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precuredaily · 3 years

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Precure Day 205

Episode: Yes! Precure 5 Go Go! 07 - “Let’s Go! Palmier Kingdom!” Date watched: 31 January 2021 Original air date: 16 March 2008 Screenshots Transformation Gallery Project info and master list of posts

insert quip here

When we left off, the friends were rushing off to Palmier Kingdom because Milk said there was an emergency. It turns out Milk may have been stretching the truth, but of course, danger follows the Rose Pact wherever it goes, so her lie quickly becomes reality. How will the Precures fend off a new enemy? How will Coco and Nuts prove their dedication to their citizens? How will Milk learn the value of doing your part? How will we continue setting up Milky Rose? You’re about to find out!

The Plot

As they fly to the Palmier Kingdom on Syrup’s back, Coco wonders what kind of terrible danger it may be in. King Donuts lectures him and Nuts for leaving the kingdom in the first place because of the inability to protect their people. Meanwhile, in the Palmier Kingdom, there seems to be no trouble afoot at all. The citizens are hard at work rebuilding the palace and buildings. Everyone is chipping in..... except for Milk, who is sitting by a wall, neglecting her responsibilities. Papaya, the mustachioed fairy who was Coco and Nuts’s tutor in the past, sternly reminds her to concentrate on her work; Milk retorts that she can’t concentrate if she’s worrying about the Kings, and Papaya counters that supporting the people is the job of a caretaker. Milk takes this as well as you may expect.

this level of sass would be unrivaled until a certain mermaid swam onto the scene in 2021

Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Syrup. Milk excitedly walks over to see if he brought a letter from Coco and Nuts, when suddenly the girls spring up, followed by the kings. Milk gets misty eyed, declares she missed them, and begins running straight towards an expectant Nozomi. What follows is a glorious bait and switch.

vimeo

Milk dives right past Nozomi to tackle her beloved kings.

Over in Eternal, we see a new character walking down the hallway. He is soon revealed as another general of the organization, Nebatakos. He drops a collection item off, a starving animal, and he indicates he only fed it enough to stay alive. Anacondy scolds him for his negligence but informs him that the Rose Pact is in the Palmier Kingdom should he wish to retrieve it. How exactly she knows this is unclear.

Wilson Fisk he ain’t

Back in Palmier Kingdom, Papaya chews out Milk for implying there was an emergency and causing the Precures and Kings to return. (The kings themselves aren’t too fussed about it, for what it’s worth.) She weakly justifies her actions by saying that the loneliness people felt without their leaders was a critical situation and then runs off. While Milk stews over her feelings, Coco, Nuts, and the girls join the rebuilding efforts, spending some quality time with the people and with each other. Coco admits to Nozomi that he wanted to show her the kingdom when it was rebuilt but she’s not disappointed. At the same time, Komachi discusses King Donuts’s lecture with Nuts, who admits the monarch was right in his assessment of their shortcomings and he and Coco have work to do in becoming proper leaders. Karen worries about Milk, who is hiding behind a rock outside the kingdom, but Syrup finds her. He gives her some grief about shirking her duties as a caretaker, and she admits that she took the position to stay close to Coco and Nuts. When they turned around and left, Milk felt lonely and that’s why she wrote the letter. Syrup, still exhausted from rushing to get everyone here, collapses, and Milk apologizes, recognizing her fault in his fatigue.

Syrup has no chill

Everyone is taking a break in the kingdom, eating some giant fruits that look like a cross between a coconut and a papaya. They are apparently DELICIOUS.

please make memes out of this.

These are palmier fruits, and they come from the namesake tree of the kingdom. The giant palm trees have great cultural significance, so Nozomi decides she’ll plant the seed of her fruit to grow another.

Unfortunately their break is interrupted by the arrival of Nebatakos, who demands to know the location of the Rose Pact. When they don’t give it up, he transforms into his monster form of a gray and gold octopus man and begins destroying the precious palmier trees. The girls transform, but not to be outdone, Nebatakos turns the nearby hill (where Milk and Syrup are) into a Hoshiina. Coco and Nuts start evacuating their citizens to safety while the Precures fight the villain and his lackey. Since he’s new, he manages to keep the upper hand, and the girls quickly find themselves at the end of their rope. However, most of the battle is actually focused on Coco and Nuts evacuating their citizens with some help from Milk and Syrup, who fly people to safety. Seeing this, King Donuts laments his inability to help since he’s stuck in the Rose Pact healing. When Nebatakos confronts the Palmier fairies holed up in the castle, Coco bravely leads him away from the civilians, allowing himself to be caught as a diversion. Dream sees Nebatakos strangling him from afar, but she can’t break away from fighting the Hoshiina, so Nuts steps out with the Rose Pact, and King Donuts standing proud inside of it, to face Nebatakos and get him to release Coco. King Donuts pops out for a moment and unleashes a blindingly bright blue light that stuns Nebatakos and the Hoshiina for a moment before he collapses. The Rose Pact falls away from them, and unseen by anyone else in the commotion, it glows blue and emits a bright blue seed.

This will not be important later on, pay it no mind.

King Donuts’s stun attack also gave the Precures enough of an opening to turn the tide of the battle, and they rescue Coco before setting up the Hoshiina and Nebatakos for their special attacks. Aqua unleashes a Sapphire Arrow on Nebatakos, which really takes the wind out of him, and then Dream performs Shooting Star. Nebatakos teleports away, leaving the Hoshiina to take the full force of the attack and it disintegrates.

After the fight, King Donuts is still incredibly weak but admits he was inspired by everyone’s bravery and wanted to help out however he could. He doesn’t say it aloud but he seems to be gaining respect for them as rulers. After that, it’s time for the visitors to leave. Everyone loads up into Syrup after saying their goodbyes to Milk, Papaya and the citizens. Milk gives an inspiring speech to everyone about doing their best while the Kings are away and says an extra special goodbye to Karen. Nozomi asks her to take care of the palmier seed she planted. At last, they fly off, and eventually the crowd dissipates, leaving only Milk. She starts to cry, but then she sees a split-second premonition of the blue seed being held in a tender pair of hands.

Milk turns around and sees the actual blue seed behind her, glowing, so she picks it up and stares at it inquisitively as the scene fades to black.

The Analysis

Honestly having an episode about visiting another world take place this early in any Precure season is really unheard of, but given the circumstances I’m glad they did. Getting to see Palmier Kingdom being rebuilt drives home how much there is to be done, how much damage Nightmare caused, and how strong their community is that they can band together to do this. It also really only works because of this being a sequel, if this had been a brand new show I don’t think this would have been as effective. Even if this series doesn’t always know what to do with its second season, it does have moments like this that make it worthwhile.

More than any other episode I can recall in the past season, this episode is much more about the fairies than the humans. Coco, Nuts, Milk, and King Donuts each have arcs throughout this episode that play into their overall roles in the story. Coco and Nuts are still reckoning with King Donuts telling them he doesn’t acknowledge them as kings yet (and if you forgot it from last episode, it’s one of the first things he says in this one), but they take the chance to self-reflect on their shortcomings and strive to do better. They get some moments of introspection as they help to rebuild, which show their different perspectives and priorities. Coco is a bit sad that he couldn’t show the fully rebuilt Palmier Kingdom to Nozomi, because he wants to show her the kingdom as he remembers it, but she thinks it’s beautiful already because of his efforts.

I can show you the world. Shining, shimmering, splendid!

Meanwhile, Nuts takes a more introspective approach as he discusses his feelings with a worried Komachi. She’s afraid that he’s offended by King Donuts’s remarks, but he admits he actually agrees, and that he and Coco have work to do if they’re going to be effective leaders. Later on, they display sincere, unprompted heroism in helping and protecting the citizens during the attack. They tend to the scared and wounded, they ensure everyone is holed up in a secure location so they don’t get injured in the fight, and they protect the civilians by distracting the villain.

Seeing the way the young rulers act in their natural element, in various situations, helps to warm King Donuts up to them. He’s largely unseen during the bulk of the episode, but he’s present at a few crucial points. First, as they all fly towards Palmier, he reminds Coco and Nuts in no uncertain terms that he doesn’t recognize them as kings yet. He’s present during Milk’s first disciplining, and then during the climax when Coco and Nuts are at their best, their bravery spurs King Donuts himself to take action against Nebatakos. He recognizes he’d be a hypocrite if he tells the Kings to protect their citizens while he himself cowers inside the Rose Pact, and that’s why he overexerts himself to buy a little bit of time. Interestingly, his act of bravery seems to be what triggers the Rose Pact to deposit the blue seed. It’s nice to see how he’s begun to accept them after seeing their courage and leadership in a pinch. He’s not such a bad guy.

