#but just to keep in mind. i think its important to recognise the significance of whats happening right now

[stil-lindigo]

the way that the iran/israel situation has escalated so fast into potential ww3 is terrifying but its also worth saying that if you care about palestinian lives and holding israel accountable, it's not the time to be muting tags. western media is gonna be doing its best to make iran seem like the aggressor. you'll play a part in upholding the narrative by bearing witness now.

#there are caveats to this of course. preserve your mental health #doomscrolling helps noone and is ultimately a punishment for yourself #but just to keep in mind. i think its important to recognise the significance of whats happening right now #and how fast things might change #palestine

[luaveltarot]

ᴘᴀᴄ- ᴡʜAT ɪs ᴍᴀɴɪғᴇsᴛɪɴɢ ʏᴏᴜ?

ᴘɪʟᴇ 𝟷

Before I start, I want to let you know that letter C,B and J seems important. A new mindset awaits for you to manifest it. You have ended something that you wished to end for a long time. You had the choice to stay and accept the bare minimum or move on as you wished. You were burnt out and ran away from reality instead of facing it. You felt heavily trapped and your surroundings reflected your worsened mental health. Which could be that you didn’t care about cleanliness or there was no routine to keep you healthy, everything screamed chaos and out of place. You even ran away from the fact that your body needs rest and your health will go down the drain if you didn’t pause for awhile. Sometimes we have to take tough decisions and it’s a bittersweet feeling but once you relax in your everyday life, you will realise how badly you were in need of this pause. It’s important to move on and experience new situations, one never evolves by staying in one place. Also a change of air or change of scenery will be good if you go for it. You can even try to change/move your interiors and clean the space to feel a shift in energy if you feel stagnant. Stagnation makes you think, movement only decides action. Numbers 4 and 10 seems significant, it could be that you are facing this situation either at home (shifting homes) or your work place (change of job). Anyway, you will be forced into this period of recovery if you did not take it yourself. You might have not wanted it in the ways it came to you but if you keep an open mind then you’ll be able to see why it happened.

ᴘɪʟᴇ 2

New relationships manifests you. You’ve either taken the blame for someone in the past or you let someone dig your ground while looking at them. You treated someone like a family and they did no good to you. Even though you find yourself alone rn, it will only be for a short period of time. I see that you will not sulk or think of yourself as a victim instead you’ll stand up for your actions and see what went wrong and why. You’ll decode the reason behind the pattern of betrayal others did to you. You are taking control of your mind and you will feel like a leader in your life who has planned everything after a lot of trials and came up with a solid attitude to approach life. No one can toy with you or your emotions. Since you’ll do the shadow work, you will attract like minded friends who balance you out in the most genuine way. You could be have the most fun time of your life with them now because whenever you’re with them, it’s party all the time and it doesn’t feel forced or you just do everything to entertain them. It won’t be one sided as it used to be, you will probably not remember anyone from the past because your new friend circle is goals. Numbers 3,4,5& and 6 came in sequence so I feel you are stepping up in life and not falling back or letting past hold you back.

ᴘɪʟᴇ 3

This group is interesting firstly when I pulled the cards, it was a mix of pile 1 and pile 2. But the msg was entirely different. Something new and unique is manifesting you. You could come up with an invention out of the blue. It can be a recipe, a new theory or a sudden realisation which alters your life completely. Mostly probably, you’ve been working on something for a significant amount of time and it’s magic can finally be seen. Obviously when you come with an invention, there are more critics than supporters, however you will feel proud. This creative approach or even a unique way of thinking will make people recognise you. People will notice you for this unique approach because it’s something mind boggling lol. You went through a lot of challenges on the way to this success but no one can see it and that’s why don’t let their judgments affect you. However, this is not a magic once done will do the rest of the thing on its own, this magic, this new idea or whatever it is, requires consistency, don’t get lazy or pessimistic, it’s the time to keep going on. This unique thing could even be to find a flaw in a theory or law which already exists but no one ever noticed a flaw until now. September can be the month, when it happens. A side msg that I kept getting- what you are manifesting, is manifesting you too.

#tarotblr #tarot #tarot reading #divination #pac #pick a pile #tarot witch #pick a card #tarot community #witch

[virgilsjourney]

Logan in denial: analysis & season finale predictions

Or: why I think Logan is going to try (and fail) to deal with the Orange Side on his own.

I really loved this little hint towards Future Things in an otherwise fluffy episode. “Sometimes passion makes you act a little silly,” Patton says light-heartedly, but Logan might have made another Connection…

…and I think it’s about his strategy for how to suppress the Orange Side’s influence.

Firstly, let’s go back to the iconic “Stop ignoring me!” moment.

We can see that Logan’s own reaction almost immediately breaks through Orange’s amplification of his frustration, anger, bitterness etc: even before the orange eyes have faded away, Logan displays shock, fear, and remorse. So, Orange’s influence has (for now…) gone as quickly as it came; when Logan speaks to Thomas, the anger from a moment ago has evaporated, replaced instead with a subtle hurt. He’s non-confrontational, softly-spoken—as if hesitant to raise his voice too much after what has just happened.

This behaviour continues into the end card. While he still makes his irritation known when speaking to Roman, he does so in a much more reserved, subdued way than we’re used to. His body language is also closed-off; he mainly has his arms folded defensively. I think that’s a significant choice when we’ve just seen his perturbed realisation that he’s been pointing aggressively after, “Stop ignoring me!”

I think Logan is quietly mortified about his loss of control and is on guard to try and keep it from never happening again… so with that goal in mind, he avoids raising his voice, he keeps his arms and hands close to his body.

“If only Apollo had more influence today,” he murmurs—and while Roman interprets that as a reference to the Greek God, I think Logan is more referring to the psychological and philosophical definition, specifically the ability to ‘maintain emotional distance.’ (x) And just like, “Stop ignoring me!” has layers—it can refer to the Orange Side wanting to be recognised; Logan wanting to be listened to; and Thomas wanting a reply from Nico, all at the same time—so does Logan’s forlorn Apollo mention.

On the one hand, this concerns Thomas impulsively deciding to spend time with Nico, choosing to only act on what might make him feel emotionally better in the short-term, while also still feeding into his insecurities without addressing them.

On the other hand, Logan is also referring to his previous outburst—he, even while trying to perform his role as Logic, was unable to remain emotionally distant.

And this is why I think it’s important that the very first clear reveal of Logan’s ‘orange eyes’ happened in an ‘Asides’ episode—that scene specifically is a literal ‘aside’ between Logan and Remus. And apart from a pointed question about who Logan ‘really’ wants to scream, “Stop ignoring me!” at, Remus doesn’t really force Logan to confront the matter then and there—he leaves without escalating the situation, even though he’s spent the whole episode setting up chain reactions.

So, the ball is left in Logan’s court. And, as we’ve seen, instead of drawing any more attention to the outburst, Logan withdraws and keeps the troubling knowledge to himself.

Which brings me to denial.

I love the symbolism of Janus showing up right after the shot lingers on Logan (perhaps the camera’s following tree roots because neither Thomas or Logan are dealing with the ‘root’ of the problem? *bad dum tsh*). Janus biting into the apple before saying, “Everything is just fine,” sums up the conflict in his role: he has to be aware of the ‘forbidden knowledge’ in order to then deny its existence.

With regard to psychology, denial is the ‘refusal to acknowledge an unacceptable truth or emotion or to admit it into consciousness, used as a defence mechanism.’ (Oxford Dictionary of English). Sounds very much like the way in which Thomas has previously tried to ignore the existence of the Dark Sides.

And, again, denial is at work on more levels than one: Thomas is also defensive about the state of his apartment, which partly represents his emotional state (“It’s not that bad!”); Janus as self-preservation echoes Thomas lying to himself, and Logan… is also pretending that “everything is just fine.” His ‘unacceptable truth’ is that he is affected by emotions—even though he has experienced overwhelming evidence proving it to be so… which, right now, he is choosing to keep from the other sides.

Logan’s reaction to Patton’s joyful line about passion making you act ‘a little silly,’ briefly reveals, in my opinion, a subtext: what he thinks about his loss of control. He has linked his behaviour during the orange eyes scene to being ruled by emotions… and if he avoids ‘passion’—read as feelings entirely—he plans to never have such a thing happen again. The possible connection he’s made also suggests that he’s placed a value judgement on his reactions as well, dismissing them as ‘silly’, rather than something to be openly discussed.

When it comes to the other sides, specifically Patton, Roman and Virgil, the tension isn’t coming from whether or not Logan has feelings—they (and the audience) all know that he cares deeply, that he isn’t infallible, that he doesn’t represent logic and logic alone, with no capacity for any emotion. Instead, the tension is arising from what they don’t know, and what is being hidden from them. (For some related observations, see Thoughts on the tension in the end card (WTIT).)

Looking ahead, I think that compared to the suddenness of the scene in WTIT, there’ll be a slow build-up to another Logan with orange eyes reveal. Logan will be extremely wary about becoming emotionally involved. He’ll do his utmost to stay calm, to avoid adding any fuel to the ‘fire’, but I think that strategy in itself will be his downfall: by suppressing and trying to avoid another outburst, he will inevitably cause one. (I’m predicting eyes flickering between brown and orange before the dramatic climax, just before the others notice…)

Logan’s denial will result in him trying to conceal his own feelings and the Orange Side’s influence on him… but him trying to do so alone will bring about his failure. The only way this will be solved is when all parties are in the know—but I think they’ll only fully realise when the knowledge is brought out against Logan’s will.

Because if he ever brought up all of this himself, then he would have to break the illusion that denial gave him; to acknowledge the problem would mean needing to accept that it exists in the first place. He would have to admit to that he needs help, that he doesn’t have all the answers, that they will need to ask, ‘What happens when logic is compromised?’

He hasn’t done so—I think because he is deeply ashamed by the fact that that question may need to be answered.

#sanders sides #sanders sides theory #sanders sides meta #logan sanders #sanders sides analysis #sanders sides prediction #orange side #wtit #can plushies improve our health?

[mystiika]

re; jamie’s shifting preferences, maintaining form, & learning control

generally speaking jamie is quite happy with himself as he is ! which is significant because if he didn't like himself while being a shapeshifter it could get him SERIOUS body dysmorphia issues. so he likes to do things as if they're accessories. in general he cares more about his general vibe so he's more likely to change smaller things. like give himself freckles on a given day or change his hair colour/texture instead of messing with larger parts of his body like gender presentation or looking like a new person entirely.

usually when he looks like a totally different person its because he feels like being anonymous or bc he wants to pull a ( harmless ) prank on someone. especially in his mainverse where he’s a relatively popular twitch streamer/tik toker which means he’s occasionally recognised in public. the only other major change that happens with any regularity is if he is feeling esp fem/like a girl. but even then its more just like a slightly altered version of himself with more feminine features bc he really does like how he looks ! ( reminder that jamie, while generally he prefers to present masc & defaults to he/him pronouns, is still genderfluid & thus his gender presentation is not a constant ).

as a side note i feel like even if he'd been afab he'd probably still have the same general vibe? maybe present masc slightly more than he'd normally present fem in his current canon but still just feels most comfortable in his natural form so to speak because it requires no effort & feels more comfortable mentally.

keeping a form ( partial or full ) is something he has to consciously decide to do, so it can be super draining to think about being a certain way all the time. the hair or freckle or eye colour change type things is something he's so used to that it doesn't require the same amount of effort. similarly with hiding zits as desired, its all more so something just in the back of his mind that he’s not actively thinking about but is still there. understandably, larger changes require more focus. the longer he keeps an altered form the more physically tired he can get as well. he's not going to suddenly start changing back without his intent to do so though since the odds of him letting it get to that point are so incredibly miniscule. he does tend to eat a lot too bc shapeshifting in general uses a lot of energy which can make it difficult for him to gain weight be it fat or muscle. this especially was a big struggle for him when he started boxing & had to put on more muscle in order to fight well enough.

jamie's adhd is actually a huge part why he's so good at being able to keep shifting in mind while doing things. that being said if he REALLY needs to focus on things like when he's doing school work, he'd 100% just go back to his base form to make it as easy as possible & just take his meds

for a bit of context, jamie’s mother comes from an extremely old & very powerful coven in korea. & hannah, like her mother, became a witch who started displaying powers around kindergarten age & then later in middle school she developed her abilities as a medium. meanwhile jamie become a shapeshifter was such a rare phenomenon that no one really could have expected things to turn out the way they had

there was only one example of a shapeshifter in their ancestry & it was so long ago that there wasn't really anyone left alive to talk about it & the records their coven kept were pretty minimal, most likely having been lost over the centuries

so while hannah had lessons to learn control over her magic, jamie had to have his own lessons about how being a shapeshifter was rare & important & he had to be careful not to overdo it or use it to harm people etc. but realistically it was more like basic etiquette on how to be a good person & then supervising him while he learned to control it himself. but that part was unfortunately something he more had to figure out on his own.

how he shifts is sort of strange too ! so how he started initially he learned how to shift isolated parts of his body ( such as suddenly giving himself long hair or giving himself lil claws on his hands ). which gave him significant control in his technique — although it took a while to master keeping said form.

then when it came to mimicking other people or animals it was far more difficult. normally shapeshifters have either a set thing they change back & forth from ( ie. human to animal to human again as a one time switch one way or another where they stay like that until making a decision to switch back ), OR they are able to copy something or someone they’ve seen.

if jamie had learned to do this first its possible he’d be able to do it far easier than he does now, but because he learned isolation first he finds it easiest to copy a form if he understands the basic anatomy. ie. he understands the make up of people because he understands his own body so well, but if he tried to turn into a bird without remembering that a bird's main limb bones are hollow, it might pose an issue if he tries to fly. as he gets older he slowly learns this form of shifting as well, being able to copy something he’s seen without understanding how their body words, but its sort of slow since there’s only so many species of animal he’d even want to TRY turning into.

frankly he’d be able to do a lot more if he put in the time, but he’s not in a position where he needs to use his abilities to fight like he’s some sort of super hero & he’s able to do all the things he currently cares about doing so he can’t be bothered to learn to do more.

there are other ability related things he has not learned either how to control/make use of them, but that’s a post for another day. for a very basic breakdown of his other powers its listed in his dossier over here or there’s a post over here with a bit more detail.

#metas — the gap between understanding & misunderstanding can best be bridged by thought #j. lincoln. character study — nothing is ever so mischievous in its own place as it is out of it #queue.

[sneezemonster15]

In my very short time in this fandom, I have been able to understand one thing. The reason why a lot of shippers and fans don’t want to even consider Sasuke and Naruto’s bond as romantic or that Sasuke and Naruto could possibly be gay, is because they simply don’t see the reason to. 

And no matter how much you appeal to their common sense or rationality, they won’t. 

Naruto is a shounen manga designed keeping teenagers in mind. I don’t know why Kishi thought it would be a good idea to write a gay love story in shounen, considering its limitations, but he did. And look how it turned out. An all out disaster in the end.

I have been attacked by five different SS and NH shippers on my blog in the last two days. And they got abusive, really abusive. When I looked at their arguments, they were all basically the same, identical. No amount of reasoning could get through their heads. They couldn’t tell the difference between canon and non-canon, canon and headcanon. They would feel completely at home devising uncorroborated ‘proofs’ for headcacons such as Sasuke does love Sakura, Sakura is a strong female character, Hinata was Naruto’s first bond, Naruto and Sasuke are brothers, Sasuke is a terrorist etc etc.

They simply cannot even fathom that Kishimoto could have written a gay love story in their favourite show with their favourite ship and their favourite self insert. 

A lot of these shippers are very young, they are the target group of this genre. At that age, justifiably so, most cannot comprehend the complexities of life, family, LGBT+ discourse, feminism, narrative, visual language, narrative choices and nuances etc. And agree with it or not, truth is Naruto is not a simplistic story. It is a multilayered and complex story about love, family, political intrigue, belief systems, ethical and societal values, complex gay coming of age issues, philosophical impressions, meditation on war, peace, importance of communication etc. and is quite cinematic in its execution for the most part, with a distinctive style of visual language.

 Apart from the fact that after a point it becomes clear that Kishi could not juggle all these different threads together and went out of his depth, he did manage to create certain narratives that made sense and facilitated the potential for a satisfactory resolution.

Sasuke and Naruto’s story was one of them. 

Sasuke and Naruto are complex characters, so is their bond. Kishi mindfully imbued their bond with numerous nuances and gay coming of age tropes but the problem is, these nuances that denote romantic love between the two went unregistered by the majority of its target audience. A majority of this target group could not even recognize these nuances, let alone understand them. It is also a factor that most viewers can recognise the same nuances in het pairings, but can't even begin to comprehend them in m/m pairings. It's unimaginable for them.

TBH, most kids self insert in the shows they watch or stuff they read, whether it’s a ship or a battle or a dramatic situation, whatever. It’s how they learn to understand media, we all did it as kids. A lot of these fans who watched or read Naruto as kids and are adults now, have certain emotional associations with Naruto the series and they won’t let any amount of rational explanation come in the way of that, it’s too personal to them. Which is also understandable. Some of them may be ready to accept gay culture otherwise but they won’t agree that Sasuke and Naruto are gay, that’s why they get so righteously angry when SNS shippers call them homophobic for considering them just friends or brothers. You can’t tell them otherwise because the truth is Naruto manga also has all the other tropes of shounen which are supposedly ‘suitable’ for kids (and I am using the word ‘suitable’ with a pinch of salt here, they would definitely not be suitable for where I come from), and they simply can’t even imagine situating a gay love story in it, which itself is an aberration in this genre. 

You can try engaging with them, but more often than not, it will be pointless. It is not something they need to be told, it is something they need to see for themselves. You can rant and rave about the significance and deeply emotional and romantic meaning of chapter 698, it won’t matter. They won’t be able to understand what they can’t see.

Sure, some of them are plain homophobes or less than bright, but mostly, this gap in understanding of the narrative is because of a misjudged medium on the creators’ part. Because of the limitations of this genre, Kishi couldn’t make Sasuke and Naruto’s romantic relationship explicit, nor could he give it up for the sake of shounen.

Kishimoto, what were you thinking really? I want to know, I really do. Someday, I hope you become courageous enough to admit it, but until that day, I will resent you from the bottom of my heart.

#SNS #sasunaru #narusasu #uzumaki naruto #uchiha sasuke #naruto #sasuke #text post #naruto analysis #anti ending #anti boruto #anti sakura #anti hinata #anti ss #anti nh

[gottawriteanegoortwo]

WKM Role Swap: The Séance

Prologue, Previous Chapter

-

The roles have changed, but the séance still has to go on.

Mind you... Is this the first time we've ever witnessed Celine and William have a private conversation?

-

"What do you think you’re playing at?” Celine's presence blazed before him like an inferno the moment the door was closed. “Do you think this will help you gain my favour after everything that happened?” William lifted his hat and brushed out his hair with a hollow laugh.

“You’re still the same as always, Celine. Not everything revolves around you, did you know that? Sure, I missed you as much as everyone else, but this isn’t about you. It’s not about whatever we shared long ago. There’s a likely case of homeo sapio zombifus or some 'ghost' that we need to sort out. I’m the only one with a reputable sharpshooting reputation, and also the ability to not believe whatever horseshit you want to feed everyone with -”

“William!”

“- which is why I’m the only one who can help you here. How can any of those ghosts possess someone who doesn’t believe in this? If you want to work on a plan, you need a man with years of military experience on your side.” William pulled the empty chair out, only to stop as he spotted Celine’s bag laying there. She was empty-handed when she arrived, yet here it was. It was passed to her so he could sit down. He slumped into the chair, arms loosely crossed and legs spread as Celine began setting the table. There was no ignoring the anger simmering under the surface as she lit the white candles.

“You haven’t changed at all. Mark was killed, and here you are acting like you two had another petty spat.”

“Huh, funny that. You ultimately took my side in that ‘petty spat’, didn’t you?” The empty bag was flung at William, who was quick to catch it and drop it on the ground beside his hat. “But if you really must know, I came to this party to try and make amends with Mark and try and find some sort of peace with that madman. Just because I’m used to being surrounded by death does not make me immature and dismissive to what happened. So why don’t we act like adults and get to the bottom of this?” Celine’s temper rose, only to slowly fade with a deep breath.

“You’re right. There are more important matters to deal with right now.” Calmer now, she cleansed and shuffled the tarot deck. “I just can't shake the feeling that Mark's death is the start of something much bigger. I've never been fully comfortable in this house - and I understand why, now that I'm here with my eyes fully open to the world beyond. There's an energy that made me so eager to escape the house if I was stuck here for too long...” She trailed off as the pair locked eyes. Their dates mostly consisted of trips outside the manor. How much of it was genuine romantic feelings, and how much was actually the actions of something hidden inside the walls influencing the minds of two who lived and worked there? Celine’s eyes widened in realisation. Was their entire relationship something staged by whatever lurked in the house to advance its sick plot? William pulled himself up, sitting properly on the chair as he finally gave Celine his full attention.

“Something dark, far beyond our control, is going on right under our noses. It has acted out and used us as pawns before. If we don’t reach Mark, it will happen again. Please, Colonel… Don’t joke around.”

“I won’t.”

Celine drew three cards and set them on the table. William didn’t understand the significance of them, and Celine’s explanation of their symbolism shot over his head, but he could understand that they confirmed ‘the path was clear’ (whatever that meant). William followed Celine’s breathing instructions as his thoughts slipped away. His vision grew blurry and then… Everything went black.

-

William stood in one of the empty bedrooms, his back against the closed door as he gathered his bearings after promising to hunt the 'old bag of bones'. He could hear footsteps and a voice pass by, “- we were celebrating something, but he never specified what". Frowning, William opened the door -

  Mark was standing on the stairs, addressing the group in a hollow, dramatic performance. "It's not all about the poker. It's not about me… it's about you." William glanced to the right. Mark had pointed to the stranger William met outside. The rest of Mark's speech faded out as the location morphed to the cellar.

  "A fully loaded gun? It wouldn't be you if you weren't armed to the teeth, would it?" Mark had the pistol, casually dumping the bullets onto the counter. William tried to snatch his gun back, but hesitated as he felt the bullets rattle in his pocket - the bullets he had taken out of his gun before the party ever began...

He looked up. There was a closed door in front of him. "This place is cursed!” William hesitated. He recognised the voice. But when he turned his head -

  He was looking out an upstairs window. An older man with fair hair and brown overalls stood in the garden. He was surrounded by Chef, the Detective, and the Attorney as he leaned on the handle of his shovel. “However, there is one reason. One incident. One manifestation - that will get me into that madhouse… And you had better pray to God that reason never comes to pass.”

---

William pulled himself back to his body with a heavy gasp as he lurched forward.

"Colonel? What happened? What did you see?" Celine called out. William didn't answer at first. He heaved as he gathered his bearings. Both hands tightly squeezed his knees to make sure he wasn't still dreaming. It was only when he lifted his head that Celine could see how shaken he was.

"This place is cursed." 

"I know. That's why I'm trying to-"

"No, you don't understand. This place is cursed. If we stay here, any of us, the curse will get us too. It's like you said - we're on the verge of being used as pawns." For someone who was such a firm sceptic minutes earlier, William was very set on this change of heart. "Tidy your things. We need to go. All of us."

"I'm not going anywhere. That's why I came back! There's an unseen force that needs to be dealt with."

"Whatever it is, it got Mark. Do you want to be next? Pack up. We can continue this outside."

"We are NOT going anywhere! We are NOT done! Tell me what you saw!"

"I saw people talking about how no one knows what's going on around here. George has the answers, but we need to go out to him."

"... I told you not to play around."

"I'm not. That's exactly what I saw."

"How does that give any indication of the truth? You need to go back and take this seriously! This is a matter of life and death!"

"That's what I'm TRYING to do! Why don't you BELIEVE me?!"

“What in the shit are you two yelling about?!” Abe charged in, taking in the scene before him. The Attorney trailed just behind him with worry on their face. “What is -”

“Get out! We aren’t done - Colonel!” William took advantage of the distraction to snatch his hat and put it back on. “Where do you think you’re going?!”

“Get her to pack up. We all need to get outside. Someone find Damien. I need to talk to George." William shouldered past the Attorney and stormed off.

“George? Who the hell is George?” Abe noticed the change in demeanour in both Benjamin and the Chef and quickly cornered them. “What do you two know?”

“Well…” Benjamin looked aside as he scratched his cheek. “George is the manor’s groundskeeper. But he only works weekdays. I don’t know where the Colonel would be going since he wouldn’t be here...”

“It looks like your friend here may disagree with that notion!” 

“Me?” The Chef pointed to himself with feigned innocence.

“Yeah, you.”

“I don’t know shit. I plead the fifth, man!” Chef folded his arms, intending that to be the end of that. Instead, Benjamin turned and sharply poked Chef’s arm.

“Chef, if you know something, for God’s sake spit it out!”

“Okay, alright! You’re twisting my arm.” Chef took a half-step back to give himself room away from the others. “Alright… George has been living on the grounds for years-”

“WHAT?!” Benjamin’s reaction perfectly encapsulated what everyone else was thinking.

“And you just now thought to share that information with us? How the hell did the Colonel know that if no one else did?” Abe lifted a hand in frustration at this revelation.

“Private lived in the manor when he used to work here. The two were friends, and the only one that fuckin’ hermit would talk to while working in the gardens.”

“Oh great! Wonderful! Now we might have a case of an accomplice of a murderer being right here!” Abe’s outcry was drowned out by a clap of thunder.

“For the last time, stop saying that word!” Celine snapped, storming out of the séance room.

“Look, George… He’s just a guy who tends to the grounds -”

“I don’t have time for fucking excuses! The Colonel has just run out there to find this man, and we’d best find him before anything else -"

"Can you all stop bickering and leave?" Celine interrupted sharply.

"You're not coming?"

"I'm not finished. I need more answers." Abe pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a heavy sigh.

"I can't keep an eye on all of you if you all insist on being so immature… Partner," the Attorney looked surprised as Abe called them over, "I need you to stay here and be my eyes. 

“Excuse me? I don’t need to be kept under surveillance, least of all under your order!” Celine’s eyes narrowed as she took in the numbers around them. “Shouldn't they be with Damien, if you're so stressed about everyone splitting up?”

“I just checked in on him, madam. He's asleep in his room with his leg propped up." While Celine was relieved her brother was resting, it also eliminated her scapegoat. She turned to the Attorney.

"Fine. You can stay. But I need to do my work first." The Attorney was doubtful, but Celine's mind was set. Why were they staying if the Colonel ordered everyone to go outside?

