amount of time, too. I approached this with a simple concept: There might be fury and bitterness and terrible memory here, but at their core Glorfindel and Maglor are warriors. Bitter and acerbic their humour might be, but they understand each other.

We also see for the first time an external POV of Maglor's motivations in the first part of this fic. He is here for Elrond. Nothing else could have brought him back into the narrative of Middle-Earth except for his son.

Glorfindel sees that. Glorfindel respects that.

And so, as the camera "zooms out" again in the next scene after this, readers understand why Glorfindel and Maglor can work so well together, and what motivates Maglor's character. This is an example of why I always find it important to frame each scene in a close or expanded view, because we get moments of character development and understanding this way.

Thanks for the ask!

Send me an ask with a scene or set of lines from any of my fics and I'll give you a director's commentary! Or, send in a ⭐star⭐ to have me select a section I've been dying to talk about!

#replies #the silmarillion #writing #fanfic #glorfindel #maglor #maglor feanorion #lord of the rings #lotr #my post #the ransom of the house of fëanor #this was a nightmare to format tumblr didn't like me indenting anything

[enby-chaos]

"The Unforseen Consequences of Resurrection"

Characters: Wilbur, Phil Word Count: 1,648

Written for @blazingstarininkyblackness for @mcytblrholidayexchange

No one warned him that revival would be painful. Though, that would have depended on someone who had been revived before to warn him. 

He hadn’t seen anyone else since it happened. Their fearful and shocked faces continued to stare at him in his mind from the manic glee he had felt. He will admit, he did get a bit carried away, but he hadn’t felt the sun in years. 

But now that glee had melted away, and had been replaced with pain. 

Wilbur wasn’t entirely sure where he was going yet, walking down the Prime Path with an aimlessness he had never felt before. It was still early enough in the morning that the roads were empty. It was just him, and the bright warm world before him. If his knees didn’t ache, he would have jumped for joy, run around and foll in the grass, breathe in the fresh air again after so long in that godsdamned train station. 

He saw the ruins of the Community House ahead, and the lake the surrounded it. That’s when he noticed the dryness of his throat. He ran for the water, kneeling at the shore to scoop a handful in his mouth. In the back of his mind, Wilbur remembered something about still water and rivers being dangerous to drink, but he didn’t particularly care at that moment. He needed water. 

He hadn’t felt relief in a long time, but quenching his thirst was the first step of many. He felt his stomach growl, empty since the moment he died, he was starved as well as parched. 

Wilbur tried stretching his wings as he stood, wincing at the stiffness. Something popped behind him, a small crack, then his left wing stretched a lot more easily. He tried doing the same to the right, rolling the joint this way and that to try and loosen it up, but to no avail. He gave up after that. 

His stomach, and his bones, continued to ache as he kept walking along the path, searching for someplace to find food. He’ll probably end up stealing from someone’s kitchen, he thought as he walked towards the castle.  

The effects death has on the human, and hybrid, bodies are well researched. The muscles of the body will relax, the skin will pale, and body temperature will cool down to room temperature. All organs and liquids within the body will sink with gravity to the lowest point possible. Rigor mortis, stiffness in the muscles, will set in mere hours after death and slowly reverse over two days.  Less researched are the effects of revival. With revival being a new and unknown concept, most do not know the inner workings. Most people, understandably, assume that the revived individual would feel perfectly fine, since the act of resurrection is a magical one. They couldn’t be more wrong. Revival cannot simply reverse the effects after death, it does not reverse time.  It is a wonder that Wilbur could walk at all, given how nine months of being laid to rest would have left his muscles atrophied beyond function. His complexion remains pale for the next few weeks, his circulatory system working to catch up while he recovers. He has almost zero body mass, most of his weight being what is left of his bones and muscles, with little to no fat. This is a man who should not be alive.  Dr. Ponk, MD, Essempi Institute of Medicine 

Phil found Wilbur standing outside the door to his cabin early after sunrise, his son shivering despite the layers he was clearly wearing. Wilbur looked a mess, hair clearly not brushed properly (though he can see an attempt was made), wings in disarray, and the aforementioned shivering despite the multiple coats he wore, a blue military jacket worn over a brown overcoat. He stood there in shock, never expecting to see his son standing before him again. 

He gave a crooked grin, not looking Phil in the eye, “I don’t have anywhere else to stay, do you have a couch?” 

Phil continued to stare, shocked, just managing to get out a “Yeah mate.” 

Wilbur was quick to move past him, talking as he dropped down onto the small couch, “Good, cause it’s fucking freezing out here- OW!, Phil, why does your couch sink so low?” 

“Because its old,” Phil said before he could think, closing the door and standing next to the couch, “How long have you been back?” 

“A couple of weeks,” He said nonchalantly, “I’ve been staying in that massive crater L’Manberg used to be, but I ran out of food and I needed a shower super badly-” 

Phil stopped paying attention to Wilbur’s rambling. No one had told him that Wilbur had been back for a couple of weeks already. Presumably, Wilbur hadn’t told anyone. Which, frustratingly was very in-character for Wilbur to not tell anyone about it. 

Meanwhile, Wilbur kept talking, “-also I’m pretty sure the explosion I caused was nowhere near that big, there’s no way eleven stacks of TNT could do that much damage I mean-” 

“It wasn’t.”  

Wilbur stopped mid-sentence, “... What?” 

“It wasn’t you,” Phil said, “It was Dream.” 

There was silence for a moment. Then Wilbur laughed. 

“Of fucking course it was Dream! He would never have been able to let it go! Oh there’s no way he would have been satisfied with just me doing it!” 

“Wil-” 

“Sure, I blew it up, but I didn’t want it gone-gone, yknow? Like I had a lot of thinking to do, and yeah sure being alone with my thoughts for years wasn’t healthy, but I gave it to Tommy, yknow? And then Tommy gave it to Tubbo but Tubbo was a good kid- 

“Wilbur!” 

Wilbur stopped. He had started fidgeting with the ends of his sleeves while he rambled, a nervous quirk from his childhood that never went away. He almost seemed to shrink in on himself, pulling his wings closer like a chick trying to hide. Phil almost missed the wince Wilbur made as he moved his wings. 

“Are you okay?” Phil asked. 

He made a face, “Am I, Phil? Was I ever okay?” 

Phil chose not to answer, climbing on to the couch next to Wilbur. His son seemed to shrink more as he got closer. 

“When’s the last time you preened your wings, mate?” 

Oh, um,” Wilbur looked embarrassed, “Before I died. I think.” 

“Well, they look like shit,” Phil said, “Sit down.” 

Wilbur hesitated, eyes darting between the space in front of Phil and the door. Phil knew he wouldn’t make a run for it, the snow was too heavy and the wind too strong, if he was shivering before there’s no telling how he would fare out there. Eventually, Wilbur slid down off the couch and shuffled in front of Phil. 

“Just, be careful.” He quietly asked. 

Phil sighed, “Of course I will.” He gently grabbed one of Wilbur’s wings, pulling it out from where it was tucked against him. 

Wilbur made a hiss of pain as the wing was stretched out, which made Phil instantly stop what he was doing. He certainly wasn’t pulling Wilbur’s wing with force, and a few years was nowhere near enough time for him to lose his skill. 

“What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing,” Wilbur said, “I probably haven’t stretched it enough. Joints are a little rusty, yknow?” 

Phil was unconvinced, “Stand up for a moment.” 

“What? No, I'm perfectly fine, just keep going.” 

He rolled his eyes at his antics, standing up himself, “Just stand up.” 

“Okay” 

Wilbur stood up. His movement was stiff and tense, like he had been sitting in a contorted position for hours rather than on a couch for five minutes. He had one hand on the couch for support, and the other on his lower back. If he hadn’t looked no older than 25, Phil might’ve mistaken him for an old man. 

“There, happy now?” He looked grumpy, like it had been an inconvenience for him to stand up rather than stay sitting down on the floor.  

“Yes.” Phil said, “You’re acting off, and there’s something you’re not telling me, like before I found you in that room.” 

Wilbur, at the very least, had the decency to look guilty, “Did you really have to bring that up? Surely there are better ways to guilt me into telling you what you want to hear.” 

Phil stared at him, giving a half-hearted attempt at the disappointed-father-look. Judging by how Wilbur sighed, it somehow worked. 

“Fine, I’ve been in pain ever since I got back, is that what you wanted to hear?” 

“It's a start. Now sit back down so I can preen you.” 

“Oh, come on, I just stood up, I’m not sitting down again!” 

Arthritis, a common name for a variety of similar diseases, affects the joints of the body. Symptoms include pain, as well as reduced movement and stiffness, in joints.  It most notably appears with age, as patients get older the stress of day-to-day life on their joints takes its toll. Hybrids also appear to be more affected than standard humans, most likely due to the increased number of joints in most hybrids. Avian hybrids especially so.  Dr. Ponk, MD, Essempi Institute of Medicine 

Recovery is slow, and no one knew that more than Wilbur. 

Months later, he’s doing better, but he still gets pains. He has his bad days, sometimes his wings lock up and he cannot stretch them without pain. Sometimes he lies in his bed and doesn’t want to get out. 

But he has his good days too. 

Some days he can fly around without a care in the world. He'll regret it in the morning, but he enjoys the wind in his face and the sun on his skin after so many years in the dark. 

Maybe he can finally hope again. 

#chaos' writing #wilbur soot #philza #mcytblr holiday exchange #dsmp #dsmp fanfic

[arwenadreamer]

So Sam JUST arrives in heaven. Like, RIGHT in this moment.

He's standing on a bridge. A moment before he was in his bedroom. Now he's surrounded by a deep forest. There's a river running under the bridge. There's mountains on the horizon.

And where does Sam look at? Without blinking. Without so much as giving his surroundings a glance. Not even for a second.

He's looking at his Dean. His heaven. He could be standing in a stony wasteland and it wouldn't matter. He wouldn't even notice.

He's drinking in the sight of Dean like a parched man a shimmering lake in the desert. Only, this isn't a Fata Morgana. This is real. This is heaven.

