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turtle-paced · 3 years

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A:tLA Re-Watch: Fine-Toothed Comb Edition

The warning for the last episode was genocide. The warning for this episode is second-hand embarrassment.

Book 1, Chapter 4 - The Warriors of Kyoshi

(0:55) Previously on Avatar, Aang announced that he has Serious Business to attend to before learning waterbending. Zuko made a new enemy in Admiral Zhao on top of his existing problems with his dad, now revealed to have kicked him out of home pending Avatar-capture. Aang learned he really is the last airbender.

(1:48) Zuko’s room still has those broadswords on the wall, in case anyone was wondering.

(2:08) Today we’re focusing on Zuko’s scarred side while he talks about his single-minded dedication to catching the Avatar. In the context of the previous episode and the previously-on, I think this is the scar as the symbol of Zuko’s supposed obligations to his family, rather than scar = bad guy. Which is more obvious on the re-watch.

(2:17) “Uncle, you taught me that keeping a level head is a sign of a great leader.” He’s trying. Not very successfully right now, since he’s got capital I Issues, but he’s trying.

Moreover, it’s a pretty consistent thread with Zuko that he definitely wants to run the Fire Nation and does things to a) secure that outcome and b) prepare himself for the job so he can do it well. It’s an understated but profound contrast with both Aang, who’s already stated outright that he doesn’t want to be the Avatar, as well as with the blind, destructive ambitions of Ozai and Zhao. The latter is something I’ll definitely talk about more later, probably when the show digs into firebending philosophy. For the moment, however, Zuko’s overt desire for the Fire Nation throne hits a lot of genre biases about the evils of ambition. The show puts that out there now…so we can talk about it better, later.

(2:26) Zuko’s anger manifests in overactive candles; Iroh gently reprimands him for the effect (the heat, telling him to open a window), rather than for being angry.

(2:38) “He’s clearly a master of evasive maneuvering,” Zuko says, despairing of ever tracking down the Avatar. Aside from the cut to Aang’s actual methods right now, this one’s a bit of an awwwww moment when you think of the series finale, where the universal response to “we can’t find Aang” is for everyone to look to Zuko, trusting he’ll have some ideas. How things change.

Over in the A-plot, Sokka has the maps. This will also be consistent.

(2:50) Aang stares up at Katara, who’s focused on her mending, and tries and fails to get her undivided attention. This episode makes some important progress in Aang and Katara’s relationship. Now that they’ve decided to be in each other’s lives, now that the novelty’s wearing off, what are things going to look like when the other is an everyday feature? Katara’s got stuff to do and can’t look up every time Aang wants any of her attention. Aang can’t always be after attention, either.

(3:15) Sokka’s sexism is very obviously brought up here. Gotta love Katara hauling him up on it by withdrawing the benefit he gets from her work, leaving him scrambling to apologise. And for his pants.

(3:46) Goal-oriented Sokka wants to keep flying. Aang wants to stop and enjoy travelling. This time, Katara agrees with her brother, pretty understandable given her investment in learning waterbending. Always interesting keeping track of how often the main characters disagree with each other, even over little things - it’s actually pretty often. This is a good thing for the story! Arguing characters are showing the viewers what they want, how much they want it, and how they want to get it.

In terms of timeline, we’re still solidly in winter, and Katara’s projecting arrival in the Northern Water Tribe close to spring.

(3:55) Bad habits from Aang; he doesn’t defend his desire to stay here on its merits, but uses Appa as an excuse. He avoids even this little argument.

(4:15) Plus his insistence that Katara watch him ride the elephant-koi (which sound terrifying). Same thing as the marbles just then, but with the danger level scaled up.

(5:14) This sort of miscommunication, where Katara and Sokka are stuck on shore yelling for Aang to get out of the water and being dramatically misinterpreted, could only happen this early in the series. Much past this point, and Katara in particular would be confident enough to charge in herself and do some rescuing, especially on open water.

(5:48) Having narrowly escaped sea monsters, the gAang get ambushed by a group of mysterious warriors. And taken out quite effectively, too. Again not the sort of thing that would be possible later in the series.

We intentionally don’t get a good look at the ambushers at this point.

(6:13) Not that we’re left hanging for long, as the voice of the person in uniform is clearly female. Three seconds later, Sokka’s blindfold is torn off to reveal - ta-da - an organised, professional team of female warriors defending their home island. We can get the organised and professional thing from the fact that they’ve got uniforms and Suki’s headband clearly being a marker of rank.

In case it wasn’t already apparent that this episode is going to smack Sokka out of the very worst of his sexist ideas about women in combat, Sokka puts his foot in his mouth by asking where the men who ambushed the party are. Nowhere, mate, they don’t exist.

(6:41) Since Sokka can’t stop being sexist for thirty seconds, it’s left to Katara and Aang to talk their way out. Neither of them seem to share Sokka’s patriarchal notions; we’ve already seen that Katara’s an outspoken feminist in her patriarchal society. Aang just hasn’t commented. He simply doesn’t say anything about women in combat, and through his silence conveys that it’s just not all that remarkable to him.

(6:46) Kyoshi Island might be formally neutral and staying out of direct conflicts, but it’s still Earth Kingdom - they’re not worried about generic spies or generic partisans, but specifically Fire Nation spies.

(7:01) Exposition and timeline. Avatar Kyoshi, for whom Kyoshi Island was named, born 400 years ago. Helps us see the enduring legend of some past Avatars, despite the disrepair her statue is in. This is before we got the information about typical Avatar lifespans and who, specifically, came before Roku. Thinking that there were five Avatars between Aang and Kyoshi wouldn’t have been too out there a conclusion.

(7:07) Aang reveals himself as the Avatar of his own volition. Right now it’s just to get himself out of a jam with local authorities, but as we’ll see over the course of the episode, it’s got consequences other than people wanting to kill him.

(7:22) Another example of airbending being proof positive that Aang must be the Avatar. This goes to show just how thoroughly the Fire Nation wiped out the Air Nomads. Airbending is so vanishingly rare in this setting now that people think it’s more likely the kid airbender is the Avatar than a random descendant of a random survivor.

(7:38) Can’t say I like the running joke of the guy foaming at the mouth. But this kicks off the counterpoint to how Aang’s relationship with Katara is settling. The people of Kyoshi immediately give Aang attention. Lots of it. Lots and lots of positive attention. The Avatar is a celebrity.

Aang, for his part, is completely fine with being the centre of attention. He likes the spotlight. This won’t be the last time we see him seek it out, not by a long shot. This episode does some character work for him in this regard.

(7:47) In something of a continuation of last episode’s giant spiritual announcement that the Avatar is back, this montage shows us word spreading throughout ordinary people in the southern Earth Kingdom. From one person to another and eventually to people who’d see Aang captured. Love how the colour palette changes and the Fire Nation horn comes in through the music over that quick montage.

(7:58) Here’s another way Zuko’s season one treatment differs from your Zhaos and your season two Azulas - you see him and Iroh in little domestic moments like this. Zuko’s not in armour, he’s sitting down for a meal with his uncle, he leaves the scene insisting he’s saving his meal for later. He and Iroh are depicted as having lives outside messing with the protagonists. (Villain domesticity gets a different twist in season three, which is heavily into exploring how the war’s messed up the Fire Nation at home, in all senses of ‘at home’.)

Broadsword status: still there. Seriously, the animators left them in for a single shot where they’re only partly in view behind Zuko’s head. They were extremely careful with that particular detail, given that not one but two plot points hang on Zuko having and displaying those swords.

(8:13) Cut to the statue of Kyoshi being cleaned and repainted, showing how the people of Kyoshi are honouring the Avatar. Appa is also getting the spa treatment, lucky Appa.

(8:32) Aang immediately identifies the food set out in front of him as a dessert not usually served at breakfast and starts scarfing it down; Katara looks at it more dubiously. She’s never left the South Pole before, so she’s not familiar with Earth Kingdom cuisine. Aang’s travelled pretty extensively, so he is. Have I mentioned recently how much I love the attention to detail in this show?

(8:41) Sokka, meanwhile, is sulking in a corner. His sexism is depicted here as petty and as more self-inflicted misery, pathetic and self-sabotaging.

(9:15) Again, the pattern. Katara says ‘we’re probably going to have a problem if we stay here too long’, looking at future issues, Aang says ‘nah, we’re fine for the moment!’ Another thing he learns a lesson about by the end of the episode - and he doesn’t repeat that specific mistake.

It’s also noticeable that even as Aang’s clearly glutting on the attention, it’s important to him that he’s making the town happy. He wants the people around him to be happy, even just casual contacts.

(9:25) Katara spells out the moral of Aang’s story this episode. The attention is going to Aang’s head, and he needs to get a grip.

(9:33) Even here in episode four, Katara is noticeably annoyed at girls around Aang’s age fangirling over him, and at how positively Aang reacts to it. Not going anywhere but Kataang, just a question of maturity.

Cue montage of Aang being very popular and doing a bit of showing off (airbending push-ups! An exercise in lifting one’s own body weight with airbending, with sufficient control not to physics oneself flying backwards!), while Katara prepared to move on and looks rather unimpressed.

(10:34) Sokka, who as I mentioned back in episode one, is teenage insecure, walks up to the Kyoshi Warriors’ training area with the clear intention of proving something to himself, I mean, to them. When he approaches, we see the Kyoshi Warriors are moving in unison, again showing us their discipline and professionalism.

(10:42) Incidentally, Sokka totally knows what he’s doing by calling the Kyoshi Warriors’ practice a “little dance lesson”. Condescension guaranteed to raise blood pressure.

(10:50) Suki, who is way more gracious than Sokka deserves right now, apologises for arresting Sokka and friends on suspicion of being Fire Nation spies. Not because arresting suspected Fire Nation spies without a lick of proof is bad, mind you, but because the assumption turned out to be wrong. Compare with Sokka and Gran-Gran wanting to kick Aang out of the South Pole village and into the antarctic wastes without so much as a snack or a blanket. We’ll see this more in the next few episodes, but the Fire Nation’s war damages the ability of Water Tribes and Earth Kingdom to trust any stranger.

(11:01) Suki’s patience is not infinite. When Sokka doubles down on being a dickhead, she gets ready to smack him down. This doesn’t seem like her first experience dealing with men talking down to her and her group, either.

Over the course of the series we’ll see some Earth Kingdom women in some bureaucratic positions with varying levels of power (never a top job), but aside from Toph, I don’t think I can recall seeing any Earth Kingdom women in active combat situations. As a whole, the setting as of the time of the main series seems to be patriarchal. The Earth Kingdom seems to settle into a place between the Water Tribes and the Fire Nation, with sexism being a little less obvious than the Water Tribes’ outright “stay in the kitchen,” and the glass ceilings firmly in place.

(11:31) As you’d expect, the teenager who’s had the opportunity to train their martial skills regularly with other warriors handily defeats the teenager who hasn’t. It’s not even close.

(12:11) In contrast to Sokka’s sexism, Aang’s hanging out with the younger girls of Kyoshi Island, happily showing off the fact that he was a woman in a past life, and not batting an eyelid when one of the girls says Aang was very pretty in that past life.

(12:20) Katara asks Aang to help out with the shopping for provisions; Aang refuses because he booked himself having fun with other people. He still wants Katara to come along, though. Ah, different attitudes to work. Katara picks up responsibilities without being asked, Aang puts the work off. Katara also uses her words to say “watching you show off isn’t fun for me” - she wants to be Aang’s friend, rather than his audience, while Aang’s having a bit of trouble distinguishing the two.

Aang’s issues with attention are also rendered a bit more painful on the rewatch. On first viewing, it’s immaturity, plain and simple. And there’s a lot of immaturity involved here, it’s true. The first impression isn’t entirely inaccurate. With knowledge of ‘The Storm’, the viewer also knows that the reveal that Aang’s the Avatar threw a wrench into his peer relationships, which he never had a chance to rebuild or readjust. The girls of Kyoshi aren’t exactly Aang’s friends, but they are providing companionship and strings-free fun, something which Aang was feeling pretty short of prior to running away. The issue’s more complex than just the attention going to Aang’s head.

For his part, Aang also accurately assesses that Katara’s jealous. She doesn’t want to just sit back and watch Aang, she’s said as much, but it’s true that she also wants Aang’s attention in return. The context of Katara and Sokka’s social decisions in this episode is them trying to work out how to relate to people around their own age, something neither has had to do before. So while Katara doesn’t want to be Aang’s audience, like she said, and she’s not willing to put her goals on the backburner just to keep Aang happy, she’s also on new social ground and not the smoothest about it.

(13:18) Outside the Kyoshi Warriors’ HQ, Sokka is kicking rocks and clearly thinking about something.

(13:35) And here Sokka starts to prove his worth. When evidence and facts conflicted with his worldview, Sokka went with the evidence and the facts - Suki and company are better at fighting than he is. So to improve his own skills, he respectfully requests that Suki teach him.

