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the-hero-of-jk-its-len · 2 years

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A Flower by Any other name. - Chapter Six: Memories don’t sing, they just scream in tune.

A.N: I am sorry this took so long, I have entirely too many excuses, but anyways, this might just be one of my favorite chapters so far, and uh, kudos to Jester, because they are the only reason I managed to end my writer's block, enjoy.

Reminder: Aster uses he/him pronouns!! You can exchange his name if you want and i won’t mind, and also this isn’t beta’d at all because I have no friends in the LOZ fandom that I would ask to beta this thing.

Disclaimer: I don’t own The legend of zelda (gods I wish), the linked universe au or any of the franchises and works I may reference in this fic, this is a work for fans by fans and all credits go to the respective owners.

Summary: A compilation of moments saved into permanent memories in the upcoming weeks towards Aster's seventeenth birthday and the upcoming fall of hyrule.

Word Count: 2250

Warnings: Implied death at the end of the chapter.

“You know you are not immortal right?”

Aster received nothing but a slightly pained ‘hm’ as he tightened the bandages around Link’s arm, the gauze underneath undoubtedly already carrying red spots from covering up the hero’s wound.

In truth, Aster actually felt a bit guilty, it had been his idea to go out that day to check out the surrounding areas to what soon would house the woodland stable, He was curious, in all sixteen and some years of life he’d been in Hyrule he’d never really been allowed as much freedom to explore the land as he was now.

It was just also very unfortunate that where both of them went trouble followed.

“That should do it for now, but you should be more careful Hero,” Aster said as he put away the handy little first aid kit back on his bag, “as of lately, monsters keep growing stronger, and if you keep fighting recklessly then soon there’ll be no one to fight them anymore.”

Well, not that Link being careful would change things much, Aster thought while looking at the hero rise to stand by his side, looking at the scenery beyond the cliff while Aster himself could only look backwards to the many monster corpses,

Still, I’d rather see him healthy for now

“Come on hero, let’s keep moving”

If there was ever something Aster was thankful for in his old life, was that, the climate was at least forecasted, in Hyrule however, there was no such guarantee, and while Deya village was certainly close enough to walk any other day, it was still a slippery way down and apparently Link was not planning on letting him anywhere close enough to the path to continue.

Although, it wasn’t like it was a bad situation or anything, it just brought Aster sense of deja-vu to see Link train with the sword while he was kept mostly dry under a tree, he remembered this location of course, Deya Lake and the Hylia River, with the two weird looking statues under a big tree, it had been one of his favorite places to take pictures in-game.

And, if he remembered correctly, it had also been the place of one of the memories Link would eventually obtain.

Even now, if he looked long enough at Link he could see the visage of the lonely hero a century later, a burned scarred one with long hair he had patiently modded into the game so that he looked accurate to a comic he was reading at the time, Aster wondered sometimes if Link would look like that when he was brought back from the shrine, or if he’d be a perfect reflection of the blank canvas of the original game model.

Looking at Link did also bring more things to his mind though, like how the sword almost shone under the darkness of the cloudy day, or even how the rehearsed steps he made now out of practice would one day become instinct.

“It’s a funny thing, isn’t it? Fate,” he spoke to rain, though it might have been at Link, who was admittedly keeping an ear open to the prince, “Do you ever think about it hero? To be born with a duty we supposedly did, destined to fight a great calamity that might otherwise destroy our very world.”

Aster wouldn’t have noticed it, but he spoke in a knowing tone, like every single one of his words had already happened, it had to him at least, but Link did, he had begun to notice many things nowadays, enough to stop his training to fully listen.

The prince didn’t look back at him, face half hidden in his knees, looking to the distance, “Have you ever wondered Link,” he began the question, not noticing how easily the name had slipped from his mouth after years without saying it “What would it be like to someone else? To be a cook, or a gardener, an artist, being able to live out our lives without having to worry about fate or destiny? Knowing that our biggest struggle is deciding what to have for dinner.”

Aster’s tone spoke of longing, he’d once had it all, a peaceful life, a caring family, a perfectly placed workplace to go to in the mornings, even a pair of dogs to keep him company in the colder days, and now, now he was a prince, blessed with a castle and riches that weren’t his and in a body that didn’t belong to him, fated to lose everyone he had grown endeared with in exchange of keeping the darkness this world was cursed with at bay.

Link, for his part, had looked at Aster when he’d fallen silent, finding the prince to be barely containing tears and holding himself into a small ball, almost like a snail trying to hide in its shell.

But he said nothing, and simply put a cloak over the prince before looking back into the sky.

The rain didn’t seem to be ending any time soon.

For what it was worth, Aster was impressed by the guardians, sure his context for them was as enemies rather than allies and he knew full well it was a matter of time before everyone else realized that.

In the meantime however, he is willing to just stare sadly at the scientists taking care of the machines while he passes by the bridge overseeing the testing area, of all the people in the castle, Aster has no doubt these were, no, rather, they will be the first casualties, and he can do barely more than mourn them in life, the same way he mourns the champions.

And if the way Link suddenly rushes them both to the other door is any hint, perhaps, someone else has started to feel the ghost of the future too.

He prays that night, in a storage room turned temple that people often use for worship of the goddesses, in his past life he could almost call it a small scale church like the one his grandparents too him to when they visited them as a child, this one doesn’t have stained glass or statues of saints with badly done paint.

There is however, in the far corner of the room, a statue of the goddess, it looks like all the others, but he’s not picky, and lately, he’d been coming much more often than before, kneeling in the dark of the night as Link waits outside of the door.

It stares at him, first in the way everyone feels stared at in museums by paintings and statues, and then in a way that can only be defined as expecting, he stares back in his kneeling position, he knows she’ll listen, but the gaze still feels judgemental regardless.

He prays that night for all the people that will be lost in the weeks that follow, for all that may survive but find no home to take them in, he prays for a soldier in Hateno who will never return, even for the champion who despite their best efforts have managed to worm themselves further into his heart, ultimately he prays for a small family in Deya that will lose a brother and a kingdom in one fell swoop less than a month from now.

But he whispers his prayers and by the time Link escorts him back to his room, he remains none the wiser to the fate of his family, much to the guilt of the prince by his side that can almost feel the gaze of the goddess on his back.

Not for the first time Aster was found in the garden, indeed it would be more rare if Link didn’t find him there nowadays, caring for plants and books, it was tradition almost.

But, it was different this time, if not for the guard, certainly for the prince, this might not be the first time in the garden reminiscing of the dead queen Zelda while caring for her rose bushes, but it would certainly be the last.

There was no hope in Aster’s mind, nor heart, that one day he would come back to this self-sacred place, a hundred years from now it would all have fallen away, to rot, rust, age or malice, leaving nothing but memories of a beautiful garden behind.

But that didn’t mean all had to disappear, not completely, memories would last him long but not others, in their stead, the tiny metal box in his lap would carry them, tiny bags of seeds and dried flowers, leaves, even roots, rocks that he’d studied and the notebooks carrying his investigations, small bottles tagged with poisonous names and descriptions, even letters made their way in.

A hundred years from now all the people who had aided his studies would be dead and gone, the memories of their lives all but erased from history, so it fell to him instead to make sure that one day their words and thoughts came back out of the dirt like the plants they studied.

And it fell to him that the world knew just how beautiful his mother’s roses had been.

Aster left the garden that night, a metal box on his knight’s arms ready to be packed away with the rest of his things for the pilgrimage to mt lanayru, a week long trip that at the end of the king hoped to announce him properly as having finished his studies of faith and open his first season of marriage candidacy.

A true pity of a plan, because as fate would come to be, Aster never set foot on the garden, nor the proper palace again in the king’s lifetime.

It’s not as far now, than it used to be, Mt Lanaryu looms on the distance by the time they decide to take a break, more for the horses than for him or Link, there is a fountain nearby and plenty of shadow in the meantime, less than a proper week from now, they’ll be up in the mountain and barely hours after that the calamity will come down.

And, it would be a lie to say that Aster hasn’t begun mourning already, even now, in the peace of the night he cannot mutter anything less than a brief “thanks” when Link serves him a bowl of stew, it’s warm, and flavorful, absolutely delicious and yet he cannot enjoy it properly.

Link notices, he knows Link notices, but he can’t help the sobs that escape him later on in his bedroll, in the end, even after almost two years of close to no contact beyond that of a knight and a prince, Link had been there to hold him through the silent crying that shook him that night, with no question asked that night nor the morning after.

Even in the early afternoon he remained quiet while the horses were packed back up, not even once questioning the fact the prince had buried a small box under the earth close to the statue, much deeper than anything that was meant to be found, for preservation.

And if Aster looked even more mournful by the time they left than when they arrived, well, Link didn’t question it either beyond offering a handkerchief and moving just a bit faster with epona to give the prince a chance to gain his composure back.

It would only take four more days to get to the mountain, and less than one to make camp. The morning after it, the prince woke up aged 17 rather than 16, and he climbed before the sun even came out, and there they stayed, 18 hours to the minute.

By the time they climbed back down, ceremonial robes instead of his daily clothes, Aster looked nothing short of sorrowful to the champions, even Link seemed on edge by his side, and though the champions had tried their best to reassure them, for they had assumed the pilgrimage had been of no use.

In return, Aster looks at them, the four champions in front of him, and with specks of gold against his blue eyes, he apologizes, there, in that clearing in front of the mountain and close to the sunset, Aster’s words are echoed by the sound of faraway rumbling that interrupts the confusion the champions felt towards his words.

But it’s too late now, even from a distance, they can all see how Hyrule Castle falls to the calamity, how the beast awakens and rises from the shadows that envelope the once home of the royal family, and soon prison of the prince besides them, in the meantime, Aster looks at their faces instead as they turn back to him to hurriedly say their goodbyes before rushing towards the divine beasts.

And as Link takes his hand and rushes them to the horses only to find they’ve run away, all they can think of is the fact this is the last time he’ll ever see the champions' faces.

Not even an hour after nightfall they see it, the lights on the divine beasts flash on the distance in a pattern they can only recognize as SOS before they are overtaken with utter and complete malice pink, Ruta goes down first, and after Rudania is soon to follow, Nabooris lasts only a few minutes longer, and in the end Medoh is the last to fall, the light pattern almost rushed to finish before the pink overtakes it.

Hyrule has fallen.

#🖋️ The Len Writes #a flower by any other name #isekai #eventual linked universe #link x ftm reader #breath of the wild au #link x reader #link x transmasc reader #loz fic #loz x oc

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contrasting-realities · 3 months

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You know something is wrong when you have 4 crossover aus between the owl house and hetalia...

so I made them into one au called the Emperor's Elite AU... which I moved of from a while ago but still want to share.

Warning for incest, sexual abuse, drug abuse, Belos being sent to a gulag and maybe other things that I forgot

So, the premise of this AU is that Belos rules alongside a council of advisors who all happen to be hetalia characters. There is much more than that however, and I think it’s best to start from the chronological beginning here.

Everything begins some time around the 12th century, when hetalia Russia was looking for friends. He comes across a witch from the Boiling Isles named Baba Yaga. I don't really know too much about her however she was a mentor type figure to Russia like Eda is to Luz.

Did I say came across? I meant kidnapped. Baba Yaga kidnapped Russia for the sake of some kind of ritual and was surprised to find out that he was still alive. She used Eclipse Lake to move between worlds and most humans who go through that type of rift die before they reach the other side.

Russia became attached over night due to her being one of the first people to not attack him or misunderstand his troubles. She decided to keep him as her apprentice and teach him magic.

Hetalia Ukraine gets worried when her brother doesn't come home and decides to search for him (yes, I know. This takes place 800 years ago so current events have nothing to do with this). She leaves her sister, hetalia Belarus, behind, expecting to find him and come back that day but instead she is found by a group of witches who have been using human corpses in rituals. They kidnap Ukraine and are surprised to see that she is still alive but decide to sacrifice her anyways. She was terrified and the only reason she survived, outside of her immortality, was because a cave in occurred when the ritual was being cast. She had to claw her way out of the rubble and was completely traumatized by the event. Ukraine came to the conclusion that witches were dangerous but not in the way Belos did, she only wanted to separate the demon realm and human realm from each other permanently as she encountered witches who weren't evil while she tried to find a way home.

She became known as the boogeyman of the Boiling Isles, attacking witches over the next few centuries with the intent of stopping travel between worlds. Ukraine was quite brutal in her quest, she is also a big reason for why Titans Blood is so rare, because she destroyed it all.

Now back in the Human Realm, Philip finds a little boy alone in the woods. He brings this boy back to his older brother, Caleb, who tries to fund the boy's parents but no one comes up to claim him. Due to this, Caleb adopts the boy despite the Wittebane's bad financial situation and names him Alfred.

Alfred stays with the Wittebanes for several months until two men come to the town, both are Scandinavian explorers who seem oddly interested in Alfred and return to Europe soon after. A month later and two other men show up both claiming to be Alfred's brother but they aren't related. One is French and the other is British and they really do not like each other.

They decide to settle the matter with a duel, this entire situation is confusing to the Wittebanes as no one knows why these two random men showed up and are now fighting over who will be Alfred's brother when he's already part of Caleb and Philip’s family.

The French man, ironically named Francis, wins the duel and tries to get close to Alfred, but the kid shouts that Francis isn't his brother and he runs off to the forest. He chases after Alfred and Caleb and Philip follow after him, the brit, named Arthur, follows in secret.

Francis finds Alfred inside a clearing where he is about to explain the entire situation. Caleb and Philip watch behind a bush when Arthur suddenly appears and attacks Francis. Arthur pulls out a wand and casts a spell with the intent of banishing Francis from their reality. However Francis shot Arthur before he could finish the spell, causing the magic to go out of control and send everyone in the area into the Boiling Isles.

After that incident, Francis and Arthur took responsibility to take care of the children at least, both still hated each other and frequently fought over minor things.

You'd think that growing up in the Boiling Isles would have made Philip more tolerant but no, he'd already been indoctrinated by the town's propaganda and being in a realm of magic just scared him. Caleb tried to convince him otherwise but because Arthur had sent them here with a magic spell he just saw this place as akin to hell.

Speaking of Arthur... Philip accused him of being a witch after the incident. Arthur never explained why he could use magic even though Francis seemed to know but never told anyone, which lead to Philip hating him. He also hates Francis for trying to take his brother away. Caleb sees both Arthur and Francis as irresponsible and tries to keep his brothers away from them when he can.

Eventually Philip and Caleb grow up but Alfred doesn't. Neither of them know why and both Alfred and Francis explain why even though they seem to and would know why because they aren't aging either.

Alfred is too young to think too critically of his immortality. Caleb does fall in love with Evelyn and Philip takes this as an act of misguided betrayal. To Philip killing witches isn't an issue so he confronts his brother... and winds up killing him because he didn't repent.

Evelyn attacks him for this and once he returns to the home they were all staying at he blames Evelyn for killing Caleb. Both Arthur and Francis see through the lie but have different reactions. Arthur decided to leave after seeing the writing on the wall and he abandons Alfred and Francis. While Francis decides to stay and protect Alfred since he can't leave Philip, but he isn't that good at it since Alfred doesn't trust him. Francis eventually becomes a shell of his former self filled with guilt for what came next.

Alfred fully believed Philip’s lie and he used that to manipulate his little brother. Alfred became convinced that the witches were evil and couldn't be trusted. Neither were seen in Elsewhere and Elsewhen by Luz or Lilith.

When the crusades began, Francis reluctantly played along and Alfred was excited because he thought he was a hero. Alfred fell into the same delusion that Philip did but with more excitement and pride. By this point Alfred is in his late teens as he suddenly grew up overnight.

Philip also convinced Ukraine to join him, she now goes by the name Irunya to keep people from remembering her as the boogeyman. She thinks that Philip wants to keep the human realm and demon realm from interacting so she joins him gladly.

Eventually they go after one of the last wild witches on the knee, Baba Yaga. In this confrontation they wind up fighting Russia who Ukraine is shocked to see alive but she continues their intended mission. The fight ends with Baba Yaga's death, the destruction of Eclipse Lake by Irunya (At the time, Philip had lots of Titans blood stockpiled), and Alfred beheading Russia unsuccessfully. At this point, Russia had been traveling between worlds frequently and more physically resembled a witch than a human with short pointed ears and even a nonfunctional bile sack. Alfred only beheaded him because Ukraine said that he was a human before and Alfred saw him as a traitor.

Belos takes over the Boiling Isles like in Canon but creates a council for the humans to rule with him.

Now we jump to the 1940s just after the end of World War 2. Hetalia Belarus has been the only personification in Russia's family that's still on earth. She is commonly called "Russia" and is the personification of the Soviet Union.

Belarus wants to find her brother... But not for the reasons you might think. Ever since she was young she idolized him and had an unhealthy desire to be his... spouse. (Yes she is an incestuous yandere).

Belarus thought that her brother had been sent to another world after reading about what happened to Francis and Arthur, that it was the same or a similar spell that caused the later incident.

She managed to get there by forcing Hetalia Romania, one of the few personifications with magic, to open a portal and dragging him with her. They somehow landed inside Belos's lab (the one used to make grimwalkers) and used that as a base of operations while Belarus tried to find her brother.

When she went up to the knee and found that he'd taken Baba Yaga's place, living as a mysterious hermit in a chicken footed house. She was overjoyed to see him again and originally he was at well... until she started getting obsessive. She held nothing back and tried to drag him away to marry him but he resisted, causing her to become enraged.

