#so of course they’re connected in a deeper way than the other hounds

[depressedhatakekakashi]

And then all Ninkens arguing which one Kakashi loves more? xD

XD it’s a huge fighting that happens and they’re all scrapping until finally Pakkun clears his throat

He doesn’t say anything, he just looks down to where Kakashi’s holding onto him. Clutching him close to his chest

Sure, Kakashi loves them all and will always take care of them

But the winner is clear XD just like Sakumo bonded with Akino and was closest with him, Pakkun is the closest to Kakashi

#I have this headcannon #that the one the summoner is bonded to is the pack leader with that summoner #so when the summoner was Sakumo pack leader was akino #but with little Kakashi Sakumo brought them all out to see who he’s bond with #and it took five seconds #he toddled straight to Pakkun and picked him up for a big hug and it was done #this was his favorite and he wouldn’t hear otherwise #it’s largely a personality thing #where kkashi and Pakkun are both very chill personalities with a goofy side #so of course they’re connected in a deeper way than the other hounds #and the hounds arn’t helouse at all #it means Pakkun gets summoned more for work XD

[ladyfogg]

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Fic Summary: Max is wound up. Between his company and investors hounding him left and right, he’s got no time for anything that isn’t work. Until you pay him a little visit to his office one day and remind him who’s really in charge. 

Fic Rating: NC-17

Pairing: sub!Max Lord/dom!Female Reader

Warnings: Mild WW84 spoilers, sub/dom, oral, fingering, office sex, slight edging, praise kink, absolute filth. 18+. 

A/N: Look, I have no reasoning for this fic other than pure fantasy. I loved the movie and so yeah, I had to write this because it wouldn’t get out of my head. So enjoy. 

Max’s body was filled with tension. Things had been escalating but not the way he wanted and the stress of it was getting to him. He could sense it in every joint and muscle. His shoulders were drawn up so tight they practically touched his ears. Reminding himself to lower them, he flashed his dazzling smile as he entered Black Gold Cooperative with the confidence of a man who had everything he wanted.

“Hold my calls, Raquel. I am not to be disturbed!” he ordered to his lone receptionist who looked like she was about to tell him something he knew for a fact he didn’t want to hear. There was something big he needed to work on and he wanted a few precious moments to himself before the world hounded him further. 

“Mr. Lord, your son—”

That stopped him in his tracks and he whipped his head around to look at her. “Alistair? What’s wrong? Is he hurt?”

“No. But it’s supposed to be your weekend with him and his mother called to say he won’t be coming.”

The storm of emotions in Max which were already swirling kicked up another notch. “Why not?”

Raquel gave a helpless shrug, her huge shoulder pads flopping from the movement. “I don’t know. She didn’t say.”

Anger mixed with relief as Max continued his trek up to his office. On one hand, who the hell did his ex-wife think she was keeping him from seeing his son? He had every right to see Alistair, especially on the weekends when he had custody. She and her damn boyfriend thought they’re so much better than him. They thought they could do anything they wanted. 

On the other hand, not having Alistair meant his son couldn’t see how badly his father had fucked up. There was no money coming in. As many claims as he had, his business had yet to strike oil anywhere and it was becoming increasingly apparent that they wouldn’t anytime soon. With bills past due and investors banging on his door, he had to come up with a way to turn things around. Simon Stagg had begun hounding him with phone calls and Max could only dodge them for so long. 

What he needed was time. Just a little more time. He was close though, so fucking close to making his and everyone else’s wishes come true. 

The minute he walked into his office, he tugged on his tie and let his mask slip. Panic and anxiety were his constant state of mind nowadays.  “Think, think, think,” he muttered to himself, leaning on the desk for support.

You watched him from the couch in his office, where you had been lounging for the better part of an hour. He hadn’t seen you when he walked in, which you knew meant he was far too preoccupied for his own well-being. 

“Rough day?”

Max spun around at the sound of your voice, eyes filled with panic until he realized it was you. That tension in his body lessened, but only slightly. He said your name with a tightness to his voice, “I didn’t know you were here.”

“Well, I couldn’t exactly announce myself to your receptionist, now could I?” you asked, examining your freshly painted nails. “That was the deal, wasn’t it? That I be decreet whenever I’m around.”

“My home, not my place of work,” Max said, crossing the room to close the doors to his office. “I never said you could come here.”

“What else am I supposed to do? You don’t call. You don’t write. I’m beginning to think you’re avoiding me.”

You’re teasing him of course. But only a little. In truth, you missed Max. Not that you would ever tell him so. The fact of the matter was, the two of you had an arrangement and it had been several weeks since he had reached out to you. Naturally, this concerned you, and since your day was fairly empty, you figured it was the perfect opportunity to visit your favorite client. 

“I’m busy, you know,” he said hotly, his firm business-man mask back in place. “Running this company takes everything that I have and I don’t have time to waste. You have no idea what kind of pressure I’m under.”

In one fluid movement, you stood and made your way over to him. “Of course I do. That’s why you hired me in the first place, sugar. Because all the pressure was just too much. You needed some help. You needed a release. Isn’t that right?”

You could see it in his eyes. He needed you now more than ever but there was something holding him back. With your body being so close, however, his resolve slipped and that dazzling car salesman personality he carefully projected to everyone broke down for a tiny moment. 

“I can’t pay,” he admitted in a low voice before swallowing thickly as you stepped further into his space. 

You reached up to stroke his cheek, long nails gently grazing his skin. A shudder ran through him and your own excitement jumped at the reaction. “Oh, baby. I don’t do this for the money,” you whispered, your breath ghosting across his lips. 

Without warning, you grabbed his chin and yanked him forward, your mouth outright touching his. And yet, you didn’t let him kiss you even though he leaned in for it, his body automatically seeking the release it knew only you could provide. 

“I do this because you need me to. Isn’t that right, Maxwell?”

You were the only person allowed to use his full name and you only did so under very specific circumstances. That tension you noticed in his body all but melted away as he leaned against you, earnest in his physical need even though mentally he struggled. 

He swallowed thickly, eyes not daring to leave yours. “I...uh…” He cleared his throat. “Wha-what, um...what can I give you in exchange?”

“Let’s just say that you’ll owe me one,” you said, taking a step back to put some distance between the two of you. 

His eyes tracked every movement, following your hands as you reached up to undo the buttons of the large trench coat you wore. Slowly, you worked each button until you were able to open the coat. You let it hang from your shoulders, giving him an exceptional view. When he saw you were completely naked underneath, he whimpered, his hands reaching for you until he remembered his place and caught himself. You allowed the coat to fall to the ground, leaving you standing there in nothing but a pair of knee-high boots. 

“Now, Maxwell,” you said in a low, firm voice. One you had used on him many times in the past. “Tell me what you want, what you wish?”

His answer was quick. “You. I want you.”

“Be specific. Come on, Maxwell. You know this game. You know the rules.” You sat on his desk, crossing your legs as you waited patiently for him to give in. “What. Do. You. Want?”

“To let go,” he said automatically. “To make you happy. Make you feel good.”

“And?”

“To submit.”

“Good boy.” You beckoned him forward with a crook of your finger. “Come here.”

As soon as he was close enough, you yanked him towards you by his tie, wrapping your legs around his waist and holding him flush against your body. The kiss was biting and harsh, more claiming than anything else. He moaned and opened his mouth, letting your tongue push past those lovely lips of his. One hand slid into his hair and yanked on the blond locks, while the other worked to undo his tie the rest of the way. 

Kissing Max awakened something in you that you never felt with other clients. You couldn’t explain it, nor did you really want to. You were sure it meant there were deeper feelings there than you cared to admit. He wasn’t the only one who needed this, you needed it too. 

You abruptly pushed him and he stumbled backwards, already panting. “You’re going to be a good boy, right?” you asked, sitting up on the desk so your back arched and your breasts presented themselves to him. 

You watched his eyes go to them briefly and he let out a quiet whimper. “Yes. Yes, I’m going to be a good boy,” he said. 

“Good. Sit in your chair.”

He moved quickly, coming around the other side of the desk to sit in the chair behind you. Once he was seated, you swung your body around, letting your legs fall open on either side of him. His pupils were already blown wide with desire and his heavy breathing increased the second he saw all of you, glistening and ready for more. 

“You’re going to use that wonderful mouth of yours,” you instructed, throwing your leg over his shoulder to draw him closer. The wheels of the chair squeaked as he rolled forward. “And you’re not going to stop until I come. Understood?”

“Yes.”

“You like that idea, don’t you? You like the thought of eating me out on your desk until I come on your mouth.”

You leaned back on your hands, casually moving your other leg up to drape over his other shoulder. The action brought him closer and yet he had been a good boy and hadn’t touched you yet. Even though you knew he was dying to. You could see it written all over his face. 

“Yes, yes, I do. Please. Can I? Let me make you feel good.”

“Always such pretty words, Maxwell.” You reached out to grab his hair again, yanking his head back so he was forced to look you in the eye and nowhere else. “Put your money where your mouth is, handsome. We’re going to be here a while.” 

Then you shoved him between your legs. 

The results were instant. Heat shot through your body like an unchecked wildfire the second his tongue connected with your aching folds. You felt his moan this time, the vibrations causing you to suck in a deep breath. Max wrapped his arms around your thighs, burying himself as far in as he could. His tongue was everywhere, lapping at your folds with rapid determination to taste as much of you as he could. 

You were soaked in seconds, not just from his spit but from the way he tasted you. It was like he was starved for the taste and couldn’t get enough. There was one tiny problem though. 

It had been way too long since your last session. He was rusty, out of practice. Not in his technique. No. That was always flawless and on point. His eagerness to be the best translated into a wonderfully intense oral experience unmatched by anyone else you had ever been with. But he was doing what he wanted to do, not what he knew you wanted. 

Your hand still in his hair, you pulled him back just enough so his mouth left your slickness. “Maxwell, that’s not how I like it.”

“Sorry. I’m so sorry. I just…” He glanced back down at you and groaned. “You taste so good.”

“I know I do. And you know what I want. Are you going to give it to me?”

He nodded eagerly. 

You let him go and this time when his mouth touched you, he wrapped his lips around your clit and sucked. Unable to stop yourself, you moaned, throwing your head back as he greedily devoured you. Once he drew that first sound out of you, he did everything he could to make it happen again. He really did have an exquisite mouth. You couldn’t help admire it every time you watched him on those commercials. He wasn’t the only public figure on your client list but he was the one that occupied your thoughts more often than not. Knowing what it could do to you got you going more times than you could count. 

Your body grew hotter, skin growing dewy with sweat as the seconds slowly ticked by. He was still fully clothed and you couldn’t wait to change that, to watch him strip out of that damn suit so you could get your hands on his markable skin. 

Yeah, you were going to leave marks this time. Marks where no one else could see them. Marks only the two of you would know about so he could remember exactly who was in charge. 

It took you a second to realize he was saying something. 

“What was that, baby?” you cooed, stroking his hair as you began to roll your hips against his mouth. 

He moaned before answering, losing himself in your movements. “Can-Can I use my fingers?” he asked. “Please, I just want to make you feel good.”

“Mmm, I like the sound of that.” You tried to keep your voice steady, but you were panting too, wound up and ready for more. “And you asked so nicely. Go ahead.”

His fingers were thick and wonderful. Just one was enough to take your breath away as he pushed it into your heat, his mouth dropping back to your clit the second you gave him permission. Unable to hold yourself up anymore, you fell onto your back, stretching your arms above your head to grasp the edge of the desk. 

Max groaned into your flesh, adding a second digit almost instantly. You were so worked up and loose for him that it slid in without issue. Your body greedily clung to him, keeping him in place as your orgasm began to build. 

“So good, you’re doing so good,” you praised, letting your eyes drift close to enjoy the pleasure. 

Your thighs clung to him, keeping him exactly where you wanted him. Not that he planned to move anytime soon. He was a good boy and you could tell by the way his movements sped up that he was finally back in the right place, the right mindset. His thoughts were only focused on you and getting you off. You thought about rewarding him when you came.

It took time to built but once it did, there was no stopping the onslaught of pleasure. One moment you were shaking and rocking against his face, the next your orgasm was ripped from you by his sly tongue and thick fingers. You moaned loudly, body locked into place as the waves of pleasure consumed you. So rarely did you lose yourself during your sessions. But this time, you couldn’t help it. It had been too damn long. 

He kept going, tasting and stroking until you reached out to stroke his hair. “You did good,” you told him, lowering your legs so they hung limply off the desk. “So, so good. You can rest.”

Max drew back in his chair, panting. When you pried your eyes open, you were greeted by the most delicious disheveled sight of him you had ever seen. His normally put together hair was wild from your hands, his face was red, and his mouth and chin were covered in your slick. His eyes were still glued to you, not daring or even wanting to look away. 

You couldn’t help but think back to the first time you do had been together, how nervous and unsure he had been, not about the sex but about letting you have all the control. To see him so willing to give it to you only made you want him more. 

Yeah, he deserved a treat. 

You pushed yourself up to sit before sliding off the desk and onto his lap. He looked at you with wide, surprised eyes. You could tell he wanted to question the change but didn’t dare. 

“You did so well, baby,” you said, wrapping one arm around his neck. With your thumb, you spread your slick across his lips and he obediently opens his mouth to suck the digit dry. “As a treat, I’m going to give you a little something special. Would you like that?”

“Yes. Yes, please.” He nodded excitedly, tentatively reaching up to stroke your thigh. 

You let him, savoring the roughness of his hand through such a gentle action. He was gentler than you thought he would be, not that you minded. It was actually very refreshing. You never had to remind him to be careful because he always was with you. Unless you told him otherwise. 

With a smirk, you slid off his lap and onto your knees, spinning the chair in the process to give yourself more space. You could see the understanding flicker in his eyes. His chest moved quicker with excitement and he sat up expectedly. Hurriedly, he yanked off his suspenders. He then seemed to realize his haste and froze, eyes wide with uncertainty and anxiety that he may have overstepped. 

You tut disapprovingly and take his hands, slamming them onto the armrests. “Don’t touch or move unless I say, understood?”

He nodded rapidly, body relaxing again once he knew he wasn’t in trouble. “Yes. Yes, I understand.”

Like the good boy that he was, his hands gripped the armrests of the chair, stopping himself from acting out again. Instead, he was forced to just sit there and watch as you hooked your fingers into his waistband. You nodded your head for him to lift his hips which he did immediately so you can slide his pants down his hips. His cock sprang free, swollen red with arousal and need. 

He was rock hard when you slipped your hand around him. Even still, his cock twitched under your touch and you swiped the bead of precum off the end with your thumb. 

“What do you wish, Maxwell?” you asked, stroking him with lazy, languid strokes. “I’m down on my knees in front of you, ready to give you something special. What do you wish?”

“I want your mouth,” he said immediately. “That fucking sinful mouth around my cock.”

“Sinful?” You stroked him harder, earning another string of swears for your efforts. “You think my mouth is sinful?”

He nodded, his hair falling into his face as his tongue darted out to wet his own lips. “Yes. God yes. Please.”

“Since you’ve been such a good boy…”

With aching slowness, you took him into your mouth. He gripped the armrests tighter and you could feel the muscles in his thighs tense as he stopped himself from thrusting up into the warmth. There was too much of him to take it all but damn if you didn’t want to. He was so needy and eager to please you, you wanted to devour him whole. Wanted to claim all of him for yourself. 

The thickness and hardness against your tongue made your loins throb. 

Soon, you told yourself as you began to suck him off. Soon.

What you couldn’t fit in your mouth, you stroked with your hand, falling into a steady but slow rhythm of bobbing your head up and down. Max was beside himself. He couldn’t help but shift and move in his seat, moaning each time the head of his cock bumped the back of your throat. You glanced up at him and were rewarded by the wonderful sight of him with his head thrown back, top teeth digging into his lower lip as his body shook with the effort it took to contain himself. 

Already you could feel him leaking into your mouth. When was the last time he came? Had he even taken care of himself over the last few weeks? You were starting to doubt that he had. That didn’t matter though. You were there now. 

“You look so delicious like this, Maxwell,” you told him when you pulled your mouth off his cock. Still jerking him off, you dropped your mouth to his thigh, sucking and biting the flesh until there was a deep red mark left behind. “But, there’s a tiny rule I forgot to mention.”

You glanced up at him as his head fell forward to look down at you. 

“You can’t come yet.”

After that, you lost yourself in the task of sucking him off, bringing him right to the edge before backing down. He was lost in the sensations, his knuckles so white on the armrests that you thought he might break them. 

Despite your teasing, you weren’t cruel. There was a difference between pleasure and pain and you didn’t go down on him for long. After all, this was about you too and you wanted more than that. When you finally pulled off him, he was coated in your saliva and so hard that his face was pinched in pain. 

“Please, please,” he babbled, finally losing himself and reaching for you. “I can’t hold back anymore. I need more. Please, I’ll be so good for you. You’ll see. I’ll make it worth your while. Let me touch you. Let me feel you.”

“Do you want to fuck me, Maxwell?” you purred, curling onto his lap again and allowing his arms to come around you. You slid your own around his neck. “Do you want to come?” 

“Please, god, I need it.” When you got off his lap to stand, he whined and reached for you. “No, wait! Come back!”

“Don’t worry, Maxwell, I’m not going anywhere.” You hopped back onto his desk. “Strip and come here.”

You didn’t need to tell him twice. His tie and shirt were yanked off and tossed somewhere to be forgotten. As he moved to stand, he kicked out of his shoes and pants, stumbling a little in the process. Once he was finally naked, however, you reached for him and drew him into a kiss. 

He was too far gone to stop himself from touching you. One hand cupped your cheek while the other fell to your lower back, holding you in place so you couldn’t escape him again. You were gone too. Not so far that you didn’t remember the game anymore, but damn close. You let your hands roam his back, nails leaving angry red trails as you scraped them down his hot flesh. 

His mouth was relentless against yours. He finally came  back to himself when he grabbed your thighs and went to wrap them around his waist. It was only then that he paused and drew back, forehead resting against yours as he gasped for breath. 

“Can I—?”

“Do it.”

He pushed into you with one fluid thrust that took your breath away. Despite the rush, he held himself there for a second. He always did. His eyes drifted close and there was a soft growl that came from the back of his throat, as he savored the feeling of your walls clenching around his length. After that, he took you hard and fast against the desk, so damn deep inside you that you couldn’t think straight. The room was filled with the sounds of your heavy breathing and the desk rocking against the floor. Items spilled from the surface left and right but neither of you paid them any attention. 

“So good, Maxwell. So good. Such a good boy!” you panted, letting go of him to grip the edge of the desk. 

“You feel so good,” he groaned, burying his face in your neck. “So hot and tight.”

Your body was literal flame. Honestly, you wouldn’t have been surprised if you self-combusted right then and there. It would be so fucking worth it too. No one filled you the way that Max did. No one brought out that feral side of you as much as him. You two were made for each other. Separate you were whole but together you became something else entirely. And you knew he felt it as much as you did. It didn’t matter how stressed he was, how far down the rabbit hole of anxiety he was, when you were there, he would lose it all and let go, let someone else take the reins for a brief moment in time. 

You bit and scratched at him, leaving mark after mark and not caring where anymore. Let them see. Let everyone see. Let them know that you were the one to reduce the great Maxwell Lord to a shuddering, babbling mess. 

“Fuck, oh shit,” he groaned, still pumping into you at a stunningly harsh and rapid pace. “So good to me. Always know when I need you. You can have anything you want. Anything at all. Tell me what you want and I’ll give it to you.” 

