#i like gain another year on my lifespan

[sukimas]

On Shrine Maidens, Gods, and the History of Gensoukyou

My personal opinion is that shrine maiden #13 (from the PCB prologue) is Reimu's predecessor; the attitude that she holds is similar to PC-98 Reimu's, in that both seem to be aware of youkai as a problem but neither act especially threatened by them. The "kind of an airhead" trait seems to be common among shrine maidens.

Now, why do I think that she's the thirteenth shrine maiden since Gensoukyou was founded, specifically? That's primarily because the Hakurei Shrine has... well... a lot wrong with it in the modern day. A god of youkai extermination is working alongside youkai.

Explicitly not for the purposes of youkai extermination, at that:

You could see them as a collaborator in the Gensoukyou project, except for this:

If they were aware and a willing architect of Reimu's job being just "to balance between humans and youkai" rather than "to tend the shrine", it would be hard for them to be angry because she's always off doing her job. I think it's quite likely that they're angry about the fact that A.) They've been forgotten entirely and B.) Their shrine maiden is working with youkai instead of exterminating them.

There's another piece of the puzzle in terms of their role in Gensoukyou:

A youkai calling the Hakurei Shrine her shrine. Not "our" shrine, like you'd expect if the Hakurei God was a collaborator on this project- Yukari's shrine specifically. (Of course, we can conclude from the "god of youkai extermination" and "the god of this shrine is angry" comments that Yukari isn't a god playing at being a youkai, either.) The Hakurei Shrine, as it currently stands, is something that you can consider an "artificial creation of youkai."

Rinnosuke comes to a similar conclusion.

So, the Hakurei Shrine is a defiled mockery of a shrine, that much is true. But what does that have to do with shrine maiden lifespans? Well, if the shrine was created in its current form alongside Gensoukyou, that implies about 140 years of history. (138, to be specific, but let's not bother with the details. This will still be on my blog by 2025, hopefully.) We get the 13th Hakurei shrine maiden's inscription (presumably before the year 1996, since she's not Reimu.) describing the current conditions of Gensoukyou as similar to those of the PC-98 games.

However, how do we know that she's the 13th shrine maiden since Gensoukyou was created, rather than simply since the Hakurei Shrine was founded? Well, it's a simple process of inference. The Hakurei Shrine prior to Gensoukyou as it is today was likely a proper youkai-exterminating shrine.

That it has become what it is now is a surprising discontinuity.

There aren't any records that remain to tell what the Hakurei God's name is, which is somewhat odd; you'd think that in a land which has been known as a place where youkai extermination is necessary for hundreds of years, people would remember that there was a god of it.

That is to say, the records probably didn't just stop being kept; they were probably deliberately lost, or destroyed. But we have the 13th Hakurei Shrine Maiden's inscription of Gensoukyou's current state- so it isn't like all records of what happen with the shrine disappear.

It's easy to infer, under these conditions, what happened. The god of youkai extermination, losing influence as youkai also lost influence, had a shrine that nobody visited any more. Youkai viewed that shrine as a good keystone for the barrier surrounding Gensoukyou, due to its location, and revived it, beginning a new series of shrine maidens entirely; the first Hakurei shrine maiden was, of course, the first since that revival. The god in there didn't gain anything from this, of course; there's no reason for the youkai to allow it to, and in fact it would be quite inconvenient if people knew the shrine's blessing was really youkai extermination.

But 14 shrine maidens is quite a lot in 140 years. That's an average tenure of a little more than 9 years per shrine maiden! (Excluding Reimu, it's around 8.5). It was, of course, a fairly dangerous job prior to the spell card rules; we don't know how dangerous, though. Or do we?

Thank you very much, Komachi, for solving the mystery of the shrine.

[yyenky]

In October 1993, shortly after signing with Williams, Ayrton gave the following interview to Grid magazine while taking the interviewer for a ride in his Mercedes-Benz 300:

After all, who outwitted who in the Prost/Williams/Senna affair?

– There is no one who got the wrong foot or who took the fall.

Long silence. The driver accelerates, the man thinks. Next to him, many ordinary drivers, if they turned their faces, would see the idol up close. They don't. Everyone seems to have the same goal: to move forward, at any cost. Ayrton breaks the silence:

– There’s nothing like that. My move to Williams was just a matter of time.

Prost said that, if he wanted, he would bar you from joining the team – I tease.

– Why didn't he do it, then?

Tell me how it happened.

– No! (nervous) I won't go into details. I think it's nonsense, it's beside the point. There is only one truth: I am a Williams driver and… (long pause)

And?

– …And that’s it. That's the truth. I'm going to race for Williams and he won't be there. If he said he could stop me, I'm surprised, because wasn't he the one who declared so many times that he didn't have the right to stop anyone, that this was a team decision? So Prost, as always, talks a lot. He would gain much more if he talked less. That's what happens to him: he talks too much!

The car advances, now more quickly. The cars in front seem to give way. Senna accelerates, brushes past a car, cuts off another, all with the utmost safety. And he continues talking about life:

– I'm very well, I'm fine. I'm doing what I like, I race, I have a prominent position, credibility not only in driving a race car, for having demonstrated that I am technically competent, but also for honoring, on the professional side, the commitments I make. This is all a great achievement in the life of a professional.

He now speaks freely, without restraint:

– When you sign a one-year contract, you offer the service and the other party assumes their responsibility. Then, throughout the year, it will depend on the ability of both to live together and fulfill the commitment, not only on paper but in the spirit of the thing. The spirit of the agreement is what really matters. And only those who are truly capable of fulfilling it, due to personal desire, competence, seriousness and professionalism, are the ones that last, that have a long lifespan, otherwise it lasts a year, two years and ends. This year, for example, I signed the contract with the Nacional Bank in March, after having already raced in South Africa. We know that we can count on each other in good times and in difficult times. This is credibility, it's something that very few people have in my profession. In fact, I don't think anyone does, if you want me to be honest. I'm not bragging, no, but I honestly don't think there is any Formula 1 driver today, or in the last five years, who has credibility like that.

If he heard this, Prost would say that, in addition to believing in God, Senna thinks he is God. Let them understand each other, or disagree… In fact, the Brazilian barely hides a taste of revenge, because a year ago, when he thought he could choose the team he wanted, he found himself in the closed door of Williams.

– I could race for any team except Williams. I couldn't race because Prost had a specific veto against me. For that reason alone: he refused to compete with me on the same team.

Wouldn’t you do the same if you were in his place?

– This is cowardice! You can make certain demands within a team to have a strong position. There are small teams that cannot have two number 1 drivers. But in a Ferrari, a McLaren, a Williams and a Benetton, this does not apply, because they have the technical and economic possibilities to have two top drivers. If I hadn't raced this year, Williams would have won all the Grand Prix, with the exception of Portugal. What happened last year was a shame. But everyone competes the way they want. There are some who are happy to compete like this, to lay down their cards before dealing the deck. I would never compete like that.

Ok, but rumor has it that Ayrton would have blocked Derek Warwick when he was racing for Lotus. He swears not. And, as he is Williams' number 1 by contract, poor Damon Hill would be destined to lose every race…

– No, no! I could have a clause in the contract saying: “If Damon is in first and I am in second, you have to take your foot off and let me pass because I am number 1”. But I don't have that in the contract. This is absurd, it is not competition. If the guy in front of you is driving better, it's your problem to find a way to drive better than him and win the race. Now… it has happened that a number 2 driver reached number 1 and the team said: “No way”. Yes, that exists.

While Ayrton speaks, the cars around him provide the usual scenes of Brazilian traffic. Some drivers ignore red lights, others brake at pedestrian crossings, some make the craziest overtakes. Just like Eddie Irvine in Suzuka…

What's worth more behind the wheel? The boldness or the experience?

– In Formula 1, it is more difficult to race against experience – comments Senna, somewhat unmotivated at no longer having a Prost or a Mansell to face him on the tracks. – An experienced driver doesn’t risk as much in certain situations, but on the other hand, he leaves the door open for you to overtake, he takes the laps at the same pace…

But, after all, what will become of Senna? Are you going to pull a Prost and stop racing after winning four or five championships?

– I have no limit. I'm 33 years old and I think I still have a lot ahead of me. In fact, when I get older, I think I'm going to relax in Indy! (laughs)

(x)

[invinciblerodent]

... so does anyone have any clue on how undeath is supposed to affect elven souls?

Because I have been building my own elf character, and thinking about this a lot, and it's a thought that just will not leave me (hard not to think about this with an Astarion romance), so it's time for another one of my navel-gazey thinkpieces i guess lol.

Like, my main source is Mordekainen's Tome of Foes, and that book states clearly that elven souls are immortal. Their numbers are more or less fixed, or rather "capped" (that's why they haven't "outbred" every other race even with their long lifespans), and each elf currently living is the reincarnation of an elven soul that's already been to Arvandor (their afterlife) at some point, and then returned in a new body. That's why they have such few children: because a birth is as much a joy as it is a sorrow. It's both the arrival of a new life, and the death of another- either decades, centuries, millenia past, or as soon as barely a few months ago.

As a quick and dirty run-down for those who don't really want to wade into the lore (I don't blame you, it's murky in there), early in their lives and when they are nearing death are the times when elves are most intimately connected to their previous lives, and in their sleep-trance (their "Reverie"), these individuals can call upon memories of those past lives. The young elves relive exclusively the experiences and adventures of their immortal soul until their second or third decade- then, slowly, those memories become interspersed with those from their current life (the First Reflection, the first time that happens, marks the start of their "adolescence" of the mind essentially- they are physically fully mature by then), until roughly the end of their first century, which is when their access to these primal memories is cut off. From that point forward, the elf loses access to their previous lives. This is called the Drawing of the Veil, and from that point forward, the elf may only relive events from their current life in their trance, right until they start nearing the end of their natural lifespans some 600 years later.

This is all fairly clear in the case of a living elf.

But what happens if that immortal elven soul, that's so intimately interconnected with the afterlife and the very passage of time, finds itself suddenly housed in an undead, unaging, immortal body? How does that change things?

It's got to change things, no?

Like this is such a specific thing, I don't believe specifically elven intelligent undead (that is also a protagonist about whose soul we are supposed to care) has been written about super extensively in the sourcebooks, but my guess personally is that the moment of undeath, it... severs the bond of the soul to Arvandor. This is not unrealistic, as that bond can break for many reasons: Drow for one are never invited back and die true deaths with no way to be reincarnated, and so do elves who have turned to gods outside of the Seldarine. (.... that also means that, with the drow's propensity for casual murder, the number of elven souls available for rebirth is in a constant and steep decline, but that's a whole other thing.) (I've no clue what this means for the Seldarine drow. I wanna say that they can gain admission back, but that's just me being an optimist, I've no recollection of a source literally confirming or denying that.)

This loss of the primal memories, it's said to be a traumatic experience in itself, even if it comes naturally, as just part of the elven life cycle, and it coming on the heels of such a profound upheaval of one's life (such as being turned into a vampire), it may just be the least of the person's worries... but it would explain some things in a way that goes beyond the traumatic experiences of Astarion's current life.

If that moment of being cut off were to happen before the elf would naturally lose their ability to access primal memories, I assume that they would... be forced to more or less "grow up" (at the lack of a better term) in an instant. And to be denied roughly half the time you would have otherwise had for regaining experiences and memories from your past lives, it's got to leave one a bit... emotionally stunted, when compared to a living elf of a similar age, who had time to go through their natural life cycle as one should.

(Which, it's not a huge reveal that I believe our guy to be emotionally immature, and a bit stunted in his emotional growth. That's, like, clear, and I don't mean to say anything to the effect of "ooooh, he was so youuuung, still an uwu baaaaby---" no, we're unequivocally talking about a fully grown, adult man lol, but specifically in the case of how this all relates to this weird trait of elves, it's still interesting to think about this odd dissonance that... may very well exist between a living- and an undead elf.)

Hell, my personal little theory is that elven intelligent undead (like vampires, who do retain a soul within their bodies) specifically, while they do go into a trance and have dreams/nightmares/memories of their current lives, may just even lose the ability to recall events from their pre-undeath life (beyond conventional memory, meaning that they can't strengthen those memories and are bound to eventually forget them) as well, as evidenced by Astarion not remembering his own face, or what color his eyes were once. (You can't tell me that while he was alive, he didn't spend a shitton of time looking at his own face. If he could relive pre-undeath memories, he'd know these things, or would be able to recall them if he wished.)

