#sundered bond

[oops-prow-did-it-again]

Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths - Sundered Bond Summary

I have immense brainworms and I feel like nobody has read this book and everyone keeps saying untrue things about Lukka and I am going to go feral. So instead of doing that I'm going to just post a summary of the book bc I have nothing better to be doing and I read it like 2 days ago so it's very fresh in my mind

Overview

Lukka is a Captain of a squad of Coppercoat Specials, the most elite of Drannith’s military forces, and has been for the last 2 years of his life. After 20 years in service for Drannith, the soldier of one of only a few sanctuaries to have remained permanently standing in Ikoria becomes involuntarily bonded with one of the monsters that calls Ikoria home, and he’s forced to abandon everything he’s ever known, lest General Kudro—chief-of-command in Drannith and father of his fiancée—execute him out of fear of his “bonding sickness” destroying Drannith from the inside out.

[More under the cut...]

Characters & Names

Lukka—a human man somewhere between 40-50 years old who has been in the Coppercoats for over half of his life, and in the Specials for at least 2 years of it. He lead a team consisting of 4 others (Epha (sergeant and trapper), Nik (sniper), Gedra and Gox (twins that serve as trappers/hunters)). He was engaged to Jirina, daughter of General Kudro, and thought very highly of her.

Jirina—Lukka’s fiancée. A brown-skinned, dark-haired human woman that has a unique position in Drannith’s military due to her modest status in the Coppercoats, yet also is the daughter of General Kudro. She respects her father deeply but fears his authority too.

General Kudro—Lukka’s would-be father-in-law and Jirina’s father, the seasoned chief-of-command in Drannith. His position in power is very much based on authority and how well people believe in his authority, and he knows it. He listens closely to the reputations his people and the Coppercoats hold amongst commoners, for he knows a quiet drone can become an insurmountable roar fast enough. He is not afraid of resorting to underhanded tactics to “maintaining the peace,” either, and believes bonding magic to be a sickness, having kept it hidden from much of Drannith, despite researchers being aware of it for some time prior to Lukka’s bond.

Vivien Reid—A planeswalker that was staying on the plane, visiting to explore its strange magic and unusual crystalline formations. She admits to Lukka that she helps him out of curiosity, and in hopes he can teach her more about Ikoria, as she passes through in search of a place yet still to call home. She finds the way of life Lukka is used to in Drannith very odd and uncomfortable (the kill-or-be-killed mentality).

Winged Cat—Lukka’s involuntarily bonded cat-clade monster, a great, winged tiger, which goes unnamed throughout the story.

Brin & Rol—A bonder and her bonded monster that Vivien and Lukka befriend through the course of the story. Brin is a pale-skinned teenage girl with pink, wild and spiky hair, leather and homespun clothing, and a tuft of pink fur strewn over her shoulders. Rol (short for Roland) is a raccoon-like monster with pink fur and a round body, about the size of a horse.

Mzed, Dogsbreath, Nightshade, Toothcracker, & Sedra —Hunters that General Kudro hired to track down Lukka so he could be returned to Drannith as a prisoner. They are generally unruly, banter often, and rude to one another and to Jirina (whomst is forced to join them in their mission). Dogsbreath wears a mask resembling a dog, Nightshade specializes in poisons, Toothcracker is very physical and confrontational, and Sedra is known for being a bit… well, crazy.

Captain Falk—A man from the sanctuary of Skysail that the Hunters hire to take them to the Ozolith to catch up better with Lukka via a skyship called the Vermillion. 

Abda (AKA “Spiky”) & Rigi—A bonder and her bonded monster that Vivien and Lukka befriend through the course of the story. Abda is dressed in leather and homespun, a brown jacket with a white shirt beneath, and carries a long spear with a double-point. She has dark brown hair done up into spikes. Her monster, Rigi, is a squat, badger-like monster with brown fur that fades to white on its belly, tusks that protrude from its lower jaw, and black thorns that cover its back and shoulders, which extend down to its brow and cheeks. 

Barrow & Zeph—A bonder and his bonded monster that Vivien and Lukka befriend through the course of the story. Barrow is dressed in gray armor with white furs layered over the top, his hair white and swept back aside from two prominent spikes of hair at the forefront of his head (Lukka describes them as “horns”). Zeph is a cat-clade monster twice the size of Lukka’s winged cat, with a wild mane of white hair, and a body resembling a white tiger. It has two ram-like horns and glowing yellow eyes, and holds some control over electricity.Colonel Bryd—A colonel whom Jirina has quarrels with throughout the story, usually to humorous effect. He briefly takes over as Chief-in-Command after Kudro’s death, but Jirina overrides his authority by simply ignoring him.

Events

Lukka is on a hunt for a monster that has been killing livestock with his Specials team, Epha, Nik, Gedra, and Gox. He finds a sheep whose brain has been carefully extracted in an almost surgical manner. 

They come up with a plan for Lukka to stand as bait (implied that he always does this) after traps are set up in the area, and some hours later, the nightmare returns and attacks. The traps work at first, but the monster breaks free and rushes Lukka. The rest of his squad save him, and they end off the day happy to have succeeded, believing that they all will now have 4 days off-duty to do whatever they wish. Lukka intends to spend it on quality time with his fiancée, Jirina.

A scene from Jirina’s POV shows that she has much more stress going on in her life as General Kudro’s daughter than she lets on. Lukka doesn’t pick up on it, and tries to get her in the mood for some fun. She tells him “not in the office,” and they leave after Lukka convinces her to let him go with her to her room to relax. 

Interesting to note that despite Lukka’s high status in the Coppercoats, he admits to only having a cramped, shitty cot to sleep in, whereas Jirina, as daughter of General Kudro, has a bed big enough to accommodate the two of them with room to spare and a room on a higher floor of the Citadel.

After only a day off, Lukka’s team is called in despite their promised 4 days off, because a winged cat-clade monster has taken residence in a farm within Drannith’s third circle - the second-most wall Drannith has (it has 4, the first two being fairly weak and the first one hardly a wall at all, whereas the last two are thicker, and the final wall is enormous and big enough for entire troops to walk together, with ballistae and the like mounted there). 

Even so, farms and such are often kept in the third circle, because Drannith is forced to make use of all its space within its territory.

The winged cat has been said to have slaughtered 10-20 Drannith soldiers already and nobody can oust it, which is why Lukka’s team has been called in.

At the farm, Lukka is afraid of going into any buildings or crops, for fear of the cat ambushing them. Instead, he tries to draw it out, and sends his team to start setting traps and to get into position. He sets out some bait that is supposed to be brand-new from Drannith’s researchers (implied to be a division of the Coppercoat military).

They wait for hours, and while they begin to think the cat may have slipped past them (and Lukka starts privately panicking and worrying about what would happen if the cat has snuck further into Drannith without their notice), the winged cat suddenly bursts from the barnhouse. All while Lukka is still trying to reach for a weapon to figure out how to push his own attack, the following happens:

It shatters the wooden wall nearest Gox and slashes his stomach open with its claws, disemboweling him. He bleeds out.

The winged cat then fought briefly with Gedra, outmaneuvering her and slamming her to the ground, then ripped her throat open. She bled out as well.

Lukka started barking orders to retreat, and while Nik tried to listen, the cat caught up to her and picked her up, taking flight with her in its mouth, and shook her so hard that her neck was broken.

Epha fled. The winged cat turned its attention to Lukka. He stayed behind, intending to sacrifice himself so Epha could survive, in hopes that Epha could live to tell others in Drannith about the severity of the creature they were dealing with as well as simply wanting her to live.

The winged cat advanced on Lukka, and he found himself thinking of Jirina and hoping Epha made it back before the cat was finished with him, but before anything could happen between them, a bolt of green energy fired between them and he was knocked unconscious.

Lukka awakens in Drannith in a private hospital bed, where Jirina comes to see him. She is discomforted by the presence of military personnel that are already interrogating him.

Lukka, none the wiser about what has happened, tells his questioners what has happened, and the personnel seem unusually satisfied and cagey about his answers. They leave to inform Kudro directly, telling Jirina that the general requested they give the report immediately, and that Jirina not be allowed to speak to him beforehand.

Jirina briefly speaks with Lukka and he recounts what happened. He asks why the cat didn’t kill him. Jirina, out of anxiety, posits that Nik’s bolt that she shot off before she was killed perhaps hurt it more than he thought. Lukka, not picking up on her anxiety, isn’t convinced.

Jirina leaves to speak with her father. Colonel Bryd keeps her out his office until the military personnel from earlier is done giving their report.

General Kudro, upon speaking with Jirina, tells her that he is saddened by the news of what has happened to Lukka and informs her of bonding magic, calling it a sickness, telling her that he fears Lukka has fallen victim to it, and that he can’t allow it to spread into Drannith. Though he doesn’t say it directly, Jirina picks up on the cues that he means to execute Lukka—and may very well already be on the way to do so.

Though she finishes the conversation with her father on amicable terms, Jirina decides that she can’t let her father do this, and that she must find a way to convince him otherwise. She leaves to help Lukka escape Drannith ASAP. 

Upon returning to Lukka’s room, she dismisses the doctors so she can speak to Lukka freely, calling upon her authority as the general’s daughter to do so. Lukka, starting to get worried, begs her to tell him what’s going on. She tells him and he’s dismayed, but agrees to leave and follow along with her plan.

She and Lukka devise a plan for him to leave despite the location being the heavily armed Citadel in the center of Drannith. She asks Lukka to pretend to have taken her hostage, to walk out while holding a knife against her throat, threatening them to kill her if they attempt to apprehend him; doing so will assure nobody will even attempt to touch him, as nobody will want to be responsible for the death of the General’s daughter.

Lukka is horrified by the plan, and hates every moment of it, as he finds Jirina’s acting very convincing (as he does his own), but the idea of waiting around to die scares him more.

Once on the fringes of Drannith, Lukka lets her go (where she assures him she will smooth everything over with her father, she’s sure of it, and they share a pleasant goodbye), and flees on his own from there. He uses his knowledge of paths designed for Coppercoat usage and backways to avoid confrontations until he is met with checkpoints and gates leading out of the city. 

Expecting the news of a rogue Coppercoats Specials captain to not have reached so far already, Lukka tries to bluff his way through the security of a gate that is rarely used, but they catch on anyway. He refuses to fight back, even when they threaten him, because he can’t stomach the thought of killing “teenagers and soon-to-be retired old men for following their orders.”

Vivien surprises him by saving him, shooting her bow and throwing an animal spirit to distract the guards, giving herself and Lukka the opportunity to flee.

While all of this is going down, Jirina has returned to her father in Drannith, revealing that she is alive and unharmed (but not telling her father that it was a facade, of course). He tells her that Lukka cannot be allowed to simply run free, for letting such intimate knowledge of Drannith run away with someone who bonds with monsters is unacceptable. He tells Jirina he has hired Hunters—mercenaries of sorts, but for monsters—to hunt Lukka down and bring him back to Drannith, because if he sends Coppercoats after Lukka, the news will be all over Drannith, and he wants to keep the situation on the down-low. He instructs Jirina to go with these Hunters, as she knows Jirina best. Jirina goes to object, but Kudro tells her that she will do it if she is still loyal to Drannith, forcing her to do so or imply that she is no longer loyal to Drannith. She believes that once she and the Hunters retrieve Lukka, she can still convince her father to change his mind, but she does secretly begin to wonder if something may be seriously wrong with Lukka due to her father’s paranoia.

It’s some hours after Vivien aids Lukka that Lukka and Vivien have finally made it fully out of Drannith, and Vivien has set up a modest camp for them. Lukka finally gets a chance to reflect on what all has happened that day. He asks Vivien why she aided him, and she claims that she felt the burst of magic that came from him and the winged cat. She came to search for it, and was surprised to find it coming to her, and decided to intervene so she could learn more about him, admitting that her goal is mainly sating her own curiosity.

Lukka is a bit less than enthused that his only friend is now a woman that wants him as something of a specimen, but he’s willing to take all the help he can get, so he thanks her.

Lukka says that he needs to slay the winged cat so he can return home, to Drannith, wanting nothing to do with it, given how its ruined his life. Vivien reluctantly agrees to lead him to the cat, telling him she can magically sense its location, to an extent. 

He tells her that before they get too far beyond Drannith’s walls, he will need to stop by an outpost to restock on his own gear. He hopes that, given how far out the farthest outposts are, the news of his rogue nature won’t have reached them and he’ll be able to merely flash his stature at them.

Vivien agrees and, to Lukka’s relief, it works.