“That’s it, baby, just let it go.” Your own voice cracked as your second orgasm built alarmingly fast. It was all too much. Too intense to hold back anymore. “Let it all go for me.”

“I’m not going to last much longer,” Max declared. “I’m sorry but I need to come. God, I need to come. Where…?”

You wrapped your arms around him again, biting at his neck. “Inside. Come inside.”

That was the last thing you remembered before he hit that wonderfully deep spot inside you and stars exploded before your eyes. You called his name when you came, locked tight around his body even as he kept pumping himself into you. Even then he stayed such a good boy, letting you come for a second time before he finally came himself. 

He spilled everything inside of you, fucking his way through his own release even as you went limp in his arms. He kept moving, kept going even when he was spent. It was only when you stroked his hair and whispered, “Max?” that he slowed down and eventually stopped. 

Holding each other tightly, you both tried to catch your breath while you came down from your ridiculous high. Eventually, you dropped your legs from his sweaty waist so he could slide out of you. Before you had a second to think, however, he had gathered you in his arms and carried you over to the couch. He laid you down first, staring at you with a small smile as you lay spread out underneath him. 

“Feel better?” you asked, cocking your eyebrow. 

His smile turned into a grin and he leaned down to kiss you. “Much.”

You laid that way for some time, his warm body and comfortable weight on top of you as you shared a series of slow kisses. It wasn’t until your breathing finally returned to normal that you broke away to stroke his cheek. 

“Don’t wait so long again,” you told him, voice back to its normal register. 

“I didn’t mean to,” he said. “Things are…” He stopped himself. 

“I know.”

You kissed him again before he pulled away to lay his head on your chest. His hand came up, drawing lazy circles around your breast with no intention of going further, just touching you for the sake of touching you.  He wasn't even close to being tense anymore. In fact, you didn't think you had ever seen him so relaxed. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” you asked. 

“I’m close to getting this all sorted out,” he said, voice tinged with a determination you had never heard before. “I found what I’m looking for. All I have to do is get it.”

“So what are you waiting for?”

He glanced up at you and you grinned, pulling him into another kiss. Dropping your voice into that tone, you leaned into his ear. “Take what you want, Maxwell.” 

#maxwell lord #max lord #max lord/reader #movie: ww84 #Pedro Pascal

[ghostofbambifanfiction]

How is arya’s arc tying into the battle? I don’t watch the show all that closely but I enjoy hearing people get really animated about the show and the characters :-)

“What do we say to the god of Death?”

Arya has been a servant of Death since shortly after Gendry was taken away from her in season 3. She told Beric Dondarrion that Death was her god. She travelled to Braavos to learn the way of an order of assassins who consider Death—or the many-faced-god—to be their one true god. Her motivation is to avenge her dead, and she does that by offering names to her god in the form of a kill list she recites to herself like a prayer. Death is her friend and her leader and a force she feels she knows, and being a harbinger of death has been the only thing to bring her satisfaction—not happiness, satisfaction—over the course of many years.

But emotionally? Mentally? Death has done her no good at all, just drove her deeper and deeper into her own darkness, compelling her to travel to truly disturbing lengths to exact her vengeance. And yes, along the way she has picked up these immensely impressive combat and stealth skills (no word yet on how she learned to seduce men, but I think that might have just been naturally ingrained in her soul), including the ability to fight whilst totally blind, but any relief she ever felt at a successful kill was perfunctory, the way a band-aid might relieve a bullet wound for a hot second.

What Arya was meant to say to the god of Death was, “Not today,” but that was swallowed up by pain and heartache, and she welcomed Death with open arms instead.

The only reason that Arya fell so deeply in with her god of Death in the first place is because the people she loved—her family, her friends, her soft places—were taken from her, one by one, and in the most vile and cruelest of ways. She was present for her father’s beheading, watched her brother’s wolf die and saw Robb’s body paraded through a courtyard with Grey Wind’s head sewn atop his shoulders, lost her strongest, healthiest friendship to the clutches of a red priestess who wanted to hurt him, left the Hound to die, was blinded by a man she thought to be her friend, and found a carer in Lady Crane only for her to die immediately, too. Arya fell in deeply with the god of Death because what she wanted—friendship, family, love, safety—was denied to her over and over again.

(Side note: It’s hilarious to me when people say that Arya is the most emotionally detached of all the Starks when Bran is now as detached as it gets and Sansa has long been able to shelve emotion in favour of common sense when occasion calls for it. Arya is all emotion and feeling. She has never been able to rein in the stirrings that rule her, nor the love she feels for other people. That’s why she never could have made it as a true Faceless Man, because she finds it impossible to let those feelings go. And why would she, when they’re all she has left of Robb, of Jon, of Gendry and Sansa and her mother and her father?)

So Arya has had this kill list, and she’s ticked quite a lot of names off it. Polliver, Meryn Trant, the Waif (who was lowkey and deservedly on her list, since she kept trying to kill Arya) and the entire male line of House Frey all fell victim to her devotion to her prayer and to her god of Death. Who is left on the list now? A couple of people have fallen on and off over the years, but Cersei Lannister remains the one constant and popular opinion is that the season will end with Arya killing her, mostly likely whilst wearing somebody else’s face—because she can do that, followers who don’t watch Game of Thrones. She can completely transform into other people. It’s a whole thing.

What happens if she kills Cersei, though? Her arc just… ends? Mission completed, heart a dank pit in her chest, her soul worn away by death and death and more death? Arya has been miserable for years as she embarked upon this mission? Confident, yes, and skilled and snarky and very, very clever, but miserable. And lonely. She’s been very, very lonely.

Anyway, there she was with her list and her horse and her plan to go King’s Landing and kill Cersei, and then her old pal Hot Pie informed her that her beloved brother Jon had taken back the North, so Arya turned her horse around and returned to Winterfell for the first time since she was a wee, innocent girl, where she was immediately reunited with Bran and Sansa and—following a brief and incredibly meta interlude which pointed out how stupid the fandom’s disdain of Sansa is—established her relationship with her brother and sister again. She and Sansa in particular make for a very strong unit as we’ve seen, supporting and respecting one another as they ought to.

The pit in her chest begins to fill with clean earth. A little spot on her soul is rubbed clean.

Enter Jon, her most beloved brother. Enter Gendry, the first and only boy she ever fell in love with. Hell, enter the Hound, who was her surrogate father for the best part of a season. She hugs her brother for the first time in years. She listens to the Hound say that he fought for her and realises for the first time, perhaps, that she meant a great deal to him. On what might be her last night on earth, she initiates sex with a smitten, awestruck Gendry—who she trusts and loves and cares for and feels totally comfortable with, and who reminds her of a time in her life when she was not so broken—because she wants to feel good and be close to him and grasp on to her humanity. It’s such a human thing, to want closeness and connection to another person. Arya has spent so much time alone and she has fooled plenty of viewers into seeing her as a lone wolf, cold and emotionless, but that’s the opposite of who she is. She is hot-blooded and passionate and loves the few that she loves with total commitment. She is no natural servant to the god of Death, because Arya is Life. She personifies Life.

The Night King is Death.

Arya believes she knows Death’s many faces, but she hasn’t yet stared into his cold blue eyes and accepted what exactly that means. We know that Arya is going to be part of the battle on Sunday. It would be ridiculous if she didn’t, what with her impressive skillset and equally impressive array of weapons. Right now, she seems reasonably confident and cocksure (she has plenty of reason to be) and is considering the battle with a detached coolness, but I think this battle is going to change her irrecoverably. For the first time, she will be fighting for the living, rather than to avenge the loss of one already dead. For the first time, she will be coming face-to-face with the Night King, her god of Death personified. She’ll see first hand the horrors he can inflict, feel the terror he strikes into human hearts and be confronted with the very worst of herself, amplified in tenfold because this is her god. This is who she has been serving—this cold, blank creature who takes everything beautiful and replaces it with rot, and who has no aim but to destroy life.

But what better way to end this revenge arc, what better way to see her permanently on a path to love and friendship, and inner peace, and life, than to be the one who finally destroys the Night King? Wouldn’t it be perfectly poetic if Arya Stark, servant of Death, was the one to put an end to him?

Kill the Night King or no (though I really, really hope that she’s the one to do it) I hope she decides that Death can play no more part in her life. I hope she lets herself be sad and human and vulnerable, especially with Gendry, who is clearly plummeting into love with her at breakneck speed. I don’t want Arya to carry on with her kill list until there’s nothing left of her heart and her soul is rusted over. Fuck killing Cersei. What’s killing Cersei going to do for her that hugging her sister or laughing with her brother or pressing her skin to the body of the man she loves can’t? It can’t bring back her lost friends and family, and it can’t bring her any real sense of peace. I don’t care how “badass” 90% of this fandom seems to think she is whenever she crosses off another name, nor how little they value her for any reason aside from her combat skills. I don’t care about the people who whinge and crow about how she isn’t “suited” to a romance plot—she is more suited to falling in love with somebody than almost any other character in that whole damn universe.

I don’t want Arya Stark to continue to embrace Death. I don’t want her to serve Death. Fuck Death! I want her to look Death in the face and say, “Not today,” just as she was instructed to when she was a very little girl with a wooden sword in her hand. I want Death to shatter and vanish before her very eyes, and free her from this dangerous, draining, desolate path of servitude. I want her to drive her catspaw dagger through the centre of Death’s chest and become the woman who saved the living.

I want her to live her fucking life.

#Game of Thrones #Arya Stark #Gendrya

[huntershowl]

@rcppled / @southern-gothics​ said:

sacrifice ( oryn )

one-word prompts ( ALWAYS accepting )

you must understand the consequences of being who you are.

those were the first words sanya said to her after persephone returned from murdering the woman she loved. spoken softly, without feeling. their cold metal hand rested on her chin, tilted her face upwards so that she would look at them as they stood in front of her seat. so that was what they wanted. their prized weapon had strayed too far. it had forgotten what it was, worn the mask of a human for too long. persephone allowed their hand to travel up her face and cup one of her cheeks, the metal’s chill stinging her skin. you have done well, my persephone.  she has not been the same since. it became easy to watch people die. she had already taken her blackbird’s life, so how could it be hard? the numbness spread outwards from her heart until it overtook persephone completely; she became a better shot, a cleaner and more accurate killer than ever before. and social connections outside of sanya and her brother became meaningless. nobody but them mattered now; nobody else could be kept safe. she understood what it meant to belong to someone – their needs were the beginning, middle, and end of her life’s mission.  that ... budges, for the first time, as oryn lies in hellhound’s arms. her reaction was a second too late – the gunman is dead in the grass now, but they did not die quick enough and she did not watch her blindspot well enough. dusk washes over the sky in a dull orange-gray, turns the clouds a murky purple. all around them, the trees spiral upward like a council of gods.

watching people die is easy, but watching oryn die just feels unfair. hellhound hasn’t done shit for him – he owed her nothing, he did not owe her his life. why should he have to die in the arms of a monster? but this is the middle of nowhere; she knows for a fact that he is about to pass on no matter what aid hellhound tries in vain to give him. the least she can do is make sure he dies facing the sky. oryn coughs, the wracking movement sending his expression into a grimace. ❛ shh ... it’s alright, ❜ she whispers, voice softer than it’s been in a long time. ❛ i’m sorry. i’m so sorry. ❜ oryn gives her a small smile that she does not fucking deserve to see. his voice is raspy, barely audible with a prelude of shallow breaths. how can he look so peaceful in the face of something so unfair? “you’re not so bad, kid.” he’s wrong. even in death, he is blind not to see that hellhound was the cause of this, that any moment his life will be over because of her – another for the body pile that stacks high everywhere she does. harbinger. herald of punishment and misfortune to the innocent and the guilty alike. perhaps her parents were right when they saw that their child was born with hair of smoke and scorned her instead of loving her – they knew, maybe. they knew. hellhound brushes a strand of hair out of oryn’s face as the spark fades from his eyes, one last breath freed from his lungs along with his hell-bound spirit. with a brush of her fingers, as the sky fades from that dusky orange to a deeper blue, his eyelids are closed over his empty face. ❛ goodnight, my friend, ❜ the hound whispers to no one.

–––––––––––––––––––––––

a certain kind of hollowness is left like residue in her chest over the next month or two. it’s a dull ache compared to the shattering grief she experienced over aya, but it is persistent and keeps her awake at night in place of the normal insomnia-inducing nightmares. oryn is gone. death is a frequent thing for an assassin to face, but hellhound’s targets are usually so far-removed from her life that, after killing the person she cared about most, she doesn’t particularly give a shit about their lives anymore. that, or they’re scumbags who need to be eliminated before they hurt anyone else.  but this ... it’s uncomfortable. this awareness that a living, breathing person who was once by her side is gone permanently, it ... is difficult to emotionally reconcile. hellhound would not consider herself to be in mourning. she didn’t know oryn in a true and meaningful way. in fact, only when he died did she admit friendship; had he been alive today, she would consider him nothing more than an acquaintance. but he cared about her in a way that a monster does not deserve, and that knowledge alone causes a faint prickle of discomfort that remains with her until, months later, she succeeds in repressing it along with the other emotions she’s shoved away in a near-unreachable part of her soul. not immediately, of course – that isn’t quite how it works. every day, another death, another round of dismantling and reassembling her rifle. another piece of the unearthed feelings stripped away again.  until, one day, hellhound awakens to find herself numb again. she eyes the encroaching dawn and the slowly-fading moon outside her window as weak pre-morning light trickles across her cheekbones. back to yourself, eh, hellhound? right – gone and forgotten. let’s get to work.

#>> IN. #>> DRABBLES. #southerngothics #rcppled #>> HUNTER'S SOLACE. ( oryn )

[gaygoetia]

GoT S8E1 Ramble/Analysis

It’s endlessly fascinating to me how a bunch of people can watch the same scene and interpret it in totally different ways, and this is something that seems to have happened a lot this episode. 

One of the most interesting examples of this IMO is the differing readings of Sansa, Dany and Jon and their behaviour in this episode. I’m mostly gonna be focusing on different readings of Sansa in this post but I might touch on the others.  First of all there’s the scene where Sansa (very reasonably) questions how they’re going to feed all these new allies given that Winter is upon them and food is scarce. While most people generally read the scene the same way “Sansa undermines Dany in front of the Northern bannermen” what differs is people’s interpretations of why.

Quite a few people seem to view this as a reflection of Sansa’s personal dislike of Dany but I honestly couldn’t disagree more. In fact the whole thing seems very impersonal to me and in my opinion this scene is actually a great example of Sansa’s ability to keep personal feelings out of political decisions in favour of a approaching problems from a more objective standpoint. 

Sansa doesn’t address her question to Dany, but to Tyrion who is acting as Dany’s representative. This could be seen as a passive aggressive move to subtly undermine Dany and to be fair that wouldn’t necessarily be out of character for Sansa. But in my opinion this isn’t just Sansa trying to publicly humiliate Dany. It’s her expressing genuine concern about a problem that needs to be addressed. 

Considering that Tyrion is not only someone who Sansa knows and trusts but someone she knows to be politically and strategically minded like herself, it makes sense to me that she would direct the question to him. As Dany’s advisor he is the most likely person to be able to answer her. 

And this decision isn’t just sensible, it’s consistent with Sansa’s character. She’s acting as she has been since season 7, in the best interest of Winterfell and the North. This scene mirrors her challenging Jon in front of the Northern bannermen last season when she was concerned about his military strategy. She wasn’t acting out of dislike for Jon or a desire to usurp his place as ruler of the North (as many people theorised at the time). She was simply looking out for her people. 

The second and most divisive scene from the episode that I want to talk about is the conversation between Jon and Sansa where she asks him if he’s in love with Dany. On initial viewing I didn’t see any ambiguity in my reading of this scene. Sansa is concerned that Jon’s feelings for Dany are blinding him to what’s best for The North and their people. But looking online I was genuinely surprised to see so many people interpreting this scene as confirmation that Sansa has romantic feelings for Jon.

The scene starts with Sansa relaying the news to Jon that they have lost allies due to Jon’s decision to bend the knee to Dany and for me this sets up the main conflict of the scene - not the fact that Jon has chosen to ally with Daenerys but the fact that doing so has caused them to lose support from their Northern bannermen.  Of course this doesn’t disprove any theories that she might have feelings for Jon but it does emphasise Sansa’s priorities; keeping the Northern bannermen on side. Like in season 7, she wants to retain the loyalty and connections that the Starks have had with the other Northern families for generations. 

She explains that the Northerners feel understandably betrayed that they democratically elected a leader only for him to immediately transfer that power to a complete stranger with no apparent connections to the North or its people. 

Jon repeats his mantra that they can’t defeat the white walkers without Dany’s dragons but in comparison to Sansa’s hard logic, Jon’s vague argument that “we need her” isn’t exactly convincing. He insists that “who holds what titles doesn’t matter” but Sansa knows that it *does* matter. Because she values the loyalty and support of the North and while Jon is only thinking about the battle ahead Sansa is thinking about what happens next. 

Jon tells Sansa that Dany will be a good queen but he doesn’t offer any evidence to support this. He expects that the faith Sansa has in him is strong enough for her to take him at his word. But when you consider everything that Sansa has been through it’s not surprising that she’s skeptical. As she touched on last season, Robb died because he made stupid decisions. More specifically he died because his love for a woman caused him to go against his word and lose valuable allies. From Sansa’s perspective history is repeating itself right in front of her eyes.  “She’s not her father” Jon says and Sansa replies “No, she’s much prettier”.

I have seen sooo many people interpret this line as jealousy over Dany’s beauty and/or Jon’s love for her but given the context of the scene I really don’t think it’s that at all. 

The whole reason this line is significant is because Sansa’s arc from the beginning has been about learning not to trust appearances.

Joffrey and Cersei were beautiful but cruel. She considered The Hound and Tyrion to be ugly but they were kinder to her than anyone else at King’s Landing. Brienne and Arya look nothing like the traditionally beautiful women she grew up idolising but they are unfailingly loyal to her and would protect her with their lives.

She phrases it as a joke but on a deeper level she’s implying that maybe Dany IS like her father, but that Jon can’t see past her appearance to what she’s really like underneath.

In my opinion, the sadness in her face in that moment is not because she’s jealous of Dany’s beauty or of Jon’s feelings for her. It’s because she knows that looks can be deceiving and she fears that Dany’s beauty is causing Jon to overlook the danger she poses to him and to the North. It’s because she knows that loving Dany could get him hurt. 

Finally she says what I suspect she’s been thinking ever since Daenerys arrived in Winterfell; “Did you really bend the knee to save the North, or because you love her?” I know that a lot of people interpret this as Sansa wanting to know if Jon loves Dany because she has feelings for him herself. But reading the scene and taking into account Sansa’s actions and motivations over the past two seasons I really don’t think that’s it. Sansa wants to know if Jon loves Dany because she’s worried about him and about what it could mean for their people. She’s worried that Jon’s bias could cost them their lives and cost them the home they’ve fought so hard to get back to. She’s also understandably concerned that Jon is making major decisions on behalf of the North based on personal feelings rather than a genuine desire to do what’s best for their people. Ultimately, in Sansa’s eyes, Dany is dangerous and she wants to know exactly what power she holds over Jon (and by extension the North).

*EDIT* Some things I forgot to mention:

Dany’s utterly unhelpful response when asked by Sansa what dragons eat. “Whatever they want”. Really Dany? I don’t know what response she was hoping for here but I really don’t think she thought through the implications of this comment. She’s essentially saying to a room full of Northerners who already dislike her that if her dragons want to eat them, their livestock or their children she’s gonna do fuck all to stop them. Unlike Sansa and Jon Dany doesn’t care what happens to the Northerners. Her dragons and her desire to rule are always gonna take priority over everything else. 

