#Ember of Hoole

[woolybird]

HumanAU-comics-songfic based on the Legends of Hoole arc

Part 2✨

(The part 1 can be seen pinned by a post on my blog, it is better than the part 2 :D)

[the-owl-tree]

wolves of the beyond reader here, a poor handling of its disabled main character is just the beggining

the society the dire wolves live in is super messed up. disabled wolf pups (and even premature pups) are seen as cursed or whatever, so they have a designated wolf, always a barren she-wolf, take the pup to a place that will basically guarantee its death. if it lives for a day or two the leader of the pack will take it back and it will be abused for the rest of its life. you know all the misconceptions about omegas and stuff? yeah. it’s like That

the main character, faolin, was found and raised by a grizzly bear that had just lost her cub. eventually the bear dies, and faolin sees a dire wolf pack hunting. at the end of the hunt, the pack starts eating. he witnesses the “omega” of the pack groveling just so he can get some food and is put off by that

some stuff happens and eventually he joins, and he’s not really happy. he makes friends with the other disabled wolves from all the different packs and clans (except for the wolf in his own, heep)

there’s this whole watch that guards the ember of hoole made up entirely by disabled wolves, and it’s a really prestigious thing. only one or two can get in at a time. they’re very respected, and somewhat feared

also there’s a feminist clan

the lore is very intriguing, and the story is interesting, but there are a LOT of problems, ESPECIALLY at the very end. i don’t want to spoil too much, in case you decide to read it, but there’s this whole thing with “fixing” their bodies, and it contradicts earlier lore from its sister series that it derives from, guardians of gahoole

i knew it was connected to guardians of ga'hoole, shame that it seems to have so many issues. i know about the ending, sad to hear there's a lot of problems :( i might check it out later though!

[myriad-of-things]

Weird girl and her himbo husband

Lutta's eyes are green-tinted because there's a passage in To Be a King where Hoole sees her next to the ember and notes that they seem to be made from the same stuff.

There was something strange about this owl. Her intensity almost unnerved him, yet she was fascinating. She stirred in him something vaguely familiar. A confusion of feelings. It suddenly dawned on Hoole. She’s not unlike the ember.

[checkoutmybookshelf]

You Have My Attention: Guardians of Ga'Hoole First Lines

Ok, so despite my not being able to undersell the hold the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series had on me in seventh grade, I do have to credit Dom Noble's Lost in Adaptation video on the series and it's film adaptation for inspiring this post. I also wish I could have taken the series photo on my bookshelf, but this series in in my book tubs in Dad's basement in Alaska. All that said though, this series was one of my favorites for literal years, and I wish they were as well-known as like...Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH or Watership Down. So how did author Kathryn Lasky catch my attention as a reader? Let's look at those first lines.

The world spiraled, the needles of the old fir tree blurred against the night sky and then there was a sickening sensation as the forest floor raced toward him. Soren madly tried to beat his stubby little wings. Useless! He thought, I am dead. A dead owlet. Three weeks out of the shell and my life ends!

-- The Capture

Soren felt the blind snake shift in the deep feathers between his shoulders as he and the three other owls flew through the buffeting winds. They had been flying for hours now, and it seemed as if in the last minutes the darkness had begun to dissolve drop by drop, and they were now passing from the full black of the night into the first light of the morning.

-- The Journey

The tail of the comet slashed the dawn and in the red light of the rising sun, for a brief instant, it seemed as if the comment was bleeding across the sky.

-- The Rescue

Sparks flow off his beak as the owl, mad with rage, careened through the night sky. "I must find water! I must find water! This mask will melt my eyes. Glaux blood on my brother's gizzard!"

-- The Siege

It was the same. That was her first thought. It looks just like the old fir tree, the one where Soren and I were hatched. And even the shape of the hollow's opening where Mum and Da made their nest, a lopsided O--wasn't that the exact shape?

-- The Shattering

"Night gathers and your time has come," intoned Barran, the large Snowy Owl and monarch of the Great Ga'Hoole Tree. In some ways it seemed like only last night that he, Gylfie, Twilight, and Digger had traveled through that blinding blizzard and had arrived at the great tree. But in other ways it felt like forever. Now they perched, ready to take the most inviolable oath of their lives: They were to become at last Guardians of Ga'Hoole.

-- The Burning

"It's the hatchling," a young owl said as the group watched Nyroc, only son of the great warrior Kludd, begin a power dive. He grasped a charred branch from the ground in his beak and in one swift movement rose seamlessly again into the air brandishing it before him.

