#watching all the different povs of this scene felt like a fever dream

[sculkshrieking]

I will murder all of them.

#hermitcraft #hermitcraft s9 #goodtimeswithscar #gtws #geminitay #watching all the different povs of this scene felt like a fever dream #what is wrong with all of them #lowkey obsessed with drawing that tit window #my art

[quarantined-with-bucky]

I Was Good To You

Bucky x Reader

Words: ~ 4,000 (lol sorry)

Summary: You were good to Bucky

Warnings: Angst

A/N: I really love the song “you were good to me” by Jeremy Zucker and Chelsea Cutler (actually they have a lot of good songs, together and separately). But I felt like this song needs to be read from the opposite perspective literally every time I hear it, hence this fic. It’s a little different than what I have written so far, so I hope you still enjoy it! I put some of the original lyrics in the fic as quote-block format; it’s mostly in the reader’s POV and I’m sorry in advance for having to do Bucky like this – it just fits the song.

...

It was a fairly new relationship. And while you and he were both equally cautious about taking said new relationship too fast, it couldn’t be helped that the two of you were inseparable. From the day you met, he had been invested in you – your life. He claims it was because he was frozen for so long; because he didn’t know how to live “normally” in the twenty-first century. He went from World War II to Hydra to today. While that made perfect sense to you, a part of you always wondered if it was something more. Sure, Bucky had never had the chance to (and likely will never the chance to) live mundanely. He won’t ever work a 9 to 5 job, he won’t spend nights cooking and washing dishes, he won’t be doing lawn maintenance, working on a dingey car, or grocery shopping (and then forgetting your grocery list at home). You thought that he may have attached himself so quickly to you so he could partly experience the normalcy of civilian life. Not that you were complaining.

He often spent nights at your house, sleeping in your too-small bed, sitting on your countertop, and lounging on your loveseat. Waking up next to him was heaven. If you weren’t securely wrapped in his arms, head laying on his bulky torso, then he was using your chest as a pillow, the weight of him almost making it impossible to breathe. But that extra weight was calming; he may have even been the weighted blanket that has been sitting in your Amazon cart for well over four months. You’d wake up from an uninterrupted night of bliss, fingers running through his long hair, Bucky refusing to get up until you promised pancakes.

But then, three months into it, he left. Its not like he had a choice, you reminded yourself, its his job. And you were well aware of it – he made you aware of it. He told you he would be gone for three weeks. And that’s fine; you could spare less than a month of your life for the good of the rest of the world? It felt almost selfish to think that way. He wasn’t yours; he had to save the world, he belonged to the world – to himself.

So, you tried to keep yourself busy to distract yourself. But there really wasn’t much to do; hobbies you once enjoyed felt exhaustive and boring. The issue is you used to do everything with him: eat, work, eat, shower, sleep. Now it’s eat alone, work alone, eat alone, shower alone, sleep alone; each task a glaring reminder how desolate it was.

Floating, but I feel like I’m dying

Your routine felt like nothing – it just felt empty, the way that it lacked conversation, playfulness, fun, it lacked him. Nothing, in fact, felt real. You walked around the neighborhood and it felt like a fever dream, like you were gliding along the sidewalks. Not a single thought roamed through your mind, just the absence of what used to be. The days always went by painstakingly slow, but every Friday night you wondered how the week had gone by so quickly.

Your friends invited you out on the weekend, and while you mostly said no, they made sure to drag you out a couple times. The company was honestly welcome, it just felt like an empty effort to get dressed up and go to the bar when you really would rather be there (or home – in bed) with someone else. But by the time your friends got you in a routine to go out, Bucky came back home to you.

Months went by while the two of you were attached at the hip, smiles never leaving either of your mouths.

You woke up one morning to a heavy figure sprawled across half of your naked body. Yawning and trying your best to inhale a breath with his chest laying directly on top of yours, you flexed your arms and legs straight out, cracking a few joints that had been overused just a few hours ago. Bucky’s eyes popped open, his blue iris’s peering into your own. He rubbed an eye-booger away with the palm of his hand and started off the morning with “I have to leave tonight.”

You were confused and you knew he could read it on your face. “No good morning?” You joked haphazardly, trying your best not to blurt out every thought racing across your mind at that moment – the main one being what the fuck?

“’M sorry, baby,” he mumbled, still half asleep, pushing his face into the corner of your neck, planting a wet kiss to your shoulder, then your collarbone, then your jaw.

“How long do you think you’ll be gone for?” Your fingers traced up and down his back, nicking on the scratches you left last night; nearly healed but you knew they were there.

He hummed and lifted his head to press a kiss to your lips. “Couple weeks.” Another kiss. “I’m not sure.” That being said, you didn’t bring it up again. It was better to spend the day binging pancakes and watching movies in bed than discussing it any further.

I know it’s easier to run

After everything I’ve done

It was finally time for him to leave. After all your distraction kisses didn’t work. As soon as the clock hit 8:00 pm, he stood, despite you feigning sleep beside him. He leaned over you on the bed and held a head to your cheek, then pushed the hair from your face. You opened your eyes, holding his hand in yours. He stood there for a moment that felt like an eternity, just watching each other with sad eyes. “I wish I could stay,” he murmured.

You nodded, unable to find your voice. As he straightened back up, you stood next to him, pulling a shirt on and following him to the door. After opening the door, he cupped your face with both his hands and pulled you close to him. “See you soon, okay, doll?” If this was his best reassurance tactic, it wasn’t very good. You met his mouth in an open-mouthed kiss, tongues swiping over each other, exchanging the words you couldn’t find earlier. Slowly, he kissed you back, releasing a long breath as he pulled away.

And then you did it.

“I love you.”

And then you regretted it.

He stared back at you, eyes scanning over the whole of your face: faltering smile, eyebrows drawn together, eyes suddenly glazed with worry.

“Goodbye, (Y/N).”

He turned and shut the door without looking back or saying another word. He really left. He really ran away.

