#So I have to see them processing death

[crazyhickofftheirrocker]

⚠️Fic Alert ⚠️

Seeing as a few people were hoping to see a scene of Carla and Betsy together after Mason's stabbing (as was I 😑), here's my interpretation of how that could've gone- with potentially more to come.

It does get heavy with the whole grief process so fair warning.

[backpackingspace]

Odysseus: demanding Athena take off whatever enchantment she put on him the second the situation ends.

Odysseus: who constantly reminds Athena that he has great plans to grow old and die with his wife so don't even think about getting any ideas.

Odysseus: side eye diomedes who has started fucking glowing he has so many enchantments on him: bro you should talk to Athena about getting those removed. You're going to end up immortal or some shit

Diomedes: who has been a solider since he was 5 who has intersting thoughts about his own personhood who has a much more traditional relationship with Athena and would rather literally stab his own eye out with a rusted sword than speak out of turn: I don't know what you're talking about

[larrylimericks]

20Nov24

The thing that could always bring gladness Will now surely always bring sadness. Four men in black dress Laid their brother to rest. Liam’s gone? What the fuck is this madness?

[shaissa]

[holyshit]

.

[erumai-maadu]

hiashi dying for neji, and hinata by proxy, is so much better than neji’s canonical death for several reasons but thematically it would go so fucking hard for him to sacrifice himself for both a member of the branch family and the daughter he originally deemed worthless

[madqueenalanna]

i choked up soooo bad watching new hotd. jace visibly starting to cry giving rhaenyra his mission report but he called her "your grace" bc he's trying to be a good brave man and she hugged him and he couldn't even finish his sentence. and then him holding joffrey while they threw the little toy horse onto the fire bc luke really was just a little boy!! and it was the horse we saw in the scene from "driftmark" where he said he didn't want to be lord of the tides bc that would mean everyone else was dead!! all he had was his little clothes and his little toy bc he was killed too soon to get even a fancy nice dagger from corlys

[hippo-pot]

Oklahoma! (1955) is a WILD watch. some lovely ballet though

[my-thoughts-and-junk]

rewatching the fool's gold campaign for the first time in a while and god abby makes me mad. grrrrr she makes me so mad (love her)

[arolesbianism]

Everyday I look at my nuggets and go maybe I should let my gay men get bitches. And then I make more nugget yuri instead

[summertimemusician]

Linktober Shadow Day 6

Shadow Beast

The Twilight Princess fan in me really came out on this one huh? I blame the sleep deprivation. We never quite addressed the effects of the Twili Magic on Twilight and how it's only sheer force of will and the fact he's so darn kind, Midna's influence and Time teaching him the Song of Healing first being the main factor in making sure he doesn't fall huh? Even more so than the One Cutscene. We also need to talk more about the fact we technically kill Midna's people and how by the end of it all Twi is so changed by the Twilight Realm who's it's own can of worms that, much like Time he can't quite go home as himself me thinks, as a treat to myself

Mostly Twilight x Reader, this goes out to all of the folks who never quite recovered from Twilight Princess and the fact we never got that sequel (I mean it gave us BOTW and TOTK and Wild, but at what cost?), but can be read as Link x Reader either on the platonic or romantic.

Don't think there's any warning this time but might edit later if needed.

Actually yeah there is one warning

TW:

References to body horror typical to Twilight Princess, though I recommend not reading it I'd you're squeamish period.

Even after so long, you and Twilight could still remember the beauty and solemnity of the Twilight Realm, with it’s zircon skies with clouds of trapped fire and rains of viper obsidian.

The silence of the infection upon the realm of light broken only by the echoes of the howling elegy of the Twili and Interlopers who came before creeping over the land like rot and wither over flowers, the lament of the lost spirits of the people and animals of Hyrule falling over your spirit like a shroud, a shared hymm from two worlds reality had been twisted, only both of it’s princess, one filled the luster of empyreal sorrow in her mind and one with the scorch abyssal fury in her heart knowing to see the reflective tragedy befallen to their people. With Link as the one who restored the memory of what once was in both worlds as divinity and calamity sang in his bones and you a witness to the restoration of harmony to the discordant symphony, the two different songs of light and shadow refusing to let go of either of you in an eternal duet.

(Once touched by magic, it shall never leave the one if holds onto Twilight may have been the one with the Beast in his soul, with the howl of a wolf, the bite of shades in his veins and the lament of innocents taking precedence over anything purely because he learned how to silence the whispers of the one’s who made a grab for heaven’s throat and we’re pushed in the cracks of reality for their prideful vánitas even as he could taste it in the back of his tongue, twining around his ribs and overgrowing into his shattered mirror heart like vines, flowering with the divinity and eternal nature of the Hero’s Spirit, already having the hunt of the Fierce Deity in it’s veins and the remains of cursed divinity welcoming the new aspect merrily so he could bear it. The song of the innocent wrongly punished among the sinners rang into your mind, scratched at your skin and dug it’s claws around your throat, chocking you with sorrow and regret, more willing to leave gouges than to let go of someone’s who’s looked into the reverse side of the sacred realm and wept with grief for it’s people and the curse of it’s beauty.