-- The Hatchling

"You are a mask. You are nothing more! There is nothing behind your mask, not a face, nothing! I shall fly in the fullness of the night. Under the moon and the stars I shall hunt the vole, the rat, even the fox. I shall become part of owlkind, no matter where I have to go. But I shall go! And I shall never return to the Pure Ones. I defy you. I HAVE FREE WILL!"

-- The Outcast

On a branch outside a hollow of the Great Ga'Hoole Tree, three owls hunched against the first blasts of an early winter gale. One was an Elf Owl, one a Great Gray, and one a Burrowing Owl. They were known collectively as the Band, but their fourth member, the Barn Owl Soren, was in the hollow of his beloved old teacher, Ezylryb. And Ezylryb was dying.

-- The First Collier

Octavia, the pudgy, elderly, blind nest-maid snake, slithered out onto the branch outside her old master's hollow. "Look. I might be blind, but I know that you've been out there all morning. Why aren't you in your hollows sleeping?"

-- The Coming of Hoole

"Nachtmagen!" The word hung in the air treacherous, insidious. "Do you really think so, Coryn?" Gylfie asked. "Do you think that nachtmagen has seeped back into our world with the ember?"

-- To Be a King

"Look at me, look at me!" the Great Gray hooted. His primaries sparked silver in the moonlight as he carved a steep turn, then folded his wings and plunged toward a cresting wave. He swooped up, barely escaping the grip of the sea as the spume trailed behind him like a comet's tail.

-- The Golden Tree

Threading though the roar of the waterfall, the scratch of a pen on parchment could be heard. Heard, that is, if there was anyone to listen except for the writer. But there wasn't.

-- River of Wind

"All right, Otulissa, how does this sound for the lead article?" Fritha, a very diligent Pygmy Owl and one of Otulissa's best students, had become the assistant editor of The Evening Hoot, a newspaper that she and Otulissa had started shorty after Coryn came to the tree.

-- Exile

The light of the low-hanging full-shine moon slipped into the cave, making it glow like a lantern of ice above that tiny gut of sea linking the Southern Kingdoms to the Northern Kingdoms.

-- The War of the Ember

[fyngrot]

ga'hoole fics masterpost

links to various ga'hoole fics i've written under the cut, includes published + WIP

i will always be here

-WC: 3,158

-status: complete

-summary: coryn is troubled by a great many things, and after reading the legends of hoole, one passage in particular causes him to question his reliance on his uncle—his main support in these new and confusing times. soren, of course, has a solution.

-notes: reread to be a king and thought a lot about that part where grank asks hoole not to call him "uncle", and how coryn would probably freak out a little (a lot) over that after projecting it onto his own situation. i personally hc that soren formally becomes an adoptive father to coryn so this is an exploration of that!

who i am today

-WC: 2,296

-status: complete

-summary: soren, while getting to know his nephew, discusses regrets of the past with coryn—as they prepare to turn towards the future.

-notes: basically just my take on why soren and eglantine weren't directly involved in the events of the hatchling/outcast, the guilt soren feels for not taking action, and resulting emotional moment between soren and coryn. owl family lives rent free in my mind

none but the forge

-WC: 618

-status: complete

-summary: a rogue smith is meant to be alone. gwyndor is no exception.

-notes: i love gwyndor and i love the depth gwynneth's existence in wotb adds to his character. what's his deal? how did he become a rogue smith? how did gwynneth I die? why'd he basically abandon his daughter with thora? just a short little headcanon backstory that answers these questions and explores gwyndor's emotional baggage.

blood moon lullaby (AU series)

WIP lutta lives AU turned alternate ending to ga'hoole. after a meeting with the spirit of hoole himself, coryn learns of great danger to come. the key to protecting owlkind lies within a hidden fourth volume of the legends, detailing the survival of lutta and diving further into her history, including her youth alongside her 'sister', kreeth's final creation. once he learns the rest of her story, the ancient spirit of lutta awakens to guide coryn, but she is not the only one who returns...

this AU is a huge passion project of mine since i'm a firm believer that lutta deserved a much better ending than she got! it involves an expansion on lutta's character arc and dynamics with other characters, canon-based original character, recharacterization of hagsfiends and their role in the plot (no more of that inherently evil bs), in-depth exploration of coryn and nyra's hagsfiend ancestry, and a completely new ending to ga'hoole itself.

there are/will be 4 fics in this series but only one is published thus far. progress is pretty slow but i'm always chipping away at it and hope to have more posted soon!

by the light of the ember (prologue)

-WC: 2,538

-status: complete

-summary: coryn has retrieved the ember of hoole—but with proof of his noble spirit comes the inheritance of an ancient legacy he has yet to understand. in a place where time’s flow stands still, a fated meeting with the first king himself reveals a great catastrophe to come.

