#like a girl resource character sol

[doedipus]

aba is actually really interesting to me

a) I like the character a lot. she's probably my fave +r character, and it's great that she's going to be in a game I actually want to play mostly intact. she's definitely a character I could go insane about in the same way I have about gio/ram/elphelt.

I've also wanted to try learning a resource character for a while, but none of the existing ones appeal to me (read: they're men)

b) I was considering pivoting to elphelt because she got easy meterless high/low and that was something I was frustrated about gio not having. however, after actually trying her I realized that I liked the strike/throw archetype gamplay loop of scrounge for 50 meter doing mostly safe stagger pressure -> metered overhead for a guaranteed big conversion better than the high/low character loop of scrounge for 50 meter doing unreactable but interruptible low reward mixups -> guaranteed big conversion.

aba seems like she'll be closer to the former, which makes me more eager to try her out. she's also really fucking fast in jealousy mode and has a stepdash in regular mode, which seems like it'd be less of an adjustment going to/from gio

[cweetpea]

Law School Characters And Their Zodiac Signs

i’m not a professional astrologer and i read about zodiacs only as a hobby so the stuff i write may not be the most accurate but these are just my opinions and based on knowledge i have on zodiacs! but feel free to disagree respectfully, thank you :)

p.s. i used some stereotypical traits of the signs so please don’t get offended lmao

Han Joon Hwi - CAPRICORN

Protective and caring (overall, a gentleman to his friends and especially his girl. like how he changed seats to keep Sol A away from Lee Man Ho and how he is just so concerned every time something happens to our pretty Sol A)

Lots of integrity and strong moral principles (to the point he exposed his own uncle believing that his uncle should turn himself in for his wrongdoings)

Down-to-earth (free of pretension, humble and straight-forward)

Uses his knowledge and proficiency to get what he wants 

Behind the serious and aloof exterior, he is actually a big softie and someone you can turn to for help

Kang Sol A - ARIES

Determined and bold (just look at that interview she had with Yangcrates for the special admission exercise and how she takes stuff into her own hands)

Direct (not afraid to speak her mind)

Cheerful disposition and youth-like innocence (Sol A literals brightens up my life and makes me smile whenever I look at her, just like how she makes Joon Hwi do the same heheh)

Selfless (she is not one to show her selflessness overtly but the little things she does tells you a lot, for example, going all out to help with the Bad Fama case and basically things she does for Joon Hwi)

Optimistic (throughout the show, no matter what kind of challenges she is plagued with, she never complains/break down. like nothing can get her down really. remember when the test she did really well for was said to not be counted into their grades or something, she kind of fretted over it a little but then she told Yangcrates that she’ll be fine after awhile)

Yangcrates - AQUARIUS

Eccentric (he can be a little bit weird and have an unconventional and strange way of thinking and behaving)

Unpredictable (he never fails to surprise me and his students throughout the show and does stuff at the most unexpected times, for example, giving hints to Sol A on what resources she can use for Prof Kim’s Civil Law class and helping Yeseul as her public defender)

Sees right through everything (he just knows everything, from Sol B plagiarising to Assemblyman Ko’s hidden intentions)

Non-judgemental (never indulges in the weaknesses/negativities of others and sees things objectively, explaining why his students trust and favour him)

Old soul with a wise, emotionally detached attitude

Professor Kim - SAGITTARIUS

Fun loving and enthusiastic

Speaks the truth and fair-minded (she is honest with her opinions and even though she favours Seungjae, she does not try to defend his serious offence of cheating. she even pushed for permanent exclusion for his own good, was open about it and did not try to hide the fact that she requested for it)

Devoted and generous (look how devoted she is to her students, and even considered resigning to be Yeseul’s attorney)

Hot-headed (I can’t really remember instances of her hot-headedness but she sure looks like that aunt you would not want to mess with)

Kang Sol B - SCORPIO

I smell burning ambition

Headstrong and stubborn (she was so persistent on the fact that she did not plagiarise that I almost believed her had not Joon Hwi be the smoking gun)

Honest and blunt (ouch)

Aura of mystery and darkness around her

Pretty loyal (she is always with the gang even though sometimes I question whether she truly likes them lol. and she also helped Yeseul’s case by searching for precedents that could help, and it did)

Seo Jiho - VIRGO

Practical and logical

Dependable and reliable

Hard to decode actually and proves that he is a worthy challenge (even Joon Hwi agrees)

Stubborn (but in a good way, look at how he tried to seek justice for his father relentlessly despite Jin constantly deriding him)

Uptight as hell (like bro chill you have friends like Sol A and Joon Hwi. if i had friends like them i would LOVE life :)

Jeon Yeseul - PISCES

One of the purest characters in Law School with a good heart

Highly compassionate and empathetic (how she took pity for Yeong Chang and did not want to press charges)

Loyal (still called Joon Hwi ‘Oppa’ despite her bf being salty about it and not showing an ounce of jealousy when her friends all did better than her on a test)

Private and closed off (keeping her abusive relationship a secret and also, when the gang is together, she hardly talks sometimes and acts in ways that may sometimes be hard to read)

Min Bokgi - CANCER

Caring (shows care and concern for his friends, especially Yeseul)

Sulky (i do remember him sulking a lot more than the other characters)

Likes romance (openly shows his affection for Yeseul and he is the only one that shows reactions/interest in solhwi’s interactions)

Yoo Seung Jae - LIBRA

Sweet and chivalrous (the way he talks and treats others like Prof Kim assures me that chivalry is not dead)

Detached (he doesn’t seem that emotionally invested in the things happening around him, like he is there but not or maybe he is just caught up in his own problems)

Indecisive (i just ran out of traits to talk about but the fact that he went from medicine to law makes me think he is indecisive lol)

Jo Ye Beom - GEMINI

Talkative and chatty (pretty self-explanatory)

Two-faced (look how this kid betrayed his own friends)

Actually intelligent and bright not gonna lie

Nosy af (like stop trying to take notes from a study group you don’t belong to like damn)

[mostlymobilegames]

So, Arcanum first impressions (cut because I wrote a little too much and there's also a lot of screenshots)

!Spoiler warning but pretty minor! (mentions of HS and SoL)

Gonna start with the best part, the MC ofc

She's such an asshole, definitely the kind of character I love to hate and watch in action, so self centered and cynical, it's beautiful. She's just awful, rude and arrogant to the point where really the only thing that can be praised is her professional success... up until turning into a maid in 1838.

I adore how she's so consistently bad (sure, you can gain Redemption points or be on the High Priestess path, but overall she's still a bitch) and how she looks down on people even when she's at the bottom, because she's lived in such a way to the point where not only is she self aware, but her arrogance is also palpable to other people (at the dinner table, "past" Steltz picks up on the servant's character)

Her attitude is amazing because it's like the whole reason she's going through this and yet-

She's still the same (literally gets teleported to a different dimension or whatever and still thinks about firing an employee jjsoamwoa), self-important and

Mocking (just look at her, I literally scoffed in my head reading her line).

She gave me such strong Rebecca Walker energy from the beginning, but like a younger, less composed Rebecca; starting from the career driven, demanding, loner attitude, to the air of superiority that everybody else picks up on immediately. Or a slightly older, better-tempered demon!Vicky. Although compared with both of them, Selena (or Lilith??) is worse when it comes to socializing (especially with men, which makes sense and is better explained during her walk with Rob, I think, I didn't take screenshots of the moment but I'm pretty sure that's when the whole "businesswoman must be tough or else she'll get trampled" aspect is described, which I can understand).

At first, I thought Selena was similar to Irene, our favorite morally grey girl, but they're pretty different. Sure, Irene is a criminal but she's very much a lovely person: she keeps her promises, is polite unless she has a reason not to be and that reason is usually Gray, is respectful and very compassionate; besides her being a thief, her sly, adaptable and clever nature and her resourcefulness and ability to read and play people are what make her seem like a shitty person, but more often than not she's not genuinely evil and she doesn't do things that could harm others, and she's also a very comedic and charismatic character, making her adorable and impossible to hate.

Selena is a downright bitch tho, who has few moments of kindness sprinkled here and there (that are mostly happening because of circumstances: 1st Redemption point is when she's literally assaulted by a homeless woman, ofc she would give her money to get rid of her sooner, 2nd is when she has to play along as a maid so she doesn't get in trouble... so neither are really coming from a pure place).

Anyway, in fewer words, I love awful women (that's pretty much that entire essay wvwguaqgq) and Selena's character is definitely the highlight of the story (after the first two episodes).

Moving on to the LIs, starting with Robert Steltz, I don't have anything bad to say really, I like his brooding, detective vibe and I like how he's able to read the MC well even in his "other form". There's not really much to talk about, I like him but it's nothing that impressive yet, I'll see how he is later. But he is handsome, even though I liked his modern detective look more.

Now, Liam (whatever his last name is)

My sweet, gentle, caring vampire boy, literally the only one who cares about Lilith, who supports her and stands up for her, who helps her do her job and consoles her. I love him. Literally nothing bad to say about him. Best vampi- man, 24/10

Just... just Liam, that's all🥰

As for the story, it's too soon to tell. I don't hate it or anything, I like the atmosphere and there are a lot of good moments, but I'm not fully caught in it yet.

But I do wish to see more of awful MC in the future pls <\3

[solennitawrites]

WIP & Writeblr Intro!

About Me

You can call me solennita or A.H. or whatever your heart desires. I am in my late twenties, South American, bi, living with ADHD, and you can refer to me using they/them pronouns. I have been writing since I was a child but more or less had to set it aside from high school until last year when the pandemic hit and quarantine gave me an opportunity to finally revisit this novel trilogy idea I began about 15 years ago in a dilapidated, blue composition book and commit to actually completing it.

WIP Intro

Working Title: The Sapphire Room

Inspiration: South American mythology and legends (mostly Venezuela, but also Colombia, Chile, and Peru)

Genre: YA Fantasy, Latinx Fantasy, Adventure, Coming of Age

Status: Writing (Chapters 1-3 are up on Wattpad).

Premise: On the continent of Amasi, where a unique mineral, aranate, and advancements in metalworking have resulted in a highly secular and technologically developed society, two fifteen-year-old, orphaned girls have grown up together in Namina Boarding School, a remote institution situated in the middle of the swamplands at the edge of the Arúni Rainforest. One night, Nina and Adelaida discover a hidden object in Namina’s attic—a golden hourglass filled with diamonds and mysterious engravings. Nina and Adelaida begin to learn that this object is not all that it seems, and that familiar faces in Namina know more than they let on. Roped into a dangerous but enticing adventure taking them across all of Amasi, the two friends must face challenges beyond their wildest dreams and learn who to trust as everything they thought they knew begins to slip away. With dark and powerful forces threatening to destroy all life, can these two young girls learn the truth about Amasi’s mystical history, and themselves, to save the world before it’s too late?

Characters: Zafira Fam (Nina, Adelaida, Noémi, Milaraya, & Zo); Brujxs Fam (Maiara, Irália, Aracéli, Mireia, & Tamaya); Namina Fam (Amara Quila, Sol Acedo, Luciana Quíspe, Aria Nuali, Ortensia Rayena, Úrsula Bira, Valeria Vera, Candé Intira)

Tag Navigation: General TSR; Geography; Characters; Plot; Excerpts

Intro to Amasi Posts: Yanura, Orona, Guayra, Islas Maracainas (Maragua)

About My Writeblr

I hope to use this blog to help me work out world building and plot ideas, as well as character development and all that jazz! I’ll likely post excerpts here and there (many of which may just be background writing exercises for story building rather than actual scenes!) and welcome as much feedback and critique as folks are willing to give!

I'll also reblog writing resources, advice, tips, and of course, others' works and I'm open to tag games, asks/ask games, and just general getting to know each other! I may reblog non-writing posts here and there as well, which I’ll tag as “not writing.” 

I am still very much in early stages and my posting may be sporadic as I am graduating law school soon and then will be taking the bar in the summer, so hope y’all will bear with me :) But please feel free to let me know if you’re interested in being tagged in any of my WIP posts (and feel free to specify -- i.e., only character posts, only excerpts, etc.)!

About My WIP

My current WIP is tentatively titled The Sapphire Room. You can use the navigation links to check out TSR posts (general tag; excerpts; geography; characters; and plot). This is a project that has undergone a lot of revision from when I first had the idea at around 12 years old to now, when I’ve been able to dive more into world and story building.

A huge motivation/inspiration for my is the lack of latinx fantasy in YA fiction. I adore YA fantasy stories, YA coming of age stories, and YA adventure stories, but I’m tired of reading the same adaptations or variations on the very Anglo-centric narrative. Latinx history and culture is so rich and diverse, though much of the cultural stories have been lost today as a result of colonization and its aftermath.

I decided to reach out to my family about this and started collecting myths and legends from my South American country, and researching those from others in the region. There’s a lot of overlap among the stories shared, especially between Venezuela, Colombia, and Peru, as well as Chile to an extent, so this is where the basis for my worldbuilding really comes from.