When they find the cat again, Vivien and Lukka are being attacked by a nightmare-clade monster. The cat saves Lukka, and Lukka, confused and upset, demands to know why—’There it was. The thing that had ruined his life. He wanted to laugh and cry all at once. [...] “Why not kill me too?”’

Vivien informs him that he is bonded, which is when Lukka finally learns about bonding magic. He laments how he never wanted this and reasserts his hatred for what has happened, and how he just wants to go home, but he also tells Vivien that he sensed something through the cat. He sensed that the Ozolith, a crystalline formation far north of Drannith, was somehow speaking to the cat and was what had driven it to attack so violently; someone was driving monsters to destroy Drannith via the Ozolith. He also felt how the cat was scared and how despite its violence, it had hardly eaten during its stint near Drannith, and how it actually didn’t want to be that close to it or the ‘twolegs,’ as it called them.

Vivien and Lukka come to the agreement that they should go to the Ozolith to learn more of what’s happening there.

As this is going down, Jirina and the Hunters find them. Jirina tries to talk Lukka down, but the Hunters attack him ruthlessly, and the winged cat becomes enraged. Lukka becomes overwhelmed as the situation escalates; Jirina tells him that if he comes home, everything will work out, but he is afraid and not so sure, and Vivien fires off her bow, and then—the winged cat picks him up by his clothing and lifts him into the sky.

The cat picking him up shocks Lukka to his core. He is no longer thinking of killing the cat. He even willingly explores the bonding magic, briefly, to see if he can convince the cat to let him onto her back so he can be more comfortable (which it does). He uncomfortably finds himself considering whether he should name it or whether he should call it “‘it’ or ‘she,’” but shoves away the feelings by reminding himself that she slaughtered 3 of his squad. Despite this, he starts calling her she, and later, he strokes her fur and rests on her back, even falling asleep at one point.

Before reaching the Ozolith, during their travels, the winged cat suddenly dives, and they meet Brin & Rol. Shortly after, they meet Abda & Rigi and Barrow & Zeph as well, who all agree to travel to the Ozolith as well after Lukka explains the sensations he felt through the winged cat about the voice that spoke through the Ozolith (though, hardly for the same reasons; Abda and Barrow are barely motivated at first until Brin points out that the Coppercoats will harm monsters en masse if they’re being driven to attack Drannith, much to Lukka’s annoyance).

They fly on Lukka’s winged cat to the Ozolith together. During this, while stopping to rest at one point, Vivien tells Lukka the story of how she lost her homeplane and how she is a Planeswalker, and about Nicol Bolas. Lukka is disturbed and refuses to let that happen to him.

At the Ozolith, they find nightmare-clade monsters guarding it. The bonders and Vivien agree to hold them off while Lukka swoops in and tries to interface with the Ozolith, to figure out what’s going on.

However, while this is going down, all hell breaks loose. The same Hunters from before, as well as Jirina, arrive via a skyship they rented from Skysail. It becomes a three-way brawl at the Ozolith, with Lukka and his allies, the Hunters, and the nightmare creatures all opposing each other.

Lukka touches the Ozolith and is overwhelmed with power by it. He speaks to an unnamed, unknown planeswalker through it. While in some sort of mental space where he can hear this planeswalker but not see them, he watches the raging battle as if from above. The planeswalker presses Lukka to accept the Ozolith’s power as his own, while Lukka rejects their proposals at first out of distrust (but admits that he just wants to go home and wants this to be over). The planeswalker has him watch Abda get shot with a ballista bolt from the skyship overhead, and after that, Lukka relents, allowing the planeswalker to grant him the powers of the Ozolith.

Lukka is returned to the battle and he lashes out with power via the Ozolith, gaining control of all of the nightmare-clade monsters as well as Rigi. His controlled monsters brutally kill most of the Hunters, and he even succeeds in downing their skyship. He only notices at the last minute that Jirina is still among them, in the vessel, as it plummets.

In the aftermath of the battle, Lukka is confronted by the bonders and Vivien, who are unhappy with how he forced the nightmare monsters to attack in such ways that they often killed themselves or gave themselves lifelong injuries (Rigi also died in the course of the battle). Lukka is shocked at their response, given how he believed he had just saved their lives, and is already thinking of how he can use his newfound abilities to protect Drannith and prove his loyalties to General Kudro in a whole new way. He and the others argue briefly, before Lukka loses his patience with them, and attempts to seize control of their bonded monsters anyway.

He’s unable to, and a fight breaks out again. Vivien berates him, telling him that she thought he was a good man, but she sees now that she was wrong; Lukka lashes out at her anyway, and she fires off a shot that produces a ghostly elk. It charges him and while he scuffles with it, Vivien and the other bonders escape.

Lukka lets them leave, no longer interested. He gathers control of the remaining nightmare monsters once more, calling them his “army,” and starts to plan his next moves to return home to Drannith. He also decides to scour the surrounding area first, however, in search of Jirina, because he isn’t sure what happened to her after the battle.

Unknown to Lukka, his winged cat—in the chaos—caught Jirina as the skyship fell from the sky. It then carried her back to Drannith, where it dropped her off at its innermost wall. Jirina managed to beg people to capture it and not kill it, but her arrival on the back of a monster, and then subsequent request, caused rumors throughout the city that Jirina has become a traitor to humanity. Kudro, out of fear of otherwise needing to oust or execute his own daughter, plans a public display where Jirina is slated to execute the winged cat, so the townspeople of Drannith may see where her loyalties truly lie.

Jirina realizes the tenuous position she’s in, but hopes that her father will be reasonable when he sees how truly unwilling she is to do it. She refuses. Kudro is not reasonable; angry and sad, he has Colonel Bryd take her away, and he slays the winged cat, much to Jirina’s dismay.

Jirina essentially becomes a prisoner in her own home after that point, unable to leave or do anything freely as she pleases.

Back with Lukka, he watches, through his bond with the winged cat, the public execution of the winged cat by Kudro. He realizes that the winged cat saved Jirina, all because it realized she was important to him, without him having had to ask, and he’s overcome with emotion. For a long moment, he sits silently, crying, before he gets up and furiously starts to reach further and further with the power of the Ozolith, gathering yet even more monsters for his “army.”

Lukka is desperate to go home and to return to Jirina, and has realized that if Kudro won’t let him by taking things out, then Kudro will kill him, and he refuses to let death be his only option forward. He starts to march his army towards Drannith.

Kudro amasses Coppercoat forces, and takes Jirina under the close eyes of guards, to meet Lukka and his army in the field after they spot him some distance away from Drannith, approaching. Kudro believes that they will not survive if they allow Lukka to meet their walls, but Jirina recognizes that fighting him in the field will cost an untold number of Coppercoat lives. Kudro later surprises her by revealing that Lukka has asked for a parley, and that he intends for Jirina to play an important role in it: she will assassinate Lukka. He gives her a dagger to keep in her pocket. Do this, and her name will be cleared, and she will no longer be a prisoner.

Even so, Jirina doesn’t want to kill Lukka and doesn’t intend to during the parley.

Lukka attempts to talk to General Kudro and Jirina during their parley. It’s hardly under peaceful terms; the parley occurs on an island in the middle of a raging river, and Kudro has ballistae mounted facing it. Lukka has a single monster facing the island from the opposing side of the river, or so it seems at first.

Lukka explains his idea of using monsters to guard Drannith instead of Coppercoats, explaining how humans need not die anymore in place of monsters. Let them die instead. Kudro, of course, is unbudging in his position on the matter and still thinks of Lukka as “sickened.” Jirina tries to pull Lukka aside and speak to him alone, telling him that this idea will never be accepted in Drannith; she begs him to give it up and simply come back.

Lukka is frustrated, because the way he sees it, if he “gives up,” he will be killed. He doesn’t believe Jirina can convince Kudro of anything.

Lukka comes to the conclusion that Kudro will have to leave the picture, seeing him as all that is keeping him away from his fiancee and home.

The parley starts to go awry. Lukka viciously denies Jirina and Kudro’s terms. Kudro tells Lukka off.

Lukka reveals that he was prepared for this eventuality on his own when monsters start bursting from the earth and the trees, disabling the ballistae and killing Coppercoats. In his fit of rage, he kills Kudro, and then turns to Jirina, babbling about how they can now have a life together—

…And Jirina swipes that dagger for him. She misses, only cutting his face in the process.

Furious and heartbroken, Lukka throws her into the raging river, snarling at her that she can die with the rest of the “traitors,” then—completing his arc of turning into the very monster Kudro was trying to prevent him from becoming.

Jirina escapes the river later, barely alive, and is confronted by monsters. Vivien and the other bonders that previously argued with Lukka save her and take her back to Drannith, where she asserts herself as chief of command despite the authority supposing to have gone to Colonel Bryd.

Lukka marches his monsters on Drannith, intending to force them to let him stay, or to drive everyone who fights him out so he can stay in their place. Jirina, however, has prepared Drannith by the time he arrives, and though there are hundreds and hundreds of casualties and plenty of damage, the city’s great walls hold. Jirina manages to get close to Lukka again and demands to know why he’s doing this, asking him if he really thinks he can just “come back” after this. He tells her that he intends to force them, that he’s not asking anymore. Jirina comments that he really has gone insane, and when Lukka goes to have monsters attack her again, the other bonders once again jump to her defense.

Lukka, once again, tries to seize control of the bonded monsters, as his army is spread thin at this point in the battle and no others are close enough to save him from the coming onslaught from Vivien and the bonders. The unknown planeswalker residing in the Ozolith warns him that if he does this, he won’t like what happens—but Lukka does it anyway, pulling more and more power from the Ozolith, until the great crystal shatters and explodes.

Pain floods his body and his army of monsters scream in agony as a reflection of his own. Fiery sensations course through him, as his spark ignites, and he internally laments how he just wanted to go home, just wanted to be with Jirina again. Then, he finally planeswalks away.

He awakes elsewhere, in a swamp, where three canid creatures take interest in him. He notes that he feels mentally fragile, like if he “shook his head too hard, it might break,” (or something along those lines), but despite that, he instinctively attempts to reach out to control the animals ahead of him. He controls one, which fights the others off. 

Grateful he has some power left, Lukka vows to go home, even though he knows that’s completely impossible, both literally and figuratively, showing that he has lost it completely at this point. And that’s where the story ends.

[wielderofmysteries]

I think it'd be funny if Vivien and Jirina become a thing because then I can say "Man she really managed to bring Lukka to a rock that mind-controlled him, recommended him for a raid that turned him into a monster, killed him, and then stole his fiance"

oh dude. vivien absolutely did get with jirina. you dont even KNOW

[windupaidoneus]

anyway yeah how hard would it be for him to acknowledge how he feels about the everything. ancient society (his baseline for everything) isnt exactly good at allowing people to express their feelings. hildegarde voice are we gonna have another soul bonding session about this emet voice i thought you didn't remember that hildegarde voice for the sake of this post i do but i'll go back to not remembering once it's posted unless we find a good spot in the story slash brain narrative for me to remember emet voice oh great and i'll have to deal with that too bother

[drfrankensteinvsthequeerborgs]

oh holy shit how am I just now putting together that the entire theme of the episode is healthy and unhealthy angel-human relationships? like we all know how Ishim/Lily is contrasted with Destiel but we also get Benjamin/his vessel. Like clearly they have the healthiest relationship because they've been together for centuries, whereas ishim/lily is v unhealthy, and destiel is caught in the middle, not friends, not foes, but some secret third thing (lovers)

[michaela-o]

Random things i think Cybertronians would find adorable about humans ~♡

1. Humans getting spooked by random loud noises because humans are naturally very jumpy about loud noises

Imagine:

you're sitting over at Swerve's bar, just chatting, having your drink on the counter Swerve let you sit on, because your makeshift little table and chair are work in progress. Suddenly some bot decides to honk their horn near you which makes you yelp and jump (like cats when they get scared of cucumber) which makes you almost spilling the drink as you were about to take a sip.

