#Guardian/Ward

[fated-mates]

You all enjoyed Romance Science so much, we figured, why not tackle romance law next! This week, we’re discussing wills and trusts, inheritances, guardianship, and more than a few HR violations! We also begin the episode with an important addendum to Romance Science (apologies to the Passion fans in the crowd).

You can find links to all the books we discussed in show notes.

[akiacia]

gummies

[lostonesart]

Wanted a Fae Twst Oc so I made one

Elias Ward. He's younger than Malleus and he is also a dragon Fae but like different obviously since he's based on Elliott from Pete's Dragon.

His dad is the dragon Lilia was looking for in Book 7's flashback (at least until Disney makes a canon design for that unseen dragon)

The end of his tail is a tuft of hair, and he's an absolute goober who wants to make friends with everyone, especially Malleus when he learns he's on Sage Island. His time at RSA is the longest he's ever stayed in one place as he and his dad are always moving (his dad actually is staying on the Island while Elias is attending school)

(The last name is because Elliott is said to be a guardian spirit to children so Elias' family does the same. It's why most of his family is scattered to the winds and it's just him and his dad until he's an adult.)

[science-lings]

I have very specific thoughts about Bruce's 'childhood' and how he tried to do things differently with Dick than what happened with him because of how badly it affected him. He knows what it's like to have everything change so fast and to be so angry but too young to actually do anything about it.

I can see him making sure Dick doesn't get too close of a look at his parents because Bruce remembers being stuck with his parent's corpses until the police got there, all alone with no other way to call for help than screaming. I can see him hiding Dick from the flashing cameras and hiding any newspapers about the 'story' so that Dick doesn't have to see how the press spins everything. Bruce has that picture of himself sitting shellshocked from the ambulance on the front page and he knows how violating that felt, how publicized his trauma was, even if he can't completely prevent it for Dick he can do his best to make it hurt less.

Bruce suffered being helpless for years, being so angry at Gotham and the world and not having a good outlet for it, he had no control over anything that was happening with him, so with DIck he knows how important being Robin became because he knows how becoming Batman felt for him. Bruce got into fights because he couldn't hold his anger in and had to turn that anger inward in fear that Alfred would get sick of him and leave too. Robin was a productive outlet, even if it was a dangerous one, but who knows what would've happened to him if he didn't have it? He already got that taste of freedom and feeling like his intervention could actually make a difference that Bruce took years and years of stewing in trauma to find.

The most important thing to Bruce is that Dick doesn't become another Batman.

[thesirenbanshee]

“Chapter 20” is here, which means Her Dark Prince is finally ⭐COMPLETE⭐!!!!! 😻😻😻😻

TITLE: Her Dark Prince

RATING: Explicit

CHAPTERS: 20

SUMMARY:

“Ben Solo is no more; he was destroyed years ago when his uncle tried to kill him with a lightsaber. Now his name is Kylo Ren and he serves his Dark master, Snoke, to vanquish the galaxy. Everyone around him fears him . . . except for his sweet little ward, Rey. The young girl is all he cares for, all he fights to protect. But why did he have that surreal dream that she kissed him?”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/40286118/chapters/158678827

[vinetooth-prime]

An official reference pose for my gal, Arvil Wardbreaker. ✨

Arvil is my Guardian & Astral Ward OC for RP plots with my guild. She is originally from a fractal under Ward study, the specifics of which technically make her an angel of Dwayna!

Which I've chosen to have mean the differences between her & a harpy are mainly cultural, but I won't get into all that nuance here. ✨

[cripplepunkbarbarian]

World’s normalest guy experiencing a regular level of protectiveness towards the student he’s had for like 1.5 years. The saga.

[jelzorz]

153.

Rayla is back a week, maybe two weeks, and honestly, Opeli is not happy about it. It was too easy, she thinks, too forgiving. When she came home with the boys the first time, it was fine because they promised she was their friend and had nothing to do with King Harrow's death and Callum obviously loved her with all of his heart. Opeli was willing—and happy—to sort of adopt her into the royal family, just another orphan, another child needing a home, and then she left and—

Well. Callum and Ezran might be happy to let such a thing slide, but she is not. She did not watch Callum break two years ago for Rayla to come sidling back in like nothing happened. She did not watch him mope around the castle, miserable and heartbroken, for Rayla to return without even an apology to him. Opeli stands for Justice, and Justice will not be denied.