Tears welled up into your eyes. Like that morning, the only thought you could process: what the fuck? albeit, this time, it was a little angrier than before. What did that mean? You immediately assumed he was done with you. But the more you laid on your bed, sobbing your eyes out into your pillow, the more that didn’t make sense. There’s no way he wanted to breakup with you – he was so happy before he left. Maybe he just didn’t love you? Maybe he loved you but he just wasn’t ready to say it? And honestly, knowing Bucky, it was most likely the last option. He enjoyed spending every waking moment with you doing the most absolute boring tasks; you don’t just suffer like that if you don’t love that person.

Then again, despite agreeing to take this relationship slow, he surely did not have a problem basically moving into your house and sleeping with you (which you would’ve assumed to be a much greater step than saying “I love you,” considering he was from 1917 where usually the order is reversed).

All that worrying seemed to be in vain. He returned to you no later than 13 days after.

You pulled open to your front door only to find a sheepish-looking Bucky on the other side. His hands were tucked into his pockets, shoulders shrugged unusually high as he stared directly at the ground. But as soon as that door swung open and he saw you standing bewildered on the other side, he grabbed you by the waist and pulled you off the ground against his chest. He hummed softly into your collarbone, “I missed you.”

And suddenly your heart began beating out of your chest. You hands found his hair and you gently untangled the knots, while you shut your eyes and breathed in his earthy scent. So, you’d been right: Bucky was just weird. You didn’t want to relive that scene from two weeks ago, instead opting to relax in his arms. “I missed you, too.”

Growing, but I’m just growing tired

Now I’m worried for my soul

And I’m still scared of growing old

As time went on, him leaving became more frequent. You couldn’t help the fact that they were getting a lot of new leads. Honestly, you couldn’t be more grateful to have Bucky. Not only is he the light of your life, but invariantly the same for everyone else in the world. His job was to protect people and you couldn’t imagine the world if he wasn’t off doing what he did so well. But they became more frequent and longer. Lately, it had felt like the two of you had spent more time apart than together.

Laying on the couch, his cheek resting atop of your chest, his torso and hips nestled between your legs, you broke the calm silence. “So next Friday’s my birthday,” you mumbled.

He chuckles in response, tilting his head up to meet your gaze. “Is this your way of reminding me to get you a gift? Because don’t worry, doll, I already got you something.” He winked and set his cheek back to his original position, softly shutting his eyes as you curled a lock of his hair around your finger.

“No,” you giggle back, rolling your eyes to yourself. “I want to take a trip. I think we should get away for the weekend.” You released the strand of hair, instead running your hand over the back of his neck. “What do you think?”

He sits up immediately, no disregard for your hands, and shakes his head. “(Y/N), you know that I can’t. What if they need me and I’m not here?”

You bite your lip, quickly searching for something to say. And what you blurt out actually happens to be the dumbest thing you’ve ever said. “Aren’t there like a million Avengers? I think you can take one weekend off.”

Now he rolls his eyes and scoffs. “(Y/N), you can’t be serious. You know it doesn’t work like that.” And at this point, you’re not sure if he’s talking about the Avengers not working like that or if your relationship doesn’t work like that – after all, he still never said “I love you” back. Not when he came home that time, not when he left for the next mission, not for your one-year anniversary, and not after the fact he realized that date occurred while he was away on work.

“I know, but – ”

“I’m sorry,” he interrupts, his tone harsh. “But no.” The way his jaw sets and eyes narrow at you doesn’t make you think he’s very sorry.

Staring back at him, you nod, getting up from the couch before he can see the tears well up in your eyes (for the record, he saw them). “I’m tired, Buck. Goodnight.” And with that, you scurried off to your bedroom. You locked the door and fell onto the bed, silently letting the tears fall down your cheeks. You buried your face into your pillow, throwing his against the wall, the smell of your bed – that smelled like him – pissing you off beyond belief.

Was this going to be your life? Constantly leaving, never saying “I love you” when everything he does clearly shows that he’s in love with you. There as a point in your life when you thought men were confusing. But, damn, James Barnes is a whole new story.

He clearly got the message that he’d be sleeping on the couch that night. He didn’t disturb you for the rest of the night – he didn’t even try. Could he hear you sobbing in your room? You could only assume yes. But that clearly didn’t make a difference to him.

But that’s okay. You’ve learned how to console yourself, how to calm yourself down during a panic attack, how to make the tears stop on your own.

That would become your reality. Would that be your future? Bucky talked about the future – quite a lot, actually, especially for being the one who won’t say “I love you.” He wanted to settle down, he wanted the future that was taken away from him years ago: to eventually settle down, raise little babies, grow old with you. He surely liked to talk about it, but never show it. There had to be some way he could ask Steve to take a weekend off. If he was reluctant to do it now, would he ever? Or would you just live in the shadows of his life, tying down the house alone, raising babies alone, growing old alone.

The next morning, you woke up to Bucky next to you in bed. He stroked your hair until you opened your eyes (that you could only assumed were swollen and red). He had apologized for the night before, pleaded for you to understand, and even gave you your birthday gift early. While you decided to forgive him, for the sake of the universe, you still couldn’t bury the hatchet completely. You weren’t going to show it, but what you were thinking about was important, and dammit you were justified in asking yourself those questions. (Even more justified to ask him those questions, but it was just never the right time).

And I’m so used to letting go

But I don’t want to be alone

One day, months later, your grandfather had passed away. It came as quite a shock, and it took you a few hours to even process the fact that he was gone. You’d been through countless calls with other family members and friends checking in on you. And while everyone meant well, every call resulted with you in a rush to hang-up, falling into a fit of sobs as you ended each call.

He had basically raised you since you were born and the fact that he had been ripped away from you so suddenly had burned you even more. Despite how sad you were, however, you had to be glad that you were able to fall apart in Bucky’s arms. Holding you tightly, reassuring you yet never telling you you’re overreacting. As someone who had been around loss his whole life, he definitely understood and thought it best to let you express your feelings earnestly.

That’s why, when Steve Rogers called his phone later that night, you couldn’t help but express your feelings very earnestly.

“Bucky, no, you’re not going.” You were sitting up in bed, in the middle of the night, darkness swallowing the room as Bucky stood to dress, not even bothering to turn on the lamp beside him.