"Sam's heaven is mostly Dean." - JP

(Gifs by @wellcometothedarkside , found in the tumblr gif search)

#sam and dean #supernatural #carry on #15.20 carry on #soulmates

[bellatrixobsessed1]

I Am Blackened Bones (Part 5)

20 to 55 inches. 4 tons. 55 inches. 7 tons. 49 inches. 7 tons. 60 inches. 10,000 pounds….

She can’t remember why she is repeating it. 

20 to 55 inches. 4 tons. 55 inches. 7 tons. 49 inches. 7 tons. 60 inches. 10,000 pounds…

She doesn’t think that there is a reason at all aside from that it is simply what she has always done.

20 to 55 inches. 4 tons. 55 inches. 7 tons. 49 inches. 7 tons. 60 inches. 10,000 pounds….

But it is becoming tired and tiresome. 20 to 55 inches. 4 tons. 55 inches… 

The fire spirit frowns to herself. She has better things to think about, she just isn’t certain of what those better things are. So maybe it is less about having better things to think about and more about letting her mind be silent now. 

Yes. That is what she wants; silence, even from her own mind. 

Her mind doesn’t need to be noisy anymore. Her own inner chatter had only been there to take her mind off of the sensations that had troubled her body. That horrid and persistent burning and blistering. But she hasn’t felt singed nor sizzled since retreating further into the trees.

So what else can she think of, now that her mind has room for other things. She tilts her head to the side at the realization that she doesn’t really have much to think about at all and, even if she did, words are quite strange. She finds that some of them don’t really mean anything anymore. If they had ever meant anything at all.

She realizes that, that which she doesn’t remember doesn’t bother her. 

If these things…these words were important she would remember them. 

She would also remember it. 

Whatever it is. 

She has lost something, a few things maybe. 

And she thinks that that something or those somethings might be the ‘it’ that might be important but certainly can’t be if she couldn’t be bothered to remember. And so maybe this thing or these things that she has lost aren’t really a loss or several losses at all. 

The fire spirit has lost that nagging suffering and she certainly does not miss that.

And so the fire spirit wanders deeper into the jungle. 

Deeper, where the pain grows fainter yet.

Deeper, where traces of what the spirit had once been snuff nearly completely. 

.oOo.

Katara wipes beads of sweat out of her face. These Fire Nation summers are brutal and she is growing quite tired of having to whip out her water. She is equally as tired of passing it around to everyone. Moreso, she is worried that the water is becoming unsanitary. She is going to have to dump it and refill her waterskin, hopefully before her mouth grows parched and her throat runs dry.

She can tell that the others aren’t faring so well either. Each of their faces are slicked with sweat and Sokka is practically panting. Aang is fanning himself with airbending and Toph looks like she is ready to collapse onto the ground and burry herself beneath cool dirt. Zuko is the only one who seems to be tolerating the heat—naturally so. 

Katara wipes the sweat from her forehead. 

“Look!” Aang declares. “A river!” 

She doesn’t need to look, she can hear it loudly and clearly and her heart tickles with relief and joy. Before she can even lift a leg, Sokka is bounding past her and leaping into the gently rippling waves.

“Sokka!” Zuko shouts. “We have to focus.” 

“What we need is a break.” Toph counters. “We’ve been walking for hours. And we’ve been walking for hours this whole week.”

“I think that it has been a little more than a week.” Katara mentions. 

“It has been.” Zuko confirms. “And so far we have no leads except for that guy who said that the last time he saw Azula, she was heading into this jungle.” 

“He also said that he could have seen someone else entirely and that he didn’t get a good look.” Sokka calls as he dives back beneath the water. 

“Come on, Zuko.” Aang smiles. “A small break couldn’t hurt, right?” 

“We’re trying to find my sister!” 

“She’s been missing for years.” Toph shrugs. “I think that fifteen more minutes won’t really make much of a difference.” 

Zuko grits his teeth and balls his fists. Katara puts a hand on his back. “It’ll take longer if you argue with them. We can’t find Azula if we are tired and dehydrated. I have to refill my waterskin anyways and we could all use a bath.” She is under the impression that Sokka has reached a level of odorous that can get them hunted by vicious peacock-lions and jaguar-gorillas. 

Zuko sighs. “Fine, but make it quick.” He folds his arms across his chest and finds a large rock to sulk upon. 

Katara can’t help but smile; at least Azula has someone who is worried about her. In spite of everything, she finds herself hoping for the best for the former princess. But somehow she finds herself fearing the worst. She can’t name many people living good lives just up and leaving them behind for a mysterious, muggy, foggy jungle. 

Katara pours her dirty water over a few nearby ferns. The ground eagerly soaks it in and she eagerly kneels down to refill her waterskin with purer waters. She should probably fill a second—one for drinking and one for keeping cool. 

She rises back to her full height and fixes the waterskins back onto her belt before making her way to a fallen tree. It isn’t the most comfortable looking seating arrangement, but it isn’t jagged and pointy like the rock Zuko has picked. She imagines that he will be grumbling about an aching rear soon enough and it will serve him right for being so careless about where he sits. 

Katara brushes some dirt off of the bark and purses her lips. “Huh?” She hums to herself, holding her pointer and middle fingers level with her eyes. She furrows her brows. “Is this…ash?” 

“What?” Zuko asks.

“Ash…” She repeats with a gesture to her sullied fingers. 

Zuko shrugs. “What about it? There’s ash everywhere in the Fire Nation.”

And finally she places precisely what makes her feel so unsettled. “But these ashes are still warm.”

Now Zuko is on his feet. On his feet and walking towards her while she slowly extends her arm and holds her palm to the fallen log. It too is a little more than just warm, and it has the scorch marks to prove that she isn’t just feeling something that isn’t there. 

Just far enough to be discernible but not far enough for her comfort, there comes a rustling. Katara holds her breath and squints into the treeline. And…there! She catches a blur of motion. Something almost bright. At least she thinks that she does. 

Her heart is pounding. “Zuko…”

“I heard it.” He says through gritted teeth as Aang lets out a loud laugh and splashes Sokka. “Quiet!” He snaps but Aang and Sokka aren’t paying attention to him. 

“It’s behind that tree!” 

Katara jolts. If Sokka had seen that, he would make a point of popping out at her at random times for the rest of their time in the jungle. “Don’t do that, Toph!”

“Sorry.” Toph mutters. “Just trying to help.” 

“What’s behind the tree?” Zuko asks. They now have the attention of Aang and Sokka and, probably, the thing behind the tree.

“I don’t know. But it’s pretty small.” 

Katara relaxes just a little. Zuko does not, he creeps closer to the tree that Toph had pointed to. Toph who is shaking her head. “It’s not there anymore.” She whispers. But only Katara hears her. Zuko is still creeping towards that tree. Toph stands rigidly while Katara steps to the right, opposite of Zuko. To the right, where she had heard the faintest pop. She takes a deep breath and gets down on all fours to peer under another fallen tree. 

She sees the face but only for a flicker, certainly not long enough to tell what kind of expression it wears. But she knows that it isn’t human. She jerks back, falling on her rear with a rather shrill cry.

“Katara!” Aang rushes towards her. Sokka in tow with his boomerang raised. 

The spirit throws itself atop the fallen tree and looms over her. It wears a halo of fire that flares like a lion-peacock mane. She can hear the pop and crackle of it. She screams again. But the spirit doesn’t leave its new perch. She scuttles back and out of the spirit’s shadow. It doesn’t follow. It doesn’t move at all, not in her direction anyhow. Instead it backs away, pressing itself against an upright tree.

And Katara realizes that the fire spirit is screaming too. She lets out a breath that she hadn’t realized that she had been holding; if the spirit is shouting then it is just as startled as they are. And if it is scared of them then they don’t have to fear it.

“Sokka, you can put your boomerang down. It’s just scared.” Katara says.

“Exactly!” Sokka shouts. “Cornered animals are twice as likely to strike!”

“Well good thing we cornered a spirit and not an animal.” Toph shrugs. “And also it isn’t cornered it’s backed up against a tree.” 

“That’s not better.” Zuko grumbles. 

The poor spirit tries to back further into the tree. Katara sees smoke rippling off of the bark just as the smell of burning wood enters her nostrils. Her heart aches for the spirit. “Maybe we should back up.” She suggests. “And, for Raava’s sake, lower your boomerang, Sokka!”

The spirit holds its spindly, fiery arms up to its chest. If Katara didn’t know any better she would say that it is shaking. She should probably lower her voice. “Hey…” She starts, offering a slight smile. “It’s alright, we didn’t mean to bother you. We were just trying to cool off.”

The spirit slinks away from the tree slowly, cautiously. It is still breathing heavily. Although breathing might not be the right word to use for a spirit. She doesn’t think that spirits can breathe. But this one has a heart–visible and glowing violently orange behind bones. Or branches? Bones and branches? Katara squints, the spirit’s collarbones, she realizes, are bone with streaks of wood fused to it. The glow of the spirit’s heart casts shadows. And that glowing, shadow-casting heart is beating. So maybe the spirit can breathe. Its belly roars with each inhale and flames burst from between its blackened ribs with every exhale. 

Aang raises his hands, “it’s alright.” He promises. And in that cheerful, reassuring tone that she had cherished so much as a child he adds, “We’re just passing through.” 

The fire spirit tilts its head. 

“We’re actually looking for somebody.” Zuko mutters.

Katara nudges him and, through gritted teeth, grumbles, “not now!”

“Sorry.” 

The fire spirit takes a step back and Katara fears that it might flee. From the looks of it, Sokka and Zuko are hoping for just that. But she isn’t. She can’t explain it but she wants the spirit to stay. 

Katara takes a few steps back for herself. Compared to some spirits that she has seen on their adventures—the scariest of them—this one is so small. No bigger than Aang had been when they’d found him in that iceberg. Now and then the fire that halos the spirit will puff and flare and it looks much larger. Just moments ago, the spirit had been gleaming like the sun. But now that it has calmed, those flames have settled, flickering instead like little candles upon its head and shoulders. Katara thinks of a boar-q-pine with fiery quills. 

It tilts its head again.

It is curious, Katara realizes. 

Katara holds her hand up and waves. The spirit might be waving back or it might simply be imitating what it has just seen. 

It tilts its head in the other direction and fixes eyes like firefly bulbs upon her. In each socket swim three tiny yellow orbs and all six seem to peer directly into her soul. Its gaze is terribly intense. 

