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shotowoki · 3 years

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PAIRING: shouto todoroki x gn!reader WARNINGS: fluff, swearing, kissing, mutual-pinning, implied nsfw, pretty much just fluffy goodness :) WORDCOUNT: 4k

SYNOPSIS: Being roommates out of sheer convenience shouldn't have been a problem. It shouldn't have been as difficult as Shouto had made it out to be. I mean, you two barely spoke, barely found time to be together in one room and barely even came in contact with one another despite living under the same roof. It really should have been a piece of cake. But the feelings Shouto had for you grew larger with every day that passed, complicating things far more than was necessary...

In an empty room, Shouto lay sprawled on his bed. The thought of you conquering his mind as he envisioned you in your entirety.

The lazy slither of moonlight that pierced his curtains left a gentle glow across his face, the sorrow in his eyes highlighted as he pondered over the same thing he did every night. Who were you?

It seemed like a stupid question on the outside, as to those who didn't know you two well, you seemed like good friends. After all, you did live together; it would be harder to know nothing about the other. But, in Shouto's case, he knew near nothing about you. So, every night he lays in his sheets, frustrated with his lack of knowledge, listing all the things he did know. As he balled the covers under him, intertwining his fingers with the cotton, he asked himself one thing: 'who were you?', once more.

There were a few vague things he knew. He knew you worked as an office assistant, finished your work off late at night in the kitchen, took around 45 minutes in the shower, you rarely ate food at home, and brought take out every other evening. Not to mention, you barely left your room and thus leading to this lack of relationship between you two.

But what did this random trivia on you do for him? Nothing. It provided him with zero useful information, nothing to work with, and it most certainly did not quench his curiosity for you.

A heavy exhale parted his lips, and he sunk deeper into his mattress. Maybe this was enough for today. The constant worrying about you wasn't doing him any good, and he knew it. At this point, his curiosity was turning into something more. Before Shouto knew it, his once frustrated wonders had turned to admiration. And this was his current situation, face feeling hot as reality hit him like a train. When did he start to like you, and more specifically, why?

That empty feeling filled him once more; the lack of answers to all these questions had him feeling beyond exhausted. He barely knew you, and yet even moments like these felt like enough. A small rush of nervousness always stopping him in his tracks whenever the sheer thought of you crossed his mind. It felt ridiculous and brought Shouto way too much humiliation. And so, he shook these feelings off. The mystery that was you was far beyond his reach, and it was time he submitted to that fact.

Fluttering his eyelids shut, he put his mind at rest, drifting off into dreamland.

The next day had arrived, Shouto's previously exhausting night already long passing him. A wet towel swung over his head; he exited the bathroom somewhat wet, and ready for a new day.

A cold shower did the job alright, waking him up and helping him forget about the endless thoughts of you that had him up late last evening. All that remained was to fill his stomach up, and he would forget the whole ordeal. Still slightly embarrassed at the realization that he had caught feeling for the stranger that lived in the room opposite his own.

Scrubbing his hair and patting his face dry with the towel on his head, he entered the kitchen. He expected it to be empty like every other regular morning. But instead, Shouto was greeted with arguably the worst and best thing. There you sat at the kitchen island, eyeing a cup of coffee, evidently zoned out.

Shouto stopped in his tracks, and his heart dropped to his stomach. If it was even achievable, the beating of his heart was more rapid than humanly possible and probably more audible than ever. Why were you home? Not that he was complaining, it was just rare to have you home this early in the morning. Did you not have work today? Did something happen? Why are you just sitting there staring at a cup? All these questions sprung up in Shouto's head as he stood dumfounded and nervous.

His cheeks lightly sprinkled in a pink blush; he just stood there awkwardly, not daring to even move an inch. To anyone but himself, he would look pretty composed, but internally he was malfunctioning. He had hoped for a moment like this to arise for a while now. But now that the opportunity had presented itself, he barely knew what to do. It didn't help the fact he was already a flustered mess over the thought of you last night, and now there you sat in front of him.

Taking one deep breath, Shouto resumed his walk to the fridge, waving off the nerves that had built up inside him.

"Good morning, y/n. It's rare to see you home at this time." Shouto attempted to break the silence in his signature monotone voice.

It remained pretty tranquil for a bit. The only noise being that of Shouto making himself breakfast and the sound of you taking a shy sip of your drink.

"Morning. I don't have work today, so I'm home."

Your voice simmered out into the atmosphere, but it remained looping in Shouto's mind. As his back faced you, he felt his ears get hot, and he knew for a fact, he was beet red now. How did just hearing your voice already throwing him off guard?

Shouto gently exhaled, feeling his adrenaline spike through him. He just needed to stay calm. But how could he when he wasn't accustomed to hearing your voice, especially when you spoke so softly? Having a crush on your roommate was most certainly an inconvenience, as Shouto struggled to keep his concentration on making a simple cup of coffee for himself.

"Oh. Did you finally get a day off?" Luckily Shouto's voice came out calm. He'd be damned if he stumbled and made himself look more like a fool than he already had.

Well, he looked like a fool to himself, at least. You barely took notice of the random pauses his whole body made or the way he would occasionally take self-soothing deep breaths. If anything, you wouldn't even know if this type of behavior was unusual for him since you saw him so rarely.

Come to think of it, you don't even have a baseline to work with when judging his overall character. That's partially due to the fact you two have never actually sat down and bonded, which led an idea to spark off in your mind.

"Yeah, it's my first day off in a while." You spoke in a slightly more upbeat tone now, excited for the proposition you were about to make. "So, since I'm home, how about we hang out and get to know each other properly." You smiled his way, tilting your head slightly as you awaited his response.

And just as the suggestion escaped your mouth, Shouto made the unfortunate mistake of turning around, his surprised expression out on display as he was yet to process what you just had said.

"Um, sure." is all Shouto was able to say. His heart thumped out of his chest, and his words knotted up in his throat.

The sudden proposition you offered him had him speechless. All these sudden coincidences being the last thing Shouto expected. Was it all too sudden, perhaps? Either way, he wasn't going to deny the opportunity at hand because who knew when you would be free again. Finally, this was his chance to answer the question that has been keeping up at night. And somewhat address these feelings that had started manifesting.

"Then, I was thinking... maybe we could have a movie night?" You chirped, leaning over the counter in excitement.

"You know, there's this movie my coworkers have been talking about, and I've really been wanting to watch."

For the first time, Shouto got to see you relish in your interests. A cute smile curling the corners of your lips as you spoke, rambling about this so-called movie. He couldn't help but smile at your bubbly nature, getting lost in the expressions you were making that he has never before seen. The way your eyes lit up and your hands waved around as you tried convincing him to watch the movie. Little did you know, you didn't need to convince him of anything, he would agree to watch anything with you. But he wasn't going to burst your joyful bubble now. He wanted to savor this moment, and so he let you speak whatever was on your mind, just burning this moment into his memory.

Dazing at your soft lips as you spoke, he realized how zoned out he had become; your speech becomes just a faint murmur in the back of his mind as all he could think about was how much more beautiful you looked up close.

"Ah, sorry! I completely went on a tangent there. I tend to do that when I get excited. I'm sorry!" You giggled while exaggeratingly facepalming yourself.

And with that, he was once more snapped back into reality. What were you just talking about? Aside from the mention of a movie night, Shouto couldn't remember much else. He couldn't have retained anything that fell from those pretty lips of yours. And down the gutter, his thoughts went once more. The overwhelming flustering feeling washed over him as he realized what ideas exactly he was having right in front of you. He needs to hurry up and respond to you rather than just standing there aimlessly staring at your lips.

"Don't worry about it. You look cute anyways when you're so excited about something." Those words left Shouto so fast he could barely believe he had said them himself. The humiliation already settling itself as he cursed himself for being such a creep.

The sudden affection from your roommate had you stuttering. You have had your eye on him ever since you moved in together. What was there not to like about him? He was good-looking, always left food out for you, and cleaned the apartment before you got back from work. The only issue was you. You were far too shy to admit to these feelings, your one solution being to lock yourself up in your room and avoid him like the plague. Today just so happened to be the exception as you felt a tad bit confident when he nonchalantly (as you perceived it) walked into the kitchen.

Now a compliment of this magnitude was the last thing you expected, and so your insides burnt hot as you shifted in your seat.

"Sorry! I didn't mean for it to come out that way." The concern in his voice was more than evident, the furrowing of his brows in frustration delivering his apology clearly.

"No-no, it fine! Really."

"What I was trying to say was that a movie night sounds great!" Shouto bopped his head down as he managed to completely fuck up this one opportunity that he had. To him, it seemed as though he had ruined everything, but if anything, he had succeeded a lot more than he gave himself credit.

You were still giddy at his subtle compliment, heart racing at the fact he called you cute. CUTE. Failure should have been the last thing on Shouto's mind as if he observed you a little more closely, he would have noticed the satisfactory grin on your face.

"Great! I'll meet you in the living room at 5 pm then." You hoped out of your chair, putting your empty cup away.

You definitely wanted to stay with him longer, but you needed to calm yourself down. The knots in your stomach tightening by the second as you felt flustered by his presence.

"Right."

Gently, you squeezed past him as you exited the kitchen, the cozy heat that radiated from his body sending goosebumps down your skin. Even with a touch so short-lived, you couldn't help but freak out. How would you manage this evening? Only future you will know the answer to that question.

As quickly as you parted ways, the evening arrived just as fast. A golden sunset burst through the living room window and drizzled the atmosphere in sweet honey. A soft breeze floated through as Shouto sat anxiously waiting for you.

His outfit was bland, but it was expected of him. Just a pair of generic grey sweatpants paired with a white tee. As stated previously, his attire was very bland. But it was comfy, to say the least.

Just on time, you finally met him at your designated period. Your heart hammered out your chest, not only from the nervous itch that was being with your crush, but the possibility of this all being awkward. It felt like meeting a stranger, only with an odd sense of familiarity attached. Maybe then calling him a stranger would be a poor analogy. Perhaps it was more like being left alone with that person your friend was trying to introduce you to. Yeah, that's a better parallel for how this all felt right now. However, it all still felt rather exciting.

"Hi! Are you ready?" You giggled as you sunk into the couch, sitting beside him.

"Definitely. What's the movie called again, y/n?" The way your name so easily fell from his lips set off the butterflies in your stomach.

It sounded so pretty coming from him, way prettier than you could have prepared yourself for. Suddenly, you found yourself speechless, mind going blank as you fished for the name of the movie you knew.

"U-um, it seems my mind has gone blank. Give me a second."

Rubbing your arm in an attempt to calm yourself, you let out your signature laugh. The golden hue of the sun stirred the color of his heterochromatic eyes as you glanced back at them, still thinking of the name of the movie you knew just a second ago. Attentively, his eyes examed you, and you managed to catch sight of this glance.

"Don't worry, take your time." With that, his eyes shot back up meeting yours. "Do you happen to be cold? You're rubbing your arm."

That explained his gaze, but it didn't happen to settle the nerves inside you. And in your flustered state, you responded with the first thing that came to mind as you swatted your hand to your side.

"Ah, yeah! It's a bit chilly with the window open in here."

Right on cue, Shouto reached for the blanket on the sofa, wrapping it snuggly over your shoulders. The way his slender fingers brushed against your skin as he positioned the fabric on you made you freeze. You could barely hear yourself think as your heart ran wild, adrenaline surging your veins. His face was so close, so close you could see how his eyelashes softly brushed his cheeks with every blink. Fast, it all happened so fast, and yet the memory replayed in slow motion in your mind. The way he just swept in and then back out.

"There. If it gets too cold I'll close the blind." He smiled at you comfortingly before reaching for the remote.

You couldn't do anything but sit there wide-eyed, your nervousness being unbearable.

"The movie... I can't remember its name." Finally, you admitted defeat, done battling your mind that was clearly not regaining composure any time soon.

"That's fine. I guess we can just watch whatever piques our interest for now. There's always next time."

There's always next time. The implication of another hang-out was soothing. Knowing that this wasn't a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity managed to quiet you down slightly as you repositioned yourself to sit more comfortably on the sofa.

"Right!" You beamed in agreement, turning your attention to the tv.

The mindless scrolling through Netflix lasted a while as you made conversation with one another. Talk of how most movies were boring filled your discussions, exchanging laughter here and there too. It all felt so reassuring, and both of you were starting to feel more relaxed. Movie after movie, it felt like you were about to hit a dead end until you eventually landed on something intriguing.

"This one! This one looks good, right?" You explained, pointed to the digital screen that gently lit up your faces.

"Right, it doesn't sound bad."

Shouto was beginning to uncover you and your character a lot better now. Seeing as you got excited about the most random things, but also the way you were so easily caught off guard. It put a soft smile on his face as he just admired you silently.

The movie began to play, the two of you settling down as the noises from the tv exclaimed through the speakers. To say that Shouto was happy was an understatement. Looking back on the evening from just last night to now was a huge shift, and a huge shift in the direction he could have hoped for. It was the start of something he had been wishing for long while now.

Hearing you laugh at the actors on screen, turning to face him as you shared the humours moments with him had him feeling all gooey inside. Lightly, your leg would occasionally brush past his, making him more than eager to pull a move on you. Fuck it, right? Apparently, Shouto couldn’t just have his cake, he wanted to eat it too.

You were far too cute in this moment, nudging on him softly as your laugh radiated through the air. And so, in a moment when his adrenaline spiked and clouded his judgment, he snaked an arm over you shoulder, cradling you into his chest. You gave into his invitation, resting against him.

