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rawliverandgoronspice · 4 days

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trying to assign instruments to gerudo characters for thralls' soundtrack. Nabooru is getting the sitar so far, as I think she's good at representing the gerudo side that's closer to the Wild Era in terms of long-term vision for gerudo prosperity, not to mention that it works great for a more laid-back character; though Iftaah could also get that aspect, even though her perspective is a little bit more desperate and a little less actually strategizing about diplomacy and commerce in the way that Nabooru's is... not sure I have nailed down the perfect instrument for her yet though? Maybe a duduk, for its plaintive quality and capacity for softness? But I don't know, I feel like there could be something better out there. Saeruk and flamenco guitar seem pretty great fit for the versatility of the instrument, both harsh and defiant, playful at times, but also extremely sad if needs be, and the fact that she represents more the "older" kind of gerudo works well with more hispanic/romany inspirations. And then there's Aveil, who I feel represent the best the connection of the gerudos to their land, and I'd love an instrument that really represents that. Still looking for that one.

There's a bunch of fun things for Ganondorf that can be done, but I think he'll get... bigger instruments, in general. And church organs are quite versatile too it turns out. :) I like the marimba from his first phase boss battle, but it's a little too... I don't know, I feel like it lacks the roundness and depth and imposing quality that we could get with other picks. But Ganondorf so far has about *eight billion* leitmotifs going on with what I have selected for him (him and Ganon's, as they are... not exactly separate entities in the story, but sort of, it's kind of weird), so it might be more a case of actual melody rather than instruments, or maybe on top of instruments that swap in and out depending on what we want to invoke...

Sorry, rambling, but I would really love to compensate for my lack of voice actors with a pretty meaningful stab at the soundtrack. I feel like I kind of have to honestly. ;;

#thoughts #thralls of power #animatic project #gerudos #nabooru #ganondorf #I need to upgrade my music software and stop using Logic 5.5 that came out in 2002 ;;#and gives me between 30mn to 2h before subjecting me to a coinflip about whether or not it corrups my savefile #never really had the material for a proper upgrade but I really want to make one and that seems the perfect opportunity for that #also yeah nabooru has kind of a big role in thralls!#she wasn't there at all in descant or just in passing #but she becomes kind of an important player in this version of the events #her antagonism with ganondorf is. definitively there let's say.#it's funny I actually kind of used descant as a brainstorming ground for thralls in many ways #as every single character arc is just whatever I began to sketch out in unhallowed vespers #but like More and More Deliberate and more focused too #there's a bunch of threads I completely cut out #so it won't be a perfect 1:1 #which is for the best I think I just hadn't spent enough time with some characters to truly get them #I'm much more confident now #Iftaah is perhaps the one that needs the most work at the moment? she has a Bad Fucking Time so I need to make sure #it goes to places that not only serve other people's arcs but also her own --and that she ends the story in a meaningful place narratively #Serielle also needs work but more in the sense that's there's so much happening in her brain. and it's pretty difficult to convey.#but I fully know what's going on in there at least even if it's wildly convoluted #anyway!! rambling rambling sorry sorry #I am frustrated that I can't actually work on it so here I am rambling #ok back to work now

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catcorsair · 3 months

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I don’t want to come off as negative because I value your fic but the extremely long chapters are hard to follow. Have you ever thought about separating them or maybe having someone you trust edit superfluous stuff out?

This is wildly rude and entitled 😁

I use editors (shout out to my beta @shinyfire-0 especially) but just because you personally can't handle anything beyond a short chapter doesn't mean that a long one is superfluous.... 🤡🤡

#catcorsair answers #are you okay anon #sorry you can't read i guess?#sounds like a you problem to me #also:#the assumption that an author just spits words out with no consideration of their place within or importance to the story is.... something #my chapters (called “parts” for a reason) end exactly when they are meant to #and are exactly as long as they need to be #but I am certain your stories are perfect in every possible way anon

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ohbeffinitely · 10 months

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LET'S TALK ABOUT THIS TWINK SORCERER AND HOW HE'S GETTING BOINKED BY AN OLD MAN

(as per @displacer-beasts's request HUEHUEHUE)

First? ✨Appreciate His Beautiful Face✨

Second, his backstory is definitely a work in progress, but thus far:

- His name is Tyhjä (Finnish for Void) and he's a Big Lightning Boy, aka a Charged Bolts build

- He's a bit of a Slüt, but how could you not be with nip rings built into the armor?

