#Tristan System

[stitchwitchsapprentice]

The Shadow Speaker (Magic Manipulators #2)

To read Magic Manipulators #1, The Curse Breaker, click here.

"And if you were accepted to teach at Knights, what sort of research would you conduct with the school's resources?"

He spoke slowly. "I... am interested in the farthest extents of magic manipulation--the rare cases in which people have been shown to do things far beyond their given abilities. For example, my mother has a gift for manipulating the weather, yet she has learned to transport herself to different planets, in a manner that is different from that of traditional transportation magic." He did not mention that she had first transported herself from a different solar system all together, or that he hoped to use Knights' resources to find a way to break the pixie curse he had inherited from her. He had learned that the hard way--in his last interview at Knights. He marveled that the interview process for teaching was somehow normal, a far cry from the application process students endured.

Nevertheless, the questions here led him deeper into mythologies and his need to explain why he believed they held grains of truth. Within the last century, people had discovered, had they not, that a very small percentage of the population was gifted with death magic--a magic that drove them to execute criminals and protected them from dying themselves. In his hometown of Whitefall, some TV executive had even created a show where several of them came out of hiding each year and killed each other in an arena-style competition. They weren't actually going to die, after all, so it was perfectly safe and humane. If death witches were once thought of as myths, why couldn't other myths be true?

When Julian walked out, he pulled his communicator out of his pocket and sent a message to his old professor. If Knights didn't work out, he might be able to get a position at Redlands University, where he had finished his last degree. Then he went to Independence Market.

Once a fully outdoor market, a stained glass pavilion had been erected a few centuries earlier to protect buyers and sellers from bad weather. Julian always marveled at it as he passed underneath. They could have built a large shock shield, like those used in windows, or created a magical weather barrier, either of which would have been essentially invisible. Instead, someone had thought to make an artwork out of it, making the market wholly unique to Whitefall. It was also one of the last traditional markets in the area, which means it came with the added benefit lacking the giant telescreens seen other parts of the city, which at this time of year, were advertising Death Tag. He could not, however, avoid the conversation.

"I don't know why she even competes. She loses every year."

"Eh, you just like to complain about everything."

Julian stopped at one stand to buy some strawberries and a bottle of juice to drink. "What do you think, professor?" asked the bookseller next to him. "Why does this 'Lights' girl even try if she knows she's going to be the first one dead?"

Julian suppressed the urge to chastise them over their morbid interest. "Maybe she doesn't care about winning. And I'm not a professor yet."

"Don't mind him," said the fruit seller, a tall man who was clearly trying to make up for early hair loss with his incredible mustache, "he's just cranky because the girl who helps him ran off with some boy who had a backstage pass. But tell us, how did the interview go?"

Julian shook his head. The fruit seller was the biggest gossip he knew. But, he supposed, working in the center of Independence Market every day would make it easy to hear all the latest news. He had learned not to be coy with his answers. "It was an interview. If they hire me, you'll know." Knights professors were immediately recognizable by the orange neckties they wore.

Julian turned then to the bookseller, a man who he suspected had grown out his own facial hair to disguise the scars from an accident in his younger years. "Do you have anything of interest for me?"

The man's disposition changed as he extracted a volume from a box labeled reserved. "Only Kai Casco's History of the Development of Magic. I know you've been looking for it for a while."

"Yeah! He's supposed to offer a unique insight on..."

"...the early discrimination of non-transport wizards," the seller finished with him.

Julian grinned. "I guess I've been talking about it for a while."

"My girl wanted it, but I told her it was for my best customer. Glad I did, seeing as she's not here today."

Julian thanked him and paid for the book. "Hope you don't have to wait to long on that interview!" The fruit seller called as he walked away.

Julian turned and waved. "Well, if I don't get it, maybe I can go back to Octavia," he said, naming the planet where Redlands was located.

He didn't have to worry. Knights called him the next day to offer him the position. When Julian returned, he briefly met with the president of the school, who then introduced him to a young woman with mousy auburn hair and hazel eyes.

"This is Emily Ronin. She'll be your teacher's aide. Emily, could you take Professor Day to his classroom?"

Emily didn't look particularly excited about this. She stood with her arms crossed, scowling at the door frame. But she did as she was asked, and brought Julian to a roomy classroom with an office inset on one side.

"My office is in my classroom?" He said surprised. He dropped his bag on the desk in the smaller room and surveyed the books that the previous professor had left behind.

"I guess someone thought it made more sense than making people move around room to room. And the room is properly warded, since you're teaching about magic." She pointed to warding pattern painted around the top of the room. 

"So you took the class last year, with uh... Professor Askin?" He tried to remember the name of the Magic Studies professor who had just retired.

Emily snorted, arms still crossed. "No. He was in denial that..." She shook her head. "Never mind."

"Well, if you haven't taken the class, how did you become my teacher's aide?"

"The president intervened." She mumbled this first part to her shoes, but then she stood up straight, and looked him in the eye as if offering a challenge. "Anyway, I was in here cataloging books earlier, and I borrowed Speaking Spells into Being. I can bring it back to you tomorrow."

"You haven't taken this class, but you're reading Speaking Spells into Being." Julian said it slowly, trying to convince himself the girl was telling the truth.

"I needed to conduct some research," she said matter-of-factly, "I think there have been some magical anomalies at the Hayder Street Temple."

Julian smirked. "Aren't they building there? Maybe the Calistian gods are stopping by to oversee the construction."

"I doubt it. Do you still need me?"

"No, I... I... guess I'll see you when classes start."

"See you." She walked away, leaving Julian to wonder what type of student became the TA for a class they had never taken. If the president had intervened, maybe they were related. But that didn't explain her research, unless she was lying about that. There was one way to find that out.

Hayder Street was in the oldest part of the city. The original temple had been destroyed during Patlee War, and only some of original outer walls remained. Some followers of Brian, the god of plants, had since turned it into a public garden, with a spiral walk. Now someone was building a new altar at the center of walk, as a way of building an open air version of the old place. As Julian walked down the path, he didn't notice anything of particular interest, magically speaking, though he liked being surrounded by so many trees. He supposed that was his pixie blood. The foliage was just beginning to turn yellow. In a few weeks, the stones of the path would be covered with fallen leaves.

Someone bumped into him. it was a brown-skinned woman with her hair in a puff. "Excuse me." She stopped suddenly and looked at him, turning her head slightly, as if there was something about his face that puzzled her.

"Yes?" he asked.

"I'm sorry, I thought I recognized you for a minute." The woman also looked familiar to Julian, though he couldn't place her. But before he could ask, she had gone on her way. 

Julian continued down the path to the half-finished altar at its center. The builders had already gone home for the day, and the sun was beginning to set. Julian looked at his watch. It wasn't nearly late enough for that. He didn't know what it was, but apparently Emily had been right. Something weird was happening. He set off back down the spiral path, walking quickly, to see if the sun was setting only in this area, when he ran again into the woman.

"Okay, very funny," she said, "but I've had enough of your little shadow realm, so why don't we leave?"

"What?"

"Your one mistake was coming by. You knew I was supposed to meet my contact here, and you thought you would twist her magic to trap us. And you might have succeeded, if you had just done it from a distance. But no, you had to come in person."

"I have no idea what you're taking about." Julian raised his hands slowly into the air, hoping to prove he wasn't a threat.

"Really? Then would care to elaborate on why you're here?"

Julian felt a snap in his spine as her request activated his pixie curse. Before he could stop himself, he answered. "Something is off about my student aide, and I'm trying to figure out what it is."