Not to say you were all calm about the exchange, you were in fact the complete opposite. It was really happening, you were laying in Shouto’s toned arms, his fingers gently gliding up and down your forearm as he sunk down onto the couch. Laying himself down and then you on top of him.

Was Shouto calm about this, then? Definitely not. His hearts rapid beating was audible as you rested your head on his chest. Smiling hazily as you realised he was just as nervous about all this as you.

As he lay under you, you soaked in his touch, the way his toned figure felt as your hands snaked around his waist. And the way his breathing gently cascaded a chilly breeze down your neck, shivers forming along your soft skin. Ever smooth shift and touch his body made against yours was thrilling.

At this point you weren’t even concentrated on the movie, and instead on the boy under you. The movie acting more as background noise to the thing you really wanted to watch. Glancing up at his soft features, the way his plump rosy lips were slightly parted as his eyes shifted across the screen. Oh how you wanted to kiss him in this moment. What was holding you back exactly?

You could lean any minute if you just so pleased.

“Shouto?” You finally spoke up, interrupting the tranquility between you two.

His response was a simple hum, eyes falling to meet yours. The way he held eye contact, smiling at you invitingly was enough to have anyone falling for him. You felt extremely lucky to be even given the chance to be in this position with him.

“Can I?” You started, lifting yourself up slightly.

“Can you?”

He quirked a brow at you as he sat up to meet your movement. Trapped under you as your two legs straddled his lap, you gave him a sheepish smile. A short moment passed without a response, and Shouto smiled at you suspiciously, leaning in to jokingly examine your face.

“What’s on your mind?”

At his unannounced actions you glanced away, but Shouto only pulled your chin to look back at him. A smirk growing on his face before his palm came to cup your cheek; his other hand resting nonchalantly on your thigh.

And like he knew exactly what you were thinking, with a light brush of his thump against you bottom lip, he dipped in for a kiss.

His plump lips meeting yours. Soft, they felt so soft as they moulded perfectly with yours, meting against the other. The tender way his lips hovered for a second as he pulled away, licking his lips and then coming back in. Glazing you in his touch, he began to move again, taking in one of your lips at a time, relishing in your sweet taste. The way his lips massaged yours with every move he made had you pressing yourself into him.

It felt relieving in a way, finally dining the dish you’ve been craving for so long. After all these months you two have lived together, finally you both were holding each other like you have been wanting. Arms wrapped around his neck, fingers weaving throw his hair as you yearned for more.

Your plush tongue came to meet his, intertwining with the other. Happily, he ventured your mouth, taking in every inch of you. Smoothly dragging his tongue to the root of your mouth then pulling himself out, until he came back in once more to suck you back in.

The only think separating you two being the string of spit that drizzled off each other’s tongues as you caught your own breaths between each embrace. Your merciful moans he swallowed, his delicate hands travelling up your spin. They left a cold trail, fireworks erupting your stomach as the adrenaline of this all began seeping in.

You two were getting too carried away, but it just goes to show how bad you wanted one another. Shouto, however, wanted to clear things up before you continued any further.

He pulled away breathily, blinking at you with delight in his eyes.

“Y/n, I’ve been wanting to tell you this for a while now, and i’m sorry if this is sudden. But, I like you.”

That sentence alone had you more flustered than your previous touches and you smiled like a kid with candy.

Was this a dream come true? Maybe it was, which in that case, you definitely didn’t want to wake up. But, lucky for you, this was in fact reality.

“I like you too, silly” You giggled only inches away from his face, and the instant grin that sprawled across his lips was the only confirmation you needed.

Instantly, he engulfed you in a tight hug, his head cradling itself into the crook of you neck.

“Then how about we finish this off in my bedroom now that you’re all mine.” Was the last thing he said, his lips resuming their bidding on the soft skin in your neck.

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modern-inheritance · 3 years

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Modern Inheritance: Night Terrors, pt. 1

WARNING: This story deals with torture flashbacks, several of which are specifically dealing with waterboarding. If these scenes would cause any problems for you, please do not read. I am only basing my portrayal of PTSD on internet research and very little first hand knowledge.

Here it is folks. The two shot that started the current MIC iteration. This was one of my first stories for Modern Inheritance (written in 2016 iirc). As such, it’s not totally in line with the image I have for the series and characters now (Early 2021), but it is a solid baseline and actually pretty damn close. At some point I may rewrite it, but for now, I’m happy with this reminder of changes.)

PART 1 // Part 2

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Arya never really slept well.

True, her sleep got a bit better once they had arrived at Ellesméra, something she was incredibly thankful for, but being able to sleep through every other night without nightmares or a heart pounding night terror ripping her from her waking dreams was still not good enough to be considered ‘sleeping well.’ If it weren’t for those blessed nights of uninterrupted slumber the elf was sure she would be a walking wreck.

So far she had managed to avoid waking anyone else. Islanzadí, surprisingly enough, would occasionally check on her daughter in the middle of the night, and on nights where she found her sitting at the balcony staring at the stars, the queen would join her in silent companionship. It was a sign their relationship was mending, and if Arya was still stuck, mute and fearful, in her dreams, the slender arm that wrapped around her shoulders and soft humming would pull the younger elf from the darker recesses of her mind.

Something about tonight was different, though. As Arya slipped under the comforter on her bed– having finally gotten used to sleeping in it after two weeks of sleeping on a progressively thicker pile of sleeping bags on the floor– she felt a tingle of distant static dart across the pads of her fingers. When she glanced out the doors to the balcony, a far off thunderhead appeared as a purple smear against the orange and pink sunset. Lightning flickered through the cloud, seeming to rent it from corner to corner before it again returned to the color of bruised skin.

'Good. We haven’t had rain in some time.’ The elf thought as she turned on her side and closed her eyes. She tugged the corner of the comforter under her chin and drifted off into her waking dreams, hoping the sway of the tree would lull her into a peaceful sleep.

Arya’s waking dreams stuttered. Something had changed in her surroundings, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on until she realized she couldn’t breathe.

Everything felt heavy and damp, especially around her face and definitely over her mouth and nose. It was pitch black and something was clamped over her eyes, shoving her head back against a hard, flat surface. She couldn’t move, no matter how much she internally screamed at her muscles to do so, and with a terrifying jolt she realized she couldn’t breathe either. Warm water gushed into her mouth and flooded her sinuses, panic filling her chest as quickly as the liquid did.

“We can end this here and now, elf.” A cold voice whispered in her ear, and the fall of water against her face halted. The hand over Arya’s eyes lifted and bright light flared across her lids as a sodden cloth was removed. The demon beside the woman let her cough and choke, trying to expel the water in her lungs but unable to while he still pushed her head back with a hand on her clammy forehead. “What say you, hm? A few words are all I want. Speak them to me, and you will be released from this.” He knew she wouldn’t be able to respond, not verbally at least, but that was part of his game. He knew she would never speak.

Using the little leeway he gave her, Arya managed to scowl, spitting water from between her teeth, and shake her head a few millimeters from side to side. Durza sighed mockingly and slapped the wet cloth back down over her face.

“Oh well. Ready to die again, little elf?“

Lightning flashed across Arya’s eyes as she fell from the bed and hit the floor hard, a strangled cry escaping her throat. She scrambled to kick the tangled blanket off of her legs and dove for her pack to rip her sword from where it was tied to the frame.

A clap of thunder rang out as she pulled the blade free just in time to feel her back flare white hot with agony, lines of fire tracing wounds she knew had been healed. It had been weeks since they closed, hadn’t it? Hadn’t it?!

A fist slammed into her side, cracking a rib and sending her to the floor again, sword still clamped in a white knuckled grip.

'Get dressed. Get out of here. Fight.’ The thought was barely registered as Arya scrambled for the combat pants she wore while with the Varden, another line of pain lancing its way up her right arm. For a brief moment, as she struggled to yank the pants on without giving up her sword, she swore she saw blood dripping from her fingers, trailing from a deep gash that revealed the bones and tendons flexing in her forearm.

She dropped her blade for a split second to yank on a standard issue cotton shirt and then snatched the weapon up again. She tore her pistol belt and combat jacket out of her pack, quickly patting the pockets to make sure the pressure bandage and small medkit were still there, and slung both over her arm. Thunder crashed again, followed by a clap of lightning nearby.

Another blow clipped the elf’s shoulder as she dashed for the balcony, nearly shoving her out the open doors before she caught herself on the jamb.

It was raining. Wet spray splashed up into Arya’s face and she recoiled, feeling her throat tighten and her already rapid heartbeat increase. She couldn’t breathe. He chuckled coldly and pushed her off the table with his boot, watching her vomit up water and what little food remained in her stomach as she convulsed on the floor. All that water and yet it still felt as if her lungs were on fire.

Arya could feel another strike coming, another slash from a whip arcing through the damp air. It was either continue facing her invisible attackers or brave the water.

With a savage growl the elf bounded through the doorway and out into the elements, leaping from the balcony to the tier below, the tier below that one, and finally to the ground. She straightened from the crouch she had landed in, then staggered as the raindrops slammed into her back and sent fresh shocks of pain across her skin. The raw wounds– 'How are they open again!'– and exposed nerves registered each and every drop of water as a lightning bolt that seared its way to her brain.

”Giving up so soon? I expected more of you.“ Arya looked up and saw the Shade before her with a mockingly disappointed expression. She bolted to her feet and struck out at his face, only to be thrown against the wall as if she were no more than a child. Stars and lights exploded across her eyes even as she charged him again, refusing to be led like a lamb to slaughter. She fought tooth and nail until he succeeded in pinning her and the whip slammed into her already mutilated back, and the cycle of torture started anew.

And then she was running, sprinting across the elvish capitol, heart pounding in her ears and a knot of terror in her stomach. Everything was wrong, everything was burning. Smoke filled her lungs as she dashed blindly in a direction that, for some inexplicable reason, promised safety.

A bullet suddenly hissed by her ear, cutting through the raindrops with a high-pitched song, then another shot clean through the muscle of her side with a spray of blood. She gasped and stumbled, then spat out the raindrops she had inhaled, coughing as the taste of copper joined the musky flavor of pine smoke. She yanked on her combat jacket, dulling the pain of the raindrops pounding into her skin, and hoped that the woven spider silk plates in the fabric would protect her from any more stray projectiles. 'Where are they coming from? They can’t have gotten here, not in Ellesméra!’

The fire was simply…gone when she slammed into his door, breath coming in quick, painful gasps. The rain still poured down unabated, an explosion renting the night as a cannonbomb detonated behind her and sprayed her wounds with mud. Arya pressed her forehead to the familiar surface and pounded on the door with the pommel of her sword as the ground shook. "Glen!”

There was no answer.

A flash of light to the left made her whip around, looking for the gun from which the muzzle flash had originated, only to feel a blade sink into her stomach.

White hot knives sliced twin, cauterized slits below each one of her ribs. The muscles of her abdomen flexed as she instinctively tried to pull her arms and legs from where they were cuffed to the wall in an attempt to protect her sides and stomach. Durza smiled at her movements, tracing the outline of the toned muscle beneath her tan skin with a finger as he caught her eyes with his. Disgust welled up in her chest, and if she had been able to spit at him she would have. Being without water for two days straight had left her barely able to swallow.

He saw her expression, though, and his smile widened. He leaned forward and pressed his ice-cold forehead to her fevered one, his sharpened teeth glinting in the light cast by the glowing daggers. A bit of horror touched Arya’s heart as she feared the worst. She couldn’t fend off the advances of a Shade, not in the state she was in.

Then she threw back her head and screamed in pain and Durza laughed in glee as the daggers buried themselves halfway to their hilts between her ribs.

The shock sent Arya staggering back to hit the door again. “Glenwing, let me in!” She shouted, kicking the door with her bare heel. “Glen!”

She smelled hot cinnamon mints and burning batteries all interlaced with the pungent scent of motor oil.

And then she realized she could taste them too, and with a jolt she felt a mouth over hers and a weight on her hips and her eyes flared open and she saw him above her. He pulled back and smirked as he wrenched her head to the side by her hair and she immediately coughed up water and blood and bile. “Welcome back to the land of the living, little elf. You need not worry about dying on my watch. Even in the void, you will never escape me.” And he laughed.

Arya let out a choked sob and slid to the ground, her body alight with pain from wounds that should have been nerveless scars and terror that she had never wanted to feel again. “Glen, please…” She leaned against the door, hugging her knees, and beat her head against the wood, trying to chase out the demons in her skull. “Please, I can't–”

There was so much blood. She didn’t even know where he had hit her this time. He had screwed with her perception of pain again, amplifying it until the barest ghost of air on her cheek felt like a hot iron smashing into her face, and set about whipping her with a short bullwhip studded with bits of barbed wire. She had given up on holding in her screams after the first hour and a half. After the fourth she had given up on screaming entirely, her body too weak and her throat too torn to produce sound. And still he cut her and whipped her and kicked her and strangled her, not even asking questions, only seeking to sate the spirits raged within his body.

Then it was black and she tasted the hot cinnamon again, the flavor reminding her of the mints Jörmundur had tried using to curb his smoking after his son was born, and the overwhelming smell of motor oil pervaded her senses. He wasn’t on top of her this time, and she immediately rolled over and dry heaved, spitting and gasping and trying to rid her mouth of the tastes that she now associated with death.