As a first-gen latinx immigrant who grew up in a pretty conservative, Catholic area, stories like Romina Garber’s Lobizona and Tehlor Kay Mejia’s We Set the Dark on Fire would have changed my life. I want to make sure my story can serve a similar purpose for young, latinx readers who struggle to see themselves represented in stories they love.

I am very intentional about including racial representation (afro-latinx characters), gender and sexuality representation (queer, trans, and NB characters), and disability representation (characters with both physical and mental disabilities). Though I share some identities I will be writing about, I obviously will be going outside of my own experience in many ways and welcome all critiques and feedback on how I can improve in any of these aspects.

I am also being very intentional about writing an escapist and entertaining story where racism, colonialism, and trauma are not fundamental parts of the story. There will be conflict and pain and sorrow, but after seeing story after story that focuses on the toxic machismo in latinx cultures, on racism and colorism in fantasy settings, and other forms of discrimination and trauma in QTPOC fantasy narratives (all of which are really, really important stories to tell!!), I really am aiming for my story to be different and serve as an entertaining escape.

As mentioned, please feel free to let me know if you’re interested in being tagged in any TSR posts and please feel free to send any feedback, questions, criticisms my way at any point!

[cringeyvanillamilk]

I had Melanie for a while, but didn’t know if shadow magic could exist until Nacht came in. Now I can go off with her character!!

Melanie Umbra

Age: 16

Gender: Female

Blood Type: O

Birthday: January 01

Astrology Sign: Capricorn

Height: 170 cm

Weight: 56 kg

Eye: Gray

Hair: Black

Personality:

+ Headstrong, dynamic, resourceful, ambitious, compassionate, competitive

- Obstinate, prideful, defensive, tactless, has an inferiority complex

Stats:

Physical Strength:3

Magic Amount: 4

Magic Control: 4

Magic Sensing: 4

Cleverness: 4

Ambitiousness: 5

Trivia:

Signature Quote: “I refuse to live in anyone’s shadow! I will be Wizard King!”

Will have beef with any noble and royal she meets. Everyone else who isn’t a royal and noble are automatically good in her book.

Is the youngest child of 3. She has an older brother and sister.

Joined the Blue Rose when she was 15 years old.

Talk shit and you will get hit. She doesn’t take insults or discrimination lightly or quietly. She will call you out and be loud about it. She basically has a short fuse if she feels belittled at all.

Didn’t respect Charlotte at first because she was a noble, but grew to respect her when she realized how fair and empowering she was.

She sees Sol as an older sister figure in the squad. She really admires Sol’s magic and power.

Likes making everything a competition (Ex. Getting to the base first, finishing the chores the quickest, etc.)

Likes to knit sweaters or handkerchiefs for those she’s fond of. They are very cute and stylish.

She gets pretty restless when she has nothing to do. She would rather go out on missions than rest at the base.

Favorite things are fun competitive games, sewing, and knitting.

Motives of being a Magic Knight: To be the first commoner to be Wizard King and prove her worth to everybody.

Nicknames: Loud Mouth Brat, Commoner Girl, Little sis

[zenosanalytic]

Harrow the Ninth: Wordplay and Implication

So I started reading Harrow the Ninth last night(haven’t gotten far; I’m only on page 47), but some interesting stuff cropped up I wanted to yack about. Explaining it requires some Serious Spoilers tho, so don’t read past this point if you haven’t reader further than me and are also avoiding ...spoilers... X|

Ok so: Harrow is obvsl going through some Things. To begin with she seems to be having some manner of psychological break exacerbated by(possible caused by) the Lyctor transformation? A huge part of it is obvsl grief over Gideon -she seems to be avoiding any memory or thought of her and this mental block seems to be impacting her ability to access Gideon’s soul and thus her full Lyctor capabilities- but she’s also overwhelmed by her new senses and her inability to feel physical pain, and a bit unstuck in time? Some of that just might be her grief-driven illness, but so far there’s been some jumping around in the timeline/her memories so it’s possible this is also a side-effect of the Lyctor transformation and existing on both sides of life and death.

Anyway, there’s some nifty wordplay associated with all of this :>

the first one is in an edited memory, and it’s right at the start of it, in the chapter-title for said memory: “Parodos”.

Now most obvsl, that looks&sounds allot like “parody” and, while they aren’t directly related, the connection btwn the two is STILL intriguing: “parody” comes from para(side/beside/parallel) and oide(song), in the sense of a comical/mocking “parallel” to another song; parodos literally means entrance, though specifically it’s the name of a SIDE-entrance in greek theater-design which gave actors access to the stage, or the chorus access to the orchestra, BUT ALSO it was the name of the song(oide) the chorus sung upon first entering the play, coming after the prologue. The connection to an actual side-entrance makes me suspect the “par-” phoneme is from “para”, but I can’t find a constituent breakdown of “parodos” so it’ll have to remain a suspicion :T

Regardless: it is, in the manner of a proper parodos(even IF Harrow, here, is her own Chorus; this is a 3rd person perspective section), seeming to introduce us to the central conflict of the tale; Harrow is censoring Gideon from her mind, altering her perceptions and capacities in response to her grief, struggling with feelings that she is LOSING her mind(associated with, possibly embodied by, her “hallucinations” of The Body[1]), and clinging to this expression of control as a life-raft among all this trauma. At one point The Body even appears in this memory just to tell her it didn’t happen like this which “gave Harrow a curious strength”.

IntriguinglyER(and this is more of a stretch and idk if Muir really intended this implication) parodos is often popularly confused with/assumed to be related to “parados” which is a fortification embankment built to protect the rear of a military position(it’s basically the backside equivalent of parapet. Parapet=forward, parados=behind). What makes this intriguinger to me(aside from the fun of a FALSE pun for a FALSE memory :p), is that the false memory is part of Harrow’s mental DEFENSES, and in it she asks Ortus Nigenad to PROTECT her by keeping the secret that she is “insane” because, since opening the Locked Tomb and seeing the girl trapped there, she’s been experiencing full-spectrum sensory hallucinations of said girl(ie: seeing her, speaking with her, feeling The Body[the girl] touch her, the whole hog, etc etc). I feel like this is MOSTLY symbolic though, and the REAL secret she’s asking him to protect her from is Gideon’s death(and her “consumption” there of; since becoming a Lyctor The Body has had Gideon’s amber-colored eyes). Of course there’s another aspect to this and one of two OTHER potential secrets; Gideon’s body wasn’t recovered from Canaan House, Harrow does not seem to be in “possession” of her soul(though she does have SOME aspects of Lyctor abilities, so perhaps it’s partial or a connection?); so

it’s possible the SECRET Harrow is actl using Ortus to protect is that Gideon isn’t dead, that they healed her after defeating Cytherea and somehow undid the Lyctor process. OR

They’re keeping Gideon’s existence a secret for some reason

Now I think these are a bit out there theorywise because, while I’m not far into the book, I’m fairly certain that it’s only Harrow who is thinking Nigenad was her cavalier at this point. I mean: the Emperor would have spoken to Ianthe, and there’s no reason why she’d keep Gideon’s existence secret(also everytime the Emperor says Ortus Nigenad it’s attached to a description of his mouth moving oddly, so I’m fairly certain he’s actl saying Gideon Nav and her brain’s editing it to Ortus Nigenad to spare her facing Gideon’s death). Also and SUPER tellingly there’s this passage:

The Resurrecting King took on the expression of a man working out a very difficult and emotionally taxing anagram. He said, “Ortus,” again, but the bile was sputtering up into your throat...”

Now that just seems like an INVITATION to see what Ortus Nigenad can be an anagram of, doesn’t it? And, INCREDIBLY OBVIOUSLY it’s a partial anagram:

Ortus Nigenad

Gideon

Of Gideon’s name. Partial, because it doesn’t include “Nav”, and also there are these left-over letters

rtusna

Hmmm... What can THAT be an anagram of?

rtusna

Saturn

Well flog me with a spoon! I have NO IDEA what this, GIDEON SATURN, could POSSIBLY mean in the context of this convo or of the larger story(also: maybe this anagrams to other words? I honestly didn’t try too hard after this very obvs one. AtRSun??? Taurns?? OF COURSE Harrow would play Horde if she played WoW, but I’d imagine she’d’ve been a Forsaken Warlock, or Orc one at the very least :p), but that we have a character’s name being called an anagram by the narration and then that character’s name turns out to BE AN ANAGRAM of the first book’s, now(mysteriously[2]?) absent, protagonist plus the planet Saturn[3], seems an awful coincidence. Of course that doesn’t mean it ISN’T a Coincidence, nor that it means anything in relation to the story even if it IS intentional; it could be meant to throw off theorycrafters, or just as something Muir thought would be fun to do(making Gideon Nav, “the greatest cav the Ninth ever produced”, a near-anagram with Ortus Nigenad, one of it’s worst). Of course, it could also be a hint to Gideon’s origins, or where she/her body is now. For what it’s worth, I seem to recall the big contenders for her origins were Third through Fifth House, and those seem to be the most likely to be the Gas Giants&GG Moons(Third’s the wealth-house, and there’s probably more concentrated resources in Jupiter and Saturn than on any other planet in the solar system. And, for whateverMORE it’s worth, Saturn WAS the Roman god of wealth&the harvest. If Mars’s ...Martial[X| X|]... associations are a firm enough basis for its guess in the order, then why not Planet Fucking Saturn? Of course the trident theme suggests Neptune, but why in the cosmos would THAT be the third colonized planet in the system? Makes no damn sense |:T |:T).

The last thing(two things?) that I wanted to bring up, though it’s not really related to any of the above, is Alecto, the name for the next book. Presumably, this is The Body/The Girl. Alecto means “Implacable/Unceasing Anger”, and it is the name of one of the Erinyes; the Furies; the goddesses and purveyors of Vengeance. The Furies, according to Hesiod, were born from the blood of Ouranos spilled when Kronos castrated him. Interestingly, the way Necromancy works in this universe(as explained in these early pages) is that the Cohort “breaches” a planet, after which point its “thalergy”(life energy; presumably metabolism-produced energy since necros aren’t snacking on ambient heat&light) begins converting to “thanergy”(death energy, tho it’d be more precise to call it the energy generated by the detachment of a soul from a body), which Necros can use to do Necromancy. The microbiology within a planet’s soil can similarly be drained, as can the animals and plants, and the process of “breaching” allows Necros to draw on the thalery/thanergy of all of these. So Necromancy is a metaphor for environmental/planetary destruction&exploitation. Kronos is a harvest-god(his name is obscure, but probably means something like “the cutter” or “the striker”); Ouranos is the sky(probably a raingod with a name related, hilariously, to the verb for “to piss” :p :p), but at the same time still a planetary deity. Coincidentally, the primary antagonists so far in the book are “Resurrection Beasts” which seem to have been created by The Emperor Necrotising the Nine planets of Dominicus, and who have been pursuing him and his Lyctors to destroy them for this/for becoming Lyctors(Lyctordom is legit called “the indelible sin” by the Emperor himself) ever since. Sounds allot like the Furies, doesn’t it?

In this context, the Kronos Ouranos myth can be read as a story of planetary exploitation/injury(caution: I am NOT saying that’s the intended meaning of the myth originally, just that it is a possible application of it as a lens of analysis[it being referenced by the series through Alecto] to this story), and THAT suggests that Alecto, the Fury, may have been associated with this initial Necrotization(The Resurrection/Nine Resurrections, which SEEMS given what little I’ve read so far to be what they call the initial Necrotization of the Nine planets of the Sol System? Though maybe they were already Necrotized&all used up, and the Emperor revitalized them somehow?? I’m not sure yet), may be something instanced to stop it, or may be a “Resurrection Beast” herself; perhaps the initial form they took before 10k years of thwarted rage pushed them to become more monstrous. Alternately, I wonder if Alecto might be a manifestation or servant of Death? There’s a repeated focus on the Emperor having “defeated” Death, and The Body in the Locked Tomb is repeatedly referred to as a foe he defeated once but could not defeat again, so there are good reasons to disregard all the mythological trappings and focus on the clearer, less metatextual possibility.

Of course: it’s probably none of this and I’m just spinning Fantasy wholecloth from between my entirely metaphorical ears :p :p :p

[1]The Body is The Girl in the Locked Tomb which Harrow fell in love with. I’ll get to why this is relevant very soon after this footnote

[2]I mean we watched her force Harrow into Lyctorship by killing herself, so I’m still more convinced this is all trauma response. Her corpse IS MISSING, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t super-dead. Though: Camilla and Palamedes DID have a contingency, and Gideon DID wink at Harrow post-Lyctoring, and it was ambiguous if this was her impaled body or her spirit/hallucination doing the winking, so I can see ppl running with this theorywise...

[3]which is one of the Houses, obvsl(or at least it’s moons), though I’m only really confident on Sixth House(Mercury), Ninth House(Pluto), and 2nd House(Mars) at the moment. Seventh House is PROBABLY Venus, giving all its connections to poison, wasting disease, and Aphrodite(Cytherea is another name of the goddess), but that’s all just thematic suggestion. Oh also, I figured I should throw this in here given the large digression on Kronos and Uoranos, Kronos is Saturn’s Greek equivalent(or at least, the Romans considered him so).