When they return from the Sea of the Castout, Aaravos' shining prison in Ezran's arms in need of somewhere safe to hide, Opeli welcomes the boys back gladly, relieved that they're safe and they're home once more, but she regards Rayla coolly and does not offer her the same warmth. Rayla shuffles a little under her glare, but she says nothing about it.

It's not until dinner that evening that anyone mentions it at all.

"We do not keep weapons at the table," Opeli says crisply, when Rayla takes a seat, resting her mentor's bow against the chair next to her—the same bow that Rayla broke into Callum's office to steal; the same again that killed King Harrow.

Rayla withers a little, her eyes on the floor, even as she gets up again to put it away, but Callum sets a hand at her elbow and glares back.

"Since when?" he demands. "Soren doesn't put his sword away for meals."

"Soren is captain of the Crownguard," says Opeli. "There are reasons for him to carry weapons, and none so good for this elf—"

"Her name is Rayla, Opeli, and she can do what she wants."

"Prince Callum, if I may—"

"No!" Callum slams a hand against the table, rattling the silverware in his wake. "Don't think I haven't noticed! You've been kind of an ass to her since she came back and it's not okay! What the hell's the problem?"

Opeli scowls at him, affronted. "Language like that is not appropriate for a prince and high-mage—"

"And the way you've been acting isn't appropriate for a high cleric," snaps Callum. "The castle is Rayla's home, the same as the rest of us. Back off."

It comes off like an order and Callum's eyes are hard, so Opeli ducks her head and mutters an apology to him without further argument, but she sees Rayla shift uncomfortably all the same and is pleased to know that she has not let herself off the hook so easily. It's still a surprise, though, when, just before bed, there is a knock on Opeli's office door.

Opeli rises and blinks to find Rayla on the other side of it looking guilty and uneasy but there all the same.

"Can we talk?" she asks, and Opeli nods stiffly if only because she doesn't know what else to say. She steps back to let Rayla in, and Rayla waits until she's seated again before she takes a seat herself. She takes a breath. "Did I do something wrong?" she asks at last.

"You tell me," says Opeli, her lips thin.

Rayla pauses and fiddles with her fingers. "I know it's not just about the bow," she says after a moment. "I just... I don't want to keep causing trouble. You've all been so kind to let me stay here but—"

"If you leave again, you will not be forgiven," snaps Opeli, and then she scolds herself for making it so obvious, for giving it away at all. She wrinkles her nose and presses on. "My duty is to Lady Justice and to the Crown, Rayla, and I will not see either insulted by someone so cruel. Do you know what you did to him? Do you know how broken he was in your absence? And for you to come back thinking all would be fine, and then to break into his office to steal that bow, and then to leave again—"

"I'm sorry, okay?" says Rayla at last. "I mean it. I can't do that to him again, Opeli, it killed me the first time, and I knew the whole time—"

"Why do it then? Why be so selfish?"

"Because—" Rayla swallows and looks away. "I just didn't want him to get hurt. And we left for the Bookery, and ran into so much trouble and he got hurt anyway, for me, and I—" She sucks in a breath. "I'm sorry I hurt him. I'm sorry he keeps getting hurt. I just... want him to be safe."

Opeli says nothing for a moment. She studies the way Rayla curls in on herself, shoulders bowed with grief and guilt and regret. And for all her devotion to Lady Justice, for all her talk about Justice not being denied, Opeli sighs, pulls another teacup from her desk drawer, and slides it across the desk.

"You and I have that in common," she says, pouring Rayla some tea. "And I see that all he wants is the same for you."

"I—" Rayla flushes. "He shouldn't."

"That choice is his to make," says Opeli. "Have you made yours?"

Rayla presses her lips together and nods, her eyes shut to dam up the moisture welling at the corners. "Yes," she promises. "I can't do that to him again, Opeli. I won't. I mean it."

"I should hope not," says Opeli. "Drink your tea. It's not so comforting when it's cold."