“(Y/N), I have to. Please, don’t make this hard, baby.” His hand reached out to touch your cheek if only for a moment before he continued to dress and gather his things.

Tears fell down your cheeks freely, your voice coming out cracked as you begged him once more. It might have been pitiful, from his eyes, you’d assume. You were only one step away from looking like a sobbing toddler making grabby hands at her favorite toy. “Please, Bucky. You can’t leave me alone right now.” A sob rips through your throat and you nearly scream. “I’m always alone. I don’t want to be alone right now.”

You’d done the research: there were at least 12 Avengers nowadays. You didn’t know who was in what galaxy, but you were positive that one of them could take his place. Its not like he even really had superpowers. He was basically an enhanced man – plus they already had one of those? Surely, he could be spared this time around.

He shakes his head but sits down to pull you in his arms. “Baby, please. You can’t do this to me.”

And it takes everything in your whole being to not scoff. Do this to him? What exactly are you doing to him? Oh, just something he does to you on the weekly basis. You swallow your tears and shove him away. You don’t know what made you pull a complete 180, but it did finally feel good to get some things off your chest that had been plaguing your mind recently. “You always leave. I’m used to it.”

He opens his mouth to speak. Nothing comes out. He watches you pull the covers over yourself and turn away from him. He closes his mouth and leaves the room.

God only knows where our fears go

Hearts I’ve broke, now my tears flow

You’ll see that I’m sorry

Cause you were good to me

It was the post-mission jitters. The remnants of the adrenaline from earlier that day still coursed through his veins as he paced back and forth around the jet, eagerly anticipating his return to you.

“What’s up yours?” Sam asks, eyes narrowed at Bucky, clearly in confusion but also in annoyance.

Bucky stops in his tracks, eyes wide, feeling as though he had been invisible for the whole plane ride. He shrugs, and as Sam raises an eyebrow, he offers an explanation: “I’ve gotta see (Y/N).”

A grin breaks out on Sam’s face. He falls back in his chair, throws a hand over his heart and pretends to faint. “Oh, you have to see your lover. I’m Bucky, I’m so in love,” he mimics in a high-pitched voice.

Where Bucky normally would threaten to beat Sam to within an inch of his life, he couldn’t bring himself to do anything. He stood, staring at Sam’s hideous imitation of himself – he swears his heart stopped beating. “Yes, exactly.”

Sam chokes and stutters a “what?” before Steve interrupts them from the cockpit.

“We’re landing, guys. Buck, grab a seat.” So, Bucky does exactly what he’s told, plopping himself into the seat across from Sam, ignoring all the questions and comments from the man across from him.

God, he mentally kicks himself. It’s been almost two years. Two years you let him treat you like that. Now, while Bucky doesn’t think he’s done anything outwardly wrong and had obviously never purposely tried to hurt you, maybe he could’ve been a little better regarding work. Maybe he could’ve taken that weekend off with you.

You really consumed his whole life. His thoughts were constantly about you (mostly sweet and innocent, sometimes dirty), he constantly wanted to be by you, talking, laughing, touching.

He made up his mind before the plane even lands. The last mission is over, and new – personal – one begins.

He leaves the complex, stopping by the florist to buy the biggest bouquet of roses he can get his hands on. A grin is itching at his mouth as he anticipates your reaction during the rest of his drive. His heart is racing – in a good way. In a way he hasn’t felt in, well, forever. His confidence is at an all-time high as he’s never felt surer of himself in his life.

He’s already planned it out. You’ll open the door and he’ll scoop you up in his arms, hand you the flowers, and finally say “I love you.” He doesn’t know what took him so long anyway.

And now I’m closing every door

Cause I’m sick of wanting more

You know he didn’t get to decide when he left and for how long he’d be gone.

But he did get to decide his priorities. And honestly, you weren’t even sure if you were one of them anymore.

You were torn because you know how much his work means to him. Not only was it his calling, but it was something he thought was important to use his good work as a means to make up for all the bad things he’s done in the past. And while you’ve told him multiple times that that’s definitely not how it works, nothing will change his logic. So, you’ve stood by him; if it was important to him, it was important to you. Of course, you wanted to see your boyfriend exceed, feel fulfilled.

Now, you were just tired of seeing Bucky like that when it cost you everything. He was your everything. You had a job, yes, a home, a family. But the one person you were supposed to be with – actually be with – didn’t value you the same as his job. And thinking that to yourself just has to be the worst, most necessary wake-up call you need.

That was all you needed. You sat at your desk with a pen and a piece of paper. You couldn’t even think of an opening line for about two hours. Sitting there, chewing the inside of your cheek, you wrote countless paragraphs, scrapping some, keeping others, adjusting sentences, trying not to sound too mean – then having to start over because your teardrops fell onto the paper and smudged the ink.

All in all, it took you two days to write him the note – note turned letter. You folded it in three, left it on his pillow. As you placed it down, you broke out in tears. Falling to your knees, you shoved your face into the mattress, wailing into the sheets one last time. It remarkably still smelled of Bucky’s soap; probably just god handing you one more gut-wrenching blow.

You’d spent the night on the couch, unable to bear the sight of that letter or the smell of those blankets. The next morning, you tried to keep your head as clear as possible. No breakfast (no more pancakes with Bucky), no music (no reminders of your song), no phone (no messages from Bucky). It was time to leave. Time to leave this house, this life, this relationship. You’d quickly shoved a few bags full of clothes and necessities and threw them in the back of your car, not looking back. Just like he did after you’d told him you loved him.

Swear I’m different than before

I won’t hurt you anymore

Cause you were good to me

He practically skips up the steps. Knocking first, he rocks up and down on his tip-toes unable to contain his excitement anymore. Not getting an immediate response, he knocks again.

It would make sense that you weren’t home if it was work hours, but it was 7:00 pm. Bucky was thrown-off; you’d be at home eating dinner right now. Chalking it off to maybe you were in the bathtub, he digs around in his pocket for the key. Pushing the door open, he cautiously looks around the kitchen, then the dining room and living room, unable to find you. The bathroom was empty, and you hadn’t responded to him calling your name, echoing throughout the house.

