#JOURNEY TO MT. DOOM | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dballzposting · 2 years ago

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I do believe that Pan needs to be the next Mr Satan.

It goes like this: Pan sort of floats around for a while and doesn’t know where to put down her roots.

She feels bad about it, and wasn’t expecting this of herself - she was an opinionated and willful child, and she can’t believe that she’s lost now that she has the volition to go far.

Her parents are settled and set. Her uncle and Trunks seem settled - Goten had told her, as to soothe her, that “hey, I was a floater for a while too. I knew I wanted a family but I didn’t know what I’d do for work - and then Trunks approached me with the sword-fighting dojo idea, and now I’m here. He was a wandering soul himself, even. It took him a while to find the sword thing. So don’t sweat it. You’ll figure it out.”

But Pan is not mollified by this at all because it does not help her now. She’s lost NOW - and doesn’t know how to get to the supposed future where she isn’t.

Gohan, who has seen horrors unimaginable, cannot understand her attitude. There is peace. She can do anything she wants.

“But WHAT do I do?”

“Anything.”

“But WHAT?”

“Anything! There’s potential for anything! Don’t you see how that’s wonderful?”

But Pan almost wishes for another apocalypse so that her life journey would be clear.

Videl has always wanted to give Pan many options for conducting her life, and she’s affronted like Gohan when that is now somehow to Pan’s detriment.

She encourages Pan to try teaching at her martial arts school, and Gohan encourages her to be a tutor at his university - and neither feel right to Pan.

Meanwhile, Bura’s path has always been clear. She’s thrived in the environment of Capsule Corp. She has enough training by her father to hold her own against any Earth-borne foes, and she’s free to be a fashionable and intelligent powerhouse, even more intense than her mother. A career somewhere in the structure of Capsule Corp was imminent, and when Trunks finally abdicated the President’s chair, Bura knew precisely where she was to go. She became the second youngest Capsule Corp president at 21, and she’s on course to being the CEO after her mother.

Meanwhile, Marron has never had issues with feeling lost. Maybe it’s because she was always in an environment of ease at home, where lounging about at Kame House was a preferable and regular activity. She moves on to do something sweet and docile with her time, like becoming a dance teacher, or doing something with flowers, and she lives calmly and peacefully away from the spotlight and off of the radar.

Oh, but Son Pan just cannot find her roots! She snubs the footsteps of her parents, which feel right for THEM, but their place is not her place. She abhors the drama and show of her Grandfather Satan, which is dire to him, and something that he thrives in, but is only FRIVOLOUS to her. She needs something REAL. Her other grandfather, good lord - she could never compare if she wants to have hobbies other than fighting. Besides, fighting is only fulfilling when there is someone bad to fight - and how often will that come up? Is she meant to spend her life training and waiting?

Lastly, her grandmother is a commendable woman, but after her children grew and flew away, she had nothing much to do. Pan sees her own youthful lack of direction mirrored in her grandmother’s late age, and she is not keen on living a life where she is doomed to repeat that era again. Even if she is already pretty good at keeping a house structured and clean.

So ... what does she do?

With Goten away at the dojo, Pan is eventually encouraged to step in on the Son family farm. Her father especially encourages it, as he thinks that it will benefit her to get in touch with the reality of wild nature. Furthermore, if she is trying to find roots, then Mt. Paozu is the place to find generations of them.

So for a while, Pan lives like her father, uncle, grandfather, and grandmother have; with the elements, organic and true. In this time, she helps to take care of her grandmother, works alongside her, and spends a lot of time with her. Chichi teaches her recipes, she tells her true tales of the epic adventures of years past, she teaches her how to haggle at the marketplace; she teaches her the value of a dollar, and Pan learns how much it pales compared to a drop of rain.

Pan vacillates in her opinion of the farm. She finds it useless, she finds it endless, she finds it secretly wise, she finds it mysterious, worthwhile, important, temporary, stifling, healing, not for her, the greatest gift, or just boring.

Her grandpa Goku, always warm yet ever absent, stands as a paragon of answers to her still. He’s a wise man to her, and she wonders more and more if she shouldn’t train with him for a maintained period of time. Then she hears his stories from Chichi, and she realizes that Goku had many wise old teachers in his day: from Korin to King Kai, he was always enabled by another. Goku himself is not a contained pinnacle of greatness, but the product of many teachers and warriors coming together and contributing their wisdom.

