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incorrect-ikevamp-quotes · 3 years

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Hi! I love everything that you write and heh I am a fan! 😄 tbh this is my first time requesting something on Tumblr! If you don't mind and if I am not being a bother...can you write about how the guys would react If MC suddenly starts making meme references? I don't know how I got the idea but I am REALLY curious. And love you! :D

Hiya! Tyvm for the kind words, and apologies that this took a while! I hope you have the chance to enjoy it regardless ❤️❤️❤️ Love you too, sweet pea! I promise to get to the next request you’ve sent ASAP~

Aight but this would be hilarious because the range of the reactions is just ungodly. I will be putting this under a cut after Napoleon so I don’t clog up everyone’s dash, but all the suitors are included below otherwise!

Comte is the one that recognizes a few, but didn’t really stay in modern times long enough to be as well-versed as a Gen Z kid might. Regardless he finds the wittiness and absolute chaotic fuckery to be delightful, and will 100% support the harmless nonsense. It never fails to get a laugh out of him

Mozart that first day be like: “Buzz off MC I hate you” MC, because she likes swinging bats at wasps’ nests: “Well that’s not very cash money of you” Mozart: ?????????? Comte, giggling in the bg like the secret fae he is This one’s just because I’m petty, but after the events of Comte rt I just imagine them encountering Vlad again and MC’s just “I lived bitch.” while Comte is flipping him off behind her lkjahgkjhdsg

Comte @ Leo when he finds the latter under his desk: Had it not been for the laws of this land, I would have slaughtered you. MC: wheezing from the hallway as she’s about to give him his letters

MC: So how was your day, honey? Comte: Good, good--briefly had to go beastmode upon the punk that pilfered my lint roller MC, biting her lip to keep from laughing: So does Leo still have his kneecaps? Comte: for now.

Comte, @ literally anyone upsetting the MC: I won’t hesitate, bitch

Comte: Be careful with my emotional baggage, it’s designer

MC: What if I was evil and ran towards you at very fast speeds Comte: My arms are strong, I would catch and hug you

Leo and Dazai are the ones that don’t have a single reference point but are filled with so much dumbass chaos energy that they just. Understand immediately???? Nobody knows how or why, but they just catch on so fast--adapt the language in a matter of weeks. Never underestimate the power of combined boredom, depression, and humor

I swear to god I just see MC taking them their Blanc/Rouge and being like “here you go sir, one enslaved moisture” and they just go fucking hog wild from day one. MC starts impersonating Theo when he leaves the room around Dazai, like fake deep voice “you all only hate me because you do not like me and I am mean to you. grow up.” Or like the MC meets a baby on her travels with Leo around town and she holds them and says v seriously and sagely “So you are Baby? I have heard tales of your exploits.” and Leo about loses his shit right there. They both think MC is the funniest person alive--they’ve never been more eager to throw a ring at someone in their entire life.

Also a bonus for my beloved Dazai: MC, facing even the slightest inconvenience (like dropping her fork) in the most dramtic voice possible: Life is not daijoubu. Dazai: wheezing

MC, after watching Theo turn down a woman at the bar in the meanest way possible: bro quit letting the darkness consume you u r scaring the hoes Dazai, literally rolling around on the ground, half-drunk and dying:

MC, walking alongside Dazai and stopping to stare at her reflection in the River Seine. Dazai’s expecting some sad or twisted shit, since people often feel comfortable talking about those things around him, but instead she just: “Oh, it’s you. The source of all my problems.” And he about falls into the river from shock HAHAHA

At this point don’t be surprised if his next book is about an absolute madlad woman similar to MC

Napoleon finds it to be a delightful quirk more than anything? He doesn’t really understand it, but he finds it funny when they change their voice for effect or speak in exaggerated tones. If it’s just comprehensible enough for an outsider to understand--or Sebas gives him context--chances are it’ll send him into a laughing fit

For this one I just imagine MC singing that Ratatouille meme song obnoxiously bad while cooking, and Napoleon and Comte are just so wildly amused by it bc it makes zero sense and it’s only vaguely French at this point

MC @ Napoleon while they’re cooking brunch: Can I offer you a nice egg in these trying times?

MC, conflicted because she’s tired and wanted to sleep in but also got to see Napo’s cute sleeping face for a few hours: For my next stunt, I’ll wake up at 5AM on the day I can sleep in. Sebas: Early to bed and early to rise makes a person healthy, wealthy, and wise MC: early to bed and early to rise makes me a massive bitch Napoleon: laughing in agreement

Isaac is the type to be bewildered and concerned at first (especially when he hears the more nihilistic ones hoOOOoooOO BOY) but eventually begins to understand it’s some bizarre attempt at humor (that hurts Zack baby). While some part of him laments that it reminds him of Dazai and he’s secretly jealous of how she and Dazai bond over it, he will sometimes join in the chaos when the mood strikes him and he’s feeling mischievous

Isaac: How are you feeling? MC: Oh, I’m not Isaac: seconds from dialing 911 Isaac: Are you okay? MC: Oh yeah dw I just suffer from that syndrome where your neutral expression makes you look like you’re an angry serial killer Isaac: say sike rn

Isaac, tutoring MC and correcting something: MC, muttering while redoing it: The risk I took was calculated, but man am I bad at math. Isaac: unable to help a laugh

One time MC was avoiding Isaac for fear of hurting his feelings and he just confronts her like: Isaac: back by unpopular demand, me! What’s wrong, MC pls MC was so hecking proud of him

Isaac, telling MC about a recent discovery he learned at uni from another professor: bones typically heal stronger after they’ve been broken--so long as they’re set properly, of course MC, looking him dead in the eyes: So what you’re saying is that I should break every bone in my body until I become superhumanly powerful? Isaac: please do not, no

Mozart and Jeanne are just. Totally lost. Why are you talking like that??? Why are you making “crab hands”???? They don’t understand. Maybe never will. They reach a point where they just kind of laugh and shake their heads, endeared by the oddity after they’re used to it and have determined it isn’t a threat/insult.

MC: It’s a cold and it’s a brooooken, Waluigi. Waaaaluigiiiii...waaaahluigi..... Mozart: surprised, then starts snickering and playing along on the piano

Arthur, asking MC very personal questions out loud because he is an idiot sometimes: Soooo MC, are you a top or a bottom? MC: I’m a threat. (If he asks a second time, the response will be “Wouldn’t you like to know, weatherboy.”) Jeanne, fighting a smile:

MC, about to punch an asshole: Your free trial of being alive has ended Jeanne, seconds from laughing for the first time in 100 years:

Also, because I genuinely can’t help myself. You know that knight meme like “Parry this you fucking casual.” I cannot stress enough that it is literally the personification of Jeanne’s entire character. I’m not even joking.

Arthur and Shakespeare are utterly fascinated by the rapid evolution of wordplay and the sheer hilarity. They will ask all about these so-called “memes” and ask for examples of them if MC can show them (either somehow accessing her phone or drawing them). MC draws Arthur the knife cat meme and he about a s c e n d s at the hilarity of it all, points and yells THEO IS HOLDING THE KNIFE. He is correct. They will be delighted and follow along eagerly, and--god forbid--will make their own based on late 19th century struggles.

Is this where Shakespeare got the idea for “What, you egg? stabs him” and “You are a saucy boy.”? I’m too scared to ask. Don’t even get me started on “The Fool jingled miserably across the floor.” That one is just too on the nose...

I can’t even imagine what would happen to Shakespeare if MC like translated vines and memes into Ye Olde English around him. Imagine she’s at one of those noble balls and hears rumors of these two guys living together and they’re so obviously gay and he says “And those gents w’re roommates.” And in the most false surprised tone ever MC just replies “oh mine own god, those gents w’re roommates.” Imagine having a wife that’s just as hilarious as you are and hits you with all the force of a bag of wet mice every time you speak in retaliation, he’s going into palpitations.

Every time Arthur does smth stupid MC just: “I Pretend I Do Not See It.”

Vincent is tickled pink by MC’s penchant for finding joy and/or amusement in nearly everything they do, and he smiles gently when he sees them muttering and laughing to themselves. He wants to be able to join them in what they love, but he has a harder time following along and understanding the darker humor sometimes. Mostly gets confused??? Please give him the easier ones to mimic and laugh when he tries--or just include him in your jokes MC. He’s babie your honor...

But he also. Will not. Stand any kind of self-deprecation or borderline verbal self-harm. He’s usually very easygoing and calm, but for whatever reason that stuff makes him go deathly quiet and upset.

MC, after something goes horribly wrong, hugging Vincent: Oh Vince, we really in it now Vincent: giggling a little despite his worries, relaxing

MC: Theo stop simping for Vincent that’s my job

MC, when Theo leaves the room and she gets Vincent all to herself: The evil is defeated.

MC: And this is where I would put my will to live...if I h a d one! Vincent: ;-; MC: oh shit, oh fuck, I was only kidding Vincent wait (MC was subsequently lectured and loved on for many hours)

Theo is conflicted because on the one hand, he loves to see you smiling and having fun. On the other, you’re clowning as hard as Dazai and Arthur and he can only handle so many monkeys in his circus. Most of the time he will roll his eyes and be the straight man of this comedy, but you might find him cracking a smile--or accidentally letting a chuckle slip past his lips now and again.

MC, after meeting Theo: I’m a nice person, but I’m about to start throwing rocks at people.

Theo, those first days: Oh? You’re approaching me? Instead of running away, you’re coming right to me? MC: I can’t beat the shit out of you without getting closer.

Theo: Every time I ask MC to explain “vibe check” to me she hits me with some kind of improvised weapon

MC, after the “incident” (you know the one): This year, I lost my dear lover Theo Theo, in the distance: QUIT TELLING EVERYONE I’M DEAD! MC: ;-; sometimes I can still hear his voice...

Sebastian is last because oh boy. OH BOYYYYY I LOVE HIM. Okay so the way I see this happening with Sebastian is just. So wild. Because at first he’s t r y i n g so hard to be the proper butler man. He does not meme. But then he starts to drift closer to what Niles from The Nanny was, where he’ll quip and joke in private or when the situation is just beyond the amount of absurdity he can handle without making a snarky comment. Everyone in the house can’t fathom how Sebas and MC got so close so fast, but there are points where they’re just “Are they even speaking English anymore???” It’s 11 times funnier than normal because Sebas almost never smiles or laughs when memeing, the deadpan quality of his playing along sends MC every time

Has ABSOLUTELY said “HEY. PANINI HEAD. ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME???” jokingly when MC made a mistake in the kitchen. They laugh about it for y e a r s

MC: I can’t date someone who keeps a lamb as a pet, that’s so weird Sebas, brushing Lotte in front of MC: MC: MC: Okay, I will make an exception because she looks very polite

MC and Sebas, fully aware of the fame some of the men will reach in modern times: We will watch your career with great interest. (I s2g that’s like half of Sebas’ rt right there I’m crying)

Sebas rt with Lotte be like that 500 dollar Mareep meme: “sometimes a family can be just a boy, his gf, and their 500 dollar two foot tall Lotte”

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esotericakit · 3 years

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Fancy ranting about why you love kit snicket?👀 tbh I never found her character that compelling but I’m extreme open to changes of opinion hhh? pls feel free to ignore this hhgkkgkg

oh my god i’m so sorry i’ve been super busy I only just saw this but ahhh I love this question ((also sorry if some of thisk doesn’t make sense, i just got off a 7 hour bus ride and I am sleep deprived)). also a tw here for some discussions of painful stuff like death, loss, grief, implications of suicidal thoughts (nothing graphic)

okay so that’s valid bc she doesn’t get a lot to work with in tpp BUUUUUT what you do get is very rich. so basically it’s all tied in with vfd and what they’ve done to the sugarbowl gen. every member of the sugarbowl gen has been ripped from their family extremely young and recruited into this organisation, forced into life threatening situations, kept from loved ones for long periods of time (like kit and lemony in atwq) and have sort of convinced themselves, to varying degrees, that it’s important because the organisation is important. with lemony, he’s disillusioned and disappears after heartbreak. with beatrice and bertrand, they decide to pull away and leave. with jacques, he buries himself so deeply into his work with vfd so that he doesn’t have to reckon with what they did to him. and then you have kit.

with kit, I think she isn’t as sold to vfd as jacques and can still be somewhat critical of it, but also recognises that she’s trapped and always will be at their beck and call, and it’s not easy to break out from this illusion of the mighty organisation she’s a part of. she’s a quick thinker, she’s a mechanic, she’s resilient, she’s quick-witted, she’s as good a volunteer as they come, and so they exploit that and use her gifts (like building the queequeg and having her make the poison darts). for the most part, she buys into vfd’s bullshit, but i think it’s a sort of defence mechanism where she knows that resistance is going to be harder than compliance, so she puts her head down and does the work.

and this leads her to do things that she maybe wouldn’t have done of her own free will, like aiding in the murder of olaf’s parents. we don’t know exactly what kit and olaf’s relationship was like, but from what’s given in their interaction in te, i think they were young sweethearts, i think kit did genuinely care for him, and i think that it was vfd that ordered the murder, and not beatrice and bertrand, as many people have implied. so, by giving beatrice and bertrand the darts, she chooses the organisation over her relationship, and it can’t have been an easy choice. this then re-ignites the schism, olaf becomes a firestarter and kit has to watch as her brother is framed by olaf for crimes he didn’t commit.

and then lemony dies, or so she thinks. i’m of the mind that kit never learns that her brother is actually alive, and dies thinking she lost him. and we know that family is one of the most important things to the snickets; “we snickets look out for their own”, and I imagine kit going beside herself trying to find ways to protect lemony from all the attacks, the frame jobs, the rumours, only to have it be too late, and she’s lost her brother forever.

and so she’s left there, mourning lemony, and all she has left of her family is jacques. and she loves jacques but his first priority is vfd, it’ll always be vfd. she has beatrice and bertrand, but they’ll leave to the island soon, and they’ll leave vfd after that, and be largely out of her life for good.

she starts building the queequeg and at last, her vfd work seems to be doing some good. she meets ink, monty’s latest discovery, and at last, it seems that other members of vfd are doing some good. and then she hears about the medusoid mycelium, and the illusion of vfd cracks a little bit more. she desperately tries to stop gregor from creating the mycelium, only for that to fail. another loss.

then, we don’t know the nature of kit and dewey’s relationship so again, going off what we have with the fact that she is pregnant when we meet her and that dewey’s last word is “kit”, not to mention the way that she explicitly asked about dewey’s wellbeing when she meets the baudelaires on the island, the implication is heavily that she and dewey are romantically involved. and I think she found a lot of solace in dewey. dewey, in his own way, had lost a lot, from his parents to his brother (joining the firestartera), to his own identity, all to vfd, and he understood where she was coming from in terms of being disillusioned but also being trapped.

and then the baudelaire fire happens, and it’s very clear to everyone that olaf was involved (whether he actually was or not is a different debate). so this is now 3 people who kit has loved that olaf has had a hand in their deaths. someone she loved killing other people she loved, and it’s the most painful thing.

we don’t know where kit is for the events of asoue, but regardless, she has to hear how other associates and friends have died or been killed at the hands of olaf, and each one hurts more than the last, because she can’t stop or slow down how many people she’s losing, and I think there’s an element of not being able to help but blame herself for his actions, because if she hadn’t helped kill his parents, maybe he wouldn’t be doing this.

and then jacques dies, and it’s the biggest blow yet. she just lost the last member of her family she had left, and she can’t cope, she stays in bed and decides that, despite dewey, despite her child, she’ll never leave her bed again.

what does make her leave, however, is vfd business; the message from quigley. she knows that she can’t even take the time to mourn her brother, she has to keep moving, and the pressure to carry the whole “good” side of vfd, to continue what her brother started, is on her shoulders, and that’s immense.

and so that’s when we meet her in tpp, and she is a broken person. she has lost so many people, been put through so much, had her entire worldview and foundation turned upside down, and she’s still doing all of this work, putting her life on the line over and over again, for an organisation that has done nothing but take things from her and hurt her, but there’s absolutely nothing else she can do. she’s pregnant and she can’t allow herself to be happy or excited about that because she just doesn’t have it in her. all she knows is that she has to get through this as quickly as she can, losing as few people as she can. her conversation with the baudelaires is interesting too, and is so exemplary of how she’s mourning; she remembers little details about beatrice and bertrand (like the feathers on bea’s shawl) and reminisces about how much the children look like them, and you can tell that it’s extremely painful to go through

she then leaves the baudelaires and risks her life again trying to rescue the quagmires, and it’s unclear whether it was a success or not but regardless, when she finally pulls herself up onto that stupid book raft she insists on making, she’s so so so so tired. she’s in labour, she doesn’t know what’s happened at the hotel denouement, she doesn’t know whether she’ll return to the city and find more destruction or not. i think the only thing stopping her from giving up while on that raft is the thought of her child and dewey, so she holds on.

she washes up on the island and the baudelaires are there, which means they’re alive, so that’s something. but then she hears that dewey’s dead. that the hotel went up in flames. that all that’s waiting for her in the city is more pain and more loss. and that’s the final blow, that’s the moment that she knows that there is nothing can happen that can repair the damage created by what’s been taken from her. she refuses the apple, citing fear that it would harm the baby, but I think the truth is that she couldn’t bear to consider continuing her life after all that’s happened, even if it means sacrificing a life with her child.

and then olaf shows up and he rescues her from the raft and she’s suddenly face to face with the reason for so much of the loss she’s faced. it was him who killed so many of her associates, her friends, her brothers. and she doesn’t forgive him, because she knows she isn’t big enough to do that. we can also hypothesise about whether or not olaf could be the baby’s father (i like to headcanon that she doesn’t know either way but it’s either dewey’s or olaf’s, and the stress of that makes this moment even harder). but she also doesn’t have the energy to be angry at him. she knows these are her last moments, and she knows that olaf was a victim of vfd, just like she was. so she touches his tattoo and chooses instead to recite poetry, because it’s easier than being angry, it’s easier than hating him. he recites poetry back, and then dies. and despite the fact that he’s hurt her so much, she did care for him once, it’s one more person she’s lost, when she didn’t think she had anyone else to lose.

and then she gives birth to her daughter, using the last ounces of strength she has left. it’s a horrendously sad thing, because i think she could have had the capacity to love her daughter, to be a good mother, but the pain won out and she stopped being able to want to help herself, if that makes sense. so she gives her daughter life, the only thing she has left to give her, and then dies.