The woman blinked at him. "That answer came way too quickly."

"I'm telling the truth!" 

"I know you are. Which, unfortunately, means you are not the person who set this trap." She squinted at him through the growing gloom. "Who are you?" He actually saw her eyes roll when he didn't answer. "Would you tell me who you are?"

"Professor Julian Daye," his curse forced him to give his name, but he added, "if you really want to play this game, let me warn you, my mother taught me well." He had spent much of his childhood learning how to comply with requests in the most literal way. He did not mention he was out of practice.

"No thanks." She had turned her back on him and was now peering around the garden. "I'm not stupid enough to play games with pixies."

"How do you know about pixies?" Julian and his mother were literally the only two in the Tristan system.

"I'm a death wizard, I know about everybody."

As the sky grew darker, Julian noticed the silvery ribbon in her hair continued to shine, as if it had a light inside it. "Lights," he said. He had seen the woman before, on the advertisements for Death Tag. She was the competitor the bookseller had mentioned, who was typically the first to die.

She turned around and offered a hand. "Lilith. If we're stuck in this together, we might as well be a first name basis."

"What did you call this? A shadow realm?"

"Illusion magic." Lilith started off down the spiral path. Julian followed by focusing on her glowing hair ribbon. "Someone very talented can create a world that resembles the real one. Even to the trained eye, it can be difficult to see."

"How do we get out?"

"Well first, we're going to need some light."

Julian could barely see her now. He looked up. No stars. No moon. It was like a cloudy night. "You can do that, right?" He asked, hopefully.

"I'm a death wizard, not a light wizard."

"But everyone calls you Lights."

Lilith sighed. "Are you familiar with Kelli's Junkyard?"

"The shop that sells neon signs? From the old days?" Julian had been there once. It had been a cacophony for the eyes.

"That's the one. I'm friends with the owner. Did a favor for him once. My first time in Whitefall, I kept hanging around the place. The TV execs were even getting annoyed because I wasn't around for interviews after I died or whatever. They finally just interviewed me there. But that's why they call me Lights." She paused. "Why don't you bring us light? Aren't pixies supposed to be good at weather magics?"

Her ribbon stopped bobbing. Julian nudged closer. It was more or less all he could see now, though he imagined other, distant pinpricks of light. "I've never been particularly good with electricity."

"Well, I think you should give it a try." When Julian didn't respond, Lilith sighed. "Would you please bring us some light?"

Julian felt the snap in his spine. From deep inside him, something bubbled up, it ran down his arms, and out through his fingers, growing until he held a ball of lightning, roughly six inches in diameter.

Now he could see Lilith's face. She looked at him thoughtfully. Then a smile slowly spread across her face. "Would you get us out of here?"

He felt the snap again. This time, without thinking about it, he threw the ball of lightning into the air. It spread out across the sky, giving them flashes of light in the darkness. He looked at her. "Somehow, I don't think that worked."

Her eyes were on the sky. "Then you probably don't have the ability to get us out. But getting out is... somehow related to... a storm?"

Julian shrugged. "My mother understands the curse better than I do."

"It feels like a clue at least." Thunder boomed. "Oh no," she groaned as rain fell fast and cold on them.

"I blame you for this!" He tried to concentrate on directing the water away from them.

"There's a teashop across the street!" Lilith called. "We can figure this out from there!"

"Will it even be open?"

"It's better than standing in the rain!"

Julian followed her down the spiral path and across the street. Though sporadic, the lightning gave them enough light to see by, but it was harder to keep the rain off while they ran. The teashop was open when they arrived. They dashed inside. Lilith found the lightswitch. The lights flickered in the storm. Julian found the same bit of power that had wound through him to cause the storm and directed it toward the lights to stabalize them. "Old lights," he said, "still run on the old electric grid."

"We are in the old part of town." Lilith sat down at one of the tables. "Did you know this was the first tea shop in Whitefall?"

Julian joined her at the table. "For someone not from around here, you know a lot about the city."

"I've been here six times for Death Tag."

"Why do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Death Tag. I mean..." He drummed his fingers on the table, deciding how rude to be. "The god of death grants you what, fifty years of immortality, and you all use to slaughter each other on interplanetary television? It seems like a bad use of the gift."

He prepared himself for one of the usual responses. This was a way for death witches to blow off steam. It was a good catharsis for everyone--the audience could indulge in violent urges while knowing no one actually got hurt. Some even said it discouraged violent crime because criminals now knew what they were up against, not that there was any real research to show that.

Lilith didn't answer with any of those. "Well, I'm not in it for the killing and the dying."

"What?"

"I come to see my friends. Why do you think I'm the first person to die every year?" She spread her fingers out on the table. "There's not a lot of us, you know? It's nice to spend a few weeks with someone who gets it. But I guess I'm teaching the valedictorian, talking to a pixie." She stood and walked to the window. "Besides, it's a good cover."

"Cover?"

She looked back at him. "Didn't you wonder why we're stuck in this place? I don't think anyone's after you."

"Who's after you?"

"I don't know exactly. Have you ever been to Octavia?"

"I studied there for three years."

"I was born in Kulai. You know about the book bans?"

Julian nodded. Redlands was in the country of Aither, and he'd had several classmates who had come from Kulai due to decreasing access to books.

Lilith slumped against the window. "You can get a laser gun at fourteen, but you have to be twenty-one to get a library card."

This time the snap didn't happen in Julian's spine. "You're a smuggler, aren't you?" She'd turned around completely and grinned again. "I'd heard rumors at school," he explained.

"It started when I was seventeen, banning books from schools. And then banning kids from libraries. So we started a secret one. Then they started banning some books altogether, so we went across the border. Only now, other countries are following suit--Zagrad, Andos. So I joined Death Tag. And our secret library flourished." She threw her hands in the air. "At least, until my contact didn't show, and I got stuck in this place."

"Why do you need a contact? Books aren't illegal here."

"She gets books from work. That way it's harder to connect me to them. And she's an illusionist herself, so she could disguise us at the drop-off point."

"That's why the magic has been off at the temple recently. My aide noticed," he told Lilith when she looked confused.

"That's probably how our captor figured out where I was meeting her." She put her head in her hands. "I knew I shouldn't have waited for her to get that last book."

Julian stood up and joined her at the window. "Well, we can't just sit in the tea shop all day.... night... illusions can be broken, right?"

"Yes, but I don't know how to break this one."

He peered out the window, but he could barely see anything past the water streaming down the outside. "You said it had something to do with the thunderstorm."

"Well, I asked you to break it, and that's what you did. If it didn't have an effect, I'm not sure why you did it."

"I think we're going to have to go back outside. If you stand next to me, I can keep us dry."

"I live near a moor back home, so I'm used to the rain. And the humidity's wrecked my hair already."

Julian opened the teashop door and stood just inside it, pushing back any rain attempting to fly in. He looked up and down the street. At first, all he saw was the lightning and the rain. Then he noticed it. "Look." He pointed.

Lilith squinted into the darkness. "I don't see anything."

"That area there. It's not raining."

"How do you know?"

"I can feel it," Julian realized.

The two exchanged a glance and then plunged into the storm, running for the clear street. As soon as they crossed the intersection, they stepped on to dry pavement. Julian looked around. The shop walls were draped with ivy, and gas lamps, rather than electric or magi-tech lights lit the street. "There are lights." He paused. "Is this some accident?" It wasn't Whitefall.

"No, it's Kippel Way. They kept it like this because of all the antique shops." She laughed. "In fact, I think the bookstore owners are the ones who..." She trailed off. "Oh no."

"What?"