She felt something hot sheeting down the side of her face, hotter than the rain that pounded down inches away. “I can’t…” She whimpered, weakly raising her sword again and knocked the hilt against the door. Pain blossomed on the side of her head, adding the new sensation to the avalanche of agony that was crashing through her battered and bloody body. “I can’t keep…”

A hand grabbed her bruised side– spat blood into his eyes– guard screamed in agony as she slammed her combat boot between his naked legs with a spray of blood– couldn’t hear, couldn’t see, couldn’t taste or smell, it was all silence and nothing– acid sizzled in the trenches of her torn flesh, smelling like cooking meat– knife diving into her stomach over and over, the wounds healing shut after seconds as he methodically stabbed her, grinning like a child at play– pain like that shouldn’t exist– claw shaped iron dipped down– blood, all that blood– his lips on hers as he breathed life into her body again and again to introduce her to new, unimaginable levels of pain–

Arya threw her head back and screamed into the roaring thunder, “Dear spirits, just let me DIE!”

#Modern Inheritance #inheritance cycle #eragon #modern inheritance stories #the cyclists #Ket's Modern Inheritance Cycle #Arya #arya drottningu #durza #ptsd #flashbacks #night terrors #early MIC #torture #prisoner of war #i tried to be accurate and sensitive to ptsd but please remember this was very early for me in MIC and I've learned a lot now #eldest #eldest (inheritance)

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fairyhaven13 · 4 years

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Just had to walk away from a conversation with my dad before it turned into an argument; he thinks that Marvel’s Infinity War and Endgame were great movies, and I think they’re crap. They tick me off, and because I can’t go on a rant about it to my dad without making him sad, I’m going to rant on here instead.

Spoilers. Under the cut if you’re interested.

First of all, after the first Avengers movie, we were given a distinct impression. This was a group of people who had their differences, who may never become good friends, but who would stick it together anyways to be a team. The classic “quirky characters bond out of fighting for the greater good.” This is what is known as a Found Family trope. It doesn’t mean that the characters would have seen eye to eye, or even necessarily liked each other, but they would have cared, because they’re family. Them eating shawarma together at the end was a good example of a stereotypical Found Family scene.

I tried to explain this to my dad and brother, but they don’t understand. They think I mean we should get lots of Slice of Life scenes with them doing chores and playing hopscotch and “boring things.” They don’t understand that a good superhero team movie necessitates a sense of Found Family by the end of it, and doesn’t need “boring” Slice of Life in it at all. It just requires the team to want to stay a team, to want to defend each other and in general have that baseline of care towards each other. A funny quip in a fight scene, a moment of “No one picks on him but me!”

Age of Ultron implied this even more strongly, with Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch hitting the team where it hurt: in the way they cared for each other, and made them afraid to lose one another. When the kids reformed, they were told that this heroic action was what it meant to be a team, to understand each other and fight for what’s right. This was emphasized with the team once again quipping and joking with each other during the fights, and showing how each one provides a specific strength to save the day.

After that, it was like the directors stopped caring. Team? What team? What Found Family? They all hate each other! What communication, what compromise? Steve goes hunting for his friend without telling his new family what he’s doing, and then leaves the team entirely when push comes to shove, also without talking it out with his new family. Tony is understandably hurt because, A) Steve knew Bucky killed his parents and never even bothered to talk this out with Tony, to give the guy time to mourn and decide what would be the right thing to do, and B) Tony wanted the Avengers initiative to work, he wanted to make it work, and seeing Steve leave tells him that Steve doesn’t care, that Steve wants to give up. And, Steve doesn’t bother to explain why this isn’t true, he just takes half the team and breaks Tony’s heart.

This is never fixed, never given any closure. The most we get is Steve and Tony going back in time to work together and get the Dragon Ball stone, and they don’t at all talk about what happened between them. Steve, the self-righteous hypocrite that he is, will never say sorry.

Steve goes on being selfish in Endgame, when he decides that, instead of stepping up to the plate when the team needed it--when Tony is literally dead--he’s going to abandon these people he’s worked with for years and be with the woman he knew for less than half that time. Dad thought this was sweet. I thought it was ridiculous. Steve was supposed to learn how to move on, how to be a part of this new world, and just like he did with the team before, he quit. He gave up and said it wasn’t worth it.

Second, we have the stupid plot of Endgame entirely. Time travel via Ant Man’s shrink machine. This. Is. Not. How. Quantum. Physics. Works.

You can’t just staple the word “quantum” onto something and go, “oh, it’s related to space displacement, but because it says quantum, it’s also tiiiime displacement!” That doesn’t work! Just because the darn machine can shrink and grow you, doesn’t mean it can magically shunt you through time! After Infinity War, this was the biggest theory everyone had, was that Scott was going to bring time travel into the mix in this exact way. I said, no, there’s no way they would be that stupid. Turns out, yeah. They were that stupid. They said “oooo quantum this, quantum that, poof, time travel!”

It would be one thing if this was a precedent for the series. If they used that sort of crappy, unbelievable reasoning all the time. But, they didn’t. They used much more understandable pseudoscience for everything else, and then they just... didn’t here. They pounded the idea of time travel into our heads because they couldn’t handle the idea that literally any other explanation might be better.

They don’t even bother to try making it make sense. Not at all. “Oh, we have to put the stones back so we don’t change the past!” What about Loki escaping? What about past Thanos and past Nebula being actually dead? And, you know, all of past Thanos’s other kids? His whole army? There’s a GIGANTIC paradox there and the directors do. not. care.

Third, we had so many characters that were cared for, developed carefully, just slaughtered. The worst offense was Loki. He had a whole movie dedicated to his reforming--yes, reforming, dad, stop trying to say he didn’t reform! He freaking reformed! He went from “BOW TO ME” with his fancy helmet and scepter, to “Asgard will rise again, brother!” and using that dumb, fancy helmet as a weapon because he didn’t care about how he looked anymore! That whole movie--Ragnarok--was specifically dedicated to finding Hulk, and reforming Loki to the point where he’d healed from so much of his madness in the previous movies. And, then what do they do?

They kill him like a dog. In about five seconds, with no attempt to defend himself with any of his large array of magical powers. All he does is poof up a knife. A knife. And, then he’s dead. No, I don’t care about the Loki show they’re making, that Loki show is using old Loki, the hurt one who didn’t get that chance to heal. They used an entire movie to heal the new Loki, and then they killed him.

The same goes for Vision and Gomorrah. Vision gets a whole movie where he’s born, and another movie where a chunk establishes his relationship with the Scarlet Witch, and then they kill him. Gomorrah gets two movies showing her growth and learning to love Peter, and then they kill her. What’s worse, is they bring her past version back and act like that’s okay! The past version, who doesn’t know Peter, who doesn’t even like Peter, who didn’t have a whole movie to teach Nebula how to love and be a sister again. The past version, who, according to their reasoning, should have stayed in the past to prevent a paradox! But, who cares about any of that??

Captain Marvel I can kind of get, the actor was only able to be there in the last few weeks of Engame’s production, and this was before her debut movie was made. But, it’s still very annoying how a character with so much buildup ended up with a measly couple punches on past Thanos, and it barely touches him. Why is past Thanos so much stronger than his older, wiser, supposedly more well prepared counterpart, huh?

The only thing this movie did well was Black Widow’s death. That scene was in direct contrast to Gomorrah’s death, and it was to show how, in reality, Thanos didn’t love Gomorrah at all. Clint fights Natasha viciously to stop her, tries to die in her stead, exactly the opposite of what Thanos does to his “daughter.” It was a scene made to show how horribly abusive Thanos was.

That’s it, that’s the only thing I appreciate about this movie. Well, that and squealing when Steve finally said, “Avengers, Assemble” again, when the portals all opened. That was nice.

All the rest of it sucks. I hate it, and I hate that this is where the MCU ended up after I had so much hope for it and its characters. It used to be so good.

This is why I’m writing a gigantic freaking Fix-It Fic where Found Family happens and nobody dies and everyone is happy. This is why fanfiction even exists.

#mcu #marvel #endgame #infinity war #spoilers #rant #vent #i freaking hate this movie #both movies #they suck eggs #marvel why did you do us so dirty #you had so much potential #we were found family baited

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spc4eva · 3 years

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Morning Wind: Hooked on a Feeling

Say hello to our awkward Jakonan bounty hunter! I really wanted to give insight into her brain and the fact that her 'reservation' and 'mysteriousness' is because she's lowkey panicking in silence beneath her mask. Ironically, people just assume she's stoic like Mando, when in truth she's a bundle of anxiety.

Also yes, Hooked on a Feeling by Blue Swede is now canon and she was totally singing it in her ship.

Just a few fun tidbits about her: Asa is a middle child, she's 30, and I imagined her faceclaim being Adeline Rudolph.

Word Count: 5,173

Rating: T (violence/cursing)

Crossposted on AO3 & Fanfic.net

Docking on Nevarro was always a process. Not because there was a tower to report to or it was exceptionally difficult to find a spot on the 'tarmac', which consisted of a flat sandy dune, windswept and dotted with the sulfuric ash of the juxtaposed lava plains. Rather, mentally Asakaze found her lashes fluttering in irritation as she came back to this dry, arid, shitty planet. After a decade of making her rounds, she'd grown rather cynical and bored with her tactic for survival. Groaning, she rubbed her face in the cockpit, glowering through the tinted observation shield as she knew leaving her starship entitled getting in all of her armor and putting the kriffing mempo on. Had she not been wanted by the Empire for years, she might've taken it off, but there were still loyalists who would be able to pick her apart from other Jakonans.

Asakaze Shand was a traitor to the Empire, supplying them with bodies for years before renouncing her alliance and allegiance to the emperor. Originally, she had done it for her people, convinced that they could weather through the onslaught since the Empire was at war with the Rebel Alliance. Her anticipation was slapped right off her face and her entire clan was massacred, her escape nothing short of a miracle and only due to her abilities with her Chi. Despite the loss, House Shand was well known across the galaxy for less savory reasons and she took full advantage of their notorious reputation.

Exhaustion was the best way to explain how Asa felt, a deep bone weary existence that was the same day in and day out. Find the quarry, bring them in, get paid in credits, fuel up the ship, begin the rounds once again. What else was she to do? Even if the Empire was officially defeated, Asakaze was disgraced, no one was waiting for the Shand Shogun to return after she'd led their clan to ruin.

I was a girl. Why did they expect me to know what to do? I was barely 20.

Rattling around her, the Ryu had seen better days and without constant maintenance, routine checkups, and a mechanic's knowledgeable hand Asa was on a countdown from when the starship would kick the bucket. Pinching between her brows she didn't bother stifling her sigh as she slapped the radio on the dash, beginning her Nevarro routine. To the Guild, Ronin was an enigma beside the Mandalorian. Honestly, she didn't know how the fuck she'd managed that. Beneath her mempo, Asa was the epitome was anxiety and awkwardness. What others perceived as calm, poised reservation was actually Asa not having any idea what to say, quietly simmering behind her mask as she wanted to do nothing more than shrink into nothingness.

Voices chanting began to filter through the radio, repeating the word simultaneously before a voice broke through with a wry wistfulness. Asa rose from her seat, robes fluttering around her as she darted to the side, throwing her arms out in a futile attempt to pump herself up.

"I can't stop this feeling

Deep inside of me-"

Dropping from the cockpit, down to the hull of the ship, Asa belted the song, all but screaming it as she grabbed her armor and began forcing it on. Her eyes leered at the cryo chamber during the guitar rift, pointing toward the ceiling as the horns blared between the lyrics, almost as if she were conducting it herself. Spinning around to a nonexistent audience, Asa cocked a smile and winked - at the wall, but in her head it was a fan. In her dreamscape, Asa had been a performer and singer - reality wasn't quite as fun. Asa dressed whilst the song continued, the final lines corresponding with the mempo being set in place, her own mellow voice replaced with the oni-setting on her modulator, intentionally deep and scathing.

Frowning when the song actually ended, Asa's shoulders sagged in her kimono, and she grumbled to herself, trotting to the controls beside the dock of her ship. Despite the attempt to put a little pep in her step, this hellish repetition was all that was keeping her clinging to sanity as she spun around on a carousel that never ended, constantly having her leer out at the same faces, despite the years that had passed. Asa didn't even know when she would be ready to finally step off the carousel, but supposed her Chi would eventually guide her in the right direction, just as her father had claimed. Thus far, her Chi had done nothing but fail her. This resulted in a deep-seated cynicism in the woman. For all her abilities, they hadn't once saved her.

Asa had the worst fucking luck.

Currently, her life was testament to that - a Shogun turned bounty hunter who had to hide her face despite the fall of the Empire. Any solace she had was on the Ryu in the brief lulls between planets.

Opening the port, hands cocked on her hips, Asa let out a long sigh which did not properly register through the modulator on her mask. Although it filtered the atmosphere, she could feel the heat radiating off her skin beneath the loose kimono sleeves, the sulfur was infectious like a plague. Her entire ship reeked of it, the rotten egg stench permeating from all her attire, even the hilt of her katana. Yet another of the listless charms of Nevarro. Sauntering her way to the cantina, humming the song to herself, she untucked her arm from her kimono sleeve and levied it on the inside of the fold as she lazily trotted back into town.

Eyes traced her crimson form, wary and skittish. The irony. Beneath the folds of fabric was a lean woman, but a woman nonetheless. Her sandals gave her another few inches, giving her the appearance of being close to 5'10", a seemingly average height. In tandem with her armor hidden beneath her robes, she appeared much broader than she actually was. Sure, Asa had muscle and was a honed mercenary, but she wasn't thick or imposing. The walk was a big part of it and Asa moved with a lazy nonchalance. By this point, most people strayed clear of her path. Even when she'd first come to Nevarro, anyone who glimpsed her mempo was eager to flee before her. Originally, she'd found this amusing, but now she was growing rather sick of it. After years of it, watching people scatter like leaves in the wind was harrowing and lonely.