Slowly it lifts its arm. 

Slower still it extends its arm.

Katara gulps. 

“We’re looking for someone.” Sokka says abruptly before the spirit can get too close. It flinches back at the sound of his voice, withdrawing its arm in a snap. “Maybe you’ve seen her.”

The fire is flaring around its head again, darkening from orange to an agitated red. “Sokka…” Katara can’t bring her voice any louder than just above a whisper. The spirit steps closer. 

“Get away from her!” Zuko shouts, fire bursting into his palms. 

The spirit lets out a horrid screech and the fire on its body seems to retreat into its bones and its woodsy arms. Before Katara can get a good look at its face without the fire, the spirit throws itself back into the underbrush, back into the thick of the trees, leaving only smoldering rings upon fern leaves and a pile of ash in the dirt to prove that it had been there at all.

.oOo.

The fire spirit curls herself up under the roots of a banyan tree. She thinks that those people hadn’t meant to frighten her anymore than she had meant to frighten them. They hadn’t meant to hurt her. At least she doesn’t think that they had. But she is in pain all the same and they had caused it. 

She draws her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them, rocking herself back and forth. But that doesn’t soothe the searing pain. She doesn’t remember much but she remembers this particular burning–how it had plagued her relentlessly for days…weeks…months? She realizes that she doesn’t know what days, weeks, and months are. They are words without concept. She has lots of those; “we’re looking for someone” and  “we’re not going to hurt you” among them. 

But, even if the rest is lost on her, she knows what hurt is and she knows what fear is. And, whatever their human speech was meant to reassure her of, they had hurt her. 

They had hurt her after making promises that she couldn’t understand. What she does understand is emotions and the energies that accompany them. They hadn’t radiated malefic auras. It was mostly fear, not unlike her own. Fear and a touch of curiosity. Compassion?

And so she isn’t angry. 

She is just hurt. 

She is just afraid. 

And she can’t exactly place where the fear is coming from. They had let her leave. They hadn’t followed her. They had been doing their best to convey a comforting aura. And yet she is terrified. Haunted in a way that she understands less than she understands everything else. 

She can’t recall but they seem familiar in a way that makes her fear them in spite of their attempts to be approachable. 

The spirit nestles herself further into the friendly darkness of the banyan roots and curls herself up. 

She hopes that these people with their loud voices and flashy weapons will leave soon.

#avatar the last airbender #azula #katara #zuko #aang #sokka #toph #fanfiction

[greycaelum]

91.hide and seek

29. lifting him/her out of excitement

[Gentle Affection Collections]

Jujutsu Kaisen: Elf Gojo Satoru X Village Maiden Reader

[Gentle Affection Collections]

Request 91 & 29 [ List is Here ]

—hide and seek & lifting her out of excitement

Notes & Warning: elf Satoru, betrayal, run away bride, forced arrange marriage (unsuccessful), spiriting away if you squint, ; Word Count: 2.2k

"I was thinking of Vampire or Elf Satoru, and here it is, Elf Satoru wins. I hope you enjoy this and thank you for joining!" —Grey

Woods

"Satoru? Come out, this is not amusing." Your toes curled as you duck to avoid the thick bark of the trees and find your way through the forest.

"Satoru, come out." A strong gust of wind swept through you, blowing the loose ribbon of your hair, freeing your soft tresses with the breeze as they flutter down your back.

Your heart grew anxious as you shiver from the cold. You know he always has his eyes on you, perhaps even if you fall into the darkest pit he will find you but the worry is creeping into your heart as you try to search even for his shadow. Walking and evading the woods you find yourself at a crossroads.

"Satoru?" Perhaps he has already gone back. A matter that needs his immediate attention to leave you without a goodbye. It's not the first time he disappears into thin air.

Disappointed, a tired sigh slip past your parched throat from all the blind chase.

"What's with the sigh, Precious?" An airy laugh resounded behind you. Pale, slender fingers fiddled the locks of your hair and brought it to his smiling lips for a gentle kiss

"I thought you left." Your lips pursed as you turn around.

A man dressed in sheer purple flowing robes with a belt made of silk, sparkling like a starlight river secured around his waist stood before you. His height towers over as a shade from the straining sunlight through the foliage. Hooded orbs that glisten like sapphire and turquoise search for your eyes, looking at you as the center of his world as he fondly fiddles with your hair... His long white locks cascade like a waterfall parting on his pointed elvish ears down to his broad shoulders.

"Didn't you say you are going to seek for me?" He said, a tad apprehensive from your pout. "Did I upset you my Precious Flower?"

It's the way he said those words in cajoling that your heart simply cannot bear to find fault in him, not that he has.

That's right, you were playing a game that the village children play. Your eyes wandered to the otherworldly beauty before you. For a second he may seem to hold so much of the world that you could ever know but his eyes are filled with unspeakable depth.

Subconsciously your hand found its way to the beautiful elf's cheek, caressing the smooth white jade-like face. He has always worn a look of ethereal forlorn deep in his sapphire irises that moves your heart whenever your orbs held his.

"My bad Satoru. You were gone for a long and I was worried."

As soon as you say those words you realize how foolish they sound. The man before you holds the forest and earth beneath his feet and the under his disposal.

"You're the only one who frets over a trivial matter. No one can hurt me." Satoru conjured a coral peony and carefully pinned it behind your left ear, tilting your chin with a satisfied smile on his lips. 

"Y/n?!"

Your friend's voice echoed through the trees. A sign that your rendezvous is about to end.

"I will lead you until the borders of the woods." Satoru offered his hand to you. The slender thoughtful hands lead you as the trees bend and give way to you and their lord.

"I'll come and visit." You promised. The mouth of the woods coming into your view.

Satoru simply smiled tucking your hair at the back of your ear and brushing the beautiful petals of the flower he gave you. A brush of sparkle kissed you, turning the flower ever vivid to behold.

"Y/n?!" Your cousin's voice got nearer and nearer signaling its time to say goodbye for now.

"I'll go now..." You murmured, squeezing your elf's hands and slowly letting go.

But before your hand could fully free from his grasp Satoru held on to your little finger and brought it to his lips, rewarding your pretty trim nails with a gentle kiss of parting.

"I will wait. Be careful." His lips smiled but it never reached his eyes.

"Y/n there you are!" Your cousin gasped.

"Hey," you glance back to where Satoru was standing but there was no more.

"Stop scaring me every time you enter the woods." She reprimanded you. Pulling you away from the gloomy trees while she shivered. "This place is so creepy."

The villagers told all the little kids to keep out of the forest for fear of the unknown elements lurking in the dark depths of the woods. A young and beautiful maiden like yourself is one of the many that entered the woods and never came out. But you were never one to listen, not when you could touch what's beyond these woodlands.

"Why are you putting the flower in your left ear? It's in the right, silly Y/n."

She chuckled and reach out to touch the flower but you held her hand away from your face.

"We should go, it's gonna rain soon." Coldly, you went ahead towards your house.

Your village is nowhere to be called an impoverished one. It is a thriving community almost considered a city by the forest all thanks to the bounties of the earth and minerals. All the traders and merchants pass by to sell their goods. Having astonishing beauty gave you privileges. The praise and favor of everyone in the village and the foreigners. The bolts of silk and ornaments coming from all corners of lands you've only read in books as tariffs to the village accepted by the village chief—your grandmother all go to you. Her beloved precious lass.

But all things come at a cost.

"You must go. He is the only suitable man for you." Your mother refused to bend down.

"He already has a son. You're asking me to be the bride of some stranger whose son is the same age as me? I don't even care if he has 10 wives and grandchildren. But marrying me to a man I never met?" You cried in frustration from the absurdity of what they are asking of you.

A man. Old enough to be your father. Nonetheless, a wealthy and influential man heard about you and sent a proposal for marriage.

"That fate is better than being taken into the woods and never coming out for the rest of your life. Never seeing you until we die." Your mother hissed. She pushed you aside and barge into your room, calling your helpers to pack your bags and prepare for departing to the village hundreds of miles away.

This is stupid. No one is going anywhere. All these people kept fearing the woods when it is the woods that has sustained and brought the village prosperity from all its bowels and roots. You march out of the house in anger. Since no one is interested to listen to you. Fine!

You could be treated no less than a carrier of offspring. A decorative trophy that keeps her mouth shut and stands behind her husband. For all, they care you could be the 10th wife.

"Satoru!" You shake off the branch of the tree from your face. "Where are you?" A broken-hearted cry rang out in the cold mist. The trees look ghastly, shadows of foliage like monsters concealing their forms clouded over you.

"Sator—agh!"

You slipped sliding down to a puddle. A burning sting spread through your ankle, your chest pounded hard feeling the damp ground dirty your dress. The sun has fully sunk and the crows are singing their haunting call like a requiem of dread in the dark woods.

"Y/n!" You heard the villagers calling out for you and the crackling of their torches.

They will drag you home and you'd probably be locked up in the carriage making sure you'll never run home. Abhornment filled your heart at how your mother tells it as if marrying you off is a better life sentence than living in the woods.

The voices grew louder prompting you to gather yourself and get away from here. Wading through the thickets of shrubs and trees you push deeper into the forest, unminding of what direction you take as long as you can get away.

It's alright, Satoru will lead you out. He always had, and always will.

"She's here!" Someone screamed, you look back in horror at the man holding a blazing torch. An unfamiliar face that you could swear came with the carriages of dowry to buy you.

You can but the long skirt got caught in the trunk of a dead tree ripping apart the fabric you took off in a panic. Your heart is beating in your throat, ears ringing in static as you run without a break fully blinded to where you're running to.

Until a harsh force yank you back and all you saw was darkness.

"Mother, why does Father always tuck the flower in your left ear while mine is in your right ear?" Your child self admired the flower tucked in your mother's left ear. Your father simply laughed and bid goodbye as he left to work.

"It means I'm already with the person I choose to spend the rest of my life with. While you my dear are still waiting and finding for yours."

Your eyes fluttered open and a canopy made of intricately carved wood with sheer glistening silk-like starlight hang loosely to provide ample privacy. 

Your first inquiry is, where are you?