Lilith looked at one of the gas lamps above them. "I know how to get out."

"Isn't that a good thing?"

She moved her gaze from the gas lamp to the window of books in front of her. "There are twenty bookstores on this street." She opened the door to the shop and stepped inside. "I bet they didn't think I'd do it."

Julian lingered in the doorway. "It does go against your nature."

Lilith thumbed through the books in the window and selected two. She handed one to Julian. "I'm killed and reborn every year. The books can be too."

Julian opened the door on the gas lamp. "You're sure this is just an illusion, right?"

"If not, hopefully someone will stop us." That was not a comforting thought. Nevertheless, Julian placed the book in the flame, and when the corner caught alight, he tossed it into the store. Lilith followed. They walked down the street and repeated this at every bookstore they came to. As the flames rose in the last one, waves of heat came off it, giving way to the temple. As the illusion faded, Lilith breathed a sigh of relief. Julian blinked in the bright light. He could tell it was later in the day, but it was still not yet sunset.

"So this is your partner," said a voice behind them.

Julian turned and saw the fruit seller from Independence Market. "I should have known it was you, you quidnunc!"

"I have to say, I didn't think it was you," he responded.

"Wait, you think I'm a part of this?"

"But you spent three years on Ocatvia. That's how you met, isn't it? I almost didn't notice, until that book this morning."

Lilith turned to Julian. "You have my copy of History of the Development of Magic?"

"But I have to say, I didn't expect the famous Lights to be your accomplice."

"My accomplice? I'm not a part of this."

"Well you certainly won't be now." The man aimed a laser gun at Julian, who raised his hands into the air.

"I don't know if it's a good idea to shoot someone in a public place?"

"Illusion magic, remember? No one else will see."

Lilith threw out a hand toward Julian, as if trying to stop him from falling. "You don't want to do that," she told the fruit seller.

"And what are you going to do? Kill me? I'm not sure you can. You haven't even killed anyone on Death Tag."

"You won't kill me."

"That's the thing about Death Tag. I learned. You may come back, but you will die. Long enough for me to get you to a prison in Kulai. You can live out your eternity there." Lilith took a step toward him, but before she could do anything, the man fired.

***

Julian opened his eyes to see Lilith's face. He was laying on the ground and she was bending over him. "How are you?" she asked.

"Pins and needles," he groaned.

"Where?"

"All over." He gasped. "Am I alive?"

In response, Lilith looked to where the fruit seller had stood. Julian slowly pushed himself up on his elbows to see the man laying on his back, a hole blasted through his chest.

"Let me help you." Lilith grabbed his arm and pulled him into a sitting position. "Do you... remember who you are?"

"Julian Daye..." He looked at her and then at the fruit seller again. "He's dead."

"Yeah."

"He looks like he got shot."

"Yeah."

Julian knew the gun hadn't backfired. He actually remembered the blast hitting him. "You did something, didn't you? So that... whatever he did to me... would happen to him."

"It's like like making you a death witch. Very temporarily."

He looked at her again. "Your competitors. In Death Tag? They can't do that, can they?"

"No."

"So... you could win. Any time you wanted."

"I told you. I don't care about winning. Come on. I'll walk you home." She helped him to stand.

Julian continued to look at the body. "Shouldn't we... do something?"

"I contacted the proper authorities on my communicator. They know where to find me." She tugged Julian down the path toward the street.

"What will you tell them?"

"The truth. He tried to kill someone. I prevented it. It's not like they can't test for it."

"I have your book you know. Your contact couldn't get it because her employer saved it for me. You can come by the school and get it."

"Oh I'll be coming by. Somebody needs to check on you."

***

Lilith was as good as her word. She stepped into his classroom on the first day. "How are you?"

Julian nodded from his chair. "Alive. Shaken. I got a call about it. They asked me to make a statement."

"What'd you tell them?"

"That I was nearly killed? By a complete stranger? After apparently being locked in a... shadow realm? I don't know if I believe me."

"Whitefall has some of the best truth wizards in the system. It's how they keep us in check."

"Shadow realm?" A new voice asked. Julian looked up to see Emily. Lilith spun around, and for a moment, the two women stared hard at each other.

Emily broke eye contact first. She turned to Julian. "At Hayder Street Temple, right? The man they found there. He was a shadow speaker?"

"A what?"

Emily handed him a book. Julian looked at it. Singing Spells into Being. "That's what the author calls them. Because most people start out creating shadow realms by describing them in words. Like telling a story."

Julian nodded. "And they're called shadow realms because they're dark?"

Lilith smiled. "No. That's how you find them, if you know how to see magic. They look like a shadow."

"And you saw this?" he asked Emily. 

She shrugged. "I guess."

"This is your aide?" Lilith said to Julian. When he nodded, she turned to Emily. "You should just tell him." Emily said nothing, so she turned back to Julian. "Fine. Professor Daye, would you tell your aide your most guarded secret?"

"I'm half pixie," he blurted out. Then to Lilith, he asked, "Why are you doing this?"

"Because it's incredibly amusing."

"I thought pixies were theoretical."

Julian turned to Emily again. If she was a death witch, like Lilith, she would know they were real. But no one else in Tristan knew about pixies at all. Unless... "You have the gift of understanding." Emily's blush was evidence enough. She had been born with an innate knowledge of the inner workings of magic. She had probably noticed his magic was different when they had first met, even if she didn't know why.

"No wonder the president made you my aide. You could be teaching this class yourself."

"I'd have to want to first." She shook the book at him, and Julian accepted it.

"What about field research?" He asked. She didn't say anything, but she turned her head to show she was listening. "I could use an assistant, and together, I bet we could find more of those theoretical ideas of yours that are real." She smiled for just a moment, but it was enough for Julian to know he was beginning to break through her facade of indifference. "Think about it."

"I will."

#original fiction #Tristan System #Julian Daye #worldbuilding #story cycle #short story #fantasy #book smuggling #Magic Manipulators

[imogenkol]

TRISTAN & ANDREA THATCHER — original works

tag list (ask to be added or removed!): @adelaidedrubman @florbelles @marivenah @simonxriley @shegetsburned @voidika @kyber-infinitygems @v0idbuggy @inafieldofdaisies @statichvm @socially-awkward-skeleton @aceghosts @carlosoliveiraa @risingsh0t @unholymilf @thedeadthree @cassietrn @jackiesarch @gwynbleidd @shellibisshe @loriane-elmuerto @katsigian @captastra

#oc insp: Andrea Thatcher #oc insp: Tristan Thatcher #beloved dead parents who did the best they could and haunt the narrative 💔 #just had to make something for them after that wip #they honestly mean so much to me #the fact that I have a whole history for them in my head and not a word of it written down outside of Jayde's idealized perception #they were ridiculously in love with each other and had a really long hard road to build the life they had #and Jayde is just like her father (affectionate) #they taught their daughters to say fuck the system and be their authentic selves

[lehdenlaulu]

My beautiful boy got back from his adventure with another player, and got a good review and a sexy new cloak from them. Unfortunately, they also saw fit to give him lower armor that is basically shoes and undies, so he ended up looking like a flasher in that robe. 😂 I mean, that armor was better than what he'd had, but I promptly gave him back his boots and leather pants. You know, for propriety's sake.

I don't remember his ID off the top of my head, but if you want to borrow him, he's Tristan, a sorcerer and a very good boy.

#Dragon's Dogma #DD2 #Dragon's Dogma 2 #OC: Tristan #ugh @ Tumblr potatofying all images #he's very pretty I assure you #Darna plays video games #this is also why I kinda really miss the old gear system #not that this was in any way an impossible scenario then either

[zukoromantic]

any of y'all watch the ace attorney anime ??