Pan is not prone to placing any one person on a pedestal anyway - and this is a Son family virtue in of itself - but the realization that the journey made the man and not the man the journey sinks in like new to her. Without realizing it, and without intending to follow any particular footsteps, Pan does set out on a journey like the one that Goku has in the original dragon ball. She packs a bag, and with no real agenda but to travel and see, she leaves Mt Paozu and starts walking in one direction.

She ends up being a bonafide wanderer for a few years. Trudging about with a walking stick. Swimming across rivers. Eating what she catches. And most importantly, solving problems from town to town.

It’s a big world outside of her big city. Every town has its own customs, traditions, beliefs, realities, and it doesn’t take long for her to forget all about the small world of global fame and space-traveling that she’s come from.

And it really is a fucked up world out there. Demons. Creatures. Pirate coves and booby traps. Man-eating gourds. Bullies and con-artists alike. Pan finds herself in some real situations, much like when she was in space, and exactly like the ones that the young Son Goku found right here on Earth - just some fucked up shit that takes some creative and quick thinking to get out of. Pan learns to love and admire and venerate the Earth based on the suffering and discomfort that it forces her to persevere through.

It’s a big world out there, and every anthill is rich and every fossil a book. Every town has its own mysteries and she does what she can to remedy their woes when applicable.

As she gets more and more capable at hunting, she comes to refuse all monetary payment. She expects nothing in return, but is more than grateful to accept clothes, tools, good food, good company, a warm place to sleep, good advice, and good conversation.

Son Pan becomes the Wandering Hero. She strengthens her moral center and finds only fulfillment in navigating - and sometimes failing hard at - the difficult ethical questions and circumstances that arise. It’s nothing that she could have accomplished reading her father’s philosophy books or listening to her mother preach passionately about justice - these are lessons that she can only learn herself, in action. Her mistakes cut deep and vindicate her reality; her regrets never leave and always steer her straight; and her successes are defined by the harmony of due comeuppance that sings in all parties.

In this time, she learns of what honor and justice are really, and she comes to dedicate herself to the virtue of balance in all contexts. This is something natural to her blood, but not something that she was to come into on blood alone. She becomes more a martial artist in this time, in head and spirit, then she ever would have training in the city.

She travels the globe and finds the definition of beauty in every corner. All the actions of her predecessors in the fantastic stories she’s heard make perfect sense to her now, and she realizes not that she comes from a group of rational or well-opinionated beings, but that she comes from a group who is astute and perceptive enough to read the overt truth: that there is no choice, there is no room for opinion - the Earth NEEDS to be protected at all costs. She comes from a group who’s been courageous enough to face that.

When she reflects back on why she had first embarked, she feels silly. A quest to find her place - it’s shallow. Her place? She’s alive on the planet Earth, isn’t that enough?

In this way, however, she does come to find herself. In searching the coves and corners of the Earth, she finds herself in all of it, and realizes her consummate place to be a denizen of it.

After this, she is inflamed with the necessity to strive to protect the Earth. Whereas before, waiting to defend it seemed dull, now she sees that the point isn’t in the success, but in the time spent preparing. To spend time not working in favor of the Earth is to waste time. She does train with Goku - and all of the rest who are willing. She spends a year with Roshi, even, running milk and plowing fields, and she leaves only because she becomes self-realized and noble enough to deign it fit to strike him HARD for his lecherous attempts at her.

She dares to train with Vegeta for a moment. At first he wouldn't have her, but she proves her determination and pride enough that he allows her to disappoint him properly. She spends a time with King Kai, and she has tea with the Kaioshins, and suddenly it’s looking like her space-traveling days again.

She eventually returns home, which is the point of it all, and her Grandpa Satan is getting old. He would like to spend the rest of his golden years watching the Golden Girls, and the stress of operating as the soothe-sayer and rallier for the world has begun to weigh on him. During these late years, Uub has begun to shoulder some of the responsibility, and he fights for Mr Satan as one of his pupils in the tournaments. Mr Satan still maintains the World Champion title, though at this point it is mostly honorary, because it is Uub who actually makes an appearance on the ring.

Uub is wicked strong, he brings fame fortune and honor to the human name, he has fought alongside Goku and Vegeta and I think at this point has even made a trip to Beerus’s world once - but he is a shy lad all the same, and he doesn’t necessary want world fame as much as he wants good friends. He’s happy to lead if he must, and will find great responsibility and satisfaction in the role, but, yknow, he likes eating and laughing with Goku, and training with Vegeta, and watching The Golden Girls with Mr Satan. He gets nervous on camera. And he’s not a good yarn-spinner. He’s a sensitive, genuine, and honest kind of person; he is nothing if he can’t find a place in and serve well his community, but there are other things he is more fit to do than be World Champion.

