#little bone witch

[amlli]

griddleharks 😚🧡🤍🩷

[onceuponed]

˖⁺‧₊˚✦ 9 books like a fairytale

[kathrahender]

I'm starting to realize I mostly like straight ships when the main character is female instead of male 🤔

When the main character is male I usually ship him with other male characters instead of his canonical female love interest 💀

[musubiki]

my newest and cool lore tidbit that i was meditating on was how the m-34th makes their weapons and tools magic-resistant ... as an aside, its been in my mind for a while that magic has something to do with bones, like bones being the "pathways" of magic, and thus one of the hardest materials to work with as a witch if its possible to work with them at all.

im still fleshing out this idea and deciding if its something i want to work with but in practice how it manifests in the story is that magic cant/has a hard time healing broken bones, and a broken bone disrupts the flow of magic in a witch or mage (this was originally murdas weakness equivalent to mochis thing with water-- as the crow witch shes good at flying but only because her bones are easily broken). the reason im hesitating to use it is that it seems like a HUGE weakness for any witch but supposedly they have magic that can at least reinforce bones OR madam springs has methods for relatively quick organic healing

anyway back to the m-34th point, i think it would be fucking baller if they managed to create magic resistant shields and weapons by infusing the bones of past black canvases into a super hard metal material as to be able to cut down anything material and also anything magic

[inprogress-predicament]

Favorite Relationship Dynamic

Character A: *stone wall. no emotion.* Hm.

Character B: *vibrating to the point phasing out of reality* COME GET SOME MOTHERFUCKERS

[mayasaura]

I think I've found a way out of the political situation in The Locked Tomb. One that doesn't lead to massive loss of life, and still dismantles the empire of the Nine Houses.

John didn't create anything with the intention of it surviving him. He seems to have gone out of his way to do the reverse, and only build things that would catastrophically self-destruct without him. Empires are already powder kegs, and based on the information in As Yet Unsent, John rigged this one to go up like the sun. Here's an excerpt of Judith reporting what she understands of BOE's arguments:

Their other line of attack is the business contracts. They claim that the services asked of them by the Emperor were set down in lifetime contracts by previous generations, who assumed the contracts would be terminated upon the Emperor's death.

If this is true, and we have no reason to assume it isn't, John has either intentionally or accidentally made himself into a latter-day Alexander; building an empire that will immediately crumble at his sudden death. This looks like it provides an easy solution: Kill the Emperor, terminate the contract, freedom for the peoples of the greater universe! Glory to the resistance!

Problem is, even assuming this doesn't amount to the fiery genocide of the Nine Houses—which I'm assuming is not the direction this series is going—there is no external state or government-in-exile prepared to take over where the Nine Houses left off. BOE is a militia group made up of isolated and conflicting factions, and the Houses have been incredibly successful at destroying political and cultural unity in their colonies. The sudden cessation of the empire would leave a huge power vacuum, New Rho writ large across the face of the universe.

And the Cohort would still be there. The neat crumbling of John's empire relies on the Cohort respecting the terms of these ancient contracts. Every admiral and general jockeying for power in the void left by the death of the emperor has to agree that yeah, the empire thing has been great, loved the military conquest, but now that we don't have an emperor anymore let's pack it all in and go home. That isn't what happened to Alexander's empire, and it's not what I see happening here. Alexander's empire dissolved into 40 years of civil war, eventually leading to the creation of four successor states still under Macedonian or Greek rule. Most likely something similar would happen in the empire of the Houses: the universe would dissolve into open war as the dominant military powers duked it out. The Cohort vs the Cohort vs BOE, with thousands of smaller powers allying with one side or another. Who knows what this would do for the politics back home—how factions would develop in relation to House loyalties, what Houses would survive the fallout, and so on—but for the larger empire it would be a bloodbath. We got a little taste of that in Canaan House, when Judith and Marta tried to impose military rule.

This isn't an argument for the status quo, though I do see how the people most likely to die in the ensuing chaos would disagree. Then again, some wouldn't. The deadly blast of an empire imploding is still better than endless death and exploitation under colonial rule, right? But we're still looking at catastrophic loss of life, and we can only hope that when the dust eventually settles, whatever comes next will be better, and not just successor states under Cohort control.

Which brings me back to the ray of hope I see in this clusterfuck of a situation: Kiriona Gaia. Heir to the Emperor Divine.

Six months ago, John had something else in common with Alexander the Great: no clear line of succession. Now he has a publicly declared and recognized heir, and that gives the Nine Houses an off-ramp into peaceful dissolution. It wouldn't be too difficult for her to step into the role, especially if Ianthe and Sarpedon back her. No one is anticipating that the Emperor will ever die, so the leaders would want a figurehead to gather around for stability.

Once Kiriona's in power, she can start a controlled demolition eventually ending in her abdication. She can formally honor the contracts set to terminate upon her father's death, and negotiate to release occupied planets from imperial rule. This feels like naively wishful thinking, wanting to have my cake and eat it too, but I think the pieces are in place for it to actually work.