There would be something... strangely tragic, in this kind of isolation, for an elf. By becoming a vampire, you'd become undead first, and an elf.... somewhere way, way, way down the line.

As a fairly young undead elf, you're somehow simultaneously ancient, adolescent, and middle-aged, and also pretty much confined to a singular existence of nothing but pain and abuse, with memories of a distant childhood slowly fading just out of reach, knowing that... this, this is just your soul's lot now. That a significant part of your fey heritage, your very ancestry as well as part of your immutable essence, has been torn from you in just one moment, in exchange for preserving this current life, as a simulacrum of itself. And now there is no next life, because this one is one without a natural end, and Sehanine Moonbow will now never invite your immortal soul back to Arvandor to be reborn, because it's been cut off from you, and your very body is holding you hostage. Six, sixteen, or sixty centuries can come to pass, and still nothing is going to change... unless you die, in which case you're just dead, like any non-elven creature.

Anyway, there's no real point to this, or a conclusion to be drawn, beyond just... fuck, man, they couldn't have made this fucker more of a tragic figure if they tried.

(...... Fun fact, Silvanus is not part of the Seldarine. So unless he maybe turns to worship Rillifane Rallathil instead, Halsin's soul would not be reincarnated either. But he seems to have made that decision himself and he seems content, so I'm guessing he's just cool with it.)

(I'm not fucking touching half-elves now, you can't make me, that's such a fucking can of worms oh my god)

[ackerfics]

a devoted believer (lover) like no other: levi ackerman

— let the world ridicule me, for life anew i still pray; whether earth or heavens, my place is by your side.

levi ackerman x reader

when levi first saw you, he thought you were a blessing sent from the heavenly realms.

you were in the middle of the most gilded of cities, the one above the rotting pathetic excuse of a home for a young boy of thirteen, dressed in the most luxurious woven material that didn't just accentuate how beautiful you were, but also showed how you were almost one of the deities overlooking the continents. you were a literal blessing from above, a miracle born from a dying, withered hand while the typhoons thundered the mortal realm. the reason behind your miraculous existence that had scholars praising odes of your achievements was not because you emerged a thief of your mother's life, but because you silenced the raging winds and drained the flooded villages — almost like your birth calmed the celestials above with your cries of greetings. and for a miracle reaching a year of another age, you're a spectacle in a sea of worshipping eyes, waiting for a smile from their revered crowned heir.

among those was him, a street rat who escaped from the undercity to quench his curiosity of what colors a festivals boasts or what extravagances the illegal traders below-ground have witnessed in the past. he was in the middle of pushing individuals screaming for the next in line for the throne of the city, in hopes that their handkerchiefs could wipe the moving shrine you're seated in. levi thanked his smaller figure because he could squeeze in between bodies as well as snatch a couple of trinkets from unsuspecting citizens here and there. what he didn't expect was to be pushed to the large road, right in the middle and in front of the gigantic shrine carrying you.

your brilliant distinctive eyes that were once jaded flashed with alarm, meeting levi's that were shadowed with what remained of his fate. talks of how ruthless your father, the king, was spread far and wide. everything that would pose a threat to you and your precious being would be eradicated. even a measly street rat who simply stumbled amidst your birthday parade. levi accepted that he would be beheaded at the prime age of thirteen. though, it was too soon for him to meet his mother again in the land without ends.

instead, the entire festival stopped.

you descended like a deity punished with mortality, your ethereal garb trailing like the waves against the shore. the guards stationed around you stood on high alert. you sat on your haunches in front of levi, his eyes wide almost as if he was ingraining every feature carved on your face into memory. he was tense, more wary than he ever was in his entire lifespan. all that vanished like the healing hands of apothecaries when you place a small, gentle hand on his head. the smile you had on your face could be akin to that of homely warmth that soothed every miserable memory levi had in his head. you were like his healing and it was only his first meeting with you. maybe you were truly a miracle born from the highest stars or a deity wrapped in mortal skin to grace people like him a taste of the heavenly realms.

"are you alright?" carried your euphonious voice.

levi might have looked like he was about to assassinate you but he was only gobsmacked.

"do you need some help? that was quite a fall."

"no, i'm alright," finally, he had the strength to answer your queries.

the smile you donned grew, crinkling your eyes in relief. "that's good. how about taking a ride on the shrine? it seems like you gained an injury from the fall." you glanced behind you and gestured for the guards to calm themselves. "don't worry, they won't do a thing to you. come, don't be afraid, i'll be sitting there with you."

he ignored the jeers from the crowds and let himself be pulled by you up the stairs of your moving shrine.

it was that day when he swore that you were worthy of being worshipped for you have a heart that was unlike any he encountered. you were truly a polished gem among ragged stones and pebbles.

years cultivated your relationship with him, the witness being your retainers and the walls of your palace. every day since that fateful parade and festival, you welcome levi into your home, offered him the best delicacies and clothes, basically ridding him of his past, which he greatly accepted without a second glance. you were offering him a chance to redeem his life of killing and stealing and just like breathing, he would follow. it came to a point that you appointed him as one of your guards, an act so baffling that it required you to bow in your father's throne room just to have levi by your side. being your guard, you became a teller of fascinating stories for him, introducing knowledge, both foreign and local, that he never head of before. then, he picked up on the smallest things about you — how you fidget with your fingers when a potential suitor walked in, how you look away when you were overwhelmed with emotions after he told you something borderline romantic, how you smile a little wider around him, and many things that he could list and never be bored.

you were like an existence he wouldn't dare erase.

every moment with you is a memory until the downfall of your great city. a war broke out and your city was the target.

when levi first saw you bloodied and vulnerable, he thought he heard a painful cry somewhere.

enraged with the need to protect you, levi wreaked havoc in the vicinity, ultimately beheading the soldier who pierced their sword into your torso. what was once the beautiful garb he loved seeing on you, became something that only an abstract painter could conjure.

it was only then that he realized that painful cry was coming from his lips.

he cradled your dying body into his chest, his tears dripping like starlight on your cheeks. despite the pain raking your limbs and muscles, you lifted a hand and gently caressed his head the same way you did when you two first met. cries spilled from levi's lips — his face open to those who wish him harm that his one weakness had always been you.

"levi," you said in your dulcet tone.

"no, no, no," he murmured against your forehead, his hands already stained with your blood. it made him sick. "don't you fucking dare close your eyes."

"but the light is too harsh, levi. i'm tired."

"no, i beg you, please don't."

"i've defended this city to my last breath, just like what my father and mother always drilled into me. i hope they get to witness my zenith before they passed on and meet my ancestors in the land without ends." you were looking above like it was an old friend. levi gripped you tightly to his chest, closer to his heart, in hopes that your staggering breath becomes stronger with each thundering beat.

"don't say that!" he was angry but he had no idea who to direct this to.

"but, levi, it's why i was born."

"fuck them! i want you to live — longer than this stupid city did, than any of your ancestors ever did."

you smiled, your hand trailing down to his cheek. "oh, levi. thank you for being with me, for giving me a chance to experience something blinding when my life was too hopeless to shine some light to."

levi covered your hand with his warm palm. "and i want you to be here with me, please, my love."

"i promise to be with you in the heavenly realms."

"no, no, no, NO!" levi shouts the syllable as each one comes out of his mouth. you were losing light, the smile still on your face. his face contorts into the worst pain he felt in his lifetime, much worse than the poisoned dagger he took for you during one assassination attempt. desperate to breathe life into you, levi pressed his lips into yours. he thought so much of finally connecting your lips with his but instead of the warmth he envisioned, he only felt the cold. he continued fitting your lips together but you were still limp in his arms.

and when the hand that was on his cheek met the ground, levi screamed so loud that even the heavens pitied him.

it felt so wrong that the moment you were brought to the heavenly realms, the entire courtyard where your death happened bloomed with flowers as if the seasonal deities decided that spring should be welcomed. the scent of flowers could only mean one thing — a new deity is born.

in the years that you're gone, levi became a vengeful spirit, vanquishing dominions and territories like a mind game. he misses you deeply, waiting for any sign that you might be here in the mortal realm. he watches the trees change color a thousand times. and it's also a thousand years that he does his pining. and with it comes the news that a deity descended, doomed with the punishment of collecting millions of believers.

"a beautiful flower-like deity, dressed in this distinctive garb that existed a millennium ago. i think this deity was known for eternal kindness and empathy so, why would the heavens banish such a feat?"

that's enough for levi to venture the next sighting of this descended deity. however, at the entrance of one isolated village teeming with spirits, he thinks. it would be best to conceal his identity for the meantime. changing his appearance, he musters the strength to face you.

when levi first saw you after a thousand years, he thinks you're still as beautiful as the day you made the festival stop.

"traveler, do you need any help freeing spirits?"

you turn around, an amiable smile painting your face. "are you a citizen of this village? if so, will you accompany me?"

"always."

[sukunasbabygirl]

On a serious note with Percy’s character, I think part of the reason I myself am drawn to him is because he’s a very good portrayal of PTSD, especially because he touches on the aspects of it media tends to cover less.

PTSD, especially Complex PTSD, can often cause a person to do things that don’t just harm themselves, but harm others as well. It can sometimes, from personal experience, feel like there is a monster inside of you or that you a monster wearing a person’s skin. With C-PTSD, which is what Percy likely suffers from, there especially tends to be a difficulty with self identification, as that long-lasting trauma and repeated stress has made you unable to fully recognise who you were before as it has practically shaped your person.

Percy is not a good person either. He’s more akin to a bad person trying to do good things, someone very morally grey. You can, of course, still be a good person with trauma, just as much as you can be a bad one, although that’s a simplification of it. The point is, there are no rules as to where you end up after experiencing something traumatic - it differs. Percy, in this case, is someone who seeks vengeance to an unhealthy degree and his morals tend to rest in a very blurry, grey area because of that. He is someone filled with anger and resentment and he can bottle that up, but eventually he completely loses it and it all spills over. He is shown to be visibly scared and panicked, but he is also shown to be aggressive and unhinged, and these are things that can and do co-exist with PTSD.

He kills his tormentors in an act of revenge and does so mercilessly, believing his actions completely justified, whether they are is a question for another day, but the point here is that Percy walks a fine line where he nearly becomes more like his tormentors. That is an experience that hits very close to home. And what I appreciate is that even after defeating Orthax, he doesn’t stop being like this. Yes, he stops his plans for revenge and manages to calm down a bit, but you can still see the trauma evident in the way he acts*, he isn’t suddenly better by defeating his inner demons, those demons go beyond a physical manifestation. Trauma doesn’t just go away, and with C-PTSD - PTSD too for that matter - because these events have shaped your life, it’s very common for them to always be there, even if you’ve managed to heal.

* Editing just to clarify that his behaviours in season two and more subtle and he seems to be back in the repressing a majority of his emotions phase. His fear of being abandoned and his impulsive behaviours are definitely still visible though and he overcompensates a lot to make up for what happened with Vex, which, considering he was in his late teens when his family died, and he’s barely in his twenties now, it’s likely he, as many traumatised individuals do, puts blame on himself for what happened to his family as a way of processing and coping, and so to have killed Vex, that’s another person he’s responsible for. The overcompensating is another thing that hits painfully close to home. He’s not suddenly better in s2 but he’s also probably scared to express himself negatively anymore after what happened previously, and thats just as harmful for him, and it won’t end well. So I’m hoping season three addresses that.

Percy shows a range of the different effects trauma has, from a scared boy to a man filled with destructive anger, and I’m glad. Every time we get a portrayal of trauma that shows all the sides of the coin, whether they be ‘pretty’ or not, I gain a few extra years to my lifespan.

This is about the show specifically as I am still not on the Briarwood arc of the campaign, but perhaps I’ll add more to this when I do reach to that point.

[burst-of-iridescent]

As great and narratively significant as Zutara is. It really wouldn't work organically without a book 4: air. I can see it having 30 episodes.

It can feature Guru Patik as Aang's new sifu and he teaches Aang more abstract parts of airbending, such as flight, cloud gliding, astral projection, and of course, chakra mastery. We can then get flashbacks with Gyatso teaching tattooless Aang basic airbending. Aang can also learn to come to terms with the fact he has taken over a dozen lives, as did Gyatso and whoever else, and find out any other dark secrets the air nomads have hidden from Aang. They can feature Ty Lee's potential relations to the air nomads and hint/tease at the possibility that she can be an airbender herself.