Pan and Uub have no doubt trained together. And TBH they’re not that far apart in age I feel like they could be gal pals. They could definitely talk. Oh they could definitely call each other on the phone and chat it up. Oh they would just understand each other so WELL. They’ve both spent time away from family and have a reserve of pain dedicated to that. At the same time, they’ve made the whole world their family. They are both dedicated to protecting it and serving it well. They have both humbled themselves before the endeavor of self-improvement.

They are both honored to be of service, but they get to talking, and Uub, in the name of paying comeuppance for the grief he’s caused himself, must lay bare his nature: he doesn’t know if he can be the World Champion after Mr Satan. He absolutely will if he must, but he scares himself when he thinks of how he’ll go about it. He can’t help but to think that he won’t inspire much confidence, that his character isn’t luxurious enough to rally an audience, that maybe it’s an ostentatious position that ought to fade from existence, that maybe the Earth doesn’t need talkers but walkers. He’s struggling at differentiating between when doubt is harmful vs when it’s a saving grace. He relents that - if his journey is to be perilous and perplexing and strenuously difficult, he will accept it with grace and graititude and stumble along. If he is to be handed the torch, the honor bestowed upon him by that action will carry him through, and he will become built for it out of necessity. He makes clear that he will be beyond humbled and will know the highest enjoyment if the Earth is to trust him with its delicacy and he is to take it in his hands, and he will conduct himself with valor, and he will believe in himself if the world does, because he would never forsake its opinion.

He’s made all the world a teacher, and he will never stop improving himself by it.

But. Well. It’s just that. He can’t help but to think. Well - he wants well for the world. And wouldn’t the world be better off with with a leader who was already fit for the job? So that it wouldn’t have to sit through a learning curve? No one can replace the King Lion that was Mr Satan, but, like, it’s just that, well Uub has been getting really into realty TV these days, and he would like to have the downtime to watch that, and also he hasn’t seen his mom in a while, and he starts sweating when you point a camera on him, and if he had to wear that hot and heavy World Champion cape he may just faint, and, like - all the world’s a teacher, and he feels that there is harmony in that, and if he has to go up on stage and rally a crowd for no good discernible reason, just to maintain a title, well, what’s the point of that?

When Pan was young, she made clear that she did not want to be the next Mr Satan. Then she moved farther from her parents’s paths, and now in a circuitous way, she’s arrived closer to all of them than where she’s started. In the interest of finding a role, in placing roots, is there anyplace more pertinent than the life of her grandfather, whose life work has been to unify and heal the hearts and minds of the people on Earth? In studying tight niches to find herself in all of it, in traveling far to find herself in the blood she’s always carried with her - the role of her grandfather Satan is the one role of her kin that she hasn’t yet indirectly and inexorably pursued.

It’s the role to tie it all together. At a few key points, Earth would not have persevered, or navigated with much health or success, through dire circumstances without the spokesman unifying all of Earth’s various, small, beautiful corners. When the Earth at large is at stake, all the forces therein need to join their efforts together to protect what they love, and there is a necessary catalyst for that, a unifying voice that all can sing to.

The Earth has warriors looking out for it, training far in space in order to maintain Earth’s place in the broader order. There are warriors training within the Earth to enable a good cause, in swordfighting dojos and schools that bear a family name and significance. There are business leaders, presidents and CEOs, doing what they were born to do and wearing what they love to wear. There are farmers and mothers, there are scholars, there are people adding to destiny by doing what they enjoy.

And there’s a symbol for all of this, one individual who can stand at the top with solid feet and a confidence that reflects not just inner strength but the strength that comes from serving, and being loved by, others.

It’s in her blood. It’s in her roots. She’s when the unstoppable house of Goku meets the dazzling house of Satan, where the soul is of pure passion, where humility embraces confidence, where love and and devotion is multiplied beyond count.

She couldn’t have become the next World Champion when she was young. Though she was photogenic and flamed with showmanship when inspired, that was all the merit she saw in the job, and that was not enough for her; ibso facto, she was not enough for it, all the symbolic meaning being lost on her.

Now, she can do it, and may be the only one who can. It all comes together. Everything that she’s learned, seen, heard - all the values that have been endowed upon her since the cradle - can come into play.

She loves her Grandpa Satan anyway. She would be so happy and honored to take the torch, and to make him happy.