He pulled out his phone while carefully kicking the bedroom door open with his foot. Straight to voicemail. Voicemailbox full. He tosses the roses beside him on the bed and sits on the edge, nearly ready to go searching again before a piece of paper catches his eye.

His heart drops.

It sinks.

There’s not a time in his whole one-hundred-year existence that he’d felt this much anticipation and fear.

He grabs the letter with shaking hands, carefully unfolding it and his eyes are fixated on the date you’d scribbled at the top of the page. Two months ago.

#bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #fanfiction #angst #bucky barnes angst #captain america #bucky x you #bucky fanfic

[lightshadowverisimilitude]

No excuses: POV (Happy Lights if you have it in you :P)

Happy Lights, ho! Thank you to @eak1mouse for beta and sounding boarding.

This is Loki’s POV of the scene at the end of Chapter 7 of Strange Turns. Enjoy!

~*~

Loki woke to a rhythmic motion that took him several painful moments to identify as breathing. He kept his eyes closed and maintained the illusion of unconsciousness while he pieced his fractured memories together. They were increasingly hard to hold on to, sliding in and out of time, merging with dreams and nightmares and the glow of Purpose.  

He remembered being chained to a flyer, a Chitauri drone pressed suffocatingly close to the line of his back. He also remembered laying on his back in the grass under the boughs of a flowering tree, watching the sunlight turn green through the leaves. Both of those things seemed equally close and equally distant. 

The air around him was quiet, but not empty. It did not smell of metallic steam, or the strange sharpness of the ships, or the offensive odor of the drones. It was a different smell, something familiar and half remembered, body odor and lightning. 

When he cracked his eyes open finally, Thor was looking down at him. Loki went very still. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d woken exactly like this, his brother all glowing smiles and approval, shaking him awake for a hunt or a fight or we never talk anymore, brother, I miss you. 

This version of Thor did smile, but he did not glow. He looked older than Loki remembered from the golden age of their childhood, when they were still the best of friends. Old, and very tired, with his eyes lined in worry and his face streaked with drying blood and smudged greasy dirt.

Thor didn’t speak, and neither did Loki. He knew better than to initiate a conversation with one of their illusions. If he waited long enough, it would start to speak, and he could place when they were, and how he was expected to behave. Over Thor’s shoulder, he could see only shadowy shapes, but nothing alarming, no sharp edges. 

Thor shifted slightly, and Loki moved with him. He realized that he was being cradled like a child, wrapped up in cloth and held to Thor’s chest. It was not new, one of their illusions holding him, comforting him. What came next would remind him of if he’d failed most recently, or done something to please them. 

Silence stretched endlessly, and then motion over his shoulder. Loki automatically ducked closer to the comforting bulk of his brother’s body, and then stopped, expecting the laughter. The rebuke. The form under him to melt into some new horror. 

He looked up to see Steve Rogers sitting on Thor’s other side. Loki reacted instinctively, flinching away from the new element. Deep in his chest, violence stirred to life. He controlled it, forced it down. Reacting violently to any of the Avengers usually earned him praise, but he was at a loss to explain the strange position, Thor cradling him as if he were precious, and now, now that Loki was paying closer attention, the writhing mass of tentacles on the floor. One of them was coiled around Rogers’ waist, and he petted it absently as he stared at Loki. 

They didn’t know about the tentacles. They didn’t know that Loki had sent some of them to Earth, and they didn’t know about the single, agonizing telepathic connection he’d managed in order to get the warning out. 

Thor and Rogers were speaking over his head as he did his best not to stare at the tentacles moving lazily just out of reach. It never worked that way, but he thought for a moment that he could just stay quiet and they might forget him, carrying on with their reality as if he didn’t exist. 

Rogers waved his fingers deliberately in Loki’s line of sight to get his attention. Loki looked up to his face, projecting calm that he couldn’t feel. After the months, the years, the eternity, he was mostly just tired. That didn’t mean they couldn’t come up with some way to entertain him if he seemed bored. 

“I’m going to ask you a question, and I need you to tell me the truth,” Rogers said with exaggerated care, as though Loki didn’t speak the same language, as though Loki hadn’t invented so much of his language. “I’m going to believe what you tell me.” 

You shouldn’t, Loki wanted to tell him. Loki was a liar, as much now as he ever had been. More. He kept his mouth shut. 

“Were you with the Chitauri willingly?” 

A laugh hammered at the inside of Loki’s ribs. He couldn’t answer, or it would pour out like madness sliding over his tongue. Loki wasn’t sure he had ever done anything willingly in his life, had ever not been manipulated to one end or another, had ever been master of anything at all.

“Did you willingly aid the Chitauri in attacking Earth?” Rogers tried when Loki’s tongue didn’t unbind.

“Yes,” Loki snarled. He remembered that first invasion, the Purpose singing brilliant and blue inside him, and how badly he had wanted it, how dearly he had believed - still believed, still wantedneeded to be crowned king of this miserable muddy rock and it’s miserable stinking apes who thought they could look him in the face, who thought they could make him a joke, who thought they knew him. 

He had wanted to take it because it had been his brother’s, and he had wanted to break it because his brother had loved it, and because in all their thousands of years, it had taken only three days for Earth to make Thor worthy. 

“Why would I want that?” he asked himself, confusion returning. He hadn’t, always, had he? In those days, weeks, months after he fell. He’d never thought about Earth at all. 

“This invasion… was that your idea as well?” 

Loki recoiled. Oh, no, he had been well and truly abused of any notion that he had ideas by then, but he had tried to tell them that the Tesseract was gone, that Earth was useless. He had wanted then to… save something, hadn’t he? Loki felt himself speaking, words tripping foolish and honest off his tongue, but what did it matter? If he was still in their clutches, they knew about his pinpricks of betrayal, his whispers, his dishonesty. Denying it now would only draw out the farce, and he wanted them to know then, he wanted them to know that he hadn’t been beaten entire. 

“I tried to warn you, and I tried to just… just stop breathing, but they wouldn’t let me, and they came anyway, and I wouldn’t fight so they… they….” The Void closing around him, cold, cold and screaming and pulling him apart one atom at a time, and then his mother brushing his hair back, kissing his forehead, he’d been ill, there’d been a fever, he was better, but how she had always hated him, how she wished he’d just died in that frozen wasteland before Odin ever brought him home, and again, opening his eyes, it was just a nightmare.