“C’mon. We’re wasting time.” Abe gestured for Chef to lead the way out. Celine returned to the room with the Attorney in tow. They glanced over their shoulder and caught the gaze of Abe. “We’ll be back in a few minutes, Partner. We're going to get to the bottom of this mess.”

All the Attorney could do was give a small smile as they closed the door. What else could they do? Their hands were tied.

-

Next Chapter

#wkm role swap #who killed markiplier #writersofmark #fanfic #william j barnum #celine the seer #(whom I am still figuring out the voice of :D )

[thewatsonbeekeepers]

Chapter 4 – It is always 1895 [TAB 1/1]

TAB is my favourite episode of Sherlock. It is a masterpiece that investigates queerness, the canon and the psyche all within an hour and a half. Huge amounts of work has been done on this episode, however, so I’m not going to do a line by line breakdown – that could fill a small book. A great starting point for understanding the myriad of references in TAB is Rebekah’s three part video series on the episode, of which the first instalment can be found here X. I broadly agree with this analysis; what I’m going to do here, though, is place that analysis within the framework of EMP theory. As a result, as much as it pains me, this chapter won’t give a breakdown of carnation wallpaper or glass houses or any of those quietly woven references – we’re simply going in to how it plays into EMP theory.

Before digging into the episode, I want to take a brief diversion to talk about one of my favourite films, Mulholland Drive (2001).

If you haven’t seen Mulholland Drive, I really recommend it – it’s often cited as the best film of the last 20 years, and watching it really helps to see where TAB came from and the genre it’s operating in. David Lynch is one of the only directors to do the dream-exploration-of-the-psyche well, and I maintain that a lot of the fuckiness in the fourth series draws on Lynch. However, what I actually want to point out about Mulholland Drive is the structure of it, because I think it will help us understand TAB a little better. [If you don’t want spoilers for Mulholland Drive, skip the next paragraph.]

The similarities between these two are pretty straightforward; the most common reading of Mulholland Drive is that an actress commits suicide by overdose after causing the death of her ex-girlfriend, who has left her for a man, and that the first two-thirds of the film are her dream of an alternate scenario in which her girlfriend is saved. The last third of the film zooms in and out of ‘real life’, but at the end we see a surreal version of the actual overdose which suggests that this ‘real life’, too, has just been in her psyche. Sherlock dying and recognising that this may kill John is an integral part of TAB, and the relationships have clear parallels, but what is most interesting here is the structural similarity; two-thirds of the way through TAB, give or take, we have the jolt into reality, zoom in and out of it for a while and then have a fucky scene to finish with that suggests that everything is, in fact, still in our dying protagonist’s brain. Mulholland Drive’s ending is a lot sadder than TAB’s – the fact that, unlike Sherlock, there is no sequel can lead us to assume that Diane dies – and it’s also a lot more confusing; it’s often cited as one of the most complicated films ever made even just in terms of surface level plot, before getting into anything else, and it certainly took me a huge amount of time on Google before I could approach anything like a resolution on it!

Mulholland Drive is the defining film in terms of the navigating-the-surreal-psyche subgenre, and so the structural parallels between the two are significant – and definitely point to the idea that Sherlock hasn’t woken up at the end of TAB, which is important. But we don’t need to take this parallel as evidence; there’s plenty of that in the episode itself. Let’s jump in.

Emelia as Eurus

When we first meet Eurus in TST, she calls herself E; this initialism is a link to Moriarty, but it’s also a convenient link to other ‘E’ names. Lots of people have already commented on the aural echo of ‘Eros’ in ‘Eurus’, which is undeniable; the idea that there is something sexual hidden inside her name chimes beautifully with her representation of a sexual repression. The other important character to begin with E, however, is Emelia Ricoletti. The name ‘Emelia’ doesn’t come from ACD canon, and it’s an unorthodox spelling (Amelia would be far more common), suggesting that starting with an ‘E’ is a considered choice.

When TAB aired, we were preoccupied with Emelia as a Sherlock mirror, and it’s easy to see why; the visual parallels (curly black hair, pale skin) plus the parallel faked death down to the replacement body, which Mofftiss explicitly acknowledge in the episode. However, I don’t think that this reading is complete; rather, she foreshadows the Eurus that we meet in s4. The theme of ghosts links TAB with s4 very cleanly; TAB is about Emelia, but there is also a suggestion of the ghosts of one’s past with Sir Eustace as well as Sherlock’s own claims (‘the shadows that define our every sunny day’). Compare this to s4 – ‘ghosts from the past’ appears on pretty much every promotional blurb, and the word is used several times in relation to Eurus. If Eurus is the ghost from Sherlock’s past, the repressive part of his psyche that keeps popping back, Emelia is a lovely metaphor for this; she is quite literally the ghost version of Sherlock who won’t die.

What does it mean, then, when Jim and Emelia become one and the same in the scene where Jim wears the bride’s dress? We initially read this as Jim being the foil to Sherlock, his dark side, but I think it’s more complicated than this. Sherlock’s brain is using Emelia as a means of understanding Jim, but when we watch the episode it seems that they’ve actually merged. Jim wearing the veil of the bride is a good example of this, but I also invite you to rewatch the moment when John is spooked by the bride the night that Eustace dies; the do not forget me song has an undeniable South Dublin accent.* This is quite possibly Yasmine Akram [Janine] rather than Andrew Scott, of course, but let’s not forget that these characters are resolutely similar, and hearing Jim’s accent in a genderless whisper is a pretty clear way of inflecting him into the image of the bride. In addition to this, Eustace then has ‘Miss Me?’ written on his corpse, cementing the link to Moriarty.

[*the South Dublin accent is my accent, so although we hear a half-whispered song for all of five seconds, I’m pretty certain about this]

Jim’s merging with Emelia calls to mind for me what I think might be the most important visual of all of series 4 – Eurus and Jim’s Christmas meeting, where they dance in circles with the glass between them and seem to merge into each other. I do talk about this in a later chapter, but TLDR – if Jim represents John being in danger and Eurus represents decades of repressed gay trauma, this merging is what draws the trauma to the surface just as Jim’s help is what suddenly makes Eurus a problem. It is John’s being in danger which makes Sherlock’s trauma suddenly spike and rise – he has to confront this for the first time – just like Emelia Ricoletti’s case from 1895 only needs solving for the first time now that Jim is back.

At some point I want to do a drag in Sherlock meta, because I think there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye, but Jim in a bride’s dress does draw one obvious drag parallel for me.

If you haven’t seen the music video for I Want to Break Free, it’s 3 minutes long and glorious – and also, I think, reaps dividends when seen in terms of Sherlock. You can watch it here: X

Not only is it a great video, but for British people of Mofftiss’s age, it’s culturally iconic and not something that would be forgotten when choosing that song for Jim. Queen were intending to lampoon Coronation Street, a British soap, and already on the wrong side of America for Freddie Mercury’s unapologetic queerness, found themselves under fire from the American censors. Brian May says that no matter how many times he tried to explain Coronation Street to the Americans, they just didn’t get it. This was huge controversy at the time, but the video and the controversy around it also managed to cement I Want to Break Free as Queen’s most iconic queer number – despite not even being one of Mercury’s songs. There is no way that Steven Moffat, and even more so Mark Gatiss would not have an awareness of this in choosing this song for Moriarty. Applying any visual to this song is going to invite comparisons to the video – and inflecting a sense of drag here is far from inappropriate. Moriarty has been subsumed into Eurus in Sherlock’s brain – the male and the female are fused into an androgynous and implicitly therefore all-encompassing being. I’m not necessarily comfortable with the gendered aspect of this – genderbending is something we really only see in our villains here – but given this is about queer trauma, deliberately queering its form in this way is making what we’re seeing much more explicit.

Nothing new under the sun

“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun” (Ecclesiastes)

"Read it up -- you really should. There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before." (A Study in Scarlet, Sherlock Holmes)

“Hasn’t this all happened before? There’s nothing new under the sun.” (The Abominable Bride, Jim Moriarty)

This is arguably the key to spotting that TAB is a dream long before they tell us – when TAB’s case is early revealed to be a mixture between TRF (Emelia’s suicide) and TGG (the five pips), and we see the opening of ASiP repeated, we should be questioning what on earth is going on. This can also help us to recognise s4 as being EMP as well though – old motifs from the previous series keep repeating through the cases, like alarm bells ringing. Moriarty telling Sherlock that there is nothing new under the sun is his key to understanding that the Emelia case is meant to help him understand what happened to Jim, that it’s a mental allegory or mirror to help him parse it. This doesn’t go away when TAB ends! Moving into TST, one of the striking things is that cases are still repeating! The Six Thatchers appeared on John’s blog way back, before the fall – you can read it here: X. It’s about a gay love affair that ends in one participant killing the other. Take from that what you will, when John’s extramarital affection is making him suicidal and Sherlock comatose. Meanwhile, the title of The Final Problem refers to the story that was already covered in TRF and the phone situation with the girl on the plane references both ASiB and TGG, and the ending of TST is close to a rerun of HLV. It’s pretty much impossible to escape echoes of previous series in a way that is almost creepy, but we’ve already had this explained to us in TAB – none of this is real. It’s supposed to be explaining what is happening in the real world – and Mofftiss realised that this was going to be difficult to stomach, and so they included TAB as a kind of key to the rest of the EMP, which becomes much more complex.

However, if we want to go deeper we should look at where that quote comes from. I’ve given a few epigraphs to this section to show where the quote comes from – first the book of Ecclesiastes, then A Study in Scarlet. It’s one of the first things Holmes says and it is during his first deduction in Lauriston Gardens. This is where I’m going to dive pretty deep into the metatextual side of things, so bear with the weirdness.

[we’re going deeper]

Holmes’s first deduction from A Study in Scarlet shows that he’s no great innovator – he simply notices things and spots patterns from things he has seen before. This is highlighted by the fact that he even makes this claim by quoting someone before him. If our Sherlock also makes deductions based on patterns from the past, extensive dream sequences where he works through past cases as mirrors for present ones makes perfect sense and draws very cleverly on canon. However, I think his spotting of patterns goes deeper than that. Sherlock Holmes has been repressed since the publication of A Study in Scarlet, through countless adaptations in literature and film. Plenty of these adaptations as well as the original stories are referenced in the EMP, not least by going back to 1895, the year that symbolises the era in which most of these adaptations are set. (If you don’t already know it, check out the poem 221B by Vincent Starrett, one of the myriad of reasons why the year 1895 is so significant.) My feeling is that these adaptations, which have layered on top of each other in the public consciousness to cement the image of Sherlock Holmes the deductive machine [which he’s not, sorry Conan Doyle estate] come to symbolise the 100+ years of repression that Sherlock himself has to fight through to come out of the EMP as his queer self.

This is one of the reasons that the year 1895 is so important; it was the year of Oscar Wilde’s trial and imprisonment for gross indecency, and this is clearly a preoccupation of Sherlock’s consciousness in TFP with its constant Wilde references, suggesting that his MP’s choice of 1895 wasn’t coincidental. Much was made during TAB setlock of a newspaper that said ‘Heimish The Ideal Husband’, Hamish being John’s middle name and An Ideal Husband being one of Wilde’s plays. But the Vincent Starrett poem, although nostalgic and ostensibly lovely, for tjlcers and it seems for Sherlock himself symbolises something much more troubling. Do search up the full poem, but for now let’s look at the final couplet.

Here, though the world explode, these two survive

And it is always 1895

‘Though the world explode’ is a reference to WW1, which is coming in the final Sherlock Holmes story, and which is symbolised by Eurus – in other chapters, I explain why Eurus and WW1 are united under the concept of ‘winds of change’ in this show. Sherlock and John survive the winds of change – except they don’t move with them. Instead, they stay stuck in 1895, the year of ultimate repression. 2014!Sherlock going back in his head to 1895 and repeating how he met John suggests exactly that, that nothing has changed but the superficial, and that emotionally, he is still stuck in 1895.

Others have pulled out similar references to Holmes adaptations he has to push through in TAB – look at the way he talks in sign language to Wilder, which can only be a reference to Billy Wilder, director of TPLoSH, the only queer Holmes film, and a film which was forced to speak through coding because of the Conan Doyle estate. That film is also referenced by Eurus giving Sherlock a Stradivarius, which is a gift given to him in TPLoSH in exchange for feigning heterosexuality. Eurus is coded as Sherlock’s repression, and citing a repressive moment in a queer film as her first action when she meets Sherlock is another engagement by Sherlock’s psyche with his own cinematic history. My favourite metatextual moment of this nature, however, is the final scene of TFP which sees John and Sherlock running out of a building called Rathbone Place.

Basil Rathbone is one of the most iconic Sherlock Holmes actors on film, and Benedict’s costume in TAB and in particular the big overcoat look are very reminiscent of Rathbone.

Others have discussed (X) how the Victorian costume and the continued use of the deerstalker in the present day are images of Sherlock’s public façade and exclusion of queerness from his identity. It’s true that pretty much every Holmes adaptation has used the deerstalker, but the strong Rathbone vibes that come from Ben’s TAB costume ties the 1895 vibe very strongly into Rathbone. To have the final scene – and hopefully exit from the EMP – tie in with Sherlock and John running out of Rathbone Place tells us that, just as Sherlock cast off the deerstalker at the end of TAB (!), he has also cast off the iconic filmic Holmes persona which has never been true to his actual identity.

Waterfall scene

The symbol of water runs through TAB as well as s4 – others have written fantastic meta on why water represents Sherlock’s subconscious (X), but I want to give a brief outline. It first appears with the word ‘deeper’ which keeps reappearing, which then reaches a climax in the waterfall scene. The idea that Sherlock could drown in the waters of his mind is something that Moriarty explicitly references, suggesting that Sherlock could be ‘buried in his own Mind Palace’. The ‘deep waters’ line keeps repeating through series 4, and I just want to give the notorious promo photo from s4 which confirms the significance of the motif.

This is purely symbolic – it never happens in the show. Water increases in significance throughout – think of Sherlock thinking he’s going mad in his mind as he is suspended over the Thames, or the utterly nonsensical placement of Sherrinford in the middle of the ocean – the deepest waters of Sherlock’s mind. Much like the repetition of cases hinting that EMP continues, the use of water is something that appears in the MP, and it sticks around from TAB onwards, a real sign that we’re going deeper and deeper. I talk about this more in the bit on TFP, but the good news is that Sherrinford is the most remote place they could find in the ocean – that’s the deepest we’re going. After that, we’re coming out (of the mind).

Shortly after TAB aired, I wrote a meta about the waterfall scene, some of which I now disagree with, but the core framework still stands – it did not, of course, bank on EMP theory. You can find it here (X), but I want to reiterate the basic framework, because it still makes a lot of sense. Jim represents the fear of John’s suicide, and Jim can only be defeated by Sherlock and John together, not one alone – and crucially, calling each other by first names, which would have been very intimate in the Victorian era. After Jim is “killed”, we have Sherlock’s fall. The concept of a fall (as in IOU a fall) has long been linked with falling in love in tjlc. Sherlock tells John that it’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the landing, something that Jim has been suggesting to him for a while. What is the landing, then? Well, Sherlock Holmes fell in love back in the Victorian era, symbolised by the ultra repressive 1895, and that’s where he jumps from – but he lands in the 21st century. Falling in love won’t kill him in the modern day. What I missed that time around, of course, was that despite breaking through the initial Victorian layers of repression, he still dives into more water, and when the plane lands, it still lands in his MP, just in a mental state where the punishment his psyche deals him for homosexuality is less severe. This also sets up s4 as specifically dealing with the problem of the fall – Sherlock jumps to the 21st century specifically to deal with the consequences of his romantic and sexual feelings. There’s a parallel here with Mofftiss time jumping; back when they made A Study in Twink in 2009, there was a reason they made the time jump. Having Sherlock’s psyche have that touch of self-awareness helps to illustrate why they made a similar jump, also dealing with the weight of previous adaptations.

Women

I preface this by saying how incredibly uncomfortable I find the positioning of women as the KKK in TAB. It’s a parallel which is unforgivable; frankly, invoking the KKK without interrogating the whiteness of the show or even mentioning race is unacceptable. Steven Moffat’s ability to write women has consistently been proven to be nil, but this is a new low. However, the presence of women in TAB is vital, so on we go.

TAB specifically deals with the question of those excluded from a Victorian narrative. This is specifically tied into to those who are excluded from the stories, such as Jane and Mrs. Hudson. Mrs. Hudson’s complaint is in the same scene as John telling her and Sherlock to blame the problems on the illustrator. This ties back to the deerstalker metaphor which is so prevalent in this episode; something that’s not in the stories at all, but a façade by which Holmes is universally recognised and which as previously referenced masks his queerness. Women, then, are not the only people being excluded from the narrative. When Mycroft tells us that the women have to win, he’s also talking about queer people. This is a war that we must lose.

I don’t think the importance of Molly in particular here has been mentioned before, but forgive me if I’m retreading old ground. However, Molly always has importance in Sherlock as a John mirror, and just because she is dressed as a man here doesn’t mean we should disregard this. If anything, her ridiculous moustache is as silly as John’s here! Molly, although really a member of the resistance, is able to pass in the world she moves in in 1895, but only by masking her own identity. This is exactly what happens to John in the Victorian era – as a bisexual man married to a woman, he is able to pass, but it is not his true identity. More than that, Molly is a member of the resistance, suggesting not just that John is queer but that he’s aware of it and actively looking for it to change.

I know I was joking about Molly and John’s moustaches, but putting such a silly moustache on Molly links to the silliness of John’s moustaches, which only appear when he’s engaged to a woman and in the Victorian era. He has also grown the moustache just so the illustrator will recognise him, and Molly has grown her moustache so that she will be recognised as a man. In this case, Molly is here to demonstrate the fact that John is passing, but only ever passing. Furthermore, Molly, who is normally the kindest person in the whole show, is bitter and angry throughout TAB – it’s not difficult to see then how hiding one’s identity can affect one’s mental health. I really do think that John is a lot more abrasive in TAB than he is in the rest of the show, but that’s not the whole story. Showing how repression can completely impair one’s personality also points to the suicidal impulses that are lurking just out of sight throughout TAB – this is what Sherlock is terrified of, and again his brain is warning him just what it is that is causing John this much pain and uncharacteristic distress.

This is just about the loosest sketch of TAB that could exist! But TAB meta has been so extensive that going over it seems futile, or else too grand a project within a short chapter. Certain theories are still formulating, and may appear at a later date! But what this chapter (I hope) has achieved has set up the patterns that we’re going to see play out in s4 – between the metatextuality, the waters of the mind and the role of Moriarty in the psyche, we can use TAB as a key with which to read s4. I like to think of it as a gift from Mofftiss, knowing just how cryptic s4 would be – and these are the basic clues with which to solve it.

That’s it for TAB, at least in this series – next up we’re going ever deeper, to find out exactly who is Eurus. See you then?

#tjlc #emp theory #thewatsonbeekeepers #my meta #meta #mine #chapter four: it is always 1895 #vincent starrett #mofftiss #1895 #bbc sherlock #johnlock #tjlc is real

[commandtower-solring-go]

I didn't make the previous post about trans trenders because I wanted to shame people for how they felt. In reality, I didn't really nail the point I wanted to get across. What I wanted to say was that the conversation around 'trans trenders' is a social construct that has emerged naturally as a product of common beliefs. It wasn't invented in the sense it was created to spite people, but its a easy to fall in narrative if you buy into a number of semi-problematic ideas of gender and queerness. Ideas that I myself have believed. Ideas that I myself constantly challenge in my mind.

I know this person who is non-binary, but they were assigned male at birth, and don't make a huge effort to present themself as anything but masculine. He even uses he/they pronouns. I often found myself critical of him because of this. I would say things in my head like 'how can he call himself non-binary, when they don't make an effort to present that way.'

I don't see a lot of discussion around thoughts like this, but they are something I'm often wracked by. I've come to terms with it, and I want to share my experience doing that.

I realised that a part of accepting people's gender expression means accepting it no matter how it manifests. A part of me was afraid of this. I didn't want to out of fear that by doing it, I was undermining the legitimacy of trans people who aren't non-binary. But at the end of the day, all that would do is legitimise the surface expression of transdom, and not address the fundamental ideas behind critically analysing gender. I would be saying 'its okay to be born a man, but to later become a woman', but not saying 'its okay to be critical of gender'.

In thinking about this, I also realised that gatekeeping transdom and the non-binary identity is a very short slippery slope to closing my mind to the conversation as a whole and, by extension, the casualisation of looking at gender critically. It would be too easy to look at the way that young people interpret transdom and say 'no, that's not okay because its different. These kids are just doing it because its cool.' And suddenly, we're in the mindset of seeing transdom as a trend.

My take away from this is twofold. The first: its important to follow the logic of ideas you have and recognise the impact those ideas can have. I can believe that its necessary to keep transdom pure, but its important to look at the impact of that belief if we follow it to its logical extreme. The second: something becoming common and less significant is a natural part of something becoming wide spread. What we're seeing isn't transness being less important, just it being more common.

[laurasimonsdaughter]

Life May Linger

Urban Fantasy with a couple of witchy, poly boys, 3k.

Cw: swearing, non-pov injury and unconciousness, anxiety, animal skulls, blood, nail biting, imagery of death, necromancy-like magic

The incantations didn’t have to be said out loud for them to work, but it felt more natural to Noah than sitting and staring in silence. So he had been chanting his throat raw, only stopping to soothe the ache with one of his herbal teas whenever he felt he couldn’t go on. His client – for lack of a better word – had dutifully brought him whatever ingredients he’d asked for, but had refused to drink any of the tea himself. Privately Noah thought that a calming drink might have done the guy some good; with every hour that passed, the dread that Noah felt seeping out of Damiri had gotten more oppressive. In all fairness, Noah suspected that his own emotions probably weren’t having a particularly calming effect on Damiri either right now. Being an empath had to be hell at times. Maybe that was why he barely spoke. Noah was sure he wouldn’t even have told him his name if Noah had not insisted on it.

Noah felt his voice give way, cracking hoarsely in the middle of a sentence. It made Damiri start upright in his chair in the corner. He had been biting on the skin around his nails, slowly ruining them.

“Did something happen?” His voice sounded almost as raw as Noah’s.

“No,” Noah shook his head, taking a sip from the strangely dainty cup Damiri had brought him. “Nothing bad, just me.”

Damiri let out a shaky breath and glanced down at the still body on the makeshift bed. It looked very out of place in the strange basement room that Noah had been forced to make into his crafting space. He only knew the name of his patient because he overheard Damiri mutter it to him. Aiden. Noah had a vague notion it meant ‘fire’. But he was trying not to think about that, because the way Aiden was lying there, with Noah’s treasured skulls placed carefully around him like clusters of pale flowers, he looked like he had been laid out on a funeral pyre. He was like a fairy tale stuck in a tragedy, all pale skin and black hair draping down…

In his corner, Damiri had begun to bounce his leg. “It’s been ten hours.”

Noah made an effort to meet his eyes and tried not to see the despair glittering in the brown. “It often takes time.”

“Ten hours?” There was a sharp edge to Damiri’s voice and Noah looked away.

He still hadn’t been able to find out exactly how Damiri and Aiden were connected. He was pretty sure there was at least one other person present in the house, but he hadn’t seen them. Damiri was the one that came to fetch him, and to tell the truth, for anyone else he might not have come along willingly.

Because he didn’t appreciate people lying in wait for him at his home, and he hated to be called a necromancer, but the unrestrained fear in Damiri’s eyes had been enough to make him hesitate.

And then the love had changed his mind. He had met several empaths since the time he learned to pick up on other people’s magic, some of them extremely bad at shielding themselves, but he had never felt that much love pouring out of a single person. Nor that much terror.

So he had allowed Damiri to escort him to this unnerving basement and the two of them had been here since. It had to be nearing sunrise now.

“That means we still have the eleventh hour,” Noah said finally. He didn’t believe in giving false hope, but he didn’t believe in giving up either.

Damiri muttered something under his breath and brought his hand to his mouth again to bite at his nails. Then he winced, fingers cramping up, and let out a hissing swear.

“You alright?” Noah asked, hastily getting up and walking towards him.

“Fine,” he grunted, wiping his middle finger on his trousers. It was bleeding, the nail-bed bitten raw.

Noah sighed. “Will you let me help with that?”

Damiri stared blankly at him for a moment, but then he silently held out his hand.

Noah held it for a moment to assess the damage, his skin looked oddly pale against Damiri’s warmer shade of brown. Silently he reached into his pocket and took out a small, delicately built skull. A field mouse. He pressed his thumb into the sigil he carved on the top of it before placing it carefully on Damiri’s palm. He had barely finished murmuring the incantation before the sigil cracked, splitting the skull in two. Noah winced slightly – he always did, he couldn’t help it – but he smiled seeing the raw edges of skin on Damiri’s fingers mend and heal.

Damiri seemed afraid to move his hand, staring at it like he had just seen it burning. “What did you do?” he breathed, his eyes darting up to Noah’s face. “Is- Is that what you’re…?”

Noah nodded, taking the cracked skull out of his palm and slipping it into a different pocket of his coat. It was truly dead now, not a shred of life left clinging to it. He would give it a proper burial as soon as he could.

“But how-” Damiri studied his fingers incredulously. “How does it work?”

A faint smile overtook Noah’s face. Ten hours of healing rituals to pull his significant someone back from the brink of death and only now did Damiri ask.

“Death is a straightforward thing,” Noah replied, sitting down on a nearby crate, close enough so he could look at Damiri properly. “But life is not. When a living being dies, not all of it dies at once. Sometimes something of the lower life force lingers and the right magic can bind it to its vessel. That is what I do.”

Damiri looked at the clusters of skulls placed on the low bed. Those belonged to larger creatures, nothing smaller than a cat, and they all bore the same sigil. “Your skulls crack when the life in them is spent,” he concluded slowly.

“Yeah,” Noah hummed. He would never learn to like that part, but it was inevitable.

“Then…what is keeping it from working?” A low note of dread was slipping back into Damiri’s voice and Noah wished he knew a way to quiet it.

“I can only offer help,” he explained soberly. “I cannot force it. He was hurt by magic…” He glanced at Aiden’s motionless form. Apart from the hollowness of his eyes, he did not look hurt. He was barely breathing and his heartbeat was so faint that Noah couldn’t catch its rhythm to chant in time with it, no matter how hard he tried—but his body seemed unharmed. “Perhaps he does not know how to mend what is broken in him.”

“But you-”

“I do not mend anything,” Noah interrupted Damiri firmly. “What you just saw, was your own body healing itself because I gave it the opportunity to do so.”

Damiri looked from Aiden’s still face to Noah’s, and back again. “And you can’t— Can’t you help?”