Realistically, this does not instantly make Sokka the perfect feminist ally, as we’ll see. Even here he’s gone for the “if I insulted you earlier” apology, though I’d tend to be a bit more tolerant when that’s followed up with the blunt “I was wrong,” as Sokka does. Suki, who’s well within her rights to be annoyed at a guy coming back to ask her a favour after insulting her like that, tests Sokka’s commitment by insisting he train in their traditional dress and facepaint.

(14:10) Suki’s explanation further makes it clear that any humiliation Sokka might feel is a Sokka problem, as opposed to her inflicting women’s clothing on Sokka specifically for humiliation value. Her uniform was tailored for women, and it’s also a warrior’s uniform. Nothing to be ashamed of. So if Sokka wants to train as a Kyoshi Warrior, he dresses for it.

(14:17) Like I said, getting the bulk of the point doesn’t instantly make Sokka a perfect feminist - when Aang says “nice dress,” he still can’t hang on to Suki’s point that dressing “like a girl” isn’t inherently insulting.

(14:26) Katara just quietly practicing waterbending in a free moment, nothing flashy, just manipulating small amounts of water.

(14:34) In a transparent attempt to get Katara’s attention, Aang says he’s going to go do something silly and dangerous. Katara’s not indulging these particular antics. It’s a brief fight and definitely a kid fight.

(15:05) Sokka’s fumbling with a new routine and new weapon in new armour is accentuated by the off-key music.

(15:29) The way that Sokka manages to knock Suki down with exactly the technique she was talking about shows how quick a study he can be when he actually tries to learn. They’re probably both right in their little spat here, too - Sokka did get her, Suki probably did let her guard down more than she usually would since Sokka is such a beginner.

(15:45) Back over in Aang’s storyline, Aang’s fanclub is getting bored with the lack of sea monster action.

(16:04) But as the fanclub wanders off, Katara arrives. And there’s the point for Aang this episode. Katara’s not Aang’s fangirl, she won’t always agree with him, they’ll occasionally fight - but she means it when she says she wants what’s best for him, and she’s not going to wander off on him because she got bored.

(16:24) So they end it by mutually acknowledging what they did wrong and apologising to each other. What is this communicating business? Who does that in an episodic drama? And what sort of sea monster attacks after our protagonists have got their emotional act together?

(17:27) This is a lackluster action sequence by this series’ standards, because it’s basically Aang getting whipped backwards and forwards by a giant eel, while Katara stands on shore. The creativity isn’t there. Fortunately, this part of the action sequence is brief.

(17:42) When Katara does manage to intervene, again we can see that she’s not practiced in a fight. Her waterbending does want she wants it to do, blast her and Aang back towards shore and away from the Unagi, but damn that’s a simple and straightforward use of the art. Note also that waterbending was her last resort - she waded out to Aang rather than any waterbending that would let her maintain speed and maneuverability.

(17:56) Zuko shows up here, because the fight scene needed a boost.

(18:10) Where’d he get the komodo-rhinos? Who knows.

(18:35) Katara’s earlier practice drawing water out of a basic bowl here gets a more lifesaving use, as she waterbends the water right out of Aang’s windpipe. The show didn’t make a big deal of Katara’s earlier practice, but here it is, same move!

(18:51) It’s sunset, and Sokka and Suki are still training together. This has clearly not been a miserable experience for either of them.

(19:09) Another instance of Zuko rocking up to a location and just shouting “Avatar! Where are you, Avatar!” No intro. No niceties. Just single-minded shouting.

(19:18) When, shockingly, the Avatar does not show his face at such an eloquent plea to come out and get kidnapped, Zuko orders his men to search the village. Bad things for bad reasons, just trampling over people’s homes and peace of mind for his objective.

(19:40) The Kyoshi Warriors are a match for non-benders, but have a bit more trouble with Zuko, especially when he’s on a komodo-rhino (and apparently knows how to use that fact).

(20:07) In the brief exchange between Zuko and his soldiers and the Kyoshi Warriors, Zuko does not personally set any building on fire. He doesn’t do what Zhao does later this season and trash everything his fire touches. That doesn’t negate the fact that he showed up to terrorise people until the Avatar showed up, assaulted a bunch of people, and that his subordinates weren’t as careful about the buildings as Zuko was.

(20:38) Aang uses some dropped fans to blast Zuko right through a wall, and we get a reaction shot afterwards to note that he’s not happy. Aang doesn’t like fighting and tries not to hit back.

(20:45) Aang glides over the village and gets a look at the destruction, including a look back at the statue of Kyoshi in flames.

(21:10) Aang blames himself for the village getting burned down. Katara says it’s not his fault. Again, it’s a deceptively complex ethical issue for a kids’ show. Arson is on the arsonists, but what are Aang’s responsibilities to random villagers in living in indefensible, flammable locations, when they don’t know Aang’s being chased and Aang does? As a matter of sheer practicality, Aang can flee a lot more easily than most villagers can fight back against the Fire Nation.

There aren’t good, totally fair answers to this. But after this point, if the gAang decides to stop in one place for a while, it’s either a decent-sized population centre, or somewhere out of the way. Not a village.

(21:19) Katara says she reckons Zuko will leave Kyoshi Island alone to chase them, and resigned, Aang says he’ll call Appa. Goodbye, any hope of normal travel! This looks to me like the point where Aang internalised that yes, in the dystopian future he woke up in, being the Avatar means being hunted down by the Fire Nation.

(21:33) Sokka apologises for treating Suki like a girl when he should have treated her like a warrior. Suki gives us the galaxy brain take - there’s no contradiction, she can be both.

(21:52) Appa takes off and Katara’s prediction is borne out. Zuko drops everything to chase them.

(22:11) Aang isn’t happy with just running, though. He feels obliged to do something else to defend Kyoshi when it’s already burning. So he dives back into the ocean and lures the Unagi back out to spray water all over the village.

(22:38) The look on Zuko’s face at being drenched is priceless.

(22:58) Katara gives Aang a hug for risking himself to help others, and the group flies off into the sunset to end the episode.

So, on the whole. This episode doesn’t do anything radical in terms of the plot, but it does provide some character development that needed to happen early. Aang needed to come to terms with being the centre of attention, whether the attention was shallow adoration or a serious desire to harm him without much regard for collateral damage. Katara and Aang both needed to work on maintaining a long-term friendship not based on novelty value. Sokka needed to snap out of that particular form sexism, because the rest of the series isn’t going to be short on female combatants.

#a:tla #fine toothed comb edition

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idk-my-aesthetic · 4 years

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Phoenix Prince /// Dragon Princess AU

Aka a healthy (ish) fire siblings au (thats still super angsty im so sorry) where Zuko and Azula love/take care of eachother and earn the love of their people

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Ursa dies in child birth, though thankfully Azula survives. Zuko’s only three at the time but he’s devastated by the loss of his mother, and vows to protect his baby sister at all costs

He’s super super involved with Azula growing up, and does everything in his power to protect her from Ozai. Bc when she’s little Ozai’s very bitter bc she “killed” Ursa, plus he already hated zuko for being too weak, plus there’s no Ursa to challenge him. so he can basically do whatever tf he wants to them and be an abusive fucking dick

But then, Azula starts fire bending and is clearly a prodigy. Ozai suddenly takes an interest in her. She’s terrified of her dad so she does w/e tf he wants to keep him happy.

Except she refuses to hurt zuko. he’s her big brother and she loves him. She (secretly) stays really close with him, though is skilled enough at manipulation that Ozai thinks she’s basically cut herself off from zuko/hate him. Which zuko is fine with, he wants Azula to be safe from Ozai and if that means she needs to pretend to hate him when their dad is in the room? He doesn’t care, he knows his baby sister and knows she loves him

Anyway yeah Ozai starts to like her better and treats her.... “better”. (Note the quotations.) but she still feels guilty that Zuko’s getting the brunt of ozai’s wrath, so she does her best to keep Ozai’s attention on how good she is instead of how much of a failure zuko is.

Quick side note: if Azula seems ooc that’s on purpose. We know her toxcicity is a result of Ozai’s influence. But here he has way less control over her. Bc Ozai mainly controls her by using fear. And while she is afraid of him, she’s not nearly as afraid in this AU. a) bc Azula has her over protective big brother being over protective and b) Ursa’s dead so there’s no mother who is supposed to protect her failing to protect her and making Azula feel unsafe

So in this she’s much closer personality wise to like a “season 1 zuko” version of herself. She’s in general cool but tends to loose control of herself. Though she also has a lot more self confidence than zuko did, and maybe a bit too much pride. She’d never hit someone who was already down and cares for ppl, but pretends that she cares for no one

So yeah. The two are just kinda surviving living in the castle and love eacother a lot

Until they hear about the whole kill ur first born thing....... (which happens about 2 yrs after cannon bc Iroh came home when he heard his sister in law died and the whole siege of ba sing se was postponed)

Instead of like. Waiting for her brother to get murdered tiny 9 yr old Azula packs up their shit and gets ready to go on the run

Unfortunately she’s (almost) too late. While she’s getting ready to leave Zuko is trying to cover for her (Ozai would be murderus if he knew Azula was gonna betrey him by leaving) and somehow manages to insult Ozai while trying to protect Azula from being found out

Ozai gets big mad, and in a fit of rage tries to kill zuko by burning half his face off.

Azula runs in at the sound of her brother’s screams, at the exact same time two gaurd rush into the royal chambers. The guards are frozen in shock, but Azula is pissed

Azula attacks her dad. At first she has the upper hand/element of surprise but... she’s 9.

she starts loosing. Her forearm gets really badly burned in a suspiciously hand-shaped pattern.

During the fight Zuko’s struggling to lift himself from the ground and help. He manages to save Azula from a killing blow by throwing some fire at Ozai, but collapses immediately after. Azula barely has a second to breathe before Ozai starts attacking again.

For a moment it legitimately looks like Ozai is going to murder his two young children in cold blood

Until one of the guards snaps.

She uses the whole fucked up situation to knock Ozai out, though she doesn’t kill him. The other gaurd is just standing there, and she has no clue who he’s gonna help so she just knocks him out

Then the gaurd grabs zuko and Azula, and fucking BOOKS IT from the castle. She does a blue spirit type thing to escape (threatening to kill either Azula or zuko) and eventually gets them somewhere safe where she can get their wounds treated

The next day the fire lord puts out this whole sob story about how an assassin pretended to be a gaurd, killed his father, then kiddnapped his children. And how he’s sending out a whole manhunt for his lost children yada yada yada

The other gaurd that was there mysteriously disappears a few days later, but not before he can spread some “rumors” about the prince and princess’s disappearance. Ozai ascends to the throne and publicly offers an enormous reward for the return of his children,,,,,, while secretly sending assassins after them. (Like.... Azula attacked him and he already tried to kill zuko he don’t give a fuck)

Iroh is obviously devestated when he finds out. and while he thinks the whole thing is a bit suspicious he starts on a journey desperately looking for his lost niece and nephew

While all this BS is happening this poor gaurd suddenly has 2 damaged af kids to take care of and a bunch of assassins to run from

So once zuko and Azula are healed enough to travel and they know zuko won’t die, they go on the run. They can’t stay in one place bc of all the assassins after them and end up going all over the world

They don’t spend a lot of time in the fire nation (for obvious reasons) but they do spend bits and pieces there. Connecting with their people, meeting freinds of the gaurd who saved them that can help (like Lt Jee who ran Zuko’s ship in cannon) and spreading the truth of what happened.

Stories about the damaged prince and princess who were so hurt by their father begin to spread. But even more stories about how the prince and princess care for their people spread ten times faster. Stories they take time to rebuild small fire nation villages damaged by floods, or how corrupt military commanders suspicious disappear after they come to town start to spread.

Ppl start calling them the dragon princess and pheonix prince. Because the princess protects her people like a dragon protects it’s hoard, by killing everyone who dares to endanger it. And the prince has risin from the ashes (you can see the burn clear as day on his face), to heal the land and his people

(Though really..... the prince and princess are both dragons and pheonixes. Because even if she seems invincible and more ruthless than her brother, the princess has been hurt deeply. Though her wound is more easily covered. And she aches for the pain of her nation, the nation she feels she wasn’t strong enough to protect. She just hides her emotions better than her brother....)

(As for the prince, yes he shows more kindness than his sister seems too. But he is just as ruthless as her if someone threatens their hoard. He’s just a bit calmer.... less trigger happy than his twin. It was his idea to take out the corrupt commandor stealing a small town’s livelihoods, after all)

They call the gaurd who saved them “the Kitsune”. They say she is a flame wielding spirit, sent by Agni himself to protect the true leaders of the fire nation

Iroh overhears bits and pieces about them. He starts to get an idea of what’s happening, but for the most part he really struggles to track them. Ppl can recognize him, and they won’t sell out their prince and princess to someone who might take them away

So yeah. The three of them are on the run together for a long time. They can never spend long in one place (assassins never stop coming after them) and dart all over the earth kingdom and fire nation, seeing first hand the effects of the war. And gaining a positive reputation both for caring about their people in a way no one since before Sozin has, as well as shaming dishonorable fire nation soldiers who mistreat those in the earth kingdom

(They almost never hurt foot soldiers who are just following orders, but any one (especially upper command) who take clear pleasure in other’s suffering are often challenged to Agni kai’s in exchange for said soldiers leaving.

