#weaving constellations

[alls-fair-in-pride-and-prejudice]

You're Not Versed in Magic, Are You?

(A/N: Consider this an introduction to one of my BG3 OCs, though anyone who has followed my other works may recognize her as a reflavoring of another OC, longer post about her to come but for now enjoy a scene between a Warlock and a Wizard)

Part 2 here

“You're not versed in magic, are you?"

The question from Gale comes as they're entering the druid’s grove, having dealt with the goblins at the gate. Lyra blinks, taking a moment to realize that Gale is speaking to her, then chuckles. “Of course I am. Did you miss me casting Eldritch Blast at that worg two minutes ago?"

“Oh, I do apologize, I meant to ask ‘are you studied in magic?’ Namely, ‘are you a wizard?’ which you are not."

Lyra feels both the heat of shame and anger rise to her cheeks, and pokes at the wizard's chest with an accusatory finger. “Alright listen here, I may not be a wizard but I'll not have you insult my studies! I'll have you know that before all this, I was studying arcane mathematics as a Quandrix student at Strixhaven academy! I was studying the very movements of the heavens and the impacts a mere degree of misalignment from the stars might have on various rituals! I was among the top in my class!”

Gale quickly realizes the error he made and holds his hands up in surrender. "My deepest apologies, I seem to have offended you. I certainly did not mean to cast aspersions on your intelligence or accomplishments, I merely have a, uh… delicate matter, of a specific nature, with which I would like to discuss with a fellow wizard. You had given me the impression for a moment that you were one."

Lyra’s anger subsides at his apology, but the shame is still there at the surface, which puts an extra bite in her voice. “I, I might have been, once, in another life, but you're right that I'm no wizard." She turns away from him.

"Your studies do sound most intriguing. I… I do hope I have not ruined my chance to discuss them with you?" He looks up, attention drawn to the fight between the mercenary and the paladin, which appears to have nearly come to blows. “Perhaps though, at a later, more opportune time."

Lyra runs up to them, quickly diffusing the situation with a charming smile. A few years ago she never could have imagined being so social, but the benefits of an archfey patron go beyond just having certain spells at her disposal.

She doesn't catch how Gale’s eyes are repeatedly drawn to her throughout the day.

[bikananjarrus]

stellan gios; the pole star, the fallen star

(the fallen star variant cover by jama jurabauv; meaning of latin root word 'stell-'; the fallen star cover title text // the fallen star by claudia gray // pole star, wikipedia // julius caesar, act iii, scene i by william shakespeare // ursa minor constellation card by sidney hall, royal museums greenwich ; the north star whispers to the blacksmith's son by vachel lindsay; in the wind by lord huron // starry night over the rhone by vincent van gogh, 1888; the fallen star // light of the jedi by charles soule // summer triangle: asterism of 3 stars from 3 constellations, space(dot)com ; the fallen star // navigation by stars 1575 #1 by granger; pole star, wikipedia; evermore by taylor swift // constellations ursa major and ursa minor; the fallen star // north star by thomas lupari // stellan gios from 'a coruscant solstice' by grant griffin in life day treasury; right now by gracie abrams; the fallen star // poem by langston hughes // the fallen star // saturn by sleeping at last // the fallen star)

[l-just-want-to-see]

You’ll never recover from that kind of devotion.

Jason Grace: on family and the lack thereof, wolves that really are dogs, remembering and healing and the sudden inevitability of being remembered.