- His staff is crafted out of an ancient tree split by lightning, and he's traveled significantly across the continent to hone his grasp of the elements

- Realized he was falling for this dumb old man early in the campaign, making jokes about his Sparse Living Situation

- Neyrelle figured it out first

- Eventually learns some Horadric to figure out what on earth Lorath is constantly muttering and moaning about

The following are ✨campaign spoilers✨ since Tumblr sucks at letting me do Read More cuts:

- Ulterior motive for working for the Tree of Whispers? Trying to keep Lorath's head out of the branches as long as possible 😌

- But definitely bribes the Tree to let him borrow the old man's skull every once and a while when he's finally collected

- Ends up delivering Lorath's head himself because, honestly, he's not too keen on the ravens' decapitation quality

- Accidentally Good Boy's Mephisto at least once (and probably got bit in the process)

#diablo 4 #diablo iv #lorath nahr #oc #diablo #oh god i love these idiots #and his nose definitely gets bigger every time i draw him #me? logging out in firebrand manor to hang out while Lorath pets his horse? absolutely #can't figure out if they'd stay at the vault or go back to the cabin in the fractured peaks #but Tyrjä would go out of his way to make sure the old man doesn't act TOO old #also i ABSOLUTELY AGREE that diablo needs a photo mode #or at least a way to replay the campaign #I ended up upgrading my ram after I got through the story and boy howdy i want to see those old man whiskers lovingly rendered #tyhjä #lorath x tyhja #tyhrath #lorath x oc #lorath x wanderer

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lgbtlunaverse · 10 months

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Could someone tell me where the interpretation that, in book canon, the promotion Nie Mingjue gives Meng Yao made Meng Yao's life worse than it was before, came from?

I have seen that claim made multiple times now and I've looked at the text over and over trying to see where the basis for it is and I. Can't find it? Don't get me wrong, it absolutely spells out that it does not and cannot fix everything for Meng Yao, but the idea that it was actively bad for him?

Lacking other evidence, I kind of have to assume that it comes from cql canon being sort of projected backwards onto book canon. In cql canon, meng yao is suffering active and explicit bullying and abuse from the captain while under the nie, and does so because the capain believes he has risen above his station via nmj's promotion of him. (In book canon this... isn't happening. It happens with the captain in Langya instead) However, in cql canon he has also been with the nie for years and is openly close to both Nie Mingjue and Nie Huasiang, whereas in book canon he has only been working with nie mingjue for a few months (though has, in that time, apparently become close enough to him for Lan Xichen to explicitly state Meng Yao is able to calm nmj down in ways no one else can? Ofc he does this... Right after that stops being true. But. Food for thought. Not what this post is about tho.) So, if you project the much more explicit abuse from the nie sect captain in cql back on novel jgy who has a presumably much less stable position in the sect overall you get... a meng yao for whom the promotion only means a bigger target on his back and virtually no protection from nmj, who we must assume he can't trust to talk to his about because he never mentions it. (This also explicitly violates book canon when it comes to meng yao's general behaviour, we'll talk about that in a sec)

And look. We all do frankencanon in this house. I get it. And for fanfiction that is very fun. But for a serious reading of the character, his situation, and the actions that lead from that this... doesn't make much sense, in my opinion.

So. Why is that? Why did I say this was out of character for the novel? Because Meng yao spoke up about the jin captain mistreating him. Multiple times! It's just that none of it mattered because no one cared to listen to him. This is a pretty important line for his character because it flatly shows that meng yao is not and has never seen murder as something trivial. He's not trigger happy. He will only do it if he sees no other way out that doesn't end in himself being seriously harmed. (Whether he's right or justified in these cases is not the point of this post.)