Belarus then cut off his hand out of anger and left. Due to having already observing grimwalkers that Belos was growing, she got an idea. She and Romania locked themselves inside the lab. Belos tried to access his lab a week later but found that Romania had put up extremely powerful wards to keep people out.

Belos sent a guard with a fake love spell to offer to her, as the incident with her brother had made the news and he connected the dots. However Belarus realized what their true motives were after letting them in and killed them.

Belos then sent his current grimwalker to deal with Belarus, just thinking of her as some crazy woman who broke into his laboratory. She took this grimwalker hostage and kept him inside her small soviet apartment.

Belos then got impatient and went to kill her himself but he underestimated her severely. Every personification has had to manipulate their bosses at some point in history for various reasons and Belos just thought that she was an crazy lady. He was wrong.

Belarus managed to make Romania use magic to knock out Belos and they restrain him inside the apartment before closing the portal on them.

A few days later the soviet government went to search for their missing personification and the police went to search her apartment, there they found Belos and the grimwalker. The incident was reported however this was when Stalin was still in charge of the country who didn't care much about a missing personification and just sent both Belos and the grimwalker to the gulag.

Both were nearly worked to death until Belos's curse went out of control and destroyed the camp, letting several prisoners escape. The grimwalker settled down with a local Siberian tribe and lived out his life peacefully but Belos didn't have it so easy.

Belos was stuck living in the woods where his curse would frequently take control of him, there wasn't much food he could eat so he either starved or went town to town and begged or, more likely due to the language barrier, stole from anyone he could. All of this cause the police to go after him quite a lot which ended poorly for them almost every time, there were so many dead police that Belos became hight feared are an outcast any where he went. He tried to use whatever he could to keep the curse under control which led to him becoming addicted to morphine.

When Stalin died in 1953, his successor immediately started working on trying to find Belarus and started off by interrogating both the grimwalker and Belos. The grimwalker didn't know much but Belos explained more about the Boiling Isles and that he knew how to build a portal. The soviets saw much more than just an opportunity to get their personification back but also a chance for potential espionage using the door in gravesfield so they made a deal. Belos would help invent a portal using earth technology for them to use and they would give him a clean record and allow him to stay in Moscow. Belos agreed since it would allow him to rebuild his life and plans. The project was kept secret and Belos took on a new name, Mikhail Smirnov.

Back in the Boiling Isles, Belarus stole Belos's mask and cape, to mimic his height she stood on Romania's shoulders and impersonated Belos until Irunya noticed that something was off about him.

Belarus just revealed herself to her sister which was shocking to say the least. She also revealed the truth about Belos's plans, the grimwalkers and Caleb's murder. Alfred in particular was hit the worst by the last one, it was his linchpin for why witches evil and to learn that Philip was actually the killer...

Alfred had an identity crisis while Irunya was Disgusted by how far Belos would go. Belarus then explained why she was here, Europe had been destroyed in a nuclear hellfire at the end of the second world war, she and Romania escaped to the Boiling Isles and cannot go back.

In secret she creates her own grimwalker as a "better" version of her brother. These grimwalkers were objects of her obsession and desire and were treated as such unlike Belos's grimwalkers which were just tools to him. It's as bad as you think it is... they suffered the same fate as the ones Belos made, thrown into the pit of death.

The others didn't like what she was doing but there wasn't much they could do since she had managed to take over Belos's deal with the Collector and had strong magic.

Much later Alfred creates a grimwalker who becomes known as Hunter, for the sake of getting closure. He is actually a good uncle and the worst thing he's ever done is just overwork Hunter sometimes because that's how he grew up and delt with work. He also told Hunter tales of his other brothers, Philip and Caleb and how Philip was an evil man who murdered his brother

At some point Romania ran into Caleb’s ghost and both tried to find a way to help him escape from Belarus, but were caught. This led to Romania being cursed with a dog spirit that puts him under her control and Caleb fleeing.

That's mostly it for all the Backstory but I'm tired and the last bit of Backstory is right before season 1 so I'll make another post on that.

I went into more detail on ao3, here's the link https://archiveofourown.org/works/51685381/chapters/130660585

#the owl house au #hetalia #hetalia belarus #hetalia america #hetalia romania #hetalia england #hetalia france #hetalia ukraine #hetalia russia #hunter the owl house #luz noceda #emperor belos #caleb wittebane #lilith clawthorne

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aftertheskyy · 3 years

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Merlin and Leon

for @dancelot-du-lac!! happy holidays luv!!

Merlin and Leon are both immortal, right?

So imagine one day, almost 400 years after Camlann, both men have gone their separate ways

Camelot is merely a figment of memory, a time that they only remember because of the family that was made there

And let’s be honest, no one can forget that easily

So it’s the year 900 CE or something

And Merlin is walking down the Silk Road

(He started to trade things and became increasingly successful)

He’s in the middle of a trade when a group of men pass him

He looks up to make sure they aren’t bandits or anything when one of them catches his eye

It can’t be, he thinks. That’s not possible.

And he continues to trade, reminding himself to take more of his sleeping draught later. Seeing things would only distract him

But he looks back up and this time, the man is looking back at him with a look of pure confusion

He says something to the group he’s traveling with and they continue walking while he stays behind

Merlin finishes his trade just as the man comes up to him

“Merlin?” He asks, still not believing what he’s seeing.

“I-”

“It’s me, Merlin. It’s Leon!”

And Merlin just stands there, before throwing his head back into the biggest laugh he’s had in 4 centuries

“How are you still alive?” They both ask each other

Merlin explains his magic and how he lives to wait for Arthur

And Leon explains how he’s just always...there. He doesn’t know why.

They begin to walk together, exchanging stories and recalling happier times, both men feeling better than they have since the days of Camelot

They stay with each other for the next few days as they travel, but at the end of Merlin’s journey, they part

Leon invites Merlin to go with him to travel with the group he’s a part of, but Merlin politely declines

Merlin has a new kind of life as a merchant while he waits for Arthur. And he would never tell Leon this, but it would almost be too painful to have a constant reminder of all that he lost

So they say a tearful goodbye, one that’s full of well wishes and hopes for good fortune

It’s another 400 years until they meet again-- this time, under much more serious conditions

The Black Plague has infested Europe, and in a tiny town in England, Merlin is able to provide remedies and relief

His patients spread the word about him, and soon, almost everyone is rushing to the mysterious Emrys for a draught of his healing potion

And Merlin is beyond glad to be able to help others

Especially when a familiar face walks into the village

Leon doesn’t have the plague, but he came on behalf of a friend to was too sick to travel

Merlin’s a little too stressed to do a complete catch up with Leon, and Leon is in a rush to get back to his friend

So they say hello and run through all the formalities before separating once again

The next time they see each other is during the late fifteenth century

Merlin bought a printing press and started to write of his adventures in Camelot under the byline Thomas Malory

And Leon is now a shopkeeper, selling books

So when he hears of a book about the life and times of King Arthur, he knows exactly what’s up

He goes to visit Merlin, and this time, they’re able to talk for a long time and truly enjoy the company of the other person

Leon reads Merlin’s book -- “It’s perfect,” he says, trying to hold back tears

They visit Avalon that day, just sitting by the lake, telling more stories and reliving their days in Camelot

They leave each other once again, both returning to their normal lives, not seeing the other until a little while after the industrial revolution

“Imagine if we had Fords instead of horses.”

“Are you really telling me that there’s a way to have light that’s NOT a candle?”

Merlin is one of the first people to try Coca-Cola

Leon has to calm him down

At the end of the week, they part ways once again

They meet up during both of the World Wars

Leon enlisted in both as a soldier, feeling a call to serve his country once again

Both times, Merlin served in the medical field, bringing back his draughts and potions

After the second war, Merlin and Leon’s visits became more frequent

Each time, Merlin was perfectly dressed in the fashion of the decade

“It’s called ‘tie-dye!’”

“I don’t care what it’s called, I’m going blind just looking at you.”

In the 80s, Merlin becomes a total electronics nerd

“Pacman, Leon, Pacman!!”

“I still don’t understand, but I’m glad it makes you happy!”

(Leon eventually gives in and becomes a master at Galaga)

Every time they meet, they make sure to have lunch at Avalon, taking in the view and reflecting on their times in the past and what the future might hold for them

Until one day, they’re both sitting at the lake, both holding an iPhone in their pockets that’s buzzing every few minutes with news alerts, both owning a credit card that allows them to pay for things digitally, both sitting 6 feet apart, both wearing masks

And someone comes up behind them, tapping Leon on the shoulder

“I’m looking for someone, his name is Merlin. Would you be able to tell me where he is?”

And Merlin and Leon look at each other, knowing that voice all too well.

#noot noot #noothive holiday exchange #bbc merlin #merlin bbc #merlin headcanons #merlin au #merlin #merlin emrys #sir leon #leon #arthur pendragon #this got so long omg

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merlin-reboot-when · 3 years

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You know what, no. No modern day Merlin reboot. I don't even wanna see that (unless it's a sitcom). But hell yes to a "Merlin - the coming of Emrys" limited series spin off. It's basically the story of Merlin between Arthur's death and his rebirth. The first episode shows how Merlin develops away from his Merlin persona and shifts more and more into Emrys mode over the course of like 2 or 3 centuries. He becomes a nameless nomad, wandering the earth restlessly. No friends, no home, no purpose. That is until someday (I'm thinking end of the first episode) an old friend shows up at his door.

Leon, also immortal by accident, is kinda pissed because Merlin just left. Arthur, Elyan, Gwaine - all dead and Merlin just left the few remaining members of the roundtable, meanwhile Leon still has no idea about everything Merlin went through back in Camelot. So they have more than a few things to talk about (there's angsty flashbacks to Leon finding out he's immortal and Gaius', Gwen's and Percival's deaths). Ultimately they work through their issues and decide to track down the prophecies about the once and future king, hoping to find some sort of clue about the future.

Episode 3 is them travelling around, there are a couple of timeskips (they keep getting side tracked), but ends with them finding some ancient druid ruin which they explore in episode 4. Turns out the place is magically booby-trapped and they have to master a set of tasks to get through (featuring ghosts, hallucinations and more angst). They find a collection of books and scrolls left there specifically for Emrys to find.

The writings give them a location and time where the great and powerful leader, slain by someone they once called friend will rise once more. So Merlin and Leon spend the 5th episode racing back to Lake Avalon and preparing everything for Arthur's return - except it isn't Arthur walking out of the lake, it's Morgana. She's changed (it's a wonder what 400 years of peaceful rest will do for your psyche), more like the Morgana they used to know in season 2, but she remembers everything that happened. The episode ends with a shouting match between Merlin and Morgana who are not yet ready to forgive each other and Morgana dramatically as ever disappears in a cloud of black smoke.

Episode 6 features Merlin and Leon trying to come up with a plan about what to do next, every now and then cutting to Morgana trying to catch up with the new times. She explores the country, goes back to what used to be Camelot and decides to stay there. Merlin and Leon fight, the latter wanting to guard the lake in case anybody else comes back, the former wanting to find help to increase his skills as a sorcerer so he'll be ready for the threat the prophecies speak of. They decide to split up, Merlin agrees to come and check in at least once a year.

There's another timeskip of a couple dozen years between episodes 6 and 7 which shows the progress everyone has made. Leon has build a house near the lake and keeps making improvements around the house. Morgana has learned to live with her past and also got a better grip on her temper, but ultimately also picked up travelling again (at some point people do start to wonder how you're not dead yet) also in an attempt to learn more about magic. Merlin has vastly expanded his knowledge on magical theory, picked up some new skills and also let go of his bitterness a little. He and Morgana run into each other and come to a truce. They're done being driven by anger and go back to the lake house together. The episode ends with Leon, Merlin and Morgana sitting together laughing and being truly happy for the first time in a long while.

Episode 8 would take place another few decades later with the first signs of the ominous, oncoming threat showing up, but also more people coming back. Theory is that the (strong) magic users come back first. That's why Morgana - who was Merlin's equal on some levels - came back so early, followed by Mordred and eventually Gaius. They form a nice life together, but reports of magical creatures wreaking havoc and seers foretelling dark times pile up more and more. Nobody knows why and there's still no sign of Arthur and the other knights. Then magic users all around the world start to go missing, among them Mordred. Merlin and Morgana decide to go looking for him while Leon and Gaius stay behind. Several weeks later and miles away Morgana and Merlin get attacked by somebody or something and have to fight for their lives. The outcome of the fight is unclear, cut to black. The last scene of the season shows the lake house again, Gaius and Leon are doing the dishes. Looking through the window towards the lake they see a group of 6 people emerging from the water.

The story would continue either in a movie or another mini series, featuring (among other things) Leon and Gaius explaining a bunch of stuff, Arwen and Lancelot having a very awkward conversation, one of the knights (I think I'd pick Elyan) learning he also has a little magic, canon bisexual Gwaine, Arthur having a reality check since he's not king of anything anymore, Leon being the leader now, a world ending threat to humanity and some more romance maybe.

#bbc merlin #merlin #sir leon #morgana pendragon #mordred #gaius #arthur pendragon

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dalishious · 3 years

Text

DA:O and DA:2 Loading Screen Texts

“The Andrastian Chantry believes that if the Chant of Light--first written by the prophet Andraste--can be spread to all four corners of the world, the Maker will forgive humankind for their sins.”

“Dwarves have no formal religion, instead venerating the Paragons--those of their ancestors who have contributed in some meaningful way to society.”

“The second elven homeland, the Dales, fell to an Exalted March called on the “heathens” not long after the end of the Second Blight--almost 700 years ago.”

“There have been four Blights in total; the last ended four hundred years ago at the Battle of Ayesleigh. Humanity mistakenly believed the darkspawn were permanently defeated there.”

“The Grey Wardens were once exiled from Ferelden for conspiring to overthrow the king. They were permitted to return twenty years ago by King Maric, Cailan’s father.”

“At the Battle of River Dane, Loghain Mac Tir became known as a hero when he and his men finally drove the forces of the Orlesian Empire out of Ferelden after more than 80 years of occupation.”

“The Grey Wardens were once known for the griffon mounts on which they flew into battle. The griffon numbers waned after the last Blight, finally disappearing completely 200 years ago.”

“Grey Wardens possess the Right of Conscription: they may draft anyone into their ranks without question, from prince to lowly commoner. This is not always done without consequence, however.”

“The dwarven kingdom once encompassed 12 great thaigs spread across Thedas, joined by the underground Deep Roads. Only two remain: Orzammar and Kal Sharok.”

“An elven alienage is a city quarter where elves live, often poor and walled off from the rest, rampant with crime and strife.”

“In their first homeland, Arlathan, elves were immortal and possessed an advanced culture and language. After a millennium of slavery and poverty they lost it all, and even the Dalish have only reclaimed but a little.”

“The Orlesians conquered Ferelden in 8:24 Blessed, beginning a long and brutal rule that ended only 30 years ago. Most Fereldans still remember that time vividly.”

“King Cailan Theirin assumed the throne five years ago upon the death of his father, marrying Lady Anora Mac Tir--daughter of Teyrn Loghain--exactly one month later.”

“The Circle of Magi was formed by the Chantry to keep a watchful eye over the mages. According to the Chant of Light, magic is meant to serve man and never to rule over him.”

“Templars are warriors that exist to monitor mages and hunt down those that go rogue from the Circle of Magi. They have the ability to disrupt magic and drain mana from their adversaries.”

“The Korcari Wilds extends far to the south of Ferelden, stretching into an uncharted frozen wasteland. It is a dangerous place, supposedly filled with witches, barbarians, and monsters.”

“The Circle of Magi's tower, standing off the shore of Lake Calenhad, precedes the mages themselves. It was built by the Avvar a thousand years ago, before being conquered by the Tevinter Imperium.”

“The ancient Tevinter Imperium, ruled by the magisters and powerful blood magic, once spread over all of Thedas. Many of its ruins still remain in Ferelden even today.”

“The Fade is a dream realm where the spirits of all beings but dwarves go when they sleep. Only mages remain conscious once there, but others can “awaken” if they are trapped there unwillingly.”

“The Fade is the realm of hungry demons that constantly seek to pass through the Veil into the land of the living. Those that succeed will try to possess a body, living or dead.”

“Demons are drawn to mages, and should they ever succeed in possessing one they transform them into an abomination--a terrifying and intelligent monster with access to great magical powers.”

“Demons primarily come in five varieties, based on the part of the living psyche that they feed from. From weakest to strongest they are rage, hunger, sloth, desire, and pride.”

“Not all spirits of the Fade are evil things. Some are beings of compassion, fortitude, and justice. They have little interest in crossing the Veil unless summoned, however, and thus are far less known than demons.”

“Ferelden has existed as a nation since the fabled King Calenhad, the Silver Knight, united the warring Alamarri teyrns almost 400 years ago.”

“The Qunari landed on the northern island of Par Vollen three centuries ago, coming from an unknown land far off to the east across the Amaranthine Ocean. They began a war to conquer Thedas almost immediately, one that ended in a truce after more than 150 years of fighting.”

“According to the Chantry calendar, every hundred years is an age--named at the end of the last age according to omens discerned that year. The Dragon Age is the ninth since the ascension of the first Divine of the Chantry.”

“Dragons were once worshipped by the ancient Tevinter Imperium, and existed in number until the Nevarran dragon hunters brought them to the brink of extinction. They only reappeared at the beginning of the Dragon Age, giving the age its namesake.”