Though usually just being publicly knocked on their asses by a couple of scarred kids who turn out to literally be the lost prince and princess holy shit, is enough to put them in their place)

So yeah. They travel together earning a good reputation from as soon as they’re healed until zuko and azula are 14 and 11 respectively

At that point they get separated from the gaurd.... (she doesn’t die, either captured or separated for some other reason)

So now.... all they have is eachother

The two spend the next two years on their own. They still try to do the same types of stuff they did before but now they’re in a lot more danger w/o an adult to help them. They’re basically just.... 2 increasingly ferel children struggling to survive. They live mostly off of like foraged stuff and whatever money they can make/steal from rich assholes

They continue to dodge Iroh as well bc they have no clue if he’s gonna return them to their father or kill them or w/e. Which is wayyyy harder than it would seem, the only reason he hasn’t caught them yet is that they have an alliance with June the bounty hunter who keeps sending Iroh on wild goose chases bc she has a soft spot for the weird ferel kids. (And a huge crush on the gaurd who was basically their mom/older sister for a while. But we don’t need to talk about that)

so zuko and Azula are just these absolutely feral kids being hunted by 12 dozen bounty hunters from their father, plus the “dragon princess and pheonix prince” have officially been declared “traitors to the nation that are impersonating the late children of Firelord Ozai” so there’s a good amount of the actual military after them, and they’re trying to keep away from their uncle and all his fucking white lotus freinds

They’re a little bit stressed ok??? And like super protective of eachother by this point

And then who joins the fucking search??? The goddam avatar

Bc he heard these stories about these good firebenders who protect everyone no matter what side of the war they’re on. And ofc Aang wants one or both of them to teach him

So Aang like the lovable idiot he is, is just trying so hard to adopt these crazy feral firebenders.

And ik I keep saying feral but like. I need to emphasize this bc these two spent 2 years on the run + 2 more years on the run while basically living in fucking forests cus they’re out of money, connections, and the gaurd was the only one out of the three of them with social skills. They’re a little stressed okay???

And idk I just love the idea of Aang trying to befriend these crazy feral firebenders acting like they’re just like. Wild animals or smthn. Like cornering them in a clearing and trying to offer them jerky as if they were wolves and the two giving him the blankest fucking expression

Anyway this post is about 200x longer than I meant it to be and I am so so sorry. (Especially since I can’t put in a read more on mobile)

Anyway bc it’s so long i’m just gonna do the last bit in bullet form and try to finish as quickly as humanly possible

- obvi they join the avatar and stuff

- the gaurd (who ima call kit/kitsune cus I don’t have a name for her) eventually meets/joins with Iroh. June later joins them as well as they try to find the idiot fire children

- Sokka has a big gay crush on the feral firebening guy

- Katara has a very tiny crush she refuses to admit too on Azula

- there’s also a lot of drama between her and Azula at first bc Azula is brash and Katara kinda gets annoyed at a mix of that/the lingering bias she has against fire nation ppl but they get past it

- also Azula has ~issues~ where she blames herself for their mom’s death/ is sure their mom hates them but asp their mom comes to her in spirit form and says she loves her (no fucking clue when that would happen but I love that idea)

- instead of having zuko/Azula chasing them they have a really fun variety of different random bounty hunters. Obvi including sparky sparky boom man

- the siege of the north.... happens. Though Zhao doesn’t kill the moon spirit so yue lives, and Azula and zuko manage to make a huge speech and get many of the soldiers to defect to their side instead so it ends with minimal bloodshed

- when Toph joins the group she and Azula are chaos incarnate

-mai and ty lee hear rumors and stuff and join team avatar eventually

- when they find out about the day of black sun they just. Skip trying to talk to the earth king. Cus they can just stage a cou lol they have the people on their side?? Forces from both water tribes, random earth kingdom ppl they’ve managed to befriend,,,,

- though they have to find uncle first bc he could challenge zuko for the throne. Obvi they think they’ll need to get rid of him bc they don’t really know him and think he wants to hurt them but all of a sudden???

- so they kinda have a few side quests as they’re preparing and gathering everyone but then it’s the day of black sun!!! And it works and shit and I actually have some other ideas too but FUCK this is SO LONG i am so sorry and will shut up now

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drabbles-of-writing · 4 years

Text

Bonesborough’s Resident Troublemaker

This is part of my Four Years AU

AO3

Masterpost

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Bonesborough, even by Boiling Isles standards, was never an incredibly normal place.

First of all, it was the home of Emperor Belos. A town housing a man with such power was bound to be recognizable by name alone.

Second of all, it seems to have a knack for attracting trouble. Even more so than other towns. Small or big, Bonesborough has it. From a thought-to-be extinct basilisk attacking the local school to a cursed owl beast appearing every once in a while to a random human girl of all people staging a prison breakout.

Speaking of the human girl…

Last, but not least, Bonesborough held some of the most powerful and strangest witches the Boiling Isles had ever seen.

The two most notable ones being The Owl Lady, a covenless witch that was once the strongest witch alive. Advanced in wild magic and sharing a half-curse with her sister, also known as the former Emperor’s Coven leader. Until her magic died out. Though there are rumors she is finding a way to regain it.

And then there was her apprentice.

A human girl who appeared out of nowhere and learned her own form of magic. In just a single month she had been banned from Hexside School of Magic and Demonics, somehow managed to enroll in said school, convinced the principal to let students study multiple tracks, befriended the Bat Queen, defeated Grometheus, and fought Emperor Belos himself. And she survived.

To the rest of the Boiling Isles, Bonesborough was a battleground of the strangest people with even stranger stories.

To Bonesborough, however, it was any other morning with the residents of The Owl House. And their most common troublemaker the past few years; The Owlet.

“Owlet, that better not be you.”

Slowly, very slowly, a black and white owl mask poked up on the other end of the stand.

“Hey,” The Owlet waved shyly, slowly pulling her purple hood off.

“Owlet, no.” The greengrocer warned, grabbing her produce at the edge of the stand and pulling it closer today.

“Please?” The Owlet begged, her mask's eyes going as big in her puppy-dog look that everyone knew Eda must have taught her.

“No, bad Owlet.” The greengrocer teased, lightly swatting at the thief's hand as she tried to reach for the vegetables. “Go steal from someone else. Or, you know, pay?”

“But I’m saving!” The Owlet whined. “You see, I had an idea--

“I hate to sound rude but I frankly don’t want to know or be involved with whatever idea you’ve concocted.” The greengrocer butt-in. “I have a business to keep.”

The Owlet whimpered and dramatically lay her chin on the table, staring longing at the vegetables. The greengrocer looked between her produce and the girl for a few moments before sighing and shaking her head.

“If you really need to steal something,” She said slowly, noticing the way the Owlet perked up. “I know of a certain someone who can definitely afford it…”

“Stealing from the rich? Even better!” The Owlet exclaimed, jumping up excitedly. “Where do I find them?”

The greengrocer, surprised and mildly amused, pointed further down the marketplace.

“He sells somewhere down there, closer to the richer side of town. He’s got a big banner that’s cluttered with saying how ‘fresh’ and ‘organic’ his produce is.” The greengrocer huffed.

“Normally I wouldn’t care so much, but the guy literally uses magic to grow his produce and only makes his son do it on the side. I’m not exactly worried about his financial status.” She grumbled.

“Well then, I will be delighted to be of help.” The Owlet grinned, pulling her white staff off of her back. “Thanks for the tip!”

“Now you be careful out there, young lady!” The greengrocer warned as the Owlet rose into the air. “You’re still just an Owlet!”

“Pfft, since when did that ever stop me?” The Owlet replied.

She saluted the greengrocer before flying off, vanishing among the growing morning crowd.

The countdown for morning shenanigans had begun.

“Miss Blight?”

“Owlet again?”

“Yes, Miss Blight.”

Amity sighed and rubbed at her temples from where she sat at her desk.

“What did she do this time?”

“Stolen produce,” The guard said. “We have her bound as we speak.”

“Is that Amity in there?” A voice called from outside the tent.

“Think you can handle her this time?” The guard asked, a smug tone in his voice.

“And what’s that supposed to mean, Keene?” Amity demanded, a little too quickly, as she stood up from her desk.

“Nothing, Miss Blight.” The guard said simply, turning his head to the side. “Good luck trying to wrangle her.”

“Thank you,” Amity growled through gritted teeth, grabbing her gray beaked mask from where it hung on the wall and slipped out of the tent.

“Amity!” Owlet grinned.

The thief had her wrists bound together with rope and was being led from said rope by one of the newer guards.

Poor guy.

“I’ve taken all of her glyphs, Miss Blight!” The young guard said happily, waving around a handful of paper cards with glee.

“Good job, Laris.” Amity sighed, knowing very well there was no way he had gotten all of her glyphs.

“Where’s her palisman?” She asked, walking up to Owlet and looking down at her, pulling her best ‘Really?’ face.

“Over here, Miss Blight.” One of the other guards said, holding up Owlet’s staff...with no palisman on the end.

“That’s a staff without a palisman, Xena.” Amity deadpanned.

“What? Where--?” The guard, Xena, began looking around frantically for the snow-white owl, who had somehow escaped her grasp.

“Where’s Snowy, Luz?” Amity sighed, turning back to the Owlet, who was looking very smug.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” The Owlet said smugly. “I’m not talking. You’ll have to torture it out of me.”

“I can arrange that!” Xena called gleefully from where she was still searching for the palisman.

“No! No, Xena, we are not doing that.” Amity said sternly.

“Aw,” Xena mumbled.

“Titan save me,” Amity mumbled. “Look, why were you stealing produce?” Amity turned back to the Owlet. “I know why you stole from that guy, but vegetables? Can’t Eda steal her own?”

“Pfft, and let me miss out on all the fun?” The Owlet grinned. “And I’m saving.”

“...is this seriously about the glyph tattoos?”

“Yeah,”

“Oh for the love of--” Amity pinched the bridge of her nose, remembering just where she was and who was watching. Best to not reveal more to a whole squadron of Emperor’s Coven guards.

“You’re impossible,” She grumbled.

“I know,” The Owlet smiled. “Anyway, it was nice chatting with you, and especially you,” She nodded to Laris. “But Lilith’s gonna be mad again if news of my capture makes the news. Again.”

“Hey, you’re not going--”

“Laris!” Keene shouted. “Duck!”

The new guard only froze up before a screech sounded from above. The Emperor’s guards all looked up just in time to see a large snow-white owl swoop down.

It knocked right into Laris’ head, almost knocking off his beaked mask as Amity wisely took a few startled steps back.

With Laris’ hold on the Owlet's bindings loosened, she managed to jerk out of his hold. She dug both her tied wrists into her cloak and revealed a hidden pocket within the cape itself and drew a fire glyph.

“Get her!” Xena shouted as Amity pulled on her mask, becoming invisible among the swarm of guards as she moved further to the back.

She’d tried ‘fighting’ the Owlet before, and it did not end well.

The Owlet only smiled and tapped the glyph, burning the restraints off her wrists and sliding out of the way of a guard lunging for her.

The Owlet darted through the crowd of guards, leaping and kicking a few to get momentum to where Laris was frantically trying to gather up all the stolen glyphs he’d dropped.

“Thanks for holding these,” The Owlet grinned, causing him to jerk his head upwards.

The white owl swooped down again, shrieking as it kicked and clawed at Laris’ mask, making him yelp and stumble back.

Owlet ducked to the side as a guard threw a spear that impaled through one of her plant glyphs.

“Hey, rude!” The Owlet snapped, grabbing multiple glyphs off the ground. “Now I can’t use that one.” She complained before grabbing a new plant glyph and tossing it at one of the guards.

It lit up upon impact and a massive vine exploded from their forehead, reaching out and entangling many of the other guards.

“C’mon now, don’t be shy.” The Owlet said, stepping back and scooping up more glyphs in her other hand and spreading them both out like fans, showing what she had to the guards.

“Who wants to go next?”

“Ten snails say that she’s late again.”

“She is not going to be late again.”

Among the many other things the residents of Bonesborough dealt with were certain...thrill-seekers. Namely kids who had discovered the newest hiding spot of the Owl House and tried to have a little fun. Which ranged from waiting to see if they could catch a glimpse of one of the residents or trying to break in. Yes, that happened.

Twice.

The Owl House may have gotten a new hiding spot every month, but it was never overly far from Bonesborough. And Hooty did his job well.

During break-ins, that is.

“Jorah, I’m telling you, Owlet is definitely going to be late. My uncle said she got caught by the Emperor’s Coven again.”

“I’m not giving up my snails that easily!” The boy snapped, glaring at his other three friends. “I still have three minutes left.”

“You stubborn idiot,” One of his friends shook her head.

“Frances, I dare you to go talk to the tube bird.” A second girl grinned.