I Bet on Losing Dogs, Mitski / War of the Foxes, Richard Siken / You’re on Your Own, Kid, Taylor Swift / Trees II, McCafferty / Mowgli Taken in by the Wolves, 1937 / Space Dog, Alan Shapiro / Moon Song, Phoebe Bridgers / A Hymn to Childhood, Li-Young Lee / Susan Smith, wych elm / The Blood of Olympus, Rick Riordan / Saint Bernard, Lincoln / Lupa Capitolina in Ludus, Romania / The Odyssey, Homer (trans. by Emily Wilson) / quadruple dog art by @mxmorggo on Instagram / Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami / The Lost Hero, Rick Riordan / House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski / Vulnerability, @/kazerad / Euripides, Elektra / Jason seizing the Golden Fleece, Charles Natoire / Thalia (Grace) / I can’t find the source… / My Sister’s Keeper, Jodi Picoult / Seam, Tarfia Faizullah / In the Blood, John Mayer / The Vintage Book of African American Poetry, Michael S. Harper, Anthony Walton / Memento Mori, Crywank / And My Father’s Love Was Nothing Next To God’s Will, Amatullah Bourdon / Family Line, Conan Gray / Franz Kafka’s letters to his father / Kronos/Saturn, Peter Paul Rubens / Wolf and pup / American Teenager, Ethel Cain / LET YOUR FATHER DIE ENERGY DRINK, Daniel Lavery and Cecilia Corrigan / Scott Street, Phoebe Bridgers / Tumblr, @/inanotherunivrse / Tomatoes, Shane Koyczan / Pinterest / Tumblr, @/heavensghost / Tumblr, @/tagdevilish / through sickness and in health… by Angelina Hajducky on Instagram / Jason (given name), Wikipedia / Human Acts, Han Kang / The gas pillar in the Carina Nebula, NASA / Tumblr, @/roach-works / Not Strong Enough, boygenius / Grit, silas denver melvin / Herakles, Euripides (trans. by Anne Carson) / Pelias sending forth Jason, 1880 / The Audre Lorde Questionnaire to Oneself, Brianna Albers / The Mark of Athena, Rick Riordan / Wolf in White Van, John Darnielle / The Oresteia, Aeschylus / Tumblr, @/orpheuslament / Anecdote of the Pig, Tory Adkisson / The Burning Maze, Rick Riordan / I Bet on Losing Dogs, Mitski / Icarus, The Crane Wives / The Three Graces, Edouard Bisson / For Your Own Good, Leah Horlick

[cookiecrumbconundrum]

i am a forest fire || maveth

another webweave for one of my sci-fi npcs who really needs to get a new job. they occupy my mind constantly.

“half hanged mary”, margaret atwood | poor things, yorgos lanthimos | hannibal, michael rhymer | the ravening war, dimension 20 | hell followed with us, andrew joseph white | past lives, celine song | sharp objects, gillian flynn | peter goodfellow | a burning hill, mitski

[kitcat-void]

poem I wrote in my notes app about being a divine/deity/angelkin

[froggos-are-superior]

[leoizus]

the singing knight who creates melody

twelfth night by shakespeare | adonis, beginnings of the body, ends of the sea, selected poems (trans. khaled mattawa) | leo tsukinaga feature scout 2: a heartfelt round of applause (trans. royalquintet) | john cage's letter to helen wolff | fly me to the moon by frank sinatra | music by juhan liiv | constellations: leo by garry wilkinson | birhday of music by leo tsukinaga (trans: royalquintet)

[asoftepiloguemylove]

Hi, i found your page and i love what you do.

i wanted to ask if i could request poetry with a hanahaki disease inspiration/theme? i'm kinda going through some stuff right now and found an obsession for it that's helping me cope.

thanks in advance if you find any, and sending lots of love

finding things related to/about hanahaki disease specifically was really hard so this is mostly about heartbreak but i tried my best. i hope you're doing okay <33

unknown / W.S. Merwin / Lidia Yuknavitch The Chronology of Water: A Memoir / Taylor Swift & The Chicks Soon You'll Get Better / unknown / unknown / Lucille Clifton The Book of Light / Seema Reza This Poem Is Want-; A Constellation of Half-Lives

[uncertainwallflower]

Figure. 1. Personal AO3 statistics. Figure. 2. Vincent Van Gogh. Figure. 3. Amant Henry Ohmann-Dumesnil, Proper Care of the Hair and Scalp (1917). Fig. 22. Joan of Arc. Figure 4. Mieko Kawakami, Heaven. Figure 5. Yang Kintgen, Équilibre, Bronze L. 87 cm. Figure 6. unknown. Figure 7. Margaret Atwood, You are Happy. Figure 8. Edwin Lincoln Moseley, Trees, stars and birds; a book of outdoor science (1919). Fig. 129. Cygnus, the Swan. Figure 9. Anne Pratt and Thomas Miller, The language of flowers : The associations of flowers, popular tales of flowers (1800).

[kaienmaru]

@braveryhearted ( cont. )

“but kintoki, my information network has alerted me of the emergence of this terrifying thing called 'involuntary celibate', and i'm just trying to prevent it from happening to you! because you're my good friend!”

[jinx-blackout-84]

Having ocs is so great because it's like yeah this is my emotional support guy. I made him up. Yeah I just draw him on everything. Yeah I kick him whe im bored. He's kinda traumatized but don't worry about that.

[alls-fair-in-pride-and-prejudice]

Confessions

Part 4 of Weaving Constellations - continued from here. Part 5 here

(A/N: I actually posted this before, but soon deleted it because I didn't like it and did some rewrites/added a scene. If you're one of the 3 people that liked this before it was deleted I am sorry I hope you see this one XD Also! Lyra's arcane focus is a pendant that twinkles like stars and her magic has a twinkly quality to it, thus Karlach's nickname for her. Enjoy some angst!)