The cantina was a dusty hovel, filled to the brim with untrustworthy scum that Asa had come to consider acquaintances. Despite the fact they'd trade her in for a good sum of credits, they all had stories which she collected and transcribed to kanji. Poetry could be found in even the worst settings and as a Jakonan, songs and lore had never fled her heart. Her fingers itched to play her flute for an audience, but she didn't trust anyone enough to remove her mempo. Given that it had been a decade, Asa had resigned herself to accepting her fate alone. In hyperspace, only the stars listened to the song of the shakuhachi.

Grimacing beneath her mask, she noticed that Karga was exceptionally thrilled that afternoon. Usually, the only thing that made him excited was money and prospects that earned him better commission. His dark eyes brightened at the sight of her - or Ronin. Given the number of years they'd known one another, she'd established a baseline for quarries she would and wouldn't take. Imperial remnants were a no-go as were bounties that he'd doled to the Mandalorian. Given that she still owed Mando a debt, she was not keen on digging the hole further. Additionally, Asa had declined many high paying bounties when her Chi screamed in opposition. Karga poked at her, stating that 'Mando will take them' as if there was a deeper rivalry between them when there wasn't. Asa respected the Mandalorian and wanted nothing to do with him. Honestly, Mandalorians were bad news and she regretted owing a debt, but that was the way of the Bushido.

"Ronin!" Karga greeted animatedly, slapping the table that he habited since their original meeting. Asa wished it was raining now, she loved the petrichor and humidity in comparison to the heat that leeched all moisture from her, despite the folds of her kimono making an attempt to covet it. "How was your hunt?"

He didn't actually care as long as it was successful. "Ready for offload," she retorted, glancing around the sparsely populated common house. Honestly, this was one of the few rare times she'd noticed that it was this empty.

"Are you staying around for some sabacc?" Karga chatted idly, thumbing the breast pocket on his robes, eliciting her attention. Eyes tracing, she noticed the outline of a rectangle, perhaps metal, but she couldn't say.

"Depends. What do you have available?"

Her heart was humming with a caustic rhythm, searing with each thrum as she stood, unable to hear the meaningless words the Guild Master was gracing her with. Instead, the hairs on her arms raised and she drew a shuddering breath, an invisible force laying against her shoulder blades and chest, stealing the air from her chest and threatening to strangle her. Something was coming. Given the disconcerting method in which her Chi screamed, she was not willing to stick around to see what it was.

Karga had pushed a few fobs in front of him, mentioning something about the Guild lolling into an even pace and the pucks would only pace decently rather than the typical rate. Given how uncomfortable Asa was with her Chi smothering her, she swiped them up without listening to where she might have to go. "Deliver my credits to my ship. I'll wait for the offload," she instructed sternly, interrupting yet another of the man's infamous tangents as he brimmed with excitement.

"Happy hunting, Ronin!"

Now that was strange. Pausing halfway through the cantina, Asa craned her neck to glance back at the humming man. Karga had his moods, but very rarely had he ever been so earnest in his wish for 'happy hunting'. He was practical, not fanciful. Today must have been a spectacular day for him to be wishing her a successful hunt. Such chimerical encouragement was never needed for someone like Asa. She turned in her fobs within the allotted time frame and had never required 'luck' in order to do this. Given how foul her luck was, Asa was glad she was capable of acquiring her quarries. Most weren't talented in fighting and her upbringing had been in both academia and warfare. Jakon prized itself on being a civilization prepared for any challenge, be that battle in scholarly, artistic, or war pursuits.

Rather than thank him, Asa ducked her head and ignored him. Not because she was partial to being rude, but between the disquiet of her Chi and the oddity of Karga trying to imbibe luck in her favor, Asa was frowning beneath her mempo.

Usually, she might wait until the cryo slabs were unloaded, but the trembling cacophony of Chi propelled her legs out. No way in the galaxy she was sticking around while her body screeched in dismay. Rather, she carved the familiar path across Nevarro City, the only settlement on this awful planet, and her cursed prison stuck in a distorted ground hog's day rendition of hell, constantly on repeat. A headache seared in the back of her head, which she couldn't abate by touching her brow with the mempo on. Growling, her strides lengthened and she made haste back toward the Ryu.

"Ronin!" A vaguely familiar modulated voice entreated her, a rich baritone tainted by the metallic ring of the mechanics in his helmet. She had only heard it a few rare times and never in length, as the pair barely had reason to exchange conversation. Truthfully, Asa was somewhat terrified of the Mandalorian. He was a mountain of steel, only a few inches taller than her when she was in full regal, but he wasn't playing at what she had for nigh on a decade. He was the ruthless bounty hunter who'd take any quarry in, whereas she had restrictions. He was an absolute murder machine. And he was standing just a few paces behind her.

Thanking the God-beasts for her mempo, she swallowed hard and craned her neck to glance back at him, skin paling. The glare of the sunlight caught on his new armor, entirely of beskar, imbibing the unpainted silver steel with a bright reflective glow. Had her mempo not been translating the light through a filter, she might have been momentarily dazzled by the man, who was now a stunning suit of Mandalorian pride.

"Your debt."

Asa's heart skipped a beat as she gazed out from beneath the rim of her rice-hat. Even if she was disgraced, she still upheld the values of a samurai, just as her father had raised her to do. A life without any guidance was not a life at all, but simply an existence as a ghost. Despite the lucrative business that Asa now found herself in, she'd always followed her tenets. Repaying debts was one of those, recalling the snarling visage of the Wampa as it threatened to bear down on her with massive, clawed paws - to rip her limb from limb, crack her bones to drink the marrow, and feed on her flesh. Asa was about to commit seppuku to escape the pain of that demise when the Mandalorian's pulse rifle boomed so loud that she thought the entire cavern was going to collapse.

Asa had been about to die, but the only tell from that day was the ragged scar down her right armor where the Wampa's claws had snatched at her.

"I require payment."

Of all the fucking times.

Her Chi had relaxed, the eye of the storm giving her a momentary reprieve from the mystery that had upset her originally. The war drumming of her heart quieted and she stared toward the abysmal T visor of her counterpart. Two years had passed since she offered the life debt and now he was coming to collect. There was no way that Asa could refuse, even if that meant going against what her Chi was urging. A debt was a debt and could be collected when and wherever. Asa could not set the terms.

"Very well," she finally offered, her voice quiet, her vocoder transitioning her own mellow voice and making it grit like sand beneath a boot. "What do you require of me?"

"Assistance," he retorted curtly, but betrayed nothing farther. "You are not fond of the Empire?"

Not fond? The Empire that had taken her father, her people, and subsequently ravaged her home? "That's a good way to phrase it," she snorted, modulator crackling at the edges of her wry laugh, the shrugging of her shoulders more indicative of the chuckle than the noise.

"There are remnants here. They have something I want."

An arched brow was poised at no one, as her mask didn't move with the expressions her own haggard face made. Rather, she let the laziness slip into her posture as she leaned back and tapped her thumb on the pommel of her sword, tinkling the charms. "A debt may be paid in any way you see fit," she started, eyes raking over the line of the man's shoulders trying to glean more intention. "However, this seems to fall short of a life for a life." Alternatively, she would still owe him if it were as simple as killing a few Imperials. Hell, she would have done that for free.

"The Guild might have a few words with us after."

Ah. Well, now that made more sense. This mission, even for any of the other hunters who greatly disliked the Empire, would not stake their livelihood on helping Mando. Especially since many of them loathed him. Asa still had enough wits to be afraid of him and what he was capable of, but exhaled deeply enough that he caught her sigh this time. "A debt must be paid," she relinquished, wondering if her life would always chance chapter by chapter, decade by decade. Somehow, as she just passed 30, she had a feeling her body was going to begin rejecting change. Maybe it was time to get out of the bounty hunting business.

He nodded, swiftly spinning on his heel to do an about face, leaving for Asa to follow. Daylight still shining down on the city, locals milled about and stayed clear of the leery pair. A throng of distance was set between them, an invisible buffer of at least six feet maintained more by Asa than Mando. Cutting a corner into a narrow, shadowed alleyway, she was forced to close some of the space, half wondering if Mando was going to just kill her here and dump his last bit of competition out of Nevarro into one of the neighboring waste bins.

He could have done that on Hoth and he didn't, Asa reminded herself, grip still tight on her katana as she followed me into the belly of Nevarro City. With the sun dipping on the horizon, the light couldn't claw its way in between the tightly packed walls and doors. A cloak of shadows played between the walls, dancing mutely on the back of the Mandalorian's grey bucket. His cloak obscured the rest of his shiny retinue, dashed by the pulse rifle that was most certainly taller than her.

The Mandalorian was not a huge man, not in height. Being just a few paces behind him, Asa spent more time observing him than she had cared in the past, worried that he would notice her staring despite the anonymity of her mempo. He was seemingly average, his boots and helmet adding an additional inch or two, shoulders broadened by his armor just as her own made her look impressive. This was no illusion, as hers was, for the Mandalorian's armor accentuated his vitals and protected them, the beskar layers thin in comparison to hers. Despite the added padding, the Mandalorian was broad, lean as a whip, and didn't require another head of height to strike fear into any who glanced over at the impassive, nebulous T visor.

Coming to the end of the alley, Mando paused and glance both ways like a child about to cross a busy street. Warily, he continued after taking a right. Asa had never bothered coming into the city, not this deep, and she expected if her mempo wasn't filtering the air she would be able to smell the metallic reek around her. From parts to trash, inner Nevarro City was a rotting cesspool and they didn't pass so much as a soul on their secretive mission - which aside from killing Imps and acquiring something, she had no idea what it entailed.

He bent over a dumpster of scrap and Asa dared to move within a pace of him, glancing down to where his visor was set. Within was an eggshaped container, the white paint chipped and flaked, lid open. If she had to guess, she'd say it was a repulsor lift of a sort, but it was tiny and akin to a bassinet. A soft song played from the dumpster, eliciting enough of her attention that she bent down past him to touch it. Gloved fingers met durasteel and the music hitched, a gentle clarinet weeping in her ears. Chi. She knew it, as anyone with Chi had a song of their own. Otherwise, the only time she heard Chi in the form of music was during great strife or occasion, like the day that the Empire had attacked her people, the maddening roar of their death march vibrating in her brain.

"Come," Mando ordered, snapping away from the discarded pram and for a fleeting moment, she thought she noticed his shoulders sag as he released a belly deep sigh.

They scaled a building in the dull sunset light, the blue sky being chased by cotton candy pink and coral orange, turning the puffs of cloud into candy. Despite all that Nevarro lacked, there were redeeming moments - probably because she couldn't smell the sulfur, but the sky had always been a fixation amidst the obsidian and ozone.

Mando had his rifle propped against his shoulder, laying prone as she daydreamed and got away with it since he couldn't see the misty expression on her face. A solemn tap to the side of his helmet and he was listening to a conversation she couldn't hear, glaring down the infrared scope as Asa wondered what the cottony candy clouds tasted like. It had been absolutely forever since she'd had sweets like back on Jakon. She missed the red bean paste fillings and the true taste of green matcha instead of the cheap imitations she usually got her hands on.

He drew the rifle back, his thumb having been subconsciously tracing circles against the barrel as he listened on. A strange quirk that Asa noted; an odd little bit of comfort the man tried to instill in himself as they worked on recon.

With their feet back on the ashen soil of the street, they approached a dark teal door which was streaked with lines of grimy rust. The roads were never truly quiet, the din of the busier sectors a dull hum like a hive of busy worker bees who just weren't occupying this sector of the combs.

"Wait here," he directed, gesturing to the alley flanking the door.

Asa leaned against the wall, hearing the sharp rap of his fist plunking against the door, before a click and whizzing was accented by the crunch and crackle of frayed mechanical equipment. Stomping back in her direction, Mando tossed the droid's retinue on the ground and grabbed his weapon, tilting his helmet in an unimpressed manner at her candor. With the gust of an invisible wind, her muscles let out a wistful bellow and she stood up straight, reaching down toward her obi as the premonition of battle whispered delicately in her ears.

"Check the perimeter," icy fingers raked down her back like the claws of the Wampa, the poorly modulated voices of stormtroopers causing a seething rage that laid dormant for so long to come bubbling to the surface, chasing away the unpleasant chill with searing wrath. Asa did not wait for Mando to make the first move, her body moving on its own accord as the curve of her blade left the ornate sheathe.

Mando was more interested in placing a detonator than dealing with the pair of stormtroopers that had come out to scout the source of the original noise. Her approach was covered by the boom of the bomb, the browned armor of the Imps akin to weathered parchment as they turned tail and sprinted back into the building.

She was the wind through the mountains and trees, flowing as gently as a brook but could possess the ferocity of a raging river, and she was swift like flame, crackling down to embers until she was stoked with fuel. Now, she had plenty of fuel, sliding up behind the troopers who were distracted by the flashing lights, electricity guttering to just the dull winking of the emergency lighting, as many synapses and circuits had been fried in the explosion. None noticed the flap of a crimson kimono, nor the nonexistent click of her sandals as Amagumo arched, the bolts of lightning rippling gold in the flashes of sputtering light.

Katanas were made for slashing, not puncturing. Wielding one correctly took years of practice, being keenly aware of the perfect manner to arch the curve of the steel in order to achieve maximum rending capacity. Asa had always been more inclined toward the blade versus her siblings. Haku had preferred blasters. Kit with a sniper rifle. The ancient blade of their people was a symbol and tradition and rarely utilized in battle except for those who were blessed with strong Chi, like the Jedi. Otherwise, the piece of metal was useless unless utilized in close quarters.