If anything remotely similar was happening in the Nie sect, he would have said so. Cql Meng Yao doesn't do this because cql Meng Yao is a different character, and also the plot wouldn't work if he did. Cql Nie Mingjue, by extension, comes off as a fundamentally less trustworthy figure in cql Meng Yao's life because apparently for whatever reason, he cannot be trusted with the information that the deputy he has already publicly defended is still being harassed, and doesn't notice even when it is really blatant. The assumtpion the audience is given is that, like a middle schooler getting the principal involved when being bullied, it would only make the harassment more viscious.

This... actually has a somewhat solid basis in the book. Because after nmj yells at the bullies in question Wei Wuxian says this.

And it is important to keep in mind that this is Wei Wuxian saying this. Not Meng Yao, not an omniscient narrator. Wei wuxian is drawing on his own experiences, likely from the Jiang family, to conclude that if someone is angry at you and thwarted by someone defending you, this generally does not make them less angry at you.

This is leaving out two crucial things, though.

Firstly, this worry isn't about the promotion at all.

The promotion hasn't even been brought up. In the novel it doesn't ctually happen immediately, it takes another few battles where meng yao continues to do his job well and nie mingjue continues praising him for him to eventually go "yeah, you deserve a raise."

This is another aspect that is being projected from cql canon onto book canon I presume, because it does happen quite quickly there, and it's a throwaway line in the books so it's easy to miss. I can't be mad about anyone forgetting the difference, but it is important to mention for this particular analysis.

Which is the second point: change in status

Wei Wuxian couldn't exactly change status within the Jiang family. (And if he could, that would just fuel rumours that he was jfm's bastard even more and make madam yu even angrier at him, etc etc.)

This isn't comparable to Meng Yao. The worry Wei Wuxian is talking about is explitly about Nie Mingjue's initial very loud defense of him. Before he has any idea Nie Mingjue is going to promote him.

Promoting him would likely decrease his chances of cultivators coming after him because now he was in a higher standing in the sect than they were. If applied to that earlier metaphor of middle school bullying it's like if the bullied kid suddenly got hired as a teacher. Which. Doesn't work with the metaphor at all. Touché. But what I am trying to say is that any payback they would have planned for him relied on the fact that they could make sure that Nie Mingjue wasn't going to be within very convenient earshot a second time, and as a random disciple Meng Yao couldn't just go complain to him every time.

But as his right hand man? Who spends most of his time working directly alongside him? Lmao. Good luck. Oh, sure, it is very likely that they feel offended a son of a whore has been raised in status above them, and many will continue to do so as jgy rises through cultivation society (in fact, Wei Wuxian's observations are absolutely on point for how Madam Jin will be treating jgy later on). But as we can also see from the way jgy is treated and how he treats others throughout the story: you can be upset all you want, but if that person is higher than you in status there's jack shit you can do about it.

If I am correct and Wei Wuxian is basing this on his experiences with the Jiang family, it makes sense why he'd miss this. Madam Yu gets to be way angrier at Jiang Fengmian as his wife than some random disciples can be at Nie Mingjue. Insulting Meng Yao, suggesting that he didn't deserve his promotion or that he earned it through less than proper means (you know who is mother is) is also an insult to Nie Mingjue and the way he chooses to run his sect. They can't do that.

Another thing I see brought up in this regard would be the tea scene. There may be no explicit harassment like in the show, but cultivators still don't respect him! The disrespect is just quieter and more subtle.

Tiny detail: these are actually not Nie cultivators

They're cultivators Lan Xichen is escorting with him, making a pitstop in heijan.

The book confirms this by basically outright stating that this is the first time they see his face, and recognize him as Jin Guangshan's bastard son.

Now, just because there is no proof that it happened doesn't mean it definitely never happened. Mdzs is a novel that often leaves stuff out or up to interpretation. Similar stuff to the tea situtation could very well be happening in the background. But I do think it is pretty significant that there is no mention whatsoever of Meng Yao having any negative treatment from Nie cultivators betwen him and Nie Mingjue meeting and him executing them while spying for Wen Ruohan, and the most we get is Wei Wuxian's personal speculation, after which he immediately goes to wax poetic about how surprised he is that Meng Yao and Nie Mingjue are getting along super well.