The fact that reading Sansa’s distrust of Daenerys as jealousy or cattiness does a huge disservice to her character. As someone whose main concern is protecting The North and its people, it’s no wonder she’s not going to immediately warm to Queen ‘Imma let my dragons eat your people’. 

#got #got spoilers #got meta #long post #game of thrones #sansa stark #jon snow #daenerys targaryen #game of thrones meta #game of thrones spoilers

[friedegg]

a dream of good writing; s8 predictions/wish list

okay i’m procrastinating thesis work and cant stop fixating on Game of Thrones... WE’RE SO CLOSE. So here is a big ole post with everything i think and hope will happen this season - who lives / dies, plot points, etc. This post is HUGE and mostly for me to reread after the finale to wallow, lmao.

going to bold & italicize predictions that came true and strikeout the ones that didnt

Let’s start with priorities: the storylines and characters i care most about and where they’ll be at the start of s8 (roughly in order of how much i care)

Recap: Characters/plot

Sansa Stark - Of course, Sansa is and always will be the character I most look forward to seeing. Since season one, she’s gone from an idealistic young girl with a love of romance, slowly realized the cruel reality of the world, became an orphaned political prisoner, learned to lie and manipulate for her own survival, been abused in unspeakable ways, yet has persevered to escape, reunite with her family, retake her childhood home (which wouldn’t have been possible without the men of the vale, loyal to her), and gathered the northern lords to her side. She’s also demonstrated an understanding of governing - war isn’t her style, but ruling is. She has been one of the only characters who has common sense and is making practical plans to survive the winter (collecting grain, ensuring armor is covered with leather, etc). With Littlefinger gone, she now has the complete allegiance of the Vale, and potentially the Riverlands. She’s reconnecting with her siblings, even though they’re SUPER weird, and keeping the North loyal and functional in Jon’s absence. As Lady of Winterfell, she’ll immediately be starting the season with conflict - Jon’s betrayal and the arrival of Dragon Queen D*ny.

Jaime Lannister - Jaime and Cersei are probably tied for my second favorite characters. Their respective storylines have divided them significantly, geographically and character-wise. Jaime began as an arrogant, entitled, morally corrupt “Kingslayer,” completely devoted to Cersei and nothing else. His capture by the Starks in season 2 led to an unlikely deal being struck between him and Catelyn Stark - promising to return her daughters to her. His subsequent journey with Brienne and amputation of his sword hand led to a deeper understanding of his character and proved he did, actually, have some convictions. He killed the mad king to prevent the burning of kings landing (and left cersei for similar reasons) and besides some uh..... inconsistent characterization in season 4 and 5, has since decided to join with the living in Winterfell. VERY IMPORTANTLY - he knows that Cersei lied at the Dragonpit meeting, and has no intention of sending aid to the North or honoring the Truce.

Cersei Lannister - people love to hate Cersei, but I love to love her. She’s an inherently flawed character, but her dedication to her children and penchant for wit and wine endear her to me. No one else on the show relishes in revenge quite as well, and honestly most of the time i find her actions justifiable, even if they are often foolish and illogical. Although she attempts to play the game better than everyone else, her scheming has repeatedly backfired, leading her deeper and deeper down a dark path. Her involvement in the deaths of Robert and Ned Stark started the war that tore the kingdoms apart, her hatred for Tyrion and manipulation of his trial led to the death of Tywin, and arming the faith militant in an attempt to use them as pawns backfired - leading to her arrest and humiliation. Her revenge - blowing up the sept with hundreds of citizens, the High Sparrow, and most of the Tyrells inside - led to Tommen’s suicide. Despite her best efforts, her 3 children are dead, Jaime has left her, and enemies surround her. She now has nothing to lose, a questionable former-maester (I also adore Qyburn), a zombie giant, the golden company, and an unconfirmed cache of wildfire at her disposal. She is also apparently pregnant, but I’m not sure how much I believe that.

Winterfell (convergence) - Let’s just recap on how wild the reunions, meetings, and political implications of the impending meeting of forces at Winterfell. With 7 seasons of plotting, murder, and shifting alliances, the amount of weird tension in the great hall - and potential character interactions - Is something i’m most excited for.

The arrival of Dany - there hasn’t been a Targaryen in the North (besides Night’s Watch Aemon and the Three Eyed Raven, but they were undercover) in years, and The North Remembers what the last Targaryens did - kidnapped their Lady Lyanna and burned Brandon and Rickard Stark alive. While they desperately need her dragonfire and armies, that doesn’t mean they’ll give Dany a warm welcome, and I’m super excited to see how they react to Jon bending the knee

Samwell and Dany - sam has inevitably learned about his father and Brother’s execution at this point. He’s not a confrontational person and didn’t particularly love his father, but he was close with Dickon and I can’t imagine him being chill with Dragonarys burning them alive. Potential tension between him and Jon as a result.

Jon reuniting with Bran and Arya (STARK SEASON BABY) - they have all grown so much as characters, and hardly resemble the children who parted ways in s1e1. I expect this reunion to be bittersweet af.

Jon’s heritage - while he was off being held prisoner/ seducing the dragon queen, Sam and Bran put two and two together, revealing Jon to be Aegon Targaryen, legitimate heir of Rhaegar and Lyanna. This is obviously going to cause conflict with Dany (anyone who thinks otherwise is... hmm) as well as the northern lords.

Brienne/Jaime Reunion - possibly on of the greatest pairs on the show, Jaime took Brienne’s “Fuck Loyalty!” to heart and was last seen riding North to join the war against the dead, leaving Cersei to her scheming in the south. Now that his relationship with his sister is apparently  over, maybe he and Brienne can finally act on that unbearable UST that’s been around since s3

Jaime and Bran reunion - The last time Bran saw Jaime back in s1e1, he  got pushed out a window and crippled. Jaime has since become a far better person (imo) and Bran is an all-seeing all-knowing robot boy. this interaction will be v interesting

Arya seeing some of the few people remaining on her list: Beric Dondarrion (assuming he makes it back from the wall), The Hound (perhaps no longer on the list, i’m excited for this reunion as well), and Melisandre. While I believe Arya can hold a grudge, these characters have become valuable allies to the North - she can’t just go around murdering them.

Gendry/ ARYA!!! - the clips of Gendry in the winterfell forge made me want to scream. These two are another favorite pair from the show, and havent seen each other since their run-in with the brotherhood in season 3. the UST will be interesting - they’re both fully grown adults now, but is super-assassin arya capable of having romantic feelings anymore? And how is royal bastard Gendry going to feel about her new skills and penchant for stealing faces? lmao.

Gendry and Melisandre - Gendry definitely hasnt forgiven the Brotherhood or Melisandre for his brief imprisonment and near-sacrifice in s3. Of course, Melisandre has also been pretty humbled by stannis’ loss.

Tyrion and Sansa - the two slowly formed a tentative friendship during their arranged marriage in season 3, with the Lannister as one of the few characters in King’s landing to show her kindness and protection. Tyrion is one of the first to recognize her strength and intelligence, and their reunion may be awkward, but hopefully their friendship will be strengthened.

plus so many more connections between characters that i’m probably forgetting about!!!!

The Iron Throne - Cersei currently sits the Iron Throne, but has almost no claim. Her potential baby by Jaime’s claim won’t hold up against any of the other candidates for the Throne. Currently competing with her is Dany, who does have a legitimate claim, dragons, and an army - but is still a foreigner with a penchant for roasting people alive. Unfortunately for them, more players may enter the ring. Jon has been revealed as the legitimate son of Rhaegar and Lyanna, meaning he has a stronger claim. He was raised in a noble family, fought for the nights watch, and has proven himself a capable military commander. However, his parentage reveal may weaken northern allegiance, and he has no real experience or allies in the south - and the kingdoms may not look kindly on his relationship to the wildings. He has also bent the knee/kind of romanced Dany. Jon absolutely doesnt want to rule the seven kingdoms - he barely wants to be king in the north - but would take the role out of a sense of duty if persuaded. Other; slightly more tenuous claims - Jamie or Tyrion (w/ Sansa Stark?) might have a chance if Cersei, Dany, and Jon don’t survive, although Robert’s bastard Gendry has a slightly stronger claim - but like Jon, he doesn’t seem like he wants the Throne, and definitely doesnt have the experience or education to rule.

For all Dany’s talk of ‘breaking the wheel’ a Targ restoration would most likely be more of the same. With the North desperate to cling onto its recently regained independence, Dorne and the Reach without their liege lords and the Riverlands in particular destroyed by the years of war fought among high lords, i can’t imagine the smallfolk being content to accept a foreign queen who tends to further destroy things, even if (maybe even especially because) she has dragons. All of which is assuming the living beat the dead and there’s still someone around to sit the throne and people to rule.

Predictions / Wishlist:

WOLVES - I desperately need D&D to have sacrificed some of their gratuitous  dragon shots to give us some direwolves. If I don’t see Ghost in episode one I’m rioting.

Battle for Winterfell - This is confirmed to happen e3, only halfway through the season, which means that defeating the night king may not be the endgame conflict like we thought. I don’t think the battle of Winterfell will be the total defeat of the walkers, however. The living are gonna sustain HEAVY casualties that will definitely change the course of the story moving forward.

I very firmly believe that Jaime’s arrival at Winterfell will be huge. The reveal that Cersei has broken the truce will cause Dany to abandon the Northern cause to attack King’s Landing - we saw shots of dragons over king’s landing in the trailers, and Dany doesn’t  appear in any of the clips of  the actual battle at Winterfell - in addition, scenes with her, Tyrion, and Varys appear to be at Dragonstone. since the trailers probably only include clips from the first few episodes, i feel like this is basically a given. Whether or not her armies accompany her isnt certain - I have a feeling Dany is going to lose a lot of followers and allies this season as we witness her fall from power.

As for the battle itself, I’m very excited from the clips to see Jaime and Brienne fighting together, finally seeing Arya on a battlefield, and praying for Ghost and Nymeria (&her pack) to make an appearance.

Political!Jon - basically the only way I can accept the character inconsistencies and plotline of s7. There’s some amazing metas on this. I really want to believe it’s not just bad writing and that Jon has been playing the game to achieve his goal of securing Dany’s dragons - at any cost. It would definitely subvert GA expectations - for some reason they still think Jon is this intensely honorable man who is incapable of lying or manipulation - despite the entire wildling storyline???? wild. please redeem yourselves, D&D

Dark!Dany - I’m not gonna lie. I hate dany. I don’t like her as a person or a character. On rewatch of the entire show, I realized just how much I detest her attitude, decision making, and actions. She is entitled and foolish. Now that she’s in Westeros and actually faces conflict and characters who weren’t created to serve her storyline specifically, she is starting to crack. Her actions over s7 displayed just how precarious her relationship with power is, and how easily she could become another mad king. I would love for her to become the final enemy that needs to be defeated after the white walkers once her allies realize her true nature. She’s a conqueror and capable of inspiring loyalty, but as the meereen arc showed, an incapable ruler.

King’s Landing - it’s gonna burn y’all - at cersei or danys hands or both

SSQOTSK- If someone has to rule all of the Seven Kingdoms, who is more qualified than Sansa Stark? She has the right family name, the loyalty of at least 2 (if not 3) of the 7 Kingdoms, and is a just and practical ruler who wants her subjects to love her. This one is a stretch, because she really has no claim (unless she marries Jon, I guess I’d be okay with them co-ruling). More realistically and I think preferably, I’d like to see her ruling the Independent North as Queen in the North. Whether this means a marriage to Jon or him being out of the picture (maybe as King in the South, although I don’t see that happening). Or Jon remaining in the North and Sansa co-ruling with him from the South. Basically, I just really think Sansa is one of the few legitimate contenders for a decent ruler. She would bring peace and prosperity to the seven kingdoms and help them survive the winter. in dream fairy-tale world, Davos can be her Hand and Brienne her Queensguard.

No more kings - personally, I want Thrones to end with the Iron Throne gone entirely. GRRM has said in the past that the sociopolitical aspects of fantasy are important to him - “What is Aragorn’s tax policy?” and the books in general make a point of condemning the corruption and flaws of the monarchal/ruling class of the seven kingdoms. I personally hope either that the 7 kingdoms will split again and govern themselves independently, or that westeros will shift to a more democratic system (slowly, of course - and not easily.) GRRM loves to subvert tropes and expectations, and i think this would be exactly the kind of twist he would do. Of course, the show might not like that and play into the audience’s desire to have someone “win” (as long as the Starks get some peace and happiness). I want the throne melted down and the (probably burned) Red Keep used to rebuild King’s Landing after cersei/dany destroys it with wildfyre/dragons.

CLEGANEBOWL - Okay this is basically confirmed but i have been wanting it for SO LONG!!!!! I don’t think either of them will win tbh - we havent really seen the mountain in action since his resurrection, but he’s still bigger and stronger than Sandor. I think it will be the end of them both.

Cersei/Sansa reunion - There is some foreshadowing/hints/theories about a kidnapping plot, in which Cersei brings Sansa back to KL. Whether it’s true or not, I hope that under some circumstances we get to see these two go toe-to-toe again. Sansa learned a lot from Cersei, and has since surpassed her as a player in the game. any interaction between them will be incredible, and I desperately want to see Sansa outsmart Cersei and “cast her down” a la the prophecy.

endgame ships:

Jonsa

Jaime/Brienne

Gendarya

Crackships I would be okay with:

Sansa/Jaime

Who Lives?

Sansa Stark - As mentioned, one of the most underestimated and underrated characters on the show, Sansa has already survived hells that none of the other characters (besides maybe theon) could comprehend. She is one of the characters GRRM’s wife said he isn’t allowed to kill off - of course, the show has kind of diverged from the canon of the books, so that might not matter. More importantly - it has been foreshadowed more than once that Sansa is meant to live through the endgame. 

And if anyone has been shown as a competent leader capable of ensuring the survival of her people through the winter, it’s her - she has a mind for governing, is fair ruler with common sense. she’s learned from the best.

Arya and Bran - She’s the other one GRRM isn’t allowed to kill. I personally believe all the Starks (with the exception of Jon) will survive.

Jamie and Brienne - (spoilers) it was accidentally confirmed by Gwen Christie that Brienne (& probably jamie) survive. Personally if it wasn’t for this I would assume they both sacrifice themselves.

Sam & Gilly - They have to survive and help rebuild. They are the dream of spring.

Other Characters I love and want to live:

Dolorous Edd

Bronn

Gendry

Who Dies?

Missandei and Greyworm are screwed, sorry

Cersei - she needs a good conclusion though - when she dies i want it to be on her own terms.

Jon Snow (?) -  I can’t decide on this one. I’m torn about him living, I feel like once his “destiny” is fulfilled it doesnt make sense to keep him around as a character besides fanservice

Dany - there’s no way she survives im sorry

Jorah - Dies defending her

Greyjoys - maybe Euron will actually chicken out and escape with his life to the east or something, but I think Cersei will kill him once he fulfills his purpose. Yara’s already dead imo. Theon.... I am conflicted about. But I feel like things dont look good for them. At least give Theon a noble death and Euron a satisfying one

Davos - I so desperately want him to live and Serve as Jonsa’s Hand but I think he’ll not survive

The Hound - Cleganebowl will end in both Cleganes dead

Melisandre - I love her but it’s time

#got s8 #got spoilers #stark season #got predictions #hoenstly ignore this its a vyvanse fueled disaster

[kitten1618x]

So Many Spoilers And Yet, Jonsa Is Still Endgame

Okay my loves. Everyone close your eyes and take a deep, calming breath. Better? No? Well then, let's continue ...

It seems that no matter where you turn, the internet has been brimming with GoT spoilers. Some seem plausible, some utterly ridiculous, others written like straight up fanfiction. Since then, my inbox has been flooded with nervous Jonsa shippers, and while I would love to answer each one of you individually, I'm only one person. That doesn't mean you should stop sending me asks -at the risk of repeating myself, I've just decided to compile all of my current thoughts here.

Here's your warning right now that this post contains SPOILERS. Whether or not they are factual spoilers, remains to be seen.

Something smells funny

The whole way this leaks situation has unfurled is quite ...odd. Supposed spoilers of the whole season have been available on Reddit for months now, and yet HBO was mum about the whole thing until just a few days ago. Now they are claiming to have been hacked (which I actually do believe), yet they only confirm that episode 4's script was hacked. I've seen it, and it seems plausible -yet it was only one scene (is the entire episode going to be just one scene??). Why they still haven't spoken about the rest of the alleged leaks seems silly to me -especially since so far they have lined up with the show we've seen -minus context, of course. It would be so simple (especially in light of the recent hack job) to just release a public statement -"yeah, we fucked up but we're stepping up security." WHY WON'T THEY ADDRESS THE LEAKS? We all know they know that they're out there. Just something for you to marinate on.

Boatbang

So I'm not going to mince words. I've already stated on several occasions that I'm 97% sure that boatbang is going to happen (although the percentage varies, I'm still pretty positive it's inevitable). I know it's disheartening for Jonsa shippers, because on some level we feel like Jon is being unfaithful to Sansa, but in reality he's not. Sansa is his half-sister. We know it to be otherwise, but the characters do not. Until that little nugget drops, prepare for this ship to go submarine mode -as in humming just under the water's surface (torpedoes armed and ready to sink the SS Targcest).  

Why Jon, why?

There are several things to consider here. Dany is an attractive woman, and Jon is not blind -she's also not his sister. Yes, yes, we know she's his aunt -but again, he doesn't. If he's injured and she saves his life (depending on what leaks you believe, I suppose -yes, several versions are floating around) -he may feel gratitude to her -or sympathy if she lost one of her "dragon children" saving his life. There's also the Targ connection which might be mistaken for something deeper than just familial, and that whole pesky incest gene working against him.

My personal opinion is it will be good old fashioned lust. So here's this lovely woman, with powerful Dragons who agrees to help him in his cause. They just got their asses kicked and are facing some pretty grim odds here -he very well may die, poor boys been fighting all his damn life, now he's getting squicky strange urgings for his own "sister", and he's only been laid once in his life! Hell, I'd fuck her too! Especially if I wouldn't be breaking my little "no bastards" vow, and the girl claimed to be barren from a witches curse.

One argument I keep hearing is that it would be so ooc for Jon to do this. Sure, I guess it would. Now take everything I just mentioned above and apply it here. Makes for a better argument, huh? I refuse to fault Jon for having a sexual tryst when he's essentially a free man and could very well just be starved for some simple human affection. If you would hold this against him, it's really just silly.

The bastard who's actually a Prince

Supposedly, the scene of Rhaegar and Lyanna's "legitimate" wedding is going to play immediately after the boatbang concludes -much like the reveal of Jon's true parentage immediately following the Jonsa ramparts scene. You remember, the one where Jon kisses Sansa's forehead for like 20 minutes and then glances down at her lips like he wants to suck her face off? Yeah, that scene that screamed !siblings! 

Now, I've seen people speculating (ahem, the other ship) this is meant to show the audience how J/D are star-crossed lovers, and they're meant to be (and if I shipped them, I'd try to convince myself this as well). But really, it's showing that Jon, the TRUE heir to the Iron Throne has just become his Auntie D's rival, not lover.

Come on, you all know some sort of Targbowl is on the horizon. Through all her loss and heartache, what has kept Dany going? Her claim to the IT. She was born to rule the 7k's ("and she will"). Do you think she'll let Jon and his little pecker stand in the way?