It was just a nightmare.

“Do not take him away from me,” Thor said, wrenching him out of the spiral, returning him to the illusion. 

“No one is going to take him from you,” Rogers said, a sweet promise that made Loki want to sob for frustration and anger and hatred and longing. Rogers reached out to touch him. Loki flinched automatically, expecting the pain so acutely that he felt it burning in his skin even as Rogers withdrew. 

Rogers’ voice was maybe tight with anger or disappointment, and Loki would need to get himself under control and learn which it was and what it meant. The illusion would break eventually, he didn’t need to hasten it along with carelessness.

#ladyshadowdrake writes #Happy Lights #Loki #Tentacles #elvenavari

[trinuviel]

The Ice and the Fire of the Song (part 3)

What does the Ice and the Fire refer to in GRRM’s epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire? That is the subject of this series of posts. (Part 1, Part 2). In this series, Ice and Fire refer to many different things. That doesn’t mean that one meaning excludes the others but rather that the two concepts have multiple meanings and that these depend on context. In my previous post, I examined Ice and Fire in relation to the cult of R’hllor and its rigid theology of an eternal binary opposition between forces that are ascribed meanings as either Good or Evil.

In this post I’ll use Robert Frost’s poem Fire and Ice as the basis for an exploration of the elements of Ice and Fire in relation human emotions as well as to the history of the world in which the story takes place. Finally, I’ll ponder whether the text offers a possibility to escape the trap that dogmatic binary thinking constitutes. Things aren’t black and white, and sometimes opposing elements can meld together.

DESIRE AND HATE

There are many sources of inspiration for GRRM’s A Song of Ice and Fire but one of them is Robert Frost’s poem Fire and Ice from 1920. 

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if I had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

This an apocalyptic poem where the elemental forces of Ice and Fire are interpreted through the lens of human emotions. Ice is hate and Fire is desire. 

“People say that I was influenced by Robert Frost’s poem, and of course I was, I mean… Fire is love, fire is passion, fire is sexual ardor and all these things. Ice is betrayal, ice is revenge, ice is… you know, that cold inhumanity and all that stuff is being played out in the books.” (GRRM)

Here Ice and Fire come to symbolize common human feelings – things that unite and divide us: love and hate, etc. In this context, the Ice and the Fire can be applied to any number of the characters since these feelings are universally human. In order to decipher which feelings GRRM assigns to Ice and Fire, it is important to play close attention to the language of the text.

Cold inhumanity

When it comes to cold inhumanity, the Others immediately spring to mind. They are quite literally cold and inhuman. It is, however, more chilling when men and women act with a cold inhumanity. Tywin Lannister is perhaps the prime example of this. He coldly arranges for horrible events to happen without a twinge of remorse or regret. Tywin Lannister shows no empathy towards the people whose lives he ruins. He coldly weds Sansa Stark to his son Tyrion whilst he plots the murder of her family – and he does not display an ounce of empathy with the poor girl that has already been horribly abused by his grandson. In Tywin’s eyes, Sansa is not a person but a means to an end: She’s the Key to the North.

Tyrion rubbed at the raw stub of his nose. The scar tissue itched abominably sometimes. "His Grace the royal pustule has made Sansa's life a misery since the day her father died, and now that she is finally rid of Joffrey you propose to marry her to me. That seems singularly cruel. Even for you, Father." "Why, do you plan to mistreat her?" His father sounded more curious than concerned. "The girl's happiness is not my purpose, nor should it be yours. Our alliances in the south may be as solid as Casterly Rock, but there remains the north to win, and the key to the north is Sansa Stark."

"She is no more than a child." (ASoS, Tyrion III)

He doesn’t care about her feelings or her well-being. Tywin doesn’t care that a pregnancy could be very dangerous for a 12 year-old girl, he just cares that the Lannisters secure a claim to Winterfell and the North. He treats everyone as tools for his ambitions, even his own children. He doesn’t see them as persons in their own right but simple as vehicles for the legacy he wishes to build for House Lannister. 

Hate

When it comes to hate, I find it interesting that the inhuman Others are describes as driven by hate towards humankind.

Old Nan nodded. "In that darkness, the Others came for the first time," she said as her needles went click click click. "They were cold things, dead things, that hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every creature with hot blood in its veins…” (AGoT, Bran IV)

In the prologue of the very first book, the author drops a very significant detail: the Others have a language! One of them speaks when the ranging party from the Night’s Watch encounters them, and the Other says something mocking. 

The Other said something in a language that Will did not know; his voice was like the cracking of ice on a winter lake, and the words were mocking. (AGoT, Prologue) 

Thus, the text hints that they despise humans. We have yet to find out why but it is a delicious mystery.

Distance/rejection

GRRM also uses imagery of ice with scenes of distancing and rejection. Those can be negative things but it depends on the context and the POV of the scene.

He had always had a yen to see the Titan of Braavos. Perhaps that would please Sansa. Gently, he spoke of Braavos, and met a wall of sullen courtesy as icy and unyielding as the Wall he had walked once in the north. It made him weary. Then and now. They passed the rest of the journey in silence. After a while, Tyrion found himself hoping that Sansa would say something, anything, the merest word, but she never spoke. (ASoS, Tyrion VIII) 

Notice how the distant courtesy that Sansa hides behind is described as sullen and icy by Tyrion. He is frustrated by Sansa’s refusal to open up to him. He wants her love and she doesn’t want to givet it to him – with good reason. In Sansa’s chapters her courtesy is described as an armour. For Sansa, it is a defense mechanism – she uses it as a means to avoid angering people and to hide her true thoughts and feelings. For Sansa, her courtesy armour is a positive thing whereas it is a negative thing for Tyrion. Some things are all about perspective.

Love

Whilst GRRM relates fire to love in the interview quoted above, there’s a surprising dearth of direct linkage between fire and love in the text (I am excluding passion here because GRRM generally uses passion specifically in relation to lust and hate). Instead, he uses “warmth” in relation to love in its positive aspects.