I think it’s so staggering to think about this person, who could have lived a life full of colour and fire, and see her completely beaten down to what she ended up as in tpp. she’s a prime example of what vfd does, she’s the last one standing of her generation, and the toll that takes on her is immense. i think the juxtaposition of her recklessness and her grief against the fact that she’s pregnant and about to become a mother is even more heartbreaking. she’s such a compelling character and so gorgeously written, even though what we see of her is so brief. she’s a person who so desperately wants autonomy and control over her situation, things she’ll never truly have, so she does reckless things that endanger her life, to get that control back and because she truly stops caring about her well-being.

and it’s a little comforting i guess? i tend to project onto kit a lot because of some of my own life experiences and losses and i understand where she comes from a lot of time time and it’s such a difficult place and my heart just hurts for her a lot

i’m sorry that this was so long, i got carried away lol thanks for the question though!!

#kit snicket #asoue #a series of unfortunate events #fran rants about kit snicket again

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arofili · 3 years

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HCs about Elemmírë?

Oh man, for a character we have next to no information about other than “Vanya” and “sang a really sad song about the Trees,” I have a lot of headcanons for Elemmírë!

First of all, Elemmírë is named after a heavenly body (possibly Arda’s version of Mercury?) and the name is not given in either a masculine or feminine form, so we don’t know Elemmírë’s canon gender. This of course means that Elemmírë is trans, you can’t change my mind! I’ve seen depictions of them as nonbinary, which I love, but personally my Elemmírë is a trans woman!

All the rest of my headcanons are pretty much made up whole cloth :)

I intended to make like, a bullet point list of headcanons, but I ended up referencing my recently created personal timeline of the Years of the Trees and the First Age, and...it kind of expanded into an essay on Elemmírë’s role in the larger story of that verse of mine. So, under the cut is a roughly 2,000 word essay on my take on this blank slate of a character!

Elemmírë is one of the Unbegotten elves who awoke at Cuiviénen. When she awoke, everyone assumed she was a male elf, which didn’t really sit right with her but she didn’t know how to express herself at the time. For the first part of her life she lived as a nér.

Elemmírë has a sister*, Calima (one of my OCs). Calima marries an Avar, who she manages to drag with her on the Great Journey despite his reluctance to go West. Right before Ulmo takes the Vanyar and the Noldor to Aman, Calima’s husband leaves her and disappears into Taur-im-Duinath...but not before Calima becomes pregnant. Elemmírë comforts her and supports her through the birth of her child, Elenwë - the first child to be born in Aman.

*(My headcanon around Unbegotten siblings is that some elves woke with soul bonds that connected them to other elves, which while they aren’t genetically related, they consider to be siblings of their fëa. This is the case for Elwë, Olwë, and Elmo; I also gave Nowë (Círdan) and Ingwë OC siblings. Finwë is a loner, which is part of why he’s so concerned about creating and keeping a marriage bond...)

While Ingwë is busy building Tirion with Finwë, his sister-in-law Alcariniel (the mother of Indis; her spouse died on the Great Journey and has yet to be reborn) leads some of the Vanyar to the foot of Taniquetil and founds what will become Valmar. Calima, Elenwë, and Elemmírë go with Alcariniel.

At this time, Elemmírë enters into the service of Varda. She develops a close relationship with her Vala, and feels more comfortable in the beautiful starry robes and among the company of mostly priestesses than she ever did in the more gendered Vanyarin society. She sings and composes hymns to Varda and the heavens.

About a century later, Elemmírë is an established and well-renowned musician in Valmar. It is then that she meets Findis, daughter of Indis, when Findis is visiting Taniquetil with her grandmother Alcariniel. Findis greatly admires Elemmírë’s songs and engages her in a discussion about poetry; the two quickly become friends.

After another hundred years or so, Findis’ half-brother Fëanáro has his fourth child. Finwë invites his whole family to the celebration; Findis now lives in Valmar and does not always attend these begetting day parties, but she happens to be in Tirion for the occasion - with Elemmírë, who tags along to the party.

At the celebration, Makalaurë (a young teen in Elf Years) sings a piece he wrote for his new baby brother, and Elemmírë is greatly impressed by his talent and offers to teach him personally. He’s had music tutors before, but none so renowned, and he is absolutely star-struck. Fëanáro has an inherent distrust of the Vanyar, but he cannot deny his son anything, especially when it comes to furthering his craft, so he agrees to let Elemmírë teach Makalaurë, on the condition that she move to Tirion. Findis offers to move back as well, so her friend won’t be alone; they move in together.

A few years later, Elemmírë takes her star student Makalaurë to Valmar so he can perform at her niece’s 200th begetting day party. This is, of course, Elenwë; Makalaurë is immediately besotted with her, and does his best to impress her. Of course, Elenwë is well into adulthood and Makalaurë is still an awkward adolescent, so nothing ever comes of this, but they do eventually become friends.

All this time, everyone has assumed that Elemmírë is a nér, but with every passing year she becomes more and more certain that is not actually the case. At last she confesses to her dear friend Findis that she thinks she might be a nís, and while Findis isn’t quite sure what that means at first, she’s very supportive and encourages Elemmírë to go to Varda with this revelation.

I do operate in a verse where some homophobia and transphobia exist in Aman, kind of accidently put into place by a well-meaning but ultimately harmful decision by Manwë, but Varda is significantly more chill than her husband. She doesn’t really get what Elemmírë is saying, but she supports her servant’s change in expression. Elven gender roles are pretty loose, so it’s not really that much of a difference, and with Varda’s support Elemmírë feels more confident in herself and comes out to the public.

Most elves, especially the Vanyar, likewise don’t really get it, and privately they still see her as a nér, but there is a firm taboo against rudeness which means they will refer to Elemmírë with the correct pronouns and honorifics and such because it would be incredibly rude not to. The discomfort with someone else’s non-normative expression is easier to deal with than the social impropriety of deliberately refusing to respect someone’s wishes about their personal identity.

This, along with Varda’s kind-of-confused-but-she’s-still-got-the-spirit support of Elemmírë means it’s a pretty smooth transition process for her. Since her name isn’t gendered, she decides to keep it, and she is much happier now that she can express her true self. She also has a staunch ally in Findis, who she has recently begun courting.

Again, there is some homophobia in my verse, and two níssi in a relationship is generally frowned upon, but the half-acceptance of Elemmírë’s gender allows them to exploit a loophole in that particular Law/Custom. Manwë, at least, still sees Elemmírë as a nér, and so doesn’t see anything wrong with her dating Findis. It’s not the ideal situation, but Elemmírë and Findis aren’t really the “fight the system” type, so they’re content to live with the happiness they’ve been allowed.

Eventually, Makalaurë reaches his first coming of age** and Elemmírë takes her student on a tour of all Eldamar to show off how exceptional a musician he has become. He is declared a master singer, and leaves Elemmírë’s side to pursue mastery in instruments, beginning with the harp. His teacher couldn’t be more proud.

**(In my headcanon, elves have two coming-of-age ceremonies: one when they reach age 50, and are considered physically mature and old enough to be given more freedoms in their decisions, including now being of a socially acceptable age to start dating; and the other at age 100, where they are considered a Full Adult and able to marry. Sometimes elves marry younger than that, but it isn’t super common. Age pretty much stops mattering, especially when it comes to age gaps in relationships, when an elf is about 150.)

Not long after this, Elemmírë and Findis get married! Makalaurë performs his then-masterpiece at their wedding. Also at the wedding, Findekáno is caught up in all the glorious romance, and the possibilities of same-gender marriage now that two níssi (one a princess!) can be wed, and confesses the depth of his love for Maitimo. Maitimo...immediately panics and brings up all the reasons why their love is doomed, how their aunts are the exception and not the rule and besides there’s that loophole they’re taking advantage of that doesn’t really work for néri like us - but notably does not deny that he feels the same way. Findekáno is heartbroken by the rejection; Maitimo is terrified of his feelings and distances himself from his beloved cousin for a time.

But of course that doesn’t last long - and it’s at the celebration of the birth of Laurefindil, Findis and Elemmírë’s son, that Maitimo brings himself to reconcile with Findekáno...platonically. Of course. Until a few months later where he just can’t take it anymore and breaks down and confesses he can’t deny his feelings any longer, and they get together at long last.

Findis, Elemmírë, and Laurefindil return to Valmar and settle down there. Laurefindil is buds with both his Vanyarin cousin Elenwë and his oodles of Noldorin cousins. At his first coming of age celebration, he introduces his cousin Elenwë (on Elemmírë’s side) to his cousin Turukáno (on Findis’ side), and Turukáno immediately falls madly in love and begins some intense pining that will rival even his older brother’s romantic dramatics.

As strife grows among the Noldor, Findis and Elemmírë distance themselves from Tirion as much as they can; Makalaurë is pretty much the only Finwëan who is allowed to visit them. However, Laurefindil misses his Noldorin cousins and, after his second coming of age, chooses to move to Tirion and join his grandfather Finwë’s court. He becomes even closer to Turukáno (who has by now married Elenwë) and is very loyal to his older cousin.

At the Darkening, Elemmírë is deeply grieved at the destruction of the Two Trees, and it is then that she composes her most famous song, the Aldudénië, “Lament for the Trees.” Her grief is compounded when her son chooses to go into exile with his Noldorin kin - and, almost worse, when her niece Elenwë chooses to leave as well.

Elenwë is the only Vanya who leaves (well, the only Vanya who is fully culturally Vanyarin without any Noldorin ancestry), mostly because she cannot bear to be separated from her husband and young daughter, but also because she knows the story of her Avarin father who stayed behind in Endórë and hopes that she will meet him on the hither shore. (Unfortunately, she perishes crossing the Ice. Idril will eventually meet her maternal grandfather, but not until just before she and Tuor sail West. Elenwë is reborn in Aman shortly after the founding of Gondolin; she reunites with her Vanyarin family and with her good friend Amárië.)

I don’t have a whole lot of headcanons for Elemmírë and Findis during the events of the First Age; they live mostly a quiet life. I think Elemmírë rededicates herself to the service of Varda, and pleads with her Vala to show mercy for the Noldor in their need. (Perhaps that helped to convince Varda’s husband to send an eagle to Thangorodrim?)

When they hear of Laurefindil’s death in the Fall of Gondolin (because of course Glorfindel followed his favorite cousin Turgon to his hidden city, and got a noble house out of it!), Elemmírë and Findis grieve his loss all over again. They don’t know how long it will be before his rebirth, and they soon decide to have another child together. This is their daughter, Faniel, who grows up on stories about her brother’s bravery.

Eventually Glorfindel is reborn, and he has a few good centuries in Aman with his family (and his husband Ecthelion, who he finally gets to marry; they had gotten betrothed the day before Gondolin fell, RIP) before the Valar send him back to Middle-earth to play the hero again. Elemmírë and Findis are once again heartbroken to lose him, but they are at the same time incredibly proud of their son for his bravery and dedication to all things good in the world. This time, he leaves with the blessing of Varda, his mother’s patron Vala, and a promise that he will return when his task is complete. He does, but not until the Fourth Age, when he sails back to Valinor with Elladan and Elrohir!

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awkwardbluefish · 3 years

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Hearts of Passion

Summary: Pamela Isley didn't know what to expect when she felt someone else in her orchard. She isn't expecting a skinny kid dressed up as Robin, picking fruit from her trees without a care in the world. He's an interesting Sapling, that was for sure.

Warnings: Swearing

Pamela Isley didn’t know what she was expecting when that distant tug in the back of her mind caught her attention. Someone was in her orchard and that someone was shifting through her garden, through her mind.

Not many people knew that the plants Pamela grew were a part of her. They were attached to her, to her mind and to her very being. She felt them grow, felt them live. She also felt them die. It was never a pleasant experience, and she doubts it ever would be. But now someone was in her orchard, in her garden. They trekked along the grass, boots scuffing at the back of her mind. They weren’t hurting her plants but there was always the possibility. Blood red hair brushes her shoulder as she cocks her head to the side, lips pressing together in a purse as her eyelids hide her irises in a wary slit. Her plants, and therefore her, wanted to investigate, to ease that twitch of curiosity thrumming in their shared veins. What on Earth was this person doing?

Very few people trekked through the groves of Robinson Park. It was common knowledge that Pamela Isley, no, Poison Ivy resided among the vines and moss at the depth of the parks. The only ones that willingly entered Ivy’s mangrove were Harleen and Selina, the two woman Isley has reluctantly grown attached to throughout the years. There were two other visitors her garden has grown familiar with, two which were not welcome but seemed to welcome themselves in either way. Batman and Robin.

Herleen, the idiotic woman, was currently in Arkham. The joker had once again twisted her thoughts, manipulating the blonde in such a way that Harley felt like she had no free will, felt like she couldn’t disobey her puddin’. Isley wasn’t happy, far from it. Despite being a psychiatrist Harley could never seem to pick apart that things mind enough to understand he was using her. He didn’t love her and he never would. Not like she could. If Joker ever came within the range of her and her plants, Ivy would choke him.

Selina and herself were planning to get Harleen out. Normally they wouldn’t go near Arkham with a ten foot pole, but Harleen was family and right now she was being exploited by a man that wanted nothing but chaos and destruction. They had to get her out, to help her. It would take a while and Harley would go through relapses but she was family, their friend, so they would try. For her.

Her mind tugs, pulling in the back of her brain. Her plants were curious, thrumming with energy. The need to know, to touch, to understand flowed through the link with such a searing intensity that Isley felt her pulse buzz and heighten in response. It was clear to her now that this being wasn’t here to hurt her babies, they were searching for something, exploring. Interesting. She lets the vines tug at her mind, their desire to investigate just as intense as her own.

She hums softly, the sound bubbling in her throat and echoing quietly around her. Each step she took were careful but graceful as she follows the tugging on her mind, letting the ebb pull her to the source. Flowers curl around her ankles, a soft sensation enough to tickle at her skin, vines brushing along her collar bone in a warm greeting before retreating, blending in with their own kind. Her babies part for her, green leaves tickling her cheeks as they make an opening for her, a door to the source of their excitement today.

A boy, young and far too skinny and dressed in familiar colours stare up at her, white lenses wide and muscles coiled. This was Robin but the small sapling was new, smaller than the first. It seems Batman has gotten another flower to blossom in his slowly but surely growing garden. Interesting indeed.

A vine curls around her wrists, cold leathery skin reassuring. Ivy doesn’t move, watching the boy with interest. The young sapling had been careful with her babies as he tugged fresh juicy fruit from her trees. Pamela liked this one already. The other Robin was far too energetic, not seeming to care for the babies that provided life to their world. Sure, the first sapling didn’t seek out to hurt her plants, only when he deemed it necessary, therefore when Poison Ivy was using her babies for revenge against the chemical companies. Still, he had hurt her babies so maybe Isley was being bias.

“Those are my fruit young Sapling.” She waves her palm, the vine slithering away from her wrist to wrap around the boys’ basket. An indignant shout escapes the boys lips but Ivy has to give him credit when its due, he doesn’t go after the basket.

The vine places the wooden basket down by her feet. Cherry red apples shimmer under her gaze, as well as blood red tomatoes. What on earth was the young sapling doing?

“You may control the plants but that doesn’t mean you own them!” Robin grumbles, lips twitching into a frown. The boys shoulders were tense, arms crossed tight to his chest. A barrier made instinctively between them, covering his heart as well as other vital organs. Smart. He was subtly defensive, as if to not to trigger her. Now that was interesting. Not that it would do much if Isley wanted to attack.

Isley chuckles, curiosity peaked as she lowers herself to her knees. She reaches into the basket, plucks out a tomato that sinks into her palm. Ripe and just perfect to be eaten. But the boy wasn’t eating, he was collecting. “Oh contrary little sapling. You are right, I do not own these babies or control them. I protect them and they let me. Now would you like to tell me why you’re collecting fruit from my garden?”

Robin frowns, face flushing red, a stark contrast to the black domino resting along his cheekbones. A foot begins to bounce and Isley watches the boy flounder with cool green eyes, seeing his limbs lock up in a freeze, sees his chest raise in slow controlled breaths. He was trying to get control of his anxiety; he was a smart one. He sure did hide his emotions better than the first one, but he was still a child and they were as plain to read as an open picture book. Isley lets him think, rearranging the fruit to prevent bruising. No need to bruise perfectly good food because of the packaging.

“And I should tell you why?” The boy grumbles, a chin jutting out and arms tightening around his chest. Isley snorts softly to herself, understanding the kids’ wariness but finding it amusing all the same. Unlike what the media likes to portray, Isley does not attack innocents, especially children. The first Boy Wonder however hadn’t left her too much of a choice. Its survival of the fittest in Gotham and there was no way she was being sent back to Arkham simply because she wanted to protect and grow her babies. She made sure to never seriously harm the older Robin though. Despite his treatment to her babies, he still managed to wiggle a way into her green heart.

“I’m just curious sapling,” she continues to kneel, willing moss to grow beneath her. There, now that was much more comfortable. “If you have a good reason, I’ll let you take the fruit home. I don’t just let greedy little children take my freshly grown produce only to waste them.”

The boy bristles, shoulders tensing in anger. The arms tighten before throwing down to his side, foot flattening the grass beneath his pixie boots in the stomp of anger. Ivy was expecting his defiance but she assumed it would be on his own behalf. But that wasn’t the case. Robin was angered over someone else’s behalf. Interesting.

“The kids in crime alley aren’t greedy little children!” He roars, words laced in that familiar Gotham drawl Ivy has gotten used to since moving here from Seattle. “They’re just trying to survive! They’ve been left on the streets to die and without nutrients in their systems it’ll be sooner rather than later! They are the farthest thing from greedy when referring to fuckin’ food! Yes, they steal, yes they might be pests but it’s not like food is handed to them on a silver platter like the majority of the people in this selfish city!”

Ivy hums, throat vibrating as a smile pulls at her glossed lips. She stands up, gripping the basket handle as she goes. Robin goes stiff, attempting to cool his features from his righteous fury. It doesn’t quite work but the effort was valiant if nothing else.

“That’s quite a statement little one. A statement I’d have to agree on,” Robins jaw drops and Pamela chuckles, a familiar warmth bubbling in her stomach. She was getting fond of people far too easily these days. “You have passion in this subject so I guess asking your opinion on an upcoming project of mine would be best.”

“What project?” Robin growls and Ivy’s smile goes a little less mischievous and a little more warm. She wasn’t only passionate about plants after all.

