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stxrrynxghts · 10 months

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Uttara

Uttara sat down and lit the lamp. Today was a special day. Today, her room was lit up with lamps. She had decorated her room, with flowers, fragrances all around. It had been years since she had done this. The smell of the rose fragrance was something she had long forgotten. Uttara had lit those special incense sticks, which used to be lit in her mother-in-law's room, the ones whose smell had been ingrained in-

Her mother-in-law.

Uttara couldn't forget Subhadra. It had been 30 years since Uttara had last seen her. Subhadra had been kind and caring, loving and sympathetic. She had wiped away Uttara's tears ignoring her own, kept her head in her lap when no pillow provided comfort, stroked her face with love whenever she felt alone.

Subhadra had loved her from the moment she had known that Uttara would be her daughter-in-law. She had never, never made Uttara feel that she was alone. When Uttara had been pregnant, and her husband had died, many people told her to not kill herself, for the sake of the baby.

"I have already lost one child. I cannot bear losing another." Was what the woman who had lost her only son had said to her. Perhaps that was what stopped her. Uttara was young back then, only 14, newly widowed, and torn apart from grief. She was scared by the mere thought of having a child, and Subhadra had kept aside her own pain, pulling Uttara under the warm shade of her love and care.

In her whole pregnancy, she never made Uttara feel that her husband was dead.

As a widow, she had to eat simple food, to keep her mind calm. Yet, her baby didn't understand that it was going to be born to a girl whose life was now colorless. Subhadra used to sneak her sweets each time, as well as various delicacies, not just things that she craved, but food that she always liked to it.

When Uttara had been dying from pain, Subhadra had fallen on her feet, begging her brother to save her. Subhadra had been the one to do her delivery, and had chosen to save her, over the last memory of her dead son. She had taught Uttara how to smile again, how to live for herself again. She would never be complete, but she wasn't as broken as before.

As a young mother, she had never listened to Subhadra, always running around, always playing with her Pari. Subhadra kept the child inside her alive, and now, when Uttara was 98 years old, she yearned for the motherly touch, kind smile, and spirited laugh that she hadn't paid much attention to.

Uttara threw her trunk open, pulling out the remnants of the past. Her old belongings, and her husband's things. Her wrinkled fingers felt glided against the soft material of her wedding dress.

Her mother had made it with her own hands.

Her mother.

Sudeshna had always been a formidable and strict woman. But she loved her children nonetheless. She had died very early, when Uttara was 20, her heart finally giving up in front of the pain of losing half her family, and seeing her daughter in such a condition. She had never been the type to sit and listen to her children's problems, but whenever Uttara would be sad, she would comb her hair until Uttara fell asleep.

Uttara was old now.

Yet she remembered her mother's face, if she thought hard. Her face, smiling during her wedding. Her mother's face became clear when Uttara gazed at their family portrait, made on Uttar's 16th birthday, a month before the war. Her father, Maharaj Virat, was another person who had long faded from her memory. She just remembered his face from the picture, showing it to her dear grandsons whenever they asked about her father. She couldn't recall his voice, or any memory related to him, except how much in pain she had been when he had died.

Another face came in her mind whenever she heard Father.

Arjun.

Her teacher/father-in-law/bestfriend.

He had never let Pari feel that he didn't have a father. The child used to call him 'Pitashree' when he had started to speak. Arjun was someone still vivid in her memories. Thinking about him hurt.

Uttara had relied heavily on the man for guidance, emotional support and fatherly love & care, after the aftermath of the Great war. And he had given those to her. Once she had mistaken him for her husband in the dark, forgetting momentarily, that she was a widow. They never spoke of that moment ever. Arjun was someone who had helped her in the moment she needed him the most....

And then proceeded to leave, when she needed him for the second time in her life.

The Yadava massacre was painful, and unlike his son's death, Arjun couldn't bear seeing his best friend dead. So he left, taking with him his brothers and wife, leaving them-No. Leaving her alone, when she needed a father. When Parikshit needed his grandfather. When Maa needed her husband.

Brihannalla had been her first friend, and he was the one whose company she still craved more than anything. Uttara would do anything, to go back to being a 12 year old carefree girl, with nothing more important than learning the new dance Brihannalla had taught, so that she could rub it in Uttar's face, how good a dancer she was.

Uttar.

Her dead brother.

A tear leaked down her eye.

Uttara hugged the doll Uttar had gifted her during her farewell, tightly, soaking it with her tears. He had made it clumsily himself. It was painful, to think that she had no memories of her brother, except of his funeral. Uttara still read the letters he had sent her, letters which had his scent, that of lilies. Uttar had loved lilies.

'Dear Sister.' He wrote. 'I don't wish to marry. I want to be the cool and favorite uncle to your many children. Okay, maybe I do not like the idea of you having many children, since that would imply that your bratty husband....well, I would rather not think about it...'

Little did they know, that neither would Uttar marry, nor would Uttara have many children.

Parikshit had been the light of her life.

Uttara could still feel the first time he had kicked inside her, the first time he had moved, how he used to respond to her voice always-

How sweet he had been, her Pari.

He had ran into her arms the first time he had walked. He would excitedly show her what he had learnt each day. Growing up, he had looked a lot like his father. Parikshit had always been understanding, even the day he had learnt how his father had died, the day he heard the news of his grandfather's death, the day he learnt that his grandmother had taken jal samadhi.

But they had taken him away from her too.

He had been with her, when it had happened.

He had been cursed, and Uttara, she had sobbed, no-She had screamed, that she would stay with her baby, yes, she would stay with him, and when the snake came to bite him, she would save him, she would step in between-

Uttara had turned away for a moment, just like that time when he had fallen from the bed and broken his ankle. That day, when she had turned back, Pari had been crying. This time, he just gave her a soft smile, a lone tear rolling down from his eye.

He had died in her lap.

No matter how she screamed, he didn't come back.

For the first time in her life, Uttara cursed her in-laws. She cursed Kakashree Nakul and Sahadev for leaving, if they had been here, her son would have been cured. She cursed Tatshree Yudhishthira for leaving this burden for her child, Tatshree Bheem for failing in his promise of protecting her son.

She cursed Pitashree for not wiping out the Nagas.

How proud Arya would have been if he had seen-

A sob came out of her mouth.

She didn't remember him. Not even a bit. Not even his voice. She knew how he looked like, by seeing the many portraits he had gotten made during their 6 months of marriage.

It was for him she had decorated her room.

Uttara pulled out the contents of the trunk, and spread them on her bed, gently laying amongst them. When she died, each and every one of these things would be burnt with her.

His things made her sob uncontrollably..

Abhimanyu had loved her a lot. He had made her his whole world, and then, he had been ripped away from her in the cruelest way possible. He had made her feel loved, appreciated, given her everything he could, he had devoted himself to her in the little time they had. Words couldn't describe what they felt for each other.

Would he still love her if he saw her like this?

Was he waiting for her?

Uttara couldn't think about him. The pain was unbearable. She sighed softly, seeing the lamps flicker. 84 years ago, this day had been their wedding day.

Uttara missed him.

She would do anything to see him one last time, to tell him that she loved him a lot, that she would keep him with her forever if she could-

Fate had always been cruel to her.

Abhimanyu had claimed her fully, her heart, body, mind, soul, everything was-No. Everything is his.

And will always be.

No one remembers him now. She was the only alive person who had seen him. And selfish she, had forgotten him.

Uttara's eyes drooped, as she tightly hugged his upper garment to her chest. His scent was still in there. Her Arya. Only hers. She had been rather selfish, not giving away her jewels to her daughter-in-law. They were memories-Looking at them made her suddenly recall, the brief feeling of someone putting them on her, the warm breath against her nape, the soft kisses on her neck, the gliding fingers as they tied the necklace-

She was an old widow, yet somehow, despite not remembering him, she remembered him. It was confusing. She had forgotten his voice and face, but his actions and words always stayed with her.

Each day, she would curse herself for not telling him to learn how to come out of that accursed formation, not stop him from participating in the war, not telling him that she wasn't well-

And she would tell herself to stop.

He was here, in each gift he had given her, those ornaments, that anklet he gave her on the best night of her life, all the time they had spent together, he was here through them.

Abhimanyu was ingrained in her, and no one could wrench them apart, not even death.

Uttara would remember him always, even if she forgot his voice or face. Because every word, every touch, every glance, every kiss-that was what kept her alive. He was alive in her memory, despite being faded away. Uttara was nothing without him. Oh how she had screamed the day she realized that she had forgotten his voice, his face-

She remembered his touch, rough, calloused palms; his scent, the smell of the sea & incense, untouched by any amount of straining-

He was alive through her, and their bloodline which sat on the throne now. Abhimanyu had died, taking the best part of her heart with him, as the rest crumpled into pieces.

He had once told her that she would die after doing her duty. She had done her duty. Her in-laws gone, Her son dead, and her grandsons independent enough, Uttara was now free.

Now, she can close her eyes, sink into the softness of her bed, wake up once more, to hear the voice she yearned to hear;

"Tara?"

This was a piece that I had written sometime ago. It isn't an excerpt, but I wrote this as the entry for an ONESHOT contest on Wattpad, and I won!!!! I wanted to post something that I had written here, so I thought of posting this-

I am wondering, should I start posting my books here too?

#mahabharat #arjun #abhimanyu #subhadra #uttara

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autumnslance · 2 years

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Prompt #30: Sojourn

When Zahra Murheen was very young, her dancer’s feet itched to see new lands and meet new people. So she joined a trade trip across the strait to Corvos, despite her mother’s protests.

“You’ll understand, when you’ve daughters of your own,” her mother sighed, but didn’t stop her. How could she, when she had wandered far in her own youth? Zahra was yet untethered to hearth and home. Now was the time to allow her traveler’s heart to wander free.

She traveled through Corvos, Dalmasca, and Nanxia, in those halcyon days when Garlemald was yet a northern nation no one knew nor cared much about.

She fell in love with her brother’s friend, traveling the trade routes with them, and eventually returned home, belly beginning to swell with their first son, the rumors of coming war on the mainland whispering behind them as they returned to their bright island, foreign travels complete.

This was home, and while glad to have seen more, she was happier to remain.

—

When Emelia Ranaz was young, her bard’s heart yearned to see new lands and meet new people. She convinced her cousin to take her along on his trade trip to Eorzea. She heard the land was soaked in aether due to the source of all magic flowing from the lake near its heart. She heard that true bards sang among the trees of its giant mystical forest.

Zahra sighed, but did not try to stop her youngest daughter; how could she, when she too had traveled in her youth? Emelia scorned the attentions of the suitors who tried to woo her; she was yet young, untethered and free to live for herself.

“Do not worry for me, Mama,” Emelia laughed on the docks of Yedlihmad.

“How can I not?” Zahra asked, kissing her cheek. “You’ll understand, when you’ve daughters of your own.”

—

When Zahra Ranaz was in her late middle years, she waited at the gates of Davarresh, watching the western road. The sun sank low beyond the mountains, its last orange light dazzling her eyes. But she continued to watch, waiting on her nephew’s cart and the precious cargo it carried.

What should have been a brief journey had become nearly thirteen years of letters and a life lived far away, in a cold northern land where the people saw dragons as enemies instead of divinities. Where her daughter, who here had scorned every would-be lover, had built a family.

A selfish part of Zahra was glad her daughter was coming home, bringing her children with her. But Merciful Sisters, that her baby had to know such heartbreak to make it so!

The wagon came into view, and she trembled in anticipation. They were still yalms away from the gate when a familiar—yet not—woman leapt from the front seat and dashed into Zahra’s open arms.

“Mama!” Emelia sobbed into her shoulder; relief, happiness, and grief striking her all at once.

“You’re home,” Zahra whispered, holding her tight. “Your journey is complete, my love.”

—

When Aeryn Striker was young, her adventurous spirit wished to travel to new lands at her brother’s side, beginning with the realm of their birth.

Her mother wouldn’t let her.

“You’ll understand, when you’ve daughters of your own,” Emelia said, through the tears and shouting on both sides.

Zahra would not interfere, but privately felt Emelia was wrong. After all, hadn’t they both traveled in their youths, learning more of the world and themselves?

Yet Zahra’s adventures in Ilsabard and Othard had turned out differently than the idyllic years Emelia had spent in Coerthas—a life ripped away by an ancient war that she had spent everything to get her children away from.

And now they wanted to return to that chaotic land.

Emelia had a daughter of her own—and feared for the heartbreak of losing her, for the heartbreak her girl might suffer in her journey. She couldn’t stop Zaine—that boy lived to be contrary in his oddly affable way—but she could stop Aeryn.

Zahra was disappointed when Aeryn gave in to her mother’s demands, hoping that despite everything, her granddaughter found her happiness someday.

—

When Emelia Eadir passed away, Aeryn left on her own adventures. Older than her grandmother and mother had been, yet still untethered to hearth or home, oblivious to the advances of would-be suitors. She left to find her brother, but her dancer’s feet and bard’s heart also ached to learn new songs, to meet new people, to see new sights.

Zahra said her goodbyes, watching as the cart carried Aeryn west to Yedlihmad.

She had the feeling that this journey would not be a short one.

—

When Zahra Ranaz was very old, her granddaughter returned to Thavnair.

It was only for a visit.

This was no longer Aeryn Striker’s home; she was yet untethered to any one land or location, her adventurer’s spirit leading her from one place to the next, as free as the wind and water she had ever been attuned to.

If she was tied to anything, it was to the people she traveled with, a family of circumstance and choice, their bonds stronger for it.

They came and went as need and whimsy both took them, helping anyone they could, saving the world through actions small and large. And when their great mission was finished, they scattered across the world, physically separate but hearts ever aligned, always ready to answer each others’ calls.

Zahra smiled; her own traveling days were long behind her, yet hearing Aeryn’s stories—hearing stories of Aeryn—she felt that old itch in her own feet. Or perhaps simply a feeling akin to it, willing now to merely sympathize and live vicariously through those tales.

She watched as Aeryn strode away, to wherever her next adventure took her, not knowing when she might return—and at peace with that.

With the western sun in her eye, Zahra offered a prayer on Aeryn’s behalf:

“May your journey never end.”

#FFXIVWrite2022 #Final Fantasy XIV #Lyn Writing #Backstory #Zahra Ranaz #Emelia Striker #Aeryn Striker

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skateamini · 12 days

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I had my Hannibal obsessed phase (especially because of Mads Mikkelsen). I love this kind of art, dark, strange and morally dubious with lots of blood. I watched Bones and All (again, because of Taylor Russell) and really liked it.