Noah shook his head. He didn’t even know what happened to Aiden. He knew nothing about him apart from a muttered name and his importance to Damiri. He didn’t even know his magic. “I have found that healing blindly usually does more harm than good.”

Damiri let out a hollow laugh. “What more harm could you possibly do to him now?”

The chill Noah felt sliding down his back must have been evident to Damiri, because he met his eyes again. “You do not want me to answer that,” Noah replied solemnly.

A heavy silence fell between them. Noah didn’t feel up to breaking it, so he tried to continue with the incantation in his mind. Perhaps if he weaved Aiden’s name into the words, he would hear him. It was hard to speak to someone he’d never even looked in the eye.

“Damiri, what is Aiden’s magic like?”

He had been wanting to ask that question ever since he’d first laid eyes on his patient. Even now, weakened as he was, Noah could nearly feel Aiden’s power humming underneath his skin. It didn’t feel familiar though. It was unlike anything that Noah had ever felt.

Damiri hid his face, rubbing his forehead and temples with tense, nervous movements. The more his shoulders sagged, the younger he looked. “That is a question you don’t want answered,” he said darkly.

“You mean you don’t want to tell me,” Noah sighed. “Just like you didn’t want to tell me about your magic.”

Even without seeing Damiri’s facial expression, Noah knew it was resentful. He had been able to feel the familiar pattern of emotion manipulation as soon as Damiri had gotten close to him. Damiri hadn’t been pleased when he guessed his gift correctly. Not pleased at all.

Damiri gave no response and suddenly a thought slipped into Noah’s mind.

“Do you think I’ll no longer want to help him if I know?”

A moment before Damiri had been fidgeting in his chair, now he was sitting near-frozen.

Noah looked at him attentively. “Because it’s far too late for that, you know.”

At last the dark eyes lifted up again. “What?”

“I decided to help when you asked me,” Noah explained calmly. “I don’t change my mind.”

He wanted his magic to work. He wanted to see Aiden’s eyes open, wanted to see the handsome face come back to life. Even if he had not fully decided to help on the strength of Damiri’s plea, he would have lost any hesitation upon seeing Aiden. Because he agreed with Damiri, and with the words he had whispered to him on his doorstep, more than ten hours ago. “He can’t die.” Noah didn’t know why, but he couldn’t help but agree. Aiden could not die. And perhaps that was a solely selfish wish, because when he looked at him, and felt that strange magic just out of reach, Noah couldn’t bear the thought of never actually meeting him.

“Would it help you heal him?” Damiri broke into his thoughts. “If you knew what his magic was, would that help?”

Noah shook his head regretfully. “It would help me if I could understand his magic, but I do not recognise it and there is no time to teach me.”

Damiri made a strange noise and Noah gave him a questioning look.

“If you really wanted to know, you could have lied,” he said.

Noah’s lips curled slightly in distaste. “I wouldn’t lie about something like that.”

Another nondescript sound at the back of his throat.

Noah was ready to turn away and give him his space again, but Damiri suddenly slumped forward, dropping his head into his hands and burying his fingers in his dark hair. “You have no idea,” he grunted. “How badly I want to force all this on you.”

Noah could feel the truth of it. At times he could sense Damiri’s anxiety almost snaking towards him. Damiri was desperate not to feel these things. Anyone would be. But unlike most people, Damiri actually had a way to get rid of it all.

“I appreciate the self-control.”

This time Damiri nearly laughed. But his head stayed in his hands, and Noah decided to leave him be. He got to his feet and quietly walked to the bed. With loving attention he rearranged the skulls into their repeating patterns of threes. He made sure not to touch Aiden, and he really tried not to stare at him.

Aiden… Aiden… There was nothing in the name that matched the humming he felt in the distance. And still his heartbeat was too weak, his breathing too shallow. What if he couldn’t hear him calling? What if he simply couldn’t find the gifts he brought…

“His name is Aidan.”

Noah nearly jumped. He had not heard Damiri move, but suddenly he was standing beside him. He was tall—even when he leaned forward Noah had to look up slightly to see into his face. The sadness that trickled out of him was getting so thick it was almost tangible.

“Aidan Yeoh.” Damiri tore his eyes away from the motionless face. “And his magic is thievery.”

“Thievery?” Noah repeated in confusion.

“The gentlest thievery you’ve ever encountered,” he muttered. “He doesn’t even need physical contact. And he can take almost anything. Memories, feelings, thoughts…”

Noah felt a tightness closing around his chest. There was a reason he didn’t like being called a necromancer. Necromancy was frowned upon. But magical theft… He made no reply and Damiri said nothing more. He stood over Aidan a moment longer, staring at him like he wanted to touch his face but wouldn’t for fear of crying, and then retreated back to his corner.

When Noah started chanting again, Damiri closed his eyes.

Noah waited until the rhythmic breathing of exhausted sleep filled the room before he started changing the words of the incantation. He circled the bed on silent feet and took back his cherished skulls. One by one he took them away from Aidan, weighing them in his hands for a moment before placing them gently on the ground. Not in threes this time, but in a circle. Circles in circles, all of them side by side, each one guarding the other. Until they were all gathered together and Noah sat down, placing himself between Aidan and his treasures. He had forgotten about his tea, but he was still chanting. Still calling out to Aidan. But this time it was a different chant. What was offered freely could be taken back.

An entire night he had been here. More than a night. This was the eleventh hour and the sun was rising. It was early in the year, the sun would be shy about it. But it would rise, and sunrise is powerful.

Noah didn’t notice Damiri waking. He was still chanting, tired words tumbling stubbornly from his lips and his body rocking in time with the rhythm.

“What have- What are you doing?”

Damiri was beside him in an instant, his hands reaching out for the skulls, stopping just short of touching them. He looked back towards Aidan, who still lay sleeping like the dead.

“What have you done to him?”

Noah shook his head, bowing down low enough to nearly double over, chanting possessive words that wanted to stick to the inside of his mouth.

Damiri backed away from him, footsteps unsteady on the tile floor. “If you—” His voice was only a breath away from breaking. “I swear—”

A nauseating crack rang out like a shot and the last syllable slid mercifully off Noah’s tongue.

Another crack. Another. Noah turned away from the breaking skulls so he did not have to see. They all split right through the middle, straight though the sigil, and in the sudden quiet that followed, Aidan drew a stuttering breath.

Damiri seemed to be by the bed with only a single step. “Aidan—”

Noah got to his feet just in time to see the fine lashes flutter up and the thin lips move. “…Dami?”

The sound that escaped from Damiri’s chest echoed inside Noah’s mind as loudly as the breaking of bone. Shuddering, Damiri sank to his knees and slumped forward, his fingers grasping at the fabric of Aidan’s shirt and his forehead pressing against his side.

Aidan reached for him with a movement that was so controlled it made relief come alive in Noah’s entire body. He had done well. Aidan’s body was undamaged.

“You bastard,” Aidan muttered weakly, his fingers digging into Damiri’s shoulder for a moment before combing through his hair. “That’s the last time I let you design the balancing charm.”

“Fuck off,” Damiri breathed and he raised his head, his voice choked and thick with emotion.

Noah felt himself sway on his feet. Damiri's relief, a mix of joy and wild affection, filled the room like thick smoke. It was almost hard to breathe. And it was impossible not to smile. He blinked, slowly looking from Damiri to Aidan, just in time for Aiden’s eyes to meet his. Noah had been prepared for them to be dark and attentive. He had not been expecting them to be this alive.

There wasn’t a single mark of hardship left in them.

For a moment Aidan just looked at him, but then his lips formed into something very like a smile. When he next spoke, his voice was noticeably smoother than it had been before. “Are you the one that chanted?”

“Yes,” Noah said, his hands trembling slightly and an involuntary smile playing around his own lips as well. “And you are the one that can’t see what is given freely, but will take what is guarded against him.”

The fascination on Aidan’s face was as genuine as Damiri’s exasperated exclamation of understanding. He got to his feet, rubbing violently at his face.

“Why didn’t you fucking tell me?” he grunted, doing a bad job of hiding his tears.

“You might not have trusted me,” Noah replied, apologetic but not remorseful. “I told you I wouldn’t lie, but that doesn’t mean I have to tell you the truth.” He wasn’t sorry. He felt almost giddy. He felt light. He had saved a life.

“Yeah, you know what, I don’t care.” Damiri let out a broken laugh, shaking with relief and gratitude. “I really don’t.” He swallowed. "Thank you."

“I—" Aidan interrupted, sitting up with the grace of a cat woken from nothing but a comfortable slumber, before Noah could even open his mouth for another reply. "—have two things to say.”

His eyes were fixed on Noah so intently that he felt his face heat up in spite of himself.

“The first—” he said smoothly, entwining his fingers with Damiri’s.”—is that you’re being incredibly rude not introducing me to the person you got to save me, Dami. And the second—” A grin graced his face as his eyes darted to Damiri before settling firmly on Noah again. “—is that you’re more than welcome to try and kill me again if you want. Clearly it was worth it.”

#thank you Cat for the in-depth beta <3 #mlm romance #poly representation #polyam representation #not sure what the right abbreviation is.. #this is much longer than I usually post but #I'm very fond of all these boys #glad I finally get to share them #urban fantasy #laura drabbles #magical realism #life may linger #poly romance

[eryiss]

Summary: 'Freed The Dark, God of Death and ruler of the Netherworld. Followed by a reputation as rotten and stinking as the corpses he gives a home; he had been ostracized by gods and angels alike. And as the war between gods got closer, and those he cared for are dragged into the fight, his seclusion begins to twist his mind against him. But as his darkest day approached, he was forced to choose where his morals lie.' - Levy McGarden: A Examination and Retelling of the Fiorean Gods. [Fraxus One Shot]

Event: Fairy Tail Reverse Bang (Hosted by @ftguildevents​)

This was made in partnership with the great @fairiesherefairiesthere​, who made the beautiful artwork that made this fic possible. You should show them and their work a lot of love, and reblog it from here.

You can read it on Fanfiction, Archive of Our Own, or under the cut. Hope you enjoy.

Once Dead, Now Judged

The God of Death. The God of Judgment.

His is a story many people believe that they know, one that has been spoken of many times. In the telling and retelling of this story, many aspects of what made it so important have been lost. The Gods have been diluted into a single trait, and their significance in the tale is often misunderstood or disregarded entirely. The story has been condensed into a point where it can be explained in a single statement.

'The God of Death wanted the war to end, so he ended it.'

Of course this is not the truth of the matter. This mindset disregards both the personal and the political motivations which led to these decisions. It disregards the humanity behind the Gods, the fact that they were people and had flaws and loves, all of which led to that famous moment. The moment where corpses walked upon water, where souls were ready to kill souls. Where a disrespected God had the world at his feet, and chose to save it rather than destroy it as it perhaps deserved.

The moment where Freed Justine, God of both Death and Judgment, shaped the future.

Artists have often tried to capture the moment in their work. Countless renditions of the battlefield have been painted, each depicting the shadow of the death God looming over the fight to put an end to it. These depictions of the moment, while both beautiful and important, often hide away the humanity behind the story. This moment wasn't the God of Death's. It was Freed Justine's.

One such painting that recognises this is called the 'Knight of Judgment'.

Knight Of Judgement. Artist Unknown. Date Unknown.

Though its artist is uncredited, it is clear that they see the story in the same personal light that I do. It shows the moment that shapes our reality, but not from the perspective of the battlefield. From the perspective of the man who made it happen. That is the story that I will be telling you all today.

The untold story of the man behind the God.

Of the human behind the revolution.

Of Freed the Dark, God of Death, and ruler of the Netherworld. Followed by a reputation as rotten and stinking as the corpses he gave sanctuary; he had been ostracized by Gods and angels alike. And as the war between Gods got closer, and those he cared for are dragged into the fight, his seclusion began to twist his mind against him. But as his darkest day approached, he was forced to choose where his morals lie.

Levy McGarden; An Examination and Retelling of the Fiorean Gods

~~~

"Bastards!"

Freed's words echoed throughout the chamber as he stormed through it. Darkness covered almost everything, with light filtering in through the stained-glass windows that circled his throne room. His footsteps reverberated through the room as an accompaniment to his anger, the heels of his boots slamming against the black marble flooring.

On his face sneered a scowl, his fists were clenched at his sides, and he made a sharp gesture towards the large wooden doors before him. They opened with speed, slamming into the walls, and cracking slightly, sending a gust of wind towards the God which lifted his hair and the long black robe that hung behind him.

"Sanctimonious ego driven bastards!" He roared into the nothingness of his castle.

How dare they? How dare they!

He shouldn't have expected anything more. He should have gotten used to his treatment at that fucking table. He should have long since forgone any hope of being treated as an equal before them all, because they didn't see him as such. To them he was nothing but a utility, the person who cleaned up the messed that their ridiculous infighting was responsible for. That was the only reason why he had been called to service, and it was the only reason would ever be called to service, because people were going to die, and they needed him accommodate them.

The Netherworld was nothing but their dumping ground. They saw it as justification for allowing their stupidity to interfere with people. A way out of feeling guilt for the people their fancies killed. They delude themselves into thinking the Netherworld was just another part of life for humans, and refused to listen to anything that would break that illusion.

And Freed: he was nothing to them. He was just the person who kept the gates closed, stopping the corpses and the souls from returning to life with the anger of being wronged by the Gods.

"Bastards!" He yelled for a third time.

With a snarl, he slammed his hand on the wall at his side. The impact created an almost soft cracking sound, and a fissure-like tear ripped apart the wall of the corridor he was walking down. Bricks split apart, and windows shattered into shards on the floor.

The sensation of destruction was cathartic, but only slightly.

A moment later, he heard footsteps behind him, running to catch up with him. It was Evergreen, who he had placed outside of his throne room while he communed with the other Gods. Communication was though the mind, leaving his body essentially empty, so it needed to be guarded. Once, a man had made the mistake of attacking him in that state; now, the attacker endured the sensation of acid being secreted directly into his skin as penance.

Freed always made sure someone was on guard now, predominantly because changing someone's genetic makeup in such a way was a tedious process.

Though at that moment, it sounded delightful.

Everyone seemed to understand that Freed was not a man to target. Though, most people didn't have the opinion of him to do so. So long as you didn't break his trust, he would show a level of decency towards you. Most understood that his decency was a kindness, and they wouldn't risk losing it.

He didn't slow his place, and took a small amount of pleasure from the glass cracking under his feet as he walked. Pushing his arm forward, he slammed another set of doors open, the hinges cracking with the strain of such fast movement. By the time he had reached the threshold and walked into lobby of his castle, Evergreen had caught up to him.

"Freed," She said, and he glanced to his side to see Evergreen had sprouted wings and was hovering slightly to increase her speed. The wings had an odd look to them, and Evergreen had once stated they resembled fairy wings. Freed enjoyed her eccentricities, as odd as they were. It made her more human.

Something the bastards at the 'Table of the Gods' would do good to understand.

"They see us as nothing but a way to distance themselves from responsibility," Freed snapped at her, uncaring for the lack of context. He slowed down a little so Evergreen didn't have to fly to keep up with him, though.

Evergreen was a demon, technically. Freed disliked the term, as there was nothing separating his demons with any other God's angels, other than the fact she lived in the Netherworld rather than in the skies. It was another way that the so-called Higher Gods separated themselves from Freed. They were Gods of the world and they had their angels. He was a God of the Netherworld who had his demons. Ridiculous political bullshit.

She was one of the highest-ranking demons in the Netherworld. Freed had placed her in control of the corpses, or fairies as she called them. Her particular magic allowed her to revitalise the bodies of the dead, as their own genetics failed to do so. Rather than having limbs fall off, she kept them healthy and functional. For those who wanted it, she would change what they looked like slightly to the persons ideal form of beauty. Freed never particularly understood why people cared that much for what they looked like, but it seemed to make his subjects happy so he wouldn't intervene.

Evergreen made up one third of the triad named Raijinshuu. Freed and Bickslow completed it.

"What happened exactly?" Evergreen probed, dropping to the floor and letting her wings flitter away.

"What always happens," Freed growled. "They politely informed me that there would be an influx of dead coming and I'm to accept it without argument nor question. And of course they tried to imbue their politics into the situation, claiming certain dead should be treated better than others."

"Ah," Evergreen said in recognition before echoing Freed's own statement. "What always happens."

She placed a hand on the Gods back in a soft touch. Given his situation, Freed didn't have the chance to get close to people on a human level; an issue faced by all Gods no doubt. But his two top demons were what he considered friends, and he had made a great effort to show that he didn't see himself above them. That couldn't work with all demons, of course, as he needed to keep a level of authority over his land. But the two of them were allowed to see him without any of his facades or defences.

Some of the other Gods who knew this looked down on him for this. But he had spoken to more humans than they knew existed, and each of them had stated the importance of connections with other people. They were more knowledgeable than any God about what made life worth living.

That was why Freed wished to be involved in conversations about dead. He knew humans as more than just a premise. They weren't just hypothetically alive. They had thoughts just as much as any God, they were simply more breakable than them. As the thought struck him, another wave of anger creeped over him.

He leant his back against Evergreen's hand. Physical contact with other people grounded him.

"Come on," Evergreen said, apparently noticing Freed's return to rigid posture. "We thought this might happen."

Eventually, after walking through many of the hallways in his home, he was guided towards one of the many sitting rooms. It was his favourite, given its large fireplace, the fact it was at the back of the castle, and the view overlooking the garden. It was the most secluded place in the building, and therefore the most comfortable for him.

When they walked in, Bickslow was waiting for him. The fire was roaring and crackling, the wooden shutters had been closed to keep the light inside, and a china teapot was steaming out of the funnel with three teacups resting beside it.

It was nice to have connections with people. People did kind things for you.

"There's the big scary God of Death," Bickslow said with a taunt in his voice. "Did someone get angry and demolish a corridor again?"

"Do you really think it's wise to antagonise me, Bickslow?" Freed said, the amusement almost unnoticeably seeping into his tone. "I control this realm entirely; I can force you to eat a human heart and drown on the blood, should the mood take me."

"I prefer a liver, really. Less messy," Bickslow said with a cackle.

Freed smiled a little at that, relaxing into the easy-going environment Bickslow always projected. Making up the final part of Raijinshuu – or the tribe of hell – he was of equal power to Evergreen, and equally important to Freed.

Whereas Evergreen looked after the bodies of the deceased, Bickslow looked after the souls. This was an equally important job, as both the soul and the body made life. Just like an uncared-for body would fall apart and crumble without care, the soul would spiral into darkness and insanity, becoming self-destructive and dying out like a star. Bickslow both used his magic and his personality – so he claimed – to keep the souls both sane and content.

The two demons worked together well. They needed to. Death was the process of splitting up a soul from one's body. For an afterlife to begin, the soul and the body needed to be brought back together. Evergreen and Bickslow were responsible for merging them both when possible.

They were quite affective at their work.

The process was often a tedious one, it must be said. Bodies and souls could appear anywhere in the Netherworld, and could often go unfound for centuries. Sometimes a body would be destroyed to the point where Evergreen couldn't save it, sometimes a soul had gone mad before anyone could even find it. Thankfully, this usually only happened to those who were truly evil, perhaps as some form of karmic punishment, but both Evergreen and Bickslow were still respectful in how they dealt with those cases.

Evergreen had created a forest, fertilised with what remained of the corpses. Bickslow had created a spell where the remnants of souls could be merged together, making an entirely new soul. It had happened thousands of times, and Bickslow had crafted only five souls out of these remnants. They had been assigned to little dolls, which followed the man around constantly.

"Since I knew you'd be all icy," Bickslow continued, picking up a teacup and proffering it to Freed. "I thought you'd enjoy this. Masala tea, nice and hot."

Freed took the cup with a word of thanks. He tried to keep the culture of the living at arm's length for most of the time, but he had once drunk tea and found it rather spectacular, and decided he would allow certain parts of humanity into his own life. He was allowed to have a weakness, and a warm drink was a good one to have.

"What happened then?" Evergreen asked, sitting at one of the red sofas opposite the God. "Specifically."

"There's a war coming, so they think," Freed sighed, placing the teacup down. "Apparently they don't intend to be subtle if it does happen, and humans will be killed in thousands. We have been instructed to make plans to accommodate the dead."

"Instructed huh?" Bickslow said with a small grunt.

"Indeed," Freed nodded. "Apparently the ridiculous feud between Makarov and his idiot son has boiled over. They expect the first casualty within months. And once one person is killed, either man will willingly do anything in return to prove their point."

"And they have to drag the people into it?" Evergreen sighed.

"I doubt that they have to, but they will," Freed mused. "They don't see the people as being alive any more than an ocean, or a mountain. They're just little creatures to them, barely thinking in comparison to a God. Why would the bother with the effort of keeping them alive?"

"They didn't listen to ya when you told them that, huh?" Bickslow asked.

"Ivan's exact words to me were 'Keep your corpse fucker mouth shut,'" Freed shrugged.

"He hasn't gotten any smarter, then, if that's the best insult he could think of," Evergreen muttered, and Freed laughed. It was a clipped, cynical laugh, but better than nothing.

"If he ever ends up down here, I shall need one of your souls to possess that ridiculous suit of armour he insists on wearing," Freed said, looking to Bickslow. "It would be a nice level of irony that the thing he wears to protect him ends up ripping his bowels out and crushes them as he watches. I'd find that pleasant."

"I'll get em trained up ready," Bickslow said with a grin. "But you don't think they can be cooled off. Makarov and Ivan I mean. They've never gotten along, you said, but they've never gone to war."

"Laxus is trying to calm them both down, but I doubt he'll be of any help. He fights with Ivan as much as his grandfather does," Freed lifted the teacup to his lips again, sipping at the spicy liquid and allowing it to warm his cold blood. "And it seems like their millenniums worth of grievances has come to return all at once. Laxus would have to be a saint as well as a God to get them to even consider being diplomatic."

"So we gotta play clean-up because their pissing contest is gonna get violent," Bickslow surmised, and Freed nodded. "And they don't even have the fucking courtesy to talk to you like an equal."

"They consider themselves to be the most important beings in existence. Annoyingly, existence seems to agree," Freed said with a tired expression. "Why would they care about the ants they're crushing? Or the people who try to help them?"

"Should we be expecting Laxus here anytime soon?" Evergreen asked.

"Perhaps, though not in the next few days. Calming them both will be his priority," Freed stood up, placing his tea in its saucer again. "I suppose they're right, though. We need to prepare if half the world is going to be slaughtered."

Bickslow and Evergreen shared a look.

"Tomorrow," Bickslow said firmly. "We start tomorrow."

"There's hardly any reason to prolong-"

"Tomorrow," The demons said in unison, and Evergreen continued talking. "You've not slept in days, if nothing else allow yourself a night's rest."

"A few hours ain't gonna affect anything," Bickslow added. "And we both know that anything you do while pissed off ain't gonna be as good as if you're calm. So take the night off and sleep."

Freed took a moment to think, then sighed and nodded. He returned to the chair like they so clearly wanted and allowed Bickslow to pour him another cup of tea. He brought it to his lips and watched as his friends smiled in contentment of their actions. It was important that he had these people in his life, and he was glad that they were there.

As tedious as they may be.

~~~

Often disregarded in the story of Freed the Dark is the people close to him. His relationships with both his friends and those he ruled were imperative to his overall decision to enter the war. As leader of the Netherworld, he was shaped more by humanity than any other God, and without this influence it is unclear as to whether or not he would have walked into the fight or not.

The closeness he held to those not of his blood was anomalous for a God, and was part of the reason as to why he was disrespected and looked down upon by some of his fellow Gods. They saw him as impure, tainted by the lesser beings of the land.

It is important to state that not every God looked down upon him. He was not the victim of complete ostracization, and certain Gods looked to him as an ally, friend and, in the case of Laxus Dreyar, a lover.

Laxus was the youngest son of the Higher God's, known colloquially as the Dreyar's. The grandfather and patriarch of the family, Makarov, was known to be God of Expansion and Family. He sat at the head of the God's Table, and was seen by all as the ruler of the Gods. Makarov's son Ivan, the God of Persona, and later the God of Tricksters, showed great levels of jealousy towards his father and tried on many occasions to usurp him, both through manipulations and violence.

The family of Gods were all-powerful and volatile.

However, Laxus showed himself to be different. After being manipulated against Makarov, Laxus chose to leave the skies. It is stated that he was unsure where Ivan's manipulations ended, and his own personality began. His exile was so he could become his own man.

It was during this exile he found himself in the Netherworld, walking through the garden of the castle.

Meeting the God of death, they quickly found solace in each other's company. Laxus understood better than most the hardships of being a God, particularly one involved in the politics of others. They could relate to each other on a level nobody else could, and what started as a mutual fondness quickly developed into love.

Their relationship was kept secret from most, with only those closest to the men knowing in the days before the war. Despite the secretive nature of the romance, both men adored each other. It cannot be overstated how important this relationship was in proceeds that ended the war.