Due to Azula being a descendant of Aang's past life Roku, (and/or due to Ozai being Vaatu in disguise) Aang and Azula become spiritually, connected, linked, and bonded with each other. This bond is created after Aang had let go of Katara and embraced his last chakra twice. This bond unites them as fate, allowing them to understand each other, derive character development from each other, and grow closest to each other despite being on opposite sides of the war. Aang would even be able to know when Azula lies and vice versa. This connection grows stronger over time. It reaches its apex after Azula has opened and mastered her own chakras.

Of course, there can be the revelation of where Ursa is but instead of what was shown in the comics, Ikem and Kiyi do not exist and while Ursa changes her face, it doesn't cost her her memories. She can hide out in the white lotus and meets up with Aunt Wu who's also a member along with Guru Patik.

The season doesn't have to be post-war though. The comet can arrive by the end of Fall instead of Summer. Season 3 ends with only the final agni kai but everything else is moved to the end of season 4. Or, Aang's year can be the 10,000th year and harmonic convergence arrives by the end of fall. The comet can arrive by the end of summer like originally, but Ozai fights the lion turtle instead of Aang, Ozai wins by slaying the beast. Aang loses his past lives, but Raava is able to make up for it by becoming the avatar spirit of darkness/chaos/yin and light/peace/yang simultaneously and will embody/control the sources of any/all bending.

Speaking of Ozai. For the former, Ursa and Iroh can be rewritten as bio-siblings while Ozai replaces Sozin in time/place of birth. Ozai will basically have all of Sozin and Azulon's characteristics/experiences/atrocities/lifespans while keeping all of his own. Or, for the latter, Ozai's secret/true identity is actually Vaatu. It's Vaatu who used the solstices and his time tree prison's cosmic energy to directly orchestrate the 100-year war through Sozin. He also manipulated Iroh's mother, Ilah, into escaping but at the cost of his dark power and status, which he can only get back via harmonic convergence. Ozaatu slays the lion turtle by absorbing its soul, he gains all elements, plus all non-bender skills, in the opposite order to Aang's cycle by absorbing the souls of all original benders, every member of the white lotus, all Kysohi warriors except for Suki and Ty Lee, and Hakoda.

Do you agree with any of this or do you have something completely different in mind for book 4: air?

i agree with you. when i say zutara should have been canon, it's only in a world where book 4 happened and we got the post-war slowburn we deserved. that's why my stance has always been that if we only had three seasons, the show should have ended with no canonical romances or with only a hint of future zutara. zuko and katara at the end of book 3 are in the perfect place to begin falling in love with each other, having formed a solid, beautiful friendship upon which the ideal romance could have been built.

personally, i'm not a fan of the raava/vaatu plotline that lok introduced (but my problems with it are too long to get into here, so i'll leave it to another time) so i wouldn't incorporate it into my ideal book 4. but i like the ideas about aang going back to guru pathik to learn more about airbending and his spirituality, and i'm always here for secret airbender ty lee.

i would prefer book 4 to be set post-war for two reasons: 1) i think most fantasy stories always end with defeating the Big Bad, so it would have been interesting for ATLA to actually explore a world after war, and how peace doesn't instantly solve all problems, and 2) character work is one of ATLA's biggest strength, and i would've enjoyed a season focusing solely on more introspective struggles (aang struggling to come to terms with the consequences of energybending, toph's conflict with her parents, zuko finding his mother, azula's redemption etc etc) than deal with the Great Evil that has to be vanquished.

but ofc everyone is free to visualize book 4 however they want, and i strongly encourage you to write your version of book 4 if you wish to! that's what fanfiction is for, after all, to play with a thousand different versions of what canon could have been.

[beewolfwrites]

The Oar in the Sand - Chapter Twenty-Six: No Way Out

Hello all! 

Thanks so much for your lovely responses to the King of Hearts game! I was a little worried posting it. 

Just a trigger warning from me. This chapter has some very dark self-destructive thoughts in it. Kind of suicidey. If you're avoiding anything along those lines, maybe read with caution, or don't read at all. Even if I don't know you, I'd much rather have a world with you in it :)

AO3 Link

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I had first encountered Foucault during my first year of university. For one week I had spent days holed up in the library, and late nights curled up with a reading lamp, all with the goal of trying to decipher an obnoxiously over-complicated chapter of Discipline and Punish. I had given up after fifteen pages. 

And now, I wished I hadn’t. 

There was two key things I remembered about the panopticon prison. Prisoners would have to constantly check their own behaviour and assume that they were being watched at all times. That, and the fact that barely any actual panopticons were ever built because of the horrible effects on prisoners’ mental states. 

I could understand how they felt. Everything about the King of Hearts game was untrustworthy. Unless all the players communicated - and therefore cheated - your points would linger around 25. The game couldn’t be won otherwise. But communicating through the webcams posed the risk of being caught by Izanami. And even if you knocked on the walls or floors, you couldn’t guarantee that Izanami wasn’t your neighbour. It was impossible to be sure whether she was watching you or not, meaning there was no choice but to assume that she was always watching you. A true panoptic vision.  

And even if a player did risk cheating, there would be no way of knowing whether they were trying to convince everyone else to pick the wrong answer, so that they can gain extra points by being the only person to select the correct one. 

Slumped over the desk, I sank my head into my palms. My eyes stung with exhaustion, and this game was only making my headache worse. 

I’m so tired.

I just wanted an easy way out, but this wasn’t it. If anything, a game like this only forced your hand. I could just choose to accept a Game Over by not answering at all. Or I could purposely keep choosing incorrect answers. Even then…

The point system is stacked against me. 

So far, there were three outcomes: 

If a mixture of people pick or choose right and wrong answers, we each gain or lose one point. 

If everyone picks the wrong answer, we all gain one point. 

If only one person chooses the correct answer, that person gains five points and the other players lose three points. 

In other words, the players had more to gain by lying to one another than by working together to select a wrong answer. But there were still possible outcomes we hadn’t seen yet. What if everybody selected the correct answer? Would the prize still only be one point, or would it be more? And what if you’re the only player who selects the wrong answer? Even if I kept choosing random answers, or incorrect ones, there was still a chance that I would end up gaining points instead of losing them.

It would be easier to just avoid answering and take the Game Over. 

A new question appeared on the screen, and upon reading it, I groaned. Of course Izanami would throw curveballs into the mix. As if this game wasn’t hard enough. 

‘Round 4:  What is the average lifespan of a couch in days?

1 - 2958

2 - 3405

3 - 682

4 - 1276’ 

Who the hell would know the answer to a question like this?

The timer began to count down from five minutes. Holding the remote in both hands, I watched the other players fret over the four options, muttering soundlessly under their breaths. The woman in the straw hat held up four fingers to the screen, only for her neck to burst open in a fountain of blood. Several players jumped out of their seats, some unable to look at the screen as blood splattered over the woman’s webcam. 

She needn’t have bothered. There was no use in winning this game. 

We may not even get to go back to the real world. 

Just three minutes and twenty seconds. Three minutes until everything would be over. I was just so tired of it all. The games, the endless deaths, constantly living on the edge… I wouldn’t have to worry anymore. 

Four thuds sounded from the wall just below the desk. The person on the other side had obviously taken a risk in assuming that my room wasn’t the Watchtower, and was trying to pass on a message. 

Two minutes and forty seconds left…

Beneath the desk, I kicked my foot against the wall four times in return, although I wasn’t sure why I did. If everyone chose option four, we would all gain a point regardless of whether it was correct or not. But did I really want to play along? What would I gain from it? Even if I survived, the only people I cared about were gone, and I would likely die anyway at the hands of the King of Spades. 

What difference would it make?

The seconds trickled away from two minutes to one. I was careening towards death with every second that passed, and if anything, all I felt was peace. 

Fifteen seconds. 

I would become one of many lost in the Borderlands. A soul among thousands. There was some comfort in that. 

Seven seconds. 

My thumb stroked the controller, tracing circles around each insignificant button as the seconds ebbed away. 

Three.

I took a deep breath, thinking of the warm summer rain, candlelit nights laughing with Kuina, the warmth of Chishiya’s bed as I crawled in beside him.

Two.

He was gone, but I still…

One.

My thumb pressed the fourth button. I didn’t understand what strange compulsion drove me to do it. And although the correct answer was, in fact, option number one - 2958 days - every player had voted for option number four. My points jumped from 24 to 25. I was back in square one. 

There’s no way I can win this game.

Even as the next couple of rounds passed, I didn’t understand this drive to continue, or why I was doing this. My fingers simply moved on their own, no matter how I willed myself to give up already. 

Three more rounds passed by. There were now only 16 of us left, and my points had increased to 28, not because I truly knew the answers, but because for some strange reason, I guessed and somehow got lucky. I didn’t trust any of the other players. I didn’t trust myself either.

‘Round 10: Which finger is easiest to lose, grip-wise and function-wise?

1 - Little finger

2 - Thumb 

3 - Index finger 

4 - Ring finger’ 

I felt it again, this mysterious pull forcing me to choose an answer… refusing to let me give up and die here. I just couldn’t understand it. Why did I have this will to survive when there was nothing holding me here anymore? 

I looked over each of the four options presented on the screen. On the other monitor, there were so many screens either turned black with blood splatter, or depicting lifeless bodies slumped over in their chairs. Another collar erupted in the corner - a man’s lifeless body slid off his chair, and he disappeared from view. I narrowed my eyes, unfazed by the sight. 

Since when did this become normal to me?

The thought dissipated as the person next door kicked the wall once. But they were wrong. 

The answer wasn’t the little finger. It was the index finger. If I remembered correctly, I’d read somewhere in a book that if you lost your index finger, the other fingers would make up for the lack of function. 

Wait, I think it was that medical book.

Back at my family home, there was an old book on the study of medicine that was kept in the living room. It was outdated by today’s standards. Its bindings were fraying at the corners and it was practically falling apart. However, it was my brother who had discovered it at a second hand shop and—

My brother.

How could I…?

It was like waking up from a dream. I was suddenly overwhelmed by the realisation that I had forgotten all about the one person I had been fighting for. My eyes welled with tears, and my face crumpled as I finally sobbed into my hands. I was such an idiot, recklessly gambling my life away while he was still waiting for me in the old world. 

I’m so sorry. 

I was selfish, trying to run away from my problems yet again, instead of facing them and dealing with them head on. After Chishiya first scolded me at the Beach, I thought I had learned my lesson, only I hadn’t learned anything at all. I was still too naive, too emotional.  

But there was no time for emotions. There were only fifteen seconds left of the round. Wiping my face with my sleeve, I jammed my thumb on the third button down with only seconds to spare. 

No matter what it takes, I’m going to fix this. 

Clearing this game… finding Kuina… going home… I would fix it all! 

The timer reached zero, and sure enough option three glowed green. I had been correct. But what was interesting was the distribution of points. Everybody else had chosen option one - the little finger - bar myself and one other person: the young man in the green cap. He looked thoroughly annoyed, taking off his cap to run his fingers through his hair. I smiled at him through the monitor. 

So you must have send out a signal to try and trick everyone. 

I had unintentionally sabotaged his plans. He would have to get used to it. I was 29 points strong, and hell-bent on winning. The next question appeared, and this time, I was ready. 

‘Round 11: What is a group of ravens referred to as?

1 - A shiver

2 - An unkindness

3 - A curse

4 - A mourning’

Maybe luck was finally shining on me. With newfound confidence, I selected option 2, and under the desk kicked my foot twice against the wall. So far, I felt that I was able to trust this mysterious other player, even if they had been swayed into choosing the wrong answer before. 

With plenty of time to spare, I relaxed back in my chair. Kicking the wall under the desk was the safest option for communication as the King wouldn’t be able to see it on camera. However, I didn’t dare move to the other side of the room and start banging on the opposite wall or poking the ceiling with a broom. That would be far too obvious. 

There was only one problem. As more and more players were killed off, eventually it would become impossible to communicate by banging on walls and floors, and we would have to rely on the webcams. And with that came a higher risk of being Izanami’s next victim. 