You remember the chase in the woods and after you've been grabbed back you lost consciousness. Did they catch you? Is this your gilded cage? Bought and crafted to fit your stature as a mistress.

The door creaked open but you made no move to see who it is. The footsteps were light, making no sound except for the sound of wood creaking open and the gentle whistle of the breeze.

"Milady, the Lord is waiting for you." The voice was of a woman, it sounded airy and strange. But you didn't dare to make a sound, turning to your side and closing your eyes in denial.

Layers of sheer purple silk dress with beaded diamonds hang on a stand. The dress is thin and danced with the wind but when you put it on it perfectly fitted you, with the outer purple robe you look simple yet regal in the flowing dress. You let your hair down and steeled your face allowing no room for any emotion to show.

"I shall take my leave, please ring the bell if you need this servant's assistance." The woman left you alone and you released a breath you'd been holding inside. Everyone has abandoned you. Before you could stop it, fat beads of tears started rolling down your cheeks from the bitter betrayal.

For a long time, you silently cried, not allowing a whimper or sob to be heard by the walls. When you've drained yourself, knowing you won't have any more tears to offer even if they taunt or degrade you, you stood up and wash your face with a bowl of water prepared by the side table.

Outside a line of maids bowed down to you and lead you to a majestic castle. The structure is too foreign for you. This place is crafted from the roots of a giant tree and everything around is green with a dash of glitters floating in the air.

"What are tho—" Before you could ask you have arrived at the place and a loud voice announced your arrival.

Your heart forgot the spectacle and hardened as the door slowly opened. A tiled path stretch afar and your eyes followed it upon a man sitting on a Malachite Throne. His soulful eyes bore in your soul faltering your heart bringing the valve of your tears to loosen.

Waiting sapphire irises surveyed you as he stood up and descend his throne. Every step he took and every breath you take you could feel your knees buckle with the sole question in your mind.

Why?

In less than a minute everyone vacated the room leaving you and the man with privacy.

"Come," his hand beckoned you to him. "My Precious Flower."

Your heart pounded in confusion and relief at the same time. Your feet almost stumbled as you threw yourself in his waiting arms. But he easily caught you and lift you up from the ground settling you in his bicep as his other hand held your waist, your forehead against each other.

Traitorous tears roll down as Satoru shush you. But this time it's not from agony but from the happiness of being in his arms. Satoru's brows furrowed in your tears as he wipe them away with his thumb, cooing to you until your frustration subsides.

"Why?" You breathe and open your eyes to stare into this beautiful elf's iridescent eyes. Gone was the forlorn sadness in his eyes, it was replaced with tranquil and determination as he answers you.

"You're finally mine, My Empress."

—GreyCaelum

PLAGIARISM IS A CRIME

Check out the Masterlist for more

All rights and credits of the Jujutsu Kaisen character(s) mentioned image(s) and song(s) used belongs to their respective owner(s)

General Series Taglist: @ice-icebaby @aeanya @gumidreams

#[gentle affection collections] #elf gojo #jjk elf au #gojo x y/n #gojo x you #satoru gojo x reader #gojo satoru #gojo satoru x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen imagines #gojo satoru imagines #greycaelum #gojo satoru x you #jjk fluff

[blackonnu]

Before, when all this madness had started he was dreaming of returning to his apartment once again and being able to live his life again as the amazing and magnificent man he was, he was looking forward to returning to his original body and feeling himself again, then….

Why?

Why did he…?

Why did he…?

"Why don't I feel happy?" After all the hustle and bustle of the day, of running around trying to get away from those guys and finding out that Cheoljong had succeeded in his task, finally, in the solitude of his living room he could accept to himself that the water running down his cheeks were not tears of relief that he was back.

It was as if saying it out loud had caused a dam to break, the tears fell one and another like a river and sobs escaped his now parched lips; he feels an ache in his soul and can only hope that in time it will end.

It has to end, this is what he wanted, now he's back to his happy ending.

Didn't he?

As he kneels in his empty living room as usual and trembles he tries to console himself and repeat over and over again that it was all over for the better, finally no one would treat him as something he is not, no one would yell at him for being rude, for not having manners or doing whatever he wanted, he wouldn't have to see them all again.

Hong Yeon his good friend would no longer be by his side when he needed her.

Lady Choi would no longer scold him or take care of him as if he was her own son.

Cheoljong…

Why did he have to leave them?

Why did he feel like he was about to die?

#mr. queen #mr queen #king cheoljong #jang bonghwan #kdrama #writeblr #fic writing #fic idea #I just want to take my anger out on this #still can't believe the end

[officialyourdailyinspiration]

Jeremiah Complains to the LORD

1 Whenever I complain to you, LORD, you are always fair. But now I have questions about your justice. Why is life easy for sinners? Why are they successful?

2 You plant them like trees; you let them prosper and produce fruit. Yet even when they praise you, they don't mean it.

3 But you know, LORD, how faithful I've always been, even in my thoughts. So drag my enemies away and butcher them like sheep!

4 How long will the ground be dry and the pasturelands parched? The birds and animals are dead and gone.

And all of this happened because the people are so sinful. They even brag, “God can't see the sins we commit.”

The LORD Answers Jeremiah

5 Jeremiah, if you get tired in a race against people, how can you possibly run against horses?

If you fall in open fields, what will happen in the forest along the Jordan River?

6 Even your own family has turned against you. They act friendly, but don't trust them. They're out to get you, and so is everyone else.

The LORD Is Furious with His People

7 I loved my people and chose them as my very own. But now I will reject them and hand them over to their enemies.

8 My people have turned against me and roar at me like lions. That's why I hate them.

9 My people are like a hawk surrounded and attacked by other hawks. Tell the wild animals to come and eat their fill.

10 My beautiful land is ruined like a field or a vineyard trampled by shepherds and stripped bare by their flocks.

11 Every field I see lies barren, and no one cares.

12 A destroying army marches along desert roads and attacks everywhere. They are my deadly sword; no one is safe from them.

13 My people, you planted wheat, but because I was furious, I let only weeds grow. You wore yourselves out and gained only shame!

The LORD Will Have Pity on Other Nations

14 The LORD said:

I gave this land to my people Israel, but enemies around it have attacked and robbed it. So I will uproot them from their own countries just as I will uproot Judah from its land. 15 But later, I will have pity on these nations and bring them back to their own lands. 16 They once taught my people to worship Baal. But if they admit I am the only true God, and if they let my people teach them how to worship me, these nations will also become my people. 17 However, if they don't listen to me, I will uproot them from their lands and completely destroy them. I, the LORD, have spoken. — Jeremiah 12 | Contemporary English Version (CEV) The Holy Bible, Contemporary English Version Copyright © 1995 by American Bible Society. Cross References: Genesis 37:4; Leviticus 26:16; Leviticus 26:32; Deuteronomy 28:63; Deuteronomy 30:3; Deuteronomy 32:42; Joshua 3:15; Joshua 23:7; Ruth 3:13; 2 Kings 24:2; Ezra 9:15; Nehemiah 9:33; Job 5:3; Job 6:15; Psalm 2:8; Psalm 80:8: Psalm 107:34; Isaiah 2:6; Isaiah 5:1; Isaiah 34:6; Isaiah 42:25; Isaiah 59:13; Isaiah 60:12; Jeremiah 3:12; Jeremiah 3:17; Jeremiah 7:29; Jeremiah 11:21; Ezekiel 23:18; Daniel 11:4; Zechariah 1:6; Romans 6:21; Romans 8:22; Acts 15:16; Titus 1:16; James 5:5; 2 Peter 2:12; Revelation 19:17

#prosperity #evil men #Jermiah's complaint #God answers #a message for Israel's neighbors #Jeremiah 12 #Book of Jeremiah #Old Testament #CEV #Contemporary English Version Bible #American Bible Society

[strayheartless]

You know I find it really interesting (and please note it’s an observation more than a criticism, but also a little bit of a criticism actually.) that nobody ever really explores any long term medical issues that Zack may have after being shot a gazillion times in “Zack lives” AU’s.

Like where do you think that comes from?

The closest I’ve read (and if anyone can point me to a good Fic please pop it in the comments🙏🏻) is a fic called ‘parched river runs’ by skadii on Ao3. And even then it’s not MASSIVLY touched on, most of it covers Clouds recovery and issues. Like I’m not foaming at the mouth about it, it’s just curious to me that I’ve never read anything we’re Zacks maybe in a wheel chair, or has medical issues because of perforated liver or ruptured spleens?

I’ve never seen physical therapy or Zack having to rely on a pace maker or something.

Is it because we as a fandom view him as a care taker, and it’s hard to separate him from that roll?

Is it because we view Cloud as having more characteristic potential to explore those themes?

I’m not mad I’m just curious really. It’s an odd little discourse though.

#just brain thoughts #feel free to correct me #zack fair #cloud strife #crisis core #ff7 #discourse #fandom thoughts

[janaknandini-singh999]

Chapter 7

"What on earth were you both doing so late at-" Aditi suddenly stopped "you have a crush on her, don't you?"

Shlokaa glared hard. First at Aditi then at Manika, who was sitting by the far end.

"This is what y'all want to do to me, right? Make me go fully, irreparably insane??"

Then she quickly glanced at the front seat where Vilasini would sit. It was empty.

She sighed.

Their class teacher came in the class and everyone stood up.

"Sit down, everyone. Let's finish this chapter today. Please turn to page no-"

Vilasini came running into the class, almost falling over. Shlokaa's heart tightened on seeing her.

"Are you well, Vilasini? You look-"

"Really sorry, ma'am." she huffed and struggled to keep her head up. She was looking far from well - dark circles under her eyes keeping a low voice due to a parched throat.

"I promise I won't be late again."

"Hmm" the teacher adjusted her glasses, nodding sympathetically and continuing from the book as Vilasini quickly settled in her seat.

"She actually doesn't look that great today. I mean, wow - The Vilasini not shining??? If there's anyone who can do that then it's only The Shlokaa. What time had you raided her house that she looks like she hasn't gotten sleep all night?" Aditi whispered

But Shlokaa was staring on her book, running away from her thoughts. Staring too hard. So much that she didn't realize that it was open the wrong way and all the words on the chapter were all upside down. Aditi looked over her shoulder and sighed mentally, whispering to herself so she wouldn't hear and pitying her friend "Denial is a river in Egypt and Phenyl is what you'll be using the clean up the mess on your bathroom floor after crying those rivers."