Drogo was her one true love. Remember Dany's visions when she was in the House of the Undying? Of the snowy IT in the destroyed throne room, that was just out of reach, and then of Drogo and Rhaego on the other side of the wall? It makes me feel like Dany will die on the other side of the wall, and that's when she'll be reunited with her family -in the meantime, they wait in purgatory. But, that's a meta for another day.

But I feel like this (below) -the words the witch spoke to her, has something to do with the Long Night and being reunited with Drogo again, in death (the afterlife).

"When the sun rises in the west, sets in the east, when the seas go dry. When the mountains blow in the wind like leaves".

The wall falling? The snow and ice from the mountain would blow in the wind like leaves .... But again, another day for that -back to the topic at hand.

Who's the REAL red herring?

On one hand, we have a very rushed "romance" between two virtual strangers. One of them is currently holding the other against their will ...gosh, this is soooo romantic!  If that was my ship, I'd be kinda pissed. Yeah, they're going to get a sex scene -let them have it. We have endgame.

On the other hand, we have a very slow burn romance simmering in the background. We have ALL the subtle beauty of season 6, and that belligerent sexual tension at the start of this season. If you're shipping them, it's obvious you've seen it too, so I really don't have to list it all -but my GOD, romance tropes GALORE! Slip in all the Ned/Cat parallels, and the exquisite beauty that was the crypt scene with LF ...I mean, come on guys? Do I really have to break this all down for you?

Need more examples? Okay, how about the Tyrion convo in the last episode? Totally appropriate for him to ask Jon about Sansa's wellbeing -so what do we make of the whole "sham and unconsummated" bit that was completely unnecessary if all they wanted to establish to the GA is that Sansa is clever. I sound like a broken record, but if anyone can explain to me how that furthers the narrative in any way, I'm all ears and my inbox is open.

To put it quite simply -it doesn't! But, you can try ....as I said, my inbox is open.

It was solely to remind us of the crypt scene, and Jon's odd behavior concerning Sansa. Just as her cloak on his shoulders -the cloak that he wasn't wearing when he arrived on Dragonstone (nor was he or Davos carrying it) miraculously appeared when he was brooding on the cliffs about what a fool he was. A cookie for anyone who guesses who he was thinking about -maybe the one who told him this was a trap? As he's trapped there now, since Dany took his boat.

And if we didn't already know that Jon will bring Sansa up with Theon next ep., I would have told you that she would come up -as she will when Jon meets the Hound as well. Why? Because the writers want to remind us not to forget about her. They want us to know that she's in the back of Jon's mind through all of this. I wouldn't be surprised if we hear her speak of him more as well. Of course, we never really know what's going on with Sansa, because the people who release the leaks are all closeted J/D shippers.

But let's remember that a red herring is something BLATANT. Ya know, like a rushed romance that's RIGHT IN YOUR FACE -not a submarine simmering under the waves.

Sansa is not Jon's second choice

I'm really tired of hearing this, tbh. If you can't see that these Ned/Cat parallels are meant to show that Sansa and Jon already have that established love and trust factor that Ned and Cat built, then you're willfully blind.

Could a political marriage be what initially puts them together -sure. But with all the clues you've been given from the writers, do you think that they don't already feel the stirrings of love for each other? I mean, it's awkward and odd, but it's there. Clearly, we've only really been shown this through Jon so far, but I'm willing to bet we'll start getting some clues from Sansa by early next season (or maybe even late this season). Remember Bran has not revealed Jon's parentage to anyone, yet. If they were just going to throw them together politically and loveless, then there would be no reason for them to waste precious time (as we're coming to the end and every little bit we see matters) laying the groundwork for a romantic subplot -they'd just do it.

It kind of blows my mind that the same people who say that Jon would never sleep with someone he didn't have some sort of feelings for, thinks he'd enter into a loveless marriage -to sleep with someone he doesn't have feelings for? They'll need heirs after all. You see what I just did there?  ;)

Come on guys, this is Jon

How do you think he's going to react when he finds out he slipped one in his aunt? Probably about as shitty and ashamed as he feels right now, harboring unnatural feelings for his "sister". He's not going to be like -ahh fuck it, I'm half Targ. No biggie! This is Jon-motherfucking-Snow!! He may not be Ned's son, but Stark blood runs through his veins, and he is indeed, a Stark.

Jonsa is endgame. We all know what we saw. There's millions of words worth of metas floating all around Tumblr about it. Casual viewers have seen it. People who don't ship it, have seen it. My husband (who hates it), has seen it. Reviewers have seen it.

It's intentionally subtle, but it's there.

REMEMBER THAT LEAKS LACK ACTUAL CONTEXT!!!

I think I've covered everything, but EVERYONE, please reblog and add your own supporting evidence.

RELAX. Take that collective chill I keep talking about, and find your zen. Enjoy the show. Remember why you started watching it in the first place -it wasn't for Jonsa. Find the silver lining and enjoy Kit's naked bits (because ffs I intend to)!!

Oh, and if I haven't made myself perfectly clear ...Jonsa is endgame, it is known, spread the word. ❤️

#jonsa #jonsa meta #jonsa is endgame #jon x sansa

[bu11d0g-blog1]