The minutes diminished quickly, and before long, the round was over. Option number two glowed green. I was correct, as expected. But interestingly, my points increased from 29 to 32. 

I gained three points!

I wasn’t the only one. It seemed my neighbour had spread the message without me knowing, because every single other player had gained three points. Every other player except one. And to my disappointment, it wasn’t the man in the green cap. 

The woman who had lost her boyfriend was crying into her palms as her points dropped by five. Perhaps it was impossible for the message to reach her room, now that so many of us had died. 

could still follow the strange logic of the points system, even if it was horribly unfair. If you were the only person to guess correctly, you’d receive five points while everyone else lost three. It made sense that the system was reversed if you were the only player to choose wrong.

My eyes drifted across the monitor, coming to rest on the teenage girl as she slouched over her desk. She was blinking rapidly, not out of any code, but in an anxious flurry. Anticipation fluttered within me, and closing my eyes briefly, I could still feel the steady drip of blood against my cheeks, every drip slowing like a weary heartbeat, the pressure of the ball pit, a suffocating darkness. 

Perhaps this time, I can change things…

‘Round 12: On the periodic table, which element has an atomic weight of 1.00794?

1 - Caesium 

2 - Arsenic

3 - Radon

4 - Hydrogen’

I didn’t have a clue how to answer the question, but it didn’t matter. Even if we were wrong, if I managed to pass the message to everyone, then we would all win the round. Choosing one at random - Radon - I kicked the wall three times. My neighbour kicked three times in return - message received. But it didn’t guarantee that the message would spread to everyone. I looked again at the teenage girl. She was biting her fingernails, as she looked over each option on her other monitor. I needed to find some way of communicating, and fast. But how? What could I do through the webcam that wasn’t too risky or drew too much attention to myself? 

Think. Think! 

A brainwave hit me, and despite my lingering frustration, I was grateful to Chishiya in that moment. 

Pretending to be deep in concentration, I leaned my chin on my hand, tapped my fingers thrice against my cheek, paused, then tapped again. I repeated the pattern, always making sure that my expression was more pensive than hopeful to disguise the message as a nervous tick. 

As the minutes whittled down to mere seconds, my nerves began to shred, my fingers clenching and unclenching to try and ease some of the tension I felt. And when the fourth answer - hydrogen - glowed green instead of Radon, my heart soared… only to sink as the points changed. 

Every one of us lost five points, aside from the man in the green cap who had gained five. I had sank to a pitiful 27 points. However, it was the teenage girl who caught my attention most. She was shifting nervously, eyes glassy and unfocused. I sucked in a breath. She was at 15 points. In as little as three rounds, it would be Game Over for her. 

I can still change things! 

Clearly, it wasn’t enough to just select any answer and hope that everyone else would choose it too. Not everyone would be satisfied with gaining just one point. 

I peered at the monitors and rubbed my eyes until they stung. Outside the window to my room, the afternoon sun was burning through the city. Time was wasting away. Soon the next question would appear, and what little time we had would drain like sand. 

There was no time to waste. The only way to win this thing was to figure out the right answers. 

But how?

[kadavernagh]

Myself I must remake || Siobhan & Regan

TIMING: Current LOCATION: Ireland PARTIES: Regan & Siobhan SUMMARY: Regan and Siobhan arrive in Saol Eile. CONTENT: Domestic abuse allusions

The sooner proof of Regan’s presence was displayed to that toothless hag, the sooner they could part ways. Siobhan could spend her time trying to remember, and Regan could spend hers trying to forget.

Green on green on green on jade blurred through the windows as the Irish moors opened up in front of them. Many humans found them beautiful, enchanting – it was that combination of the low hanging mist and the limitless greenery that made it feel like another world, one that so many poets and artists had their glimpses into over the centuries. There was nothing so poetic about it when you looked beyond the surface. Regan’s stomach pitched up and sank back down with each hill and valley, and twice they needed to stop to let a parade of painted sheep cross the road. The windows were rolled down, of course, and the air was crisp and clean, tinged with the scent of earth and wildflowers. 

For two banshees, they were disgustingly quiet. She had barely said a word since she set foot on the plane and even less when off. Regan huffed. Siobhan told her to get over it. Regan huffed. Regan slung a barb about how Siobhan’s ancient spine must be sore from all that time cramped in Economy. Siobhan called her a microscopic fetus birthed by an ant. The hours blurred and did not matter beyond the amount of remaining gas in the tank. She didn’t know what time it was here, or back h– in Wicked’s Rest.

There was also a remarkable degree of emotion, for two banshees, though they both had the strength necessary to deny it. Siobhan’s grip on the wheel was as tight as a cadaveric spasm, like she’d died clutching it. Her face looked tighter, older. How long had it been since she had seen these hills? Forty one years? Or was it forty two now? Longer than Regan had been alive, though it was a speck in the grand scheme of their lifespan. She didn’t understand the desperation. Siobhan’s training had been a success. What did she have to gain by coming here? It was a question that had swirled around her thoughts for weeks now. When she had asked before, Siobhan supplied that it was home. It was that simple. But she did not look like a woman returning home.

They were close now, Regan could sense it; her skin was ready to fly from her body. Soon they’d pull over and one of them would belt out a scream, and Saol Eile would carve itself from the fog, swallowing both of them up. “Here?” Regan asked her. She wasn’t loud, but her voice sliced through the eerie stillness. “I recognize that cliffside, and those boulders. There are lilies in the valley over there, the lake just next to it, and I found a family of badgers over that way.” It was not nostalgia she was basking in. Her voice was completely flat.  

No need to stop and scream, apparently. Another banshee offered up her scream. Regan had grown used to her own scream, and even Siobhan’s lungs shaking the town. They were familiar. This scream, from some unknown banshee, was not. For all Regan knew, it could have been someone she’d heard a hundred times before, easily forgotten by her ears, but the very fact a third banshee came screaming into her world again, after her growing so used to there being only two, made her knees tremble (not even worthy of my patellae collection, her grandmother would have said of them). She shared a look of uncertainty with Siobhan. Did she feel the same? She had been in exile. Other banshees would have kept their distance from her for decades, no screams reaching her ears. 

And… there it was. Regan’s senses adjusted to the surreal place that shimmered into focus. Saol Eile was charming at first glance, with haphazardly-laid streets not meant for vehicles and dotted with modest white cottages. The longer Regan stared ahead, the longer she felt a million tiny bugs biting her skin – a gift from fae presence. A single sniff filled her lungs with decomposition – there was always something, or many somethings, being appreciated as they decayed around town. An occasional banshee marched proudly by, mostly minding her own business, wings stiff and eyes dark. She did not compare, could not even fake half their pride. Regan looked away in the shame that would need to be burned out of her. 

Her legs wobbled as she climbed out of the car. That thing was not going to be returned to the rental place, was it? The tank was practically empty. It would rot here; nature would take it. Soal Eile would take it, as it did everything. She felt pretty empty, too. And her stomach grumbled. Yes, that must have been it. But the thought of whatever soup her grandmother would inevitably prepare killed her appetite. The slam of the car door rang through her skull like a gunshot in a way that scream had not. Finality. Regan paced to the trunk, ready to pop it open, but the moment she turned around, a shadow moved overhead and snatched her attention away.

A magpie stretched its glossy blue-black and white wings in the air above, cawed, and then promptly plummeted headfirst into the ground by Siobhan’s feet. It bounced a little but still came to rest closer to the other banshee. Regan’s grandmother would have called that a sign of good tidings for Siobhan, saying that one was in Fate’s graces (which was, of course, entirely different from the manmade concept of luck). “I suppose that’s yours,” Regan said bitterly. She would respect where the bird fell, and being here was supposed to strike her covetous nature from her. A banshee should be proud, should stake a claim to what is theirs, but never be jealous. 

She was quiet for a long moment, and abandoned the trunk. Someone would help with that later. Regan wasn’t sure she had anything left to give, right now – no effort, no thoughts, no words. No emotion. She had already been reamed open and drained, she was exhausted from a full day of travel, grieving from being ripped away from Jade, and this place was so full of ghosts that her mind didn’t know how to process their onslaught. So it became cement instead. She became stone. And wasn’t that just what needed to happen?

Regan did manage one small flourish, first, before sealing up. “I hate you.” Again. Like a child. Like Siobhan had dragged her here after all. Like she was allowed to hate. Regan looked away, figuring it was one of the last times she might ever express such a sentiment. At least she got that one in. “So who determined the conditions of your exile? I suppose that’s where we’re headed first, yes?”

------

It’d been forty-two years, in addition to the hours, minutes and seconds. It was her greatest regret that she didn’t know the exact time that she’d been cast out as a bloody mess upon the moors. She remembered that the sky was bright, she remembered the birds above, and she would never forget the green ocean. The true water was far from them—crashing with desperation against the jagged stones of a cliff; Siobhan always thought the ocean was a hungry creature, eating the rocks away—but the green ocean was the moors. When the wind caught the bushes, the branches, the long soft blades of wild grass, it sounded like the lap of water against a shore. What she remembered of Ireland, of Saol Eile—her home—were these moors: the green, the mist, the sour note of salty oceans far away. 

There was poetry here. There was meter, verse, hymn, language that failed and succeeded, there were Siobhan’s own childish words scrawled in the margins of other authors that slipped through Saol Eile’s cracks: she wrote beside Jonathan Swift, in tandem with W.B Yeats, in understanding with Oscar Wilde. There was Iambic pentameter built by the beat of wind; consonance, couplet; pyrrhic flow; Spenserian stanza. There was metaphor and allegory. Here, in these lands, in their home, there was poetry—what sort of person would sit in denial of it? Siobhan closed her eyes, letting the green ocean wash over her, knowing she was in the place she understood better than anything else. Against the world’s motion, Fate breathed in Death—yes, every banshee knew this—but it lived in nature. In the moors. In Ireland.

She didn’t speak, the world spoke for her. She thought she might be eased by her home, but her body tightened like shriveled fruit. When Regan spoke, she responded in the ways that fell most naturally to her. Whatever she said, she didn’t remember. She was home. She was home. She was home. They, though she hated to see Regan as anything more than the annoyance she was, were home. It’d been forty-two years, in addition to the hours and minutes and seconds, and Siobhan had missed it for every moment that passed. Yet, the home hadn’t missed her. The scream that welcomed them back was one she didn’t recognize; it might have been a young banshee, grown in the years apart, it might have been one that aged her scream, it might have been one she didn’t know at all but in that spark of time, she felt herself to be an outsider. 

She stepped out of the car (which would undoubtedly not be returned) and a magpie plummeted to her feet, assuring her that she was no outsider at all—it was fate reminding her who she was. As a little girl, when she’d gone into Dublin with her mother, she was awed by the common magpies hopping about without a care for the humans that stomped around them. They were common creatures, adapted to the environments that had sprouted around them, but Siobhan wasn’t any less fond of them. Once, a stray cat had captured a young magpie, and for the entirety of the day she had listened to their calls of mourning—violent, screeching cawing. Some banshees might have claimed the crow was more like them, or the raven, or a vulture, the barn owl, the vicious shrike, or the Irish Chough, but to Siobhan it was always the magpie. “Only children would seek to lay claim to Death.” She scooped the dead bird in her hands; it looked so small, so much like it was merely asleep. She cradled it like it was.

She was Siobhan Dolan, of the Ó Dúbhláin’s that had been living in this area for years upon years. She had memorized their lineage, she could map the route of their ancestors; this was home. If anyone was an outsider it was the child. The— “Regan,” she said, “there is no one currently alive in these lands, or any other, who hates you more than me.” She was home. Then, she winced. “That would be my mother.” She wasn’t excited to see her, in forty-two years, it hadn’t felt like they were apart for a moment. In the mirror, it was her face more than her own she saw. In her head, it was her words more than her own she thought. No, her hair wasn’t straight enough for her mother. Her clothes weren’t proper enough. She wasn’t ready. “What about your grandmother? Wasn’t it on her request that we came here? Maybe..,” Siobhan’s eyes grew wide and she leaned across the space between them with the grin. “The judge! You mean the judge—yes, we can…” She swallowed, hoping she didn’t appear as happy as felt by her small, substantial loop-hole to Regan’s question. “We can see her. She’s over by the worm statue. If the worm statue is still here, that is.”