"That's all for today, class." She closed the book and placed it on the table "now, we have the inter school quiz competition so you all need to-"

She didn't even had to finish her sentence, everyone shuffled around on their feet, talking to one another, relieved that the period was over and dashing to the assembly hall. Everyone but Shlokaa, who was still staring at her book upside down. And Vilasini who was too groggy to get up on her feet quickly and rubbed her fingers against her throbbing forehead. The class teacher cleared her throat. Vilasini looked up and nodded. She gestured at Shlokaa. Vilasini stiffened but nodded again.

"Shlokaa." she called out, tersely

Shlokaa snapped out of her frozen state and stared, scrambling and following her, silently.

"Are you bunking school?" Ved had popped out of behind the trees magically as soon as Manika escaped from the gate, on her tiptoes. His sudden appearance right behind her made her jump. He snorted as Manika scowled.

"I'm going home." she whispered in a furious, final tone

He made an expression of looking intently at his wrist, as if checking the time on his non existent watch "but it isn't time yet?"

Manika's whole being heated. They were having some kind of quiz at school which would at least stretch on till interval time. She had no interest in attending such silly stuff. She wanted to meet her buddy at home and then come back after the interval. Her house was walking distance from the school so she could do it. But she didn't want to explain all this and justify herself to Ved. What did this cheeky boy even think of himself?

She spun around, stepping towards to him. They were standing closer than they ever had. She towered over him, being at least two or more inches taller. Her domineering height had always made her feel a sense of superiority over others, it gave her some kind of invisible power and pride. But she felt utterly, hopelessly powerless in front of this chit of a boy grinning like a monkey right now.

What the actual hell ?

She spat her words "What do you want me to say, huh? That yes, I'm bunking school and I don't care a damn about studying and then feel guilty at saying all this to an unprivileged scrawny boy like you who would do anything just to go to school?"

Ved blinked and his eyes saddened, not like a look as if he felt sorry for himself but as if he felt sorry for her! Manika's stomach twisted. What does he want to prove by doing all this?

He suddenly laughed as if to kill the heavy tension between them and raised his hands in mock surrender "Nah nah coz.." he banged his fist at his chest, moaning in pain "ouch. That hurt. You didn't have to call me a beggar outright. Like hey, at least I'm trying to be cool here?!"

Manika inhaled sharply and turned to leave but suddenly Ved came in front, blocking her path

"In my opinion, the Indian education system is flawed anyway. So no, there's no need to feel guilty about anything. But still it is unfortunately demanded by the society so I'm earning whatever I can and sending my sister to school. If there's anyone who can make it, it's her. Not an idiot like me. A fairly handsome idiot though, if I might add." he closed his eyes and giggled "you agree, right?"

But as soon as he opened his eyes he found Manika crying silently but uncontrollably, tears strolling down in gushing waves. He cursed at himself and sat beside her, unsure what to do. Then she pulled out a tissue and blew her nose in it, almost as silently, it was astonishing.

Before Ved could say anything, she raised her hand looking straight ahead with her now drying, amazingly recovered and fiery eyes again "I don't need your sympathy. Your sister reminded me of mine, that's all." Then she looked at him with a piercing gaze "Send her over to my place someday. I may not have a sister her age for her company anymore, but I do have a dog and she can come play with him if she likes."

His eyes lit up and this time before she could do anything, he took her hands in his and shook them aggressively "It's a deal!", got up and ran away almost in the same motion

Despite herself, Manika found herself faintly smiling at his retreating figure.

Back at school, there was a huge hustle bustle as the other school teams entered and the quiz began. Shlokaa, Aditi and a few more girls were part of the school team, while the opponents were full of a surprisingly mixed pack of students. Some nerds, some buff, some looking too gorgeous to have appeared for just a quiz.

Did they mistake this competiton for some kind of all rounder array of events like student of the year trophy or what? Shlokaa wondered. Then her eyes went to the audience. And there she was, it didn't even take her a minute to find her: Vilasini was in the front row (Shlokaa was pretty sure her mother had arranged that so Vilasini could have a 'phenomenal experience' of witnessing her first at the prestigious school). But Vilasini's mind was away, scribbling something in her notebook. Everyone else was chatting and giggling among themselves but she was lost in her own world, everything going around her might not even have existed to her.

Something twinged inside Shlokaa.

Not right now.

She breathed deep.

But she got lost too. Her mind whirled back into reality when their coordinator maam came up on the dias and introduced everyone and gave instructions to begin. A gong sounded and it started. They were supposed to see the question on the projector and press on the buzzer to answer. Shlokaa suddenly came into flow. Her brain all in attention, scanning all through it to recall facts and figures in order to give the correct answer. She laughed, bubbling within herself. It was this high she experienced while doing things she loved, like when she was shooting. Now nothing else existed for her in that moment.

And her team got full advantage of it, answering questions with lightening speed one after the other, not giving the opposite teams much chance to even look at the buzzer, they had already pressed it down and answering.

All until they got stuck. A question hung on the screen and Shlokaa's rapid fire brain short-circuited and blanked out. She didn't know the answer.

Damn it! She felt like punching herself.

This was the bingo question and if she didn't answer this, the other team would get a major edge and then win in the mathematics round, because Shlokaa wasn't participating in it.

Weak math was an understatement when it came to her arithmetic abilities.

Suddenly, the opponent team pressed the buzzer.

Shlokaa gritted her teeth and her head bent slightly.

It was over.

The sheath of aloofness covering her now, she wanted to run away.

As soon as she was starting to go down from the stage, the coordinator spoke into the mic "Sorry, wrong answer."

Shlokaa's eyes widened and she looked up again.

She paused for a bit, just as the gong rang again so she continued speaking into the mic "Time's up for all teams now." Then she smiled at the audience "Anyone wants to give it a try? As there are a few members of the opponent teams in the audience attending this event as well, there can be a wild card chance. Whoever answers correctly from the audience, their team will win the point. Anyone?"

She was met with blank faces all around. She turned around to announce the next round when suddenly a hand shot up from the audience. Shlokaa's breathing stopped.

It was Vilasini.

Shlokaa tried her best to remain cool and observe the girl quietly, her gaze glued to the mic now being handed over to her. Somewhere behind, their class teacher was beaming.

Vilasini was so calm, unlike Shlokaa's high right now which would transport her to a different world. And she was wrong about Vilasini. She didn't look as though the world around her didn't even exist. Standing there, she looked like the essence of the world itself. The centre. And everyone - mere planets and celestials silently orbiting their way around her.

She inhaled so softly it wasn't even noticeable and gave a small smile, and said something into the mic. It was all a muffle to Shlokaa. But as soon as she did that, the whole hall burst erupt with cheers and screams.

The big bang, thought Shlokaa, still looking into Vilasini's eyes. Someone shook Shlokaa hard and hugged her. It was probably Aditi. Vilasini handed over the mic back and caught Shlokaa staring.

During the dispersal, Shlokaa ran after Vilasini then stopped short just behind the gate, shivering and calculating what she would say as she bit down on her finger, thinking, but she bit too hard and yelped in pain.

Vilasini turned around.

Shlokaa froze, her mouth curving into a mechanical smile as she slowly waved her hand.

Vilasini scoffed dryly and turned back around.

"THANK YOU! For helping us win, I mean.."

Vilasini replied with a short "you're welcome" without turning back and fastened her pace. She was out of the gate now, preparing to cross the road, desperate to escape Shlokaa. For her, it was unimaginable just to be around this girl.

Shlokaa was struggling, she didn't know how to stop Vilasini. She wanted to say something but she didn't even know what. She could practically feel the tears forming in her eyes, a lump in her throat. She looked up with eyes turning a little red and her heart stopped. A truck was coming fast and Vilasini was running on the road, almost in its path.

"VILASINI!"

She jumped forward and pulled her back. Vilasini shrieked, realizing what was happening but it was too late. The truck passed in furious speed barely in front of her, the driver popped his head out the truck's window, shouting inaudible curses at them.

Vilasini was panting and her eyes were closed, her heart beating so fast and a tear escaped her eye. She broke down. Her head had landed on something soft. She had fallen on Shlokaa who was sprawled on the ground, her shirt soaking Vilasini's tears. She clenched her jaws against Shlokaa's chest as soon as she realized it. Shlokaa couldn't even move, but the hair on the back of her neck shot up at the movement. Vilasini's was a comfortable weight upon hers, like a heavy blanket covering her in a dark, cold night.

Vilasini jumped off her, dusting herself. Shlokaa's heart almost sank at that but she made a bold move

"I saved you just now. Now I do deserve a second chance." she raised her eyebrows and crossed her arms in a demanding stance

Vilasini stared and then gave a reluctant smirk

"Using tricks on me only? Who's Krishna now, huh? But fine. I give you one hour tomorrow with me. Make the most of it. That's all you get."

She turned to leave just as Shlokaa suddenly got anxious that she didn't give any timing.

As if almost reading her mind, Vilasini's hand shot up. Just like it had in the assembly. And how it had calmed and smoothened out every part of existence around her, breathing life into everything.

"5pm, sharp."

[apilgrimsjournal]

Bless the LORD, O my soul

Isaiah 41:17–18

[17] When the poor and needy seek water,

and there is none,

and their tongue is parched with thirst,

I the LORD will answer them;

I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.

[18] I will open rivers on the bare heights,

and fountains in the midst of the valleys.

I will make the wilderness a pool of water,

and the dry land springs of water.

Lord, how true is this in my life! You give grace upon grace.

Whenever I need anything, anything at all, You are the ever flowing spring of life who delights to give.