of darkness and light (part 1)

-status: WIP

-summary: coryn is granted a vision by the ember that leads him to a hidden fourth tome of legends.

struck down by strix strumajen, lutta is severely wounded—wounded, but alive. managing to escape, she tends to her injuries as nothing more than an outcast. rejected by owlkind, yet disavowing the brutal ways of hagsfiends, she turns towards the only other living being she believes would understand—kreeth’s final ‘experiment’—and in the process uncovers a part of her past she thought she left behind. but when things don’t go just as she had hoped, and the threat of a new battle looms on the horizon, she is thrown into a conflict she never wished to happen as she struggles to prove that she is more than she seems.

in the shadow of the eclipse (part 2)

-status: WIP

-summary: lutta's spirit has awakened in the present, and now coryn and lutta face a threat all too familiar to both of them. with war imminent, hagsfiends on the verge of revival, and nachtmagen seeping back into the world, they must prevent the ember of hoole from falling into the wrong talons. or so they think- before coryn realizes what he must do to change the world for the better.

to dream of stars (epilogue)

-status: WIP

-summary: with the war of the ember's end, a new era for the owl kingdoms begins.

i can't summarize much else here without spoiling the whole ending rip

other WIPs

the blacksmith's collier

-status: WIP

-summary: soren finds himself drawn to one of the owls that helped bring his nephew to him, in a way he isn’t quite sure he’s ever felt before.

-notes: my beloved soren/gwyndor gay owl romance, full of loneliness, past regrets, and new beginnings!

to be a guardian

-status: WIP

-summary: coryn's arrival to the great tree has been heralded and rejoiced beyond his belief. but when the young king finds himself having trouble fitting in, soren thinks up a way to help.

-notes: it's always seemed that by becoming king, coryn just starts being considered a guardian by default. i think he would want to go through training and take the guardian oath just like any other owl, and soren would agree- thus i started writing something short yet emotional about it. it's almost finished but i don't know when i'll ACTUALLY finish it so... eventually

wolfspeak

-status: WIP

-summary: on a trip to the beyond together, gwyndor and soren chance upon someone unexpected.

-notes: more gwyndor/soren stuff! i think gwyndor would want to introduce soren to his daughter (gwynneth) eventually, but isn't sure how to go about it and keeps avoiding the topic. what better way to solve that problem than running into her by accident! takes place at the beginning of book 15, because i thought it would be cool to retell gwyndor hearing namara's howling, but with soren and gwynneth there. gwyndor and gwynneth both understanding what it means (which also showcases the similarities between them, distant as they are) while soren stands there looking confused as all hell is beautiful to me

more to come!

[curious-sootball]

Alright, screw it, I'm writing down my GoG and TMA crossover ideas (because apparently I can't concentrate on anything else right now. ) Spoilers for both TMA and GoG

So... the base AU idea is pretty simple. The Fears from the Magnus Archives universe exist in Ga'hooleverse. Everyone is affected to some degree, some are having a horrible time, some are actually pretty ok. Some characters stick around longer or shorter than they do in canon, nothing is set in stone yet.

So, the Guardians as an institution were partially created to monitor, study and (if and when possible)contain& combat manifestations of the Fears. The Great Tree itself may or may not be a manifestation, nobody really knows for sure.

There was a roughly 450 years lull in Fear activity - not a complete standstill, but way less activity than before: not that many new avatars, less manifestations, etc. According to the records from the Great Tree's artifact vault, Hoole and his courtiers who studied the Fears found a way to lull the Entities into slumber; not a foolproof or permanent solution, but it was better than nothing at the time.

Unfortunately, that plan irreversibly fell apart when Coryn took the Ember out of the volcano(he had no way to know it was a linchpin of the plan: even the Guardians lost that information). That was the supernatural wake-up call for the Fears, and the Southern and Northern kingdoms found themselves plunged into the new age of wonder and terror.

During The Siege, the artefact vault has been broken into multiple times; a lot of artefacts have went missing, most showed up in pure ones' posession. That didn't go nearly as well as everyone involved assumed it would go.

Now, there is a whole bunch of newly minted avatars running around, and most of them aren't really happy with the situation.