[hello-worldshitposting]

[astro-b-o-y-d]

Last night on Discord, I was talking about how funny it'd be if Ford came across that little 'I'm a Preteen' blurb in TBOB, and was like "Okay, well, he's OBVIOUSLY lying. Except...he was in the Nightmare Realm for a trillion years. A crumbling mess of chaos with no rules or logic...And Dipper and Mabel told me that Mabel's bubble had the ability to make summer last forever. Would it...be a stretch to assume it came from a place with similar abilities? No, that's silly...right?"

Cue the rest of the family walking in on him the next morning with a whole red yarn conspiracy board, as he tries to figure out if he was actually acting as some interdimensional demon's babysitter for the past thirty years.

[desognthinking]

im fascinated what is tomb guardians au i am immediately imagining ava trying to get (very serious about her job) bea to talk to her (t4t aka tomb for tomb communication) like “it’s because you’re always on that damn guarding the tomb” and bea staring at her like “oh (relevant semi-religious curse word/deity invocation), i HAVE to fuck her”

Hi 😄  tomb guardians au is exactly that! except a little weirder, i think. Because they arent the guards stalking the graveyard they are the inhumanly stone-and-metal-but-not-really guardians themselves ☺️it's like what if beatrice had two heads and stood watch over the sealed, entombed heart of a bloodline. And ava was the new, terrible protector of a clan of craftsmen on a hilltop, buried with chambers of generations of their art. And what if they were necropolis neighbors 😳

This is one chunk previously posted and this shorter thing is set a little later, during the wedding mentioned in the first part. i think it kind of matches this ask pretty well 🥺:

Weddings are just like funerals: they’re never safe. The procession overflows from the courtyard at the mouth of the tombhouse, and nobody turns their attention to the other side of the hill. That's Ava’s job. Beatrice, perched carefully atop her roof in a long line of others she can vaguely make out, stretched across the rim of the hills, can see her sway and duck through kitestrings and tree-hung lanterns blowing in the wind as she keeps vigil. 

There’s fire, and an uncoordinated symphony of chattering accompanying music, and colored smoke that drifts up and drenches the air in pinks and yellows. The party had started at the Salviuses’ inner city tombhall, and then wound its way through the cobbled streets to settle here sometime around midday. Now the sun has cooled from its boil and the clouds are dissipating in streaks leaving swatches of color overtop the trees.

Celebration mixes with ceremony in equal parts, and Ava’s soaking it in, so she told Beatrice herself. Amidst the rush of activity at the Silvas’, she’d found her way over yesterday, dangling her human legs over a particularly stubborn branch that tipped over a brass gate, lurching under her weight towards brown grass.

“And, if you want,” she’d said quickly, “the view from atop our central mausoleum is incomparable.” Following the parched trajectory of Beatrice’s traitorous eyes, Ava had reached up to hurriedly smooth out the colorful combs that had erupted from her crown as she blurted out the offer. “You could see the dances up close.” 

She paused, as Beatrice reached out, at first hesitantly, then bravely, to gently still Ava’s hands from patting down the sharp, fiery crests. It’s okay.

(I like them.)

“We’re close enough that you could still keep a lookout for things over here.” 

Proximity, of course, was in truth the last thing that Beatrice feared would compromise her duty, and she knew that Ava knew it too. 

They sat in silence, not uncomfortably. Hot plumes, from where the days-long feast was being prepared in great earthen pots and pits on the rolling green surrounding the Silva walls, thinned out as they passed through the trees to Beatrice’s clearing. 

Whispers of stews, and meats, and spices. Beatrice felt, suddenly, terribly hungry.

“Will you ask again tomorrow?” she chanced, finally. 

Ava, bright and shocked and delighted, laughed. In her relief she nearly fell backwards off the branch, taking with her Beatrice, who had joined her on the tree.

Razor-edged fronds sprung up again from the top of her sun-warmed head. “Horrible”, she joked. 

Beatrice disagreed, and let her know.

Now, the sky is dampening, and the wedding party, in dribs and drabs, pauses to refill its cups and light its candles. In this twilight Beatrice lets herself turn to the west.

It is not easy to see, but the creature on the Silva house is there, beyond the clasp of woods, and when Beatrice meets its eyes its form unfolds in magnificent, menacing span and its unmistakable, jagged tail rises, quick and high, as in warning or challenge. 

From this far away, and half-hidden by foliage, it is impossible to make out the details of that bolted, harsh surface, but Beatrice knows how it feels under her palm, fluttering and leathery and spiny and warm, just as she knows by a glance the towering shape of the display and the exaggerated, daring, silly invitation that it extends across the space between their roofs. 