Most importantly, this episode begins a new character arc for Milk. It’s not a complete reset to where she was on her initial introduction in the last series, but her dependency on Coco and Nuts comes a lot more into focus when they’re not around for her to fawn over. We know she’s been sending a lot of letters, and it turns out she’s doing this at the expense of her other responsibilities towards rebuilding Palmier Kingdom. When called out on her selfishness that made the Kings return and put themselves at risk, she brushes it off and insists she was right, their absence created a critical situation because everyone was lonely without them. In reality, she seems to be the only one who’s lonely and she’s projecting. However, after talking with Syrup she feels some remorse. When Nebatakos attacks she sees the Kings in danger as the direct result of her choice, exactly what Papaya warned her could happen. She takes some initiative during the panic by evacuating some citizens, and afterwards she sees Coco and Nuts off dutifully with an impassioned speech to the citizens. She talks eagerly about about how hard the Kings are working to find the four monarchs, so the citizens have to work hard at home as well. (however, it’s Milk, so whether or not she’s actually learned her lesson from earlier is doubtful) It’s character development, arguably more than she got in the entire previous series, and while I recall in broad strokes where she winds up at the end of the series, I don’t recall in detail what happens so I do still hope they build further on this.

As for the actual protagonists of the show, it feels strange to say this but they don’t do much until the climax. Things happen to them or around them, but as I explained it’s really more of a mascot focus episode. They arrive in Palmier, reunite with Milk, are present at her scolding, and assist in rebuilding. Karen has some dialog about looking for Milk but we don’t really see this. The episode chooses to focus on exposition over action, breaking the cardinal film rule of “show don’t tell.” There is a nice moment about halfway through where Coco and Nuts tell the girls about the significance of the Palmier Tree but again, that’s not them doing stuff. Nebatakos’s attack is when they become more prominent, but even then the fight is interspersed with scenes of the rescue efforts. The girls land a few hits on the villain and the Hoshiina, and then the attention goes back to the fairies for a while with only brief glances at the combat. Dream is worried about Coco when Nebatakos is strangling him but she’s blocked from leaving her fight until King Donuts uses his blinding light and creates an opening for her to rescue him. This allows the girls to set up some combos for their finisher, and then we next see them loaded into Syrup ready to leave. Again, Karen offers kind encouragement to Milk, and Nozomi requests her palmier tree be tended to, but nothing more deep or significant than this.

Nebatakos is a unique new villain. He seems smarter than Scorp, but he’s very indifferent to other people and living beings. I don’t think we’ve had a character quite like him before. He’s callous and efficient, he knows what buttons to push and he just does what he does for a check. When he realized the palmier trees were important, he began crushing them to cause mental anguish. He nearly strangled Coco, which I believe is a first for this series. Had it not been for Nuts and King Donuts, he may not have made it. His visual design is very interesting, as he’s based on an octopus (tako=octopus). He’s a fleshy gray mass with gold armor on his upper body, he has two tentacle arms that bisect or trisect at the ends to function sort of like long fingers. He has, depending on the art in a given frame, between six and eight tentacles that he uses as legs, and most often they are wound together so he can walk bipedally, but he does sometimes unwind them and walk around on multiple tentacles, or use his leg tentacles for grappling purposes. In theory it would make him more versatile, in practice he doesn’t do any creative, unique things with his anatomy like grabbing all five girls at the same time. At least not in this fight. His stand-out feature is his monster voice. He has this gurgling quality to it and I’m not sure if it’s a special vocal filter or the actor is doing it naturally. It helps to sell his aquatic nature and I enjoy it.

The art style of this episode is a little bit off. The animation was directed by our old friend Kawano Hiroyuki, who I’ve pointed out before when his bad faces show up. His signature weird smiles and awkward camera angels are on full display here.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all bad, but when it is, it’s noticeable. He also gave us this great Nozomi face so I think that balances out.

art

Also speaking of art and animation, there’s a pretty bad goof near the end as the girls fly off.

your device is not malfunctioning, this gif is 1/4 speed

If you notice, the artist completely forgot to draw the part of Komachi that should be visible beneath Urara’s hair. For the entire shot.

If you’ve seen the show before, or you know what the Blue Rose is, you know where the ending of this episode eventually leads to. I’ll assess the Blue Rose arc more once it concludes but so far I enjoy the setup. This episode takes the time to reverse perspectives by having the heroines be the strangers in another land while the mascots are in their home environment. It’s a unique and creative way to continue the plot while also setting up some character arcs and transitioning from the character reintroductions over to the meat of the show. It explores a seldom-seen avenue by showing us the fairy world rebuilding and recovering and that’s one of the ways that GoGo really stands out from the crowd as a very solid sequel that builds on what came before rather than just being more of the same (like much of Max Heart).

Next time on Precure Daily: Syrup’s past begins to unravel! Look forward to it!

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 1 Kettei! (in the preview)

#Precure #Pretty Cure #Yes! Precure 5 Go Go!#YPC5GG07 #PCD205

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sithroyal · 4 years

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MODERN VERSE

VERSE TAG: ;;modern: i look to the stars and it feels like something is missing LOCATION: Varies [thread dependent] AGE: Default is 30 [otherwise, thread dependent]

Basic Information

X. Ben was born to Senator Leia Organa and high profile actor and model Han Solo. Due to their high activity schedules, Ben was left with various babysitters for much of his childhood. X. When he was ten, he was kidnapped by one of those babysitters and held for ransom. Ben has blocked out much of what happened while he was held by Snoke. Shortly after rescue, Ben was sent to live with his Uncle Luke in New York. (Note: While these memories are repressed, they are responsible for a later depersonalization disorder on top of various anger issues and chronic depression.) X. Growing up after Snoke’s kidnapping was difficult for Ben. He often felt different than his classmates and it was hard for him to make friends. His uncle caught on to this and tries enrolling him into various after school programs. He was often asked not to return due to his anger issues. X. As he got older, Ben expressed a deep desire to move out of his uncle’s house despite having nowhere to go. Seeing his father on television and in movies knowing that he wasn’t around was enough to make him irritable the rest of the day. Sharing his name and being stopped on the street by fans looking for photos only made things worse. X. In order to find something to get his attention, Ben took to technology and developed a fascination with graphics and coding. In freshman year, he started taking band classes. He can play trumpet, piano, and guitar. X. He tried getting in contact with his mother for a good part of his senior year of high school. When neither of his parents showed up for his graduation, he enlisted in the marines.

X. He tried getting in contact with his mother for a good part of his senior year of high school. When neither of his parents showed up for his graduation, he enlisted in the marines.

X. The day he left for basic training, Ben and Luke had an argument. Luke blamed him for taking off just as Han did and felt that the military wasn’t where Ben should have been going, that he was running away. Ben did nothing to him but he did become quiet enough to absorb what was said. The argument escalated and Ben threw terrible things at his uncle. It was nothing new. In the process, he shut down and focused on his basic training - started 2008.

X. Thirteen weeks basic training and no contact with his uncle made Ben flourish. He was one of the top recruits at the time, specializing in ballistic weaponry with melee and hand-to-hand combat as close seconds. While the training was exhausting, he began finding his confidence and backbone. At the same time, he was starkly reminded that he had little to no place in the slowly crafted groups of various other marines. This distance was justified for him in the way that distance would make loss easier later on. He started college soon after.

X. 2008, E1. Started college in New York as a reserve - two-day monthly and two weeks of annual training.

X. 2010, E3. During a training exercise, he engaged in unusual tactics to protect him and his men during a mock shoot out where they were pinned on location. First emergence of Kylo Ren in a non combat situation. Due to his quick decisions, Ben was commended by the officers overlooking his training.

X. 2011, E3 (Age 20). Grandmother died. Ben attended the funeral but didn’t speak to his family. All of his belongings were moved from the home and straight to a storage facility in Queens. Ben pays monthly for storage.

X. 2012, E-3 to O-1 (Age 22). Graduated fluent in Arabic and Urdu. Attended a ten week officer training class in Quantico, Virginia. Deployed on active duty near December. Ben was involved in protecting and evacuating civilians during a battle in an Iraqi city. Afterward, he was part of a search and rescue team to recover the injured and the dead.

X. 2014, O-1 (Age 24). From 2014 onward, Ben was deployed to Iran for multiple operations. At one point, he started to rethink his goals. Beginning of Kylo Ren starting to emerge, started brutal interrogation tactics of captured prisoners.

X. 2015, O-1 TO O-2 (Age 25). Promoted from rank O-1 to O-2.

X. Bought his own home and vehicle in New York state. Found out through his uncle that his father knew of him and was keeping an eye on him. Ben didn’t tell his mother but she informed him months later that she already knew. Most of the Solo family knows who he is and what he does. While he doesn’t have a target on his back, they do keep tabs on him.

X. 2015. Ben was employed by his mother mainly because he was needed for translation assistance as well as his unique but effective interrogation techniques. He was given full reports and was only allowed to translate small pieces at a time for confidentiality sake, but what information was given to him via questioning was unfiltered.