The bit I'm really looking forward to is how the legends (the three book long flashback) plays out: the Fears are in play and they will affect what is happening. (featuring Web- and Eye-aligned Grank, Siv almost becoming a Desolation avatar after dishing out the most brutal verbal takedown of Grank's life, and almost everyone being done with lord Arrin's attitude)

In the current day of the series, people are still coming to terms with the fact that Fears being active is now A Thing That Happens. Otulissa almost becomes the new Archivist. Soren consoles some ghosts. Bess learns to control the weather in the Palace of Mists. Striga accidentally sets a bunch of things on fire (and later sets them on fire on purpose, once he figures out how to do that).

And now the Band needs to figure out how to kill someone Slaughter-aligned and make sure they stay dead (because Nyra jumped into being an avatar faster than one could say "NO")

@arthurian-owls feel free to add and define more! ^_^ it is so much fun to put this au together

[arthurian-owls]

And the part two of the TMA crossover, because the first ask got so massive:

Kreeth is on her way to get avatarised, but The Eye, The Flesh and The Stranger can't decide who gets to keep her (the Eye eventually wins). Also marked by The End because of all the dead things and people she handles and will gladly feed anyone to the fears(even the ones she isn't aligned with). She also would write it down in details, she's a scientist, after all.

Lutta is Stranger-aligned, but she's very reluctant when it comes to feeding people to the fears. She would've been pretty content living off Strix Strumajen's confusion if she wasn't so eager to prove herself to Kreeth.

Speaking of Strix Strumajen: she's pretty bloodthirsty. Marked by The Slaughter and probably unknowingly fed a few people to it. Also touched by The Web, like everyone else in Hoole's court (because of exposure to the Ember)

Ygryk worked her way into marked by The Hunt. Pleek isn't, but he is along for the ride. Both are marked by The Slaughter.

Siv is marked by the Hunt and touched by the Desolation, but otherwise fairly fear-resistant (remember Joshua Gillespie from the second episode? Yeah, she's like that).

I was tempted to say that H'rath was similar to Siv in that regard, but then I remembered that Grank described him as "obsessed with ice weapons from the moment he hatched"; not sure how accurate this was, but I'll mark this down as H'rath being touched and later marked by The Slaughter. (And his scimitar became a manifestation, that's why it stayed intact for all 3 books and hadn't melted in Beyond the Beyond)

Theo is marked by The Slaughter and The Stranger, but in a very complicated way: apart from him actually fighting people, he set the things up to erase the hagsfiend culture. Not sure if what happened by his design counts as feeding people to The Stranger, but I think it comes pretty damn close.

Coryn is marked by The End and The Extinction(the very late-game fear in TMA; basically "the humanity(and possibly everything else on the planet) is done for, and it is our fault"): his Hamlet-esque melancholic attitude lends itself well to both, and since he was raised by the pure ones, Extinction fits a little better(imagine running from your small hometown knowing that all people there are out to get you and also want everyone who isn't them dead. Really makes one think about people dooming themselves). Also touched by The Hunt, The Slaughter and The Lonely.

Striga is a mess. I've recently re-read about half of "River of Wind" for the lols, and everyone is just dunking on him, its ridiculous. (Not entirely undeserved dunking, mind you, but mostly for the wrong reasons). Marked by The Slaughter(his dreams/nightmares of his past life), The Flesh(in its body dysmorphia aspect. He's got so many complexes to work through, and he starts plucking his own feathers out in the next book), marked and later avatarised by The Desolation... he's got a lot on his plate.

Twilight is also touched by The Slaughter - both in its straightforward and metaphorical aspect (Slaughter also manifests in music, especially agressive, like rock or war songs), but luckily for everyone, he's disinterested in being a full-on avatar. Twilight actually whipping everyone around into murderous rage with his songs would be terrifying.

Oh my god,,, imagine Twilight pulling a move like that band that made everyone die (my memory SUCKS but ykwim),,, that would be INTENSE.

I dig the idea of Theo accidentally (or purposely, if the ends justified the means) feeding folks to The Stranger. absolutely 10/10, much to ponder upon here indeed!!!

[tytoreadsjpgog]

Book 1 - START!

Here we gooOOOOO

Welcome to my liveblog of ガフールの勇者たち ! (gahuuru no yuushatachi -> Heroes of Ga'Hoole)

Remember a while back, when I bought the Japanese translation of the entire Guardians of Ga'Hoole series? I’m going to document my attempt to read through them with my elementary level grasp of the language. It’s going to be one part nostalgic re-read (not at all spoiler-free, sorry!) and one part language-learning crash course. I’ll try to organize my thoughts on the latter aspect in a way that non-speakers might still find interesting.

For instance, notice that Book 1, originally titled The Capture, has been renamed 悪の要塞からの脱出 (aku no yousai kara no dasshutsu -> Escape from the Evil Fortress). I know what you're thinking, and yes, from what I've seen, everything is going to look and sound way more badass compared to the original.