He was not a man you'd expect to speak of maids and wedding nights. So far as Jon knew, Qhorin had spent his whole life in the Watch. Did he ever love a maid or have a wedding? He could not ask. Instead he fanned the fire. When the blaze was all acrackle, he peeled off his stiff gloves to warm his hands, and sighed, wondering if ever a kiss had felt as good. The warmth spread through his fingers like melting butter. (ACoK, Jon VIII) 

The love that is healthy and positive, is the warmth of the bonfire or of the warmth of the body and soul of the beloved. It is a fire that shelters and gently warms. 

Bones, Catelyn thought. This is not Ned, this is not the man I loved, the father of my children. His hands were clasped together over his chest, skeletal fingers curled about the hilt of some longsword, but they were not Ned's hands, so strong and full of life. They had dressed the bones in Ned's surcoat, the fine white velvet with the direwolf badge over the heart, but nothing remained of the warm flesh that had pillowed her head so many nights, the arms that had held her. (ACoK, Catelyn V) 

Desire/Passion/Lust

When it comes to desire, passion and lust, the imagery of fire runs rampant in the text. One of the ways in which the text associates desire/passion/lust with fire is through the imagery of “kissing”:

She bit his neck and he nuzzled hers, burying his nose in her thick red hair. Lucky, he thought, she is lucky, fire-kissed. "Isn't that good?" she whispered as she guided him inside her. (ASoS, Jon III) 

The wildlings seemed to think Ygritte a great beauty because of her hair; red hair was rare among the free folk, and those who had it were said to be kissed by fire, which was supposed to be lucky. […]Sometimes she sang in a low husky voice that stirred him. And sometimes by the cookfire when she sat hugging her knees with the flames waking echoes in her red hair, and looked at him, just smiling . . . well, that stirred some things as well. (ASoS, Jon II)

She would sooner sit bathed in the ruddy glow of her red lord's blessed flames, her cheeks flushed by the wash of heat as if by a lover's kisses. (ADwD, Melisandre I)

Fire is a perfect metaphor for strong emotions, yet the fires of passion are often framed negatively by the text: 

Prince Quentyn was listening intently, at least. That one is his father's son. Short and stocky, plain-faced, he seemed a decent lad, sober, sensible, dutiful … but not the sort to make a young girl's heart beat faster. And Daenerys Targaryen, whatever else she might be, was still a young girl, as she herself would claim when it pleased her to play the innocent. Like all good queens she put her people first—else she would never have wed Hizdahr zo Loraq—but the girl in her still yearned for poetry, passion, and laughter. She wants fire, and Dorne sent her mud. You could make a poultice out of mud to cool a fever. You could plant seeds in mud and grow a crop to feed your children. Mud would nourish you, where fire would only consume you, but fools and children and young girls would choose fire every time. (ADwD, The Discarded Knight) 

GRRM assigns hatred to ice but hatred can be passionate, it can burn red-hot - like fire:

He did not love, nor was he loved himself. It was hate that drove him. […] this man Sandor Clegane dreamed of slaying his own brother, a sin so terrible it makes me shudder just to speak of it. Yet that was the bread that nourished him, the fuel that kept his fires burning.” – The Elder Brother to Brienne of Tarth, (AFfC, Brienne VI)  

Sex

When it comes to the Targaryens, the connection between sex and fire becomes quite literal. I can’t remember who first pointed it out, but when Daenerys rides Drogon for the first time, the language turns almost orgasmic:

The lash was still in her hand. She flicked it against Drogon's neck and cried, "Higher!" Her other hand clutched at his scales, her fingers scrabbling for purchase. Drogon's wide black wings beat the air. Dany could feel the heat of him between her thighs. Her heart felt as if it were about to burst. Yes, she thought, yes, now, now, do it, do it, take me, take me, FLY! (ADwD, Daenerys IX)

There’s a sexual subtext to the language. Dany mounts her dragon and feel his heat between her thighs – an expression that is often used as a description of sexual desire and Dany herself used the expression of taking someone as an euphemism for sex. She mounts her dragons, feels his heat, asks him to take her (“take me, fly”) and her heart feels as if it is about to burst. This is very much the kind of language used to evoke an orgasm.

When it comes to Dany’s father, the connection between fire and sex is direct and so twisted that I lack the words to properly describe it:

The sight had filled him with disquiet, reminding him of Aerys Targaryen and the way a burning would arouse him. A king has no secrets from his Kingsguard. Relations between Aerys and his queen had been strained during the last years of his reign. They slept apart and did their best to avoid each other during the waking hours. But whenever Aerys gave a man to the flames, Queen Rhaella would have a visitor in the night. (AFfC, Jaime II)

The fact that Aerys II became sexually aroused by burning people alive connects fire to madness in the text. 

Madness

The Targaryen dynasty is often described as tainted by madness, which is related to the systematic incest they practiced over many generations. However, their madness is particularly tied to fire:

"Did you know that my brother set the Blackwater Rush afire? Wildfire will burn on water. Aerys would have bathed in it if he'd dared. The Targaryens were all mad for fire." – Jaime Lannister to Brienne of Tarth, (ASoS, Jaime V)

The traitors want my city, I heard him tell Rossart, but I'll give them naught but ashes. Let Robert be king over charred bones and cooked meat. The Targaryens never bury their dead, they burn them. Aerys meant to have the greatest funeral pyre of them all. Though if truth be told, I do not believe he truly expected to die. Like Aerion Brightfire before him, Aerys thought the fire would transform him . . . that he would rise again, reborn as a dragon, and turn all his enemies to ash. – Jaime Lannister to Brienne of Tarth, (ASoS, Jaime V)

Passion, desire and lust aren’t negative things in and of themselves, it is interesting that the text more often than not describes these feelings in a negative manner. An excess of passion is just as dangerous as an excess of fire.