“I am not doing that.” Frances shook her head. “First of all, I’ll be caught. Second of all, that thing terrifies me.”

“Then why did you come?” Jorah raised a brow.

“Because you guys would bully me if I didn’t,” She grumbled.

“She’s not wrong,” The fourth kid shrugged.

“It’s just because you’re a wimp.” The second girl taunted.

“Would it kill you both to shut up?”

There was a snap and a thump from far off in the trees, and all four kids went quiet. They ducked down in the bushes that were only a few meters from the house.

Frances slowly stuck her head between the bushes and looked around.

Mere moments later, a figure flew out from the trees and crashed to the ground in front of the Owl House, groaning as her staff clattered onto the front porch.

“Hi, Luz!” Hooty greeted.

“Am I late?” The Owlet worried, taking off her needless mask and hanging it around her neck.

“Hmmm, nope! You got here with a minute to spare.” Hooty said cheerfully.

“I’ll take it,” Luz sighed with relief. “Sorry, Snowy.” She apologized to her palisman, picking up her staff and stroking the birds head.

Snowy chirped and turned her head away grumpily, but didn’t refuse the pets.

“I WIN!” Jorah cheered before slapping his hands back over his mouth.

Luz whirled around, staff raised and body tense as Frances darted back into the bush as her, and everyone else, gave Jorah furious glares and terrified looks.

“Who’s there?” Luz demanded, raising her staff.

“Some kids were betting in the bushes,” Hooty said, head coming out of the door slightly. “They thought you were going to be late again.”

“Oh,” Luz instantly relaxed, looking mildly annoyed at the worst. “Well, since they’re game is over and I’ve got a certain someone who’s going to be visiting and berating me soon, do you mind escorting them off?” She asked the door bird.

“Would I?” Hooty said excitedly.

“No, no! We’ll leave, we’ll leave!” Frances shouted, quickly getting up and already backing away.

“Too late!” Hooty chirped before extending his neck straight-on towards the kids.

They screamed and began bolting back through the woods, Hooty talking gleefully all the way.

“Sorry, kids,” Luz winced, a tad regretful as she placed Snowy back on her staff. She then opened the front door and stepped inside.

“You’re late,”

Luz sighed and looked towards the couch, where Lilith was ‘casually’ having a cup of tea.

“No, I’m not. I had one minute to spare. Could you not hear Hooty?” Luz said, hanging her mask on a hook by the door and resting her staff next to it.

“It was a very close call.” Lilith said simply. “You left, what, over three hours ago? You only went to get vegetables and spoons.”

“...well I got the spoons,” Luz said, sheepishly pulling out a handful of silver spoons from a pocket in her cape.

“Good enough for me!”

King scampered into the living room and climbed up Luz’s leg to snatch the spoons from her hand. She didn’t bother to react or stop him as he dropped back to the ground and hurried into the kitchen.

“Nice to see you still alive, kid,” Eda greeted much more casually as she poked her head in. “No vegetables, though?”

“Sorry, you’ll have to get them yourself.” Luz apologized. “I kinda...maybe…” She glanced at Lilith and weighed her options for a moment. “...got caught by the Emperor’s Coven.”

“Again?” Eda and Lilith accused.

“They got the jump on me!” Luz defended. “Besides, it was only Amity’s group again. Nothing to be worried about.”

“Kid, at this point, I’m convinced you want to be caught just to bug Amity,” Eda snickered, shaking her head.

“Well, it’s not true all the time…”

“You both are ridiculous,” Lilith shook her head. “Eda, you need better control over your apprentice.”

“Says you,” Eda rolled her eyes. “In case you haven’t noticed, not every kid is like Amity.”

The front door slammed open, startling the inhabitants as they whirled around. Even King poked his head out of the kitchen.

A rather grumpy Amity stood in the doorway, mask pushed up on her head. She hadn’t even bothered to change.

“Speak of the devil,” Eda muttered.

“Hey, Amity,” Luz waved shyly.

“Again with the glyph tattoos?” She demanded, shutting the door.

“You’re still on about those?” Lilith blinked.

“They could be useful!” Luz insisted, sitting on the couch, opposite of Lilith. “I may have a lot of pockets and places I can stash glyphs, but the tattoo glyphs could be useful! Especially with the stronger ones.”

“We don’t know what something like that is gonna do to you, kid.” Eda shook her head. “This type of magic hasn’t been used in forever, it’s unlikely you could use magic with those glyphs without causing harm.”

“We don’t know that,” Luz said, scooting further into the corner as Amity exhaustedly sat on the couch between her and Lilith. “It could end up being really useful! And if it ends up being a bad idea, I can get a tattoo over it to cancel out the glyph.”

“You're barely seventeen, Luz. It’s illegal.” Amity pointed out.

“Since when has that ever stopped me?” Luz raised a brow. “And can’t I get them with permission from Eda? Or is that just a human realm thing?”

“How much have you saved for one already?” Eda asked.

“Almost two hundred,” Luz said proudly. “I wanted to try and get a less-dangerous spell first. Like a fire or a whirlwind glyph.”

“A fire glyph?” Lilith exclaimed.

“Would you rather I have a glyph that will shoot a spike of ice from my skin?” Luz raised a brow.

“Luz, for Titans sake, my parents are rich ,” Amity groaned, running a hand down her face. “I can pay for any of your tattoos you don’t have to excessively steal while you save.”

“It’s your parents who are rich, Amity. Not you,” Luz reminded. “I’m not forcing you to talk to them for snails for my sake. What kind of degenerate asks her girlfriend's parents for snails to get tattoos?”

“First of all, you’re not forcing me.” Amity raised a hand. “Second of all, I meant I would ask Ed and Em to be the ones to ask for the money. I promised I’d never speak to my parents again, and I’m upholding that.”

“Too bad, I’m paying for this myself.” Luz crossed her arms and turned on the couch so she was leaning against the armrest and lay her legs across Amity’s lap. “So take that, Miss Blight.”

“Shush,” Amity grumbled, cheeks pink as she glanced away.

“Hmm,” Eda thought, leaning on the other side of the couch armrest. “I guess a small one wouldn’t hurt…”

“You can’t be serious?” Lilith demanded. “You’re allowing this?”

“My kid, my rules.” Eda said, giving her sister a righteous look. “It’ll only be a small one, anyway. See how it goes before we try more.”

“You’re the best!” Luz grinned, reaching behind her to grasp at Eda, who stepped out of range.

“I know I am,” Eda said proudly.

“Amity, you’ve dated into a family of morons.” Lilith deadpanned, looking towards her apprentice and taking a sip of her tea.

“You’re part of the family, too.” Eda pointed out.

“Suffer with the rest of us, you fiend!” King called, trotting in from the kitchen and climbing up onto the couch to flop on Luz’s stomach, making her wheeze at the sudden weight.

“I regret a lot of my life choices, but especially the one that led me to this moment.” Lilith grumbled.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have cursed me when I was sleeping, huh?” Eda sneered.

“I don’t think that cemented it in--”

“Irrelevant,”

Luz, Amity and King all silently watched the women continue bantering for a few minutes before they all looked at each other with faces that said ‘well this isn’t going to end soon.’

“Anyway,” Luz sat up more and picked King up to place him on the couch head. “I told Gus I’d be meeting him at the library for more studying. He said he found some old human relics that could be enchanted.”

“Actual enchantments this time, or alleged enchantments?” King raised a brow.

“Actual enchantments, King.” Luz said, swinging her feet off Amity and getting up.

“I’ll come with,” Amity said, quickly getting to her feet as well. “Since you’re going to be using my hiding spot, as per usual.”

“Excuse you, I think the correct term is our hiding spot.” Luz teased, kissing her cheek. “But don’t you have to send in a report later?”

“Keene can take care of it,” Amity waved her hand like it was no big deal. “You’re more important.”

“Aww, you’re so sweet,” Luz teased, laying her head on Amity’s shoulder.

“Hey, flirting teenagers, could you not do this in the middle of our argument?” Eda snapped her fingers, getting the girls attention. “I’m about to win it.”

“No you are not! I am making reasonable points!” Lilith insisted.

“You’re not even arguing about the curse anymore!” King threw his small paws in the air. “You're just bringing up mild annoyances that happened last week!”

“Your point?”

Luz rolled her eyes before turning and smiling to Amity. She returned her look of smothered amusement.

“Let’s hurry before they start getting into a glyph-fight,” Luz said, grabbing the witch's hand and hurrying to the door, making sure to grab her mask and staff along the way.

“You do know that people recognize you more with the mask than without it, right?” Amity asked, flipping her own mask down.

“I know, but I think it looks cool.” Luz shrugged, bringing up her hood. “Last one to the library has to clean Hooty!” She shouted before throwing open the door and racing out.

“Wha--not fair!” Amity shouted, tearing after the Owlet as she raised her staff and flew into the air, laughing all the way.

Amity summoned her own snake staff from the air beside her and leapt onto it. But by then, the Owlet was already gone, having raced through the trees and into the town.

And aside from the occasional on-looker, nobody batted an eye.

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writermich18 · 4 years

Text

BNHA Writing Prompt

"My childhood home was haunted."

"What?"

"Wait, really, Midoriya? You're not pulling our leg, are you?"

"No. My childhood home was haunted. There were the Shimizu Brothers - they're the youngest spirits there; a Shadow Man - we actually had to call in an exorcist and a shaman for that one, there were several and one was an actual demon; there was Old Man Jokiri who had been there since the house was built because it had been built in what used to be his family graveyard, but that got destroyed during the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 and the house got built like only 5 years after -"

"I'm amazed that house was still standing, because that's like, 300 years ago."

"Well, yeah. The house has been in my family since the 3rd Quirks Generation. And we kept updating and bringing the house up to code every 40 years, while still maintaining the restoration the pervious family, the Shimizu Family, had created. My dad inherited the property about 5 years before I was born from my uncle, his older brother,, who disappeared about 2 years before, he was declared dead and uncle's will said, if he ever disappeared instead in of dying normally, then he wanted Tou-san to have the house."

"Who would have inherited the house if he hadn't disappeared and had died a normal death?"

"Mom would have."

"...what?" Laughter sounds from the others.

"Yeah. Uncle Allen apparently loved mom like the little sister he never had a lot more than he loved Tou-san. And Tou-san had apparently won a bet they had made when they were kids and so, he inherited the house in return." The laughter got louder.

"You uh, you mentioned the Shimizu Family. Who were they?"

"So, the Shimizu Family was the previous owners, they were the ones who built the house in the 20th century and owned and passed the house down their family all the way to the late 21st Century. The last members of the family were the parents Shimizu Akira and Shimizu Emiko, and they had two children, both boys: the oldest by 10 years, Shimizu Tadashi, and the youngest by 10 years, Shimizu Neah. Tadashi and Neah were both First Quirk Gen. Tadashi's Quirk was a very obvious Quirk that messed with Quirk Factor and Energy. Neah's Quirk, to this day, is actually unknown."

"Huh? Why?"

"Neah died before his Quirk was activated."

"Oh."

"The Shimizu Brothers, supervised by their parents and the other adults of the organization, were active participants in the vigilante organization which would late become the foundation of -"

"- the Heroic Life Rights Activist/Helper Organization of Equality and Equity, H.L.R.A./H.O.E.E., that organization?!"

"Ah, yes. Them. Dad actually found Neah's old Organization kid-sized coat from this chest hidden in a secret compartment in the basement. Mom restored it to its former glory and they gave it to me as a birthday gift when I turned 5. I wore all the time until I was 11, it doesn't fit me anymore."

"Aw, that's so cool! And cute!"

"Yeah, but what I didn't understand until recently was why the parents would leave it behind... Anyways. Shimizu Neah disappeared unexpectedly only 3 months before his tenth birthday. And 20-year-old Shimizu Tadashi, who had been assigned babysitting duty at the time, upon realizing that his brother wasn't answering his call, went after him. Then he too disappeared. When it was realized that neither brothers came home the night before or came to school the next day, a wide-spread search was made throughout the whole town, even the area of the forest the locals called the Cursed Forest was searched. Nothing. Not even a body. The only thing left of the brothers was Neah's bloodied and ruined coat and the stuff they had left behind in the house. Grief-stricken and shaken over this turn-of-events, the parents promptly left the house and the town and never had a single kid after. They died childless and the Shimizu line ended with them."

"And now the brothers haunt their former home?"

"And now, the brothers haunt their former home."

"Who told you this, Deku?"

"It was actually the Shimizu Brothers' spirits who told me about their adventures and their story. The rest of it, I found out through listening to my father's recounts of living in the house, digging into the history of the land and the house, and just general small town gossip and rumors. I grew up in that small town east of Musatafu and we actually still live in that house, I live in the apartment for a while because it was closer to my middle school, then my current school of Yuuei, and now I live in these dorms. So, I don't have that apartment anymore. Mom lived with me for a while there to throw off anybody who might be searching for our home to destroy and hurt me and UA. But she's moved back to the house, after I've made clear that I'm safe and fine here."

"Okay, the apartment was just so you didn't have to make a long and expensive commute to school."