The whole bar stops and laughs at you. You just look at the bot who did it with the most unimpressed look ever (ㅍ_ㅍ)

2. Watching you stretch yourself because Cybertroniams aren't as flexible as humans

3. Sleeping

this may sound a bit creepy but from what i saw Cybertroniams sleep very eerily still and almost never move when they're in recharge because they're very vulnerable when doing so. So i think when they have their first sleepover with a human and they happen to fall asleep sooner and they start to either sleep walk or sleep talk (which fun fact, i do a lot ( -᷄ ᎑ -᷅ ) ) the bots would look in utter confusion like- "ya all don't stay still?? How???" I think Cybertronians would also find cute how groggy humans are when they wake up and them needing proper time to load into the world around them. Oh god and wait till they hear about the weird ass dreams humans can have or humans trying to explain déjà vu to a bot💀

(makes me think of Sunder being frustrated bc he wouldn't be able to get into a human's brain😝)

4. Physical Clumsiness

The occasional clumsiness and lack of precision in human movements. I think a lot of bots would find this very amusing to occasionaly watch since Cybertronias are typically more coordinated and precise in their actions. Like imagine bot walking with a human who let's say just woke up earlier to a meeting and are slowly walking around occasionaly hitting themeselves or their arm with a corner of a wall because their sleepy processor didn't calculate the trajectory good enough. I think they would find this rather adorable (๑´>᎑<)

5. Emotional Reactions

Yes i think humans are way more sensitive than Cybertronians are. Human's exaggerated emotional reactions to minor events, like getting overly excited about a sports game or being deeply upset by a small mishap, could be seen as amusingly disproportionate. Like imagine you drop your favourite mug on the floor and it breaks as much as your heart in that moment. You walk around the ship super sad, like a kicked puppy, and the bots can almost feel the sadness dripping off of you so they ask: "Hey uh- you okay?"

And then you proceed to explain that you broke your favourite mug and that you'll never find a mug similar to your favourite one. The bot stares like ಠ_ಠ. Oh so that's the reason? Okay so apparently humans don't pack bond with only random things that are alive but even with things that aren't.

6. The uncanny valley effect

I think bots would find rather fascinating how human brain responds to this phenomenon. Like- the human brain can feel that something is off and can't be fooled. Imagine holoforms in Cybertronians. Like yeah they can look very appealing but only up to a certain point which when that point is reached it tickles that one part of the human brain which tells us "na-a-ah something ain't right"

At one point they wanted to wtiness this in real life so some bots (Percy, Brainstorm) made a set up of holoforms and real looking hologram of humans and waited for you to figure out which unsettles you the most. They were surprised that you were 100% accurate in this and that you were able to tell which one are holoforms and which aren't.

7. Expressions of Wonder

the awe and wonder in the human eyes when we are encountering something new or beautiful, such as a breathtaking landscape or a technological marvel. I think Cybertronians would find this pretty adorable, very innocent and reflective of our curious nature.

8. Human Fragility

I think the most popular one. The general physical fragility of humans, along with our tendency to bandage minor injuries or get flustered over small pains, might be viewed as cutely vulnerable for many Cybertronians.

Feel free to add anything you'd like !!😄🫶🏻🫶🏻

[magistralucis]

Conflict in Literature + Necron Books

(Read more for titles and notes, watch out for spoilers)

Man vs. Nature - Devourer This is not the only necron vs. tyranid lit, but I thought the cover illustrated the conflict best. Out of all the horribad things in WH40K, the tyranids tend to be presented as the closest faction to a natural disaster; certainly in Devourer they do not logically justify their presence, nor can they be reasoned with, not by the Blood Angels or Anrakyr or the Tomb World he's trying to wake. Not mindless, but an amoral happenstance, like nature itself.

Man vs. Society - The Lords of Borsis Necron court intrigue played straight, with a sprinkle of delusion on the side. Since this story revolves entirely around the schemings and plottings of necron(tyr) society, with changes in dynastic hierarchy as the final objective, it fits best here.

Man vs. Technology - Indomitus This is an awkward placement, since Indomitus was not, well... a compelling story, with most of its tropes not being explored beyond their first introduction. But it is the most bare-bones way of describing this book's premise. Humans battling a robotic malignancy, albeit with a Bolivian Army Ending, which doesn't conclude the plot in either direction 😞

Man vs. Man - The Twice-Dead King: Ruin Ruin is an exceptionally deep novel, and fits every conflict listed here. It was the hardest one to place, because it's not so much choosing the one that goes best, rather crossing off every other conflict not central to the story. Both gods and the absence-of-gods are a problem in Ruin, as well as nature and technology, but they're not at the heart of Oltyx's problem. Society could be a big one, since Oltyx is an exile - but he’s not trying to antagonize his society throughout Ruin, he's trying to work with it, or at least save it from doom. Self and reality both count, but fit better with other stories in the Nate Crowley corpus. So man vs. man it is. His most important clashes are all with individuals ('man') - Djoseras, Unnas, Hemiun, arguably Yenekh in reserve - and by the end, his crownworld is overrun by the Imperium, who will become the antagonists for the second part of his tale. Man vs. 'Man', with a capital M.

Man vs. Self - The Twice-Dead King: Reign Again, this could have gone elsewhere. In man vs. reality, perhaps, or the god-related ones. But the self is where the conflict of Reign truly lies, since Oltyx's greatest obstacle is himself, and it is his inability to accept that which brings his dynasty close to destruction. Thank goodness he got over that one.

Man vs. Reality - Severed The emotional and philosophical core of this novella relies on it. Zahndrekh's inability to see the world as it is brings about the whole plot, and is at the centre of all of Obyron's musings. Interestingly, reality does not win at the end, at least not what necrons envision reality to be: a place of cold hard facts, with no room for emotion. Zahndrekh would rather dream the impossible dream, which might be the healthier way to deal with their situation.

Man vs. God - The Infinite and the Divine 🚨 𝔻𝕆 ℕ𝕆𝕋 𝔹𝔼 𝔻𝔼ℂ𝔼𝕀𝕍𝔼𝔻 🚨

Man vs. No God - Crusade: Pariah Nexus Not a novel, not 100% about necrons, not even out yet as of now (Dec 2023). This is an inherently problematic conflict for WH40K, because gods are very real and very present in that universe... here I'm only thinking about the necron perspective, and the civil war unfolding in their lore. They banded together in a shared purpose eons ago, destroying the Old Ones who oppressed them, and sundering the star gods who subjected them to biotransference. Now they are as antigod as they could be, and they did not retain their bonds, they have once again turned on each other. So it goes.

Man vs. Author - Codex: Necrons (10th Ed.) (Collector's Ed.) James Workshop knows what they did. 😑

[castellankurze]

ok but for real FF14 fans we gotta talk about the next 20 years in Eorzea cause it's gonna be wild

*There's gonna be some general Shadowbringers & Endwalker spoilers in this post.*

I'm making this now because something in 6.5 reminded me of this idea - no spoilers for 6.5 in particular though.

------------------------------------

So first, quick refresher: the FF14 setting has a pretty standard for the genre afterlife wherein souls of the dead merge with the planet's lifestream, they beat about for awhile, maybe ruminate on their past life, and then they can either merge with the greater whole or be reborn as new people. This got outlined all the way back in the 2.x patch series and became a major part of the plot for the Shadowbringers expansion, wherein the Warrior of Light is revealed to be a reincarnation of the ancient soul of Azem, or how the character Gaia is also a reincarnation of one of the Ascians.

Also a major part of the Shadowbringers plot are the revelations about the secret history of the world. How in forgotten ancient times, civilization threatened by a calamity called the Final Days offered up hundreds or possibly thousands of souls to create the god that would be known as Zodiark who would preserve the world, and how in time the goddess Hydaelyn would be created as an opposition to Zodiark's power. And that she ultimately sundered him into 14 pieces - and because Zodiark's nature was fundamentally tied into the essence of the world, when he was broken so too was the very planet and every living soul upon it, divided into the singular 'Source' and thirteen 'shards.' As part of Shadowbringers' plot, the character of Ardbert is revealed to be the First-shard part of the soul of the Warrior of Light, reuniting near the end of 5.0, and to villain Emet-Selch, these sundered souls are a pitiful shadow of the powerful, vibrant beings they once were in ancient times, unworthy of life.

Now here's where things get interesting.

During the course of our Endwalker adventures, we reach the lunar prison where the body of Zodiark is held captive. Due to some villainous machinations, the ancient god's bonds have been partially broken and his essence is leaking out, taking the form of ancient shades wandering about. One in particular we speak to is named Hythlodaeus. We had previously met this character - sort of, in the form of a memory conjured by Emet-Selch. This is the true Hythlodaeus, an ancient soul sacrificed to bring Zodiark into being. Despite joining the multitude of souls and the long slumber in imprisonment, he's coherent and holds a conversation.

Unsurprisingly, as the main character of a Final Fantasy title we go on to kill our setting's oldest god, and in so doing get a good look at the effect of the sundering on Zodiark: namely that in his case it was pretty literal, splitting off pieces of his body. However the interesting part of the Endwalker's implications is that while Zodiark was sundered, the individual souls that made up his being were not - after this confrontation we see and speak to our old new friend Hythlodaeus again, and again, both in a journey to the distant past and as we call up his soul for aid at the climax of the story...and he's the same person every time.

This...strongly hints that the myriad of ancient, unsundered souls which made up the bulk of Zodiark's essence have returned to the lifestream, and while major characters like Hythlodaeus, Emet-Selch and Venat seem content to leave the cycle of reincarnation for good and pass the world on to us modern folk...is that going to be true for everyone?

Are there, in fact, dozens - hundreds - thousands of Ancient, unsundered souls milling about in the aetherial sea, contemplating a return to the living world? Will the world of Etheirys over the next few years see a sudden wave of children with incredible power as these souls start to be reborn? Will the Warrior of Light, a soul merely eight times rejoined, be eclipsed in sheer strength by the might of a new generation?

The story will probably never go to such a place - after all it would essentially undo the themes of its two biggest expansions, and besides which, the story of FF14 as a whole will probably not venture so many years down the timeline to explore such a possibility.

But still. They say everything old is someday new again.

[myfavouritelunatic]

To Bind You to Power

Surprise! It's a prequel to my Dark Priest!Sauron fic, The Faithless and the Powerful!

Courtesy of the wonderful @theriverwild and her amazing inspirational abilities! You've done it again!

Here lies a glimpse into Sauron's mind, as he manipulates both Galadriel and Pharazôn into his designs, leading up to the beginning of the main fic.

Now part of my series, A Shadow Over the Star...

She placed the pouch back in his hand, a physical expression of a last chance. What that heraldry must represent for her, and what it might yet represent for him. Peace… he had been seeking it. It was all he had wanted, all he had wished to find when he set out across the sundering seas with that doomed ship. Any chance to find peace, he would take. Whether it meant spilling perilous whisperings into the ear of Lord Pharazôn, or achieving peace, together, with this elf that was the closest he had come to an equal in so very long. Or might there be something in the way her fingers lingered upon his hand in that moment just passed? A silent communication of more than her just begging for allyship. She sensed the darkness in him too, he could see it in her eyes. Halbrand knew already, it would make for a powerful bond between them. And he could fill her with such power that she would smile, succumbed and enraptured. A being fit to be queen at his side. Though if she cared for him deeper than she claimed, than she realised… it would make her even more easy to exploit.

Word Count: 7.6k

Warnings: None really, this is surprisingly tame compared to the original fic, but it still definitely contains the same darkness. And a little Saurondriel action. Because of course.

Enjoy! 😈🖤

[witchofhimring]

To you who is lost

Chapter 1: Duty is the death of love

Chapter synopsis: Your husband leaves for despair and death. Left behinde, you are left at the mercy of others.

Warnings: Angst, abandonment, crying, pregnancy

Note: Usually I save notes for the end but this time I will also put some at the beginning. I am using their Quenya names (ex. Maedhros is called Maitimo).

Emmeril, Airin and llë are my OC's

You would lament thereafter for the lack of foresight. The wise in Arda would mourn their kindred, who had stepped out of bliss and into woe. Nerdanel, Amarië, Anairë, these great women of the Blessed Realm were linked in sorrow to those left behind. You joined this tragic assembly, united in regret. Days would waste away as you asked " What was there to be done?". Anguishing over every time you could have forestalled these harrowing events.

It had been a storm, slowly strengthening until its power was too great to prevail. Deceived, one and all had been taken in. Melkor's repentance had seemed so genuine. Save Tulkas and Curufinwe none had heeded any notion of trickery. Now the dark Vala's laughter rang in Angamando, echoing off the stone walls. In your own halls, you sighed. Brought so low you were a specter of the beautiful young elf maiden whose laughter had lit up Tirion. These days were dark with the Alduya felled.

"Will you come to bed?" Amarië, whose suffering was as great as yours, came forward. Together they cast their gazes to the darkness beyond. All of Arda had been plunged into an impenetrable shadow. Amarië's light was much dimmed, her golden hair hanging forlornly. She had always been pale and thin but her boundless joy had given her strength which many envied. They need envy no longer. Findaráto had sworn to return and Amarië held him to it. She was bound to him, although not formally, and believed he would return. For a time Amarië would remain before departing. She would dwell in her home and wait for Findaráto.