And, again, novel Meng Yao would have said something. He doesn't say anything about the tea scene. - Or? Does he? Notably 3zun have some very long in depth conversations that Wei Wuxian zones out from because he's busy thinking about Lan Zhan again. But let's not rely on what-ifs. Let's say that neither he nor Lan Xichen find it worth bringing up. Major reasons for that would be that a) these are not nie cultivators, nie mingjue wouldn't really have the authority to scold them. Especially because b) it's such a subtle offense it could easily be handwaved as coincidence. "They just always brush their cups clean like that!! It's wartime you know, and they were traveling! They're used to drinking from vessels that aren't thoroughly washed everytime! It's just a habit!" And would therefore not be worth reporting.

But anything worse than that? A "price tens or hundreds of times greater" like wwx mentions? He'd report it! I do understand that "well if it was happening why didn't he say something?" would, in real life, be victim blaming. This is not real life, and I am not talking about this in a matter of blame. If Meng Yao was being mistreated in the Nie and stayed silent about it, it would still not be his fault. I am talking about this in a manner of character consistency.

His admission of seeking help in the Jin sect shows that at that time and prior to it (a very good argument can be made that he loses faith in this idea) he believes that if he is being mistreated and someone with the authority to say something about it takes his side, things can improve. If Nie Mingjue standing up for him in Qinghe only made things worse, he would not have tried to ask for help in an even more hostile environment. You can call Meng Yao many things, but naïve isn't one of them.

Meng yao's later habit of completely isolating himself and lying to everyone around him comes from the fact that revealing his suffering would mean explaining several horrible things he's become complicit in and he does not feel safe admitting to that. But he's done nothing wrong here!

The reading where he says nothing would imply an either correct or incorrect belief in Meng Yao's eyes that Nie Mingjue did not much care for his wellbeing or safety. Oh sure he defended him once but doing so again multiple times would be such a bother. This also contradicts his later behaviour, where he banks solely on Nie Mingjue's protective instincts to seal his qi and escape during the confrontation in Langya. After having been caught murdering a man, he is still convinced Nie Mingjue will immediately try to help him when he is in serious danger.

And even if you very badly want to characterize Nie Mingjue as a blundering idiot who is apparently less trustworthy in Meng Yao's eyes than the jin cultivators who had already resoundly rejected him by the time he tries to ask for help with the langya captain. He doesn't say anything to Xichen either! Lan Xichen, who has explicitly and exhaustively been portrayed as kind and understanding to Meng Yao's circumstances and very willing to talk to Mingjue if Meng Yao wants something from him he doesn't otherwise think he'd get. The conversation Mingjue overhears where Meng Yao's new position in the Nie is explictly brought up would be kind of the perfect time to go "yeah I've been promoted but I'm not treated well by other soldiers" aaaand. Nothing. So unless you come to the conclusion that Meng Yao trusted the Jin he told about the captain's abuse more than Lan Xichen you kind of have to conclude that Meng Yao's treatment after his promotion improved significantly. And that even if people still disliked him they could not openly do anything about it because he was high enough in status for that to be socially inappropiate. Which is, explicitly, one of his main motivators over the entire course of the story: Avoiding mistreatment by getting high enough on the social ladder it doesn't matter what people think of him, they can't hurt him.

And I'm not sure how to reconcile that character journey with the idea that he would, at any point, have preferred to keep his head down and stay where he was. When he was so desperate to crawl his way out.