[kdramaxoxo]

I’ve watched 4 eps of Do do sol so far and I’m loving the two main leads but OMG the doctor is creepy with how aggressively he is pursuing Ra-Ra. I almost can’t watch it because of him. Lucky we have Mimi to keep us going.

MIMI!! 

I definitely agree with you about the doctor. I literally cannot stand his character and wish he would go away 100% of the time. Every time he shows up I’m like “please leave”. He is the one part of the show I actively hate. 

Overall though I’m mostly enjoying Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol. Wait, that’s an exaggeration. I’m ok with mindlessly watching Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol and have accepted it for what it is. Let’s be real - It’s not great...it’s a solid C k-drama, but I don’t hate it like a lot of people do. 

Even though I prefer strong women, I have no problem with the leading lady. She is a very naive and over the top persona, but the show is sort of cartoony and everyone is a bit over the top (except for the ML), so her character makes sense to me. This is one of those truly ridiculous premises where a riches to rags homeless girl is taken in by an entire town she randomly picked on instagram, given a never ending allowance, and where plot holes are pretty much everywhere so...¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But, I love Mimi the dog, I love the mom and I like the FL and ML. I say “like” because I love Lee Jae Wook and I’m excited to see him as a lead but they’ve made him a bit boring and totally nondescript so far. 

However, I have a fun theory...

Because the show was made by the My Secret Terius people, I’m hoping they’ve made him vague because he’s actually a secret agent! I mean, he’s probably not, the show cannot possibly be that smart and resourceful but...maybe??

Anyways, horrible doctor man we hate you. 

Solid C ish drama so far. 

Maybe it’ll get better when they reveal the ML’s true identity? 

Probably not but we have Mimi.

[luminousbeansarewe]

wandering stars

ch 13: vigilance

pairings: none || rating: teen || characters: original characters, obi-wan kenobi, mace windu, commander ponds

tags: none

chapter list

tagged: @yourbitchystudentartist​ @lordimperius​ (message me or reply if you’d like to be tagged!)

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Coruscant, Galactic City, Grand Army of the Republic Headquarters, 22BBY

    Obi-Wan Kenobi was making his way through the barracks, his mind crowded with concerns and plans and possibilities and questions, when he stopped in the middle of the hallway. The 212th was back for R&R; last he’d heard, every other clone unit was deployed to the field. So, when he saw a couple of clones he didn’t recognize practicing hand-to-hand in one of the rec rooms, his brow furrowed.

    Then, he felt it. Two ripples in the Force, one strong and familiar, the other weak and curious— he thought he'd felt it before, but it had been a long time ago. His keen blue eyes studied the figures as he moved closer to the window, watching a dance he’d only rarely gotten to observe before.

    When he spotted the white bun and smaller figure, he realized one of them wasn’t a clone at all. They were both in regulation blacks, crouching and circling one another intently. The trooper moved like all his brethren; his body was angular and sturdy, and despite his powerful musculature he was quick. The girl— Sol, that was her name— was more wiry, and the sinuous movements of her body never once betrayed the moment she would strike. Clones moved with energy behind every jab, kick, and block. Their high metabolisms meant that the same effort for each motion didn’t tire them, and maximized the potential that each contact would exact as much damage as possible.

    The thing that was curious to Obi-Wan was the way the Force flowed around his opponent. White lashes on her golden eyes already rendered her gaze unusual, but honed in on her target it pierced with predatory intensity; a lifelong vigilance hid behind her present focus. Unlike the clone, she had to conserve energy— and she did it well. Her strikes were precise, engineered to initiate a sequence of attacks if they landed. The Jedi’s eyes narrowed. He knew that style, that very particular strategy that this girl brought her own grace to. 

    More than that, though, the Force assisted her every move. Not to the degree a Jedi might use it. Not to push out from her strikes with concentrated effort and send the clone flying to the other side of the mat. But it seemed to carry her somehow, to hold her together. 

    Who was this girl Mace had found?

    Once Sol had managed to land an attack that ended with her opponent on his back on the mat, groaning, Obi-Wan entered the room. As he’d expected, Master Windu himself was sitting on the bench, observing. 

    “Very good,” the other Jedi said, not looking at his visitor, something of a smirk on his face. “Commander Ponds, Sol Tannor, this is General Obi-Wan Kenobi.” 

    Ponds, the clone, was on his feet and at attention in half a second. “General,” he said, giving a stiff nod to Obi-Wan. Sol, on the other hand, simply turned to face him, feet still a little wider apart and hands still in loose fists by her side. Her nod was altogether more relaxed. 

    “Master Kenobi, to what do we owe the pleasure?” Mace asked, turning to look at him while still seated. 

    “Oh, I was merely passing through on my way to the offices when I noticed your lesson, here,” Obi-Wan replied with his usual degree of easy pleasantry. 

    “Yes, I was just having Commander Ponds drill my ward in the art of hand-to-hand combat,” Mace replied, that near-smirk flickering over his face again. 

    “All due respect, sir, but I believe she was the one drilling me,” Ponds said, looking almost embarrassed. But he was clearly impressed, too. “Haven’t had a spar like that in a while.”

    “Neither me, to be fair,” Sol said to the clone. Her smile seemed uneasy on her face, like it wasn’t used to being there despite being genuine.

    “Yes, I noticed you have quite a skillset, Sol,” Obi-Wan said. “Do you mind if I ask where you learned?” 

    “My father taught me.” Pain flashed behind her eyes, gone as quickly as it came. He seemed to recall her father being a bounty hunter, before his untimely death brought her here. “Master Drallig also taught me, while I was being considered for the Temple Guard.” 

    “Ah. Well I’m sure both your father and Master Drallig would be quite proud of you,” he offered with sincerity. Another uneasy smile, a smaller nod. 

    “Master Kenobi,” Mace began, “You lead some of our finest troopers. What would you say are the most important things a leader can practice in the field?” 

    Obi-Wan eyed the other Jedi. It looked like he was being roped into augmenting the girl’s lessons for the day. Which might have been slightly annoying, if it didn’t mean that Mace was clearly invested in his ward’s success. He chased down some reasonable thoughts between all the other stirrings in his mind.

    “Well, it’s safe to say that keeping a level head is a necessity. One must be quick and adaptable. I always advise several backup plans, which my former padawan is still not particularly fond of,” he said with a slight fond chuckle that everyone else in the room was quick to share. “And, always look after one’s men. Losses are part of war, but negligence is poor leadership.”

    “Ponds, would you agree?” Mace asked his commander.

    “Yes, sir,” Ponds replied with a nod. “On every point.”

    “Anything to add?” 

    “It helps to know when to be hard and when to boost morale, sir. That can depend on the squad or troop, though. And being with your men on the line will get you their respect quicker than anything.” 

    “Thank you, gentlemen,” Mace told them, and then his gaze fell back onto his ward. “I’m gleaning wisdom for you from everyone I can, Sol, but Lightning Squad is heading back out in two days. I’m afraid that the war is spreading much quicker than we hoped.” 

    “I understand, Master,” Sol replied.

    “I’ve always said you learn more quickly on the field,” Obi-Wan chimed in. “Perhaps you might accompany your master on his deployment.”

    All three of the other faces in the room looked uncomfortable. Ponds the most-- one could fathom why a commando might not prefer a rookie, even a well-trained one, under his wing on a mission. Sol simply seemed worried she wasn’t ready. Mace, though, was a little more opaque.

    “I think Sol requires more training,” he said after a moment, looking between her and Obi-Wan. “Particularly regarding working on a team, which is critical for leading soldiers.” 

    The bearded Jedi blinked, surprised for a moment. He hadn’t heard about the plan to put the girl on the field in a command position. That would be a rushed effort, for certain. The general level of panic about resources was a static buzz in the very air on Coruscant, these days. 

    “I see,” he said, stroking his beard. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised, if joining the Guard hadn’t worked out (and evidently it hadn’t.) Combat certainly fell well within her skillset. “Ponds, I feel your recommendation might be better than mine for this. Clones are unsurpassed in their teamwork, commandos especially.” 

    “Thank you, sir,” Ponds nodded. “I still say you might send her to Kamino. It’s the finest military training in the galaxy, after all,” he said with a glance at Mace. But the other Jedi’s frown deepened. 

    “I’m still not certain. But I’ve taken your suggestion under advisement, don’t worry.” 

    “Yes, sir.” 

    “Well, I’m sorry to depart so soon, but I’ve got to speak with Cody. We’ll also be shipping out in two days, or sooner if things on Thule continue the way they have,” Obi-Wan said soberly. He bowed to Mace, and then to Ponds and Sol. “Good luck, all of you. Sol, I look forward to your future.”

    She seemed surprised, but every emotion was ever just a passing shadow on her otherwise stoic face. “Vor’e— thank you, Master,” she said with that nod. Obi-Wan smiled, and saw himself out the door. As he continued along the halls, he couldn’t help but feel a little sadness for the girl. Whatever Mandalorian heritage she had— and she certainly had some, fighting the way she did— was obviously stripped away from her. It seemed there was no place for her inside the Jedi Temple. And now, her guide seemed to have no idea what to do with her. He hoped faintly that she might find her home somewhere, and regretted that it might end up being in the battlefield. 

    But this was war, and he had no time to fret over things he couldn’t fix— as though Anakin being knighted and war blossoming like wildfire across the galaxy weren’t enough of that. So he strode onward, and his trouble in mind went with him. 

[hetaces]

@whatsnew-lgbtq​‘s 31 days of pride day 9!! i know I haven’t been doing ‘em all but that’s okay.

day 9: books

so books are my area of expertise honestly so I picked a few favorites to talk about a lil bit here (I’ll put it under a cut).

And feel free to ask me about more books because I’m Like That.

These are all ownvoices in at least one way. Ownvoices rep will be italicized in the list.

Highly Illogical Behavior by John Corey Whaley When you hear what this book is about, it sounds really bad. Like “Girl decides to ‘fix’ agoraphobic gay boy and her boyfriend gets ~close~ with him” is essentially what the synopsis says. It sets it up for every bad trope. And then uses none of them. It’s so good, has great portrayal of good accommodations, healthy friendship, and a bunch of Star Trek references. Representation: Sol is gay and agoraphobic

Heart of Iron by Ashley Poston Don’t look up the synopsis yourself, go right to goodreads (i’d link but you know how tumblr is with links), some of the synopses that come up automatically start with a “it’s like [story] in space” and it’s a spoiler. I’ll put the first part of it here bc it’s hard to get the words. Seventeen-year-old Ana is a scoundrel by nurture and an outlaw by nature. Found as a child drifting through space with a sentient android called D09, Ana was saved by a fearsome space captain and the grizzled crew she now calls family. But D09—one of the last remaining illegal Metals—has been glitching, and Ana will stop at nothing to find a way to fix him. Representation: Ana is written as acespec (not Super clear but it was the intent) Captain Siege is a lesbian. Telle is a lesbian. Robb is gay. Jax is gay.

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee So, there’s a lot of hype around Gentleman’s Guide and I was sort of expecting to be let down, but it more than lived up to it. Henry "Monty" Montague is going on his Tour of the continent (travel around Europe and have fun one last time, is the idea). Chaotic disaster bisexual Monty causes trouble, of course. So then on the way to dropping his sister off at finishing school before returning home early, they get attacked. Because Monty is a dumbass (it’s actually his fault). Cue rich kids travelling with no money & trying to avoid a growing number of people. Mackenzi Lee has hit the nail on the head with growth. Not only does she get that sometimes, growth does happen because of one moment of learning, she also writes it well, which is a really difficult thing to write. There’s a lot of heavy stuff in it, but none of it was thrown in for no reason, it’s actually important to the books and to the characters. Representation: Monty is bi, has PTSD, and (at the end of the first book, so spoilers) deaf on one side Percy is mixed, mlm, and (you find out part way through so if you’re picky about it it could be spoilers), epileptic. Felicity is aroace. Many other characters who aren’t white and a wlw character in the second book.