You had been gifted no such reassurance. Cast off, Maitimo had spurned every vow he made. Bitter words were exchanged, things that could not be unsaid. Unlike Amarië's stalwart serenity, you had wept. Your marriage had been waning for some time now. When Curufinwe stormed into exile you followed to Formenos. In Formenos you would lose your husband.

The laws of the Eldar commanded that husband and wife be one in all things. Never had you any cause to doubt these customs. Naturally, a husband and wife must cleave together. Growing up in a big, tightly-knit family, a certain worldview had been formed. There was never any doubt that if you married your husband would always protect you. And how could you not? Your father had always been so devoted to your mother, his desire to make her happy endless.

Your worldview had been, to a degree, changed when you married Maitimo. The house of Finwe had been in turmoil for quite some time. Since Finwe cemented his union Indis despite the protests of his son Feanaro, his progeny had torn at one another. Though to Nolofinwe's credit, the war was pitifully one-sided. Even those who had never encountered either prince heard of the brotherly animosity. A pungent cloud of this great house, many feared for the day a storm would break. Coming from a close family this was something of an anomaly. Your father had quarreled with his brothers, but nothing could sunder their bond. Your mother had her gripes with her sisters, but their love always brought them together again. Being the eldest of your family you had the unenviable job of keeping rambunctious youngers siblings in line. However no matter what troubles came your, love and affection remained. Perhaps this made the end inevitable.

You begged him not to leave that day. The death of High King Finwë plunged all of Arda into grief. Sickening amounts of blood were saturated into the ground. From there after that very spot was stained by Melkor's vile deed. The smell sent your head reeling and burning bile to bubble. You had never seen a dead body before and abhorred the slaughter of animals. They might think you weak for it, but you knew this sight would curdle the blood of even the most austere of elves. Wails of despair took the place of joy. The light had faded and everything became dark. If only it had stopped there, oh by Eru how you wished this was the worst.

It all started on a day filled with joy. Manwë had summoned the Houses Fingolfin and Curufinwë, ordering peace between the two families. Brother took brother in hand and promised peace and friendship. Though how sincere Curufinwë was remained unknown. Many times you had witnessed Curufinwë rage over his younger brother. He howled over the "spawn of Indis" and cursed him. Such festering resentment could not be swept aside by simple sweet words. "I know we should be glad. But I can not help feeling dread." Maitimo simply took your hand in his. "I assure you that nothing bad will happen." His smile reassured you. Oh how wrong he was. When the darkness fell confusion and fear reigned. Finwë was dead, the Silmarills stolen and half of the Edain of Valinor gone. The only respite was Arafinwë returning to take leadership.

All the lights went out. Melkor had drained the trees of all their light, and from there he fled. But there was no running from the darkness. Warmth and light were replaced by darkness and dread. Wails of the bereft took the place of laughter. You who had once been so full of joy had only despair for company. Things had been far from perfect even before the oath. When Curufinwë had been exiled your husband went with him. Of course, you understood his duty as the eldest son. But it didn't make the move from Tirion to Formenos. That day you had to leave behind all those you loved. Try as you might to sway Maitimo to stay, it worked to no avail. In those days you would have done anything for him, and so where he went you followed. You tried not to complain. Even when Curufinwë's temper became unbearable, or your friends stopped sending letters. You could not blame them, living in the court of temporary King Nolofinwë and keeping in touch with you was risky. At least your family was supportive. Your younger sisters and brothers But even in those cold days you still would never have thought Maitimo would leave you. The years had been trying, but he still cared for you in those days. Years later in the dead of night, as you lay awake, you wondered if every "I love you" had been a lie.

"Please, if you have ever loved me you would stay." He did not meet your eyes. He just looked back to the army assembling in the courtyard below. "Have I not followed you all these years? What could I have done for you to cast me aside!" You seized his arm. Gently he pried you off him. "Y/n, you must understand that I have to go. Of course you may follow me-" "I have done nothing but follow you! Maitimo this is suicide!" It was at this point your father in law chose to appear, ascending the steps in a storm of fury. "If you do not choose to follow your husband, as you are sworn to do, then you are no wife!" Temperamental, yes, but now there was the flame of madness dancing in his eyes. Curufinwë had taken leave of his senses. "My vows said that I would follow him as my conscious dictates! As your wife has stayed in Valinor so shall I." The comment was poorly timed. Anger beat so furiously in your chest that you thought not of the consequences. With a roar of unbridled fury, Curufinwë drew his sword. Horrified, both you and Maitimo stepped back. The tip was right at your neck, an inch further would slice the flesh. "Depart, faithless wretch! And do not let me find you lurking in these hall again lest I strike you dead!" Maitimo drew you away and behind him. "You will cease your insults of my wife." You stared up at him in awe. Here he was standing up to his father, possibly the greatest of the Noldor. You had thought at that moment Maitimo had seen sense. He led you off to a room, away from his father and the chaos below.

"Maitimo!" You flung your arms around his shoulders. An elated kiss was placed on his forehead. But his eyes were sad with what you later realized was guilt. Gently he pried you off of him. He was gentle but his actions indicated he wanted to put distance between you and himself. "Do-?" You were unable to finish. Maitimo closed his eyes and whispered something so quietly under his breath you almost missed it. Almost. "Please." "Maitimo?" Your temporary relief was dashed as quickly as it came. "Y/n, I must follow my father." One could hear a pin drop. Your world had been torn apart, fractured almost beyond repair. "My Lord-Maitimo! You must not!" Your body was shaking, horror gripping you like a vice. Your legs seemed unable to hold themselves, such was the agony you felt at that moment. Falling to your knees, you started to beg.

"Husband, if you have any love for me then-" Suddenly Maitimo's could not even meet your eye. "You will not sway me Y/n." His voice was hard, cold, a tone he had recently adopted and that reared its head more and more frequently. You could not believe what you were hearing. Your husband seemed to disregard the bond between man and wife, that they must always stay side by side. And here he was abandoning you at your hour of need. You were scared. Finwë was dead and the rest were in self imposed-exile. The journey ahead scared you. To leave the safe haven of Valinor was suicide. You could understand avenging the King, you had great love and respect for him. And as King he must be avenged. But this was beyond simple revenge. This very act would tear apart the house of Finwë, and all of Valinor. Your family. Curufinwë's heart had turned dark and following him to this end. And there was another, more overriding reason. A shaking hand went to your stomach.

It could be a lie to say that everything had been perfect before the darkening. Hard to admit, but your presence in the family was not welcomed by everyone. Curufinwë and his son who shared the same name looked upon you with disdain. You were to head-in-the-clouds for them to ever like. You tried, only to end in ridicule and failure. The escalation was partly your fault, afraid of causing trouble Maitimo was never told. Looking back, telling Maitimo might have been wiser. Alas, you did not. This was not to say the rest were unkind. Never had there been a great closeness between Tyelkormo, Carinstir and yourself, there was also never ill blood either. Though you were better acquainted with the latter's wife, Ilë. Macalaurë had always been kind but rather unapproachable, him being so proud. You supposed that was what Emmeril liked about him. The twins you were the closest to, out of the lot, Telvo and Pityo. His cousins hailing from the house of Nolofinwë you held a greater preference for. Save Turokáno who thought you rather silly.

There lay a great enmity between the houses Curufinwë and Nolofinwë. Or rather, Curufinwë held a deep mistrust and dislike of his younger brother. The ill sentiment had spread like a poison to all his kin, even the children. During the exile in Formenos you were forced to meet Findecáno and his younger sister, at times with Arakáno. Those years had been hard, especially for those such as Turkafinwë and Maitimo who forged deep bonds with their kin. Curufinwë the younger missed Írissë, despite his attempts to hide it. Those years in Formenos had been horribly lonely, bereft of company. With a family far away and friends forced to stay in Tirion company was limited. Only two friends had accompanied you. But denied company they soon started to despair. Despite what it cost you have them leave. Many tears had been shed that day. The resentment between the various members of Curufinwë started to devour the residents. Anger brewed, bitterness ensued.

"And Indis's brood wander those halls, our halls! What right... what claim does the House of Indis have to my father's throne! The throne of my forefathers!" Around Curufinwë's table everyone sat, save Ilë who pleaded exhaustion. The rest of you were not spared Curufinwë's rage. Sitting next to Maitimo your hands shook, his hand on your knee. The twins sat closest to their father, though Telufinwë not leaning in as close. Turkafinwë's seemed unusually thoughtful, for such a brash elf. Curufinwë the younger's face was obscured from shadow, his silent wife beside him. Morifinwë was leaning in towards Curufinwë with a red flush crawling up his face. Kanafinwë and Emmeril sat on the sidelines, observers of Curufinwë's rant. You would give anything to leave this table.

"What of our Uncle Arafinwë?" Maitimo was far too fond of his half-uncles for Curufinwë's liking. You could see his thin pale lips tighten. His dark blue eyes, bloodshot, narrowed in on Maitimo. "He is his mother's son." Curufinwë's stance was clear. Your thoughts went to Amarië who you had not seen in years. Last you heard Findaráto had pledged to marry her. Wondering if Curufinwë would allow you to attend their wedding, you looked outside. Formenos was cut off from the rest of Valinor. Held up in these mountains it was hard to see anything else. It only served to make you feel more nervous.

"Though, I do wonder if not everyone is paying attention." Curufinwë's tone made it seem he was scolding a child. Except it was you. "My apologies." Quickly covering your mistake, you sat there rigidly. "My wife meant no offense." Maitimo was swift to defend. Curufinwë looked ready to say more but chose to abstain. All you could do was stare at your lap, numb with anxiety.

Maitimo had changed. The bleakness and chill of Formenos had worn on everyone. Exhaustion had settled over the residents like a heavyweight. Loneliness became a constant companion, stalking you like a specter. In the beginning, it was not so bad. You spent time making this place a home. A small garden was built in the courtyard with help from Maitimo. Carefully you tended to the delicate petals, their white petals reflecting light. He would wind them in your hair, cascading down in a waterfall of flowers. They spent much of their time holed up inside their room. It became a safe haven, a world that separated themselves from all the torments outside. Light blue curtains adorned the windows, you had elected for a more simple style. Windows were left open a crack letting fresh air in. At times like these you could forget about everything.

The years passed and the bond between husband and wife started to crumble. A great toll was upheaving this family. Twelve years was but the link of an eyes to elves. For this family however, it dragged on. Every moment served to increase Curufinwë's rage and desire to avenge himself burned within. Like a disease it spread, its symptoms laying low the spirits of his heirs. Maitimo became sullen and the fire within seemed to flicker. The letters hailing from Tirion, where his beloved cousin Findecáno resided, remained unopened for days. When Maitimo finally did dare to gaze upon the contents they were for him only. Afterwards Maitimo would grow sullen once more and would disappear. Behind his back, although it brought guilt, you read its contents. It was the words of a cousin who missed his friend. He talked of times past and expressed joy in those to come. "I hope for further joy, so that all ill will become forgotten." He had written. Letters arrived from your sister as well. Airin was the closest in age to you, being only a few years your junior. Residing in the court of Anairë, Airin would provide information. King Nolofinwë ruled wisely and was much loved. Such tidings brought you no joy. Eru knew what Curufinwë might say. She was not the only one to bring information, Findecáno wrote to you as well, with affection that did little to curb a growing fear. He wished you well, that the days bring peace, but those words soothed not. There lingered an underlying anxiety to his words. Try as he might to cover it up.

"My dear daughter, we are well. But it would truly warm our hearts to know you too are well. Do not forget that all of us (yes, all of us) miss you dreadfully" Those letters remained in a safe wooden box. Sometimes you would read them when lonely. Even your brothers, who were a great many years younger, had written. Sadly, letters were no substitute for true company. Ilë, wife of Carnistir, was a good friend. But as time dragged on Ilë retreated and clung to her husband. Less and less she patrolled the halls, staying with her husband in solitude. Making friends with the other elf maidens, there was still a poignant loneliness. All they did was remind you of those left behind.

"It is merely your father's words, my love. Your uncle would never harm any of us." Your husband's anguish hurt you in turn. As a wife it was agonizing to know his pain and yet have no balm to heal the wound. Another one of Findecáno's letters lay forlornly on the bedside. Instead of bringing joy they served to torment. Maitimo was slumped against his chair by the windows. His bright blue eyes were focused on the mountains beyond. You stood beside him, fingers running through his red hair. For a while you said nothing. Gently you stroked his cheek which was unusually sallow. Leaning forward you kissed the cheek. Slightly, he leaned into your affection. "I know you will do what is right." Had those words strengthened him, or heaped on yet greater pressure onto Maitimo.