X. 2015-2017. (Verse dependent)

(Option 1) - multiple failed attempts at dating men and women alike. Very few could handle his constantly shifting lifestyle. Two girlfriends cheated on him, three boyfriends ghosted him.

(Option 2) - multiple PTSD induced nightly issues. Sleeps away from his partner to keep them from having to deal with his inability to sleep at normal hours and/or long periods of time. Snappy, irritable, and quite easy to set off. Would never hit his partner conscious but he does have issues where waking may cause him to choke them. Attempts many different therapists and rarely sticks to a single one until the end of 2016 - failed by mid 2017, Kylo Ren scared the therapist by revealing her address, phone number, and threatened to skin her family alive.

X. 2017 O-2 (Age 28). Early in the year, January through May. Ben began making efforts to finish his education on Spanish and Russian, and finished Spanish. Listed the course completion on his files. He went from performing operations to preventing loss of life on the ground by translating messages sent from opposing forces. Begins to feel he has his issue with Kylo under control (except he doesn’t).

X. 2017 O-2 to O-3 (Age 28). Late in the year, May until early 2018. Promoted to O-3 mid-May. Deployed to Afghanistan again. Captured by enemy forces in early June. Ben remained with them for almost a year before he was freed by a US Air Force pilot (Verse Dependent - Could be any SW Resistance or First Order Pilot.)

X. 2018 (Age 29). Ben spent the majority of the year in recovery. The first few weeks was touch and go but he was allowed out of the hospital within two months time. Because of the various injuries, he not only had to have physical therapy to recover (which he took on easily) but narcotic painkillers to manage his chronic pain. He didn’t allow many people to see him while he was recovering and took to staying at home alone unless friends showed up without mention. Partners were automatically allowed near him but instructed, by him, not to try to coddle him.

X. His injuries include; the long scar down his face, a bullet wound to his left shoulder, and a near fatal wound to his abdomen.

X. Late 2018. Leia has him reassigned to a position in intelligence.

X. 2019 O-3 to O-4 (Age 29-30). Officially diagnosed with PTSD, depression, and general anxiety disorders. He refused additional therapy and any medications prescribed to him. Managed to pay his home and vehicle off, does freelance translations in his spare time. He remains at home for the most part and works on his abilities in the backyard, surrounded by a privacy fence. Chewbacca (gift from vuuelo and service dog in training), his dog, remains with him for the most part along with any romantic partners.

X. As a safety measure, Chewbacca will alert anyone in the home to Ben’s depersonalization disorder acting up. He will bark and growl, then attempt to put himself between the other person and Ben in order to keep Ben from harming them.

X. He has a home in New York City and another in D.C. and frequently travels between the two. Because of his position, he often sees his mother and works with her but rarely speaks to her on a personal level. He hasn’t seen Han much at all since he was young and he actively avoids Luke if he can help it.

Important Note: Due to Ben’s high amount of emotional and mental instability after spending a year as a POW, any romantic relationships may be highly toxic. He does not take medication for his mental conditions and can endanger himself and anyone in his home with him. While Chewbacca will growl at him if ‘Kylo Ren’ is at the forefront, this does not mean that other people in the house will be safe.

Simplified Military Timeline

Joined up in '08, completed training & was actively a RESERVE by mid-'08

O-1 promotion in 2012; Active Duty, commissioned December O-2 promotion in 2015 O-3 promotion in 2017 O-4 promotion in 2019 Currently Reassigned As: O-4 (Major); MOS 0211 CI/HUMINT or Counter Intelligence and Human Intelligence Specialist

Yearly Salary: $89,524 Monthly: (Before Taxes) $7,460; (After Taxes) $5,068 Vehicle: Jeep Wrangler TJ Sport 03

$2100 monthly bills: electric, internet, cable, water, waste management 50 (every three months), car insurance, car payment, house payment (including insurance) $2968 left || $2568 after food ($100 per week)

Option 1: Possibility of meeting him somewhere in town, likely a coffee shop, grocery store, or walking to and from his office in either area. Option 2: Working with him or around him. Ben will visibly flinch if called ‘Kylo Ren’ by anyone other than his old unit mates.

Fandoms/AUs that use this verse as a base:

The Walking Dead: ;;twd: until the light finally dies // Fully Customizable - above backstory does not change aside from dates. Given the length of the series itself and the numerous ways Ben could come into the main group, this will require plotting on a person-by-person basis. Resident Evil: ;;RE: this is how you rot // Fully Customizable - above backstory does not change. After hearing that the Umbrella Corporation is reportedly at the root of all issues, Senator Leia Organa petitions for her son to go undercover for them. Plotting available on a person-by-person basis. Day After Tomorrow: ;;DAT: it ended in ice // Fully Customizable - above backstory does not change. The Silence: ;;the silence: sometimes silence is the best answer // Fully Customizable - above backstory does not change. Birdbox: ;;birdbox: seeing shouldn't be believing // Fully Customizable - above backstory does not change. Jurassic Park/World: ;;jurassic: of teeth and scales // Fully Customizable - above backstory does not change. Movie information only. Ben is hired by the owners of the park to stand in as security detail for the island and the owners themselves.

#;;verses: all #;;modern: i look to the stars and it feels like something is missing #;;twd: until the light finally dies #;;the silence: sometimes silence is the best answer #;;birdbox: seeing shouldn't be believing #;;jurassic: of teeth and scales #;;RE: this is how you rot #;;DAT: it ended in ice

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atsixesandcevans · 5 years

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Dear Jake

Summary: Numb. Everything was numb. But, at the same time, everything hurt. He needed a miracle right now. But she'd needed a miracle for so much longer. The miracle that never came.

Two weeks after Amy's death, Jake receives a letter.

Pairing: Jake Peralta/Amy Santiago

Word count: 2.6k

Warnings: angst to the MAX, I can only apologise

A/N: partly inspired by P.S. I Love You by Cecelia Ahern, but other than that I really can’t remember what was going through my head when i wrote this. Again, I can only apologise

Read on AO3

Numb.

Everything was numb.

But, at the same time, everything hurt.

He had become numb to time passing – how long had he been sat there, on the couch? Hours? Days? Weeks? He couldn’t be sure.

He was numb to the once warm sunlight pouring through the open curtains – he could almost hear her voice now, chastising him for leaving them open at night.

He wasn’t numb, however, to the all-too-familiar ache in his chest, the gaping hole in his heart that he didn’t know how to fill – okay, that was a lie. He knew exactly what would fix him. But she was gone.

He wasn’t numb to the burn in his eyes from the seemingly endless supply of tears that had now miraculously dried up – the burn was now the need, but inability to cry any more.

Miraculous. Miracle. He needed a miracle right now.

But she’d needed a miracle for so much longer. The miracle that never came.

Jake wasn’t sure how long he’d been sat like this. How long he had been alone. The hours and days had blurred together, warped increments of time punctuated only by trips to the bathroom every now and then.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten. He supposed it must have been at the hospital, sat at Amy’s bedside. His mom had cooked for them, not trusting hospital meals and vending machine snacks to be wholesome enough to sustain them.

If Jake had known that that was their last meal together, he would have savoured it. He would have memorised every detail about it; the warmth in his stomach from the first home cooked meal in who knows how many days, the evening sunlight playing upon the sterile floors.

The way Amy managed to still look beautiful to him, despite the tubes extending from her body like extra limbs or the greasy shine of her unwashed hair or the paleness of her face. Her beauty didn’t seem to fade and deteriorate as she had done.

The silence of the apartment – their apartment, the one they had chosen together – meant that the noise from the streets outside appeared to be amplified, especially since Jake had emerged from his stupor. He wondered, then, how it was – how it was fair – that the world around him was still turning, still moving, still living, when his world had gone – shattered, taken away from him in the blink of an eye.

He stood and went to the bathroom, without really feeling the need to go, but instead feeling the need to move around, to do something to relieve the ache in back that he still wasn’t sure if it was connected to the ache in his chest, or the result of countless nights spent sleeping – or not sleeping, as the case had been for the vast majority of the time – on the couch.

He hadn’t been in their bedroom since he returned home. He makes the excuse to himself that he hasn’t had any real reason to go in there yet, which he tries so hard to believe, but know that deep down, it’s because he’s scared. Scared of seeing her things everywhere, each one holding a particular memory or moment from their lives. Scared of everything in there smelling of her and reminding him she’s not there. Scared of her scent eventually fading, leaving him with nothing to comfort him. Scared that, if he goes in there – if he opens the door to this time capsule of their lives, everything still the way it was when they left together for the last time – he won’t ever be able to bring himself out again.

He walks down the hall towards the kitchen, trying in vain to ignore the way the throbbing in his chest intensified ever so slightly as he passes the bedroom door.

Feeling the relief that walking brings to his back, he continues to wander aimlessly around the apartment, wishing he knew what to do with himself.