I Wish You All The Best by Mason Deaver After Ben comes out to their parents, things don’t exactly go well. They get kicked out, and have to go live with their sister who they haven’t seen in 10 years. They start over at a new school, only out to their sister, her husband, and their therapist (because hey, look how well coming out went last time). This book is so damn cute. And a book with a nonbinary main character! Representation: Ben is nonbinary Nathan is bisexual and black

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire Think Narnia, but with more worlds and less religion and you've got the concept of the doorways. Children have always been disappearing - going through a door that's appeared to them. But magic worlds rarely have use for used up miracle children. So they're sent back. But they don't come back the same. The children at Elanor West's Home for Wayward Children have all tumbled once. And they all want to get back. But with Nancy's arrival, things start going wrong. Representation: Nancy is asexual Jack is pan and has OCD Kade is a trans guy Sumi is bi (Seanan McGuire is a queer cis woman)

You Asked for Perfect by Laura Silverman Ariel Stone is a perfect student: he’s a community volunteer, first chair violin, and is on track to be valedictorian. And then he fails a calc test. When he finds he can’t fix it himself, he reluctantly gets a tutor. And he may not like calc, but he might like Amir. I started recommending this book to people when I was 5 pages into it. Ariel is so explicitly Jewish that Laura Silverman put her grandmother’s matzo ball soup recipe in the back because it’s not fair to rave about it so much and not provide a recipe. He’s explicitly bisexual by page 8. Amir and Sook’s eyes are both described as “warm” and I honestly think it’s the first time I’ve seen characters of color’s eyes described as anything but “dark”. Representation: Ariel is bisexual and Jewish Amir is a gay Pakistani Muslim Sook is a chubby Korean lesbian

The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried by Shaun David Hutchinson Shaun is back with more “so... the world might be ending?” and I absolutely love it. Dino’s ex-best-friend July died suddenly 4 days ago, and his family runs the funeral home. Dino is touching up July’s makeup (he knows how she wore it and everyone was doing it wrong), and she wakes up. But she’s not exactly... alive. She’s just not-dead. And then... other people just stop dying. So they have to figure out what’s happening. How July came back - or at least how to re-kill her when nobody can die. So not only is it a super interesting book, it’s also like... Shaun goes in on topics like “gay people making gay jokes and straight people making gay jokes are different” and “a cis guy might (might) not mind if you call him a girl, but do not call a trans guy a girl” Also I recommend anything by Shaun David Hutchinson. Representation: Dino is gay Rafi is trans, mlm, and mixed (white/Pakistani) Multiple LGBTQ+ minor characters

On The Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis It’s an end-of-the-world type book (via comet strike). Due to strange circumstances, Denise and her mother end up not at their government assigned shelter, but on a generation ship. And Denise has just a few days to find her sister and prove that her skills are worth 3 spots on a ship with limited resources. Representation: Denise is mixed (Surinamese/white) and autistic Iris is mixed (Surinamese/white) and a bi trans woman. Els is wlw. Leyla is wlw. Samira and Nordin are Muslim Some minor characters.

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman I’m just gonna give y’all the actual synopsis this time

You probably think that Aled Last and I are going to fall in love or something. Since he is a boy and I am a girl. I just wanted to say—we don’t. Frances Janvier spends most of her time studying. When she’s not studying, she’s up in her room making fan art for her favorite podcast, Universe City. Everyone knows Aled Last as that quiet boy who gets straight As. But no one knows he’s the creator of Universe City, who goes by the name Radio Silence. When Frances gets a message from Radio Silence asking if she’ll collaborate with him, everything changes. Frances and Aled spend an entire summer working together and becoming best friends. They get each other when no one else does. But when Aled’s identity as Radio Silence is revealed, Frances fears that the future of Universe City—and their friendship—is at risk. Aled helped her find her voice. Without him, will she have the courage to show the world who she really is? Or will she be met with radio silence?

This book is so good but fair warning, it gets really heavy. 

Representation: Aled is demisexual (Alice is queer/aroace) Frances is bi and mixed (white/Ethiopian) Daniel is gay and Korean Carys is a lesbian Raine is pan, Indian, and Hindu

Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis Otherbound is set in two worlds - Nolan’s (ours) and Amara’s (the Dunelands, where magic is real). Amara is on the run with the former princess, Cilla, whose family was overthrown by the ministers. Cilla has been cursed and is being hunted, and Amara’s particular type of healing magic is, basically, convenient for redirecting Cilla’s curse. Since they were children, Nolan has been experiencing Amara’s world through her every time he closes his eyes. He sees through her eyes, feels what she feels, smells what she smells. But he’s just a silent observer. She doesn’t even know he’s there. Until now. Representation: Nolan is Mexica and disabled Amara is not white, mute (due to mutilation), and bi Cilla is not white, fat, and a lesbian The majority of other characters are also not white.

[toasttz]

From the Tabletop #1

In recent times, I've been trying to get more into one of my favorite hobbies: tabletop games. Primarily D&D (of course), Exalted, and Shadowrun. Actually, some friends and I have been running an Exalted game for over 2 years now (since 3rd edition dropped) and I wanted to share with the world some of our fun stories and "That Guy" moments we've had forced upon us as well. Going back to the very beginning, I was, unfortunately, "That Guy" of our initial 3rd Edition Exalts. I built a strong, competent battle-ready Solar Exalt built around the Righteous Devil martial arts which, for those who may not be familiar, is essentially flamethrower-fu. Her name was Sunset Shimmer (yes, I snuck an MLP joke into an Exalted game, and only one other player at the table was in on the gag). The biggest issue with Sunset was a general lack of direction of the character. She had a backstory but no real goal to speak of and it didn't help that meatspace conditions made my attention to her spotty at best. She was an active participant, and I had freakishly lucky rolls playing her, but she was just kind of boring. I really should remake her. It really didn't help that I was the "That Guy" of a party of "That Guys". Another in the group was Hrothgar, whose defining intimacy was Ultra-Violence. But another major intimacy was about what a nice guy this bloodthirsty faux-viking was. It made about as much sense in context as it sounds here. Not helped by not really having a backstory or a goal to speak of. Ditto for Drago, affectionately nicknamed "Ivan Drago", also lacked any characterization to speak of. He was the man of 1000 backstories, because he couldn't settle on one. Once from the 100 Kingdoms, then a peninsula, then an island, then about how much of a great pirate his grandfather was. The GM eventually demanded he put up or shut up, essentially fusing together all the ideas, mostly because we never brought it up again and never actually went to his homeland in that game, but would in later ones. Whereupon we set it on fire (more on that later). The only competent Exalt of the circle was Petral. Sol Invictus knows she tried. Essentially Samurai BatMan, complete with high levels of investigation (she never used) and murdering people (that she really should've left alive), the only really meaningful connection this circle managed was that Targon and Drago's players shipped Sunset and Petral, due to a moment where a badly-drunken Petral, while worshipping the porcelain god, was comforted by a sympathetic Sunset. I'll be honest, as I was a frequent truant at these games, I can't accurately account for the flow of the game, but it did lead to moments wherein I'd find myself saying things like "But last time we agreed to murder some nobles! Why are we 200 miles away from them now?!" or declaring that a large, squid-like creature was, in fact, an aquatic horse upon botching an intelligence check. Things at least became more consistent with our second round of characters. Unfortunately, it was consistently God-awful. We had a cult leader, Zen, who barely had any idea why an Exalt would have a cult. He also didn't know what it would take to run one, having a character with zero personality to speak (I frequently confuse him with the next character here because of this), and - quite frankly - acted extremely evil at times. He had terrible conditions for his cult, food was constantly scarce (not helped by our being in Malfaes for this entire game), and draconian laws oftentimes seen in actual real-world deathcults. Calling this character "incompetent" is kind of like calling the ocean "a bit wet". The second one, Targon... ho boy. His backstory pegged him as an arena gladiator, which is fine on its face. The problems cropped up after that, whereupon he was also a successful businessman (resources 5), owned a chain restaurant which he managed himself (despite claiming to have locations all over creation!), and demanded his demonic clients pay in artifacts of all things. Now, in Malfeas, this could work, as a single-location eccentric establishment that catered to the super-rich. But this is Targon. And he ran it like a Pondarosa Steakhouse, except less competent. He would spend 20-minute long scenes (real time), in how exactly he would cook and prepare food. This established a precedent wherein we realized this player just absolutely would not accept flaws of any kind of his character - not real flaws at any rate. Just the informed "type variety" - his words. And, yes, he always attempted to sound smarter than he actually is by speaking in a roundabout and obfuscatory manner. Next was Taiga, and Taiga was a great character. She became the team mascot, punch-monkey, and little sister all in one. There was literally no one who didn't like her, in terms of player characters, because she was cheerful and cute as a button. She won big in Hell's many arenas and even won herself a few Pokemo-- err-- I mean, pet beasties. Her main concern was patrolling the mean streets of Hell, forming her own police squad - the Justice Buddies. And last, but not least, was my new character, Master of the Eternal Golden Paradise, named from the Exalted Name Generator, in case that weren't obvious. Master was a shrewd businessman (resources 3 to start), who operated as a flashy, guild liaison with some business contacts that helped him ultimately build a theme park in Hell - Super Happy Fun Land. He sort-of adopted Taiga as a little sister, and would go on to help her undermine Zen's cult leadership status, whereupon they would form "Taiga-ism", a rather loose set of morals and ethics as Master devised ways of educating the unwashed masses to make them more productive members of the work force and economy. As I recall, the greatest among these religious prohibitions was against taxadermy - as Taiga kind of thought it was gross. To really drive his themes home, Master as decked out in heavy artifact weapon and armor - his weapon (a reskinned Great Goremaul) was an abicus named "SmithLocke & Keynes" and his armor was a heavy platemail named the "God-Dragon Plate" (or GDP). Among the bizarre things this team did included: Operation Eats & Poops, an attempt to save Zen's hopeless cult by fertilizing fields. This almost got derailed due to a severe drought, but Master had two harthstones that happened to solve the problem. (This itself became an issue later on, due to fukken Zen not signing the proper paperwork while taking up space in the Endless Desert. Master would then go on to petition Cecylene for use of the space, and did so with such an amazing bureacracy roll, that he, and I'm quoting my GM here, "Made the Endless Desert moist".) Zen then begged Taiga into assisting him in getting a magic book - not even getting into his begging for magical martial arts training he ultimately bitched out of (thereby humiliating Taiga in front of her master). This was kind of like trying to explain color to a blind person, because Zen's answer to Taiga's taking him to a book store, was to casually saunter up and begin asking for what amounts to black market wares in the middle of the day. The GM, God bless him, took pity on this faux-pas and Taiga was eventually able to get said book. Not that Zen put it to any meaningful use. Apparently, the 17 year old girl understood the black market better than the man in his 30s. The team would go on to battle many times in the arena, sans Master, who was on the sidelines betting on his comrades's success (when it was Taiga) or their failure (when it was Zen and Targon). Strangely enough, Master's bets were almost always right. At one point we even battled what was essentially a battlemech. The team managed to topple it despite even man-down at the time, and Master sealed it with a linguistics charm essentially reading "DON'T TOUCH. THIS MEANS YOU, ZEN." And the sin that I shall never be forgiven for was Master's casual investment in the entertainment/security measure known as the TaigaBot. These mechanical abominations were fully able to dance, sing, answer simple questions for guests and beat the shit out of anyone who attempted anything funny, be it stealing or attempting to couple with a TaigaBot. Endless innuendos were made, of course, and that's part of the reason I shan't be forgiven for this. Master briefly considered a ZenBot or a TargonBot, but we all know where that would've ended up. Those robots would've killed themselves somehow - likely out of shame for their source material. And the last bit, something Taiga's player really should've reconsidered, was during a battle atop a giant bird-behemoth (Master was absent from this fight), Taiga's Mouse of the Sun, a rather vicious fighter named Fluff Mousington, brandished an anti-warstrider rifle and leveled it on Zen, prompting her for an answer. Taiga relented (her player, less so) and admitted that they should save Zen, causing a battle against a gigantic eagle. In retrospect, probably should've just pulled the trigger. Remember everyone: backstory, intimacies, long-term goal. Not negotiable. So, join me next time as I discuss some D&D (and how I became a half-ork pop star) and a later Exalted campaign involving slutty pirates, a reincarnating old man knight (who happens to be a teenaged girl), and three boneheads no one likes. See you there.

[flydotnet]

Tears of Venus

VRAINS Rarepair Weeks 2018-2019 - Day 10: Soulmate AU/Hanahaki

Summary: The first time she heard about the disease of unrequited love was when she was browsing the Internet for some stories to read while waiting for a pirated movie to download on her laptop. It seemed to just be a legend, a trope used by fanfiction writers and mangakas to have some tension, death stakes and angst for their characters’ relations. It was a way to add weight to a situation that, otherwise, may not have had it. This trope, because of its widespread character, was referred to “Hanahaki”. It was merely something to make people’s imaginations work and to break hearts in anticipation and suspense. It was all fiction even if, would she pay attention to probably false witness accounts, some said it was an actual thing, albeit very rare, and whose only cure really was reciprocated love. Ah, as if.

(Or: Ema doesn't believe in urban legends, and it bites her back)

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS Ships: Hireshipping (Ema/Akira), background platonic Ema & Aoi

Wordcount: 4.5K words

Notes: Realizing I'm writing these characters borderline OOC hurt more than it should have. (but hey at least it'll still be more accurate than most DSS-centric depictions of Yusaku and Ryoken amirite)

Y'all saw it coming, I saw it coming, everyone saw it coming, and I'm really proud of bring 4.5K words of Hire Hanahaki angst-H/C-whatever onto the table. This story is a weird mix but it was a blast to write, holy shit, I love angst and I love Hanahaki. But like I'm probably the one who proposed it in the first place for the event's prompt list so... Yeah. That has to be the longest oneshot I've ever written in one sitting.