"Yeah, I mean if it wasn't for the houses and land being farmland/an entire small town and there being a whole entire forest and river separating Musatafu and my hometown from each other, with only one road connecting them together, the place would be considered a suburb of Musatafu. The local government actually does consider it a suburb given that we don't have our own government and use Musatafu's for most things, major things, and a small voting get-together poll for minor town-only things."

"That's awesome."

"It must have been terrifying growing up in a haunted house though."

"Actually, no. It was only the Shadow Men who were horrible and we got rid of them, they were pretty low-level apparently and weren't directly tied to the house only partially through either an object or an open portal, both of which got safely removed and closed respectively."

#boku no hero academia #writing prompt #bnha #izuku midoriya #my hero academia #bnha au #I'll call this au #The Haunted House AU

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enygma0710 · 6 years

Text

Drabble Tag Challenge

If you’re tagged on this, you’ve been challenged to write a 100 words or more drabble of Jonerys!

You then earn the right to tag 3 people on your drabble and challenge them to do it as well. Not mandatory, but this is a fun and easy way to encourage creators and spread more fan content!

Pick from the dialogue prompts -OR- Free choice drabble.

Tagged by @thescarletgarden1990 thanks for challenging me ;-D and I am challenging @xxthewolvenstormxx @freshhexes and @starkgaryen4life

If you’ve been tagged, my feelings wont be hurt if it’s ignored. So before I drop this drabble, I feel I need to give a disclaimer, LOL

Drabbles are my Kryptonite, like legit every story I write I have to build up these extensive ass backstories for the universe and the characters and how they will react to a situation and function in the universe i’m either playing in or modifying. So that being said, this drabble takes place in my unreleased, modern AU Jonerys fic; Once in a Lifetime. Thats where my mindset is right now, I wrote two others in the traditional Westeros but it just didn’t work. 2nd disclaimer; this is a really random af drabble, I write some random shit but this is more than usual. See Authors note at bottom for explanation.

I will probably put this on A03 once I get the main fic on there, but at a much later date.

My prompt: “ Have you lost your damn mind?” and

“I think I’m in love with you and I’m terrified” -slightly modified

Robb and Jon whooped and clapped, as they watched the larger man, dressed in bright blue spandex, swing his opponents like a rag doll as his power ball bounced off the rim, missing the basket. “I can’t believe your brother recorded these.” Robb elbowed Jon to pass the chips. Jon begrudgingly passed the bowl over to Robb.

Daenerys plopped down on the couch behind them. “Rhae loved Westerosi Gladiators growing up. My father got tired of Rhae recording over his westerns, so for his birthday he gave him a case of VHS tapes and let him go to town.” Dany reached for the bowl, snatching it away from Robb. “He recorded everything; Gladiators, Old WWF and EWF matches, cartoons, movies, music videos. He only stopped because my father refused to buy him another case of tapes.”

Jon turned away from the action of Atlasphere on the screen, to look at his friend. “These are classics, they don’t show the reruns anymore.” Robb cheered loudly, bringing Jon’s attention back to the show.

“They show them all the time in Naath,” Missy chimed in as she sat down next to Dany on the couch. “This is an early season, Storm’s not in it.”

“I like The Mountain, I heard he’s the only gladiator that no one has knocked off on ‘Human Cannonball’”

“Makes sense, you see the size of that guy?” Jon asked, as he grabbed his drink. “I like Nitro and Gemini, I wouldn’t want to go against either of them in Powerball.”

“Oh, I love Storm, Zap is my favorite.” Dany was bouncing up and down. Jon looked back and laughed at how excited she was getting. “Oh, they are about to do Joust! Watch Zap!”

They focused back on the TV and watched as the blond gladiator pummeled her opponent off her platform into the mat below. “Ohhhhhh! That was brutal, I wonder if they’ll do Hang Tough this episode.”

“You know we could do that.”

“Do what?” Jon asked.

“Hang Tough, there are rings at the playground down the street.” Robb turned to Jon. “Feel up to the challenge?”

Jon smirked, setting down his drink. “I’m game if your game, Stark.”

Robb jumped up. “Let’s go.”

Daenerys stood next to Missy, watching the two ‘brothers’ warm up before their match of makeshift Hang Tough. She left Missy walking over towards Jon, shaking her head. “Have you lost your damn mind?”

“Never knew you to be one that cursed, Dany.” Jon grinned, rolling his shoulders. Robb next to him doing push-ups. Both of them had just gotten off punishment after pulling another stunt they tried, after watching an old EWF match. Mrs. Stark walked in on Jon and Robb doing a body slam with a stunner while Arya and Bran cheered on.

“Oh, shut it,” Dany rolled her eyes. “You two are bigger idiots than I thought, the only idiot missing is Theon.”

“You rang?” Theon sauntered over, giving Robb a high five.

“Oh Gods,” Missy muttered.

Theon grinned, “I stopped by and Sansa told me, you guys were here, but for what? I thought we were watching Gladiators.”

“I challenged Jon to Hang Tough.”

“Snow?” Theon’s face split into a shit eating grin, clapping his hands. “Oh, this I got to see.”

Jon and Robb stood at opposite sides of the small ring course.

“Ready, set, GO!”

Robb and Jon launched themselves onto the rings, swinging towards each other. Jon was the quickest and met Robb first. They both started kicking at each other, laughing trying to knock the other off the rings. Dany watched with some trepidation as the brothers tried to take the other down. Theon kept jumping up and down egging Robb on to take Jon down and would switch when Jon got the advantage, causing Robb to yell “Who’s friend are you?”. Missy stood behind Dany, alternating between cheering on Jon and muttering “Gods this is stupid”. Daenerys kept silent and didn’t cheer on either but was the first to notice the gleam in Robbs eye change from determined to mischievous. Robb kicked away from Jon, swinging his legs behind him, gaining fast momentum and before Jon could react, Robb swung his leg forward, wrapping his legs around Jon’s waist, simultaneously letting go of his rings. The force of Robb colliding with Jon, ripped the rings from Jon’s grip sending them both hurtling towards the ground and landing with a crash.

“Oh SHITE!!!” Dany yelled as they hit the ground, she ran over to the tangled limbs of Robb and Jon.

Robb’s eyes were closed, he winced holding his head. “Oh Gods,”

“Are you alright?”

“Told you this was stupid.”

Robb nodded and tried to move but Jon was sprawled on top of his legs.

“Jon?”

Jon didn’t answer, his arm laid at an odd angle.

“Oh, shite did you break it.”

“I don’t think so.”

Jon tried to push himself up but faltered, landing hard on Robbs legs, “Shite.”

“It’s dislocated,” Dany stated as she squatted down next to Jon.

“How the hell do you know this?”

“My Father has a bad shoulder, it dislocates occasionally. It needs to be reset Jon.”

Jon gingerly rolled off Robbs legs. “No, I’ll be fine.” He used his good arm to stand up.

“That fall did more than dislocate your shoulder, it rattled your brain as well. Let me reset it.”

“Can’t you bang it against the wall or something?”

“No, Theon and shut up, Jon I can set it for you.”

“No,” Jon winced. “I’ll just ask Uncle Benjen, he’s visiting today, he’ll know what to do.”

“No,” Robb rasped as he stood up and limped. “You know Father is out of town and if he finds out we got injured from rough housing again- “

“We’re Fucked.”

Jon turned hesitantly towards Dany, his shoulder was throbbing and his fingers were growing numb.

“Do you trust me?”

He locked his gaze on hers and saw the determination and resolve reflected in them. He nodded. Dany tightly gripped his right hand with her left and placed her right hand over his right shoulder. “Its going to hurt but only for a minute, ready?”

“Just do it.” He gritted out.

“On the count of three, one-two-three,” Dany swiftly jerked his arm up and towards her, Jon yelled over the audible pop of his shoulder going back in its socket. He was sore, his fingers were still numb but she was right the pain was brief. “Thanks.” He panted.

Daenerys let go of his hand, giving a shiny grin. “Anytime Snow.”

Later, they found themselves slowing making their way back towards the Starks residence. In front of them, Theon was helping a limping Robb. Daenerys and Missy walking beside him. “Well we’ll see you guys later.”

“You aren’t coming with us? What about the tapes?”

“No, I’m going to walk Missy home and Rhae won’t mind.” Daenerys smiled and reached over, chuffing him on the side of his head.

“What was that for?” Jon winced.

“That’s for not listening to me and being an idiot.” She smirked, her lavender eyes bright. “Bye Snow,” she waved and turned away from him, walking towards Missy.

Jon stood on the sidewalk, quietly observing Dany and Missy. A warm, tingling sensation clawing at his chest,

“Oi, you alright?” Theon voice snapped Jon from his thoughts.

The smile gone and replaced with a scowl. No, I don’t think so, far from it.

Theon and Robb, now stood beside him. Both looking back and forth between Jon and the duo walking away.

“Why do you look like you swallowed a bit of bitter?”

What the hell is wrong with me? “Nothing, just worried about getting caught by your Mother.”

Theon nodded in understanding, but Robb just stared, giving a disbelieving look. Jon cough, rubbing his neck. “Let’s just get home and come up with a story that won’t get us both grounded for a week.”

The boys continued on their way, devising a story to keep the suspicion low on their injuries. As for Jon his thoughts drifted off, away from the Theon and Robb, but to his silver hair friend and the curious new feeling she caused, Shite I think I’m in love and I’m terrified.

Author Notes: So this drabble is damn near a one-shot. I tend to write alot, LOL. I got inspiration while cleaning and came across several episodes we recorded as kids of Double Dare, GUTS, Legends of the Hidden Temple and American Gladiators. Hooked up probably the last working VCR and watched for nostalgia. So that’s how American Gladiators came to Westeros LOL

#jonerys #drabble challenge #once in a lifetime #enygmas fics #fan fic

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sayleeofkanto · 6 years

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Pride Month Day 26

((Hey so while the rest of the oneshots for the month are about the Keyleeverse, this one’s different. For Questioning day, I wrote about me. This one’s behind a cut because it’s hella personal, hella long and has trigger warnings for internalized homophobia, external homophobia, a brief whizzby mention of suicidal ideation and some mental illness stuff))

You love hockey day, not so much for the sport itself but for being part of the team. None of your bullies are on the team, and girls who generally ignore you actually notice you, treat you like one of them. It’s almost like having friends.

The changing room is hell, though.

Focus on the wall and changing your own clothes, don’t look around, especially don’t look at her, even though your ears are attuned to every word she says and in class you can’t stop staring at her beautiful hair and her amazing skin that’s darker than all the other peely-wally Scots around here and never gets any spots and her super pretty smile--Don’t look!

What are you, some kinda creepy lesbo? Gross.

You’re not. You’re Team Jacob, right? Can’t be some gross lesbo if you like Taylor Lautner’s abs and arms (pecs are a bit weird though).

You can’t stop wanting to look at her.

Don’t look.

~~~

The Doctor going to World War II is so cool. You’re clutching a pillow to hide behind in case the creepy kid in the gas mask comes back, but you’re rapt as you watch the Doctor and Rose reunite and meet Jack and they have such easy camraderie and--

JACK: There it is. Hey, they've got Algy on duty. It must be important. DOCTOR: We've got to get past him. ROSE: Are the words “distract the guard” heading in my general direction? JACK: I don't think that'd be such a good idea. ROSE: Don't worry, I can handle it. JACK: I've got to know Algy quite well since I've been in town. Trust me, you're not his type. I'll distract him. Don't wait up. DOCTOR: Relax, he's a fifty first century guy. He's just a bit more flexible when it comes to dancing. ROSE: How flexible? DOCTOR: Well, by his time, you lot have spread out across half the galaxy. ROSE: Meaning? DOCTOR: So many species, so little time. ROSE: What, that's what we do when we get out there? That's our mission? We seek new life, and, and... DOCTOR: Dance.

Jack likes men too? Likes both?

That’s allowed?

The Doctor seems to think it’s fine. Says it’s normal in the future, even.

It’s okay to like both.

~~~

“John Barrowman’s gay, you know,” your mum says. “It was obvious he was a great actor as soon as he came out, because he’d been kissing women onstage and looking like he liked it!”

Have your parents ever talked about gay people before? It’s a surprise to hear. But they seem to be okay with it.

~~~

Wait, SesshoMaru’s a man?

He’s your first ever anime crush a short while after. You keep having to explain to people who see the printouts you stick to your jotters that he’s a man.

~~~

You find the Esmeralda figurine while cleaning out your cupboard. You’ve never seen The Hunchback of Notre Dame in full, because it always terrified you too much, but you’ve always loved Esmeralda. For a long time, you carried this figurine with you everywhere you went, this cheap little plastic thing of her in that red dress from the scene where she dances.

You put it on your desk. It’s still really pretty.

You see the movie in full for the first time when you’re nineteen and--was she POLEDANCING?!

~~~

Kurama’s a man too?!

All of your anime crushes are very beautiful, feminine-looking men. This probably doesn’t mean anything.