She strides forwards, makes her form lax. She didn’t want to frighten the child; she was not about to harm him. Robin still tenses and Pamela can feel his gaze making holes through her body. “I’ve been thinking of this little project for a while now. Of course, if I just begun it without consulting with a trusting authority then it would be a mere waste. I wish to grow fruit and vegetables in crime alley. Of course, that’s only the beginning, I hope to grow food for anyone in need in Gotham where they have free access.”

Isley meets his whiteouts in a gaze, knows the boy is assessing her. His shoulders are tense, muscles once again coiled but he doesn’t run. He doesn’t attack either. He’s interested, hope taught in his form. But he won’t bite, not yet. If he had Pamela would call Batman herself, demanding the boy to be put under more training. To not trust so easily, not without all the details. This sapling was a bright one.

“What do you get out of it?” The kid demands, once again coming in defence to protect the street kids. Interesting. There just had to be some history there. No one was protective of street kids, not unless they were one, had been one or had enough compassion and sympathy that just did not belong in Gotham.

Isley hums, a small smile twisting at her strawberry coated lips. she would have to dig into that later. “What do I gain hmm? I gain nothing. Nothing but being relieved at not seeing children die, to see kids fight over a mouldy piece of bread. If I’m lucky, I’ll also be able to see these children smile, live like the children they are. But I cannot do that by myself.”

Robin doesn’t take the basket, not yet, but Isley can see his form relaxing, melting at her words. He wants this to, with a burning passion that Isley feels towards plant life. It was important to this boy. There was definitely some history there that Isley was just dying to find out. Later though. Right now, was a chance to put her long waiting plan to action. A chance to put her gifts to good, to use her powers in a way the was seen as socially acceptable. There was a need within her that never seem to abate, the need for acceptance. This need couldn’t just be filled by her babies, no matter how hard they tried.

“Why not?” It’s snapped out, words meaning to be harsh but Isley smiles. He couldn’t quite be menacing when the hope in his voice seemed to outshine even the sun. Cute.

“People would stop me. They would believe I was up to something, that I plan on poisoning innocent children or wanted something in exchange. The police would blow up my babies, maybe even arrest some street kids on the way if they were near. Batman would cut up my babies, arrest me too most likely. Despite the medias propaganda, I do truly wish to help.”

Robin’s expression had lifted, lightening during Isley’s small speech. The frown had tugged up, not quite a smile but definitely not a frown either. His head had tilted, much like a curious puppy as she talked, relaxing in an open body posture. He wasn’t tense, wasn’t in defence. He was completely curious, interested. Eager almost.

“To help plants,” Robin points out and Isley smiles.

“They’re one in the same, are they not? I wish to help plants to help people. I wish to help plants to help the Earth. Plants are being killed off and so are the oxygen supplies, the food. Plants are what I’m passionate about but they lead into so many other things.” Isley admits. She always wanted to help people and plants could do that. Humans were too dense to make sense of it, however.

Robin gazes at her, past her walls and her crimes. It was like being truly seen for the first time, by someone other than Harleen and Selina. It was frightening but it also felt undeniably good.

“You really mean it don’t you? You just want to help.” Robin’s expression is open, cheeks flushed and lips parted. He gazed up at Isley in awe, as if she were a one of a kind. She almost felt embarrassed. The kids shakes his head, a grin full of teeth. A smile, full of childish wonder nearly blinds her as he takes the basket from her outstretched palm. “Next time maybe don’t attack big companies? It might do some good for your image!”

Isley laughs, chest rumbling and a warmth coiling its way around her heart. There was no doubt about it, in a few minutes she had grown undeniably fond of this kid, the new Robin. Harleen and Selina would never let her live it down.

“Thanks Dr. Isley! I’ll talk to B-Man and sort something out! Just don’t go attacking anyone and I think he’d be okay with it!” A flutter of a cape and the click of a grabble gun and Isley is alone with her babies once again.

She smiles, pets a vine curling around her wrist. “He’s a cheeky sapling, isn’t he?”

Her babies agree and Isley knows she isn’t the only fond one of the boy.

#robin #jason todd #pamela isley #poison ivy #dc #mine #my writing #not beta read we die like robins #fluff

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levitatingbiscuits · 4 years

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I'm a little scared, but...tell me more about "Padawan child soldier au where there Republic figures out that Mandalorians don’t like to harm children and takes full advantage"?

i have a series of posts about it already under the “child soldier au” tag, but thank you for the opportunity to ramble about my headcanons and justifications! it’s absurdly long so i had to hide it under the cut lol

welllllll, we all know from the clone wars that the republic had no problem sending jedi children to the battlefield to die. in the first battle of the war on geonosis, anakin was the only padawan and youngest jedi present at age 19. 200 jedi (a full 5% of the jedi order) died within a few hours at most. as the war continued and jedi knights died in droves, ages continued to drop until they were sending out 14 year olds like ahsoka just a year later.

i’m not sure if this was due to mandatory jedi general quotas (older padawans got their own commands before they were even knighted, at least according to the 1st star wars: clone wars cartoon), but considering palpatine manufactured the conflict in order to more easily commit genocide, I think it’s very likely. Ahsoka is shown to be sent back to the temple or sent on peaceful (or at least supposed to be peaceful) missions a lot more than either obi-wan or anakin, and she often spends time with other masters while anakin and obi-wan are busy with the war (or with padme, in anakin’s case :/ he always has time to hang out in her apartment and go to her parties or escort her places and i think palps has a hand in it, considering how we pretty much never see obi-wan or the other jedi have that much free time).

SO: if the senate and the republic citizenry are so eager to send children to die for them when there’s literally no tactical advantage whatsoever, they’d definitely use child soldiers against a culture that treasures children.

Of course, this might be difficult to notice at first, considering that Mandalorians come of age at 13, which is also the cutoff for initiates to be accepted by a master before they have to leave the Jedi Order. (love me some jedi/mando cultural parallels.) However, considering that their parents literally coach them through their verd’goten (warrior’s trial), and the reward is to be able to forge their own beskar’gam, I think this stage of “adulthood” is equivalent to a jedi apprenticeship: more freedom and responsibilities, but you’re still learning and being closely monitored as you come into your own. they’re also expected to live with their parents until they get married and start their own family, so I see marriage as equivalent to knighthood. Mandalorian youths are NOT encouraged to engage with the enemy directly, as we see with jaster and jango, jango and boba, and din and yodito. they might get peripherally involved, or help from the sidelines, but if you target the child directly the parent whoops your ass in short order. (notice how jango lets his kid near jedi when he won’t even let the kid meet most of his bounty hunter colleagues, because he knows that they don’t hurt kids. notice how obi-wan doesn’t even THINK of going after boba even when he’s firing the ship’s guns at him, and how the jedi don’t touch him even when he’s in the middle of the arena on geonosis and they could probably use him as a hostage.)

but padawans don’t have a marker of adulthood in the way that mandalorians do. you can become a padawan when you’re still in the single digits. at first, the jedi would work very hard to keep their padawans from having to fight directly against the mandalorians, but going off the clone wars, as casualties rise among the jedi the average age of the combatants drops.

going against the jedi is FUN for mandalorians. for a significant portion of their history they hunted jedi for sport. but going against an eerily graceful master is a lot different than fighting some half-trained shrimp, and without any armor they can see how YOUNG some of these jedi look.

so the mandalorians might start hesitating. just a bit, at first. maybe they let the enemy retreat instead of killing them all or something, because they don’t want to kill a master (parent) in front of such a young “adult.” and the republic war machine notices, and sends more master-padawan teams. younger, this time. and the mandalorians let more people live, fight a little less ferociously. (maybe they think of their own children, far behind the front lines, running easy missions with their other parents and clanmates, so excited to be wearing armor for the first time.)

the republic starts sending padawans on solo missions, like in the clone wars. padawans are in high demand as bodyguards for diplomats and senators, like in TCW, not because of their skills but because the whole entourage is much less likely to be massacred if they have one with them; the more baby-faced, the better. age requirements for combatants drop lower, and lower, and lower, until a mandalorian looks at the padawan brandishing a lightsaber at them and notices that they still have teeth growing in.

and it works. it works well. force-sensitive toddlers start getting conscripted by the republic instead of willingly surrendered to the temple. maybe the republic finally cracks down on the booming slave trade of force-sensitive children so that they can have more soldiers. instead of aging out, Jedi initiates have to complete a few years of mandatory military service before they’re allowed to leave the order or join the corps. the coruscant guard is required to have at least 5 initiates in the senate building at any time.

and who can stop them? there are fewer and fewer jedi every year, even if the creche is overcrowded to bursting. the code has to be amended to allow masters to teach two or four or six padawans whatever they can to keep them alive just that much longer. after all, the order can’t resist the will of the senate if most of them die before they can even reach knighthood, let alone mastery. the mandalorians go after the adults even more violently now because they blame them for putting their children in danger, which ironically means that the republic can exploit them even more easily as their guardians and advocates die out.

#child soldier au #canon-typical violence #harm to children #child abuse #child exploitation #elenathehun #angst

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terresdebrume · 4 years

Text

The Witcher - Favorite Reads Masterpost

So, the previous one was getting really super long and Tumblr refused to save the latest update three times, which I’m taking to mean I’ve reached some kind of length limit. In view of that, and with a poke to @nyliekeo who asked to be tagged, here’s the second volume of my Witcher fic-reading adventures!

(Pretty much all Geraskier, because I’m only a multishipper in the sense that I have many ships across many fandoms.)

Volume 1

Last updated: April 10th, 2020.

Non geraskier fic

Her Current Is Pulling You Closer - TheMarvellousMadMadamMim

Specs: 1 900 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Eist/Calanthe - Swimming, shameless flirting

Summary: After nearly three years of marriage, Eist Tuirseach realizes there are still things to learn about his wife.

Becoming Water - Orockthro

Specs: 3 456 words - Mature - Trans woman!Geralt, curses, happy ending

Summary: When Geralt was a child his mother kissed his forehead, wove flowers in his hair, and let him dance around the campsite they shared with the other druids. He loved dancing, the way his body moved and flowed; he was like water.

And then she left him in the road, spilled water on his feet, and a faint trail of dust where she and the cart were no longer. And a man came and took Geralt and made him into something new.

“Were you short? Waifish? Did those witcher mutagens turn you into, you know, the hulking sexy man that you are? At least they gave you such male perfection, what with the stubble and the jaw and the--”

“Shut up, Jaskier.”

(Or, Geralt is cursed with a female body during their travels. Only it's not so much a curse as a gift she didn't know she so desperately desired until now.)

of cockroaches and men - Potrix

Specs: 1 442 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Yennefer & Jaskier, Getting to know each other, BAMF Jaskier

Summary: As if being stuck waiting for her supplier in this sorry excuse for a town full of narrow-minded, superstitious simpletons isn't already frustrating enough, the first familiar face Yennefer spots when she walks into the grubby tavern is that of her least favourite bard.

Or, alternatively; sometimes you misjudge people, but there's nothing some badassery and booze won't fix.

all cooped up - alittlebitmaybe

Specs: 4 205 words - Mature - Polyamory, Pandemic 2020, Non-explicit sex, instigator Yen

Summary: Geralt's old university roommate, Jaskier, needs a place to ride out the pandemic. Geralt and Yennefer conveniently have a couch and Geralt, inconveniently, has a crush.

Cover it over and write it out - TheArcheologist

Specs: 3 214 words - Mature - Dyslexia, implied child abuse, Dandelion is a noble

Summary: There is something Geralt has noticed, after traveling so long with Jaskier. It is nothing major, nothing world ending or even warranting bringing up, but it is there, nonetheless, a funny little habit he can’t unsee.

“You’re better at this stuff than me, Geralt, you read it.”

Geraskier fics

pride - Besully (Briar_Elwood)

Specs: 737 words - Teen & Up - Trans Jaskier

Summary: Geraskier Week Dealer's Choice

He only manages to get the shirt untucked from the bard’s trousers when Jaskier’s smile disappears, and he scrambles backwards, holding the edges of his shirt down.

Do It Again - thisgirlsays22

Specs: 6 771 words - Explicit - Time Loop

Summary: By the twentieth time Geralt has gone through the loop, he decides to just throw himself off the cliff’s edge after Borch.

He wakes up to his twenty-first attempt.

“Fuck.”

Interlude; The End of All Things - TabbyCat33098

Specs: 3 496 words - General Audiences - Growing Old Together

Summary: Geralt realizes Jaskier is growing old and tries his best to return the rest of Jaskier's life to him. If only Jaskier would cooperate and take it.

How much longer will Jaskier be content with weathering the elements and contending with the uncertainty of mercenary work? How long until Jaskier realizes that in devoting himself to crafting a legacy for Geralt, he has forgotten to create a legacy of his own?

After all, he does not have a wife or children, for their nomadic lifestyle is conducive to neither. He has no home to return to between stints with Geralt, whether a sprawling mansion vaunting his wealth or a comfortable cottage replete with souvenirs from his varied exploits. How many experiences has Jaskier sacrificed because some contract or irate nobleman drew them elsewhere? How many untouched fields of snow has Jaskier never seen; how many harvests at Novigrad has he yearned to celebrate from halfway across the Continent—

“You’re staring,” Jaskier points out.

“You wanted to go to the Kovirian coast,” Geralt responds.

a tapestry of scars - splendidlyimperfect

Specs: 7 688 words - Mature - Modern AU, Birpolar disorder, self harm, references to previous suicide attempt and car accident.

Summary: Jaskier comes into Geralt's life on a sunny afternoon in May - wide smiles and baby blue eyes; breathtaking stories and half-written song lyrics. He's mesmerizing and full of life, and Geralt can't look away. But sunshine doesn't last forever, and when Jaskier disappears, Geralt learns that beautiful things have dark and broken pieces, and even damaged people can help fix them.

Summer Mornings - The UnamazingTrashKing

Specs: 3 241 words - Mature - Fluff

Summary: Geralt and Jaskier are sort of a couple. They definitely wake up together and talk about spending the rest of their lives together.

An Incomplete Happiness - BlossomsintheMist

Specs: 22 497 words - Mature - Serious injuries, injuries recovery, unresolved sexual tension, unresolved romantic tension

Summary: Jaskier is traveling with Geralt when a hunt goes badly wrong and Geralt ends up injured. Geralt soon realizes that the bard can take care of Geralt better than he'd realized, in his own way.

Hide Behind The Mound of Dead Bards - Bones (Doctorbones)

Specs: 17 296 words - Explicit - Temporary character death, Graphic depiction of violence

Summary: Jaskier is really bad at two things: shutting up and staying dead. Luckily, he can do both at the same time...for a while.

faith in transience - unconscious

Specs: 12 532 words - Explicit - Monster of the week, Service top Jaskier, attempted mind control.

Summary: “I learn stuff about you to enrich my songs, thanks very much.” Geralt starts.

“Like what?”

Jaskier strums a chord. “Plenty of things. You always ask the contractor if they want the head or not instead of just showing up with it, because you don’t want to shock people. You eat normal amounts of food when eating in public, instead of your usual awe-inducing giant amount. You sleep more when you’re hurt, but that’s the only way I’d ever know. You’re a bit weird about your potions and you count them a lot.” He glances up and grins. “Shall I continue?”

A handful of contracts go sideways. Recovering is easier with Jaskier there.

when midnight breaks their sleep - SummerFrost

Specs: 16 736 words - Mature - Modern setting, polyamory, polyamory negociation

Summary: The first Snapchat that anyone ever sends Geralt is a picture of his own irritated face.

shrike_princess: can u believe this dumbass finally got a snapchat bc a cute boy asked him nicely

"It wasn't even that nicely," Geralt says flatly.

AKA: The one where Geralt is a bartender and Jaskier sings karaoke.

he, who i love - kinneyb

Specs: 1 279 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Established relationship

Summary: Jaskier looked forward to these nights the most; he was playing in a rundown tavern in a small town near the coast, coins gathered at his feet, knowing that at any moment Geralt would come bursting through the door.

He spun on his heels, strumming his lute with nimble fingers, the mark of a practiced player.

Jaskier had thought he’d reached his peak when he was younger. He had been proven wrong, of course, practice truly did make perfect. He was getting more attention than ever, and only half of it probably had to do with his new songs, all depicting the Witcher’s love story with a bard of the human variety.

He never directly mentioned himself, but the people had made the connection fairly easily, anyway.

Near the Coast - IantoPace

Specs: 2 164 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Dresses

Summary: Geralt finds out some of the feminine things Jaskier likes. This is inspired by the images of Joey Batey & Madeleine Hyland in the woods wearing each other's clothes.

Shoot First, Ask Questions Later - Ladivviniatravestia

Specs: 3 427 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Defining the relationship

Summary: Geralt and Jaskier fuck, then try to define their relationship. Too bad Geralt has no idea what he really wants and Jaskier has been hiding something.

parry, riposte - plutoandpersephone

Specs: 5 230 words - Explicit - Established relationship, competence kink, power dynamics

Summary: "How about it?"

Geralt looks at Jaskier like he’s just started to speak in some long lost, foreign tongue.

"You want to take me on in the sword ring?"

Jaskier challenges Geralt to a bout in the fencing ring. They both get more than they bargained for.

The Coast - NinjaSniperKitty

Specs: 1 856 words - General Audiences - Established relationship, overly protective boyfriend!Geralt

Summary: Geralt takes Jaskier up on his offer to get away and go to the coast for a while. While Geralt sees danger hiding everywhere along the coast, Jaskier hasn't been to the sea in years and only sees a good time!

Sweet, Silky, Soft, and Shiny - Girl_in_Red_Crossing

Specs: 3 251 words - Mature - Inappropriate use of candy

Summary: Just a couple of bros, sucking on sweet things... sharing silky things... lying in soft beds together... (kissing)...

The Witcher Wolf 2: Geralt’s POV - im_fairly_witty.

Specs: 15 338 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Animal transformation

Summary: It's been two weeks since Geralt drove Jaskier away from him on that mountain top and Geralt's been doing his best not to think about it by accepting every contract he comes across. But when a job goes badly he find himself cursed into the form of an injured wolf and is then saved by none other than Jaskier himself, who has no idea that the animal he's taken under his wing is his own witcher. Geralt must now try to alert Jaskier to his real situation and adjust to his new life traveling with the bard, learning several hard but very much needed lessons along the way.

Shadowplay - sospes

Specs: 26 539 words - Mature - BAMF!Jaskier, Espionnage

Summary: Geralt returns to Oxenfurt on a bright May morning to find flowers laid outside Jaskier's rooms and a fresh grave in the cemetery.