CW: emotional manipulation/abuse

Midnight smiles at her, but it’s not the soft loving kind of smile she has come to know. This smile holds danger behind it, a storm brewing just behind those golden eyes. “Starling, I want you to explain what I just saw through your earrings. It appeared to me that you gave away the very artifact I wanted to a wizard who eats the magic out of them.” He grabs her chin, pulling her gaze up to him. “You would not be so foolish, would you?”

“He would die without it, Midnight. Please, try to understand what I’m up against right now! I need all the help I can get.”

“Ah yes, you’re up against such dire odds, why not include alienating the source of your power to the list?” Midnight seethes. “Do you love him, is that what this is? The first human man that is marginally kind to you and you throw yourself at him? Starling, I knew you were desperate when we met, but have I not been generous? Have I not given you everything you need?” He pushes back a lock of her hair, gentle and soothing. “Do you not love me anymore?” His voice is soft, pleading.

“No! My love, it’s nothing like that. He’s a friend, a good one, but I love you!” She takes his hand, leaning her cheek into it, eager to reassure him.

He pushes her away harshly, his voice taking on an equally biting tone. “Then why would you do this? I could not care less about mortals and their petty concerns. If he dies, he dies! Give it a couple more decades and nature will take care of it regardless. You serve me, first.”

She’s never seen him be so… heartless before. Capricious perhaps, in that classically fey way, but to be talking of mortals like the dirt under his shoe… Perhaps she has never gotten close enough to another mortal to talk about them with him. “Midnight… I’m mortal.”

“You are different. You are a mortal with the power and knowledge of an archfey at your disposal. I chose you for a reason, starling, but if this behavior should continue… I may regret my choice.” He looks down his nose at her, haughty and challenging. “Tis a first infraction, so I will be merciful. A day without your powers. Let us see how you like the feeling of being without me since you wish to push me away.”

Lyra reaches for him pleadingly. “Midnight, I’m not pushing you away, I swear.” Is this all they are? Patron and servant? No, certainly not. But why won’t he listen to her? Why won’t he understand?

“We will speak after your punishment. Goodbye, Lyra.”

Gale is the first thing Lyra sees when she wakes. He’s sitting next to her, nose buried in a book. Lyra can tell without sitting up that they’re back at camp, but she has no memory of getting there. Her head is pounding, she must have hit it when she fell. As she stirs, Gale’s attention fixes on her and his tired expression breaks into a smile. “Thank the gods, you’re awake.”

Midnight’s voice is still ringing in her ears. She wants to cry but tries to keep the tears inside.

“How are you feeling?” Gale asks, putting a hand to her forehead to check her temperature. “We did all we could to look after you, but you seemed to be in quite a state, like fitful dreams.”

“You… could say that,” Lyra mumbles, slowly sitting up with Gale’s assistance. Karlach is the first to notice and grins, running over to her. “Soldier! You’re awake! Oi, Shadowheart! Twinkles is up!”

Shadowheart is all business. As the only healer in their ragtag team, she approaches Lyra with the demeanor of a very exhausted doctor. “None of us could figure out what happened to you. The only lead we had was Gale determining fae magic was involved, which isn’t terribly helpful when you’ve been exploring a hag’s lair.”

“I thought you might have caught some of that poison cloud and suffered a delayed effect, or that handling of the artifact may have caused adverse effects. I swiftly disposed of it, rest assured. One of the few upsides to my condition is that it's not terribly picky about enchantments or curses.”

As Gale rambles, Lyra catches Wyll watching from a distance, and when she looks at him he nods like his suspicions have been confirmed. “It wasn’t hag magic, it was my patron.”

“Like we need another ticked off patron making life harder for us,” Astarion grumbles, “no offense, Wyll.”

“It doesn’t look like you’ve been relieved of either of your eyes, or had twenty years taken off your life, so there doesn’t seem to have been any typical archfey punishment enacted, at least.” Lyra quirks a brow at Gale, slightly surprised he’s so knowledgeable about fey pacts. Then again, he seems to be a little knowledgeable about everything.

“He’s definitely cross with me,” Lyra admits. “Our overall agreement is that I bring him magical artifacts… and he wanted the one I gave to you.” She looks to Gale. “You assured me it was a matter of life and death. I hope I made the right choice.”

Gale is silent, staring in shock at Lyra. “Gods, twinkles, I think you actually made him speechless,” Karlach remarks in wonder.