Levy McGarden; An Examination and Retelling of the Fiorean Gods

~~~

Having loved the man for so long, Freed knew what to look for when Laxus was approaching.

Being the God of both Thunder and Lightning, when Laxus was around there was a certain feeling in the air. The slight presence of static, a partial increase of humidity, and a tiny chill to the air. Freed would compare it to the feeling of standing in a cloud that was just about to bear lightning. Most people either didn't notice the feeling, or saw it as an imposition. Freed rather liked the sensation, it was as if he was being wrapped up in the long fur lined cloak that Laxus wore.

The feeling arrived before the man himself. Laxus' abilities allowed him to become one with the clouds and lightning, and to form a cloud wherever he saw fit. So when he wished to visit Freed, he would summon a cloud into the castle, and bring his consciousness into it, his body following soon after.

In the first few instances of his arrival, the cloud had struck lightning and Laxus had formed out of that. Laxus later revealed it was an unnecessary level of showmanship, and he was showing off.

Freed looked back on that confession with fondness.

When the smoke coming from the fireplace started to pool in the air, followed by the sensation of static, humidity and a chill, Freed knew that his lover would soon be with him. The God placed his wine glass at the table beside him with a soft smile, waiting patiently for the cloud to dissipate and for his lover to be by his side.

"Mr Dreyar," Freed said pleasantly, watching as the cloud burst and left Laxus in its place. "A pleasure to see you again."

Laxus didn't say anything at first, but instead stalked over towards Freed and wrapped his arms around the man tightly. Freed couldn't be sure what had spurred the action on, but hugged his lover back with an equally strong grasp. They stayed like this for a moment, tightly embracing one another as the fire crackled beside them.

"Sorry it took so long to get here," Laxus muttered into Freed's shoulder.

"You needn't be," Freed replied almost automatically. "They're your family, and you have a responsibility to them."

It had been just shy of a week since the meeting of the Gods, and where Freed had yet again been dismissed by the leaders. Laxus had been in attendance at the meeting, of course, and Freed hadn't seen him since he had walked out.

The time since then had been mainly spent preparing the Netherworld for the inevitable influx of dead. His demons had been told to be vigilant for new souls and corpses, as when they would come was unknown. The dead had been told to begin preparing buildings and homes for the newly dead, as Freed would not allow for overpopulation. And everyone had been informed that their ancestors and relatives might die soon, and they would need their families to help them adjust, so to prepare themselves for that. It had all been busywork for Freed, and partly because he wanted to distract himself from his lover's absence.

"I should have come to you sooner," Laxus said, burying his face into the crook of Freed's neck.

"You're here now," Freed whispered. "And that's enough. And anyway, Bickslow and Evergreen have been keeping me sane. As has the work."

"I'll thank 'em later," Laxus mumbled, pressing his lips into Freed's neck in a kiss. "You sure you're okay?"

"I believe I've calmed down," Freed said with a nod.

"Can't believe you stormed out like that," Laxus said, removing himself from Freed's arms. "Don't think either of the bastards ever had someone do anything like that to them before, you should have seen their faces after you left."

"I doubt it'll change anything," Freed shrugged, picking up his wine again.

"You pissed 'em both off, that's something," Laxus said with a hint of a laugh in his voice. "You know when they realise we've been together for centuries, they're gonna think that you're the reason I rebelled against them."

"Finally I'll be credited for something worthwhile," Freed chuckled a little at that.

Freed was unaware of it, but Laxus looked towards him with a hint of sadness in his eyes. He had long since been aware of the disrespect Freed faced from both the Dreyar's and many of the other Gods. He had tried what he could to change that, so far as to defend him both before and after Freed had left the meeting a week prior. But the Gods were stubborn, and set in their prejudices. Laxus just hoped that one day they would change their ways.

"I'm sorry they don't treat you right," Laxus apologised, speaking softly.

"Don't be," Freed instructed, standing up and walking to the window. He was in a study overlooking the Netherworld, and looked out over the dead before him. "I should have gotten over it by now."

"You shouldn't have to," Laxus insisted, standing up.

"Maybe it's for the best," Freed sighed, tapping his fingers against the windowsill. "I'm sure if they paid more attention to me then they'd look upon this world with distain. No doubt they'd have hundreds of issues with how I treat my subjects. With their logic they'd want me to torture the good and kneel before the bad."

"And they'd be wrong," Laxus assured him, wrapping his arms around the man. "You're a good man, Freed, and a damn good God, too."

"There's a certain level of irony in calling me a 'damn' good God," Freed chuckled, turning around in his lover's arms, grinning.

He pressed their lips together, Laxus leaning into the kiss softly. They had not kissed in a month and, even with their seemingly endless lives, that was far too long a time to go without it. Freed adored his Lightning God, the beautiful man who split open the skies with a wave of his hand, and created the most spectacular tapestries of light on the canvas of a cloudy night. He was a poet in actions, even if he refused the claim, and Freed was enamoured with the man and wished to show it with his kiss.

Love was something the humans had taught him. He liked it.

When they pulled apart, they stood in each other's arms with content expressions. Laxus looked spectacular like this, with a soft smile and no falseness on his face. He had once confessed that he truly only felt himself when with Freed. Though the sadness of the statement was not lost on him, Freed was thankful that he and his kingdom could offer the man sanctuary.

"You chose to come here through smoke, rather than your own cloud," Freed eventually spoke, and Laxus looked down on him with a quirk in his eyebrow. "May I assume that was so you could hide how you felt."

Laxus sighed. His ability to control the weather was slightly tethered to his emotions. The more emotional he felt, the stronger the impact of his abilities. If he was emotional, the lighting would be more ferocious, the thunder would echo louder, and the rain would be heavier. It also affected the clouds, and the darker his mood, the darker the clouds. Had he not used the smoke from Freed's fireplace, the cloud he summoned would have been blacker than the nights sky.

"I needed to prioritise you without you worrying," Laxus sighed. "You were upset, I wanted to make you feel better."

"I appreciate that," Freed nodded, bringing his hands up to stroke Laxus' cheeks. "But you need comfort too. So would you like to discuss what's wrong?"

Laxus took a moment, before deflating slightly.

"They're gonna fight, Freed," He whispered, almost not believing his own words. "I couldn't talk 'em down from it. I thought I could; Makarov at least would have listed to reason I thought. But neither of them even looked at me, they didn't care. Gramps said that Ivan would turn the world to darkness if left to his own devices, and Ivan said he should have killed him a millennia ago. There was nothing I could do."

"It wasn't your responsibility to stop them," Freed spoke softly. "Don't you dare start blaming this on yourself."

"They're both getting troops together. And nobody else can stop them because they're scared of 'em, so they're just gonna keep dragging everybody into the fight. I don't even think it's gonna be a fight, it's just gonna be the two of them pissed off and sending people to slaughter."

"It's unfortunate," Freed sighed. "But I'll do good by the dead, if that's any consolation."

"It ain't your job to clean up after them. And it shouldn't be the people's job to fight for them," Laxus argued with a growl. "They should just fucking fight between themselves if they need to. Why do they have to drag people into it?"

Freed didn't have an answer to that, so instead took his lovers hand in his own and held it. The man was shaking, and Freed felt that it wasn't entirely because of anger. He looked at the man's face and his heart almost broke. Laxus was portraying anger, but Freed had looked at enough humans faces to know fear when he saw it. He pressed their foreheads together in a gesture that hopefully calmed the man, before he spoke.

"I won't let them take you if you don't want to fight," He promised softly.

"You can't stop them," Laxus sighed, leaning against Freed. "They'll invade this place and rip apart everything you've done if they want to."

"Perhaps they won't want to."

"He called me a strategic advantage," Laxus sighed. "Ivan, my own father, said having me on his side would be a strategic advantage. I command the sky, so having me fight for them would ensue a victory. And gramps didn't say it, but he knows that it's true. They ain't gonna let me hide away. And I'm not gonna let them bring their fight here because of me."

Freed wanted to argue the point, but couldn't. The fight would take place in the skies. Having someone bring lightning down on any oncoming army would be invaluable. But Laxus didn't need to hear that.

"You can stay with me for as long as you please," Freed promised. "But you're right. You probably will be brought into the fight, so I want you to make me a promise."

"Anything," Laxus nodded.

"Pick the right side," Freed said firmly. "There is cruelty in them both, but we both know who the better leader will be. And so long as you have the choice in who you fight for, you must promise me that you pick the right one."

"I will," Laxus promised, and brought both of Freed's hands to his mouth to kiss, as if sealing the promise.

"How long do you expect we have until the war begins?" Freed asked.

"Months, at most," Laxus sighed. "I don't know when exactly, but everyone seems to know this is gonna be important, and neither side is gonna want to make a mistake early on. So they'll take time to build up their support and make their armies stronger. But they both wanna make the first hit, so they can't be building forever. In a year's time we'll be in deep."

"Perhaps we could do something," Freed offered. "Sabotage them in some way."

"They'll have more defences than we can imagine," Laxus rebutted. "Right now, I just wanna sleep."

"My bed chamber is always open for use for you," Freed assured him, unwrapping himself from his lover's arms. "Take all the time you need."

"Only if you join me," Laxus said, voice firm. "Ever and Bix already told me that you've been working yourself hard, and that you've been delaying sleep when you can get away with it. So if I sleep, then you have to too."

"If you insist," Freed said with a smile. "And I suppose it's appropriate."

"What d'you mean?"

"Well, given that we're in the Netherworld, sleeping seems appropriate," He looked to Laxus with a mischievous grin. "Where else is there to rest in peace?"

Laxus barked out a disbelieving laugh. "You've the most fucking morbid sense of humour, it's fucking great."

And, in spite of the situation, both men smiled as they retired to bed.

~~~

I believe that the 'Knight of Judgment' is a unique painting as it shows what was important to Freed in the days of the war.

Located in the lower regions of the painting, you can see both Laxus and the Raijinshuu. They are shown to be sitting at a table, which multiple artists and historians agree signifies how they influenced Freed in his actions. In many ways, this is a representation of Freed's own Table of the Gods, with those he held close holding his council.

The location of them in the painting is also significant. They are placed in his stomach: they are a part of him that he carried with him throughout the darkest days of his life.

It is a great sorrow that he needed to be secluded from them for the war to end.

The affect that the war had on the Netherworld was unique. Although the realm was secluded and the battle never neared the doors to the Netherworld, the impact of the fighting was said to have been felt in different ways. An overall atmosphere of unease is said to have filled the land, and there was an obvious influx of the dead. Both humans and angels were being slayed at an alarming rate.

The horrors of the war were unseen, but not unknown.

It is said that Freed often found himself at the doors of the Netherworld, contemplating seeing the fray first hand. He stopped himself each time, instead putting his focus on the new wave of deaths that came with each day. At this time, he relied on his friends and lover for support. As often told, this reliance could only last for so long.

Levy McGarden; An Examination and Retelling of the Fiorean Gods

~~~

"I'm glad that you're here again," Freed said softly.

The God was lying on his large bed, arm in arm with his lover. Draped in velvet sheets, Freed couldn't help the look of fondness that adorned his features, nor did he care to try. It had been months since he had last had Laxus in his arms, and the loss of his lover's presence was starting to take effect. When he had felt the familiar static, humidity, and chill, he had worn a smile that could almost be described as giddy.

He had needed something to make him happy. The war had brought wave after wave of dead, meaning Freed and his demons were worked to the bone in accommodating them. Every day, hundreds of scared people were brought to his door, traumatised from their murder.

Every day, his anger at the fighting Gods increased.

Freed had worked himself harder than he'd ever needed to. Not only did he go about his usual roles as leader, but he also tried to assist his demons. Sometimes he would search the plains of the Netherworld to find lost souls. Sometimes he would work with The Raijinshuu to merge a body with its owner. Sometimes he would go to the city and build homes for the newly deceased. Ivan and Makarov had already taken their lives away, Freed should do whatever he could to keep them safe in his domain.

He and Laxus had spoken often, but not once in person. Laxus had been doing whatever he could to calm the fighting, even in the smallest of ways. He worked mainly with his grandfather, trying to veer him away from more destructive ways of attack. He had been successful for a while, but Ivan's power was growing and apparently it was getting harder for Laxus to keep Makarov's destructive plans at bay.

The longer the war lasted, the harder it was for Laxus to do anything really.

It was why he had come to Freed's castle. They both knew it.

"Sorry it ain't with better news," Laxus sighed, placing a hand on Freed's cheek with adoration in his eyes. "They're not gonna stop until someone wins. And I think they're just gonna get worse."

"So there's no point in trying to mediate anymore," Freed concluded.

"I think I have to join in first hand," Laxus said in a defeated tone, and Freed stroked his cheek with his knuckle. "I'm not doing anything on the side-lines anymore, they're both too focused on the fight to listen anymore. At least if I join in now, I get to choose which side I'm on rather than being dragged into it against my will."

"And, for full clarity, who's side will you be fighting for?" Freed asked, cautiously.

He was almost certain as to who Laxus would side with, but couldn't be sure. Ivan was a master manipulator and had unfortunately groomed Laxus into being his ideal child before Laxus had left him. It was always a lingering worry of Freed's that Laxus might be manipulated again.

He trusted the man, though. He had to.

"Gramps," Laxus said, nodding slightly to affirm his choice. "The way he's fighting is fucking awful, and he's not acting like he used to. But he's definitely the better of two evils right now. If Ivan wins control, everything he wants is so twisted and cruel. And if we can't get them in a room to talk it out, or stop it some other way, then we have to stop him with force. And, like he said, whatever side has me on it has an advantage. Might as well use it for some good, I guess."

"It's not right that they use you as a weapon," Freed sighed, pressing their foreheads together.

"I'd rather be a weapon for good, than nothing," Laxus mumbled, but there was a level of defeat in his tone.

Freed hated hearing his lover in such a state. His relationship with his father had always been strained, but Laxus had looked up to his grandfather and loved the man dearly. But the way he spoke of Makarov as of late made Freed think he was a shell of his former self. His defence of his values had made him cruel. Makarov preached love and family more than most Gods, and yet he sent people to die to keep these values. He had become a hypocrite of the worst kind, and it seemed to be hurting Laxus more than he would admit.

Placing a hand on Laxus' cheek, Freed looked at him with a soft expression. Laxus closed his eyes and leant into his hand, and it was clear how much strain the man was putting on himself. Freed let his face turn sad for a moment.

"He's not as he used to be, is he?" He eventually asked, speaking about Makarov.

"He's so focused on winning the fight, he's not paying attention to what he's doing," Laxus admitted. "Sometimes, I worry what he'll be like when the war's over."

"You need to make sure he keeps his humanity then," Freed said as he nuzzled further into his lover's grasp. "If you're going to be fighting with him, then you can at least try and keep him sane and kind."

"I'll do what I can, but I might have lost him already."

Before Freed could try to argue the point, Laxus shifted so he was sitting up in the bed. He made a gesture with his hand, and a dark cloud crackled to life in front of them, with lighting shimmering all over it. Freed recognised it as the same spell they had been using to talk when away from each other. It was essentially a looking glass into another location; Laxus was showing him part of the war, something Freed hadn't yet been privy too.

It was abhorrent.

The fighting was taking place over the ocean, and it looked near cataclysmic. Huge waves were sloshing and forming, higher than any wave should be. They crashed into oncoming soldiers with thoughtless ferocity, and Ivan's fighters looked practically ant-like against the attacks from the sea. They were washed away, most probably drowning. Despite knowing what the world would be like if Ivan's troops won, Freed felt something like sympathy for them.

In the centre of the spyglass stood Juvia, Goddess of the Sea, who was clearly controlling the ocean. Her expression was stern and face without regret. Standing either side of her were Natsu, God of Fire, and Lucy, Goddess of the Stars.

Lucy's eyes glowed and she raised a hand into the air. Suddenly the nights sky was plunged into darkness, as if all of the stars had been extinguished within a moment. Even knowing that behind the darkness was a hellish fighting, it was almost a moment of calm. Just the darkness and the sound of the ocean.

And then there was screaming. Fire spread through the enemy forces, illuminating their pain and nothing else. The removal of light had been a distraction that allowed Natsu to climb aboard the ships of the opposing troops. Some of them jumped over the edge of the boats, and found themselves churned up in a whirlpool of Juvia's creation. It was only when he saw the angels battered against the rocks did Freed realise how close they were to the coast.

How close they were to the humans, who had nothing to do with the fight.

It was sickening to watch, made worse by the fact Freed knew the three Gods responsible. Natsu and Lucy were some of the most optimistic people he had met, and had never judged him. And although he didn't know Juvia well, she had always been kind to him. Everything he watched contrasted with what he knew of these people.

"Gramps orchestrated this," Laxus sighed, flicking his wrist, and removing the spyglass.

"Yes," Freed agreed, voice quiet. "I expect it isn't easy to see."

"I told him not to do it," Laxus said with a growl. "I told him that he shouldn't do it near the coast, that people are gonna die because of it. And not just because they get dragged into the whirlpool, but because it's gonna affect the landscape. Juvia can't make water, so she's getting it from the clouds. It won't rain for months so crops are gonna die. And the fish ain't gonna be where they should be, so who fucking knows when they're gonna eat."

"Don't hold yourself accountable for that," Freed said firmly.

"But when I join the fight, it'll be my fucking fault," Laxus exclaimed with equal parts annoyance and exasperation. "But I can't let that stop me, because if I stay out of the fight then I'll either be complacent in it or I'll be dragged into it and forced to do the same crap against my own will. It's just… it's just shit."

Rather than speaking – there was nothing he could say to make it better – Freed kissed his lover slowly. Laxus moved his lips with Freed's, and it was almost in a desperate way. It was awful to see Laxus with such fear in his soul. Freed wished he could do more.

"Even in this war, you are still your own man, Laxus," Freed said softly, pulling apart. "You have your own mind, your own opinions, and your own morality. If you don't want to change, then you don't have to. Hold onto yourself, that's all you can do."

"What if I can't?" Laxus asked weakly.

"You can," Freed assured him. "You have fought against the influences of your family constantly, and you have become the best of them because of it. It will be difficult from time to time, I'm sure, but I know you Laxus. I know you well enough to be sure you will never change your values for anyone, let alone your father and grandfather."

Laxus took a moment to think, and Freed pressed their foreheads together. It was a silent reminder that he was there for him.

"Thanks," Laxus eventually said. "For being here, and for saying all of that."

"I mean it," Freed reaffirmed, stroking Laxus' cheek again. "You have a stubborn side like no other, it's rather an attractive quality for me."

Laxus laughed slightly, appreciating Freed's attempt at lifting the mood slightly. He pressed their lips together in a soft and chaste kiss, wrapping his arm around Freed's waist and pulling their bodies closer to each other. Laxus often felt more comfortable under the protection of Freed's sheets than he did in his own home. Freed's castle felt so far detached from the reality of what was happening, it was like a safe haven for him. The irony wasn't lost on Laxus.

"I'll talk to Gramps about what I can do to help," Laxus eventually said. "While I still can. And like ya said, maybe if I'm fighting on his side then I can try and keep him kind."

"It's probably for the best," Freed agreed, but the worlds felt like acid.

Of course he didn't want Laxus in the fight, but he knew his personal opinion wasn't needed now. If he could have his way, Laxus would happily reside in his castle for the entirety of the war. But that wasn't possible, and Laxus would make a difference. Freed just had to hope that Laxus' inclusion could shorten the length of the war and stop the deaths.

It was an unlikely hope, but all Freed had.

"Can I stay here before I do it," Laxus asked softly, almost weakly. "I need to be with you."

"For as long as you need," Freed promised.

When they fell asleep, they both felt sick with what was to come.

~~~

Many people begin telling the story of how the war ended long after Laxus had become involved. As Freed and Laxus' relationship is often disregarded and forgotten, many people don't see the significance of Laxus' choice to join the fight and leave the Death God in his realm. Most people just see this as another God being forced to take a side and fight, but it was much more.

Laxus leaving to fight was a further hit to Freed. The added work and general disrespect from other God's had already taken affect, and to have these Gods take his lover from him, and to hurt his lover in the way they did, was something of a breaking point.

In retrospect, this is possibly the moment Freed's descent began.

Of course we can only conclude this with the advantage of history. The story of how Freed the Dark got his title is one often untold, and therefore unexplored. But there is a general consensus that it was due to the seclusion he enforced on himself after those he loved were dragged into the fight. This was the first example of this happening for the God, and is seen as the first real hit the man's sanity took.

The change was gradual, and often his own tendencies were the most self-destructive. In the ensuing days and weeks, Freed's temperament got worse and his actions became more thoughtless. It is said that this wasn't clear to most at the time, but with the benefit of hindsight those close to him could see the affect his lover's absence had on him.

To truly explore how Freed became the man who stopped the war, we must explain his descent into solitude. The next step in that process came on the day he sent away the Raijinshuu, and left his castle empty.

Levy McGarden; An Examination and Retelling of the Fiorean Gods

~~~

Humans could be quite antagonising, Freed was finding.

He had always done this. As part of being the lord of the Netherworld, he tried his best to make the realm as pleasant for his subjects as he could. Being in complete control of everything meant he had abilities beyond the regular king, and therefore could be a better server to his kingdom. Because of this, he had always allowed his subjects to talk to him, make requests of him in ways that could improve their afterlife.

Today was one such a day. When the dawn had arisen, a queue of the dead had spiralled around the walls of the castle. The majority of them were recently deceased, and Freed knew the moment he laid eyes on them that they didn't want anything of importance, but rather childish requests that Freed had no interest in granting.

He was in a foul mood before he saw the first person. It did not get better.

The requests were ridiculous. Two ex-lovers had their homes in the same street and spent five minutes arguing that the other should be moved to the far end of the city. An adult man had asked for the water in his home to be turned into wine, and claimed it was because of religious beliefs and denying him would be an affront to his faith; it would be an affront to his alcoholism if anything.

And now he was forced to endure an elderly woman ranting at him, claiming her neighbours had been stealing her food provisions and should be punished for it. Her suggestion was that he and his family be starved for a week and to have his food supplies lessened permanently. It was absurd. He was a God, not a mediator for ridiculous arguments. It was tempting to starve her out of spite.

Still, at least he could let his mind wonder and drown out the obsessive whining of the humans for a little while.

With the hordes of the dead coming to his world because of the war, he hadn't had time to relax. Even when he did have a few moments to himself, his mind usually went to Laxus and whatever he might be doing. That was never for good.

It had been months since they had even spoken to one another. After Laxus decided to join the fight, they had spent a few days together before the blonde had returned to the skies to take his grandfather's side and join the battle. After that, they hadn't so much as seen one another. Freed had no idea what his lover was doing, if he was safe, or if he was in danger. The absence of the man he loved was starting to affect him.

In the past, even on the long stretches where they couldn't see each other in person, they could at least talk. But not this time, and Freed missed him. Now he just had idiot humans to distract him.

The amusement was wearing thin.

Because these ridiculous creatures were not treating him like a God. They were not treating him as something to be feared or looked up to. They were treating him as some odd wish granter who is supposed to care about their damn stupid problems!

"May I interrupt you, ma'am," Freed snapped suddenly, hands gripping the side of the throne.

Apparently the woman was the breaking point for him. She stopped, and looked to him almost affronted.

"Because if I'm completely honest with you ma'am, I couldn't give less of a damn about your problems, ma'am. In fact, ma'am, you're such a tedious person that I'm considering granting your neighbour twice the food than he gets now out of spite of you. So, ma'am, I feel as though it's in your best interest to shut your damned mouth right now before my spite becomes something more sour."

The woman looked at him with a gape. Freed glared at her. Did she not understand that he was a God?

"I allow you my council because I wish to make this place good for you all," Freed continued. He stood up from his throne and started to pace. Those in the room all looked towards him. "I make changes to accommodate you all. And this is what you want from me? To act as a ridiculous mediator for all your petty bullshit."

"Petty?" The woman had the arrogance to actually scoff as if offended.

"Quiet!" He yelled, and the glass in the room cracked at the echoing sound. His jaw clenched and he glared at the woman. "I am a God. I am above you, yet nobody seems to understand that. I am not a fucking serviceman; I am your better!"

Freed's tempered flared, and his eyes pulsated with darkness. From the corner of the room, Bickslow winced a little at the rise in anger. He went to speak but Freed interrupted.

"All of you leave," He roared at the congregated humans in his throne room. "Get out. Now!"

"But we've been waiting since sunset last night," One of the men in the line protested, and Freed turned his glare to him.

"Then you'll learn that next time you should get here earlier, won't you," He spat, acid dripping into his tone and he stalked towards the man. He cowered below Freed, and the God would be lying if he said it wasn't satisfying. When he next spoke, his voice was a calm, threatening tone. "If you have any further objections, I would be delighted to hear them. But be warned of the consequences if I disagree with you."

Bickslow opened the door to the throne room and ushered the humans out before anybody could speak further, shutting the door when it was just him and the God. Freed stormed towards his throne and collapsed onto it, eyes still a shadowy purple glow.

Rather than speaking, the demon simply waited for the God to calm down. Freed was typically a calm man, only reserving his anger for when he had met with other Gods, so to see him acting in such a way as a result of speaking with humans was unusual and concerning. Bickslow knew, when Freed's rage had gotten the best of him, that it was best to allow the man to decompress and let his anger dissipate without interrupting him.

The silence lasted a short while, and was only interrupted when the door to the throne room opened. Bickslow let out a held breath when he saw that it was Evergreen, rather than someone who didn't know Freed and might further his anger. She, too, didn't say anything and waited for Freed to calm, giving him a concerned expression; she must have seen the humans retreating.

"Mindless cretins," Freed eventually said, his voice quieter now. "I am a God, for fucks sake. Does nobody understand that?"

"What actually happened?" Evergreen asked, walking towards Freed and speaking softly.

"The same thing that always happens," Freed growled, though it was aimed more at his lap than at the demon. "I attempt to show an ounce of kindness to people and they see it as weakness. I am their God and they disrespect me, treat me like one of their own. Perhaps the idiots at that intolerable table were correct and I should treat my subjects with cruelty. At least then I wouldn't be forced to endure their mindless whining about their ridiculous problems."

"You know you don't mean that," Bickslow sighed, placing a hand on Freed's shoulder. "She was fucking stupid. You know some people are just up their own asses. There're thousands of people who respect you because you ain't some dictator."

"Perhaps," Freed said, though his voice didn't portray confidence.

"He's right Freed," Evergreen encouraged, sitting on the arm of the throne, and smiling at the God. "Remember what you told Laxus before he left. He has to make sure he doesn't change who he is. You have to do the same thing, keep yourself kind."

Freed didn't say anything, and deflated at the sound of his lover's name. Bickslow and Evergreen shared a look at that.

Though the two of them had known Laxus was important to Freed, they hadn't known just how much the God cared for him until recently. Freed's mood had changed slightly, and he was both more forlorn and had a shorter temper. It was clear that Laxus had been some kind of a light in Freed's life, in some sense, and to have him ripped away from him and into a warzone was harming Freed more than he let on.

The influx of work probably wasn't helping either and the God was facing more stress than he probably ever had before. They did their best to keep him happy, of course, but Freed insisted on keeping himself busy and making more work for himself than needed.

"He'll come back eventually," Bickslow said, in a voice almost soft. He patted the man's shoulder gently.

"He hasn't yet," Freed snapped, looking up with a glare.

"We know he hasn't, Freed," Evergreen sighed, placing a hand on his thigh comfortingly. "But you had to know that it'd take a while for anything to give."

"I suppose," Freed let his gaze fall again.

"You just gotta make sure you're still the man he loves when he comes back," Bickslow grinned. "And that's why you've got the two of us, right? So we can keep you on the straight and narrow for your man. That way, when he comes back covered in scars and even hotter than he was before, the two of you can pick up where you left off and start kissing each other. And you won't have to do it with Ivan Fuckface in charge."

"I suppose not," Freed chuckled, and it was only slightly bitter. "I do understand that what he's doing is important. I just miss him."

"Of course you do," Evergreen smiled. "I don't know what it's like, but the way you smile at him shows how much you care. But you just need to be patient."

Freed agreed with the statement, but didn't say anything. Selfishly he would have rather Laxus not go to the war. He would have offered the man safe haven in his castle and fought off the forces who tried to take him, and he would do so with both tooth and claw. But his demons were right; Laxus needed to fight for the more moral side and Freed couldn't stop him. If Freed were any other God, he too would probably be fighting on Makarov's side at that moment. But he had to look after his people, and doing that meant he had to allow his lover some trust.

"Thank you for putting up with me," Freed eventually spoke again. "I understand that it might get annoying listening to me complain about not being treated well, I'm sorry."

"We agree with you, idiot," Bickslow laughed. "The Gods are dicks to you and some of the new guys down here don't know a good thing when they see it, and they complain about it. You're allowed to rant at us whenever you want."

"Whenever we meet another God's angel and they talk about how they're treated, we realise just how good we get it with you," Evergreen laughed. "And that's quite a claim, because you can be quite annoying when you want to be."

"Oh," Freed raised an eyebrow. He knew Evergreen was baiting him to another, more cheerful topic, and he allowed it to happen. "Give me an example."

"I know," Bickslow grinned, voice loud again to lift the mood. The demons were doing what they always did to get Freed out of a bad mood, wait until he was willing to talk and then be optimistic and loud. "When you saw her looking at the Strauss brother with moony eyes so got him to work in the castle and then you made the climate warmer, so he'd take his shirt off to make Ever implode."

"Yes," Ever muttered. "That was annoying."

Freed chuckled, and his shoulders relaxed, and jaw unclenched. He relaxed in his throne and glanced to the window that had shattered at his shout. He waved a hand towards it and it slowly started to melt back into place.

Just like Laxus' magic was connected to the weather; Freed's was connected to the structure of the Netherworld. He managed to keep his destructive tendencies to the castle, and when he was calm he would fix anything he had broken in his anger. He didn't miss the shared smile of his demons when the window was fixed. They clearly knew that, to an extent, his mental wellbeing was reflected by the structure of his home. Laxus had storm clouds, Freed had crumbling stone.

"The two of you are far too good for me," Freed claimed, cricking his neck.

"You're only saying that because you haven't seen how obedient some of the other angels are," Bickslow chuckled.

Obedience was much less appealing than having friends. Freed wasn't going to say that, though.

"You're fine as you are," Freed assured them.

"That's good. I doubt we'll change anytime soon," Evergreen chuckled, smiling. "But, you do know that if there's anything we can do for you, you just have to ask. We know that this isn't easy for you."

Freed thought for a moment. There was, of course, one thing that he wanted to ask of his demons, but he couldn't. It was a purely selfish request and could endanger their wellbeing. He dismissed the thought almost as it came to him, but apparently his demons had seen the momentary flicker of an idea strike him. They looked at him expectantly, and that didn't stop when he made a passive motion with his hand.

"You needn't do this if you don't want to," Freed began. "In fact it's probably better if you don't. It's a fanciful idea at best."

"Tell us," Evergreen requested.

"Laxus. I need to know that he's alive, and safe," Freed admitted, weakly. "It's killing me not knowing what's happening with him."

"You want us to find him and make sure he ain't injured?" Bickslow concluded, raising an eyebrow towards Freed.

The God nodded, though had no expectations that his demons would indulge his ideas. Bickslow and Evergreen looked to one another and seemed to have a silent conversation between themselves; Freed had often wondered if his demons could actually speak without their voice and they just hadn't told him. After a few seconds of silent communication, they looked back to Freed with a concerning amount of determination in their expressions.

"Will you be okay without us?" Evergreen asked, and her voice was serious.

"You're considering it?" Freed asked. They both nodded, and Freed felt a mixture of sickness and relief. "I-I can merge souls on my own. That's most of your responsibilities as of late."

"We meant if you could look after yourself while we're gone, Freed," Bickslow sighed.

"If I can look after a realm of millions, I can look after myself," Freed spoke with offence shaping his tone. He knew of their reason for asking though.

"We'll leave in the morning," Bickslow stated, and Evergreen nodded.

Freed looked at his demons with shock. He knew they had respect and fondness for him, but hadn't expected this. He was asking his friends to walk into the most vicious battlefield in history, and all because he couldn't bear to not know what was happening with his lover. It was an almost pathetic request and yet they were happy to risk their lives for it.

"Thank you," He whispered, bowing his head to them.

They both smiled, and it made Freed's stomach ache. He loved them both, and they were too good to him, despite their protests. Anyone willing to walk through hell for him was worth more than Freed could give them.

And tomorrow, they would be gone…

He would be alone in his castle.

And he would have to deal with that.