------

“Mutual, then.” Regan muttered, bitterness barely hidden. Could she appreciate, even the most miniscule amount, that Siobhan had lowered herself to expressing the same sentiment? So either it had not been childish, or Siobhan was no better. Selfishly, she liked the thought. But what would that mean for banshees who spent too long away from here? Were all of them destined to atrophy, to have their hardened skin crack open with the years as their soft innards poured out? Regan had been taught to be hollow instead, but she had failed at it. For the first time, Regan wondered how similar – if at all – Siobhan had been to her when she was new at this. Did she struggle to carve herself out from her body? Was there anyone there to begin with, or was all of what Regan was a byproduct of her wasted years? And if a banshee who never started with such a humanity inside of them still struggled while not here, what did that mean for her? It meant… she had made the right, the only, decision to come back.

Siobhan breathed in her home with each inhalation, the years that piled on during the ride here seemingly lifting away, and Regan didn’t dare interrupt. Siobhan was always so poised, so glamorous in the most paper thin of ways like a maggot-chewed epidermis, but this place had changed her. The look on Siobhan’s face, one of peace, was universal, and there was true beauty to be found here, she’d admit, even if it was not among the residents. She would allow Siobhan to have it, all of it. 

In fact, she would have liked to leave Siobhan to it as quickly as possible. “My grandmother after this,” Regan reminded her. So perhaps there was a reason not to rush, though she preferred to get the necessary over with. The bubble in her throat, swollen from thinking of her grandmother, was almost too large to swallow. “But you need me present for a few minutes longer. Remember that. You need me.” Regan turned her nose up. She could still relish that a little bit, and it wasn’t like Siobhan was free of all flaws (how many hid under her glamour?). 

Every step they took closer to the center of the Saol Eile brought a new wave of pinpricks all over Regan’s flesh. It had been a year since she had been around this many fae, and it practically burned. To Siobhan, it was probably the equivalent of an embrace after so long. Surely other things were new for her, too. What else had been made or unmade in her time away? Regan decided to just ask. “What looks or feels different to you? Can you tell, or has time made your memory fuzzy, cailleach?” She was truly curious. Nothing had appeared changed in the year Regan had left, but Siobhan was absent for decades, and as slow as the community was to adopt anything new, few things erected here would outlive a banshee. Buildings crumbled, fences were constructed and constantly shifted around to claim dead things on one’s property, a few newly awakened banshees flit about; there was change only the most familiar noticed. “I think the only significant thing that changed in my absence was me.” As easy as it would be to point fingers at the people she had opened her heart to, she knew it had been born only of her failure. “My grandmother would not have been moved by my leaving. She will be exactly the same. I can picture how she might have informed others I had left. ‘We need to put that band-aid dispenser back in the clinic, my granddaughter is an ungrateful fool’.” There was bite in the comment that she tried to swallow back, but she could feel it hover in the air, mingling with the decomposition, even making the stench temporarily unappealing. 

The house by the worm statue was no mystery, though, and Regan started off in that direction. The statue was as unchanging as Cliodhna, precisely how she’d left it. Regan had walked by it daily on the way to the clinic, and, unfortunately, she knew the resident well: Putrecia. “They would never take down the statue for Worm Remembrance Day. That should be coming up soon, if I’m recalling my months correctly.” It didn’t matter. The days always blurred here, each running into the next. 

The statue in question depicted the well-known worm, Talamh-Ithe, who single-non-handedly protected the honor of the whole community. Against what? That part was unclear to Regan. Siobhan probably knew. “But… I do know who lives there. She is an acquaintance of my grandmother. So was it Putrecia who decided your exile, then? What exactly were the terms? You did not tell me very much.” That put a couple of malformed puzzle pieces together though – how Regan had ended up on this list of tasks for Siobhan. An item to check off. An object to reclaim. Or maybe the other banshees just began growing concerned about her blabbing all of their secrets to the humans, the untrained cur she was. 

The doorbell sounded like the caw of a hooded crow, which had to be confusing. Regan hung back. She had learned in her interactions with grieving next of kin when it was best to stay silent and watch something play out, when she had no business interfering. She only needed it to play out quickly. The sooner proof of Regan’s presence was displayed to that toothless hag, the sooner they could part ways. Siobhan could spend her time trying to remember, and Regan could spend hers trying to forget.

------

On a good day, Regan was a bloated fly, slowly filling Siobhan’s ears with her heavy, annoying buzz she mistook for conversation. On a bad day, she was bile; a constant burning hole in her stomach—an ulcer. But in Saol Eile, there was nothing Regan could do or say that tarnished the coat of serenity that Siobhan now wore. She was home; the thought wrapped around her. She was home; the truth bundled her together. She was home; there was the uneven ground, the blue sky, and the twisting pathways emblematic of the fact that no banshee was ever formally trained in urban planning and everyone wanted a good view of Farraige na Buanachta—the world’s best tar pit. Despite Regan’s gift of annoyance, Siobhan moved with the poise of a returning lioness to her den. 

Regan’s voice rang out somewhere far beyond her, despite the other banshee being right at her side. She was small, insignificant. When she said she was needed, Siobhan smiled at her the way she might at a fledgling chirping from its nest. “Time breeds many differences; new signs of erosion, new blades of grass between the cobbles. You’re so young, you can’t understand what it means to exist above the quick cycles of life. Eventually, you learn to see beyond the minutia. It’s the heart of the place that remains the same and this place is the same.” She buzzed with the presence of the other banshees, who were absorbed in their own tasks for the time being, but every new corner turned it seemed one would stare. Siobhan nodded at them, straightening herself out. She’d opted for long sleeves, unsure if it was more embarrassing to glamour her scars away or less than walking around carrying her symbols of banishment. In the end, it was easier to have her clothing create a middle ground. It was all form-fitting, of course; there were some aspects of her beauty that remained undeniable. She welcomed the staring. Regan buzzed beside her again, something about her grandmother and something about the Bandaid dispenser. 

Their stalwart doctor—the dispenser—had been new when Siobhan was a child, replacing the old ‘doctor’ that was the pile of scrap fabrics. Medical care in Saol Eile had always been a lot of shrugging and faith that maybe there wouldn’t be an infection this time. The mothers took care of it, mostly, and one was lucky if their mother learned the right things from her own mother. “What does the dispenser have to do with you?” she asked, and by the time the last syllable slipped from her tongue, she regretted it. Siobhan stopped walking, having fallen behind Regan by several paces, watching her back. When another banshee turned to stare, it was obvious who she was really looking at. In forty-two years, who would really remember another dutiful banshee in their community of dutiful banshees? In one year, who could ever forget Regan? Siobhan continued walking, keeping her pace behind Regan, watching the banshees of Saol Eile turn and whisper and point—not at her; it had never been about her. “You were the doctor,” she mumbled, “you replaced the dispenser.” Which was less effective than the pile of fabric, if she was being honest. 

The Dolans were a family like many others in Saol Eile; proud, orthodox, and with an old lineage that mattered only to them. They kept farm animals, and lived on the outskirts of town to keep them out of the general range of screams that burst from the town proper. It was Dolan dairy that went into cream of bone soup, but anyone could make cream and dairy cows littered rural parts of the human world. How many banshees spent time in medical school? How many of the women staring at Regan now were actually useful to this community? Pieces drifted into Siobhan’s mind like the ash of a pyre: their desperation for Regan wasn’t fondness for a lost daughter. She could see every new crack now; every misplaced addition to someone’s home, every fresh face she didn’t recognize, every new fence, everything that had moved on without her. Even the worm statue was different—much skinnier than its once girthy glory. 

“Putrecia did in a sense, yes.” Siobhan spoke through gritted teeth, crushing the dead magpie into her chest. “My terms were simple: I was to regain honor. To do—” She swallowed as the door creaked open by the width of a dead squirrel. “To do what I was told,” she answered quickly before Putrecia’s cloudy eyes emerged from the dark. One thing, at least, had not changed: the old judge was as miserable as ever. She said nothing as she stuck a finger out of the door, gesturing at Siobhan’s dead magpie. Siobhan said nothing either as she handed it over. Putrecia’s wrinkled hand snatched the bird and snapped back to her tiny body. In the shadows, Putrecia’s toothless grin was a void of black. The door slammed shut again.

“Putrecia has never liked me,” she said, tapping her foot impatiently against the ground. It was fair to say that Putrecia had never really liked anyone. Siobhan believed the job of judge had fallen to her expressly for that reason: she hated every banshee with an almost admirable equality. “And nothing is ever worth her time unless it comes with a bribe,” Siobhan explained, wondering if her history with Putrecia created any kind of superiority in this situation. She certainly didn’t feel superior and now she was in loss of one dead magpie. The door swung open again on its rusted hinges, revealing the inside of Putrecia’s crowded hut. Siobhan stepped inside, ducking her head under the hanging skins of dried stoats; she gestured for Regan to follow behind her. 

Putrecia was hunched over a small table, slowly scratching an ink-stained feather across an old sheet of parchment. She stopped when Regan entered, meeting her gaze with her misty eyes. “Good, good,” Putrecia mumbled in Irish, licking her empty gums. She finished on one sheet of parchment, folding it up. Siobhan’s patience wore thin as she watched the old woman lift a wax crusted spoon above her candle. “This is Regan,” Siobhan said, stumbling as she adjusted into Irish. “I brought her back, like the letter said.” She hadn’t expected Putrecia to be excited to see her, but she had hoped for some manner of welcome. “This is Regan Kavanagh,” she repeated, hoping that would help.

Putrecia poured melted wax over the folded letter, stamping her seal into place. “This is Regan?” Siobhan tried again. “Regan? Like the letter said?” 

Putrecia paused, lifting her head up. She squinted at Siobhan. “I don’t remember sending you a letter, Sadhbh,” Putrecia said. 

Siobhan bristled. “No.” She stiffened. “I’m Siobhan.” This was one of Putrecia’s weird amusements; the story went that she lost all her teeth trying to bite a bone. She’d always been a little strange, everyone always said so. Putrecia hobbled towards them and Siobhan held out her hand, expecting a shake. Putrecia lifted hers and pressed it to Regan’s cheek. 

“Good girl,” she said to her, patting her face. “Go on now, go back home. Tell your grandmother she’s a lucky old crone to have such a darling granddaughter like you. Now we can throw the damn dispenser out again.” 

All Siobhan could do was stand there.

------

Putrecia’s abode held no surprises. Sheets of parchment and rows of quill ink pens, dead weasel skins, paintings of wings in a rainbow of colors and shapes on the walls, and the fetid stench of something stewing in the kitchen while the banshee was hard at work jotting something that seemed to her of grave importance. Regan peered down at what Putrecia had been scrawling as she carefully navigated the clutter and squeezed by the old writing desk. It was in Gaeilge, but her handwriting was poor and difficult to read (and people said doctors were bad). Something about cleaning. Hopefully it was a to-do list; this place was worse than most crime scenes. Putrecia strung the magpie up next to the weasels with a surprising amount of tenderness, and then turned her old eyes over to the two of them, the visitors. She hardly seemed concerned with Siobhan. Regan, though, she held her hazy eyes over, recognition spinning through them. 

Regan stood there through the introduction – the repeated introductions – feeling like a stilt-legged fawn, staring, tethered to a strange place, waiting for the hands to be laid on her flank and for the scream to come turn her to spray.

Regan knew she was not supposed to want. She had come here to fix that, to pull the want out of herself (let Jade have all that she possessed, let it stay in Maine). But right now, she was still a failure, and her foolish, childish stomach curdled at the hag’s gaze, and her useless muscles pinned her. If Putrecia saw her human stains, how deeply fixed they were within the fabric of her being, she made no show of it. If anything, it was Siobhan she was questioning. Siobhan said the old woman didn’t like her, but Regan wasn’t even sure she knew her.

“Siobhan is right.” Ick. Saying those words was more foul than the soppiest of feelings. “She, um, brought me here… with great difficulty, if that counts for anything. She flew Economy.” The Irish felt strange only because it was directed towards another banshee (rather than a pet name for someone who didn’t know Irish, and wouldn’t recognize it), but she was quick to slip back in. For Siobhan it had been much longer. “From the US… she was tasked to bring me, yes? Right? There was a list? I was on it. Please confirm that I was on it.” A well-trained banshee, which Siobhan was, could easily swallow a lie, conjure up a non-existent list for whatever motive suited her, but this was not a matter the other banshee would have lied about. There had to be a list and she had to be on it (because… no, not thinking about that). “Oh, uh, you may have told her my name was Regis?” No, that didn’t ring a bell. It might have made her more confused. Her mouth opened and Regan’s eyes traced the curve of her gums.