“SOME SAY THE WORLD WILL END IN FIRE, SOME SAY IN ICE”

Revisting Robert Frost’s poem, you can’t help but notice that it is a poem about the end of the world. It is apocalyptic. As the story stands, Westeros faces an icy apocalypse brought along by beings that hails from the far North:

Yet there are other tales—harder to credit and yet more central to the old histories—about creatures known as the Others. According to these tales, they came from the frozen Land of Always Winter, bringing the cold and darkness with them as they sought to extinguish all light and warmth. (tWoIaF)

(The Land of Always Winter. Art by Rene Aigner)

Frost’s poem speaks of an apocalypse of either Ice or Fire, where fire is put before ice. This made me think about whether there has been an apocalypse of fire in the history of Westeros. It just happens that there has: the Doom of Valyria (link), where a catastrophic eruption of a ring of volcanoes, the 14 Flames, brought down an entire civilization in a fiery inferno so hot that even dragons caught fire in the sky.

An apocalypse is a world-ending event but it doesn’t necessarily have to destroy the entire world. The Doom did, however, destroy both the Valyrian peninsula and the Freehold as both a political entity and a sophisticated civilization.

Valyria. It was written that on the day of Doom every hill for five hundred miles had split asunder to fill the air with ash and smoke and fire, blazes so hot and hungry that even the dragons in the sky were engulfed and consumed. Great rents had opened in the earth, swallowing palaces, temples, entire towns. Lakes boiled or turned to acid, mountains burst, fiery fountains spewed molten rock a thousand feet into the air, red clouds rained down dragonglass and the black blood of demons, and to the north the ground splintered and collapsed and fell in on itself and an angry sea came rushing in. The proudest city in all the world was gone in an instant, its fabled empire vanished in a day, the Lands of the Long Summer scorched and drowned and blighted. An empire built on blood and fire. The Valyrians reaped the seed they had sown. (ADwD, Tyrion VIII) 

That does sound like a world-ending event but there’s also an element of hubris associated with the Doom of Valyria. It was an empire built on fire and blood and it ended in a cataclysmic fire with a magical fallout that still poisons the Lands of of the Long Summer and the Smoking Sea that was created when the peninsula shattered.

Every man there knew that the Doom still ruled Valyria. The very sea there boiled and smoked, and the land was overrun with demons. (ADwD, The Reaver)

The Doom of Valrya spelled the end of the Dragonlords who subjugated the continent of Essos. The only Dragonlords who survived were House Targaryen and they did so die to the prophetic dreams of Daenys “the Dreamer” Targaryen. It was because of her warning that House Targaryen removed to Dragonstone with all their dragons, servants and slaves. A century later, Aegon Targaryen and his sister-wives Rhaenys and Visenya set out to make a new homeland through the Conquest of Westeros.

As a descendant of the only Dragonlords to survive the fiery apocalypse of Valyria, it seems fitting that the Last Targaryen appears destined to become embroiled in the icy apocalypse of Westeros. Daenerys Targaryen has yet to travel to Westeros in the books but she has a prophetic dream that could foreshadow her fighting the Others with her dragons:

That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse. When she saw the Usurper's rebel host across the river they were armored all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent. Some small part of her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted. This is how it was meant to be. (ASoS, Daenerys III)

BURNING ICE AND FROZEN FIRE

My previous posts in this series explored what the Ice and the Fire could refer to in GRRM’s epic fantasy series. They also examined the title of the series, A Song of Ice and Fire - a title that encourages the reader to think in absolute opposing forces, which is the most common way that epic fantasies are structured. However, within the narrative, the cult of R’hllor could very well function as a metatextual discourse on this kind of binary thinking and how it is a trap for the mind.

In this context, it is worth noting that Martin combines the opposites of Ice and Fire several times in the text: 

Nothing burns like the cold. (AGoT, Prologue)

The Other halted. Will saw its eyes; blue, deep and bluer than any human eyes, a blue that burned like ice. (AGoT, Prologue)

Ice can be so cold that it feels as though it burns, yet there is no equivalent when it comes to fire. There’s no fire burning cold within the text. Then there’s obsidian, also called dragonglass. The material that can kill the Others is called “frozen fire” in Valyrian and when Sam Tarly kills a White Walker with an obsidian dagger, the language evokes an image of the weapon being simultaneously hot and cold:

Finally only the dragonglass dagger remained, wreathed in steam as if it were alive and sweating. Grenn bent to scoop it up and flung it down again at once. "Mother, that's cold." (ASoS - Samwell I) 

What are we to make of this? What does this melding of opposites signify? Jojen Reed knows the answer: 

“Why can’t it be both?” Meera reached up to pinch his nose. “Because they are different,” he [Bran] insisted. “Like night and day, or ice and fire.” “If ice can burn”, said Jojen in his solemn voice, “then love and hate can mate. Mountain or marsh, it makes no matter. The land is one.” (ASoS, Bran II)

The land is one!!!

In my previous post, I agreed with @thewesterwoman that purity is dangerous in GRRM’s world. As pure ice and pure fire, the Others and the dragons are equally dangerous. Purity represents an imbalance in the natural state of things. Perhaps this means that it is “impure” things that will play a pivotal part in the endgame. The obsidian is interesting in this context because it can be seen as a product of the marriage between fire and stone, the crystallized product of molten stone (lava).

So the weapon that is extremely effective when it comes to killing White Walkers (they die instantaneously) is made from a melding of different elements into something new. Obsidian is neither pure stone, nor pure fire.

(The Wall. Art by Feliche)

It is also worth remembering that the Wall that keeps out the Others and the undead wights is made of ice. However, the Wall is not made from ice that is “pure”. It is infused with the magic of the Children of the Forest – and their magic was of the living land, and the Land is One!

#asoaif #a song of ice and fire #meta #game of thrones #ice #fire

[resbang-bookclub]

AMA Transcript: TRAVELLERS LOST

To kick off our AMAs, @sleepdeprivedfemale stopped in to answer some questions about her Resbang, TRAVELLERS LOST. Here’s some of what went down!

Q: To start us off, how about you tell us what inspired this AU? Why Sunless Sea, why now?

SleepDeprivedFemale: Probably a silly reason, but I had a lot of free time this summer and I spent a lot of time playing Sunless Sea. I got sucked in by the lore and mystery. And then when lore parts such as the Judgements and the Dawn Machine's capability to control people came up, my mind basically went, 'hey wouldn't it be cool if SE characters took part?'