Except, as Geralt is about to learn, in Jaskier's world things are never quite what they seem.

An Old Man’s Tale - NotebooksandLaptops

Specs: 1 448 words - General Audiences - External POV, Old age

Summary: At the edge of the village, in a house surrounded by wild-flowers and weeds - re-built from its former crumbling foundations – there lived the Old Man. He’d earnt the rights for the capital O, capital M off of the rest of the villagers barely a week after he’d moved into their humble world. For he had not grown up here, like everyone else did. Yet he settled and settled as if he had always been there. He wandered the cliffsides, the beaches, the streets. He strung shells together and gifted them to the ladies of the village with a wink that betrayed the charming young man he once must have been. He bought the little ceramic pots Alicja sold on the market, and he filled them with weeds as if the weeds were flowers worth showcasing. And – most importantly – he sang.

-///-

Or, Jaskier settles in a costal village towards the end of his life.

For The Joy Of It - vvitchering (Witchering)

Specs: 848 words - Teen & Up Audiences - self esteem issues, body image

Summary: After spending years on The Path together, Jaskier and Geralt finally settle down. Jaskier notices one day that his new sedentary lifestyle has changed him in ways he fears Geralt won't accept.

The Silence Between Heartbeats - anarchycox

Specs: 7 969 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Jskier knows Geralt better than anyone

Summary: Geralt faced off with a sorceress, only instead of her magic killing him, it stole his voice. But this should be an easy fix, he knew many women who could heal this. But that would mean anyone noticing something wrong. He knew he was quiet, but seriously, did no one wonder why he wasn't saying a single thing? Months he traveled silent, no one noticing and it was driving him mad.

Until he runs into Jaskier, who notices immediately that something is wrong.Because of course it is Jaskier.

Who else in the end would it be, who properly saw the White Wolf?

tailored - jeannie_tangerine

Specs: 4 874 words - Explicit - Geralt has a kink and Jaskier is absolutely into it.

Summary: in which Jaskier finds out that Geralt has a kink and is more than glad to indulge it.

oh darling please be mine - kickassfu

Specs: 749 words - General Audiences - Introspective, fluff

Summary: Geralt’s head turns to him just as he’s jumping into his arms. Obviously, he catches Jaskier, in his very strong, very big arms. Still probably processing what’s happening, Geralt’s body is tense, unmoving. Jaskier doesn’t care.

New Monsters Stories - Kathkin

Specs: 20 209 words - Explicit - Urban fantasy, mutual pining

Summary: “So do you have a name?”

“Yeah.” The man who had saved his life less than an hour ago – the white-haired, absurdly buff, weirdly sexy man Jaskier might have called taciturn if he was feeling charitable and surly if he was feeling less so – dug into his second burger.

Jaskier waited. “Are… you going to tell me what it is?”

The man paused mid-bite, and looked at him reproachfully as if to say how dare you. How dare you interrupt me. Can’t you see I’m enjoying my cheeseburger. Can’t you see this cheeseburger is the most important thing in my life right at the moment. He swallowed, and said, “Geralt.”

It turns out almost getting eaten by a werewolf can make your whole life go careening off in a new, terrifying, wondrous, artistically flourishing direction. Who knew?

Professor Pankratz - martistarfighter

Specs: 1 147 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Established relationship

Sumary: “Come teach my class with me tomorrow.” He whispers in the witcher’s ear. He’s sporting a neatly trimmed beard these days, and it tickles Geralt’s neck in the most tempting way.

Geralt chuckles dryly, but the lack of an immediate quip tells him that Jaskier is serious. It’s a little scary how often they can read their minds by now.

“Don’t think so. You’re the teacher, Jask. I’ve got nothing to tell them.”

“But you’re the reason I’m still alive and teaching in the first place. Besides, you can just sit there, look pretty and answer some questions. My students have heard a lot about you, they’ll adore you.”

As someone pointed out, there's too much 'witcher watching out for his idiot' and not enough 'the witcher is a himbo who loves his college educated bard husband, who is qualified to teach' content out there. So I'm fixing it with a self-indulgent ficlet!

and i plan to be forgotten when i’m gone (yes, i’ll be leaving in the fall) - Stockholm_Syndrome

Specs: 18 083 words - Mature - Discussion of assisted suicide, discussion of suicide, depression, curse, no MCD

Summary: “That was more emotional than I expected.” He finally said “I didn’t think I’d have time to share this with you, and I.” Jaskier interrupted himself, as if unsure if he should continue. “I suppose I didn’t think it would upset you so.”

“Jaskier” Geralt growled, not able to express how ludicrous that idea was.

“Yes, I suppose I was wrong there.” Jaskier replied with a helpless shrug.

---- Or, Jaskier is cursed to turn into a monster. He doesn't think this is important information to mention.

Chopsticks - thisgirlsays22

Specs: 12 175 words - Explicit - Piano teacher!Jaskier, friends to lovers, modern setting

Summary: “Yennefer sent me a check for eight lessons for you,” Jaskier said the following weekend, wearing a beige button-down with--

“Does your shirt have owls on it?” Geralt asked, caught somewhere between amusement and horror.

Jaskier looked down and tugged on the front of his shirt as if he had to remind himself what was on it. He beamed at Geralt. “Yeah! Do you like it?”

“Not particularly.”

The smile swiftly disappeared.

“It’s not terrible,” he amended, stepping back to let Jaskier inside the apartment. Then Jaskier’s initial words sank in. “Wait. Yen did what?”

Hanging up on Yennefer was always a mistake.

what’s in a (pet) name? - janie_tangerine

Specs: 1 415 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Fluff, pet names

Summary: "So," he clears his throat one evening, having just rinsed Geralt's now clean, soft white hair, and damn how he wishes the man would just take care of it somewhat decently, "I was wondering."

"What?" Geralt says after he doesn't go on for a bit. It didn't sound particularly annoyed. Right on.

"This is a very broad question, but I was just curious, no need to answer if you don't want to -" Jaskier starts, having learned that giving the man a way out is always a good bet.

"Just get on with it, won't you?"

Jaskier clears his throat, leans down, puts his elbows on the rim of the tub. "How do you feel about pet names?"

Or: in which Jaskier has a question for Geralt. It doesn't get answered the way he had assumed.

As Long As You Were Mine For A Little While - whisperedstories

Specs: 12 815 words - Explicit - Friends with benefits, mutual pining

Summary: It starts with Jaskier offering a helping hand when Geralt needs to let off some steam. The thing is, Jaskier likes taking care of Geralt—however he can—and Geralt lets him, so he just keeps doing it.

And as long as they never talk about how he's in love with Geralt, they're both happy with the arrangement, right? Right.

Of Debt and Debtors - sp_oops

Specs: 5 136 words - Explicit - Semi-public sex

Summary: Two bros, chillin' in a ta-vern, five feet apart ‘cause they—fuck, they really missed each other, not that Geralt will ever admit it—and anyway, in a minute here, they're gonna have to get closer than they ever thought possible. (Or, sometime after Episode 6, they meet again, Jaskier’s in trouble again, and Geralt saves them. Again.)

This One I Shall Choose - DorkMagician

Specs: 3 751 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Quiet pining, the exact moment Geralt falls in love

Summary: Geralt falls in the river fishing for a djinn and winds up soaked. Jaskier sees the opportunity to do as his mother told him a long time ago and takes the first step when he offers Geralt his handkerchief.

Skin Deep - Sospes

Specs: 8 935 words- Teen & Up Audiences - Fluff, getting together, non consensual tattooing, implied/referenced rape, implied/referenced childhood abuse

Summary: “What’s that?” Geralt asks.

Jaskier blinks. “It’s a tattoo,” he says. “Have you never seen a tattoo before, Geralt?”

Geralt fights the urge to roll his eyes. “I know it’s a tattoo,” he says. “What’s it a tattoo of?”

They say there are 5 ways to show your love (and I don’t know any of them) - Mayathelittlebee

Specs: 5 989 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Fluff, humor

Summary: May be if Geralt stopped being so dramatic for a moment he'd finally realize that loving Jaskier is not as hard as he thinks.

I don’t mind if I’m with you - janie_tangerine

Specs: 11 152 words - Explicit - In which Jaskier has to quelle his murder instincts concerning how much Geralt’s life sucks

Summary: or: five times plus one in which Jaskier finds out that Geralt is missing on good life experiences and promptly sees to fix it.

Fill Me Up - Mysticmajestic

Specs: 402 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Romance

Summary: Geralt only knows how to give, and give, until he's empty. What is he to do with Jaskier, who only wants to give back to him?

Little Things - QueenForADay

Specs: 3 315 words - General Audiences - Domestic fluff, Ciri ships it

Summary: In the first few months of knowing the Witcher, he experienced first-hand how shut-off Geralt could be with the world around him and those within it.

At some point, and he can’t pinpoint where, that shroud started to slip away. He saw how much Geralt could, and does, actually care. It’s as fierce as the way he fights.

They spend a great deal of time watching each other; when they finally fell into a bed together, they spent most of their nights learning what the other liked, mapping the plains of skin and muscle underneath the other.

But it’s the other things, the little things, that Jaskier thinks about the most.

O, Empathy - almostnectarine

Specs: 32 624 words - Mature - Body swap, friends to lovers, questfic

Summary: “How did you manage,” asked Geralt, with infinite patience and only a desire to know the facts, and not at all a little meanhearted glee, “to insult a sorcerer while his tongue was down your throat?”

“Don’t make me recount the entire sordid affair, Geralt,” said Jaskier, with a surprising note of desperation breaking through his gruff monotone. “I’m already having a rather shit day and all I’ve done so far is wake up.”

“In my body,” said Geralt.

“Yes,” said Jaskier, with the insolent cadence that was unmistakably Jaskier’s, but in Geralt’s voice, emerging from Geralt’s face and frame.

“And I’ve got yours,” said Geralt, from Jaskier’s.

and for that love to be with men - sebviathan

Specs: 6 734 words -Mature - Emotional constipation, self discovery, self acceptance, geralt is a whole ass gay man who doesn’t know what being gay is

Summary: Something's not right about what I'm doing but I'm still doing it—living in the worst parts, ruining myself. My inner life is a sheet of black glass. If I fell through the floor I would keep falling.

The enormity of Geralt's desire disgusts him.

at last, at last, at last, oh I thought you’d never ask - elegantwings

Specs: 15 040 words - Explicit - Arranged marriage, slow burn, trans!Jaskier, in this house we love Yennefer of Vengerberg

Summary: Geralt is given firm instructions from Vesemir: He is to get married to a Redanian noblewoman in the hopes of improving relations between witchers and the rest of the world. Once the ceremony is over, he plans to drop his new spouse off at their new home and carry on with his life as he always has. Little does he know, his future wife is not a woman, and not so easily left behind. He's not really sure he'd like to get rid of Jaskier, either. Over the next several years, they learn to navigate their new relationship, first while Jaskier completes his degree, and then when Jaskier insists on accompanying him on the road. And no matter what anyone else has to say about it, Geralt is absolutely not in love with his husband.

it’s what my heart just yearns to say - chasing_the_sterek

Specs: 1 071 words - Teen & Up - Slice of life, Jaskier: what if I found a way to make Geralt admit when he needs things

Summary: "If you could have one blessing," Jaskier says, eyes lit green by the fire between them, "What would it be?"

Geralt looks at him. The whetstone is smooth and friction-warm in his palm, edges rounded from use. It's been with him for a long time: almost four years.

Jaskier has been with him for even longer, but he's never done this. Geralt squints at him, but only thing different to this morning is the yellow firelight changing the colour his eyes appear.

"What," he says.

not a goodbye, a thank you - Potrix

Specs: 2 915 words - Mature - Graphic depiction of illness, near death experience, talk about death, found family

Summary: Somewhere further in the courtyard, Lambert yells out a colourful curse while Ciri cackles maniacally. Eskel is taunting the former through his laughter, and Vesemir’s voice joins in with barked commands and corrections once the clang of steel against steel continues. Somewhere above them, on one of the balconies overlooking the yard, Geralt can hear the scratch of quill against parchment as Yennefer works on her correspondence, interrupted every now and again by the tapping of nails against an inkpot.

He realises what’s wrong an instant before everyone else grows suddenly, eerily still; Jaskier is quiet.

After Summers of Fasting (I Feel Hunger At Last) - Artemis_Unbound

Specs: 3 793 words - Teen & Up Audiences - A six pack you can see is not a good thing, Jaskier tricks Geralt into Not Being Starving anymore, Love confessions

Summary: Defined six-pack abs are a sign that someone has been starving and dehydrating themselves, not a sign of incredible strength. It's just not healthy.

Jaskier sees Geralt shirtless for the first time, sees all that defined musculature, and is Horrified. He's slept with enough warriors and soldiers to know what that means. And he decides, this stops now.

Tunes Without Words - foxy_mulder

Specs: 22 021 words - Mature - Self-esteem issues, past abuse, miscommunications, misunderstandings

Summary: The plan is this:

He will note all the things that annoy Geralt, and he will stop doing them, and then Geralt will want him around. It will work.

It has to work, because Jaskier cannot be left behind.

The Path Not Taken - sospes

Specs: 40 149 words - Mature - Extraordinarily bad misunderstanding, Idiots in love, Explicit sexual content

Summary: Jaskier comes across an injured witcher in a backwoods town, months after the events of the dragon hunt. It all just sort of escalates from there.

#The Witcher #Geraskier #Geralt of Rivia #Jaskier #My Posts #Witcher Fic #Fic Rec #Masterpost #100n #150n #200n

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severelynerdysheep · 3 years

Note

I’m sorry if you already know this and by no accounts do I mean to be rude. You seem rather nice :). I saw your older Vegan Teacher post and just wanted to give you some info because she may not be the person you particularly want to associate with. Again I’m not sure if you no longer associate with her. The post was made long ago but I really don’t want you to associate with her without knowing a lot of the horrible things she said. She seems rather damaging to the vegan message and is turning some people away. So here’s some of the things she said that just sit very badly with me.

Her Are You Racist Video - She spelled out the N word and used it to describe a black doll. She did this to “take back the word” by giving each of the letters nicer meaning. Multiple POC told her they weren’t comfortable with this and they didn’t want this and she responded via calling in racism against her. She said they were attacking her because she was white and it was her right because of free speech to say that. She also want us to reclaim the homophobic F slur and as a member of the LGBTQ community I really don’t want that either.

Her most recent video on Gordon Ramsay - She said Gordon Ramsay was worse than H*tler. I can acknowledge the video he made in response was... immature but comparing him to a man that slaughtered thousands is downright evil. There are far better ways to spread a message than comparing someone to a mass murder and invalidating all those who died.

She told a 13 year old they were going to Hell for not being vegan. - The 13 year old made a video sobbing and she only reiterated her point. No fully grown women should be telling 13 years] olds who typically don’t control their diet that they will go to Hell.

She says cats can be vegan. - I know dogs can be vegan with special care but cats are solely carnivores. This is misinformation that could actively harm cats. Instead she could advocate for cat food brands that take better care of their animals before they kill them.

She has trapped two mice and is keeping them for the winter. In theory this sounds kind but is taking horribly improper care of them to save money despite many people (me included) leaving tips. She doesn’t have proper substrate for burrowing (something crucial to mice security and comfort) is feeding them a improper diet filled with “fatty foods”. Finds lacking the nutritional value they would typically get and will often hold and handle them despite this being unhealthy for wild mice.

Again I mean no ill will and hope your doing ok! I just don’t want you to associate with this person without knowing the full story!

Hi! And thank you so much for your message. Also for the respectful tone, it makes a lovely change! I did write an update to that post (which was me giving my initial thoughts) I'm assuming your talking about, which also covered some of the issues you bring up here. And I will link to that here. But you do bring up a few other things which I will just touch on quickly. Though I would ask you to keep in mind that apart from the period of research I had to do after getting bombarded with anons, many pretty vile, about this issue, I don't actually watch TVT. So I’m not up to date on her (or other YouTubers) videos, because I just don't watch them.

1) I haven't watched her Gordon Ramsey video, but absolutely, while he is an absolutely vile human being who knowingly inflicts, promotes and gets money from the horrific exploitation, abuse/torture and murder of the most defenceless individuals, I wouldn't compare him (or anyone else) to historic horrendous individuals. I don't think it's useful, and I frankly don't think that such comparisons help the victims of this manbaby at all. If she was someone with personal experience with the horrors of Nazi Germany, then I wouldn't have an issue with it (just like I respect the comparisons made by holocaust survivors to animal ag) But she doesn't, so she shouldn’t go there. Just call him what he is, don’t go bringing Hitler into it. Just don’t. Not okay, lets not be comparing folks to Hitler, or anyone other such figures.

Call him an animal abuser, a murderer, cruel, a manbaby who jokes about torturing/murdering defenceless babies/mothers for personal pleasure etc. All of which are true. Don’t do what you’re saying she did. That’s not okay. 100% condemn.

2) I don’t know anything about that 13 year old comment, I’m happy to look at any evidence for this though. So I’m not going to say this didn’t happen, but I’m also not going to say it did happen until I see the evidence.

3) Neither cats nor dogs can be vegan, because they aren’t humans with moral agency so they are unable to choose to hold and follow in praxis the ethical philosophy of veganism. They cant be vegan in the same way they cannot be Buddhist, or feminist etc. They can though consume vet-approved plant based diets and thrive. And I have a whole post on that here. I’ve seen TVT say her dogs vegan a few times and every time I just…urgh no. Please stop. Veganism is an ethical philosophy, feeding your companion animal a plant-based diet (which can often be the best for their health) doesn’t make them vegan.

4) I haven’t seen anything about mice, though as someone who has a serious rage spot for the super common serious neglect/abuse of small animals (just see my many posts about hamster care) I can only assume that I would watch these videos and self combust in rage. If you tell me that she’s keeping them (and why would you capture wild mice?? Are they injured??) in a plastic pet shop cage then WTF is she doing…Oh god she’s no keeping them together is she?? Is it a YouTube video? I’m going to have to watch that.

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arlingtonpark · 3 years

Text

Harrow the Ninth Act I Thoughts

This is all your fault, @ghostmartyr. If you hadn’t reblogged what seemed like heavy metal boy band fanart, I wouldn’t be in this hole. And for that, I hate you.

So.

When I first encountered the Locked Tomb online, I couldn’t tell if it was a story about edgy, neogothic, teenaged angst, or something better than that.