Putrecia’s throaty voice was like gravel against stone. Sadhbh? The Grim Reaper? Did the old bat not even remember writing to Siobhan? And… if that was the case, would this all have been for nothing? No, she couldn’t think like that. She was not here to usher Siobhan back in. She was here for herself, her duty (for the two should have been indistinguishable). 

Regan watched them closely, unsure what this meant for Siobhan. Putrecia had retired as the judge since before Regan had arrived here, but any challenges to her previous determinations remained in her cracked, ancient hands. Despite the hag being the picture of perfect stoicism, Regan always found it difficult to picture Putrecia as the judge known for doling out brutality to those who besmirched the community or powers they served. It would have been easier to mistake her for some gentle, senile old woman with eyes as cloudy as her judgement, but Regan had heard enough to know otherwise. What had Siobhan’s full sentence been? Surely not just exile. Not with Putrecia in charge. Whatever it was, it seemed to have continued even now: Regan could think of no worse thing, in Siobhan’s eyes, than being forgotten by the place she could never let go of.

Saol Eile had not yet found a new judge, for Putrecia’s last determination was what would occur after she no longer heard cases. The new arrangement was as chaotic as the most cutting of Putrecia’s rulings. Judges were often picked at random on a literal case-by-case basis, with humans sometimes being dragged into the court to make decisions they did not understand. Exile was funny, the banshees thought, when a human declared it without knowing what sentence they were handing down (or handing up, really, because a human judge was not above even the lowliest of banshees). Regan wasn’t sure if a trial awaited her for fleeing a year ago – it was unlikely. Leanbh were prone to poor decisions at times (really, thinking they could make decisions at all) and the others were apt to leave retribution to her grandmother first.

Regan had never seen a spine go limp so quickly, snapped in the mouth of a crocodile. All of Siobhan’s triumph and pride plummeted like the magpie. And she didn’t even have the bird anymore.

The cold, skeletal hand on her cheek was not unlike that of her grandmother’s, but her grandmother never looked at her the way Putrecia was – like she was something useful. Regan had figured the stares of the other banshees had been reserved for Siobhan, or because she had left here so suddenly and with such shame, but maybe it was more than that. Were they grateful to have their doctor back? Or did they detest her for leaving their wounds to grow putrid and their wings to tear off? Flattery without loathing was a rare thing here and Regan was a born skeptic.

She certainly would not tell her grandmother that. Every one of the old woman’s words made her chest gape open when it should have been sewn up, clamped shut. Speaking to her like a child. The dispenser. Regan turned away from the hand that made her skin slither, feeling fingers drift away from her cheek. Those were not the hands she wished to be there (when she closed her eyes, she could just barely imagine the right ones).

Regan hated herself for looking to Siobhan, asking permission with her eyes, searching to obey, even more than she hated Siobhan herself. But that was a promising start, was it not? Hatred was no more permitted than any other emotion, and Regan tangled with it, success out of reach for now. Her voice was chillier than she would have liked, clipped where it should have been indifferent. “I’m sure she’s busy. Her flowers, you know, the season is right. Or perhaps she’s working on her knees.” Not her own, which were fine, but the shelves upon shelves of patellas collected throughout the centuries. “However, I will leave you and Siobhan.” The name had the slightest edge to it as she spoke it, and she wondered if it might provoke Putrecia into remembering (more likely, she did remember, and merely did not find Siobhan of any importance, not worth straining to recall a name). You need me, Regan had said to the other banshee earlier. And it was truer than she had thought. She looked uneasily at Siobhan, drowning in uncertainty, checking one more time if there were any objections – silent or otherwise – to her leaving now. 

Regan’s breath hissed out from her teeth. There was nothing more for her to do here. “I know when I am being dismissed. You’re right. My grandmother… she knows that I have a lot of catching up to do.” None of it conversational. Regan turned to Putrecia, giving the old hag a nod – respect, acknowledgement, she was not sure – but kept her eyes glued to Siobhan as she backed out the door. It screamed shut on its rusty hinges, and Regan’s stomach sank as if it had been hurled into the tar pit. She realized what she had been looking for in Siobhan, on some level, however interred in her subconscious it was. That had been their last chance to leave together.

------

Siobhan winced at the wailing crash of the hut’s door, swallowing Regan’s body. How strange the new empty space beside her was. How terrible the silence without Regan’s buzzing. Siobhan swallowed; an uneasy boat rocked in her stomach. Banshees possessed no other abilities of foresight beyond Death—she couldn’t tell the weather and she was just as hopeless in predicting the nebulous future as any pathetic human—but she could tell with certainty that she was never going to see Regan again. The insipid doctor had done it: she was adored, she was needed. Wherever she went now, it would be someplace that wanted her. She turned to the door, knowing she was far too late to catch her last glimpse of Regan. She wanted to ask her how she’d done it, how she could have succeeded in so many places that Siobhan had failed—was still failing in. She wanted to say that she was sorry and that she was wrong and that she was grateful that Regan had tried—was trying. Siobhan had no ability to read the threads of Fate outside of Death but she knew that the two of them were not going to the same place. 

How terrible, she’d been hoping to see the clinic. 

“I’m not going back, am I?” Siobhan asked, her voice drowned out by Putrecia’s scratching quill and then tink-tink of her tapping it against the inkwell. How strange that suddenly she was full of objections and there was no one left to give them to. 

She imagined the ceremony that Regan would return to; she imagined her grandmother’s tight embrace and joy she would dare to express for the return of her talented granddaughter. They would call her good and worthy. They would usher her back to her place and easily, as if she’d never left at all, she would fall back into her role. There might have been screams of joy outside, Siobhan could imagine them, but inside Putrecia’s hut, there was only the sound of the quill and the dripping ink. 

[captain-astors]

🥺 thankyew... (replying to the tags of your reblog)

Then back at u, what are some AU/aesthetic that u think HouTata will fit in?

Oh joyous! Apologies that this took a moment to get to, I was brainstorming

Obligational dungeon meshi AU, I think I could see Houji as a designated noble Canary (one of these elves without the ear-notches, like the girl on the far right, if you don't know their job is just clearing out/inspecting dungeons when they reach a point of danger.)

Houji's division has had a lot of ingrained bias in the form of constant criticism about the "susceptibility of short-lived races to demons"

However some number of years back, Houji was assigned to clear out to clear out and kill a tallman dungeon master (Yan) who, no doubt was completely off the rails and in a state of mind that could not be reasoned with, summoning horrific monsters at every turn, but nevertheless Houji couldn't ignore how his motives and descent made perfect sense, they weren't completely different creatures at all.

So years later, when Houji is assigned to another dungeon and realizes this is the younger brother of that same tallman, recognizing from the copies of friends and family that Yan kept within his dungeon, even as Tatara slaughters his friends, Houji can't help but desperately try to save him from the madness of the dungeon.

But he's still ready to kill him if the world needs it.

Also I think the two criminal canaries with their notched ears under Houji's command should be Mutsuki and Takizawa

(Fun fact, I considered sketching this but the concept of twink Houji shaved two years off my lifespan, maybe he's a half-elf who got a lot of those tallman genes for his build or something)

Additionally I think it would be funny to put them in twst, not as students but as teachers. Houji teaches history or something at their rival school Royal Sword Academy and Tatara teaches the same subject at Night Raven College. They despise eachother but both of their students have already picked up on the tension and are betting on when the day will come where one of their arguments at the school competitions will turn into making out. Little do they know, it already has occasionally, just not publicly yet.

Aesthetic-wise, Film noir detective flick anyone? Bitter rivals where one of them was the culprit the whole time and the other knows that but is just trying to prove it? That sounds kind of like Death Note premise-wise actually... oh well, that does work.

Canon-based AU but Juuzou is added to both of their legions of "children", but simultaneously. He got assigned to Houji's division and thought it would be funny to go undercover as a ghoul because he knows how to smell and behave like one that just doesn't like to use his Kagune, and instead uses a quinque like Tomoe. Both of them grow fond of him simultaneously which becomes very awkward when all three get into a fight. Shinohara would have a heart attack if he knew his son had gained two more dads and they all sort of want to kill eachother. Do you see my vision. AU where Tatara is a dragon and Houji is a knight do whatever you want with that.

[simpyshrimpy]

Lilia Vanrouge and Kumiko Background

Literally so badly want to write meeting Lilia for the first time, I’ve got everything planned out in my head on how we’ll meet him and what he’ll be and the whole shebang, just got to write it out, but I’m so tired that I just wanna sit in my little comfy and cozy blanket hoodie under my warm sheets and play fire emblem awakening and go gaga over marrying chrom for the 100th time. 

But until then I do wanna talk a little about Lilia because I’m so hype about it. I’m not afraid to spoil anything honestly, I’m not good at keeping secrets, but if you want it to be a surprise till the main part Imma put it under a read more.

OKAY SO LIKE- oh boy okay so like I have all these thoughts, and to begin to explain I have to like go in depth on what exactly Kumiko is. Yes, she is a kitsune, but that’s more of a name that we the reader call her cause I mean, she looks like one, right? And for all intents and purposes Kumiko is a fox. As in. She used to be an animal, but as stated in chapter one, animals aren’t sentient. 

Animals in this world are more bestial. They don’t speak with words and express themselves through language, but rather through feeling and emotion and scents and body language, it all comes together to form the animal “language”.

 Kumiko used to be like them too, but there is one key difference that made her stand out from the rest. She ate humans. And sure, other animals can eat humans too, but none ate so many as Kumiko did. After she got the first taste she decided “huh. this tastes good. I should eat more of this”. And she kept eating and eating. The more Kumiko ate the longer her lifespan grew. At first, that’s all it was. And obviously the longer she lived the more humans she ate.

That continued on and on until she finally gained the one thing an animal needed to become fully awakened and ascend into a greater sentiency. She gained a sense of self. 

After that, Kumiko wasn’t just some fox that really liked eating humans, she was a spirit of nature in the form of a fox. Aaaaaand yada yada this and that-- Kumiko is fae. With all of the different cultures of this world sort of in one big continent, it’s not really known what specific area Kumiko even came from, Kumiko isn’t even her name honestly (as a fae, names have power and such, but the story of how Kumiko started going by that name and what her true name is actually is another story.) (Grim isn’t fae, btw, that I know of. I still have to work out the logistics of what an amalgamation is in the first place. Demon maybe? Idk.) And thus brings us to Briar Valley, where the ruling power is Malanea Draconia, an ancient dragon older than even you and Kumiko.  Now, as with most cases, dragons aren’t fae. They’re just dragons. However- Malanea’s husband is fae. Name to be decided, but he’s an old Spirit of Darkness that rules over the majority of the fae. I’m not going to do the typical seelie and unseelie courts because I don’t quite think that these guys are going to fit into either stereotype of the two as they’re more in the middle. Not malicious in spirit like the unseelie, but not jovial and peaceful and bright as the seelie. They don’t quite fit in either, so we’re just gonna make them all one group.

Malanea is the one wearing the pants and killing the bugs in this relationship by the way, her husband was rather happy to allow her all the power while he gets to be a trophy househusband.

And they have a daughter too by the way. You might be familiar with her actually. Maleficent. She’s about 200 years old right now, a lot younger than you, but she does know you- Kumiko that is. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand she kind of hates Kumiko’s guts. Kumiko is much like a fox and rather liked playing evil little pranks on Maleficent and ruffling her metaphorical feathers. Despite her immense anger towards Kumiko though, Maleficent does respect her (which just stands to piss her off more). 

With that being said. Maleficent is a rather curious child and after hearing her much respected elder’s story, Mallie was curious if she could create another spirit like Kumiko. So she got a pet bat... named Lilia Vanrouge 

I honestly thought I was a genius here after getting this far in brain dream world, but writing it all out is so much less exciting.

Anyways. Mallie feeds her cute little vampire bat Lilia every day with- you guessed it- her blood!--- Wait. you thought she was feeding her little bat boy human blood? Not in this life sweetie. He’s the pet bat of a princess and he eats only the best food- which is her.