About All of Them Dreams, I really think the movie A Ghost Story will make you think, it's like its description of the story. There is also a book called The Ghost Bride that addresses the world of spirits in Malaysia, it is a fantasy with a lot of Asian culture.

This year I read Carmilla, a classic vampire book that came long before and which inspired Dracula, about Carmilla and her obsession with beautiful women, especially the book's protagonist, Laura. It has everything that the term "vampirism" carries.

There's a film about cannibalism called Raw, it's very explicit, but it has some interesting discussions.

A list of films that are unique, in my opinion:

Antichrist is about a couple who lose their son and deal with their grief, but things go south in Act 3.

Climax is a crazy movie too, it makes me think of Hoseok because it has an opening about dancers explaining why they dance and then a long presentation with various dance styles, but again, things get dark.

Martyrs from 2008, in French (the remake is not worth it) about a religious sect that tortures people so that they are between life and death and can glimpse the other side and tell what they see.

I watched All of Us Strangers yesterday and, my god, the ending left me with my mouth open. It's Queer and talks a lot about loneliness. A writer visits his childhood home and meets his parents, but his parents died when he was a teenager. Meanwhile he starts to get closer to his neighbor.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer was one of my first in the "bizarre" genre.

I have more recommendations, but I don't know if you want them? I think I've already written too much.

No, thank you! Go ahead and recommend everything. My favourite kinds of media are those that are "bizarre" and strange!

To balance it out, here's some films and books that I enjoyed for being dark and strange:

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires - a lot more gruesome and dark than the title insinuates! About a vampire. Weird stuff going on. A great allegory for community groupthink and underprivileged voices not being listened to.

Piranesi - the narrator lives in a great hall, flooded by the sea and full of columns and ancient greek statues. A really strange and magical world with a darker undertone!

House of Leaves - a really dense and convoluted novel with an "editor" writing and editing text around the story of a family who discovers a door in their house that leads into a dark and endless labyrinth

Handling the Undead - one day the undead wake up, and chaos ensues! Dark, haunting but also tragic.

Where I end - a dark and twisted story about a young woman who looks after her bedridden mother (read TW for this book regarding infanticide and abusive behaviours, etc.).

Here are some films that inspired All of Them Dreams:

The Devil's Backbone - takes place during the spanish civial war, boy abandoned in orphanage in the middle of nowhere, a ghost of a little boy tries to warn him.

Incantation - Taiwanese Horror Film about a mother who has cursed herself and her daughter, found footage style

The Wailing - Korean horror film, folk horror and shamanism.

The Others - woman whose husband is off at war lives in house with her two young children, strange servants show up one day to work, strange things happening in house.

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wutheringmights · 3 years

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I just read the newest chapter and I loved it! ♥ ♥ ♥ I was wondering if you had some hcs about the engineer that you could share?

Awww I'm glad you like it! I just spent 5 minutes trying to figure out what "HCS" meant before realizing I'm a tired idiot who can't read lol

But yeah! I got some headcanons for the engineer/Spirits I can share!

These headcanons are a mix of things I generally believe for any iteration of the Hero of Spirits and a few things exclusive to CTB. It's pretty obvious which are which.

Technically this is slight spoilers since most of this is not mentioned in-story, but Warriors is a such a self-centered asshole that I'm not sure when I can get him to explicitly ask about Spirit's backstory lol

This got super long and kind of just became me talking about Spirits's entire backstory, so enjoy:

Spirits is sixteen during the course of Spirit Tracks, mostly because that was the vibe I got from him when I first played the game (I made him younger for CTB)

He's not descendant from Wind (who I maintain disappeared instead of settling in New Hyrule); instead, he's Aryll's great grandson

His family name used to be Outset, but when everyone who originally immigrated from Outset island took on that last name, they changed it to Aryll to reflect the family matriarch

So Spirit's full name is Link Aryll, though there is a branch of his family that uses Macaryll instead

The Aryll/Macaryll family is huge; everyone has at least six aunts and uncles on all sides of the family and they can trace back how they are related to Aryll

"I'm Grandma Aryl's third son's second daughter's fifth child." -someone Spirits is related to, probably

He actually never met his great grandmother; she died before he was born.

Spirit's dad was full-blooded Lokomo while his mother was Hylian; his mother passed a few months after he was born after never truly recovering from childbirth while his father died in a fishing accident when he was eight

He went to live with an aunt and uncle who owned a general store; their relationship was polite at best. The aunt and uncle told Spirits upfront that they intended to give the store over to his cousin when he was older so Spirits needed to come up with his own life plan

Spirits didn't necessarily mind since he never wanted to work in a store for the rest of his life, but the ultimatum made it clear that they didn't care for him like a son

To this day, their relationship isn't strained and he doesn't hate them. But whenever they meet, he's overly polite; they're more acquaintances than family

He's cool with his cousin though. They have different interests so they aren't best friends, but they're okay.

Spirits also always had his spirit-sensing abilities. It's really like a sixth sense to him, as normal and automatic as seeing and hearing; he actually didn't realize this wasn't normal until he was a little older

His abilities at this point are limited to sensing vague ideas of a person's spirit (if they're light or dark, etc.), and seeing ghosts (which are really rare. You have to have a lot of power yourself to become one)

(Note: I'm not the only one who headcanons Spirits as having spirit sensing abilities; if you know who can up with the idea, please let me know so that I can tag/credit them!)

The elder of his village told him that select Lokomo had minor spirit sensing abilities, and those who did were traditionally made elders of their villages; being more of a follower than a leader, Spirits adamantly dismissed that idea and refused to be trained on how to hone his spirit senses. He also never learned any of the religion behind it

Which was a little worrisome since his abilities are way stronger than most

Besides, he's always liked trains and it's been his dream to travel around the kingdom as an engineer; being some town's elder would get in the way of that

Anyway, Spirits had to pass a written exam before being accepted as an apprentice engineer, so he's very studious and has a lot of drive (pun unintended?)

He went to live with his Uncle Niko during his apprenticeship in another town; Niko isn't related to him, but he's been a friend of the family for so long that everyone secretly thinks he's actually related to someone and they just forgot who

Niko is his real family, hands down. Those two are as thick as thieves and bring out the wild side in each other

A preteen Spirits used to think Niko was a little lame and kind of embarrassing, but now that he's older, he's all for Niko's weird old man-ness and has even picked up on some of his weird old man-ness himself

That being said, they're both disasters. Neither can clean or cook or do any kind of housekeeping and their shared house is cluttered with Niko's art projects and Spirit's half-finished tinkering

Growing up, Spirits had no idea he was related to the legendary Hero of Wind; Aryll died before he was born, but even in life she was filled with too much grief over her missing brother to discuss it often. Within the family, being related to the Hero of Wind is a rumor at best.

Of course, Niko knows but keeps it a secret from Spirits; once he got back from his LU-adventure, Wind told Niko about the curse of the Hero's Spirit. Then he went missing post-New Hyrule's founding, which really drove the terror of the curse home. Niko thought he could keep Wind's family from falling victim to it by not inadvertently encouraging them to follow in Wind's footsteps

So Niko kept it a secret

And obviously, that didn't work

Spirits' quest to save New Hyrule resulted in him realizing that he needed to embrace his Lokomo heritage and get a handle on his spirit powers; Anjean gave him a little training during his quest but afterwards he traveled around the kingdom to find as many people as he could with abilities like his

They were all really excited to teach him what they knew, especially the religious aspects of the abilities; Spirits is still not the most religious person, but he at least understands and embraces the cultural significance of what he is able to do

This is where he learned how to read a person's Spirit to get an idea of their life experiences and the kind of person they're like; he can also detect where a person is without having to put much effort into it

At Zelda's encouragement, he also got more sword training from the Castle Guard. She offered him a place among them, but he turned it down in favor of remaining an engineer. He still helps around as a swordsman when he can and will act as Zelda's body guard

Speaking of which, he and Zelda are 100% in love. Their relationship started out as puppy love but over the years as matured into a deep connection built on mutual respect

When he's working on designing new engines or parts for his trains, he occasionally brings his drafting materials to the castle gardens so that he can work alongside Zelda; sometimes she falls asleep leaning against his arm and he has to be careful not to shake her awake as he works

Whenever she need to go anywhere in the kingdom, she rides in his train and teasingly criticizes his conducting; he takes a lot of pride in his conducting, but he lets her get away with it since her critiques are objectively hilarious

He keeps a tiny pictograph of her taped to his dashboard

But there's a bit of a problem with their relationship, and it's that he doesn't know if he wants to be the prince consort or not. He does love her, but that would mean giving up being an engineer in favor of being stuck at the castle all of the time

Plus, he's doing great as an engineer; he's saving up to open his own garage that produces his own train designs

Eventually, he leaves for the War of Eras

His experiences with Warriors leaves him more sure than ever that he doesn't want to be the prince consort, resulting in him ending his relationship with Zelda shortly after he returns home

It hurts for a long time to be around her since all of his old feelings keep coming back, so he keeps his distance for a long time; it takes a few years for him to go back to hanging out with Zelda as friends

But now she's approaching marriage age, and he spends a lot of time when he's on body guard duty super jealous of these princes and ambassadors from foreign kingdoms who try to court her

But again, he knows he can't be in a relationship with her so he respectfully and silently pines over her (I'm just a sucker for pining, okay?)

Okay, more random headcanons that are a little less sad

Spirits likes super spicy food, but since he can't cook to save his own life, he just eats whatever he can get his hands on

He's super dirty all of the time, just the epitome of scrappy; there's always a smear of oil somewhere on his person

He actually really hates bathing and only keeps his curly hair in check to comply with train safety regulations

He's really polite and a little shy, but once he loosens up, he gets talkative and personable

He's also very contemplative; he likes conducting so much because he gets to spend long stretches of time alone with nothing but his thoughts

His trauma/stress response is to shut down; he goes quiet, loses energy, and sleeps for longer periods of time

He tends to gravitate towards socializing with people who are older than him, which gets him labeled as being no fun by his peers (despite having someone as cooky as Niko for a uncle)

Post-adventure, his best friend is Linebeck III. They're drinking buddies. Neither can really explain why they even like hanging out as much as they do

(I just like the idea of Linebeck accidentally getting attached to one kid and his whole bloodline getting forever tangled with Wind's; they're bros for multiple lifetimes)

Not only is Spirits good at designing and building new machinery, but he's great at tinkering; he can fix almost anything and will buy broken things on purpose just to have something to fix

No one really knows he's a hero; he doesn't like the attention and, at his request, Zelda did her best to keep his involvement with Malladus a secret

Because not many common people know about his adventure and records of New Hyrule are very rare, he's considered in Warrior's time to be a forgotten hero; some scholars believe that a Hero of Spirits may have once existed, but if he did, no one really knows who he was or what he did to serve the bloodline of Hylia

#god this got long but i hope you like reading them anon!#I just have a lot of thoughts about spirits #so many thoughts #linkeduniverse #linked universe #lu #lu headcanon #lu spirits #loz st #legend of zelda #spirit tracks link #zelink #ask #anonymous #me rambling #lu ctb #loz

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in-2004-fandoms-and-counting · 3 years

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AU where Nico dies (don't hate me pls I'm sorry I love Nico and ship the hell out of Solangelo, this is just to allow for some dark AUs) transporting the Athena Parthenos in BoO.

(Sorry it's such a long post) Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano, revered praetor and peace-loving daughter of Bellona, loses the ability to share strength. Now, when she uses her power, she saps your energy, draws on your bravery, and poisons your mind with horrific images. Nico's death has allowed suppressed traits to resurface and overwhelm all her progress since San Juan all those years ago. She picks fights. She becomes a dictator in all but name, abolishing the Senate and making War Games a lot more "realistic": weekly funerals become commonplace, words are spoken under breaths, and terror resides in the heart of every New Roman. And so, Reyna Ramírez-Arellano turns her brilliant mind and poisonous power to Gaea's aid. Gleeson Hedge doesn't seem more than a broken satyr at first glance, his smiles never sincere, his voice never loud, his bat never raised. But when he slips off into the wilderness, he does not sit quietly among the trees and reflect. He whispers into the trees' leaves, his twisted words echoing the bitterness that now consumes his being. He has been tricked too many times: Pan, forcing thousands of satyrs to lose their lives in their quest to find him when he was alive all along; Clarisse, who never tried to connect with nature or understand his own ties to the natural world, who teaches his child the game of death while Mellie watches, fading away, unable to fight back; the gods, who, in their promise of protection, conveniently ignored the nature spirits. He is bitterest about Nico's death: about all he could have done, about what the kid should have done. The glint in his eyes scares even the worst monster that Tartarus could send. But it is Gaea he turns his allegiance to. It is Gaea who promises that he will always be good enough for her. And so, Gleeson Hedge turns nature back to its true mother: Gaea. Hazel Levesque is not someone you want as an enemy. Her golden eyes, gold like the masks of the judges of the dead, seem to see everything. Her powers grow stronger, but now she is able to control them. One glance, and she can cause an entire legion to scream and writhe in agony as she manipulates the iron in their blood, twists their shining armour, forces weapons to turn on their handlers. She stops wearing normal, mortal clothes, and now she wears flowing dresses of molten gold and bronze that no spear could pierce nor hand touch. She calls on the remnants of metal in the cave in Resurrection Bay to rise, and rise they do, twisting and weaving together at her command to form a cathedral-like vault with a solid Stygian iron throne. At the front of her temple lies a chasm from which her first creation arises, complete and healed, at last. Alcyoneus clambers out of the pit, back with his mother's life and Hazel's burning desire for destruction. And so, after seventy years, Hazel Levesque joins forces with Gaea of her own free will. Frank Zhang's arrows are no longer aimed at Tartarus's monsters, but at the people he once considered friends. The ruins of the Zhang family mansion become a shrine to Gaea, the ancient walls falling in blissful happiness into the Earth Mother's embrace. Frank returns often with fresh skulls, unfailingly whole - his arrow pierces cleanly through the eye every time. His piece of firewood safe in Gaea's belly, protected where no flame could reach, he is unstoppable. His shapeshifting causes unforseen problems with the allies' plans, it's very hard to plan how to fight a lion when he could turn into a swarm of bees at any moment. He is the ultimate spy, a literal fly on the wall, and for once, he feels needed. He feels worth something. He feels as though he is good enough, something the gods could never give. All the gods ever did for Frank, he realises bitterly, is take. His mother. His grandmother. His self-confidence. His chance for a stable, loving family. Nico. And so, Frank Zhang finds a different kind of family, one that will not let him down, in Gaea. Piper McLean never wanted to be a tragic love story; that was purely for her mother's entertainment. She

cuts her hair short. She kills Gaea's enemies on sight. Her charmspeak forces even her old family, Camp Half-Blood, to turn against each other, brother against brother, sister against sister, until bodies litter the strawberry fields and the Big House crumbles to smouldering ashes. The gods have her no love. Their boundaries mean nothing to her any more. Her love extends to her favourite mother, her boyfriend, the rest of the Seven, Grover, Reyna and Hedge. Beyond that, it is poison. Gaea takes her hands, looks into her eyes, and tells Piper that she is more than the spawn of an unfaithful, air-headed immortal, more than the damsel in distress. She tells Piper that she is who she decides to be. And Piper agrees. Gaea gives her the opportunity to be out of others' shadows. Piper McLean takes the chance and joins with Gaea, her charmspeak almost her most dangerous feature, second only to her unbridled wrath when Nico's death is mentioned.