Detox Yourself For A Healthier Life

We live in a very chaotic world. We also live in a very polluted world. You probably don't need me to remind you of this fact. There are all sorts of pollution available and, thankfully, the United States is one of the world's leaders in cutting down on physical pollution. I am, of course, talking about pollutants that make their way into our air, water, and food. The Environmental Protection Agency, despite whatever issues it have, has done a generally good job of protecting citizens from physical and chemical pollutants. The same can be said of the US Food and Drug Administration. Thanks to their vigilance, they have done an outstanding job making sure that most of the food items that make their way to our table are generally safe. Of course, there are certain issues that we can nitpick over like GMO and certain types of chemical residues. Still, it can’t be denied that, by and large, the US and other developed countries are fairly well-protected against standard the sources of pollution. If you don't believe me, just hop on a plane and go to Beijing, China. The difference in air quality, water quality, and food safety is like day and night. This is not a slam on China because they are making great progress in tightening regulations but it has to be said that when it comes to protecting its citizens, the developed world has done a fairly good job. This is why a lot of people are kind of confused as to with the whole idea of detoxification has gained a lot of traction lately. After all, federal, local, and state regulatory bodies have done a fairly good job of projecting people from chemical toxins and physical threats to their safety. If only things were that simple. You have to understand that the toxins that afflict modern people aren’t just restricted to chemical forms. Chemical toxins and pollutants are very easy to screen. They're very easy to detect. And, yes, they are very easy to prevent and treat. The same goes with diseases. Forget what you've heard before. Detoixfication is not just a simple matter of going on a juice diet or going without food for an extended period of time. It goes beyond that. If anything else, it means that you're going to have to re-examine the kind of life you are living and the kind of life you have built for yourself. You can quickly discover that a lot of the things that you choose to believe to be true are actually making you sick. At the very least, they’re not helping you perform at peak levels. This book teaches people from all walks of life to conduct a complete detox of their life. This detox regimen applies across the board. Whether you are suffering from mental toxins or you're struggling with spiritual pollutants or you are faced with the standard physical adulterants that weigh you down and drag you back, this book has something for you. By using a holistic method to detox, you will be able to live life to the fullest. If you are in any way, shape, or form unhappy, frustrated, or feeling stuck in your life, it is because you have allowed certain things to weigh you down. This is just as bad as being addicted to drugs. This is just problematic as struggling with chemical pollution. Just because you can see it, smell it, taste it or hear it, it doesn’t mean it doesn't exist. You know full well the effects of mental pollution. This book enables you to break free from all of that so you can live up to your fullest potential. All of us are on this planet for a purpose. The sad truth is that we have allowed certain mindsets to get the better of us and this has clouded our view of what our purpose should be. It is no surprise that the vast majority of us are simply going through the motions. You go from hour to hour, day to day, and moment to moment with really no clear direction as to why we're here. This book cuts through all that fog and enables you to bask in the sunlight of purpose, clarity, and meaning.Are you sick? In western cultures, sickness has traditionally been defined as physical, medical or mental. While western psychology and psychiatry have progressed quite a bit over the years, there's still a long held impression in the medical community regarding the mind-body connection. Unfortunately, given what's going on and the trends in general society both in the developed and developing world, traditional definitions of sickness are short sided and all too limited. It doesn't do any good to define sickness in very narrow biochemical terms. As western medicine dug deeper and deeper into a biochemical germ based or pathogen-centric definition of medicine, a lot is lost in translation. While it has made big strides in bridging the effect of psychology and overall stress on physical health, there's still a lot to be desired. The bottom line is that we can learn quite a bit from Hindu traditions or eastern traditions that deal with the concept of sickness. In those traditions, sickness is defined holistically. They're more likely to put a lot of stock on the concept of spiritual pollution, emotional stress, interpersonal sickness and other factors that have a strong impact on the human psyche and overall sense of well being. These factors then manifest themselves in actual physical illness or substandard physical performance. You may be perfectly “healthy” in biochemical terms. All your tests may come out clean. But your doctor will still be stumped as to why you feel lousy all the time. There are a lot of people who have all sorts of symptoms similar to lupus or auto immune diseases. But when the blood chemistry tests come in, they should be getting a clean health. Physically speaking, there's nothing wrong with them. But there they are, suffering. Feeling like they are at their ropes end. Ask yourself, “Am I sick?” There's nothing wrong with asking this question. There's no shame involving this. Remember, the worst thing that you can do is to pretend that you don't have a problem. How can you find the answer when you're fooling yourself into thinking that there's no problem?Rediscovering the “wholistic” person Since traditional definitions of sickness are too restricted to the physical and biochemical realms, it is not a surprise that a lot of modern people can't get the relief that they desire from psychopharmaceutical drugs and chemical based medicine in general. In fact when you look at the top 10 medications prescribed in the United States and Western Europe, anti-anxiety, anti-depressant and anti-hypertensive medications are almost always in the top 5 or top 10. You can bank on them being present year after year. There's something wrong here. Even though we have been bombarding these illnesses with a wide range of chemical cocktails over the years, we're still sicker and sicker and we pay more and more money and there seems to be no solution in sight. You are more than your physical parts A lot of this existential angst and its matching physical symptoms is due to the fact that people are more than their physical parts. They're not just a collection of blood pressure readings, blood sugar levels, uric acid tests scores and a wide range of biochemical indicators. All of these may come out clean and fall well within “normal range”. But that doesn't mean that people will stop feeling lousy, stressed and suffering from “brain fog”. This is due to the fact that if people want to get well and step away from just choosing to survive, but to actually live fully, they have to look at their complete being in “wholistic” terms. What does “wholistic” mean? Just as your mind is composed of more than your brain, your life and overall health is composed of more than just your body. We're not even talking about the additional dimensions of psychological and emotional health. We're also talking about how you get along with other people, how you look at yourself in the grand scheme of things, what your sense of personal meaning and purpose are, what you choose to eat, how you construct your day, what kind of environments you find yourself in. In other words, we go beyond the physical. We escape the narrow confines of the biochemical foundation of your life. While biochemistry and your physical body are absolutely important, they are not the complete picture. Far from it. Rediscovering the power of the whole person When we start looking at people as more that just what we can see, we will start making progress as to actual effective treatment. Whatever it is you are suffering from, whatever physical manifestations of stress or a lack of purpose may be hounding you, whatever aches and pains you may experience, all of these can be addressed with a wholistic approach.Reclaim parts of yourself that you have overlooked or forgotten about There are many different parts of the human psyche. There are many different faces that make up who we are. When you leave your home, you are different people to the different individuals you meet. You're somebody's brother or sister, then you are somebody's boss or somebody's employee or somebody's contractor. On and on it goes. We're different people to the people we find ourselves in different situations. We may be in the same place, but at different times, we're different people or we are different people at the same time, but at different places. In other words, we're different people in terms of times and space. What happens to these identities? It's as if you're wearing all these different masks with different angles on them. How do you reconcile all of this? Unfortunately, as I've mentioned, we live in a world of specialization. So we're forced to slice and dice and pick and choose. This does a big disservice to just the rich tapestry of all identities and capabilities. There is power in wholeness When you choose to live with full integrity, this means you reconnect with everything that defines you. In other words, integrity means you connect the potential with what is manifesting, you reconcile what you desire with what you are producing. This requires introspection and a whole lot of honesty. This means you reconnect with everything that defines you. There's the physical you, the biochemical you, the emotional you, the spiritual you, the psychological you, the cultural you, the relational you. I can go on and on. Unfortunately, a lot of us just focus on one thing and one thing alone. In fact, there's a lot of us who define ourselves as one dimensional human beings. If you need proof of this, go to a party and talk to people and the first thing out of most people's mouths is what they do for a living. They would say, “Hi! My name is Jerry. I'm an attorney.” or “Hello! My name is Mindy. I'm a doctor at the nearby hospital.” or “My name is Albert and I work for Microsoft.” People tend to define themselves in a one dimensional way. We always try to connect with some larger phenomena that somehow casts a shadow on our own identity. For example, when somebody introduces himself or herself as working for Facebook, what's the first thing that comes to your mind? Facebook has a brand and there's a value judgment there that's very different from somebody stepping up to you and saying, “Hey! My name is Joe. I'm an executive at Starbucks.” In the case of Joe, there are 2 things going on. When he says hes an executive, that brings to mind certain ideas. And when they say “Starbucks”, that also brings a whole other set of issues. Unfortunately, a lot of us are just focused on one thing. We become one dimensional. It's as if we're walking cartoons. And the worst part to all of this is we don't even realize it. If we're lucky we get up to 2 or even 3 of these factors in terms of us defining ourselves. That doesn't even come close. By restricting ourselves to the kind of identity we have, we let go of a lot of our connections to the rest of the natural world. This is why we suffer. This is why we feel incomplete. This is why we feel so susceptible to stress, to changing to situations and to the vagaries of life. This is why we struggle.You are part of a larger picture The first step you could take to fully detoxify yourself is to step out of the binary divisions that you have used to define reality prior to this point. This is a mouthful. I admit this is pretty heavy duty stuff. It definitely requires a commitment. It is not something that you can take lightly. This is not something that you can casually screw around with. It's not like you can adopt all of this instantly with a full assurance that things will be okay. It takes a lot of work. Just as you have been programmed throughout the years to think of yourself within the universe in a certain way, it takes some time and consistent focus to unwind all of that programming. Here are just some basic ideas to think about as you seek to detoxify yourself on more than just a physical or biochemical level. Overcome the “either or” mindset Our modern mindset is all about division, as I've mentioned in the previous chapter. This mindset is all about finding some sort of primacy over one aspect at the expense of others. It's the whole idea of the male over the female, the rational over the intuitive, black over white, science over faith. The problem with this is that it's all about one thing over another. There's little space for a gray area. There's little space for intuition, hunches, nuance. While there's a lot to be said for the focus division and separation brings, a lot is also lost especially when a lot of our basic needs have already been taken care of. A sense of lack in a time of plenty One thing that always blows my mind is the prevalence of loneliness, isolation and desperation in parts of the world that can be truly called lands of plenty. Whether we're talking about Australian, New Zealand, Canada, western Europe, United States or all points in between, there are many areas in this world where physical needs I'm talking about having enough calories to make it from day to day have been more than taken care of. It won't be an exaggeration to say that many people in these places live on the lap of luxury. They have access to many things that even their ancestors would find truly amazing and stupendous. But here we are, with massive rates of disconnection, divorce, addiction, perhaps even crime or self harm. This is one of life's riches ironies. We live in a modern world where a lot of people feel that they have so little of what truly matters. Yet if they choose to look around them, they are surrounded by abundance. Diagnosing REAL poverty Did you know that millionaires kill themselves all the time? I'm not just talking about Kate Spade, Anthony Bourdain, Robin Williams or any other fairly well off celebrity that we've all heard of. I'm talking about relatively faceless, high net worth individuals who choose to pull the plug on their lives. They have everything to live for. But unfortunately, they have nothing to live from. There is no shortage of people who have 7 or even 8 figures in the bank killing themselves in many ways. I'm not just talking about suicide. I'm also talking about drug addiction. That's a form of suicide. There's a sickness going on. We're living in polluted times. A lot of this has to do with the mindset that we have. And unless you are going to see this for what it is, which is pollution, we will continue to be blind to it. unfortunately we'll continue to live with its effects. It doesn't feel good to think that you're just going around in circles that you put in all this time, effort and energy only to end up in the same place. It would be great to feel that there is a purpose for your life and that you are actually going somewhere. Unfortunately, as the years go by and as technology evolves, the more connected we become and the faster data processes our lives and our impulse, the more disconnected we feel. Back in the day, it was weird to feel lonely in a crowd. Now, you can see street scenes all over the place of people looking at their mobile devices all at once. They're all connected and disconnected at the same time. We're all living in our own little world. But that world is disjointed, private. We're, at the same time, collaborating through all this technology while at the same time stewing in our own personal mental prisons. A lot of this can be traced to the fact that we have let certain pollutants get the better of us.Be aware of your pollutants What pollutants hold you back and drag you down? What pollutants do you need to detoxify yourself of. This is where things get a little tricky because it's very easy to define “pollutant” in terms of biochemistry. Heavy metals are pollutants. Mercury is a nasty pollutant. Excess carbon dioxide in the air as well as methane are well known pollutants. It's very easy to think of pollutants in strictly physical or biochemical terms. Either we insist that we see it like in the form of sludge, oil spills or chemical contamination, or detect it in some way or other like in the form of escaping gas. But even if we were to define pollutants in these rather broad terms, they don't go far enough. You see, pollutants take many forms. And until and unless we can open our minds to the definition of these pollutants in terms of a wholistic perspective, we sell our self short. We unnecessarily restrict the problem and it should come as no surprise that our solutions also come up short. What follows is a wholistic definition of pollutants. Until and unless you can wrap your mind around these, the real solution won't come. You'll still feel stuck. You'll still feel that somethings missing in your life. You'll still have a tough time making sense of things because you constantly find yourself comparing yourself to others. You have to have a more expansive view of pollutants so you can go through a truly effective detox program. Limiting beliefs Limiting beliefs have done more harm for people than any kind of chemical or physical substance. Think about it. If you can see a sign that says “Biohazard” or you see a radiation warning sign or some sort of chemical spill danger sign, you'd back off. It's pretty straight forward. After all, these are physical pollutants. Not so with limiting beliefs. In fact, a lot of people think that their limiting beliefs are part of who they are. I can't even begin to tell you how many people I've come across who are extremely negative, caustic and toxic. When I talk to these individuals, they basically tell me, “This is who I am. This is all I could be. I was born this way.” This is a problem. Unlike physical pollutants, which you can easily see or physically detect through your 5 senses, mental and spiritual pollutants are more pernicious. They cling to you. Kind of like a bad case of BO. And just like BO, the longer you have it, the less you smell it. Your limiting beliefs, sooner or later, define you. Remember, your limiting beliefs is your personal filter for reality. It's like a pair of glasses you put on when you look at everything around you. Of course, depending on the color of your lenses, the appearance of your world can dramatically change. Before you know it, you assume that the world really looks like this. But it turns out that you can change those lenses. What makes limiting belief so dangerous? So what? We all have these “attitude sunglasses”. Isn't one just as valid as another? Isn't that part of the diversity of life? What's the big deal about limiting beliefs? Well, limiting beliefs are dangerous precisely because they trick you into thinking that they come from you. You are under the impression that your limiting belief is just restricted to you, that it's part of who you are, that it's the product of you living your life. We make all sorts of grand justifications and explanations about our limiting beliefs. It's kind of like being bound in handcuffs and you spend a lot of time decorating your handcuffs. Maybe you'd be better off realizing that you're wearing handcuffs no matter how beautiful those handcuffs are. Maybe the better approach would be to think about how to take off those handcuffs. But unfortunately, we reach our point with our limiting beliefs that we believe they're part of our identity and we simply can not let go of them. In fact, some people take this to the next level and say they will die without these beliefs. They draw neat, tidy lines of limitation around their complete life. Who they can be, the things they can do, the people they can hang out with and what their future could look like. The reality behind limiting beliefs What if I told you that your limiting beliefs are chosen. You don't have to keep saying to yourself that you are dumb or you don't have what it takes or that you have no money. You don't have to keep saying to yourself that you're unlucky or that you're ugly or too old to get married. Just as you are able to choose them in the first place, you can choose to let them go. At first, you took on a limiting belief casually. You kind of picked it up as you were moving along. But the more you lived your life and the more you believed in that belief and the more you chose it to filter your reality of the outside world, the stronger it became. It became harder and harder to let go. Celebrate your power of choice The key to detoxifying yourself from limiting beliefs and other forms of spiritual pollution is to rediscover your power of choice. I know you're going to have a tough time taking this in. But you have a choice. You may think that you're a victim. You may think that your life is already set. You may think that there's really not much you can do about your life. You're definitely welcome to think these things. But they are not reality. You have to understand that victims cannot choose. Life simply inflicts oppression on them. They have no choice in the matter. I'm happy to report that you are never a victim. You can always choose. Even if somebody's inflicting harm on you, you can choose how to respond. If and only if you accept this fact, then you will be on your way to becoming a victor. You know what a victor is? It is somebody who makes things happen instead of somebody who constantly asks in desperation and helplessness “What happened?” The good news is you can detoxify yourself from limiting beliefs and other spiritual pollutants. But you must take the first necessary step. You must first realize that you chose your life and you can choose another kind of life.From victim to victor: the detox path Are you a victim? You can be completely honest. I know that in our society, it's not exactly a good thing when people come out and say that they feel like they're victims. But if you want to fully detoxify from all the pollutants in your life, you have to come clean. You have to be authentic and true to yourself. If none of this makes sense, ask yourself the following questions. If you answer yes to at least 2 of these, then chances are high that you are a victim or, at least, you consider yourself one. Do you think you're entitled to life being fair? Does it seem like everybody misunderstands you? Does it seem like no matter how hard you try, things just don't work out because you're unlucky? Does it seem like people are conspiring against you or just don't like you? Does it appear that you don't have the skills you need to get ahead? Are other people to blame for your childhood? Are other people to blame because you're not happy today? Is your boss holding you down by paying you less than you are worth? Do people in your relationships have a tough time discovering “the real you”? If at least 2 of these questions ring true to you or apply to you, chances are you are a victim or you think you are a victim. Claim your victim status It's very hard to solve a problem if you believe you don't have one. For example, it's very hard to get an alcoholic to stop drinking if they don't think they're an alcoholic. If they have no problems with how much they drink and what they drink, then they're not going to get any better. There's no problem to solve. The same analysis applies to your self victimization. If you think you're like a victim, then now is the time to get to that moment of truth. You have to be clear with yourself. This means you have to be completely honest with yourself. At this point, you may be working with the assumption that you are some sort of victim. Ask yourself, “Am I really a victim or am I just acting like one? Do I think like one? Do I understand the world like a victim?” Please understand that this is not blame finding. I'm not trying to make you feel bad about yourself or put you on the spot. But until and unless you can accept the fact that you've been playing the victim game or whipping out the victim card at every opportunity, things are not going to change. Your life is definitely not going to change if you keep this up. Own up to this. Is this what you're doing? Do you see yourself as some sort of victim? Do you always see yourself as the underdog? Do you see yourself as the person that things are happening to instead of the person who is actively making things happen? You have to be completely clear here because if there's any kind of victimization, you have to look at it straight in the eye and accept that this is happening. If you are in any kind of state of denial, progress is impossible. How can there be progress when you deny that there's even  a problem in the first place? You won't be able to fix what you need to fix. Detox step #1: Stop blaming other people in situations beyond your control When you blame other people, you're actually handing power over your life to those people. Think about that. This logically makes sense. Since you say that they caused your problem, then this automatically means they will have the solution. You've spent all this time blaming other people and unwittingly took all the power to change your circumstances from your hands and placed it in theirs. Obviously, this is not empowering. This is not helping things. This is only going to make your life worse and worse. Sure, it feels good because you have some sort of emotional release. Who doesn't feel good when the weight of responsibility is lifted off their shoulders? When you feel like you're a victim, you don't have to change. Other people have to change. Doesn't that feel good? But the problem is you pay a very big price for that sense of emotional release or even your sense of vindication. That sense of vindication you feel when you blame other people, like your father abusing you or your mother making you feel like garbage, comes at a very high price because you rob yourself of the power to make something out of yourself. Of course, most people don't phrase things this way. But in operational terms, psychologically, this is the effect. Here's the truth. The people you're constantly blaming? They're gone! Seriously! They're living their lives. Maybe they have new families. Perhaps they've moved on, as traumatic as that experience may have been for both of you. They're not, in any way, shape or form, feeling your anger, hate and resentment. The only person taking the brunt of all that emotional damage is you. Stop beating yourself up. Stop rehearsing that very painful image of a traumatic past. Nobody's being helped by this. Take ownership today Take ownership of your life. I know this is easier said than done. But you have to do it. Not your father who was emotionally absents, not your mother who may have been domineered, not your ex boyfriend who may have screwed with your head, not your girlfriend who may have betrayed you, but you. Say to yourself, “Yes. I've lived my life as a victim. For all this time, I've blamed other people. Now, I'm going to stop blaming others. Instead, I'm going to say it's my fault. It's my responsibility. I own this.” You have to make yourself say these and you have to mean it. Until you are able to say that you totally own your life and you made everything in it happen or you've let it happen, nothings going to change. Please understand that everything that happens to your life was either chosen by you or you let it happen. Why? Because you could always control how you respond. As you read this book, a bolt of lighting might hit you. Obviously, you didn't cause it. But I can guarantee you that you have total control about how you respond to that unfortunate circumstance. Retake that sense of ownership you have over your life because that power to choose is the only real power you have. Here's the good news. The power to choose is the fountain head of all possibility in your life. Reclaim that power and you can turn your life around. Unless it hurts, it's not real Quick warning: it's very easy to just go through some sort of intellectual laundry list of the things that you should own up to. Everything that I've said prior to this point is very easy to intellectually compartmentalize and treat like some sort of academic information. Many people do a good job of lying to themselves because they just go down the list of all their screw ups. At the end of the day, it doesn't change them. They intellectually accept these. But they don't develop a sense of emotional urgency. In other words, it doesn't cut close to home. Deep down inside, on an emotional level, there's still this hermetically sealed compartment in their mind about who truly is at fault. You can say to yourself that  you allowed your father to harm you. You could say to yourself that you have allowed your mother run your life and make you feel miserable. You can repeat that in your head like a mantra. But the problem is until it reaches on a deep and emotional level where you completely own it, nothing will change. There are so many people out there who have gone through psychiatric counseling who know their issues. But they refuse to change because whatever revelations that they have come across remain lists in their head. These truths must burn. How bad? You have to make a fool out of yourself. You have to feel that you have let yourself down. You have to feel that you've really screwed yourself over. In other words, you have to stop running away from the impact of these emotions. Put simply, you have to do things that you have been fearing for all this time. The good news is once it hurts, then you know that this laundry list of realizations is true. If it doesn't hurt or it seems so glib or inconvenient, then you're just playing mind games with yourself. You're just wasting your time. There's absolutely no detoxification happening.The most important emotional detox you need to take Do an audit of all your beliefs and take ownership of them. Human lives are made up of beliefs. Our beliefs are not just these mental clouds that float through our minds with no effect. They're not just conversational notions that we talk about from time to time with absolutely no impact on our daily waking lives. No. Our beliefs define our lives. They are the cement that holds our lives together. Everything about you, from the way you wear your hair, your choice of clothing, the way you talk, even the condition of your skin are all products of what you choose to believe about yourself deep down inside. If you believe that you're a certain type of person, then this means that you believe that you are capable of certain things and not others. Don't think that these beliefs just stay in your head. They have an impact on what you choose to think about, how you interpret reality, the things you choose to perceive or even remember and what you feel about your interpretations of reality. In other words, they have a real impact on how you process reality. This manifests in the things that you say, the things you feel and the things that you do. In other words, they impact your choices. List these beliefs out. Please understand that it doesn't matter whether they're “good” or “bad”. This is no time to be judging them. Just list down all your beliefs. Do a mental purge. Write down the first thing that comes to mind and keep writing until you run out of ideas. Take your time. Work from where you are It's very easy to say that you should let go of limiting beliefs. It's very easy to view your life as a simple menu with certain disagreeable items on it. It is tempting to think that to improve your life, you just need to cut out the disagreeable items and you can move on. It doesn't work that way, sadly enough. Whatever garbage, poison or cancer you think your life may have is simply a matter of interpretation. As the old saying goes, one man's garbage is another man's treasure. It all depends on your point of view. That traumatic experience that you think robbed you of your childhood might actually be the cathartic experience somebody else needs to become a winner in life. Two completely different people who undergo the same traumatic experience often come out in two totally different ways. Understand that your interpretation of your reality is encapsulated in your belief. It's only as negative as your willingness to view it that way. You interpret your experiences as negative and guess what happens next. That's right! These experiences have a negative effect on how you feel and think about things. Ultimately, they have an effect on how you do things. There is a better way. Instead of simply just cutting all these out and letting go, there is a better approach. Let's get real here. It's almost impossible to cut out your past. It's as if you can take some sort of amnesia capsule. It doesn't work that way. You will always have your past. Those experiences happen. These are facts. They're not going to go away any time soon. The better approach would be to “rearrange your mental furniture”. Step #1: Reinterpret your beliefs Beliefs don't come out of nowhere. There are certain facts in your background or in your life and certain experiences that support those beliefs. It's as if they give oxygen to those beliefs and these facts maintain your beliefs. Indeed, these facts even make them grow. What if you can take whatever sustains your beliefs and interpret those facts differently? Instead of your belief grinding you down and making you feel like garbage, reinterpret these facts so they empower you and make you feel that life is possible once again. Choose to look at these facts from totally different perspectives and choose to believe that you don't have to live your life living in some sort of tightly defined, neat little box. Step #2: Detoxify your belief interpretation system Please remember that beliefs don't come out of nowhere. They are being sustained by external experiences. These are called facts. To pretend otherwise is to basically set yourself up for a massive let down. Whatever progress you achieve would be short lived. Sooner or later, your old habitual patterns will come back and you end up where you started. That's a dead end. Don't even try. For this detox step to work, you have to detoxify the way you interpret your personal reality. Ask yourself, is this the only way to interpret these facts? Is this the only reading? Or is there something more neutral or, better yet, something more positive? Follow these steps to detoxify your mindset Ask yourself the following questions, “What am I really perceiving?” When you ask yourself this question, you force yourself to be more objective. This means that you look at things both at face value and also in terms of alternatives. Next, ask yourself, “What do I normally assume about the things that I experience?” When you do this, you're basically asking yourself, “Is there any other way to interpret the things that I am perceiving aside from my habitual interpretations or responses?” You're giving yourself an out. You're giving yourself and alternative. Look for a neutral interpretation or, if you can do it, a positive read on the objective stimuli that you are observing from the real world. Identify an empowering interpretation and repeat it at every opportunity Practice makes perfect. It's very hard for many people to adopt a new habit precisely because they feel they don't have time. The way you think about the world and your place in it form a big part of your mental habits. A key part of mental detox is to let go of this through the repetition of a more empowering interpretation. The moment an image of your abusive father comes to mind, you can always try to override it by saying, “Well, my father was always working. When he came home, he was dead tired. He didn't have time to screw around with kids who did not appreciate him.” Try to put yourself in the shoes of your mother who you felt, throughout all this time, was domineering and controlling. Is there any other possible explanation why she behaved the way she did? Put yourself in the shoes of your ex girlfriend who stabbed you in the back by sleeping with your best friend. Is there a possible justification for that? I know that none of this is easy because a lot of this involves facts that you may have been trying to run away from for so long. But until and unless you confront them and, most importantly, look at alternative readings based out of compassion or empathy, nothings going to change. Your old mental interpretation of these triggers will keep feeding into your mental habits. Repeat it until it sets in Repeat your new interpretation until it sets in. Keep repeating it until it becomes habitual. How do you know it's habitual? When it becomes your automatic response. That mental image flashes, for example, your father leaving your family, and then the new interpretation comes in. When you can see daylight between how you reacted in the past, which is anger, resentment and self blame, to something more positive, then you're not trying hard enough. Keep repeating it until you see that distinction. This kind of thing is not going to happen over night. But the good news is that it does assume some form of momentum. Eventually, you start displacing your old mindset.Spiritual detox A lot of people struggle in life because they are so obsess about figuring out what to do, when to do it and who to do it with. They obsess about these questions so much and for so long that they've lost sight of the most important question. Believe it or not, there is a question that transcends all of these. The most important question is, was and always will be “Why?” Think about it. If you don't know why you're here, then all the technical knowledge in the world won't do you any good. You'll still feel empty, directionless and purposeless. It will all seem, at a certain stand point, empty, shallow and pointless. It often takes just one bad day for all of this to come crashing down around you. It is no surprise that a lot of people feel lonely in a crowd. It is not all that shocking to discover that a lot of people feel depressed. They deal with these issues in varying shades of socially acceptable ways. In our society, it's socially acceptable to cheat on your partner when you feel a deep and profound personal existential loneliness. You fill this hole in your soul with sex and you confuse physical intimacy with spiritual intimacy and fulfillment. The same goes with drinking and, to a certain degree, drugs. But let's get real here: they're all coping mechanisms. Few and far between are the people who see this issue for what it is. All these are a reflection of a spiritual lack. Due to spiritual pollution, we have lost our sense of purpose. Spiritual detox: Identify your purpose I know this sounds shocking. But everybody's got purpose. That's right. You've been put on this planet for a reason. You're not just a random collection of cells. You're not just a cluster of tissue. There is something to you that is intrinsically important. I know you feel small. I know you feel voiceless, powerless, inconsequential. But the truth is you have a purpose. The problem is most people refuse to own up to this. The truth is we all have a sense of purpose. Maybe sex is your sense of purpose. Maybe drugs gives you purpose. Maybe making more money is your purpose. But the fact that you are acting and setting goals and planning based on something you can not see right now means that you are capable of living in a purposeful way. It may not be the right one. It may not even be optimal. It may even lead to dead ends and further frustration and depression. Still, there is that power to operate from a sense of purpose. Ask yourself this question. “What is my purpose right here, right now?” Is it sex? Money? Drugs? People's validation? Living up to your parent's expectations? Trying to impress other people? What is it? Now for the key question Ask yourself this key question, “Now that I have a clear idea of the laundry list of purposes that I've given myself, does it make sense to me?” I want you to wrap your mind around this question and think about this deeply. You know what's operating. You know what's animating it. You have to be completely honest about it. But now you have to ask yourself, “Does it serve my purpose?” How do you know this? What kind of map or compass do you need? Well, it's very simple. You just have to ask a follow up question, “Do these purposes lead to the life that I want for myself and my family?” If your purpose is drugs, does it lead to the life that you want for you and the ones you love? If your purpose is sex, does it lead to those things? Be completely honest with yourself. Let me cut straight to the chase. If you're reading this book with any kind of honesty, the obvious answer is no! You're not happy. You're feeling stuck at some level or other. You feel like a liar, a hypocrite. You feel defective, flawed. Now we're making progress. Now you realize that something is missing. Identifying spiritual pollutants What are the spiritual toxins weighing you down? Do you constantly compare yourself to other people? Do you open Facebook and look at the timelines of your friends and compare your life to theirs? Do you feed your mind with all sorts of junk like celebrity gossip and political drama? Do you check out your Twitter feed with a sense of envy or dread in mind? Do you feel left behind when you look at other people's lives in social media? Do they seem so much richer, prettier and more alive than you? Does it seem like everybody else has a tremendous amount of freedom while you are feeling stuck, frustrated and desperate? Do you constantly compare what's missing in your life with other people's brightest and happiest moments? Do you find it hard to listen to people sharing pain in their lives without constantly butting in and sharing how you have suffered too? If any of these questions resonate with you, please understand that they are symptoms of spiritual pollution. You are suffering from them precisely because you feed yourself spiritual poison. Identify your personal list of spiritual toxins Any kind of detoxification must begin with the toxins you're trying to get out of your system. The same applies to spiritual detox. Here's the problem. I can't help you all that much in this area. Why? Everybody's list of spiritual toxins is different. Some people are driven by sex, power and prestige. Others are driven by social approval and living up to certain standards set by others around them. Others are driven by fear, pride, stubbornness. There's really no one size fits all solution here. So I'm not even going to try. We're all different people from all different backgrounds with all sorts of different experiences. I can go on and on about the things that separate us. Unfortunately, these areas of separation and distinction play a big role in how out spiritual toxins are shaked and positioned in our lives. What I can suggest to you I can, however, suggest to you that you reach deep down inside and ask yourself what your spiritual toxins are. Sometimes, you have to ask a question in many different ways to get to the truth. If you've ever gone to a police interrogation or you watched detective movies, you would notice that they would ask basically the same question intended to get the same answer in many different ways. They do that for 2 reasons. First, they know that people are often confused. They mean to say something, but they really can't quite say it in the right way. So they have to chip away at the different ways of phrasing something until they're clear that you actually mean certain things. The other reason is more obvious. They're looking for inconsistencies. In other words, they're looking for lies and deception. You should do the same with yourself. Ask yourself the same essential question but in many different ways. Here are some suggested questions. Ultimately, they're all about identifying your spiritual toxins. Ask the following, “What makes me stubborn? What makes me cling to an idea because of personal pride? What makes me afraid? What makes me feel small and limited? What makes me feel unloved? What do I have a tough time forgiving?” Believe it or not, we hang on to a lot of these things. I know it sounds counter-intuitive. I mean, after all, who wants to hang on to a brutal memory of a father that used to beat you all the time? Who wants to hang on to that image of your father slapping your mother around? Who wants that? But the problem is it's like a train wreck. You know you shouldn't look at it. But you can't turn away. You can't look away even if you tried. It doesn't take a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon to figure out that none of this is doing us any favors. They suck our spiritual life and instead of living life with a tremendous amount of adventure, possibility, purpose and curiosity, we retreat to the tried and proven. We shrink back to the familiar. It's very lonely in the shadows. So come up with your list. Deep down inside, you already know the answer. Step #3: Let go of your spiritual pollutants If your Facebook feed is causing you to continue thinking in a certain way that makes you feel small, spiteful or vindictive, you might want to sit up and pay attention. Please understand that what you're feeling has nothing to do with your friend in New Zealand, Great Britain or in the tropics. Instead, it has everything to do with you. Whatever negativity you are feeling comes from you. You are just reading into that stimuli. It could be somebody else. It could be somebody living in Iceland or Green Land and you will find something to be envious about because it reflects what you feel is missing in your life. Similarly, if the people you hang out with tend to bring out the gossip in you or tend to bring out the critique or hater, you might want to open your eyes to this reality. If the kind of books and music you consume always makes you wish that you were somebody else, living a better life, doing better things with your time, you might want to think twice. I want you to come up with a long laundry list of the things that you normally do that trigger negative mindsets or things that don't spiritually sit well with you. Step #4: Turn your back on spiritual junk food I've got some great news, spiritual detox does not involve cold turkey. If you've ever struggled with trying to quit smoking, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Let's get real here. It would be impossible for most people to quit the first time they tried. I'm not saying that cold turkey doesn't work. It does. It worked for me. But you have to try again and again. When it comes to spiritual junk food or toxins, the better approach is to incrementally, or in a step by step way, pull back from the things that normally trigger you and make you feel small, petty and resentful. Do you spend a lot of time checking other people's photos on Instagram and imagining yourself living their lives? You might want to cut back on that. Do you spend a lot of time comparing yourself to your friend's travel photos on Facebook or Flickr, you might want to give that a break. Please understand that you shouldn't go through a complete break where you let go of these immediately. I'm telling you, if you try to do that, it's just not going to happen. Instead, gradually realize that you're doing these things. Be aware of what you're doing. You're not making the envy, resentment and frustration go away. Instead, you're feeding it. And the more you realize that and the clearer everything becomes, you will find the strength to do what you need to do. This is how you feel empowered. The bottom line is you have to realize and say to yourself, “When I do these things, it brings out the worst in me.” Get your moment of truth Everybody who's ever gone through a life changing episode goes through a moment of truth. It is that time when the alcoholic wakes up in a pile of vomit at the bottom of a public toilet. It is that time when a drug addict wakes up in an ambulance on the way to the emergency room. It is that time when an unfaithful girlfriend has a gun drawn to her face by the partner of the guy she's messing with. Everybody's got a moment of truth. Imagine what your moment of truth would be like if you continue to suck up all that spiritual pollution. The good news it shouldn't take much imagination. After all, you're reading this book because you're unhappy. You're reading this book because at some point in your life, you're feeling stuck. Get your sense of urgency Now that you have blown up the emotional pain, fear, that sense of loss and regret of what you're doing in your life, use these to push you to make the necessary changes. Use them to push you to look at your life differently and the things that you choose to entertain yourself with, the people who you hang out with, the beliefs that you keep playing in the back of your head, get that push because nobody's going to push you. Everybody will always try to kiss your ass. In this context, friends are the worst. Why? They try to comfort you. That's their instinct. That’s what friends are for, right? But the problem is you don't need a friend right now. Instead, you need somebody to tell you the truth and nothing but the truth. You need somebody who would light the fire underneath your feet so you can get moving. Otherwise, it’s too easy to just fall for reassurance because, after all, there will be another day, right? The problem with tomorrow and getting things done tomorrow is that tomorrow never comes. You have to do it now.Holistic Detox I’ve focused on the most important stuff Have you noticed that up to this point I haven’t talked about physical detox? It's because physical detox is the least of your worries. The physical issues that you may have, the financial problems that you are struggling with, the sexual issues that you may be grappling with, all of these are just icing on the cake. This is the tip of the iceberg. I’m focused on what really matters, which is your mental, emotional, and spiritual state. Fix those and the tip of the iceberg changes dramatically. Fix what's inside and the outside will take care of itself. Whatever it is you're struggling and whatever bad habits you may have are just all emanations and manifestations of things going on deep down inside and this is why this detox system works from the inside out. I’m not saying that I will completely disregard the need for physical detox but it's just one part of the equation. Start with a mental detox Adopt meditation and mindfulness practices. Try these three. You can easily find guides on these meditation/mindfulness techniques online. I’ve listed these three since they are the most effective for me. 1: Count your breath 2: Present object observation or single object observation 3: Transcendental meditation Use your increased mental focus to separate your feelings from your external stimuli. You don't have to get upset when your girlfriend says you’re a loser. You don't have to immediately feel sad when you remember your mother abandoning your family for another man. You don't have to go off the deep end when that mental image of your boss verbally humiliating you in front of three hundred people flashes into your mind. Learn how to separate stimuli from habitual mental interpretation through mindfulness and meditation. Emotional detox Actively let go or neutralize negative emotions. When you see, hear, or detect something that the emotionally triggers you, consciously come up with an opposite reaction. For example, you’re scrolling through your Facebook feed and you noticed that your ex-boyfriend now has a new girlfriend and she is a thousand times prettier than you. When you detect that spark of anger, resentment, and hate or envy because he’s moved on, quickly counteract it with feeling happy for him, feeling happy for her. Share their joy. In Buddhism, depression is almost impossible because one of the skills you learn as a Buddhist is to share other people's joy. Be grateful for them. Practice gratitude Be grateful for what you have. You may be on your deathbed in a hospital room with stage 4 cancer. Be thankful that you still can breathe. Be thankful that you can still have time even though it's very short. Be thankful that you have one final chance to put everything together so you go out with some sense of meaning and purpose. Whatever it is, be thankful. It's hard to find unhappy person who is also ungrateful. It’s almost impossible. Mentally detox by being in the moment Mentally and spiritually detox by being in the moment. Transcendental meditation is good for this because TM melts your thoughts. You're not agonizing about things that happened in the past. All that is pointless because you can't change the facts of the past. The past is the past. It already happened. By the same token, you're not beating yourself up unnecessarily about things that have yet to happen. Why worry? It hasn’t happened yet. Instead, you've trained yourself to focus on the moment. There's nobody to become. There's nothing to apologize for. There's nothing to be. There are no people to please. There's no need to be validated. You just are. Let that sink in. Tap the power of just being. There’s nothing to compare yourself to. There's nothing to live up to. There’s just the present moment. Let go of everything else. Unleash the Power of Fasting When it comes to physical detox, nothing beats fasting. Seriously. That’s the bottom line. Fasting Explained Fasting is essentially letting go of solid food. Whether you stop eating for one day or forty days, it's all about letting go of solid food. That’s the classic definition of fasting. I suggest that you adopt a fast. There are many different variations of this. Different variations of physical fasting You can do the classical fast, which is water only. You can do the juice fast. You can do the Daniel fast of the Hebrew Bible. Classic fast Classic fasting simply means you drink only water. However, don't think that you're not eating when you are fasting. You may not be eating physical food but you must eat spiritual food. This is why I suggest that you adopt a meditation practice, that you keep a journal, and that you watch what you feed your head while you're going through a fast. Feed your head inspirational things that push you to become a bigger and better person than who you think you are. Feed on things that break down your ego and crush your pride. Feed on things that destroy your ears and fill you with a tremendous sense of possibility. These are all mental and spiritual food. The great thing about fasting is that it enables you to hunger for this type of food so the sustenance that you get becomes more important than physical sustenance that preserves your bones, tissues and blood. - The juice fast There are many different variations of juice fasts. I suggest that you drink juice that is not all that sugary and satisfying. It should have some taste but that's all. The whole point here is not to get distracted by the syrupy goodness of your juice. Instead, it should have a little bit of flavor and a little bit of calories but not really all that different from water. Remember: when you're fasting, you are aligning your physical detoxification and letting go of physical toxins in your fat cells and blood with the detoxification happening in your mind and spirit. They have to line up and this is how you regain your sense of integrity and wholeness. The Daniel fast The Daniel fast is simply letting go of the most common foods that you eat and just eating only a specific type of food. The classic Daniel fast from the Hebrew Bible is eating only vegetables but you can use the keto version of the Daniel fast meaning you eat only eggs are high-fat foods and zero carbs. If you're looking to lose weight and also turbocharge detoxification, the keto modifications of the Daniel fast can do wonders. Time your fast right If you are doing any kind of fast that involves ingesting calories, I am, of course, talking about the juice fast or the Daniel fast, time your ingestion properly. One way to boost the effects that you get from holistic detoxification is to ingest calories only once a day. It's going to be very hard at first but when it kicks, it’s a beautiful thing because the discipline that you pick you up while you are fasting and going through detox will help you for the rest of your life. You become a more disciplined and focused person. Keep repeating your detox schedule. If you're able to pull off a one-day or two-day detox, keep repeating it. Practiced makes perfect. Repetition ensures that whatever insights and whatever freedom you have achieved will eventually start to kick in. Eventually, it will become permanent. The key is to keep going through this fasting and detox process. Scale up when it becomes comfortable Once you think that things have gotten easy regarding the type of fasting you're doing, scale it up in terms of intensity or kind. For example, you started out with the Daniel fast for three days, try to get to ten days then twenty-one days. Once you’ve mastered the Daniel fast, then move on to juice fast. Scale that up and then go to a classic fast. There's always room for improvement.If you are weighed down, frustrated, or feeling stuck, please understand that it's all an illusion. You're feeling stuck because you think you're stuck. You're feeling powerless because you imagine yourself to be lacking power. Do yourself a big favor and start making new choices, and the best choice that you can make is to detoxify your mind, spirit, and body. Follow the tips outlined in this book and scale up conscientiously and you'd be surprised as to how far you can go. You'd be surprised as to how capable you truly are as a human being. Read the full article