Turns out, it’s both.

But in a good way.

I love it. It’s great.

It’s unabashed, it’s thoughtful, it’s entertaining, it’s suspenseful.

Gideon the Ninth is finished, and after starting Harrow the Ninth, I decided to blog about it as I go.

I’ll be doing one post for every act of the book. I hope.

Let’s start with our new main character, Harrow. Newly reborn as a god and one of the only survivors of the last book.

So….

Right now, Harrow’s…

Um.

She’s uh…

-gestures at everything-

She’s fucked.

Fucked, broken, in the shit, started godhood on the wrong side of the bed.

200 babies were killed in the name of birthing her. Her parents died in front of her because of what she did. Death has always seemed to follow her, and she carries the burden of all that death.

Harrow despises her existence and wishes she were dead because of the circumstances of her birth, and yet for that very reason she is committed to living, because if she dies, all those sacrifices would be null.

She takes up the duties of governing the Ninth, she applies herself rigorously to mastering necromancy, and when the opportunity arises to become a lyctor, she jumps at it.

Harrow does this because it’s why all those people had to die. She was birthed to carry the Ninth’s legacy; its traditions and obligations and to some extent its very existence.

The twisted nature of the Ninth and her parents is inseparable from that legacy, so in a sense it was that legacy that led to her infanticidal birth, but regardless, this legacy is all she has. It’s all she was ever meant to have. And so she devoted herself to it.

Now that she’s a lyctor and her house’s future will be guaranteed, but to do it, she had to sacrifice Gideon, whom she loved.

It’s more of the same shit from her perspective: more people dying for her sake. 200 babies die to grant her obscene necromantic talent, her girlfriend dies so she can gain even more power. Harrow doesn’t mean to step on innocent people to get what she wants…but that’s always how it’s turned out for her.

But to add insult to injury, even after all she’s sacrificed, she still didn’t get exactly what she wanted.

Her house will have a future, but she can never return to it. She’s essentially divorced from the only thing that gave her life meaning.

She can never return to her old life; to the extent she saw that as desirable, she can’t have that. Her old life is gone forever.

Something also went wrong with her ascension to godhood. She’s violently sick, mentally unstable, and the powers she should have are…half baked, for lack of a better word.

Nobody said you could get hungover from ascending to godhood. Harrow should sue.

It’s like going in to surgery to remove a tumor and coming out lobotomized.

Is she even immortal?

It all stings of pointlessness. All that effort for nothing.

Worse than that; She lost everything. Her home, her love, her pride and dignity.

Her only purpose in life now is to fight these hell beasts that she’s never heard of before. Happy days ahead, surely.

Oh, and one of the people she’ll have to work with is named Gideon.

Does God hate her?

And then there’s God.

This guy is sus as hell.

He’s gracious and humble. Perpetually calm and soft spoken. Empathetic and understanding. That’s what He’s like in person.

But He’s…maybe the villain? I guess.

God works in mysterious ways, and I have no damn clue what His are, but it’s probably ugly.

Yes, He’s a cordial Dude…but he’s still the God-emperor of a galactic undead empire.

Dude wears a crown made from the bones of dead babies FFS.

Not to be accusatory, but this guy definitely has skeletons in his closet.

-bu-dum-tish-

One of the things that really got my attention while reading this series is how the magic system in this world is depicted. Usually, in fantasy stories, the magic system is depicted as being morally neutral. Good guys use it, bad guys it, but the magic itself just is.

The Locked Tomb Trilogy isn’t like that.

Necromancy is bad. Perverse, even.

All the necromancers are frail and sickly. Practicing it is deleterious on the body. Doing too much too fast with it causes even more pronounced harm. As in, bleeding from your sweat glands.

Necromancy works by manipulating the life force of living beings and, primarily, the death force those being give off when they die.

The forces of nature that necromancy utilizes are (apparently) fundamental to the universe, akin to the laws of nature, but the use of those forces in this way are clearly a perversion.

It’s sort of like a bad tv show, like Sword Art Online. Sure, the things that went into making the show are natural parts of the world, but you just can’t put those things together like that.

John and his empire epitomize that.

All known beings in the universe are fundamentally thalergetic in nature. They are beings who radiate life energy. Except for the planets of the empire. Those planets and the star they orbit are thanergetic in nature.

They literally radiate death. And they are apparently one of a kind in that regard.

John is the first necromancer. John used his newly harnessed powers to “resurrect” multiple planets that had died.

Except he didn’t really resurrect anything, he turned them into an entirely new form of being using his entirely new form of science that uses some kind of mechanism that doesn’t occur naturally.

What I’m getting at here is that everything about John, his power, and his empire is artificial. Man-made. Perhaps even John-made.

We don’t actually know what happened during the Resurrection. What killed off the planets, how John attained his God-like powers, and what life John lived before it.

Oh, yeah, and every planet the empire conquers is systematically killed over generations to fuel their necromancer’s powers.

Every planet God touches literally dies.

One thing I appreciate about this series is how layered the story is.

The Locked Tomb series is a fun, irreverent romp. It’s about allowing the past to rest in peace. It’s also surprisingly political.

The metaphor is pretty blunt: it’s about capitalism. What’s more, the metaphor seems to be from a progressive or maybe even socialist perspective.

Ok, so hear me out on this. This is less fan theory than speculation about the author’s intentions.

The empire is a society built on a system that requires them to move from planet to planet, gradually killing those planets until they have to evacuate and move to a new one.

This process of gradual death takes generations to play out, so apparently they don’t even consider it to be an event that happens.

The heart of this system is necromancy, a perverse science that is ultimately derived from natural phenomena.

This system places the most powerful necromancer atop a literal throne and worships them as God.

God’s disciples are the lyctors, second only to Him in power. They attained that power by a very special process.

The lyctoral process is exploitative. It requires the necromancer to use their cavalier as a sacrifice and to turn their soul into a power source.

The lyctoral process is built around domination. The necromancer, in sacrificing their cavalier, subsumes the cavalier’s soul into their being to gain power.

The lyctoral process is dehumanizing. The cavalier is degraded from a person to a mere battery, but the necromancer is degraded in a way as well. The necromancer can never return to their house, or any of the other houses for that matter. Instead they must fight and die for God in his battle against the Revenant Beasts.

If you’re progressive, this may sound familiar to you.

Relationships of exploitation, domination, and dehumanization. A society built around perversions. That rewards people with talent in those perversions with idolatry. That cold-heartedly and shortsightedly extracts every drop of usable resources from a planet until it is dead, then moves on to the next one.

To a socialist, this may sound a lot like capitalism.

Saying that is already bold enough for me, so I won’t try to argue that it’s a one to one allegory. Necromancy equals the profit motive, lyctors represent the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat (So I guess that means the non-lyctor necromancers are the petit bourgeoisie) and the empire is humanity.

You could make a case for it, but the hot takes in this post are already pretty spicy, so…

OMG Mercymorn. XD

Mercymorn is my favorite out of the new characters. She’s a bitch.

Snide, rude, assertive, bitchy, and standoffish. No, it’s not that I want her to step on me, I just can’t get enough of her interactions.

I guess in real life she wouldn’t be fun to be around, but as a character in a book, she steals every scene. Her arrogant and bitchy remarks always make me laugh.

My one wish heading in to Act II: that Mercymorn is in charge of Ianthe’s training.

Just so she can kick her ass for not measuring up to her standards.

#locked tomb #locked tomb spoilers #htn #htn spoilers #bury the dead but not your gays

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sebastianshaw · 4 years

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Do you have any headcanons about how Haven and Maddie would get along? You mention them both a lot and they seem like they have things in common

OH BOY DO I EVER i happen to love shoving my faves into interaction in my head even if they never met in canon---ESPECIALLY if they never met in canon---and these are my two mega fave ladies! ...coincidentally I was out today on errands and playing Tori Amos (because *of course* I was) and specifically her “American Doll Posse” album, and I was like “GIRL DISAPPEARING and SECRET SPELL have Maddie vibes” (I also listened to KING AND LIONHEART by of Monsters and Men, it’s my fave of theirs, and “As the world comes to an end, I’ll be here to hold your hand” is forever a Haven lyric to me) So massive MASSIVE ramblings under the cut!

Anyway, yes, you’re completely correct, they have a TON in common, both in what actually happened TEXTUALLY to them, and the meta-text of how their stories were handled in very similarly misogynistic ways. Like, they’re both villains through no choice or fault of their own, both the victims of demonic corruption, both exploited specifically for their reproductive capacity (Maddie created literally to have Scott’s baby, Haven’s unborn child used by the Adversary to possess her), and both used to frame female sexuality as evil (Maddie only starts with the skimpy black outfits when she becomes a villain, Haven is a pure and chaste woman who had sex ONCE and as a result becomes demon-pregnant, corrupted, and dies, she’s very much punished for violating purity taboos just ONCE despite all the good she did, while NOTHING HAPPENS to the man who took advantage of her naivete and knocked her up) and both were treated with little sympathy by the story or other characters despite being so very deserving of it. So they’ve got a ton to relate and commiserate on if they ever met and opened up to each other about it, but even if they DIDN’T tell each other about their pasts (which I doubt they would, certainly not at first, it’s not something either is keen to talk about, Haven never told her own beloved brother and Maddie literally KILLS Threnody for throwing it in her face) I think they would get on well. With the understandable exception of Jean Grey, Maddie has NEVER been a jerk to anyone who wasn’t one first (she did go overboard with Threnody, of course...) and Haven, even while a demonically-posessed supervillain, was very calm, composed, polite, and downright kind to the good guys even when they KEPT ATTACKING HER. And to quote the “X-Plain the X-Men” podcast “❝ In this scene, she [Haven] is the one that’s being kind and calm and compassionate, and he [Xavier] is being AN ANGRY JERK. ❞ So, I think they’d get on at first meeting because they’re just both nice people at their default. They’re also both morally good people at their default. Haven’s history is that she’s someone born to extreme wealth and privilege who was driven to use it to help others, she did shit like bathing lepers and caring for dying babies and building children’s hospitals (literally how she got her name in canon, no shit) and even as a supervillain BENT ON DESTROYING THE WORLD OUT OF COMPASSION she STILL does shit like SURRENDERING A FIGHT SO SHE CAN TRY TO HEAL AN *ENEMY* OKAY. And Maddie was just straight-up a superhero even before she had the “super” part going for her, she was one of the X-Men even as a human and even after Scott left her, she had an incredibly strong sense of justice, she did her best at rescuing people in her job as a pilot during crises, she GAVE UP HER LIFE with the rest of the X-Men when Forge needed their life energy for a spell to save the world (she got brought back, they all did, but she didn’t know she was going to be resurrected, she went in knowing she’d die and thinking it would be permanent) and the first time she did get superpowers WASN’T as the demonic Goblyn Queen, but as the healer Anodyne. And you know why her powers specifically took the form of healing? It wasn’t random. The Fire Fountain (from which she and some other humans got these gifts) gave people their powers based on their passions and desires; Maddie’s desire and passion was to help others. So both of these women are extremely moral, healing-types at their core, both in powers and personality, who care about others deeply, even at the expense of themselves. Obviously, Maddie became very morally-grey since in the 90s, but even then she cared about other people first; Sebastian Shaw was never a bad boyfriend in the slightest to her, he was actually her first good relationship, but she left him because he was doing harm to other people, people she didn’t even KNOW, and she wouldn’t be complicit in that even as a bystander. She’s kinda gone full evil in the 2000s but she’s also very much Not Maddie Anymore as of the 2000s, so I just...don’t count that...anyway you see my point! My point being I think they would really come together on helping people, like Haven has the funds (she would probably not have powers anymore if she’s alive, since she’s no longer the host body of the Adversary) and Maddie has the piloting skills and superpowers, they could do a TON of good in the world if they teamed up to do relief work and refugee aid and stuff! I would honestly be really here for that. I really like the idea of them doing good in a way that has nothing to do with superhero adventures and is in no way glamorous or a battle that can be won with powers and punches, but is necessary and worthy all the same. I think they could really get a good working relationship going with this. I think the place they would differ is that Maddie is ANGRY. She’s very angry at what was done to her, she’s very angry at the X-Men, she’s very angry at Jean, she’s very angry at Scott, she’s very angry at Sinister, and she has a RIGHT to be. There is nothing wrong with this. But her anger also isn’t limited to people who harmed HER. Back when Maddie was Maddie and not a walking misogynistic stereotype, she also got BIG MAD at people who did bad things, who hurt others, who oppressed mutants and other minorities, etc. Like, during the story in which we find out about Genosha and how they’re enslaving mutants, Maddie is ready to WRECK ALL THEIR SHIT WITHOUT MERCY using the demonic energy that’s started incubating inside her. And you know what? Good for her. Maddie is the fire of justice and retribution, and if you have done something to deserve it she will FRY YOU IN HELL. Haven is not like that. Again, even when she’s possessed, even when she ostensibly wants to kill the world, even when she’s being steered by an entity of cosmic evil and chaos...she’s still so soft with her “enemies”. Hell, even when she’s come to the conclusion that Xavier must die, she still can’t do it with her own hands and has to just let some other villain out of prison and HOPE he does it, that’s the MOST action she can bring herself to take, and she thinks how “I admire you, Charles Xavier. I respect you. In an odd way, one might say…that I love you. For how can one not love a soul so pure, a heart so full of good intentions? One must love one’s enemy…if one is to slay him with compassion.” And this was AFTER Xavier rammed in his way into her head after she begged him repeatedly to STOP (boy was THAT an uncomfy scene) and she literally unmade herself from existence temporarily (yes, she could do that, and remake herself) in order to get away from him, even though SHE could have just unmade HIM permanently. So, once you take the demon out of the equation, I can only see her as being even MORE pacifistic and forgiving, just the epitome of grace----grace meaning not as in graceful (though I think she’s that too, she’s very elegant) but as in the religious sense of God’s grace, which is mercy where it is undeserved. She’s NEVER going to want to hurt people for their misdeeds like Madelyne does. She wants to comfort the victims, but not attack the victimizers. She’s probably the kind of person who prays for Neo-Nazis. She probably utterly forgives X-Factor and Xavier and the man who got her pregnant. And you know what? I also support that. I support Madelyne’s righteous rage, I support Haven’s all-forgiving compassion and mercy. I think both of these are beautiful. But they WOULD probably make conflict wherein like, Maddie wants to go after some bad guys to avenge the victims, and Haven doesn’t, that kind of thing. And I can see Maddie being angry AT HAVEN for that, and Haven UNDERSTANDING because she’s very understanding but still standing fast in her own beliefs. Haven is at peace with the universe, both its good and its evil. Maddie rages at the Heavens like if Milton wrote a woman. Both are perfect. Also like...I love so much the idea of Maddie being ready to PHYSICALLY FIGHT SOMEONE, no powers, she’s just going to WRECK THEM WITH HER BARE HANDS (trust me, she has a mean punch) and Haven pulling her back. Because Maddie is canonically 5′6 and 110 lbs, she’s not short but she’s VERY skinny (because Marvel likes making all their women borderline underweight; I headcanon Maddie should be more in the 135 lb ballpark) and Haven is a SOLID SIX FEET and has been shown as able to carry around GROWN MEN in her arms, so like Maddie just this feisty lil skinny spitfire ready to MURDER YOU and big mama Haven gently holding her back like an angry lil kitten!! Speaking of physical contrasts I also love how they’re very Tomboy & Girly Girl? Maddy is a pilot, she’s very adventurous and rough and tumble, she’s got cute dresses but she also wears her brown/green flight suit a lot, she’s a goth in the 90s...and then Haven is like, this very well-brought-up polite woman with super-long princess hair and the one time we see her in civilian-wear it’s this GORGEOUS sari with tons of jewelry, they’re just so Queen & Lady Knight, I love it. (It’s not that Maddie is unfeminine, Maddie’s VERY femme, she’s just more versatile and aggressive, whereas Haven is very conventionally hyperfeminine) I think another point they’d have a lot of difference---though not arguement---is sex. Like, Haven still spoke about her one (1) sexual experience with a lot of shame twenty years later, she’s very much a product of a conservative religious culture and while I don’t think she’s the type to slut-shame anyone else, I think she’s now very thoroughly celibate because of her experiences. Whereas Maddie is very much not, like she literally walks into Sebastian Shaw’s bedroom one night and rides that dick because shut up she wants to. While I don’t like the idea of her as this Sexy Evil Succubus that she’s become in the 2000s, I do see her as having a fun, practical, down-to-earth approach to sexuality as something that she enjoys and isn’t ashamed of, while also not being this male fantasy of a femme fatale 24/7. So I can see her commenting on hot guys buff bodies and Haven being embarrass, things like that, maybe Maddie trying to get her a date. Like basically Haven is the Virgin Mary, she’s chastity and motherhood and peace and mercy, and Maddie is Ishtar, the goddess of love AND sex AND war. Another thing about Haven is that she was established as EXTREMELY sensitive to the feelings of others, especially their pain, and that this was NOT a superpower from the Adversary, it’s how she’s always been since childhood. She’s almost psychic, she instantly figures out the personal problems of everyone in X-Factor, from Lorna and Alex’s co-dependence to Guido using humor to mask that he suffers from chronic pain due to his mutation. So while I doubt Maddie opens up to her about her past even when they become friends, Haven can very much feel out that SOMETHING awful happened to this woman. And Haven’s nature as a healer is going to be drawn that, to want to help her, without going too fast or too invasive, without doing anything Madelyne doesn’t want, without forcing anything on her because Haven has had that happen to her and she’s not going to do it to someone else even with good intentions. She’s done ENOUGH wrong with good intentions. And as Madelyne does begin to let her in and let Haven know what happened, Haven in return reveals her own startlingly similar trauma, and I think there’s a mutual healing there in supporting each other. Haven becomes the one shoulder Maddie has to cry on, and Maddie becomes someone who can be angry FOR Haven on her behalf. I see Maddie as probably being protective of Haven, like she has been of other women in the past who were wronged or vulnerable----such as when she was murderously incensed over what Genosha did to Jenny Ransome or when she offered to be Dazzler’s eyes when Dazzler was blinded by a mask magically stuck to her face. And Haven can help Maddie with moving on and owning her own life instead of devoting herself to vengeance anymore, because she loves Maddie and rightly believes Maddie deserves BETTER than that. Honestly, I just...love them both...and want them to be happy and healing...so much...thank you for this ask, I loved talking about them!! ;A;

#haven #maddie feels #haven and maddie #maddie and haven

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silverineontherun · 6 years

Text

A theory about Lotor’s real goal and a possible plot for Season 8

With s8 coming closer, the sneak peek we got at NYCC, and the possibility of witnessing a Lotor comeback, I’m writing this meta to revisit a theory I used to have around s4 and that I feel, after what happened since s6 and what we’ve seen in NYCC (and the poster), could not be as crazy as I initially thought. I discussed it on twitter first and decided to finally write a long version, but you can check that thread for a quick “summary” of this if you prefer.