Jason Grace owes fealty to only one eternal goddess now. He scours the Underworld with Hazel and Frank, relentless like the wolves he was brought up with. He knows no bounds, his destruction barely controllable by even Piper and her charmspeak. He has obliterated entire cities, counties, even an entire nation. He feels no regret, no remorse, no nagging guilt. He seeks out and electrocutes homophobes as his powers grow in complexity, along with his ability to control them. No matter how much they scream, the same two words shoot from Jason's scarred lips like the lightning bolts he commands: for Nico. As the darkness inside him grows, the son of Jupiter advances on Olympus, eyes and hands blazing, to destroy his father, as one of Gaea's allies, as one of Gaea's found children. Jason Grace vows by Nico's soul and Gaea's love to destroy the gods who shamelessly abandoned them.

Percy Jackson has been close to the darkness before. As just one examole, he's controlled poison to choke the goddess of misery at the edge of Chaos. But now, Annabeth's words at the time - some things aren't meant to be controlled - strike differently. Percy doesn't follow rules any more. That brooding, troublemaking face now alludes to his new form: gone is the class clown, here is something more akin to a devil. Like Hazel, he has made hundreds of people and monsters shriek in pain as he controls their blood, contorting their bodies into unnatural forms and snapping necks with a mere snap of his fingers. If Nico's death is mentioned around the pair of them - Hazel and Percy - both turn on the individual, eyes smouldering with the deceitfully cool ashes of the fire of grief, and slowly unleash their wrath. Percy cannot be controlled. He wants revenge. Part of him wishes he had never given his mother the head of Medusa to kill Smelly Gabe; it tore him to pieces when he made the fluid in her head seep out of her eyes. But she wouldn't stop begging him to leave Gaea. She had to go. She was no longer loving him as he knew he deserved. Now, Percy Jackson takes his support from the mother he should have accepted long ago: Gaea.

Annabeth Chase did not accept powers from her new mother, her better mother. She chose to use her mind as her weapon and Gaea respected that. Gaea gave her the resources she needed to wreak havoc on mortals and immortals alike. Now, instead of studying for a stupid internship in a misogynistic, capitalist society, Annabeth unleashes her fury, her grief, her mind on the world. The gods deserve to pay for what happened to Nico. The demigods need to feel her grief. The mortals started this stupid cycle of overwork and inadequate pay. Annabeth is ready to work with the mother that respects her, that loves her, that nurtures her as she deserves. And work she does. Plan after plan is developed, improved, redrafted, mocked up, redeveloped, and finally executed with clinical precision. Her mind becomes what her enemies most fear, even above her reputation: first child of Athena in millennia to reach Arachne, retriever of the Athena Parthenos, survivor of Tartarus. And she laughs, laughs in a maniacal way that makes you want to take a step back as she strides towards you, grey eyes alight with an unnatural glint as you realise that she knows everything about you and she knows how this will end. She will not let herself or her friends die. She refuses to let another situation like Nico's death happen again. So, Annabeth Chase takes Gaea's resources and turns them into a mass genocide, executed with her new mother's blessing.

Grover Underwood leads the nature spirits now. He commands dryads to extend their unstoppable tendrils through the paths that Gaea forms for them, deep in the earth, then sending them exploding through the surface and reclaiming all that was torn from them under the pretence of friendship. His empathy link with Percy allows him some degree of control, both over the son of Poseidon and over naiads. Grover is betrayed and bitterly disappointed in Pan, in the gods, in demigods, in mortals, in Nico. And so, he turns nature back home with Gleeson Hedge. The hauntingly beautiful whistling of his pipes lures demigods, mortals, even gods to their doom. Apollo is the first to fall, trapped by the music of the satyr whose horns now make him seem diabolical as he dances in the flames. Grover Underwood finds his roots in Gaea and his revenge in destruction.

Leo Valdez wants to burn the world to ashes. There's not a moment he's not on fire, his hair smouldering, his skin aglow. At his feet lies Hera, trussed up like a rodeo calf, bound by the power of the guardian Leo knows he deserved as a child. There is no Piper with her charmspeak to free the ex-queen; at least, Piper is by Leo's side as he blasts her with his searing flames. There's a smile on Leo's face that rivals even Annabeth's as he torches cities, razes acres and lights up the sky with plumes of smoke and columns of fire. His reasoning feels etched into his heart: the gods let Nico die. The gods let us down one time too many. And so he lets the flames go. Gaea stands behind him, her hand on his shoulder, proud and respectful. She knows that he secretly enjoyed starting the war with New Rome. He has fire powers; it's only natural, and that Octavian is enough to drive anyone mad. So, Leo Valdez finally makes his peace with Gaea.

Will Solace goes out like a light as the news of his beloved's death is announced. He lies, broken and silent, in Gaea's arms, tears streaming down his face. He stirs only for Nico's name, and his eyes turn slowly to whoever dared say it. He reaches out an arm, eyes turning black, leaching all the colour from the surroundings as his whisper echoes: there is no hope. Behind him stands Gaea, a tear of her own on her earthen cheek. She feels his pain, raw and fresh. But she takes some of it onto herself. Will Solace shares his grief with Gaea now.

And so they stand, eyes alight and expressions dark and triumphant, by the side of the goddess who did not want to let Nico die.

Gaea smiles.

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ultranos · 3 years

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So I just saw your response to @soozencreates' post and it made me think...What if Azula didn't survived...What would Ursa do once a servant goes to wake up Azula and find she's dead on her bed? What would happen afterwards? How much would canon change? I'm sorry, I don't want Azula to die but the pain...tempting.

So there’s the serious version, where this would...go nowhere good, I think. Where exactly the “no good” is probably depends on the sequence of events. If it turns out that Azula told Zuko or there was some other way of Ursa finding out that Azula did not trust her own mother to save her...That is probably the worst place.

Ursa might very well go mad from guilt and grief. (Thought: mental illness runs in Ursa’s side of the family, not Ozai’s) Let’s say she not only completely loses her shit on Ozai and Azulon, but that she also somehow survives this. Leaving her regent as Zuko is still too young.

Ursa...is very much still a Fire Nationalist, and pro-war. And with the loss of three members of the royal family, the EK and WT probably wouldn’t stand idle. They’re not dumb. They’d smell blood in the water, believing that the FN is weak because they are led by a grief-striken woman and her boy-king son.

All it takes is one assassination attempt on Zuko and Ursa wouldn’t rest until Ba Sing Se lay in ruins and Long Feng’s head was on a pike. Because she failed to protect one child, and so she’ll throw everything she has and more into keeping the other one safe.

If Zuko knew and didn’t believe Azula or didn’t tell Ursa before, the guilt would be overwhelming. He always wished he could beat her, that he’d be the one left standing for once, but not like this. (Zuko’s fire would always burn brightly because he will never not be angry at himself.) He hated her in the way young siblings hate each other, the hate that can only exist when you also at one point loved fiercely.

But there’s also a crack premise, and I think this might be my brain telling me to finish FMA:Brotherhood.

Azula doesn’t think her mom’s going to listen to her. Or believe her. Or even care. But she thinks she has to tell someone, because if her dad is willing to kill her for the throne, then that means his love is a lie. And she’s not going to go quietly like a lamb to slaughter. He taught her to be strong, to fight, to not be passive and soft.

Azula will use Ozai’s lessons against him. He might kill her, but she won’t just disappear. If she’s dead, someone needs to know the truth as to why.

So she tells Zuko. Because her brother is a moron, but he’s honorable. He believes in things like truth and can’t lie his way out of a wet paper bag. Zuko won’t keep quiet if the worst happens, she thinks.

Zuko doesn’t believe her. Obviously. Azula expects that, but it still hurts. Hurts that he won’t even consider it. He’ll clamp his hands over his ears like that’ll keep the truth from happening.

Azula’s left to save herself.

She goes to the temple that night. She knows it won’t really change a thing, but maybe even Ozai would hesitate before attempting to slaughter his own child in a sacred space. He doesn’t.

Spirits, it turns out, are much like gods: they take offense when innocent blood stains their floors. And a child of the Avatar’s bloodline, killed in such a spiritual place? The spirits get angry.

When the body that was his daughter stops screaming, as the flesh blackens and chars, the last thing Ozai expects is for one of the great metal statues to creak to life.

After Azula is burned to death by her father’s flames, the last thing she expects is to find herself looking down on her father, feeling strangely cool and hollow and hearing metal shearing behind her.

The last thing the Fire Sages who burst onto the scene expect is to find Prince Ozai, singed and burned, sprinting out of the great temple with one of the golden dragon statues chasing after him, snapping and snarling.

#Anonymous #nos answers things #atla #yes this makes zuko ed in this scenario #if only because he is absolutely shorter than his sibling now #and now we can have a life-changing field trip #as they try to figure out how to get azula a body back #fire sibs are off doing that when they end up running into the gaang #aang: things got weird while i was asleep

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ivy-min · 3 years

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a snapshot into ivy’s life

a/n: so this is a little outside the realm of what I typically do for practice challenges, but I needed something creative to motivate me into doing some writing stuff. please enjoy the very extra edits and bits in between. the pictures in each edit are some that I imagined either her taking, someone in her family, or just something that fit her life altogether. I have elaborate backgrounds for each image in my head but ofc I will not burden you all with that. an easy 1.9k

also, there are definitely some Korean words I wanted to use and researched but was afraid of doing the culture a disservice. however, it is very prominent in her life! and if I had a more reliable source than the internet I would include more terms but I do not, unfortunately. doing my best to learn. ANYWHO here is ivy!!

「 the min sisters at large 」

Looking back, Ivy isn’t sure she could say her childhood was idyllic. There was love and family and creating new worlds with Kennedy, but there were heartaches too. Watching struggle of her father as he built Min Industries from the ground up in Illéa. Witnessing her mother battle against the harshness of her grandparents (though in particular her grandfather). Pleading with each one of them to stay just a little bit longer at bedtime instead of going back to work.

She understood why they left. But it got harder to watch them go each time.

She was well taken care of, given the best of education and opportunities. Swim lessons at two years old, horseback riding lessons at seven. While Ivy stood steadfast at her parent’s side, Kennedy was always the one to pull away. Ivy wanted to make her family proud. Her little sister cared more for finding life away from pesky lessons and the family’s reputation. She believed there was more to discover beyond the walls their parents had created. “Don’t be such a suck up! You really think all this is going to matter in the end?” Kennedy had asked her once. Ivy didn’t have an answer. Not when she yearned to be a part of both sides of the Min coin. Parents or Kennedy. Parents or Kennedy. She wondered if there would be a day when she would have to choose.

Nevertheless, Ivy loved Kennedy and Kennedy loved Ivy. Different in motives but similar at heart, they never strayed too far from one another. If there was one defining feature of Ivy’s childhood, it was her spirited little sister.

↳ exposition

「 the shoes of parents & grandparents to fill 」

Seo-jun Min and Ha-eun Yoo had nothing to offer one another when they first met. Ha-eun was a quiet, demure oncology nurse working at a small hospital in Seoul. Seo-jun had just graduated from university loaded with student debt and a degree in business he had no clue what to do with. When they found each other, suddenly they had everything to offer. Life moved quickly then. After only seven months of quaint dates between Ha-eun’s long shifts and Seo-jun’s failed business ventures, they eloped. A year later, they had a son. Jae-sung. Another two years passed and they were blessed with a daughter whom they named after the lilies that bloomed outside their home. Nari.

At three years old, Leukemia was all that was left of their daughter. She passed in her sleep, cradled in her father’s arms.

In their path to healing, Seo-jun and Ha-eun packed up their son and moved to Illéa where opportunity and a fresh start called to them. Together, they knew what they could devote their lives to: a medical research company dedicated to provide medical care to all in need and to find a cure for pediatric diseases. By the time Jae-sung was 18 years old, he knew that his legacy was to carry on his parent’s dream of avenging Nari’s short life. He honored that legacy.

Then he met Kathleen.

Kathleen Adair was the most intelligent, strong-willed woman he had ever met. He trailed after her their freshman year at Brown until she finally relented and allowed him only one meal. Just one. “Then it’s going to be the best meal of your entire life,” he declared rather confidently. He didn’t know she had watched him as often as he watched her. The meal was terrible, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. “Alright, Jae.” The nickname only she had ever managed to pull off. “I’m yours.”

His parents vehemently protested. “She’s not suitable. She doesn’t understand what it takes to be a part of this family.” He knew what they really meant. She’s not Korean. He thought small mindedness had been left behind after the last war, but he understood them too. Still. Nothing was going to stop them from marrying as soon as they graduated.

At 25, Jae-sung was pronounced CEO of Min Industries. At 25, Kathleen was announced as the youngest graduate professor of biomedical sciences in the history of the University of Allens. They liked to compete with one another.

Their daughters became their lives. They also became the lives of their grandparents. Though it was never said aloud, Ha-eun and Seo-jun could see Nari in the softness of Ivy’s smile and in the light of Kennedy’s eyes. Respecting their family’s traditions and honoring the legacy of the work put into the family’s company was often emphasized. Legacy. Kennedy was smothered by it. Ivy was enriched by it.

↳ conflict & rising action

「 an energy unmatched 」

Death was always unexpected, always tragic. One person could have the breath stolen from their lungs, yet it was the people left behind that sank under the weight of their grief. That ached for years and years to come.