#detox #detoxyourself #health #healthydrinking #healthyeating #healthylife #healthyliving

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Team Archive’s Roles

I’ve been thinking about the roles that Sims and Team Archives play, and why each of them is critical.  Why each of them is irreplaceable in the eyes of the Archives.  The below is going to contain both canon evidence and some massive speculation on my part, so yeah.  Combo canon-analysis and fanon ponderings, anyone?

Jonathan Sims – THE ARCHIVIST

I think, in light of the increasing evidence that Sims was selected for this role by the Archive itself, and that he would be very hard to replace, that Sims is slowly becoming the embodiment of the archives.  All others roles in the archives are ancillary to this goal, and to supporting him. Of course, how those roles get filled may well determine how much humanity and how much sanity Sims gets to keep, so they certainly aren’t any less important to us.  They’re just less important to the Archive itself.

It’s interesting that the first urge Sims had upon assumption of his new job in early season 1 was to record.  Not just to organize the archives which, while a daunting task, could go relatively quickly with his assistants helping carry and shelve.  But instead of that direct and very archival job, he started trying to record his own voice reading out all the old statements.  And when he couldn’t just put some of them onto his laptop, he dug out an old tape deck (almost like he knew without knowing that one would be there to find) and started recording himself that way.  His own voice, amalgamating the words and experiences of others into a gestalt of information and fear and feeling.  Into the Archivist.

Sims is becoming a repository of information himself, without even noticing he’s doing it. Even in the midst of his paranoia, he kept recording the statements.  You could say that he was using that as the cover of his job, but I think it’s deeper than that.  I think it’s a compulsion.  His voice and his words MUST unify the information in order to turn it from separate stories into a single story.  It’s a bizarrely meta approach to storytelling, if true (and good on Jonny Sims for it), that we are listening to a slowly evolving story, where it took us a while to realize there even was a large, evolving story, and as we’re doing that, as we’re realizing that there is a larger SOMETHING at play in the narrative, Sims himself (character, not writer), is creating a larger SOMETHING through the very reading of those statements.

Tim Stoker – THE OUTSIDER AND RATIONALIST

If we’re haring off the deep end into the uncharted waters of horror and madness, there has to be one person who tries to anchor everyone in sanity and rationality, no matter how futile that ultimately proves.  Tim has slowly evolved to fill that role nicely.  He always was the outsider looking at all these odd people, and finding the humor in the terrible events surrounding them.  He was the one to keep it light, at first, to disbelieve and to work with people outside the Archives more than anyone else there.  After the attack on the archives and Sims’ subsequent falling apart, Tim has become more and more blunt about being the voice of reason and about being the one who will tell Sims the unvarnished truth about how everyone is faring, whether or not Sims wants to or can hear it.  He’s the first to express true doubt, and the one it’s hardest to convince that certain things are beyond their control.

Think about how shaken he was to realize that he couldn’t leave, and Sims couldn’t fire him.  Tim is a person who is fundamentally about independence.  He is someone who genuinely enjoys standing apart, and that was just ripped away from him. I really want to see Tim slowly figure out how to operate as an outsider while stuck inside, and I want to see him force the others repeatedly to remember how not-right things are.  Part of staying sane in the archives, I think, is to remember that what happens there isn’t normal, to not get so immersed in the stories and the vast web that is the interconnected supernatural world that it becomes mundane.  That way lies totally subsuming oneself in the Archivist’s role, so Tim is perhaps the most critical person in maintaining Sims’ humanity in the face of the archives.  Tim’s greatest power in this situation is that he is stubbornly ordinary.

I also think that this shows us a bit about how much latitude a role can give its holder.  Tim went from a relatively light and playful interpretation of his role of rationalist and outsider to a confrontational, angry one, but with the same basic drive and result: to force everyone around him to recognize how wrong the situation is, and to approach it rationally.

Sasha James – SEEKER OF TRUTH

Sasha’s original role throughout season 1 was to be the person who dug up information.  She’s the one who continually provided context and elaborating details beyond the statements themselves.  As powerful as those original stories were, it was Sasha more than either of the other assistants who had the technical ability, tenacity, and legal fluidity to dig up the threads that connected the stories, and the backgrounds that really sketched out the larger picture.

And I think this is critical to understanding why Not-Sasha is so fundamentally wrong.  Because she’s obfuscating, rather than bringing new truths to light.  She’s intrinsically more Closed Eye than Open Eye, and the Archives is far more Open Eye.  While she lacks the technical acumen Sasha had, she also isn’t trying to make up for it in other ways.  She isn’t hounding down old records in public works offices or talking to witnesses.  In fact, whenever any of her colleagues attempt to say what it is she’s doing now, they draw a blank.  It’s only her ability to make certain they don’t notice what’s wrong with her that’s letting her clear lack of work go unnoticed.  If I’m right, that’s why the Archive is making Sims so paranoid, because the three-legged support he was meant to have is now missing a leg, and everything is in danger of tipping over.

I’ll be interested to see what happens to Not-Sasha should the real Sasha return and resume her role (or, if she doesn’t return, if someone like Melanie were to step in and take over that role).  What happens to something the Archive rejects?  We know Gertrude met a nasty end, but how much of that was the Archive's doing, or at least the Archive allowing it to happen within its own walls?  How much control does the archive have over those under its sway?  I feel like, with Not-Sasha, we might well get a far better elucidation of the nasty, dangerous side of the archive.

Martin Blackwood – THE PROTECTOR

Hear me out on this one. Martin has always seemed to be the carer of the group.  He’s the one who makes sure everyone is fed, and tries to keep spirits up.  He’s put himself in charge of Sims’ physical well-being earlier this season, and has attempted (with less success than he’d probably want) to help take care of Sims’ mental well-being as well.  Not all of his efforts are actually good for people, but he does try.

But I’m not altogether certain that the Archive cares about the sanity or health of its Archivist.  It cares about function, so he has to stay sane enough to remain rational (Tim’s job) and to link all the pieces together to form the gestalt (Sasha’s job).  But as for personal well-being?  I’m not sure that’s something that matters to the Archive at all.

Which leads me to conclude that what Martin is actually meant to be, and the reason he freaked out so much over accidentally leaving Jon and Tim to be eaten by worms, is that Martin is actually filling the role of a protector.  He’s meant to keep Sims alive and sane enough to do his job. Everything beyond that is Martin’s own initiative and mother-hen instincts.  But I have this funny feeling Martin is meant to be some sort of mystical bodyguard.  Which is hysterical to me.

This also plays into the idea I’ve had for a long time (and I know a few of you share) that Martin’s mother is a runaway Lukas, and her difficulties have largely stemmed from her ties to that family.  I think that Martin has old power in his blood, though his ability to tap that power is all but nonexistent.  He’s got a little knowledge and a little aptitude, but far more than that, he has the will to protect Sims.  We especially see it in his increasingly frustration this season, as Sims tears himself apart, and nothing Martin does seems to help.  Martin is meant to protect Sims, but Martin himself has reinterpreted what it means to be the protector.

Gertrude Robinson – THE WOMAN ALONE

So what about Gertrude, who lacked assistants that we know of?  First, I think she may well have had assistants in the past.  I think Mary Kaey may well have been meant to fulfill either Sasha’s role or Martin’s, and maybe even did for a time.  But Mary had the unique ability to remain unbound, and so she was one of the few people associated with the archive who managed to walk away from it.

Maybe it was Mary’s departure, or maybe it was the possible deaths of her other assistants that tipped Gertrude over to solitude, but whatever it was, Gertrude took on all four roles.  She tried to keep herself somewhat grounded in rationality, wrapping herself in coldness and distance.  She tried to tie all the threads together herself, flying all over the world and even purchasing Leitner’s books.  She tried to protect herself.

And in the end, she failed in that last part. I don’t know if that was because she was never meant to do all those things alone, or if she broke with what being the Archivist was all about, or if her death had nothing whatsoever to do with the will of the Archive. But in the end, she died alone, without any support.  

I don’t know what that means for our current intrepid team.  I don’t know if it means that between the four of them, they could keep each other sane and safe, or if it just means that they’ll die with company.  But I hope for their sakes they find a way to take the roles they apparently can’t leave, and make themselves as happy and sane as possible, for as long as possible.

#The Magnus Archives #it's a meta party! #I've been wanting to articulate this for a while

[whatdoyouthinkmyjobis]

Hunters on the Hellmouth

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AN: This chapter was inspired by events in BTVS 7.10 “Bring on the Night” and 7.14 “First Date.”

Warning: implied torture, blood, STRESSSSSS

Chapter 26: Digging

All she said was, “We're alive. Get here.” Racing back to Buffy’s, Dean’s mind flooded with bloody, maimed pictures that fit alive. When he saw the house -- dark, windows shattered, doors smashed -- he bit back a scream. Alive. Alive.

Xander and Anya, sweeping up glass around a body in the living room, both pointed upstairs. He found Buffy in her sister’s room lifting an unconscious Andrew. Seeing Dean, she dropped the boy’s limp body and leapt over the bed, landing in Dean’s arms.

As he held her, he tried to make sense of the bodies in the hallway and the giant hole between the sisters’ bedrooms. Through the hole lay the splintered remains of the chair Spike had been in. “Did Spike hurt anyone?”

Buffy started to tremble. Dean eased her to her room where she set loose a torrent of tears muffled by his chest and a pillow.

After a few minutes, she blew her nose, and chewed on her lip while searching for words. “It’s all the same thing. It’s all one thing. My visions. ‘It is watching.’ Mom and Tara. Spike killing. It’s all the same. Its flunkies, they were in my vision a few nights ago; it was the first time in dozens of visions that I saw what killed me.”

Fear had carved a place around her eyes. It was the sort of fear people had when they first heard the hounds baying for them.

“Girly, ain't nothing gonna kill you. I’ll kill it first.”

“But that's what they're doing.” Her voice was rough and weak. “Dean, I think the evil monks are killing Slayers, or at least unactivated Slayers. I'm probably the big finish. It's the only reason I can think of that I would see and feel so many of these deaths.”

And she felt them. Night after night, she’d wake coughing, sputtering, flailing and scared. When her breathing steadied, and she stopped sweating, she’d tell him her vision. Always a girl being murdered. Sometimes she ran. Sometimes she fought. She always died.

He refused to accept it as some sick prophecy. “Maybe you're just supposed to protect these girls, and that's the only connection.”

“The bodies. Those are the monks. That’s what wrecked the house. A crew of them came to kill Andrew and ran off with Spike.”

Spike. Of course. Were the tears for Spike the redemption project or Spike the ex?

“What happened?” he asked.

She seemed to calm as she recounted Spike attacking Andrew, though Dean was less than thrilled to hear the thing had dressed up like him. She rattled off details of the attack on the house like it was a paper for school.

“Spike’s gone,” she said, an emptiness taking over her eyes. “He has information, and God knows what they’re doing to him.”