#the main tragedy of his character- of course- being that he keeps achieving that status and it is never enough #he achieves standing with the nie and the favor of a major sect leader and it's not enough for his father to even give him the time of day #he kills wrh amd becomes a war hero and gets acknowledged by his father!!#and all it gets him is nmj's constant distrust abuse at the hands of his stepmother and complicity in mass murder by his father's orders #he gets to the HIGHEST POSITION SOCIETY HAS. LITERAL CHIEF CULTIVATOR. And the moment he stumbles everyone turns on him immediately #like they were all just waiting for him to get low enough again that they could kick him further down #it's a rise-fall-rise-fall-rise-fall journey with every step up being a desperate fight and every tumble down being way too quick and easy #but! that rise still needs to be there!! for the story to work!!#the tragedy of qinghe for meng yao is how easily he loses nmj's fsvor. NOT that having it was bad in the first place #I understand that this reading is mainly done to put nmj in a bad light but I do genuinely think it does jgy a disservice #people more often apply this to him becoming jin guangyao which does in a lot of ways doom and trap him #and yes fuck jgs fuck that guy all the way to hell #but the key is that meng yao can't just get a happy ending by refusing power #he's not power hungry. what he wants is in fact reasonable- he's just willing to do a lot more than most to get it #'things would've been better if nmj didn't promote him/didn't send him to langya'#feels as reductive to me as the 'why can't he just be xichen's house boyfriend and join the lan instead' takes.#mdzs #meng yao #jin guangyao #mdzs meta #? sorta #feels too ranty to call meta #this is what i was talking about in my past post about how frustrating it is to base metas around disagreeing with others #makes analysis feel like discourse when that is NOT what i am trying to do #long post with long tags

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majorshatterandhare · 7 months

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I’m thinking about how the Mechs use energy, because they do things and live and therefore they *must* use energy, that’s how physics (and biology) work.

I had the idea that they are always absolutely frigid to the touch because they suck in heat from the environment like an endothermic chemical reaction.

#the mechanisms #another crack idea #it would make the most sense for them to be able to run on multiple kinds of energy #and yes i know the actual answer is that they just do. its magic basically. but thats not fun for me.#what is fun is trying to figure this shit out #and if you disagree. thats fine. disregard my musings. but like. idk what to tell you. im autistic.#of course the way i enjoy the media is different than most people #i dont think its surprisjng that the way my autistic ass likes to interact with the mechs is to disect every little bit and try to fill-#holes in ways that make sense in our understanding of the universe and their world #like you could just say that in the universe that the mechs live in physics doesnt work the same and energy isnt needed #which is fucking insane #but you could. my question would then be how the physics does work and trying to figure that out.#i just wanna stick my fingies in the holes in the story like its a crochet blanket and make flex them around #thats whats fun for me. which means that its super frustrating when i pose these questions looking for people to play in thd space with me-#and they just get shut down with answer like ‘whatever serves the narrative’ or ‘the mechs are unreliable narrators’ or ‘jonny lies’#tbc unreliable narrators can be very fun. but its not fun when it stops the possibilities or the conversation.#its not fun when ‘unreliable narrator’ is the end.#i think other people may enjoy the freedom of just doing anything that that gives them (or ‘whatever serves the narrative’ does)#but i dont because im a scientist which means i want to figure things out which means there must be a framework #if anything could happen at any time then you can’t make a cohesive story.#and i coukd argue we know thats not the case since ivy predicts stuff based on likelihood #anyway i managed to go down a rabbit hole tangent of why apes and roundworms hybridizing is the most ridiculous ‘scientific’ answer ive-#seen in scifi. so if you’re interested in that. hmu

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yourqueenb · 1 year

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It’s so sad that’s she’s had this experience and that she feels she’d be “saddling” him as if her standards are some kind of burden 😕

#choices gg #choices getaway girls #choices #choices stories you play #playchoices #I really don’t even think she’s asking for much #she just wants to be treated with respect and care as anyone should #it’s not like she’s crazy high maintenance or something #at least not from what we’ve seen #or that she loves drama and thinks being ‘crazy’ (read: emotional manipulation) is cute #bc there are plenty of women like that who still end up in relationships somehow #so there’s really no reason for her to think something’s wrong with her #or for her friends to treat her like she’s some dried up desperate woman who needs to find someone ASAP #just bc she doesn’t fw every man who so much as glances her way #…. can y’all tell I feel some type of way about that last bit 😬#choices app #pixelberry studios #pixelberry

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baronessofmischief · 4 months

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Rebel Moon on Netflix is sooooooo soso bad guys 😂 like at least there’s space Charlie Hunnam with a Scottish accent and sometimes the main character has a flashback where she has a better haircut AND there’s a sibling duo who have the best costumes in the movie but the story? The script? The movie structure? Cohesiveness? Absolutely terrible. And there’s still 45 minutes left