“Those that survive the darkspawn taint eventually become “ghouls,” their minds corrupted and twisted to seek out and serve the darkspawn until eventually they die in anguish or disappear underground forever.

“Without an Archdemon to lead them to the surface, the darkspawn remain below in the Deep Roads, battling the dwarves. Few—save for the Grey Wardens—know anything about them.”

“The ancient mining tunnels beneath Hightown and Lowtown now form the city's sewers, as well as the slum known as Darktown. Residents refer to these tunnels collectively as the Undercity.”

“People from the Free Marches are called “Marchers,” but usually only by outsiders. A citizen of Kirkwall thinks of himself as being from the city first and the Free Marches second.”

“The Fifth Blight began in 9:30 Dragon and lasted only a year before the Archdemon was slain. The Hero of Ferelden spared the world from the ravages of another war against the darkspawn.”

“There are fourteen Circles of Magi in Thedas, excluding those in the Tevinter Imperium. The Circle at the Gallows in Kirkwall is one of two in the Free Marches and is the center of templar power in the East.”

“Kirkwall was once part of the Tevinter Imperium and the center of its slave trade. Slaves worked the quarries until they revolted more than 900 years ago.”

“The Qunari live on Par Vollen, an island nation in the tropical northern climes. Some believe they originally came from elsewhere, since they weren't seen in Thedas until 300 years ago.”

“The Qunari invaded mainland Thedas 200 years ago, and were driven back during the New Exalted Marches. The Llomerryn Accord in 7:84 Storm established an armistice between the Qunari and every nation except the Tevinter Imperium.”

“The raiders who plague the waters of the Waking Sea and the Amaranthine Ocean are based out of the chaotic Rivaini city of Llomerryn.”

“Although the slave trade is legal only in the Tevinter Imperium, their slavers are present almost everywhere. They prey on elves and the poor, bringing victims back to the Imperium to sell to magisters and shady foreigners.”

“The largest guild of thieves in Kirkwall calls itself the Coterie. Although the association is very informal, the Coterie is vicious against anyone who looks like competition.”

“The Gallows sits in a harbor that was carved through the cliffs by magic to allow ships to dock in the middle of Lowtown.”

““The Twins” is the local name for the two great Tevinter statues that flank the entrance to Kirkwall’s harbor. They are not merely for show: a massive chain net can be raised between them and the fortified lighthouse.”

“Kirkwall’s Lowtown once held the city's slaves. Individual sections could be closed off in the event of a rebellion, and the winding streets were designed to discourage slaves from attempting to organize.”

“Both the Viscount’s Keep and the chantry were built by the dwarves. They were originally intended to house the city’s magister overlords, back at the height of Imperial rule.”

“The Free Marches is not a single nation, but an alliance of independent city-states. Kirkwall, Starkhaven, and Tantervale are the largest.”

“Kirkwall has been ruled by a viscount since the Orlesian Empire installed one as governor in 7:60 Storm. The city retained the title even after it rebelled against foreign rule.”

“Kirkwall’s less illustrious residents assemble at the Hanged Man. The tavern's feature dish is its stew, made from a different mystery meat each morning.”

“Kirkwall was built almost entirely through slave labor. Part of the city was once a quarry, worked by thousands upon thousands of slaves. Massive quantities of jet stone were carved straight out of the rock face, eventually creating the pit that is now Lowtown, as well as the city’s broad harbor.”

“Kirkwall has had numerous dragon sightings, but they are generally peasant exaggerations. One “imminent high dragon flight” turned out to be an emaciated drake in a pained rage caused by passing a Griffon Helm.”

“Kirkwall declared the common nug a noxious vermin in 5:20 Exalted over fears that the animals carried the Blight. The extermination became known as the Battle of the Squealing Plains. It is not spoken of in polite company.”

“Don't play cards with Qunari--it's impossible to tell when they're bluffing. Don't play against elves, either--they never pay their debts. And never play against dwarves--they'll kill you if they lose.”

#dragon age #dao #da2 #da lore #loading screens

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fantasy2739 · 3 years

Note

Could you do a fic where Claire and Douxie talk about immortality?

Talking about the angst of immortality? Sign me up! Idk if this is what you wanted, if you want a struggle of Claire being immortal I’m also happy to write that!

Hope you enjoy!

Douxie softly strummed his guitar, watching Nari drift off to gentle strings. He heard, rather than saw, Claire approach. Her footsteps heavy, full of purpose.

“Hey Teach, can we talk?” She asked nervously. Douxie smiled and nodded. He carefully put his guitar down and placed a blanket over Nari. Archie kindly curled up next to her.

“Let’s go outside.” He suggested. They walked into the Lake garden. Douxie sat patiently on a rock while Claire paced. He eyed the sky; dark and glittering. Claire seemed indecisive about what she should talk about. Unusual for her. Douxie leaned back, relaxing further into his temporary chair as he waited.

“Am I…?” Claire paused and collected her thoughts. “Am I going to be immortal?” Douxie had been waiting for this. Sure they’d met plenty of beings that lived centuries, but they were a different species. Trolls, Akiridions. He’d seen the looks Claire would shoot him when they practiced together. The way she frowned when he casually mentioned something from hundreds of years ago.

“It depends.” Douxie replied honestly. “See magic is complicated when it comes to that stuff.”

“Complicated?” Claire asked. “Isn’t it just yes or no?”

“You aren’t a born mage are you?” Douxie checked. Claire pondered. “I mean you weren’t born with magic, it developed after a while?”

“Sort of.” Claire admitted. “I felt connected with the shadow staff before I found it.” Douxie considered it.

“You may have some innate magic, but the main trigger for your powers was the staff and Morgana right?” Claire nodded. “Then it depends.”

“Teach that doesn’t help.” Claire said as she dropped to the ground. She pulled her legs close. “ I don’t want to be alone.” Douxie leaned over and reached out a comforting hand.

“Even if you were immortal, I wouldn’t just leave you.” He said with a smile. Claire gave him a small smile. He cleared his throat. “I’ll explain as best I can. Inherently magical beings live longer. Like Archie or Trolls. People who become magical have longer lives can choose.”

“I can… choose?!” Claire was surprised.

“You can always choose.” Douxie assured her. “You remember how I told you magic is emotion?” He waited for Claire to nod before continuing. “Magic is what keeps us alive, so if you don’t want to be. You won’t be.”

“So if I want to age normally?”

“You will.”

“And if I want to stop?”

“You cast a spell and you slow it.”

“And it’s reversible?”

“I’ll write down both spells for you.” Douxie said. “We’re not immortal anyway.”

“But you, Merlin, Morgana. You’re all so old.” Claire said. “I can’t imagine living 900 years.” Douxie looked away. “Sorry I didn’t mean to bring them up.” Douxie rolled his shoulders.

“Claire, you choose what you want to do. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” He said firmly. “If you don’t want to live 900 years then don’t.” Claire nodded sharply.

“Got it Teach.” She said. “What do you mean you’re not immortal? I know that… that if you’re injured enough you… won’t make it.” Douxie smiled sadly at her.

“We age. Slowly. You saw Merlin.” Douxie inhaled sharply. He paused, collected himself and powered on. “He stayed alive to fight the Arcane Order but he still aged.”

“You haven’t.” Claire pointed out.

“Pretty sure I was an absolute moppet 900 years ago.” Douxie chuckled.

“You didn’t look that different. Or sound that different.” Claire said, eyebrow raised. “Man buns aside.” Douxie tried not to think about the little bun that haunted him.

“That’s because I’m young at heart.” He said, flicking the rock sign at her.

“So your magic reflects that?” Claire asked. Douxie nodded, smile not quite meeting his eyes. Claire didn’t seem to notice, leaping to her feet. “Thanks Teach, I’m glad I have you.” Douxie patted her shoulder as she went inside. His gaze turned skyward. Dark and glittering as it had been all those centuries ago. He’d just buried Merlin, and knew that if he wanted to do everything else he needed to last longer. He performed the spell as left in Merlin’s detailed instructions. His notes hadn’t mentioned a swirling mist of blue magic. And hearing words that were never spoken.

‘So you wish to live longer, little wizard? Be wary of the price.’

He hadn’t really understood at the time. Every other wizard he knew had done it with no problem. No mist. No voice. Not until later, much much later, did he find out. He’d made a slight mistake in the incantation. A combination of nervousness, grief and inability to decipher minuscule writing. And he’d cast another spell. He didn’t know exactly what, except that his body had frozen. He remembered opening his eyes to the glittering sky and felt something click in place. Like it was always meant to happen. He had wondered many times what the price was. Even briefly after Merlin’s death he wondered if that was the cost of never ageing. Never dying.

He would not let Claire make the same mistakes he did.

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gusu-emilu · 3 years

Text

miscellaneous MDZS/CQL fic recs (AO3)

broken into sections: Character Study (-esque), Wangxian, Jiang Cheng ships, Yi City (or Yi City-adjacent), Humor/Crack, and Other

Character Study (-esque)

Wei Wuxian

my eyes got used to the darkness by @curiosity-killed (M, Sunshot Campaign era, 4.4k): The funny thing, the thing that makes his lips curl in a grin and his hands shake with laughter, is that all these cultivators with their lofty principles and noble ambitions can’t even notice the ghost among them. Sure, they shiver at his presence and flinch from his cold hands, but not one of them puts it together. Lan Wangji chases him with healing music and Nie Mingjue frowns solemnly at his dancing corpses—and he laughs and laughs and laughs because they just don’t get it. Emilu's commentary: CW for mild body horror.

Jiang Cheng

in our respective ways by @veliseraptor (T, Sunshot Campaign era, 5.7k): Jiang Cheng has his golden core back. But he seems to have lost Wei Wuxian.

You Know I've Fallen, but I Know How High by villainais (M, Post-WWX's death, 2.7k): Jiang Cheng loses both of his siblings in Nightless City. Minutes apart. He trudges home to Yunmeng with one body, holds a private funeral with a single coffin, and allows himself to wear his mourning robes for ten days—permits himself not a single day more. He is still too young and inexperienced, an unfledged boy to the cultivation world, and he is rebuilding Lotus Pier on his own. He will not gift the other sect leaders the satisfaction of seeing him vulnerable. Propriety be damned. Hanguang-jun emerges from his seclusion wearing white. He does not stop.

Nie Huaisang

it deepens like a coastal shelf by @wolffyluna (M, Post-WWX's death, 21.6k): When Nie Huaisang meets Mo Xuanyu, he realises two things quickly. One, this kid is so doomed. Two, this kid would be a great unwitting spy in his plans to bring down Jin Guangyao. It would be so easy to get into Mo Xuanyu's confidences, and so easy to get him to tell him anything he needs. ...only thing is, that wouldn't be very good for Mo Xuanyu's life expectancy. But he'll do it anyway, if it helps him avenge his brother. A fic about man handing on misery to man, the parallels and cycles in the relationships between Jin Guangyao and Nie Huaisang and Mo Xuanyu, and the lengths these characters will go to meet their goals and if there are lines they won't cross.

Lan Xichen

an old man in dried mouths by @tenacious-minds (T, Post-Canon, 3.3k): Xichen thinks. The tea had always stained the crockery red. Emilu's commentary: Lan Xichen and Jin Ling talk about Jin Guangyao.

can you be a quiet man? by @basket-of-loquats (Unrated, Post-Canon, 70.7k+) But something inside him snapped at Guanyin Temple-- and Lan Wangji watched it happen, saw the exact moment that Lan Xichen went from broken to shattered, when he buried his sword into Jin Guangyao’s chest, when his sworn brother stared up at him with wide eyes, blood dripping from his mouth, when he pulled himself closer and closer and closer-- When he whispered "Why don’t you die with me?", and Lan Xichen hadn’t argued. Emilu's commentary: Lan Xichen / therapy with a side of Wangxian.

Wen Ning

breathless (but i'll pretend to breathe for you) by swordsainted (T, Burial Mounds Settlement era, 4.1k): Wei Wuxian is silent for a long minute, and then he looks at Wen Ning, something raw and open and hurting behind his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says again, softer this time, and Wen Ning shakes his head, still smiling. “You’ve protected everyone. How could I hate you for that?”

Mo Xuanyu

stand at the pit's mouth by @eldritch-elrics (M, MXY's death, 9.3k): The dreams and regrets of a man on the edge of oblivion. Emilu's commentary: Surrealist/absurdist screenplay.

Wangxian

I would wait for a thousand years by bleuett (T, Immortality Post-Canon, 10.4k): During the worst of winter, a traveler comes to stay at Lan Wangji's inn. He wears a red ribbon in his hair. “Do you see the rabbit?” Wei Ying asks and points at the moon. “That’s the moon rabbit, he helps make Chang’e more immortality elixir. He keeps Chang’e company.” “I do not wish the rabbit for company,” Lan Wangji says tightly. “You are the one I want by my side.” “And I’m here, Lan Zhan. If you go to the moon, I’ll follow you, I’ll always be here now.” Emilu's commentary: Lan Wangji meets Wei Wuxian centuries later and does not remember the past. There is also an excellent podfic by @forgotten-envies

Look Not With The Eyes by Spodumene (G, Post-Canon, 28.1k): Wei Wuxian returns from his travels to join Lan Wangji on a routine night hunt, but when things take an unexpected turn, Wei Wuxian will have to fight for what he's really looking for. Emilu's commentary: Case fic.

All In A Good Time by bigboobedcanuck (E, Post-Canon, 8k): Lan Zhan is struck by a curse that brings him intense physical pain unless he's being touched. He is stoic and tries to hide his suffering. Wei Wuxian is worried and protective. Perhaps they will finally admit their feelings?

Across a Lake of Glass by Zizzani (E, Figure Skating AU, 92.2k+): Each year, Gusu Skating Club runs a camp for only the most elite athletes of each region. This year brings a new skater from the Yunmeng Club who wears skates lined with red and a smile made for war. He skates like a demon. Figure skating au featuring lots of healthy rivalry, pre and post-competition bonding, and an inexplicable fall from grace through the eyes of the media.

Jiang Cheng Ships

Chengqing

display my heart for you to see by @souridealist (M, Post-Canon Wen Qing Lives AU, 5.5k): Jiang Cheng has his own secrets. Some of them are part of the unburied past; some of them are about how long it's been since anyone has touched him.

while I'm in this body by @souridealist (E, Post-Lotus Pier Massacre, 3.9k): For just a few minutes, alone in her office, Wen Qing allows her self-control to slip enough to cry. It's just her luck that that's when Jiang Cheng comes looking for her. Emilu's commentary: Femdom.

Chengning

it may be that it doesn't matter by @wildehacked (T, Post-Canon, 6.6k) “Are you crying?” Jiang Wanyin asks him, and Wen Ning frowns. Pats his cheek with one hand. “No.” Emilu's commentary: Holy Grail of Chengning.

Whatever It Is by morau (E, Post-Canon, 20.5k): It starts, as with a lot of things, with a very poorly thought out prank, courtesy of Wei Wuxian. Emilu's commentary: A LOT of sex and even more emotions lol

won't run away (we're here to stay) by @qi-ling (T, Post-Canon, 3.5k): "Please don't feel any pressure to accept this, and you can take as much time as you need to think about it." It's a set of robes, in shades of deep purple, complete with leather bracers. Cut in a different style than that of the disciples or household staff, closer to the understated robes Wen Ning typically wears. He reaches out to feel the fabric. His deadened nerves can't sense delicate textures well, but even he can tell it's of a quality on par to Wanyin's own wardrobe. This is startling enough coming from Jiang Wanyin, but then Wen Ning notices the belt. In particular, the silver bell in the shape of a lotus affixed to it. Only recognized members of the Jiang sect may wear the clarity bell. Or, Jiang Cheng has an invitation for Wen Ning.

Zhancheng

By Proxy by @veliseraptor (E, Post-WWX's death, 12k): Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji, looking for comfort in all the wrong places. Emilu's commentary: Hate sex that made me cry

Yi City (or Yi City-adjacent)

Songxuexiao

Heaven Has A Road But No One Walks It by @silvysartfulness (M, Post-Yi City arc Canon Divergence, 123k+): One of the most complex spells of demonic cultivation the world has seen is brought to fruition, and Xiao Xingchen draws his first shaking breaths in over seven years. This, it turns out, is only the start of his problems. Emilu's commentary: Pretty sure everyone already knows about Silvy's happy songxuexiao road trip fic but it has to be here.

Xue Yang & Lan Xichen

Hours On Empty series by @lady-of-the-lotus (M to E, Post-Canon, 57.8k+): AU where Wei Wuxian never came to Yi City and Xue Yang is still running around post-canon disguised as Xiao Xingchen. "Fractured Ice" - Xue Yang whisks a nihilistic Lan Xichen off on a murder roadtrip to raise Xiao Xingchen and Meng Yao from the grave. Because that will solve all of their problems, right? "Control" - "Fractured Ice" retold from Xue Yang's pov. "A Thousand Miles In Its Light" - Alternate ending to "Fractured Ice" and "Control"

Songxiao with Xuexiao Flashbacks

Nothing Beside Remains by @eldritch-elrics (T, Post-Yi City arc Canon Divergence, 21.9k): And Xiao Xingchen is dressed in dark clothing that is not his, and his sight is all of a sudden sharp in a way that it has never been before, and Xue Yang is not here. “He wouldn’t,” he breathes. “No, he wouldn’t do that. He’s too—” “He’s too what?” Wei Wuxian steps a foot closer, face hard-set. “Too cruel? Or too kind?” Or: Xue Yang uses the Sacrifice Summon on Xiao Xingchen. Xiao Xingchen lives with the consequences.