And she loves the Earth, and she loves the people on it. There’s power and hope and potential in every soul, no matter how small of a corner one hails from, and Pan would find actualization in harmonizing them all into one consolidated force. This is the Earth loving itself. Consider this her Saiyaman phase.

As World Champion, she would be very different from the lion Mr Satan was. Mr Satan had his beginnings in a genuine passion for the martial arts, but he is also grandiose and self-important by nature, and so he took to fame as fate expressly bid it. He is sustained by the veneration and adoration of others, and this served him well as he always sought to communicate to the public a version of a story that was both believable and that inspired confidence, comfort, and excitement. Despite it all, Mr Satan is still the most in-touch with the average human out of all of the Z fighters, and this has made him an effective leader. He is also a very gifted yarn-spinner. As in big fat liar. And that’s fine. It all worked out perfectly in the end. But.

That’s not how Pan is gonna be World Champion. She has no interest in lying, or gloating, or extolling, or embellishing, or fabricating. The job does require some small ... re-identifying of certain events, and Son Pan will not be too good to lie by omission. But she’s not here to make up tales. That was her grandpa’s job. Her job is to walk, not talk.

Her presence on stage is much less for the benefit of the audience. Rather than giving them what they want to hear, SHE tells THEM what they want to hear - she steps out on stage in heavy boots, heavy belt, heavy cape and says “Alright, listen up-” and tells them what they need to hear and what she needs them to understand.

This presence of course commands so much respect, and it still runs well on camera. This is an aesthetic and presentation that the magazines can run fine with.

If Mr Satan was the King Lion, she is The Sergeant - all the command of her grandmother, all the competence of her paternal grandfather, all the conviction of her mother, and all the commitment of her father.

Despite this look, she is not into the cigars like her grandfather and mother are. She prefers to not compromise herself with substances, and when she does, it is with sweets and treats and ice cream delights.

She doesn’t humor dumb questions at interviews, and she is incredibly perceptive, knowing what’s being asked better than the interviewer - she will ascertain what REALLY wants to be known, and she won’t hold back when delivering.

She is succinct, effective, and at times laconic. She’s stoic when she needs to be, but she’s also comfortable on camera, and she knows when and how to have a little fun. As a fighter in the tournaments, she likes to prolong the battle for a while, and teach as much as she can in that time.

As a leader, she inspires obedience and confidence, and all the world can feel that she loves them more than they know. May they never know, and never have to see her fall for them.

But hey. It’s just the family business, right? Everything will always return to this, because nothing else has ever actually mattered.

And she still has Girl’s Night with Uub and Bura and Marron and you know she’s buying. After all, a dollar’s value pales when compared to a drop of rain, and its best use is when buying for friends.

#dballz posting #a certified MustRead for all the Pan-heads out there ..#ROSHI FOR BLACKLIST

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warrioreowynofrohan · 10 months ago

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Getting back to Marmion! Some bits of context for the last few days’ posts.

A palmer was sort of a continual pilgrim, who spent a period of time travelling to holy sights and praying. The greatest holy sight of all was Jerusalem, where the palmer in the poem has in fact been, along with a huge list of other holy sights, from Mt. Ararat where Noah’s Arc reputedly came to rest after the Flood, to Mt. Sinai, to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, and in England Durham and Canterbury among others.

I think (I am not sure) palmer paid for their travels in part by donations from pious people, who might want the palmer to pray for them at some shrine. Marmion himself expresses a more lighthearted picture of palmers in general -

I love such holy ramblers; still

They know to charm a weary hill,

With song, romance, or lay:

Some jovial tale, or glee, or jest,

Some lying legend, at the least,

They bring to cheer the way.”

- and that may not be unrealistic for a category of people that could have included the medieval equivalent of a tourist with a GoFundMe. But this palmer is not of that kind - he’s haggard and gloomy, and kind of disturbing with his nighttime mutterings. But Marmion chooses to accept him as a guide all the same, and the next morning the whole group departs.

The first canto (The Castle) ended, we switch scenes and characters for the second (The Convent), to a boat travelling north, up the eastern coast of England, from Whitby to the island of Lindisfarne (also called St. Cuthbert’s Isle) with a group of nuns aboard. Now, where has Lindisfarne been mentioned in the previous canto? In the bit about Marmion’s former page:

That boy thou thought’st so goodly fair,

He might not brook the Northern air.

More of his fate if thou wouldst learn,

I left him sick in Lindisfarne:

The voyage is both a little scary and exciting for the nuns, who don’t get out much. Many of the castles the pass, like Warkworth and Dunstanburgh and Bamburgh, are ones you can still see on the Northumberland coast today.