“We’ll get him back, Buffy. We’ll find him. Now, tell me how we kill the branded freak shows.”

“They’re easy enough to kill, but we have no idea what’s controlling them. It knows where to find us.” The fear returned to her face. “I c-cant fight this! It's just me, and I-I n-need Giles.”

Dean took her face in both hands, once again reveling in just how tiny his superhero warrior really was. “Look at me. This nasty has been hiding underground for how long?  Even if it’s met a Slayer before, you’re a goddess-crunching, master-vampire-dusting badass who’s fucking climbed back from death. It may have been the baddest son of a bitch on the block back in the day, but it ain’t got shit on you.

“First thing we’re gonna do is seal up the house. Then Sam and I are gonna get rid of those bodies. When I get back, darlin’, if you’re not in bed, I’m dragging you in with me. You’ve been up for days. Tomorrow, we’ll hit the books. Okay?”

She slid back into his arms, calmer and quieter than before. “You’re wonderful, you know. I love -- love hearing your voice. It’s all deep and rumbly and calming.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, concerned about her brief pause, the way her words sped up to the point of tripping her tongue. He looked over the room again just so he didn’t have to make eye contact. “Get your cute little ass in bed. I gotta deal with the bodies.”

He was sound asleep, but Dean still stretched out his arm for her. Buffy placed his searching hand over her heart and smiled as he snuggled deeper into the pillow, his pouty lips slightly parted, his brow smooth with peaceful sleep. The night they’d met, she had a hard time pinpointing his age. Dean Winchester existed between two extremes -- the wide-eyed, grinning boy with a soft heart and silly humor, and the brutal, cold-eyed hunter with a temper. Both sides of him had a place in her life, but she liked seeing his boyish side the most. Perhaps because that was a rarer moment, a moment when they were safe and happy; she liked to imagine who Dean would have become had his innocence not been stolen from him when he was four.

What if Dean’s mother hadn’t been killed? What if Dean never knew monsters were real? Would they have still found each other? Doubtful. Maybe that Dean would have settled down with a wife who could provide him with a couple chubby babies to bounce on his knees. He wouldn’t know the recoil of a gun or the sensation of blood on his hands.

That Dean wouldn’t be afraid of the words I love you which Buffy had felt obligated to choke back a few hours before.

But a Slayer and a Hunter would be crazy to think of happily ever afters. They’d discussed the likelihood of dying young many times, but those talks had been what ifs. Now, an unknown evil was knocking down her door, and she had no idea how to stop it; which meant the clock was ticking on their time together. She wondered if those glimpses of Dean the Lost Boy were about to disappear.

Startled by the sound of a window sliding open, she reached for the dagger she kept on her nightstand. Then she recognized the shadow climbing inside from the trellis. Painfully aware that she was wearing her boyfriend’s t-shirt and nothing else, Buffy approached the man in her bedroom. “Angel, what are you doing here?”

Her vampire ex, her first love, glanced at Dean sleeping in her bed. “I heard you were in danger.”

She tugged at the hem of the shirt and willed herself to stop feeling so dizzy. “So you climbed through my bedroom window? That might have seemed romantic to high school me, but I gotta tell you, adult me would have appreciated a phone call. Or a knock on the door. It’s battered and glassless, but still extremely knockable.”

He shook his head and smirked. God, did she swoon over his smirk. “Had to be in person. Had to be secret. So the rumor’s true then?”

“Off-the-scale danger. Some big evil force with an army of evil monks is trying to kill me with...evil. And I have no idea how to fight it.”

“I wasn’t talking about that. I was talking about your new boyfriend, Dean Winchester,” he said, pointing at the bed.

Feeling like she’d been dunked in cold water, Buffy grabbed a blanket and sat down on the bench. “How did you know about Dean? Are you keeping tabs on me?”

“Not in the ‘Let me know if my ex is seeing anyone’ sort of way,” he confessed, sitting down beside her, “but a stranger rolls into Hellmouth City from another dimension? That causes some waves. Been hearing his name for a while, doing some research, catching some whispers. Buffy, he’s bad news.”

“I know who he is,” she said with a bubbling rage. “Who do you think you are to come here in the middle of the damn night to comment on my love life?”

“I’m someone who cares about you! This guy is a pathetic low-life. He’s a womanizing, alcoholic criminal. Worse than that, he’s a black hole. He’ll suck you in and you’ll die. He’s got a trail of bodies in his wake, and a lot of them are people who cared about him.”

“We live a violent life. You know that. Just because people died, that doesn’t mean it’s his fault.”

“Okay, ask him whose fault his dad’s death was. Ask him about his girlfriend Jo and her mom. Ask him about Bobby--”

“Bobby’s not dead. He’s just missing.”

“Then he probably doesn’t know about Bobby yet. Anyway, they all died because he abandoned them, and he’ll abandon you too. You think he’s going to fight beside you against whatever is coming? Buffy, it’s here because of him. He’s going to get you and your friends killed, then turn tail and run. He only cares about himself and his brother.”

“If you knew Dean at all, you’d know that’s not true. He cares about everyone. Yeah, Sam’s definitely special --  he practically raised him for God’s sake -- but Dean Winchester would never run from a fight.”

“Is that why he jumped dimensions? He wasn’t running?” Angel rose and straightened his jacket before walking towards the bed. “I’m sorry, Buffy, but you’re not listening to reason.” In one swift motion, he yanked the pillow from under Dean’s head and covered his face with it.

“NO!” Buffy pulled on the vampire’s arms while her boyfriend flailed. “Angel, stop! Please, don’t!”

Her cheek stung, and when she opened her eyes, she saw Dean leaning over her, worried. “You okay, Buffy? You were screaming about angels. Did you have another vision?”

She was in her room, in bed with her boyfriend, alive. “Let’s hope not.”

A cup of cold water to the face didn’t rouse Andrew. Dawn crossed her arms and twisted her mouth. “Boiling water?”

“Ooh, that’s an excellent idea,” said Anya, nodding.

Buffy smacked Andrew, causing his lip to bleed. Stung awake, the boy shook his head, trying to take in the room. She grabbed his bound wrists and practically spit in his face. “I am done playing. Tell us about the seal, or I’m turning you over to them.”

She pushed him into Anya’s arms. “Anyone have any wishes for Andrew?”

“Could you turn him into a jellyfish?” Dawn asked from the stairs.

“No, please,” begged Andrew, as Anya pushed him down at Willow’s feet.

“We have some unfinished business,” said Willow darkly.

Andrew, pale and shaking, rolled away from her. Sam yanked him up by the shoulders and turned him to face Dean.

“Wha-what are you gonna do to me?” Andrew asked with a small bit of hope.

Dean smirked. “Whatever we want. See, my brother and I, we just like hurting people. What’d’ya think, Sammy? Kneecap first, or maybe a molar?”

“Knee,” Sam replied.

Dean raised a hammer.

Twisting away, Andrew cried, “I liked you so much better yesterday, when you were just the guys who tied me up!” He bumped into the Slayer. “Thank God! The crazy hot guys are trying to kill me. You’re a hero. Go hero for me!”

“Answers now or--” Buffy pushed him back to Willow.

“Oh God, no! No! Please! Okay, the seal is in the basement of the high school.”

“In that case, it’s guaranteed to be sealing sunshine and rainbows,” said Xander, who’d been watching the show from the stairs with Dawn.

“What does it do?” Buffy asked.

“Don’t know. I was just told to open it.”

“How?”

Looking very much like a child learning to lie, Andrew bounced on the balls of his feet and said in sing-song, “If you sing it showtunes, it will tell you everything your heart desires.”

Grabbing Andrew by the throat, Dean raised him to eye level. “Willow, you think he needs two eyes? That seems like a lot.”

“Blood! Blood! You open it with blood.” Dean dropped him, and Andrew fell to his knees gasping.

“The pig’s blood,” said Willow.

“Yeah, I botched it the first time, so I was hoping to open it with pig’s blood or I’d be next.”

“First time? Why do I have the feeling the first time wasn't a simple ‘open sesame’?” asked Buffy.

“H-he told me how to do it, but it didn’t work. The pig’s blood was sort of my long-shot to the thermal exhaust port, but I-I’m not as good of a pilot as Luke.”

“Details, Andrew,” Buffy demanded.

“W-Warren told me sacrificing Jonathan would open the Seal of Danzalthar and we’d become gods, but Jonathan didn’t have enough blood.”

“First of all,” said Willow, shaking her head as if it would help make sense of the chaos, “Warren is super dead. Second, you killed your best friend because your dead worst friend told you to?”

“Warren is very convincing. He’s like the Yoda of badness.”

“Yeah, a dead Yoda,” Dawn scoffed.

“Death cannot stop a true Jedi!” Andrew shot back. “Plus, Jonathan said it was okay. It didn’t even hurt, and he’s in a better place.”

“For the record, kid, getting stabbed always hurts,” said Dean, setting down the hammer and leaning against the washer.

“But Warren said--”

“Andrew, that wasn’t Warren!” Buffy was rubbing her head. “Your friends haven’t been talking to you. Those guys who came to kill you last night were sent by whatever thing’s been visiting you.”

“Assassins?” His big blue eyes filled with tears as the betrayal sunk in. “But I’m just Andrew Wells, little brother of the guy who ruined prom.”

“I thought you were Moriarty,” said Sam, bored.

“This may surprise you, but I was never very good at being bad. Warren was the brains. I was just the brawny lemming.” He pulled his knees up to his chin and started to weep.

Dean looked at Buffy, who shrugged. When they’d set up this ruse, they hadn’t expected tearful remorse.

Willow mouthed ice at Dawn who went upstairs for something to help Andrew’s swelling.

Dean almost felt bad for the kid -- was he even eighteen? Nerdy and insecure, he’d fallen in with a bad crowd, much like the teenager who’d stolen Sam’s body months before.

Andrew sat up and wiped his face on his sleeve, leaving a noticeable trail of snot. “If Darth Vader can throw the Emperor into the reactor shaft, I can change too. It’s never too late for a super villain to redeem himself. I’ll help you.”

The timing of everything was a perfect stress cocktail. Buffy should have been studying for her Developmental Psych exam next week. She should have been decorating and shopping with Dawn. She should have been planning her first Christmas with Dean, who, if the pattern held true, hadn’t had enough holiday cheer in his life. Of course, all of the evil would converge around the holidays and finals time. When did the bad guys ever make things easier on her?

Instead, ‘tis the season Buffy and Sam were following Xander and Andrew through the high school basement.

“Pick up your feet, you shuffling waste of air,” Xander hissed.

“It’s hard to walk with my hands tied behind my back. It’s hurting my bad shoulder, too. I pulled it in a light saber fight right before Episode I came out, and now whenever the weather changes it--”

“Shut. Up,” barked Sam.

Maybe if she wasn’t so stressed, Buffy wouldn’t haven’t gone gushy on Dean. There was fear in his eyes when he left her room, though she didn’t know if it was because she’d almost said I love you or because of his phobia that caring about him marked her for death; not that she needed help in that area. But he’d come back and climbed into bed with her after doing God knows what with the bodies. He’d even told her a story about a cursed coin, a wishing well, and a suicidal teddy bear she refused to believe was true. True or not, it was funny and sweet that he wanted to help ease her mind. They seemed to be okay. Maybe her fumbled attempt at affection hadn’t hurt.

After a couple turns, they entered a small room. Xander whistled low as Sam and Buffy swung their flashlights over a large metal plate featuring a goat’s head in an inverted pentagram. The ground was littered with shovels, burnt torches, and spots of blood. When Sam lit one of the torches, they could see a large, bloody wheel suspended from the ceiling.

“Of course this is what’s in the school basement. I don’t know why I expected anything different,” Sam muttered.

“The wheel of misfortune wasn’t me,” Andrew said. He looked away from them, his voice falling to a whisper. “I just stabbed Jonathan and took off.”

“You left your friend to die alone?” snapped Buffy, who wished more and more that they didn’t have to let their hostage talk in order to get information.

“It was icky.”

“Someone was bled on that thing.” Buffy wondered if it was Spike’s blood. If so, at least no one died, but it couldn't have been pleasant. What would they have done with him after?

“Do you think it opened the seal this time?” asked Xander.

Passing around shovels, Buffy replied, “Don’t know, but we have to cover this thing.”

Later as they were leaving the little room, Buffy stopped short and stared at a dark corner, a corner she’d hidden in days before. “Andrew, what night did you kill Jonathan?”

“Wednesday. I remember because I had to record--”

“No one cares,” said Sam.

“Slayer senses tinglin’, Buff?” Xander asked.

“I was down here on Thursday during school, and I ran into Principal Wood. He had a shovel and blood on his sleeve. If Jonathan’s body was still down here, maybe Wood moved it.”

“I don’t know,” said Sam. “Wood is a pretty chill guy. He’s never given me the impression he’s wrapped up in Hellmouth business.”

“Maybe he wasn’t before,” Xander said. “See, the Hellmouth used to be directly under the library. Giles had a bunch of charms and incantations to keep from going crazy with it blasting him every day, but that room we were just in sits right under Wood’s office. He may have started the year as Principal Nice Guy, but who knows where his head is now. Sam, you got a key to his office?”

“Just the outer doors and the library, but…” He pulled a lockpick kit from his jacket.

Principal Wood’s office was tidy, modern, and devoid of any personality. Buffy sneered at the motivational poster on the wall. “I hadn’t noticed he was Anya levels of bland. He doesn’t even have free, random business pens.”

After some poking around, Sam said, “Nothing looks out of place in his files; well, other than you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Here’s my employee file. Standard stuff. My resume. My quarterly review. School picture.”

“Look at you with your tie!” said Xander.

“Very handsome,” added Andrew.

“Your employee file is similar, but I found this laying underneath all the other files.” He slapped a thick manila folder on the desk.

Suffering horrible high school flashbacks, Buffy flipped through it. Disciplinary records. Report cards. Teacher concerns. A Child Protective Services notice that was never sent. She knew her file was thick, but the other additions alarmed her. Wood had her records from her pre-Sunnydale stint in a mental hospital, transcripts and letters from all of her schools -- university included -- medical records, lists of jobs she’d worked and friends she’d had. Most disturbing of all was a small collection of candid pictures -- Buffy at school, at her house, in various graveyards -- all clearly taken from a hidden place with a professional camera.

A snap pulled her away from the stalker puzzle. Sam had jimmied open a locked case on the wall, revealing hangers full of axes, knives, and swords.

“For the record, I’ve never met this Wood and have no idea what his deal is,” said Andrew.

“Apparently none of us have,” said Buffy.

Dean chewed on his lip as he thought about how to get away with murder. It was important to not leave a body, but if he made it look like the principal was killed by a vampire, would anyone even look twice?

“Babe, are you listening to a thing I’m saying?”

“‘Bout how your boss is a fuckin’ stalker? Got it. Thinking ‘bout how to handle it.”

“Not the priority right now.” Buffy handed him another dish to dry. They’d been piling up for days, a fact no one had noticed until there was only one plate for lunch. “Besides, it’s not like he’s going to break into the house to steal my underwear. It felt more like research notes. You know, kind of Initiative-y.”

“You think he’s workin’ for the government?”

“Or crazy. Should be able to handle either, although I admit gave me the wiggins. We’ll keep an eye on him.”

“I got a footnote in the stalker file?”

“No, it looked like most of it was pre-Winchesters. I guess he didn’t feel like he needed to follow me around anymore since my desk is right outside of his office.” She shuddered and started scrubbing the flatware. “Tell me happy news about research,” she said.

“Dawn’s gonna lap Sam for smartest kid in the class.”

“You think Sam’s the smartest? Don’t say that in front of Willow. She had a panic attack over an A minus.” Buffy grinned.

“My brother’s brilliant, an’ you know it. Anyway, Dawnie found a pile of letters with your monks on ‘em. Post-translation, she found out they’re called Harbingers of Death. I know what you’re thinking, that’s an awesome name for a metal band.”

“You know me so well,” she said, stretching on her tiptoes to give him a peck on the cheek.

“These Bringers worship something called The First Evil, which Anya said is a shitty demon pick-up line, but I figure she never got high enough clearance in the demon world to learn some of the uglier stuff.”

Buffy pulled the plug on the drain and dried her hands. “How do we fight it?”

He wanted to keep doing dishes, keep making her smile with lame jokes, instead of telling her what hours of research had produced. “That’s it. Jack shit on the seal. We got two letters in Sanskrit, an’ they’re mostly poetry.”

“That’s not enough! We need--”

“We need a lotta things. The geek squad is crackin’ at it now. Do you wanna call the Council again? They gotta know something or at least have more books.”

“They made it pretty clear they have no desire to help.” Throwing her towel on the counter, she grumbled, “I need Santa to bring me a very English-y Giles bearing answers. An army would be nice, too. And some new boots.”

Xander popped his head in the newly repaired backdoor. “Hey-ya handyman, can ya gimme a hand with the drywall situation? Unless you two enjoy zero privacy.”

The Median Witches’ Chronicles was also a bust. Willow looked at the book-strewn dining table and, not for the first time, longed for the resources the Magic Box provided. She kicked herself again for burning it down. One of those books could have had answers. No, no, she wasn’t going to guilt trip herself again. She wasn’t going to dwell on what she couldn’t change. Healing meant those moments had to stay in the past.

“Anything?” she asked the room.

“I found a really cool spell for changing hair colors,” said Dawn.

“Ooh, lemme see!” demanded Anya with grabby hands.

“I thought the drug store sold magic kits for that,” said Xander, relaxing on the couch after reassembling Buffy’s house.

“Try to focus!” snapped Buffy. “I know you’re all tired, but we’re sitting ducks right now. We don’t know how to kill this thing or even how to find it.”

Willow, too excited to find words, began waving her hands and ooh oohing.

“Monkey girl, do you have something to share with the class?”

“We don’t know how to find it!”

“Why is that exciting?” asked Dean.

“Locator spell. I can find anything.”

“Like with the map and little lights?” asked Sam, closing his laptop.

“That’s one kind, but with the not-so-creative name of The First, I’m thinking we won’t get great results. There’s another kind that lets you essentially search for something’s essence and see what it sees without it even knowing you’re there.”

“So any time you’re bored, you could get inside me, touch my essence, and have a looky-loo?” asked Dean. “Willow, I didn’t know you were such a perv.”

“What? No perv. Not perv!”

“Do you really want to try touching something that calls itself The First Evil?” asked Buffy.

“Yeah, you touching evil books didn’t go so well for any of us last time, and publication is several steps removed from evil essences,” said Anya, as she copied the hair spell from Dawn’s book.

“I’d like to think I’m smarter than that. No, for this to work, I need to touch something it touched. We don’t have anything of The First’s, but we have those Bringer blades. They probably touch each other’s weapons. They worship The First. Maybe if we find where they’re hiding, we could, I don’t know, bag one and give it the once over for answers.”

“I knew we shouldn’t have staged that Andrew scare. Now the fear-lust is in you,” said Buffy.

“I also like to think I’m a badass,” said Willow.

Everyone gathered in the dining room to watch her work her magic. The spell itself was shockingly simple -- a couple candles, some sand, ground eggshells, an object, a bowl; it was staying in the subject’s head that was hard. It was the beyond the mental equivalent of tiptoeing. She had to be cat-like quiet, or whoever’s mind she was in would kick her out. Pouring the sand over the knife, she closed her eyes to see.

The room was cavernous. A church warmly lit with the flicker of a thousand candles. She was sitting in one of the pews beside a few other Bringers. At the front of the church, beneath a dark rose window, lay Spike, pale and stripped, stretched out on the altar.  