Humor/Crack

The Hangover: A pre-wedding Dramedy series by natcat5 (M, Modern AU, 51.6k): It is not a bachelor party. That was made clear on all the invitations. It is a congratulatory get together for Jin Zixuan, attended by his family, the family of the bride, and the young masters of the other two families in their circle. The gathering is not to go later than midnight, everyone must drink in moderation, and no one is allowed to be hungover tomorrow. Wei Wuxian had promised Yanli, three fingers in the air. Jiang Cheng had rolled his eyes, but promised as well. Saturday morning, Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng wake up alone in a hotel room, missing shoes, phones, and almost all their memories of what in the world happened last night. Also missing: Wei Wuxian, brother of the bride, Lan Wangji, esteemed guest, Lan Xichen, esteemed guest, Jin Zixun, cousin of the groom, Jin Guangyao, brother and best-man, Jin Zixuan, THE GROOM, who is due at his bride-to-be's house in six hours. That's plenty of time to find everyone...right?

Jiang Cheng Loves Jar Jar Bombad Mui by @lady-of-the-lotus (G, Post-Canon, 1.7k) Jar Jar Binks washes up on the shores of Lotus Pier. Can he win the lonely Jiang Cheng's proud heart? Neb neb answer is yesa. Emilu's commentary: There's also a podfic by @aowyn. Yes, with a Jar Jar voice.

Other

Nie Huaisang & Wen Ning

By Name by nirejseki (G, Post-Canon, 1.3k): After the traumatic events in the now-collapsed temple, Wen Ning lingered behind and unexpectedly saw Nie Huaisang, the undisputed victor of an all-around terrible evening, sitting on the steps of the temple, looking exhausted and miserable, as if he’d won nothing at all. Wen Ning found himself drifting over to him.

Jiang Yanli & Nie Mingjue

utility by magicites (G, Arranged Marriage AU, 2.3k): Jiang Yanli and Nie Mingjue's wedding is a political one — a gesture of unity between their Sects. A way for her parents to finally get some use out of the plain-faced sham of a cultivator they call a daughter. “Jiang-guniang,” Nie Mingjue says, and the formality in such a setting as intimate as their wedding chambers startles her, “I don’t wish to bed you. Or any other woman, for that matter. It isn’t fair for you to live alone because of my own preferences.” She rests her hand on his arm, cool relief flooding her body like water on a summer afternoon. “If it helps, I don’t feel desire for men,” she whispers.

Jin Guangyao / Nie Huaisang

Pulling Strings by @eldritch-elrics (E, Post-WWX's death, 5k): Nie Huaisang, quite drunk, turns up at Jin Guangyao’s door one night with an unexpected request. Emilu's commentary: Nie Huaisang knows Jin Guangyao killed Nie Mingjue. This interaction is more symbolic than anything else...

#mdzs #cql #the untamed #mdzs fanfiction #cql fanfiction #the untamed fanfiction #mdzs fanfic #cql fanfic #the untamed fanfic #fic recs #emilu talks #emilu creations

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blueskiesandstarrynights · 2 years

Note

Rant about something from Hatchet field I wanna learn

Alrighty so initially this was gonna be about the time travel presented in time bastard, but I’m gonna put that in the time travel essay I promised val that I’ll tag you in (if you’re interested) but then I decided I wanna talk about holloduke and how I’m gonna relate it to dorace

So holloduke is the ship name for Ms. Holloway and Duke Keane. Wanna know what Ms. Holloway’s first name is? Me too. Anyways, if you wanna frame their relationship based on tropes to get an idea, it’s basically an incredibly powerful and bad ass woman and just a guy who loves her very much. We first meet them in Witch in the Web where Duke is the Foster’s assigned social worker and he brings in Ms. Holloway to help Hannah with a witch/black and white problem. Ms. Holloway is a witch with a hinted at shady past that we all want to know about, but that’s now what I wanna talk about. What I want to talk about is their second appearance in Killer Track from nmt s2. So, uh, if you care about that, major major spoiler warning.

So Killer Track is about this song that’s being spread through town, and anyone who hears it dies exactly one week later. One of the kids Duke looks after, Rose, heard the Track and has been having violently negative reactions to any kind of speaker all week, the screaming song following her around. Duke hears her side of the story and decides to bring in Ms. Holloway. She casts this spell that projects her consciousness into Rose’s a week ago when she first heard the song, so Ms. Holloway has the curse now instead. Her plan is to cover all objects that produce sound and hope for the best, and she left a note for Duke in case anything happens to her. Long story short, she dies, is carried away in an ambulance and is very Distraught. When he gets home, he remembers her note which basically read “kay so I'm not dead, don’t call an ambulance and just wait a couple hours.” Thoroughly confused, Duke sneaks into the morgue and after wondering what he’s doing here, she sits up with a gasp and hey would you look at that, she’s immortal! (I’m sure you can see where I’m going with these comparisons, both couples have an immortal partner) Duke is very much Freaking Out bc while he knew she could Do Stuff, this whole coming back from death thing is just a little too out there for him, poor dude. Ms. Holloway sits him down at her diner that I so desperately want to eat at and starts to explain-

And concludes her tale. Duke is confused, she hasn’t said anything, but she points out the discrepancies; the eaten pie, the rising sun. She’s been talking and explaining everything for the past couple hours, but part of this shifty deal she made ages ago, no one can know her past, so every time she tries to tell someone, their memories of it get released, and ohhh here comes the angst. Just imagine having centuries of experience, having done some shady stuff, made some shady deals, seen things no one ever should, and she can’t even tell anyone, can’t tell the person she loves and trusts more than anything. Forever alone (and she gets more alone dw 😈)

Anywho, Duke and Ms holloway work together and stop the killer track the day is saved, yada yada but the real important part is after. So the two are out on a lake enjoying the fireworks (cuz they stopped the killer track at a festival) and Duke wonders how she's going to explain she's still alive, and Holly (I'm gonna call her Holly for easy sake) says she's gonna let Ms. Holloway stay dead. Duke nods and suggests she change her name, change her hair, before she interrupts and says shes not changing her hair, it's been like that since the 80s and it's incredibly rad (she didn't say that last part lol) and now dukes confused and points out how everyone will recognize her and this is when she gets sad and so do I. People won't remeber her, and neither will Duke. He'll remember Ms. Holloway and how she was a good friend who died in the diner. He won't remember her powers. He tries to protest, but she asks him if she can say good bye, leans in, kisses him and vanishes. He opens his eyes, and she’s gone. He can’t remember what he was doing out here. He hears a boom in the sky. Oh yeah. He was watching the fireworks.

I want you to know I am UNWELL AND CRYING AT THAT LINE. "oh yeah. He was watching the fireworks" has given me permanent emotional damage and I will never recover. I just-

Idk if the line has the same impact only being read, but when that line was spoken I broke.

Anyways, months later, Duke runs into Ms. Holloway, now under the pseudonym Ms. Holliday, and as he walks away, she quietly says "Bya Duke" and she's got such a sad smile on her face and I just-

I actually wrote a one shot detailing her pov and like what I imagine her internal thought process was as she fell for Duke despite knowing she'd have to reset her identity here

Anyways, onto the dorace comparisons-

Imagine Horace trying to distance himself, but failing, not wanting to be selfish, but can't help it as he once again falls, and falls hard, despite it being unfair to the both of them. Imagine Horace wanting so bad to tell him something, anything but unable to, wanting to tell Douglas story after story without him forgetting everything he just said after.

Anyways I love holloduke so so much and I desperately want to get an actual backstory for Ms. Holloway and I love talking about them. Sorry if this got long but I am Many Thoughts head full about them.

#lrefmm #asks #marie (champion of making plankton a tumblr sexyman)#hatchetfield #holloduke #ms holloway #duke keane #nmt2 spoilers

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scarletemeterio-thesecond · 3 years

Note

hello, i heard you wanted a douxie request! headcanons for jim’s kinda grumpy foster sibling being a witch who also trained under merlin, but left after killahead. douxie has been looking for them and they run into each other every few decades or so, and most recently in arcadia. jim is just horrified when he finds out that his sibling is best friends and maybe more (definitely more, jim is just dense(it was a slow burn on douxie’s part, reader kinda just accepted it)) with his rival.

FINALLY SOME DOUXIE CONTENT! i absolutely LOVE that boy with all my heart, he's just so nsoxkgowkcroso. anyways, thank you so much for requesting! i hope you like it!

(also this is a bit long hehe)

•••

Jim's sibling dating Douxie

Reader uses they/them pronouns!

You first met Douxie back in Camelot. You were also Merlin's apprentice, so your paths crossed pretty often.

There was always something between you two, an unspoken thing because neither of you acted on your feelings. With everything going on in the kingdom, there was no time for dating.

After the battle of Killahead, you decided that there was nothing else for you in Camelot, and the one person who could've made you stay there, had already much on his mind.

Over the centuries Douxie and you ended up running into each other, always taking some time to catch up a little, and both of you would realize that your feelings were still there.

When you last separated, Douxie made it his personal mission to find you again, and finally tell you how he felt. But it would take him a long time until he saw you again.

After travelling the world, you ended up in a town called Arcadia Oaks, living with Jim's family.

You were like an older sibling to him, and once he became the Trollhunter, you knew it was time to tell him what you really were.

He was amazed, honestly. His own sibling was a wizard! He asked you about all kind of things from the past, and you happily told him about your adventures.

One day at school, this new boy came around. He wasn't in high school anymore, though, and the first time he saw him, Jim felt a little threatened.

He knew Claire liked him and wanted to be with him, but after seeing every single person completely mesmerized by him, he couldn't help but be a little afraid.

So of course, he asked you for advice. You only reminded him what he already knew, that he had nothing to worry about because Claire really wanted to be with him, and no one else.

Jim knew you were right, but still didn't like stumbling upon the mysterious boy.

You spent a lot of time in Trollmarket, so you still didn't know who this new boy was.

But one night, you decided it was time to take a little break, and you all went to the cinema.

It was already a little dark outside when you got out, and then you all went to Claire's house to have dinner. When you left the girl's house, you, Jim and Toby walked over to your houses.

As you were walking, you slightly turned your gaze to this one boy that was closing up and cleaning the diner. You thought that his movements were familiar, and then you let out a gasp.

Jim and Toby looked at you a little worried, thinking that you'd seen something scary.

"Douxie?" You half-yelled at the boy. When he heard his name, he turned to where you were, and immediately had the biggest smile on his face.

You ran to him and wrapped your arms around his neck, and he quickly let go of the broom he was holding to hold you.

"I can't believe it! I've missed you so much, (Y/N)!" He told you once you two pulled away.

You still had your arms around his neck, when suddenly you heard someone cough a few meters away from you too.

You saw Jim was a bit confused, and even though he didn't say it out loud, you knew he wanted to know what was going on.

"Oh! Jim, this is Douxie, we've known each other for centuries, literally. And Douxie, this is Jim, he's my brother," you introduced them to each other.

"Yeah, we've met before," you heard Jim say.

Before you could ask him about it, Douxie talked again, asking what you'd been up to.

"It's getting kinda late, maybe we should just go and you two can catch up later!" Said Jim, grabbing your arm and trying to get you away from there. You just waved at Douxie and told him that you'd see him the following day.

"Why did you just dragged me out of there, Jim?" You asked your brother once the two of you were home.

"Drag you out of where, (Y/N)?" He was trying to play dumb, but you wouldn't let him get away with it.

"You know what I'm talking about, James Lake Jr.! I haven't seen Douxie in decades and I could barely say hello to him!"

"It's just that- Why didn't you tell me that you knew him? I'm not a big fan of my sibling just hanging out with that guy," he mumbled the last part, but you still heard him.

"I didn't know he was here! Or that he was this new boy in town! Plus, Douxie's not like that! He's a good guy and super sweet and nice, and also-."

"Woah, I didn't know you liked him, (Y/N)," said Jim. You immediately blushed, knowing it would be useless to hide it.

"I do like him, a lot, actually. I think I even have feelings for him," you admitted out loud.

Even though Jim still wasn't a huge fan of the idea, he encouraged you to talk to the boy and tell him how you felt.

"It's not that easy, Jim. After living so many years, you learn to not get too attached to people, and Douxie's learnt it very well. Me, on the other hand, not so much."

"What? You're kidding, right? The guy is head over heels for you, (Y/N)!"

You didn't believe him, and even though you were a bit nervous, you were happy to see your friend again the next day.

The two of you spent the entire day just catching up, like you always did whenever you saw each other.

He was staying in Arcadia for a while, so the two of you started spending a lot of time together. Your feelings only grew with time and even though you didn't know it, so did Douxie's.

Eventually, it was impossible to hang out and pretend that you were only friends, but you two decided to take it slow.

Douxie knew you were immortal too, but he was so used to losing people that it was hard for him to understand that you weren't going anywhere.

He knew you'd both agreed to take it slow, but he just needed to tell you how much he loved you.

And he did, and you obviously told him that you loved him too.

And in that moment you both promised to each other that you'd always be together, no matter what, because neither of you could stand the idea of being apart ever again.

•••

omg i freaking love douxie so much, and i hope i get more requests for him in the future! this was so fun to write!

#douxie casperan #hisirdoux casperan #douxie #douxie x reader #douxie imagine #douxie fanfic #toa douxie #toa hisirdoux #toa wizards #toa x reader #toa imagines #toa fanfic #toa headcanons #hisirdoux imagine #hisirdoux x reader #hisirdoux fanfic

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mirasolis · 3 years

Text

My Star, Your Light

Punz x Reader

Tangled AU

Part One

★──────────★─────────★

This is just you and Punz thrown into the world of Tangled, as requested by @thequeenofuwu . We are both Punz simps, I know it.

This is going to be in several parts, and I will link each part when I finish them under here.

Part 1 Part 2

Enjoy!

★──────────★─────────★

This, is the story of how I was killed. But don’t worry, it’s a happy story, and truth be told, it’s not even mine. This is the story of a girl I met, named (Y/N). It all starts with the stars.

Years ago, a piece of the stars fell from the skies, and from it sprouted a magical, silver flower. Now this flower had the ability to give you your greatest heart’s desire, if you knew what to to say; or rather, if you knew what to sing. People had searched for the flower for centuries with goals of becoming rich or powerful.

But then one day, a man named Dream had stumbled upon it and decided to keep it hidden from the world so he could one day use it. He made it keep him alive, while he grew with power and became immortal, but he had no purpose for it yet.

Even more centuries passed, and a kingdom grew. It was bright and prosperous and happy. All except for the beloved King Phil and Queen Samantha, who had longed for a child of their own to have. Now, around this time, people get pretty desperate, and royal scholars had found research about the star flower, and decided that the whole kingdom was to search for this magic flower. The kingdom loved their rulers and respected them that they searched for days on end.

Now, back with the immortal Dream. He still had no proper way to use the power of the star flower, and continuously hid it. But by chance, he left it exposed to the naked eye when he heard that people were searching for it. When the people found the flower, they rejoiced, for their king and queen would smile once more. The monarchs conceived their first child, a beautiful baby girl. I’ll give you one guess. Yep, that’s (Y/N). To celebrate her birth, the kingdom released silver lanterns in the sky to represent the stars from which the flower had come from, all while shooting stars passed by. Later that year, the king and queen gave (Y/N) her younger brothers, Wilbur and Techno.

For a while, the kingdom was happy. But all that ended when (Y/N) was almost two years old.

Dream had plotted with his crew, men who went by the names George, Sapnap, Badboyhalo, and Callahan. They stormed the castle, sneaked in, and stole away the princess. The kingdom’s soldiers and people searched across the lands, but she was nowhere to be found. Deep within the woods, a magical barrier disguised the home of Dream and his crew from sight. Within that, there was a tower from which you could only enter through the window and a rope. There, the princess was hidden away, with her rapidly growing (H/C) hair coloured with silver streaks. There, (Y/N) was raised, never seeing the outside world again.

Dream, posing as her brother, was one day tending to (Y/N)’s hair when she asked a question. He hummed in response. “Why can’t I go outside?”

“Well (Y/N), the world outside is a dangerous place. I don’t want you to get hurt or used for horrible means. Keeping you here means you can be safe,” Dream responded.

(Y/N) nodded silently, humming a gentle tune.

But the king and queen never stopped hoping that their child would come back. And the barriers cutting (Y/N) from the rest of the world could not hide it all. Every year, they continued the tradition of releasing the star lanterns every year. They hoped that this could serve as a signal so that one day, their princess would return.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

17 years later…

A young girl snuck around, looking for her companion, a small multicoloured sheep named Puffy. Dream had given her the sheep not too long ago and they already bonded nicely. They were currently playing some hide and seek.

“Oh Puffy!! Where are you?” (Y/N) called out in a singsong tune. The sheep was currently hiding along the flower bed that was on the window sill of the tower entrance. (Y/N) looked around with wide eyes. “Well, I guess she’s back inside…

“…NOT!”

(Y/N) manoeuvered her hair to wrap around Puffy and pulled her from her hiding place, dangling her in the air. She laughed as she grabbed Puffy and held her in her arms, snuggling into her wool.