In short, my theory is this: What Lotor was trying to accomplish by working so much on the rift and attempting to cross it is not just to harvest quintessence, but to travel between realities and, more importantly, TIME. Why? To reach the past and change the course of history by altering a crucial event of the reality they live in. Which one? Probably, the trans-reality comet landing in Daibazaal. And he is not alone in this: he is being helped by Alteans. Be it willingly or not, it remains a mystery.

What would this mean? No corruption of Daibazaal and Lotor’s parents, no fall of Altea, and therefore… no Voltron either. And also, many other consequences for our current timeline that could play a crucial role in season 8, especially for our paladins.

All highly debatable, but if you are interested, I’ll explain my point under the cut. Buckle up, this one is long!

It always struck me as weird that Lotor, having so much beef with his father, would be more obsessed with the rift than with overthrowing him and after he dies, more interested in Altean science than managing his blooming Empire, which he loves, but also kind of… disregards, in a way.

The motive he claims to have is valid: he declares in season 4 that he’s trying to find a way to collect unlimited quintessence from the rift to stop the Galra from exploiting planets and to finally achieve peace. But given what we see in later seasons, this raises a few questions. First, why enter the rift? There was no need: his mother created pure quintessence from the rift and made it exploitable (if unstable) without ever entering it. From what we can grasp, he managed to stabilize it, why go further? More importantly, why enter it PERSONALLY? And why make the Sincline a faithful copy of Voltron (mecha and all), but with two seats? These questions make me believe he had a more personal goal in mind, and this goal could be crucial for season 8.

Let’s go back a bit to see the full picture. In season 3, Lotor is introduced after Zarkon’s supposed demise. He has a very smart and manipulative way to control his enemies and allies alike. However, since the beginning, he is very focused on Voltron. When the paladins are struggling with their new positions, he challenges them. His generals are ready to capture the Lions at his command, but he stops them. He has other intentions.

Said opportunity is swiftly explained. In S3E4, the comet is introduced for the first time, and we also get a view of an alternate reality where Alteans have defeated Zarkon. About this, there are already great metas, but for this post in particular, I’m considering 2 things as relevant:

- The episode is telling us that the course of history changes radically with just a few events being different. In this reality, Allura wasn’t put to sleep and instead, fought the Galra Empire, changing everything. Including Shiro’s accent…

- And two, Lotor ALREADY had a theory regarding Voltron and its interaction with this rift and he is just testing it.

He did the false call to lure the team, and his plan worked well. He was set on getting the comet from the beginning, but whether Voltron could do it or not, he had a backup plan. I love my sly son.

As we know, Voltron brings the comet to stop the Alteans from conquering all realities, but then Lotor steals it from them (hah, losers!). Later, we know what he used it for.

The mysterious ship has been built by himself and his team. We don’t even know how. Could Galra manipulate the comet’s material? Didn’t the Alteans from the parallel reality say they were the ones who knew how to work it? This would be confirmed in the last episode of this season.

The team follows the comet’s signatures and finds Lotor’s generals in a Galra base where they are trying to steal a teludav.

So, Lotor has scaultrite thanks to Acxa. Which, as we know, is used for wormhole technology too. Taking Haggar into consideration, the team concludes very logically that Lotor is trying to emulate this technology to conquer other realities like the Alteans intended, and they must stop him. This episode proves 2 facts: a) Lotor really pretends to use wormhole/teludav tech for some reason, and b) that said tech is key to make the comet/ship jump between realities and must be manipulated by an Altean. The team immediately thinks of Haggar.

Well, as we know, Lotor is NOT working with Haggar, so… why would he be so set in stealing a teludav he can’t use, even risking being deemed a traitor by his own people?

Yep Lance, none of this makes sense… yet. Lotor keeps the ship but loses the teludav. This slip makes him truly mad and perhaps will cost him a lot next season.

Finally, by the end of season 3, we are shown the origin of Voltron, and most importantly, we are introduced to the rift in Daibazaal, created by the comet which later became Voltron itself. There are many bits in this episode that matter a lot, but for length’s sake, the most important are:

- Quintessence is worked by Honerva and becomes an unlimited source of energy. No need to enter the rift.

- Voltron was created by Alfor and is made of the comet’s material, therefore it’s capable of traveling through the rift safely. Not only that, it can open it and interact with it without suffering harm.

- RIFT CREATURES. Our boy is probably a rift creature baby (we see that much later and that would be a whole new meta, but people has already done some!).

- And, very relevant: the only ones who know how to manipulate the comet’s material are Altean engineers.

And if that’s so, it brings the question… how did Lotor build his ship 10000 years later, after the extinction of the Alteans? How does he intend to use the teludav tech by himself, if he hates Haggar’s guts?

All of that remains a mystery as we enter season 4.

A few months have passed. Lotor is accused by Haggar of hiding. Keith leaves the team and is tracking Lotor with the Blades because they believe the strange influx of quintessence (in abnormal supply lines) can take them to him. He’s using a LOT of it while he works in his secret project. And, btw, it’s this trail of quintessence which takes Krolia and Keith to the colony in season 6. Bear that in mind.

As Haggar slowly recovers her memories, Lotor is dismissed as a ruler by Zarkon (on renewed steroids), but Lotor remains unbothered. He has other “plans”.

Haggar notices something’s up with Lotor. She feels something “ancient” on him. Isn’t it a curious choice of words?

Well, at this point, Lotor has built 2 ships already and only 40% of the material is left. He’s carrying it in his own ship. However, being spied by Narti (rip), Zarkon discovers his plans and this pushes him to make a desperate decision: before completing his ultimate plan (which is still a mystery), he’ll try to accelerate it and bet everything on it. And we are finally taken to the rift in Daibazaal, his secret project.

Notice this face? He truly feels for what happened here, I think it was worth showing it. And then this scene happens:

So… three important considerations:

- First mention of a “secret team”.

- The construction around the rift is clearly Altean. This here is an excellent theory about it. Also, it looks a lot like a teludav.

- Lotor intends to “pierce” the barrier between realities.

This is the key to this theory. If he just wanted to harvest quintessence, he could exploit the rift in the same way his mother did before. But that’s NOT what he wants. He made it so he could cross it.

Then what was he trying to accomplish in this moment, exactly? He just had 2 ships and his father was tailing him to kill him. It’s not like he could form the Sincline mecha with that to confront him and having infinite quintessence doesn’t mean he can manipulate it immediately. Then, why did he bet everything on this strange plan instead of hiding to save his own life?

My theory is that he didn’t intend to come back from the rift. And why wouldn’t he come back? Because he intended to cross this reality, powered by a constant influx of quintessence from the rift itself, and tear the realities tissue to reach a moment/place in the past.

Which moment is debatable, but if I had to make a bet, I’d say that Lotor’s ultimate goal was to stop the corruption of his parents. If he went back and stopped the comet from landing on Daibazaal, or at least the corruption of the planet and the fall of it, he’d alter the entire course of history on this reality. It wouldn’t matter if he dies trying. It wouldn’t matter if he can’t go back after accomplishing his objective, and that’s why he put all his money on it.

I know by this point it sounds like a crazy reach, but it’s in later seasons where the writing bends the rules and allows us to consider it possible. However, here in season 4 his first try failed (because he doesn’t have the teludav technology NOR the ability to use it! He’s just a plain half-galra, half-altean man, not an alchemist, and the project is unfinished), and at such an early stage none of us had a clue on why he’d just throw himself head first into the hole that had ruined his planet and his entire life. Well, most of us didn’t.

Of his generals, the only one who seems aware of his plans is Acxa, his closest ally, and a relationship that is really important, as Astro wrote. Look at her face: she knows they failed. And also, once Lotor escapes, it’s her idea to take them to Haggar, as we’ll see in the next season. Sounds convenient, right? Anyways, Lotor shames his father’s fleet making good use of the resistant properties of his ship and heads to Naxzela, where he surrenders to Team Voltron.

And here’s where it starts getting juicy. But since these seasons are more recent, I’ll just make a quick recap.

In the first ep of s5, Loki Lotor finally gives us a clue about his real intentions. In his words, he wants to find a way to give the Galra Empire a permanent source of quintessence to make them stop ravishing planets.

Which makes a lot of sense, but it’s probably a lie. Or, at least, just part of the truth.

I think that, from now on, he is at all moments showing part of the truth. He really wishes to put an end to the war, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t other ideas. He really is trying to enter this zone, but not just for extracting resources. And Lotor always adapts to his circumstances…Though his original plan failed the first time, he didn’t drop it. Instead, using his new position as Emperor and after gaining an unexpected but invaluable ally in Allura, he dedicated himself to discover the secrets of Oriande and strengthen his assets.

It’s worth saying that I’m a firm believer that he truly fell in love with Allura, and that this wasn’t in his plans. However, he let it happen, because it didn’t hinder them at all. His ultimate goal remains the same and being accompanied by Allura would actually grant his success, and I’m pretty sure that, in his head, he judged that it was the best for Allura too. Imagine saving her entire planet and her life. Maybe he could even convince her to join him… which I think he actually intended to do, in season 6. But in a bad moment, so it didn’t work and she uh... didn’t take it well.

There’s so much to be said about the Oriande episode but I bet all has been said before. I’m just gonna rescue two bits:

First, Acxa again showing her undying loyalty. She’s back to help him a second time with the plan. I’m convinced she’ll play an important role in s8.

And Lotor telling his awful experience with the colony he once ruled and how it made him start exploring his Altean heritage. We see in the season 8 sneak peek this heartbreaking shot:

His story is true, and I mention it here because I’m quite convinced that this moment is the trigger of his plan. Zarkon always was shitty, but Lotor was cruelly marked by this horrible day and I’d say he’d do anything to stop things like these from happening. He probably became cold and sly to survive for so long with the only hope of fixing this mess some day.

Anyways, jumping to season 6 and the colony episode, the project is finally done. Lotor and Allura try the ship and get into the rift, though NO ONE UNDERSTANDS EXACTLY WHAT ARE THEY TRYING TO DO.

Lance again, asking THE RIGHT QUESTIONS. After that, what?

Please notice the curious composition of the ship. It’s designed to have a copilot, and that copilot was going to be Allura. He included her in his plans this time. The project is done and Lotor is satisfied, ready to change the course of the universe, but they are going to collect samples and probably study the real reach of the rift before even trying to get to the final phase. This time he is not in a hurry, after all. It must work perfectly and, more importantly, he must convince Allura that trying to go back in time is the right thing to do.

But he never gets to do it. When he is denounced by Romelle, he sees himself again in the same position he was in season 4, cornered by his enemies and having to make the bet again. And it could have worked, if not for one missing piece: Allura.

Allura doesn’t give him much more room to explain himself. I admit, this was a good moment to explain himself if my theory (reach, call it whatever you like) is right, but I’m pretty sure that he chose to go for the emotional approach instead of the logical one. Resulting in one epic yeet before Kuron rescues him.

After being rejected by Oriande, Lotor doesn’t have the powers to maintain himself stable inside the rift. I guess he would have succeeded if he convinced Allura to join him in this final attempt. But that doesn’t happen and, as we well know, being compared to his father (whom he despises deeply) is the last straw before he loses it and ends up trapped in the space between the same realities that he longed to cross.

And the team discovers that Lotor built his ships to form some kind of bootleg Voltron they have to fight. If he just wanted to collect quintessence, why do this? Alright, the EPs need cool mecha battles, but can’t we give them some meaning? I really believe he intended to copy Voltron’s ability to cross the rift, but failed. More than the ship, what failed was himself: he got corrupted. He had no means to defend himself from the rift’s horrors. Even Allura had trouble with that, after all. And they left him there.

But the explosion from closing the rift after their battle sends the paladins 3 years into the future. They don’t know it yet, but this is confirmed during season 7. Again, the rift, Lotor, quintessence and time mechanics are all together in the picture. I don’t think it’s coincidental.

Ok, but what’s the deal with the time traveling tho?

Season 6 also introduced the Quantum Abyss, a place where time rules are all over the place, which allows us to include time skipping mechanics into our current universe.

They are telling us that playing with time IS POSSIBLE. And, surprise, surprise… Lotor’s colony happens to be built right in the middle of it. Coincidence? I THINK NOT.

And if these mechanics exist, why not take them into consideration when we are talking about crossing realities? The Quantum Abyss on itself is remarkably similar to the rift. In 10k years, Lotor had plenty of time to study it.

To even reach such a place, Lotor must be at least familiarized with the concept of time traveling. And to do so, he probably needs technology. Dare I say, Altean technology. Technology he probably acquired thanks to the Alteans he found. The same who were meant to help him with the teludav he tried to steal, and which he could never have used by himself, not even after we discovered he is half-altean: he needs alchemists for that.

Unless you have Voltron. We saw in S7, in The Journey Within, that the paladins struggled a lot when they were hit by a similar rift (its nature remains unexplained as everything in this series lol). But once Keith and Lance formed the wings, they were able to cross this wormhole and travel in a few minutes a distance that, normally, would have taken them 1.5 years.

I’d say this is EXACTLY the kind of horsepower that Lotor needed with his Sincline, but we don’t know if he had it. And the ship got lost with him on the other side... at least for now.

I’m not gonna get into the authenticity of Romelle’s story. There’re a lot of ways that could play out, but to defend my theory, I’ll say this: the Altean structure around the Rift, the “secret team” Lotor mentioned, the fact that his first 2 ships were built in record time and in absolute secret, and the fact that Keith and Krolia found his colony just following the trail of quintessence are dead giveaways that he was working alongside Alteans and not just extracting their quintessence. There is a high chance that some Alteans were voluntarily helping him reach his ultimate goal, and they could be the same ones that are going to be introduced in the last season. So, whether we can forgive Lotor or not for his supposed crimes, season 8 will (hopefully!) answer that.

And speaking of season 8! How could all this work in the final season?

With Lotor gone, our new challenger seems to be Queen Honerva herself (yaaaas!).

After NYCC, I’m convinced that Lotor’s plan will carry on to the last season of Voltron in the hands of Honerva who, unlike him, has the knowledge of Oriande. Her agenda, much like her son’s, has always remained a mystery. However, now that she’s free from Zarkon, now that the Empire is crumbling and her memory is back, perhaps she will finally pursue a personal goal. To be honest, most of this wishful thinking is inspired by the first pic of this post, where the poster showed us happy small Lotor with his parents. What if Honerva decides she will use her amazing powers to get THAT?

But given the sudden attack at the end of season 7 and the cliffhanger with the Altean Eva, I suspect that she may need something else to accomplish whatever she intends to and that something could have to do with team Voltron. Why bother attacking Earth, otherwise?

The sneak peek shows many interesting bits. I highly recommend that you visit this amazing frame by frame analysis and s8 prediction here. But the bits that matter to me are, of course, the flashbacks that are going to explain Lotor’s story, and these:

A crew of Alteans walking into Oriande. See those mechas? Smells like danger. Also, this seems to explain why Kolivan found the colony empty. Our Alteans have a new home!

This shot of the paladins traveling through a wormhole, similar to The Journey Within in s7. Sounds familiar?

That wormhole looks pretty familiar too. As @luminis said on Twitter:

That was the time when Coran was de-aging. See? They were already teasing us with these time-traveling shenanigans.

This last bit is the most interesting to me. They are the same Alteans that are behind Honerva in the poster. And the ones around this crystal are five, huh? Maybe Honerva wants Voltron for herself to travel through the rift with these 5 cuties? Who knows. But for the Alteans to be powering the Atlas, it must be for some crazy maneuver they will have to pull after they have shifted sides. Maybe a time jump?

So, after trying to stick to the facts (hey, I tried), this is where I just let myself speculate. My bet is that Honerva rescued her son, who may or not be conscious, and now that she discovered his entire plan, she took control of the colony or the real Alteans working for Lotor, to carry on with it. With her memory restored and her Oriande powers, she will try to finish the job and recover what she destroyed. But she may be missing something that only team Voltron (or Allura specifically) can give her to travel to the past.

So, what would this mean for the plot?

This is the last part where I just go crazy because it could be a juicy twist of events. This could mean:

- A possible redemption for Lotor. It all depends on how is his relationship with the Alteans explained, and the veracity/accuracy of Romelle’s story. Whatever the case, from the teaser we already know that he is a crucial part of s8, so let’s hope that he is more than a mere memory.

- A moral conflict for the Team. If the team is confronted with the choice, what will they pick? No need for Voltron if there’s no war, after all...

Because this sounds like the golden solution, right? No comet means no war, no cruelty and no loss. Allura and Coran would have never lost Altea and Zarkon would have never been corrupted. The paladins would never become paladins and, therefore, wouldn’t be hurt by this decision. They wouldn’t even know. And depending on the timeline intervention, Lotor could or not have been born (if the comet lands but Honerva is not corrupted, he would be born. If not, he wouldn’t, and I’m sure Lotor was willing to pay this price. Honerva tho, I’m not sure).

So, our paladins would probably live normal lives, with two notorious exceptions.

a) Shiro would eventually die of his illness. I swear I don’t enjoy writing this, Shiro has had enough, but remember this is just hypothetical and I’m as salty as you about his mistreatment.

b) Keith would never be born. No war means no Blade of Marmora. No Blades mean our boy is never born because Krolia never gets to Earth.

As a demon klancer (sorry, don’t leave!), point b is making my senses tingle, because I’m pretty sure that in a moment of confrontation, Keith would consider it a fair price to pay and I like to think that the team, especially Lance, would be dead set against it. If the gang had to take sides, my bet is this: Allura and Coran would be tempted, and Keith would agree. Pidge and Shiro could be in a grey zone but I’m pretty sure that Hunk and Lance would be totally opposed to this.

And I know what you’re thinking: what a tired trope is this “ magical time travel, the plot never happened” crap. TO BE CLEAR: I’M SURE THEY WON’T ACCEPT IT AND THEY WILL FIGHT HONERVA ANYWAY. I’m just exposing a possible moral dilemma that could divide the team as a plotline, but I think there will be some kind of scientific inconvenience to this, that will make it too dangerous or downright impossible to achieve. And you know who I think will have to explain that to them?