Just this last week, I witnessed this again. The recent overwhelming confusion and pain drained me to the dumps but You bid me go on. So I did, not wanting to make my life about myself. I reluctantly fetch strength from You, for hesitant as I might seem there is one thing I am sure of: I know Your deep well never runs dry. And I went on with work, ministry, and stayed connected with my fellow believers. I was assigned as a prayer leader for our dgroup last Friday and the topic was about praying for enemies. Sometimes, You really do know how to humor me, Lord. You know I would dread that but seeing that it was necessary for my soul, You gave it to me. So even with a distressed soul, I prayed and fought the war to keep choosing You instead of myself. Of course, I take no credit in this. I know it is You who supports and leads me, like a toddler depending on a parent's hand to walk him properly. Saturday came, and I did laundry, asked wisdom from a core leader, had a date with Gabby, dgroup after that, and helped as floor director in B1G service. The speaker had more instructions than the previous ones but I was glad Ate Joy was there to assist me; she was another grace from You. Sharl just came back from Isabela and she invited me to have dinner and catch up with her to which I happily obliged. We went to The Olive Tree at Molito as she wanted, and when I saw the price of the food, I worried a bit. It was more than I was willing to spend on a dinner but I thought to myself, "It's Sharl anyway, I'm willing to spend this much for her." But when we were done eating, she made our dinner her treat. I was quite surprised but I took her kindness with much delight, Lord. Another providence from You! Before we end our dinner, I was getting anxious how I would go home. I texted Ashley who is my usual companion but she had dgroup. So I asked Ate Shalom if she could drop me off at The Village Square. She told me she would and that she was waiting for us at CCF. We walked back there and saw Kali who offered to drive me home instead and did. I was comforted by the series of kindness I have received that day.

Needless to say, I know it was all from You, Lord. Every little good thing that came from You, one after another, filled me with the wonder of Your love. I did not pray for all of it, but You gave them anyway. What riches I have in You! I am so thankful that You take great care of me even when I rarely praise You for it. I am looking forward to that day when I can thank You face to face and see the LORD who has bound Himself to love sinners like me. All blessing, honor, glory, power, majesty, and praise belong to You alone, our LORD.

#christian #love #jesus #providence

[mariacallous]

There are black roses all over Irpin—the remnants of fire damage on the fronts of apartment blocks. There are shell craters hastily filled in and boarded up buildings waiting to be pulled down. The bridge over the Irpin River still slumps from its supports. But in the vehicle graveyard on the edge of the city, among the three-high stacks of rusted, burned-out cars, there are splashes of bright yellow. Someone has been painting sunflowers.

Inside his café in Irpin’s tree-shaded central park, Borys Yefimenko points to the bullet holes that splinter the polished wooden walls. Over coffee at a table outside, he has to pause, fingers pinched on the bridge of his nose to hold back tears, as he recalls last spring, when this small city to the northeast of Kyiv became a battleground.

The café, one of 10 that Yefimenko ran in Irpin, only opened on February 19, 2022. When the full-scale invasion began five days later, a lot of people in town didn’t believe, or couldn’t comprehend, what was happening. They gathered in the park and stood around drinking coffee, watching the war unfold on their phones. After a night of bombing, Yefimenko, his wife, and their young child got into their car and drove. “I only had enough fuel in my car for 150 kilometers,” he says. “It was impossible to buy fuel, so we made a decision. We’ll drive 70 kilometers. If we don’t find fuel, we’ll come back.” On the outskirts of town, miraculously, they found diesel, and they headed southwest.

Many of his friends and employees stayed, hiding in shelters. As they ran out of basic supplies, Yefimenko told them to take what they needed from his cafés. Three were killed: two shot by a Russian column, the third by a sniper. In late March, Yefimenko was told that his apartment building had been shelled—his home was destroyed.

Irpin was liberated on March 28, 2022. When Yefimenko returned on April 3, there was no running water, no electricity. Parts of the city were still dotted with landmines. He shared a room with 25 other people. The streets were “apocalyptically empty,” he says. Only two of his 10 stores could be salvaged. “And for the first several days we turned on the generator and we just made coffee for people for free,” he says. Since then, he’s opened three other stores, rebuilding his business bit by bit.

The damage caused by Russia’s assault on Ukraine is incalculable. The UN claims at least 7,000 civilians have been killed (the real figure is likely higher), while estimates for fatalities among Ukrainian soldiers sit in the tens of thousands. Around 14 million people have been displaced; 150,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed. Russia has routinely attacked civilian infrastructure and health facilities, destroying or damaging more than 200 hospitals and clinics. Twenty percent of the country’s famed “black earth” farmland has been rendered unusable. An area the size of Florida—174,000 square kilometers of land—needs to be cleared of mines. The economy shrank 30 percent in 2022. These are just the things that can be counted or estimated. Alongside that, there’s the ecological devastation, dramatically demonstrated by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in June, which flooded huge areas of land and left others parched without irrigation.

But the course of the war has shifted since the liberation of Irpin. Ukraine has reclaimed much of the land lost in the opening months and is once again pushing toward its borders. This has opened up the space to talk about recovery.

It means more than just building back what was there before the conflict. Instead, there is a momentum—in politics, civil society, business, and the cultural establishment—for a post-war Ukraine that is freer, cleaner, more rooted in its identity. Not Ukraine reimagined, per se, but a better reflection of the country that has been revealed to the world through 500 days and counting of unlikely resilience and resistance.

Achieving that recovery is a vastly complex task. It will require leaning on new industries to create opportunities, using technology to deliver services, restoring cultural institutions, and recording history as it’s being made. It will be a hugely ambitious and potentially fraught exercise in transparency and trust as Ukraine figures out how to spend billions upon billions of dollars of public money as it begins to rebuild.

“We really want to build a better country, and this is the chance that we have,” says Oleksandr Gryban, deputy minister of the Economy. “And we cannot waste it … because we’re paying too high of a price. We’ve already paid an enormous price and continue paying with human lives.”

In March, the World Bank estimated that the financial cost of Ukraine’s reconstruction would be $411 billion. Each passing month adds another $10 billion to the bill. These are inconceivable numbers. Four hundred and eleven billion dollars is more than twice the size of Ukraine’s economy. It’s 100 times the annual budget of the United Nations. It’s nearly two-thirds of the 2008 banking bailout in the US. And it’s likely to be an underestimate. The head of the European Investment Bank, a development finance institution, has estimated that the real cost is more likely to be over €1 trillion ($1.1 trillion). President Volodomyr Zelenksyy gave a similar figure last year. “With all the current shellings and the escalation, we might still see more and more damage,” Gryban says.

Talking on the phone as he walks between meetings, Gryban rattles off statistics—$14.1 billion pledged by other countries for rebuilding infrastructure, $36 billion in loans and grants to cover the hole in the state budget, $2 billion in financial support for small businesses.

He says he is trying to look for positives. Much of the infrastructure that’s been destroyed was “outdated, inherited Soviet infrastructure that was not super efficient,” he says. “We do have a chance to, as we say, to build back better.” That means building environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations into projects, replacing old power infrastructure with green energy, and integrating with the European Union’s “Green Deal” industrial plan. “We can be the powerhouse of Europe with renewable energy, with hydrogen projects,” he says. “We have the gas transportation system where we can export hydrogen to Europe. Or we can set up new facilities, like green metallurgy facilities.”

Gryban’s office is responsible for getting private investment into Ukraine, which is a tough prospect with the war still ongoing. The ministry has set up Advantage Ukraine, a campaign to link foreign investors to projects in the country, listing opportunities in sectors from defense to woodworking. There’s interest, Gryban says, but “foreigners are still, you know, very careful and cautious.”

The economy has, somewhat miraculously, stabilized at two-thirds the size it was at the start of 2022, and it is forecast to grow very marginally in 2023. That’s partly testament to heroic feats of engineering and innovation that have kept services running despite constant attacks, partly because of large amounts of money from international donors flowing into Gryban’s ministry to keep businesses afloat, and partly because of the unexpected resilience of some industries, chief among them the tech sector.

UNIT.City is almost too perfect a metaphor for Ukraine’s economic transformation. It’s the epicenter of Kyiv’s startup scene—a tech park launched in 2016 by UFuture, a real estate and industrial conglomerate that was looking to diversify beyond petrochemicals and agricultural processing.

To get to the campus by car, you have to drive through the middle of a huge warehouse: half the windows cracked or broken, the rest faded sepia with decades of dust. Until the 1990s, it was a motorcycle factory, built during the Soviet era to make knock-offs of German bikes for a brand that didn’t survive the transition to the free market. But on the other side you pass into a post-industrial Narnia, a 2020s tech park with wide boulevards, blue-tinted glass, and elegant greenery.

I’m met near the entrance by Kirill Bondar, UNIT.City’s CFO, who leads a tour of the campus—there’s the best coffee stand, and there’s the second best; there’s the restaurant that just opened; there are the new luxury apartment buildings, under construction, the plastic wrap still on their windows; there’s the radio station that was hacked by the Russians last year and started broadcasting propaganda; there’s the tower that was hit by debris from a downed missile. The owners recovered the debris. They’re going to turn it into a sculpture.

Inside UNIT.City’s offices and coworking spaces, I meet startup after startup: IoT companies, biotech, AI, drones, medtech. Each has their own stockpile of branded merchandise: T-shirts, stickers, cookies. One gives me a branded baseball bat “for protection” that I carry from meeting to meeting for the next few hours.

As well as physical spaces, the tech industry needed a regulatory one, the kind of legal environment that would allow companies to take risks and innovate, and bring in international investment capital. At UNIT.City, the two spaces—the physical infrastructure and the legal—overlap. In a conference room off an open-plan office, I meet Alex Bornyakov, deputy minister of digital transformation and head of Diia City, the “virtual special economic zone,” created by the government as a Ukrainian version of Delaware’s stripped-down tax and reporting regime.

Bornyakov explains in great detail how Ukraine created tailored regulatory provisions for startups, including convertible notes, liquidation preferences, and indemnities for founders; the seriousness only slightly diluted by his T-shirt, which features a cartoon rabbit wielding a chain saw. “The goal was to align the language that Silicon Valley speaks with Ukrainian legislation,” he says. “So when someone from Europe or the UK or North America wants to invest in a Ukrainian company, they speak the same language, and they use similar tools.” Diia City—which was opposed in some quarters as neoliberal, in others as futile—was launched two weeks before the full-scale invasion began—but after a couple of slow months applications resumed, and there are now more than 500 companies registered. Talking to executives across the tech sector, I’m given a dozen reasons for its resilience, ranging from luck to the distributed nature of the industry to variations on “we’re used to solving problems.”