“Oh Puffy, I know you want to go outside, but I can’t bring you there. We just have to wait ‘til Dream gets back so you can get some grass. Besides, we’ve got plenty to do in here!”

(Y/N) danced around, her growing as long as the tower was tall, and tall it was. She bounced from activity to activity, bringing Puffy along for the ride. She finally slowed down when she gathered her paints and illustrated a beautiful depiction of her gazing at the stars.

“I wonder what they’re like…maybe Dream will let me see them this year…”

Meanwhile…

Three men were jumping along the tops of the castle, looking for the right building to infiltrate. One wore a mask coloured with red, yellow, and black, and was called Ponk. The next one wore a significant amount of purple clothing, such as his purple coat and shoes, and was appropriately called Purpled. The last man wore a white plain shirt with leather cuffs covering his forearms and keeping the sleeves in place, and over that he wore a very light grey vest on top. He had blonde hair and he went by the name Punz.

The three of them were a team of mercenaries and they were on their latest job, stealing the tiara of the first princess. While Purpled and Ponk were making sure they had found the Crown Room, Punz was holding onto a castle tower and looking at the view.

“Guys you gotta look at this view!” He exclaimed.

“Dude, we don’t care about the view, just get over here and grab the crown!” Purpled urged.

Ponk scoffed. “Dude, you can find another view like this when we get the money!”

Punz brushed them off and dropped down with the two men lowering him down an escape rope. He stepped down quietly, gazing at the beautiful crown adorned with jewels in front of him. Just as he had his hands on it, a guard sneezed. As common courtesy goes, Punz just naturally said bless you, grabbed the rope, then signalled Ponk and Purpled to pull him up. About halfway to the ceiling the guards turned around and looked up to face Punz who was waving the crown around triumphantly, smirking.

In a hurry, the guards organized themselves and searched for the mercenaries while they were long gone, running into the forest, away from the main city.

With (Y/N)…

(Y/N) could hear the calls of her brother asking her to let down her hair, as the tale goes. She bounded for the window, excitedly letting her hair down while looking at Puffy.

“Puffy! This is it! I’m going to ask Dream today!” She declared as she pulled Dream up to the tower room. As he entered, he pulled off his cloak and took off his mask, revealing some wounds on him. Dream set down his items, leaving a nice patch of grass for Puffy by the window.

Dream sat down in a chair, while (Y/N) rushed around to make everything comfortable for him. She hummed a song, healed Dream quick and got straight to the point.

“So, Dream, I was wondering…I turn 18 tomorrow, I become an adult and I was wondering…if I could see the special stars!!”

Dream looked in her direction in alarm. He was thinking to himself. His plan would soon come into fruition, but if she left now, it would all go south.

“Oh, (Y/N), I think you mean the regular stars,” Dream tried to sway her mind.

“But Dream, these stars are special! The patterns of these stars are not constant. These move in every which way every year, and they only appear on my birthday Dream! I want, no, need to see them up close, and understand what they are!”

“Oh please! (Y/N), you’re too fragile for the outside world! I keep you here because its to keep you safe! It’s a scary world out there! I do this to protect you, you’d be taken advantage of! And imagine what would happen if they found out what your hair could do! (Y/N), please promise me to never ask about leaving this tower again? You must understand!”

(Y/N) contemplated her choices in her mind before she agreed. “Okay…”

Dream picked up his cloak and headed for the window to leave. “I’ll be in the village talking with George and Sapnap. I’ll see you in a bit.”

As (Y/N) let her brother down to do business, she looked at the world below longingly.

In another part of the forest…

Punz, Purpled, and Ponk were running through the forest still, hopping over logs and lakes. Punz stopped to catch a breath when he looked at a wanted poster of him and began to panic.

“No no no no no. I can’t believe this! They drew my face wrong!” He showed the poster to his partners, and they saw that Punz’ nose was severely misshapen and his hair was too long.

“Dude, who cares?!” Purpled questioned.

Ponk urged the two of them along until they came upon a short cliff they had to climb. Punz turned around to face them and told them, “Okay, you guys launch me up there, and I can pull you up.”

Purpled and Ponk shook their heads. “Give the crown first,” Ponk demanded while gesturing to the bag that held the crown.

“Ouch, that kinda hurts. You guys don’t trust me? After all our escapades as fellow mercs?” Punz asked.

“The satchel. Now,” Purpled ordered.

Punz sighed, resigning the bag to them. He climbed the rock with their help, reaching the top.

“Now pull us up Punz,” Purpled requested.

Punz laughed. “Sorry, can’t carry any more!” He flashed the satchel before slinging it around his body and running off while hearing his partners’ screams.

Punz kept running, and the castle guard was on his tail. Even worse, they were accompanied by one of the Crown Princes, Technoblade. Punz grimaced and recalled Techno’s history as a renowned fighter, leading the kingdom’s army and winning every battle. He urged his legs to work harder, to run faster.

Punz hopped through a fallen tree’s branches, cutting off most of the palace guard. Technoblade made it through and continued giving chase to the white-clad mercenary.

“We have him now, Carl!” Techno declared to his faithful horse.

Punz kept running, grabbing a forlorn vine and swinging around a tree to knock Technoblade off his horse and taking his place. Punz grabbed the reigns and tries to ride Carl away from the guard, but the horse tries bucking him off. They go back and forth, between trying to ride forward and grabbing the crown, not noticing that they were heading for a cliff.

The satchel flew away from the fighting pair’s grasp and landed on a single branch on a tree dangling sideways on the cliff’s edge. They wasted no time in reaching for the bag, not knowing the tree was breaking until it was too late. They fell off the edge, the crown ending up in Punz’ hands.

After that nasty fall, Punz woke up and sighs in relief when he sees the crown is still in his possession. He hears the distant neighs of a familiar horse, and looks for a place to hide. He tries feeling for a hole big enough for him to fit it, when his hand passes through a tree, a green glow around the part where his hand entered. Taking a risk, he threw himself into the trees and ended up in a dark cave just as Carl passed by.

Punz let out a tense breath and walked along the cave’s path until he came into a clearing. A tall, majestic tower loomed over him, casting a shadow over the land. Behind it, he could see a few houses. But the tower piqued his interest more. Maybe there were more valuables inside. He smiled and got to work climbing the tower using the sturdy vines that lined its walls.

After a tedious while of climbing (thankfully, no one had spotted him), he burst through the window doors and entered the tower’s main room. He sighed, opened the satchel, and took a breath, looking at the crown. “Alone at last.”

Then he was knocked out. Simple as that.

(Y/N) held the cast iron frying pan in her hands, retracting it from its position from when it knocked out the intruding Punz. She shrieks and dashes away from Punz’ unconscious body, slowly creeping up on it to make sure it was safe. She checked to make sure he wasn’t dangerous, flipping away a piece of hair that covered his eyes. (Y/N) leaned in closer when he suddenly opened an eye. In a panic, (Y/N) smacked him in the head again, not considering the possibility of a concussion.

(Y/N) looked for a place to hide the man while saying to herself and to Puffy, “I knocked him out! All on my own! Holy! If this isn’t enough to convince Dream that I can be let out of here for one day, then I don’t know what will!!”

She ended up stuffing him in an empty closet, being successful after a few tries. She looked at the satchel the mysterious man dropped, paying attention to the small shine emanating from it. Curious, she opened the pouch, revealing a piece of metal embedded with several precious jewels. She looked at Puffy, trying it on like a bracelet. Puffy’s wool shook with her head in denial. She peeked through one of the jewels, but that didn’t seem to be the purpose. Finally, (Y/N) tried putting the piece on her head. It looked like it fit perfectly. Then Puffy shook her head again. Then a noise sounded from below.

The girl heard her brother’s calls and she grew excited. As per usual, she let down her hair, and pulled Dream up. (Y/N) was very eager to tell Dream about her surprise.

“Dream! Oh you won’t believe what I have to show you!! It’s a big surprise!” (Y/N) bragged.

“Oh? Well I bet mine is bigger than yours!” Dream chimed.

“Doubt it!”

“Well, I am going to be making you your favourite dinner tonight!”

“Well, Dream? There’s something I want to tell you…” (Y/N) began to segway the conversation into her being able to leave the tower.

“(Y/N), I hate leaving you after fights. Especially when I’ve been in the right the entire time,” Dream vocalized.

“Okay, so I was thinking about what you said earlier today…” (Y/N) began to speak, but was interrupted by Dream.

“I hope you’re still not set on seeing those stars.”

“I’ve told you! They aren’t stars!” (Y/N) insisted. “I’m leading up to that!”

“I thought we were gonna drop the issue (Y/N),” Dream said sternly.

“No, Dream! I’m just saying you think that I’m not strong enough to take care of myself.”

“I know you’re not strong enough, take it from me.”

“Would you just-“

“We are done.”

“Why can’t you just-“

“I SAID WE ARE DONE.”

(Y/N) shrunk away from her brother, never hearing Dream’s voice so loudly before.

“I…all I wanted to tell you is that, I know what I want for my birthday now…”

Dream, fed up with me, asked coldly, “What.”

“Umm, the paints that dissolve with water? And perhaps a canvas? No bigger than my torso.”

“You know that it’ll be a long trip? And I’ll need to take someone with me?”

“I just thought it would be better than, than the ‘stars’.”

“Will you be fine (Y/N)?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine right here.”

“…Okay. I’ll be back soon.” As Dream prepared to leave for the trip, he looked back at (Y/N) one more time. “Love you, sis.”

“Of course, brother.”

As Dream descended from the tower, he thought to himself. He needed to carry out his plan fast. He rushed to his house to discuss with George, his right hand man. They set off, not for paints, but for items needed to extract (Y/N)’s power from her.

(Y/N) wallowed in her pity in the tower, then remembered the whole ass human in her closet. Puffy hid behind (Y/N)’s legs while she opened the closet doors.

The man just slumped out. Like a limp noodle. It made her jump, but ultimately decided to tie him up in a chair with her hair while hiding in the shadows.

#punz x reader #i love punz #punz mcyt #punzop #punz #dream smp punz #i am a simp #i simp for punz #god why am i so lonely #mcyt fanfiction #mcyt #minecraft #tangled #tangled AU #i simp for punz and i know you do too #if any mcyt sees this no they didnt

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anachronisticcrab · 3 years

Text

di Angelo Family Theory Here

Apparently there was a Greek goddess of the underworld named Angelos (known as the She of the Underworld). She was the daughter of Zeus and Hera, but she stole Heras annointments, and as punishment, she was sent to the Underworld. She was also raised by nymphs— and that’s pretty much all that’s known about her. But here’s a theory:

Maria di Angelo is Angelos.

When Hades told Nico a little about his mother, he said she was the daughter of an Italian ambassador in Washington, right? That seemed kind of odd to me. I mean, why mention her father, but not her mother? Why mention her father, but not tell your son who his mother really was? Unless it was just because he was proud of his cover story

Maria was supposed to have died from Zeus’ lightning, right? But what if she didn’t actually die because she was immortal and couldn’t die?

My idea is that Hades and the goddess Angelos started seeing each other at some point after she was sent to the Underworld

Angelos was slowly forgotten by everyone around her, to the point where she was no longer a goddess. She became an immortal human (no special powers, but she couldn’t die— kind of like Argus, but without all the eyes)

((Before anyone asks, no Angelos wouldn’t have faded. Pan faded because his domain was fading, not due to lack of belief in him (if it were the latter, pretty much all of the gods would have faded or would be fading). Since we don’t know what Angelos’ domain was (other than for something to do with the Underworld), it’s safe to say that her domain didn’t disappear. People and animals and plants still die, so the Underworld is still thriving. But due to an increase in her being forgotten and her being unknown to the extent that we don’t even know what she was the goddess of, she would most likely no longer be quite a goddess. She doesn’t have a specific defined domain, and therefore she’s not a true goddess anymore))

She moved to Venice (cause she lived the city) and lived there happily for centuries under the alias of Maria di Angelo

Maria meaning ‘bitter from the sea’ as a reference to the lake that ‘cleansed’ her and turned her into a Chthonic goddess, and di Angelo as a reference to who she really was

And then she got pregnant with Hades’ child in 1929. They decided to keep it, and Bianca was born

They weren’t sure if Bianca would be a goddess, or a demigod, or human, or immortal but powerless, or what

There was that same issue with Nico when he was born three years later, in 1932

The Chthonic deities decided to treat their kids as if they were human, and as though they were normal children. They came up with a story about where Maria’s family was (her father was a diplomat, so he was always in America with their grandma, and that’s why they had money)

Zeus and Poseidon found out about Nico and Bianca, and flipped their shit because of the prophecy. They didn’t realize that Maria was still (technically) a goddess, and that Nico and Bianca may not have been halfbloods, so the prophecy may not have applied to them

The two of them bullied Hades into agreeing to the pact, and then threatened to kill Bianca and Nico if they weren’t at CHB by their deadline

Hades didn’t send them there, and begged Maria to let them go to the Underworld with him

She refused to raise her kids in the Underworld because she knew how dark and dangerous it was down there first hand. It was no place for her precious babies

And then Zeus attacked them at the hotel

Hades genuinely thought that Maria had died after that. She wasn’t a goddess anymore, but he had thought she was still immortal— however, Zeus was the King of the Gods. Hades figured that he could kill Maria. And then he cursed the Oracle and wiped Nico and Bianca’s memories

Turned out that Maria was not dead. She was just sent back to the Underworld, to the Acherusia Lake where she was cleansed (the one that turned her into a Chthonic deity)

But this time, Maria couldn’t leave that lake. Hades goes back to visit her, and brings her things, but she can’t leave

She can influence things going on outside her lake, and she watches her kids, but she can’t leave that godforsaken lake

She watched Bianca die, and managed to call her to the lake. She was thrilled to be able to see her daughter again

Hades continues to tell Nico the cover story he and Maria had come up with all those years ago

He forbid Nico from summoning his mother’s spirit as Maria couldn’t see him, and she wouldn’t be able to come when he tried summoning her

Hades and Maria still aren’t sure if Nico’s immortal or mortal or a god or what

But this does explain why Nico’s powers extend beyond Hades the god to Hades the place. Since Angelos has no known domain other than the Underworld and Chthonic things, Nico ends up having control over all kinds of Underworld things, not just ghosts and shadows

This would explain why Hades and Bianca didn’t let Nico summon his mother

This would explain a lot of shit is all I’m saying

In my mind this would explain why he can easily connect with other death gods and gods in general, and why it’s harder for him to connect to mortals. It would also explain how he is one of the most powerful demigods in the world (most likely second or third) but wasn’t put into The Prophecy of Seven. He should have been there, but he wasn’t (because he wasn’t a half-blood)

The theory would continue with Bianca being the equivalent of a demigod, and that’s why she was able to die. She would have a little more power than a normal demigod, which is why she was able to use some of her powers after she had died, unlike Hazel

So that’s my theory, I hope you enjoyed. I feel like this is missing something, so if you have any more ideas for this, please share them! It would’ve been easier just to say that Angelos was Nico’s grandma, but I like this theory more

#pjo #hoo #nico di angelo #og post #percy jackson #bianca di angelo #maria di angelo #hazel lavesque #pjo hades #hades pjo #angelos #toa #piper mclean #jason grace #leo valdez #frank zhang #annabeth chase #will solace