It would never leave you, Link or Zelda, who learned who love the darkness the way Midna did, madness and unsightly delight and all.)

While the people of Hyrule merely became trapped as observers at best, if they were lucky, Midna’s raging grief and resentment quickly became obvious, once she revealed that rotten Zant had done to her and her people, twisted into a new form, distorted in body and trapped in mind like the animals and beasts of Hyrule, their pain driving them in becoming feral attack hounds for the usurper, their howling screams as much sorrow, wailing in an attempt to let their agonized, tortured souls to escape from it’s mouth, a futile attempt to flee from the strain of reality forgetting their true form in favor of Zant’s twisted design, of being used as sentient canvases for cruelty and ruthlessness, of their will being stepped over in favor of corrupting recreation.

Of how it only didn’t quaff down at Midna’s mind because of the nature of her ephemerality, fully beloved by the Realm of Darkness, of how she loathed him for it and wouldn’t wish her fate of that of her people’s on any living or dead soul, once she came to love the Realm of Light through Zelda’s sacrifice.

Which was why, when you saw three of the victims of the telltale twisting from darkness utilized with the intent to drive one insane, a familiar looking plate of stone engraved on the remains of ashes from their identity, the curling of distorted, solid darkness making crooked mishapen manes, bent out of shape from their too long torso and long, long arms adorned with twitching, deformed claws, you feel very justified in way your blood froze, holding onto Wild’s arms and yanking with all you had so his shot will miss, his yelp of surprise swallowed by the bone cracking, blood curdling screech from one of the beasts as a Skyward Strike grazed it’s petrified flesh.

You feel something warm drip down your ears, taste the promise of violence and the cry of lost souls on the back of your tongue and swallow it down as the memory of the Twilight Realm attempted to bite and crack your ribcage to quaff down your heart, to devour it bones and all, calling out in desperation, “Don’t! That’s a person!”

Sky freezes, as still as a statue, Legend curses the heavens crimson in a way you are so glad Wind isn’t around to hear as he retreats Twilight snarls, the wolf in him revolted and disgusted, you wonder if the Twilight is singing in his mind too as he restrains himself from reaching for the crystal as nails just a tad too sharp invite droplets of blood to one hand, grimm as a graveyard “We need to get them together anyway, felling just one won’t be enough.”

You grimace, releasing Wild, keeping your eye on the Shadow Beasts and another on your group, pointedly not mentioning the twitch in Four, amethyst clouding his gaze and the prism of his eyes turning gray with memories you and Twilight both knew all too well, of the grimace in Time’s otherwise stony countenance, you’d wished to avoid bloodshed of whoever was turned against their will, but you and Twilight both knew that might not be possible, death, unfortunately, might be the greatest mercy you can grant these poor souls.

(The Twilight is harmonizing in your ears, jeering, you feel the Interlopers insanity and the Twili’s lament on your teeth. As lovely as it could be cruel, the merry feeling upon meeting, the sorrow at a parting.

If you ever see the Shadow, you might just try indulging the echo by offering it’s blood as tribute. You'd make it hurt. The fact it learned the spell used to deform reality in such a way was cruel and vile.)

“Legend, how is your magic?” shoots Warriors, analyzing, calculating, it snaps the purple back into Four’s gaze, brings his mind back to focus as he reaches into his inventory for his Moon Pearl, Twilight is circling the beasts with single minded purpose, herding them together and prowling as he would as a wolf, Wild thankfully listened to your warning and had switched from the more destructive Flame and Lightning Arrows to ice ones. It doesn’t contain them for long but it gives a few precious seconds to strategize.

Legend catches on, switching to the Ice Rod on one hand and grasping his own Moon Pearl with the other, Sky has another Skyward Strike ready, but doesn’t release it, you switch from your sword to accepting a Magic Rod tossed at you from Wild, “Good enough.”

You breath in shakily, the symphony of the Twilight Realm has quieted, more lament than anthem as it’s Hero steps back, returning to your side, he nods grimly, “... Then, let’s end this quickly.”

You know your will boys will do their best to heal them, and failing that, you hope that they’ll hear the requiem of the Twili rather than the lament once they’re at peace, that they'll find some form of threnody.

It is a horrible thing, to be forced to die as a beast.

[orangeearlgray]

I feel like I don't talk enough about how much I love Key but things like this especially make me love him so much more. I really really love how matter of fact and real he is about Jonghyun and his own grief

[cafepietra]

Hi! 10 or 35 for the Rook story time prompts?

omfg hi, thank you so much for the prompts! i love all the stuff you've been posting btw

i went into this with the intention of doing both, but uh. the first one got away from me, so we'll go with that i guess! cw for referenced child death.

Rook Story Time - 10. Rook attending a funeral.

The scent of incense sticks to the roof of Simonetta's mouth.

She's spent enough mornings half-dozing through regular services that the heavy, strangely sweet smelling smoke is already familiar to her, but she's never had to put up with it for as long as she is today. And with every passing moment stuck in place while the chanting drones on, she can feel it snaking its way around her, embedding itself into her clothes, her hair.