Also, you'll quickly find out why this fic has a name that has nothing to do with flowers... at first glance.

Event hosted by @vrainsrarepairweeks

AO3 version available here.

The first time she heard about the disease of unrequited love was when she was browsing the Internet for some stories to read while waiting for a pirated movie to download on her laptop. It seemed to just be a legend, a trope used by fanfiction writers and mangakas to have some tension, death stakes and angst for their characters’ relations. It was a way to add weight to a situation that, otherwise, may not have had it.

This trope, because of its widespread character, was referred to “Hanahaki”. It was merely something to make people’s imaginations work and to break hearts in anticipation and suspense. It was all fiction even if, would she pay attention to probably false witness accounts, some said it was an actual thing, albeit very rare, and whose only cure really was reciprocated love.

Ah, as if.

 It’s when scrolling through the Internet again that Ema remembers about Hanahaki. She has heard rumours about someone in Den City being afflicted by the curse of flowers growing in their lungs because their beloved doesn’t love them back. It has this sensationalist character to it that makes people instantly intrigued: of course that’d reach her ears and that only sceptical and boring people would ignore it.

Thinking of overly-rational people who tend to see things the boring, practical and down-to-Earth way, she wonders what Akira would think about that. Aoi would be at least intrigued, considering her favourite Monsters are partially based on flowers (Lilybell, Holly Angel, Narkissus, Bella Madonna, Nightshade…), but her brother would most certainly dismiss it as yet another irrational legend. Oh well, it’s funnier to imagine his dismissive reactions to it rather than Aoi’s developing teenage curiosity.

 As such, she can’t help herself but mention these in a meeting they have for a new mission he’s giving her for, admittedly, a generous sum of money. If they were near her birthday, she’d see it as a gift: as it stands, it’s probably to be sure she doesn’t go to see if she can extort even more money from businessmen with little hacking knowledge (as it stands, Akira does have some and used to be better than her at it: his knowledge just caught all the dust around the place as soon as he could stop hacking to survive, or so she thinks at least). To be honest, when it comes to their personal relationship, she’s better off getting a bit less money but ensure she can tease her hirer about his awkward side.

“Have you heard about the person in the city who has flowers in their lungs?” she asks him as she thinks back to that story going across Link VRAINS and other social media outlets.

He doesn’t reply immediately, but when he does, it’s just as she expected him to do: “Hanahaki isn’t real, Ema. It’s just rumours going around.”

“I figured you’d respond that. You’re predictable, you know?”

He reddens at the insult before they part ways to go on their merry day and tasks.

 Still, it’s quite the heavy tip for what’s that job is worth. It’s simply making sure an AI chip doesn’t go rogue again in his boss’s back. It’s not risky, it’s not the worst he’s asked her to do, and yet he’s paying her extensively. Did he get a rise in his salary or something? Or is it Aoi’s way to thank her yet again for all her services? In both cases, it’s unnecessary and, for once, she doesn’t feel like accepting this big sum. Well, why does she find it so weird? Maybe Akira just overestimated what the job was worth because of all the “doing that in the back of the big boss of a gigantic company” gig.

When she gets paid for it, merely twenty-four hours later, the payment has even more of a tip joined to it, along with what seems to be a virtual present. Okay, that’s it, Akira is really overestimating his missions’ worth and wanting her to stay here. Fine. He better not make such a fuss about it anymore: that’s embarrassing to see him dig his grave even deeper all by himself. She accepts the tip anyway, thinks of what perfume or makeup set she could by herself with it because the ones she has already start to grow old, and settles on something glittery for once.

 The rumours precise themselves in the following days. The city now knows who the poor, poor sickie is: a man, presumably old enough to feel love but still young enough to worry himself over romance of all things. That’s all there is to it, but at least people have a precise noun or pronoun to use on that guy. Ema stays alert of it: it’s amusing to see all that speculation for something that has so many chances to turn out to be yet another urban legend spread through the streets and posts on social media. She never expected manga to have such an important cultural impact.

She starts to talk about it with Aoi over the net, the teenage girl being interested in what this is all about. Ema runs her through all she knows about it, from the little things she once read online to what is currently the consensus on today’s legends. A question then comes from Aoi who hesitates between believing in it for its Romanesque nature and doubting it because her brother taught her to be doubtful of everything she hears (even his opinions, but she has forgotten to do that for the most part), an interrogation that should have never interested Ema as much as it did: “Do we know what type of flowers it is? I’ve heard depending on the species that it can be a hint with flower symbolism”.

 Frankly, Ema doesn’t know anything about flower language or symbolism because she simply never buys flowers for anyone. The only times she does are when visiting her late father’s grave: she simply does like her mother does every time and put there a bouquet of forget-me-nots. Kengo has a slightly other idea of what to put on there, but she hasn’t taken the time to research it either. They have never discussed it yet: she gives him the time to recover from the idea that they are, indeed, brother and sister and should probably stick together even if he always wants to work alone.

The rumours come to her again when Aoi brings these up herself in their little conversation. According to a few, differing versions, this affected person has yellow carnation, anemones or daffodils growing inside their lungs. Quick searches on the Internet confirm Ema in her idea that this is all an urban legend spread among teenagers and people in need of sensationalism: really, flowers symbolizing unreciprocated love, deadly illness or rejection? Come on, this is too cliché to be real, too much like a poorly-written shojo manga to be happening in her plane of reality. She tells Aoi about that, how artificial it all sounds, how everything is way too much of a coincidence, but the girl still believes this may be happening near her while not giving much details aside from that.

 She takes another mission offer from Akira in a green-grassed parc in the city where cherry blossoms punctuate the floor and sky. He seems to not do so hot: if she isn’t mistaken, he’s usually not this pale and doesn’t have such dark rings under his eyes. Considering the recent crises at SOL Technologies which are, undeniably, partially caused by her doings, it wouldn’t be surprising for him to work overtime. He always manages to find a way to run himself to the ground anyway as if he was a fatigue addict. God, she’s glad she didn’t turn out to become a workaholic like him.

He coughs here and there, and that’s when he can’t keep it inside anymore, as he explains to her what it consists in this time. It’s eerily similar to last time, with too much money at the key again, and yet another element that shouldn’t be here: the way he slips in compliments on her capacity and resourcefulness, on how he’s grateful for her to always accept his mission offers. (That last part is wrong: she explicitly remembers turning down one or two offers in the past, and once of them recently on top of it). A sudden excess of gratitude coming from a man who never speaks about himself and his feelings simply gives off a wrong vibe on her? Does he want to seduce her or something? Because that won’t work. As it stands, Ghost Girl doesn’t do romance.

 The noise of the ever-going, omnipresent rumours soon inform her of even more details she isn’t asking for. The sick man is in his twenties, working for a company and, as they say, never revealed being infected with the disease to anyone. There is no clear evidence to support these claims, albeit she slowly starts to think about how this description fits Akira more and more. On the other hand, there are a ton of other men in their twenties working for big companies in this city who wouldn’t want anyone to know they’re coughing up flowers of everything a human being could cough out. That’s just unbelievable because of how ridiculous and impossible it sounds.  

There is still one picture that doesn’t live her mind. When she was leaving their meeting spot, she swore she could see him bent in half with a hand against a tree, coughing she guessed loudly. While this doesn’t exactly correlate to the rumour in its very details, the coincidence of this urban legend going around and a sudden striking coughing fit like that is still numbing at her mind from time to time during the day. Maybe she should wait for more information about the rumour’s sick man to confirm if this has any chance to be the case.

Well, she’s starting to believe it herself, and she finally understands for the first time was Aoi was willing to consider the possibility of the “Hanahaki Case of Den City” as it’s called to be real. The irony never stops.

 Soon enough, before she ever expected it to in fact, she learns of a new aspect of the rumour: the man affected by the case of Hanahaki works for SOL Technologies. Is linked to it a witness account by a secretary of the man who swore she had seen him cough more and more often, along with finding a tissue filled with wet and sometimes bloodied flower petals in his paper bin. That is one coincidence too much: that description would match Akira’s to the point she is certain he’s the basis for it. Maybe that secretary is the original source of the rumour’s more precise details. She has to be for such tiny precisions and descriptions anyway.

It starts to somewhat link inside her mind. He did look ill when they last saw each other, with how pale his skin was and how bad his coughing sounded at times. The more logical explanation – the one he’d take, in fact – is that he simply caught a bad chest infection somewhere, and it has around ninety percent chances to be the case. But then… He wouldn’t be afraid to not being able to thank her enough would it just be an infection like that, wouldn’t it? He sounded like he was going to go soon and never see her again. With how big her latest pay checks from him have been, she doubts it’s because he wants them to part ways.

 She gets a text message from “SOL Zaizen” on her phone right as she is about to ask Aoi if she has witnessed anything wrong with her brother. As soon as she opens it, she notices something has to be seriously wrong.

No matter what the offer is this time, she is going in-person to meet him and “discuss” the “matters”.

 When she arrives there, Ema gets her breathing stolen. Her footsteps are slow despite how much her mind is racing: he looks even worse than the last time, with a mask on the lower part of his face and deeper dark rings, a sickly red barely visible under the white of the mask, and her heart starts racing because he just seems to be doing terribly. She, however, cannot bring herself to run. How did he even get out of his house in that condition? The world may never know, after all.

“What the hell happened to you?!” is what manages to exit her throat as she walks up to him back against the wall.

“It’s complicated, really… I’ve also got a confession to make: I didn’t want to see you for an offer,” he replies with coughs interrupting his words every ten seconds or so, she isn’t sure, but it’s intense and almost frightening to see.

 Ema crosses her arms and waits in anxious anticipation for whatever he has to tell her.

“I’m… not sure of how I should go off about it,” he tells her in full honesty, hand in front of his mouth and the other arm around his chest, “so please excuse my abruptness.”

“You haven’t responded to my question, but go on, I guess.”

“I… I’m not sure how long I’ll last for, so… can you promise me to keep an eye on Aoi and Hayami for me?”

“Hayami is your secretary, right…? Wait, what the fuck are you going on about?!”

Akira gives her an excuse of a smile in return. There really is something wrong with this man.

“A… terminal illness of sorts, let’s put it that way… Which brings to something else I wanted to tell you…”

She cannot tell if his face actually is redder by the minute or if it’s just her noticing how ill he truly is.

“I… I may very well be in love with you, Ema…”

 Her world stops and shatters before her eyes. There isn’t a lot of people who truly matter to her in this little sphere of hers: her mother, her late father, her half-brother Kengo, Aoi, perhaps Playmaker for saving her life… and Akira. They have grown closer with the years and it’s only now that she realizes how much he does matter to her and how terribly she is receiving this. A terminal illness, so suddenly, for a man who isn’t even thirty yet? This is… this is awful.

And he’s revealing right here and now why he was being generous these past few days. He knew he was going to die and, perhaps, wanted to please her one last time. She can barely handle the first part of the news: the second is finishing her off. She wants to cry, to deny this as lies, but she knows better than this from Akira: he has never been as dramatic as her, down-to-Earth. For him to tell her all of this, it has to be true and urgent.

Her breathing gets caught in her throat and she cannot find the strength to answer.

 Ema externally freezes despite the storm taking place in her skull. Time has stopped and everyone else has disappeared from her consciousness as she helplessly stares, unable to move even a finger, at the man whose breathing suddenly gets worse and whose chest seems to squeeze before her widened eyes.

“I…” She attempts to respond. “I don’t know what to say…” She admits to him and herself all the same.

“It’s fine… I expected this to be sudden and shocking…”

Before he can finish speaking, another coughing fit takes a hold of him to the point of forcing him to uncover the bottom part of his face as to spit something.

 Everything shatters when Ema gets to see what’s coming out of his mouth or, to be exact, his lungs.

Flower petals.

Hanahaki is real.

An entire flower tainted in dark reds and smelling like spring and iron.

The Hanahaki Case of Den City isn’t just a legend, and he is the one they were speaking about.

 And it’s all because of her.

 She swallows a sob back as he puts back his mask and looks at her, eyes glassy and almost unfocused, tempted to look away in shame. This is tragically real, tragically close to home. Fuck this! Fuck this so much, from Hell and back!

“I… I’m sorry for this, very much so, Ema,” he tells her as he goes from supporting himself with an arm against the wall to doing so with his back leaning against it instead.

She timidly picks up the entire flower and tries to identify it.

“It’s an anemone,” he attempts to state very calmly, as if to ease her back into what she’s used to, but it’s all a failed façade.

Ema then remembers what she read online and what Aoi told her before: anemones are a symbol of death, illness and forsaken love depending on cultures. She can distinguish a faint blue hue to the one she has in her hand.

“I have to go,” he suddenly tells her in a faint and groggy voice, starting to lose his capacity to speak, “please take care, Ema…”

“I promise I’ll watch over Aoi for you, then,” she tries to look stoic when she just wants to cry. “Please… take care too, Akira,” she continues and ends her sentence as her legs finally move and take her away from the scene.