He realises, belatedly, that he also can’t remember the last time he drank anything. He could almost hear Amy’s voice telling him that he should drink more water – the imagined sentiment taking him back to that one terrible day in 2017, the day he was found guilty for the bank robbery. Then, when that wouldn’t work, imaginary Amy would tell him to please just drink something, even orange soda.

Orange soda. Even that was tainted by bad memories. Their first real fight as a couple. The mattress. The promise of commitment, of I want this. I want us.

He walked into the kitchen, searching for the cans of soda he was sure he had stashed in a cupboard somewhere. When he couldn’t find any, he tried the fridge, only to find that there was no orange soda, but was instead filled from top to bottom with various mismatched Tupperware containers, each one labelled. He wasn’t sure who had put them there – or how, for that matter – but he recognised the handwriting of his friends. Jerk Chicken written in Terry’s, Baked Ziti in Rosa’s, Chicken Noodle Soup in Gina’s – Nana’s recipe, no doubt – Meatloaf in the Captain’s and Clam Chowder in Charles’ – which, Jake realised, must have taken a lot of restraint – along with a whole host of others in the same writing, with some that he didn’t recognise.

He felt a sudden swell of affection for his friends – no, his family – and wondered how they were coping. He wasn’t the only one who loved Amy, after all. Loves. Present tense. He didn’t stop loving her as soon as she was gone. He never will stop loving her.

An hour later, Jake was back sat on the couch, a finished bowl of soup – courtesy of Gina – on the coffee table. He had no real desire to eat, but heated the soup anyway. But, as the smell filled the kitchen, Jake’s hunger made a comeback and he felt the absence of food in his stomach.

Something was playing on the TV, though it was muted, and Jake watched it without really paying any attention, looking through the faces on screen rather than at them.

Once again, he fell into a stupor, only coming back to the present when he heard something push through the letterbox and land, address-side down, with a quiet thud on the doormat that had the word Alohomora emblazoned across in in gold text.

Jake reluctantly hauled himself off the sofa, presuming the letter to be a bill or similar, something he did not want to think about right now, but was surprised to see that it was a plain white envelope, not the brown ones official letters normally come in.

When he picked it up, Jake felt the weight of the quality envelope, and no doubt the paper inside, curious as to what it might be. Just as he did so, he felt his stomach grumble, clearly unsatisfied with his earlier meal. He left the letter on the dresser by the front door and made his way to the kitchen, reasoning that the letter could wait and that if it had been urgent, they would have just called him.

Jake didn’t open the letter until two days later.

He no longer found himself in a constant daze, and managed to engage his brain and limbs just enough to move his empty dishes from the coffee table to the kitchen, finding he had significantly more energy than he had two days ago, but still not enough to do anything particularly noteworthy.

He had also managed to coax himself into the shower, reasoning that there was no way it could be healthy – or sanitary – to go this long without one. He took a clean t-shirt and sweatpants from the drier and put his dirty clothes in the washing machine ready to wash, thankful that he didn’t have to face their bedroom just yet, though he knew he would have to eventually.

He was just walking past the front door towards the kitchen with some empty dishes when he noticed the envelope, still sat on the dresser, though he struggled to remember when or how it got there.

When he did remember, and realised how long it had been sat there, he hastily put his dirty dishes with the rest – they were starting to pile up now, but he had no desire to clean them – and grabbed the letter from the side, turning it over to read the front for the first time.

What he saw there made his heart beat faster and caused him to drop it, like it was a hot coal that had burned him, and it fell to the floor.

There, on the white paper, was the perfect cursive handwriting that he had become familiar with in police reports, in Christmas cards, and at the bottom of their marriage contract; Amy’s.

With aching hands and trembling heart, Jake retrieved the letter and made his way back over to the couch, never once taking his eyes off the address written there, scared that somehow if he does, it will change and he’ll realise that it wasn’t Amy’s writing, but someone else’s.

He turned it over in his hands multiple times, battling with himself as to whether he should open it or not, not wanting to damage or tarnish one of the last this she would have touched.

Taking a deep breath, Jake slid his finger along underneath the flap and pulled out and unfolded the letter, relieved to find more of Amy’s handwriting covering the several pages within.

He took another breath, wiped his eyes that had, at some point, become blurry with unshed tears, and began to read.

Dear Jake,

He could almost hear her voice, feel her presence beside him as he read.

I know that if you are reading this, it is exactly two weeks since I… Well, you know. That.

Jake almost laughed at her avoidance of the actual words. Death. Dead. Died. Even through her illness she maintained her sense of humour, as well as her social awkwardness.

I also know what happens to you when you’re grieving. When you’re hurting. I saw it not long after we met, when your mom got sick. I saw it when Gina was hit by that bus however many years ago. And I have no doubt that it’s happening again right now.

Jake thought back to these events, and realised how much having Amy there helped him through. Her patience and undying love for him gave him strength whenever he felt weak, and she always knew exactly what to do to make things better. Or, at least, more manageable.

You probably don’t know of or realise your habits, but I do. In the same way that you have the Amy Santiago Panic Scale ™ and the Amy Santiago Drunkenness Scale ™ down to a science, I have the Jacob Peralta Grief Scale ™. If my calculations and estimations and however many other –tion words there are are correct, you’re still in phase one; complete shutdown.

Admittedly Jake had never really thought about it. Whenever he was grieving, he was able to focus on little else but that and Amy. He had never really considered the fact that it was the same every time, just as Amy’s panics and dunkennesses were, at least not to the point where she had a name for it and could actually calculate which stage he was in right now.

But, when he comes to think of it, she’s not exactly wrong. After all, two weeks had apparently passed without Jake noticing, and he found he didn’t have the energy he would usually have – though he put that down to the shock of losing his wife, his True Love, his soulmate, all of those words and phrases that are used to describe two people who are just meant to be together, who love each other with every single fibre of their being.

I know that this stage of your process is difficult. Even the simplest of tasks seem impossible, seem pointless, even, but there are things you’ve got to do. That’s why I wrote this to you. To help you and guide you through them.

Jake is suddenly overwhelmed with a wave of love and adoration for his wife, and feels a sharp pain replacing the ache that had been in his chest for the last several weeks. His eyes burn with fresh tears, the supply clearly replenished after the past few days when Jake has begun to eat and drink again. He lets the tears fall, holding the paper close to his chest so as not to get it wet and smudge the ink. Once they subside a little, Jake continues to read.

What I want you to do, right now, is eat something. I don’t know how long it would have been since you ate, but judging by how little you did when you stayed with me at the hospital, I’m sure it could have been weeks.

I also want you to drink something. Even if it’s orange soda, I just need you to be at least remotely hydrated.

Once again he is surprised by how accurately she has managed to predict his habits, remembering that the first time he ate in the past two weeks was the very same day the letter arrived.

Although the familiar pang of hunger was not present, Jake did what Amy said, but bypassed the meals in the fridge, deciding to save those, instead going to the cupboard where Amy kept a seemingly endless supply of crackers and tinned foods. We need to be prepared, Jake, she had said when he questioned her about it, in case of natural disaster or no electricity.

Jake had always admired her preparedness, and was thankful for it when, just two days later, New York was hit with the worst thunderstorm they’d had in years, and the power shut off. He was sure, as they huddled with blankets and nibbled on crackers and soup that they heated with a backup gas burner Amy had bought “for when we go camping,” that Amy sported a smug smile. That particular cupboard was now kept exclusively for emergency foods.

Jake pulled a few half-stale crackers from an almost-empty packet, poured himself a glass of water, and returned to his seat on the couch, smiling fondly at the memory.

You’ll find a ton of meals in the fridge, courtesy of our friends and families. Please make sure you eat at least two a day, if you can’t manage a full three.

You don’t have to do these right now, but I want you to do them today. First, take a shower. It’s the kind of meaningless task that is easily forgotten or bypassed, but it’s also the kind of thing that can make a world of difference to your mood.

Then, do the dishes. However many there are. The longer you leave it, the more they will stack up and the more difficult it will be to motivate yourself to do them. Same with the trash. Take it out today – god knows how long it’s been sat there – before it gets too full and the smell gets too bad.

He made a mental note to himself to do these things later, not yet able to tear himself away from her.

Finally, get some sleep. I know it must be hard, but there’s no way you’ll be able to function without it. A good night’s sleep always used to make you feel infinitely better.

Please take care of yourself, Jake. For me.

I love you, Pineapples.

Amy xx

Jake let out a shuddering breath that he didn’t realise he was holding and carefully re-folded the paper and slid it back into the envelope.

He held it to his chest, his eyes screwed tight against the onslaught of tears he can feel emerging, and whispers, “I love you too, Ames.”