But two of the group in particular are not having fun: the abbess (chief nun), who is not named, and the novice (i.e., has not yet taken vows and become a nun) Clare. Clare joined the convent recently after the loss of the man she loved, and in order to escape an unwelcome suitor who is trying to marry her in order to get at her property.

She was betrothed to one now dead,

Or worse, who had dishonoured fled.

Her kinsmen bade her give her hand

To one who loved her for her land;

Herself, almost heart-broken now,

Was bent to take the vestal vow,

And shroud, within Saint Hilda’s gloom,

Her blasted hopes and withered bloom.

On top of these griefs, there’s been an attempt to murder her, and the people who attempted it are now prisoners in Lindisfarne awaiting trial:

And jealousy, by dark intrigue,

With sordid avarice in league,

Had practised with their bowl and knife

Against the mourner’s harmless life.

This crime was charged ’gainst those who lay

Prisoned in Cuthbert’s islet grey.

Moving back a bit to yesterday’s entry, this is why the abbess of Whitby is going on this journey: to sit in judgement on these attempted murderers.

Sad was this voyage to the dame;

Summoned to Lindisfarne, she came,

There, with Saint Cuthbert’s Abbot old,

And Tynemouth’s Prioress, to hold

A chapter of Saint Benedict,

For inquisition stern and strict,

On two apostates from the faith,

And, if need were, to doom to death.

Lindisfarne is a tidal island: at low tide it is a peninsula that can be reached from the mainland across mudflats, but at high tide it is an island.

The tide did now its floodmark gain,

And girdled in the saint’s domain:

For, with the flow and ebb, its style

Varies from continent to isle;

As the ship reaches Lindisfarne, the nuns of Whitby on the ship sing a hymn, and the nons and monks of Lindisfarne sing one in return.

#marmion #lindisfarne

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the-sky-queen · 11 months ago

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So I came up with something positively evil for Sonic and the Lord of the Rings.

On Weathertop during the Nazgûl attack, Sonic gets stabbed by the Witch King, but in the leg instead of the shoulder like Frodo. The wound is healed as much as it can be in Rivendell, but it continues to affect Sonic. For the rest of journey to Mordor, Sonic has to use a walking stick/crutch. Can you imagine? Fastest thing in the Shire now struggles to walk.

The pain in Sonic’s leg is bearable, but it flares up whenever a Ringwraith is nearby and it gets worse the closer they get to Mordor. Puts a whole new perspective on why Sonic can't walk by the time they're at Mt. Doom.

Once the Ring is destroyed, the whole thing becomes manageable again. Sonic only needs to use a cane sometimes, but he can't run nearly as fast as he used to. And the pain always returns on the anniversary of Weathertop.

#how to guarantee instant agony: take away Sonic’s ability to run #ahhhhhhhhh #Sonic the Hedgehog #Sonic AU #Sonic and the Lord of the Rings AU #Sonic

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sandwrites · 2 years ago

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Tricia

The Perfumer watched over the trembling body of the Misbegotten warrior.

Their chest shook with each breath. Death’s rattle, leading them back to the roots of the Erdtree.

At least. That was how it should have been.

Stuck. That was how they all were. Stuck in a limbo they didn’t ask for, a limbo they never chose.

Forced to die unwelcomed by the Erdtree’s grace. Cursed to seep back into the ground, souls left rotted and hapless in the wake of decay.

The warrior croaked once, dark eyes staring glancing frantically up at the Perfumer. Holding tightly onto the the proffered hand that the Perfumer had held out as consolation. Pitiful, useless consolation.

Its grip tightened. Painful, desperate, a last effort to cling to reality.

And then, nothing.

Tricia slowly pulled her hand, as limp and as broken as it now felt, from the vise grip of the fallen Misbegotten, solemnly closing its eyes with her free hand.

She had come to feel the pain of the Misbegotten. The understanding that they were doomed from birth. There was no light of grace guiding them, but it did shine in the shackles that grated against their ankles. It glistened in the eyes of those who herded them towards the mines, cracking their whips against their backs.

It even glistened in her eyes. And the eyes of the Perfumers that failed to cure them.

Tricia had realised, you see. She had realised that the Misbegotten plight could not be cured. It was no curse, no malaise that could be waved away with the administration of a tincture in a vial.

Something she had refused to accept, something that had lead to her expulsion from Leyndell to the volcanic wastes of Mt. Gelmir.