#ace attorney #ace attorney anime #tristan turnbull #yusaburo saiga #i simply thought he was funny #for context this guy is an american prosecutor and is saying how perfect the american judicial system is lol #bro was going so hard for the gay backstory with edgeworth #a for effort

[fluffypotatey]

BBC Merlin is so fucking sloppy, it's such a disaster (affectionate) which is both teeth-grindingly annoying bc goddamn, do I have to do all the work around here, but also gleefully freeing because you can basically write whatever tf you want and it might as well be canon, who the fuck knows, the writers certainly don't.

Like, they can't even keep track of whose kingdom is where. My dude. My good bitch. C'mon.

oh yeah the world building of this show needs help (i mean that with love) and certain character plots get ignored but i love this show so much

do we really know much about the knight of camelot? no, no we don't. are we sure Essetir is spelled like that? well, i sure don't. agravaine's motivations? start to fall apart if you look too hard. kilgharrah's purpose? to be a total bitch or a cryptic old man

therefore:

#everything i say about elyan is true because you cannot prove me wrong #he was with tristan and isodle for some time pre s3 finale #how do i know this? i just do now eat your vegetables #leon is the gossip girl of camelot #evidence? were you not there at the bbc merlin club meeting???? he told me duh #magic system? yeah i've got a 5 page notes list all about it and how it works #yeah i know the show didn't really tell us much why do you think I wrote it??? #magic user subcultures? of course i know them all the druids were very adamant that i don't confuse them with witches #you think i have all the plothole answers??? i do! will they make sense? to me they will! #bbc merlin #the power of headcanons #the less you tell me the more i infer and by then i'm your problem

[sparklybl00d]

Therapist: Some people can't stand certain things. Like my wife, she can't stand rated R movies. If they snort cocaine and have wild sex, she has to leave the room. Tristan, in the background: *laughs* Tristan: *loves violent things, sadistic sex, and other things* Maxx: Dez: Skylar: What's so funny?

#tristan #skylar #dez #maxx #welcome to our weird little system #actually did #endos do not interact #actually traumagenic #traumagenic system

[vipier]

thoughts that make me insane : main sw verse tristan who never wanted to become a rebel, who never believed in the cause, who grew up in a galaxy that hated him so he hated it back, who despised the empire but had absolutely no trust in anybody else telling them they wanted to take over and make it better because anytime anyone ever said that to him, it was a lie, who only became even tangentially involved to protect the only thing he ever loved and only ever engaged in heroism to protect people he cares about, who turned on the establishment in the blink of an eye the moment he perceived that it took what he loved from him, who goes on to resent the new republic on a deeper level than he ever thought vs. tcw au tristan who felt he had everything he could ever desire and loses it all overnight, who is betrayed by everyone he views as his family within essentially 20 minutes of time, who almost dies alone in the mud from wounds inflicted by some of his closest companions, who nearly loses his will to live but fights through inquisitor torture and ventures into the dark side despite such great personal risk because despite losing everything, he can't stop the fight for even the memory of everything he's ever loved, who turns his mourning inward and slowly erodes himself in service of a greater purpose, who is perceived for 23 years as an enemy to every life he's saved, who risks his life daily by playing against the inquisitors, who nearly destroys himself by the end of the war and would have, if not for one single person who can still see the heart of him and bring him back from the dark.

#somehow these are the same person and the individual arcs make sense for him as a character but like #the dichotomy kills me actually it KILLS me #tcw au really forced me to confront what tristan becomes if he has any sort of real support system #i vowed not to fight anymore if we survived the great war. ( star wars arc i ) #life to life. soul to soul. you pull me from the dark with this single thread of gold. ( star wars arc ii )

[superbelievesintadcooper]

ahhh I finished reading stormsong and I loved it!!!

#I LOVE GRACE WITH MY WHOLE HEART #truly the Character of all time #loved watching her grow and find herself #the moment when she chose her own happiness and what was right over her 'duty' was so powerful #like thinking back most of the things she did in witchmark were INSANE and she would never even think about doing now #and thinking about how LONELY she was before and how much having a support system who really cared about her changed her for the better #and i liked to see the contrasting views of how change should happen #i understand graces point about how any change has consequences so you need to be careful about taking big leaps #but on the other hand she wasnt able to enact real impactful change without taking big risks and making bold moves #also loved how severin was so chill after getting rejected i appreciated that #and i cant believe both siblings have bridal carried tristan now #also “tristan my lamb” AHHHHH #loved to see tristan and miles just chilling and being domestic in the background they deserve it #AND GRACE AND AVIA OF COURSE AFAHSJJEJWHAJJA #THE RUMPLED COLLAR AND THE SLEEPOVER SCENES #also ending the entire book with the gay sex scene is ICONIC #also the live tristan reaction to their first kiss i was dying #anyways 10/10 incredible book cant wait to read soulstar #stormsong #cl polk #the kingston cycle

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

Me because the Percy Jackson series is actually about the different cycles of abuse, which include abuse within romantic partners (Sally and Gabe), abuse between “family” (Percy and Gabe, Meg and Nero), abuse from people in positions of power (the gods over the demigods), and so on, oppression than ranges from having adhd in the public educational system to being forced to perform quests for your entire life for people who could not care less about your well-being, how camp is both somewhere safe but also the bittersweet taste of arriving there and realizing you can never escape, you can never be normal your life will never be the same. There’s no turning back. How Luke was right on theory but not on acts, how these kids got around the idea to never make it to 18, and how there was nothing they could do about that. How many of them sat in their cabins, counting down the days until their sibling/friend/partner came back, only for them to not come back at all. Was it ever their turn to leave someone waiting behind? Annabeth, Percy, Grover, Thalia, the whole deal with Nico, Bianca, Silena, and every single demigod. Children of Apollo were the camp healers, was it a choice? A moral obligation? In camp Jupiter there’s Jason, there’s Reyna, Piper’s story, Leo’s story, the way Jason and Piper’s relationship was heteronormativity pushed by Hero because both of them were queer but she wanted a perfect couple. After being gone missing, people searched for Percy, but Jason? The devastation of Leo and Jason’s relationship, how Leo never knew his feelings for him were required, how both Leo and Piper thought they knew Jason but it was all fake memories, how Jason never fully got his memories back. Hazel’s story, Frank’s story, how Nico and Leo’s mutual dislike for each other comes from a place of understatement. How they both see themselves in each other and look away as one looks away from a mirror when they dislike their reflection. They are both so similar, almost the same. They both are also autistic, except Leo is always masking, and Nico never really learnt how to. Neurodivergence, adhd and dyslexia. Being a demigod is a metaphor for neurodiversity. Was Dionysus actual punishment looking over camp? Or was it spending years and years seeing demigods come and grow and die? Knowing there was nothing he could do about it? Knowing than if he was with the gods, he would be causing their deaths, instead of grieving them? Does Chiron feel hopeless? Memory, names, ghosts. Blades, swords, arrows, blood. So many blood, blood-stained hands. Monsters follow you before coming to camp, did they hurt you family? It was all your fault. They don’t want you to come back, you bring danger, you’re more dangerous than the monster, you are a monster yourself, after all the Minotaur was a demigod too. Leo killed his mother, Zeus killed Maria, Sally got taken to the underworld, Tristan was held hostage, Fredrick and his wife and sons got attacked by monsters, and who’s fault it was? You run away you keep on running but you’ll never outrun the danger because the danger is yourself, you are at fault, how do you run away now?