The first figure slumped, plastoid parting like butter beneath a heated blade. Unlike a lightsaber, Tamahagane did not cauterize, and blood spurted in a macabre fountain as the neck and head slowly slid off as the body finally crumpled to its knees. Rounding on her, the second trooper raised his rifle in defense, gasping as Amagumo savagely bit into his blaster and severed it in half. With a crescent flourish, the tip of the curved blade slipped up and drove into the gorget of the trooper, Amagumo drinking its fill as the Imperial soldier gurgled and choked on his own blood, crimson basking the blade in a hellish curtain as it slowly dripped down toward the hilt.

Mando was in the hole that he had blasted, watching her fight as she withdrew her sword and wiped the blood of her enemies off on the bottom of her robes. Wearing red meant that her foes could not see the blood, be that her own or that of her enemies. By this point, Asa was so accustomed to the gore laden displays and paintings she created that the garnet pools that she stepped through had little effect on her.

A flanking door opened and Mando's helmet whipped, an arm snapping out with such precision and swiftness that Asa barely had the time to blink before the room grew hot with the light of his blaster and the trooper flopped to the floor in a plastic heap. Of course, she had known that the Mandalorian was good, but aside from their encounter on Hoth she had never seen him in action. Just the speed such a broad man moved in set her teeth on end, wondering if she would have been able to dodge or parry the hipfire had he rounded on her. Kriff, just thinking about it made her skin pallid and a cold sweat break out on the back of her neck.

Listing through the dull grey, medicinal halls of the building, Mando took the lead, as she was here as support and had no true idea what the 'thing' he wanted was. A haunting song played in her ears, which she tried to swat away like annoying gnats, but the clarinet's vibrato grew louder, but not in a good way. Instead, the melody quavered as if the musician was taking constant, trembling breaths with the inability to fill their diaphragm properly. Cool dissonant melodies, minor thirds and tritones, there was no musicality - just noise. Something was very wrong with the person who the song belonged to.

Mando knelt just on the other side of a doorway, lifting his vambrace, and shooting his whipcord launcher. Jetting out like a javelin, the forked tongue on the end hooked into the edge of a trooper's rear chestplate, the Mandalorian utilizing the leverage of his kneeling position to jerk the soldier down, retracting the grappling hook as the trooper slid back, disoriented and right into the vibro-blade waiting in the Mandalorian's other hand.

Without even glancing in her direction, Mando dropped the body and continued prowling forward. Asa paused just to glance down, grimacing at the precision of the kill. Despite being freaked out by it, she found herself highly impressed with how streamline the man's kills were. He didn't dally or take solace in what he did, rather he just pummeled through with honed experience.

She was a few paces behind him when he shot open a door, fire returned and actually finding purchase as his shoulder jerked back after his pauldron caught the brunt of the attack. While the trooper had been reacting in self-defense and in light of a Mandalorian being inside his station of duty, she knew Mando was pissed. He shot the soldier square in the chest before glaring at the spectacled doctor who tittered nervously in the corner.

If seeing a Mandalorian breaking into his lab wasn't intimidating enough, the hellish lowlight glare on her own mask made him even fainter, gripping the side of the gurney he flanked as she stared. What was this? She raked her eyes over the uniform the doctor was wearing, clearly of an Imperial officer, his hand flying out as Mando turned the barrel of his handgun toward him.

Asa couldn't hear the conversation between them, her head slowly turning as the clarinet's pitiful solo warbled in her ears. Her legs carried her on their own accord, hat tilting downward as she gazed at the source of the song. Not an adult, but a tiny green child that was unconscious and strapped into a whizzing medical machine. "Ā ko-" oh, child - she whispered, reaching to smooth over the fronds of fuzzy white hair on top of a wrinkled brow. Despite the youth, she knew that this being was much older than appearances betrayed.

"Don't touch it," Mando snapped at her, forcing her hand back as he pried the machine off the baby.

"It's a baby," Asa retorted defensively, whipping her mask up toward him to challenge the Mandalorian for the first time. "You do not know what it is."

"And you have a better idea?" he growled, leveling his blaster toward her abdomen, daring her to do any more than what had been agreed upon.

"Hai, I do, Mandalorian," Asa hissed back, but there was no time for them to argue, her Chi kicked her heart rate, plunging what had been a steady pace to a shockingly dormant state. Pupils blowing beneath her mempo she cocked her head. "We don't have time for this. More are coming."

Mando grunted his agreement and turned his blaster away from her.

"Protect the ko, I will take the lead," Asa knew that the only place they'd be able to go next was the space-port where their paths would diverge and they'd leave Nevarro for good. Still, when she glanced at the little bundle of canvas, she knew deep in her heart that she could not leave the baby with the Mandalorian in good conscious. Her father had once told her that her Chi would guide her and now she stood beside a child with such strong abilities that she'd heard his song from across the city.

Thumb tracing the ribbons on Amagumo, her free hand brushed her obi where a few other weapons were stashed. A metallic cylinder was inconspicuously tucked beside her shoto, a weapon that she'd not touched since she had acquired the title of Shogun. This was not the weapon of a samurai, but as her Chi bellowed in her chest, she knew it might be time to wield it finally. Amagumo had served her well, but her time as a samurai was coming to an end.

The child needed her.

#the mandalorian fanfiction #the mandalorian fanfic #din djarin x oc #fennec shand & oc character #fennec shand #slow burn #very slow burn #touch-starved

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weirdponytail · 4 years

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Modern Inheritance: Night Terrors, Pt. 1

Here it is folks. The two shot that started the current MIC iteration. This was one of my first stories for Modern Inheritance (written in 2016 iirc). As such, it’s not totally in line with the image I have for the series and characters now (Late 2020), but it is a solid baseline and actually pretty damn close. At some point I may rewrite it, but for now, I’m happy with this reminder of changes.)