Her role wasn’t to heal. It was to see them off. To smile and promise a cure

People like the Omenkiller Rollo were nothing but mud to her, those who abandoned the path of healer in order to cleanse the impurities of anything untouched by Grace.

She looked down at her hands. These were healing hands, these hands were meant to be curing the sick and stitching together wounds! Not being an unwilling witness to a death she had no power to stop.

By the time she had rose and wrapped her hand in some bandages, she’d made up her mind.

Not a single one. Not a single one of the Misbegotten under her watch would be allowed to suffer death. Not by battle or by the wicked idea of ‘mercy’ that her compatriots held.

Some of the Misbegotten lay about, some cooking what meagre food they had in fire pits they had managed to pull together via wooden shields and formic rock.

Subconsciously, she felt the spark aromatics at her belt, unused since her journey west towards Mt. Gelmir. The road was harsh, but her pouches were full, most of the resources within being used for medicines.

Violence.

The rare chance she had to kill had been shattering. She wasn’t built for war, none of the perfumers were. Many lost their minds to the atrocities they committed during the shattering, becoming Depraved.

Others began to imbibe too heavily of their medicines, becoming just as broken as those who were affected by their weapons.

If it was violence that it took to protect the Misbegotten, preserve the little sanctuary they had, deep under the ground, in a Catacomb that was avoided like Rot?

Then she would gladly choose it.

Her personal Elysium, over the war-torn chaos beyond.

#elden ring #perfumer tricia #writing #misbegotten #erdtree #castle morne #Leyndell #Perfumers #Omenkiller Rollo #fanfic #minific #headcanon i guess?#may not be 100% accurate #to the lore #but eh

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kariachi · 9 months ago

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Sorry still on shit. Given The One Ring-

Kevin wouldn't make it to Rivendell. Too many crevices and cracks for the Ring to sink itself into, he wouldn't last

Ben and Max would not make it to Mordor. The Ring would take full advantage of Ben's burning need to help people, and while Max doesn't have that same bonedeep drive there's plenty of other fault-lines in him it could seep into, like the one the Validuses fell in

Gwen would get further, I think, she might make it to Mordor, but not to Mt Doom. Same as her cousin, though to a lesser extent, that need to help would be a wonderful start point for the Ring

Rook I think would make it to Mordor, but I don't know that he would be able to reach Mt Doom, or throw the Ring in the fire if he did. He might, but I think it's more likely if he did get that far that he would succumb at the end of the journey

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merlions · 6 months ago

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This is specifically re: journeys which are undertaken by a physical body outside of a vehicle - obviously in Left Hand of Darkness they were using sleds, etc, but in all of these they weren't traveling by enclosed powered vehicle like car or space craft, and their physical bodies were very much involved in the travel, as well as the danger of the slow degeneration of flesh and mind by the journey (the main danger not being like a spaceship blowing up or being shot at).

Sorry I couldn't type out Ursula K. Le Guin's full name due to the character limit :/

The origin of this was just me going like "which isnt a lot but it's weird it happened 5 times!" meme, but then was like actually that maybe IS a lot, and then considered: Damn. The unstaunchable yearning one experiences for the raw primal psychosexual bonds built between travelers who are trapped together (or trapped with the memory of a recently deceased loved one, or both) in deadly, miserable, relentless forward motion by circumstance....but are the harsh environment and profound changes to self worth it?? Slash GREAT litmus test for that whole "you say you like summer better but do you actually, or are you just upset it's winter" debate, with side flavors of Dry VS Humid, Volcano And Big Spider and, of course, Very Very Loud

#polls #oough i dont wanna have to tag all of these im gonna just throw a few in #christopher paolini #ursula le guin #left hand of darkness #tolkien #dune #southern reach #fractal noise #whatever um #sci fi books #sure thats enough

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sheikah-simp · 10 months ago

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⭐star⭐ for Exile//Vilify :0

I know this ask was like FOREVER AGO but I was SICK forever ago and couldn't properly rant about Exile//Vilify in the way I wanted to.

For this particular Director's Cut, I want to focus not on one particular passage, but sort of just the whole progressing relationship between Astor and Rose, and how they are reflections of each other and the world that surrounds them.

Astor is in his first year at the abbey when he first sees her - just about thirteen years old - while she is having her seventeenth birthday, triumphantly making her way up Mt. Lanayru. And, incidentally, this is something that is brought up again from Astor's POV at the end of the Epilogue:

Tomorrow, Princess Zelda would be going up Mt. Lanayru, as her mother did before her, as did she with all the hundreds of goddesses with whom she shared a singular soul. ... She, unlike the others, would not be met with flowers and roars of thunderous applause. There would be no showers of trumpets and throngs of people lining in the streets. No, her journey instead was to be made in secret–almost in shame–as the kingdom, in the threat of Calamity, was well aware she had been unable to awaken her mother’s power yet. They had little hope remaining that she would.