The odyssey, the iliad, the statues in museums, you look at them, do you see yourself? Do you see any resemble? Your nose kinda looks like theirs, the shape of their lips, the width of their hands, but that’s a lie you’re nothing like them, never will be, is that a tragedy? Do you want to be like them? Do you want to be a hero and die a heroic death? Or do you simply wish to visit your family on Christmas and live the life your little cousins will eventually live? Maybe you’ll never see the life they’ll live, maybe you’ll die before seeing it. There’s nothing to be done about that, you just have to accept it. Don’t you feel the rage, bubbling inside of you, making your hands shake? What can you do with it? Not much, remember last time, remember Luke, what did he accomplish? Nothing, blood, screams. You remember the war, you remember the city, maybe it was the first or the second time you set a foot on it, now every single time you do (if you do) in the future, it will be tainted. Look in that corner, that used to be destroyed. Look at that building, my friend died against that wall, that road was filled with blood. Was it ours? Theirs? Is there even a difference between us? Should there be? Why were you on your side? Why were they in theirs? Who was right? Who was wrong? You can go anywhere but home, maybe you’re not welcomed, maybe there’s no home to return, maybe it’s better for everyone if you don’t return. Nico keeps Bianca’s jacket, Leo taps iloveyou on Morse code. Piper was forced to be someone she wasn’t, she thought she was someone she was not, she was forced to think that. Who is she? Is she even who she thought she was? Jason still don’t remembers everything, and him? Who is he? Nico will never get his memories back, he wonders about his mom, did he have more family back then? Grandparents, aunts? Hazel is a walking curse. Silena and Clarisse as Patroklos and Achilles. Apollo seeing the brutal reality of demigods’ life on trials of apollo.

Your hand shakes, the sword you hold moves, you feel it’s weight, do you want to hold it? Do you have to?

The dead come back to haunt us, Nico sees Bianca everywhere, Leo still remembers his mother’s voice, Hazel came back from the dead, Frank holds his life on his pocket, Thalia lost a brother twice, Leo didn’t really die, Jason died instead, Percy wished to drown himself, half of camp still waits for their brother to come back, even if it has been months, even if it has been years. Luke’s mother still waits, was she crazy? The campers who thought to recognize their friend’s face for a second before remembering than it couldn’t possibly be them, were they crazy too? Who was crazier? Luke’s mother who did not remember, or the campers who did? The underworld has no mercy only justice, but the world has no justice only mercy. You might get mercy, but you never will get justice. Was it fair anything than happened to them? You might be spared in a war or in a battle out of mercy, out of pity, out of recognition, but that didn’t stop you from having to fight in it, that didn’t stop you from having to wield the sword. Spare all the people you want, turn a blind eye to whatever you want, mercy? sure, but you were still holding the sword, you were still supposed to fight, you still weren’t in charge of your life. How was that justice? How was that fair? Names had power, even their names had more power than your life, even the letters making up their names were more powerful than your fists, could you ever win? Could you ever win when their names were so powerful they could not be pronounced but your life was so worthless they didn’t even care to learn yours? To learn the names of the ones than died because of them. You can’t say the name of you sister’s killer, but you’re still expected to burn an offering to them each night at dinner.

#ahahah this is my super cool and canon version of Percy Jackson than exits on my head ok #can you tell i hate the pjo gods like #a LOT #*exists #pjo #luke castellan #rick riordan #toa #hoo

[earlyspringtranscendence]

The immediate bants (#Bantz) Sera and Corin have w each other is something that can be so gun2myhead

#plus when corin says 'i didnt resent my father for pulling me out of a system that didnt do enough to prepare tristan for his trial' #'but not allowing me to see my school friends was another matter' defending corin online isnt enough I Need A Gun. #if magnus cadence was real . well lets just say hes LUCKY hes not #unreal #i cant believe youve done this. etc #esp bc u can tell how dearly corin missed that peer social interaction #i know it tires him out but w sera i mean. hes funny !!! hes witty !!! hes not afraid to make jokes involving personal death !! #recently read #god. this book is so good. so glad im rereading esp post reading wobm #cause now the jaden box shows up and i can be like omg wrynn jaden ...... #bored at work. cutting up pears. thinking harald has forgotten to do the end of day. actually hoping thats the cae #case* otherwise hes still up playing viddy games at 3:30 which god what a time of night

[stairset]

For the record I’m not gonna add more to that post cause internet arguments are dumb and pointless especially if it’s about Star Wars and normally I just avoid them but I’m tired and got annoyed but I don’t wanna keep bothering that person nor do I want them to keep bothering me but just know that they got to the point where they started blatantly contradicting themselves and couldn’t even decide which canon they’re talking about which means I automatically win

#sw fans will have an argument stemming from a scene from a disney canon show #then i cite a bunch of examples from other disney canon materials #then suddenly disney canon doesn't matter and only lucas's personal canon matters #but then i mention something lucas said and suddenly his canon doesn't matter because uuuh death of the author #''death of the author'' isn't a get out of jail free card for not picking which canon you're going with or going by no canon at all #especially cause death of the author is controversial for a reason #some people think you can completely detach a work from the creator's intent but others would disagree with that #but no matter which way you lean you can't just say ''only the creator's canon matters'' #and then say ''actually fuck the creator his intent doesn't matter'' IN THE SAME POST #you can't have it both ways you gotta PICK ONE #so no just saying ''death of the author'' isn't an automatic win #this isn't even just about that specific post this shit is EVERYWHERE in the sw fandom that's why i'm so annoyed #and i think a good chunk of the blame lies with those clickbait YOU DIDN'T KNOW THIS THIS CHANGES EVBERYTHING videos #cause i only know of maybe 1 or 2 sw youtubers that a) make it clear which canon they're talking about #and b) only present the straight facts and don't treat their personal interpretations or theories as objectively correct #most of them fail to do either of those and people take them at face value and that's why no one can agree on anything #ANYWAY now that i got that outta my system i'm dropping it now we'll return to your regularly scheduled bullshit tomorrow #shut up tristan

[dragonseeds]

what are your thoughts on rhaegar and lyanna?

oh i love them! there’s all this talk of them haunting the narrative and they do, but i’d take it further and say they are the black hole at the center of the story. the choices that they made, starting with lyanna’s decision to defend howland reed and what that meant to both him and rhaegar, who was very likely at his lowest point at harrenhal after the ruination of his careful plans, touched or changed the lives of every character and plot line in the series. the story itself is such a fun mashup of tristan and iseult, lancelot and guinevere, helen and paris, the fall of camelot and all of arthuriana really, the classic trope of the princess in the tower and the dragon and the knight: all of that in one couple and we don’t get to experience any of it with them. we can guess and speculate, but we can never truly know them. we experience their story only through the memories the people who survived the war they ostensibly kicked off, and those memories are all heavily colored by trauma, guilt, nostalgia—alternately faded and sharpened by time. it’s this incredibly fun and brilliant reconstruction of some of the most enduring tragedies in folklore and mythology and i adore it.