#b99 #Brooklyn nine nine #b99 fanfic #Brooklyn nine nine fanfic #b99 fanfiction #Brooklyn nine nine fanfiction #jake x amy #jake peralta x amy santiago #jake peralta/amy santiago #jake/amy #peraltiago #peraltiago fanfiction #peraltiago fanfic #dear jake #beth writes #my fic

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crykea · 6 years

Text

It’d been a long day.

It had barely been a week since they had left Sinktuary on another mission, but they had all endured enough for it to feel as though a month had passed. There were many more creatures lurking in the cave than they had been warned about so they were taken by surprise. It seemed as though the deeper they traveled the more dangerous the creatures were, which would be fine except that they were definitely not expecting these and had not packed nearly enough health potions.

This was where Nanette found himself. The last thing he remembered was getting shoved hard against the stone and falling unconscious. When he awoke, He was lying on the ground in the mouth of the cave, a crackling fire sparking in front of him. From where he was lying he could make out Siren and Nasa patching up his...travel partners? Compatriots?-- could he consider them friends now?-- as they sat in various states of disarray surrounding the flames. Even without moving, he could feel dried blood crusting in his hair at the back of his head.

That was definitely gonna be a bitch to get out.

He groaned, attempted to sit up--too fast, if his spotty vision was anything to go by, and drug one of his hands up through his hair trying to find the spot where the blood was coming from. Squinting through the smoke and warm haze, he stared at the slightly blurred forms of Brolwyn and Fallulah who were being taken care of. There was a muted green glow coming from Nasa’s hands which was held over one of Brolwyn’s arms, what looked like a nasty gash was already closing itself upon her forearm. As he tried to focus his vision, staring intently at the blur that was Fallulah, his chipped fingernails scraped roughly against the injury that lay hidden in his hair. A loud hiss scraped itself from the inside of his throat, and his eyes clenched shut impulsively. Both Brolwyn and Siren yelp, startled at the sudden loud noise, seeming to be on the alert for more creatures coming out from the darker depths of the caves. His attempt at vocalizing an apology for scaring them falls flat, too mumbled to really make sense of any words he was trying to say. His head had been replaced by thundercloud, and he found he would really rather go to sleep than try to puzzle out what the hell that was supposed to mean.

The next time he woke up, there was murmuring coming from those around him and a warm set of hands at the back of his head. Immediately, he tried to lurch away, one hand already itching towards one of the daggers that he kept strapped to his thighs when a wave of dizziness and nausea flooded throughout his body, coursing through him in a crescendo of unpleasant tingles. The being-- the person behind him made a disapproving noise and tugged him gently back by the shoulder so he was back in the position he was in before. After taking a deep breath through which he tried to focus past his inability to remember which way was up, a soft melody snaked its way into his attention. The warmth radiating from the wound in his head must have been some kind of magic then, and based on the familiar hummed melody, Siren must have been helping him. Nanette forced another deep breath of musty cave air into his lungs and tried to relax. He had never understood magic, as far as he could remember at least. It was too complicated. He'd much prefer to just punch someone in the face and be done with it.

He let himself lean back against the warmth, which eventually traveled from the back of his head to the top to his forehead and his nausea slowly fades. Still, his eyes remain squinted shut against the bright fire in front of him. Fallulah and Nasa were talking strategy beside him, trying to understand how their mission could have become such a complete disaster in such a short span of time. Nasa keeps discreetly pulling little clumps of sage--always fucking sage-- out of his pack and trying to sneakily hide them in the various folds of Nanette’s clothing, so Nanette quietly puts what he can find back in Nasa’s bag.

Siren joined them when she was done fixing up Nanette's head. She sat on his other side and began poking at the fire with one slightly clawed finger in a way that he was sure would be agonizingly painful to anyone who didn’t have demon blood running through their blood. She looked as exhausted as the rest of them which was definitely understandable given the battle they just fled from. She had a bandage tied around her leg which was already slightly stained with red. Nasa’s head kept drooping every couple minutes and then snapping back up as if he was waking up. Suddenly Nanette remembered how young their druid truly was. If he weren’t so tall and spiky Nanette would definitely offer up his shoulder for Nasa to sleep on. Brolwyn was sitting slightly apart from their little huddle, little hands held out towards the fire, flame licking startlingly close to her fingers, eyes tired.

Nanette quietly took stock of his party, clocking their emotional and physical states and suddenly he realized how truly low the group's morale was. There wasn't anything really that he could do about that though as far as he was aware. All he had were icebreakers, a collection of vaguely shiny objects, and a head full of Void. He sighed and leaned on the side of Nasa’s arm to look at the stars. Not for the first time, he found himself wishing for at least some of the memories that he had lost. Maybe there’d be something in that bank of ol’ memoria that would help him help his teammates. Sad people were boring to hang out with, was all. He didn’t actually care how they felt. Obviously.

One of his hands reached up to tangle itself in his hair again, maybe to see if the blood was still there or if Siren’s magic took that away too, but as soon as his hand came close to his hair, Siren’s taloned hand came into view and swatted his fingers away. She gave him A Look that told him not to meddle with the freshly healed area, and promptly went back to poking at the flames. Sighing, he tried to stretch himself out so that his feet rested on top of Siren’s legs, but ended up accidentally kicking the hard case that held her violin that sat between them on the rocks.

Better idea.

“I have a better idea than whatever this is that we’re currently doing,” Nanette said, “As per usual. Save your applause.”

Leaning forward to grab the hard case, he flipped open the latches and gently picked up the instrument.

“What if I play you all a song on Siren’s violin” Nanette tried for cheerful and probably missed by about a hundred yards.

“Do you even know how to play an instrument?” Brolwyn asked wearily, though, Nanette noted, she did scoot a fraction closer to the group huddle.

“Brolwyn. Bro. Mom. Please. I don’t even know the name of the monastery I trained in for the past however many years. How on earth would i know how to play the violin?”

“Just please be careful with my instrument. It’s very viol-important to me” Siren had a joking smile on her face but the look in her eyes said 'I've dealt with far too much today. Don't make me deal with you too.'

“Now see that just makes me want to throw this in the fire” Nanette shot back.

“Wow that joke struck a chord with you, huh. Let's not resort to violins here” Her grin widened.

“Thin fucking ice, Mirawraek.”

“I’ll stop if you let me play my own instrument instead of allowing you to string us along.”

Nanette groaned in mock frustration, but handed over the instrument, poking her on the forehead for good measure. Nasa high fived Siren over his head, laughing loudly. Brolwyn seemed to have achieved the level of comfort she desired and had joined the huddle near Fallulah.

“Play us your funky magic music then” Fallulah grunted, giving the pair of them a very exasperated look.

Siren thought for a moment, tapping a little ditty on the bridge of the violin. Upon deciding on a song, she pulled her bow from the hard case and began playing an upbeat sort of fiddle tune that sounded like something out of one of the taverns near the port. The chords seemed a bit rusty at first as though it had been a fairly long time since she’d played the song but eventually the notes smoothed and picked up speed. There weren’t words it seemed, but somehow the song felt weird to him. It felt as though each chord in the song pulled at some forgotten, cobwebbed, corner of his mind, but he couldn’t quite place it. Still, he somehow found himself humming along almost immediately and tapping his feet against the rocky dirt at the mouth of the cave.

Strangely enough, upon hearing the song, Fallulah leapt to her feet. She cast an undeniably weird glance in Nanette’s direction before reaching over and taking Brolwyn’s hand and tugging her up into the area between the fire and the makeshift rock-bench that they had found. A smile crept across Nanette’s face despite his best efforts and only grew when he heard a vaguely cat-like mrrp come from the dragonborn next to him as the two dwarves began to dance around.

At first the dance looked haphazard and random-- probably due to inexperience-- but after a few repeats, Nanette could see a pattern in their movements which itched at the empty space where his memories should be and suddenly he was desperate to get up and join the dance. He dragged Nasa out beside the two small women, somehow effortlessly acting out the ‘dance’ that Fallulah was performing. He didn’t stop to think about how he knew this tune or how he knew these steps. He somehow knew that if he focused on the tiny thread granted to him that the thread would undoubtedly leave him.

Siren laughed at them and sped up her playing slightly. It was a bit awkward with Nanette trying to lead Nasa in a dance the young one didn’t know, especially considering that Nasa was about a foot taller than him, but he made it work. Or tried at least. Even Fallulah seemed to be smiling slightly as she led Brolwyn in a circle. The repetition from before was suddenly exchanged for a new group of notes, but Nanette didn’t slow them down, somehow knowing to spin Nasa out towards Fallulah and swap partners. Dancing with Brolwyn was much easier, or it would have been if she would drop the lance that was still strapped to her back.

Eventually the song found its close, and Nanette flopped down onto the ground laughing. Siren set her violin down on top of her case and flopped down beside Nanette, grinning. When he stopped laughing long enough to open his eyes, he was startled to see Fallulah looking down at him with a confused look on her face.