But, of course, this passage is not about Rose, although Rose is clearly in his mind. This passage is about Zelda-Sparrow, Rose's "failure" daughter.

Astor spends what he knows to be his final day in "normal" Hyrule--the Hyrule before the Second Great Calamity--looming over the village of Hateno. This was his birthplace, the place that set his prophecy in motion, and the first place in the world that rejected him for his difference. It's the place he was forsaken from the start.

But. He also spends it there because it is in sight of Mt. Lanayru. He was watching Princess Zelda there. I wanted to get into this more, and somewhat had plans to, but there was going to be a portion of the book that just detailed Astor stalking Link, Princess Zelda, and the rest of the Champions while they set themselves up for their own failures. I was going to extend the things I summarized in the Epilogue into their own chapters, but the book was getting longer than I wanted it to be, and Astor's final line is already the pinnacle of the book proper for him:

“I am Astor, your oracle,” he said. “The last seer to the royal family, forsaken child of Hateno Village. Catalyst of the Great Calamity, and Prophet of Doom.”

Astor had owned his identity and his own fate at that point. That's the capstone of the book. There was no need for further chapters, as I thought they'd detract from the gradual progression of Astor's acceptance of his "evil personhood" -- his acceptance of his failures.

A sense of failure, a deep and unshakeable feeling of being damned by the gods, forsaken by Fate, a feeling that he shares with Rose's own daughter, Princess Zelda. Whom the whole kingdom, he knows, shall and already does regard her as a failure. As unable to live up to her legacy, and the legacy of her foremothers.

Rose, to me, and to Hyrule as a whole, is triumph. Even though she does have the inklings of the struggle that her daughter is about to face (she has blockages in her power, can't craft arrows, and ultimately dies because she steps into Malice and is unable to fend off the Stalfos with her light), this is not evident to anyone else in the kingdom. She is, and always would be, remembered as Hyrule's Rose, their beautiful bloom, with a sad, bitter thorn to have been taken so quickly from the world. Even though her power failed her too, this is never how she would be remembered. All of her memory is always joyful and triumphant, because she was chosen and blessed by Hylia, and incredibly, incredibly fortunate in her lifetime. And she is, of course, the inheritor of a kingdom that bears the name of the Goddess that dwells inside her. The Goddess who is always prophesied to win.

Astor, on the other hand, is failure. While Astor is a prodigy in his own right, and "chosen" by Fate in other ways, he is chosen to be favored by the inherent loser--the person in these prophesies that Link and Zelda are always fighting and winning against. The person the kingdom hates. I think that, had I explored Astor following Rose's daughter's journey more, this sense of failure is something he would have deeply empathized with her. Perhaps even developed a sense of love and paternal guardianship over her, especially since she is his last, living connection to Rose. To victory. I think he might have grown to love her the way he would have loved her had Rose still been alive. This is one of the many reasons that I joke that Astor is Zelda's real dad, aside from the fact that he is.

Astor does not know, at the end of the book, if he will live or die. If the Great Calamity - and therefore all his efforts, all his life - will be a success or failure. He knows the kingdom will be plunged into a long era of darkness, and I think he has his suspicions due to the history of the kingdom, but he has also surrendered completely. Because it's not actually about Hylia or Ganon. It is, and always was, about Fate toying with everything and everyone around it. And, having had the great privilege of knowing Fate and dispensing the words of Fate to others, and still considering himself to a degree to be Fate's right hand, he finds peace in the uncertainty. His sense of power and pride comes much less from being a servant of Ganon as it does in knowing that, whether good or evil, he was, in fact, one of those favored (or unfavored) by Fate.

TL;DR Exile//Vilify can be read as a big dissertation on what it means if you are literally, cosmically, pre-destinationally born to be a failure. And then of course there is the shadow of Thelem, haunting the entire narrative, calling out from the pre-destination of his own grave, calling out desperately to Astor that yes, your life and your story will matter, even if that.