~~~

It is unclear as to how long Freed expected his demons to be gone from The Netherworld, looking for his lover. Many of the records claim it was only meant to be days, but that is heavily contested and criticised. But no matter what the expectations, the time taken to gather any information on Laxus' state was long enough to have a great effect on Freed.

Again, this is something reflected in the 'Knight of Judgement' art piece. The flowers located in both the death Gods eye and heart are reflective of his emotional state.

Art historians claim that the flower located in Freed's eye is reflective of the beauty he saw in the world, and the people. The encroaching purple effect is a show of how, without those he loved to influence his actions, that optimism and beauty he saw in existence was slowly being taken away in his solitude.

The flower in his chest is said to be orange and red as his heart is stained with blood. It acts as a mirror for the more violent side of the man after his loved ones left, something that gets more and more prominent as his seclusion continues.

This can be seen in his interaction with the angel known as Jackal.

Jackal is known to be a cursed angel, a criminal of the war and part of Ivan's Tartaros Nine. He is responsible for some of the most brutal deaths during the war, many of which were humans who he saw collateral damage. He is said to be one of the most sadistically cruel of the angels on Ivan's side, and has often been shown as the man who encouraged Ivan into his most aggressive and twisted attacks.

The death of the angel was seen as a large victory for Makarov's side, and the strike of lightning that sank his ship and led to his drowning is sometimes accredited for a shift in the war. Many people think Jackal's story ends there, but this is untrue.

Jackal's story truly ends in the afterlife, with Freed. And for those with a sensitive disposition, I advise caution into reading the details of this meeting.

Levy McGarden; An Examination and Retelling of the Fiorean Gods

~~~

At the back left of Freed's castle was a tower.

Inside the tower was a room that often went unused. A torture chamber of sorts.

Often, those who might have justifiably occupied such a room were never given an afterlife. Luck seemed determined to spawn their souls and bodies in places where they couldn't be found, meaning the truly cruel people usually had their bodies composted and their souls fizzled by insanity before they could even near an afterlife. Fate must determine that death being permanent a larger punishment than anything Freed could have done to them.

That apparently wasn't seen as true with a certain person. Both the body and the soul of Jackal had formed at the foot of Freed's door. It was practically an offering, and Freed understood what he had to do.

An angel's death was similar to a human's, in the Netherworld. Although they were considerably rarer, the process was the same. Death ripped apart the soul and the body, and if they were brought back then they would be indistinguishable from humans. Other than the demons and Freed himself, nobody in the underworld was different from the other. That meant, whereas previously an angel would have a higher tolerance for pain, they were now as breakable and damageable than any human would be.

This was convenient, given what Freed was going to do.

He knew who Jackal was. The murderer of countless, the angel who bathed in the ashes of his victims, the Demigod of destruction. The titles he gained were overly dramatic, but were not exaggerated. Jackal was a murderer, and even the presence of his soul and body had seemingly sent a shiver down the Netherworld.

And he had been given straight to Freed. As a gift almost. The idea that the leader of the Netherworld would punish sinners was something greatly exaggerated, but Freed felt he could conform to the stereotype for now. It might be rather therapeutic.

Fun, even.

A welcome distraction too. After sending his closest demons into the warzone, he had been alone in the castle. The only interactions he'd had were with the people whose souls and bodies he had merged together, and he had dismissed them without a word. Being alone in his castle was something he hadn't experiences in millennia's, and he wasn't dealing with the situation. He was allowing his anger to permeate, with nobody to use as an outlet.

But now he had someone. His anger at how cruel the war had become, and how it affected those he loved, could now be directed at someone who has responsible for it.

Maybe that was why Jackal had been delivered to him where no cruel man had been before. Freed was now a fate worse than death.

The doors to the tower creaked and groaned as they slowly opened, and the light flittering into the room from behind Freed illuminated the dusty chamber dimly. Cobwebs cluttered the room, the stonework lacked the usual polish of the rest of the castle, and the only things that had any level of care attributed to them were the shackles, manacles and chains that were keeping the man contained.

Jackal couldn't move. Metal bands wrapped around his wrists, ankles, biceps, thighs, stomach, neck, and chest. A large metal plate blocked his mouth and, although it couldn't be seen, Freed knew that there was a rusted shaft of metal holding down the man's tongue and resting in his throat.

Freed looked at the man with no sympathy. He knew what he had done.

"Typically, the devil is meant to confront a person with their sins in a situation like this," Freed began, and Jackal looked at him. His expression was hidden by his bounds. "But I expect you lack the morality to feel guilt."

Jackal made a choking, raspy sound. He was laughing.

Freed's didn't show any reaction other than a slight tensing of his posture. He had heard stories about how Jackal worked. His sadistic nature was prevalent in everything he did, and one way he entertained himself was by toying with people. Many of the dead had been forced to beg for mercy by the man, only to have him kill them a moment later. It would be in keeping with his reputation for him to try and antagonise Freed, and he wasn't going to give the man the satisfaction of getting under his skin.

"No," Freed continued. "You much prefer the hands-on approach, I expect."

Clenching his fist, he slammed it forward in a sharp punch to the man's gut. It was a simple enough movement, but the God's strength mixed with the angel's newfound vulnerability forced out a small choking sound. Jackal quickly manipulated it into another throaty laugh, but the pain the action had caused was obvious. Freed looked at him with almost curiosity.

He punched the man three more times, in quick succession, hitting the same part of his stomach each time. His only partially restored body bruised easier than a living person would, and a purple mound spread from where Freed had punched. Jackal was still laughing.

The reaction was interesting to Freed. That was perhaps not what Jackal wanted from it.

"I'm curious to see what your intention is, with the laughter," Freed said, stepping back and looking at the man plainly. "Because even if you succeed in antagonising me, I won't let you out. You'll be here for as long as I want, and I'll hurt you in whatever way I see fit no matter how much you laugh, or how angry you make me."

He just kept laughing.

"Furthermore, if this is some form of manipulation to make me do something I might regret, then I must inform you that my mortality is not as rigid and clear cut as you might think. And with a man such as yourself, regret is unlikely to take effect."

He was still laughing.

And Freed didn't find himself annoyed by it, for the moment. He knew what a manipulator looked like; he had met Ivan after all. All men like that were clearly after a certain reaction and the worst outcome for them was to be denied it. So Freed turned to the side, looked at the large wheel that was attached to the chains containing Jackal, and began to turn it. The shackles tightened around the man, the chains started to stretch him, and the skin bruised beneath the metal.

"I expect you thought yourself above death, so you probably didn't bother to learn the rules of the Netherworld," Freed continued, removing his hands from the crank and looking back to his capture, who was wincing with his eyes. "Your body won't heal, at all. We have people with the ability to heal it, but they work for me, and they will not help you. So anything I do to you, will be a permanent fixture."

Freed absently ran a sharp nail down the man's leg. It split open as if cut by a knife, and Freed noticed the slight widening of the man's eyes.

Good.

"Of course I might heal you eventually. The definition of your muscles, and the lack of any blemishes, shows you keep pride in what you look like," Freed mused aloud, looking him up and down as one might assess their prey. "Ruining it multiple times in multiple ways might be interesting."

Jackal didn't react to that, but Freed had a feeling he would have a comment if he could speak. He thought only for a moment before placing his hand on the large metal gag, pulling it forward and taking the man's head with it. The leather straps flicked open at the pressure, and Freed pulled the rusted iron out of his prisoners' mouth. He didn't miss the raspy cough that Jackal allowed, nor did he miss his dried lips.

He was more affected than he was letting on. Freed almost felt some sympathy.

But he knew what this man had done. The purposeful attacks on the shorelines just to kill humans and hurt them. The joyous laughter he had projected as the skies lit up with death and anguish. The disregard for anything other than his own twisted amusement. This man had lost his chance at sympathy more times than it was possible to count.

"So you're the corpse fucker Ivan's always talkin' about," Jackal rasped.

"He's yet to come up with a more creative insult, it seems," Freed brushed the comment off. "A pity."

Before Jackal could say anything again, he grabbed the man by his neck and lifted him up. The chains fought against it, and strained their grip on Jackal. Freed's claw like nails dug into the man's neck and a slight trail of blood slithered down one of Freed's fingers. Now without the obtrusive gag, Freed could see more how the man was shaking and gritting his teeth to stop some kind of exhalation of pain. Freed's grasp tightened just a little.

"I'm conflicted on how to treat you, Jackal," Freed stated, forcing eye contact with the bound man. "Given this is a form of punishment, it seems only right there to be some kind of irony involved. Perhaps for everyone you've made cry, I should make you cry. For everyone you've left to burn, I burn you. Perhaps I could invite your victims here, use you as a form of entertainment for them. Have them flog you and laugh as you weep, which you will. Although, selfishly, it might be more fun if I were to make you my personal… plaything."

Jackal laughed hoarsely. "Heard that you were a pacifist. This is a surprise."

"Who told you that," Freed chuckled, pushing his claws further into the man's neck. Something popped under the pressure; he didn't know what, but there was more blood now.

"Everyone," Jackal said, and he gargled. Blood was coming from his mouth. "They say you got corrupted by those fucking half-life's you let in here and those little bitch demons. Say that they made ya weak."

"Perhaps they did," Freed mused. "But do you know what else they did?" He leant close to Jackal, grinning. "They left me. And now it's just you and me."

Freed pushed the man forward, as if throwing him to the side, but the chains kept him where he was. Blood slid out of some of the wounds Freed gave him, but he was still laughing weakly. Freed looked at him with intrigue, but didn't say anything. He let the man laugh for a little while before he tired himself out, then he spoke again.

"You see, I've had a lot of time to think as of late," Freed mused, looking at the man as the amusement was settled. "And I've decided, the war doesn't make me sad. It doesn't make me feel bad. It makes me feel angry. Because an imbecilic man and his equally idiotic father decided to take out their anger on the world. Just to destroy it. Not because they need to fight, nor because anything needs to change. Because they're ridiculous little people with so much arrogance that they think they're problems are the world's problems.

"And then there's people like you. The enablers. The puppet masters, perhaps. The people whispering in their ears, telling them they need to act larger. Get angrier and more destructive. To go bigger and stronger because that's what power demands and that's what happens in wars. And all just to feed your evil wank fantasies. You saw an opportunity and you took it, and expected no consequences."

Freed slammed his fist forward and punched the man in his gut again, and Jackal visibly deflated at the action, coughing up blood. The bruise on the man's stomach got larger, and Jackal's laughter was weaker this time.

"Interesting," Jackal commented, voice gravely and quiet now.

"Speak up," Freed demanded with a sharp tone.

"I said it's interesting. Which of the Dreyar's you chose to mention," Jackal cackled, looking up at Freed with a manic grin. Freed's posture tightened at the statement. "You talk about Ivan and the decrepit bastard. But not little Laxus."

"The point being?" Freed demanded, the sound of Laxus' name on the angel's tongue sounding wrong. Evil.

"We all fucking know about what the two of you fuckers do when he's down here," Jackal laughed manically, and Freed tensed. "And daddy Ivan isn't happy. And when he wins he's gonna come down here and get ya. And I've heard what he's gonna do to ya. And you're not gonna like it. And he's gonna make little Laxus watch as he rips open his demonic little secret."

"Don't assume you have the right to say his name."

"What are ya gonna do to stop me," Jackal giggled, allowing himself to go limp in the chains. "Lock me up. Torture me. It ain't working yet. And that'd be ironic – since ya like irony – that you'd be hurting me because little Laxus is away. Because that's why you're acting like this, and not just letting me die. Because you miss him. Ain't that just fucking sweet."

"Don't say his name."

"Or maybe you just miss him shoving his dick in your ass," Jackal cackled again, eyes wide and unhinged as he looked at his torturer. "You'll might have to get used to it. Because if Ivan has his way, there won't be much left of your fuck toy when the war is done."

Freed paused at that, then his gaze sharpened.

"What do you mean?" He asked, voice cutting. "What does he intend to do."

"Oh, I don't think I want to tell you yet," Jackal laughed. "I just heard that Ivan needs a nice little powerhouse for the rest of the fight and has his eyes on little Laxus. But once he's won, he doesn't need him anymore. And he had a lot of plans for traitors, and your Lightning God is the most traitorous little fucker of all. I won't tell you all of what he'll go through. But I think that it will be spectacular, I just wished I could see it."

There was a moment of silence. Then Freed saw red.

Everything that had happened since the war began flashed into his mind. The endless slaughter of innocent people. The forced involvement of his lover. The decisions made to force his friends into the fray. The slow but persistent chipping away at his kindness. The cruelty shown by all who were involved. Everything was twisted and wrong.

And here, before him, was Jackal. An orchestrator of this hellish existence. A manipulator and abuser.

Someone who deserved agony.

He slammed his hand forward again, eyes glowing. Darkness swirled up his arm and manipulated his flesh, replacing his skin with fur and talons and his hand with a claw. He reached out with a snarl, his drumming heartbeat drowning out the sound of Jackal's laughter. His claw dug into the man's chest, ripping open his flesh as if it were nothing. He dug in further, cutting through the flesh, muscle, and bone before finding his target, and he grabbed it.

The man's heart.

He pulled.

Jackal screamed.

Blood dripped from both the wound and the organ, before Jackal slumped. The removed of a heart was a way of killing the undead. It would ensure that the body and soul were split apart again, and couldn't be returned. The rest of the soul's partial existence would be agony. An infinite hell preserved by the last flickers of consciousness.

Freed dropped the organ, letting it fall to the ground. He spun on his heel and allowed the body to slump and bruise in chains, not sparing the angel another glance.

After leaving the room, his boots clicked on the marble as he walked down a corridor. Either side was a stained-glass depiction of both Evergreen and Bickslow, decorations that hadn't been there before. The castle was trying to tell him something, apparently. Either a warning or a judgment on his morality. Freed spared them a glance but stormed through it without much care for his friend's depictions.

At the end of the corridor, he slammed the door shut. The corridor crumbled to nothing behind him, destroying the glass visages of his friends as it did. It was just wreckage in his wake.

~~~

The hand with which Freed removed Jackal's heart was his right. The 'Knight of Judgement' art piece portrays his right hand as being overtaken by thorn like chains, showing the affect the darkness had on him. It acts as judgment for what he did, and when he allowed his cruelty to overtake him and taint his actions.

After that day, Freed was changed. This art piece shows it.

Although it is argued as to whether Freed's actions were justified or not, it is almost unanimous that this was the only time Freed acted solely out of blind rage and anger. This was the only time in the war where he lost himself entirely to his emotions.

Also often disputed is why Freed had destroyed the corridor leading to the torture tower. Some claim he did so because he wished the block his path from the room off so that he could move on from what he had done and not repeat it. Others claim it was a clear objection to the judgment of Bickslow and Evergreen through their stained-glass visages. Either way, the corridor was one room that was never fixed after its destruction.

Despite the fact Freed never acted out of blind anger again, his mind did not heal immediately. The following weeks, he secluded himself in his castle. No demons nor humans were allowed in. The doors were replaced by walls, the windows bricked up, and moat surrounding it filled with melted stones and magma. He had finalised his own prison.

His self-destruction and seclusion continued for a while longer, the precise time is unknown. What is known is that the next time Freed would see any other creature is the return of his demons to the Netherworld, which is often where the story of the end of the war is said to begin.

Levy McGarden; An Examination and Retelling of the Fiorean Gods

~~~

There was something wrong in the Netherworld.

It was the first thing that Bickslow and Evergreen noticed when they returned. There was a certain edge to the atmosphere that hadn't been present before. Whereas previously the Netherworld had been welcoming by design – death was jarring enough, why make the new environment hostile to the deceased – now it was darker and sharper almost. It was no longer the bustling city it had once been, but instead was a shell of itself, an endless expanse of buildings.

Two demons glanced at each other with concern. The people who should have populated the streets were nowhere to be seen, the ever-present sound of talking that came with humans had been lost, and the feeling of loneliness was practically palpable.

Their immediate concern was for their God.

As they flew through the streets, they could see the dead were in their homes. Some people were working the farms needed to keep food, but only the bare minimum. The Netherworld was a skeleton of what it once was, and everything the two demons saw were making them more worried for their friend. Freed had done whatever he could to make the place better than this, so to see what had happened in their absence was more than concerning.

"Maybe we should have stayed with him," Bickslow sighed. "At least one of us."

"There's no point in dwelling on that," Evergreen said, looking at the abandoned streets with a frown. "We should just get to him as soon as we can and try and help him."

"Guess we should."

The demons sped up their flight through the city, both wearing expressions of concern as they got nearer and nearer to the castle where their God resided. As the building became more than just a silhouette, they both looked at it with wide eyes.

Whereas previously it had been somewhat welcoming, it now stood both secluded and crumbling. The windows had been replaced by bricks, the moat had been expanded to the point where the castle was on its own island, and the drawbridge was lifted and bolted upright. The brickwork was cracked, and it was clear some of the more vulnerable pieces of stone had fallen to the ground below. Doors were removed and any form of entrance seemed blocked up or destroyed. It was entirely closed off, no doubt with Freed inside.

After flitting around the top of the castle in hopes of finding an entrance, their concern grew. Freed was secluding himself. Completely.

Of course, they couldn't allow this. Freed was a man more emotional than he would openly admit, and clearly the toll of the war was affecting him greatly. Worse, he was a powerful man, and it would be entirely possible that Freed's seclusion could lead to something more destructive. It would only take the wrong thing to happen before Freed's emotions contorted into anger, and he use it against his subjects.

It took a little while, but after flying around the walls of the castle, they managed to find a single unblocked door. It was at the back of the castle, and only allowed access to the private garden. The place where Freed and Laxus had met.

When they entered, they saw the state of disrepair was worse inside. Carpets were muddied, dusty and torn, curtains clumped on the floor having fallen form the walls, paintings were either destroyed or removed, light had been eradicated entirely and shards of brick and stone populated the ground. It was a wreck, and the fact that Freed seemed either unaware of it or simply didn't care sent a surge of fear through the demons.

The castle was a reflection of Freed. If he didn't care about the castle, he didn't care about his own wellbeing.

Guided by the light of Bickslow's glowing souls, they quietly navigated the silent castle. They checked Freed's chambers and the study that he preferred, but saw they were both unoccupied and equally as run down as the rest of the building. They then searched more of the rooms Freed could often be found in, before walking towards the throne room. They had hoped they wouldn't need to go there, that Freed would be elsewhere, but all signs pointed that this was where he was.

Freed was never in the throne room for a good reason. It was normally the source of his anger.

When they pushed open the door, they were greeted with the sight of their God. The room itself was more ruined than any other, with streams of light flitting in through the cracks in the walls, hitting Freed in various places. Every decoration was in tatters, burned away or non-existent. The only thing still in its former glory was the throne itself, and that made Evergreen and Bickslow look on in worry. Freed hated that throne, only used it when needed, and yet now it was the only thing he was bothering to keep immaculate.

Why he was doing that they didn't know, but it wasn't going to be for a good reason.

Freed himself looked different too. His face was emotionless, his right hand replaced with an obviously demonic claw, his clothing ripped and in the same state as the castle, and his right eye was pulsating in a dark purple glow.

"You've returned," He commented, looking at his demons enigmatically.

"What the hell happened here?" Bickslow demanded, looking around in almost disbelief.

"Progress," Freed shrugged, not moving from his throne. "I had something of a realisation. Call is an epiphany if you want to romanticise it."

"Okay," Evergreen said slowly, approaching Freed with something akin to caution. Freed raised an eyebrow at that. "And what did you realise."

"That humans brought this upon themselves," Freed said plainly. "They worship these Gods without care for the consequences. They build up their dammed egos to the point where they believe that their Gods can do no wrong, and the Gods believe them right back. They're complicit in their own destruction. They have a hunger for mistreatment, whether they're aware of it or not, and I have granted them their wish. I expect they're thrilled at what they've got."

"Freed, that ain't-" Bickslow began, but Evergreen put a hand on his arm to stop him. They needed the full story before they could help.

"Why did you let the castle get like this?" She asked.

"I didn't see the point in maintaining it," Freed stated, looking at his demons with almost curiosity. "Nobody but me is going to see it, and I don't particularly care for the frivolities of it all. Why waste the effort in making it look respectable if there's nobody to appreciate it?"

"And the moat?" Bickslow prompted.

"There were complaints about the way I was changing things, and people thought it wise to try and change my mind," Freed sighed, in annoyance most likely. "The moat acts as a deterrent. There's no way to approach me, and those who try will have their bodies boiled. It proved quite effective, after the first few attempts were unsuccessfully made."

"And why remove the windows?"

"Predominantly to further keep out anyone who wished to try their luck in speaking with me," Freed glanced at where a window had once been, then back to his demons. "And partly because the light seeping in was a bother. I can see without it; it was simply a functionality for the human's ease. Unneeded now."

The two demons shared a look. They had perhaps expected a blind rage from their God, but this calm, detached nature was a lot more concerning. It was as if all the emotion had been sapped out of him.

"What made you do this Freed?" Evergreen asked, stepping closer again. Bickslow did the same.

"I told you, I came to a greater understanding of the world," Freed shrugged. "Humans are addicted to pain and turmoil. They bring it upon themselves so it makes their short existences seem worthwhile; they force agony on themselves so that they can feel better when they get rid of it. I have been a crutch to them, and they haven't earned my help, so I have removed it from them. I have also removed their influence from me."

While Evergreen looked at their God with concern, Bickslow's eyes widened and he felt a rush of guilt wash over him. He had seen emotions of all type in humans, both repressed and volatile, and he knew what Freed was doing. He was a man of pride and duty, and he wouldn't allow his true feelings to be known to anyone. But it was plain to see that he was lonely.

Bickslow and Evergreen had left him alone when he was struggling. He was more alone than he had ever been, and he had closed himself off.

Perhaps he thought that emotions were the reason he was hurting so much on his own, and was trying to remove their influence from him. Perhaps he just wasn't thinking straight, and his self-inflicted seclusion from the world had led him to make stupid decisions. But it was very clear what was happening; Freed was angry and lonely and didn't know how to deal with it, so was lashing out at the world.

Walking up to Freed, he was met with an inquisitive eyebrow raise and nothing more. Before Freed could stop him, the demon wrapped his arms tightly around the man, pulling him into a tight hug.

Freed went rigid against Bickslow's chest and for a moment he was unmoving.

"I'm sorry we left you," Bickslow stated softly, and his voice quivered. "And I'm sorry you're having to go through all this shit with nobody to understand how hard it is for you. And I'm sorry that people constantly undermine you. I'm sorry we haven't been here for you and I promise we won't do that to you again. But we are here for you, and we love you."

A sob slipped through Freed's lips.

He wrapped his arms tightly around Bickslow, clinging to him as if he might disappear. Bickslow tightened his own grip, and allowed Freed to press his face into his torso for as long as he needed. He was probably crying, and most likely wouldn't end the hug until he stopped. That was fine, he could deal with that.

Evergreen had walked over and was gently stroking Freed's back, and the two demons shared a sympathetic look. They knew now that one of them should have stayed behind to look after him, they knew that Freed wasn't as in control as he liked to think and should have anticipated he might need help.

But like Evergreen had said earlier, they couldn't focus on that.

Eventually Freed did remove himself from the hug, and the dampness around his eyes told Bickslow that he had indeed cried. They didn't comment on anything as Freed rubbed the back of his left hand against his face, cleaning it slightly and making himself look more presentable. The glowing in his right eye diminished now, but the effect of his time alone was still obvious in both the castle and in his demonic right arm.

"I shouldn't need to rely on you," Freed whispered. "And I'm sorry that I do."

"Everyone needs people, Freed," Evergreen said softly. "And the people who think otherwise are the people who start wars and bring cruelty for no reason. You are not one of those people."

"But what I've done over the last-"

"Anything you've done can be fixed, Freed," Bickslow firmly stated, leaving no room for argument. "You're allowed mistakes, more than anyone. People can forgive you and move on, they're good at that."

Freed thought for a moment, before ducking his head in defeat. Evergreen patted his shoulder while Bickslow ruffled the top of his already messy head. Freed chuckled slightly at the action, though his heart was barely in it. The demons wished that they could do more to help their friend, but he could only heal himself. And, unfortunately, part of that healing process would involve the God's lover, something which Freed would soon find out about.

"We found Laxus," Evergreen said after Freed looked up again. The man's head snapped towards her. "And I'm going to need you to promise to keep calm."

"If he okay?" Freed demanded, regret replaced by a small mixture of fear and anger.

"He's alive," Bickslow said calmly, and the lack of affirmation of anything better made Freed tense. "A couple of weeks ago, he was captured by Ivan's forces. They're using him against Makarov, we're not exactly sure how, but they're managed to draw his lightning out of him against his will."

Freed's eyes went hollow as he thought back to what Jackal had said. If captured, they would use Laxus for as long as needed, before killing him.

"Are they hurting him?"

"Yes," Evergreen sighed, placing a hand on Freed in the hope of calming him. "We're not sure, but we think they're using some kind of torture to get him to use his lightning."

"We couldn't save him on our own, he's heavily guarded," Bickslow confessed, looking at the floor with an angered expression. "We did what we could, but we had to leave. We came here immediately because you needed to know. I'm sorry we couldn't save him."

"What exactly are they doing to him?" Freed said, standing up.

"They've got him in chains, and when we were there they were constantly beating him," Evergreen explained softly, watching as Freed moved. "There's these things, they look like crystals, which looked like they were coming from his back and his chest. Every time he was hit, and a spark of lighting came across him, the crystals picked it up and sent it into a metal structure. We think it's a weapon, a lightning canon of some kind."

"They're beating him," Freed echoed quietly. "They're torturing him."

Many things happened next.

The castle seemed to shift around them, stone cracking against stone, shards of glass and rubble lifting from the air and floating towards the walls, ruined tapestries and curtains reforming and returning to their previous places around the room. Light streamed into the room where the windows now reformed. The room was just as it once had been, in its perfected glory, and both demons felt the rumble of movement through the castle that told them the entire building was the same.

Freed himself changed too. Any signs of him being haggard or exhausted were removed, and replaced with perfection. He stood upright, tall, and proud. He was more regal and God-like in that moment than he had ever been.

Two sharp, curved horns twisted out of his head, parting his hair. His eye glowed bright as he looked back to his demons, an expression of barely restrained fury on his face. Air seemed to twist around him and darken, as if magically inclined to support his rage and passion. He was not just a God, at that moment. He was a warrior.

"I will speak to my people," Freed proclaimed, turning on his heal and started to move through his castle.

"And say what?" Evergreen asked, sprouting wings to keep up with him.

"To announce that we will no longer be passive in this war," Freed stated, motioning to the drawbridge which fell with a dramatic shutter, lava sloshing around it. "They have captured the man I love and are using his gifts to slaughter innocent people. His own father is responsible and will show no guilt nor compassion. This war has been happening for years and has twisted those who have been dragged into it. It is a blight on anyone who has seen it yet was born of the whim of two egotists. But it will continue no more."

"What are you gonna do?" Bickslow questioned as Freed walked out of his castle for the first time in months.

"I will bring hell to them," Freed proclaimed. "And anyone who dares try and stop me will do battle with the devil himself."