The tech sector has played a vital role in the war effort: turning plowshares into swords; converting civilian drones into weapons; repurposing skills to turn coders into cyberwarriors; and creating platforms and apps to source, fund, connect. There’s a determination within the sector and the government to now turn that mindset to the task of recovery—to grim opportunities, wartime and post-war necessities that can only realistically be solved with tech. There’s govtech and fintech, the need to figure out how to deliver government services, financial support, and education to displaced populations and devastated towns and cities. There’s the need to de-mine huge areas of the country, and to rehabilitate agricultural land. In Warsaw, I met Eugene Nayshtetik, CEO of two companies: Biolity Systems, which uses AI and imaging to automatically clone high-value plants, and Radio Bird, which makes autonomous surveillance drones for the military—one’s for the victory, the other for the recovery.

Tech has also given the Ukrainian economy a success story that it can broadcast. UNIT.City’s residents have embraced their ambassadorial role. There are Ukrainian tech delegations heading out all over the world—the Middle East, Asia, as well as Europe and the US. “The voice of Ukraine has become more prominent, and the doors which have been closed previously, I’ll be honest with you, they have become open,” says Kateryna Hrechko, CEO of Techosystem, a nonprofit that promotes the tech sector in Ukraine.

Making the most of this moment, building something solid in Kyiv—and the other tech hubs of Kharkiv, Odesa, Dnipro, and Lviv—will be vital for the reconstruction, Hrechko says. The sector has to make sure there’s something to come back to, to keep the industry growing and thriving so that there are jobs and opportunities when the war is over “and that talent pool will not be gone to Delaware.”

Like many others I spoke to in Kyiv, Hrechko sees the Diia City model—not just the low taxes, but the broader sense of collaboration between government and industry, the prioritization of speed and flexibility but also transparency and accountability—as a template for a different kind of economy, one that’s more information-driven, more connected to the knowledge economies of Europe, leaning away from the Soviet-era industries with their oligarchs and ties back to Russia. “People do not believe that change is possible,” Hrechko says. “But then when you start with something small, and you show that it is possible, and then you expand it.”

In late June, a large Ukrainian delegation arrived in London to attend a conference of international donors and businesses. They left with nearly $60 billion in pledges of loans and grants from the EU, UK, and US. That’s on top of tens of billions already promised, as well as other donor programs from the World Bank and other international financial institutions (IFIs).

It’s very hard to spend that much money, and harder still to spend it well. After years of being criticized for profligacy, and decades of agglomerating processes, IFIs are incredibly bureaucratic, demanding enormous amounts of data. And they each tend to want that data in a different form. Most have different weightings for the things they care about. Some programs require you to report up front on the climate impact of every dollar, others on gender and human rights. Some operate in dollars, some in euros, others in pounds sterling. Some offer loans, some grants, some pseudo-private investments. Donors often duplicate each other’s work. Oleksandra Azarkhina, the deputy minister for Communities, Territories, and Infrastructure Development, whose ministry is overseeing the reconstruction efforts (at the same time as handling military logistics), says that her team is currently managing 45 separate IFI programs, each made up of hundreds of smaller projects.

On top of this complexity, Ukraine’s reconstruction needs to be doubly accountable—to its donors and to its citizens. Since the 1990s, the country has had a well-deserved reputation for corruption, which it has spent the past decade trying hard to shake. Ukraine now wants to show—has to show—that it’s moving in line with other European countries, in support of its desire to join the EU. And it has to live up to the trust of its citizens. The Zelenskyy government’s brand is accessibility and transparency, governing by consensus rather than by diktat.

Spending $1 trillion on potentially hundreds of thousands of different projects, with thousands of stakeholders, touching on areas of the economy and parts of local government long associated with corruption—all under the fog of war—is an incredible opportunity to get it wrong.

So in June the government delegation brought data. Reams and reams of data to back up every single thing they’re asking for. “We can explain each line,” Azarkhina says. “No one can say to us Ukraine doesn’t know what it wants.”

This Ukrainian government likes data. The “state in a smartphone” app, Diia, is a single portal for Ukrainians to access everything from certificates for births, deaths, and marriages to voting in the Eurovision Song Contest and paying their taxes. But it has also rolled out databases for the construction industry, for company registration, for government procurement—the latter of which, ProZorro, offers extraordinarily granular data on contracts and bids for public works in an attempt to demonstrate transparency in a system that was undeniably riven with corruption. When February’s invasion began, Azarkhina’s team started collecting data on the damage to civilian property, building a massive, comprehensive register of the destruction being caused by the war. That’s fed into a system that also collates public service data, which can output maps of battle damage, disruptions to health care or education, and population changes as a result of the war.

In June, the Ukrainian delegation presented a system called the Digital Reconstruction Ecosystem for Accountable Management (Dream)—bringing all of these tools into a single interface and adding to it a database of every reconstruction project in the country. These can be submitted from the community level, online, and give donors and investors a searchable database of wrecked schools, hospitals, bridges, and water treatment plants, each listed with the metrics that international donors expect to see, like environmental impact assessments and statistics on gender inclusion. That means someone sitting at a desk at a development bank or construction company in Paris or Washington DC can search for destroyed bridges near Irpin, for example, and get in touch directly with the people running those projects.

The aim, says Viktor Nestulia, chair of RISE Ukraine, a coalition of NGOs, and head of Ukraine support at the nonprofit Open Contracting Partnership, which led the development of the system, isn’t just to provide a massive Kickstarter for the Ukrainian economy, but to help make smart decisions about what to invest in. By including maps of service disruptions, the government can decide, for example, whether the best way to get kids back to class is to rebuild a school or buy a school bus.

It is, Nestulia says, a system that has pretty radical underpinnings—near complete transparency for where hundreds of billions of dollars are flowing. The scale of the reconstruction effort means that some corruption is inevitable. But Dream makes it a lot harder to get away with, and less likely to occur at the systematic level than it used to. He’s quick to point out that transparency isn’t enough on its own. “Transparency is a pretty easy exercise,” he says. “But then I believe that many Ukrainian vested [interests], they aren’t really afraid of accountability and integrity because they know how to manipulate [the system].”

But the stakes are higher when getting caught out means losing access to the international money that’s going to fund the construction industry in Ukraine for the next decade. It’s the kind of project that could quietly change the way Ukraine works well beyond the end of the war. It’s a way for the victims of the war—communities themselves—to help decide on their future, even to pitch directly to international donors without needing the government to intermediate. In June, when Nestulia hosted a Zoom call for communities interested in pitching projects, 900 people joined.

Transparency and trust, involving citizens in their own governance, and giving them tools like Diia to interact directly with the government are things this administration has put front and center. But Nestulia says puckishly that Dream is the kind of system a government may come to dislike, since it takes power away from them. So far, there haven’t been any protests, not even from the economic old guard who most profit from opacity. But that could simply be because they haven’t gotten wise to the significance of the system. “Not everyone understands what we’re building,” Nestulia says.

It is Museum Day when I visit Irpin. The city’s small museum is closed to the public, but its administrators have set up a small display outside—a table set for tea, a woman in early 20th century costume, and a cabinet of locally made fruit jellies. Inside, the exhibits are packed tightly in store rooms on the second floor, 125 years of artifacts. Among the paintings, ceramics, and ephemera are busts of Lenin and works by Russian artists from the Soviet era. “We’re going to let the historians sort those out,” says Yevgeniia Antonyuk, the head of the city council’s Department of Culture. They won’t destroy things of potential significance, even now. But by the door is a stack of Soviet-era textbooks “for the recycling,” Antonyuk says.

The museum was damaged by shelling, but most of its exhibits survived. It now also houses items rescued from destroyed cultural sites, like a wooden icon, still speckled with shrapnel, from a church that was gutted by fire last year. As we walk around Irpin’s central plaza, Antonyuk points out the scarred facade of the library. “We replaced the windows, but we can’t restore that,” she says. “It’s difficult and expensive. There are 10,000 people without homes here, it’s not the right time for doing stuff like that.”

Irpin’s cultural institutions aren’t just rescuing and restoring artifacts from the city’s early years, they’re also trying to memorialize the past year and a half. It’s hard to curate history in real time. There are too many physical remnants of war. But they have huge amounts of digital material. They want to create a VR experience based on footage captured in the immediate aftermath of the Russian withdrawal from Irpin, to capture that moment even after the city is fully restored. It would be one of many attempts to digitize Ukraine’s heritage and culture, as volunteers take 3D scans of significant buildings, make high-res copies of art, and even catalog wartime memes for future generations. These are needed because cultural heritage hasn’t just been collateral damage in the war. The invasion has been motivated by the Russian idea that Ukraine doesn’t exist.

“This war is not only about territory, but it is also about culture,” Antonyuk says. “The first thing that Russians do when they occupy territory, they destroy the cultural institutions, they destroy everything Ukrainian, and they destroy everything that can identify us as Ukrainians.” Rebuilding stronger is an act of defiance and a way to reiterate the Ukrainian identity. “Cultural institutions are there to show us who we are.”

It’s also important to remember and record the present. The war in Ukraine is the first conflict of its scale and scope to happen in the era of mass digitization, with an almost unlimited ability to store and record information.

I met café owner Yefimenko and council member Antonyuk through the Museum of Civilian Voices, a project by the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation, a philanthropic organization that started in 2014, taking video testimony of people living near the front lines of the proxy war being fought between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed militias in the eastern Donbas region. Over the first four years, they collected thousands of hours of videos covering how ordinary citizens had experienced the conflict. When the larger invasion began, they expanded the project to cover the whole country. It’s an effort to make sure that the stories of individual civilians—small business owners, homemakers, school teachers—are visible within massive meta-narratives of conflict, an eye-level story of the war told in 75,000 individual accounts. The idea is “to save as many stories as we could find to create this [360-degree] understanding of what happened, of the scale of the tragedy,” says Natalya Yemchenko, one of the foundation’s board members, who has been involved in the project from the beginning. And there’s a healing aspect to it. The country needs to learn how to remember, Yemchenko says. “Otherwise we will keep these traumas with us in our future, and it will traumatize us again and again.”