#and it’s only part ONE #and it’s not interesting enough to compel me to watch a whole second movie of this #there’s a billion things going on but none of it fits together and they’re all just mostly disconnected events or ideas or just STUFF #and none of it is the basic things we need like. character connections and relationships.#it’s ALL flashbacks and EXPOSITION and world building #those things should be there when necessary. give us the minimum we need to know and move ON.#if there’s so much backstory that needs expositioning you should have made that movie instead of it was relevant buildup to THIS story #worldbuilding should be there for flavor - boundaries - and establishing the rules for how the story happens within its structure #this universe just. doesn’t seem like there are any limits. so there’s no tension or cohesive feeling to it. so I just end up not caring lo #at least Jupiter Ascending was CAMPY bad #Rebel Moon is just BEGGING for you to take it seriously and BEGGING for you to make it the next big sci-fi cornerstone in culture #but I swear it is just. so bad.#I don’t even know where to start with it 😂#there’s also like. some things they don’t warn for that they defo should have included in the rest? idk maybe that’s just me but #if you warn about attempted assault against a woman you should also do it for one of the men later #also I said ‘main character’ in the post but it really seems like they’re trying to make EVERY character the main character.#they’re too individual to come together. it’s just random ingredients not one dish.#it’s not structured the way an ensemble movie is supposed to be so it just doesn’t work 🤷‍♂️

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stardusted-bookworm · 7 months

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It ain't the being alone.

She'd been alone all her life. Had grown comfortable with it. Had known loneliness like an old friend. Had known. For never had loneliness wounded her the way it did now. She now knows that loneliness had left her long ago and had not been her companion since he walked into her life.

It ain't the empty home, baby.

She looks around at the house they'd called home. She is haunted by a memory. A memory of the rafters being filled with laughter and joy as he waltzed her around their dining room. A memory of the smell of spiced meats and mouth-watering dishes. Memories of endless hours of talking, of enjoying each others' companies as the fire crackled and the rain poured down outside.

These memories fade, leaving her in the cold, desolate house she had built for them. Portraits smile at her from the walls, cruel remembrances of a time no longer present. The fire no longer crackles. The stove no longer houses their cooking. And the floors remain un-danced.

You know I'm good on my own.

As she stares at a dent in the wall, she also remembers the endless fights. Him complaining that she was always gone. Shouting that she was never around. Her yelling back that she was around. All the time. That she should be allowed her own time and space. That she shouldn't need to be so firmly attached to him at all times that they fuse into one person. They had been born separate for a reason.

She remembers the silence after that. Should've predicted what came next.

You know it's more the being unknown.

He did not speak to her again, except for short words, curt answers. He was never in the house unless it was to sleep, and somedays, he did not even return for that. He no longer remembered the secrets they had shared with smiles. He no longer cared to remember her favorites, her laugh, her song. It was as if he was methodically un-remembering her.

And oh, how her heart broke at that.

And there are some people, love, who are better unknown.

She presses a hand to her chest, surprised to see it come away clean. The pain of her heart is so acute she believes she should be bleeding.

For it was not just the un-remembering. She had found out later, after he had left for the last time, that he had found someone new. Had wooed and courted this other with as much fervor as he had her. Had made them laugh, had danced with them, had enjoyed their company as ardently as he had with her.

It was then her heart cleaved. Was rent in two. Never to be mended. To be removed completely from his memory... to be treated as if she had never existed... No, there was no coming back from that.

It would've been better if she had never met him, she thinks to herself. For the good did not outweigh the bad.

She thinks back to how often he would dismiss her. Would not share in her excitement the closer they got to the end. Was it her fault? Should she have tried harder?

No. Her resolve hardens. The blame is not hers to carry. Not when he left the way he did. Not when he abandoned her before she even knew it was over.

She stands and looks at the match burning in her hand. She lets it fall to the ground and walks out of the burning house, burning the memories of him with it.

Nothing would grow on that patch of land again. She had ensured it. Had coaxed her magic back to her after years of suppressing it to make him happy. Never again would she debase herself the way she had allowed him to debase her.

She is the most powerful witch of her age. And the world would remember her power once more.

Starting with him and his pretty new bride.

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