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castielchitaqua · 3 years

Text

kaddish, allen ginsberg

I Strange now to think of you, gone without corsets & eyes, while I walk on the sunny pavement of Greenwich Village. downtown Manhattan, clear winter noon, and I’ve been up all night, talking, talking, reading the Kaddish aloud, listening to Ray Charles blues shout blind on the phonograph the rhythm the rhythm—and your memory in my head three years after—And read Adonais’ last triumphant stanzas aloud—wept, realizing how we suffer— And how Death is that remedy all singers dream of, sing, remember, prophesy as in the Hebrew Anthem, or the Buddhist Book of Answers—and my own imagination of a withered leaf—at dawn— Dreaming back thru life, Your time—and mine accelerating toward Apocalypse, the final moment—the flower burning in the Day—and what comes after, looking back on the mind itself that saw an American city a flash away, and the great dream of Me or China, or you and a phantom Russia, or a crumpled bed that never existed— like a poem in the dark—escaped back to Oblivion— No more to say, and nothing to weep for but the Beings in the Dream, trapped in its disappearance, sighing, screaming with it, buying and selling pieces of phantom, worshipping each other, worshipping the God included in it all—longing or inevitability?—while it lasts, a Vision—anything more? It leaps about me, as I go out and walk the street, look back over my shoulder, Seventh Avenue, the battlements of window office buildings shouldering each other high, under a cloud, tall as the sky an instant—and the sky above—an old blue place. or down the Avenue to the south, to—as I walk toward the Lower East Side—where you walked 50 years ago, little girl—from Russia, eating the first poisonous tomatoes of America—frightened on the dock— then struggling in the crowds of Orchard Street toward what?—toward Newark— toward candy store, first home-made sodas of the century, hand-churned ice cream in backroom on musty brownfloor boards— Toward education marriage nervous breakdown, operation, teaching school, and learning to be mad, in a dream—what is this life? Toward the Key in the window—and the great Key lays its head of light on top of Manhattan, and over the floor, and lays down on the sidewalk—in a single vast beam, moving, as I walk down First toward the Yiddish Theater—and the place of poverty you knew, and I know, but without caring now—Strange to have moved thru Paterson, and the West, and Europe and here again, with the cries of Spaniards now in the doorstoops doors and dark boys on the street, fire escapes old as you -Tho you’re not old now, that’s left here with me— Myself, anyhow, maybe as old as the universe—and I guess that dies with us—enough to cancel all that comes—What came is gone forever every time— That’s good! That leaves it open for no regret—no fear radiators, lacklove, torture even toothache in the end— Though while it comes it is a lion that eats the soul—and the lamb, the soul, in us, alas, offering itself in sacrifice to change’s fierce hunger—hair and teeth—and the roar of bonepain, skull bare, break rib, rot-skin, braintricked Implacability. Ai! ai! we do worse! We are in a fix! And you’re out, Death let you out, Death had the Mercy, you’re done with your century, done with God, done with the path thru it—Done with yourself at last—Pure—Back to the Babe dark before your Father, before us all—before the world— There, rest. No more suffering for you. I know where you’ve gone, it’s good. No more flowers in the summer fields of New York, no joy now, no more fear of Louis, and no more of his sweetness and glasses, his high school decades, debts, loves, frightened telephone calls, conception beds, relatives, hands— No more of sister Elanor,.—she gone before you—we kept it secret—you killed her—or she killed herself to bear with you—an arthritic heart—But Death’s killed you both—No matter— Nor your memory of your mother, 1915 tears in silent movies weeks and weeks—forgetting, aggrieve watching Marie Dressler address humanity, Chaplin dance in youth, or Boris Godunov, Chaliapin’s at the Met, hailing his voice of a weeping Czar—by standing

room with Elanor & Max—watching also the Capitalists take seats in Orchestra, white furs, diamonds, with the YPSL’s hitch-hiking thru Pennsylvania, in black baggy gym skirts pants, photograph of 4 girls holding each other round the waste, and laughing eye, too coy, virginal solitude of 1920 all girls grown old, or dead, now, and that long hair in the grave—lucky to have husbands later— You made it—I came too—Eugene my brother before (still grieving now and will gream on to his last stiff hand, as he goes thru his cancer—or kill—later perhaps—soon he will think—) And it’s the last moment I remember, which I see them all, thru myself, now—tho not you I didn’t foresee what you felt—what more hideous gape of bad mouth came first—to you—and were you prepared? To go where? In that Dark—that—in that God? a radiance? A Lord in the Void? Like an eye in the black cloud in a dream? Adonoi at last, with you? Beyond my remembrance! Incapable to guess! Not merely the yellow skull in the grave, or a box of worm dust, and a stained ribbon—Deathshead with Halo? can you believe it? Is it only the sun that shines once for the mind, only the flash of existence, than none ever was? Nothing beyond what we have—what you had—that so pitiful—yet Triumph, to have been here, and changed, like a tree, broken, or flower—fed to the ground—but mad, with its petals, colored, thinking Great Universe, shaken, cut in the head, leaf stript, hid in an egg crate hospital, cloth wrapped, sore—freaked in the moon brain, Naughtless. No flower like that flower, which knew itself in the garden, and fought the knife—lost Cut down by an idiot Snowman’s icy—even in the Spring—strange ghost thought—some Death—Sharp icicle in his hand—crowned with old roses—a dog for his eyes—cock of a sweatshop—heart of electric irons. All the accumulations of life, that wear us out—clocks, bodies, consciousness, shoes, breasts—begotten sons—your Communism—‘Paranoia’ into hospitals. You once kicked Elanor in the leg, she died of heart failure later. You of stroke. Asleep? within a year, the two of you, sisters in death. Is Elanor happy? Max grieves alive in an office on Lower Broadway, lone large mustache over midnight Accountings, not sure. l His life passes—as he sees—and what does he doubt now? Still dream of making money, or that might have made money, hired nurse, had children, found even your Immortality, Naomi? I’ll see him soon. Now I’ve got to cut through—to talk to you—as I didn’t when you had a mouth. Forever. And we’re bound for that, Forever—like Emily Dickinson’s horses—headed to the End. They know the way—These Steeds—run faster than we think—it’s our own life they cross—and take with them. Magnificent, mourned no more, marred of heart, mind behind, married dreamed, mortal changed—Ass and face done with murder. In the world, given, flower maddened, made no Utopia, shut under pine, almed in Earth, balmed in Lone, Jehovah, accept. Nameless, One Faced, Forever beyond me, beginningless, endless, Father in death. Tho I am not there for this Prophecy, I am unmarried, I’m hymnless, I’m Heavenless, headless in blisshood I would still adore Thee, Heaven, after Death, only One blessed in Nothingness, not light or darkness, Dayless Eternity— Take this, this Psalm, from me, burst from my hand in a day, some of my Time, now given to Nothing—to praise Thee—But Death This is the end, the redemption from Wilderness, way for the Wonderer, House sought for All, black handkerchief washed clean by weeping—page beyond Psalm—Last change of mine and Naomi—to God’s perfect Darkness—Death, stay thy phantoms! II Over and over—refrain—of the Hospitals—still haven’t written your history—leave it abstract—a few images run thru the mind—like the saxophone chorus of houses and years—remembrance of electrical shocks. By long nites as a child in Paterson apartment, watching over your nervousness—you were fat—your next move— By that afternoon I stayed home from school to take care of you—once and for all—when I vowed forever that once man disagreed with my opinion of the cosmos, I was lost— By my

later burden—vow to illuminate mankind—this is release of particulars—(mad as you)—(sanity a trick of agreement)— But you stared out the window on the Broadway Church corner, and spied a mystical assassin from Newark, So phoned the Doctor—‘OK go way for a rest’—so I put on my coat and walked you downstreet—On the way a grammarschool boy screamed, unaccountably—‘Where you goin Lady to Death’? I shuddered— and you covered your nose with motheaten fur collar, gas mask against poison sneaked into downtown atmosphere, sprayed by Grandma— And was the driver of the cheesebox Public Service bus a member of the gang? You shuddered at his face, I could hardly get you on—to New York, very Times Square, to grab another Greyhound— where we hung around 2 hours fighting invisible bugs and jewish sickness—breeze poisoned by Roosevelt— out to get you—and me tagging along, hoping it would end in a quiet room in a Victorian house by a lake. Ride 3 hours thru tunnels past all American industry, Bayonne preparing for World War II, tanks, gas fields, soda factories, diners, loco-motive roundhouse fortress—into piney woods New Jersey Indians—calm towns—long roads thru sandy tree fields— Bridges by deerless creeks, old wampum loading the streambeddown there a tomahawk or Pocahontas bone—and a million old ladies voting for Roosevelt in brown small houses, roads off the Madness highway— perhaps a hawk in a tree, or a hermit looking for an owl-filled branch— All the time arguing—afraid of strangers in the forward double seat, snoring regardless—what busride they snore on now? ‘Allen, you don’t understand—it’s—ever since those 3 big sticks up my back—they did something to me in Hospital, they poisoned me, they want to see me dead—3 big sticks, 3 big sticks— ‘The Bitch! Old Grandma! Last week I saw her, dressed in pants like an old man, with a sack on her back, climbing up the brick side of the apartment ‘On the fire escape, with poison germs, to throw on me—at night—maybe Louis is helping her—he’s under her power— ‘I’m your mother, take me to Lakewood’ (near where Graf Zeppelin had crashed before, all Hitler in Explosion) ‘where I can hide.’ We got there—Dr. Whatzis rest home—she hid behind a closet—demanded a blood transfusion. We were kicked out—tramping with Valise to unknown shady lawn houses—dusk, pine trees after dark—long dead street filled with crickets and poison ivy— I shut her up by now—big house REST HOME ROOMS—gave the landlady her money for the week—carried up the iron valise—sat on bed waiting to escape— Neat room in attic with friendly bedcover—lace curtains—spinning wheel rug—Stained wallpaper old as Naomi. We were home. I left on the next bus to New York—laid my head back in the last seat, depressed—the worst yet to come?—abandoning her, rode in torpor—I was only 12. Would she hide in her room and come out cheerful for breakfast? Or lock her door and stare thru the window for sidestreet spies? Listen at keyholes for Hitlerian invisible gas? Dream in a chair—or mock me, by—in front of a mirror, alone? 12 riding the bus at nite thru New Jersey, have left Naomi to Parcae in Lakewood’s haunted house—left to my own fate bus—sunk in a seat—all violins broken—my heart sore in my ribs—mind was empty—Would she were safe in her coffin— Or back at Normal School in Newark, studying up on America in a black skirt—winter on the street without lunch—a penny a pickle—home at night to take care of Elanor in the bedroom— First nervous breakdown was 1919—she stayed home from school and lay in a dark room for three weeks—something bad—never said what—every noise hurt—dreams of the creaks of Wall Street— Before the gray Depression—went upstate New York—recovered—Lou took photo of her sitting crossleg on the grass—her long hair wound with flowers—smiling—playing lullabies on mandolin—poison ivy smoke in left-wing summer camps and me in infancy saw trees— or back teaching school, laughing with idiots, the backward classes—her Russian specialty—morons with dreamy lips, great eyes, thin feet & sicky fingers, swaybacked, rachitic— great heads pendulous

over Alice in Wonderland, a blackboard full of C A T. Naomi reading patiently, story out of a Communist fairy book—Tale of the Sudden Sweetness of the Dictator—Forgiveness of Warlocks—Armies Kissing— Deathsheads Around the Green Table—The King & the Workers—Paterson Press printed them up in the ’30s till she went mad, or they folded, both. O Paterson! I got home late that nite. Louis was worried. How could I be so—didn’t I think? I shouldn’t have left her. Mad in Lakewood. Call the Doctor. Phone the home in the pines. Too late. Went to bed exhausted, wanting to leave the world (probably that year newly in love with R my high school mind hero, jewish boy who came a doctor later—then silent neat kid— I later laying down life for him, moved to Manhattan—followed him to college—Prayed on ferry to help mankind if admitted—vowed, the day I journeyed to Entrance Exam— by being honest revolutionary labor lawyer—would train for that—inspired by Sacco Vanzetti, Norman Thomas, Debs, Altgeld, Sand-burg, Poe—Little Blue Books. I wanted to be President, or Senator. ignorant woe—later dreams of kneeling by R’s shocked knees declaring my love of 1941—What sweetness he’d have shown me, tho, that I’d wished him & despaired—first love—a crush— Later a mortal avalanche, whole mountains of homosexuality, Matterhorns of cock, Grand Canyons of asshole—weight on my melancholy head— meanwhile I walked on Broadway imagining Infinity like a rubber ball without space beyond—what’s outside?—coming home to Graham Avenue still melancholy passing the lone green hedges across the street, dreaming after the movies—) The telephone rang at 2 A.M.—Emergency—she’d gone mad—Naomi hiding under the bed screaming bugs of Mussolini—Help! Louis! Buba! Fascists! Death!—the landlady frightened—old fag attendant screaming back at her— Terror, that woke the neighbors—old ladies on the second floor recovering from menopause—all those rags between thighs, clean sheets, sorry over lost babies—husbands ashen—children sneering at Yale, or putting oil in hair at CCNY—or trembling in Montclair State Teachers College like Eugene— Her big leg crouched to her breast, hand outstretched Keep Away, wool dress on her thighs, fur coat dragged under the bed—she barricaded herself under bedspring with suitcases. Louis in pajamas listening to phone, frightened—do now?—Who could know?—my fault, delivering her to solitude?—sitting in the dark room on the sofa, trembling, to figure out— He took the morning train to Lakewood, Naomi still under bed—thought he brought poison Cops—Naomi screaming—Louis what happened to your heart then? Have you been killed by Naomi’s ecstasy? Dragged her out, around the corner, a cab, forced her in with valise, but the driver left them off at drugstore. Bus stop, two hours’ wait. I lay in bed nervous in the 4-room apartment, the big bed in living room, next to Louis’ desk—shaking—he came home that nite, late, told me what happened. Naomi at the prescription counter defending herself from the enemy—racks of children’s books, douche bags, aspirins, pots, blood—‘Don’t come near me—murderers! Keep away! Promise not to kill me!’ Louis in horror at the soda fountain—with Lakewood girlscouts—Coke addicts—nurses—busmen hung on schedule—Police from country precinct, dumbed—and a priest dreaming of pigs on an ancient cliff? Smelling the air—Louis pointing to emptiness?—Customers vomiting their Cokes—or staring—Louis humiliated—Naomi triumphant—The Announcement of the Plot. Bus arrives, the drivers won’t have them on trip to New York. Phonecalls to Dr. Whatzis, ‘She needs a rest,’ The mental hospital—State Greystone Doctors—‘Bring her here, Mr. Ginsberg.’ Naomi, Naomi—sweating, bulge-eyed, fat, the dress unbuttoned at one side—hair over brow, her stocking hanging evilly on her legs—screaming for a blood transfusion—one righteous hand upraised—a shoe in it—barefoot in the Pharmacy— The enemies approach—what poisons? Tape recorders? FBI? Zhdanov hiding behind the counter? Trotsky mixing rat bacteria in the back of the store? Uncle Sam in Newark, plotting deathly

perfumes in the Negro district? Uncle Ephraim, drunk with murder in the politician’s bar, scheming of Hague? Aunt Rose passing water thru the needles of the Spanish Civil War? till the hired $35 ambulance came from Red Bank——Grabbed her arms—strapped her on the stretcher—moaning, poisoned by imaginaries, vomiting chemicals thru Jersey, begging mercy from Essex County to Morristown— And back to Greystone where she lay three years—that was the last breakthrough, delivered her to Madhouse again— On what wards—I walked there later, oft—old catatonic ladies, gray as cloud or ash or walls—sit crooning over floorspace—Chairs—and the wrinkled hags acreep, accusing—begging my 13-year-old mercy— ‘Take me home’—I went alone sometimes looking for the lost Naomi, taking Shock—and I’d say, ‘No, you’re crazy Mama,—Trust the Drs.’— And Eugene, my brother, her elder son, away studying Law in a furnished room in Newark— came Paterson-ward next day—and he sat on the broken-down couch in the living room—‘We had to send her back to Greystone’— —his face perplexed, so young, then eyes with tears—then crept weeping all over his face—‘What for?’ wail vibrating in his cheekbones, eyes closed up, high voice—Eugene’s face of pain. Him faraway, escaped to an Elevator in the Newark Library, his bottle daily milk on windowsill of $5 week furn room downtown at trolley tracks— He worked 8 hrs. a day for $20/wk—thru Law School years—stayed by himself innocent near negro whorehouses. Unlaid, poor virgin—writing poems about Ideals and politics letters to the editor Pat Eve News—(we both wrote, denouncing Senator Borah and Isolationists—and felt mysterious toward Paterson City Hall— I sneaked inside it once—local Moloch tower with phallus spire & cap o’ ornament, strange gothic Poetry that stood on Market Street—replica Lyons’ Hotel de Ville— wings, balcony & scrollwork portals, gateway to the giant city clock, secret map room full of Hawthorne—dark Debs in the Board of Tax—Rembrandt smoking in the gloom— Silent polished desks in the great committee room—Aldermen? Bd of Finance? Mosca the hairdresser aplot—Crapp the gangster issuing orders from the john—The madmen struggling over Zone, Fire, Cops & Backroom Metaphysics—we’re all dead—outside by the bus stop Eugene stared thru childhood— where the Evangelist preached madly for 3 decades, hard-haired, cracked & true to his mean Bible—chalked Prepare to Meet Thy God on civic pave— or God is Love on the railroad overpass concrete—he raved like I would rave, the lone Evangelist—Death on City Hall—) But Gene, young,—been Montclair Teachers College 4 years—taught half year & quit to go ahead in life—afraid of Discipline Problems—dark sex Italian students, raw girls getting laid, no English, sonnets disregarded—and he did not know much—just that he lost— so broke his life in two and paid for Law—read huge blue books and rode the ancient elevator 13 miles away in Newark & studied up hard for the future just found the Scream of Naomi on his failure doorstep, for the final time, Naomi gone, us lonely—home—him sitting there— Then have some chicken soup, Eugene. The Man of Evangel wails in front of City Hall. And this year Lou has poetic loves of suburb middle age—in secret—music from his 1937 book—Sincere—he longs for beauty— No love since Naomi screamed—since 1923?—now lost in Greystone ward—new shock for her—Electricity, following the 40 Insulin. And Metrazol had made her fat. So that a few years later she came home again—we’d much advanced and planned—I waited for that day—my Mother again to cook & —play the piano—sing at mandolin—Lung Stew, & Stenka Razin, & the communist line on the war with Finland—and Louis in debt—,uspected to he poisoned money—mysterious capitalisms —& walked down the long front hall & looked at the furniture. She never remembered it all. Some amnesia. Examined the doilies—and the dining room set was sold— the Mahogany table—20 years love—gone to the junk man—we still had the piano—and the book of Poe—and the Mandolin, tho needed some string, dusty— She went to the backroom to lie down in