If Ivy could describe the year she turned 19, it would be with one word: grey. The grey of the clouds that taunted the guests of Kennedy’s funeral with rain that never came. The grey pallor of her mother’s expression just before she fainted after barely eating for a week. The disappearance of Ivy’s best friend had shaken her spirit in a way she never thought was possible. Were daughters destined for such an untimely end in her family? It felt like it. Nari and Kennedy. The grey of their portraits displayed on the mantle above the fireplace.

Ivy would sit in front of that picture for too long, furious at how her parents had chosen to memorialize the life of their second daughter. Kennedy was light. Yellow and orange and pink, fiery and beautiful. How could she have been reduced to nothing but a dull, humiliating grey? How could she be... nothing?

In a fit of emotion blurred by tears, Ivy snatched the picture and threw it to the floor. Pieces of glass flew everywhere and the portrait lay folded under what remained of the black frame. Seconds later, Ivy was on her knees trying to gather the broken fragments. Smoothing away any wrinkles on her sister’s face and ignoring the blood that seeped from where the glass had begun to cut her legs.

When she was found crying, bleeding, clutching the picture to her chest, Ivy was rushed to the hospital to have 12 stitches placed on her knees and shins. Her grandparents blamed her parents, her parents blamed her grandparents. “Why weren’t you with her?” “Why do we need to be together every second of the day?” “Because daughters need their mothers!” Amidst the arguing and cries of her family in her small hospital room, Ivy stayed quiet. She knew what they were really blaming each other for anyway.

Ivy never again lost herself the way she did that miserable afternoon. She didn’t want to be another reason that made her family yell the way they did. Instead, she found different pictures of Kennedy to keep with her and around her home.

Pictures that helped everyone remember Kennedy’s unmatched energy in vivid, beautiful color.

↳ climax

「 vassar & beyond 」

In August, the eldest Min sister was gone to school. In November, the youngest Min sister was gone forever. Not an ideal start to an undergraduate career. Instead of letting Kennedy’s death hinder her education, Ivy buried herself in her courses. A distraction from horribly sleepless nights and not a friend in sight. At the start of sophomore year, Ivy’s roommate Alba took one look at her and declared her hers. With a new friend in tow, Ivy found people exactly when she needed them. They brought a part of her back to life.

Alba. Leo. Wren. Dimitri.

Though Ivy was strongly encouraged by her parents to choose the major of Science, Technology, and Society, she found that she enjoyed her studies. Learning about the effects of global pandemics, health inequalities, or bioethics opened up her world to ideas she’d never considered. (So did her film minor, but even then she was too afraid to consider growing that passion into something more concrete.) Alba had been skeptical of Ivy’s predicament. “Your parents can’t force you to work for them. You’re an adult.” Perhaps not, but losing another daughter was inconceivable. Not when Kennedy almost broke her family apart.

Approximately one week after celebrating her graduation, Ivy began her prompt employment as a junior associate within her father’s team of business heads. The whispers of nepotism behind her back never bothered her, comforted by the knowledge that her takeover of the corporation wouldn’t take place for years to come.

By July, those hopes were squashed by Jae-sung’s proclamation that within the month, she would be announced as the next head of Min Industries. Interviews were organized, contracts were drafted, all faster than Ivy could come to terms with. Set to take the mantle by the time she was 24.

One year. One year until she was thrust into a world she felt she had no business being a part of. She was deeply frightened of the beyond and frantically searched for any way out.

July 27. The announcement of King Raphael’s Selection.

↳ falling action

「 a wayward path forward 」

Running away from family was new for Ivy. That had always been Kennedy’s expertise. Ran straight to her grave. Filling out the Selected application was even worse, from laughing with her parents at the absurdity and throwing the envelope away to digging in the trash bin at 2 in the morning. Submitting it during a feigned trip to the library. Even afterwards, she had convinced herself that the likelihood of being chosen was practically inconceivable. Vizzini would’ve been proud.

The leak was the tipping point. The office had been abuzz with the news of King Raphael’s extremely public error, but Ivy was none the wiser until Alba’s incessant video calls forced her into lunch. It took two sentences for Ivy to slam ‘end’ and dive straight into Tweeter. “Did you see? King Doof-ael leaked the Selected names.” If Ivy had stayed on the call, she would’ve discovered that her name was safely tucked away on a slip of paper until that evening’s Report. Instead, she panicked. Her father noticed. The truth was revealed. All before her name was even officially announced.

Screaming in the Min and Adair household hadn’t been heard since Kennedy’s accident. Neither parents or grandparents thought Ivy would be the one to bring it back, drowning out the poor voice of Justin Timberpond once her name had been aired for verbal confirmation. “Why have you chained yourself to such an archaic tradition?!” “You’re bright! Capable of greater things instead of a meaningless throne!” “That man has already proved himself incapable of leading a country if he needs to find a wife this way!” For once, they were a united front. Against her. And for once, she didn’t care that they yelled.

Each day leading up to her sendoff had been a battle. Long talks with her mother that always ended with, “I’m making a different choice. Different does not mean wrong.” Jae-sung pleaded for her to let someone else go, her grandfather all but ignored her. Even Ha-eun came to Ivy with her renowned mandu dumplings and naengmyeon as a scapegoat to discover the real reason as to why her granddaughter had up and unsettled every plan set in motion.

Ivy kept her truth to herself, as she almost always did. She didn’t know what her life would look like a year from now and it thrilled her, despite the pain buried deep in her chest. All that mattered was that she had taken every possibility and turned it into a wayward path forward. Forward.

↳ resolution rising action

#caught in writing #oc8 #practice challenge #((i am capable of making a pun once a year and it is in this fic))#((i proofread but if there's typos or things sound weird don't come for me pls))

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carewyncromwell · 3 years

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"Cover my eyes -- cover my ears -- Tell me these words are a lie... It can't be true that I'm losing you -- The sun cannot fall from the sky... Can you hear heaven cry the tears of an angel?”

~“Tears of an Angel,” by RyanDan

x~x~x~x

tw: character death, brief mention of violence

The Battle of Hogwarts, taking place the night of May 1st 1998 and into the next morning of May 2nd, was a dramatic day in the Wizarding World’s history. It was the day that Lord Voldemort fell at the hands of Harry Potter and the Ministry of Magic successfully seized back control from the Death Eaters that had infiltrated it -- the day that marked the end of the Second Wizarding War and a new beginning for wizards in the United Kingdom.

It was also a day, however, of immense loss. Although most magical historians (and authors writing books about the infamous Boy Who Lived) tend to gloss over the names and identities of those lost in favor of the grander-scale historical strides achieved by the end of the War, those who actually fought in the Battle -- such as Jacob Cromwell -- never forget that.

Once known as the “delinquent” who pursued Hogwarts’s infamous Cursed Vaults as a student, only to disappear mysteriously for seven years and then reappear looking exactly the same as when he vanished, Jacob worked hard to make a better name for himself. Once his fight against R was finally over, he set about traveling the world and taking on as many areas of study as he could, using his extensive knowledge of Transfiguration, Potions, Charms, the Dark Arts, defensive magic, magical and Muggle history, Legilimency, Muggle science, and both modern and ancient languages to pioneer new magical discoveries. One of his most passionate interests was in applying Muggle chemistry and biology to the fields of Potioneering and Magizoology, and through those advancements, he was able to not only introduce the use of the periodic table to advanced Potions classes and the principles of evolution to advanced Care of Magical Creatures classes, but also help develop a slew of new antidotes for magical creature venoms. Despite this, though, Jacob was enough of a vagabond with no definitive sense of direction that he could be easily persuaded to jump back into Cursebreaking -- the thing that first brought him and his once-boy best friend Duncan together -- and through Cursebreaking, Jacob met Lugh Hopper. @thatravenpuffwitch

The Patriarch of the Hopper clan was a very brave and dedicated family man, even despite the tragedy in his life. During the First Wizarding War, he lost not only his wife, but his son and daughter-in-law, so he’s always been quite protective of and nurturing toward his grandchildren Ellie and Jacob Hopper. With this in mind, it’s not entirely surprising that a man with such good paternal instincts and such a fearless spirit took a liking to a reckless, passionate nerd like Jacob Cromwell. They were both Legilimens with a strong devotion to family and a lot of courage, and honestly, Jacob C was just entertaining to go on assignments with, considering he never flinched away from a challenge and would get over-excited about the littlest things.

Jacob Cromwell had never had a real father figure in his life before, since his father Evan had never been very affectionate or supportive toward either Jacob or Carewyn and ultimately abandoned his family when Jacob received his Hogwarts letter, and so Lugh filled a hole in Jacob Cromwell’s life that he barely even knew had been there before. Lugh validated Jacob’s intense passions and desire to fix people’s problems and make the world better, even after all of the mistakes Jacob had made in his life. The older man wholeheartedly supported Jacob when he put his Cursebreaking assignments on hold to return to Britain, supposedly to “research at home” for a while, but in truth to help his sister Carewyn hide Muggle-born fugitives from the Ministry of Magic. And when both men arrived at Hogwarts on May 1st, they greeted each other with a casual hug, slapping each other’s backs, as if Jacob Cromwell was just as much Lugh’s grandson as Jacob Hopper was.

The two men fought side by side some of the time during the Battle. Both were extremely talented magical Duelists -- Lugh had once worked in the Auror Department alongside Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody, while Jacob had been a dueling prodigy since he was still at school and had in his travels studied with a Native American wizard about how to fight with two wands simultaneously. Despite this, however, the casualties in the Battle of Hogwarts were very steep indeed -- and sure enough, one of those casualties was Lugh, who only went down thanks to the combined efforts of four Death Eaters.

When Lugh went down, Jacob Cromwell -- who never was very good at containing his anger -- lost his head completely. He tore into the enemy forces with both of his wands, mercilessly cutting them down with an assortment of both dueling and Dark spells that other members of the Hogwarts army wouldn’t have dared use. He used Transfiguration to fuse one Death Eater to a suit of armor, even if the metal cut painfully through his flesh and bone. He seized one Death Eater’s wand arm with a spell and then dislocated it, twisting it completely the wrong way. He even impaled one of the men who’d cornered Lugh with a chandelier. Jacob was so grief-stricken that he’d gone mad -- and even when the Battle had been paused and there were no more enemy combatants left to fight, no one could get close to him. Most didn’t want to, out of fear of his temper. The only ones brave enough to were Bill Weasley and Jacob Hopper.

When the eldest Weasley tried to approach first, Jacob Cromwell refused to let him get within three feet of him. Jacob C had always had a lingering, petty resentment of his sister’s best friend, since Bill had sort of “taken Jacob’s place” in Carewyn’s life while he was trapped in the Portrait Vault and also embodied a lot of Jacob’s insecurities about not being good enough of a brother for Carewyn, so he had a lot of trouble accepting any help from him. Jacob Hopper, on the other hand, naturally grieved his grandfather just as much as Jacob Cromwell did -- and although Hopper was a rather arrogant rebel, Jacob Cromwell was one of those too, so the two had found more than a little bit of common ground while working together on assignments with Lugh. And so tall Jacob Hopper was able to get close enough to the shorter, stockier Jacob Cromwell to roughly pull him into a hug without a word -- and the two Jacobs ultimately stood there in the hall together, Jacob Cromwell’s shaking hands holding his wands wrapped around Hopper’s chest as they both gritted their teeth and fiercely tried to contain their grief and tears. All Jacob Cromwell ever said to Jacob Hopper that day was --

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Most wouldn’t know what he was sorry for, exactly...but Hopper surmised it was indicative of survivor’s guilt, more than anything.

After the War was over, Jacob Cromwell -- with some encouragement from his sister Carewyn -- finally felt brave enough to ask the Hoppers if he could sing something for Lugh’s funeral, in his honor. Naturally the Hoppers agreed...and when the young vagabond wizard came up to stand in front of the congregation that included his sister and her new ward Erik, his mother, and his best friend Olivia Green, his way-too-long ponytail of dark brown curls better groomed and dressed in nicer high-necked black robes than he’d ever worn in his life, he sung full-voice and bravely, even with tears streaming down his face.

“Oh, we never know where life will take us -- I know it's just a ride on the wheel -- And we never know when death will shake us, And we wonder how it will feel... So goodbye, my friend -- I know I’ll never see you again, But the time together through all the years Will take away these tears. It's okay now... Goodbye, my friend.”

And for the remainder of Jacob Cromwell’s life, he held Lugh Hopper’s memory as close to his heart as he did Duncan Ashe’s -- this time, as motivation to fight for a world where people like Lugh didn’t have to lay down their lives, just to save others from people like Voldemort and the Death Eaters.