Everything changed when that great host left Valinor. You were left alone and exposed with no one to protect you. Everyone was either gone or wanted nothing to do with you. Maitimo had ordered those of his followers who stayed behind to protect you. But would they be able to? And could you, in good conscience, place those who were under your care into great danger? Thank Eru Arafinwë took pity on your condition. You had been barricaded in Formenos for fear when the youngest son of Finwë and his host came upon the fortress. To your surprise, he brought along Indis and Nerdanel. Despite your disgrace, they brought you with them to Tirion.

You sat on a bench with an outlook to the garden below. Despite its glamorous beauty, it brought you no joy. There was no light for the Two Trees had been utterly drained. It felt like divine providence, the trees set and your love as gone. Now it was dark as the hole in your heart. "Y/n, dear, you should no linger in the cold for so long. "Nerdanel stepped out onto the outlook. " Is it dinner already?" You drew your cloak tighter around yourself. Instinctively your hands cradled your ever expanding belly. "Yes. And Indis has prepared your favourite." At one times these temptations would have been rather tempting. But no food could fill you. Not now. "If not yourself then at least for him." "You are so certain?" Coming from Nerdanel the Wise the idea she might already know was not preposterous. Relenting, you got up. The baby was all you had left.

"And are we to forget that this woman chose to go into exile, against all common sense and decency." It was as you expected. Even with the new Lord of the Noldor beside you. It was Arafinwë's first council as leader (would that make him King now?) in the great halls. You remembered that last time you had been here. How Curufinwë unsheathed his sword and pointed it at his own brother. You recalled the horror and revulsion on the audience's face, and now all their eyes were on you. Every important lord and lady of Valinor were judging you. It hurt to know that some of them had once been your friends. Perhaps everything had been a lie. Your husband despised you and the rest of Valinor bore mistrusted.

"You forget, My Lord, that as a Princess and member of her lord husband's household, she was bound to follow him to whatever ends. It was only when it all became too much did Y/n depart from her husband. Her moral convictions won out, and despite their fëas being one she forsook him." Arafinwe's voice held a steely edge you had not yet heard before. The youngest son of Finwë was often misconceived as being shy, timid even. This was a misconception, he was simply quiet. Never should one misconstrue kindness for complacency. But one should never be complacent with the belief that silence means stupidity. Arafinwë stood up, white robes billowing behind him. You felt Nerdanel place a comforting hand on your shoulder. "Have we fallen so far that we would attack a lonely woman? If we are to proceed with revenge in this matter, are we truly worthy to live amongst the Vala and Maia?' Some had the grace to look ashamed. Despite this, there were still some who had misgivings.

"My Lord, if I may speak." Lady Nimlothel served the house of Nolofinwë, more specifically it was his Lady wife she owed her allegiance to. With an elegant stride, she took the floor. "You may." Arafinwë answered, although his eyes looked wary. "The Lady Y/n is not responsible for her husband's ill deeds. Although I would like to add that Lady Nerdanel never fled into exile, a most wise decision. I suggest that the Lady Y/n retire, at least for a time. It would be unwise to allow such a remnant of Curufinwë's treachery to remain here." You felt so cold, so alone. They might not lock you up, but exile was little better. You would hide away, a forgotten remnant in a far off castle. An embarrassing chapter of Arda's history. Arafinwë sat down, troubled. "This council is dismissed. We shall convey at morning tomorrow."

"We may reside by my parent's hearth. They extend this offer to you too." Emmeril had bolted the chest shut. Sitting on a bed you watched Makalaurë's wife hastening departure. She along with Airin, wife of Curufinwë the Younger (your husband's brother) remained in Valinor. Ilë alone had departed, swearing to follow her husband Morifinwë, to whatever end. You prayed to Eru she would be well. Airin had long since departed. Saddened over the loss of husband and son she departed, destination unknown.

"My Lady, is that all?" One of Emmeril's handmaidens entered. "Take these out to the yard, then we depart." Once the handmaiden departed Emmeril turned to you. "What do you hope to accomplish by staying?" The bond between Emmeril and yourself had never been great. It was not personal dislike so much as never truly understanding one another. Emmeril was stern and hard, chafing against your soft and easy nature. But she had never been cruel or given you reason for mistrust. Emmeril's reasoning was wise in this matter. Leaving Tirion could allow you to start anew. You might have done so if it were not for the babe that dwelt within you. What sort of life would your child have? A permanent exile for the rest of their days? Could you even call yourself a mother while condemning a child to such a fate? Emmeril may think you a fool, and perhaps she was right to think so. But you would not reveal this secret to her. Now was not the time and frankly you were not ready.

Emmeril did not stay long, but departed for her family's home. You watched her go until the last of her horses were over the hill. The room suddenly felt colder, more forlorn. A choked sigh bordering on sobs left your mouth. At times like these you would have walked in the garden with Ilë. Only it was pitch black out and Ilë was gone. A soft knock at your door alerted you. Amarië swept in, pink silk trailing behind. "Y/n, Nerdanel wishes to give council." Rising up you followed Amarië. The hallway was obscured with shadows, torches providing ailing light. Even with windows barred shut you could still feel a draft. Even Amarië seemed to feel it, drawing her robe tighter. Every step echoed in these silent halls. Most had either fled Tirion or barricaded themselves in their rooms. Only guards remained patrolling the halls.

Nerdanel had taken quarters next to Queen Indis. Was Indis even still queen? Suspiciously guards regarded your presence. "Lady Nerdanel had sent for Lady Y/n. Queen Indis is aware." They let you in with a look of reluctance on their faces. The swords on their sides glimmered in the torchlight. Only a short time ago none dared to disregard the Valar's ordinance. Now none dared leave their rooms without protection. Such were these sad times. Nerdanel bore her usual attire, baggy brown pants and a white shirt. Her hair, Nerdanel had her back turn to you, was tied in a loose braid. Rubble and tools lay scattered. When Amarië cleared her throat Nerdanel seemed to finally take notice. "Lady Amarië, thank you." Amarië curtsied and made to leave. "Hold-" "I must depart. Lady Nerdanel wishes to speak to you in private." Now it was just Nerdanel and you. Nerdanel lightly kicked a hammer out of the way and picked up a tray. You smelt citrus and a hint of cinnamon. Sitting down you watched Nerdanel pour a cup of tea. "Care for some?" You nodded. You had the feeling this conversation was not simple idle chat.

Nerdanel did not beat around the bush. After a sip, her grey eyes focused on you. The look was not critical, but the one she adopted when an important topic was at hand. "I heard Emmeril offered you a place at her family home. Why did you not go?" She was not being critical, just inquiring. "I have never been close to Emmeril. It would be an intrusion on my part." Nerdanel poured another cup. "Will you remain here indefinitely?" "Nerdanel I do not know what to do. I am lost. In leaving I condemn myself and the baby to exile. In staying ill may come too, for those that support the Houses of Nolofinwë and Arafinwë have no love of Curufinwë's kin." Nerdanel reached out calloused hands, worn by years of her craft. Your own was not so smooth, for years of gardening had hardened the skin. "Fate may be kinder to you. Our king wishes to provide what help he can." The attempt was well made, yet still you remained unsettled. "My fate is solely in the hands of others. If I stay then it is another exile. I banish my freedom. Perhaps I should leave and lessen others' hold on me." Nerdanel's gaze went to your belly. If one was unaware they would not know. But soon it would swell and then what would happen then? Your family would be harboring a potential heir. Arafinwë was good and wise, but the actions others you must look to. Would they see the baby as a contender? If you stayed at court then an alliance could be built and no one could accuse you of hiding.

"Do what you think is best for yourself and the baby Y/n. But do not forget, make sure you stand on your own feet."

Note: This story has been in my drafts since September and was originally meant to be a one shot. A story surrounding the lives of those who stayed in Valinor is something I have been interested in for a while now. I am unsure how long this story will be. I will also be using the Quenya pronunciation for everyone's names unless canonically one is not provided. All the sons of Feanor use their mother-name except for Curufin.

While I use Jodie Comers face in the gifs and aesthetics for this story it is not meant to be a face claim. I simply like to use a certain character/acter's face in each series.

My OC's (the unnamed wives of the sons of Feanor) are my stand ins for the wives in every fanfic going forward. This is unless I write an x-reader involving one of the three married sons. In that case I will simply write them out. But going forward in this story and others they will exist. I intend to make character profiles for them at some point.

If you want to be added to the taglist please let me know!

[thescholarlystrumpet]

It's my birthday and I wrote Priest smut to celebrate XD

In Perfect Unity - Rated Explicit 3k words. Complete (for now)

Young men in seminary so long ago formed a unique bond, sundered by the vows they were foresworn to take.

A chance reunion rekindles every old spark and ignites new flames between them.

**

They’d met years ago in seminary. Spent evenings with their heads bent over the same assignments. Crowley had a little trouble with the text (they didn’t know the term “dyslexic” in those days) but Aziraphale was always happy to help. Happy to lend a hand. 

Except those hands kept creeping closer, first above the table, pinkies overlapping as their faces flushed. Then beneath the table, thighs pressed together from hip to knee, curious fingers wandering. Heated, sweaty palms pressed and groped, clumsily worked at button fly and zipper fly alike. Gritted teeth in red cheeked faces as arms moved in tandem, stroking, sliding, wrists twisting just so. 

The Father found them panting and messy and unable to word a proper excuse. It was so close to graduation for an expulsion and he didn’t want the scandal. Instead, he made sure they were sent to very separate towns and kept under close watch for the first few years. 

Time passed, as it always does. Father Crowley and Father Aziraphale had no contact with one another for decades. Until there was a conference in Edinburgh and no one in charge knew their history.

Read the rest on AO3

[lullabyes22-blog]

Snippet - Walk of Shame - Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

Silco reacquaints himself with his ghosts...

Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

Snippet:

He walked. And, one by one, the old ghosts stirred to walk with him.

Vander. The strongest of the old guard, and the first to fall. He was a monolith of shadow. He spoke not one word. But his presence was a palpable weight, as though his specter had draped itself, heavy and ungainly, over Silco's shoulders. It was a weight he'd grown accustomed to, long ago. The weight of a brotherhood gone awry. Blood spilled and bonds broken. The ambitions of two hotheaded boys, once aligned. The heartbreak of two men, irreparably sundered.

Silco bore the weight. He was sixteen again, drunk and in love, with a gash from a brawl across his temple and the scent of tobacco impregnating the weave of his shirt and Vander's arm slung around his shoulders. The two of them, laughing and singing, as they stumbled through the Lanes, the fog splitting to unfold the path ahead, a treacherous one, because in the road to revolution, the only sure thing is the bottom of the grave.

(Blut.)

(Here's to the dreams and dead-ends that made us.)

(And the bodies we buried along the way.)

The memory of Vander's blood was still warm on his hand. Like a coin passed from palm to palm. A treasure, held close, and never surrendered.

Silco walked on, and Vander's arm fell away.

The next shadow to materialize was a willowy silhouette. His breath snagged. For the span of a heartbeat, the landscape was bathed in a blue glow. The lanterns from the Nymph, where he'd first glimpsed Nandi float inside with the long-legged sway of a riverbird descending to the Pilt's shore. And there she was, his riverbird, a sultry apparition of silken black hair and chiming bangles and a secret twinkle of mischief in her kohl-ringed eyes.

She beckoned, a coy finger-curl, and he followed. The years had not touched her. But he did. He was twenty-five again, and a stranger to the ways of love. He'd learn them, soon enough. How to worship a woman's body. How to savor, and linger, and make the leavetaking worth the farewell. He was not a man for spiritualism. But, after she'd slipped from his bed and from his life, he'd wondered, fleetingly, if that soft dark sensuality she'd awakened in him in the cozy decadence of her bedchamber was what mystics meant when they spoke of a soul.

(Nan, my riverbird.)

(I never told you I loved you.)

(If I say it now, will you hear?)

He walked on, and Nandi's specter, like her bangles, fell silent.

Another silhouette. He didn't recognize the child who rose up from the shadows. A slender slip of a girl, with a tumble of dark curls, and a mouth full of laughter, and eyes like the sea, blue and changeable. In his bones, Silco knew she belonged to him. He was twenty-nine, a father for a single day, and a widower forever, his newborn stolen before she'd even known the cradle in his arms, and in her loss left him dumbstruck that a life so tiny could blast a world apart.

She'd never know him. He'd never know her. But he carried her in his black heart all the same.

(My little girl, my lost one.)

(Forgive me.)

(Forgive me for the sin of never mourning you.)