bed and ruminate, or nap, hide—I went in with her, not leave her by herself—lay in bed next to her—shades pulled, dusky, late afternoon—Louis in front room at desk, waiting—perhaps boiling chicken for supper— ‘Don’t be afraid of me because I’m just coming back home from the mental hospital—I’m your mother—’ Poor love, lost—a fear—I lay there—Said, ‘I love you Naomi,’—stiff, next to her arm. I would have cried, was this the comfortless lone union?—Nervous, and she got up soon. Was she ever satisfied? And—by herself sat on the new couch by the front windows, uneasy—cheek leaning on her hand—narrowing eye—at what fate that day— Picking her tooth with her nail, lips formed an O, suspicion—thought’s old worn vagina—absent sideglance of eye—some evil debt written in the wall, unpaid—& the aged breasts of Newark come near— May have heard radio gossip thru the wires in her head, controlled by 3 big sticks left in her back by gangsters in amnesia, thru the hospital—caused pain between her shoulders— Into her head—Roosevelt should know her case, she told me—Afraid to kill her, now, that the government knew their names—traced back to Hitler—wanted to leave Louis’ house forever. One night, sudden attack—her noise in the bathroom—like croaking up her soul—convulsions and red vomit coming out of her mouth—diarrhea water exploding from her behind—on all fours in front of the toilet—urine running between her legs—left retching on the tile floor smeared with her black feces—unfainted— At forty, varicosed, nude, fat, doomed, hiding outside the apartment door near the elevator calling Police, yelling for her girlfriend Rose to help— Once locked herself in with razor or iodine—could hear her cough in tears at sink—Lou broke through glass green-painted door, we pulled her out to the bedroom. Then quiet for months that winter—walks, alone, nearby on Broadway, read Daily Worker—Broke her arm, fell on icy street— Began to scheme escape from cosmic financial murder-plots—later she ran away to the Bronx to her sister Elanor. And there’s another saga of late Naomi in New York. Or thru Elanor or the Workmen’s Circle, where she worked, ad-dressing envelopes, she made out—went shopping for Campbell’s tomato soup—saved money Louis mailed her— Later she found a boyfriend, and he was a doctor—Dr. Isaac worked for National Maritime Union—now Italian bald and pudgy old doll—who was himself an orphan—but they kicked him out—Old cruelties— Sloppier, sat around on bed or chair, in corset dreaming to herself—‘I’m hot—I’m getting fat—I used to have such a beautiful figure before I went to the hospital—You should have seen me in Woodbine—’ This in a furnished room around the NMU hall, 1943. Looking at naked baby pictures in the magazine—baby powder advertisements, strained lamb carrots—‘I will think nothing but beautiful thoughts.’ Revolving her head round and round on her neck at window light in summertime, in hypnotize, in doven-dream recall— ‘I touch his cheek, I touch his cheek, he touches my lips with his hand, I think beautiful thoughts, the baby has a beautiful hand.’— Or a No-shake of her body, disgust—some thought of Buchenwald—some insulin passes thru her head—a grimace nerve shudder at Involuntary (as shudder when I piss)—bad chemical in her cortex—‘No don’t think of that. He’s a rat.’ Naomi: ‘And when we die we become an onion, a cabbage, a carrot, or a squash, a vegetable.’ I come downtown from Columbia and agree. She reads the Bible, thinks beautiful thoughts all day. ‘Yesterday I saw God. What did he look like? Well, in the afternoon I climbed up a ladder—he has a cheap cabin in the country, like Monroe, N.Y. the chicken farms in the wood. He was a lonely old man with a white beard. ‘I cooked supper for him. I made him a nice supper—lentil soup, vegetables, bread & butter—miltz—he sat down at the table and ate, he was sad. ‘I told him, Look at all those fightings and killings down there, What’s the matter? Why don’t you put a stop to it? ‘I try, he said—That’s all he could do, he looked tired. He’s a bachelor so long, and he likes lentil

soup.’ Serving me meanwhile, a plate of cold fish—chopped raw cabbage dript with tapwater—smelly tomatoes—week-old health food—grated beets & carrots with leaky juice, warm—more and more disconsolate food—I can’t eat it for nausea sometimes—the Charity of her hands stinking with Manhattan, madness, desire to please me, cold undercooked fish—pale red near the bones. Her smells—and oft naked in the room, so that I stare ahead, or turn a book ignoring her. One time I thought she was trying to make me come lay her—flirting to herself at sink—lay back on huge bed that filled most of the room, dress up round her hips, big slash of hair, scars of operations, pancreas, belly wounds, abortions, appendix, stitching of incisions pulling down in the fat like hideous thick zippers—ragged long lips between her legs—What, even, smell of asshole? I was cold—later revolted a little, not much—seemed perhaps a good idea to try—know the Monster of the Beginning Womb—Perhaps—that way. Would she care? She needs a lover. Yisborach, v’yistabach, v’yispoar, v’yisroman, v’yisnaseh, v’yishador, v’yishalleh, v’yishallol, sh’meh d’kudsho, b’rich hu. And Louis reestablishing himself in Paterson grimy apartment in negro district—living in dark rooms—but found himself a girl he later married, falling in love again—tho sere & shy—hurt with 20 years Naomi’s mad idealism. Once I came home, after longtime in N.Y., he’s lonely—sitting in the bedroom, he at desk chair turned round to face me—weeps, tears in red eyes under his glasses— That we’d left him—Gene gone strangely into army—she out on her own in N.Y., almost childish in her furnished room. So Louis walked downtown to postoffice to get mail, taught in highschool—stayed at poetry desk, forlorn—ate grief at Bickford’s all these years—are gone. Eugene got out of the Army, came home changed and lone—cut off his nose in jewish operation—for years stopped girls on Broadway for cups of coffee to get laid—Went to NYU, serious there, to finish Law.— And Gene lived with her, ate naked fishcakes, cheap, while she got crazier—He got thin, or felt helpless, Naomi striking 1920 poses at the moon, half-naked in the next bed. bit his nails and studied—was the weird nurse-son—Next year he moved to a room near Columbia—though she wanted to live with her children— ‘Listen to your mother’s plea, I beg you’—Louis still sending her checks—I was in bughouse that year 8 months—my own visions unmentioned in this here Lament— But then went half mad—Hitler in her room, she saw his mustache in the sink—afraid of Dr. Isaac now, suspecting that he was in on the Newark plot—went up to Bronx to live near Elanor’s Rheumatic Heart— And Uncle Max never got up before noon, tho Naomi at 6 A.M. was listening to the radio for spies—or searching the windowsill, for in the empty lot downstairs, an old man creeps with his bag stuffing packages of garbage in his hanging black overcoat. Max’s sister Edie works—17 years bookkeeper at Gimbels—lived downstairs in apartment house, divorced—so Edie took in Naomi on Rochambeau Ave— Woodlawn Cemetery across the street, vast dale of graves where Poe once—Last stop on Bronx subway—lots of communists in that area. Who enrolled for painting classes at night in Bronx Adult High School—walked alone under Van Cortlandt Elevated line to class—paints Naomiisms— Humans sitting on the grass in some Camp No-Worry summers yore—saints with droopy faces and long-ill-fitting pants, from hospital— Brides in front of Lower East Side with short grooms—lost El trains running over the Babylonian apartment rooftops in the Bronx— Sad paintings—but she expressed herself. Her mandolin gone, all strings broke in her head, she tried. Toward Beauty? or some old life Message? But started kicking Elanor, and Elanor had heart trouble—came upstairs and asked her about Spydom for hours,—Elanor frazzled. Max away at office, accounting for cigar stores till at night. ‘I am a great woman—am truly a beautiful soul—and because of that they (Hitler, Grandma, Hearst, the Capitalists, Franco, Daily News, the ’20s, Mussolini, the living

dead) want to shut me up—Buba’s the head of a spider network—’ Kicking the girls, Edie & Elanor—Woke Edie at midnite to tell her she was a spy and Elanor a rat. Edie worked all day and couldn’t take it—She was organizing the union.—And Elanor began dying, upstairs in bed. The relatives call me up, she’s getting worse—I was the only one left—Went on the subway with Eugene to see her, ate stale fish— ‘My sister whispers in the radio—Louis must be in the apartment—his mother tells him what to say—LIARS!—I cooked for my two children—I played the mandolin—’ Last night the nightingale woke me / Last night when all was still / it sang in the golden moonlight / from on the wintry hill. She did. I pushed her against the door and shouted ‘DON’T KICK ELANOR!’—she stared at me—Contempt—die—disbelief her sons are so naive, so dumb—‘Elanor is the worst spy! She’s taking orders!’ ‘—No wires in the room!’—I’m yelling at her—last ditch, Eugene listening on the bed—what can he do to escape that fatal Mama—‘You’ve been away from Louis years already—Grandma’s too old to walk—’ We’re all alive at once then—even me & Gene & Naomi in one mythological Cousinesque room—screaming at each other in the Forever—I in Columbia jacket, she half undressed. I banging against her head which saw Radios, Sticks, Hitlers—the gamut of Hallucinations—for real—her own universe—no road that goes elsewhere—to my own—No America, not even a world— That you go as all men, as Van Gogh, as mad Hannah, all the same—to the last doom—Thunder, Spirits, lightning! I’ve seen your grave! O strange Naomi! My own—cracked grave! Shema Y’Israel—I am Svul Avrum—you—in death? Your last night in the darkness of the Bronx—I phonecalled—thru hospital to secret police that came, when you and I were alone, shrieking at Elanor in my ear—who breathed hard in her own bed, got thin— Nor will forget, the doorknock, at your fright of spies,—Law advancing, on my honor—Eternity entering the room—you running to the bathroom undressed, hiding in protest from the last heroic fate— staring at my eyes, betrayed—the final cops of madness rescuing me—from your foot against the broken heart of Elanor, your voice at Edie weary of Gimbels coming home to broken radio—and Louis needing a poor divorce, he wants to get married soon—Eugene dreaming, hiding at 125 St., suing negroes for money on crud furniture, defending black girls— Protests from the bathroom—Said you were sane—dressing in a cotton robe, your shoes, then new, your purse and newspaper clippingsno—your honesty— as you vainly made your lips more real with lipstick, looking in the mirror to see if the Insanity was Me or a earful of police. or Grandma spying at 78—Your vision—Her climbing over the walls of the cemetery with political kidnapper’s bag—or what you saw on the walls of the Bronx, in pink nightgown at midnight, staring out the window on the empty lot— Ah Rochambeau Ave.—Playground of Phantoms—last apartment in the Bronx for spies—last home for Elanor or Naomi, here these communist sisters lost their revolution— ‘All right—put on your coat Mrs.—let’s go—We have the wagon downstairs—you want to come with her to the station?’ The ride then—held Naomi’s hand, and held her head to my breast, I’m taller—kissed her and said I did it for the best—Elanor sick—and Max with heart condition—Needs— To me—‘Why did you do this?’—‘Yes Mrs., your son will have to leave you in an hour’—The Ambulance came in a few hours—drove off at 4 A.M. to some Bellevue in the night downtown—gone to the hospital forever. I saw her led away—she waved, tears in her eyes. Two years, after a trip to Mexico—bleak in the flat plain near Brentwood, scrub brush and grass around the unused RR train track to the crazyhouse— new brick 20 story central building—lost on the vast lawns of madtown on Long Island—huge cities of the moon. Asylum spreads out giant wings above the path to a minute black hole—the door—entrance thru crotch— I went in—smelt funny—the halls again—up elevator—to a glass door on a Women’s Ward—to Naomi—Two nurses buxom white—They led her out, Naomi

stared—and I gaspt—She’d had a stroke— Too thin, shrunk on her bones—age come to Naomi—now broken into white hair—loose dress on her skeleton—face sunk, old! withered—cheek of crone— One hand stiff—heaviness of forties & menopause reduced by one heart stroke, lame now—wrinkles—a scar on her head, the lobotomy—ruin, the hand dipping downwards to death— O Russian faced, woman on the grass, your long black hair is crowned with flowers, the mandolin is on your knees— Communist beauty, sit here married in the summer among daisies, promised happiness at hand— holy mother, now you smile on your love, your world is born anew, children run naked in the field spotted with dandelions, they eat in the plum tree grove at the end of the meadow and find a cabin where a white-haired negro teaches the mystery of his rainbarrel— blessed daughter come to America, I long to hear your voice again, remembering your mother’s music, in the Song of the Natural Front— O glorious muse that bore me from the womb, gave suck first mystic life & taught me talk and music, from whose pained head I first took Vision— Tortured and beaten in the skull—What mad hallucinations of the damned that drive me out of my own skull to seek Eternity till I find Peace for Thee, O Poetry—and for all humankind call on the Origin Death which is the mother of the universe!—Now wear your nakedness forever, white flowers in your hair, your marriage sealed behind the sky—no revolution might destroy that maidenhood— O beautiful Garbo of my Karma—all photographs from 1920 in Camp Nicht-Gedeiget here unchanged—with all the teachers from Vewark—Nor Elanor be gone, nor Max await his specter—nor Louis retire from this High School— Back! You! Naomi! Skull on you! Gaunt immortality and revolution come—small broken woman—the ashen indoor eyes of hospitals, ward grayness on skin— ‘Are you a spy?’ I sat at the sour table, eyes filling with tears—‘Who are you? Did Louis send you?—The wires—’ in her hair, as she beat on her head—‘I’m not a bad girl—don’t murder me!—I hear the ceiling—I raised two children—’ Two years since I’d been there—I started to cry—She stared—nurse broke up the meeting a moment—I went into the bathroom to hide, against the toilet white walls ‘The Horror’ I weeping—to see her again—‘The Horror’—as if she were dead thru funeral rot in—‘The Horror!’ I came back she yelled more—they led her away—‘You’re not Allen—’ I watched her face—but she passed by me, not looking— Opened the door to the ward,—she went thru without a glance back, quiet suddenly—I stared out—she looked old—the verge of the grave—‘All the Horror!’ Another year, I left N.Y.—on West Coast in Berkeley cottage dreamed of her soul—that, thru life, in what form it stood in that body, ashen or manic, gone beyond joy— near its death—with eyes—was my own love in its form, the Naomi, my mother on earth still—sent her long letter—& wrote hymns to the mad—Work of the merciful Lord of Poetry. that causes the broken grass to be green, or the rock to break in grass—or the Sun to be constant to earth—Sun of all sunflowers and days on bright iron bridges—what shines on old hospitals—as on my yard— Returning from San Francisco one night, Orlovsky in my room—Whalen in his peaceful chair—a telegram from Gene, Naomi dead— Outside I bent my head to the ground under the bushes near the garage—knew she was better— at last—not left to look on Earth alone—2 years of solitude—no one, at age nearing 60—old woman of skulls—once long-tressed Naomi of Bible— or Ruth who wept in America—Rebecca aged in Newark—David remembering his Harp, now lawyer at Yale or Srul Avrum—Israel Abraham—myself—to sing in the wilderness toward God—O Elohim!—so to the end—2 days after her death I got her letter— Strange Prophecies anew! She wrote—‘The key is in the window, the key is in the sunlight at the window—I have the key—Get married Allen don’t take drugs—the key is in the bars, in the sunlight in the window. Love, your mother’ which is Naomi— Hymmnn In the world which He has created according to his will Blessed Praised Magnified Lauded

Exalted the Name of the Holy One Blessed is He! In the house in Newark Blessed is He! In the madhouse Blessed is He! In the house of Death Blessed is He! Blessed be He in homosexuality! Blessed be He in Paranoia! Blessed be He in the city! Blessed be He in the Book! Blessed be He who dwells in the shadow! Blessed be He! Blessed be He! Blessed be you Naomi in tears! Blessed be you Naomi in fears! Blessed Blessed Blessed in sickness! Blessed be you Naomi in Hospitals! Blessed be you Naomi in solitude! Blest be your triumph! Blest be your bars! Blest be your last years’ loneliness! Blest be your failure! Best be your stroke! Blest be the close of your eye! Blest be the gaunt of your cheek! Blest be your withered thighs! Blessed be Thee Naomi in Death! Blessed be Death! Blessed be Death! Blessed be He Who leads all sorrow to Heaven! Blessed be He in the end! Blessed be He who builds Heaven in Darkness! Blessed Blessed Blessed be He! Blessed be He! Blessed be Death on us All! III Only to have not forgotten the beginning in which she drank cheap sodas in the morgues of Newark, only to have seen her weeping on gray tables in long wards of her universe only to have known the weird ideas of Hitler at the door, the wires in her head, the three big sticks rammed down her back, the voices in the ceiling shrieking out her ugly early lays for 30 years, only to have seen the time-jumps, memory lapse, the crash of wars, the roar and silence of a vast electric shock, only to have seen her painting crude pictures of Elevateds running over the rooftops of the Bronx her brothers dead in Riverside or Russia, her lone in Long Island writing a last letter—and her image in the sunlight at the window ‘The key is in the sunlight at the window in the bars the key is in the sunlight,’ only to have come to that dark night on iron bed by stroke when the sun gone down on Long Island and the vast Atlantic roars outside the great call of Being to its own to come back out of the Nightmare—divided creation—with her head lain on a pillow of the hospital to die —in one last glimpse—all Earth one everlasting Light in the familiar black-out—no tears for this vision— But that the key should be left behind—at the window—the key in the sunlight—to the living—that can take that slice of light in hand—and turn the door—and look back see Creation glistening backwards to the same grave, size of universe, size of the tick of the hospital's clock on the archway over the white door— IV O mother what have I left out O mother what have I forgotten O mother farewell with a long black shoe farewell with Communist Party and a broken stocking farewell with six dark hairs on the wen of your breast farewell with your old dress and a long black beard around the vagina farewell with your sagging belly with your fear of Hitler with your mouth of bad short stories with your fingers of rotten mandolins with your arms of fat Paterson porches with your belly of strikes and smokestacks with your chin of Trotsky and the Spanish War with your voice singing for the decaying overbroken workers with your nose of bad lay with your nose of the smell of the pickles of Newark with your eyes with your eyes of Russia with your eyes of no money with your eyes of false China with your eyes of Aunt Elanor with your eyes of starving India with your eyes pissing in the park with your eyes of America taking a fall with your eyes of your failure at the piano with your eyes of your relatives in California with your eyes of Ma Rainey dying in an aumbulance with your eyes of Czechoslovakia attacked by robots with your eyes going to painting class at night in the Bronx with your eyes of the killer Grandma you see on the horizon from the Fire-Escape with your eyes running naked out of the apartment screaming into the hall with your eyes being led away by policemen to an aumbulance with your eyes strapped down on the operating table with your eyes with the pancreas removed with your eyes of appendix operation with your eyes of abortion with your eyes of ovaries removed with your eyes of shock with your

eyes of lobotomy with your eyes of divorce with your eyes of stroke with your eyes alone with your eyes with your eyes with your Death full of Flowers V Caw caw caw crows shriek in the white sun over grave stones in Long Island Lord Lord Lord Naomi underneath this grass my halflife and my own as hers caw caw my eye be buried in the same Ground where I stand in Angel Lord Lord great Eye that stares on All and moves in a black cloud caw caw strange cry of Beings flung up into sky over the waving trees Lord Lord O Grinder of giant Beyonds my voice in a boundless field in Sheol Caw caw the call of Time rent out of foot and wing an instant in the universe Lord Lord an echo in the sky the wind through ragged leaves the roar of memory caw caw all years my birth a dream caw caw New York the bus the broken shoe the vast highschool caw caw all Visions of the Lord Lord Lord Lord caw caw caw Lord Lord Lord caw caw caw Lord Paris, December 1957—New York, 1959

#im a collector im a maniac #poetry #not mine

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alovesongshewrote · 4 years

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Almost A Thousand Years - Trollhunters/3Below | Hisirdoux Casperan

Plot: You’ve known Hisirdoux Casperan for almost a thousand years. You’ve hated him for almost a thousand years. And for almost a thousand years, you’ve been cursed to feel each others pain. But somewhere in that time, things changed. [Hisirdoux Casperan x Mostly Gender Neutral but Probably Female Presenting Based on How Historical Men Treat Them!Reader]

Word Count: 1,445

Warnings: swearing i think?