“Thought you couldn’t remember anything?” She asked gruffly, one eyebrow raised.

“I can’t?” He said, eyes flicking around as if he was somehow going to spot his fleeting memories floating around his head or flying up from the fire, “Why?”

“Oh--uh… uhm… I don’t know. It’s uh, I mean a dance that the nobility around where I grew up would do at galas. That’s all.” Nanette desperately wanted to push further and find out more about what she meant by this, but the tight expression on her face and the uncomfortable twitch of her fingers at her sides made him reconsider. He had just fixed everyone's moods after all and he would hate to undo his work by fighting with Fallulah again. Instead, he stored that information away for later and rolled over so that he could curl into Siren-- so that he could hide his face. She made a startled noise but offered him her arm as a pillow.

“So what does that mean? You some rich-y rich person that knows how to dance and you’ve never showed us these fabulous skills until now? You’ve been holding out on us!” He teased, voice muffled from where his face was pressed into the junction of Siren's shoulder, giving Falullah room to change the subject if she wanted. One of his hands rubbed the signet ring that he had around his neck on a chain, eyebrows furrowing. Fallulah scoffed from above him, probably rolling his eyes though he couldn’t tell from his position, and turned once again to converse with Bro and Nasa.

“You good?” Siren asked, bringing one hand up to play with the ends of his hair.

“Peachy”

“Need someone to talk to?”

“It’s just memory stuff. It’s fine. I’m fine.”

Siren sighed and tapped his shoulder twice before pulling herself into a seated position, leaving him lying in the dirt still looking up at her.

“Fine, but if you need someone you know I’m here” She eventually said, shaking her head at him. Well. There was one thing she could do.

“Can you play some more of that type of music? I think I recognized it somehow” His voice came out quieter than he had intended, as though it was a secret too precious to be revealed to the rest of the group just yet. Even now the name of the piece she’d just finished playing was sitting in his mouth unable to form itself into the proper syllables it would take to create words. He couldn’t even quite remember the steps to the dance that he’d just done from memory. Siren smiled at him and reached back to where she’d placed her violin, picking it up and quietly plucking the notes instead of drawing them out with her bow. Nanette wiggled himself over so that his head was pillowed on her lap, eyes closed. While he listened to her play, he found himself smiling, and feeling more at home than he had in a long time.

#my writing #long post #sorry if ur on mobile and keep reading doesnt work 4 u lol #nanette tag

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iamsithprincess · 6 years

Text

A Friend

AN: Hello! This is my fic for Reylo secret santa hosted by @underrated-reylo :) This is a gift for @noriselly :) I´d like to say that I am not a native speaker so if you see any mistakes hmu, I´ll correct them!

This takes place after TLJ and contains minor spoilers

Out of all the planets she had to crash on this one. All covered in snow, frozen lakes, and cold winds blowing on the surface – complete opposite of she what was used to from her home on Jakku.

„Damn it,“ Rey cursed as she found out her transmitter was not working, together with majority of other systems within her ship.

She fell back to the pilot´s seat, covering her eyes with her palms. Heating system was damaged too which meant that within twenty minutes it would be as cold inside as outside. After that, she would freeze to death in the next few hours. She panicked. The Resistance may have received her distress call, but they had no idea on which out of the seven planets and their moons in this system she crashed on.

“Focus, Rey,” she told herself and reached out with the Force. She followed the guidance of the light within her, letting it lead the way. She was surprised when she realized what was happening – and it was too late to stop it.

Kylo Ren was standing on the bridge of the Finalizer, supervising the work of his subordinates. Ever since the battle of Crait it was extremely hard to track Rebel activity and he wanted to be there when they received any kind of messages about the Resistance.

“Supreme Leader, we believe that we´ve,” one of his most competent Admirals neared him but Kylo cut him off with a wave of his hand. He felt the Force nudging within him. The bond was awake. She was trying to contact him. He gasped and ran out of the bridge, looking for a private room where he could talk to her alone, without receiving curious looks from the officers. The first chance that occured was a sanitation chamber. Kylo entered and shut the door behind him, resting his body against the durasteel.

“Rey,” he greeted and saw her worried expression.

“Ben. I need your help, you´re my only hope,” she replied. He couldn´t see her surroundings, but by the pose she was in and the way her body trembled he assumed she was somewhere cold.

“What happened?” he asked, curiously. What made her reach out to him? After all, she´s been the one to end their last contact.

“I crashed in the Tel´jyn system. My ship systems are down, it´s freezing cold and I have no idea what to do. The Resistance may not even know I´m here. I need you to…find me,” she whispered, shocked by how easily she could talk to him, as if they were allies. And she wanted him to find her? Kriff, she´d spent the past few months hiding from him and his First Order.

“What was your course when you entered the system?” he asked, remembering the coordinates she told him.

Kylo marched out of the sanitation room and rushed back towards the bridge. The crew went silent when he entered and Admiral Peerson attempted for the second time to tell the Supreme Leader an urgent message.

“What ships do we have near the Tel´jyn system?” Kylo asked and the Admiral gasped. “How did…how did he know I was going to tell him about that system in particular?” Peerson thought. He should answer his superior, but it shocked him how the man who seemed to be half his age managed to get this classified information without checking it with the crew on the bridge. But then again, the Admiral realized that Kylo Ren could read minds so he sticked to his post and answered the question.

“General Hux is on his way to the system,” Peerson said and watched as the Supreme Leader clenched his fists.

“Send all the data about the system to my personal datapad, keep me posted about the development of the Rebel activity,” Kylo ordered and left the room. He would not let Hux destroy Rey. The General was famous for “no prisoners” policy and he was worried that Rey, weakened by the cold and a blaster would not hold long against the Order´s best troops.

Rey was checking her supplies in the ship. Medical kit – it was good to have it but right now it was not the thing she needed. Extra clothing was great, she would definitely put it on once the heating would shut down completely. Food and water supplies for two weeks - she was hoping that she wouldn´t need that much. Then she walked towards the emergency box. It was filled with all kinds of equipment for various crash-landings. Rey threw away the swimming gear, and tossed out the ice skate blades. She did not know how to skate but it could serve as a knife if she had to cut through the ice or just mark her way in ice caves. She threw it in the bag and continued emptying the box. When she was about take out the goggles, she felt the bond throbbing with energy. Ben had been contacting her.

“Rey. General Hux is onto something. Even if the Resistance received your distress call, they most likely won´t attempt a rescue mission, if they have at least a bit of common sense. The fleet is spread across the whole system. And before you ask, no I can´t call them off there.”

“Well, you´re the Supreme Leader, of course you can!”

“It´s not as easy as it looks. What reason would I give them? No, listen, I have a plan. I know your exact location. You need to cross the lake which is approximately thirty minutes away from your current position. After that, it should take an hour to the small city of Jynnil where there are some…smuggler hideaways. You should find someone to smuggle you off planet to safety. If they refuse, tell them you´ll pay extra credits in the First Order currency.”

“I am a Resistance fighter. I don´t have those just laying around.”

“I know. I´ll provide them.”

“You will?” Rey was shook. Was he offering to pay for her? Did he actually care about her well being?

“Yes. Now go, because the sunset is in three hours and if you don´t make it by then….”

He didn´t have to finish his sentence. Rey knew what would happen. She would freeze to death without saying goodbye to her friends. Now that was something she wanted to avoid.

“I don´t know why you´re doing this…but thank you,” she replied and closed off the connection, too scared to hear that he was only doing this so he could capture her later, even though she didn´t believe he would do it.

Rey left the ship with a packed bag and began her trek towards the Jynnil city.

Kylo was nervously sitting on his bed, inable to get back to the bridge. He had to be alone in case Rey needed his help. Every few minutes he would check the chrono to see where she probably was. He was getting more impatient with each second, because she should have already reached the lake.

Outburst of pain shattered through the re-activated bond. Was Rey hurt? Kylo nervously bit his bottom lip and clenched his fists, grasping the bed sheets. What was happening to her?

“It´s the ice! I keep falling down!” Rey angrily reassured him that she was not being under attack. Kylo could now see her sprawled across the ground, trying to get back on her feet. After moments of struggling she managed to stand up, legs shaking, her hands reaching out to the cold air for support.

“Easy, Rey. I see you put the ski blades onto your boots. Now, when you step on the ice, try to find balance. Don´t bend forward nor backwards, let each slide be the extension of your steps you shou-“

Kylo was interrupted by a loud thump as Rey hit the cold ice. “Kriff!” she cursed and as a newborn lamb she tried to get back on her feet. Her legs were trembling and if she couldn´t rely on something she would most likely fall again.

“Look at me, Rey,” Kylo guided her and waited till the girl locked her eyes with his. “Relax. Don´t look downwards. Look at me,” he whispered, his voice soft and gentle. Rey nodded and now finally stood on the ice. Giving it another try, she slid her right leg, quickly balancing the movement with her left. Too quickly. She was again falling to the ground. She closed her eyes, ready to embrace the hit of the surface, but it never came. Rey opened her eyes and saw Ben holding her firmly, helping her to stand steadily. Silent gasp escaped her lips as she felt his touch against her cold body.