hate beyond articulation the way asoiaf.tumblr.edu approaches their relationship and the individual characterizations of both of them, though. just absolutely some of the most insufferably sanctimonious disingenuous decontextualized analysis i’ve ever experienced—much of that coming from people viewing this through a historical lense instead of a thematic one. like, imagine approaching the battle of the trident as “rhaegar is a bad person for fighting for his father who was evil! he lost the moral high ground with that one” as opposed to “rhaegar as a character exists to fail and die; he was the last dragon, carrying the unbearable weight of his family’s legacy and the burden of the prophecy for which they conquered westeros: the end of his life is the end of the targaryen dynasty. he must fail and he must die, so that dany and jon can grow up free of that weight and that power. daenerys gets to redefine what it means to be targaryen on her own terms. she and jon separately and unknowingly do the things that he thought he had to do—the things he was conceived and born to do—but never knew how: they do it because of their circumstances, because of the people that they have grown into, because they believe it is their duty, because they have the power to do it.” also, like, re: interpretations of battle of the trident, is there maybe another battle that occurs later in the series that is exactly the same thematically and contextually? where perhaps a character who was missing for a while shows up on the eve of battle, knowing that the opposition is right and their cause is just but that his family will die if he doesn’t fight with them? anything that adds an extra layer of meaning to what happens, aside from dany’s own connection—which is not as thematically similar but is still incredibly meaningful. like i certainly don’t think there’s any one interpretation of a character or story, but the worst ones are consistently applied to rhaegar.

and then with lyanna in particular, it’s like people cannot stomach her or find her sympathetic as a character unless they’re wallowing in her eternal victimhood. the constant dismissal of the importance of lyanna’s actions and what they meant to rhaegar is pure misogyny, by the way. her choices and her agency, the inherent meaningfulness of the struggle for both of those things in a system that seeks to reduce her to her body and the use men can make of it—all of that is important. the person she was and what that meant to people was important, but from the way i most often see her discussed, it’s like her gendered death is the only thing that matters. it’s okay to lament her because she got crushed by the wheel. if she hadn’t, if she wasn’t a victim to write flagellatory meta about, she would be a hypocrite, someone who needed to learn a lesson—as difficult for some of these people to relate to as dany or rhaenyra apparently are.

like, it’s just wild to me because her kindness to howland reed and her choice to defend him, to disguise herself as the knight of the laughing tree and risk her life and reputation to fight for him—is the answer to and the embodiment of one of the most thematically significant questions in the series. we see it most prominently in dany’s chapters because she asks it directly: why do the gods make kings and queens if not to protect the ones who can’t protect themselves? that’s what lyanna did, when no one else was doing it: she had more honor than any knight at that tourney or any man sitting on the small council, and it meant something to rhaegar. like what about this is hard to understand? i think he must have idealized her immediately: she must have seemed like something out of a song or a story to him, and rhaegar was a singer, a songwriter, a bard: he knows how stories are supposed to go—how to finish a song, or at least he thought he did.

bran, who also loves stories, says it himself: “and the mystery knight should win the tourney, defeating every challenger, and name the wolf maid the queen of love and beauty.” like obviously bran has some critiques i cut out, but he has the ending right—only the wolf maid was the knight, and she couldn’t have won. in the feudal gender prison, women are rewarded for being beautiful and their worth is derived from that and from what their bodies provide. she should’ve won the whole thing, but the system doesn’t allow that, so rhaegar—in a fit of single-minded capital r romantic hero idiocy—dedicates himself to winning the tourney to honor her in the only way he can: the only way the system allows him to recognize her. it was the worst possible move he could make at that time because of the romantic connotations, but i love him for doing it, as stupid as it was and even though there is no way it didn’t hurt and humiliate elia, or make him look terrible when he desperately needed to make a good impression on the lords of the realm—it’s just such a Moment. being reminded that there’s good in the world—feeling hope in the face of endless abject overwhelming despair—how do you express gratitude for that? the idea that he could only doing it by hurting someone who didn’t deserve it and making himself look like an ass is fucking awesome. i’m genuinely so sorry for people are incapable of enjoying that. could not be me!

but that’s just my interpretation of what happened at harrenhal. like i said, part of why i like them so much is that we truly don’t know. while i love darker relationships in general, the idea that he crowned her at harrenhal because he wanted to impregnate her then does not work for me. it’s a popular theory, but it renders some of the very few contextual clues we are given about what happened meaningless. for one, he didn’t know that elia wouldn’t be able to have more children at that time. this was discovered after she gave birth to aegon, and that is the point at which the question of the third child appears to have become a motivating factor for him. i personally think he left for the riverlands to consult with the ghost of high heart—the one whose prophecy is the reason he was born, the reason is parents were forced to marry, the reason his family burned alive the night he came into the world—and ran into lyanna somewhere near harrenhal. it’s possible he had been in contact with her prior to this (how? without her family knowing? what are the logistics of that?) but i think it’s just as likely it was pure chance. i really like the idea that his crowning her queen of love and beauty caused lyanna’s father to set a date for her wedding to robert or talk of moving it up, maybe even suggest a double wedding at riverrun, which would have almost certainly caused her to balk. either way, high heart is located between harrenhal and riverrun. arya also stops there while she’s kidnapped by the brotherhood without banners on the way to ransom her to her family at riverrun, and they trade songs to the ghost for her dreams and prophecies. i think it’s worth noting because arya’s journey in the riverlands mirrors lyanna’s right down to her “death” as arya stark when she leaves for braavos, paying the ferryman’s fee with the coin jaqen h’ghar gave her—just as jon’s journey at the wall mirrors rhaegar’s in many ways right up until his own death.

i also don’t think rhaegar and lyanna eloped because they were in love—this is implied by lyanna’s famous quote—but that they did come to love each other deeply, which is suggested by the way they died: her roses and him saying her name. notably, rhaegar did not leave the tower of his own volition—someone had to come and get him with news of war, which is hilarious because i think the tower of joy is right in the middle of like three major battles of the rebellion? like quite frankly, if he didn’t love her or care for anything beyond the prophecy and if she didn’t love him despite how badly things went wrong, then where in their story is the heart in conflict with itself?

i do want to clarify that i love the tower entrapment and the power imbalance aspects of their relationship as much as i love (what i interpret as) the genuine respect for each other that grew into love: it’s really the tension of those disparate elements that interests me. a dragon can love the maiden, but he’s only ever a dragon—still liable to hoard her like treasure or burn her up and rip her open trying to be gentle, to protect. that FUCKS, sorry! love is sweet and hopeful, but it’s also at exactly the same time horror, consumption, destruction.

idk it’s myopic to act like the beginning or the ending of their relationship—of their lives—is the summation of it. i think people want their story to be easy when it’s not: a clear case of a villain and his victims where everyone knows who to root for and no one has to think too much about things that are difficult or uncomfortable, questions where there probably isn’t an answer that doesn’t hurt someone. what a sad, tedious way to approach any text, but specifically this one. i’ve sometimes seen it suggested that if their story is romantic then it’s an endorsement or justification of all the “bad” things that happened because of it, and that’s also stupid. grrm as an author is never going to be someone who tells us how to feel about anything: he presents these characters and situations, often as a means of exploring certain facets of the human condition, and each of us has to come up with our own answers and find our own meaning. i don’t think he always knows what he means, or what those answers are, you know? but for me rhaegar and lyanna are one of the most fascinating parts of story, and whatever the truth is—if we ever find out—i can’t imagine a scenario where i don’t love them or find them really interesting and wonderfully sad.

#lyanna stark #rhaegar targaryen #rhaelya #i’d apologize for this being so long but u have got to all be used to me by now #like i couldn’t be succinct at gunpoint #or coherent apparently #and especially not about this like i’m not normal about either of them #also just to clarify because this kind of turned into a rant: none of this applies to people i follow #but like. i sincerely think that 90% of the meta about them (individually + their relationship) is bad lol #and part of that is bc so much of it is based on fanon instead of what is actually in the books #and that frustration really comes through in this post and i regret that but it’s out there now lol #asoiaf

[theprinceofliones]

Tristan has always been scared of the dark.