He walked on. The shadow-child, silent, danced off into the dark.

One by one, they came. The shades of a life unlived. Silco bore the weight of each. Not out of penance. But to remember. To carry, forward, the imprint of all these people, and paths, and possibilities, that'd shaped him into the man, and that man into the monster. They were Silco's memories, and Silco's mistakes.

And now, at the end, Silco was ready to make them right.

At last, his shadow came.

At his side, a young man. Slender as an eel, his shoulders sinewy with muscle, tapering into a supple waist and narrow hips. His boots made no sound as he prowled, shoulder-to-shoulder, beside the man who'd caged him, crushed him, and, finally, cut him to pieces. A pair of black-fringed blue eyes, sharp with mockery, flicked his way.

They shared the same stride. The same smile. But not the same scars.

(I never hated you, boy.)

(Only the weakness bred into your blood.)

(That's why I made you strong. I know you never forgave me. But that's fine.)

(Because you never forgot, either.)

The young man tossed his head back, and a curl of black hair cut slantwise across his smile.

"You still don't understand shit, old man."

"True," Silco said to himself. "But I'm learning."

He walked on. The shadow on the path was his alone.

[wielderofmysteries]

A Vorthos Defense of Lukka

Sorry this response turned into a small essay (~1400 words) that doesn't really answer your question, but my Hot Take™ is that I don't think Lukka needs to be fixed.

I believe the problem doesn't lie in Lukka himself, but in the way both the narrative and the fandom treated him extremely unfairly. I'm not asking anyone to like Lukka. Personally, I don't even think anything about him is particularly likable. But I think as a character he deserves a lot more respect than he gets, and I'm tired of seeing other people hate on him without actually engaging with his story or understanding what his character is about.

Here's the thing: Lukka is basically the homeless veteran of planeswalkers.

He started his story in Sundered Bond (Ikoria ebook by Django Wexler) already successful in his military career, engaged to be married to Jirina, and having General Kudro's favor. He was a model citizen and his life was great. One day, a flying-hyper-murder-tiger killed Lukka's entire squad and people discovered Lukka was a monster Bonder because the tiger spared him. The rumors got to General Kudro, whose decision upon hearing Lukka might be a bonder was to have Lukka immediately executed.

Lukka didn't betray Drannith. Drannith betrayed Lukka.

Lukka escaped his execution and was rescued in the wilderness by Vivien, who traveled with him to the Ozolith, where a mysterious evil voice caused Lukka to unlock the full power of his monster bonding abilities. Through it all, Lukka still tried to hang onto his old life. His allegiance hadn't changed. At first, Lukka wanted to use the monsters he controlled to fight for Drannith, not against it. Lukka was convinced that the offer of a loyal monster army would be enough for the city to take him back, but he was no longer welcome in Drannith.

Lukka became increasingly unstable and spiraled into insanity because he had his life unexpectedly, completely ruined and wanted nothing more than to return home to his old life, but that wasn't possible because he now belonged to a class of people who were extremely stigmatized in Drannith's society. He had become an undesirable. Once the city's shining star, he was now the lowest of the low. He lost his loyalty and turned against the city when he realized Drannith didn't care about people, Drannith cared about keeping people in their places.

In Sundered Bond, Lukka loses literally everything. He loses his job. He loses all his friends. He loses his fiance. He loses his home. Everything. He even loses the cat. This all happens to him within like, a week.

Lukka experiences the same hostility in his second appearance, Strixhaven. At this point, he's still a new planeswalker, and he's been planeswalking blindly trying to find civilization again. He arrives on Arcavios thirsty and starving and tired and injured. When he finally finds a town, he visits an inn and asks only for food. But they don't give him any food! They won't allow him to wash up or to rest! This is a man who has nothing and has done nothing, and the townspeople are suspicious of Lukka and want to call the Dragonsguard –Strixhaven's magical cops– on him because he committed the crime of... existing near them while visibly having basic needs that are unmet.

=========

"Looking for something, stranger?" said the innkeeper, a round man with a head of robust curls.

"A hot meal," said Lukka. The innkeeper hesitated as though about to say something, then nodded and moved toward the kitchen.

"Haven't seen clothes like that before," came a voice behind Lukka. "You're not from around here, I imagine."

He turned. A tall man in the same rough clothing as the rest of the townsfolk had stood up from his table and was walking over.

[…]

He heard the man suck his teeth. The innkeeper still hadn't returned from the kitchen. Lukka was starting to doubt he ever would.

"Okay, Oriq, I think I've heard enough. We don't take kindly to meddlers in this town, or those who seek to disturb the peace. If we were a proper city, we'd get the closest, least busy Dragonsguard to sort you out. But we're just a small farming village—so we've learned to deal with strangers ourselves."

[Episode 2: Lessons - Adana Washington]

=========

Fans like to point at Lukka and make "ACAB" ("All Cops Are Bastards") jokes about him, but they don't understand that he's explicitly an anti-cop character. Lukka was formerly a cop, but he quit and fully turned his back on the entire concept of policing when he realized that the reason cops exist is not to protect people, but to rid society of undesirables like him.

=========

"These dragons," Lukka said, his voice a growl. "Those Dragonsguard. They've held power over these people for too long. They've made them fearful of every shadow, every unfamiliar face. What happens when it's not just the Oriq they're hunting down—when it's anyone who practices magic in a way they don't like?"

[Episode 3: Extracurriculars - Adana Washington]

=========

I know what many of you will say: "How can Lukka have such a based take when he's such a terrible person?" It's true– he is not a good person. He's an asshole and he's harmed / killed innocent people and animals. But he's been both a cop and a homeless man, and he knows that cops are far more dangerous. You don't need to be a "good" person to deserve food and shelter. It's cops who promote the idea that you can deny the basic rights of the people you think are "bad".

So on Arcavios, he's again forced out of civilization and back into the wilderness. His suffering seriously never ends. The way he was treated, it's no wonder he accepted when the Oriq kidnapped him and asked him to help attack Strixhaven. Why should he give a damn about society if they don't care about him? If their society is so fearful of others that they are unwilling to practice compassion, unwilling to provide for people's most basic needs even when they haven't done anything wrong, then doing wrong doesn't matter. They will share his pain. He will watch it all burn to the ground.

Lukka is an example of what happens when someone's basic humanity is repeatedly denied to the point that they can no longer feel anything but anger.

This line from the story Survival of the Fittest, by Roy Graham, expresses it perfectly:

=========

He had been a cruel man by the end, a villain in so many ways. But perhaps in his position, there was no way to become anything else."

=========

Lukka reaches out for stability and support and never truly finds it. He's a character who keeps getting punished over and over for having bad things happen *to* him, not because he *does* bad things. Most of the bad stuff he actually does is in response to others treating him like shit for no reason.

Despite everything, Vivien still cared for Lukka and wanted to help him get back on his feet. She thought Lukka's military expertise would be useful to the strike team against New Phyrexia, and she encouraged him to join. They both saw it as an opportunity for Lukka to regain some of his dignity and protect his home once more. How does the narrative reward him for his effort? By corrupting him, humiliating him, and having him be put down like an animal by the only person who showed him any compassion through all this.

What could Lukka have become if he survived to be rehabilitated? I guess we'll never know.

Unfortunately, there is absolutely no hope for a character who mistreats animals. Most fans will never ever get past that, and there's a part of me that honestly believes Lukka just got phyrexianized and killed off because the Magic narrative team realized they couldn't salvage his reputation and didn't know what to do with him. The fandom's overwhelming negative response to Lukka had irreparably damaged him as a character.

As my bespoke friend @xantchaslegacy said, "The only meaningful difference about Lukka and Gideon's cop-to-planeswalker journey is that the narrative let Gideon live long enough for other people to make him a better person. And Lukka got shanked before it could happen."

Again, I don't need people to like Lukka. I just want people to understand. I wish people were more willing to actually engage with the story and see the value in characters they dislike. There's no reason Lukka should've been treated like a punching bag the way he was. He was trapped in a cycle of being dunked on by the story and then dunked on by the fans, again and again. And people continue to push an understanding of Lukka that is just false.

The fandom reacted to Lukka the same way the strangers on Arcavios did: He'll never get a second chance because they wouldn't even give him a first chance.

[sweet-old-hereafter]

The Primus Game: Prologue

Coming soon on Ao3

I swear this is a nomae fic, writing an ape bible is just easier than exposition

In the age of old, apes did prosper under the reign of our Caesar, and Caesar created our Law.

Primus 1:28, The Sacred Scrolls

When came the mighty flood; it scattered our people across the land where we could not find eachother. It was the undoing of our bonds; it was the bleeding of our lifeblood.

Primus 7:23, The Sacred Scrolls

He who was the last Scion of Caesar of the Coast did declare to gather the sundered; and so He did.

And so the Scion led His people from their wastelands and said; This land shall be my land, this land shall be your land, and who transgresses upon our land transgresses upon us all, and who fails to serve their land fails us all.

Before you I have set twelve portions of this land, divided in practice but united in purpose, and I shall call this land a Kingdom, and we shall call this Kingdom Pacifica, and the Coastal City, home of the Scion, shall be its Capital.

Dynasties 22-24:13, The Sacred Scrolls

Echoes are lesser apes who survive only under the guidance of the Great Ones. Each Clan shall be supplied with their own flock of Echoes, and they will be utilized to carry out tasks designated as unfit for our Kind.

Beware the Echo who can speak; for they are a mimicry who can only espouse lies, and their word foretells the downfall of our Kind.

Proxies 2-3:1, The Sacred Scrolls

Once a year, each Clan is to pay Tribute to its Capital in the form of an Echo, and this Echo will represent them in a bloodsport in the Coastal City. The Echo who falls last shall bless their Clan in riches for the next year.

Proxies 5:16, The Sacred Scrolls

In the Darkest Chapter, ape turned against ape. And the Scion of the Scion before him, our King Proximus Caesar, saw that in the time of our separation they were corrupted, and when those who strayed from the land of our inheritance returned, they returned Changed. This Change would never fully be reversed. We could only hope to quell it through the purging of blood.

Absolution 1:18, The Sacred Scrolls

Each Clan is now required to pay Tribute in the form of one Echo and one of their own, and these Tributes will fight to the death against twenty-two other Tributes in what shall henceforth be known as the Primus Game. We as the Representatives of our Clans agree to honor this along with other provisions listed above to atone for our transgression against our Coast and our Kingdom.

Article XVI, The Treaty of Treason

[fatcatlittlebox]

Now that the show’s producer hinted that Galadriel’s armor here was not hers but “a gift from someone else”…obviously, who else could make perfectly fitting armor. Look at this dope’s face. Giving her the once over and positively grinning that she’s wearing his gift. And look at how purposeful and solemn Gal is when she walks up to him. Like she knows the weight and meaning of her wearing this armor. His gift. They gaze only at each other, staring and telegraphing this. A silent, powerful acquiescence of their partnership and bond.

Side questions: How did he get it to mold perfectly to her body? Was it the hours spent observing her on the raft when they were on the Sundering Seas? Did he take measurements? She had to know how meticulous and caring in his craft he was. Knowing after her swordfighting lesson that she values quickness and agility when in battle. How capable she was on horseback. He was listening and watching her fight and took note of what sort of armor would suit her style and protect her best. Imagine knowing that with every stroke and rivet, you’re creating something that would shield and protect the woman who is fighting, presumably, against you. By extension making her a weapon against yourself. He has no power over this gift other than it being a token symbolic of their connection. There’s something very intimate about forming with your hands something to go over another person’s body. It takes artistry, imagination and memory. Give them a means to master their fears and then you master them. But not here. You’re playing yourself, S. You don’t spend hours custom-making something like that dispassionately and objectively.

Now this shot. Her lovely profile backlit and now in shadow. And Sauron with his ever vigilant eye, leaning towards her light. Look at this dope. He is completely basking in her radiance. He’s positively warmed by her presence, drawn to it, invigorated. What a mess, I am for these two.

[shallowseeker]

Yes, yes. We've talked about the futility of windmills and striving wind with regards to all hunters, workers, and soldiers.

But there are other things in this hotel that are SO CUTE.

Dean and Cas are very often twinned by their morals and values. You could say that they're very often tilting at the same "windmills." Struggling with many of the same things, albeit at different timelines.

There's also...flowers in the decor.

LOTS of flowers.

Prominent yellow flowers in the bedroom appear between them, symbolizing pesky, bubbling happiness between the two of them.

There's often this concept of "blooming" between Dean and Cas. Springtime. Hell, we can even point to Dean's dance number in s15, "Let's Misbehave," originally written for Irene Bordini.