#about jacob #jacob cromwell #lugh hopper #jacob hopper #carewyn cromwell #bill weasley #battle of hogwarts #my writing #*exhales heavily*#it felt like I should write something in honor of the anniversary today #carewyn was at the ministry keeping everything from falling apart during the battle of hogwarts so...#yeah seemed like something about jacob was more appropriate #I don't know I just love the thought of jacob hopper and jacob cromwell even though they're so cocky and rebellious personality-wise #being able to lean on each other a bit in their grief :(#listen to the whole song by the way some of these words break my heart making me think of my boy singing them #'we can't hold on but we try'#;~;#hphm #hogwarts mystery

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comradekatara · 3 years

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omg amazing do you have Thao songs you would assign to the gaang+?

instead of answering this ask like i did, for example, the fiona apple one, i’m gonna answer it like i did this ask, focusing on a singular album and the feelings it evokes. i’ve been listening to temple a lot lately so i felt that it made sense to focus on, especially considering its overarching themes.

temple is about intergenerational trauma, specifically between a mother and daughter, and the pressure of the daughter to live out the dreams her mother could not due to the ruination of war. therefore, i feel like it applies to katara in multiple ways: living out the dreams of her mother, grandmother, hama, and other waterbenders and/or women whose lives were lost to genocide, imperialist warfare, and even arranged marriages. but also, as a victim of that war herself, and reconstructing the southern water tribe as the only southern waterbender left, passing on that legacy to her daughter, and to korra, (and her other waterbending pupils, i would imagine,) knowing that they got to have the childhood free of war she had always longed for. i believe that korra would feel that mantle of responsibility strongly, as an extremely privileged kid growing up in a society that was on the brink of extinction less than a lifetime ago, and being mentored by someone who was exposed to the worst horrors of the war firsthand when she was only a child, and spent the rest of her lifetime trying to repair the damage. katara and korra’s relationship just means a lot to me okay....

phenom okay this song can definitely apply to lots of different characters: katara (”when the scorched of the earth / come back by sea”), toph (i know she’s extremely upper class but she’s also a disabled woman and as we see that puts her in an extremely tentative position that forces her into a position of docility and humiliation that she staunchly resists), mai & ty lee (irt their relationship to azula, their families, and the fire nation at large), but it first & foremost reminds me of hama, her overwhelming power, and her unquenchable thirst for revenge after the horrors the fire nation put her through.

lion on the hunt reminds me of azula’s rage & despair when she realizes that ozai doesn’t care about her and was only using her for his own ends, taking credit for all her (evil imperialist conquest) hard work while he just sat on his throne basking in the glory of having finally taken ba sing se. obviously the original context of the song itself is nothing so insidious, but the lyrics “they said I polish and astonish, and so why not me? / and then they said it's complicated and some wah, wah, wah / I made the map and you put you on it, pay me handsomely” really does remind me of that scene in “sozin’s comet” when we see azula’s reaction to ozai discarding her.

pure cinema this song is absolutely fuel for my “mai and sokka become best friends after the war” agenda because it totally resonates with both of them! they both feel like hollow shells driven by fear, a mere fraction of a person, just one incomplete piece of a puzzle. crucially, the difference lies in sokka’s eventual growth, later helping toph and zuko with those same feelings of displacement from their families by finding a new one. despite having loving and supportive biological family members, sokka is a depressed cynic with a fear of vulnerability, and it is the fact that he reaches out to them from a place of understanding that solidifies their respective places in this new family (suki too but she’s a far less developed character). concurrent to sokka, toph, and zuko’s ingratiation into the group, mai continues to feel alienated by azula’s insincerity and fear-stoking, and it is only at the end of her arc that she is able to stand up to azula and act authentically, but once she does, she is finally able to realize that she had true love all along.

marauders reminds me of the tension established in sokka’s relationship with suki in “the serpent’s pass:” how his guilt and trauma over losing yue makes him push suki away out of fear that he won’t be able to protect her. but by promising to protect him in turn, she proves to him that their relationship can be an equal partnership devoid of obligation––that their romance is not doomed despite his misgivings.

how could i makes me think of sokka’s guilt complex when it comes to not being able to protect the people he loves. katara was present for kya’s final moments, but sokka was on the other side of the village when she was murdered, and didn’t know what had happened until it was too late. and then, he considers it his fault that yue sacrificed herself for the moon spirit, because arnook explicitly told him to protect her. her physical body literally died in his arms. and as we see later, in moments such as in “the swamp” or “the serpent’s pass,” even though it was the fire nation’s fault (yon rha & zhao specifically) that kya & yue were forced to sacrifice themselves, he is still plagued by guilt.

disclaim evokes iroh’s legacy with his son(s), the guilt of realizing too late the devastation and atrocities for which he is responsible, and how he considers it his responsibility to shape zuko into the man he iroh should have been, and lu ten could have been. of course, the line “I was once an honorable man” is both incisive & ironic, since honor is an arbitrary construct, and iroh is no longer considered honorable because he developed morals. “I don't believe it's your destiny / to always chase my memory / how could it be insincere / to very clearly disappear” is interesting in this context because iroh clearly wants zuko to assume the throne and redeem the legacy of the fire nation, but in book 2, he’s also perfectly content to open a teashop and close himself off to the world outside the walls of ba sing se, along with his nephew. he knows that he and zuko have a duty to redeem the sins of their family, but there is a very large part of him that would be perfectly content with ignoring the outside world in favor of letting zuko heal. iroh is a complex character, but his love for zuko is never in doubt.

rational animal reminds me of toph’s arc: abandoning her oppressive environment (specifically, her abusive father) and choosing to live authentically: not conforming to society’s standards and limitations for her as a disabled girl (who also rejects femininity). the bridge of “i believe my own eyes” becomes even more powerful due to the fact that toph’s experiences are constantly invalidated by authority figures due to her disability. she is keenly perceptive and empathetic––and not despite her blindness, but, in large part, because of it.

i’ve got something is an extremely zuko song tbh. having the humanity & compassion stamped out of you to fulfill an imperialist agenda only to resist it due to your capacity for caring & overwhelming sensitivity that is impossible to ignore––that’s what it’s all about babey!!!

marrow is actually about all of them because they are all children of war who are capable of being loved and of loving in return! but aang and katara’s genocide trauma and their unbreakable bond over their shared grief and desire for understanding, companionship, and happiness is especially potent, as always.

#posts that are for 3 people one of them being myself #analysis #not tagging every character lmao #finally answered this cause im trying to clear out the inbox #(only 33 asks left to go!)#sorry it took so long #i have questions from february..... oof #anyway this is a hell of a lot of words for a post no one's gonna read #asks #edgarallanhoetry #synthesis #atlamusic

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isabilightwood · 3 years

Text

The Problem with Authority - Chapter 1

CQL!Verse, Wangxian and Yanqing, canon divergence with Qin Su sacrifice summoning JYL after Jin Rusong’s death. JYL teams up with NHS to fix things, starting with bringing back WWX. Wen Qing is alive because I said so, and LWJ gets in the way of plotting because he’s a romantic.

See my self reblog for the AO3 link/additional tags and warnings

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The problem with authority is that if you leave it lying around, others will take it. — Yoon Ha Lee, Ninefox Gambit

Qin Su was tired of the constant hovering.

Every time she set foot outside her own rooms, she was beset by disciples and the wives of subordinates, telling her over and over how very sorry they were.

It was all bullshit.

Fake, social climbing schemers, who were more concerned with the fact that Jin Guangshan’s legitimate grandson was once again the sect heir, than sorry for the death of her son. Her A-Song.

They expected her to sob constantly, to wail and tear her hair from her scalp. That they could comfort Qin Su by repeating the same trite, cloying words day-by-day. Earn a little status out of tragedy. If Qin Su had to listen to one more apology, she was going to be sick all other the offending madam’s embroidery hoop.

It was true that she still couldn’t go a day without crumbling into tears. But mostly, she was numb. Exhausted, in more ways than one. She wanted to go to sleep, and wake with her son tucked safely into bed, or not wake up at all.

The private treasury was the only place where she could be certain she would not be disturbed. Even in her own bedroom, it would only be so long before a maid was sent to find her. Only she and her husband could open the hidden entrance to the vault. Only in the treasury, could she be alone, to find something to distract herself, however briefly, from the avalanche of her grief.

There were still many items that had been claimed by her deceased father-in-law after the war that had not been cataloged. Priceless relics and weapons and irreplaceable texts alike sat neglected in trunks. Jin Guangshan had cared only for possession, occasionally touting one item or another out to show off. Ten months after A-Yao’s succession, shelves continued to sit empty. Neither she nor A-Yao had found the time, busy keeping everything running smoothly, as he made bids for projects he called progress with the gleam in his eyes that had first made her chase after him. Back when he seemed flattered by her attention, interested in her as more than a friend or colleague.

Qin Su herself managed the internal minutiae of the Sect and oversaw disciple training. The latter would traditionally fall to the Head Disciple, but they had lost one after another. The woman who had been intended to aid Jin Zixuan had resigned over some disagreement before his death. Her replacement, a second or third cousin to the main Jin Clan, married out to the leader of the Fengyang Hua Sect, a growing sect that bordered Gusu and Lanling. Their replacement died at Nightless City, along with the next dozen or so disciples in line. And so Qin Su was free to manage the training as she wished.

Or had been, until she was asked to take a step back from training, for fear her grief would destabilize her qi. It was true that she had been unable to focus. However, stewing in the unending reminders that she would never hold A-Song in her arms again was no help. Attending to her duties as a hostess only made it worse.

Sorting the looted relics was mindless work, that required none of the focus she had lacked for the forty-one days since A-Song’s death. But it was something to occupy her hands, and some small part of her thoughts.

She began with the books that day, sorting into titles that were common and could be sold, those that needed to be repaired, and those to dangerous to be held anywhere but the treasury. Qin Su moved to start a new pile, for useful, rare texts that should be copied, on a table, and a disorganized pile of notes and notebooks caught her eye.

It was the disorganization that stood out. A-Yao never left anything out like that. He must have been called away, but if he returned and saw it, that would trigger his own flood of tears. Qin Su had heard him sobbing, late into the night, from the next room over. But each morning, he greeted his work with his habitual dedication, no matter how puffy his eyes, or how little he’d slept. A-Yao would never forgive himself if his work was delayed by his composure crumbling over a small thing out of place.

She picked up the papers, intending only to organize them into an even stack, and place them evenly between the notebooks. But their subject caught her attention.

A circular array was drawn on each paper. Identical, to her unpracticed eyes, with varied notes printed in precise calligraphy in different locations on each page.

Qin Su had always focused on the sword, leaving talismans to those with innovative minds yet weaker cores, like her husband. Yet this array made her look twice.

Sacrifice Summon was written at the top of the first page, the one with the least writing. The soul of the caster is permanently exchanged for that of a chosen spirit or ghost, fully resurrecting the deceased. It was a complex design, meant to drawn in the blood of the caster.

Voices, from the other side of the portal. A-Yao must have wanted to show an item from the vault to a guest. Her heartbeat sped up, her hands shaking as she dropped the papers back onto the table.

The last thing Qin Su wanted was to have to greet her husband’s guests, while he smiled his disappointment in her for shirking her duties.

She raised the tablecloth and ducked beneath, knocking one of the papers off the table as she did so. Catching it, she pulled it to her chest, dropping the cloth back into place just in time. It was dark in the small space, and stuffy. Her heart hammered hard enough Qin Su felt certain it must be audible throughout the room. But her presence was not discovered, and so Qin Su did not have to answer as to why Jin-furen was hiding from her own husband.

“The remainder of the He Clan has been dealt with.” Su Minshan reported. His voice was easily identifiable from the obsequiousness with which he always treated her husband. She’d asked A-Yao what he saw in him once, and he’d flashed his dimples at her and said, unfaltering loyalty is a trait I cannot afford to lose. So Qin Su tolerated Su Minshan, though he made her skin crawl. And made certain never to be caught alone with him. “Xue Yang tracked them down to the last man.”

Why he kept Xue Yang around, on the other hand, was a mystery.

“Good, that’s good,” A-Yao said. Never shy of heaping praise on his subordinates, he would be smiling up at the other man. “Tell me, what did Xue Yang bring back with him?”

“A few urchins, from town. He said they were his payment for leaving the bodies alone.” Su Minshan scoffed, disgusted.

It didn’t sound like Xue Yang had brought the children to become disciples.

There was the slap of a forehead hitting a palm. A-Yao’s voice was slightly muffled as he gave an exasperated sigh. “I told him he could experiment with animals or dead bodies or not at all. Especially not children.” There was the slightest break in his voice at the word children. “Xue Yang has outlived his usefulness. Have him disposed of and left somewhere remote.”

The command was delivered coldly, casually. He sounded nothing like the warm, if more distant than Qin Su had initially expected, husband she knew.

“Yes, Zongzhu.” A pair of disciples said, their footsteps receding as they took their leave.

“Your research is not completed, is it?” Su Minshan asked, once they were gone.

“I have better means now. My dear younger brother is eager to please, and will not dismember the test animals for kicks and giggles.” A-Yao spoke as though this was an ongoing discussion, yet Qin Su, his wife, had never heard a whisper of research on animals before that day. Only of field testing of the Yiling Patriarch’s inventions. “Or decide to run tests on townspeople and dismember them, too.”

Just what had her husband been allowing Xue Yang to do? It seemed impossible that flighty little Mo Xuanyu could achieve it, whatever it was.

“Another headache eliminated, then.” Su Minshan said. “That’s nearly all the most dangerous ones out of the way.”

There was a weighted pause before A-Yao replied, incongruously. “I did love my son, you know.”

“I did not mean to imply otherwise.” Su Minshan rushed to assure him. “I am deeply sorry this step was necessary.”

Step? What was he implying about A-Song?

“If only that woman had told you the truth earlier.” Su Minshan snarled. “Keeping it a secret while her daughter courted her own half-brother? What a selfish bitch.”

What? Qin Su clapped her hands over her mouth, stifling a choked gasp.

“Now, Minshan, please. You remember what my father was like. We were all of us his victims. A-Su, me, and both of our mothers.” For the first time, Qin Su understood what Lianfang-zun’s detractors meant when they said he dripped insincerity. “Ultimately, A-Song’s death can be placed at his feet.”

But A-Song was murdered after Jin Guangshan died, she thought stupidly. Utterly frozen in place, the short, harsh pants of her breath the only sign she had not just been dropped into hell. The two men spoke for a few more minutes, but Qin Su didn’t hear a word.

It was some time after they left that Qin Su moved, her stiff joints causing her to fall onto her side on the edge of the tablecloth.

How was she ever supposed to face the court, knowing what she did now? Look her half-brother in the face without screaming?

The honorable thing would be to expose him, and to then take her own life to restore her own honor.

She couldn’t. She couldn’t do that to her father, to her older siblings. Half-siblings, now, she supposed, with a crazed giggle. The only real siblings, the only real father Qin Su would ever have. It would be better if they never knew what had happened to their mother. To her.

But she couldn’t carry on as she had, either.

The forgotten paper crinkled in her hands. The Sacrifice Summon. Exchanging her life for another’s.

Was that the solution she was searching for? Could she?

Qin Su remembered her husband’s - her brother’s voice saying especially not children. Only breaths before declaring his own son’s death necessary.

Her A-Song was lost forever.

There was, however, another child under Lianfang-zun’s care. Another mother whose son was not lost, but who had nevertheless lost the chance to see him grow. If Qin Su exchanged her life for that woman’s, perhaps her soul would pass on quickly enough to find A-Song in another life.

Jiang Yanli would see Jin Ling grow up safely, ensure Lianfang-zun did not keep the power he had married his own sister and murdered his own son to secure.

That would be best for everyone.

Qin Su shakily extracted herself from beneath the table, returning to the one room she could be certain Lianfang-zun would never enter.

Now she knew why.

Locking the door to her room, Qin Su emptied what little was in her stomach into the chamber pot. When she was through, she began to draw the array.

The first thing Jiang Yanli noticed was the silence. She had been on the battlefield at Nightless City, pushed A-Xian aside, and a sword went through her heart —

She had been dead. She was certain.