This fella. He is back for a reason! (he’s also in a screenshot from the sneak peek). And he is the only one who understands the complexity of the trans-reality comet, the coexistence of many realities and the percentage of success of every action in the chain. And once the team settles their argument, maybe after some confrontation, they will have to stop Honerva from wrecking their reality, maybe giving us one last epic mecha fight and one last, heartbreaking team bonding moment too. After all, this cartoon is called VOLTRON for a reason, right? And it’s… ending. Finally.

Inch resting at least, don’t you think?

Many thanks to @leakinghate for letting me borrow the NYCC screenshots and also for writing an amazing post, and to @astrolatte for being on board with this and making a great thread on twitter. Let me know what you think! And sorry if you’re on pc, it looks kinda ugly lol

Edit: In case you are interested on a take about the endgames, I answered that here.

#lotor #haggar #vld #vld meta #vld s8 predictions #voltron meta

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aj-artjunkyard · 5 years

Text

Trials Of Apollo Oneshot Series CHAPTER TWO

It was my turn to keep watch. It was dark, though there was no way to accurately determine what time it was. Meg snored deeply from the rush-job tent just a few feet behind me. We’d had quite the close call a few nights ago, when a Pandos tracker from Caligula’s army had caught us off guard. From then on, we decided that at least one of us should be awake at all times. But now, sitting and shivering on an uncomfortable rock in the eerie darkness of the forest in the early morning, I decided I regretted every part of my and Meg’s little agreement. Not only was I cold and tired, I was also hyperaware of the fact that I was extremely vulnerable. I had been mortal for so long that I could hardly shoot a barn from point-blank range. I had trouble with the intricate fingering on my combat ukulele. My voice wavered at cracked when I sang even the simplest tune. I feared that if something were to happen, I wouldn’t be able to do anything except scream for help from a little girl in traffic-light coloured attire. Have I mentioned that being mortal sucks?

But… there was something else. When I was a god, I had the ability to keep an eye on mortal exploits from my throne on Olympus. I had observed with interest the quests of many heroes; Hercules, Theseus and Percy Jackson, to name a few. So I knew with certainty that the gods would be watching me. This was not new information. I had always known. What was bothering me was that the uncomfortable feeling of eyes on my back felt intensified. I was the entertainment of a large audience tonight.

I could almost feel my image in the central hearth of Hestia in the Olympian throne room, where you could watch anyone in the world flicker through its flames like a blazing hologram. I’ve watched a few soppy family movies with Hestia and the others huddled around the warmth of the most gentle source of power in all of Olympus. When you were sat viewing ‘Beauty and the Beast’ in high definition, you simply forgot all sense of tension between you and your brethren. Even to lawless scamps like Hermes, it was simply improper to argue in front of Hestia's hearth. Demeter and I came to our uneasy truce over ‘The Secret Garden’. Artemis and I had forgotten countless arguments over ‘Robin Hood’ since 1973. (What? We’re archers. And we love the justice dealt to the greedy prince. Artie will tell you that Maid Marian shouldn't have gotten married. This isn’t true.) You catch my drift. It hurt that I was the one being peered at, ridiculed, from such a pure, sacred place.

And so, I knew something was going to happen. I stole a glance back at Meg, wondering if I should wake her. Then again, there was no telling what a cranky, sleep-deprived tween would order me to do if I were to wake her just because I was feeling a little skittish. I decided against disturbing her.

But what I did next, I could not explain at the time. I thought perhaps the nerves got the better of me. Perhaps my fidgeting became too much. I stood. My keen ears picked up the faint squealing of an infant. Meg’s snores began to ebb away to the back of my mind, like the whole world was being submerged in Poseidon’s fury. The screams became more acute. I was drawn to go to it, to silence the scream. My peripheral vision darkened. I could only see straight ahead, to the source of the voice. The urge became as powerful as my master’s orders. I started to walk.

I had only gone a few steps forward in my trance when I gained back control of my lower body, and, with great force, willed myself to stop. I stood there, stuck in limbo, my mind violently hurling commands back and forth like the ball in an olympian volleyball game (Zeus and Poseidon are terrifyingly competitive).

‘Go!’ The first voice hissed. ‘You are needed! Save them!’

‘Not a chance!' The second sniped back. ‘You’d leave Meg vulnerable like that? You are no better than the gods and emperors you say you despise!’

‘Meg can defend herself. You need to be the useful one for a change. How many people have you disappointed? Do not let this be another.’

My legs felt detached from my body. I stepped another few paces. “No!” I muttered to myself. “I want to stay!” The pull did not lessen.

‘Trust me,’ said the first voice, morphing into that of a fierce woman’s. Her tone was a calm leader’s, pointing her soldiers into the battlefield. ‘No harm shall come to your companion. Now, go!’ Her last word spurred my legs against my will. I began to run towards the source of the screaming, my heart pumping faster and more desperately every second, without actually knowing why. My entire form went on autopilot. I saw myself jumping over fallen tree trunks, clawing up steep, muddy hills and wading through a shallow creeks. I felt every stone scraped my hands on, every branch that stung my face. But I could not control it. Down in the very depths of my mind I felt my fear of being trapped and guilt of leaving Meg, but it was quickly quenched by this new feeling of an unwelcome person sharing my Lester prison.

My subconscious thrashed to regain control. But I couldn’t. No matter how hard I fought, I could not make myself portray anything but this monotoned calm. I was forced to take a backseat and watch quietly as I let myself run and run until my lungs felt like Hephaestus had made them into his new forge. I wanted to wheeze, cough and splutter. I couldn’t. I tried to yell for help. I couldn’t.

Finally, after an eternity of sprinting through the damp, cold maze of trees, the presence left my mortal body. My knees buckled and my feet gave way. I lay face down in the dirt panting like Cerberus on a particularly dry day in the Underworld. My clothes were in tatters. My hands and knees were bleeding. Everything up to my mid-thighs was soaked, and the rest was caked with mud. I managed to push myself up, though I shook badly. I stayed like that for a while - on all fours, concentrating on breathing more than anything else. Breathing is good. I always recommend breathing.

Then I heard the cries. They only sounded to be a few feet ahead of me. With all my mortal strength (which isn’t a lot, but I was tired) I used a nearby trunk to haul myself to my feet, still gasping at the air hungrily. When I looked up, my eyes connected with a strange sight. A wispy grey apparition floated silently next to a dark tree stump. On the stump lay a little bundle of writhing white sheets, wrapped tightly around a minuscule form. I stood there for a second - maybe out of shock - before I rushed over to the child, tripping and landing on my bleeding knees out of desperation to reach him. I took him up as gently as my shaking hands could, and clutched him tightly to my chest. You may be wondering why I did this. Firstly, please. I know I’m not a model father, but I’m no monster. Even in my godly state, I would have reacted as such. Just as my sister is the protector of young maidens, I am the protector of young men. I don’t quite understand how I knew, but this little child was a boy. Perhaps it’s my mother’s genes that spurs on this side of me. She is, after all, the titaness of motherhood (also, I know for certain that I don’t get any of my fatherly traits from my own father).

Secondly, this baby, barely a newborn, had obviously been abandoned by his parents. Left for dead with no skills or means to survive. He was utterly defenceless. I sympathised.

I felt the baby’s heartbeat and checked his temperature, all while hugging him as close as possible, trying to provide him with heat from my own body. I could tell he needed far more warmth than my shivering frame could give him. My teeth chattered. My numb fingers could just about keep an even grip on the baby.

“He won’t survive much longer.” The apparition’s voice made me jump. I had completely forgotten her presence. I scolded myself. You do not disregard a potential deity unless you want something sharp or white-hot to mutilate you on the spot. Stupid Apollo! This was basic hero knowledge! I looked up at her, already recognising her voice. The woman wore a full-length chiton, held a spear in one hand, and a shield in the other. Her head was adorned with a battle helm that sprouted smoky grey plumage as if someone had set her tightly woven hair bun on fire, though I guess that wasn’t the look she was going for. Over one shoulder, a small satchel was slung. Battle ready and stoic as ever, stood Athena, the goddess of wisdom.

“S-sister,” I greeted coldly (literally. I was shivering enough to cause concern.) “How nice of you to show. I would have thought you above interacting with human children.”

“You are four thousand years old. You are not a child, though your behaviour could fool most.”

“I didn’t mean me, I meant-”

“We have urgent matters to discuss.”

“But why did you-”

“There is limited time.” Ugh. Athena was and is the spitting image of Zeus. One track mind. It doesn’t matter if everyone was crying and screaming, they would still finish what they were saying or doing before giving a thought to anyone else’s feelings.

“I have information for you,” ghost-Athena continued. “You must-”

“Woah, woah, woah,” I interrupted (wow, Athena was right! Cutting people off was fun). Athena looked irritated, but allowed me to speak. “Why did you drag me to this kid? What’s he got to do with this?” Sighing deeply, she began to explain.

“It’s an excuse.” She looked down at me as if this should have been the most obvious thing in the world. “My plan was to alert you to this child’s predicament, then appear and take him to safety. As the protector of young boys, his well-being is your responsibility. I told father how embarrassing it would be for him to look like he couldn’t handle your ‘simplistic’ jobs, and he allowed me take the child if you just so happened to find him,”- she waved her hands slightly for emphasis -“on the condition that I don’t talk to you.”

“So…why are you talking to me?”

“I am disregarding his condition as I trust his reliance on my wise judgement. He cannot hurt me.”

I grunted. “Right.” It must have felt good to be one of my father’s favourite children. I would not know. I was cursed to be in the same group as deities such as Ares and Dionysus. Sometimes even they got more attention than me! I was not some dumb war brute or a drunken demigod! I was Apollo! I (sometimes) knew the future! I sang songs of our (my) glory! Not to mention my (and my sister’s) skill with a bow! I was an intelligent medic! Have you ever been to medical school? Only the brightest survive (excuse my pun about being the frickin’ sun god).

Then again, my mortal mind had been kicking me recently. Ever since meeting Hermes on the way to Camp Jupiter, I had come to an awful realisation. Among the Olympians, I was always second best. An atrocity, I know! I do not suit silver. That’s my sister’s colour! I’m supposed to be gold! But I assure you kind readers, it is true, for I have thought this over. Anything I could do, someone else could also do. Healing? They had my son, Asclepius. Archery? My sister, Artemis. Music and poetry? The nine muses. The sun? They already had Hermes on that job. Sure, I could spread plague, but so could the Nosoi. I could be a deep thinker if I wanted to be, but so could Athena, and her ‘deep thoughts’ were usually to my father’s favour, unlike mine.

If I showed any disgust (and I’m sure I did,) Athena did not acknowledge it. Instead she ploughed on with her all-important speech.

“As I was saying, I have something important to share with you.” She started digging through her small satchel while she talked. “Both Artemis and Hermes have helped you, and both are now being watched by father. I will be more careful. I have only come to give you this.” From the petite bag, she drew a water bottle and a clear zip-lock bag with what looked like little squares of brownies inside. She placed the bottle on the tree stump next to her, and held up the bag. “These have been chemically synthesised by your son Asclepius and myself. They have the healing properties of ambrosia, but can be safely consumed by mortals, as long as you do not eat too much. The bag is not self-replenishing, so use them carefully. This is something Artemis whipped up. It’s-”

“-Moonwater,” I finished. The glinting silveriness of the liquid was too obvious to be anything else. I remembered Thalia Grace giving me some back in Indianapolis, before - well, before Caligula happened. I hated myself for reminding me.

Athena seemed unbothered. “Yes. Now if you could hand over the child-” she started reaching her arms out the shivering baby in my arms. As soon as Athena’s hands were within an inch of him, he started screeching with renewed energy. The shrill sound echoed through the quiet woods, a few birds in nearby trees flapping off to escape the racket. I flinched and Athena covered her ears. I rocked the baby and hummed a quiet lullaby until he calmed down. Athena sighed and put her hands on her hips. “Right. Let us try that again.” She picked up the baby and rocked him like I had, but the noise was no different. For a newborn, he definitely had a good pair of lungs.

Seeing Athena struggle with something so simple was quite amusing, but I decided to be a good person (see? I am good. I am.) and help her out. With great difficulty, I stood and shuffled over to Athena’s smoke-self. She glared, but allowed me to adjust her hand positioning.

“Babies don’t have much in the neck. You have to hold them like this.” Athena huffed.

“I know that.” She snapped.

“Good. Now you’ll have to sing to him.”

Athena blanched (as much as a grey apparition can, anyway). “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. You don’t have to sing the entire Les Misérables soundtrack. Just a little tune.” You’ll have to forgive me here. I knew there were other alternatives. But I also I knew Athena was self-conscious. I just wanted to get one of the Olympians to be as embarrassed as I constantly was for the last three months.

After some convincing, Athena agreed to hum, but nothing more. She chose ‘Für Elise’ by Beethoven. A good choice I suppose. I admit, it did please me that even in her semi-solid colourless state, I could almost feel her cheeks reddening. Too soon, the baby quietened down.

“Not bad. Though your pace needs to slow down a bit to -”

“Hush up.” I held up my hands in surrender and flashed my old, cocky smile. It didn’t seem to fit naturally anymore. I ignored that.

“You’ve done better than I expected.”

“Gee, thanks.” Suddenly thunder rumbled in the distance. We both looked to the skies.

“I’ve exceeded my time limit. I must be off.” And with that, the embodiment of wisdom poofed and disappeared, leaving me coughing in her smoke. I arrived back at the campsite just as the sun’s first rays began to peek through the trees.

#writing #toa #toa oneshot #oneshot #fanfiction #fanfic #apollo #meg mccaffrey #athena #trials of apollo

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kittyabbxtt · 5 years

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have you been re-introduced to KATHERINE ABBOTT? last we heard, the PUREBLOOD was most familiar with TIMELINE TWO. I don’t recall if they were always a HUFFLEPUFF, but I’ve heard the SIXTH YEAR is still INSOUCIANT, FLEXIBLE, EMPATHETIC and FLIGHTY, LOST, DESTRUCTIVE, so that’s familiar. at least SHE remembers her way around the castle. ( virginia gardner; zoe, 20, cst )

kitty has a stats page and a pinterest board ... and a playlist. all of which are longer versions of the quick intro under the cut!! please feel free to hit me up for plotting with her, shes a dumpster-fire mess but i adore her.

katherine abbott has always been the baby of the family; and when she was younger, she always thought she was the baby of the largest wizarding family there ever was. she had five brothers and dozens of cousins and two parents whose love was a lot to carry, as much of it as there was, as genuine as it was. katherine, who had always gone by kitty, was the littlest abbott, and she followed in their typical tradition of keeping the fuck away from politics and policies and too-strong opinions.

when kitty was little, she didn’t have time for stuff like that — that was her mother’s domain. the woman was a formidable lawyer, very skilled in her craft and more often than not dedicated to keeping their fellow purebloods out of prison. anita abbott traveled a lot for work growing up, and so kitty spent more time with her dad, raised by him and her brothers in their beloved home on the isle of skye.

she loved her mother, of course, always had. but it was a complicated love. the abbotts never felt a need to talk about the things that made it complicated; why would they? things like that just weren’t in their nature.

being raised by committee by her brothers and her father (and her mother, when she was around) led to kitty ending up a touch spoiled. no one seemed to begrudge her for it --- certainly not the five abbott boys, who were all just as likely to indulge her whims as anyone else. she grew up idolizing her them as much as they cared for her, and because of this, kitty was always in on their boys’ club goings on. every scheme that went on in their home, she was a part of. every prank pulled at every family gathering bore her tiny little hand-print. they trained her well; she always tried to be the girl who could hold her own, always tried to make them proud in return for what they did for her

she partied with them, kept up with them, explored with them. she didn’t mind being a tomboy, being a little wilder, sweet and loud and unkempt. when their mother was away for work, they were given free reign away from pureblood society, allowed to find their own fun, their own selves; their father indulged them all, after all, since he’d grown up much the same in his own boyhood and knew they’d find their footing best when on their own.

her brother jacob especially was a few years older than her and just as mischievous as kitty --- she need only ask him to send her some alcohol or weed and he’d comply and then some, his owl seeming to pass along his trademark wink. anything for his beloved baby sister and partner in crime. she wrote to him weekly about their rival quidditch teams’ scores, and didn’t know what she’d do without him, or what she’d do if he ever settled down to a respectful job like their mother always wanted him to.

they were the closest, perhaps, of all the abbott siblings. kitty liked to think as much anyway, but she knew --- had known since the stirrings of war began --- that jacob and one of their other brothers, christopher, had joined an organization together. that it was dangerous, and secret, and set to tearing down the pureblood establishment their mother worked so hard to protect. she knew that their mother wasn’t the enemy of her brothers. but kitty wasn’t stupid; her mother was certainly an ally of those doing every nasty thing the two abbott boys fought against.

kitty, when she could help it, decided not to think about this divide in her family. but all the same there was no more denying that as much as kitty loved her mom, her well respected reputation as a wizarding criminal defense attorney was built on the mountains of cases she’d won for less than decent people. not just anyone could get her to handle their case; but people with connections, with ancient families and ties to darker leanings could, no problem. her mother wasn’t a death eater but there was no question that the death eaters had her back. and protection was protection; the war freaked kitty out, and she hated the thought of death eater violence. the horrors it wrought and the ideologies that violence fought for.

but at least her mother’s name, her mother’s work, might leave kitty and those close to her untouched for a little longer. it might mask the fact that her brothers were stupid, brave, reckless things.

for her first several years at school, kitty ran a rather prolific business smuggling contraband and conducting forgeries for people, aided with owled goods sent by sweet talking a brother or two aside from jacob. there was no signature or statement kitty couldn’t copy down with enough accuracy to hold up, no item she couldn’t charm to a near - identical copy. for a small price, of course! she had her lines — she wouldn’t fake any other student’s handwriting for something mean or cruel — but it was fun. she had a reputation, and some people would look down their noses at her for it, but so what? it was fun, and it rarely hurt anybody. she was finding her footing. she was good at it; and in her eyes, when she was good at so little, what was the harm?

she had always been soft. as rough and tumble a childhood kitty had, for all the time her mother and her image consciousness was away, she was a coddled thing. it was easier to turn to fun and misdirection to avoid thought of war.