~~~

One of your online friends sends you a slashfic she really likes. You’re shocked to see that it’s rated K. But slash is all M-rated, stuff you have to lie to FFnet about your age to read with flaming cheeks and frantic looks over your shoulder in case your parents came home early, until you lose your nerve and skim past the dirtiest bits. How can this be slash?

It’s about Shinichi and Kaito, lots of little oneshots, some only a couple hundred words long. They hold hands and eat ice cream and watch movies and kiss, sometimes, and that’s it. They’re so cute and funny and sweet and…

Not dirty. Just like a normal relationship.

~~~

You’ve never imagined your wedding day. One of these days you’ll do everybody a favour and kill yourself, so it’s not like you’ll live long enough to see it.

~~~

You suck up sweet, fluffy M/M fics like oxygen. You’ve never seen an F/F fic.

~~~

No, Mum, I don’t have a boyfriend, I was walking with A. You know A. He’s… he’s gay.

Of course you already knew that.

No, I don’t have a boyfriend.

You don’t really want a boyfriend. Dating sounds stressful. You’re happy enough with your friends, now that you have some, you tight-knit band of Weird Kids who hide in the library all lunchtime and make plans to go see the next Harry Potter movie together or spend the weekend at somebody’s house watching movies and playing Mario Kart until 5am while eating too much pizza and drinking smuggled vodka in fizzy drinks. If you mix vodka and Irn Bru, you definitely won’t get a hangover, honest.

You’re too scared to ask a girl out. She’d think you’re gross.

~~~

Over the next decade, every single one of the weird kids will turn out to be gay, bi, or trans [i]and[/i] gay. Birds of a feather boa, K says with a laugh at age 24.

~~~

All the outfit options for female sims are just plain better. And the hair options. The faces are better, too. You have a whole neighbourhood that’s just ladies, who married ladies, because you can do that in the sims, and adopted girls, because then you don’t need any guys around.

You find this save data while transferring computers and, on a nostalgic whim, re-installing Sims 2 at age 21. You are stunned that you ever convinced yourself that this was a heterosexual way to play a video game.

~~~

P!nk’s been your favourite musician since you were 13. Amusingly, it was Conversations With My 13-Year-Old Self that made you realize how much she speaks to you. Now, after years of loving her music, her acrobatic performances, you’re going to see her live.

You keep staring at women in the crowd. Women wearing denim jackets, and button-up shirts with the sleeves rolled up, and short hair. “Look at all these dykes,” your cousin, who drove you here, scoffs.

You think they look great.

~~~

You want to travel before you go to university, so you cut your hair off and donate it to charity to raise money. You haven’t had it short since you were born, and you lose two and a half feet. You can’t stop running your hands over the back of it, spiking up the newly-short strands.

You love it.

~~~

While you’re in India, your parents phone and ask if A can stay in your room. His grandparents kept telling him to kill himself so he left home instead. You have them give the phone to him and ask him to take good care of your books and tell him that he’s okay, he’s a good person, he’s a good friend, there’s nothing wrong with being gay.

There’s nothing wrong with being gay.

Have you ever said that aloud before?

~~~

Monstrous Regiment is one of the books you brought with you. You lose count of how often you reread it. It isn’t explicitly stated, but Tonker and Lofty are definitely in love.

It makes you happy, to see women who love women on the Discworld. You start another reread.

~~~

There’s an anime society at your new university. The captain’s got a gross amount of lolicon anime on his hard drive and doesn’t like letting anybody else pick what to watch, so mostly you and a couple of other girls (women, you’re at university, you can legally drink now, you’re women now, right?) end up mocking whatever creepy shit he puts up together, complaining about the unrealistic proportions of the anime women.

“Any more than a handful’s a waste,” the nursing student scoffs. She’s a lesbian. She’s also Irish, and very much not out to her family.

You like her secretly, and keep it that way.

~~~

The Pride parade goes right past your new job, and on your lunch break, too. You watch them go by, all the flags, all the colours, everybody so happy and brave and defiant and proud.

There’s a wankstain with a megaphone in front of Parliament, yelling about how they’re all going to Hell for having sex outside of marriage.

“LET US GET MARRIED, THEN!” the crowd yells, and keeps dancing.

~~~

Your mother’s side of the family don’t like this uncle much. You join them wholeheartedly when he starts talking about conversion therapy, how kids who “think” they’re gay are “sick”, and need “help”--

He has to be hustled out to his car and told to go home early because you can’t stop shouting at him to shut the fuck up, there’s nothing wrong with those kids, how fucking dare he advocate their torture, there’s nothing wrong with being gay, being gay is beautiful--

You’ve never said that before, but you feel it wholeheartedly.

~~~

You work Saturdays and Sundays, so you can never go to Pride. You make yourself a bracelet in purple, pink and blue, the bi colours, and never take it off. It makes you feel a little braver, even if most people who see it won’t think the colours mean anything.

~~~

Your brother’s in America so the two of you set up a video call to watch the Legend of Korra finale together, and it’s amazing, mindblowing animation, incredible story, and you crack some jokes about how Asami and Korra have been for the past couple seasons. It’s a cartoon, so obviously they’d never actually be allowed to hook up, but it’s fun to imagine. The queerbaiting gets a little tiring, maybe. You’ve just learned what queerbaiting is. It’s why Dean and Cas will never kiss onscreen even though they SHOULD.

Then Asami and Korra talk and man, this keeps getting gayer. And gayer. And

They hold hands, and look into each other’s eyes, and it’s the final shot of the show, an undeniable mirror of the finale shot of The Last Airbender right before Aang and Katara kiss, and Asami and Korra don’t kiss, but Bryan Konietzko’s online right nowstressing that KORRASAMI IS REAL and they would’ve kissed if the network had let them

And then your phone’s ringing because you’re crying so hard that you dropped your laptop and didn’t notice and your brother’s worried, and you can’t stop crying, you’re so happy.

You’re so happy.

~~~

“They’re for real lesbians. They actually SAY they’re in love!”

You immediately put on the first episode of Steven Universe.

~~~

You run into your chiropractor at Pride with her wife. They’re wearing rainbow flags and wedding rings and big smiles. She’s been looking after your fucked-up feet since you were eight and you never knew. Of course, she’s under no obligation to tell her patients about her personal life, but.

You could’ve known all along that this was what a lesbian looked like, this kind, funny, successful, professional woman.

~~~

Holy shit, there are female romance options in this game that you can romance while female.

Why are they all so much more attractive than the male options?

~~~

Your group is doing Huis Clos for your end of year performance and you’re Ines. You don’t normally like makeup but you love doing up your hair and eyes and red lipstick and silk blouse and striding onstage in heels to mock Joseph and Estelle for refusing to admit that they’re in Hell and deserve to be, to talk proudly about how you murdered your cousin and seduced his wife, to try to seduce Estelle and laugh when she can’t kill you

By third year you’re joking that your acting resume is going to be all men and lesbians.

~~~

Yes, this is the third time I’ve watched The Devil Wears Prada this week. I have essays to work on, and it’s a comfort watch, y’know?

I dunno. Meryl Streep’s really good in it. I mean, Miranda’s an awful person, but she’s so powerful that you end up liking her anyway, y’know? She’s mesmerising.

~~~

Who the hell cancelled Agent Carter? Supernatural has a thousand seasons and not one single scene of Hayley Atwell in a gorgeous retro suit beating the teeth out of somebody with the nearest thing she can grab.

You most definitely have a type

~~~

No, being bisexual does not mean that you’re gay and scared to admit it.

You have this conversation a lot.

~~~

People keep telling you to get a Japanese boyfriend to teach you. There must be better reasons to have a boyfriend. Do you even want a boyfriend, really?

~~~

Why the fuck did nobody ever tip you off that Batman has an amazing lesbian cousin and where the fuck is her movie where she gets to make out with Anne Hathaway?!

~~~

Your friend is mocking her boyfriend having a gay panic over her asking him if he agrees that Idris Elba is attractive. Finding Idris Elba attractive doesn’t mean you’re gay, she scoffs, it just means you have eyes. You agree, laughing.

You don’t have to be attracted to men to see when they’re attractive.

~~~

Sure, Chris Pine is very pretty, especially when he’s naked. But Gal Gadot throwing an armoured car with her hands? That damn near physically knocks you out of your seat. You transcended your body around the time Wonder Woman went over the top but from the first moments in Themyscira your whole body’s been tingling and your higher brain functions have been DOWN. You’re shaking so hard when you come out of the cinema that you can barely use your railcard, and you can’t sleep until 5am, too busy crying from exhilaration and screaming about the movie to your brother.

Is that what attraction is always supposed to feel like? Something you’ve never felt for a woman in an impractical costume being cut up by the camera, or for any man, anywhere, ever, doing or wearing anything at all?

~~~

Tessa Thompson also tears apart armoured vehicles with her hands, and Cate Blanchett has this way of sweeping back her hair into a horned helmet, and who the fuck decided women over 30 aren’t sexy?!

You almost miss Chris Hemsworth’s shirtless scene entirely. It’s nice enough. You forget it entirely when Valkyrie gets behind that gun.

~~~

If you tell people you’re a lesbian now, they’re gonna think all bi women are just closeted lesbians.

~~~

But you remember how terrified you were that you were gay. And, a decade and a half later, you think: so what?

What if I was?

What if I am?

~~~

There is literally a neon rainbow sign over your boarding house, advertising the neon company next door. That is LITERALLY a sign, right there.

~~~

You think it, inside your head, trying the thought on for size.

I’m a lesbian.

You never knew you were suffocating until you took your first breath of air.

~~~

You have your first ever wedding fantasy at 25, and start crying in public over how beautiful your hypothetical bride looks in her dress.

~~~

Are you butch? Do you have to be butch to want to wear a waistcoat and kilt to your own wedding? This is a whole new avenue of exploration but also you so want your own kilt.

~~~

You tell your parents over video chat. They’re as supportive as you always knew they would be, but disappointed you don’t have a girlfriend.

You’ve gotta stay stealth if you want to keep your job. You’re in Japan, after all, and it’s been warned to new recruits to the company that the Japanese upper management are all very old-fashioned. If you lose your job, you could lose your visa. This is not presently actionable intel, just good to have.

But you don’t feel gross, or afraid. Just frustrated that you can’t scream it from the rooftops.

~~~

Your brother sends you some pictures of Gal Gadot in a suit for the two of you to thirst over together. He’s the best.

~~~

You actually sing Heaven Is A Place On Earth at karaoke and then your new coworker asks if you have a boyfriend.

Seriously.

~~~

Your manager is so damn pretty, but she’s Japanese. But she’s so damn pretty, and nice.

Don’t look.

Not because it’s gross. Because you want to keep your job.

~~~

Somebody describes Meryl Streep’s performance in The Devil Wears Prada as seductive and ah-ha. Of course. A powerful and influential businesswoman who has Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt in nice outfits trailing her everywhere she goes. She goes to a ball halfway through the film with two beautiful young women on her arms. Lesbian power fantasy or WHAT?

You watch it again, and notice for the first time that after Andie’s makeover, when she turns to leave the office, Miranda checks out her ass.

~~~

You want to go back to your twelve-year-old self and give her Alex Danvers, and Kate Kane, and Tonker and Lofty, and Ruby and Sapphire, and Kate McKinnon, and J the chiropractor and her wife, and tell her: this is you.

You’re okay. You always were.

~~~

Oh, you are definitely buying one of those rainbow shirts at Disneyland.

~~~

There’s nothing wrong with you.

Your feet are still pretty fucked up, and so are your knees now, after all that sitting seiza, and your eyes have always been spitting distance from legally blind, and you still have that gut problem, and you’re 25 and still get acne, and your brain’s pretty messed up on anxiety and depression

But that’s all bits. There’s nothing wrong with you.

You are gay, in every sense of the word.

#pride create-a-thon 2018 #Day 26 #personal

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theburninglilac · 3 years

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Journal Entry #1

Okay, so here’s the thing. I'm not good at journaling! I want to be so badly, but I’m just not. Alas, we will power through and I want to tell you all a story. I have had a good life, overall. I love my family, and they love me. I’m surrounded by a great support system that aids me through my everyday life -- I’m content. But, I miss my grandmother.

My grandmother passed away when I was just nearing eleven years old. This isn’t a sob story, trust me. Well, I mean, it really depends on how you look at it. I don’t see it as a sob story, I just see it as a realization that could have been avoided if I tried a bit harder. What does that mean, you ask? Well, let’s chat.

For real this time . . .

My grandmother used to be my best friend, we were just the same. We both were practically blind, hated country music, and had an undying love for Cherry Garcia ice cream. Basically twins.

Well, Sundays in my family were extremely important. Not for religious reasons per se (I was religious, but usually that was focused on my father's side.) Sundays were a day of relaxation and good food. And trust me, my great-grandmother knew good food. Great-Grandma was a woman with taste. You didn’t know heaven until you broke off the head of her gingerbread men at Christmas time. She could make something delicious out of nothing.