Oh, A-Xian. What did you do?

Slowly, Jiang Yanli sat up. She was sprawled on the floor of a well-appointed lady’s bedroom. In Koi Tower, by the color scheme, but its occupant had uncommon taste. Rather than gilded everything, there were accents of gold on the drapery and to emphasize ink paintings of the ocean and a palace she did not recognize.

There was also the matter of the array of blood that surrounded her. Demonic cultivation, which only supported her certainty that A-Xian was involved. But where was he? And if she was in Koi Tower, where was her son?

Yunmeng, something inside her whispered. Though she could not explain why, she knew it was true.

Checking herself for cuts, she found a gash across the palm of her hand. But it was already sealing, far faster than Jiang Yanli had healed from so much as a paper cut before her death.

She wasn’t an expert in raising the dead like her brother, but Jiang Yanli was fairly certain fierce corpses did not work that way. At the very least, she should have been bleeding black. Yet her blood was as red as ever.

Getting to her feet, she started to inspect the room for clues. On the way to the desk, she passed a mirror. Her gaze skipped past a mirror. And snapped back.

It was not Jiang Yanli’s face that looked back.

This woman’s face was rounder and softer than her own. Pretty, with a natural pink in her cheeks where Jiang Yanli’s had always had to be painted on, due to the frequency with which she lost her breath and grew dizzy. There, too, was a hint of the agelessness that came with a fully developed golden core. With a feeling of foreboding, Jiang Yanli felt along her meridians until she reached her core. No longer a weak, underdeveloped thing due to her inability to practice the heavily physical Jiang techniques, it shone bright and strong.

That was a point against this being A-Xian’s doing. He wouldn’t have stolen her a body, when he could simply bring back her own.

Why am I alive? Asked a voice in her head.

That would have been a reasonable question. Only it wasn’t Jiang Yanli thinking it.

Maybe resurrection came with the ability to understand spirits. The results were entirely untested, so it was possible. Yet the voice seemed certain it was alive. If her current state was due to demonic cultivation, she might as well do what A-Xian would: experiment.

“I could ask you the same question.” Jiang Yanli told the voice.

Jiang Yanli? It worked! But why am I in your head?

“Are you the one who brought me back?” She tilted her head back, trying to place the way the voice made her head feel. Almost like the moment at the start of meditation when she began to forget her body to focus on her spirit, but with a disconnect keeping her grounded.

Yes. And then, I can hear your thoughts, the voice said, you don’t need to speak out loud.

That was disconcerting. Is this your body? She thought at the voice.

Yes. The voice said. Stop calling me that. I’m Qin Su.

Strangely, it was a relief to have a name. It made Qin Su feel more real than anything else in this surreal afterlife. So it would be more accurate to say I’m in your head. Am I possessing you?

It was supposed to be an exchange. My soul for yours.

Well clearly, it hadn’t worked that way.

Responding to her unformed question, the woman continued. The array is on the desk.

This… It was obviously A-Xian’s work, copied out by a more careful hand. But it looked incomplete, a half-developed first draft or his scattered notes on an older text that he could always piece back together perfectly, but left out crucial details for anyone else. Utterly unlike the labeled, if nearly illegible, minutiae on his complete work. Jiang Yanli would never have cast an array with so little information. Especially not one of A-Xian’s.

I didn’t know the Yiling Patriarch. And I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly.

No, she supposed not. Anyone casting this array would have to be desperate.

Everything fell apart and I just… used what I had on hand. There was the impression of a shrug, like her mind contorting itself into a new shape. My impulse decisions always have terrible consequences. That’s how I ended up pregnant and marrying the last person in the world I should have. Qin Su gave a short, harsh burst of hysterical laughter, startling Jiang Yanli into making the same noise aloud.

Telling whoever this abusive asshole was that her husband had died only a week ago, and she was certainly not performing any marital duties could wait until she figured out what Qin Su had done.

There are other pages with more notes in the treasury.

Jiang Yanli sprang to her feet. I’ll need to see them immediately.

She slid open the doors, and came face to face with a maid carrying cleaning supplies. Jiang Yanli quickly shut the doors behind her, so the maid could not catch a glimpse of the blood still staining the floor.

“Oh! Jin-furen.” The maid bowed deeply. “This one apologizes for assuming you would be out.”

It was something of a shock to be addressed by a title that had, from her perspective, belonged to her mother-in-law only yesterday. Jin-furen?

Ah, yes. I’ve been Jin-furen since Jin Guangshan… passed… ten months ago. The word “passed” came with a flash of embarrassment, telling Jiang Yanli enough for her to extrapolate the cause of death.

Jin Guangyao must be Jin-zongzhu then. Strange, he hadn’t seemed the abusive type.

Not abuse. Worse. Qin Su gagged in her mind, making Jiang Yanli do the same.

“Are you all right, Jin-furen?” The maid asked, hovering closer.

At least the gagging gave her an excuse not to allow anyone inside. “I’ll be fine. But please wait to clean until tomorrow. I’m afraid I’m not feeling well. Would you have some soup sent on a tray for my dinner?”

“Of course, Jin-furen.” The maid backed away, bowed, and hurried off.

Jiang Yanli turned to inspect the door, placing her hands on her hips. With Qin Su’s Golden Core, she could likely cast a locking spell. If she knew how, that was. She had always relied on A-Xian’s talismans, many of which he developed specifically for her. Unfortunately, she had none on hand.

That’s easy. Qin Su said. Draw the characters for lock, then modify it with…

It took Jiang Yanli a few tries to draw properly on her new core, but she was able to lock the door against casual entry. No cultivator with a sword would be kept out for long, but they would have to be willing to trespass in Jin-furen’s bedchamber.

The thin flush of victory faded the second she stepped through the treasury portal. Suibian lay on a shelf, visible from the door. A-Xian had not carried his sword for a long time. But he would never have handed it over to the Jin Clan, unless it was directly into Jiang Yanli’s arms. Something had gone terribly wrong.

Qin Su. Why is my A-Xian’s sword in the treasury? Jiang Yanli demanded. The answering silence was deafening. “Qin Su! Tell me why!”

He… died. At Nightless City. Not long after you did. Qin Su’s voice was hesitant, as though confused why she cared.

“No!” She let out a choked sob, clasping a hand over her mouth. A-Xian wasn’t — he couldn’t be —

Didn’t he kill you? I was told —

“No! Never!” A-Xian would never have hurt her. I tried to save him.

Silence, for a moment, other than Jiang Yanli’s own ragged breaths. Then, I’m sorry. I’ve learned a lot of things I believed were lies today. Perhaps what they said about him was too.

They were. A-Xian was bright, and good, and cared too much. He had never been what they thought. Jiang Yanli had not needed to ask to know A-Xuan’s death was a horrible mistake, likely the result of stepping in between his cruel, vindictive cousin and her brother at the wrong moment. If he had meant to kill Jin Zixun, A-Xian had had good reason.

I think anyone who had the misfortune of meeting Jin Zixun considered killing him. Qin Su said wryly.

Jiang Yanli had had those thoughts. She gave a watery giggle that was answered in her head. It was sweet of Qin Su to try to comfort her when she could feel that she was still reeling for her own reasons. The least Jiang Yanli could do in return was get her some answers.

On the table.

She found the stack of diagrams easily, along with a tattered notebook that appeared to contain A-Xian’s original work. Jiang Yanli flipped through that, knowing that unless had both gotten a hold of one of the few people that could read his note-taking scrawl — her, Lan Wangji, and perhaps Wen Qing, who had taken their turns as A-Xian’s sounding board in succession — and convinced them to help details would likely have been missed.

You can read that? Qin Su was incredulous.

Years of practice, she replied. Before Lan Wangji, Jiang Yanli had been the only person who took A-Xian’s inventions seriously, the only person willing to sit and listen while he bounced from idea to idea, eventually solving the problem himself.

The average person would not think it necessary to puzzle out the text under a sketch of Lan Wangji holding a child, assuming it was a caption. When it was, in fact, an absolutely crucial detail. A detail that had made A-Xian conclude the Sacrifice Summon Array should never be used.

There were perhaps a dozen variations on the array. Most worked in a similar way to what Qin Su had intended, summoning a spirit to take the caster’s place. The earliest could not target a specific soul, but A-Xian had worked that out. Luckily, Qin Su had used one of those arrays, allowing Jiang Yanli to be summoned, rather than causing the closest vengeful spirits to battle for her body. The very last caused the caster’s body to be torn apart, and replaced with a copy of the spirit’s own.

But every version had two things in common: a call for revenge, and the destruction of the caster’s soul.

In her mind, Qin Su went perfectly still.

Jiang Yanli had a theory as to why Qin Su’s soul had not been consumed by the array. It had started the job, pulling Jiang Yanli in, but Qin Su had not asked for revenge, and so the array spat most of her back out. What the consequences were, for either of their spirits, she could not begin to guess.

There was a distinctive air of panic to Qin Su’s continued silence.

Qin Su, Jiang Yanli prodded, if this had worked the way it’s written, your soul would have been consumed by it. What could have been worth this?

I didn’t know about that. I didn’t want that.

It didn’t happen. You’re still here. She attempted to reassure Qin Su, wishing there was a way to mentally pat someone on the head. That had always helped calm both her brothers.

I’m still here. Whatever the fuck that means. Qin Su giggled nervously. That wasn’t very ladylike.

I think it’s forgivable, under the circumstances. Jiang Yanli raised a sleeve to cover her smile.

You don’t know the half of it. Qin Su sighed. I didn’t think things like this happened, outside of stories.

Jiang Yanli waited for her to go on, gritting her teeth in response to a wave of bitterness.

Only a few hours ago, I found out my so-called husband is my half-brother and he murdered our son. And now here we are.

Oh. Jiang Yanli could not so much as think of a reassuring response. What the fuck is correct.

“A-Su,” Jin Guangyao said from behind her, before Qin Su could say anything more. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

#the untamed #cql #wangxian #yanqing #qin su #my fic

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angel-squid-trash-ghost · 4 years

Text

Parental Guidance

The wind whistled across the tundra. A storm was moving inland but probably wouldn’t be too eventful. But something else wasn’t right in the air. Hakoda could feel it. The wind whispered it to him. It was a warning. Go inside. Go inside, he felt his heart say. There was a giggle behind him. It was his youngest, Katara. He was happy to hear that sound from her. For too long his precious daughter didn’t even smile.

It was only a year ago his wife, his Kya, had been slain by the Fire Nation. It was hard to see his children grow without a mother. Sokka, his son understood better than his sister. Katara would cry for her mother to tuck her in. She only wanted her mother to make her dinner. Only her mother to hold her when she cried. But his son was showing her a spinning top. One decorated with a wolf spirit that spun in a figure eight. Her blue eyes, his wife’s eyes, lit up with wonder.

“Dad! Look!” Sokka smiled.

Sokka was a good boy. He was so eager to learn how to be a man. He couldn’t do a Water tribe father prouder. He was smart too. He had built his first snare before he was even shown how to. He was also a good brother. Hakoda knew there were times he couldn’t care for his daughter alone. He couldn’t take the constant pleading for someone he couldn’t give her. But it would be Sokka to take her hand and tell her to hush, that things would be different in the mornings.

The snow kept falling as Kanna stirred stewed squid. His mother was a tremendous help. She had filled all the roles Kya would have had in their household. He wouldn’t be able to do it without her. Sometimes he would try to get her to rest. But she would brush him off and insist she wasn’t that old yet.

“That’s really amazing, son.” He smiled at his family.

He was grateful to be able to see their faces every day. He had not been asked to go to war like many in the sister tribe had been. His village was small with only a few other villages scattered around. If all warriors were shipped out there would be no chance for the Southern Water Tribe to survive. Lately there hadn’t been any raids. Not since the last one that took his Kya. He tried not to think about her or the war. Not on nights like this with his family warm and laughing. In the morning, fresh snow would cover the ground erasing the days before. So, he dreamed to be old, white haired and wrinkled, surrounded by grandkids who had never heard of war. Many, happy grandkids who had never seen the red flags or the black snow.

“Dad! Dad! It’s still spinning!” Katara clapped her hands snapping him out of his trance.

“I see! How long do you think it will spin?” Hakoda laughed.

“Maybe until Mommy comes back!”

Sokka stopped the top, his mother had stopped stirring and his daughter’s smile disappeared when she saw her father’s reaction. Hakoda found himself wanting to go outside again. The stab to his heart was too much. But the wind whispered. Stay inside. Stay inside.

…

The water was cold. It was too cold. It hurt Iroh’s bones and his muscles. He was already so tired from swimming. He only had a small piece of metal and what seemed to be the remains of his nephew. The storm had destroyed their ship as if La themself had split the metal vessel in two. Iroh didn’t know how many of the crew had survived. But his nephew was with him still as the ice they rested on. Iroh longed to be on the shores of his homeland. He wished he were on sand and not ice. That he was being covered by sun rays and not snow. His rib was broken, and his hip was in an unbearable amount of pain. But in that moment, none of it mattered. His nephew, Prince Zuko was not moving. Iroh felt the burn in his eyes and the choke in his throat. The journey couldn’t be for nothing.

Another wave washed over Iroh. So cold. The splash hit the burnt skin of his nephew. Prince Zuko’s eyes squinted. Now Iroh was crying, not with pain but with relief. It gave him the strength he needed to pull himself out fully from the water. The ice was not much more forgiving than the water. He was still too weak to bend. He closed his tired eyes. Iroh started to think almost into meditation. He was almost ready to resign to a death next to the young life he tried to save. Almost.

He felt a warmth close to his plumped cheek. It was a salvation. Was it Agni trying to take him to the spirit world? Iroh opened one eye. It was Captain Soru. The son of the navigator Soji, who was surely at the mercy of the ocean if not already dead. He held a fire to him warm and welcoming.

…

Hakoda felt something else on the wind. There was more than one voice now. He was starting to believe the grief had caused him to go insane. Stay inside. Help. We are here. Stay. Help. Stay. Whispered on the winds as he stared through the uncovered window. Kanna was quick to cover the carved hole with a pelt.

“You will catch a sickness.” Kanna chastised.

“Maybe, mother. But I can hear voices.” He admitted knowing his mother would not judge him. He had said worse things to her.

His mother answered. “What do you hear? One does not hear the wind if it is not telling him something.”