~~~

The day the doors to the Netherworld opened was the day the war ended. The day Freed ended it.

It was a momentous occasion, one which will forever be recognised in history. The day that the God of Death saw the war for the first time, and decided that he would end it. The day where the dead fought for the living. The day the leading Gods were shown for what they were; weak and uncaring to those below them.

On that day, Freed became a fighter. The horns he grew symbolised that, both as a reflection of the helmets worn by warriors as well as a clear declaration of his strength. The God was a weapon, something dangerous and to be feared. He had no weaknesses, no vulnerabilities. He was something that could not be destroyed by lesser beings, not could be looked down upon. Freed was often assumed to be an incompetent leader of the Netherworld by other Gods, but in that moment he was more devilish than any God could hope to be.

That day, everything Freed did struck fear into the hearts of Gods.

The day the doors to the Netherworld opened was often feared. In prophecy it claimed to be the day the dead rose to overtake the living, angered by their treatment and mortality. Even Gods were taught to fear the opening of hell.

And when it happened, a shiver went through the world.

And even a God as twisted as Ivan Dreyar felt fear.

Levy McGarden; An Examination and Retelling of the Fiorean Gods

~~~

Ivan was a bastard.

Laxus had always thought this, ever since he had realised just how much of his life had been manipulated by his father. The man was a cruel and vindictive person, doing whatever he wanted and hurting anyone he could just to get his own way. The only thing that he had ever thought of was the best way to achieve his own goals, all of which were only designed to increase his power and influence. He had never been a good person.

But now, he was more than just cruel. He was more than just a bastard. He was evil. There was no other term for what he was doing, no other way to describe him.

He had captured Laxus himself. He's set up a diversion, starting a battle on the land and murdering an entire town of humans just for the sake of it. Laxus had taken to the skies to stop the forces, but had apparently left himself open for attack, and Ivan had taken the chance. One of his angels had put Laxus to sleep, and the thunder God had awoken in his father's clutches.

When he had woken up, he was in chains. The room was small and filled with smoke, something of an engine room Laxus guessed. He didn't have time to dwell on that, as when he looked down to see a large, jagged blue crystal had been sewed into his skin. He had panicked instantly, lightning crackling across his skin. It flickered towards the crystal and was absorbed by it, skittering up a large metal column that he was wired up to. It wasn't hard to understand what was happening, this was some way for his father to steal his lighting and use it for whatever he pleased.

Bastard.

Over the next few days, Laxus had been forced to endure a lot. Ivan knew that his lightning was an instinctive thing, and that the easiest way to get it from him was to hurt him. Well, perhaps not the easiest, but Ivan didn't seem to care.

Beatings and threats came thick and fast, the intensity of them depending on how much lightning he needed. For one particularly large fight where the Lighting Dragon – the name he had given the weapon – was needed, Ivan had decided to take a knife to Laxus' face. No doubt a jagged scar would be there when Laxus next saw his reflection.

He tried not to think about it. He tried not to think much about anything that was happening, instead he was just focusing on trying not to show how his father was affecting him.

If nothing else, he would keep his damned dignity.

It was getting harder to do that, though.

Mostly, one of Ivan's angels had been beating Laxus, but Ivan himself sometimes did it. Today was one such day. The old man had rid himself of the metal armour he had constantly been wearing since the start of the war, and was holding something that Laxus had become all too familiar with. A two-pronged weapon that Ivan would have rested against an open flame. It was simple, vicious, and effective. So Ivan either wanted a lot of electricity today, or just wanted to hurt him.

"It really is a shame I have to do this," Ivan commented as he walked forward. "It would have been much easier if you had just followed logic and chosen to fight my side without objection. I wouldn't have had to kill you that way."

Laxus didn't speak. He wouldn't speak.

"Well, perhaps kill isn't the correct term," Ivan continued, gently running the sharp tool against Laxus' torso. "Because if I killed you, you'd go into the arms of that little harlot of yours. Rather, I'll force you into something akin to death."

Gritting his teeth, Laxus glared at his father. He didn't know how the man knew about his relationship with Freed, but it was now one of Ivan's favourite ways to torment him.

"I've a few ways in which I could do that," Ivan mused aloud. "There's burying you alive, of course. Drowning you then resuscitating you only to drown you again. I could do some experimentation on the ways in which a God can replenish their body after grievous injury. Or I could just keep you here and make an example out of you in case anybody had any thoughts about trying to usurp me. The possibilities are endless."

"Fuck yourself," Laxus growled, voice hoarse from lack of water.

"Oh, you're speaking today are you?" Ivan asked almost conversationally, pushing the prong against Laxus' new face scar. "What's got you so chatty?"

"You won't win," Laxus grunted.

"Oh I think that I will," Ivan chuckled, pushing the device further against Laxus' injury. "In fact, I think I'll win rather soon. My father is far too reliant on those angels of his. But I think by the end of the week, they'll be here with you. Think of it as a present, some company for you."

"He'll stop you."

"No. No I don't think he will," Ivan chuckled. "He's struggling already. It's why he hasn't tried to save you yet. Did you know that? There's not even been an attempt. Not even a single angel has been sent for you. Not one."

Laxus growled, and lightning flickered across his skin. The crystals hummed as they absorbed it, and Laxus winced at the fizzing sensation that he was forced to endure. Ivan laughed at the reaction, pushing the hot poker further against his sensitive skin. Laxus grit his teeth and did what he could to force back the shout of pain that was trying to fight its way out of him. His entire body was tensed up, but his father clearly saw the pain Laxus was in. He was almost revelling in it.

The sessions could last days. And with the sadistic glee that the man seemed to be taking in his pain told Laxus that today would be such a session.

He had a plethora of devices that he took delight in using. He had brought them all with him and looked through them, settling on one and raising it up.

Throughout his weeks in his father's clutches, Laxus had done whatever he could to distract himself from his pain. He focused on happier memories; those of his grandfather before he had started his war. His time in the underworld, laughing and relaxing with the Raijinshuu and his lover. It didn't stop Ivan's torture from hurting any more, but at least it was something of a distraction, as well as a comfort.

Even thinking about Freed was calming. Laxus could picture him perfectly. His sharp features, his long silky hair, his strong arms, his beautiful laughter, his ardent passion. Everything about him was perfect, and Laxus missed seeing him so damn much.

They should have spoken after Laxus had left for the war.

He might never see him again.

Shutting his eyes, he tried to let memories of his lover overtake him. The first time they had seen each other, in Freed's garden, where they had spoken about the difficulties of being a God that nobody seemed to talk about. The meals they shared together, where Freed was slowly introducing Laxus to more of the human's culture. Just lying in bed with him, side by side while relishing in the man's beauty. His everything.

He had such an overwhelming presence. When he walked into a room, Laxus could feel him there. Freed had once said that Laxus had an aura to him; something about humidity and a chill. Laxus thought Freed had one too; a level of coolness, like the feeling of running your hand through moss. There was also a smell of damp stone, which was slight and barely noticeable to anyone but Laxus.

It was almost like he could feel it now.

Then, after a moment, he realised he could feel it.

He opened his eyes to see that Ivan had stopped his torment, and was looking around with confusion. Laxus suddenly felt a familiar feeling of comfort overtaking him. The feeling he got whenever he had entered the Netherworld. It was like he was there, with Freed beside him. With his moss like coolness and his stone scent. It was as if the Netherworld was bleeding into the world of the land of the living.

Then, Laxus realised what was happening.

He couldn't help it. He laughed.

"What?" Ivan snapped, glaring at his bound son. "What is this?"

"You can feel it too," Laxus laughed again. "You wanna know what it is, huh? I don't think you'll like the answer."

"Tell me!" Ivan shouted, backhanding Laxus. The blonde kept laughing despite the hit.

"Guess you wouldn't recognise it, since you've not been down there. But that's what I feel like whenever I go down to the underworld," Laxus laughed at the look of panic that flicked onto Ivan's face. "And if we can both feel it all the way out here, I think you can guess what's happening."

"No," Ivan growled.

"The devil's coming out to claim the world," Laxus quoted from one of many prophesies about the Netherworld opening its doors. "I wonder how happy he'll be when he finds out what you've been doing to me."

Laxus continued laughing while Ivan slowly looked towards him, before flicking on his heel and walking out of Laxus' chamber. Laxus allowed his limbs to fall limp in his bounds, closing his eyes and allowing the sensation of Freed to overtake him. Even in the situation, with the residual pain from Ivan's attacks, this was the most comfortable he had felt in months.

Freed was coming. And, at least for Laxus, that meant hope.

~~~

Often, this is where people being telling the story of how the war ends.

The gates to the Netherworld open, the God of Darkness walks out of his domain and lays judgment on those who have caused slaughter. The suffering ends and the war is finished. In the retelling of the God's of Fiore, this is one of the most famous and important moments of history. This is reflected in poems, songs, artwork, and stories told about it.

Again, the 'Knight of Judgement' reflects this.

The dagger laden with an all-seeing eye is a reflection of the strength that he showed in these moments. It is often referred to as the Blade of Judgement. Both the way Freed saw the injustices in the world, and how he punished them. It encapsulates how, in that moment, he was both Judge, Jury and Executioner.

A role which ended the war and gifted him the title 'God of Judgement'.

Levy McGarden; An Examination and Retelling of the Fiorean Gods

~~~

The opening of the Netherworld was near apocalyptic.

From the depths of the ocean walked forward an endless army of corpses. They were all unkillable, without fear nor regret, and brandishing weapons that could kill angels and humans alike. Above them floated their souls, warping and swirling through the air as dark purple fire. The fire of a soul cannot touch a living creature, and thus acted further as weapons against the oncoming fight.

Waves sloshed and churned as the water was toyed with, the armada of bodies waling atop the surface. The boats of the already fighting fleets were taken on the whim of the seas, losing all control, and becoming useless. They creaked and moaned in protest, but the sound fell to nothing.

Instead, there was silence.

The shadow of the God of Death loomed over the entire battlefield. His size was monolithic, and he looked down upon the living with an expression of calm, quelling rage. He towered over both men and mountains alike, and the ferocious wind of battle hit him and flung back the endless green hair that seemed to merge with the cloak he wore. It plastered against the surface of the sea, and the Death God slowly walked forward, creating waves of tidal size with each movement.

The waves gained a purple sheen to them, both by the shade of the God and the aura he exuded. The sensation of death and the Netherworld was slowly tainting the land of the living.

In that moment, eclipsed by the sun behind him and looking on the living with a sneer, he was more of a God than he had ever been. And it seemed everyone who saw him wouldn't dare deny the fact, as they looked upon the man with fear.

With every step, the fighting stopped.

The Death God looked at the congregation before him. At Gods and angels and humans fighting a war that should have never happened. How they had been twisted by pointless agendas and how many of them had been turned to savages. How once good people now saw the removal of life as an everyday occurrence, or even pleasure, rather than the travesty that it was.

Life ending should not be seen as a possibility. It should not be seen as something required for the future. It should be seen as something that only nature and time should control. These Gods had removed fate's hand in death, and for that they must be punished.

"Stand before me, Gods," The Death God demanded, voice echoing through the ocean.

He waited a moment. Nobody came, it felt like nobody moved.

Lifting his hand, the Death God allowed swirls of magic to form around him. Runic lettering fluttered through the air, a language of the Gods often thought to be lost or dead, at his control. They shot off in two directions, hunting down the Gods responsible for the war. A moment later they returned to him, this time carrying two men in their grasps, who struggled against them. The bounds were tight around the ruling Gods, and the Death God looked to them with indignation.

The last time he had seen them in person was when he had stormed form their meeting. He had forgotten just how human they looked. How pathetic they looked. But they had caused such destruction and heartbreak, and all for nothing.

They were ants compared to him.

"Look upon your creation," Freed demanded, making a gesture which turned the two men around.

They were forced to look over the battlefield that they had made. A battlefield Freed had no doubt that neither man had stepped onto themselves. They saw the hordes of corpses Freed had at his disposal, the ocean of souls that had been ripped from their bodies because of the whims of the two men, the angels and Gods that would soon be dead as well, the blood that had stained both the hands of the fighters and the water itself.

"Do you deem your actions good?" He asked, voice loud enough for everyone fighting to hear.

"Not damn near enough," Ivan snarled struggling against the runes keeping him in place.

With a quick hand gesture, Ivan was flung forward. He was tiny in comparison to the Death God, and struggled under the intense gaze of the man who controlled him. He sent a defiant glare to the other man, who looked at him without pity nor fear. He showed no emotion at all.

"Repeat yourself," The Death God demanded.

"I said it ain't near enough," Ivan growled, and the runes tightened around him slightly. "This world needs to change, or it'll die, and I'm the man who's going to change it. And no corpse fucking Demi-God is going to stop me."

"Still with the same insult. You're a tiresome man, Ivan Dreyar," The Death God chuckled, but his face showed no humour.

"I will slaughter you like I have anyone who has gotten in my way," Ivan spat, wincing as the runic bounds got tighter still.

"Like you would your own son?" Makarov spoke up, voice gravely and a growl. "You're disgusting."

"You raised a deviant, old man," Ivan growled to his father. "How you can be proud of him is astonishing to me. You should have killed him at birth, for all the good he's done to either of us. I am proud I have done what is required of me, and once this imposition is dealt with I will finish my work and end his disrespect."

With closed eyes, the Death God sent another flurry of runes to find Laxus. It might take longer, Ivan no doubt kept him hidden, but they would find him.

"He is the only good thing you've done," Makarov continued. "And when I found out whatever you've done to him you will be beaten for each scratch you're responsible for; you can be sure of that."

"It's a shame that you will not live to see that opportunity," Ivan retorted.

"Silence!" The Death God yelled. "You are both unimportant, inconsequential in this war from this point on. Neither of you will make an order, demand, or bring further death. You are both to be silent. Unless you wish to fight me, your war is over."

"You couldn't begin to fight me," Ivan spat, looking to the Death God again.

"Yes, I could," The God snarled back, and Ivan flinched at the sudden emotion. "You, Ivan Dreyar, are nothing but a bug that I could crush beneath me. I have an infinite army of souls and corpses, all rotten by your manipulation. They feel rage and anger towards you that is unrivalled, and that fury will drive them to be more vicious and cruel than your most twisted of dreams.

"My soldiers are unkillable, and immovable. They cannot be reasons with nor can they be stopped. And with every life my soldiers take, we recruit another. And endless spiral of people who can and will put an end to your power, Mr Dreyar."

As the Death God spoke, the bounds around both Makarov and Ivan got tighter. The latter seemed to struggle with breathing now.

"I am more a God than you could ever wish to be, and I will do whatever is needed to end your tyranny on this land," The death God growled, lowing his gaze on the man with sadistic calm. "So help me I will bring rule on it myself if that is what's required of me."

And it would be easy, oh so easy to do it.

He could shape the world in his image, remove those who would cause harm and destruction onto it in the same way that Ivan had to him. He would remove the judgement and prejudices that had plagued his own life, and preach better ideals to his subjects. He could be both the king of the Netherworld and the living.

A flutter of runes suddenly appeared before him, and there stood Laxus.

The God was naked, revealing the extent of his injuries. Scars and bruises and cuts and burns populated his skin where previously there had been none. Marks that connoted restraints were still visible around his arms and legs, and his exhaustion told the Death God that Laxus had not slept nor rested since his capture. He looked more vulnerable than he had ever been, and something inside the God of Death's heart broke at the sight.

He couldn't be the ruler of the living.

Because wanting that might twist him into someone who could hurt another in the way Ivan had hurt Laxus.

All he could be was himself.

Freed made a motion with his hand, his body twisting to its normal size as he stepped through the air. He brought Laxus into his arms and grasped him tight, the two Gods holding one another as if their lives depended on it. They buried their faces into the other's neck, not speaking nor sobbing. But they both felt a rush of exhaustion, relief, and joy flood through them as they were brought together again.

Laxus shook in his arms slightly, and Freed made a quiet promise to him that he would do whatever he could to help the God. Laxus nodded into Freed's neck and pressed his lips against it, feeling a sense of safety that he hadn't in months. A sense of home.

"Fucking disgusting," Ivan rasped.

Pulling away, Freed removed his cloak and wrapped it around Laxus, who took in the warmth of the clothing readily. Freed looked towards the two elder Dreyar's with anger on his face again. Ivan had a sneer which he was trying to maintain despite losing his breath, and Makarov was looking at the display between Laxus and Freed with an expression of confusion and disbelief. Freed ignored it as best he could as he walked towards the two bound men.

"Ivan Dreyar," He began, walking to the struggling man first. Ivan stared directly at him in some ridiculous display of ego. "You are made of cruelty and nothing more. Your actions are done without repent nor regret. Your goals are selfish and the way you attempt to realise them are evil. You have shown no guilt nor understanding of what you have done. What do you say to this?"

"Fuck you," Ivan grunted, the bounds getting tighter and tighter.

"Very well," Freed sighed, raising his left hand. "You cannot be changed. You cannot be fixed. You cannot be trusted. Therefore, you will be killed."

"You can't kill a God," Ivan laughed, and Freed shook his head.

"No. You can't kill a God," He took a step forward. "I can."

The runes around the God started to glow, burning into him. They spiralled around him, their lettering blurring into purple bands that tore into his skin. The sound of their humming could only do so much as to mute out his screaming as his flesh was torn open and scolded. The process was soon covered by a blurring purple halo of runes, which died away a moment later and left Ivan's body desecrated, cut apart and scolding. His soul started to rise from his body, but Freed ripped it open with a flick of his wrist, dismissing it entirely. He would get no afterlife, nor did he deserve one.

Freed turned slowly towards Makarov, who was looking on the body of his son with a look more disappointed than grieving. He looked towards Freed and his expression seemed to be one of acceptance. At least he had some morality left.

"Makarov Dreyar," Freed continued. "In this war, you chose to fight for the freedom of the people you govern. But by doing so, you forgot the value of life. It became unimportant, and people just tools for your victory. Furthermore, you dragged other Gods into this fight and infected them with your violent mindset. You were both complicit and responsible for the deaths of many, and you will be punished accordingly."

"I understand," Makarov hung his head.

"Wait," Laxus said, voice slightly hoarse. "You don't need t'–"

"Let me finish," Freed put a gentle hand up to quell his lover, still looking at Makarov. "This world needs a ruler, and you were once a good one. Throughout the war you have been changed from who you once were, and you need to become that man again. You must relearn the value of a human life, and how important kindness and respect are. Furthermore, you must learn that you are not above the humans, rather their servant and protector. Do you agree?"

"I do."

"Then your punishment will be this," Freed continued. "You will walk this land, and see every inch of it. You will see every human that walks upon it. You will see heartbreak and joy and birth and death and understand it as every human does. No living creature will see you, and you will walk alone. You will use this time to reflect on your actions, and how better you will serve these people. Once you have seen every corner of the land, we will meet again, and I will determine if you're ready to rule. In the time before that happens, your grandson will take the place as Leader of the Gods temporarily, and I will act as his advisor."

Makarov nodded with his head bowed. He seemed to understand that this was a kindness. A mercy. Nothing more.

"Before you leave, I'm sure that your grandson will wish to speak with you. Take the opportunity while you still have it."

He released the runes that were holding Makarov in place, and the two Dreyar's walked through the air and towards one another. Freed watched as they pulled each other into their arms and hugged, Makarov whispering what Freed could only assume was an apology. Laxus seemed to have forgiven him, so long as he accepted what Freed was suggesting was the right thing to do. When Makarov assured him that he would come back a better man, Freed felt a sense of relief. He had mainly offered Makarov the chance at redemption for Laxus' sake.

After the two men had said their goodbyes, Freed made a gesture with his hand and the older God was swirled in runes, taken somewhere on the land that hadn't been completely destroyed by the war, so his punishment could begin.

Laxus and Freed walked towards each other, and rested their foreheads together. They stood in silence for a moment, relishing in each other's presence in such a way that they hadn't been able to do for months. To be together again, in one another's arms, was such a strong relief neither had expected, but both needed so damn much. Neither man was willing to let go, and Freed slowly leant up and pressed his lips against Laxus', uncaring of who saw it.

Kissing his lover was euphoria.

Evergreen and Bickslow, who had watched Freed's proclamations from the side-lines, slowly flew towards both men. When they broke their kiss and pulled the other close, both demons were dragged into the embrace with them. Freed felt tears prickle at his eyes because of it.

The three people he loved more than anything were here with him again. At his side.

"I love you all," He whispered into someone's head. "So much."

They stayed in each other's arms for a time, before eventually pulling apart and looking at the battlefield before them. The fighting had stopped – it felt like the world itself had stopped – and everyone was looking at them. Looking at Freed in particular.

He took a step forward from his loved ones, and made the proclamation to everyone involved in the fight.

The war, finally, was over.

~~~

It was in those moments that Freed gained the title of the God of Judgment. Where he looked at the actions of the two Gods and sentenced them for their crimes. He looked into their souls and saw darkness in one, and potential for good in the other. He used this judgment to change the course of history for the better, and for that the world should be thankful.

His judgment did not end there. In the ensuing days he had every major fighter of the war take council with him, from both sides of the fight. He judged them both on their ability to be good and the possibility for reformation. He devised punishments suited for them all.

Thus, he became the God of Judgement. This is reflected in the 'Knight of Judgment' art piece by the reflection of the scales of justice. The two skulls represent the value someone puts on a life, something pivotal for Freed's own judgment.

This is where some might end the story.

However, this is not an appropriate stopping point for the life of Freed Justine. As established, his actions were heavily influenced by those he loved. It is, in my view, important to explore how these relationships evolved and changed after he had ended the war. Thus, the story continues and ends more happier than some historians may tell you.