Q: Generic question, but since this was your first Resbang how did the experience treat you? Did you feel like you grew as a writer?

SleepDeprivedFemale: hahaha, well I somehow managed to write 100k in a few months so I guess something went either right or terribly wrong. But I did like having a deadline which pushed me to actually write instead of 'meh, I'll do it tomorrow.'

Q: What was writing 100k in a few months like?

SleepDeprivedFemale: Like a fever dream. There were a couple of days where I wrote 5k and my brain was mush.

Q: What's your writing process like? How do u Churn out the words?

SleepDeprivedFemale: I just do? Like usually, I generally plot out roughly what's going on in the chapter, and then I roughly write out dialogue and basic descriptions, then slowly go back and fill the parts in. Exceptions were made in places heavy in description like Black Star's visit to Frostfound.

Q: Neat! Sounds like you have a good system in place.

SleepDeprivedFemale: Haha yeah, it's a process that kinda grew organically.

Q: I wish I wrote like that, give me your advice!

SleepDeprivedFemale: I mean, it helps when I don't exactly know where a chapter is going. Like, write out a dialogue and have a solid plot down, and then add the 'fluff.' Of course that doesn't always work out and there were chapters (like the climax), where I had the plot in mind and just wrote the entire thing in one go.

Q: How do you keep track if you write non-linearly?

SleepDeprivedFemale: It depends on the day usually. If I don't have a lot of time, I focus more on getting the dialogue out and only in small stretches of the chapter. If I have more time, I sit down and fill in the gaps, going by scene or chapter (I usually aim to finish a chapter in a sitting so I don't lose my train of thought). And for the chapters I've finished, I just put on a giant (FINISHED) tag on them.

Q: What was the hardest part to write? Was there anything special about it that made you determined to write it despite the difficulty?

SleepDeprivedFemale: Haha my dude, chapter 41. (Aka the chapter where the gang is forced to drink red honey and painfully relieve their memories). Red Honey was among the most horrifying concepts in Sunless Sea, and I hoped I'd [do] it justice. There's also the part where I had to write the Drowned Man cause [it’s] so vague and there's a lot of things that are still a mystery.

Q: What's your fave part you wrote?

SleepDeprivedFemale: Aaaa there were a couple of scenes I liked for different reasons. Kim and Jackie's subplot was fun to write cause of their relationship dynamic (aka Jackie liking Kim but not being able to say it, vs Kim's issues of trust). For sheer comedic value, Kid accidentally flashing the entirety of an island was another one. In general, I try to make it so there's something I like in every scene I write, and not necessarily like in a literal sense, but something I want to write about. I also loved writing the stuff with the abnormal formatting -THESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUN-, chapter summaries and generally the 4th wall breaking stuff.

Q: Did you make yourself a playlist as you wrote, or are there songs that remind you of certain scenes/arcs?

SleepDeprivedFemale: Yes, I used a couple of compilation to get in the mood, hold on. This one was all purpose: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tquugHbliK8&index=3&list=PL5NETqX6IwDY6QTCRBhh5PqQ2sfcRD0yc

For scarier scenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on-xvGdFTIU&index=1&list=PL5NETqX6IwDY6QTCRBhh5PqQ2sfcRD0yc ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IryFtcBJeZE&index=5&list=PL5NETqX6IwDY6QTCRBhh5PqQ2sfcRD0yc  And https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp5o0cIQvrA&index=6&list=PL5NETqX6IwDY6QTCRBhh5PqQ2sfcRD0yc for all-purpose creepy Victorian vibes. And this for the climax: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEC0gZvMVAI aka KILL THE SUN)

Q: Did you notice your style grow or mature over the course of writing this? Anything you finally felt 'click?'

SleepDeprivedFemale: Honestly, I am not sure. I think there's an improvement when it comes to writing more fluid descriptions, but overall, my prose still is on the wordy and sometimes unnecessarily complicated side. Plus, I still hate prepositions.

Q: Any plans for a next project, or are you taking a well-earned break for now?

SleepDeprivedFemale: So far my plan is to continue my ongoing stories, cause I got two of them, one is an AU that has already spiralled out of my control in size (150k+) and the other is a crossover that takes a long time to plot. But so far, I've taken a break for Christmas and may not write much this year due to uni stuff.

Q: Was there anything that you wished you could have added if you had more time/energy?

SleepDeprivedFemale: Oh yeess. First of all, I wanted to bulk up some of the shorter chapters (such as their visit to Pigmote Isle). I also wanted to add a visit to Abbey Rock where there are fighter nun, but there wasn't enough time. And in general, I wish I had more time to double-check spelling etc.

Q: Did you work with any betas or bounce ideas off of anyone besides your artists? How was it working with them?

SleepDeprivedFemale: Ba-sing-saying [@ba-sing-saying] helped beta parts of the fic (unfortunately there wasn't enough time to go over the entire thing). He also helped me with the contents of a couple of chapters where it felt like I went overboard. My beta and artist didn't really know about Sunless Sea, so though I couldn't bounce ideas of them I could see if my writing made sense from an outsider's POV (which I hope it did :P).

Q: How was it working with your artists?

SleepDeprivedFemale: It went well! Never done this before, so I don't really have a benchmark for how much communicating we were supposed to do, so we talked a bit and I liked the result.

Q: Any desire on Resbanging again sometime?

SleepDeprivedFemale: Yes, definitely. Actually finishing a long fic felt so cathartic, and I have a lot of WIPs that are sort-of-abandoned, so I want to see if I can use the deadlines to make myself actually finish them.

Q: Did you have a particular character you liked to write the most?

SleepDeprivedFemale: Kid. I will always write Kid, he's my boi. I also loved writing Liz, Black Star and Kim, but this story also helped me get more experience in writing characters I don't usually write, such as Maka, Soul, Tsubaki, Patty and the rest of the secondary cast. Kid and his dad are your friendly neighbor eldritch abominations.

Thanks again to SleepDeprivedFemale for coming to hang! Keep your eye out for more AMA transcripts, coming soon!

#AMA transcripts #resbang #resbang 2017 #TRAVELLERS LOST #sleepdeprivedfemale