kitty, of course, cared what people thought — but she was very skilled at compartmentalization. things would hurt and she would cry for a while and then shove it away without examining the origin of those tears. feelings overtook her suddenly and with a passion, but kitty was used to wiping them away in five minutes and going right back to carefree laughter. such was the abbott way. no need to think about the things that made you complicated.

and so she didn’t, for years, until suddenly she found that years of such avoidance left with her with no idea what the future could possibly hold for her. she hadn’t inherited her mother’s brain or her father’s gift at always knowing what to do, lacked her brothers’ bravery — all kitty had was a proclivity for potions and illicit activities, a fair hand at charms, a history made of reckless abandonment. when the world seemed to just keep getting worse, she wondered what good she was to anybody like this. just going on as the same mess of a girl, the same ruinous kitty abbott, good for a roll in the hay or to roll up your joint, to fake your hogsmeade permission slip or whatever other dumb thing no else would bother doing --- what did that do? where did that leave her in this terrifying word?

and then the tides changed. and kitty had lost a brother in the rapid, drowning waters.

kitty found the change she’d considered was suddenly an overnight one … as much a whim as any of her other exploits throughout the years. losing christopher took something from her. lost as ever, torn open, grief stricken, all it did was leave her weak to an attack. she’d always worn her messy heart on her messy sleeve and went about life like that would never cause her problems. she thought if she stopped acting like a silly little girl it would get better, but the world was still an awful place, and nothing could be fixed.

with christopher gone, it felt like she lost jacob too. and that almost hurt more than missing chris like a limb. jacob, who kitty loved. jacob, who kitty couldn’t handle losing. jacob, the brother who was second closest to her in age and always willing to send her a bottle of gin or firewhiskey, the brother whose promiscuous reputation was an equal match for hers during his stint as a gryffindor, who’d never been able to keep his damn mouth shut or his stupid temper in check, was no longer any of those things, it felt like. he refused to leave the underground organization that had lost and lost them a brother to boot. it fucked her over, of course it did.

she’d always been the girl with five brothers and now she had four brothers. how could he be so selfish and keep throwing himself at danger --- she’d been raised by the five of them, their father, and only very rarely their absent, now-silent mother. did he really think she could bear it if she ended up the girl with only three brothers?

right before the mess of timelines occurred, she wondered how she’d fare at hogwarts this coming year. no one knew what her brother had been involved him that got him killed --- the abbotts were a respected family, after all. now that just meant pure of blood, complicit in action. her mother ensured no one looked at christopher’s memory and saw a traitor. just a tragic accident. kitty wasn’t sure if she could bear being a tragedy at school. if she could bear the routine, the life as normal when it was anything but. when she knew some of her classmates would be gone into hiding to run from the worst of the rising regime.

and with the change in timelines: kitty is still lost. still torn open and grief stricken. she has christopher back, is the thing. how could she hate this situation when he’s still alive?

but she herself is such a changed thing because of the memories she has, that don’t seem to line up with the new reality before her. she’s grateful to find her brothers both still alive; but they’re still in the order. still determined to fight the world their mother upholds. the world still is a messy, horrible place. kitty just doesn’t know her place in it. half the time she wants to throw herself into the kitty she was before the war was lost --- but half the time she isn’t sure she can. isn’t sure she should.

#diversions.i #( ⁎∴◦ ⊱ ━━ we live our quiet mess┊intro. )

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dontshootmespence · 6 years

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Morality Above All

A/N: An anon request for a piece where the team is trying to save a child bride (I decided on OC rather than the request for a reader, OC felt better). This focuses more on JJ and Hotch, who have kids of their own. Also, what I reference is a true fucking story. Take that in.

Warnings: Forced marriage, rape, child pregnancy.

------

Normally, they didn’t take these types of cases, but Andi Swann from the Domestic Trafficking Task Force begged for their help in the case of a child bride that had been married off to her rapist in Florida.

At just 10 years old, Desiree Jadin, Desi for short, had been raped by a man of the church only to have her mother tell her she was pregnant and she’d be having a baby of her own. Instead of bringing charges against the rapist, she allowed her little girl to be married off to the man that harmed her - and because of the laws on the books, it was all legal.

“How did you come across this case then?” Hotch asked Swann. “This isn’t any more your normal case than mine.”

Swann sat down at Hotch’s desk and rubbed her temples. Her work was rewarding, but dammit if she wasn’t exhausted. “Desiree’s aunt, her mother’s sister, Mariah Jacobson knows Agent Saywer who knows me. He told her to talk to me and I couldn’t say no. She said the moment she found out about Desiree she came to me. She wants to track her down and take her home.”

As Hotch flipped through the files, he could feel the bile coat his stomach. This was legal. Just proof that legality and morality didn’t necessarily go hand-in-hand. “If we’re able to there’s no saying that we’ll be able to get the marriage overturned.” It was disgusting but true.

“Mariah told me that if we found Desi for her, she would do the rest.” Mariah and her sister, Desi’s mother, never got along and when she found out about her niece she was disgusted. “She said, and I quote ‘I will sooner sell my soul than see her with that man a day longer than she has been.’ Hotch we need to find her. Please?”

“I’ll take the files to the team. We’ll get her home Andi.”

------

The moment Hotch had given the team the files, they’d hit the ground running. Penelope’s blood boiled as she ran to her lair to do some digging into the girl’s “husband’s” past. From the time he was a child, he’d been a troublemaker. His school had disciplined him multiple times for getting aggressive with women, but nothing had ever been done because of his own father was also a man of the church.

“How is this legal? How?” JJ screamed. Fired up with anger, she paced the room as she read over the files again. All she could imagine were her own boys. She’d sooner die than send them off with someone that hurt them. What parent does that? She wanted to find Desiree’s mother and put a bullet in her head. “What kind of parents does this?” She couldn’t keep it in.

Hotch placed his hand on her shoulder and she flinched. “JJ, we need to keep our heads on straight.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” Her voice got louder and louder as she spoke. “How am I supposed to do that when there’s a little girl pregnant with her rapist’s child and married to him by her mother?!”

With a slight shift in eye line, Hotch asked JJ to follow him to her office. “I know this is disgusting, but if we want to find her, we need to keep our heads on.”

“I know, I know,” she said, spinning around on her heels with her hands thrown up in exasperation. She brought her fingers through her hair and turned to him again. “I just...”

Hotch nodded. “It makes you question who we work for, doesn’t it? Makes you sick to your stomach as a parent?”

JJ’s eyes pierced Hotch’s as they both sat down to take a breather. They’d all been looking at files for nearly a day straight - they could take a few minutes to compose themselves. “How do we work for a government that allows this? It just makes me sick. It should be morality above all, not legality.” Bending forward, she knocked her head against the desk repeatedly.

“It should be,” he sighed. “But morality is seen as subjective while legality is seen as objective.”

“But it’s not! Not always, anyway,” she said, realizing that she was about to send herself into a tailspin again. “There are rights, wrongs and gray areas. The laws should focus on the gray areas. Marrying a child to her rapist? How does anyone anywhere think that’s okay?”

As a former lawyer, Hotch understood the trickiness of words in regards to written law. “Sometimes it doesn’t say it outright, it’s what the laws don’t say that lawyers exploit.”

“No wonder you stopped being a lawyer,” she laughed softly. “I’m just so glad we don’t come across the cases a lot with the BAU because I don’t know if I could handle it. I think I’d lose my mind.”

“You’re stronger than you think,” Hotch assured her. “I think your maternal instinct would allow you to last longer than anyone.”

Maybe. Or she’d break the quickest because the job would wear on her more than anyone else. “We should get back to work,” she said.”

With an unceremonious nod, he stood up and opened the door for her. It was time to bring Desi home.

------

After nearly two days of non-stop searching through files and digging through his background, the BAU found who they were looking for - in a small house outside of an even smaller town near Boulder, Colorado. Jonathan Veil, now Peter Quaker had a relative out that way that housed them for a while.

Though presumably his family knew the truth, he told the rest of those around him that Desiree was a troubled teenage cousin that showed up at his doorstep. Of course he couldn’t send her away. Even with his strong stomach, Hotch almost threw up when he found out.

On the flight out, the team grabbed what sleep they could. In this line of work, sleep was hard to come by and rarely restful, so they did what they could. It took them five hours to get there, but once they did, Hotch and JJ accompanied Andi Swann and her team to the house in question.

The scumbag known as Peter Quaker opened the door, cocky as all hell that he had some backwards ass law on his side. “Can I help you?”

“We’re here for Desiree,” Swann said. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

“Our marriage is legal, Suit. She ain’t going anywhere.” Before he could fight her any further, she took out her gun and backed him into the house, keeping on eye on him so Hotch and JJ could find the girl.

JJ found her upstairs. “Desiree,” she questioned softly. The young girl was small enough that despite the early stage in her pregnancy, anyone would still be able to tell. “My name is JJ. I’m from the FBI and we’re here to take you home.”

“I don’t want to go home. My mother made me come here.”

Again, a fiery hatred rolled through every fiber of JJ’s body. “Not your mother. Your Aunt Mariah. She wants you to live with her.”

“Really?” Despite all she’d been through, the light still shined in her eyes; she had hope. “You mean I don’t have to stay here with him?”

“No, sweetie. You’re going home.” She slipped her hand around the young girl’s and led her downstairs, where the man in question was in handcuffs.

He writhed on the floor underneath Swann’s tough grip. “Don’t touch her! She’s mine!” He screamed.

JJ motioned for Desiree to remain where she stood for a moment. “She’s not yours anymore you sick son of a bitch,” she said. No one could deny they enjoyed the sound of JJ’s heel knocking into his nose.

“You broke my nose, you bitch! I’m having you charged with assault!”

Hotch sneered down at the rapist. “Why would she be charged? I didn’t see anything. You Swann?”

“No,” she laughed. “Just our unsub tripping while trying to evade capture. Must’ve tripped into the counter or something.”

That only angered him even more, but no one seemed to care, least of all Desiree. With him in cuffs, she turned to him before leaving the house. “I hate you.”

JJ dared for any judge to look her in the eye and tell her she was wrong.

@prettyboyeffect @jamiemelyn @unstoppableangel8 @iammostdefinitelyonfire26 @rmmalta @lukeassmanalvez @kalie-bee @veroinnumera @lookwhatyoumademequeue @cynbx @tippy06 @smolldork @marvelouslyme96 @literallyprentissstwin @adropintheocean1234567 @grace-for-sale @skrrrrrrrrrrt @mysticpansy @tenaciousarcadeexpert @jason-gideon-is-my-dad @dionnaea @jae-sch

#Jennifer Jareau #Aaron Hotchner #jj #hotch #aaron hotchner fanfiction #jennifer jareau fanfiction #dontshootmespence #morality above all

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anonforlackofabettername · 6 years

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Sleepover ask: Re the Dragon Prince. I've seen lots of people who seem to think that Claudia is going to be the Azula of the series - others think she'll be the Zuko. What are your thoughts? Related, do you agree with the large part of the fandom which thinks that dark magic is evil/corrupting, or the smaller part that thinks it's not that black and white?

My only fandom interaction is memes and fanart so I'm pretty removed from any theories that are floating around. I have no clue what the fandom is saying and if what I'm saying matches up with something that's already been said. That goes for both parts of your ask, though I’ll get to the dark magic stuff later. Part of me isn't even sure what you mean by the Azula of the series or the Zuko since I’m missing that meta. The way I'm choosing to interpret it, is that by Azula you mean a character who is frighteningly competent, a direct antagonist to the main heroes, and is the lesser shadow of the main antagonist that nevertheless hangs over the main heroes more often and arguably does more damage. I'm choosing to interpret it that by Zuko you mean a character who is slightly incompetent, spends the majority of the early parts of the story as a direct antagonist and the shadow hanging over the heads of the main heroes, but by the end of the story undergoes a redemption arc and joins the main heroes, eventually turning on the main antagonist and without whom the main heroes would not be able to win in the end.

(This is fucking long so I’m adding a read more)

That being said, I don't think Claudia fits either of these. Neither does Soren. I think they maybe might fit Zuko's role, but that's a bit of a stretch. And I'm gonna say why. Claudia despite being a lovable goof in personality is frighteningly competent when it comes to magic. However magic in this universe comes with a lot of complications and components. Thus we don't get to see her expertise as often as we saw it with Zuko and Azula's firebending. Also a thing to keep in mind is that Claudia and Soren are friends with Ezran and Callum. Soren has been told to kill the princes, true, same with Claudia being told to bring back the egg, but they both care for the boys in a way that Zuko and Azula couldn't because to them the avatar was a nameless figure. These people grew up together. They share relationships. Callum even has a crush on Claudia. Its not like the foe yay sexual tension of Katara/Zuko. These people up to the start of the series lived with each other and saw each other every day. Soren was training Callum and was captain of Harrow's guard. There is a familiarity that you can't ignore and which I think will be a major conflict for Soren specifically, when we finally get to that confrontation and he has to either kill them or let them go. Right now they are supposed to be on a mission to bring the princes home which is the exact opposite of both Zuko and Azula's missions to kill Aang. However, that being said, they are on a mission to kill Reyna. Soren and Claudia showing up is a threat because they are a) trying to stop the princes from returning the egg, and b) they're likely to try and kill Reyna in the process.

However, the main heroes don't even know that Soren and Claudia are trying to find them. Aside from running from their Aunt and the run in with Crow, they don't know who is following them and what will happen if they get found. So its not like in Avatar where every couple of episodes they had to bolt out of wherever the adventure of the week was because Zuko showed up and was hunting them. They're mostly trying to get the egg, now a baby dragon, back to the border and his mother as soon as possible.

And again you have to take the world itself into account. Within the world, elves are the bad guys to humans. They kicked humans out of Xadia. They've killed hundreds in the war. They literally assassinated Harrow, though it is unclear if Ezran and Callum have realized their dad is dead. In fact Callum was convinced that Reyna drank blood, thats how much elves are the boogeymen of the human kingdoms. Now we know that’s not true and the elves were justified for parts of it, and both sides are equally guilty. If you want to compare the show to Avatar so much, then think of it this way. The human kingdoms are the fire nation, the elves the Earth Kingdom, and Ezran and Callum have just realized how shitty their people have been to the rest of the world. In this case, that makes Ezran and Callum Zuko in the middle of his redemption arc, when he’s working through his shit while traveling the earth kingdom to get to Ba Sing Se, and Soren and Claudia are Azula towards the end of that arc when she's like ‘help me kill the avatar and I'll make sure our dick of a dad lets you come home.’ Only in this case killing the avatar is returning the egg. Its not a great metaphor, and its been a while since I've watched avatar, but that's the feeling I get overall. Its Zuko realizing that the Fire Nation has done some fucked up shit and feeling helpless to fix it because he’s just an exiled prince.

I’ve gotten very off topic at this point. Um, I think going back to the Zuko or Azula thing, I think it depends. It depends on what happens when they finally catch up with the boys. If Claudia is Zuko, she’ll see Zym with the boys, recognize it as a sentient creature that deserves life and to be reunited with his mother and help the boys. If she’s Azula she’ll see Zym as a threat to Katolis that could one day rival Thunder and decide he needs killing. And of course there’s always other options, those are just two potential outcomes and they don’t even include Soren and what he decides to do about what his dad told him to do.

Your other question was about dark magic. I don't know if dark magic is inherently corrupting. If it is, I think we’ll definitely see evidence within the show. In general when it comes to fiction magic is magic, no matter its source. Sometimes sources are inherently evil while others are inherently good but for the most part its meh and magic just is and how people use it makes it good or evil. However, in this case, you can't ignore where dark magic comes from. It doesn't come from negative thoughts and feelings like the dark side of the force. It doesn't come from shadows or darkness like half a dozen different magic systems.

Dark magic in TDP comes from the direct exploitation of creatures with inherent magic. To use dark magic you need a plant or creature with inherent magic that the mage then twists and exploits to do what they want. To find the Moonshadow elves Viren used a moth. For the switching spell Virin used the two-headed snake. Claudia crushed a bug to create fire at Harrow’s funeral. Nothing about dark magic is innate, nothing about it is natural, and in fact it comes from exploiting natural creatures and resources. You are using the life force of a living being and generally its dead afterwards.

This isn’t important for things like plants or bugs or whatever. Yeah Claudia killed a bug and used its life to summon fire. Whatever, who here hasn’t killed bugs before? It starts to matter however when you’ve got people like Ezran who can talk to animals and understand what they’re saying. I’m sure being a glowtoad there’s a spell that Claudia could cast using Bait. That’s not okay since Bait is a pet as well as a living creature but if it happened to another glowtoad I doubt anyone would care. But since Ezran can talk to the animals, he does care because he knows the animals are not consenting. It also starts to matter when you have magical creatures that are sapient and intelligent enough to put their foot down and say I will not let you exploit me like this.

So I don’t know if dark magic is inherently corrupting, but the idea of using creatures is an inherently dehumanizing and corrupting one. To dark mages, these animals, and even the elves and dragons and any other magical creatures that we haven’t met yet, are less than human and exploitable. To Virin and Claudia the egg wasn’t a baby, it wasn’t a person, the egg was a weapon. Because to them dragons, magical creatures, and the like are tools and weapons. This has got some serious race implications because the last time we thought of an entire class of people as tools we had slavery and it was legal.

To use dark magic, you have to be in this mindset that people are tools to be exploited. I have no idea what dark magic using an elf’s life force or a dragon’s life force would look like. I’m sure its possible, and I’m sure I wouldn’t like the result. There is a reason the elves took one look at dark magic and said ‘not today satan’ and decided it was a severe enough crime to exile the entire human race from Xadia. They were not about to let themselves be used. There is a reason the elves are the boogeymen of Katolis and the rest of the human kingdoms and part of that is they’re the enemy and part of that is if they are monsters, if they aren’t human, then no one will care what abuses happen to them.

So no, I don’t think using dark magic is inherently corrupting. I don’t think the magic itself corrupts. However I do think that to use dark magic, one must look at the world through a corrupted lens. You must be okay with harming living creatures to accomplish what you want, and you must be okay exploiting others. Anyone who believes in the intelligence and personhood of all creatures and then uses dark magic is either ignorant or a hypocrite. When it comes to Claudia, I think she’s partially a hypocrite and partially doesn’t see how what she’s doing is harmful and wrong. She sees only the potential of dark magic, and hasn’t yet realized what she’s harming to get her way.

#the dragon prince #my meta #i have no idea what the fandom is saying but whatever #I'll just make up my own meta and probably reinvent the wheel while doing so #oh well #thevoidwatches

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