“Try again,” he commanded, still holding her arms tightly. “Look me in the eyes and slide again. Shorter and less swifter slides will be more efficient, come on.”

Rey followed his lead and moved her right leg and this time less quickly added her left, without falling. She smiled at Ben, happy about finally managing to stay on her feet. As she felt she was slowing down, Rey slid again, this time with more confidence. Kylo didn´t expect the strong rebound, so he didn´t move more backwards and Rey ended up pressed against his chest. Both of them exhaled loudly, surprised by the sudden closure. His arms were wrapped around her back and hers were placed on his shoulders, their faces inches apart as Rey looked up. They exchanged a long gaze, filled with emotions unknown to both of them. They couldn´t hear anything else beside each other´s heartbeats, echoing through the galaxy. It felt weird to be this close without actually being together. Their faces were so close that they could feel the breaths of each other. Kylo looked Rey in the eyes and then glanced on her mouth. They looked so soft and he wanted to cover them with his. He slowly brought his lips closer and closer, giving Rey time to back off. He didn´t want to rush anything, or make her feel uncomfortable. He needed her to feel the same way he felt. He craved her, ever since he realized how much she meant to him.

There was no resistance from her so Kylo finally decided to do it, to kiss her, even if he knew it was wrong. Their lips joined and bolt of sensation flew through their bodies. As he sucked in Rey´s lower lip, she moaned quietly, surprised by the amount of arousal this act brought. She gently brushed her tongue over his. Kylo returned the favor of bringing tongue in the play and deepened the kiss. He reached to Rey's cheek and slowly caressed her skin with his right hand. His warm hand against her cold skin was making her shiver on the inside, together with the small circles that he was making with his thumb. She knew it was wrong, Kylo knew it was wrong, but it felt so right. The forbidden kiss across the galaxy. This time, there was no vision of future or past, only the strong sensation of belonging radiating from both of them.

It was Rey who broke the kiss, but the shock of what just happened was replaced with a smile.

“Now, try again,“ Kylo commanded and this time released one of Rey´s hands. She shot him a worried gaze, but he reassured her that he wasn´t leaving, just trying to help her be independent on his guidance.

The girl was kind of saddened that they didn´t talk about the kiss, but she guessed it was too much to process for him. After a few other tries, Rey was capable of skating without having to rely on Ben´s support.

“Thank you,” she whispered, when his image faded away. Now, it was up to her to make it to the Jynnil city in time.

Kylo walked around his chambers, begging the Force to guide Rey safely to her friends. As he threw a glance at the chrono, he realized that he should be back on the bridge. With one last gaze he checked where Rey disappeared and left the room.

*Back on the Resistance base*

“Rey! We´re glad you´re safe!” Leia, Finn, Poe, Rose and other Resistance members gathered around her when she entered the High Command tent. They all flooded her with questions and she answered them all, one by one, bending the truth. She kept her bond with Ben a secret, together with his involvement in this accident. What melted her heart was to see that people were worried about her and cared about her.

“This story is unbelievable, Rey,” Finn said and hugged Rey one more time. “I just don´t understand one thing…where did you learn how to ice skate?” His voice was filled with curiosity. Finn knew Rey grew up on Jakku, the sand planet where most likely nobody knew how to do it.

“A friend helped me,” she replied and smiled, running her fingertips over her lips.

#reylo fanfic #secret santa #reylo secret santa #my fanfic #reylo #star wars #the last jedi #force bond #force bond kiss #force bond fanfic #spoilers

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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 7 years

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What do you think of Animorphs 33 The Illusion & and/or 36 The Mutation?

#33 is here

#36:

Short opinion: Okay, the plot is a little random, but there is more than enough amazing characterization in this book to make up for it.

Long opinion: I have always loved this gut-punch of an opening. The moment of Jake grabbing the phone at 3AM, still half asleep, and hearing Cassie in tears on the other end has always pulled my stomach out with a meat hook every time I read it. That moment–and Jake’s inability to do more than blurt a quick lie before hanging up–only gets topped by the moment immediately after when Jake tries to help the dying hork-bajir and Cassie gently stops him from prolonging the inevitable. The fact that Hahn has only a few hours of freedom in his entire life, and that they come on his deathbed, drive home the message that the Animorphs cannot give up this fight no matter how hard it gets, because there are 50 other hork-bajir who went through the same hell and no one else to avenge them. Applegate once again refuses to flinch away from the nastiest horrors of genocide and war, showing that the hork-bajir bodies are viewed as nothing more than a natural resource by the andalites and the yeerks alike.

Hahn’s death also justifies the argument later on where it’s Cassie who comes out with the bloodthirsty desire for revenge (“We have to sink the Sea Blade, destroy it. Make them regret ever thinking about invading the ocean… What they did to the Hork-Bajir was evil. We need to teach them a lesson.”) whereas it’s Marco who says they need to think things through because they do not get wrapped up in revenge missions (#36). There are not a lot of moments where Cassie drives the group forward with an emotional stake, but when she does, watch out. That moment of characterization works so well specifically because it’s a contrast to their usual behavior but also gets strongly justified by the situation in which they find themselves.

Later on, during the actual battle with the Sea Blade, we get one of my (and Cates’s) favorite moments of the whole series. The kids surface after having morphed orcas and demorphed and remorphed and demorphed again, each time being cut to ribbons by the Sea Blade’s dracon beams in their attempts to ram the ship, and they all pause as they get ready to dive yet again. And Jake feels this huge surge of love for all of them, “my best friend. My cousin. My girlfriend. A nothlit and an alien. My friends. Bedraggled. Wet. Cold. Incredibly tired. Hair plastered to their heads. Lips blue. Bodies shivering. And I was asking them to do it again. Again! For the third or fourth time in less than an hour. To morph and dive deep, deep into the chilling dark ocean” (#36). Jake understands that every single one of them has places they’d rather be–Marco has already admitted he’d rather be taking a math test than be out there–and yet there they all are, ready to fight and die at his command. He understands the sheer magnitude of what they are doing, embracing this mission so much larger than themselves in the name of a few dozen hork-bajir they’ve never met.

Their personal sacrifice isn’t about one bright moment of heroism and then a glorious death. It’s about making the decision for the fourth time in one night to go let themselves get shot nearly to death to try to sink the Sea Blade. It’s about getting up and going out there at all, no matter how cold and exhausted and traumatized and worn-out they are. Jake knows exactly what he’s asking of them, and hates himself a little for asking it, but he also knows that all five of them will come through for him without hesitation and he can trust each of them with his life.

The narration of this book also has a major motif of emphasizing the dark side of Jake’s arrogance: that he seems to think he’s capable of omniscience if he just tries hard enough. Yes, he gets handed a crapton of responsibility at a very young age and more-or-less rises to the occasion, but he also puts far more weight on himself than he really deserves. This is one of those missions where none of them are quite sure about the right way in or out, where they succeed at what they set out to do–sinking the Sea Blade–but take a pretty roundabout way to do it, and where they’re basically flying blind into an unknowable situation. Jake spends the entire time being way too hard on himself, whether he’s “cursing” himself for not immediately noticing the shine level on a chain-link fence, calling himself “stupid” for not starting at a higher altitude when chasing the Sea Blade in falcon morph, wondering “Had I been so bent on avenging Hahn’s death I’d taken foolish risks?” like eight times during the mission, and having “one last flash of regret: Amphibians, Jake” when they get captured (#36). Later his narration says “I should have thought of it, should have realized that morphing and fighting our way out of the nets was the lesser of two dangers… Should have fought our way out… Should, should, should. I hate the word” and by then we can’t help but agree.

He doesn’t actually make any major mistakes at any point during this book, even correctly realizing that the Animorphs don’t want to start a war with the Nartec until they know what they’re up against, but he seems to think that he should be able to think of absolutely every possible outcome no matter what the situation is and that anything that goes wrong is his fault. It’s more that he has this huge, impossible idea in his head of what a leader should be, and then he desperately struggles to live up to that ideal even though he’s doomed to fail. I’ve said it before: this kid needs to put down the Joan of Arc and George Patton biographies. He needs to learn that history wasn’t simple and heroic the way that so many books portray it, but that it probably involved just as many scared, lost children fumbling their way through impossible decisions as his own life does. (Too bad he was dead for so much of MM3, because if anyone could have benefitted from that little field trip to the grittiest parts of famous battles, it’s Jake.)

Anyway, Jake doesn’t come to any major turning points in his leadership style in this book (see: #1, #16, #21), nor does he have any huge personal revelations (see: #6, #31, #53) but this book also does take the time to show just how much the daily grind is grinding him down. He knows that he wouldn’t be where he is without his friends, but also that he’s not going to be able to keep this up forever.