Another timid, sad smile.

 Her mind blanks during her trip back home on her bike, but as soon as she reaches her flat, all her tears fall from her eyes and trail on her cheeks. She pathetically lets her helmet go, takes off her shoes and lets herself fall onto her bed. She is causing another person’s death without ever meaning to, and one she cares about on top of it. Fuck. Akira deserved better than that kind of cruel and unusual death.

But there is nothing she can do about it, isn’t there? It’s uncurable and terminal unless feelings are returned, and there’s where it stings. She doesn’t love him the way he loves her: she has prevented herself from falling in love with anyone as to protect herself from heartbreak and ex-partner drama. She cannot respond back and that’s what is killing him.

This is all her fault, all her goddamn fault!

 She’s surprisingly dramatic and heartbroken about it, for someone who has already lost her father to an illness. She remembers being torn and extremely saddened for a few days following his demise, crying after him even, but she cannot for the life of her figure out why this is also such a tragedy with Akira. They’re friends, at best. Shady friends making unwritten contracts behind everyone’s backs, but friends and that’s it.

That’s surprisingly hurtful to hear herself think.

 She needs to calm down and think the situation through. Panicking and choking on her sobs isn’t going to make anything better. She gets up and paces in her flat, trying to piece together every fragment of her feelings she can decipher as to paint a global picture of her part of the situation. It’s a giant mess she’s facing with all the disdain she can have towards herself for never cleaning it up before today. Clean your room, they said.

There is no denial that she does care for Akira enough not to want to seem him go so early. Wait, early? That means she wants to spend more time with him, just like friends do. So, they’re friends, that’s for sure. Comparing to her other friends, she finds herself thinking more of what she felt towards now ex-partners… In a way, when she was surprised to hear him confess his love to her, a part of herself seemed to have rejoiced, or rather, to have been relived. That doesn’t make sense with all the sorrow she feels! Why would she be happy to be the reason why he’s dying young after spending so long trying to survive in the streets with a six-year-old under his wing?!

…Oh.

 Ema smashes her fist into a wall she finally, finally understands everything. Of course, of course that had to turn out to be denial all along! If she was so broken, so glitched out when learning of his upcoming death and how she was its cause, it was because she had, all along, wanted to be the cause of this. Well, not that way, but she was hiding her feelings to herself to avoid heartbreak again. If nobody could love her because she was shady and prone to backstabbing, when why should she allow herself to fall in love with others?

And then came in Akira, and everything fell apart because that illness, eventually, means nothing. It has no place to be because she has just learnt how things truly were: he’s in love with her, and she’s in love with him, and it’s all going to go down the sewer if she doesn’t do something soon. She has the power to change the tide, to prevent his early death. She needs to act, quickly.

She gets out her phone and gives him a last meeting time.

 The meeting happens the day right after, and she can guess by how he didn’t have any issue to respond “yes” to her pleas that he has been given an illness break by SOL Technologies (hah, surprising). To be fair, if Ema had made sure her motorcycle was all charged up, it was to ensure she could make it quickly to the hospital or the Zaizen flat in case everything would fall apart. As it turns out, she sees a familiar room and an even more familiar face come out of it.

Instead of waiting next to the tree where he asked her for the first time to do a mission for him and where he told her he loved her, she runs up to him in a worried hurry. Despite his bittersweet smile and his ever-so polite “Hello, Ema”, she feels how fragile he is in her arms, how she feels like she’s handling a crystal statue who matters so much to her, a statue she has fragilized by her own hands without meaning to. She has, after all, never truly wanted to destroy people, merely play with them and maybe be a bit mischievous. She wanted to be Aphrodite, to play with men and their desires and their capacity to spend money on her, not Death and her scythe reminding people of how feelings can suck.

But she’s no goddess.

Won over by the one naïve about love guy she’s met, that’s what she is.

 They sit down on a bench, his head on her shoulder because she’s afraid he won’t stand on his own in his spot of the bench if he doesn’t have some support, his unnatural body heat piercing through her clothes. That’s ironic to say the least. Despite how simplistic it seems to say three words to someone, she’s still hesitant and doesn’t know how Akira, the always-stiff man with zero skill in romance, has managed to pull this off. Her pride vanished the moment she knew she was killing him from the inside: she has nothing keeping her away from it, except maybe her guilt that doesn’t waver.

“How many days do you have left?” she asks instead, out of concern and morbid curiosity as to tell herself that, maybe, later, she’ll be able to be cocky about how narrow she saved someone from his death.

“They told me a week at most, probably less” he replies with his voice even weaker than yesterday’s, a petal exiting his lips. “I didn’t expect you to call me again so soon… My doctor will be mad to learn that I’ve come outside to meet up with you… Haha…”

Why does he everything he say or do break her heart, these days?

 Ema looks down, her sins facing her directly in the face.

“Akira, I’m not sure how I should tell you this knowing what’s going on with you,” she continues as earnest she could be. Her pride really ran away on her.

“It’s fine… I’m glad I didn’t scare you away yesterday… You seemed so shaken…”

“You’re not allowed to worry for me when you’re about to die, you… fool.”

Insulting the dying isn’t very cool either, Ema, you should know that.

“What I mean is that I have to tell you something too personal for it to be said on the network. It’d break its meaning.”

He sighs. She can just feel how weak his breathing has become over the past weeks through this single exhale and how barely audible it is. Declaring her love to a shadow hurts.

“It’s fine if you can’t do it anything about it… Just protect Aoi for me…”

“That’s where you’re wrong.”

 Despite his heavily weakened condition, she can still see how surprised he is to hear her say that. He should know better than anyone else that Ghost Girl can do anything. She excuses it for today, forever even, and holds her hand in his.

“I wish I could have been more dramatic than this, like I usually am, but this is an urgent matter and I won’t let you slip away from me so easily when it’d be easy to win against the illness,” she starts rambling almost as a way to shield herself from her own words.

Funny enough how curing his Hanahaki case seems so easy all of a sudden. She glances at him to see his eyes desperately trying to focus on her.

“I love you too, Akira.”

 There is a single, then a couple tears exiting his eyes as she finishes to tell that, and he somehow finds the strength to grip her hand as he coughs out what she guesses to be the last anemone to ever reside in his lungs without rotting away. She doesn’t know how the flowers in his lungs are going to fade away, but that’s not what matters for now.

She enlaces him from his side and pulls her against her own body, feeling the fever disappear in moments, breathing starting to sound normal again. He looks exhausted from fighting the illness, she is herself tired from crying and panicking, the smothering anxiety and fear of death soon to come taking their toll on them both.

“Could you… stay over for the night?” He asks her as he’s falling asleep. “The driver must still be here…”

“My pleasure,” she answers. “Let’s get there before I have to carry you like my bride to bed.”

 As she carries him on her shoulder again, they leave behind a trail of pale blue petals smelling like copper and iron. The last one people will ever see, she hopes. The last ones she’ll see for sure.

End Notes

Writing about Akira almost dying is my new specialty.

[gawdjay]

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[anannd-morrighan-lus-mor-blog]

Why Christopaganism Needs to Define Itself

Christopaganism is often trying to be what it is not.

It's trying to be Christian. It's trying to be Wiccan. It's trying to be whatever flavor of pagan, in the same manner of "Jews for Jesus". It's trying to wedge Jesus into places Jesus doesn't go (and believe it or not, there are a LOT of places that have seen the bare-footprints of the Lord of Lords). It's Wicca molded on a Christian mythos, or a Christian mythos entwined with one, with three, with twenty different mythologies and none of them synchronizing well. We try to make Jesus into other gods to suit the direction we're too afraid to admit that we're growing into: He's Dionysus and I can get drunk in ecstacy and lose myself in these men, these women, both! He's Cernunnos (yes, I've seen it, and I fight it), He'll rut the Goddess with me or He'll challenge Himself as the Oak King! He's Mithras! He's Horus and Osiris and Ra! He's Sol Invictus! He contains all and so he is all gods!

Don't even get me started on what is often done to the Blessed Mother or Mary Magdalene.

Look, you feel called, genuinely, to serve Christ in a pagan way. It's really not that unusual and it's really not that terrible. Most pagan traditions (I'm talking about the ones we have to reconstruct, but I also include others already reconstructed) have room for reconstruction and synchronizing Christianity of some flavor (Catholicism being the easiest, for historical and structural reasons) with another flavor of paganism. It's all over the Celts (which is where I am) and can be seen as a large and legitimate part of the Faith. You can be a Christian and an Alexandrian pagan. There are places where the Norse faith and Christianity meet. All those pagan traditions that Christianity draws from? They meet too, and that's nearly everywhere. There is no where where Jesus has not gone...the guy has literally been to Hell and back, I doubt he'd turn His nose at Faery, or at so many other places. I'm very sure you can adapt it to forms of Wicca, SOME forms of Wicca, if you tweak it to that you don't completely kill the mythos of both.

The real issue here is not that you can do all these things. *I* love that I can do these things. It's more that I feel like Christopaganism has no real structure...even Wicca has ground rules to follow as new traditions are built, you can likely find a thread to follow in most recons. But where is it? Christopaganism just doesn't know what it wants, or what it is, or what mythos takes precedence, if not a balanced equality, and in the end it doesn't even know who it calls God or what it's own mythology is!

Otherwise, I fear it will go the way it's been going: some attempts and wracking it together resulting in short periods of the limelight, a haven for would-be pagans afraid of betraying family or societal culture (or just afraid of going to Hell), a mishmash of faiths that serve no one but one's self...when the potential for Christopaganism (and all the other subtypes) is so much more, an opportunity to merge the past with the dying present and revitalize what each attacked in the other...the good stuff, I mean.

Christopaganism needs to know what it is, who it is.

Christopaganism is poorly developed and poorly understood.

This may be because that there are SO many ways to develop within such, and that the Christian aspect is usually actively antagonistic towards the more pagan aspect. (It really can't be denied.) While there is a long history or Christianity drawing from and synchronizing with other religions, it also has a long history of demonizing those other religions, as well as the other gods and spirits it has drawn from to form the character of the mythological Christ.

It is incredibly difficult to build a tradition, or a set of traditions under one umbrella, when there is so much cognitive dissonance surrounding it, from the developers, the developees or the pagans and Christians watching on! To get a new religion or tradition off the ground, there has to be a genuineness of belief, as well as the right kinds of motivations, and when this is clouded by personal or sub-cultural bias, it takes something like this a long time to get off the ground...something which is completely unnecessary, seeing as there is plenty of room to redefine for one's self, to agree to disagree and to set forth basic group tenets. Just like in the beginnings of Wicca, and heck, in the beginnings of Christianity, Christopaganism will likely form group by group and unlike early Catholicism, will have to uphold each other's differences rather than seek to assimilate them into a whole.

But for now, we stand wondering why Christopaganism has such a large-scale nebulousness around it. Why pagans and Christians alike turn and snicker and relegate them to the category "not a serious magician" or "not a serious pagan" or just "not worth our notice, only our laughter." Other than the cognitive dissonance mentioned earlier, as well as the sheer scale of what organizing Christopaganism would look like, a part of it like likely the lack luster talent that has noticeably tackled the issue thus far...with the exception of Joyce and River Higgenbottom's book, which I found a little uninspired and sort of route (I have to be honest), but also the most organized and and the most intelligent of the material resources out there. What resources of quality are availabile for Christopagans? A cursory web-search doesn't bring much. So much of what is available lacks substance, lacks meat, and leaves the person delving into the overwhelming (but very interesting) world of lore and history (combing out what can or cannot be found, like any good reconstructionist) or simply settling to the easiest path until something shakes them loose.

The lack of any discernable structure for the Christopagan overall is what may be the most damning, as it often leads to UPG (unverified personal gnosis) of the kind previously mentioned. "St. Michael and Lucifer are lovers!" I remember a Christopagan telling me, years before I found myself in the same spot. To this day, I find the idea laughable and to be a clear deception by God only knows what spirits she's listening to, since this UPG flies in the face of all tradition, all respect and all that we know of the two entities, embittered in enmity until the end of time. Where was she getting some of her mythology? Was she Catholic, or a Catholic-Gnostic, or a Catholic-Gnostic-Angelolatry-Witch? Even so, the UPG was suspect. And so many of us have UPG of a similar vein, that we live breathe and fight for, but what is there to check us?

I believe, personally, that Jesus is a personage in Faery, the High King of Faery (much like the legendary King Arthur) who is sacrificed in the form of a white stag upon the World Tree.

I mean, yeah. Seriously. I totally believe that. I had a long time leading me to it and several studies and experiences that got me there. But just as I say, "What do you do with THAT?" and point fingers at the girl I used to know, what are you also going to do with me?

I actually draw more from the Faery Faith than anything, and use a lot of medieval mythos to inform my opinions...along with the ancient stuff, of course. But the World Tree, while existing in ancient Celtic and Medieval Christian mythos, tends to draw most strongly from the Neo-Celtic Shamanism of John Matthews (whose books I do adore). So what does that make me?