And honestly, with how powerful and strong Mallie is, Kumiko might be getting a little jealous with how fast Lilia awakens...

...Anyways I’m done talking, but now that I literally gushed all that out and set aside fire emblem (i love you chrom bby) I”m actually really hype to write this out sooooooooo i’mma do that till i get sleepy

[cute-vomit]

A small rant/question I have for the Yandere Visual Novel Fandom (?): Does Tate Frost really count as a Yandere?

Before you guys say anything about what happened to my headcanon thing, It kinda died out of me and I also fell out of the LMK series and I'm back into the Yandere Visual Novel Fandom (I don't know if it has an official name yet or not but I'm trying over here) and I honestly just forgot I had this blog. Also, this is longer than my lifespan so I hope you like reading nonsense.

Now on to what I was going to be speaking about, as a large fan of Scopophobia Studios myself and loving all the characters they've created in current/upcoming projects, I have noticed something. That would be the character Tate Frost, more specifically from his own game "Frost bite". I know the demo of the game had only come out or so, but I wanted to speak about it and see others' opinions.

I've played the game myself and really enjoyed it but from what we've seen of Tate Frost is that he doesn't really have any main attributes that could possibly make him a "Yandere" in a sense. I assume people just call him a yandere because he was made by Scopop or was just a horror visual novel, but when you really look into it, he doesn't seem to have a lot of romantic attraction in the game.

Firstly, Tate is seen as being a huge flirt, but the game itself says that he would call anyone "Sha" or any other small nickname, Secondly, being that he hasn't done much that could be seen as yandere behavior. He hasn't shown any romantic attraction towards Y/N and hasn't had any obsessive behaviors that could lead to it. The only scenario I could think of that might get a start of it would be when Tate (almost) killed Vic (per say for maybe talking with them?), and then proceeded to kidnap Y/N in the meatfreezer. I also don't know myself if this is canon or not due to the game "Purple" (another game by Scopop featuring Tate) and his own game that he is canonically Aromantic.

Then again, this is just another random rant I made up at 2:00 A.M. with some analyzing. I could be wrong due to only 1/4 or more of the game being out currently and who knows, Tate could slowly gain feelings for Y/N and get more "Yandere" or such. Though, from "Purple" being set 1 year into the future than Frostbite and seeing no sign of Y/N or Tate speaking of them, I personally think the game might just end in

Y/N escaping with/without Vic

Y/N being murdered/ possibly cannibalized by Tate

maybe they just die in the freezer man

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

What kind of magic exists in your world?

oh boy I have a whole lengthy document that goes into detail about my magic system lol. I'll try to giev you the simplified rundown, and while I don't want people to outright copy all my personal story ideas, I don't mind if people take inspiration from it. I like sharing my ideas!

essentially, the world is full of magical energy. it's referred to as "ambient magic". This ambient magic can affect different species in different ways, being connected to souls and usually manifesting in some form of enhanced ability by way of the nervous system. I haven't decided how much this applies to animals. It is also a matter of debate amongst magic-biologists whether people get extra powerful abilities because they are people, or if having the extra powerful magic boosts is what drove them to evolve into sapient people.

through the nervous system, pretty much every people species has experienced some boosts to their endocrine system, allowing them to have longer lifespans than their base species might usually have. This is why elves live multiple centuries. Some people species simply got a bigger endocrine system boost than others, and it seems to be shifting in recent generations, bringing some longer lived species to a shorter lifespan while the shorter lived species are gaining years. Like the ambient magic is starting to balance them out.

Outside the endocrine system boost, pretty much every people species has a bonus ability. In the sylvanids (elves, vampires, drow) it varies more. Elves have the most varied abilities, because they adapted to a wider range of environments. So one elf might have a boost to the muscular system, but another might have a boost to their immune system. Vampires and drow kept their enhancements in the endocrine system, with vampires specializing in the production of chemicals in the salivary glands and drow just going hog wild with their bizarrely specific hormones.

The orciformes/urukin (orcs, gnomes, haufin/"halflings") the boost went to the occipital lobe. they each have a different form of "vision" that aids their lifestyles. It's kinda like a species-specific form of synesthesia. Orcs can "see" the way ambient magic gathers around living things, gnomes can "see" the trace lines between things like stars and safe hand/foot holds on cliffs, and haufin can "see" by scent.

There's a lot more people species, of course, but these are the big two groups of related people. So that's a sample of how the ambient magic affects people by giving them some form of enhanced natural ability.

Outside of this, I have three methods for controlled magic. People discovered ways they can get ambient magic to do specific things.

the easiest and most mundane form is written magic. Dwarves and gnomes pioneered this. Runes and sigils carved into wood, bone, or stones/gems/metal, as well as those written with organic-based inks or blood, can make magic do a few simple things. it's used largely as a replacement for many things we might use electricity for, such as stove tops, indoor lighting, and water heating. Circular magic sigils created on flat surfaces that can be moved to break or join the lines allow people to turn them on and off.

spoken/singing magic, largely developed by elves with some unique forms developed by other groups like goblins and merfolk. this form of magic requires more careful study and focus, as a caster cannot break concentration or fumble their words/song. It's inefficient for mundane tasks, but has a much wider range of uses than any other form of magic. Controlling organic matter is a main function of this type of magic. Elves will sing trees into homes, doctors will work with a chorus to aid in medical operations.

the final and most risky method is soul magic. ambient magic is connected to souls, after all. people have developed a lot of spiritual rituals around this form of magic, so it is mostly used by religious leaders, like clerics and priests. To channel magic through one's own soul, deep meditation and a strong will are required. Many rituals involve harming one's body in some manner, always with a bone tool. This is because you can access much stronger magic if you put yourself closer to death. these rituals are usually supervised with magic singers around to ensure the soul magic user does not die. anchoring items like heavy ceremonial accessories or incense are often used as well. It is a very niche form of magic. It can be used to enhance one's personal ambient magic ability, use one's own life energy to heal another person in an emergency, and also communicate with the dead.

There are also some ways to combine the three forms of magic, though this usually just means a combination of spoken and written magic. Experimenting with magic can lead to dangerous results. There are also forbidden things, such as necromancy, soul binding, and time travel. these are all forbidden because they come with devastating side effects and don't actually work the way people want them to. there are limits to what magic can do, and trying to force it to do the impossible will always backfire.

[censored-the-redacted]

Hrng colonel i've, forgotten that i was doing this and never posted this shit

Part 2 The Comically Unstable faction and its fuckups made manifest

This is the flag of the Maroon Leauge a coalition of Distributionists, Mitualists, Communal and Community Capitalists, Communitarians, Communalists, National Syndicalists, Vanguard Anarchists and most prominently Corporatists. This vast spread of ideologies would drift with the years with more and more going to the dominant Corporatist or Corporatist Aligned ideologies. The Corporatists Dominance did however cause problems and corruption became a festering infection that spread all throughout the Leauges Military due to numerous reforms making it more corporatist. This eventually leading to a series of Events that would end in the Antonian Mutiny. The Antonian Mutiny would see the entire Niolian Front Succeed and eventually defect to the Republicans. The Antonian Revolt also gave justification for the Corporatists to finally seize total power due to many Antonians being Mutualists, Vanguard Anarchists or Community Capitalists. This ended up leading to Another breakaway, the Real Maroon Leauge, better known as the Bleached Leauge. Both of these factions would lead to the Maroon Leauges eventual destruction at the hand of the Republicans

The Maroon Standard (I'm going to be honest, this is my first flag i made for this so it is literally just the corporatist symbol over a maroon background, the Maroon meant to show that they are not communist, liberal, nationalist or regencies, but a number of secret third things)

This next one is the Bleached League also called the Unbarred League and officially the "Real Maroon League", this is made up of numerous ideologies that left the Maroon League after they were discredited due to the Antonian Mutiny. Made up of Mainly Communalists, Commutarians and Vanguard Anarchists, oddly a number of Corporatists that disagreed with the League implementation would join as well. The Bleached League had a short lifespan as a proper, powerful faction, just about 4 months before the Maroon League crossed the mountians and shattered their army, Though the League would last not much longer. The Remenants would consolidate for a short while before joining the Republicans, likely knowing a war with them would be worthless

The Bleached Banner, a Ad Hoc flag used at the start of the revolt that became well liked by the troops, made by removing the center and lightly bleaching the Banner. It was common, though not offical, to see one with a hole through the center. In the Modern Day the Bleached Banner is still used in politics, Representing the Communalists in both the Republic and the Peoples Kingdom.

This Next Flag is the Flag of the Antonian Mutiny also known as the April Mutiny. The Mutiny was a Truly massive affair that can chalk its existence up to bad luck, good luck, incompetence and hyperconpetence. Its Origins lie in the actions of one, Colono Oscanu Vittorio, (who despite the title actually held a rank equivalent to that of a General). Oscanu was comically bad at commanding a army, using strategy left behind with the gladius, so perhaps it was fitting that he would have a love of decimation as well. Oscanu lead the army to a string of defeats, every failure having the scapegoated unit decimated until one day after a particularly bad loss he decided that every, single, unit under this army had to suffer decimation, and that additionally, the Assadore-Arditi, the special storm troops, were to kill 7 of every 10 of them. This went about as well as can be expected, with a mutiny breaking out and the Colono being beaten to death by a Assadore. This Mutiny would grow fast, with Antonio Galo, a Sergeante, something of a philosopher and a surprisingly good commander. While some units would remain loyal, the mutiny would gain many defectors as the problems within the maroon league revealed itself, the deep corruption that allowed Oscanu to gain his station and retain it and the power grabs being made by the corporatists due to the mutiny pushed many nearby the Mutiny to their side. The Mutiny would face clashes from both loyalists, republicans and maroon league armies seeking to restore order, though after the initial week the few loyalist cells would be wiped out or routed and the republicans would pick up on the situation and cease most of their offensives. About 2 weeks after the mutiny the Republicans sent negotiators to speak with Antonio and the other leaders of the Mutiny, to keep things brief, a alliance was signed, POW's were released and the Republicans joined the Mutineers on the front against the Maroon Leauge, about a month and a half after the Antonian Mutineers were officially incorporated into the Republican Army

"The Standard of Mutiny" AKA the Deserters Banner, the The Hangman's Lament and the Saviors Flag. The Standard of Mutiny portrays a common scene of the early mutiny, nooses being cut. On a more metaphoric sense it represents a militant resistance of injustice and wrongdoing. In the modern day the Standard of Mutiny is used to represent the Communal Party and the wiider Saffron Alliance, the political party founded by Antonio (also, incase this was not obvious by the unequal amount of lore, the protagonist is from here)

[herobrinna]

Well, considering im still mildly pissed about the toh finale, wanting a distraction from it, and considering todays date, I think its the perfect time to infodump my toh x homestuck au.

I hope whoever reads this suffers <3

Ok, starting chronologically (or attempting to at least) with the collectors' backstory, or as I've so creatively renamed them to "star people", to not confuse the species with The Collector (the character).

So, the star people's species originated very early since the universe's creation, some might even argue that they are the first sapient species to ever exist, although verifying that would be impossible, for the universe was a very chaotic place back then, with all the destruction happening let and right, pockets for life to emerge were very small and far between. But the star people got initially lucky, and got a very quiet space in the newborn universe.

Of course, relatively speaking, that quiet didn't last long (it lasted quite a few million years but like). The star people were just about discovering technology that would let them expand into the stars as tragedy struck, and for one reason or another their home world was destroyed.

With there being so few viable planets at that time they could settle on, they decided to adapt their bodies to survive in space. With a mixture of mechanical and genetic engineering the species redefined themselves. And with rapid improvements in technology they became almost immortal beings, who could change their bodies however they wanted to suit them.

And thus, they started expanding into space. First, only on the outskirts of galaxies, where things have already mostly calmed down, but with their pseudo-immortality they "soon" saw the rest of the universe reach an equilibrium.

And so began their empire. Though the star people didn't need planets to survive, and they could very much acquire materials from inhospitable worlds; they quickly gained a sort of obsession with discovering and cataloguing any new life form they found. And most of all using the lifeforms' genetics to change their appearances, a sort of fashion statement.

But there was a problem, see despite all their progress they never managed to figure out how to travel faster than light. This isn't that much of a problem for an immortal species of course, they are used to waiting, but the longer they lived the greedier they became, wanting to catalogue everything there ever was, and change their looks to be based of what they considered the coolest creatures.