There are a few other awesome moments of characterization from this book. We get to see Visser Three being actually quite pragmatic for once, concluding that it’s not pleasant but he better team up with the “andalites” because he doesn’t have another way out of this situation. He’s definitely still himself throughout the whole scene, killing anyone who annoys him and making it extremely apparent the whole time that he hates their guts, but he also figures out a lot faster than either Ax or Jake that they all need to work together if they have a chance in hell of escaping. They never have a heartwarming moment of bonding or anything, just do what they need to in order to survive and then go back to trying to kill each other.

Also: Rachel and Tobias cope with the sheer bizarreness of their life so much better than the other four. Rachel says “I hate it when you don’t get taken prisoner with us,” and Tobias just calmly answers, “Yeah, well, I was worried about you, too.” When the Sea Blade floods with all the Animorphs inside, Rachel dives over Tobias to protect him and holds him up long enough to morph. Both of those two are calmly gathering information on the various preserved ships when they first find the Nartec “museum,” whereas Jake and Marco, and to a lesser extent Ax and Cassie, are too busy freaking out. Rachel decides the Nartec are “B.G.s” until they have an actual name for the species, and Tobias makes a joke about the rock band. That’s not to say that either one of them copes particularly well with the violence or the trauma, just that their relationship so very clearly grew up amidst the extreme strangeness of Rachel being a superwarrior and Tobias being a bird, and that’s always been their default setting.

There are a also a lot of hints throughout this book, but especially in that last battle with the Nartec, that the Animorphs are not the clueless kids who once dared each other to be the first one to touch a bug. They form into a phalinx while fighting the Nartec army, spreading and breaking that front line as they take advantage of the enclosed space to fend off a much larger force than their own. Jake takes point position, and the instant he gets injured Rachel takes over without hesitation. They calculate how long they have to hold off the Nartec so that Ax can get the Sea Blade working and would probably succeed in their plan if not for the security measures. Even fatal wounds get treated as fairly mundane, an inconvenience that Jake has to calculate into his battle plan but not a serious cause for concern. It’s also a marker of the Animorphs’ sheer badassery at this point in the series that after the Sea Blade sinks Jake, Cassie, and Rachel all demorph then remorph while underwater. This battle isn’t like one of those early ones where they scatter or panic at first contact with the enemy (#1, #4, #7, etc). They are a smooth, single fighting unit that retains its cohesion and successfully fends off a much larger army in order to accomplish a goal. Jake is right: he’s got the best friends that a kid could possibly ask for.

#the mutation #asks #answers #electricbluewolf #animorphs #36 #animorphs reviews #jake berenson #long post #tiger mommy

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thunderbirdlovelove-blog · 6 years

Text

Bite the bullet: To force oneself to perform a painful, difficult task or to endure an unpleasant situation.

“Yeah, I’m angry.”

A six word conversation with a friend today said so much.

She said: “You are angry.”

But more like: “You. Are. Angry!”

We laughed instantly. “Yeah. I am angry.”

She smiled. She always effortlessly knows when & how to snap me out of my tirades. An empathic nudge. Whew, thanks. Then at lunch, I heard two words I hadn’t heard in ages, I think they were also giving me a nudge: Jaded & Cynical. Oh my God I’m cynical. Chuckling, I instantly felt there was something I wasn’t seeing so I revisited the definitions. I felt it was applicable to me & sure enough, it was. The shoe fit.

My interpretation, is more ‘one who sees thru bullshit.‘ Eyes wide open:

And as for jaded, well …

I do feel there’s an incredible amount of assholes in this world – because you see what you focus on. And I’ve been focusing on filth. Since what you focus on grows, you start seeing more of that. Until you focus on something else. There’s a vile ‘culture’ that exists in the underbelly of the world we know, whose depravity is finally being revealed. It’s a global epidemic. A nobler cause, I know not of. Helping those too scared to speak, the voiceless innocent, cuz it’s the right thing to do, is the right thing to do. I must learn to funnel my energy properly. Productively. I’ve been here before. I’ve been trying to bring/share/spread awareness to various injustices ever since I decided to start using my experiences to relay – comically & sometimes (often?) sarcastically – my life lessons. On the odd chance it’ll provide a shortcut out of suffering for someone, anyone. That’s good – gotta try to make a difference. But today’s little epiphany picnic also had me realizing that I’m fooling myself if I think that what I’ve been doing will have anywhere near the effect I want it to. Nothing to lose but loose ends. I’m tired of waiting for them to ‘grow a conscience’ & see the error of their ways.

I woke up a little more today. And I need to do more – physically, in my area. I’ve been so focused on the crazy US of A. Let’s face it – the degree of the problem here in Canada pales in comparison to the US. Worth mentioning – Canada’s population is equivalent to the population of California. I can’t even believe I’m saying this, but today was the first time I actually looked into what Canada is doing about this, here, in Canada. I’m researching, & whichever org I’m drawn to (& most importantly, is legit), I will help, in whichever way I’m drawn to help in. I have decided to pledge a percentage, once my business plan is finalized, from my sales. I can make them smile, laugh, be a shoulder, motivation. My essence, spirit, my soul, feels like a fireball. I’m supposed to be doing more. When I started seeing through the veil, I saw things more clearly; I saw the shit show that is our system. And I’m sure, as soon as everyone sees it for what it really is, it will crumble. My ‘yelling-on-the-internet’ anger is not meant to be directed at those who are lost in slumber. It’s just a total inability to tolerate in-athenticity.

Molehills become mountains with my paper-thin psychological skin. And my ridiculous impatience. My ‘it’s-taking-so-long’ consciousness awareness awakening. It’s not really, cuz it’s never-ending. My insatiable curiosity about everything under the sun, which opened a door, that once open, can’t ever again be closed. When you wake up, you realize how insanely simple it is. And you wanna relay that message, but you wind up sounding crazy. It’s Neo & Morpheus on the roof. Before they jump. You have an awake, aware person trying to explain to a ‘not quite there yet,’ how an awake, aware person thinks, looks at things. “Neo, just believe you can jump, & you will.” Huh? “If you believe you can, you will.” And then what happened? Did he fall? Why?

I know how you treat others is a direct reflection of your character, & ‘where you’re at’ in your healing. Hurt people hurt people. I recognize that. There’s been a lot of hurt. It’s taken so long to release all the garbage from my field. There’s been this kind of metaphysical war within myself;between this decades long battle to put the past away; the power of the present moment & all it holds, steering the way with the choices I make; & the future, which is anything I want it to be. The infinite possibilities are continuously intriguing, enchanting.

When I woke up, an activist was born: the ‘still-not-quite-healed-and-trying-to-overcome-a-helluva-lotta-trauma’ kind. I wondered when it would go away. If. Meanwhile, I thought if I can’t get justice for me, I’ll get it for anyone & everyone I can. A better world is possible. And I need to do more.

Thanks to friends who can kindly point out our ‘glitches,’ to help us stop bouncing off walls, so we can reassess & redirect ourselves in a better direction.

Maybe I’ll always be messy. I’ll strive for a beautiful mess. When one experiences so much trauma, without an ounce of justice received, it can take long to get the necessary closure for all those dangling bits & pieces. Sometimes, it all just gets to be too much. I do an internal jump ship. Detach. I shut everyone & everything out. My ringer goes off. I don’t check my email. I sleep 14 hours. Three days in a row. Living with severe anxiety, compound ptsd, & ocd, every day is a struggle. I hafta keep my anxiety down so it doesn’t amplify my ocd. If I can’t, my ocd gets worse, which really pisses me off, which really stresses me out. And the anxiety level rises. Up goes the ocd. A vicious circle. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I’ve often cursed the sky, “Anything, come on, anything but ocd.” FFS. It’s something I rarely talk about it. Like, ever. It’s stupid, it’s so so stupid. I hate it. It’s not that I’m embarrassed by it. I couldn’t care less what people think of me. I haven’t in years.

That was one of the freest feelings I’ve ever felt when I let that go. I broke free of the self-imposed invisible chains. Who gives a fuck what anyone things of you. It’s so irrelevant. What matters is what you think of you. That’s it. And if you think the best of yourself, you always get the best. It’s that it’s just so unbelievably annoying, & I feel I can never escape it. Of all the stupid things to have, it’s the worst. So yeah, I blow up. I tell off those who help destroy the world & the people in it, by abusing & raping & killing. Cuz I’m fed up. Fed up of ugliness, & fed up of the anxiety a simple thing like getting dressed gives me when you’re living with ocd.

So yeah, I guess Cynical & Jaded fit.

Residual Anger Bite the bullet: To force oneself to perform a painful, difficult task or to endure an unpleasant situation.

#Happiness #Struggle #Awakening #Awareness #Consciousness #Enlightenment

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