Fanfic Writers: Director's Cut

#this didn't even get into Astor and Rose's more obvious good and evil thing #and the LOVE he has for her #just the PINING #but today i wanted to talk about the success/failure thing with them and with the whole book because i think it's evident once pointed out #but incredibly much more subtle #director's cut #exile vilify director's cut #astor #exile vilify #zelda rose #zelda sparrow #asks #fic director's cut #tldr astor is literally just a cosmic failure and that's the book

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lamaison · 11 months ago

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It’s sunny today, which means I can’t play P5 until sunset because it’s too hard to see the screen/dark environments and I don’t have solid shades on the windows behind the tv. So I’ve been watching tv and I just made lunch. I’m going to let it settle for a bit before I try walking on the treadmill again.

I figured out that I can manually add my distance walked to the Apple health app, which syncs with an app called Fantasy Hike. It tracks your distance walked with Frodo’s journey from the Shire to Mt Doom. I thought it would be a fun way to track my exercise.

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aarafox · 2 years ago

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One Last Night

Fandom: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Pairing: Link/Zelda

Rating: Explicit

Words: 7,737

Chapters: 1/1

Summary: The evening before their doomed journey to Mt. Lanayru, Zelda summons Link to her room.

Notes: Happy Tears of the Kingdom release day!!! I posted this on Ao3 yesterday so I’m sharing the link here as well. Check it out if you’re interested! Excerpt below ❤️

It was 11:00 PM, and Zelda was wide awake. She lay on top of her red velvet blanket, hands folded on her stomach, staring at the roof of her canopy bed unable to close her eyes. That pressing feeling that something terrible was about to happen just wouldn’t leave her, and thus her body refused to sign to her brain that it was safe enough to fall asleep.

Tomorrow was her last chance… If she failed to awaken her sealing power in the ancient Spring of Wisdom, what options did she have left? It felt like there was something vital missing, something she should’ve seen already… She’d already prayed at the Spring of Courage and Spring of Power, but since nothing happened there, why would the third one be any different?

She sighed and sat up straight, rubbing her forehead. Everything was quiet around her; the other castle residents had all gone to sleep as well. Though, for some reason, she suspected that a certain appointed knight was still out and about, practicing his combat skills for whatever might lay ahead.

Link… The thought of him made her sigh. Not with a particularly positive or negative emotion—he just made her sigh. They’d definitely gotten closer over the past few weeks, with Zelda carefully confiding in him and prompting him to open up to her in return. She’d started to feel much more comfortable around him, and knew from his behavior that that was mutual. He was actually really caring and considerate, with the way he ignored his own feelings for the sake of her safety and that of the kingdom. Though she’d love to know him on an even deeper level; what he would be like if he wasn’t carrying the duties currently pressing down on him, if he hadn’t been the one chosen by the sword that seals the darkness, if he could live in freedom, which she desired to do more than anything. Perhaps they could’ve been friends, or…

She quickly shook her head, incredulous that her mind had had the audacity to swerve in that particular direction again. If there was one thing she refused to think about, it was about Link and her, tied in romance.

Of-of course it wasn’t that she disliked him! If anything, she liked him a great deal! But even mentally exploring this possibility made her feel like a hole was being carved in the bottom of her heart. Why that was, she didn’t know… Perhaps because being involved with Link that way felt like something she’d only be allowed to do in a different lifetime, in a world where she wasn’t the princess doomed to fail the kingdom, and he wasn’t her knight obligated to silence his own feelings for the sake of the mission.

Oh, to live with him in a quiet town and not care about all the horrible things that were likely to happen in the following month… Wouldn’t that just be the greatest thing?

She groaned softly and closed her eyes. Now she’d allowed her brain to wander to impossibilities after all… All Link-related. Perhaps it was that discomforting feeling telling her that everything was about to go awry, or perhaps it was because she didn’t have anything else to really focus on tonight—but suddenly she wished that he was beside her. She bet his presence would soothe her soul and calm her down, which was funny considering that seeing him used to bring about the exact opposite feeling in the past.

But if her hunch was correct, and he was still out and about… Her eyes trailed to her bedroom door, which she knew was being guarded on the outside by a different knight. It was Link’s duty to stay with her during the day, but he was allowed to at least go to bed at a decent time. There would be no harm in trying…right?

Read it here!

#Breath of the Wild #Zelink #The Legend of Zelda #LoZ #BotW #loz fanfiction #botw fanfiction #zelink fanfiction #Tears of the Kingdom #TotK #Link x Zelda #my writing #this is symbolic for both Link and Zelda's last night of peaceful Hyrule and our last night before the release hahahaha #man I still can't believe it's finally coming I'm going insane #midnight rambles #can someone tell me why the tumblr lay-out adds unnecessary double spaces #I promise I didn't add those in the fic #so I'm posting it again to be sure #sighs

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