His mouth finally catches up with his brain and he says, “yes, yes of course, I assure you I will not take this sacrifice lightly. To think you would risk angering your patron simply on my word that it is necessary… I am deeply touched.” He takes her hand and does a flourishing bow. “You, my lady, are a true paragon of honor and kindness.”

Lyra pulls her hand away. That’s certainly not true. Hells, she has barely thought of disobeying Midnight before, and this was not the first moral quandary she encountered. “It’s… the first time I’ve ever done anything he did not want. I have always done as he’s asked. This is uncharted territory.”

“How long have you had this pact?” Wyll asks.

“A year, but it feels like a lifetime.” Lyra smiles at the nostalgic memory of those early days, “And we were… involved before the pact. First a curious student who happened upon a mirror connected to planes beyond and her personal tutor from the Fey Wilds. Then…” Then lovers. They are lovers, right? He’s never said he loves her, but fey are different. “Well, I suppose I ought to be honest about this with you, if we’re to rely on each other. I entered into a pact with him when I stole for him. I took a powerful artifact from the Strixhaven archives.” She sighs, avoiding Gale’s gaze, remembering how he asked her why she was on the sword coast. “I fled to the sword coast on the run from the law.”

Everyone is silent for a moment, waiting to hear if she will elaborate more. Gale breaks the silence. “You realize that you have an intellectual aptitude that certainly exceeds plenty of the peers I studied with at Blackstaff,” he says, “you didn’t need a warlock pact to achieve magical power, surely you know this.”

“It wasn’t for power,” Lyra retorts, on the defensive. “It was for love.” She doesn’t quite know why she felt so secretive about her relationship with her patron, but even admitting that she got caught up in the romance of it all brings the heat of shame to her cheeks. “I don’t regret loving Midnight. And even as… angry as he is that I disobeyed, I know he still cares for me. But… I do regret what I did for the pact.” She has been laid bare before her companions. She feels the need to fill in any half-second of silence just to ease the tension that seems to grow stronger and stronger. “Now you all know my past, and why I got off easy with my patron.”

“Gods you’re a goody-goody aren’t you,” Astarion remarks with a melodramatic sigh. “If we’re all going to confess every time we’ve lied, cheated, or stolen, we’ll be here a tenday.”

“I am no stranger to the regrettable lengths one will go to for love,” Gale offers. “I can hardly judge when the consequences for my misguided deeds are rather more dire than trouble with the law.” He takes a deep breath, seeming to steel himself. “It is time you learned the truth of my condition.”

He was not exaggerating. Lyra’s issue of leaving school and hiding out on the Sword Coast pales to the potential immediate annihilation of an entire city.

It’s quite a lot to take in, but one thing is certain. “We’re in this together, Gale,” Lyra assures him. “I’m not leaving you.”

Though not romantic in nature, Lyra will look back on those words later and realize that it was her first confession of love. She never had many friends before, but Gale… the more she learned about him, the more she felt they understood each other. She would not give that up, no matter the danger involved.

[rainintheevening]

Obi-Wan & Anakin + STARSET's 'Starlight' (1/8)

[l-just-want-to-see]

beauty/poetry/reality Kait Rokowski / Swan Lake / Helen, Euripides + Gemini Stars Castor and Pollux, NASA / Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer + All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) / Kait Rokowski / I Died For Beauty, Emily Dickinson + Titanic / T.S. Eliot / Ad Astra / If We Were Villains, M.L. Rio / Helen, Euripides / all mentions of death and love in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet / Jellyfish Nebula, NASA + Helen, Euripides / Kait Rokowski

[cookiecrumbconundrum]

cultivated tragedy || kuri

another npc webweave because i'm feeling crazy about him right now. oh, kuri, kuri, kuri, i love your slow realization that people are not tools. your desire to push and push and push. your grief. your heart. your ambition. your anger. your rage. and yes your love. in a better world you could have been a good man. and you are changing, even if it's probably too late.

frankenstein - or, the modern prometheus, mary shelley | the sword of damocles painting, michael halter | cop car, mitski  | fleabag, phoebe waller-bridge | bloodsport, yves olade | twist 2, jen mazza | freefall, kiki smith | the unabridged journals of sylvia plath, sylvia plath | the stream of life, clarice lisepector | happiness, shuzo oshimi | a prayer, tathève simonyan | the sandman, neil gaiman | o’death, frances molina | natasha wright | nobody, mitski | mimmo paladino | unknown

[deathbind]

Here's a selection of spells from The Complete Sha'ir's Handbook that I think are just fucking cool