(They say the Spring Means just one thing to little lovebirds // We're not above birds // Let's misbehave)

There's April Kelly, the reaper, and also the Leviathan blossom (that grows OUT of death). An association to Lily Sunder and her daughter May, born after spring, as Jack will be born in May.

Dean himself is like a valley of death, but ALSO a valley proper, with the capacity for growth and spring-green, and it is this that associates him to many of the Lily characters, like Lily Baker.

Anyhoo, this cute motel is mirroring the blossoming friendship. It's full of Netherlands motifs, including the windmills but also tulips and blooms. The low-lying land of the Netherlands is what makes tulips flourish there.

Later The Empty will "tiptoe through Cas's tulips" as it reads his mind (and his love).

As Dean is undergoing individuation, he too is blooming.

And wooden shoes.

There's an abundance of tulips flanking the bathroom, sprouting up alongside the Dean side, over near the couch. On what will become "the Cas side" of the domestic space... shoes.

Dean is trying not to feel things. Cas is trying not to feel things.

///

Anyway, when Cas asks for help, he gets in REEEEEALLY close again:

And Dean gets a little nervous again, shifts, slightly pouts his lips and then cracks a joke:

They've been so mean to each other. Hehe.

After all, Cas's immediate reaction to seeing Sam and Dean again was to lay into them about being failures and not worth the effort and rebellion he put into them, so Dean's cattiness is understandable here.

It's tense. Awkward.

They've been disagreeing with each other and telling each other how they've lost faith in one another and don't believe in each other's plans...which oddly is EXACTLY the sort of emotional honesty that will make their bond stronger.

They keep orbiting each other, walking around and around each other in circles, and moving into each other's spaces. Even without the dialogue, the body language is interesting.

Cas is trying to read him, to figure out the human rules of him not being allowed to move threateningly into Dean's space, but Dean being allowed to move into his ... plus Dean making off cultural references that involve HOLDING HANDS and sailing off cliffs.

Then brushing past him so closely, and what exactly ARE the rules for personal space? Also, we see the yellow flowers between them here.

Dean may be under the impression that Cas doesn't care about him that much. That he helped him on a moral whim and now he's stuck with him/them.

And they're very close to one another again. Dean is fishing for information. "I'm your strategical bait, huh? That's all?"

And Dean relents.

///

So anyway, the body language is legendary for a reason, but the flowers are such a nice backdrop. :DDD

Aside///

I love how Cas just marches in on the Cas and tries to be frank with everyone.

Poor Cas. Just a mere hundred or couple hundred years ago, this would've worked. He really COULD march in there and start talking angels and demons with some authority, might have even been able to tell them that he was an angel.

What we call the modern world is still so new. We as a species have believed in supernatural worlds for so much longer than we haven't.

And Dean just... can't help getting into Cas's personal space. I find that so cute about him. He establishes the norms of personal space and then he proceeds to fiddle with Cas's clothes. Meanwhile Cas is just like ????? wow human rules are so illogical.

*Dean fiddling*

Dean, honey. I promise you that if you'd handed Cas the badge, he would've grabbed it somewhat normally.

///

Dean *fiddling with his own badge and coat and steadfastly NOT looking at Cas's face*

*can't resist*

Aside/// I love so much that SPNwin poked fun at THIS in particular (as well as SPNwin's John making silly voices).

Sighting on main: Man with a nascent, burgeoning mega-crush tries to make rules about personal space and then winds up being even weirder about space than the person he was accusing of not adhering to normal human etiquette...

DEAN: *buttoning, buttoning, I know I'm taking a while to button this, pay it no mind. now imma fix your tie...*

[ryin-silverfish]

Fanfic: Bodhicitta

AO3 Mirror

Possibly the start of a short series. About the pilgrims, post-journey, and what led to their reincarnation in LMK.

CW for a bit of body horror at the end.

Tripitaka completes a pilgrimage, ponders his faith, and makes a vow.

bodhicitta: literally "Heart of Bodhi", the motivation and defining quality that makes a Bodhisattva in Mahayana Buddhism.

---

Thus the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, Deep in meditation, Saw the emptiness of all five skandas, And sundered all bonds of suffering.

…

An old master living in a crow's nest taught him those lines. It shall protect you from harm, he said, sticking his neck out like an actual bird. Perhaps he used to be one. Perhaps he still was. Or maybe there was no difference.

("A single thought can make a Bodhisattva, or a demon," Guan Yin once told his disciple.)

It was hard not to feel a little cheated, though, when he tearfully muttered the sutra under his breath, and still fell off his horse, got dragged into a river, tied up next to a steaming pot after the monster broke his barrier with a single flick of its tail.

Oh, how he had recited the sutra faster and faster, squeezing his eyes shut, and still the demoness's nails pinched at his cheeks, drawing blood, cooing Aren't you a delicious little snack, in both senses of the word?

Why did it never work like those miraculous tales in the scriptures? Was he really that bad a Buddhist? Did such thoughts make him a bad Buddhist? Or were the tales just another product of the rampant mistranslation he was so tired of?

It won't matter, he told himself, trying to steady his resolve. Once they reach the Western Lands and receive the True Scriptures, he would finally be free of all doubts.

…

Here then, Form is no other than emptiness, Emptiness no other than form. Form is only emptiness, Emptiness only form.

…

"Master, if all things are emptiness, why do you care if I kill them or not?"

Patience, how to be gentle yet firm, a willingness to see beyond the words on paper and into ultimate reality. These are things he would come to learn. But he hadn't yet.

So instead, he began a lengthy lecture on just how much a grave misunderstanding of——no, insult to Buddhist doctrines that was.

Form is emptiness, because it never stops changing, like clouds in the sky. There is no permanence when nothing stays constant, going up and down in the wheel of samsara, lifted up or weighed down by their karma.

It is empty because it is a wheel, and doesn't go anywhere. Not because the chain of causes and consequences don't exist.

"But they had it coming!" The monkey pouted, like one of those spoiled aristocratic nuns he had encountered in the Golden Mountain Temple, who hated monastic life with a passion and only came here to escape a worse marriage. "Are their deaths not a natural consequence of, you know, robbing people?"

"Not by Great Tang laws, and certainly not by Buddhist laws." He rubbed his temple, feeling a familiar headache coming. "But that is not the point. What about your consequences, Wukong? How much negative karma are you accumulating by taking their lives? And how much will I receive by association, for failing to stop you?"

"Oh, so it's all about you?" Sun Wukong narrowed his eyes. They were glowing red, like embers in a hearth, which never failed to send a chill down his back.

"Well, even if I somehow end up in Hell again, it's not like the Ten Kings can do anything to me. And since you'd rather die than letting me stain your flawless karma, I'll leave you to it, then." With a single flip, he was standing on his somersault cloud. "Bye, baldy."

"Wait!" He shouted, but the monkey had already disappeared over the horizon.

…

All things are by nature void. They are not born or destroyed, Nor are they stained or pure, Nor do they wax or wane.

…

But if nothing was stained or pure, why, then, would he be horrified at the deaths of six humans, but not an entire cave of demons?

They were but creatures of the Path of the Beast. Yet he was steadfast in his adherence to the monastic codes, which forbade him from consuming meat, for each meal costed the life of an animal. Was the life of a demon even less than that of livestocks, livestocks devoid of the spark of intellect?

Did their blood not stain his hands too?

Indeed, they were man-eating monsters. And so were regular wild beasts. So were two of his disciples, before they joined him on the pilgrimage.

If mercy could be extended to a monkey, a pig, a dragon, and a river monster that ate his nine past lives, why was it denied from the others?

Sometimes, on long, cold nights where nothing happened, and all they could see were the desert sands below and stars above, he wondered if Sun Wukong was right. If the fact that nothing could be truly created or destroyed, merely changed into another form, meant that death did not matter.

If compassion was but another form of attachment that led to suffering, and he would be better off severing it like the rest of his worldly bonds.

After all, he voiced no objections when the bandits who killed his father and destroyed his mother received their just deserts, nor did he do anything that might have stopped her from hanging herself in shame. Unseen laws were just as true as written laws and monastic laws, and beneath it all lay the karmic laws.

An eye for an eye. A good deed begets a good birth. Violence begets violence.

Were his convictions to do no harm just another lie, then? A delusion that he knew better, for he was the acolyte that actually bothered to learn Sanskrit, the good Buddhist, the master? Nothing but him putting his own discomfort and unseen scars above what was truly just and right and wise, and making his disciples suffer in his stead?

People clung to suffering not because they enjoyed pain, but because of the memory of happiness, and the promise of momentary release. It always felt good, until it didn't.

Like love and its inevitable loss.

He knew. Yet he could not stop hurting, could not let go of his doubts.

Maybe that made him an unworthy monk. Maybe the perils kept coming because he had not learned the lesson yet, and there would be a time when he finally stopped caring.

But whatever that time was, it wasn't now.

…

So, in emptiness, exists no form, No feeling, thought, or choice, Nor is there consciousness. No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind; No colour, sound, smell, taste, touch, Or what the mind takes hold of, Nor even act of sensing.

…

Your senses fool you. Much like how the ghostly immortal, hijacking long-dead bodies, fooled him, and Yellow Robed Demon's illusion fooled the king of Baoxiang.

What makes one innocent? He thought, as he sat inside the cage, all four limbs chained to the floor. Or guilty, for that matter? What makes a man into a beast, a beast into human, a mortal into god, a god into monster?

What makes one deserving of forgiveness? He thought, as he looked into the dead woman's eyes, drowning out her shrieks with his chanting of Ksitigarbha's Sutra, suppressing her blue ghostfire with chains of golden light that wrapped tighter and tighter around the coffin. Or a chance, for that matter? Had she ever had a chance when it mattered?

When is an apology accepted, and not merely heard? He wondered, as he made his own to Sun Wukong, and the monkey didn't even spare a single glance at him. Just kept gazing eastward, a haunted look on his face.

…

No ignorance or end of it, Nor all that comes of ignorance; No withering, no death, No end of them.

…

"Is that how I was like?" Sun Wukong mumbled, as he scrubbed at the end of his staff with a rag. If there was still blood left on the metal, it had already been cleaned off ages ago, yet he kept wiping and wiping, like he was trying to yank someone's vengeful spirit out of it. "Is that what I am?"

"No," he said, then immediately winced. Even with a barrier in between, getting hit in the back with a heavy iron stick was no joke.

"How would you know——" he turned back, and almost instantly squeezed out a smile. "Oh, greetings, master! Didn't see you there. Are you hungry again? Thirsty? Need your bandages changed? Sorry about that whole evil doppelganger business, by the way."

"There is no need to apologize. It is not your doing."

"But…" He looked away, then sighed, tossed the rag into the creek, and shrank his staff back to needle size, putting it into his ear once more. "Well, if you say so, then I ain't complaining, master."

"And you are not your Second Mind."

The monkey froze in place, and didn't speak for a long time. When he did, it was in a barely audible whisper. "Does it even matter, if I wanted to do the exact same thing?"

"You still didn't."

"I tried, though, master." He exposed his teeth in what looked like a grin, but, according to Bajie, was monkey language for I'm scared shitless or Bugger off before I eat your stupid face. "Don't you remember? Right after the fillet. And I was so close to trying again, every time you listened to Piggy and recited that spell for a reason that wasn't exposing shapeshifting demons."

It was strange, how reassuring it was to have your biggest fears confirmed. At the same time, it was also deeply upsetting, knowing that the fears weren't just about someone else, but also you yourself.

"Look, I…I know Macaque. Whatever he is, he sure ain't a literal piece of my mind. But that just makes it worse when he wanted to become me." Sun Wukong clenched his fists together. "He would've dragged me back by my tail, once upon a time, kept the worst of me in check. But I chased him away, and now he didn't know how to be anything else, so he just doubled down and became the worst bits of me anyways."

His eyes started glowing bright red again, as he bared his canines and let out a low growl.

"He killed my monkeys. Okay, Wujing did, but it wouldn't have happened if he didn't make them impersonate you guys. And he dared, DARED call me weak when I lunged at him screaming, after I saw what he did to their bodies! The coward who couldn't even be a villain on his own, without hiding behind someone else's shadow!"

The monkey breathed in deeply. "For that alone, I don't regret killing him. But when Di Ting——okay master, I guess you wouldn't know who that is, it happened after we punched each other into the ground, all the way to——"

"I do, in fact," he said. "Ksitigarbha's steed, the All-hearing Beast."

"Pretty much. But it's less hearing, and more…knowing." Sun Wukong paused. "The very earth speaks into its ears, and when Di Ting rises up from the ground, its eyes just see through you, all of you, and knows whether you are good or evil."

"I imagine that must be quite disconcerting."

"You know what's even more disconcerting? When the only answer it gave was 'Go speak to the Buddha.' I mean, it all worked out in the end, but I couldn't help but wonder if it was simply too polite to tell the truth. That we are but two different flavors of evil, capable of wreaking the same havoc, and," Sun Wukong shuddered, his fur standing on ends, "under a different circumstance, I, too, wouldn't see a problem with throwing my monkeys' lives away."

He knew what he should tell his disciple. No, you are not evil. You are not entirely good, but neither am I. Few people are made of one or the other, and it takes a special level of ignorance to claim so.

He also knew Sun Wukong would not believe it, not after hearing the furious speech he made a few days ago. Is your heart made of stone too, just like the rest of you? Are you capable of finding delight in anything, other than death and wanton destruction?

So instead, he lowered his head, knelt down in front of the monkey, and said, "You can do whatever you want to me."

"M-Master? What are you…" Immediately, the monkey moved forward, trying to lift him up. "Have you lost your mind?!"

"You heard me." He smiled. "I swear to the World-honored One, I will not recite the spell, or use my barrier. If you want to beat me up, or bash my head in, you are free to do so."

"No, no, hell no!" Sun Wukong took a step back. "Why do you think I would? No, why do you suddenly have a death wish?"

"I do not," he said. "I merely put my life into your hands, and choose to accept whatever consequences that ensue. Death is but one possible outcome." A pause. "Is it the outcome you want for me, though?"

"Again, hell no!" He shook his head. "I mean, I'm still mad at you, but this…wouldn't solve anything! And I'm not gonna protect you for so long, only to throw it all away for nothing. What are you getting at here, master?"

"Nothing. I'm just wondering, if you would not kill someone you have good reasons to hate," he looked into his disciple's eyes, "What makes you think you will ever knowingly send your subjects, your family, to their death?"

Sun Wukong's lips moved, but no sounds came out. Then tears started coming out those eyes——no longer glowing, but still red. Seconds later, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven was on the ground, clutching his robes, bawling like a little child.

"But I already did, master…not knowingly. But I still did, way back when."

…

Nor is there pain, or cause of pain, Or cease in pain, or noble path To lead from pain; Not even wisdom to attain! Attainment too is emptiness.

…

Reaching their destination did not free him from doubts, though it did lift a weight off his shoulders, knowing that he could begin the real work undisturbed.

Neither did staying in the presence of Buddhas and Arhats for the next few years, as he slowly but steadily gathered the reference materials he needed for a proper translation. Flipping through ancient, ink-covered leaves and scrolls alike, honing his Sanskrit while learning more local dialects than he ever needed to know.

He knew his disciples would fully redeem themselves upon their return to Chang'an, capital city of the Great Tang. That he would attain Buddhahood for bringing the scriptures back to China alone, and could have left the translation to other capable monks.

Alas, much like doubts, he wasn't ridded of his perfectionism either. So he politely asked to earn his Buddhahood instead, by finishing his translation and making sure people could actually understand the scriptures' wisdom, and was granted his wish.

Perhaps this decision was also born out of doubt. How ironic was it, that he wasn't sure if he wanted Buddhahood anymore, only after it was all but guaranteed?

How ironic was it, that he once was so foolish as to wish he could be rid of pain by severing every bond, by throwing his compassion away?

Enlightenment is not isolation. It is not a single snowflake, frozen in time, but a raindrop falling back into the ocean. You would never find true strength, if you dared not even let yourself be human and feel the slighest bit of weakness.

But what happened when the raindrop, so close to the ocean waves, gazed upon its fellow raindrops in the clouds and thought, For their sake, I want to stay? What would happen to it if it stayed?

Then it shall walk on the Path of the Bodhisattva, that was the obvious answer. However, despite his encounters with multiple Bodhisattvas during the journey, he had never really gotten a chance to know them personally, not to mention making inquiries about their nature.

Well, now would be his chance to find out.

…

"It begins with a Vow," the wily old scholar said, twisting a five-petaled azure flower between his fingers. "And the Vow stems from awareness. Comprehension. A glimpse into the void, a spark of Wisdom."

"Then, dedication, in both mind and body," the three-headed woman laughed, gripping a vajra club with one of her six arms and pointing it at the ground. "It takes great Will to descend into the land of the unliving, be a jewel of light amidst unfathomable darkness. Me? I prefer to Act in this world, help the needy before they reach that stage."

"At the root of it all is Mercy," the familiar woman in white dipped her willow branch into the vase, "the desire to see less suffering in the world, big or small. For you, too, have suffered, and learned that pain is no mark of weakness, nor is it unavoidable."

"I would not say there is anything at the root." The scholar corrected. "For that would suggest the superiority of one Vow over the other, one Path over another, when they are but streams flowing into a single river."

"Ever so precise with your words and diction, I see." his three-headed companion teased gently. "But indeed. To put it in the simplest term: practice what you preach."

"True. Compassion without wisdom is dangerous naivete, and sympathy without action is just empty words." The woman nodded. "But wisdom without compassion can quickly turn cold and detached, and actions and worship, done only for the benefits of oneself, is but another form of bribery."

"Mercy is not turning a blind eye to harm, but choosing the path of least harm——sometimes by offering a chance, other times, by recognizing they would not take it."

"But you already know that, do you not? Tripitaka, River-Float-Boy, Golden Cicada."

"Monk, orphan, prideful student."

"Sinner, redeemer, venerable master."

"So go," the three spoke together as one, "and walk upon your own path."

…

So know that the Bodhisattva Holding to nothing whatever, But dwelling in Prajna wisdom, Is freed of delusive hindrance, Rid of the fear bred by it, And reaches clearest Nirvana!

…

Eighteen years.

Eighteen years had passed since his return. An entire tower was built in the west wing of his temple of residence, to store the sutras and holy artifacts he brought back.

He performed countless masses, to free the dead from their torments, one of which was on Flower Fruit Mountain. He sealed away a fire, destined to burn away worlds at the end of each kalpa, yet ignited too soon inside a child's body. He dealt with visits from nobles and high-ranking officials and rich laypeople all over Chang'an, until Wujing had to carry him back to his bedroom while Bajie shooed them out of the temple gate.

He took in more assistants and scribes. Taizong passed away and his third son inherited the throne. The officials made disdainful sneers at the mention of his new favorite concubine ("A nun! And one of the late emperor's consorts, too!"), then talked among themselves in a hushed and fearful voice, as she stepped over her rivals' bodies and became his empress.

His eyesight grew faint, his back ached on rainy nights, and sometimes he dropped a brush right after picking it up, because of the shakes in his hands.

Yet, after translating over six hundred scriptures, his work remained unfinished, and would likely never be finished.

A pity, but the completed translations would at least be in good hands.

He had recited his last prayers in front of the temple's monks——five days ago? Ten days ago? He could not remember. Everything blurred together, as if in a dream, and the only constant was the presence of his disciples.

His first, dearest disciples.

Wukong had stopped pacing, but was no less restless, if Bajie's muffled "Stop hitting me with your tail!" was any indication. Wujing's expression was one of grim acceptance, ever since he stopped eating and drinking and entered a deep mediation on his sickbed.

Ao Lie…they never told him what happened, but he had a feeling that the dragon prince wouldn't be coming back.

"Then stop standing next to my tail, Idiot."

"Excuse ya', there's only so much space in here!" A squeal. Sounded like the pig got pinched in the ear again. "Why are you so damn jittery today?"

"No idea. I just feel like…something's gonna happen."

And it did, the moment Sun Wukong finished speaking. The air grew cold and still. Before Bajie could yell "Don't jinx it, ape!" all the lamps went out in a gust of wind.

At first, there was only darkness. Then came a spark, a cicada's call, and with light, shadowy shapes.

Tendrils solidified into limbs and tails, bent at unnatural angles. Some silhouettes were fuzzy, clad in fur, some had horns and antlers, while the others were covered in bone spikes and scales. Many were missing chunks of their skulls or entire heads. Even more were charred to the bone, bits of cooked flesh sloughing off them as they lumbered forward.

Eyes with slit pupils, eyes that glowed, bug eyes, fish eyes, a pair of giant, lantern-like eyes, eyeballs hanging out of empty sockets——they all gazed into his, with unconcealed hatred and naked hunger. A few lunged at him, but soon staggered back with a pained screech, burnt by the golden light radiating from above.

Once, the mere sight would have sent him tumbling off his horse, trembling in fear, tears streaming down his face. He would not be standing tall, unfazed, listening to the vengeful ghosts of his would-be killers.

The Great Tang Monk, they cried out. Our doom. Our salvation.

A fellow poet, who became our guest. A group of four whispered from afar, branches and leaves shaking in their hair. The rudest of guests, and a deadly one too!

Did our mother wish for our deaths, Venerable Master? Two tiny shadows jumped up and down, behind a towering tiger demon. Was that what she wrote, in the letter she handed you?

Cheater! Devious bald donkey! A headless tiger, a disemboweled deer, and an oil-soaked goat skeleton tutted. Without your disciples, you'd never have won the contest.

Why is it a crime to eat the flesh of men, when they are never punished for consuming the flesh of our kind? A wrinkly fish demoness sighed. Such unfairness. Such hypocrisy.

Says you! I haven't eaten a single human, I'm just a palanquin carrier!

Do you remember us?

We, who are not worthy enough to count among your perils?

Do you even want to remember us?

Give it back, Great Tang Monk! The chorus of wails suddenly rose to a shrill crescendo. We want our lives back! Give our lives back, or grant us peace with yours!

He looked away from the consequences of his causes, and up into the light.

Six magnificent wings, six limbs, eyes like diamonds, a dot in the middle of the forehead. Cloaked in purple-gold kasaya, sitting in the lotus position. A most divine smile on an inhuman face.

A fleshless, miraculous body, a container of all the good deeds performed over his life and prior lives. A gateway to his Pure Land, an ocean of liquid gold.

One step, and he would be freed of birth and death, pain and doubt.

One step, and the spectres of murdered demons would never be able to reach him again, left behind to stew in their misery until they were dragged back to the Underworld in chains; the majority of them were far from innocent, after all.

One step between him and eternity.

And he needed only to reach out his hand and take it.

Idly, he wondered about what the others must've seen. What made them take that vital step, or stop at the last moment.

Then he shook his head and laughed. Those were their paths, were they not? Not his. Walk upon your own path.

He doubted even the three great Bodhisattvas could have predicted what he had in mind, though. 

"I hereby forsake my Body of Benefit, to give all my accumulated virtues to the restless dead, so that they may be released from suffering, once and for all."

A crack formed in the golden figure's forehead, growing wider and wider, until it stretched from head to toe. Out crawled little cicadas, wings buzzing, making a beeline for the howling herd of shadows.

They flinched back at first, then, upon realizing what was happening, eagerly grabbed each and every insect and devoured them whole, dissolving into golden light with a joyous expression on their faces.

"I vow to descend into samsara, shedding my selves like a cicada's skin, my inherent Buddha-nature obscured, yet remain unfaltering in my pursuit. For there is no courage without vulnerability, no awareness without experience, no immortality without mortality, no transcendance without having been bound to the world."

As the shadows thinned, he could see his disciples again, their motion slowed to a crawl, the panic in their eyes slowly transforming into dreadful awareness at the words echoing through their mind. But there was no turning back. He had already committed to his Vow.

He only hoped that they could see the look on his face, or hear the warmth and wistfulness in his speech, as he continued speaking. This is not the end. I will be nowhere and everywhere. I will always be by your side, in one form or the other.

"For every life of mine, rich or poor, ignorant or wise, man or beast, ghost or god, I vow to undertake a journey, learn the meaning of compassion anew, and teach it to those denied of such chances: whether by birth, by luck, or by their own stubborn will."

"Only after I have walked all the paths that can be walked, learned compassion against all possible odds, taught all who were forsaken, shall I attain Nirvana."

The last cicada had been caught and swallowed. Fully split in the middle, the remnant of his miraculous body was little more than a shell now——a shell that was starting to shrivel up and burn away in bright golden flames.

"Thus saith Golden Cicada, known in this life as Chen Xuanzang. May the World-honored One be my witness, and grant me strength and wisdom on my journey."

The Vow was almost complete. Its binding words tugged at his soul, drawing him closer and closer, into the flames above. His form was fading, yet it did not hurt.

It felt like peace. Like a pair of glowing palms lifting up an insect, sending it back into the blue summer sky.

"Namo," he said, and let the light take him away.