Christopaganism is a mishmash of gods, beliefs, theologies, mythologies and cosmologies, all mushed together until it's unrecognizable. If you can find the roots of your beliefs, you can build on it. But if you can't, and it's only true because you decide it is... 

This lack of development and the poor resources lend to why Christopaganism is so poorly understood. The lack of quality in all areas can only lead one to assume the worst when seen.

Christopaganism, in many ways, is as traditional as other contemporary forms of paganism. Christian and Pagan synchrynetisms have been happening since the two religions met.

When Christianity began its mass spread across the world, it came into contact with many many world religions. And as each religion vied for supremacy in the hearts of others, borrowing cultural and religious customs became commonplace, so much so that Christianity still bears strong traces of ancient pagan practices, changed over time and redefined. Folk religious practices and official religion were equally absorbed...two of the most obvious places were in Alexandria, Egypt (that beautiful melting pot of so many cultures and religions) and in Ireland, where Christianity is present even in our lore since it was the monks who wrote it down, whose practices were absorbed in places by the Celtic church and even lady Brigid sincerely connected to the new religion and became St. Brigit. Not all of this “swapping” was theft, but the natural desire to bring beloved practices and beliefs (and gods/spirits) into the new religion.

I will never deny that Christians and pagans have a lot of blood between them, and that Christians have wiped out ancient paganism in the name of the “One True God” ideology (or mind virus, whatever). I AM saying that not all of this synchronizing has been with the intent to destroy, but more to preserve as best the can the old religions and the new.

I can recommend some of my favorite books on the subject, more or less:

-Egyptian Light, Hebrew Fire by Karl Luckert

-Christian Mythology: Revelations of Pagan Origins by Philippe Walter (questionable scholarship in places, but still a great read)

-Pagans and Christians by Robin Lane Fox

-Christians as the Roman Saw Them by Robert Louis Wilken (where we hear from the Oracle of Hekate that Jesus was a righteous man but his followers were kind of “off”)

-Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits by Emma Wilby (more of a shamanic and spirit-work overview, though there is evidence of the Christian-pagan blending, even during a time when the Catholic Church held iron control.)

-The Cult of Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England by William A Chaney

-Religion of the Irish Celts by Sandra Bollenbacher

-Where Three Streams Meet by Sean O Duinn (OSB)

-The Rites of Brigid: Goddess and Saint by Sean O Duinn (OSB)

(My apologies at not doing a better job at this section, my CFS/ME has been bad this week.Besides, these books are more valuable than my poor opinion.)

As a result, there are MANY ways to be a Christopagan, but we lack core tenets to have us standing out from pagans who like Jesus.

I would like to propose, for starters, that not everyone who melds Christian and pagan practices, beliefs, etc. is necessarily a Christopagan.

A (Hopefully) Helpful Guide:

Folk Catholic- Someone who is essentially Catholic but incorporations present or past Catholic Folk Traditions into their present religion. Still essentially Trinitarian in a monotheistic bent. This often but not always includes folklore based traditions, such as the Celtic Faery Faith (which is based more on Wicca, Witchcraft or some other forms of Western Traditions...think Orion Foxwood or RJ Stewart...or some forms of Voodoo, Palo and Ocha...a great example is the tradition of Santisima Muerte).(I myself shuffle between this and Christo-shamanism.)

A folk Catholic is someone who typically can be seen valuing the sacraments, valuing Mass (though they may not go as often as your more orthodox Catholic) and finding wisdom in the Bible and the Catechism, though they aren’t afraid to question or reject tenets that seem contrary to their own heart (or Christ’s message, if we’re going to be honest) and usually integrates folk tradition or outright pagan beliefs into their Christianity, often outright transforming the way they see and practice as Christians. They are able to hold community with a variety of beliefs, especially those they espouse, without too much trouble. Sacredness is seen and felt in both places, and held in respect.

Folk Christian- Expand the upper definition.

I have noticed many Folk Christians practice Hoodoo or, in this country, American Regional Folk Traditions (such as Appalachian Folklore). Instead of being strictly “Folk Catholic”, a wide variety of Christian traditions are represented: Lutherans would pair well with Pennsylvania Dutch or Germanic Folk Traditions. Angelicans pretty much do whatever they want in this country, anyway. They have a strong sense of structure that would pair well with Ceremonial Magick, or some revised (or more Christianized) Theurgy. The more low-church types would pair well with mystical, shamanic or ecstatic traditions that would add to, and maybe improve, on their own charismatic technique. Pretty much anyone can work with the tradition of the saints. However, this is only my conjecture; I am sure that all types of Christianity can meld with a wide variety of traditions with the right amount of will, effort and love. 

Christoshaman- Someone who still espouses the Trinity/Jesus as God, even if this has been redefined while embracing the specific mythic thread, and incorporates various shamanic traditions, spirits, practices and even pagan “gods”, though they may be seen as spirits. Some pagan divinities may be worshipped, thought Trinity/Jesus is still seen as ultimate godhead. Mainstream Christianity may or may not be present.

This can be tricky, since the melding of Christianity and shamanism, or shamanic-based traditions, is more intense. Pieces of Christian practices will be let go to make way for new practices. Pagan “gods” may be seen as Gods and worshipped along-side, or right below, The Holy Trinity; or the Trinity may still be seen as God and the pagan gods as spirits, honored and loved and fed, but not as often or in the same way as God, who may be served at Church, honored similar to the spirits, or both! Some gods/spirits will not accept this, some will, and some will accept it for some and not for others. You never know until you ask, and begin the work. The most helpful thing is to find where Christianity and the mythic culture your draw from historically meet, and go from there.

Christopagan- Someone who still espouses the Trinity/Jesus as God, even if this has been redefined while embracing the specific mythic thread, and incorporates various pagan traditions, mythologies, practices or “gods”, though they may be seen as spirits. Some pagan divinities may be worshipped, thought Trinity/Jesus is still seen as ultimate godhead. Mainstream Christianity may or may not be present.

I don’t want to repeat myself, but a lot has been said above. The difference is primarily the focus: rather than teasing out the authentic shamanic essence in a culture, religiously and mythically, you are reconstructing (at least to start) the place where the religions met, and integrated..and there are precious few cultures that have not been touched by Christianity, for good or for ill.

Wiccan Christian- Someone who worships many gods in a polytheistic manner, of which Jesus or the Trinity is one (or three), and seen as “one god in all gods”. If Jesus and Mary are your patron gods and goddess, or if you worship the angels, the saints. Witchcraft may or may not be melded into the main tradition, and not all of the Christian beliefs, tenets or practices may be included.

It is difficult to reconcile Wicca and Christianity, even moreso than Witchcraft and Christianity. One cannot fit Jesus as their god and the Virgin Mary (or Mary Magdalene) as their goddess into Wiccan theology without bastradizing one mythology or completely changing the other. In Wicca, however, successful interweaving is possible: whole traditions are founded on it (see “The Crafted Cup”, an older classic, combining Wicca, Christianity, Arthurian legends and the Grail mythos). The difficulty is in respecting the stories and essence of both, without simply changing things around to suit your passing ideas.

Gnostic Christian- Someone who incorporates Gnosticism with other systems, such as Wicca, Shamanism, Paganism, Ceremonial Magick, and many others.

In my limited experience of this faction, Gnostic ideas are combined with mainstream Christianity (and usually take precedence), and often are combined with one or more magickal systems: ceremonial magick with a focus on theurgy, hermetic or Christian Kabbalah, Witchcraft, etc. I have not seem it combined with pagan practice save once, and while I wasn’t sure of the legitimacy of this practice, I don’t doubt that there are others who can make this work.

Gnostic figures will be present with near certainty, and this includes the more well-known figures, such as Sophia (Jesus’ gnostic other half) and Yalbadoath (Sophia’s son made without mate -and so was imperfect- who others often say is the real spirit of the institutional church. Sometimes I think I agree.)

Angelology, Demonology (sadly) or the worship/work with the Saints may accompany any of these. Many Christopagans may not feature angels, saints or demons in their work, and some may feature heavily. It may seem like an unworkable contradiction to have someone revere Jesus, Satan or others, but I have seen it at least once or twice before. However, the term “Luciferan Christian” or anything having to do with real theistic Satanism is beyond the scope of the article.

PS: Even if you claim to worship Jesus or serve St. Michael, if you worship Lucifer or any form of the devil, you are a Luciferan or a Satanist. Hands down. The streams just do not mix, and there is no argument that can change that. They were made to oppose, which is not the aim of Christianity with any other religion. It is a literal case of "You cannot serve two masters." At the very least, you will love one and forget the other.

So, fellow esoteric Christians and Christopagans, I leave you with just a few hints of advice.

1. Don’t be afraid to make up your own mind.

People love to tell you what to believe, without any regard to your feelings, simply because they believe it and you must believe it to satisfy their strength in said belief, or simply their ego. Don’t fall into that trap. Ask yourself questions, don’t be afraid of the answers, and decide for yourself what you believe, based on what your heart, mind and the still voice of your spirit tell you- don’t believe based on family, or community, or culture. Don’t believe based on threats to your soul (you’re going to Hell!) or to your personal integrity (You are a really ignorant person if you believe this...) Spiritual immaturity accusations are another to let fly by you (You’re just not over your Christianity yet...you’ll grow up some day...).

2. Don’t be afraid to contradict yourself, and catch yourself in contradiction.

Reconciling Christianity with a pagan belief system of any kind is a challenge. There will be a day you believe something and then a day you don’t. There will be a day you waffle back and forth. This is normal! When you are in the beginning stages, or even intermediate stages...or, well, any stage of integrating two spiritualties, there will be changes, fluxuations and stages of belief: where you are, where you’re going, etc. It seems chaotic, but try to just let it flow around you and examine what settles into place. Catching yourself in contradiction will help you see where you have not reconciled your feelings on a particular belief. Having a friend to talk things over with (without judgement) would be ideal.

3. Don’t be afraid to change, as long as it’s to evolve, and sometimes rapidly.

As mentioned: let things flow where they may, and examine what settles. Let your “unconscious” work things through as you do consciously. Try to avoid the chaos of confusion or the similar chaos of excitement, and enjoy both as you take your time in discovery.

4. Don’t be afraid to let go of others who tell you what to believe, or what is right and wrong when it is based out of their own ego or religious programming.

You don’t have to exile them from your life, if they are important to you- but close this part of your life off from them and protect it. Do not engage in conversation about your religion, do not tolerate bad attitudes or insults but be peaceful in your disagreements. Save your vulnerable, developing self, but save your relationships, too.

Don’t tolerate toxic relationships, period. Kick them to the curb.

5. Know who you are. Know what you’re looking at. Know when you’re following something true, and when you’re deluding yourself: we all do it, have done it. There is no shame in owning your faults and moving forward.

Don’t try to be what you think you should be. Don’t try to be what you aren’t.

[dweemeister]

The Journey of Natty Gann (1985)

Almost a hundred years after the United States started settling its West, most of the land west of the Mississippi River remained “untamed” by humans. Today, much of the American West still has humans at the mercy of nature. Jeremy Kagan’s The Journey of Natty Gann sees a young, tomboyish girl that endures some of nature’s harshness in her long westward adventure – eventually finding peace with it and surviving. This one of the strongest films from one of the worst decades for Walt Disney Studios; yet the film is all but forgotten. In the years after Walt Disney’s death, the studio that bears his name attempted to make live-action films within the family-friendly confines that Disney himself established, yet making these newer films appeal to contemporary audiences. That tricky balancing act has continued into the present day, yet few have ever succeeded to the extent Natty Gann does.

It is 1935 in Chicago. Sol Gann (Ray Wise) lives in an aging apartment complex with his fifteen-year-old daughter Natalie Sue/“Natty” (Meredith Salenger). It seems as if he has been unemployed for some time, but soon finds a job in Washington state as a lumberjack thanks to the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The catch: he must leave on a bus for the Pacific Northwest immediately. Once he arrives home, Sol is unable to find his child anywhere. Considering his financial desperation, he leaves a note for Natty and arranges for the landlord, Connie (Lainie Kazan), to be a temporary guardian. Connie disapproves of Natty, and circumstances will force Natty to leave Chicago on her own. While traveling west on foot, by train, and automobiles, she will save and befriend a wolfdog from a dogfighting organization and meet a young man named Harry (John Cusack).

The Journey of Natty Gann marks the final on-screen appearance of dancer/singer/actor Scatman Crothers (the voice of Hong Kong Phooey, 1970′s The Aristocats, 1980′s The Shining), who appears in a brief role.