This is gonna be a long, slow, probably painful process, but by Glaux we're DOING this.

Note in the example above (from the first page of chapter 1) how the green-highlighted phrase 落ち着かない (ochitsukanai -> restless), which looks pretty complicated to me, does not have any smaller furigana characters to its right showing how it's actually pronounced. Kids at the book's reading level presumably already know, but I had to write the characters into a translator app to find out.

On the other hand, the character I highlighted in purple is 卵 (tamago -> egg), literally one of the first kanji that Duolingo taught me in its earliest lessons. But here it DOES have furigana (the tiny たまご to the right), so I guess Japanese children don't officially learn that character in school until a slightly higher grade level! Man, language is wild.

Anyway, back to reading the actual content of the book.

The first page of the book, before even the table of contents, is labeled ガフールの伝説 (gahuuru no densetsu -> The Legend of Ga'Hoole) and summarizes what Ga'Hoole fans would recognize as the classic “Coming of Hoole” tale. In addition to making me extremely emotional, it also drops several juicy proper nouns we’ll be seeing again later, including 最果ての地 (saihate no chi -> The Farthest Land) for Beyond the Beyond, 火の石 (hi no ishi -> the Fire Stone) for the Ember of Hoole, and ガフールの神木 (gahuuru no shinboku -> Sacred Tree of Ga'Hoole) for the Great Tree.

Guys we're not even on chapter 1 yet and there is SO MUCH happening. It is going to take me forever and a day to get through this. I'd better get started......

第一章 (daiisshou -> Chapter One)

ティトの森の家 (tito no mori no ya -> The Home in Tyto Forest)

So that’s, uh, interesting. Turns out Tyto is pronounced “tee-toh” in Japanese. That’s never not going to be weird. BUT, we must soldier on!

...Okay so, I think at least to start, the best way for me to do this is to go page-by-page. I’ll give my miscellaneous thoughts as I go, but then at the end of each page I’ll give a summary of what actually happens, to test my reading comprehension. (...This is going to turn into a straight-up school homework assignment dhgdjshfj.) In time, maybe I'll pick up enough speed to go through a few pages at a time, or even a whole chapter? But we'll see. That's far in the future right now. 

Without further ado...

６ページ (the table of contents etc are all numbered pages, so chapter 1 technically starts on page 6) :

I’m excited every time I recognize a word, but I’m also hype to learn all the new animal/nature-related vocab in these books. I already knew “owl” was フクロウ (fukurou), but now I also know that Barn Owls in particular are called メンフクロウ (menfukurou), which thanks to my unquenchable etymology thirst I then found out comes from 仮面 (kamen -> mask). Fair enough, as many of the species in the Tytonidae family are called Masked Owls in English, too!

Also, fir trees are モミの木 (momi no ki)! I have nothing else to add about that, I just think it sounds nice. :) Momi. 

(Fun fact for fellow non/early-Japanese-speakers: it’s customary for the names of most plants and animals to be written in the simpler, phonetic katakana alphabet instead of kanji, especially in a scientific context. So something like the word “monkey” (saru) would almost always be written as サル even though there IS a kanji spelling of the same word: 猿  This certainly makes it easier on people like me struggling to learn enough kanji as it is!)

...BOY HOWDY, I’m trying to read aloud as I go because I need to get the pronunciation in my head as well as recognizing the characters, and the phrase 胸の綿羽  (むねのめんう -> mune no men’u -> chest feathers) is kind of a tongue twister!

Anyway, onto the summary.

六ページの要旨 (Page 6 Summary) Soren (ソレン Soren) is a young Barn Owl who lives in a fir tree in Tyto Forest, and he’s about to become a big brother. His parents, Marella (マレラ Marera) and Noctus (ノクタス Nokutasu) fret over the state of the nest until suddenly a crack appears on the egg! Soren’s older brother Kludd (クラッド Kuraddo) grumbles, “Again?” Noctus scolds him--doesn’t Kludd want another little brother? Marella interrupts that it could be a sister.

Let’s do one more page for today, since this project is so VERY overdue!

...

７ページ

First thing of note is that Soren uses ぼく (boku) as his personal pronoun! In Japanese, there aren’t really third-person pronouns as we think of them in English, so other people are either referred to by name/title or you’re simply meant to figure it out from context. First-person pronouns (like English’s “I” and “me”), on the other hand, are not only used but are numerous and varied. Which word a person uses to refer to themself can vary based on gender, formality, and even just personality/preference! This excellent article on Legends of Localization gives a more detailed explanation, for anyone curious! I personally find this quirk of the language super fascinating and will be going out of my way to take note of how all the characters refer to themselves. :3 I expect most of them will be the common watashi or boku, but I’ll be interested to see if I’m proven wrong!