Levy McGarden; An Examination and Retelling of the Fiorean Gods

~~~

"At last, you're here!"

At Evergreen's exclamation, Freed chuckled. He walked into the garden of his castle, where a small table had been set up on the patio beside the pond. Both of his demons were already sitting there, and most likely had been waiting for a little while for both him and his lover to leave the castle to meet with them.

They did this once a week. They put aside an afternoon to meet up, talk, and share a drink.

Freed had been the one to suggest it. His time alone in the castle had made him realise a lot of things, and one was just how important his loved ones were. His castle was large, and felt larger when he was alone. He had relied on their support more often that he would have previously admitted, and wanted to treat them better than he had in the past. This was his solution.

There were rules for the meetings. No talking about their various duties. They couldn't bring a bad attitude with them. They had to try something new from human culture each time.

The reason both Freed and Laxus were late was, as the God's in charge of a post-war earth, they always had a lot of work to do. Today was no exception; they had spoken to two of Makarov's high-ranking angels about what they had done during the war and what they should do next to become better. It had taken longer than they had expected, but thankfully for no other reason than one of the angel's had arrived late. Laxus and Freed had done their job and walked from the throne room to the garden quickly, side by side.

"Apologies for the lateness," Freed spoke. "Apparently timekeeping isn't something Mr Fullbuster excels at."

"You know the rules. No work talk," Bickslow chastised, though he grinned.

"Yeah Freed," Laxus chuckled into Freed's ear. "You know the rules."

Freed shook his head, half tempted to point out their short walk to the patio had been dominated by Laxus muttering about the angel in question not arriving on time. Instead, he took his seat close to the pond and absent flicked his eyes over the table. It had been Bickslow's job to decide what part of living culture they would be exploring today, and he usually went for something that could be eaten. Today was no different.

Seemingly picking up on Freed curiosity, Bickslow handed him an empty glass and plate. He poured fresh lemonade into the glass from a pitcher, and then cut a slice of chocolate cake and placed it on the plate. Freed quirked an eyebrow at the cake.

"We're meant to try something new, with the intention of expanding our knowledge of their culture," Freed commented. "The last three times you've been in charge, we've had cake."

"Different recipes," Bickslow grinned. "And if you say it doesn't count, then you're disregarding the time and effort put into this recipe in particular. Which is a real dick mood if you ask me."

"You really are intolerable sometimes, aren't you," Freed chuckled, shaking his head.

After that, they fell into the normal routine of these meetings. They talked, joked, teased fun at each other and enjoyed an afternoon without responsibility. It was a welcome break for them all, and each of them were glad when Freed had proposed they do it. Particularly Evergreen and Bickslow, who had been taking on the slack that Freed's occasional absences had left in the Netherworld.

Although there was no setting sun in Freed's realm, it was clear that the evening was turning to night by the gradual quieting of the world outside the castle. People were returning to their homes to sleep, as their bodies demanded.

Returning the netherworld to its old state had been a large undertaking after the war had ended. First, Freed had been forced to merge the souls back together with their bodies after they had been split for his army, which had taken weeks of literal endless work. Then he had to get back to bringing the culture of the Netherworld to its lively state. The first thing he had done was to make a general apology to everyone for his angered and dismissive behaviour as of late. He then made personal apologies to those in particular he had wronged.

He did so reluctantly to the woman who complained about her neighbour stealing her food.

It was slow and somewhat arduous, but it was working. Slowly he was regaining their respect and improving the Netherworld from what it had once been. There were now more decorations lining the streets, as well as more placed to gather and be social. The open-air marketplace and cafés were particularly popular, and had been very helpful in making the Netherworld feel more human. They had been Laxus' idea.

"Okay," Laxus said, stretching his arms as he stood up. "It's getting late, and we all know that if we don't leave soon Bix'll start teasing Ever about the big guy she likes, and I don't wanna pull them apart again. So I think I'm gonna call it a night."

"I do not like him," Evergreen exclaimed.

"And teasing her about him is my favourite part of the evening!" Bickslow whined.

"Well, perhaps we'll allow you to do it when you don't decide to get us a chocolate cake for us to eat again," Freed said with a smirk, and Bickslow pouted at him. "I think I might be done for the night too."

The Death God stood up also, and moved beside Laxus. The Thunder God grinned and wrapped an arm around his lover, giving a curt wave to Freed's demons after they bid the two Gods farewell. Freed also wished them both a pleasant night as a pure white cloud appeared above the perfect garden, a stream of lighting slamming down and hitting them both, absorbing them inside of it and transporting them to Laxus' own home.

A moment later, they walked through to Laxus' bedroom. The entire place was open and airy, modelled after the architecture of the buildings from the Greek islands. It was a pleasant place, and Freed wouldn't deny he enjoyed the view from above the clouds.

Glancing down, Freed's eyes landed on a large map of the earth placed upon a plinth. It was partly coloured black, signifying where Makarov had walked as part of his punishment. He was making his way across the land, slowly but certainly. When he caught him looking at it, Laxus wrapped an arm around Freed's waist from behind.

"How long d'you think it'll take?" The Thunder God asked.

"About a year, at this rate," Freed said, turning in Laxus' arms and resting against his lover. "Do you miss him?"

"A bit, but he's gonna be better for doing it," Laxus shrugged.

"I hope so," Freed smiled, leaning up and placing his lips against Laxus' in a chaste kiss.

Both smiling with expressions bordering on lovesick, they pulled apart, slid out of their outfits, and climbed into the sun-warmed sheets of Laxus' bed. Laxus pulled Freed into his arms softly, pressing their lips together in another soft kiss before they both closed their eyes. Freed shifted closer to him, letting out a quiet yawn and allowed sleep to overtake him.

And, in the arms of his lover, filled with the warm love of his friends, the God of Death and Judgement found rest.

Again, the amazing artwork in this was made by @fairiesherefairiesthere​ and you should reblog it and show them so much love.

#fairy tail reverse bang #Ftrbb2020 #fraxus #freed justine #Laxus Dreyar #Bickslow #evergreen #freed x laxus #fanfic #fairy tail #writing #one shot #gods and goddesses #fariesherefariesthere #art #event #Morally questionable actions #descriptions of torture #happy ending

[coolgirlontheweb]

sasuke uchiha (Naruto) - INTJ

when typing, a lot of people forget that the individual functions work in tandem with each other in a single type - they don’t exist in a vacuum, but instead have relationships that sometimes compliment each other, and sometimes oppose each other, like sasuke and his Ni-Fi. sasuke is the single most distinguished and potent example of an unhealthy INTJ - the things this poor guy went through all for the sake of the “shinobi world” is enough for the healthiest INTJ to only ever use Fi-Se; which is the exact problem we have with Sasuke. he isn’t an ISFP, but because of his use of Fi, overwhelming Fi loop and Se grip, a lot of people think he is.

sasuke’s dominant Ni and auxiliary Te in early naruto:

sasuke is practically the poster kid for dominant Ni and auxiliary Te in early naruto. his immature dominant Ni at 12 years old was over-serious, perfectionistic, and was quite unrealistic in his beliefs and expectations. his auxiliary Te, however, walked the line between healthy and immature. sasuke strived for a well rounded goal, he was tenacious and disciplined in his training and in realising his goals. with a great work ethic, he learnt systematically from mistakes in every fight he found himself in, which made him highly efficient. his great work ethic teetered over into immature territory by having an excessive and perfectionistic pursuit of results. just think of his attitude towards the notion of naruto surpassing him and the amount of training he resorted to in an effort to make sure that this never happens, and to achieve his goal. his overindulgence in auxiliary Te also made him stiff and humourless, and seemingly addicted to training which thwarted any healthy Se expression he might have had, which carries on throughout his entire character arc. sasuke was always devoted entirely to whatever goal he had for the future, and present sensory experiences were completely overlooked by him; there is no way that Se could be his auxiliary function when he has practically zero healthy expression of it. if sasuke was indeed using Fi-Se as his dominant/auxiliary, he wouldn’t be as stand-offish or combative as he is toward naruto in the beginning. his dominant Fi would make him noticeably more attached to the uchiha massacre which would make him more outwardly emotional, and his auxiliary Se would let him live in the present moment and thus, not be as objective or calculating as his Te allows him to be - sasuke would be less meticulous in his training, and less high-strung about things and people in general.

development of Se grip and Fi loop in late naruto:

his goal (his entire reason for living, in his words) however, doesn’t come easy to him. towards the end of the original naruto, sasuke steadily becomes more and more distressed, with his sensory experiences plummeting from pleasant and stable with Team 7, to insecure and agonising (which ends up fostering his Se grip and Fi loop), his past is exposed which is sure to make him uncharacteristically vulnerable - the reappearance of itachi, orochimaru and his damning curse mark, and naruto’s steady and quick growth all amalgamate into one glaring symbol of his own mental and physical decline. something important to note that this is all to himself, no one actually believes everything he thinks about himself, that he was weak on the night of the uchiha’s massacre or that he will never have enough strength to defeat itachi, what’s significant to his state of mind at that point in the narrative is that he believes this, which is because of his Ni’s natural tendency to speculate on potential implications, and his Fi at work contemplating in times of stress for him. the top comment made by AsuraPsych said something I think should've put the ISFP/INTJ debate to rest already: “Fi is a stress point for sasuke, not a point of natural strength”.

because dominant Ni operates closest to the unconscious mind, Ni doms have an unhealthy tendency to overindulge in introspectivity, which leads sasuke to overthink and over-criticise himself. this is very indicative of the unhealthy relationship with his Ni-Fi - both of these functions participate in making him critical of his own actions as well as his own emotions. functions operate in opposition with each other; they push and pull against each-other which creates internal conflict. i don’t think anyone can disregard sasuke’s internal conflict with Ni-Fi: his Ni is geared toward his future plans to defeat itachi, and notes its potential implications (like naruto getting so strong that he can’t get defeat him to unlock the mangekyo sharingan, which is where all of his hostility toward naruto comes from - watch the hospital fight and you literally can see the insecurity on his face), and his Fi is geared toward thinking about his traumatic past and is stuck making sense of the night of his clan’s demise, which literally comes to fruition at the end of naruto shippuden when he explains he could never move forward in spite of the past holding him back; that's practically word for word the description of his Ni-Fi conflict.

sasuke responds terribly to the sensory experiences of the outside world (Se) and his own internal rumination (Fi), which makes him develop into an extremely unhealthy INTJ, this time with an Se grip and Fi loop in full swing. it’s almost too apt that itachi’s infinite tsukuyomi is what sends him hurtling into an Se grip, and later Fi loop. the tsukuyomi that itachi puts him in is a repeat of the night of the massacre, where he is forced to live through the worst experience he has ever had. the sasuke that returns to consciousness is no longer the sasuke we once knew, but a deeply cut, volatile shell of his former self. this is the first time the expression of his Fi changes this dramatically, the second is after finding out the truth about itachi. by the 107th episode, sasuke’s Se grip is violently evident: he feels easily thwarted, provoked and distrubed. we see this in his refusal to listen to kakashi’s advice, where instead lashes out at him with harsh words - this is also a very clear expression of Fi loop, where someone’s own conception of morals and beliefs will blind them to any opposing opinion, nuance or context. sasuke’s previous use of Fi solely for personal rumination goes out the window, and is replaced by an unhealthy expression which shoots down any good advice as being too hard or too complicated. additionally, when naruto and sakura visit him in the hospital, he physically lashes out at sakura, who was only cutting him apples, and did nothing to provoke him. sasuke’s Fi loop also causes him to have irrational fears about compromising himself or his integrity, and is easily frustrated about challenges (the primary one here being naruto’s growth) which makes him take things way too personally. naruto was trying to receive acknowledgement from sasuke, but he took this as a show of hostile competition. coupled with his Se grip, it makes him uncharacteristically impatient and explosive, and the combination of the two causes him to challenge naruto to the fight on top of the hospital in an effort to try and salvage some sense of self and security.

sasuke finally succumbs to his overbearingly dominant Ni, unhealthy use of Fi, and Se grip, which makes him finally leave the leaf village. one of the defining features of dominant Ni is its ability to use idealistic impressions and symbolic imagery to set a direction. Ni as a function takes the abstract in and forms ideas on it. in children, this tends to manifest as being overly imaginative and insightful. paired with his piercing auxiliary Te, sasuke’s decision to leave the village is based on the relationship of his Ni-Fi, and his Se grip gives him the push to leave with the sound ninja 4. sasuke’s Ni uses idealistic impressions and symbolic imagery, such as naruto making a larger hole in the water tank using rasengan than him, to come up with judgements about the future. he rightfully determines that if he keeps on going as he is, naruto will surpass him in the near future, and he uses this to determine that he won’t be able to beat itachi this way. from all of this, he ascertains that if he wants to get power, he must also venture into evil and hatred. the use of symbolic imagery in his thought processes is clear as well - sasuke sees itachi as the symbol of all hatred in the world, and sees orochimaru as the symbol of evil. his tertiary Fi kicks in strong as well, to support his decision to leave as well by evoking the memories of his clan’s demise.

i think people are mistaking him for an Fi dom in his childhood because of how introspective he is, but Ni is easily misunderstood as being very impersonal, which it is not. applied to oneself, a dominant Ni becomes a powerful tool of self-assessment, which is exactly how sasuke uses it at age 12. a lot of his thought process isn’t recognised, and i think that this much more pronounced in the anime - because sasuke doesn’t have an internal monologue outside of battle strategy like naruto does, the viewer is left to gage what he is thinking a lot of the time, which is why people may find it hard to recognise his dominant Ni.

stable expression of Ni-Te under orochimaru’s guidance and as leader of hebi/taka:

under orochimaru’s guidance sasuke devotes himself to training, which allows his Ni-Te to shut down his Se (orochimaru’s hideout isn’t really a place that stimulates his Se), therefore it’s easy for him to completely disregard any sensory inclinations he has: he spends his time training and meditating - which no doubt strengthens his use of Ni-Fi. his Ni and Fi work in tandem making him committed to his goal. he begins to develop his Fi here - he follows a strict code of “no killing innocents” to be actively against what itachi did, and declares his hatred for orochimaru for the same reason he hates itachi before he kills him. whilst his expression of Fi helps him uphold his morals, this doesn’t mean it is his dominant function. i’m beginning to think that people are deliberately ignoring how much Ni-Te that sasuke actually uses. from the beginning of his introduction to us we learn he has an “ambition”, that he doesn’t care to call a “dream”, because he knows he is going to bring it to fruition one day, which he does, through his Ni making him resort to meticulous internal planning and excessive, austere training. sasuke’s dominant Ni gives him an unequivocal understanding of what his goal is and the easiest route he can take to make it happen.

INTJs use Ni-Te to see the consequences of the application of new ideas, and live to see systems translated into real substance. we see this in the formation of hebi - sasuke uses Te to be an assertive leader who is very terse and dominating in organising the group to reach his goal in the most efficient way possible. he says that over the 2 years he was with orochimaru, he paid attention to different shinobi and selected suigetsu, karin and jugo based on how he could use their individual abilities to get to his goal. there is no instant whatsoever where sasuke isn’t taking charge of the situation as the leader of hebi, or isn’t using his Ni-Te to gage the next move he should make, and how he should combat problems that he is presented with. dominant Ni is fundamentally focused inwards, on the internal world of thoughts, ideas, and concepts, as opposed to dominant Fi, which is fundamentally focused on personal ideals, morals, and emotional understanding of oneself. the only time that sasuke prioritises Fi over Ni is when he is trying to come to terms with the uchiha massacre and the truth about itachi. a weak argument to support sasuke having a dominant Fi is that all of his actions are driven by his feelings, however this isn’t true. his trauma and emotion, as well as the seed of hatred that itachi planted and sowed in him is what drives him. his feelings act as a mere catalyst to reach his end goal, but every action he takes, and his natural thought processes are certainly driven by Ni. sasuke is far too stunted and close-minded in his outward expression of feelings or authenticity for him to be an Fi dom - they don’t come naturally to him at all, but act as a hindrance to his mental stability - which only gets worse after he finds out about itachi.

instances of Ni-Te in sasuke’s battle strategy:

this isn’t part of the analysis, but i wanted to add that sasuke’s Ni-Te is also observable in his fight style, which i thought was interesting to pick up on. his Ni foresees his opponents moves: he consistently used lightning style throughout his fight against itachi to heat up the atmosphere so that by the time he is out of chakra, he knows he still has kirin left as a final move. sasuke’s Ni-Te is also merciless in clearing ramifications so that he can reach his goal; he literally asks karin to stand still whilst he sacrifices her by piercing through her heart to kill danzo using chidori spear. his Te systematically learns from mistakes, which makes him highly efficient in battle. in his final battle against naruto (part 1) he recalls that two chidori is his limit so resorts to another method of defeating naruto; in his final fight against naruto (part 2) he knows that using shadow clones are naruto’s preferred way to fight so he stops him making the hand sign around 4 different times before he can complete the jutsu.

#mbti! #naruto #sasuke uchiha #intj #Ni-Te

[laadgovernorandsankadevi]

IPK Rewatch: EP 03; Urs

Yesterday's highlight, the pearls scattering and then Gupta's uttering the words of Khushi being a foster child, an adopted child in the family started with Khushi asking Arnav, "Aap ki didi ke bare mein koi aise bole, toh aap kya bolenge ge!"

Yesterday, Arnav simply threatens by showing her the destruction he can cause when someone even utters the name of his sister with the idea of malice or ill thoughts. Today, the reason for Arnav to truly scatter Khushi's life begins.

We see the episode opening with Khushi recalling the harsh words she's heard the night before and preparing to light something on fire. I absolutely love the inclusion of Arnav's taunt of status and wealth in the recollection. Arnav made an impression on her and as much reason Khushi has to dislike him, their is no denying that like the magnetic pull Arnav felt towards the girl whom he refused to let go until she removed her hand from his collar, Khushi also felt his pull towards her. Arnav is here to stay in her mind.

The implication that Khushi might take a drastic step aligns with how every single action of Khushi can appear more exaggerated than it is only because of who Khushi is. In this instance, we see the unraveling of Khushi to some extent. She doesn't claim to be put together, and we slowly begin to understand that how Khushi's strength lies in her ability to embrace her vulnerabilities and mistakes. The moment she hides something is when she becomes weak.

While making jalebis, there are I believe prices next to food items on the board. 16, 7, 10. I can't read Hindi so I won't go much into it but every single shot in IPK to include numbers, colours, and even ambiguous dialogue had something layered behind it. I absolutely loved the metaphorical alignment the script used.

I also loved the shape of Khushi's jalebis. With unfathomable amount of ruckus caused, the jalebis reflect her inner turmoil. We later see the significance of it when she ends up writing Arnav's name in jalebis. The growing pile of it is also reflective of how much distress she finds herself in and feels responsible for.

Returning to Lucknow hasn't been fun for Arnav's PTSD, however for now he's able to think clearly enough to know that the news of his show being ruined shouldn't be coming out to the masses. For someone who is private, hard to reach, only shows up in selective events, and keeps a close circle, a major company event being ruined with his presence there, and him being involved is a scandal for AR and can tarnish his own reputation at being a perfectionist. Funny, how few words of Khushi completely eat away at any semblance of brain for whatever time-being she is present.

Anjali is still lurking around, and she's a catalyst in us understanding Arnav outside of ASR. His anger is fake. A shield. Being ASR for the world protects him in his own eyes. Also bitwa eating oats when he's on his own but indulging whatever his family puts out on the dinner table whenever they are around shows that even if he disagrees, he respects their choices. At her insistence, and prioritising her comfort, Arnav agrees to go to the dargah in her place. Unintentionally it is Anjali and Shyam who bring Khushi and Arnav closer to each other. Yesterday's mishap included alluding to Anjali's presence by Khushi. Today, Anjali who only wishes for her Chotte's happiness has sent him on the way to meet the girl who'll be his world for the second time. Shyam's relevancy doesn't find its footing without Anjali being the reason for Arnav's wrath unleashed on Khushi.

Back here Khushi betiya has been in full swing with Jalebi Everests. There are three stacks in sight.

Khushi strives to make things right for her family. Even on the two occasions when they remind her of her orphaned status, she truly doesn't give up on their love and acceptance and finds a way back. It's symbolic of how Khushi as a person rarely gives up on love when it means something to her. She is willing to do anything which translates into her rather crooked moral compass which is also ruled by what bring happiness to those she loves. After all, the internalised message is "Khoon ke rishte se, Dil ke rishte bare hote hain!" Shashi assures Khushi of the blessings in disguise. I love his validation of her intentions. It is clear throughout the series, that if Khushi walks with her head high even after some of her decisions appear misplaced, it's because of Shashi's upbringing that she finds herself confident in her own ability to manoeuvre because she believes in the purity of her intentions and hopes that Devi Mayyian is able to understand the reasons behind her actions just as much as she does even if no one else does so.

I find that besides Shashi, occasionally Payal, the only other person to truly understand Khushi for her intentions is Arnav. While he eventually goes on to find the chaos she leaves behind her amusing, his respect for her cements through his understanding of how her moral compass is governed by love and intentions to do good for others rather than herself.

If Arnav is Anjali's Chotte, then Khushi is Shashi's Chutki. Ah, how I wish Shashi would've manage to recover somewhat by the end of the show. His and Khushi's relationship is a beautiful one.

The support of their neighbours seems to put Garima and Bua ji at ease a lot more than earlier when people were gossiping about the returned barat. One of the old ladies in this scene is also present in Bua ji's Laxminagar and kisses Arnav on the forehead. Ah, ipk truly had it's moment with recycling of background actors.

Khushi tends to stand behind people who support her when she is being vilified or attacked from all sides. She moves behind Garima when the goons try to come after her. In this scene with the neighbours, she stands behind Shashi. The only other person she seeks protection from besides her parents is Arnav.

Gupta gang on their way to the urs have their car stalled whereas Arnav directs his driver to drive faster. A contrast in the way the Raizadas and Guptas world works.

As Khushi steps out of the car, a red chunni flies on her face. Blessings all around.

Arnav on the other hand, I think, he sensed the difference. He even goes onto remember the dupatta on his face. This episode is the first instance of Khushi nicknaming Arnav, Laad Governor.

Throughout the entire Dargah sequence, the lines "muramat kardo muqadar ki maula!" repeat over the two when they are in the same frame. Their fates intertwined are going to find solace in each other, find their ability to heal with each other. Poetic!

Also, as they both are walking towards the shrine, they are offered blessings which Khushi readily accepts however Arnav rejects. It's an interesting juxtaposition from Khushi rejecting a lot of Devi Mayyian's signs of accepting Arnav as her protector and companion where as it doesn't take Arnav long to understand the effect Khushi's had on his ability to think since the very first moment.

Also, it's hilarious how she's asking to be able to see him once again so she can make him realise how wrong he'd been and all the while he's sitting right across from her. 

While Arnav sits silently, making no prayers, Khushi prays for her sister's happiness. But it's after this moment that their journey really starts. For now, it's been the divine stars, the blessings, the coincidences. With this confrontation between the two, Arnav turns the coincidences into a string of events he begrudgingly has to take credit for. Of course Devi Mayyian aided in these decisions, but ASR wanted to play god as well, so here we are;

He recognises her voice. If it's wishful thinking on my part that he sensed her presence and her dupatta, then this one is no wishful thinking. Bitwa is finely attuned to betiya's voice and presence, and he realises that his sense beforehand weren't betraying him. He isn't surprised to see her, she IS.

Khushi's who just vowed to make this man realise his mistake runs after he tells her to throw the mannat ki chabi he dropped. We all can go on and on about the significance of this key because it plays such a huge role in Khushi's ability to practice her Haq and ownership over whatever simmers between them but most importantly I found this scene as a foreshadowing of how Arnav treats his happiness. He goes to the mazar on the insistence of his sister. He trusts his feelings about Khushi later onwards using his sister's words as a backdrop except that once Khushi falls from his eyes (Shyam & terrace), he begrudgingly ties her to himself mostly because even in pain he finds himself to be the only one to have the right to hurt her. And here he doesn't care for whatever the key might hold. Khushi who doesn't give up when it come to love whether of family's, or his', holds on to the love just like how later onwards, Khushi holds onto the love that was between them whereas Arnav does his best to to remove memory he possibly could.

Arnav Singh Raizada, running 10-15 mins late to his meeting stops for this girl when we just saw him a day earlier walking past people he didn't care to answer. But he stops here. Arnav stopping to listen to this girl, heaving and panting with her hair falling off pins goes to show how important Khushi has become.

Also, god, Khushi truly does come as a storm. Rushing past she tells people she'll come back to apologise. 

#episodic recaps ipk #ipkknd 10 year rewatch #endlessly rewatching ipkknd #10 years of IPKKND #ipkknd #iss pyaar ko kya naam doon #arnav singh raizada #arnav and khushi #khushi kumari gupta #myipkkndrewatch #arhi #arshi

[adrianodiprato]

+ “Design is really an act of communication, which means having a deep understanding of the person with whom the designer is communicating.” ― Donald A. Norman

Game Changers | Series Seven Reflection For Series Six, we turned our attention to Flourishing Future: Designing for a better normal as we attempted to unpack the provocation How do we in schools keep challenging binary thinking for designing a better normal? In Series Seven of the Game Changers Podcast, we once again have eleven remarkable educators – a financial literacy guru, an immersive learning designer, a Director of Student Opportunity & Careers Education, a global citizenship educational leader, an inclusive education champion, a foundational Principal, an Imagine If explorer, a Principal of marginalised youth in society, an entrepreneurial education superstar and two visionaries of the transition from high school to life. Each challenged our binary thinking and inspired us with their version of intentionally designing a better normal – all Game Changers who continue to light the torch for us and show us the way to build schools (and even society) differently. 

Each Series Seven Game Changers guest reminded us that those school leaders and educational sectors that understand potential futures, and what each might mean for them, and have the courage to plan ahead, will be the best prepared to support young people to succeed and flourish in the obvious reality of our new tomorrow. That we need to re-examine the purpose of schooling for our times and ensure that it is based on the facts and best predictions about the impact of this relentless change. It means realising that our decision on our vision today will lead to consequences in the future that we may or may not live to see, but others will, especially our COVID Children and the generations that follow.

Our Series Seven Game Changers helped us explore the key ingredients for designing a better normal, so that each young person in a school might begin to flourish in their today and into their future. We started Series Seven with Founder of Money School, Lacey Filipich. 

Episode One | Lacey Filipich Key learnings – I first met the effervescent Lacey at s p a c e in 2019. I was instantly drawn to her infectious smiles, smarts and optimistic concept of money and its real human value. Our conversation in Series Seven highlighted the value of flipping the ‘time poor’ narrative, this deficit thinking economics, to the concept of being time rich, a half glass full story line, when viewing financial management, an important literacy for all learners, that focuses on lifting up, from a conversation around limiting waste and liberating hope.

Episode Two | Mond Qu Key learnings – Encounters that evoke feelings of awe often lead to new relationships with self, place and the other. These moments of awe give us a profound sense of hope and the ability to see the bigger picture. Each teaches us that there might be something magical in beauty of everyday life, that we can be forever grateful for. Working in research, practice, and teaching internationally, Mond challenges all educators and learners to iterate in this space of encounter and embrace the challenges of the 21st century. In this episode, he discusses why we all should adopt a designer mindset in a world that needs us to be more curious, more creative, more diverse than ever before, through being open to exploring the power of habits and intentionality immersive encounters of wonder and awe. 