But oh sweet luck came to them! As they discovered a species they called the titans.

The titans come from a highly oxygenated but also high gravity world, that ended up giving birth to buff ass giants lol. The titans might not have been the largest or strongest species that planet had, but they had 2 things unique about them, 1) they were sapient, and this was the first time the star people encountered another sapient species, and 2) their blood had magical properties.

Soon the star people discovered, that whatever magic, for a lack of better explanation, the titans had in their blood, it was a major ingredient in creating wormholes.

With that, the star people driven with greed, decided to attempt enslaving the titans to harvest their blood.

The titans of course didn't like that, and although they were a tribal species, it turned out their magic is really fucking good at fucking with technology. Thus a war broke out. Blah blah blah, too many details later that'll take me ages to write, the star people lost.

One of the main contributors to their demise was due to editing themselves so much they could only be "born" through artificial means, and due to their semi-immortal lifespans, children took thousands of years to mature to adulthood. So during their prime this species ended up having a very small population (relatively speaking) that was spread all over the place, then during the war they just weren't able to replenish their species in time.

Tho this war has rendered them technically extinct, as the few that remained weren't able to upkeep all the technology required to "birth" new members of their species, and thus the few remnants left decided to live the last of their life exploring the stars.

Overtime, even though their technology was literally designed to last millions of years, it, like them isn't truly immortal, and so with no one to upkeep it, they were slowly dying out one by one.

Some star people, in their final moments of existence decided to make a name for themselves, these are:

Caliborn and Calliope were the last of the species to ever be born. Due to an error they ended up sharing a body and the lab they were born in was long abandoned anyways, so they fended for themselves in their shared body, until they managed to figure out how to make separate bodies for each other. At which point they separated, both absolutely despising each other, with each having different outlooks on what they should do with their newfound freedom.

Caliborn hated everything and went out to destroy as much as possible. Calliope treasured all life and went out to protect as much as possible.

Both of them died way before either humanity or trollanity came into existence, yet they each had an affect on the respective species planets that ended up being factors in their developments.

Calliope found earth when the tragedy that extincted the dinosaurs happened, she used her last bits of life to help restore the planet. Caliborn, when he found Beforus¹, he used his last bits of powers to make the sun as harsh and hostile as possible, he did so to any nearby solar system as well, no longer able to completely destroy shit.

The Sufferer/Jesus were the same person, just a funky ass star person that decided to go around finding sapient species, disguising themselves as one of their own and fucking around.

Most other star people kept to themselves until they died, although 2 still remain:

Hooty was actually the star people's last resort, an attempt at making a weapon that will be effective against the titans. Sadly, he couldnt care less about the war and ended up just vibing on the titan's planet.

The Collector was a kid that was put in stasis, in hopes that he could be raised after the war was over, but forgotten cuz, well everyone died, and Belos found him later, so yh.

Now skipping a bunch of time forward.

Of course everyone know the Alternians manage to find a cheatcode to faster than light travel through the use of the slave labour of their own kind. Thus, with the rapidly expanding into space it wasn't long until they found the Titans as well.

And sadly there wasn't much the titans could do to protect themselves this time. Not only did their magic not do much against the trolls' biotech, but also the trolls greatly outnumbered the titans and could just throw a bunch of lowbloods to be canon fodder.

Thus with the titans enslaved the Alternians now had the much more efficient travel tech of wormholes.

This actually had one nice thing to it tho; giving lowbloods more rights²

With, as close to straight up teleportation as you can get, Alternians set out to conquer the galaxy now faster than ever.

This brings us to humanity.

The year is 2648³ and humanity has started its own space exploration age, having discovered their own way of efficiently traveling the galaxy, that I can't be bothered to make up.

Two brothers-

Actually this is way too long already, I'll do the Wittebrothers' backstory later.

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1 - So basically this au is actually an au of au, which is just a generic no-sgrub au were i re-did troll history. To summarise, trolls originated on Beforus but due to the industrial revolution and its consequences they had to relocate to what is now known as Alternia. Later all history on their origins and Beforus itself was erased.

2 - The Empress at the time⁴ didnt care much for anything other than conquering new planets, and Alternian owned space was already split into regions with sort of their own local governments, kinda like American states, quite a few of which had ...nicer treatment of lowbloods. But with wormholes goldbloods weren't needed as batteries anymore so they managed to protest for more rights.

3 - Yh, I'm just being lazy and setting their story a 1000 years from canon. "Oh but shouldn't it be in 2613 then?" you might ask, and I'm going to tell you that the show is wrong.

4 - The Alternian Empire had many leaders in the past, but the Condesce was the best at erasing history.

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Wow did anyone actually read all that?

Well if someone did, heres a shitty sketch of Belos' "redesign" as an apology for not actually getting to his backstory:

Uhhh, I need to really rework the colours, but it is what it is for the time being.

[herequeerexitentialfear]

△ for Mura: of all the things your father did to you and forced you to do, what left the longest lasting (emotional) wounds?

10/10 v uncomfy [this got long, 910 words long, so under the read more it goes ]

Mura shifts in her chair. she clearly has to think about this deeply, but after a deep breath she starts talking.

"When i was still new to this world, he visited me and my lady mother. his hand dwarfed my shoulder as he made me look him in the eye, and he gave me my first order."

She looks away before starting her next sentence, a stiffness to her jaw, "prove that you are worthy of my blood in your veins"

"I cant have been more than a few winters old, a midwinter child. The darkest night of the year" she looks like she has had many people comment on that. she laughed bitterly, "my first encounter with my father, a threat and a challenge."

She looks into your eyes, the white and pink of her eyes no less startling for their mixing, her full gaze unsettling, "for those who haven't spent a century learning to interpret my father, the challenge was to be better than the failures i had the... pleasure of witnessing the downfalls of" unspoken, that she had orchestrated many of those downfalls herself, later on.

She shakes her head to dislodge the bloodstains and screams of what in another life would have been her siblings, but in this were just nameless warnings and examples.

"A threat that i could not be seen to fail, like them, as i carry part of him, and no part of him can fail. a threat that my punishment would be all the more severe for my special status-" another bitter laugh "- after all, the higher the tower, the further to fall"

She shifts again in her chair, frowning. "Ha. i suppose that's not the whole truth." a pause, "well it is one truth. having me be born to be his weapon is the reason I'm like... well this" she gestures to herself, a sneer on her lips.

with a sigh she continues "but when has this damned potion made it easy for me."

"Three decades is a long time to spend with one person, or at least it was for me. the only constants i had was my father, his favored didn't stay that way for long, and shot lifespans got shorter around him"

"i suppose i had my mother, ill as she was, always their to give me the education on how to be a proper eleven lady" Mura's grimace speaks for itself on her feelings about her mother. she moves on quickly, preferring to speak of the next uncomfortable topic than the one just hinted at.

"i was still a child in eleven years, and i had lacked consistent companionship. i let my guard down." her head shakes, "not really. well i did, just not at the start. it was a mission, like many others."

the slight tremor of her voice makes it clear it didn't stay that way

"but a year is a long time to deceive someone, let alone thirty. its not wise to lie completely for such a long time, as holes are bound to form, suspicions too,"

"He never disproved. not explicitly. he gained much from that relationship, much that no-one else could have got him, for i was the best of his tools, for better or worse,"

"Still, those gains ran out eventually." Mura's voice is almost a whisper now, low and catching on words. like a lover confessing a secret in the dead of night.

"our time together ran out eventually" her stony face was mistakable for a statue, her voice stiff too.

She hasn't looked at you for a while now, her eyes almost closed.

"that's your answer. damn you." her bitter laugh from earlier is nothing compared to the dry cackle that emerges from her mouth "that's all your getting. your close enough. you can say it yourself. i will no-"

something tripped her tongue, she tries again, carefully enunciating her words, "I will n-"

she jumps up and slams her fist on the table, blood from where her nails had been digging into her palms, shining in the light, shining like her eyes, their full force now upon you once again.

"When he ordered- When He ordered me to kill Her" her voice trembles with fury, but its loud now, and growing louder

"When i dug that blade into her throat. That's whats done the most damage." Her canines shine in the light to, "when he told me to kill Her and I JUST DID IT" shes yelling now, but then her voice breaks on the last word and her next are back to a whisper, her eyes away from yours,

"He- He didn't even need to force me. The threat was always there. It was always there. Since i was born, since he first put his hand on my shoulder, he could do anything to me, make me do anything."

"He made me kill her. He made me kill the only part of myself that was good"

"And the true worst part? he made me love him for doing it. he made me grateful for the chance to prove myself to him. he acknowledged me as his daughter, as his success."

This time her laugh was wet enough to be mistaken for a sob, "All i had to do was kill her. All i had to do was damn myself."

you barely hear it, one last confession from the wicked woman before you, "and i didn't even hesitate"

[there's three answers. the worst thing he did to her was make her be born. the thing that left the most scars was him ordering her to kill her friend, and the worst thing he made her do was manipulate her into sacrificing her friend for his acceptance willingly]

[bishop-percival]

@stuckinuniformdevelopment

(prev) Teddy couldn't help but blush when Amy bluntly spoke about his needs. That's how he should feel about her, isn't it? (Well, aside from not caring.) After a long pause Teddy managed to calm himself so he could pick out individual voices from the crowd. They didn't seem completely convinced that Shep initiated it. Yet it sounded like this would dispel any doubts about his overblown sins. Teddy waited for Bishop Percival to speak before kicking the side of the pulpit, hard. For a brief time the crowd was startled into silence and he spoke before they could get over it. "Why yes Amy," Teddy said as he leaned on the side of the pulpit and rested his arms on it to directly look her in the eye. "We're confessing a sin that'll be resolved in a few days simply to waste our time and open ourselves up to your annoying probing questions." Then Teddy smirked at her. "Say, have I ever told you how smart you are?" Several Glornists snickered at that and he smiled in satisfaction. Any chance to get a jab at one of his least favorite Glornists was a blessing. Then Teddy glanced at Terry before averting his eye. It was a shame that this plan involved alienating the few normal Glornists. "As for whether I still love her... well... it's complicated. She has fifty years left of her sixty year sentence. Even if she manages to get released early for good behavior it's so far away that one of us may not live that long." After a brief pause he said, "We're both in our mid thirties. For reference." "That doesn't mean I don't want to give up any hope of a life together but..." Teddy clenched his fists as he struggled to maintain a neutral expression. "I have waited and will wait years before I can give her any more than a chaste kiss in front of creepy guards. Don't I deserve something in the meantime?" Then Teddy took a deep breath as he prepared to say something particularly cruel. "So if she didn't want me to be easily swayed she shouldn't have gotten caught." He looked up at the audience while wrapping his arm around Shep's waist. "What could she possibly do if she finds out anyhow?"

@follwrshep

Shep looked at teddy nervously, face flushing as he pulled at his hood to cover his iris “She is locked away for the majority of her lifespan, I doubt she has the gall to even attempt anything.” He coughed “And I do *not* have a big fat crush! Can’t a man admire another man in a non-romantic light? You must be foolish if you mistake my knowledge of his excellency as something as simple as a crush!”

Mike was always impressed with the way Teddy carried himself through confession sessions. When Mike was assigned to stalk him, while there were some interesting moments, it was otherwise pretty mundane as far as being a scientist in an evil galactic army goes. Between that and learning Teddy only joined the church to learn about magic, Mike made the connection pretty fast that Teddy’s sins are a biiiit exaggerated. But of course, not wanting to blow Teddy’s cover, Mike never challenged him or casted doubts during his confessions. Mike silently listened to the subtle hints of Teddy’s struggle to talk about such a personal subject in this way. He couldn’t help but admire his dedication. 

Bishop Percival nodded along to Teddy’s defense. “Indulgence of selfish, fleshly desires. Glorn loves to see it.”

After Shep spoke up, the deacons shared glances and snickers with each other in a “yeah sure ok whatever you say” kind of way. 

Percy dramatically draped an arm over his forehead.

“No crush on me? Am I not good enough for ol’ Lamb? Is it because I’m not an already engaged man? Oh boo hoo…”

He then brought his hand down to his chin again

“Just out of pure curiosity…Aside from the fact he was an easy target to commit adultery with, what else are you gaining from this? What else do you like about Theodore here, if anything?”