Hakoda moved the pelt and watched the snow. Slowly figures appeared. At first, he thought he was seeing things. Seven shapes moved through the whirling gusts. Some tall and some thicker than others. But they were all in a circle around something.

“Chief Hakoda!”

“What is it, Moak?” Hakoda asked seeing Moak run past his window.

“Seven men! They look Fire Nation!”

Hakoda’s heart pounded in his chest. “Mother take the children to the communal hut. Go quickly! Tell all women you see to do the same. Where’s Bato?”

“I’m here.” Bato, a man that had been his friend since childhood stood faithfully at his side.

“I want all men armed and ready.” Hakoda said trying to hide his panic.

“There may be a weapon with them!” Moak shouted out.

“Look through the spy glass! Get a better look.”

“Chief it’s…a doll? A child? There is only half a face that I can see! They look injured.”

“Wait till they get closer. Keep your eye in the spy glass. When you get a better sense let me know.” The chief kept his composure. The entire village would be counting on him.

Hakoda went around the village, preparing for the worst. Every command had to be followed to the exact letter. Hakoda had planned for every single outcome since the last time the Fire Nation were spotted on their shores. His plan was full proof, and he would never lose anyone ever again.

“Dad what’s happening? I can help!” Sokka must have escaped his Gran-gran. He was already armed with seal leather armor and a boomerang.

Hakoda’s pride out-weighed his panic for a few moments. He put his hands onto his son’s shoulders. “What I need you to do right now is a very important job. Do you understand?”

Sokka nodded hard gripping his boomerang for dear life.

Hakoda continued, “I need you to be with Katara and Gran- Gran. I know it feels like I’m sending you away, but I need someone protecting them. You know you’re my bravest warrior, right?”

He could see his son fight his own tears, “Yes, Dad.”

“Then please be with them Sokka. I can’t lose anyone else.” Hakoda pulled his son close before letting him go to bark out more orders. “Guard the gate! Hold the line! Show no fear!” The snow fell faster now making it hard to the approaching men. It seemed like they would have to get closer to get a full idea of what they could be expecting.

Finally, the Fire Nation men were in sight. Two young men and four middle aged men. One old man and one boy being pulled on a makeshift sled. They all limped, each step taken in agony. The young men had extensive injuries. One appeared to be missing an arm. Two middle age men hobbled along keeping up the old man whilst helping themselves. And the other two pulling the sled with the half-faced boy. They all fell to their knee’s when they reached the gate. They were wet and bleeding. The cold must have been adding to their misery as they were not properly dressed for ice and snow. He heard them sob and groan. Some of his men grew restless. There was no doubt they were suffering, but how could he care. They were Fire Nation. They should get a taste of their own medicine. They should walk around limbless and in pain. They should starve and be frightened. Their child should die innocent in their arms…

“Chief? They have a child with them. The old man is saying they need warmth, or they will all die. What should we do?” Moak whispered.

“Keep the gate closed.” Hakoda said without hesitation.

“Yes, sir.” Moak nodded before leaving to inform the guards.

“Bato!” Hakoda called his friend. “What should I do? They are injured and they have a child with them. But they are Fire Nation. Do they deserve mercy?”

“Hakoda...” Bato stared at the Fire Nation men as Hakoda did, “Are we better than them if we leave them at the gate to die? Are we exposing ourselves to a sneak attack if we let them in? But any decision you make I will follow.”

“I have the same troubled thinking.” Hakoda breathed out. To know his men were as conflicted as he was made it easier for him to form a plan. “We should let the most injured man in to ask what they want. Do not let the child come through yet. I do not want them to think we are too gullible.”

“Yes, sir!” Bato leapt down to the others to inform the change of plan.

They sent the old man in. He spoke the Water language. He spun some story that the storm had pushed them off their course and their ship sank some miles out. He asked for fire his injured crew could gather around. He had the audacity to ask for food and to ask for shelter. Hakoda had a quick thought of cutting them all down in their weakened state. But he was raised as a warrior. He would not kill men who could not defend themselves. But they would not be guests. They would be held as prisoners until Hakoda decided they weren’t.

“Please take my nephew! He needs a healer right away!” The old man begged again.

Hakoda could only assume the boy’s face had been damaged by the sinking ship. He was small and couldn’t be older than his own son. He wasn’t moving. Not even when the snow landed on his wounds. He gave the order to have the child taken to the healing hut, but the others had to stay together and were to be guarded at all times.

Over the next week, the prisoners were given a meal a day of whatever scraps they decided to provide. Any sign of bending and they would be killed. They had to be restrained when their injuries were inspected. The boy in the healing hut had not opened his eyes. As the days went on the villagers grew anxious. No one wanted Fire Nation in their midst for that long. A search party might arrive soon only putting his people in further danger. The Fire Nation men had to leave. They had been shown enough hospitality.

The next morning Hakoda went to inform the prisoners. They all took the news well. All except for the old man. The old man struggled to stand on his feet. He whimpered even as two men lifted him.

“Please, Chief Hakoda. I understand me and my men must go, but please let the boy stay.”

“You have already asked too much of my people. I will not allow some lifeless Fire Nation pup to be a cause of another raid.”

“No one knows where we are.”

“You could be lying. I should have made the order to kill you at the gate. You could be a spy.”

“We do not wish to stay, Chief Hakoda. But the boy cannot come with us. I fear he would not survive the journey back.”

“What concern of this is mine. Unlike the Fire Nation, Water tribe understand what innocence is. No child of the Fire Nation can be innocent.”

“I know your heart cannot be so hard, Chief Hakoda. He is not unlike your children. His only crime is being born under the Fire Flag.”

“My decision is final.” Hakoda kept his laconic tone.

Iroh threw himself into a kowtow, “I wish for his safety! He will be safe here! Please, Chief Hakoda. This old man begs you.”

“As my wife did? Before she was slain holding my daughter in her arms? My decision is final.”

“You are not the only one to have loved ones lost at the hands of the Fire Nation. My people lose fathers and sons every day for a war that does not benefit them. I lost my very own son. I do not like this war any more than you. I do not seek glory or victory over you or your people. I want to go home and die in my own bed knowing that my nephew is safe.”

Hakoda ignored the sympathy that flittered in the back of his mind. There wasn’t much else Hakoda could do. If he allowed the boy to stay, the Fire Nation would have a reason to come back. If not them, then the Northern Water tribe would have a long-awaited reason to seize control of the South. It would be reason enough for some Earth kingdom tradesmen to sell information to the Fire Nation. He seemed to be cornered at all sides. It was the most rational decision to send them all away.

He approached the healer’s tent unable to remember his reasoning. Inside was the last thing he wanted to see. His daughter was above the half-faced boy. She took a towel and gently dabbed at the boy’s scar. The boy’s eyes moved but didn’t open. He stayed in his place before his body had to react. He stepped backward. The crunch of the floor behind him alerted his daughter. Katara put her hands behind her back like she was caught sneaking an extra tart.

“Dad. I’m sorry. They left him. They said he was already dead. But look! He’s alive, Dad!” Katara began to sob.

Hakoda kept his voice even, not to scare his daughter, “I am taking you to Gran- Gran and you will not leave her sight.”

Hakoda made his way to the communal hut where all the women and children sat together waiting for news. Including the healer, Kehana who was supposed to be treating the boy. He saw the fear in her eyes. In all their eyes as he scanned the room. He made them aware of his decision. Relief washed over them all. But all too soon when shouting was heard.

Hakoda dashed outside. Men were hollering and running in disarray. They all were pointing in the same direction. The six Fire Nation soldiers had escaped and were seen hauling a canoe into the water. Hakoda grabbed the nearest weapon and sprinted to the shore. He couldn’t think and couldn’t make any commands, but his men followed suit and ran with him. It was too late. The old man was yelling something over the water that he couldn’t hear. Hakoda hoped La would not make the same mistake and swallow them whole this time.

#zutara #zuko x katara #young zuko #young katara #young sokka #first fanfic #atla fanfic #hakoda #kanna #bato #alternate universe #cannon divergence #i own nothing

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poppy-battenberg · 3 years

Text

in the name of the mother, and of the aunt, and of the chaotic spirit // self

Katarina Bellweather was born to be a kind rebel.

There will always be the rascals, the revolutionaries, who will risk their life for the cause. And there will always be their quiet supporters standing by, ready and willing to patch them up without going to war themselves.

Unknown to her children, the first person the future stylist dressed was her brother.

He came home with a bloody back wound while her parents were passed out drunk. She poured what remained of a bottle of whiskey on his back and tore up her fluffy cotton robe to wrap around his midsection.

When her parents woke up, they kicked him out and reported him to Peacekeepers. One of the Peacekeepers had been attacked the night before, and Benjamin Bellweather was killed for it. The Bellweathers were honored for their loyalty with their daughter’s placement as a styling assistant at the Tribute Tower the next year. Katarina did not protest. Openly. The first outfit she was allowed to style all on her own, however, had a large red circle in the center of the back.

President Snow did not notice. Katarina Bellweather was not worth noticing.

Katarina Bellweather was hailed for her talent, but she was not so extraordinarily talented that she garnered extra attention. When she met Tarta Battenberg, her focus shifted. She wanted a life with him. A life without fear that she might die if someone sought deeper meaning in her work. She sent in her resignation to the Tribute Tower the day the pregnancy test came back positive, and decided on a name to honor her brother. She applied for several residencies working for wedding designers, and managed to secure herself a spot. Her clients were never the richest in the Capitol, or the most extravagant, but they always had the best floral arrangements at their wedding that her husband provided.

Katarina worked hard after that. For her children, and for Panem. A pregnant belly is a perfect place to hide things - like notes to share among rebels. The pockets of her maternity dresses held more than those babies would ever know. She never took part in any of the real action, but every note and playing card she passed along over the years led to some action on behalf of a rebellion.

Katarina Bellweather did not risk her own life, not directly, for a rebellion. Not until her sister-in-law knocked at their door.

“Twelve is gone. They bombed it.”

The words were repeated just moments later, by Tarta. He had always been a kind man.

Two kind people cannot exist in the same room for a rebellion to succeed.

When Titaniara told her brother that their home had been demolished, Tarta could only weep for their lost friends and family. Titaniara, Katarina soon realized, would light the world on fire.

Katarina Bellweather often wondered where, between her and her equally mild-mannered husband, Benjy and Poppy got their spark. It was bright, and sometimes scorching hot. It was the first real pop in a growing fire that signaled every piece of wood was about to burn to ash. She’d believed, to some extent, what she saw in her children was some aspect of herself. She wanted to believe it.

Then she attended two funerals.

Grief is ugly and distorting.

It was not her spirit in her children. It was not her husband’s, it was not her brother’s.

It was Titaniara’s. And it was a destructive spirit. A spirit that would mow down everything in its path for a place at the top, for a victorious position.

She worried for her son, Adam, who clung to his aunt like a new magnet to a fridge. She started to see her husband in new ways. Tarta, who was willing to latch onto anything in his life that would boost him higher. Tarta was kind, but he was ambitious. She was certain, then, that her husband must’ve been aware, all along, of the poison in his sister’s veins.

She made sure to quell her worries about her daughter, Poppy. She taught her how to properly dress a wound. She wrapped her daughter’s hands in gauze the first time she came home when they bled. She warned her after that - wear gloves. Poppy rarely heeded the advice, and she often came home in need of disinfectant and help. Katarina would always help.

She would rather stitch up a child than bury them.

She learned first of the Black Eagles at a wedding. Large events when everyone is drunk are the worst places to keep secrets. She waited for some time before acting. There was too much at risk. Her own children proved that to her.

One afternoon, she came home after a fitting to find her three youngest children in the living room. Ian was reciting a poem for a school assignment as Poppy sat on the couch. Settled in front of her was Sara, getting her hair braided intricately by her older sister. She saw, despite all the noise and laughter and presence, where the holes of her family existed. Benjy was not hovering at the kitchen door, always hungry. Arissa was not sitting in her father’s chair, where she always sat when her father wasn’t home. Adam was not standing in the corner, giving Ian, his little mini-me, directions on diction and a gentle critique.

The world could afford to lose Katarina Bellweather. It could not afford to lose anymore of her children.

The same day three Black Eagles members were public executed, she was found on her way to a safe house. There was no chance to plead her case in front of the sister-in-law she once loved and cherished. The Peacekeeper put a bullet through her head within 45 seconds of apprehension.

Poppy didn’t know that. She didn’t need to know. Her own aunt stood by while she was tased and nearly died from choking on her own vomit. She might be favored over others in her family, but she was no more immune than Benjy, Arissa, or her mother.

Growing up, she’d frequently been accidentally called by her aunt’s name. There were fun family discussions about how much they looked alike as children, how much they could act alike. Poppy used to love it.

Now she was standing outside the Gamemakers’ Headquarters. Now she was holding a crowbar in her hand as she waited for the internal security system to be taken over. Now she was buzzing with anticipation.

Anticipation of what? Revenge? Justice? Rebellion? Revolution?

There was no time to think. The door opened, and she was off. A Peacekeeper came at her. She tossed the crowbar up in the air not far from her hand so she could get a better grip at the bottom before bringing it straight at the robot’s neck. She had no idea if it was a robot or human until she saw a spark instead of a spray of blood.

She secretly wished it’d been blood. She’d drawn increments in the past, but she wanted to draw more.

Poppy Battenberg was not born to be a kind rebel.

#th:self #self-para #para #in the name of the mother and of the aunt and of the chaotic spirit #headcanon #family

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onwardintolight · 4 years

Text

I’ve been listening to the TROS Junior Novelization audiobook by Michael Kogge and HOLY CRAP. I think I’ve enjoyed each of the junior novelizations more than the regular ones! While there are a few things that rub me the wrong way or that seem neglected (Rey and Ben’s complicated relationship for example), I adore so much of Kogge’s exploration of characters and themes, especially when it comes to Leia. The passage describing Leia’s grief over losing Han in TFA brought me to tears, so I probably shouldn’t have been surprised that her death scene in TROS makes me want to weep all over again because it’s so deeply meaningful and so beautifully done. Here it is, transcribed as best as I could from the audiobook:

“Leia Organa thanked Lieutenant Connix for assisting her to her quarters in the cave. Once there, she gently declined any further help, and Connix excused herself so Leia could sleep.