A/N: Last chapter before we’re back to wizards

Tags: @furblrwurblr @rainningdoom @fluffydmonkey @blondie0458 @sitherin-mxschief

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Jim Lake Jr.’s mom was really familiar.

Fortunately, she didn’t recognize you, even as you studied under her at the hospital and watched out for her son in your free time.

Protecting the Trollhunter was something you had stumbled into.

After your return from a place you’d rather not think about ever again, you found Arcadia. A safe little town in California where you could hide for the time being.

Then the trolls found you.

It wasn’t your fault that you’d nearly killed Blinky. He snuck up on you, and you were very jumpy. Fortunately, you’d figured out that you weren’t under attack before you could do any real damage. It wasn’t too long after that when you found out your new mentor’s son was the Trollhunter, protector of trollkind and slayer of Gumm-Gumms, wielder of the amulet created by your first mentor, Merlin.

This kid was in way over his head.

You had to protect him.

So, you helped to teach him how to use a sword, how to fight and how to survive. You helped his friend, Toby, to throw a decent punch and knock out a human opponent with pressure points. You were a cool older sibling who they could talk to about the stress of the job. And girls.

When Claire joined the party, you helped her practice magic. You helped her learn to control it.

You were quite the gang. One immortal, who everyone believed to be a college student, and three high schoolers in charge of kicking the darkness back to whence it came.

You protected those kids and their troll dads. You made excuses, forged notes, fought off Mr. Strickler, the whole nine yards. Somehow, you’d avoided sharing your past with the prying teens. They didn’t know you’d once been a Gumm-Gumm spy. You were just a cool mage who hung around for fun.

That all came crashing down when Bular crawled out of the woodwork, revealed your identity, almost killed your friends, and got you in a chokehold for a solid two minutes.

Centuries of work were finally paying off, he would, at last, have his revenge! He would regain his honour after being so shamefully defeated the last time he fought you.

Then Jim killed him. Rip.

You got your old sword back though. That was nice.

The trollhunter may have saved your life and given you your sword back, but the damage was done. You all avoided each other after that.

That was a lie, you were still looking out for these damn kids. You owed it to Barbara, who had grown up to be a fantastic doctor and who still had a few plastic bones in a box in the attic. She had been so kind and welcoming to you, you had to make sure her son came home every day. It was a difficult task when said son was all too willing to yeet himself into the Darklands, but you managed for the most part.

And when you heard a voice that followed you for centuries talking to your kids, it was the Darklands all over again. There was nothing you could do but watch.

You could have laughed at how much Jim hated Douxie. The kid had no idea he was telling a centuries-old wizard to go back to where he came from. You kept your eye on the conversation, waiting until it ended. Then, with no other choice available to you, you followed after the wizard.

How Douxie had built himself a life in Arcadia without you knowing was incredible and you respected the hell out of him for it. But you didn’t know if you loved it.

You followed behind him, silent as the night. And then you realised just what was happening. You stopped and went home after that.

And when you got there you screamed.

You screamed, and threw a sword at the wall, and broke several plates because this wasn’t supposed to happen. You weren’t supposed to see him again. Now he was in danger, and it was your fault.

You didn’t leave your house for a few days.

Then the teachers at Jim’s school went nuts, and you figured you should get back in the field.

You’d been monitoring Claire’s sudden illness from afar when he showed up again, this time a waiter at whatever restaurant this was. At some point, Claire left, and came back, and was acting... weird. Something was very wrong.

But that didn’t matter because there he was again. It was like you couldn’t escape him.

It was an active struggle to keep yourself away. Literally, an active struggle.

You’d tried to put it out of your mind, but the more you saw him, the more you remembered. The things that took you hadn’t only tortured you, trying to turn you into their full-time servant, but they’d also put some kind of spell or curse on you.

It was after the third one left if you remembered correctly. The remaining duo had been so angry, specifically at Merlin for some reason, so they put some kind of curse on you, forcing you to make attempts on Douxie’s life whenever he was in your general vicinity.

Why they went after Douxie instead of Merlin himself you’d never know. The wizard was an easier target while he slept, but nope. They went for Douxie.

You were confused, angry, and hurt. At both parties. You had been tortured for ten years. Had he not felt any of it? Had he not cared enough to help you? Or even stop your pain which he must’ve been feeling? It felt like a betrayal of sorts. He kissed you and then didn’t come for you when you were in danger. Was that all he wanted?

Even though you were upset by your apparent abandonment, you didn’t want Douxie dead. This wasn’t the twelfth century anymore, and you had to admit to yourself, you were still in love with him. You weren’t going to kill him.

So you clung to the roof, even after Douxie had left for the night. You stayed in place until the sun rose, struggling not to go after him. Eventually, you let go, moving on with your day, avoiding Hisirdoux Casperan to the best of your ability.

You actually did a decent job until the Eternal Night.

It was a pretty nasty battle, but you were handling it pretty well.

Or you were until you got yourself backed into a corner by yet another Gumm-Gumm calling you a traitor, probably facing certain death when someone struck the thing with a guitar.

“Casperan!?”

“(Y/N)!? What are you doing here?”

“It doesn’t matter,” you said, crawling to your feet, trying to keep yourself from throwing the sword in your hand at Douxie’s head.

“I- you’re right. Are you okay?”

“No, I-” your voice broke and you backed away further, “I’m not. Get away from me,”

You ran before you could see the pain leak into Douxie’s eyes before you could see the heartbreak on his face.

Ten minutes later the fight was finished.

A little after that, Jim and Claire were off to New Jersey.

You stayed behind.

Why did you do that? You asked yourself the same question. Staying in Arcadia put Douxie in danger and forced you into close proximity with the man who’d left you for dead.

But still, you stayed.

Maybe it was to protect Toby and Arrrgh, maybe it was because you liked your small apartment, maybe it was because you knew there was more trouble on the horizon. Or maybe it was because you were still in love with that stupid wizard.

You lost a lot of sleep over it. You saw his face in your sleep, thought of him when you practiced medicine. Every time you woke up from a war-related nightmare, you remembered how comforting his presence was. You remembered every hug he’d ever given you, the jokes he made, and that kiss. You remembered that kiss.

All you had was memories because if you even looked at his face, you’d kill him.

You did your best to distract yourself. You teamed up with Toby, Arrrgh, Steve, Eli and the Akiridions to stop an alien threat. It still wasn’t enough.

And when the alien threat was gone, you felt pain all over your body. It didn’t belong to you. You weren’t too alarmed, usually, torture was worse than this, but it kinda felt like Douxie had been dragged down the street by something for six(teen) blocks.

You were about to mention it when your posse ran into a familiar familiar.

“Beware! You, you! Are in grave danger!”

“Archie?”

#hisirdoux x reader #hisirdoux casperan x reader #douxie x reader #douxie imagine #hisirdoux imagine #almost a thousand years #aaty #trollhunters #hisirdoux #hisirdoux casperan #douxie #toa douxie #toa hisirdoux

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vinayrajoriaofficial · 3 years

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A Critical Essay on the Life & Poetry of William Wordsworth

With respect to 'The Prelude' & the 'Lyrical Ballads'

Portrait of the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth by Benjamin Haydon.

"You have given me praise for having reflected faithfully in my poems the feelings of human nature. I would fain hope that I have done so.

But a great poet ought to do more than this; he ought, to a certain degree, to rectify men’s feelings, to give them new compositions of feeling, to render their feelings more sane, pure, and permanent; in short, more consonant to Nature, that is, to eternal Nature, and the great moving spirit of things."

Wordsworth wrote this in a letter, in response, to his friend, John Wilson on the 7th of June 1802, thanking him for his heartiest congratulations on the success of his Lyrical Ballads and in the process reflected on the ideas of his poetical abilities and ambitions. Indeed, Wordsworth was a poet far ahead of his times, creating over the span of eighty years a colossal magnitude of poetic works which have become a part of the very fabric of the English language and literature.

Like many of his contemporaries, Wordsworth was influenced acutely by the historic event of the French Revolution, of which he was not only an observer but an active participant and supporter. But before delving too deep into his works and genius we must understand something about his life and childhood, without which, one cannot think of understanding his poetry let alone Wordsworth himself.

Young Wordsworth in 1798, in Town End, Grasmere.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH was born in the Lake District in April 1770 and died there eighty years later on 23 April 1850. He had three brothers and a sister, Dorothy, to whom throughout his life he was especially close. When she was six and he was nearly eight, their mother died. Dorothy was sent away to be brought up by relatives and a year later William was sent to Hawkshead Grammar School.

Wordsworth was cared for in lodgings and led a life of exceptional freedom, roving over the fells that surrounded the village. The death of his father broke in on this happiness when he was thirteen, but did not halt the education through nature that complemented his Hawkshead studies and became the theme of his poetry.

As an undergraduate at Cambridge, Wordsworth traveled (experiencing the French Revolution at first hand) and wrote poetry. His twenties were spent as a wanderer, in France, Switzerland, Wales, London, the Lakes, Dorset, and Germany. In France, he fathered a child whom he did not meet until she was nine because of the War.

In 1794 he was reunited with Dorothy and met Coleridge, with whom he published Lyrical Ballads in 1798, and to whom he addressed The Prelude, his epic study of human consciousness. In the last days of the century, Wordsworth and Dorothy found a settled home at Dove Cottage, Grasmere. Here Wordsworth wrote much of his best-loved poetry, and Dorothy her famous Journals.

In 1802 Wordsworth married Dorothy’s closest friend, Mary Hutchinson. Gradually he established himself as the great poet of his age, a turning-point coming with the collected edition of 1815. From 1813 Wordsworth and his family lived at Rydal Mount in the neighboring valley to Grasmere. In 1843 he became the poet laureate.

A recent cover page of the 'Lyrical Ballads' by Wordsworth & Coleridge, which heralded the Romantic Age in English Literature.

Now, keeping this dynamic canvas of Wordsworth’s life in consciousness can begin to grasp the magnitude of his poetic genius. To begin with, we can say Wordsworth was a game-changer in the history of English poetry. By publishing, his epoch-making collection of poems, Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth along with Coleridge heralded the Romantic Age of English poetry. On which Coleridge writes in chapter 14 of his book, Biographia Literaria, about Wordsworth and his romantic ideas thus:

"Mr. Wordsworth, on the other hand, was to propose to himself as his object, to give the charm of novelty to things of every day, and to excite a feeling analogous to the supernatural, by awakening the mind’s attention to the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us; an inexhaustible treasure, but for which, in consequence of the film of familiarity and selfish solicitude, we have eyes, yet see not, ears that hear not, and hearts that neither feel nor understand."

-Coleridge on Wordsworth, Biographia Literaria

And so we see that Wordsworth did exhibit all these themes and ideas repeatedly in his entire works. He takes as his subjects the poor, the old, and the outcast, for example in the poems ‘Goody Blake and Harry Gill’, Wordsworth talks about an old woman who has to steal firewood to survive the winter. His poem, ‘Her Eyes Are Wild’, about a vagrant woman suckling her child:

Suck, little babe, oh suck again,

It cools my blood, it cools my brain,

Thy lips I feel them, baby, they

Draw from my heart the pain away.

-from ‘Her Eyes Are Wild’

In ‘The Old Cumberland Beggar’, a beggar sits among ‘wild empty hills’ eating, and his ‘palsied hands’ scatter crumbs while the ‘small mountain birds’ surround him, waiting warily for their ‘destined meal’. In the popular poem, ‘The Idiot Boy’ a poor countrywoman, Betty Foy, is the mother of a disabled son who gets lost and spends a night in the open air. When she finds him he speaks wonderingly of the owls and the moon, without realizing what they are.

This was a major breakthrough in English poetry as Wordsworth brought to the poetic arena, the lives of the common people and this was huge because no one had ever made such people a subject of their poems before. Also new in Lyrical Ballads are poems about children and how adults fail to understand them.

In the poem, ‘Anecdote for Fathers’, a boy resists adult logic, and in ‘We Are Seven’, a small girl, whose brother has died, insists that he still counts as one of the family. Wordsworth’s belief in the superiority of childhood is expressed most challengingly in the ‘Immortality Ode’ written in 1802, where he remembers his early years.

A painting of the French Revolution of 1789, which ousted monarchy from France and had a big impact on Wordsworth and many intellectuals.

Through his selected works, written after the experiences of the French Revolution, one also comes to feel the sympathetic nature of Wordsworth towards the lowly and the poor. Like in The Prelude, he recalls, how a revolutionary friend pointed to an emaciated girl they met on a walk and declared:

'Tis against that

That we are fighting

In the ‘Residence in London’ book of the same poem, he remembers seeing a poor man with a sick child in his arms, and writes:

Bending over it,

As if he were afraid both of the sun,

And of the air which he had come to seek,

Eyed the poor babe with love unutterable

As for expressing the moods and settings of nature, Wordsworth is the unquestioned master, often and aptly called by many to be the poet of nature. One can even argue that no English poet expresses nature in its innate sensual beauty and spiritual entirety as Wordsworth.

What’s more interesting in Wordsworth’s portrayal of nature is that for him Nature is not just Mother Earth that needs to be expressed and captured in words but is much more than that. Like in the poem ‘Lines Written in Early Spring’, included in Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth expresses the belief that nature is conscious as he writes:

'Tis my faith that every flower

Enjoys the air it breathes.’

Or the core Romantic belief that nature is a moral educator is stated with breath-taking simplicity in another Lyrical Ballads poem, ‘The Tables Turned’ where he writes:

One impulse from a vernal wood,

May teach you more of man,

Of moral evil and of good,

Than all the sages can.

In this regard one remembers a famous passage from The Prelude which gives an instance of Wordsworth expressing, nature acting as a moral guardian. The passage is about one summer evening when young Wordsworth takes a boat without its owner’s permission, and as he rows, he expresses:-

A huge peak, black and huge,

As if with voluntary power instinct,

Up reared its head

It seems to stride after him and, trembling, he returns the boat to where he found it. Even when not guilt-ridden, the boy Wordsworth in The Prelude is aware of nature as a living presence:

I heard among the solitary hills

Low breathings coming after me and sounds

Of indistinguishable motion, steps

Almost as silent as the turf they trod.

On Wordsworth’s poetic oeuvre, Walter Pater, a critic of Wordsworth’s time comments in his essay titled- Appreciations (1889) that Wordsworth to be the poet of ‘impassioned contemplation’ and in stressing both words equally, he got the balance exactly right. In his attempts to characterize the nature of the poetic or creative power, Wordsworth laid similar emphasis on impassioned seeing.

Perhaps, one can say, that the best encapsulation of Wordsworth's entire creative output has been written by none other than Wordsworth himself in the poem, ‘Glad sight wherever new with old’, written in 1842 when he was seventy-two. This poem points to almost everything that has been central to his long imaginative engagement with words and things. Wordsworth in it writes:

Glad sight wherever new with old

is joined through some dear home born tie;

The life of all that we behold

Depends upon that mystery.

Vain is the glory of the sky,

the beauty vain of field and grove

Unless, while with admiring eye

We gaze, we also learn to love.

Image Credits:- Pinterest & Google

References & Research:-

The Concise History of English literature by William Henry Hudson

The Routledge history of English literature

The Routledge Anthology of Poets on Poets

A little history of Poetry by John Carey

JASTOR Essays

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