It's a fear he's never been able to shake ever since he was little. Not being able to see what surrounds him, not being able to anticipate what would come next---it terrified him to no end.

Arthur Pendragon must be aware of this, as wherever Tristan is being held now is as black as night with no entrance or exit in sight.

His hands and legs have been wrapped in chains that obviously nullify his magic, his goddess wings have been strung to the floor, open and unable to move. He's on the stone concrete floor below, unable to muster the strength to lift any part of his body as they're weighed down so heavily. He keeps his eyes closed, attempting to focus on his breathing so he doesn't have to open his eyes to darkness.

He doesn't know how long he's been here, doesn't wish to know. He just wants to go /home/.

Suddenly, after what felt like hours, the door, entrance, opens wide.

Tristan's eyes snap open and they adjust to the light now spilling into the endlessly dark cavern that is this dungeon, and when they do, their he finds the man behind it all.

Arthur Pendragon smiles at him sweetly, head titling.

"Are you comfortable?" He asks. "Little prince?"

Tristan glares at him and his fists clench behind him. He doesn't say anything, choosing to keep his last remnants of dignity that he can muster to keep to himself.

The false king grins wider. "Shy now, are we?" He chuckles. "A shame. You were quite mouthy last time we met."

"I'm gonna kill you," Tristan suddenly seethes and Arthur laughs.

"There it is!" He cheers and claps. "Such /rage/. You look just like your father when you glare at me like that," He chuckles again and sighs. "I don't know why everyone says you look like your whore mother, Elizabeth---to me, you are a carbon copy of your monstrous father and all his demon kin."

At the mention of his sweet mother, Tristan /snarls/. "/Don't speak her name, bastard/!" He screams as he shakes with rage. "Else I'll rip your fucking tongue from your /throat/!"

Arthur just scoffs. "I will admit, you're either quite brave or quite /foolish/ to insult me when you're in the position you're in now," He says nonchalantly. "All alone, away from home. You poor thing, you must be so scared."

Tristan wants to claw the bastard's eyes out, rip out his vocal cords and shove them down his throat until he chokes and dies.

He's never felt such rage before---a wrath taking over him like nothing ever has.

"Well," Arthur sighs with a devilish grin as he turns around and away from him with a wave of his hand. "I hope you enjoy your stay here, little prince, because you're going to be here for a /while/, I'd wager. Who knows, maybe you'll even come to like it here? Perhaps you will one day come to lick my boot---"

Tristan doesn't even realize he's able to move until he's near inches away from Arthur's face.

Chains stops him, tugging him back and away from the bastard.

Tristan cries out as he nearly loses his footing and pain floods his senses as the brackets around his wrists and ankles nearly pull his skin off. His goddess wings attempt to flap uselessly and he nearly /screams/ in frustration.

Arthur rears back, obviously not expecting Tristan to be able to move with the magic wards and drugs in his system flooding his senses to make him dizzy and drowsy.

Tristan tries to get as close as possible, shrieking in rage as he can't get any closer and Arthur stares at him in complete disbelief before he begins to laugh, as though he were in shock and awe.

"Wow!" He gasps. "I shouldn't have expected any less! The fact that you're able to get past my wards at all is---"

Blood spills from a cut on his cheek and the God of Chaos stumbles.

Tristan pants for air and his one /freed/ wing floats beside him, feathers sharpened to the same sharpness of steel /blades/.

Arthur is stunned into silence.

"/I/ am Tristan Liones," He begins, gasping as he stands up as tall as he can. He can feel his magic flowing through him, as little as the wards allow. "I am the son of Meliodas and Elizabeth Liones, the Crown Prince of Britannia, the Four Knights of the Apocalypse of Pestilence, and, when I escape from here, I will take your /head/."

The only sound that can be heard is Tristan's gasps for air and the sound of chains rattling and Arthur's lips part as their eyes remained locked.

After several moments of silence, Arthur just smiles again, tiny scar and droplet of blood gone as he heals himself.

"I look forward to your meager attempts, sweet prince," Is all he says before he turns around and leaves the dungeon before he shuts the door.

Thus, encasing Tristan in a darkness that will now, unfortunately, become his home for a long, /long/ time.

#nanatsu no taizai #mokushiroku no yonkishi #the seven deadly sins #the four knights of the apocalypse #tristan liones #lancelot #meliodas #elizabeth liones #arthur pendragon #king arthur #4kota #nnt #nnt manga #4kota anime

[morbidology]

Tristan Jensen was a 14-year-old boy living in Redlands, California, with his grandmother, Betty Simon. When he was just eight-years-old, his mother had died of cancer, and his father was unable to properly care for him. Tristan first went to live in foster care, but then his grandmother took him under her wing.

While he had endured a lot of hardships during his life, he was sensitive and fun to be around. He always had a smile on his face and according to Brandon, he was a favourite among the girls. "He was just an upbeat, friendly, happy kid. We were really close like brothers, and he was a lot of fun to be around,” Michael recollected.

It was a warm summer morning on the 11th of August, 1998, when Tristan left his grandmother’s home with his skateboard in tow. He had been wearing shorts, a t-shirt and tennis shoes and had been carrying around $30 or $40 in his pocket. According to his relatives, he had been planning on heading to the Banned Board Shop at 501 Orange Street to skateboard equipment with money he had received for his birthday two months earlier.

However, Tristan never returned home. After summer, the rest of the students returned to Redlands High School, but Tristan remained missing. It wasn't until the following month when a grisly discovery was made that the fate of Tristan became clear. His remains was found by city workers inside Redlands sewer system. Only a portion of his remains were ever discovered; his hands, feet, and spinal cord were never found.

Just a couple of days later, there was a break in the case when Tristan's classmate, 15-year-old John "J.P" Remsen, was arrested. Detectives had learned that while Tristan was heading to the Banned Board Shop the day he vanished, he bumped into Remsen. The teenage boy invited Tristan into his home here he stabbed him to death and then dumped his body down a sewer manhole not far from where he lived.

Remsen was a special education student and there was much speculation whether he and Tristan were friends, or whether they hated each other. He told detectives that once Tristan was in his home, he asked whether he could see his knife collection. Allegedly Tristan had his eye on a 12-inch knife, and offered Remsen $10 for it. He claimed that when he said no, Tristan called him "a drunken bastard." This comment, if it was actually said, was most likely in reference to the fact Remsen got in trouble in 1998 for being drunk in public.

Remsen said he grabbed the knife and plunged it twice into Tristan's chest, killing him. He had been stabbed with such force that the knife went right through his chest and out through his back. He confessed: "I didn't like Tristan that much. I ran into him when I was coming home from Lucky's. A force came over me, and I had no control. One thing he said set me off."

John Remsen was tried as an adult, convicted of murder, and sentenced to 16 years to life in prison.

#Tristan Jensen #True Crime #Young Killer

[supersaiyanjedi14]

SABEZRA WEEK: Day 1 (Oct 23): In Between

*Ten years is a long time.  A lot can happen, a lot can change.  As Sabine Wren settles into a routine on Lothal, she reflects on what has changed since that fateful day, both with the galaxy at large and regarding her feelings for Ezra.* 

For all her life, Sabine Wren had known action and movement.  Mandalorian upbringings were full of activity by their nature, and the realities of life on the Ghost meant that staying still could be disastrous.  She had gotten used to being on the move, never staying in one spot too long (not for lack of trying), and her schedule being determined almost exclusively by the mission of the day or the Empire's less-than-wanted input on the subject.  All of that together, it was just one of the numerous things that made her current situation alien and unusual for her. 