Episode Three | Samantha Jean McFetridge Key learnings – Outstanding organisations like Foundations for Young Australians (FYA) have illustrated to us, through extensive reports that there is a new work order, that career pathways aren’t as linear as they used to be with young people expected to have 17 jobs across 5 careers in their lifetime. Our conversation with Samantha reminded us that entrepreneurial-minded learners achieve success by applying knowledge, creatively and resourcefully; be it in STEM, business, creative arts, trade, social enterprise, professional or any other type of knowledge. And that this ability is recognised globally as critical to 21st century learning and active citizenship. Understanding that this is not just about building a business but empowering all learners to build their own future through discovering possibilities available to them, via a comprehensive career’s education framework.

Episode Four | Hamish Curry Key learnings – Our chat with Hamish reminded me of the significance of place. This thinking is centred around the notion that learning can take place anywhere, anytime. Where young people can access knowledge at a touch of a button. Therefore, schools need to commit to creating authentic learning experiences that enable learners to connect deeper with self, place and especially the other. This more personal exchange with real-world contexts and in-country immersions allows all learners to consider the social change, dialogue and bridge building needed to better connect to local and global communities. It allows for all learners to construct global perspectives and their own meaning not only in the classroom, but outside the classroom and outside of school. And we cannot ignore that virtual reality ensures that the entire world is the new classroom.

Episode Five | Tanya Sheckley Key learnings – The rise and rise and rise of personalised learning. Alongside our changing notions of what constitutes a classroom, Tanya reminded us that our ideas about the way teaching is delivered must also be reshaped. That the old ‘one size fits all’ model is outdated and has no place in the agenda for today’s schooling, for today’s tomorrow. As a result, teachers will need to develop individualised learning plans for students, each home to a unique life, which will enable each student to access curriculum and learning designed at a pace that best suits their abilities and divergent needs, that allows them to engage with knowledge, skills, and wisdom, that are most beneficial to them.

Episode Six | Scott Donohoe Key learnings – True vulnerability is waking up each day and choosing courage over comfort. School leaders have a responsibility to shepherd all in their learning community to a post pandemic next, new, or better normal. Scott is one of those school leaders that has a capacity of tuning in and outward and being brave enough to anticipate evolution and opportunity born from moments of real struggle and challenge and flipped to opportunity and hope. He realises that courage is about overcoming all obstacles when most of the society are frozen in an old reality. He realises that courage is to not be afraid to become and reveal who you really are, for self and the places and people you serve and lead.

Episode Seven | Loni Bergqvist Key learnings – Imagine If students have more opportunities to learn at different times in different places. With anytime, anywhere learning becoming the better normal for our students. Where online tools facilitate opportunities for a more highly personalised learning experience of individually targeted stretch and challenge tasks. One that is self-paced, self-determined and incorporates relevant and real-world inquiry-based learning. Resulting in all classrooms being flipped, meaning the knowledge and skills part is learned outside the classroom, at home. Where on campus class time becomes one of character appreciation, deep collaboration, teamwork and the practical application or transfer of knowledge and understanding, of real-life issues. Where taking tests will be replaced by students’ growth and achievement through creative and collaboration projects to problem solve wicked and relevant real-world questions. Well, this exits via Loni and her team at Imagine If.

Episode Eight | Sally Lasslett Key learnings – Our encounter with Sally animated what truly matters in education, people. Sally and the brilliant staff at The Hestor Hornbrook Academy understand that their vocation is being an important champion to their students, many of which have had an adverse childhood or experienced significant trauma. And why do these educators do what they do - well, from my perspective they get that every person in our schools is home to a unique life. This learning community isn’t about a handout, but a hand forward and up, where each feels seen, respected, safe, valued and understood. Sally reminded me of my why, and the profoundness of why I will forever be a teacher. The greatest vocation in the world.

Special Series | Nicole Dyson and Will Stubley & Saxon Phipps Key learnings – Phil’s chats with Nicole, Will and Saxon reminded me of crowdsourced classes, entrepreneurship or self-directed learning is almost certainly at the core of the future of learning. To not allow learners to ‘play’ with information, platforms, and ideas is to ignore them access to the tools and patterns of 21st Century life. And that in a progressive learning environment, students should constantly be generating original ideas from multiple sources of information–and be doing so guided by teachers, mentors, and communities, all in pursuit of self-knowledge and self-created meaning and creativity. Highlighting the role of teaching becomes much more about coaching and guiding students to not only build their knowledge, skills, and attributes, but to also make better sense of what they are learning, to fully flourish in life.

From each of our Series Seven Game Changers we learnt the significance for learning communities to be deeply tuned into the sign of times, this new world we live in. That we have a responsibility to shepherd all in our learning communities as they emerge from the pandemic towards designing a better normal in doing school. That this is about anticipating the opportunity born from moments of real struggle and challenge. And about planning and executing an incremental and unstoppable evolution towards better outcomes for all learners. While overcoming all obstacles when many in society are still frozen in an old reality. 

Thank you to Lacey, Mond, Samantha, Hamish, Tanya, Scott, Loni, Sally, Nicole, Will and Saxon for sharing your story and passion. And thank for reminding us all that each person in our learning communities is home to a life. It is as simple and complex as that. Born from the construct of love – of self, for place and the other.

Listen to our Series Seven: Epilogue via streaming platforms - SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Play.

[werevulvi]

Perhaps it's not so special to just be a woman. Half the population is. So what? But to me it is a huge thing. To even be able to say those words "I am a woman." They feel magnetic somehow, clinging to my tongue. It's like the word "woman" has a texture in my mouth like no other word does, vibrating at a different frequency. As if it's poisonous to taste. Yet I taste it, yet I say it. And I will keep saying it until I've cleansed it, no matter how long it takes. No matter how annoyingly repetitive and unnecessary it may sound to you.

It is a big deal to me, because up until age 29, I never spoke of myself using that word. Not even once. To then pick it up, for the first time, at age 29... was huge. And it's been 2 years since then now, but I'm still struggling with it, and it's still huge. I still don't understand why it's so hard for me to hold and hold onto that word, yet I am fiercely protective of it. I toss it away, then pick it up again, remorseful and protective of it. And I do that again and again. For each time I pick it up again, it's as if I understand its value a little bit more. All the significance, trauma, love, pain and curiosity it carries. It is mine, and no matter how hard it is to hold... I refuse to ever truly let go of it.

I may not look like a woman, I may not even want to! But why does it matter? Why should it matter what a woman looks like? Am I taking it too far, with the masculinity, the beard and bald head? Am I pushing my idea of freedom for women's expression too far? "Yes, women can be masc and gnc, BUT..." is what I keep hearing. But what? "...but you're taking it too far by looking like a whole ass man" is what I feel like the rest of the sentence, which they do not speak, is. Perhaps I'm wrong, I can't read minds. But sometimes I feel like people's minds are so loud that I can't not hear their thoughts.

I get a lot of backlash for every time I state myself as a woman, with my obnoxious reluctance to pass as my true identity. It's difficult to properly word that, what I actually mean. Perhaps I mean to say that I refuse to look like the traditional ideal of what people expect a woman to roughly wanna look like, whether that be masculine or feminine, as long as it's clearly recognisably female in some way or another. And my "true identity" has nothing to do with my personality, or my preferred expression, but only my deep down true love for being bio female. Thus, my "reluctance to pass" is indeed my desire to keep and maintain my transition traits, and my "true identity" is my womanhood, but I don't mean it in the same way TRA's do.

That true love for being female, isn't an ideal, but rather something much closer to my survival instinct.

It's that feeling of wanting to protect yourself when in danger. It's that instant self defense you act on without thinking when you feel like you're being threatened. It's that instant reaction of removing yourself from danger the split second it touches you, your body. It doesn't matter which part of you that danger touches, whether it be your hand, knee, your love handles, scarred chest, hairy face or your genitals. No matter what part of you is touched by that danger, you will instinctively protect it. It's in that instinct that I found love for my female nature, in my instinct to protect it from harm. I found it beyond my survival instinct, because no matter what part of me is ever touched by danger, my subconscious mind recognises it as not just lovable and worthy of protection and care, but also as part of the whole. This means, that deep down I'm not just loving myself... I also know that I am whole. No matter how many parts of me are cut off or distorted... I will always be whole.

I don't always feel aware of that like in my frontal lobe, but damn, my reptile brain knows it and won't ever question it.

With that, I found that my dysphoria is a shallow creation of my frontal lobe, and that it's in contradiction of my survival instinct. Being suicidal and/or self-harming is similar to this. Even wanting to die, always came second to my survival instinct. That is probably why I never succeeded to kill myself, and also why I never succeeded to truly hate my body. This does NOT mean that such horrible suffering as dysphoria or whatever feelings lead to self harm, is somehow not real. That is not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying it's a kind of cognitive dissonance, which messes with the very core of your core instincts, and that... I think, makes such psychological issues especially harmful.

And I also mean that my self love may not always have been accessible to me on surface level, but that despite that, it has always been innate.

And with that said... having found my innate self-love, and invited it to my frontal lobe... that is sorta why I can't really regret my medical transition. Even though I still have days when I struggle. Because I can't think of my body as broken anymore. Not since I found that deep, deep, VERY deep down I view myself as whole, lovable, valuable, and worthy of respect, love and safety... no matter what ever happens to me. Because my body is me, and there is no true disconnect between my sense of self and my flesh. Only on surface level there can sometimes be disconnect.

Kinda like the branches on a tree may be disconnected at the crown, but deeper down they all share the same trunk. I see myself in a similar manner. That at the top of the tree is most of my conscious thoughts, feelings, memories, etc, as well as all the various parts of my body. Or that is what my frontal lobe is aware of. That is how I perceive myself on surface level, as a scattered mess of branches, twigs, leaves and what not, each representing aspect of me, seemingly chaotic and all disconnected. But I'm also partially aware of what's going on deeper within my mind. I'm aware of the trunk that connects all branches, twigs, leaves, etc, and I'm also aware of the roots. Not directly aware, but I sense it like an inkling. I can sense that not only is there a trunk and roots deep down that connects to all twigs, and all twigs to each other, but also there in lies my knowledge that no matter how many of my twigs are left intact... the tree will always be a whole tree.

And it doesn't matter what I look like, or what troubles my body has gone through. Survival will always be the first priority. And my self-love IS equal to my instinct to survive. Because the reason I will always come to my own rescue whenever faced with danger or threat, or perceived danger/threat, is because I love myself. Self-love is the first move before I'm even saving myself from the danger, before that split second reaction takes place. That is how fast, instant and innate my self-love is. It was too obvious to even be aware of, for most of my life.

I think that's why is was so hard for me to find my self love. Because well... it was more deeply buried than my survival instinct itself, which I thought must be the innermost core aspect of my existence. But I was wrong about that. Self-love goes even deeper than survival. THAT is the innermost core aspect. Or so I believe. Can't think of anything that would possibly go even deeper than that.

But also, although I am the most aware on my self-love in moments my survival instinct takes over, I am also aware of it in other moments.

This is also why I can't get rid of my transition traits such as my facial hair. Because finding that true self-love from deep within my core, basically made me fuse all my aspects and physical traits together into a complete wholeness. All needs to be protected and loved. Every twig, every leaf. Sacrificing bits and pieces of me that are not damaging to my health, is self harm and goes against my survival instinct/self-love. It does not matter if the parts of me are in their natural state or medically/cosmetically altered. Even if those parts of me are inconvenient for my social life.

You know how a people who get organ transplants, their bodies try to reject the new organ because their immune system regards it as foreign? Well, this is kinda like that, but the exact opposite. My body/immune system/whatever-the-fuck regards my transition traits as heakthy parts of my original body, and thus to be protected at all costs. Loss of them will result in pain and grief. Just like losing any other part of my body would. And why? Because we mourn the loss of what we love, and what we regard as "ours" and as important, whole, healthy, lovable.

Deep down I do not care as much about such things as having a functional social life. Deep down, I care much more about things like keeping myself whole, safe, healthy and loved. Getting rid of my beard goes against that. Even just shaving it goes against that. My subconscious mind regards such an act as self harm.

Does this make sense to you? That it has nothing to do with "gender," be it manhood, womanhood, dysphoria, femininity or masculinity. It has to do with self-love, self-respect and survival. And that is a hell of a lot more important than being read or respected as a woman by others. No matter how much it hurts, because respecting and reclaiming myself as a woman is also highly important to me. Thus, I have to find a way to be open and honest with myself as a woman, without further harming myself.

I know this is deep and complicated spiritual shit, but I'm just trying to explain something which I think is probably very important. This discovery I had changed my life dramatically. So am I trying to teach self-love? No, I dunno. I don't think I can do that. I don't think anyone can. Perhaps I'm just trying to show a possibility.

I also need to clarify that despite knowing I love myself deep down now, I still struggle to stay connected to that aspect of my brain. And when I'm disconnected from it, I override my survival instinct and it misinterprets itself. Basically I fall out of order and act in a self destructive way, thinking it's self protection when it's actually the opposite. With that I understand that my self-love and my survival instinct are dependent on each other and need to be in harmony with each other to really keep me alive, safe and healthy. And although I'm now sometimes aware of this bond deep with myself, I'm still in imbalance. Because I still confuse self destruction for survival sometimes. When I skip meals, when I stay up too late, when I ruminate, when I smoke cigarettes, when I skip exercising, when I let my dirty dishes mould, etc. So simply being aware isn't quite enough, but it got me very far ahead of myself.

Also, trivial matters and superficial woes still get to me. I'm still human. I'm still fallible. Which is okay, but also frustrating. And that is basically why I love being a woman, while at the same time I also still struggle to accept myself as a woman, because it does include accepting being too norm-breaking for the society that I live in to accept me. And that hurts. It's a challenge that I'm not gonna overcome over night, just because I found the most important key to my healing. It's still just a key, a framework or an attitude - not a cure or some kinda magical spell. It's highly valuable and extremely important, but I still need to properly work through my emotions and learn how to navigate my social issues.

But what I feel my self-love is doing to help me, is carrying me through all this, and soothing me when I most need it. It makes my struggle worth it, and it makes me see a hell of a lot more of my potential than I was ever aware of before. The only backside of it is... well, it seems it does get to my head sometimes, and causing me some mild narcissistic tendencies. It sometimes makes me impatient hearing people with low self-esteem go on and on about how worthless they feel. That isn't great, I know. I'm working on fixing that error too.

By Werevulvi, dated November 29th, 2020.

#my text #detransition #womanhood #gender nonconformity #self love #deep ramble #a little controversal maybe

[eatsleepandsupernatural]

Saved - Chapter Three

Pairings: Alpha!Dean x Omega!Reader

Warnings:  Angst, mentions of abuse

Word Count: 1300ish

A/N: Happy Mothers Day to all you mothers out there! Hope you make/made the most of it in these perplexing times. 

Stay Safe XOXO

Tags: @goddessofmischiefs  @akshi8278

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

  You’re sitting in an armchair in the library, your favourite armchair with a blanket draped over your lap. Your legs are curled up underneath your bum, you have a book in your hands, and you’re enjoying the peace and quiet the bunker provides. You have been staying with your mate for a week, and although you are still adjusting, you feel somewhat at home. Unlike your previous home, you are welcomed here, and those around you enjoy your company. For a moment, you recall the rodent-infested house falling apart at the seams and the words that were thrown around. The emotions those memories elicit take a tight hold on your mind and you are back there in the dirty kitchen, completely stuck. You can hear your parents arguing, smell your mother's alcohol and your father's cigarettes; you can feel your fear. As you remember the nights you would cry yourself to sleep, you feel yourself falling deeper into darkness. You didn't mean for this to happen, remembering your family is the last thing you want, but you seem stuck inside the house.   "(Y/N)!"   Steady hands grasp your shoulders, and you blink away the fog, meeting Dean's worried eyes.  You calm instantly as his reassuring scent blankets you in warmth.   "(Y/N) What's going on?"   You avert your gaze as a blush forms on your cheeks, "Nothing, just remembering something that should be forgotten."   After considering you for a moment, he sighs. "Fine, but if you ever want to talk, my ears are always open. I actually came to ask you if you were up for a shopping trip Saturday, Sam only grabbed a few things for you, and a few of those things don't seem to be your size. You ready to venture back out into the world?"   It is your turn to contemplate for a moment before responding. You aren't purposely avoiding the outside world, you have just become so comfortable inside the bunker, going outside, except for fresh air, doesn't seem necessary. Sam had gone to get clothes for you from an op shop the day after you arrived, leaving you and Dean to get to know each other.  Now that the opportunity to leave is being given to you, you don’t sure you really want to go. However, you can see the hope and worry in your Alpha's expression and know you can't say no.   "Will there be hot chips?"   Dean laughs softly, and he brings his hand up to gently cup your face. "Anything for you."   You laugh nervously and inch back into the cushions, wholly aware of the lack of space between the two of you. Your cheeks flush red in shame as you note the hint of sadness in Dean's eyes.   He opens his mouth to say something but is interrupted by the soft pattering of feet and Jack walking into the library chewing gum. He smiles at the both of you, oblivious to the tension in the room. Sometimes you wish you could be like Jack, carefree and innocent.   "Hey, guys! Have you seen Cas? I wanted to ask him to take me hunting, but I can't find him."   Dean turns to face the younger boy, "Cas went to check in on Heaven, things are a little bad up there, and he is offering his help. You can ask Sam to take you, I don't think he's doing anything."   Jack shakes his head ruefully, "Sams got his head stuck in a book, he's not coming out of his room anytime soon. What are you doing? Can you take me? I saw an article in the paper about a missing heart two states over."   You raise your eyebrows at Jacks excitement, you haven't quite gotten used to how easily words like "missing heart" are thrown around in the bunker, and you weren't sure of its significance. You hadn't attempted to learn anything about the supernatural life after the way Dean reacted at breakfast the first morning you spent in the bunker, leaving you ignorant.   "What's so important about a missing heart?" You ask, testing the waters.   Jack glances between you and a tense Dean, "Werewolves eat their victim's hearts."   Your body went rigid at the thought of these monsters, always being out there and a threat. This fear did not go unnoticed.   "Alright, enough." Your Alpha's voice is firm, and Jack nods his head in understanding. "I'm sorry, Jack, you might have to sit this one out, I'll call another hunter and get them to check it out. In the meantime, I think Sam hid some chocolate in the kitchen."   Jacks eyes widen in delight, and he spins around and made straight for the kitchen.   Dean's eyes are already back on you before you even look away from Jack. You meet his rather serious expression with what you hoped is a blank one.   "I'll talk to Jack, make sure he doesn't mention supernatural stuff to you anymore." He stands up with a sigh, pushing his hand through his hair at the same time. "I'll leave you alone for a little while."   Dean saunters off to his room, leaving you alone with your thoughts. You are surprised that he doesn't bring up your reluctance to physical touch, or your reaction to learning how werewolves kill, and that they were real. Everything about Dean surprises you, he doesn't behave like Alpha's you had met and you aren't sure if one day he is going to snap or if he even really wants you.    After a few more hours of reading, you stand up, deciding that the privacy of your own room would provide more comfort.   Outside your room, the sounds of arguing stops you from entering. You follow the hallway and the sound of raised voices to the room that Dean refers to as the "Dean-Cave". You immediately recognise one of the voices as Deans.   "I don't know what I'm doing. I'm probably going to regret all of this. Jack was talking about hearts earlier, and she freaked! She's not strong enough to be in this sort of environment."   "Dean, what are you saying?" The second voice is deeper, gravelly. It must be Cas.   "I'm saying, what if she is better off far away from me? What if I should send her off to live with Jody and the girls where I know she would be safe?" You listen as Deans voice rises in tone and speed.   "Do you think that's what she would want? Is that what you really want?" Cas is clearly the voice of reason here.   "Want has nothing to do with it!"   You have heard enough, your heart breaking into tiny pieces. You know that he wouldn't be sending you away because he didn't want you, but he would still be sending you away. Where ever you go, you always end up being hurt.    You shut the door behind you and wedge the desk chair under the handle, desperate for some privacy.   Maybe you don't give him a chance to send you away. You think of the upcoming shopping trip, and how you can use it to slip away from him. If he doesn't want you around, then you would just leave.

  "(Y/N), are you ready to go?" Dean knocks on your door before pushing it open, finding you sitting on your bed, tying up your laces.   "All set," You reply, standing up and slinging your bag over your shoulders.   "You're bringing your backpack?" Dean eyes the bag warily, and you try your best to remain calm.   "Yeah, it keeps me grounded." You shrug your shoulders lightheartedly.   "All right then, let's go."   Dean leads you out to the same black car that brought you to the bunker.   "This is Baby, she's mine. Normally I don't let Sammy drive her, but I had a headache the day you arrived, and we needed supplies, which we never ended up getting because Sam got distracted." He recalls joyfully as he guides you to the passenger seat and holds the door open for you. You nod your head in thanks and slide in.   Dean rambles until we come to a stop outside of a strip of shops. You hop out of the car, put on your backpack and follow Dean into the first shop.   After half an hour of looking through the small variety of clothing they had, Dean walks up to ask the shop assistant if they had something in your size. You take in one last look of the man-made god before walking out the door.

Chapter 4

#SPN #spn fic #supernatural abo #alpha dean winchester #alpha dean x omega reader #anxiety #fluff #angst

[dodgergilmore]

fayesgifs said: Lorelai’s reaction was definitely far from good but I think it was also because her /own/ dreams were kind of at stake with Rory possibly quitting Yale (that she not-so-subtly placed upon Rory from a younger age). This isn’t to say that everything hangs in the balance re: Rory graduating from college, but Lorelai was way too used to having a somewhat obedient dutiful daughter that the minute Rory started failing, Lorelai thought she had to ‘play the mom card’ or w/e in order to get Rory to do what she wants her to do. All this isn’t to say that Lorelai is a malicious mother; she loves Rory and she wants what’s best for her, but too often her own personal wants clash with what Rory /actually/ want, and Lorelai obviously isn’t equipped with handling that well. It’s also why her thinking she’s a bad mom is a pretty poignant scene, because she’s realized that her way of approach wasn’t good at all, and you also mentioning how Rory moving in with her grandparents is something that Lorelai kind of ‘feared’ from the beginning, which is Rory “choosing” them over her when in reality that wasn’t the case at all.

It’s always funny seeing r*gans’ arguments about Rory being a ‘spoilt brat who fits in well with the rich society’ being the beginning of season 6 when it’s just SO obvious that Rory’s not doing any of these things (hosting parties and being a member of the DAR) because she’s found new love in them? she’s doing it to keep busy and to not think about her lack of general direction in life now. It’s why her seeing Mitchum at that event is important because it highlight how hurt and insecure she still is over what he said, and it’s even more obvious with how Richard responds once he finds out what Mitchum says, and even reacts with a frustrated “she’s running around planning tea parties like she’s the Mad Hatter” when it comes to Rory and her current preoccupation. Another argument that I feel like I should bring up is that the counter-argument for Jess’s “I know you better than anyone” is always “but what about Lorelai??” Here’s the thing, Lorelai most CERTAINLY know many more things about Rory than Jess does, but Lorelai also has a pretty skewed perception of her daughter because of her own approach to motherhood. The way she often misuses the ‘mommy card’ is kind of proof for this, in that even when she’s ‘accepting’ of Rory possibly wanting something else, she still makes an argument out of it while not really seeing that Rory is very deeply influenced by her opinion. It’s why once Rory puts her own foot down, Lorelai is unable to handle the situation well at all, and lets her own grievances with her parents get in the way of her relationship with Rory. Jess on the other hand, while only knowing Rory a smaller amount of time, has also seen her emotionally cheat on her boyfriend to a certain degree, kiss him while dating Dean, and randomly come to New York to see him. He also knew these things before Lorelai did, and didn’t take to telling Rory what she ‘should’ do in order to be a good daughter or girlfriend. Lorelai might TRY to accept some of Rory’s decisions when they clash with her own, but she still doesn’t show a lot of support towards Rory when she makes them, and just gives her radio silence when Rory decides to not come back to Yale. So Jess’s line might not be literally true, but it does make sense to a certain extent, because he knows her various flaws and quirks and the way Rory even acted towards Emily in the episode (with evasiveness and frustration, a result of other episodes’ worth of material) is further proof that she isn’t meant to live like this.

That’s a great point! It was as much Lorelai’s dream as it was Rory’s, similar to all of the plans they (particularly Lorelai) had for Rory’s 21st birthday. This fic has been a really interesting read for me in terms of exploring what Lorelai looks like as a mother when she can’t be the best friend to her child. The very premise of the show is contingent upon the significance of Rory and Lorelai’s relationship, so it pretty well goes without saying that Lorelai knows Rory but she doesn’t know how to react when their wants clash, like you say. Lorelai is strong-willed and can be real petty/stubborn – she herself even says, “As long as everything is exactly the way I want it, I’m totally flexible.” and as the series progresses, Rory keeps more things to herself because she knows how her mother will react. The ‘bad mother’ scene is very poignant! Lorelai takes a very hands-off approach after the plan with her parents falls through, telling herself that Rory needs to figure this out on her own.

That’s such an amusing argument to me?? Rory comes across as very fish out of water, especially in the beginning of season 6; she cleans dishes and bonds with one of the maids + the general weirdness she feels over having maids. And then there is her oblivious reaction to the whole Birkin bag gift, saying it can fit her computer cords lol. Whenever Rory is alone in a scene she seems so... lifeless and lost? That moment where she’s watching tv in the mostly empty pool house comes to mind.

Yes!! Like I said, obviously Lorelai knows Rory extremely well but her character flaws means that understanding has its limits in that Rory feels she has these expected roles to fulfill, not wanting to disappoint her mother for reasons we’ve both already mentioned. In moments like the whole car scene in 2x19, there’s an openness and sense of vulnerability in Rory that we don’t get to see often. There’s something to be said about how Rory doesn’t need to be ‘on’ with Jess because he doesn’t place these expectations on her, and this makes it so Jess does get to know significant parts of Rory – certainly enough to recognise when something isn’t right and she needs a push. Rory surrounds herself in season 6 with people who resign themselves to believing she is fine, or have this non-confrontational, unwavering belief that Rory will figure things out all on her own because she’s so smart. I definitely agree that the line doesn’t need to be taken so literally but that it’s still worth analysing as it raises some interesting points for discussion! He’s not completely off-base when he says it.

#reply #fayesgifs #text #s6