Leia took her husband’s medal off its peg, then sat on her bunk and laid down by herself. Her eyes came to rest on a silver dome with a red indicator light and a thin memory slot. Artoo-Detoo must have rolled into her quarters to check on her. She did not dismiss him. She recalled the time when she had inserted data tapes into his slot—it had been her most desperate hour, having to entrust secret plans to a random astromech droid. And that droid had outwitted an Empire and delivered those plans into the right hands, setting in motion a chain of events that had changed the galaxy and her life. Artoo-Detoo wobbled forward and moaned softly, as if he knew what was to come. He murmured a farewell in binary that was not just from him, but from his counterpart. As much as she adored See-Threepio, she was glad he was not there. The golden droid would have fussed over her so much that she would never have found peace.

As her surroundings faded, the faces of her family came to her mind; family she had lost. Her adoptive father and mother, Bail and Breha Organa. The brother she’d always known she had, Luke. Her mother, who had died during childbirth, yet whose kindness had left such an impression that Leia had felt close to her throughout her life.

Her father, who had done great evil, and whose face she always associated with his black mask. She saw another face now—a man’s face, lined with shame and remorse. Leia had never reconciled with Darth Vader, yet Luke had said he’d felt the good in him. Leia felt it now, too. This was not the time to erect more walls and cast blame. She accepted her father’s apology and returned his love. The lines in his face lessened, and his eyes lit up. He smiled.

And then there was Han. Dear Han, scruffy-looking as ever, standing next to Chewie in the same grimy jacket he always seemed to wear, arms open for an embrace she’d never part from again.

“I love you,” he said.

“I know.”

As those faces and memories also began to fade, Leia clasped the medal against her chest and thought of the person who had made her so happy since Han had gone. Han’s last gift to her was bringing her a scavenger from Jakku, who had become like an adopted daughter to Leia. Rey had so much spirit that merely imagining her sprinting through the jungle on one of her tests diminished some of Leia’s pain. She would miss the girl; miss not enjoying a future with her. But she was happy to have spent the time with her she had.

For all that Leia had endured, the Force had been good to her in the end. It had given her a second opportunity to be a mother. So many parents who lost their children never had that chance.

Last, she thought of the child she had lost, her son. She missed and loved Ben, despite all he had done. She wondered if her grandmother had felt the same about Leia’s father. A mother’s love was unlike anything else in the universe. It was unbreakable, eternal. Not even the Dark Side could rupture its bond. She felt that Ben and Rey were connected the same way she and Luke were connected: twins—not of the womb, but of the Force. And she knew if there was any way she could save Ben, it would be through what she had taught Rey.

With all the energy she had left, she reached out with her love, told her son goodbye, and invited him home.”

- The Rise of Skywalker Junior Novelization, by Michael Kogge

Also, the opening and closing passages of this book are absolutely incredible. I haven’t finished it yet but I saw the end online and I knew immediately I had to read this right away. I don’t think I’ve ever heard or seen such a great exposition of how Star Wars is “like poetry, it rhymes.”

SERIOUSLY Y’ALL. I’M A MESS IN THE BEST WAY

#Leia Organa #TROS #TROS junior novel #TROS junior novelization #Star Wars #sequel trilogy #Han Solo #Han x Leia #Anakin Skywalker #Padmé Amidala #Rey #Rey Skywalker #Ben Solo #thoughts

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kidgillis · 4 years

Text

Sometimes, I'm silent because I don't know what to say. I began to lose my ability to use words verbally when my heart is grieved. Right now, my heart is grieved. I am angry. I am sadded. I am mourning. I am questioning. I am acting and reacting. But, most importantly, I'm remembering. I'm remembering who I am and what I stand for. I'm remembering where I come from and why I'm here. I'm remembering the facts and also the lies. It's changing me. This grief is changing me. I hear the call. The horns being blown. I am answering. I am taking a stand. I have something to say. I'll let my pen talk for me.

This black person, let's their black ink, pour out the heaviest realities, the darkest truths, and deepest fears for all to see on white paper. Hoping maybe, just maybe...my words will matter. Fuck it. My words matter. Regardless, of the color of the page. White paper in print, white backgrounds, and white broadcasters don't validate me. I don't find my identity in them or their "American History." I am and was and will always be, way before they ever was. Therefore, I will be, forever, eternally - Period.

Maybe, just maybe...you don't believe. That's okay. I don't hold it against you. It's not your position or role to judge me nor cast your opinions upon my being based off of false accusations. I am not who you say I am. I am who I say I am. I create my path just as much as I create my stories. I walk this earth, divine and supreme because I am. You can not teach nor give that to me. You did not place me onto this earth nor give me the ability to stand firm as I strut. So, please do not mistake yourself as my god nor savior because you've created a false narrative for yourself. I said what I said. And, I mean it.

And for the record, let me just say...I do not hate you. I hate the shit that you do and say. I hate your arrogance and ignorance to world views and problems. I hate your greed and systems which are used to dominate and oppress anything in opposition of your stance or plans. You are no different from me. You edit with red pen just as I do. Your pen bleeds just as mine do. Your story has unexpected endings and plot twists you didn't want to see happen, either. You stride for the same victories and successes but, with your privilege you'll get it before I would. So, what! That doesn't make you superior. Tell me again...why do you minimize so many genres that are different from yours? Your fiction does not triumph over my non-fiction. No matter the order or process of creation. Truth always prevails. We uncover your mysteries, through mastering everything without the unholy wars and unnecessary bloodshed of our brothers and neighbors, peacefully. So, tell me why do you matter more than me?

Do you really want to know the difference? Do you really want to know where the line is drawn between love and hate? It's the breathe within me, the author. It's the experience behind these words I speak. It's the life that is revealed through these stories I tell. It's the glimpse into the souls and bloodlines of the people I know and encounter that reflects and defines my masterpieces. It's the force behind the content and the journey. It's the strength of the emotion, the lineage, and history, that makes you question and feel. This is why you appropriate and plagiarize my everything. Oh, but one thing you can not change. One thing you don't understand. One things you grasp. No, you never will.

It's the name and the very soul of the author that changes the narrative and starts the revolution. I am the master of my own destiny. I am in control of who I am and what I do. So, you can see...It's only when a reader forgets who I am, and another comes along to change what I say, that I could possibly become "forgotten" or "erased"...just another hashtag, another post or report, another victim instead of a victor of what I've endured, another john or jane doe dead on arrival...But, even then...I'm still remembered by the chosen few who knew I mattered. The chosen few willing to step up, reach out, speak up, and take a stand, teaching the youth - exactly who I was and am.

This is how I am immortalized. This is how I become a legend. This is how I and my people are remembered through creation. Mother earth opens her mouth and cries out for her sons and daughters. The world trembles at the very death that comes upon us each day. Another body dies but, that spirit lives on through our people. Our culture carries traces of us, always. And, we accept those who understands and accepts us, equally.

So...I know you don't get it and you just don't believe...but...Yes, My life matters. Black inked, bold printed, cultured storytelling, a child of God, a part of eternity in the flesh, the beginning and the end, heaven on earth and what's to come after. Black lives matter, whether you like it or not. Now, tell this story to the media and it's masses. I'm black and I am proud of it. You can't take this away from me.

Sincerely,

BLACK WRITER IN AMERICA

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perpetuitys · 4 years

Text

AAAA hello everyone i’m peep and this is my independent n impulsive vampire bb michel !! also sorry for being Mad late i’ve been moving/flying for the past couple days but i’m finally settled in and super super excited to rp with you all :~) but Yes this is michel he has an attachment to the sea ...... he’s curious abt everything ..... can be very sarcastic at times .... and more found below !! also def hit me up to plot on discord <3 @uwfmintro

STATISTICS

FULL NAME: michel de la rue NICKNAME(S): michel’s fine AGE: twenty-five GENDER + PRONOUNS: cis male + he/him ORIENTATION: bisexual ZODIAC: sagittarius sun, libra moon BIRTHDAY: december 3rd, 1802 PLACE OF BIRTH: paris, france OCCUPATION(S): bartender, helps with the liberation TRAITS: (+) open-minded, honest, adventurous, curious, independent / (-) turbulent, careless, irresponsible, impulsive, dogmatic

BIOGRAPHY

the following biography page contains the following: death, grief, suicidal ideation.

read at your own risk.

HUMAN

it was eleven years later and new york was just starting to feel like his home. michel still hated speaking english and the permanent odor was sort of annoying, but he felt like he had a purpose that wasn’t dependent on war. fatigued by the aftermath of the french revolution and disappointed in the end of napoleon’s reign, the de la rue’s left their mother country when michel was fourteen in hopes of creating something new and fresh, devoid of any monarchial rule. his family lived a fairly simple life that was dedicated to running their bakery in brooklyn.

this simple life began to feel quite exhilarating as he found himself falling more and more in love with a newly-immigrated family friend at twenty. ever since meeting colette lyon (which of course was at the bakery — where else) he couldn’t think of anything else. the two remained inseparable into their marriage, too, where the two decided to momentarily elope to the beach despite his parents’ wishes. both colette and michel had a fascination with the sea, perhaps symbolizing the voyage that connected their childhood with their newfound adulthood. this fixation grew as he decided to leave his family in favor of becoming a fisherman running his own shop at the local fish market (also against his parents’ wishes). and as their family grew to include two children, he believes it truly was the best financial decision he’s ever made (which he was well-aware there weren’t many).

but honestly, michel’s favorite thing about new york had to be the selection of taverns. the routine of waking up early, going out to fish, spending his entire day trying to sell his catches at the market, and coming home to two rowdy toddlers proved to exhaust the brunette both physically and emotionally by the time he was twenty-four. so, it wasn’t a surprise to often see him spending most of his evenings during the week at the local bar, making several short-term friends who also wanted to make the most of their night. however one night felt different as michel became what was most likely the most intoxicated he has ever been with a room with equally intoxicated men who decided that receiving fists hurt good and fighting felt fun. he was too drunk to process the chilled air (perhaps that hurt good, too), but something felt wrong as the men continued beating on him. leaving him bleeding out in the early winter air, it very quickly dawned on him that there would be no more life for him to live. no more colette. or his family and their quaint bakery. never see his children get married. as he made peace with this reality, in his last moments he thought about the sea.

VAMPIRE

everything felt bright and intense as he gasped his first breath of immortality. focusing his attention on how fast his senses were heightening and the excruciating bloodlust, it took a moment for him to realize his bougie surroundings. confused, capricious, and super fucking hungry, aleksander was there to guide him into this new underground world.

which honestly terrified the fuck out of michel. as his senses began to settle, his heart sank to his feet thinking about his death — the stupidity, carelessness and impulsivity causing an eternal separation to the life he worked hard to achieve. he grew depressed and the intense bloodlust that he wasn’t able to get a grasp on wasn’t doing much to uplift him. he depended on the older vampire emotionally as transitioning into a life completely vacant of his family was very challenging as he witnessed the rest of their lives at a distance. this often resulted in michel coming to him, very depressed as he questioned his vampirism, with aleksander always finding a way to lift his spirits and remind him of his purpose. because he saw it in michel that night before he died at the tavern. he saw the charm and how he could make anyone in the room feel like his best friend. he knew that once this cloudiness of despair and self-loathing blows over that a magnetic charisma would lie underneath. something he can use.

so, aleksander stayed beside him. reassured him. and ultimately invited him into his home to live as he would adopt him as a son, passing down his millennia of knowledge on to him and sowing seeds that he hoped to one day reap. luckily, the stages of grief passed away quickly throughout the coming months as michel realized the potential in this unfortunate situation. firstly, he has never seen so much opulence in his life. he heard stories of it, though mostly negative ones as they were all passed down from the french revolution, but now this was able to be his reality. and he was pretty fond of his newfound speed and strength. now at least it was guaranteed he wouldn’t die from another drunken bar fight.

but as he was increasingly noticing the positives of living in the mansion, the negatives began to bother him. or as others call them: helena. you see, with his human siblings, he didn’t have the problem of trust as they all grew up together and shared blood. but it wasn’t long after moving in that michel realized just how necessary the blood relation would be and how significant the corvinus name is in their world. and perhaps another large part of the problem was they didn’t truly see him as a sibling at all. truthfully, the condescension stung at the beginning and resulted in michel spending most days keeping to himself and reading the literature that occupied the walls.

as decades passed and michel was sure colette and the kids had most likely passed too, he found himself integrating back into human society by the end of the nineteenth century. which he surprisingly felt more relieved than disheartened by, as he’d finally be able to get more separation from his older sibling, but perhaps it could also be one of the signs of vampire cynicism creeping in. because, oh boy, did it creep in. the first couple decades of the twentieth century were probably most notably some of the sloppiest years michel had. he began transitioning from blood bags (the mansion always had them on deck) to feeding directly from humans and while he knew never to bite the neck, he felt it hard to resist biting elsewhere. and found it hard to resist in general, often accidentally killing a few people in the process.

however, once magdelena was born, he found himself becoming interested in the family again and decided to clean up his careless feeding act. as she grew older, he became quite fond of her presence and protective, because she sort of reminded him of his own son and daughter who he had left behind. in a way, it felt very cathartic to (practically) raise her; like he was writing a wrong and filling the void that the act of no longer being a father created. being there for her and caring for her gave him a purpose that he lacked up until that point (which probably explains his tendency to overfeed). he came around the house more, helping her as she developed into her vampirism and taught her all the things aleksander had taught him. minus the shitty values. when he would pop back into society, he spent it educating himself on new ideas and theories that inhabited both human and supernatural spheres, mostly out of curiosity and his love for learning if anything. during this time, he also eventually met others of his vampire kind as well as lycans, though more clandestine. many of which soon became his closest friends.

and that’s why he was fairly devastated to know about aleksander’s plans. his stomach twisted knowing that someone who once raised him could be capable of such cruelty. it sickened him — and he let him know it. which, in turn, earned him expulsion from his home of two centuries. maybe some saw it coming — how michel was often distanced from the start — but it still hurt the vampire nonetheless. he lost connection to his first family and it hurt like a bitch to lose it to another, regardless how he felt about them individually. especially to leave behind magdelena, who he felt attached to since her childhood. but he hoped that this would send a statement throughout their underground world. that they should not turn their eyes away from injustices no matter who it’s coming from. he needed to get the vampires to care about this issue and needed to do something to bring awareness and a call to action. so, in comparison, present-day michel is much less gloomy and blindly naive than early-day michel, luckily. although he still feels guilty and a tinge of regret for his association to aleksander, he finds that offering any resources he can in the fight for the liberation is his best way of coping with it.

#uwfmintro

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