PART 1 // Part 2

~~~

Arya never really slept well.

True, her sleep got a bit better once they had arrived at Ellesméra, something she was incredibly thankful for, but being able to sleep through every other night without nightmares or a heart pounding night terror ripping her from her waking dreams was still not good enough to be considered 'sleeping well.' If it weren't for those blessed nights of uninterrupted slumber the elf was sure she would be a walking wreck.

'Good. We haven't had rain in some time.' The elf thought as she turned on her side and closed her eyes. She tugged the corner of the comforter under her chin and drifted off into her waking dreams, hoping the sway of the tree would lull her into a peaceful sleep.

Arya's waking dreams stuttered. Something had changed in her surroundings, something she couldn't quite put her finger on until she realized she couldn't breathe.

Everything felt heavy and damp, especially around her face and definitely over her mouth and nose. It was pitch black and something was clamped over her eyes, shoving her head back against a hard, flat surface. She couldn't move, no matter how much she internally screamed at her muscles to do so, and with a terrifying jolt she realized she couldn't breathe either. Warm water gushed into her mouth and flooded her sinuses, panic filling her chest as quickly as the liquid did.

"We can end this here and now, elf." A cold voice whispered in her ear, and the fall of water against her face halted. The hand over Arya's eyes lifted and bright light flared across her lids as a sodden cloth was removed. The demon beside the woman let her cough and choke, trying to expel the water in her lungs but unable to while he still pushed her head back with a hand on her clammy forehead. "What say you, hm? A few words are all I want. Speak them to me, and you will be released from this." He knew she wouldn't be able to respond, not verbally at least, but that was part of his game. He knew she would never speak.

“Oh well. Ready to die again, little elf?"

Lightning flashed across Arya's eyes as she fell from the bed and hit the floor hard, a strangled cry escaping her throat. She scrambled to kick the tangled blanket off of her legs and dove for her pack to rip her sword from where it was tied to the frame.

A fist slammed into her side, cracking a rib and sending her to the floor again, sword still clamped in a white knuckled grip.

'Get dressed. Get out of here. Fight.' The thought was barely registered as Arya scrambled for the combat pants she wore while with the Varden, another line of pain lancing its way up her right arm. For a brief moment, as she struggled to yank the pants on without giving up her sword, she swore she saw blood dripping from her fingers, trailing from a deep gash that revealed the bones and tendons flexing in her forearm.

Another blow clipped the elf's shoulder as she dashed for the balcony, nearly shoving her out the open doors before she caught herself on the jamb.

It was raining. Wet spray splashed up into Arya's face and she recoiled, feeling her throat tighten and her already rapid heartbeat increase. She couldn't breathe. He chuckled coldly and pushed her off the table with his boot, watching her vomit up water and what little food remained in her stomach as she convulsed on the floor. All that water and yet it still felt as if her lungs were on fire.

Arya could feel another strike coming, another slash from a whip arcing through the damp air. It was either continue facing her invisible attackers or brave the water.

"Giving up so soon? I expected more of you." Arya looked up and saw the Shade before her with a mockingly disappointed expression. She bolted to her feet and struck out at his face, only to be thrown against the wall as if she were no more than a child. Stars and lights exploded across her eyes even as she charged him again, refusing to be led like a lamb to slaughter. She fought tooth and nail until he succeeded in pinning her and the whip slammed into her already mutilated back, and the cycle of torture started anew.

There was no answer.

A flash of light to the left made her whip around, looking for the gun from which the muzzle flash had originated, only to feel a blade sink into her stomach.

He saw her expression, though, and his smile widened. He leaned forward and pressed his ice-cold forehead to her fevered one, his sharpened teeth glinting in the light cast by the glowing daggers. A bit of horror touched Arya's heart as she feared the worst. She couldn't fend off the advances of a Shade, not in the state she was in.

Then she threw back her head and screamed in pain and Durza laughed in glee as the daggers buried themselves halfway to their hilts between her ribs.

The shock sent Arya staggering back to hit the door again. "Glenwing, let me in!" She shouted, kicking the door with her bare heel. "Glen!"

She smelled hot cinnamon mints and burning batteries all interlaced with the pungent scent of motor oil.

And then she realized she could taste them too, and with a jolt she felt a mouth over hers and a weight on her hips and her eyes flared open and she saw him above her. He pulled back and smirked as he wrenched her head to the side by her hair and she immediately coughed up water and blood and bile. "Welcome back to the land of the living, little elf. You need not worry about dying on my watch. Even in the void, you will never escape me." And he laughed.

Arya let out a choked sob and slid to the ground, her body alight with pain from wounds that should have been nerveless scars and terror that she had never wanted to feel again. "Glen, please…" She leaned against the door, hugging her knees, and beat her head against the wood, trying to chase out the demons in her skull. "Please, I can't–"

There was so much blood. She didn't even know where he had hit her this time. He had screwed with her perception of pain again, amplifying it until the barest ghost of air on her cheek felt like a hot iron smashing into her face, and set about whipping her with a short bullwhip studded with bits of barbed wire. She had given up on holding in her screams after the first hour and a half. After the fourth she had given up on screaming entirely, her body too weak and her throat too torn to produce sound. And still he cut her and whipped her and kicked her and strangled her, not even asking questions, only seeking to sate the spirits raged within his body.

Then it was black and she tasted the hot cinnamon again, the flavor reminding her of the mints Jörmundur had tried using to curb his smoking after his son was born, and the overwhelming smell of motor oil pervaded her senses. He wasn't on top of her this time, and she immediately rolled over and dry heaved, spitting and gasping and trying to rid her mouth of the tastes that she now associated with death.

She felt something hot sheeting down the side of her face, hotter than the rain that pounded down inches away. "I can't..." She whimpered, weakly raising her sword again and knocked the hilt against the door. Pain blossomed on the side of her head, adding the new sensation to the avalanche of agony that was crashing through her battered and bloody body. "I can't keep…"

A hand grabbed her bruised side– spat blood into his eyes– guard screamed in agony as she slammed her combat boot between his naked legs with a spray of blood– couldn't hear, couldn't see, couldn't taste or smell, it was all silence and nothing– acid sizzled in the trenches of her torn flesh, smelling like cooking meat– knife diving into her stomach over and over, the wounds healing shut after seconds as he methodically stabbed her, grinning like a child at play– pain like that shouldn't exist– claw shaped iron dipped down– blood, all that blood– his lips on hers as he breathed life into her body again and again to introduce her to new, unimaginable levels of pain–

Arya threw her head back and screamed into the roaring thunder, "Dear spirits, just let me DIE!"

#modern inheritance #modern inheritance cycle #inheritance cycle #modern inheritance story #eragon #arya #ptsd #night terrors #the two shot that started it all #flashbacks #tw: torture #tw: flashbacks #this was also titled 'eragon wasn't the only one that had trouble in the storm'#i'd love to rewrite this to update with my new writing style but honestly...i can't #i dont want to mess it up

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clodiuspulcher · 6 years

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Can I ask what draws you to Agamemnon? He's often kind of a difficult figure to grapple with. Sincere question btw, not meant to sound mean I swear :)

NO NO this isn’t mean at all it’s uh. yeah I know it’s an unpopular Take / Opinion and I really do … care deeply about Agamemnon as a character, so thanks for giving me a chance to explain! it’s complicated, he’s complicated… This is gonna get long

I: APPEARANCE Let’s first put the shallow aspects on the table: he’s big, he’s powerful, he’s My Type (physically), I’m gay. This never comes through in film adaptations (although you know what? 1962 Electra Agamemnon comes close, although he’s overshadowed by the hot Aegisthus) but look at how he’s described in the Iliad: He’s compared to 3 gods, canonically Agamemnon is the most handsome man Priam’s EVER seen in his like one million years of life (a list of men which includes Aeneas , Hector, etc). (this post). When Priam says he’s “Every inch a king”, baby, you know what that means-Anyway , @kashuan‘s art is VERY good for conveying how I imagine Agamemnon based on these descriptions. and he’s drawn like exactly my type there. It’s a lot to reckon with.He’s big. He has big arms and big thighs and could kill me if he wanted and he’s powerful and his aristeia is badass and i’m gay. thanks. II: PERSONALITY Now this part is. more about Agamemnon’s character. first, Agamemnon in the Iliad is in fact deeply flawed- he’s imperious and arrogant and shortsighted and short-tempered, he’s stubborn and selfish and ALL OF THE THINGS PEOPLE HAVE SAID HE IS but there’s also a complexity to his character that tends to get flattened - I think because Agamemnon’s at his worst in book 1, people adhere to this AWFUL first impression and don’t bother to look beneath the surface / take the rest of his behavior / his character into account / use this as the baseline of their understanding, but there IS MUCH MORE to him than that behavior even in the Iliad itself, as detailed in THIS POST. He’s a powerful warrior in his own right, and his failings reflect both the internal flaws of his character and the weight of his responsibilities; we see his concern for his men, for the army, the people, in books 4 and 10 (when he can’t sleep because of his anxiety about his men, about Hector). He DOES however, learn and become better, he grows, he’s dynamic: he and Achilles finally make up (book 19! book 23! They’re good now!) and the Odyssey also ends with their ghosts talking as friends.

(Side note I wonder how this works out when Agamemnon’s son kills Achilles’s son but… that’s for another day).

There’s complexity in Agamemnon’s characterization in the tragedies as well, each tragedian has a different portrait of Agamemnon but he’s never one-dimensional.Euripides’ Hecuba has Agamemnon as concerned about his image and his reputation, anxious (and almost insecure) about his authority, but also concerned with justice and the rule of law, even towards one’s enemies. Sophocles’ Ajax portrays an imperious, proud, stubborn Agamemnon who refuses to realize he’s in the wrong but is able to be convinced by the council of Odysseus and eventually, again, comes to an understanding. Seneca’s Trojan Women shows Agamemnon as a Stoic voice of Reason, urging Pyrrhus not to be too violent/hubristic in their victory, and I love both the presentation of Agamemnon as a tired old man wanting to go home and the sort of man who gets into arguments with teenagers about war crimes. As usual, Seneca excels at this subtlety of characterization, this is like the epitome of the Dichotomy of Agamemnon, sympathetic and infuriating, a good leader and a stubborn, proud man, stoic and short-tempered, as present in the Iliad, is here too, and I love it , and him. Seneca’s Agamemnon almost reverses this (HE REALLY SAYS “What can a victor fear”) but I still love that play, and there’s something to be said for the characterization of Agamemnon as someone who learned ABSOLUTELY nothing from victory.

Overall, it’s true that we get, mainly, a portrait of a hard, ruthless, powerful, embittered man- remember how he destroys that one guy Menelaus wanted to save in the Iliad - but he has a sort of “aggressive charisma” as Kashuan once put it and I REALLY see it, and honestly that in itself has some sort of an appeal to me. But with this portrait of his personality, his softer aspects, the moments of gentleness we see, are more striking, they really stand out and indicate the extent of his feelings. In the iliad, for example, we clearly see he loves Menelaus and while he’s almost laughably over-protective (MORE ON THIS LATER), his care for his brother is evident, touching, especially juxtaposed with his shortsighted selfishness. Just look at what happens in Book 4, when Menelaus is barely wounded and Agamemnon is practically writing his eulogy. Right afterwards, also, “Noble Agamemnon showed no reluctance, no cowardice or hesitation, only eagerness for the fight where men win glory”- he rushes in to fight (but not before first taking out his anxiety on his men by demanding more from them. Cannot do anything appealing / good without mitigating it with irritating behavior. love this fool). It takes him like 9 books to finally apologize to Achilles but he defends Menelaus from Nestor’s reproach in book 10, is anxious about Menelaus being in danger if he’s picked to go on a night raid with Diomedes (HERE) and is endearingly not-subtle about it, frets over him in book 4, when he’s wounded, etc.

The love for his family is something that continually stands out and is perhaps his main “redeeming” trait. In the Odyssey, as mentioned, he ask Odysseus desperately about Orestes with heart-rending choice of words especially when one considers Orestes’s Actual Fate: “Come tell me, in truth, have you heard if my son is still alive, maybe in Orchomenus or sandy Pylos, or in Menelaus’ broad Sparta: that my noble Orestes is not yet dead?”. Agamemnon’s no longer a king- he’s a worried father, he regrets the most not being able to see Orestes before he’s killed; it is this pain, of not being able to be a father to his children, which seems to cut the most deeply, which he speaks of multiple times to Odysseus. Then they just cry for a while, with each other. (I like these tender aspects hidden in a big mean man.. but I also like his big meanness).

the Tragedies take this to another level, of course, to drive home the PATHOS required for his death to have an impact but his love of his family is very much on display there. Iphigenia in Aulis in particular provides us with some agonizing demonstrations of this love: Iphigenia reminisces about an exceptionally tender moment in their relationship, when she was young (you used to ask me, “I wonder, my darling, will I get to see you married one day, married and settled happily in your husband’s home, your life ever blossoming, making me proud of you?” And I’d touch your chin, my father, hang from your beard, father, like I’m doing now and say, “and what about you, father, will I get to see you, father, an old man, visiting me at my house, ready for me to repay you for your hard work in raising me?”) an image hard to reconcile with the merciless violence and stubborn arrogance Agamemnon displays in the Iliad (BUT AGAIN, THAT’S THE APPEAL). Clytemnestra assumes he’s crying because he’s sad to see Iphigenia leave them, Agamemnon’s messenger tells him the arrival of his family will cheer him up: even his subordinates know how important they are to him.

I’d need a whole nother post to talk about his relationship with Clytemnestra but please peruse these crumbs I picked off the ground (HERE). they Had something, tbh the tragedy ONLY WORKS if they did and I will DIE on this hill. In Aeschylus, Clytemnestra calls Orestes the “mutual pledge of their love”, he calls her a “great-hearted woman”, she shirks in Aulis at his curt, demanding tone towards her, noting it as something out of character, she takes charge anyway, knows he can’t or won’t actually force her not to be involved in the Iphigenia marriage preparations-All of this creates an image of a man whose imperious, ruthless, stubborn character is balanced with a surprising capacity for tenderness, a genuine fondness and love for the members of his family, which makes the fact that his hand, albeit forced, aids in its destruction, that much more devastating.III: PSYCHOLOGY/HISTORY

Where things get especially interesting for me, character-wise, is when one thinks about his lineage, his past, and his childhood with respect to his current character. This section is about the House of Atreus in general.

Agamemnon clearly bears the scars of his environment: he was born into the House of Atreus and IMO that informs everything he says and does, all his thoughts and feelings, the way he perceives both the world and his place in it. Seneca’s Thyestes is a horrific portrait of what Agamemnon (and Menelaus’s) childhoods must have been like, ATREUS is their father, they were old enough during this event to almost be accomplices which means they’re clearly old enough to remember it. Speaking of that, Atreus isn’t worried that participating in his god-crime schemes will turn his sons evil because, in his mind, they were born evil (Ne mali fiant times? nascuntur. God GOD). Agamemnon and Menelaus grow up in a nightmare house, adjacent to atrocity, under the almost comically cruel hand of Atreus who sincerely believed his sons inherited said cruelty as if its on the same chromosome as the “house-curse” gene. It’s genuinely a miracle Agamemnon and Menelaus grew up to be functional fucking human beings, in my opinion. It also gives a lot more weight to his relationship with Menelaus and the hard imperious cast of his character; their bond was forged in fire, Agamemnon likely protected Menelaus from the worst of Nightmare House being the older brother, and being as protective as he is. There’s this one Iliad adaptation, I can’t think of it off the top of my head though, where when Agamemnon’s freaking out about Menelaus being Barely Wounded he says “don’t die… for you are all I have” and that’s absolutely how I think about their relationship in this context- Menelaus WAS all he had for so long, they clung to each other, they preserved their humanity in the face of horror BECAUSE OF each other.

But functional like.. .for a given value of “function”. Agamemnon is clearly deeply affected by these events, the weight of the Curse of the House of Atreus clearly impacts him. Take Iphigenia in Aulis, where he says “each one is born with his bitterness waiting for him”, the fact that a Son of Atreus would say that, I think, speaks to the innate, unspeakable fear of the certain destruction of his world, of the tragedy that awaits him, at his own hands, of the House-Curse waiting perched on his shoulder to strike just when he thought he’d created something impenetrable. The tragedy of Iphigenia in Aulis is Agamemnon’s realization that he has locked himself into this, that he has no other choice (see: this post about the Odysseus impact, there is in fact a point when it’s inevitable, although he still made the first move which makes it even WORSE he created this, etc) and all he can do at this point is watch as the life he so carefully built for himself and his family collapses around him, just like he must have always dreaded it would. (Also in the Iliad It’s Agamemnon who says “We must toil, in accord with the weight of sorrow Zeus loaded us with at birth” and that reminds me of this aspect of him too: Good Things Never Last, Bad Things Never Die, etc.)