Ridiculous. 

Ava – terrifying as she extinguishes the numerous wraiths that have already sought to take advantage of the guardian transition, serious as the new caretaker of an artistic legacy, and an achingly, brilliantly quick learner of that uncommon dialect spoken by Beatrice’s house – lifts off her roof in a dramatic jump, and lands with a shaking thud that sends shivers through the ground all the way over. 

\

Help arrives so quickly that Beatrice knows said help is going to give her a hard time. 

“Mary,” she greets, relieved all the same. “Are you sure you don’t mind keeping watch?”

“Yeah, don’t worry, Shannon's got it all handled back home,” Mary traces the perimeter easily, scanning the horizon in each direction and then feeling the hollows and convexities of the tombhouse in quick reappraisal. Beatrice stands aside as she smoothly pads across the surface of what she must have judged to be possible points of weakness, tests the robustness of a couple of Beatrice’s carefully constructed defenses, then nods, satisfied. 

A great-aunt, peeking out too to watch the celebrations, looks up, sees Mary, and waves. Mary sends her a bow. 

“You know, Bea, she’s right,” she hums, finally. “It’s not too far away, and you’ve always been focused when out visiting.”

The bait is not particularly subtle, and Beatrice narrows her eyes. 

“I just don’t think it’s safe to reduce any protections during a celebration when everyone’s guards are down.” She busies herself with cleaning up the place, tightening the wards and doing some final redundant sweeps and checks. “It’d be easy for someone or something to slip through, especially with so many unfamiliar faces.”

“Mm. And you’d be distracted.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” 

“Sure.” Mary circles, then sits down, settling in and getting comfortable. She uncoils and reaches out to nudge Beatrice gently where she’s examining the shifts in some stones very conscientiously. “And I promise not to look over.”

“Mary.”

“What?” She shrugs, casually puts out a strong claw and kicks Beatrice firmly off the parapet. “Time to go-o.”

There’s a shower of stone fragments as Beatrice shakes and gathers herself to snap and snarl halfheartedly and harmlessly up at her from the ground. 

Mary looks over the edge and shakes her head, grinning. “Oh, baby girl,” she tsks, “Don’t tell me you need me to teach you how to fuck her.”

“Mary!”

Mary’s laughter echoes as Beatrice turns and steals into the darkness, necks hot with embarrassment. “Now hurry up, Beatrice,” her call seeps, howling, into the roots. It warps with the topography of the earth into something deep and old, sinking its frigid teeth into Beatrice’s bones. But the shape of the wind whipping past Beatrice’s ears is fond and teasing in its turbulence as she tears through the thicket. “Your poor girl’s waiting for you.”

[tiffanybluesclues]

Every week someone makes a post about how annoying it is that Dick Grayson fans don't acknowledge his flaws, and every week someone replies with an explanation that the flaws OP listed are entirely fanon and inconsistent with canon as it actually happened and at this point I have to assume that none of those explanations are ever going to stick because clearly some people just want the fanon to be true.

Anyway, I'm just putting this here for me to edit and add relevant-to-the-topic links later so I'll have them nicely at hand to read and sooth my frustrations when it gets real bad out there. (Echo chambers are good when we use them to drown out character mischaracterizing fanon.)

[telekitnetic-art]

Waiter!!! Waiter!!! Five dozen more “Optimus sees bee or one of the team Prime kids get injured and absolutely flips his shit” fics please!!!

[therealsophiependragon]

when you procrastinate and dread a dentist appointment all day only for it to take 10 minutes and inflict strikingly little pain

Ah, how we are stricken by these fancies of mortality

[guy60660]

 Father John Misty | Josh Tillman | Ward & Kweskin | The Guardian

[thesirenbanshee]

Here’s “Chapter 16”. 👍

TITLE: Her Dark Prince

RATING: Explicit

SUMMARY:

“Ben Solo is no more; he was destroyed years ago when his uncle tried to kill him with a lightsaber. Now his name is Kylo Ren and he serves his Dark master, Snoke, to vanquish the galaxy. Everyone around him fears him . . . except for his sweet little ward, Rey. The young girl is all he cares for, all he fights to protect. But why did he have that surreal dream that she kissed him?”