Kiriona is in the unique position of being set to inherit the empire without having been thoroughly indoctrinated into its power structure. She went straight from being on the bottom rung of the meanest most isolated portion of the interior to being the crown prince in the space of a year, and she hates it. We know her. She has no personal stake in preserving the empire, she has no respect for authority derived via power structures, and she places a high value on respect earned between individuals. All she's ever wanted is to have a positive, or at least affirming, connection with other people. She has a protective inclination, and she's been on the front lines to see the cost in human sacrifice maintaining an empire demands. So taking that all together, there's a good chance that, given the opportunity, she would want to dismantle the empire.

She wouldn't have to do it by herself. As emperor, Kiriona would have support from Paul and the Sixth House, and possibly the Third with one or both of its princesses. Ianthe and Corona have been planning for this, or something like it, for a long time. She's also Wake's daughter, with connections in BOE. If We Suffer can spin her succession as the result of a plot set into motion by Commander Wake, other wings of BOE might be convinced to parlay with the Houses.

It would also bring Gideon satisfyingly full circle, back to the first chapter of Gideon the Ninth. The series opens in media res, introducing Gideon in the final stages of executing a scheme utilizing loopholes, blackmail, technicalities, and straight up forging paperwork to corner her evil overlord into granting her independence. It would have worked, too. If Harrow's attention hadn't been more valuable to Gideon than her freedom, her 87th escape attempt would have been successful. She's good at this, and she understands what it's like to be desperately trying to escape exploitation. So it would be a hell of a thing, for her to end up in a position to use those skills she honed trying to escape the Ninth in unraveling the whole power structure that's been exploiting her since she was a baby.

Of course this series being what it is, anything like this would all have to happen by implication off-page while we aren't looking. The real story is in the people, not the politics.

[thehecklingmouse]

kaveh decides that hes going to go all out on his costume. Alhaitham cuts some holes in a bedsheet and calls it a day.

[raurquiz]

#happybirthday @SusanSarandon #susansarandon #actress #TheRockyHorrorPictureShow #DeadManWalking #ThelmaandLouise #LorenzosOil #TheClient #TheHunger #TheWitchesofEastwick #LittleWomen #JamesandtheGiantPeach #Stepmom #Enchanted #SpeedRacer #TheLovelyBones #ABadMomsChristmas

[witchcraftandgeekness]

After successfully invented spell

Kol: You are supposed to bang your fist against mine.

Freya: Why?

Kol: I am told it is widely accepted gesture for mutual success.

Rebekah: I love it when you two impersonate normal people.

[branmuffins22]

owl house headcanon: on "cursing" (profanity)

there's a prominent superstition on the Boiling Isles that using foul language drives bad luck out of the speaker and into their environment (or those around them), which is why they call it "cursing".

as such, people in dense towns (like bonesborough and latissa) tend to swear like sailors, to make sure the bad luck is always someone else's problem.

higher-end individuals (like rich people and coven officials) tend to avoid cursing, as a sort of amicable veneer: "we're all friends here, let's be civil, no need to endanger the negotiations," and all that.

catch Eda alone in public and she'll spout enough obscenety to fill a dictionary, but around her kids or at home she tones it down significantly, cursing only a little bit more than the normal amount. it's no fun to give bad luck to your own kids/house demon, since you'll be the one to have to clean up after the consequences, y'know?

King had a bit of a pottymouth before Luz arrived, but cleaned up his act somewhat under her early influence. however, in the subsequent months around Eda, Luz's filter weakened significantly, and King's followed suit.

luckily for Luz: Camila doesn't know any demon/witch swears; Amity, Hunter, and Vee were too sheltered to get acquainted with them; and Willow and Gus just keep quiet about it to keep Luz out of trouble.

when one of these bad words eventually makes its way into Camila's vocabulary and out of her mouth for the first time, she gets a solid few minutes of laughter out of the Hexside trio, who adamantly refuse to tell her why what she said is so funny.

[wizardemotions]

y'all just wait until i draw fem draco. it'll be all over for you (and also me, she's hot and i fucking KNOW this in my heart)

[pseudocyance]

guess who's re-watching death note

again

[potionpeddlerpatchy]

How would Sero react to you coming home after being away on vacation? :3

Well, first of all (and I don't know why) by I always feel like he would be doing the dishes when I was getting home! So, I would be relieved at first knowing that there would be as little house work to do after I unpacked.

SECOND! You know that boy would call out first and when I respond, would scramble to find a dishcloth to wipe his hands. It fails, but I could care less about how wet his hands on when he sweeps me off my feet into a gentle hug - with kisses peppering my face.

He would totally help me bring my bags in and unpack as he excitedly asks about my trip - after which I would find it difficult to leave his lap because he just wants me close. He says its to make up for the time he lost 😌😌😌

[sassytail]

Unlocking a lot of very interesting Gender and Religion crossover feelings tonight.

This probably has something to do with my several times rereading the locked tomb recently

[cuppykin]

I like this weird little lady