Yefimenko, outside his coffee stall in Irpin, in a park which a year before was pocked with craters and strewn with bodies—where children are now playing on a bouncy castle—says rebuilding has given him a sense of mission and has become his own act of solidarity and defiance. It’s something I heard over and again in Ukraine: that reconstruction and reform, even the smallest acts, are ways to honor the sacrifices being made, and that rebuilding isn’t just a consequence of victory, but a way to achieve it.

“The only reason we can sit here with the coffee is because other people died on the front line,” he says. “I believe that everyone should do their thing in their place. Some people make coffee, some people fight, some people make bread, and that makes up the economy of Ukraine. We are fighting for our independence. Our financial independence is also important.”

[moss-bride]

Lovers in the mud. Chapter2

Dead dove.

Mason Heiral x reader

The day wanes and she managed to evade the sight of her hunter as the moon rises. The night is harsh, it's a precarious temperature to sleep in so she doesn't. Doesn't plan on losing toes and fingers to hypothermia. This type of temperature is foreign and without previous experience she winds up huddled in a bush again. 

 

Each noise of wind through leaves has her on high alert ready to run. Every time the sweet release of unconsciousness creeps she claws her arms to stay awake.

 

The leak of the sun brings waves of relief. hunger begins to cling on the edge of her senses. Needs to find food fast.

 

She opens her supply bag and checks if he left a protein bar. Nothing but her supplies. Fucking asshole couldn't spare food.

 

She takes the knife and searches for a sturdy stick. The nice think ones are still attached to trees. She doesn't want to leave a trace. Like a deer would mark with antlers.

 

Thank god almighty she finds one. She tests it's width. And when it doesn't break she seems it decent. 

Shaving the end into a point 

 

She manages to find a river, the quiet rushing of water nearly makes her shout in joy. 

 

She cooks a fish in the fire. After much debate on how the smoke and smell might be a give away. Then finds a healthy clump of moss and squeezes the water into her parched mouth.

 

Her luck runs out 

 

She trips over a branch. The crash is louder then it should be. She sputters out dirt and blinks open her eyes. Right beside her is the source of the clang. A bear trap. Her eyes bug out of her head as she scrambles back. 

 

She gets up and starts to run. The loud clanging of its jaws likely alerted him. And sure enough 

If she quiets down enough she hears the barest hint of crunching leaves under feet. He's a surprisingly limber man for his size. Actively hunting his prey with permission that belongs to circling mountain lion.

 

Saw traps come to mind. The one frame of reference she has for these types of deadly metal machinations that she could have lost her leg to.

 

The reality of her third brush with death makes her nauseous. Yet she can't afford to bend over and vomit out her fishy lunch. He's nearing.

#x reader #ao3 fanfic #the price of flesh #tpof mason #dead dove fic

[foreveranevilregal]

Rain, Rain, Go Away...

@justadreaminghufflepuff asked for: Pepa going to water the fields after Bruno leaves and remembering how Bruno used to tag along when they were young so he could tell her sad stories to get the job done then funny ones to make her smile again.

Sorry this took so long! Please note that one of the stories mentions animal death (not in detail), so be mindful if that’s something that would upset you.

It had been a rainy spring. Sure, springtime normally brought plenty of showers, but Pepa’s gift helped compensate for any lack of rainfall in the encanto.

There had been a lot of compensation that year.

It wasn’t like Pepa could help it. Her gift was still, as a forty-year-old woman, not fully under her control. Usually, she’d rely on Félix or her siblings to help her harness whatever emotion would produce the desired weather. Well, one sibling in particular…

Yet even in his absence, he caused Pepa to rain. Torrential storms tormented the town, causing the river to flood over. Fortunately, many of the crops hadn’t been planted yet, so not much was lost. With some grumbling, the farmers agreed to wait until the rain was under control before planting. A delay was better than no food at all. They would still be fed that winter.

Eventually, the rains dried up. The river receded to its normal levels, and the ground gave up the extra water it had been harboring. Crops were planted. Young plants were tended to. For a time, everything was running smoothly.

Then the dry spell began. There would be no rain for long stretches of time, interspersed by brief intense showers. Evidently, it was going to be a dry year.

Apparently Pepa had been compensating far more than everyone had realized.

Although the townspeople had been avoiding contacting Pepa, out of both respect for the family’s loss and fear of her reaction, it had become inevitable. If it didn’t rain, their crops would be lost.

So, a brave soul reached out to Julieta in the marketplace, asking her to pass the message onto her sister. No one dared confront her directly. They’d seen what happened to people who invoked her wrath. The charred remains of that cobblestone could still be seen in the plaza.

But Julieta had a way of speaking to Pepa that calmed even her most extreme emotion. Whether it was elation scorching the ground, or sorrow drowning everything, Julieta was able to soothe Pepa back to a state of tranquility. It was an ability honed over years of experience. Not even Félix was able to calm her so thoroughly. With him, Pepa would be so grateful to calm down that sunlight would burst out whether people liked it or not.

When complete calm was needed, people turned to Julieta. Some commented, in hushed whispers, that this gift was just as valuable as her healing.

And so, Pepa found herself leaving the house for the first time since… well, since what had happened after Mirabel’s gift ceremony. Her feet knew the way, leading her up the path towards the fields and their parched crops.

She wasn’t quite sure how this would go. Normally, her brother would accompany her on the trip; helping her use her gift and do what was needed, since Pepa couldn’t exactly force herself to cry on command. He’d come up with some sad story to tug on her heartstrings and make her cry long enough to water the crops, then just as easily tell her something happy to cheer her back up and stop the rain. In return, Pepa would help him when his visions left him shaken and terrified.

Somehow, the Madrigal gifts weren’t really gifts to the Madrigals themselves.

It had started when she was little. After a short adjustment period, when people saw that she’d gained a modicum of control over her gift, they immediately started requesting her to make it rain on command. They requested sun sometimes, or a gust of wind occasionally on a sweltering day when they wanted to cool down, but it was primarily rain they’d ask for.

The first time Pepa went to the fields, she was by herself. She stood there for what felt like hours, trying desperately to make herself sad enough for it to rain. Ultimately, it was the thought that she’d be a failure who would let down her mamá that finally brought down the rain. But she had gotten so sad over the situation that she wasn’t able to make the rain stop for far too long. She had walked home in waterlogged alpargatas that day.

Following that incident, her mamá had decided someone should go with her when she went to water the crops; just to keep an eye on her and make sure she was okay. Bruno and Julieta would take turns at first, but as Julieta got busier and busier with her healing, Bruno was left as Pepa’s companion.

She wouldn’t trade it for anything.

At home, Bruno still acted like a normal brother, annoying her and causing her grief. But when they were at the fields, he was her biggest support. Pepa remembered the first story he told her to get her to cry. It was a horribly sad tale about a bunny that had died. She’d begun sobbing uncontrollably, and then Bruno quickly reassured her that the bunny had been healed somehow and came back to life.

The first time she heard this ending caught her off guard. It was impossible, she argued. Dead things don’t just come back to life.

Well, it was a story, Bruno shot back, so it could have whatever ending they wanted. Didn’t she want the bunny to be alive again? Then stop complaining. Stories were allowed to have impossible things happen. That’s what made them stories and not real life.

Pepa had to concede, she did like the ending where the bunny lived again. From then on, she began to wholeheartedly believe in the impossible.

She still wanted to believe that impossible things could happen. Except now her wishes were far less naïve than wanting a bunny to come back to life.

Every time they went to the fields, Bruno would tell her the story of the bunny. The details would vary, but the overall plot remained the same: the bunny died, somehow the bunny came back to life, everyone lived happily ever after, the end. As they grew older, the story morphed to fit her newfound interests. Dying animals gave way to star-crossed lovers, kept tragically apart by various circumstances (varying in intensity depending on how much rain was needed), but always, always, reunited at the end.

Pepa adored these stories, with their drama and twists and turns. She joked that Bruno should write them down, like a book or a play. Surely other people would enjoy her brother’s creativity too.

(When she discovered romance novels, she was just delighted.)

But she couldn’t dwell on those memories now. Not when she trudged towards the field with heavy feet and a heavier heart. She had to focus on the task at hand: make it rain enough to water the crops, and not so much that it would flood the fields. The last few weeks, she had been feeling numb; not really sad or angry or upset anymore, just a kind of flat buzzing filling the void left by the intense emotions that had wracked her after… well, after. She wasn’t sure whether she’d be able to make it rain.

Finally, she reached the fields. She surveyed the plants; taking in wilted, yellowing leaves with curled edges desperately crying out for water.

The buzzing was still in her head.

She missed Bruno.

She wished Bruno was here.

She missed Bruno.

But he wasn’t. He was gone.

She missed Bruno.

She might never see him again.

Suddenly, the floodgates opened.

It turned out she didn’t have to worry about whether she could make it rain.

Making it stop would be the real problem.

#pepa madrigal #bruno madrigal #julieta madrigal #pepa and bruno #madrigal triplets #justadreaminghufflepuff #writing answered prompts #writing encanto #writing pepa madrigal #foreveranevilregal writes

[culturevulturette]

Rival of the Eternal Man  (excerpts)

Let the slave grinding at the mill run out into the field; Let him look up into the heavens and laugh in the bright air; Let the enchained soul shut up in darkness and in sighing, Whose face has never seen a smile in thirty weary years, Rise and look out! — his chains are loose, his dungeon doors are open. And let his wife and children return from the oppressor's scourge: They look behind at every step and believe it is a dream. Are these the slaves that groaned along the streets of Mystery? Where are your bonds and task-masters? Are these the prisoners? Where are your chains? Where are your tears? Why do you look around. If you are thirsty, there is the river; go bathe your parched limbs: The good of all the land is before you, for Mystery is no more! Then all the slaves from every earth in the wide universe Sing a new song, drowning confusion in its happy notes. "Aha! Aha! How came I here, so soon in my sweet native land? How came I here? Methinks I am as I was in my youth, When in my father's house I sat, and heard his cheering voice. Methinks I see his flocks and herds, and feel my limbs renewed — And lo! my brethren in their tents, and their little ones around them!" The song arose to the golden feast: the Eternal Man rejoiced.

William Blake

#sunday soul #poetry #rival of the eternal man #william blake