She had birthed ten kids. Ten kids, can you imagine? I’m an only child, and sometimes hearing stories about my youth is too much for me. Anyways, nine of her ten children went on to have kids. Some went on to have multiple, and some had one. My grandmother, or meem, (childhood nicknames never cease to amaze me. Like, seriously, ‘meem’? What does that even mean? Where in the world did I even get that name?) Anyways . . . my grandmother had one biological child, my mother. But, she had one step-daughter, who was my grandfather’s, “peep” (again, with the childhood nicknames . . . ) biological daughter. My aunt. My aunt was always close with my grandmother. Always. And, so was my mother. My grandmother was a loving woman, who smoked a bit too much and drove an unmistakable green jeep for most of my life.

I always had an issue with her smoking. I hated that she was ruining her lungs because the second you heard that specific cough; the one that would start small and build and build and build, until you never knew if it was going to stop, scared me. I grew up with most of my family on my mother’s side smoking. It was always an afterthought seeing my family gathered on the porch with their lighters and packs of Camels in hand. The smell of cigarettes was never exactly comforting growing up, but it was familiar.

My mom hated when everyone smoked around me. I was diagnosed with asthma at a very young age. I’ve been to the ER more times than I’d like to admit for my crappy lungs, and cigarette smoke never helped. Well, my grandmother was one of the worst smokers in my family. She would smoke up to a pack or more in a day, and it got to the point where she had to be put on oxygen.

I’m not sure if I have any pictures of her without an oxygen tank strapped to her person.

Anyways, Sundays were my favorite. At my great-grandmother’s we’d all laugh and eat, gossip and smile. Those breakfasts will always be a fond memory in my mind.

Everyone seemed genuinely happy . . . I was genuinely happy. My parents were yet to be divorced, everyone was alive and well, and there was a whole lot of love being spread.

As much as I love breakfast with my family, after breakfast was my favorite part of the day. Meem and Peep’s house.

My grandparents lived in a small trailer located on the Hudson River. It was a single wide, molding in some areas, and no appliance was from the 2010s. Nonetheless, it was my favorite place in the world. Because I adored my grandmother.

She was a painter, and I loved watching her particular strokes on the pieces she worked on. She never was mad at me either, unlike my grandfather. My grandfather is a stern man. He is brute and terribly blunt, but he has a good heart. His passions include hunting and rodeos, which I was never a fan of, so it was hard seeing eye to eye with him all the time.

As an only child, I made my own fun, playing with dolls by myself, making up stories that only I heard, and reading books that I borrowed from the public library. I wasn’t allowed any electronic devices until I was in middle school, so for years, I made my own fun.

One of my favorite activities was having my grandmother lie down with me and make up stories as I napped in her room. I’m sure if she were still alive today she would roll her eyes at the thought, because I asked her to make up story after story . . . but, she always did.

As a child, I was never “in the know” about my family’s finances. My father is a factory worker, and my mother is a manager at a store, but also ran a babysitting service when a was young. We were your everyday middle-class folk, living in a boring middle-class house, on a boring middle-class street, in a boring middle-class town. I liked boring though because as a child, I didn’t know boring. Boring wasn’t a concept I understood.

I remember one Christmas I really wanted a doll called “Lalaloopsy.” I wanted it so bad, and that year, they were all the rage for young children between the ages of five to twelve. As Christmas day approached, I remembered opening up the present from my grandmother and shrieking with joy. It was the doll I wanted. The very doll that I wanted for the majority of the year. It was in my hands, and I couldn't have been any happier.

I hugged my grandparents tightly and thanked them, but as I did, I remembered the smile my grandmother had on her face. It wasn’t happy. It was almost sad . . . but why would that be? It’s Christmas day! We're opening presents! This is fun!

Come to find out, my grandparents struggled financially that year. That present was from my mother and father, with a gift tag that was from my grandparents. They couldn't afford gifts that year. And knowing that after my grandmother’s passing broke my heart.

It’s not just because of the money, that this news broke my heart. It was the fact that my grandmother was willing to give anyone anything. She went as far as giving her neighbors, a couple who struggled even worse financially, their beautiful faux Christmas tree. I was disappointed, because as a child I had zero concept of money, and thought this completely ridiculous. Instead of their beautiful Christmas tree, my grandparents opted for a small two-foot faux tree that couldn’t fit ornaments.

As I’ve grown, I can finally appreciate the selflessness of my grandmother and her services to so many people. Will I ever know if she actually wanted to keep her tree? No. But, do I know it most likely made the day of a couple who were more in need of holiday cheer? No doubt.

As the years passed, my grandmother’s health decreased rapidly. And, as this happened, my parents filed for divorce. Most people said it was completely out of the blue -- I thought it was completely out of the blue. But, I grew older and realized just how different my parents were. And just how their differences hurt each other, rather than encouraging each other.

When I was eleven I dealt with a lot. At least in my opinion. My dog died, and being that I had no siblings, this was a difficult loss. She had cancer . . . everywhere. She couldn’t be saved, and when she was put down, it pained me. Secondly, we moved. Not far, sure . . . but, we moved. I didn’t want to leave my boring house, on my boring street. But, we did. And I still miss that house. Thirdly, my parents' divorce. I cried for days because of this news. I loved my parents being together. I really did. The idea of having parents divorce, when I lived in a family (my father’s side) that said divorce was sinful, scared me. I grew up listening to my family a lot, to which I regret. They taught me ideals that I simply don’t hold anymore, thanks to their traditional views and outlooks. But, nonetheless, I needed my parents to stay together. See, here is the thing. I‘d like to believe I’m religious. I think God is real to an extent, but I believe in science. I’d like to think there is something after death, but I'm terrified of the idea of Hell.

I think that’s what I’ve always struggled with when dealing with religion. I don’t want to be scared to devote myself to a religion, because frankly, I am scared of it. If it wasn’t worse than divorce, I’m a bastard. Yeah, I said it. I was born out of wedlock, and my parents didn’t “tie the knot” until I was eight. They had been together for more than a decade before their wedding, but when they had me, the bible had declared me a sin. Not even my choice. I was a sin the second I was brought into this world. Not that I believe that anymore, but as a child, I doubted my self worth. Though, I didn’t exactly know the concept of “self-worth” as an eleven year old, I did know that sometimes I felt ashamed for no reason. I’d look around at my family, my cousins, and aunts and uncles who lived happily together. I wanted that.

When I had these thoughts I constantly confined to my grandmother, she always knew what to say. She always made me feel like I was worth it. She loved me through thick and thin.

This leads to my fourth reason of, ‘Why I Dealt with A Lot When I Was Eleven.’

My grandmother was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer and died, all within ten days.

I know this isn’t a sob story, but God, I sobbed. A lot. Remember how I said she was a smoker? Well, once she went on oxygen, she quit. She did it! She was the first sibling in her family to quit smoking. But, she was the first to pass away.

Ironic right?

Well, as the days went on, my grandmother couldn't speak. It physically hurt her to speak. I remember leaving the hospital on one of her last days on this Earth feeling mad. Little ole’ me, mad at my grandmother because she had cancer. I wasn’t mad at the fucking cancer, I was mad at her.

I left the hospital with my dad, and she hadn’t said she loved me. It’s not because she didn't want to, it’s because she fucking couldn’t. I called my mom in tears, I just wanted to hear my grandmother. That’s all I wanted. So, my mother put my grandmother on the line with her small flip phone to tell me she loved me.

Her voice was so scratchy, I knew it hurt. I had to have hurt. But, between the tears and anger I had towards her, I didn’t care about her pain. She said she loved me. But, that wasn’t MY grandmother. That wasn’t the woman I had known for my entire life. That wasn’t the woman who liked orange flavored cinnamon buns, and The Golden Girls. This sounded like a complete stranger.

I gave the phone back to my dad. I didn’t want to hear her. Because hearing her say “I love you” on repeat felt too painful. I knew that this was going to be my last call with her, and instead of saying “I love you too,” . . . I cried and handed the phone back to my dad.

I regret that to this day.

Because, two days later, she died. I had no grandmother anymore. And, I had been too scared and angry to say “I love you,” because I knew that would have been the last time I did so.

At the funeral, I couldn’t get out of my mother’s car. I was too sad. My tears had puffed my eyes so much I couldn’t see. And with my parents' fresh divorce, there was tension in the air. Could you imagine? On top of the grief and sorrow, the tension between my parents was so thick it could be cut with a knife.

In the days leading up to my grandmother's funeral, I told my mom I wanted to write a speech. I wanted to speak to the crowd of people in front of me and redeem myself from my last phone call with her. But, when I built up enough courage to walk into the funeral home, I saw everyone. Tears were being shed, people were hugging one another, and suddenly the tiny piece of composition notebook paper in my hand didn’t feel important.

I’ve always been uncomfortable around deceased people. This is funny because I live right across the road from a cemetery. But, when deceased people are on display, I can never build up the bravery it takes to approach them. Because they look alive. With makeup done nicely, and a beautiful outfit to go along with the makeup. Seeing a deceased body never felt real, because by all means of appearance -- they looked alive.

It took a lot that day to approach my grandmother. This was the first time I had seen her without an oxygen tank by her side in years, and she wasn’t wearing her glasses. I studied her face for a long time, then I prayed. My grandmother wasn’t intensely religious. I think she believed in God, but to what extent -- I’ll never know. So, as an eleven-year-old kneeling down and “praying” I spoke to whoever was willing to listen. Whether it was a God, or my grandmother, maybe no one, who knows . . . I still spoke. After my praying, I plucked up all the courage I had to hold my grandmother’s cold lifeless hand. I wanted to throw up, that I remember. I was so overwhelmed, but it felt nice in some sense. Because at that very moment, I was in my own world with just my grandmother again. I couldn’t say it was a happy moment, but maybe somber is a good word for it.

I placed the speech I had written for my grandmother in her palm and wrapped her hand around it. It was our secret. One last secret, before I said goodbye.

The months after her passing were tough for everyone in my family. Arguments were made, feuds were started, and by six months of fighting, Sunday morning breakfasts no longer happened. I had never realized how much my grandmother affected the entire family. Once she was gone, siblings were blaming each other for her death, my grandfather practically fell dormant, and my parents fell into what would become a multiple-year distaste for each other. All because of my grandmother.

I suppose no one in my family had a heart like hers. I never felt the warmth of happiness around anyone, that I had felt with her. She was pure magic.

I’ve grown up my entire teenage life, turning adult life, without her. There are days where I beg her to give me a sign that she’s watching. Some days they come, some days they don’t. My family was never too tech-savvy when I was a child, so there is a lack of pictures of my youth. This means there’s a lack of pictures including my grandmother.

I miss her. Sometimes I still feel anger at myself, because as I grow older it’s harder to remember what she looks like.

I no longer can remember the sound of her voice.

I wish I could hug her once more. Or drive around in her ridiculous green jeep once more. Maybe even make fun of country music together.

I wish she could have watched me grow older. Maybe watch my graduation. Drop me off at college. Help me decide on my prom dresses. God, the things I wish we could’ve done. But, life moves on. I miss her, but I can’t dwell in the past, because she simply wouldn’t have agreed with that decision.

I pray she doesn’t hold a grudge against me because of our final goodbye.

I pray that she watches over me and smiles because of my achievements.

I just hope she’s happy now.

#journal #story #family #love

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deansmultitudes · 6 years

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deancas, halloween/teens!au, 1,3k

Up, up the hill the two boys go, along a path narrow and steep. Wet leaves and mud slip out from under their feet, time after time, and they grasp each other’s sleeves not to fall down on their butts. Behind them, the orange sun hangs low, casting long, wiry shadows of the trees that engulf them. The high branches weave intricate arches above; the low ones reach out to whip their faces, tug their hair, grasp the fabric of the costumes in their claws.

“Not much farther,” Dean says for the third time this evening. His voice, though hushed, thunders in the surrounding silence.

Silence. This isn’t right. The roar of the cars rushing down the main street, the voices of their peers trick-or-treating, as they should — Cas could swear he could still hear them a moment ago. Now, there’s nothing but the rustle of the wind in the bushes.

“We should go back.”

Dean doesn’t stop nor turns his steps around. Cas didn’t expect him to. He’s dead set on the mission, he’s been going on and on about it for days, crafted the entire plan on yesterday’s lunch break.

Ten minutes both ways at best, he promised. No one will even notice we were gone.

“Uncle will kill me,” Cas explains as if it’s a new information. “Literally!”

Dean comments on the dramatism with a snort.

”Nah, he just won’t let you talk to me for eternity,” he adds, after a thought, with too much lightness for a matter that grave. “I’m bad influence,” he mocks.

“What’s the difference?” Cas blurts.

He’s not quick enough to drop eyes to the ground. He catches Dean’s gaze, so soft it sets his cheeks aflame.

“Think that it.” Dean points ahead to more trees. “There, just off the path.”

Cas is quick to suspect he’s only tried to change the topic, and maybe he did, but up ahead, still half hidden behind thick tree trunks, there is a dark shape, just outside the sun’s reach.

“I hope so,” Cas replies, picking up his pace.