It’s made clear that the story of Atreus and Thyestes is widespread, familiar; Teucer in Sophocles’ Ajax and Neoptolemus in Seneca’s Trojan Women both call out Agamemnon for trying to reference his lineage as a source of authority because it is a HORRIFIC lineage. “I know about the famous family of Atreus and Thyestes”, Neoptolemus says. And THEREIN LIES A CONFLICT: Agamemnon’s sense of self comes from his authority, his kingship, his position of power and his social status as a member of the nobility, of the class of royalty BUT. It’s all undercut by the fact that this power, authority, indeed his very identity is based in cruelty, violence, and crime; Agamemnon is descended from the most ignoble nobility, which he knows all too well.

It’s Interesting that Agamemnon’s relationship with his identity, status, family, power is brought up in Ajax, of all plays, primarily concerned with the destruction of Ajax’s identity- reminding Agamemnon of the crimes of his house genuinely cuts him down. I see Agamemnon as a man who genuinely fears his past, who dreads the legacy of his father and in his desperation creates a crisis for himself (as happens in tragedy).

We (I) laugh at Agamemnon “forgetting” about the god-crime shit before he pulls rank by referencing his Authority and Status but there’s something in Agamemnon continually being owned by forgetting about the House…. Agamemnon wants to distance himself from the “legacy” he inherited from Atreus, but he can’t without disavowing his power, his authority, his identity. Whether he likes it or not (he does Not), this is fundamental to who he is. I feel like that knowledge too lurks in his mind, rises to the forefront occasionally at his lowest points-

Clytemnestra in Aeschylus’s Agamemnon pretty clearly sees him / his actions as the next link in the god-crime family chain, a continuation of the house -curse, heir to his father’s throne and his crimes, hence her belief that killing him is the only way to end it/ stop the cycle of violence (spoiler she is wrong but there’s another post coming eventually about how they are Very Similar Characters short version the Etruscans Understand).

IN short, I think there’s a lot of complexity in Agamemnon people overlook, or don’t get to see since they don’t read the peripheral plays. Agamemnon seems to me a man in conflict with himself, a Man of Contradictions, who defines himself by his authority and status while fearing the source of it, whose devotion to his family contrasts with the horror of his childhood, and with his own agonizing role in its destruction, a man who willfully ignores or cannot bring himself to fully interact with the legacy of Atreus, who tries to distance himself from the crimes of his house and the cruelty of his father while being reminded of both every time he’s called by the epithet Atreides.

#the iliad #the oresteia #tagamemnon #agamemnon #is complicated...#hes GENUINELY A BAD PERSON WITH MANY HORRIBLE QUALITIES DO NOT GET ME WRONG!!! BUT LIKE I SAID #I like the big meanness w/ the tenderness.... and please take into account also that im shallow and hes big and im gay #the house that dripped blood #important ... content

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hq-cuties-pls · 7 years

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Hello! I really liked the scenarios you did for when the guys wives went into labor. I was curious if you could do the same thing but with Semi, Akaashi, Yamaguchi, and Tsukishima? Have a wonderful day! 💚

Sorry we’ve been so inactive lately, but I (finally) had my baby, and she’s been taking up a lot of my time. This isn’t going to be exactly like the other scenarios, but these are based on my actual labor and delivery experiences, so I hope you enjoy this little slice of realism. ~Admin Emma

Semi

You were well past the point of being done with your pregnancy, and Semi could see it. At almost two full weeks past due with no signs of your little one making her grand entrance on her own, now you were at the hospital at the crack of dawn, ready for your obstetrician to induce you. They’d told you to arrive very early–these processes could take hours and they wanted to give you the best chance of success. Semi had a feeling that today would finally be the day.

“So we have you all checked in. We have to get a baseline reading on the monitor, but everything is looking good so far,” the nurse said, strapping you to a contraption that Semi had spent the better part of the past week or so getting to know–the fetal monitor. “The IV team will be by to put your IV in, just in case, and then the doctor will start the induction.”

“Why does she need an IV?” Semi asked, suddenly nervous. They hadn’t said anything about a needle, and he really didn’t do well with needles.

“It’s just standard procedure with an induction,” the nurse said, her voice a little too cheery all things considered, in his opinion. “If the Cytotec doesn’t work, then we may have to start a pitocin drip, and she tested positive for Group B Strep back in February.”

Semi could physically feel himself pale, and his hand tightened in yours. All of a sudden, this very “routine procedure” was starting to feel very involved. And yet you had this serene expression on your face while the nurse went over things with you. It sounded like she was just humming in his ears, but you seemed so collected. Every possible horrific scenario went through his head in that moment–infections, losing you, losing the baby… it became a swirl of color and anxiety that made him feel like he could pass out.

“Eita,” you said firmly, snapping him out of his anxious death spiral. “Talk to me, baby. What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? You… you listened to that nurse tell us every possible worst case scenario and you’re asking me what’s wrong?”

“Eita, I’m pretty sure she just had to tell us all that for legal reasons,” you replied. “Everything is going to be fine–the doctor is going to put a little pill next to my cervix and hopefully, that makes little Makoto want to come out.”

“You sound so calm,” he said, scrunching his nose. “How can you be so calm?”

“I’m a very good actress,” you said with a small, thin, nervous smile. “Eita, I’m terrified, but just think–after all this waiting, we’re finally going to meet our baby soon, one way or the other.”

“Yeah… I suppose,” Semi murmured, pressing his forehead against yours. “I’m just…”

“You ready to meet our little girl?”

“I am,” he sighed, leaning into your touch. “I really, really am.”

“So sorry to interrupt, but I’m with the IV team,” a nurse called from the door. “I’m just here to do ____’s IV and then I’ll be on my way.”

You grinned at Semi, patting the back of his hand gently. The anxious fluttering in his chest was still there, but it was subdued by your presence. He felt a bit like a substandard husband–he was supposed to be supporting you, not the other way around. A familiar curl of self-loathing swirled darkly in his chest, but your bright smile and gentle hand in his hair banished it once again.

“Eita, why don’t you go get the bags from the car while she does my IV. By the time you get back, we’ll just be playing the waiting game.”

He squeezed your hand in his, not sure if he wanted to stay for your sake or for his. But he really didn’t like needles. He took your surety at face value, pressed a kiss to your hair, and went out to the car. One way or another, things were happening today. And he wasn’t going to change things by stressing himself out.

Akaashi

He always knew you were exceptional; you were one of the 15% of women whose water broke before active labor set in. It had happened around 2:30 that afternoon, and given the complicated nature of your pregnancy, the doctor wanted you to be monitored when that happened. Akaashi remembered enough from the few gynecology classes he’d taken in med school that once the water broke, all of a sudden, labor had a ticking clock.

He just never thought he’d have to be on the other end of things. He wanted to slap the nurses working with you–after the doctor had determined things were progressing too slowly for her liking, they set you on a pitocin drip, which required constant monitoring. Between them being utterly incompetent with the IV pump and their monitoring equipment only being able to capture your contractions when you were flat on your back, Akaashi was ready to throw them all out and just deliver your baby on his own.

“Keiji,” you whimpered, your eyes squeezing shut in pain.

“I’m here,” he assured, patting your hair back from your face. “It’s ok, it’ll be over soon.”

“I can’t anymore,” you sobbed, fat tears rolling down your cheeks as you tried to will yourself to relax. It didn’t work. “Keiji, it hurts. Make it stop.”

“I wish I could,” he said, squeezing your hand as hard as he dared. “But you’re doing great, ____. Just breathe.”

You nodded silently, squeezing his hand back. Your grip was almost bruising, and he didn’t care. Any pain he felt paled in comparison to what you were going through. How selfish could he be that he wanted this more than once? He wished he could take some of the pain away, maybe share the burden… it was so hard having to watch you go through this. He never wanted to see you in so much pain again, no matter the outcome. He knew it would be over soon, one way or the other, but he wasn’t sure he could manage this anymore. Something drew tight in his chest when you let out another pained sob. He rubbed the inside of your leg in a gesture he hoped was soothing…

It couldn’t continue much longer. He couldn’t let it continue… he loved you too much.

Yamaguchi

His hands trembled as he dialed the one person he could always count on to calm him down, other than you. He couldn’t be in that room anymore as nurses buzzed around you to prep you for surgery, taking blood samples and asking questions. Once they’d handed him the scrubs he’d need to change into, it had all felt so terrifyingly real and he needed to talk to someone, even though it was so late at night.

“Tsukki? She needs surgery,” he whimpered into his phone.

“A cesarian?” Tsukki asked, suddenly alert despite the hour. “Is everything alright?”

“She’s not progressing, and the baby’s heart rate keeps dropping,” he answered, fighting tears. “I’m scared and I don’t know what to do.”

“Well the first thing is try to relax,” Tsukki answered. “It’s a fairly standard operation–it will be over in less than an hour. She’s healthy… she’ll be OK.”

Yamaguchi was about to respond with a remark along the lines of if you were healthy and going to be OK, you wouldn’t need surgery, but the nurses started pouring out of your room. You were being transported… it was happening. It was real. He swallowed hard and hung up his phone, following you through the doors. You were clearly exhausted from your long and fruitless labor, because you barely responded when he slipped his hand into yours.

They ushered him into a small waiting room, telling him they’d come get him as soon as the anesthesia took effect. He felt cold panic set in as he watched you roll away from him, tears pricking the corners of his eyes. He’d never felt more scared in his entire life, and every possible worst case scenario ran through his head. He didn’t know what he would do if he lost you or your baby. He tried to think about something–anything–other than what was coming, but with only the ticking clock for company, his anxiety ran a little wild.

“Yamaguchi-san?” A man in blue scrubs poked his head into the waiting room. Yamaguchi recognized him–he was assisting your normal doctor in the operation. “Sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to check on you and answer any questions you might have about the procedure.”

He swallowed hard; “Just… what’s going to happen? Is she going to be awake?”

“We’ll try our best to keep her as lucid as possible,” the doctor said. “We’re administering a spinal anaesthesia, which will numb her from the chest down and allows her to be awake during the procedure. Then we’ll make an incision at the base of the uterus about fifteen centimeters long. If all goes well, the baby will go skin-to-skin with her as soon as we confirm everything is alright. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to cut the cord, given that she will still be open when we separate the umbilical cord. I hope that’s alright.”

Honestly, in that moment, Yamaguchi had sort of forgotten about the traditional practice. He didn’t care… he just wanted you to be safe; “Is she going to be alright? Her and the baby?”

“If it goes my way, it’s going to be fine,” the doctor said, giving him a friendly smile and a clap on the shoulder. “And it usually goes my way. Now the nurse will be in momentarily to bring you into the operating room; in the meantime, I have some advice for you.”

“Oh?” Yamaguchi swallowed hard again, but his mouth had gone totally dry.

“Relax. Take a chill pill. Doctor’s orders.” He shot Yamaguchi a playful wink before heading through the doors once more.

Instantly, Yamaguchi felt better. Clearly, it wasn’t the end-of-the-world scenario he’d built up in his head if this doctor–a man who’d already proven himself empathetic and competent in the hours leading up to your surgery–was making light-hearted jokes. He suddenly felt confident and relaxed–you were going to be fine, and he could be there for you.

Tsukishima

The nurse led him into the operating room, and before he could process what was happening to you, he found a spot on the back wall that was suddenly very interesting. He didn’t look away from it until he was seated by your head. He tried not to pay attention to the awful sounds coming from the other side of that sterile drape, and instead focused on your hand in his.

He wanted to say something–hell, he wanted you to say something… anything. But you were both too nervous, too focused on what was happening, to think of anything. He just held your hand, resting your knuckles against his forehead. After everything you had gone through–all the careful planning and the long pregnancy and the full day in the hospital–he was ready for it to be over, but he was also terrified. He didn’t want to lose you, and he didn’t want to lose your baby. If they made him choose, he didn’t know what he would do…

“Kei,” you whimpered. He could barely hear you over the sound of that God-awful suction, but he heard you nonetheless. You sounded so scared, and he suddenly felt awful–you were the one lying strapped to a table with a giant fuck-off hole in your stomach. You were the one who’d been in fruitless labor all day long. What right did he have…

“I’m here,” he said softly, squeezing your hand a little harder. He knew it had only been a few minutes, but it felt like he’d been in this too-cold, too-bright, too-sterile room for hours, waiting with bated breath while the doctors tried to get to your baby.

“You’re going to feel some pressure,” the nurse by your head said. “They’re going to push her out of you now.”

He squeezed your hand a little harder, his pulse picking up in anticipation. You waited, listening to the doctors with their hushed, urgent tones…

And then, all of a sudden, he heard your daughter’s birth cry, and just like that he was someone new.

#haikyuu #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenarios #semi eita #akaashi keiji #yamaguchi tadashi #tsukishima kei #scenario

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naeriels · 7 years

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Question Challenge

Rules: 1. Post the rules 2. Answer the questions given to you by the tagger 3. Write 11 questions of your own 4. And tag 11 people

@nodaski tagged me

1) What would you are this worlds’ biggest problems?

I think that if we were to catalogue even just the biggest the problems of the world, we would be standing here years from now. I think perhaps one of the biggest problems we face nowadays if forgetfulness. We are so eager to expand, evolve, reach out, change and distort ourselves all in the name of the future that we wipe away all the faults of the past, we forget all that had come to pass and as such we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. We turn a blind eye to everything that had spiraled out of control, to all of humanity’s mistakes, to the blood drenched past that led us to this future and we draw none of the conclusions that we should have drawn till now. We are caught in an ever lasting vicious cycle of “it happened, it’s in the past, no point thinking back on it” that we are forever drawn to the same spot, albeit in different manners and various circumstances. So in a way, the world instead of evolving, in many cases stagnates or even makes ten steps back to one step forth.

2) Why do you think humans are flawed, or that intrinsically irremediable?

I think that there is no such thing as perfection, no matter how much we might strive to achieve it. And as such, yes our baseline is flawed from birth till death and there is no denying that. However, just because we are flawed does not mean we cannot strive to be better or that we need to simply surrender to the belief that no matter what we do, our design was imperfect from the beginning an that’s how we will remain without trying to aim for more.

3) If you could wipe away the sorrows of your past, your biggest regrets and worst sufferings even if they had shaped you on who you are today would you spare yourself from experiencing those things? Why so?

Hahaha ooooh boooi good question. And one I’ve been asking myself a lot. It would be tempting to erase everything and spare my past self from everything that happened. But at the same time, if I did that, whatever would remain by the end wouldn’t be me. It would be a stranger with my face and a life I wouldn’t recognize. And since I’ve always hated other people trying to change me, I won’t be the one to effectively deconstruct myself and turn me into something else. So the answer is no, I wouldn’t.

4) What is your stance on mental health and the perpetual suffering that comes from living in a capitalistic system that prioritises work and creating workers over personal aspirations?

My stance is that I hate the system and would love nothing more than to gleefully tear it down, burn it and salt its ashes. We live in a society that demands, demands, demands without offering nothing back, that puts mounting pressure on our shoulders from the very moment we enter school, that delights in belittling us and crushing our dreams, telling us how very pointless they are and that we will never amount to anything if we pursue them. We live in a society that tries to turn us into robots and is surprised when we snap, that offers us the bare bones for survival and chides us for our frustration and overall lack of hope, that takes away all that makes us who we are and rages against us when we rebel against it. It is a system designed to breed fools and mindless drones that ruins all those who wish to fight against it in whatever small ways possible. And I for one would love nothing more than to see it changed for something that actually encourages personal growth and aspirations, that encourages people to follow their dreams and offers them the means to do so, instead of kicking them in the ground. But I’m not holding my breath that anything will change...

5) Do you think there is a perpetual loss in our time of interest and growth in arts (literature, picture, music), and how do you think it influences us as humans if so?