... And, unsurprisingly, we immediately learn that Kludd uses おれ (ore) for his personal pronoun. It’s another common masculine option, but, unlike boku, it often comes with more of a tough/strong/harsh connotation, and is thus on the more informal/crude side.

...

Fascinating. It’s never been totally clear to me if “branching” is really a proper word even in English to describe this thing where fledging birds practice flight by hopping from branch to branch, but when I put 枝渡 (edawatari) into the translator, it literally gives back “branching”. In the exact same sense, as far as I can tell.

...Hm! “Flight feathers” is 風切羽 (kazakiribane), which is literally written as “wind-cutting feathers”. Badass.

...One of the things that I think is going to be hardest for me to wrap my head around with this language is the regular use of onomatopoeia as just, like, whatever part of speech they wanna be. Sometimes they’re used as adjectives, like on the previous page when Marella described her husband’s “fluffy” (ふわふわ fuwafuwa) feathers, and sometimes they’re verbs, like this page’s description of the egg “rattling” (かたかた katakata). And sometimes they’re just literal descriptions of a sound like how we typically use onomatopoeia in English. This page describes a sudden “click” (カチッ kachi-) sound, for instance.

七ページの要旨  (Page 7 Summary) Soren pipes up that he’d like a little sister. Kludd jeers that Soren’s too young to even know what the word means, then complains that whether it’s a brother or sister, he’s missing out on branching practice. Noctus scolds him again, saying there’ll be plenty of time for practice later, and that it’ll be another month before Kludd’s flight feathers are grown in anyway. A noise from the egg grabs the whole family’s attention, because Barn Owls have very sensitive ears, and Marella joyfully cries out that the time has finally come. The egg rattles and shakes...

And that’ll be it for this post. My HOPE is that this process will get faster and shorter with each page. At the very least, this first few pages should be among the most densely packed with brand-new characters and noteworthy vocab to discuss. 

Not sure how often I’m going to be updating this liveblog, but for now let’s shoot for a bare minimum of one page a week? Cool? Cool.

[wygolvillage]

reading exile rn, cant believe im almost done reading gog already... coryn falling so easily to the strigas manipulation has some sad implications tbh

[incorrectguardians]

When Nyra gets the Ember(not)

Soren: Do you know how many owls you have killed to get this?

Nyra: Oh...it's not like I keep a running tally...five-

Soren: Ten-thousand

Nyra: That is more than five

[woolybird]

HumanAU-comics-songfic based on the Legends of Hoole arc

By First Aid Kit - Wolf

✨Part 1

It was difficult to cram almost all the main characters into the text, but I managed💪

and I still love humanizations, yesss

(just in case, I signed everyone in tags)

[lillytr-archive]

the scene in the outcast when coryn returns with the ember of hoole ❤

[myriad-of-things]

Okay, so, the hagsfiend headcanons >:D

First, I am a simple person: I see dragons, I have to at least check out the idea, so when Lasky introduced Penryck "the Sky Dragon" and then did so little with him, I was very disappointed and made up a few headcanons about him:

- in the First Collier it is mentioned that Arryn had a son; my headcanon is that Penryck met Arryn's son first and he, in turn, convinced Arryn to hire Penryck (because I doubt Arryn would've considered hiring hagsfiends all on his own, he would've tried to get an owl warlord on his side instead)

- Penryck is actually better at diplomacy than Arryn, and he was trying to recruit some of Arryn's generals during the second half of The coming of Hoole; that's one of the reasons there are rumours about them going separate ways at the beginning of To be a King (also, his POV in the Coming of Hoole is him mentally rolling eyes at both Arryn's racist shit and his incompetence as a strategist, and I wish there was more of villainous flashbacks because trying to reverse engineer Sklardrog's personality off one pov and a handful of lines is painful)

- A bit more speculative one: Penryck crossed paths with Theo's father and uncle(possibly killed or ordered to kill the latter). Theo asks Grank if he's sure that Penryck killed the high king ‐ why specifically him and not any other warlord? Either Sklardrog's reputation is that scary or Theo had a personal reason to fear him. (This bit never came up again in the books, though, so it stays a speculation)

- Hoole's first time using firesight was a big missed opportunity. Imagine if he saw hagsfiends just living their lives and started doubting what Grank had told him?