“Why don’t you bugger off?” she heard Spike. “You’re wrong. She’ll stop you.” She couldn’t see or hear whom he was talking to. Focusing on the host Bringer’s legs, she tried to stand.

Suddenly she was hit by an electric blue light searing through her body, a voice rumbling like thunder. Witch, you will only make me stronger.

The roar of it deafened her, and she blacked out.

Everything was dark. There was a steady beeping. Willow reached for the needles in her arms. “Will, don’t try to move, okay?”

“Xander? I’m scared. I-I can’t see!”

He squeezed her hand. “There’s a bandage over your eyes. No, don’t freak on me,” he said, pulling her other hand off of her face. “The locator spell went kaboom, and this giant demon ghost thing came out of you and started shooting lightning at Buffy and Dean. They’re okay, but your eyes have a flash burn from whatever you saw. The doctor said you’d heal, but only if you keep your eyes covered.”

Willow tried to speak, but her voice was replaced by a choked wail. She heard a couple clicks and felt Xander crawling into the bed with her, wrapping her gently in his arms.

“You can get through this, sweetie,” he murmured. “You can do this. We’ll all be your eyes while you heal. You’re not alone. You’re not alone.”

But she knew. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t alone, because the First wanted to see them all die together.

next chapter

#spn x btvs #buffy x dean #buffy supernatural crossover #btvs fanfiction #supernatural fan fiction #btvs series #spn fanfic #supernatural fanfiction #dean winchester #buffy summers #sam winchester #willow rosenberg #anya jenkins #xander harris #dawn summers #andrew wells #spike #the first evil #oh who's that? #spells #dean x buffy #btvs x spn #fluff and angst #dean winchester series #buffy summers series #hunters on the hellmouth #huntersonthehellmouth

[depressedhatakekakashi]

Uuuh wait I have an idea for Neji in the Iwa!Gai AU

So, Neji runs away and it stands to reason that Hiashi wants to find him again, I imagine that Neji runs away when he's fairly young and Gai maybe finds him some years before Neji can become a genin

Team Ro get tasked with finding any possible clue on Neji, because with Kakashi's hounds and Shisui/Itachi's Sharingan, even if its not as good with detecting chakra as the Byakugan, (and the crows) they have a higher chance of finding Neji than any other team

Of course Kakashi has no idea, at this point, that Gai found Neji so he just follows the mission with his team, and when they are able to track Neji down, maybe without a blindfold still so they recognize the Byakugan, maybe Gai and the Tsuchikage still have to come up with that idea, Gai of course protects him

Imagine Kakashi at some point ordering his team to stand down, maybe Gai tells Kakashi that Neji decided to ran away because of how awful the clan was to him and how Neji said that he would prefer to die rather than to go back, and Kakashi doesn't feel like taking the boy back to his clan now that he knows at least a part of Neji's reasons

So they stand there, awkwardly looking at each other, until Shisui makes the most dramatic sigh and looks up the sky with a sad (and clearly fake) expression and goes like "Such a young boy, it's a shame he died so early in his life" and at first the rest of the team doesn't understand, Gai even thinks it's a threat at first, but then Kakashi catches on and nods and goes like "What a terrible destiny that little boy has ran into. The woods are not an easy place to survive after all"

And basically they decide to tell the Hokage that they found Neji's body, even if it's not at all true. Tenzo is not completely convinced that the Hokage will believe them but both Kakashi and Shisui have such a poker face that there's no problem at all, and Itachi goes with it because if he can kill a boy less then he's okay with it

They also have the perfect reason as to why they couldn't bring Neji's eyes back to the clan: when a Hyuuga with the caged bird seal dies their Byakugan is sealed away, so that it can't be stolen

Gai didn't really expect such a decision from Kakashi, since Kakashi was the Captain and no matter what Shisui would have said, if Kakashi told them to kill Gai and bring Neji back they would have done so, but he's glad that it played out that way, Gai is also glad to know that Kakashi's ANBU team has good people in it

Ok i love every bit of this.

Kakashi also make’s sure to order Shisui and Tenzo that if they are found out, he take’s the blame. Even if it was Shisui’s idea, he’s the captain and he decided to follow through with it. So rather than all of them going down, it’ll just be him. They’ll be the one’s who followed his orders and if someone asks them straight up if he lied, they’re to tell the truth to try and save themselves (they don’t, but he tries)

Gai’s very happy to see that Kakashi has good people on his side. Not just people who understand when the right thing is not to follow orders, but people who clearly have Kakashi’s back.

But also, Imagine Kakashi and Gai just standing there staring at each other, amd Kakashi having to struggle with what he has to do. Fight someone he cares for deeply and protect Konoha, or let go of Neji and risk being labelled a failure like his father. There’s no way that’s an easy choice for Kakashi. It burns him deep inside of his soul for years.

But Neji recognizes him and Tenzo when he’s older.

He knows the men who helped him to escape the abuses of his clan and stay where he felt safe and loved, and he’s somehow not at all surprised to find out Kakashi and His Sensei/guardian Gai have a much deeper connection than juat that one run in.

Kakashi also does make sure to bring back a piece of Neji’s clothing, as well as some hair as ‘proof of death’. The rest of neji, he lies and says they burned and buried.

Wheb Hiashi gets on Kakashi’s ass about it, he has to bite back a comment about his treatment of neji. However, he does comment on Hiashi’s inability to keep his own clan safe.

Team Ro arn’t the one’s that failed Neji.

Hiashi is, and Kakashi will make sure he remmembers that

[askscribbly]

2,3 and 4 for Minor, 9, 18, 22 and 24 for Dolly aaand 26, 29 and 34 for Citrine eue

Oh god this is gonna be long, FORGIVE ME LOLUrsa Minor Calvera (NG son of Twilight and Bray):2. What is/was your character’s relationship with their mother like?Honestly, a bit awkward. Though he loves his mom dearly and would want to protect her he often feels he's not enough for her, or rather he will not do something as "important" as say his brother and sister. He wants to be closer, but with her duties and doting/worrying over the other children he tends to just keep his distance and resume his own studies. 3. What is/was your character’s relationship with their father like?I would like to think it's less awkward than him and Twilight. Minor really looks up to his father and the feats he accomplished prior, and hopes to be as strong and respected as him someday. But again, he is outshone by his siblings, and with his own ruined record does not feel he can be respected on the same level. Still, if he has any questions or is seeking any advice on things, Bray is he first to come to mind. 4. Has your character ever witnessed something that fundamentally changed them? If so, does anyone else know?Hmmm, that's a bit tricky, considering I don't remember if we changed one specifically in the story. To me it comes down to two things though: Star's power surge and Minor's first encounter. In the original story we had going Minor and Star snuck into the town to explore, and do to a sudden wave of anxiety Star released a surge of magic that hurt Minor. Minor has always worked to be close to his twin, but after that he came to realize just how powerful Star was. After that Star became more reclusive, went to go study more magic, and suddenly Minor was alone. He had to learn to suppress a LOT of emotions, thoughts, and even came to realize he wasn't as "valued" as his now distant brother. It really taught him to start hiding away from other ponies, as Minor himself became... Well, minor in comparison. On another note, the second thing that really changed him was his first encounter with a being known as Morning Grace. This "pony" came to him one lonely night, reassuring the small foal that he was not alone in the world, and that in fact there were "friends" all around him. The encounter lead Minor to do something nopony had heard of for who knows how long: communication with shadows. I'm not talkin dark magic or anything, Minor actually learns to speak to shadows through Morning Grace's guidance, as well as walking amongst them, travel, learning how they are deeply connected to the world, and so on. But this encounter also leads to him falling too deep into their comfort, eventually allowing his own pride to take over and nearly destroy the kingdom that shoved him in the shadows in the first place. Those two changed him greatly, and though he is doing his best to learn from it and try to earn the respect of the ponies who now fear or despise him, he is struggling every day not to sink deeper and deeper into the shadows that bring him such companionship. Dolly:9. Is your character’s current socioeconomic status different than it was when they were growing up?Dooo you mean from when she started living with the hounds, or her parents? :3cEither way yes, they're both quite different. The mountain hounds are certainly a step down for obvious reasons, but life with Sealed and Cannabis isn't exactly luxurious as well. Though the two of them offer what they can and fill their home with goods they find or don't have the heart to sell, there's still something pretty big that's a step down. But you shall see that later, huehuehue. 18. Is your character more likely to admire wisdom, or ambition in others?Actually, ambition! There's something about an ambitious pony that makes her little heart excited, and motivates her to work harder in a way. To her ambition is the knowledge that something will work out in a certain way so long as it's worked for or, better yet, the pony behind it has the wisdom to execute it. But, keep in mind she's still quite little. She's learning the difference between wisdom and ambition as she goes, and her memory problems make it all the harder to retain. Hopefully some helpful creatures will be willing to steer her in the right direction when distinguishing the two. 22. What does your character like in other people?She will always admire genuine and understanding creatures, no matter what they are or how bad they may seem. The world is hard enough with these new rules and faces surrounding her, so it helps to meet someone who is patient enough to hear her out. Someone who is honest with how they feel or what's happening, and who can essentially be a good friend. She also admires those who really fight for what they believe in, and who are not willing to give up at the drop of a hat. 24. How quick is your character to trust someone else?Way. Too. Quick. As nervous as she can be with first encounters she tends to believe a lot of things so long as they're presented as a fact. "Oh- you don't get to have today's ration because you forgot to kick the last pebble." "Hey I know who you are, Sandra! We need to hurry home before Mom gets mad!"It's gonna be played with later but- shit, someone save my baby, she needs a good pal or parental figure to kinda nudge her in the opposite direction if bad creatures come along and be like "NOPENOPENOPE."Citrine Quartz:26. How does your character behave around children?Better than you would think, lol. Though he gets lots of stares and kids of course pick at the fact he's small, he actually likes listening to them and roughhousing a bit if he knows their families pretty well. He knows they're just scamps for the most part and does his best to treat them with smiles. Teenagers are another story, but kids he likes. uwu29. What did your character dream of being or doing as a child? Did that dream come true?Citrine has always wanted to be a protector. As a foal he saw how poorly those on the streets were treated, like him and his mother, and felt there needed to be a pony that would speak for the ponies and protect them at all costs. So joined the royal guard in hopes of being captain someday; however, though he has worked hard and more than proven himself as a strong pony, he has remained as first lieutenant under Sterling Silver for some time. He's not exactly happy being just that, and believes there are still things that need to be changed, but he does his best to keep a watchful eye and make sure things are running smoothly. 34. Is your character more likely to keep trying a solution/method that didn’t work the first time, or immediately move on to a different solution/method?You better believe he's gonna try each and every idea until something goes right! That little guy has had to work to be twice as quick in stride and mind, so he's open to changing methods so long as they have some hope of overcoming an obstacle.

#long post #character development #tambelon #askscribbly

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Why the 7b Promo Pics are Giving Me TD Tingles ;D

Good morning Everyone! How was everyone’s weekend? Good, I hope. Mine was fabulous! So for those who don’t know, AMC has released promo pics for 7b. As always, they’re terribly interesting. I’ve had lots of questions about them over the past few days, so I promised I would do a post analyzing them. Right off the bat I need to thank and acknowledge my FB group. We talked about these a lot and all hashed out ideas for what they reminded us of and what we thought they meant. Special thanks to @boltthrutheheart, @birdiehaven (IG), @lilly.loup (IG), @katkhaos, and @thegloriouscollectorlady for their genius input.

Remember that images used for promo pics generally will show up somewhere in the plot, but also have deeper, symbolic significance as well.

Let’s start with the pics that don’t do much for me. 

First, the cantaloupes. Of course they’re something that grows, so they could be synonymous with “green,” but even for me, that’s a stretch. They have some symbolism in Eastern cultures, but nothing that jumped out at me. The only thing we came up with in our group is that maybe they’re for practice killing (chopping heads like melons). But, who knows?

Then this picture. It’s just very generic and nothing especially jumps out at me. Looks like a reference to the junk yard community, but I’m not seeing much else. Moving on.

Overturned bucket with seeds. The gardening experts in the group tell me these are either tomato or paprika seeds. Either one would have potent symbolism, but personally I think they’re probably tomato. Not just from the way they look but because we’ve seen this symbol so often entangled with Beth symbolism. We saw tomatoes at Grady, and again around Morgan in 6x04, which had tons of callbacks. I think they’ve mentioned growing tomatoes in more than one place. And the most common thing tomatoes symbolize is solidarity. Remember Tara’s line from 5x07: “Solidarity. Band of brothers.” It’s something TF is constantly striving for and we see it a lot in the show.

Peanuts. Peanuts are a very potent symbol and I think it’s interesting that they’re included here. The biggest thing peanuts represent in western culture is mystery. Like, what’s under the shell? So the whole point is mystery. The fact that something is hidden. The shell needs to be broken to find it. I think we can all relate that to TD without help, yeah? And another interesting thing? Peanuts are specifically equated with the Christmas season. I know Christmas is past for us, but that’s super-interesting to me for two reasons: first there’s Daryl’s “I never got nothing from Santa Clause,” which we haven’t seen fulfilled yet. (I’m always wondering if maybe we HAVE seen a few of these and just missed them, but at this point, I kind of don’t think so. The symbolism is still being employed.) Plus there’s that December calander behind the obvious Beth-walker in 5x10. We hoped it meant she would return in December (the s7 MSF) Obviously we interpreted that wrong, but the “Christmas” symbolism is still around. And I suppose it might be a western Christ thing. In reality, Christ was born in the spring but all of western culture celebrates his birthday in December. But I digress. My point is, very interesting peanut symbolism.

The bike. I don’t have much to say about this. Don’t know what it means. But it does bring one very specific thing to mind. In Daryl’s/Norman’s opening credit, we see Daryl’s vest through the spokes of a bike. And we’ve always figured that was about his motorcycle, even though there aren’t spokes on the wheel of a motorcycle. Doing the spokes just made it possible to put two symbols of him in the opening credits. But we’ve seen bikes elsewhere. The instance that always comes to mind first for me is when the camera focuses on one outside the house Rick breaks out of when the Claimers show up in 4x11.  That was a super-obvious Beth/Grady parallel, and part of the reason I formulated my bike theories. (X, X, and X). Now we have a pic of a bike that includes spokes. Again, not sure what it means, but I’m sure it’s important. ;D

Then we have more nuts, this time walnuts, I believe. The biggest callback I’m seeing here is to The Grove. In that case, the nut was different. It was pecans. But Lizzie, Mica, and Carol cracked and cooked tons of them. It was a big part of the episode. Also notice that he nut cracker in this case is a hammer, not unlike the one Tyreese always carried. He was also a big part of that episode. So what does this mean? Well, on the one hand, it may have nothing to do with Beth. I’ve said before and my group has talked a lot about that we think part of Carol and Daryl’s arc in ep 9 and 10 may be Carol finally talking to him about what happened with the girls. This could be a sign of that, if it turns out to be the case. But I’ve talked plenty of times before about how Lizzie especially is tied to Beth as an anti-parallel. I’ve kind of come to associate Lizzie and Mica becoming relevant again with Beth becoming relevant again. And also remember that Lizzie, Mica and Beth all showed up in Ty’s death hallucination. It’s all connected, folks. ;D

But there is another picture that makes me think tptb are specifically invoking Ty’s death. This one:

Skeletal corpse. Not only does it look just like the one in Ty’s death episode (5x09) 

but as I said in my analysis of the S7 opening credits, there’s one there as well. 

And this one in the opening credits, just like the flash of Beth running in the yellow shirt, happens so fast that you can’t see it unless you slow it down. It’s like something the show is hiding in plain sight. That’s very significant to me, guys. And obviously whatever we’re seeing in the credits will probably become relevant in 7b. And I think it’s tied to…um, Ty. ;D

Dynamite. We’re hoping Daryl gets to blow up more shit. That’s always great. But remember the matches Daryl used to escape. He didn’t light them, which means they were completely useless plot-wise, and therefore unnecessary. Which means they’re symbolic. Jesus gave him one and then a box of matches held the door open. Sounds like fire is the gateway to escape, which is in line with what we saw in Still. They burnt down the moonshine shack to free themselves from the shackles of their past. Now we’re seeing dynamite. I’m kind of excited. :D

Lantern. I won’t say much about this one because it’s fairly obvious. It’s an agent of light and fire, which we see around Beth a lot. (Lamp post here.) We also saw a lot of these particular types of lanterns in the manor house at Hilltop. And there were a lot of them in cabin in The Grove too. So another symbol we’ve seen a lot of in past seasons, often associated with TD-type symbolism. There’s also a hanging drill with a sinister looking drill bit. Yeah, that’s creepy.

Bloody handprint. We saw something very similar to this in Ty’s death episode. So another tie back to what happened directly after Coda. And I’m sure we’ve seen bloody hand prints more than once in the series. Ty was just the first one that jumped to mind for most of us.

Okay, let’s get to the really good stuff. 

The rubber duckies. I love saying that word. Rubber duckies. It’s fun. ;D So apparently Richonne will come across some kind of defunct carnival at some point (which btw is like Stephen-King-level creepy). We’re thinking these ducks may be associated with that. But @boltthrutheheart, genius that she is, made some great associations here. We’ve seen/heard of ducks twice before. The first time was actually specifically around Beth. In S2, after Beth goes catatonic, Maggie tells Andrea. *cough, cough* ANDREA about a time when she returned from college and Beth had a meltdown about her birth control and the two of them and their brother ended up screaming at each other in the duck pond before Hershel broke it up and Beth played innocent. So ducks specifically associated with Beth early on and specifically having to do with seeing Maggie for the first time in a long time, after them being apart for a specific period of time.

The other time also has to do with Maggie. In 3x06, Hounded, she and Glenn go on a run and Maggie specifically tells him to pick up a rubber duck for Judith. That scene didn’t have much to do with Beth, but that was when Merle took the two of them captive. So basically that led to Merle, who had been gone for 2 seasons, reuniting with TF and his family (Daryl).

And one more thing? We saw a clock somewhere (in the Sanctuary, I think? But can’t remember where. I’ll find it and add it later) pointing to 3x06. I remember doing a post about it. So we now have two different references to Merle reuniting with his family after two seasons of being gone. Hmmm. ;D

I also feel like there’s slightly more color in this pic than in the others. Like the yellow of the ducks is being emphasized. Just saying. 

And finally my two faves.

First, the open grave. Do I really have to explain why this one is awesome? The empty grave/tomb is the most widespread and potent symbol of resurrection that exists in the Christian world, my friends. I’ve been hearing versions of this symbol at church ever since I was just a kid. We’ve over-analyzed promo pics since Coda aired, but we’ve never seen an open grave in any of them until now. That makes me super excited.

Another thing this puts me in mind of are those three fake graves in Alexandria. We never learned what, if anything, is in them, or what exactly FG had to do with them. So in terms of symbolism, the open grave means resurrection. Plot wise, I’m thinking those three empty graves are coming back into play.

Finally, I think this is my favorite one. 

Shadows of people pointing guns at someone. Now, in terms of plot, this will probably have to do with the junk yard community. But does this remind you of anything. I instantly recognized this stance:

Eh, eh?

Overall, they seem to be place mostly in the junk yard, with a few exceptions, which means that’s gonna be a huge story line in 7b. (Given all the TD symbols around Boots, that makes me happy.) And even though the pictures are quite washed out and colorless, there is actually a lot of green in them, or would be if the color hadn’t been messed with so much.

Bottom line, these images will all be relevant in the back 8, guys. Can’t wait. ;D

#td #beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance