#violet is a truthwatcher

[hartsnkises]

My problem: I don't ACTUALLY want spoilers for all of Onyx Storm (I already Know too Much), but I do want to bury myself in Empyrean stuff on account of Not Being Okay post Fourth Wing and Iron Flame

This could be solved by just listening to Onyx Storm except! I need to take a break so I don't burn out, I will be Less Okay after Onyx Storm especially with a planned hiatus in the works, and I really need to catch up on Cosmere.

Please, send no spoilers fix-it fics my way. I need everyone to be okay

[curlyradiant]

Radiant Hearts: KHxStormlight Archive

Okay, so I’ve been trying to get more into cosmere stuff again, but my feels from the ending of KH3 are STILL lingering. So now I feel caught between the two, and instead of just leaning out of one into the other, my mind is going crazy and trying to combine them! So now I have far too many ideas for a Kingdom Hearts x Stormlight Archive crossover AU.

So may I present, from the madness of my mind, the Radiant Hearts AU:

Disclaimer: I don’t have perfect knowledge of the cosmere, nor do I have time to explain all the terms from the Stormlight Archive that I’m going to be throwing around. This is mostly just for fun after all, so keep that in mind.

Sora and Riku were born in northern Alethkar near the coast. They are lighteyes from lower dahns, so they tended to have good relationships with darkeyes. When they were still little they attracted the attention of an Honorspren and a Lightspren. Though nothing much came of it at the time.

Enter Kairi! Waking up on the beach with no memory. She is likely from Jah Keved (Red Hair and Violet-ish eyes), but stays in Alethkar and grows up with Sora and Riku, though she struggles with the safehand rule a bit, she’s not too fond of sleeves and usually opts for gloves instead. She too unwittingly gains the attention of a spren, a Cultivationspren, though like Riku and Sora, nothing comes of it at the time.

The three of then have a plan to explore all of Roshar, so they attempt to build a raft boat to first explore the Reshi Isles. It seemed like a good idea and actually worked out for a bit, until they got hit with a highstorm. They literally get flung apart from each other, each ending up in a different place. Honestly, they should have all died, but they were on the verge of forming bonds, so stormlight kept them alive basically.

They survived, but things were not well. Kairi, though alive, seems to be in a coma. Riku, gets found by a woman named Maleficent (who totally isn’t going to try to manipulate him.) Sora ends up pretty much alone at first.

Determined to find his friends, Sora sets off in search of them. Luckily, he soon gains a companion. Ventus, a lightspren, starts following Sora around. Ven had formed a bond during the Last Desolation, but his radiant passed away, breaking his mind and causing him to “sleep” for a very long time (Think of Syl’s situation.) Ven is a bit slow in regaining himself and he doesn’t remember much, but he supports Sora as much as he can as they go looking for Riku and Kairi. As their journey continues, Sora swears the ideals and becomes a Willshaper. (This is going off the little we know of that order, as they are known for a love of adventure and novelty. I may change this once we learn more ideals.) Sora has uses the Transportation surge to visit Shadesmar in similar fashion to a “Dive to the heart.”

Riku, teamed up with Maleficent, looks for his lost friends and does some errands (Usually involving fighting) for her to repay her for her help. He doesn’t much trust her, but tolerates her enough. The only person he actually confides anything in is a spren, Terra, an Honorspren. Riku had known Terra for a long time, but had always kept him a secret, never mentioning him to Sora or Kairi. Now Riku speaks more often to Terra, who encourages him to progress in hopes that he will find the strength he seeks, to protect the things that matter. Riku is doubtful, however, and Maleficent’s manipulations don’t help.

Soon enough, Kairi is located by Maleficent, still in a coma like state. Riku rushes to rescue her and runs into Sora! At first he’s relieved to see his friend again, but that soon turns to jealousy as Riku sees that Sora has made new friends AND has sworn enough ideals to summon a shardblade. Riku feels like a failure; he was supposed to be the one who protected his friends, yet he was weaker than Sora? This jealousy combined with the manipulation from Maleficent leads Riku to abandon Sora, essentially betraying his Oaths. This isn’t enough to break Riku’s bond with Terra, but Terra refuses to speak to Riku anymore. Now Riku was really alone.

Things then turn to a conflict between Sora and Riku over protecting Kairi. Riku gets a shardblade from Maleficent, and (Ignoring the screaming from the blade), precedes in his quest to wake Kairi, taking her to the Nightwatcher. Sora follows him, determined to save Kairi, and there he fights Riku. Sora, a Knight Radiant at this point, should have easily won, but he expended all of his stormlight protecting Kairi and was about to fall to Riku. And then... Kairi awakens. 

The Nightwatcher had blessed Kairi so that she might be able to awaken, but her curse was not yet known. Kairi quickly takes to stopping the fight between the boys, she succeeds for the most part, but Riku flees, his heart still overcome with jealousy.

Reunited, Sora finds a group to take Kairi home. She begs to come with him, but he insists that he wants her safe. She relents and journeys home, just in time for her curse to start taking effect! Her awakening allowed her to reunite with Sora, but her curse starts to slowly erase her memories of Sora! She realizes this is happening and desperately clings to every scrap of memory of him she can. 

Meanwhile, Sora finds himself in his search for Riku at a strange castle-like place. There he meets Naminé, who lies and does some slightly traumatic things to Sora in the name of her Brightlord, resulting in him falling in a coma (which seems to happen a lot in KH). Riku, who is being lead back towards the path of honor by a friend he made, Mickey, finds and kills said Brightlord to try and save Sora. Naminé, regretting what she had been forced to do, works with Riku to try and find a way to awaken Sora. Her seeking redemption and her previous affinity for lies attracts a Cryptic, who becomes her spren and she becomes a Lightweaver. Her spren took a liking to impersonating Riku, thus Naminé calls her spren Repliku (Replica Riku).

Meanwhile, a boy named Roxas is seeking the truth about himself. He’s done some pretty shady work in the past (possibly directly or indirectly for the Diagram) as part of an Organization. He made friends with a man named Axel, whom he worked with a lot. Roxas didn’t remember his past, but sought out the truth about himself and about other things. His seeking lead to him attracting a spren, Xion, appearing like light reflected off of a mirror. Roxas and Xion bonded as friends fairly easily, both didn’t remember much and wanted to learn more. Roxas kept their bond a secret, only telling Axel, whom Xion had taken a liking to. Roxas eventually became a Truthwatcher.

Yet things weren’t meant to be. The more Xion remembered, the more she began to feel that bonding Roxas had been a mistake. Yet there wasn’t much she could do. Breaking a bond wasn’t easy and would likely result in one or both of them being hurt/killed. She thought it was the right thing to do though, and sought a way to free Roxas of her. In the end, both of them disappeared. Axel, saddened at loosing his friends, sought a way that he might bring them back.

As Axel searched, Kairi remembered. Her curse had stripped away from her mind much about Sora, including his name, but she still remembered him. After waiting around, she decided to try and go find the boy she remembered. The spren that had been watching her all this time, Aqua, a Cultivationspren, began to act. Soon, Kairi spoke this ideal: “I will remember those who have been forgotten,” vowing to remember Sora and becoming an Edgedancer.

With Naminé‘s help, Sora awoke and set off once again to find Riku. He dealt with the shady people Roxas had been working for, an Organization that worked for the Diagram, in the meantime. Riku, seeking his own redemption, helps Sora from the shadows with Mickey. Slowly, Terra returns to Riku’s side and he swears an Ideal to protect the things that matter, making him a Windrunner. Good thing too, as Kairi, gung-ho about rescuing her boys, gets herself trapped. Riku helps her escape and they return to Sora’s side to finish off the organization and return home.

Axel, having escaped the organization’s destruction, had witnessed the power of the Knights Radiant. Figuring that Roxas must have been one, Axel decided that the best way to save a Radiant was to be a Radiant. So he finds a Radiant to become a squire to, a Dustbringer specifically.

Now, before this all had happened, Terra, Aqua, and Ven had been friends in Shadesmar. The unlikely trio of an Honorspren, Cultivationspren, and Lightspren had loved to spend time together. Aqua would grow good-luck charms for them. Terra was the first of them to move into the physical realm to bond with Riku. Ven soon followed after. Aqua, chasing after her boys, hadn’t hesitated to follow. At first, Aqua had considered bonding to Sora, but decided against it and later bonded to Kairi. When Sora, Riku,and Kairi reunited, Ven, Terra, and Aqua reunited.

Well, I guess that’s all I’ve got for this AU for now, aha. I wrote quite a lot. I guess I do have more I could say on why I chose certain orders for certain people, but I decided against doing that here in favor of a more story based organization. Still, we have more to learn about the Knights Radiant, so I may change this in the future, for now, thanks for reading!

[butwhybother]

Polestones associated with orders of Knights Radiant are:

Windrunners-sapphire

Skybreakers-smokestone

Dustbringers-ruby

Edgedancers-diamond

Truthwatchers-emerald

Lightweavers-garnet

Elsecallers-zircon

Willshaper-amethyst

Stonewards-amber

Bondsmiths-heliodor

Some other theme colors in addition:

Corrupted Investiture is red.

Shards also have theme colors (Honor-blue, Odium-purple, or gold, Preservation-white, Ruin-black)

The metals and their alloys are:

Iron, Steel, Tin, Pewter, Zinc, Brass, Copper, Bronze, Cadmium, Bendalloy, Gold, Electrum, Chromium, Nicrosil, Aluminum, Duralumin (their effects are too long to copy, but Coppermind.net has a very handy and informative chart)

Godmetals & alloys like Atium, Malatium, Lerasium, Raysium, and other unknown godmetals of other Shards

Silver is Allomantically inert, but wards off Shades on Threnody.

The Returned and their colors are:

Lightsong-red & gold

Blushweaver-green & silver

Mercystar-orange (or yellow) & gold

Hopefinder-violet (or lavender) & silver

Stillmark-blue & gold

Lifeblesser-blue & silver

Weatherlove-green & gold

Truthcall-maroon & white

Brightvision-aqua & copper (or green & white)

Allmother, Calmseer, Giftbeacon, Peaceyearning, Kindwinds-unknown

God King-blue & copper, violet & silver, blue & silver, maroon & gold, yellow & copper, etc.

So here's one link: Lightsong is Gryffindor and Blushweaver is Slytherin Lightsong is fascinated with his past, his color is gold, and gold reveals one's past self. Lightsong's other color is red, and I don't know what connection he has with Dustbringers or Lightweavers, but he did do a fair amount of future-seeing.

I stared at these lists real hard and to be honest, I think it very unlikely that I'll find any more links. One, some of the gem colors overlap. Two, we don't know what color some of the gems are. Three, we know so little about the Returned other than Lightsong. Four, a lot of the metal colors overlap too; many of them are silver in color, and that's where this theory really falls apart.

The Returned in Hallandren have signature colors, usually a hue and a metallic paired.

Maybe I'll take the colors from the polestones of orders of Knights Radiant

And take the metals from the metallic arts of Scadrial

And see if they line up at all with the Returned at all.

[preservationandruin]

Edgedancer Liveblog 5

After realizing who the other Radiant in the city is, Lift proves a point to Darkness, eats pancakes, and goes home. 

So Lift successfully gets Nale’s attention, and he shows up in the top of a stairwell, dramatically lighting his face from below with a sphere full of violet light, because god forbid any surgebinder doesn’t do literally everything for the #aesthetic. 

“I am surprised to see you accept judgement,” Darkness said. “I had thought you would remain in presumed safety.”  “Yeah,” Lift called. “You know, the day the Almighty was handin’ out brains to folks? I went out for flatbread that day.”  “You come here during a highstorm,” Darkness said. “You are trapped in here with me, and I know of your crimes in the city.”  “But I got back by the time the Almighty was givin’ out looks,” Lift called. “What kept you?” 

She proceeds to do things like hide on the ceiling from him, stick her tongue out at him, and keeps taunting him, and describes him as having “a lump of crusty earwax for a heart.” 

“To feel guilt at following a code with precision is wasted emotion.”  “And other emotion isn’t, in your opinion?”  “Which you totally feel, all the time.”  “Of course I do...” He trained off, and again seemed to be considering what she’d said. 

The fact that Nale has to repeatedly stop and think about whether or not he feels emotion is actually deeply tragic but in this context, it’s really funny. 

THE STUMP ACTIVELY HIT NALE ON THE FUCKING HEAD WITH A STICK TO PROTECT LIFT I LOVE HER 

Also Nale just got fucking bopped on the head with a stick twice holy shit. This is not a good day for Nale. His breakfast eaten, one of his disciples repeatedly disagreeing with him, mocked by a child, and now bopped on the head. He fucking deserves it, though. 

Anyway, Nale does something cruel but smart--he injures the Stump, making it so she’ll bleed out, and tries to bait Lift into healing her to get rid of the rest of her Stormlight. She, instead, realizes she can’t beat him as he is--she has to change him. So she starts running up to the roof, confusing Nale. 

And Wyndle turns! He becomes a Shardrod--a long stick/pole that Lift can use to defend herself. 

Rain beat around them, and crimson lightning blasted down behind Darkness, leaving stark afterimages in Lift’s eyes. 

Again: god forbid any surgebinder fight happen without everything being Extra As Hell. Lift tells him to look around, look at the evicted Parshmen whose eyes are starting to glow, and to deny what he’s seeing--and we get the first, and possibly only, glimpse of who Nale was before the madness, the breaking of the Oathpact, and the obsession. 

Nale looked up at the thunderheads, rumbling with power, red light ceaselessly roiling within.  In that moment it seemed, strangely, that something within him emerged. It was stupid of her to think that with everything happening--the rain, the winds, the red lightning--she could see a difference in his eyes. But she swore that she could. He seemed to focus, like a person waking up from a daze. His sword dropped from his fingers and puffed away to mist. Then he slumped to his knees. “Storms. Jezrien...Ishar...It is true. I’ve failed.” He bowed his head.  And he started weeping.  Puffing, feeling clammy and pained by the rain, Lift lowered her rod.  “I failed weeks ago,” Nale said. “I knew it then. Oh, God. God the Almighty. It has returned!”  “I’m sorry,” Lift said.  He looked to her, face lit red by the continuous lightning, tears mixing with the rain.  “You actually are,” he said, then felt at his face. “I wasn’t always like this. I am getting worse, aren’t I? It’s true.”  “I don’t know,” Lift said. And then, by instinct, she did something she would never have felt possible. She hugged Darkness. He clung to her, this monster, this callous thing that had once been a Herald. He clung to her and wept in the storm. 

I just...I love this. It’s a raw, horrible, vulnerable moment that I didn’t think we’d get to see from Nale? And it’s probably going to change him a hell of a lot, I’d think. Two things particularly hit me: first, his realization that he already knew weeks ago, and has just been acting in denial this entire time; the other, his numb realization that he wasn’t always like this. I think that’s tied to Lift’s earlier demands to know if he knows feelings; he’s realizing he doesn’t and that means something is horribly wrong. 

Jesus, someone put all of the Radiants in therapy. Nale has some serious depression issues to work through, it seems like. 

Anyway, he flies off into the storm--hopefully to fix some of the shit he’s ruined, or at least to call Ishar the FUCK out--and Lift goes to heal the Stump. 

Apparently, Wyndle says the only constraint on what spren become is that it has to be metal, because there is a connection between their condensed power and metals. Interestingly, this confirms that Shardblades actually are metal in physical composition--I always assumed they’d be something else. 

The Stump brings pancakes for herself and Lift, and Lift says she’s been healing the kids and also says that she should have a spren around her--the Stump says it’s “Like light reflected in a mirror.” So that’s what the spren of Truthwatchers look like--the Stump has to be one of the ones with Growth, after all.  Also, Lift makes Wyndle into a SHARDFORK and eats pancakes off of him. 

Shardfork. 

And then Lift learns that the tenth pancake of Yeddaw is not an actual pancake, but an idea, a concept. 

She demands the she and Wyndle go find Nale and get him to deal with everyone for lying to her. I love Lift. 

So she leaves Yeddaw, and on the way out, uses her Stormlight to heal the refugees on her way out. And she is heading back to Azimir and Gawx. 

And Wyndle comments that hey, he was a rather regal shardfork. And Lift says he might not be a Voidbringer after all. 

I. I love this story. I love everything about it. I love Lift. I love Edgedancers.