- A rather sad one: I thought a lot about Ygreek and Pleek. A lot. (Mostly ranging between "Who hurt you, Grank?" and "Who hurt you, Kathryn?") Because the more I thought about it, the more it felt(at least the translation) like a part of Ygreek's desire to have a child comes from wanting to fit a "proper family" mold; we don't get a similar in-depth introspection about kids from Pleek's point of view, but since Grank picks him out instantly when he looks into the Ember, I headcanon that Pleek comes from a noble family (probably not as rich as Arryn, Siv or Grank himself), and he probably heard plenty of that "your purpose is to have an heir and pass on the family name one day" nonsense before he met Ygreek. So they both have their share of internalised issues about having kids.

(Oof, that got wordy)

I LOVE DRAGONS. I agree, I wish Penryck's character had been explored more. He does seem to be better at diplomacy from his short conversation with Lord Arrin. Lord Arrin's character pretty much boils down to "I want the throne" and "I want a wife," so it makes sense that Penryck was pulling all the strings behind the scenes. In terms of appearance I'd like to think Penryck had claws on his wings, perhaps scaled talons and very long ear-tufts to the point where they looked like horns.

I just think it's funny that owls are convinced hagsfiends are evil when all the hagsfiends in the legends books were hired by owl lords to overthrow King H'rath. The hagsfiends were definitely taking advantage of the situation there, but it's strange that they're considered more villainous than the owl lords who 1) have a gizzard so they know right from wrong, and 2) still chose to do wrong.

I believe it was confirmed that Pleek was a noble lord, which makes me respect his character more because like you pointed out, he probably faced a ton of pressure from his family to have an heir, and also backlash for falling in love with the enemy. When the war starts he would most likely have lost all his noble titles for consorting with a hagsfiend. He gave up so much for Ygryk, and it feels like a further punishment that they can't have a normal family together. Ygryk would probably also feel a lot of guilt for causing her mate to be cut off and shunned by his kind. Pleek and Ygryk may have been horrible parents to Lutta, but they also didn't have the best situation.

[beast-feast]

Ogghgh if I could draw owls I'd SO be making a Choice animatic.

"Love, brain, heart, control, caffeinate" – Eglantine, Gylfie, Soren, Twilight, and Digger in that order. Soren is literally referred to as the heart of the Band, Eglantine shares her brother's capacity for empathy and in my opinion better embodies it. Gylfie for her smarts, Twilight's "control" in fighting situations. Digger's caffeinate to reflect his eccentricity.

"Melatonin" could be any owl. Ezylryb I'm inclined to say. The tone it's sang in Choice is duller and gruff, the latter of which is what Ezylryb is described as several times.

The first cut-off, where "brain" is excluded: cut to Soren being pushed out of the nest by Kludd.

"You get(?) me going" is the Band flying to Hoolemere.

The distortion before the second repetition without "love" would go to a dim image of St. Aggie's.

Where "control" and the ones after are excluded, Coryn's egg is then visible. "Wake up!" Nyra speaking to Coryn through the shell.

"Nice to meet you! Who could you be?" Nyra speaking to Coryn, a grim shadow overlooming her. It's Kludd, the spirit of him ever-present and following his sole descendant.

"I am injury." Coryn after escaping the Pure Ones, after Philip was murdered.

"No you aren't! You made the choice to be!" Nyra again, reminding Coryn that he's Kludd's child, being a Pure One, a murderer, is in his blood. To hate is to live, and to live is to be a member of the highest order. He is a prince.

The vocals following: Coryn reaching Beyond the Beyond, capturing the Ember of Hoole. The Ga'Hoole tree, the river of wind, the dragon owls with silhouettes of hagsfiends behind their trains. The final few seconds, when the music seems calm again. They're in Beyond the Beyond again. Soren has the Band surrounding him, along with Coryn.

Coryn is solemn. He is no longer a prince– the role has shifted. From heir of the Pure Ones to prince of owlkind, that final battle, the climax and end of the song, leads up to this final moment. He's a king now, crowned by the fires that he can read just like any book.