A wall of taller mourners blocks her view of the real ceremony ahead, Viago at her side. Whose funeral is this in the first place? Did she ever know the answer to that question? A Crow, presumably; the rest of the chantry is packed with other Crows, solemn but strangely detached. The turnout tells her it must be an important one, but boxed in here with no view and nothing but perfumed air and disembodied voices for company, it doesn't matter.

Maybe if she closes her eyes she can fill in the gaps left by the bodies around her with her own imagination. At first she tries her hand at inventing a corpse to fill the urn: a daring, handsome Crow who died an honorable death, taking his final contract down with him. Someone worthy of all of this ceremony. It leaves her cold, and her imagination narrows into something smaller, something more real. She finds herself dreaming of the older fledgling who had gently corrected her stance the first time she held a practice foil in her hand.

An elven girl with a gentle smile and seemingly endless patience, one who was easily six, seven years older, surely with better things to do than take a skin and bones urchin freshly dragged in off the street under her wing. But there she was, not a thought for concepts like rivalry or pride, an anchor for a child who felt herself already going adrift. Until-

The chantry air is cloying and thick in her lungs.

It happened without commotion, without explanation. Just the day before she had been trailing behind her like a shadow in the courtyard, and now...nothing. Not even her questions were being answered, just met with a mixture of pitying glances and hard stares, if they were acknowledged at all. All she had to cling to were a few overheard whispers, snippets she caught whenever someone didn't think to look out for tiny ears.

"Should have known to look out for-"

"Bound to lose a few with every crop."

"...Would have happened eventually, that one was always..."

"What a waste."

Her parents were gone before she was old enough to remember their faces, let alone their deaths. They existed, hazy and incorporeal, in idle imagination and nowhere else. Death until that moment had been an abstract: something to be mastered and harnessed in the service of a still far-off future. Not something that happened to the people around you.

She remembers the way she had clung to herself in a hidden corner of the training grounds, the dread she felt at the thought of being caught crying while everyone around her carried on. The way she had swallowed long gasps of air to push the tears down to the pit of her stomach, down where she could build a fragile, shaky dam-

She is brought back to herself by the back of a hand nudging her shoulder; Viago is motioning that it's time to go. She is on her feet before he can vocalize the command. Outside in the sunlight, where the air is no longer too thick to breathe and smells of bright, inviting things, she inhales a long breath and swallows it.

Rook can't put her finger on why, years later, watching pyre smoke build past the roofs of the highest buildings in Treviso, these are the memories her mind calls forth, but wistful is the only word she can find for what she feels. She envies the child who could bring her tears to the surface so easily. But the dam is complete now, and she finds that no matter how hard she tries, all she can manage are the breaths.

The scent of burning wood sticks to the roof of her mouth.

[im-traumatised]

I did it. I finally found my middle name. I've been set on what I'll change my first and last name to for years now, but I was tossing around different middle names still, and it's been one of the things that's kept legally changing my name as not a priority. But I've finally connected to a middle name and I'm kinda itching to finally make it offical offical now. So think it's becoming more of a priority at long last.

[laugtherhyena]

I'm so normal over Ayame Hatano guys trust me-

[viaetor]

SPECIAL HEADCANON I’VE BEEN WORKING ON which i may or may not write a future drabble about, but for now, just a simple post will do since i’ve been developing these with some dear writing partners of mine. to put it simply, since i’ll also be integrating this from hereon, my aether has a lowkey god complex when it comes to his (im)mortality.

as i’ve stated in a lot of other headcanon posts, he isn’t human; he’s a star-forged deity, a caeling. this means that his species is meant to live for billions of years, just like real stars would. he and lumine are quite young in comparison to other caelings, being around three thousand years old each. they are (or, well, were) known to be all-powerful, controlling cosmic elements and what have you, loved and respected by the astros above in the sea of stars, the prime of fighters and universe’s willmakers. therefore, having battle scratches or getting hurt was a luxury they’d experience once in a thousand years.

ever since falling in teyvat, aether lost his wings, his divinity, his strength, his ability to communicate with the stars, as well as his connection with lumine—he knows all of that, and he grieves deeply, for he feels those losses in his very core. but he doesn’t realise that, since he’s bound in teyvat by its laws and concepts, his very being bends to them. he’s stronger than most, sure, but that doesn’t mean he’s much more resistant than a regular vision holder human. and he refuses to see that (perhaps because he doesn’t sense it immediately). he bleeds a black, thick type of blood—yet because he has never been injured that badly before, it’s unconceivable to him to even consider that that blood on his hands is his. death doesn’t come easily as a concept to him either—others can die, it’s life’s natural cycle for humans and mortals alike, but him and lumine? no. that can’t be… right? so even if his vision is blurry and he’s dizzy, feeling his energy wearing out, he won’t ever think that there’s any actual danger to himself. he’s a warrior. he was designed for this. to fight, to protect, to serve. he can’t lose this, too.