She had initially been content with a small apartment in Lothal City, but the comm tower seemed to loom over her in more ways than one.  In what seemed like no time at all, she had moved into the tower. 

Ezra's tower. 

She had been living here for a few years now, and in that time she had taken up the surprisingly alien notion of a schedule.  Wake up, feed the Loth-cat, check the filtration systems, tune up the speeder, head into town for whatever groceries or parts she needed, train and exercise, eat, shower, go to bed.  Rinse and repeat.  Social calls were few and far between, though that only made the occasional meeting with Ryder a very welcome departure from the norm. 

This isn't to say that Sabine was completely out of the loop for what was happening beyond Lothal.  She had kept up with every scrap of news on the Rebellion she could find, scouring for any mention of Hera, Zeb or Rex.  She had stood in shock with everyone else when news of Alderaan reached their ears.  She had waited with baited breath as the rebellion grew into a full-blown galactic war.  She had been especially interested in the rumors of a new Jedi joining their ranks. 

Yet that last point also made her other ruminations more painful.  Even if she hadn't been literally living in his house, Sabine knew she could never get her mind off of Ezra.  Of all the incredible things that had happened that day, the most powerful blow remained that he was gone.  Ezra, Specter 6, the loth rat stowaway, the annoying kid of the team, the up and coming Jedi Padawan, the rising star of Phoenix Squadron, her crewmate, her partner, her best friend... 

And the thing that gnawed at her most of all, was her musings that he may be something more. 

As she poured kibble into Murlay's bowl, Sabine thought back to a conversation she had once had with her brother.  A conversation that she had vehemently denied was anything more than Tristan teasing her. And yet she still kept coming back to it. 

“So he is a friend.” 

“No duh, osik-head.” 

“And he’s a boy.” 

“That doesn’t make him my-!“ 

“Seems like it does.” 

“We’re just friends! Nothing more!” 

“Seems like you’re a little more than friends.” 

“We’re not!” 

Were they? 

Despite her insistence, Sabine had ended up painting a (if she did say so herself) pretty impressive portrait of the young Jedi. When he had returned to Krownest mere weeks later, it had taken every ounce of her willpower to keep herself from running over to hug him. Was that something you did if you were just friends? 

Well, Sabine had been mulling it over for six years now, and she was nowhere closer to an answer than before. Even the multitude of conversations she had had with Hera had never ventured to discission how she was starting to feel about her wayward friend. An impromptu interview with a rising star of the Rebellion with a vested interest in Jedi had turned semi regular whenever he was in the system, yet some of her ruminations left her even less sure than she had been before. And that didn’t even begin to account for what he might be thinking. If he was even- 

Sabine stopped herself. Thinking like that would only set her even further off course. No, Ezra was not dead. He was out there somewhere. And one way or another, she would bring him home, with or without help. This she swore. 

Scratching Murlay behind the ears as he started to eat, Sabine rose to her feet and made her way to a small box under the bed. Rummaging through the contents, she found what she had been looking for. Of all the things that had been added to her routine, lightsaber training was certainly one of the more unique. She had added the emitter shroud herself to satisfy an urge to tinker, but it was otherwise the same as when he had left it to her all those years ago. Walking out onto the balcony, Sabine took a deep breath and ignited the emerald blade. She took herself through a few practice velocities, nothing fancy or significant, but enough for the dancing blade to do its surprisingly calming magic. Ahsoka had told her that some Jedi could use their lightsaber sequences to facilitate a form of moving meditation, where the repetition of the action gradually became instinctive, enabling the Jedi to dedicate their mental energies to other tasks. Sabine wasn’t quite sure she could get to that point (Hyuyang certainly didn’t think so), but it was close enough. 

Some day she would find him. Some day she would bring him home. Between now and then, she would do what she had been doing. Who knows? She might even figure out just what Ezra Bridger meant to Sabine Wren. 

And when that day finally came; well, she always had a knack for finding the appropriate time for fireworks. 

#star wars #star wars rebels #ezra bridger #sabine wren #sabezra #sabezraweek2023 #fanfic

[naanima]

I'm gonna vent (in dot point form) about all the podcasters of other teams criticising the Karlsson trade as if the Pens fans DOESN'T realise what a GAMBLE/RISK it is.

Our coach couldn't trust Casey DeSmith as backup goalie that we had to play our injured GOALIE JARRY. So no, DeSmith was NOT good for us.

We KNOW Jarry is our fragile omega princess who is VERY breakable. WHY DO YOU THINK WE HAVE 4/5 GOALIES?! I would not be surprised if we somehow end up playing ALL our goalies in the up coming season/post-season. Our luck is just that shit.

OUR DEFENCE IS NOT REALLY DEFENSIVE - Yes, we are AWARE OF THIS. Even with Karlsson we are gonna be OFFENSIVE DEFENSIVE. WE KNOW THIS. WE WILL DIE OR LIVE BY THE GRACE OF TRISTAN JARRY (and the other 3/4 goalies). Or by COMPLETELY destroying the other team's goalie and outscoring them. Unlikely but hilarious bcos you know the Pens are gonna fucking try this.

SULLY'S PHILOSOPHY SEEMS TO BE OFFENSIVE FORECHECKING ANYWAYS. Gods, we are gonna be sacrificing our goalies on our offensive forechecking play from EVERY PLAYER.

We are younger, you fuckers. So fuck you assholes. And our old men core still fucking played better than 90% of your teams' top player last season. Suck on it.

OUR BOTTOM 6 IS BETTER with the new acquisitions! Our top lines are also better with new bits! We have MORE goalies. We are soooooo much better than what we were in April of this year.

We were desperate to offload Granlund, DeSmith and Petry. If they bounce back next year for another team - GOOD FOR THEM. But they did NOT work for the Pens! I literally fell on my knees and prayed my thanks to the hockey gods - the Witch Kyle Dubas at accomplishing this.

NO. SIDNEY CROSBY WILL NEVER PLAY FOR ANOTHER NHL TEAM. Sid understands his legacy of being the captain & playing for ONE team throughout his long & storied career. He WANTS to retire as a Penguin.

We UNDERSTAND that once Sid & Geno retires that we are most likely facing a rebuild/drop off the cliff. But if they actually paid attention (which most of them haven't), we also got two to three young prospects in our system. And Dubas is literally REBUILDING our AHL team so that these prospects can mature in a winning environment and develop the best they can. What I'm saying is that the cliff drop might not be as steep as everyone thinks.

We understand the upcoming season won't be INSTANT success. Hell, it is probably gonna be a hot mess till like January. But by the gods it will be entertaining as we stumble around like feral kittens trying to figure out how to walk and kill things. And yes, we also know we most likely won't win the Cup next year. But we should be better. And who the fuck even knows what Sidney Crosby can will into existence.

We have one of the MOST attractive d-core. This is not relevant to this convo but should be HIGHLIGHTED at all times. If Karlsson grows out his hair we can have like 3 vampires on the team.

In conclusion, WE ARE NOW YOUNGER, MORE ATTRACTIVE, and fully realise it will be a fucking dumpster fire for like a third of the season. But it will be FUN! AND for the fire time in years we have REAL HOPE. And the knowledge that we are NOT going to waste the final years of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang.

ETA: WE KNOW THIS IS RECKLESS AND CAN BLOW UP IN OUR FACES. BUT FUCK IT. SIDNEY CROSBY DESERVES THIS. WE FUCKING DESERVES THIS.

#pittsburgh penguins #sidney crosby #erik karlsson #long post #kyle dubas #hockey thoughts