He doesn’t wait for Dean to catch up. The terrain’s even here, there’s no need for precaution anymore. A few strides and a turn, and right before him it appears. The old cabin with moss growing up its front wall, weeds outgrowing what used to be a garden, the remains of the fence around it.

The Witch’s House, they call it.

Every kid in the town has heard of it and every kid has heard the cautionary tales. Terrifying and bloody stories, spread by peers and adults alike. They never failed to lift the hairs on Cas’s nape, though maybe it was just something in the way they’ve been told, in hushed voices, on playgrounds in the gray of early evenings and around the fire in the summer with the darkness creeping up behind his back.

The story itself? It seemed to change every time someone took a turn at it. The earliest version Cas ever heard was one with an old, child-eating witch living in the House for centuries — that’s where the shack got its name. His favorite — if he can call it that — is the one where the witch is long dead and her ghost still roams, tied into the House for all eternity, and steals souls of whoever dares to come inside.

All those stories have one thing in common, for sure: whoever passes the threshold of the Witch’s House, never comes out of it.

“You now those are just urban legends, right?” Dean murmurs, appearing at his side. There must be something in Cas’s posture, maybe on his face, that gives away his hesitation, the chills running up his spine at the very sight of the shack. “Ghosts don’t exist.”

Cas bites his lip. “Witches do,” he says in the plainest voice he can muster.

“Not that kind of witches,” Dean assures. “Besides, I heard Alistair and his gang bragging about spending the whole night in there last year.”

Cas doesn’t even try to hold back a grimace. “Soul stealing ghosts are still a possibility, then?”

Dean chuckles and lands a palm on Cas’s shoulder, heavy, comforting. “It’ll protect you.”

Cas scowls at him, on principle only. He’s got no need to defend his pride or skills in front of Dean, he’s proved himself more than enough times. They’ve been through much together, after all.

There’s just something about this house he can’t shake off. But Dean’s right, must be the toll of his childhood lived in the looming shadow of it.

Still…

“I don’t like it, Dean,” he mutters, watching Dean’s fingers cautiously as they land on the splintered plank of the wicket and begin to push. “Why do we have to go there?”

The tired cry of the hinges makes Cas’s skin crawl.

“Because you double-dared me.”

“I di—” Cas inhales sharply, closes his eyes and prays for a little more patience. Of course. Of course it’s all about that. “It was a joke, Dean,” he enunciates each word to get them through to Dean’s skull. “You know you don’t have to—”

Dean lifts his palm to cut him off. His face solemn as if it’s an official oath that he’s taking.

“Double dares are no jokes and I’m not gonna back down.”

Cas gives out a growl worthy of the toothy monster he poses for, tonight. He should have kept his mouth shut, he should have known Dean would take his offhand teasing way too seriously.

“You stubborn—”

“Hey, you don’t wanna go with me, you don’t have to,” Dean snaps, already one foot past the wicket.

Cas doesn’t move an inch. He’s not even not-scared anymore, he’s verging on pissed at Dean’s pigheadedness. If he ends up in trouble just because of a dumb dare. If Dean gets hurt — or worse… No, this is just an old, abandoned shack. The worst thing that can happen to him is a splinter.

“Great!” Cas calls, taking a few steps back. “Because I’m not walking in there! I’m going back.”

“Fine!”

“Fine!” Cas turns away and begins his trek home. Uncle might have noticed his absence by now and he’s got a long way to go until he reaches home. Still, he looks back. “Don’t think I’ll come rescue you!”

“Don’t come apologizing when my soul gets eaten!” Dean shouts back.

“I won’t!”

And that’s that. They part. Dean stubbornly treading through the weeds intruding on the path, Cas in the opposite direction. He doesn’t get far, though, he hardly even reaches the turn. And Dean, he already seems so far away, nearly reached the wooden stairs.

“Wait!” Cas calls, unsure Dean heard him at all.

He rushes back to the fence, past the wicket, ignores the goosebumps rising on his skin. He doesn’t stop until his shoulder bumps into Dean’s.

“I knew you’d come anyway,” Dean says.

Cas shrugs. “Well, I can’t let your soul get eaten.” He looks at Dean, into his eyes, dark in the dying light of sunset. “You’re my best friend.”

Dean smiles a soft smile. “Thanks,” he says, tone serious. “‘Cause frankly? Not sure I’d go in there without you.”

Cas rolls his eyes. “I know.”

In the narrow space between them, Cas’s hand finds Dean’s. It’s a brief, reassuring squeeze, just to say, I’m here, we’ll be fine. But Dean doesn’t let it go. He moves his fingers, lets them intertwine with Cas’s so their hold doesn’t slip away. His palm is soft and warm, and feels so right inside his, Cas never wants to let it go either.

There’s no backing out now.

“Let’s get it over with.”

With his free hand, Dean grabs the handle. He pushes it down and, with a deep, long breath, he opens the door.

#Destiel #destiel ficlet #destielfanficnet #deancas ficlet #destiel au #posting earlier bc i'll hopefully have another one for tomorrow #a long way to the witch's house #halloween ficlet #my writing

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shadows-of-almsivi · 6 years

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[3, 6, 8! :3]

((3. Did they have a good childhood? What are fond memories they have of it? What’s a bad memory?

Moraelyn would claim to have had a perfect childhood. How true that is, or whether it’s due to a couple of centuries’ worth of rose-tinting, is hard to say. There was a lot of social pressure on him, as the third-born child of an Indoril family living within Hlaalu territory; you would think this would have eased off a little as he grew into his Vimeri identity, but if anything, it only grew more intense. A lot was always expected of him, even when very young, and that’s without even taking into account the specifics of his parentage. Any Ordinator’s child has an image to live up to, or live past, and the spectre of his father’s actions within the Order of the Inquisition spread very far; there were always those who’d view him with suspicion or fear, and he would not realise for years that they thought him to be his father’s eyes and ears. The offspring of an inter-House marriage, too, carries quite a stigma, even when that marriage was carefully-arranged and legal. His late childhood and adolescence brought with it the responsibility to be the model studious Indoril and allow no one (especially no Hlaalu mer) to find fault in him, and by extension in their family. It’s unsurprising that Moraelyn developed three common traits in House children: an almost reverent attitude to memorised etiquette and manners, a deep well of hidden anxiety, and also a weirdly-persistent rebellious streak somewhat bordering on the perverse.

By and large, though, he was mostly happy: his brothers loved him, his friends were usually loyal, he adored his little sister, his parents were tender and even somewhat indulgent by Dunmeri standards. His family was not exactly rich, but he had enough resources available that he never wanted for food or clothes or books (so, so many books). He went to his Temple classes and played in the river-mud and hit his brothers with sticks and let his sister eat beetles. That’s not a bad life, for a kid.

He has a vast wealth of fond memories, some of which I will present now in no particular order:

His brothers sitting with him on the front step of the house in the evening, teaching him how to carve corkbulb, soaking the chunks in ashwater so that the sharp knives slid through like butter.

Climbing the rocks and old trees out by the edge of town with his friends, catching little lizards and bugs to take home in a jar to show his mother, and the first time he pulled himself all the way to the top of the tallest rock formation: he’d never seen out so far, and it was just as sunset was painting the landscape in so many beautiful colours that he forgot how to breathe for a minute.

His uncle, Endalyn Thavas, letting him ride a retired Redoran Guard cavalry guar, thinking it would be quiet and sedate; it took off at a dead run into the Ashlands and they didn’t find it again for two hours. Moraelyn, still clinging to the saddle, immediately wanted to go again. This might have been the start of his ongoing love affair with absurdly-fast mounts.

Bad memories… Sadly, yes. No childhood is perfect.

The parents of one of Moraelyn’s best friends ‘having done something bad’ and ‘having to go away to learn better’. It was an open secret in Balmora that Moraelyn’s father, Savaryn, was the Ordinator who took them; mask or no, everyone knew him well enough by the back-pain stiffness of his gait. While Savaryn did try to explain things to his confused and upset little thirdborn, it wasn’t good enough for the vanished mers’ child. She hated Moraelyn for the rest of her life.

Being stuck overnight in a kwama den. While playing in an old mine he’d often been told not to play in, Moraelyn was trapped underground by a tunnel collapse, falling through a weak spot in the cave floor. It was only after he’d dusted himself off and started trying to climb out that he found that the mine was far from empty, and that the chamber he’d fallen into housed the colony’s queen. He spent the night in there, burying himself in cave dirt and eggshell in a corner to try and avoid the kwama’s notice, very aware that they could kill a grown mer with horrific ease. He’s never quite been the same about caves and tunnels ever since.

Being threatened by a furious ghost as a small child. The Ithren line bears many Ordinators, almost a family profession going back centuries. In an ancillary Ithren family tomb, there is a maddened ghost forced into permanent guard service, the spirit of a corrupt Ordinator who betrayed their post and oaths to House Indoril; the specifics were rarely, if ever, made clear, though they exist in certain Indoril ledgers from the period. Though bound by powerful magic never to harm any of Ithren lineage, Moraelyn was utterly terrified by them as a small child. He would hear the ghost’s muttering, snarling voice, whispering monstrous urges and horrifying secrets that no one else could hear. Sometimes he still does.

Almost being abducted by some shady mer who might have been a part of the Camonna Tong. It’s hard to say whether they truly were or if they were just plain bad mer of no affiliation, but they scared him nearly to death. They’d seized him and intended to drag him away before a guard heard his struggling and came to his rescue, killing one of the mer in the process.

6. What were they like at school? Did they enjoy it? Did they finish? What level of higher education did they reach? What subjects did they enjoy? Which did they hate?

Moraelyn was one of those odd children who loved schooling, the sort who would ask for additional homework if given the chance. The Temple library was his very favourite place, spending long hours enthralled in stories and sermons even back when he still needed to have them read to him. He was chattersome and engaged, for the most part, though he always found mathematics dreadfully boring. He sometimes drew pictures for the instructors he liked most. He also sometimes drew pictures of the instructors he liked the least, which sometimes got him into a lot of trouble.

He finished his basic education (the freely-available curriculum of basic literacy, numeracy and Tribunal doctrine provided freely to all citizens of Morrowind, don’t @ me about this, check the commoner and pauper dialogue if you don’t believe me) long before his tenth birthday, and continued in one branch of Temple instruction or another until his early adulthood. He likely would have stayed that way, content to be an eternal student, were he not eventually drawn inexorably into true Temple service (then to the specific positions of the Order’s Vimeri priesthood), so whether Moraelyn ever really finished his schooling is mostly a matter of perspective. Certainly, his long and varied schooling puts him at a more tertiary level of education than most.

Of all the subjects he learned during his smaller years, his favourite would probably be advanced literature studies, which also encompassed calligraphy since Temple education tends to conflate the two; after all, what good is it to learn how to construct the perfect poem or analytical essay if no one can read it? He filled slates and pages with rivers of words, a habit that continues to this day after a fashion. It wouldn’t quite be correct to say that artwork and iconography replication was also a beloved subject, since he had been drawing and painting at home since he could hold a stick and draw in the dirt, and as such it never felt like real schoolwork to him.

He never did learn to enjoy mathematics, though. Sometimes he wonders if that’s vaguely heretical in some ill-known, Seht-sphered fashion.

8. Did they have pets as a child? Do they have pets as an adult? Do they like animals?

Answered here, so let me tell you about Moraelyn’s bird-watching. Moraelyn has a high-intellect, low-resource approach to most of the interests and hobbies he’s gained outside of Morrowind, by which I mean he’s very dedicated but very resistant to actual instruction. Sometimes, it’s because there just aren’t any written sources available or people learned enough on the subject to teach him; other times, it’s just because he’s stubborn and usually refuses to take anyone’s word for anything.

His bird-watching hobby is an excellent example of this. He’ll take detailed notes, sketches, collect feathers, and likely have a very good grasp on the species and habits of birds in his immediate vicinity. However, due to a variety of reasons (language barriers, lack of written notation on the subject (because who needs to write down what a perfectly common bird is, right?), recent arrival to the province, outright derision for what anyone tells him, etc), he doesn’t always know what their actual names are. So, he does what he’s always done with languages that aren’t his own: take the parts he does know, and force them into more fitting shapes with enough conviction that they might sound like real words in their own right to someone who wasn’t paying very close attention.

He knows what pigeons are, but not doves. He knows what sparrows are: small, roundish birds that eat seed and steal breadcrumbs. Therefore, all small, roundish birds, if they can be plied with seed or breadcrumbs, must be some sort of sparrow; yes, this also includes pigeons. He’s pretty sure that quail, pheasant and grouse are various types of wild chicken (he’s actually not that far off). He knows that hawks are birds of prey with large talons and a hooked beak, and that falcons are like that but smaller and can be made to sit on your arm with some training, therefore ‘hawk’ and ‘falcon’ are more general size classes in his mind than real species types. He thinks owls are probably some sort of falcon, and does not believe eagles exist. Don’t try to convince him.))

#sorry it took so long #I made it extra for you to make up for it #thank you!#hope you're okay too I worry #Temple youth #childhood #vvardenfellcat #asks #askmemes

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