There is no denying that Natty Gann is as sentimental a movie as it sounds. It presents itself as a family film but does not see the need to sugarcoat everything: the dogfighting scene is more violent than expected, we are shown a few instances of a worried Sol calling a prevaricating Connie about his missing daughter, and Natty must fend off someone heavily implied to be a pedophile. Screenwriter Jeanne Rosenberg (1979′s The Black Stallion, 1991′s White Fang… yes, she specializes in animal movies) turns the film into part animal movie, part coming-of-age - when the film concentrates on the latter, it is at its best. This is because Natty is a street-smart Chicagoan who knows how to navigate life in a big city. But when tossed into wilderness without anyone to fall back upon, she retools her sense of resourcefulness and inner courage to suit her passing surroundings. Never despairing, a quiet go-getter by nature, always retaining some shred of optimism within but – unlike many Disney female characters – in touch with her anger, Natty is wonderfully portrayed by Salenger as one of the least Disney-esque female protagonists. It helps to have the Disney label, but The Journey of Natty Gann is an excellent film for youngsters who can take some of the film’s violence.

A sorta-first romance occurs with John Cusack’s character of Harry, but so little is made of this and so underdeveloped is their emotional connection that it seems like just another throwaway subplot in the film’s final third. Cusack, whose career was just beginning and had starred in Sixteen Candles (1984) and Better Off Dead (1985), is like a teenage Humphrey Bogart mixed with a teenage James Cagney (in his non-gangster roles) in this film – even though he does not appear in Natty Gann long, it should be of great interest to his fans.

One cannot ignore the other half of the film, as it is also a decent animal movie. Walt Disney Pictures has a long history of making live-action animal films from Old Yeller (1957) to various incarnations of The Incredible Journey (1963) and others, the studio has produced plenty in that subgenre – even if they might not be the most artistic movies ever made, there is no denying their enjoyability or emotional hold on audiences. To its credit, Natty Gann leaves its wolfdog protagonist as more of an open question, an unpredictable and fickle (like nature itself) aspect of the story that takes his time to warm up to Natty. Trust and understanding is not developed instantaneously, and the relationship between Natty and the wolfdog progresses as she comes closer to reuniting with her father. The film concentrates on Natty, not the wolfdog who never receives a proper name other than “Wolf”.

The canine actor here is a wolf-malamute named Jed. Born in 1977, Jed appeared in four films: a cameo in 1982′s The Thing, The Journey of Natty Gann, and White Fang and its 1994 sequel. His owner-trainer was Clint Rowe, who has trained animals for movies and television for more than thirty years. Ferocious though he might be at first, he wins over Natty’s and the audience’s affections as the film concludes.

From the film’s beginning in Chicago until its closing minutes, this is one of the prettiest films ever photographed with Disney. Cinematographer Dick Bush outdoes himself (1979′s Yanks, 1982′s Victor Victoria) in a setting – because of his British background – he has little experience with. The North American outdoors, as I have already waxed upon earlier, are unlike anything else in the world and often becomes a character of its own when Hollywood movies warrant it. Shot in various places along the route of the BC Rail (westward from Prince George to Vancouver) in Canada, Bush – when the action slows down – captures enormous panoramas of the forests, mountains, and waterways to trumpet the immense scope of Natty’s journey. During more intimate moments (like to emphasize the lack of space in the Chicago apartment complex Natty and Sol live out of), Bush’s camera lingers on conversations without gimmicks – and assisted by a lack of unnecessary editing by David Holden (1979′s The Warriors, 1980′s The Long Riders). And in moments of peril, the camera keeps the action within the entirety of the frame, rather than fragmenting it as it happens too often in contemporary films.

There is nothing more traumatic for a film score composer than when one has composed an entire score for an upcoming project, only to have it entirely tossed out and be replaced with another composer’s work. This trend increased in major Hollywood studios once the old Studio System disintegrated. For Natty Gann, Elmer Bernstein (1956′s The Ten Commandments, 1960′s The Magnificent Seven) submitted a score, rewrote it once, edited some of the cues after the second rejection, but ultimately was dismissed from the film. The already-established, but young, James Horner (1982′s Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, 1989′s Glory) came in. Horner’s score recalls the works of Aaron Copland in its musical expanse – Americana music replete with optimistic woodwinds and free-flowing strings. Later in his career, Horner’s compositions for Americana would incorporate tragic motifs like in Legends of the Fall (1994), so Natty Gann represents Horner at his most adventurous and clear-eyed for a film sent in the West. Influences from Copland’s Rodeo appear in cues like “Into Town” (and would be replicated for Horner’s work in 1991′s An American Tail: Fievel Goes West). The final minutes of the film are blessed with two cues – “Farewell” and “Reunion/End Title” – which encapsulate all the emotion building to the only ending that this movie could entertain. It is excellent work from a young James Horner.

To appreciate The Journey of Natty Gann in all its scenic beauty, do not purchase the 2004 DVD/VHS release. That home media edition employs pan-and-scan – a bastardized method of video presentation meant for square televisions, but chops off chunks of the film’s imagery. For a proper letterboxed experience, all editions of Natty Gann legally streaming are presented in the correct format. This review, based on the March 29 airing on Turner Classic Movies’ (TCM) Treasures from the Disney Vault bloc, has been written on the letterboxed version.

Today, Disney is approaching a time where a majority of its live-action/hybrid films are remakes or reimaginings of its animated classics. Longtime readers will notice, thanks to TCM’s periodic bloc, has featured many live-action Disney titles from yesteryear not based on any pre-existing Disney property. Where have lower-mid and mid-budget original films like The Journey of Natty Gann gone? 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) this is not, nor is it trying to be. In that wonderful modesty, set amidst beautiful landscapes, verdant forests, and shimmering rivers, The Journey of Natty Gann – along with another film with wolves, Never Cry Wolf (1983) – is one of the best Disney films of the 1980s, and ranks comfortably in the studio’s top tier of live-action films.

My rating: 7.5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

[megsironthrone]

Unknown

Anonymous asked: Can you do a Petyr x fem reader where they meet at the vale, maybe she’s a ward for Lysa or could be a cousin to her or something. He’s never heard of her so is interested in finding out more about her and takes a liking to her and confides in her for his plans and wants her to work with him?

I do not own Petyr Baelish or Lady Arryn. They belong to George R.R.Martin.

Warnings: Pretty dark.

Pairings/Characters: Petyr Baelish x fem!reader, Lysa Arryn

There weren’t many people in Westeros that Petyr Baelish didn’t know, or at least know of. That is until he saw you. Petyr came into the Vale, bowing his head at Lady Lysa Arryn. Then, his grey-green eyes landed on the young lady next to her. You. “Lord Baelish, allow me to introduce my new ward. Y/N of House Y/L/N.” You curtsied as etiquette dictated, but your eyes never left Petyr’s.

              “House Y/L/N? I have not heard of it. It must be a small house.“ You nodded slightly. “it is indeed, my lord.” Petyr nearly ignored Lysa as your eyes captured his again. There were secrets hidden behind those (e/c) orbs. Secrets Petyr was determined to uncover. “And your liege lord?” You glanced at Robin. “Young Lord Arryn of course.” Petyr could tell you were simply saying exactly what was expected of you. You knew how to play the game.

              Lysa smirked at your answer. Petyr took your hand in his and kissed the back of it. “It is a pleasure to meet you, my lady.” You smiled slightly. “The pleasure is mine, my lord. I trust you will have a comfortable and educational visit.” Petyr gave you one of his calculated smiles. This was going to be a very interesting visit indeed.

              One day, Petyr sighed as soon as the door closed behind him. It was exhausting pretending to be in love with someone. Especially when that someone was Lysa Arryn. “Something troubling you, Lord Baelish?” Petyr opened his eyes to see you standing there, the signature smirk he’d come to appreciate painted on your lips. “Nothing at all, my dear. I simply need to clear my head.”

              "Perhaps a walk will do you good. I was planning on taking one myself, if you would care to join me.“ Petyr arched a brow. Perhaps you were just as interested in him as he was in you. "A walk sounds delightful.” He offered you an arm, which you took gratefully.

              Petyr had come enjoy spending time with you, even with Lysa hovering. He had yet to figure out how your brain worked, but that just made him more curious. Petyr appreciated the challenge. “Now, I have yet to ask how you came to be Lady Arryn’s ward?” Your grip on his arm tightened slightly, a gesture that told Petyr something. You weren’t happy about this. “It was at my mother’s insistence. I am her only daughter and my brothers believed it to be their job to protect me. They scared off many potential suitors, encouraging my mother to send me away to find a suitable husband.”

              Petyr was silent. Of course that would be the reason. “And you are against this?” You scoffed. “Of course I am. I’m not a prized boar to be bartered away. I will not marry a man simply because it is what’s done. If and when I marry, it will be a man of my choosing.” There was a power in your voice that was unusual. You typically spoke in a soft, meek manner, as was proper for a young lady. “So, you intend on making it difficult for Lady Arryn to find you a suitor.” You nodded with a sly smile. “Clever girl,” Petyr thought to himself.

*time skip*

              Over the next several weeks, Petyr spent time every day getting to know you. He couldn’t believe that you’d been unknown to him before now. You were cunning, resourceful,  beautiful, and potentially deadly. The kind of woman that caught Petyr’s interest and kept him on his toes. The only kind of person Petyr felt he could confide in.

              "You plan to what?“ you asked him in a hushed whisper as the two of you walked through the Vale. "You heard me, Y/N. I plan to marry Lysa and then kill her. I will have control over the Vale until Robin comes of age. By that time, the boy will do whatever I wish for him to.” Your eyes were wide in surprise at his confession. “Why are you telling me this?”

              "Because I wish for you to assist me.“ You laughed humorlessly. "And why should I do such a thing? Lady Arryn has given me a home. She has cared for me.” Petyr stopped walking, gently grabbing your arm to make you look at him. “To free yourself. That is why. To be free to live the way you wish. To wed who you wish to wed.” You tucked your bottom lip between your teeth in thought. “And if I wish to wed someone here? If I wish to wed you?” Petyr stared into your eyes, the ones that had intrigued him from the start.

              "You don’t, my dear.“ You moved away from him slightly. "Who are you to tell me what it is I want? Do you plan to free me from Lady Arryn only to deny me what it is I truly want?” Petyr stood there, staring at you in what could only be described as awe. “What makes you think it is me you want?” You grinned. “I know your mind, Petyr. I know exactly what you want.” Petyr arched a brow.

              "What is it that you think I want?“ Your grin turned into a smirk. "Everything. You want everything.” Petyr’s eyes searched your face for any sign that you were bluffing. He found none. “And with me at your side, I can help you get it. Everything you want. Money, power, the throne.” Petyr blinked, unsure of how to respond. You really did know him. You knew his secret desires, things unknown to most everyone. A cheeky smile spread across his face. “Very well. Shall we?”

@silverwingedfox @line-viper @etherealpotter

@sol-martell

[johnnysqgh353-blog]

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The city with a lagoon, Venice is a superb spot to go romantic things to do in paris in december to and continue to be for a couple of times and Date Singles. The area has no streets, it can be crammed with canals and the most significant attraction with the vacationer should be to trip the gondola. Coupled with seafood, it has great artwork and architecture. Be sure you and also your Journey Buddy witness the Venetian Glass Blowing and take a walk along the Grand Canal if you are there. The Piazza San Marco is value a go to.

Bangkok, Thailand

The money city of Thailand, Bangkok is steeped in lifestyle and an extra of mouth watering food stuff and is particularly a lovely place to Trip With each other. Renowned for its Buddhist Temples and floating marketplaces, There may be more than enough in Bangkok to occupy the itinerary with the earnest vacationer and Satisfy Neighborhood Singles. Areas to visit include the Wat Phra Kaew along with the Wat Pho. The Wat Phra Kaew could be the Temple from the Emerald Buddha located Within the Grand Palace grounds.

Paris, France

Teeming with artwork and wine and Free Dating, Paris can be a desire desired destination that figures in each and every honeymooner's checklist. Notre Dame, Pantheon, museums, catacombs... there is much to complete in Paris Aside from sipping wine which is not a foul detail at all. Purchase a MetroCard, get Travel Girls, and also have a picnic in the park, you might save cash this fashion.

Hida-Takayama, Japan

Having an abundance of temples and shrines, Hida-Takayama or Very little Kyoto is dotted with riverside markets and conventional shops and may thrill your Journey Associate and you also. It has narrow streets with compact canals running together with it in many areas. You receive outstanding sake in outlets that have big cedar balls hanging in entrance.

Leiden, the Netherlands

The Netherlands is recognized for its tulip fields and canals and superb gabled homes. Driving a ship from the canal contains a magical come to feel to it. Leiden is near the cash metropolis of Amsterdam and has a good amount of historical points and canals to explore along with Nearby Dating. It's got innumerable cafes and bars that could demonstrate exciting.

Miami, the USA

Lined with cocktail bars and lounges, the beach locations of Miami gain it the most beneficial Nightlife of America title. There's loads of Spanish and street-artwork and the best meals you might visualize. It's teeming with gay people today, it is possible to Meet up with Locals, and possess Cuban themed cocktails.

And, what occurs at the end of the travel? The Male or Woman Traveler sets off again in pursuit of another experience halfway the world over simply because they should journey an incredible length to set their souls free of charge.

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