Yes. There is a statistically proven decrease in readership and interest towards the literary arts and I think the same fact proves right for all arts including painting, music or theater. Part of it stems, I believe, from the lack of interest offered by governments and authorities to this area and quite another for the way society is shaped. We are forced - by school, by university, by work through the hectic and burdening schedules hoisted upon us - to dedicate more and more of our time to work as a whole and less to leisure time. Moreover, those inclined towards artistic pursuits are discouraged from a young age, being told such a road is impossible, will lead to nowhere and will offer them no chance to amount to something in life. As such, the Arts become shunned from both the developer and the consumer point of view. The result is that we steadily become a robotic society, one incapable of sharing the pleasure of creative pursuits with our peers, one focused so much on what must be done to ensure a livelihood that it forgets to actually live for a moment or two. Humans will slowly become less creative, less imaginative, less likely to reach out to the stars, and more gripped by everyday reality. And those that will think otherwise will simply be mocked or ignored.

6) How would you define happiness?

This is going to sound cheesy as heck but to me happiness is a cabin on the banks of a lake, in perfect silence and solitude. It’s a steady Wi-Fi connection and a roaring fire in the fireplace, a word document open with words filling up the pages and cats milling around the house in joy. It’s acceptance and approval offered without falter, it’s the chance of doing something I love as opposed to something I have to do to be able to live a decent life. It’s being able to research topics I love and writing about them. It’s teaching others and helping them unearth new knowledge. It’s all the pieces of myself buried under what must be done and what the world demands, brought together at last without fear of doing so.

7) Why do you write and continue to do so?

Because it is escapism and a way to escape the monotonous reality of everyday. Because it allows me to dream and create, to give birth to new worlds, to embark on adventures with characters I love and discover all the facets of their personality. Because it is the first thing I ever claimed for myself, my first passion, my first love and something I do not think I could survive without. Because I strive to be better and better, to reach the experience and abilities of the authors I admire. Because I do not care whether I will be remembered or not, but I wish to see my world withstand the passage of time. Because writing shapes me and defines me and I do not know who I would be without it.

8) How it feels to dream, and when do you think a person reaches the point they are no longer to do so and lose all purpose of their life?

I think dreaming might very well be a folly, a burst of optimism that will make most of us crash and burn at one point in our lives. Achieving one’s dreams is hard, a rare occurrence that makes the majority that has no chance to do so hope ever harder and suffer even more when their dreams are destroyed. I think it depends on the person, though; many manage to cling to their dreams and their hopes for a large portion of their life, relentlessly believing that no matter how old they might get, the chance is still there for them to seize. And others give up on their dreams in the very beginning, disheartened by every dashed attempt and every failed opportunity. I think the moment we lose all hope - in the world, in ourselves, in whoever is supporting us - is the moment when even that remote dream that we might have held onto gets blasted into oblivion and we lose whatever anchor was tethering us till then.

9) Do you live your life with a purpose/Do you need a purpose in life to live?

I don’t really have a purpose in life, so I guess I don’t really need one? I just move from one day to another in a state of vague uncertainty and confusion, hoping to maybe discover at one point exactly where I wish to go from here onward.

10) Does the idea of death or permanent disappearance scare you? If not, have you ever thought of disappearing?

Ironically enough, the answer is yes to both questions.

11) What is love for you?

That’s kind of complicated because I don’t really know the answer. I used to think I did. I guess love would be companionship, acceptance, support and being able to trust the other person without fear of betrayal.

And for my questions... ummmm...

1. If you would be able to save only one book, knowing all the others would disappear forever from history and recollection, what book would that be and why?

2. Do you believe in the existence of a higher being whatever its name might be or do you think there is no divine intervention in our world?

3. Do you believe humanity has learned from the mistakes of the past, or is it merely repeating the same patterns in different ways?

4. If you would be able to ask your future self one question, what would that question be and why?

5. Has there been a book, series, movie or other media that changed your life for the better?

6. What do you think offers capacity for growth and development: original fiction or fanfiction?

7. If you could change one thing in a fictional universe of your choice, what would that thing be?

8. Does the capacity for evil exists in all of us from birth, or is it merely a concept slowly bred by the world we live in?

9. If you could choose any superpower knowing that in turn it would lead to disaster of sorts occurring in the far future, what would you do?

10. Do you read works of fiction based on your mood or are those works the ones that influence the way you feel in that moment?

11. If you could save one monument from history that has been completely obliterated, what would that monument be?

Tagging: @arcane-wanderer, @nenuials, @tasmaniandevil-4, @deyanirasan, @berryblissthefangirl, @takasuga ( only if you guys want to to this ofc )

#Alex speaks #challenge #wow I wrote novels here #oops #this was fun

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dnowit41 · 6 years

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Letting Go of Dirk Nowitzki and Remembering Greatness

By Andy Tobo

The most important shot of Dirk Nowitzki’s life before 2011 was, of all things, a driving, baseline layup, Manu Ginobili’s hand on his wrist like someone trying to hold back history.

At the time it meant everything, and it should have meant more. It didn’t because of what happened in the Finals, and history swung away. After 2011, though, there were so many shots, and I almost feel like I remember them all. That game against OKC where a visibly frustrated Scott Brooks spread out a cornucopia of bigs for Dirk to roast, on his way to 48 points on only fifteen attempts. That three-pointer that arced so high it talked to god before coming down to barely bother the net on its way through. In the Finals, it happened almost every game. When it was all over, when the dust had settled, Dirk had secured his place in the basketball cosmos at the tender age of 32.

It should have happened earlier, a statement that has nothing whatsoever to do with Bennett Salvatore and whether Dwyane Wade deserved what he got. Had the rest of the NBA simply been watching Dirk between 2006 and 2011, which they would have had things gone better, they would have seen him average roughly 25 points a game while shooting .489/.391/.897, despite being so much the focus of other team’s defensive schemes, I’d be surprised if their coaches spent five minutes on anyone else.

And he did it with less: himself. A modern marvel of German engineering, Dirk is now sixth all-time in scoring despite shooting, on average, less than sixteen times a game (15.9). Jordan shot 22.9, LeBron is at 19.6, Kobe was at 19.5, and even Kareem, who also played forever, is at 18. He is one of the three or four deadliest offensive weapons in the game’s history, while taking about as many shots per season as Khris Middleton had last year.

He did so much with less, but the less counted against him, for so long, because he didn’t have the ring. He didn’t have a Kobe for his Shaq or vice versa, he didn’t have a David Robinson, or a Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker. If the guys he did have look comparable, today, for most of that time, it is almost exclusively because they were on his team, which gave them shots they hadn’t had since high school. You can’t find a guy who was important on the Mavs of the 2000s who is known for what he did after Dallas, and there’s a reason for that. Only nobody believed us.

The reality of Dirk

There’s nothing I believe in more than the fact that some day, some one will develop a stat that shows the reality of Dirk, how much more he did than the eye could see. It will explain how one great player took a team that, for example, started the first game of the 2006 Finals alongside Josh Howard, Jason Terry, Adrian Griffin, and DeSagana Diop to 145 playoff games and eleven straight seasons with 50+ wins.

I sometimes think he’d have been appreciated more if his teams were worse, like Kevin Garnett’s were, and like KG was. As if by making his teams better than Garnett’s wolf pups, he made it look too much like it couldn’t be mostly him. As if it’s somehow inexplicable how a titanic offensive force like Dirk would seem to be playing with better offensive players than a merely (sorry) really good offensive player like Garnett, by virtue of the shots that came their way. But then, in 2011, for no reason other than that his luck finally shifted, all that changed, and it has stayed changed. Nobody in the NBA is more universally beloved and appreciated than Dirk Nowitzki, now that his career is almost done. But 32 is too old for a basketball player to become famous and – unlike the rest of us, of course – he has since become older still.

Still, it might not have happened at all. It certainly didn’t look like it could when the series started – this was Mavs-Heat II, of course, but this was the mutant, Monstars version of what they had once been. It certainly didn’t look like it as the waning minutes of Game 2 ticked down, under the tense gaze of a scoreboard that showed a 15-point deficit, with a Game 1 loss already in the books. It certainly hadn’t looked possible before Game 2, when the Mavericks announced that, in addition to the loss of the game, Dirk would thereafter be suffering through a torn ligament in his left hand and a hundred degree fever. But it happened, starting with Game 2. The lead vanished. And with four seconds left, Dirk bounced right, rolled left, ducked between Chris Bosh and LeBron James, and hit a layup over Udonis Haslem with his broken left hand.

That night I said to myself the first time something I’ve told myself a hundred times since: sometimes, you have to hope even though there’s no reason to hope. And even when it isn’t safe to hope. And even though it hurts to hope. For the last three years I was caught in the waves of a brutal job market, never knowing where shore was. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think of giving up many times during that period, or that I think it ultimately worked out simply because I didn’t. But I wouldn’t have been able to make it through the worst times if I hadn’t been able to say to myself sometimes you have to be able to hope even when there is no reason to hope.

Reflecting on twenty plus years

I wanted to say something about a career that’s almost over. I don’t really know how. I want to say that if you just tuned in, in 2011, you were already too late. It’s not that Dirk in his early thirties wasn’t in some ways the best version of himself. The absolute best offensive players – and in my memory, only Dirk and LeBron have really gotten here – don’t beat you just by hitting impossible shots, they beat you with their complete mastery of the game. It’s a very hard thing to do, putting an entire team’s defense just where you want it, but that’s what they do, and did – they are planetary masses, shaping the gravity of the court, a higher basketball power. Nothing they do looks hard because they are where they want to be and you are where they want you to be.

That was certainly the Dirk who won the championship. Other than three-point percentage, nothing stands out about his 2011 numbers. Over his 145 playoff games, he averaged 25.3 and 10 while shooting .479/.892/.365, and in 2011 for the season it was 27.7 and 8.1 while shooting .488/.941/.460. But 32-year-old Dirk put the game in a cauldron and boiled all the fat off of it. Before you knew it, he’d have his back on you. If you jumped when he turned, he’d brush past you for a layup, and if you didn’t — and even most of the time when he did — he’d hit a jumpshot over you. And if you fouled him, he’d still make it, and hit the free throw. Simple as that.

But you can’t even imagine what Dirk used to be able to do. Even people who followed his entire career, as I did, can’t, anymore. I have this theory that we literally can’t help understanding a player’s entire career in terms of their current level of play. Kobe, who was at his worst an inefficient chucker hid how unbelievably deadly he had been by becoming more so over time — but resembling himself so much in the process that it was too hard to tell the difference. Dirk, too, is hiding behind himself. For one thing, people remember him, as they do all European players, as an outside shooting, light rebounding kind of big, but it’s just not true.

From 2003 until 2013, he took fewer than 23 percent of his shots from three every single year and all but three of those years, under 20 percent. He never averaged double-digit rebounds, but he grabbed 9.9 two years in a row, and believe me when I say that when it mattered, he was getting that board. In his one and only playoff matchup with Kevin Garnett, in 2002, he averaged over fifteen boards a game. When the Mavs beat Sacramento to make their first Western Conference Finals the next year, he grabbed 11, 12, 20, 11, 15, 12, and 19, then 15 in the first game against the Spurs — to go with 38 points on 10-of-19 shooting. Over his career, in playoff elimination games, he averaged 27.6 and 10.9.

Go watch a YouTube video some time — even those of us who remember, forget.

But I also want to say — as strongly as I can — that it doesn’t really matter. One half of a player’s career faces outwards, to the world. Do what you want with that part, I can’t stop you. But the other half faces in, towards those of us who were part of it. When a player matters to you, you own a little part of their career, and it becomes a part of your own story. For Dirk and Dallas, for those of us of a certain age, that’s more true than it’s been for almost anybody in the history of sports.

Every other character in the Dallas sports scene over the last 20 years has a bit part, compared to Dirk, and certainly nobody has 20 years. Tony Romo was the main QB of the Cowboys for about eight seasons, which is how long Adrian Beltre has manned third base for the Rangers. And it’s how long the JET was our shooting guard, before moving on. Twenty years. I was 13 when he showed up, all legs and elbows, and I am 33 now. Forgetting Dirk Nowitzki, after this season, after ten more seasons, after as many as I breathe air on this earth, would be like forgetting my own life. Do what you want, with the part you have. For me, I can see it all at once, like that long, dim corridor the players come out of, stretching backwards into shadows we cannot see. I see him coming out of that tunnel, at 20, 25, 30, 35, with different haircuts, a slowly dissolving gait. Maybe he will come out of it 80 more times.

Knowing how to live

It’s not enough, and it is. What I want you to know is that there will come a time, believe me, when you will wish everything had lasted longer. There will even come a time, not long now, when you begin to feel it while it’s happening. You will lose your youth, and some of those you love, and many more of those you love will be very far away. You will never have enough conversations with your parents, or your spouse, or your siblings. Some days, every minute I spend with my wife I think that I could never get enough of this, but time won’t stop passing. My heart could burst with it. It won’t stop being true. If “growing up” means anything at all it means finding the courage to go on, knowing how much will end, how soon. It’s a skill no one gains gladly.

But when that time comes you will know how to live, most days, with what has happened, as if it were enough. I could wish that I were in the middle of Dirk’s career, with ten productive years to go, and I also can’t live with the thought that they’d go any other way. I wish he had more rings, which easily could have happened, and he could easily have gone without having any at all.

I wish more people knew him, faster, but they know him now. He meant things to me no other player ever will — if I am less involved in basketball than I was seven years ago, and I am, it is at least 90 percent because I know that no sporting event could ever again make me as happy as Dirk Nowitzki getting the ring he deserved, in the most improbable fashion, against the most improbable team.

All I can wish, then, is that you will have, from sports, at least the bright days I have already had. Life is cruel, some stories will not end well, or will be too short — perhaps even yours, and certainly many around you. Some people are born at the end of an age, expecting the stability their parents enjoyed. I have already lost many friends, and relatives, and loved ones. I will lose many more. And all of us, if we live, outlive our strength. But maybe you don’t need a second chance when the first one was so beautiful.

This is the long goodbye. So is every day of your entire life, and this matters a lot less. But it mattered to me, and it’s a part of me, and that’s enough. I am lucky I grew up with Dirk Nowitzki, and it won’t ever have been any other way. It never won’t feel cruel, in some ways at least, to wake up where you are, and not where you were, whole landscapes of time suddenly stretching out beyond you. Because we want to hold on to some things forever. Because what we lose in time is truly lost, but we always feel like we just had it in our hands. Because we always think it will stay where we put it, that we will find it again if we just look where we remember it was.

In the end, the two things we can’t change are the past and what the past has done to us. What we have, we have paid for, one way or another. In this case, for Dirk, it was the hours and days in the gyms, for me the days and decades of hoping against hope and mostly losing. We are all sadder than we used to be, but maybe tougher, too. We are hopefully wiser, and everything leaves its marks on our skin. We are heavy with time, or we are growing heavier, and there is no other way it could be. What we own that no one can see — that’s what no one can take.

I am ready to watch Dirk play what is likely the last season of his career, as I never thought I would be. He is safe, his story already has a happy ending, and that part of my life, therefore, does too. We have held on to each other as long as we can, and it has been enough. Other things, I will never let go, until time pries the fingers from my hand. Some things you should never lose gracefully. And sometimes you have to hope, when there is no reason to hope. Either way, there is nothing we can do but keep jogging out of the tunnel until our time is up. We can live with that, and I can live with this. Ready or not, here it comes.

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