[fyngrot]

what do you think would have happened if Ygryk had managed to turn Hoole into a hagsfiend?

honestly? this is a BANGER idea for an au i love it so much!!! there’s a lot of potential for this to change EVERYTHING. my thoughts got pretty long so i’m putting them under the cut:

young hoole not knowing what’s happening to him or what it means, but knowing it’s not good by the reactions of the owls around him- thus having to grapple with the changes to himself as he learns he became the very thing responsible for the loss and turbulence throughout his early life. i think it’s likely grank and theo (and siv, from a distance) would immediately set to finding some way to reverse the transformation, while also having to defend hoole from ygryk and pleek trying to take him and claim him as their son. hoole becomes more and more confused and torn as powerful nachtmagen begins to manifest within him, causing his companions and family to view him with fear. feeling rejected for reasons outside his control and desperate for answers, he could flee and seek out ygryk himself, begging her to change him back- and in my hagsfiend-loving brain this is where i would want him to discover a positive side to hagsfiends and begin to feel sympathy for them >:) like he’s angry at her for doing this, he knows ygryk isn’t his mother and doesn’t want her to be, but nonetheless she could be important to teaching him about what he’s become, how to control his magic, and cause a growing appreciation for his new form as he observes the genuine (even if misdirected) feelings of hagsfiends and struggles they face.

hoole’s retrieval of the ember could occur under the context of grank (who has become a bit obsessed with “fixing” hoole, inadvertently driving hoole away from him as a result) thinking it will be able to transform him back and pushing him to do so, thus coinciding with the reveal that hoole has begun to ally with hagsfiends and doesn’t necessarily WANT to change back. as a reflection of his feelings and the meaning he has discovered for himself thanks to his new form, the ember does nothing but strengthen his nachtmagen, and to grank’s horror many hagsfiends begin to flock (heh. bird words) behind him as a result, heralding him as king. while some owls do view the ember as proof that he is the king and lay aside their doubts to establish the guardians alongside the hagsfiends, consorting with hagsfiends and a hagsfiend king would certainly be a point of contention among others. i think for grank especially, accepting the change and the fact that hoole /doesn’t/ want to turn back would be a long and tough road, but he would eventually come around because he realizes hoole is still his foster son and he loves him no matter what. other owls, not so much- i can definitely see some forces in the n’yrthghar questioning HF!hoole’s validity as king and trying to overthrow the great tree, maybe causing the final battle to take on a different context……. .. . and of course there would be a divide between hoole and owls that ally with hagsfiends but aren’t necessarily “good”, like lord arrin. this would definitely create quite the nuanced conflict for sure!

ultimately with this idea in mind hoole would become a bridge between owls and hagsfiends, and it’s exciting to think about the implications and changes that could make to the plot of book 11 especially! lutta… i can definitely see her still existing in this au, a second attempt by ygryk/pleek for a child after it becomes clear hoole may be an ally to them, but will never consider them family. perhaps as they get to know him and observe the struggles they’ve caused, they even begin to feel guilt over their decision to transform him, realizing they must find a way to create their own child rather than take another’s.

when lutta comes into the story, it would likely be a result of kreeth observing the sheer power in nachtmagen the ember has granted hoole, and wanting it for herself (she’s too fiercely independent to follow anyone as king, even if said king is a powerful hagsfiend LOL). buuut it backfires when HF!hoole is able to see through the disguise and discern what lutta is right away, extend her sympathy, and perhaps fully accept her as a companion and allow her to live at the tree in peace 👀 ESPECIALLY with their shared experiences with ygryk, and her role in turning them both into something unnatural to fulfill her own desires being a factor towards hoole and lutta truly connecting and bonding! (i think a lot about lutta’s feelings towards the fact she could have hatched as a normal great horned owl if it weren’t for ygryk and pleek having kreeth create them a child…….that they then abandoned anyway……man)

being the hagsfiend fan that i am i would personally take an au like this in the above direction of hoole embracing his hagsfiend form and spurring acceptance between hagsfiends and owls as a result, but i think there’s definitely multiple ways to go about it and one where hoole views the form as a curse and willingly seeks a way to reverse it alongside his companions could be just as compelling- but ultimately i feel as if it’s just not in his nature to fully despise hagsfiends, and despite the associated troubles i believe a transformation like this would amount to some level of positive understanding whether he embraces being a hagsfiend or not! much to consider 🤔

[sapphicreadsdb]

Hi! Do you know of any sapphic childhood friends to lovers books? Or best friends to lovers?

And do you know of any sapphic friends to enemies to lovers books?

Thank you!! Your account makes reading more fun!! I hope you have a great day!

ok let's see

childhood friends/best friends to lovers:

dating sarah cooper by siera maley

prom and other hazards by jamie sullivan

in the event of love by courtney kae*

if you still recognise me by cynthia so*

tell me again how a crush should feel by sara farizan*

kiss the morning star by elissa janine hoole

annie on my mind by nancy garden

melt my heart by bethany rutter

the map to you by rachel stockbridge

it goes like this by miel moreland*

*estranged childhood friends to lovers

friends to enemies(ish) to lovers:

the gay girl's guide to ruining prom by siera maley

ruinsong by julia ember