#all the wandering light

[pipperoni32-blog]

All the Wandering Light

by Heather Fawcett

I felt like this was such an improvement from Even the Darkest Stars. It took the things I loved from the first book and really built upon them.

After River broke the seal on the witch's powers, all he wants to do is continue exploring, and learning more about the magic he has unfettered access to now. However, his elder brother Esha has different plans. He wants the crown, and he wants to destroy the empire that cast weakened them all those years ago. When a star falls, Esha tasks River with tracking it down, knowing that a fallen star could give him the power to break the empire.

River isn't the only one searching for the star though. Lusha informs Kamzin of the great power a fallen star could hold - the good it could do and the destruction it's capable of. Not willing to see her village fall, Kamzin will do anything in her power to get to the star first.

Through Azar-at, who's now bonded to Kamzin after his partnership with River ended, Kamzin finds herself getting lost in River's memories. Both old ones, and glimpses at his current path. She doesn't know what this means for them, how much the bond connects them, but it does make her realize how conflicted she still feels about River.

For those who weren't a fan of how much Even the Darkest Stars focused on their journey and climb of Mount Raksha, don't give up yet! This one still has them journeying, but not for as long, and we get to learn more about the powers that were locked away, and see the fight for the empire!

[faceeeeee]

Figuring out how the vee twisteds act and behave. Ik that Gigi isn’t technically a machine or a contraption that resembles it but shhhhhhh

[varilien]

since when did the stars stop shining so brightly?

Palestine: Funds | Action | eSims | Info Sudan Resources | Congo Resource | Lebanese Red Cross

[alackofghosts]

wolbert week day 6: vacation

island sanctuary hours!

[idylls-of-the-divine-romance]

Love is the understanding that we are all exiles, immigrants, and pilgrims and we need to find a home. Lovers desire a beloved to make them whole. But it won’t. The desire to be whole is really a desire for a better home, and for the One in that better home. It is a desire for security, safety, and stability in another person. But the truth is: you can't find it in another person. It exists in you. And, paradoxically, outside of you. It is a communion with the self and with an other and only then will you find Home.

[sincerely-sofie]

Thought I’d try out that favorite character bingo thingy… I feel like there’s a pattern here, but I’m scared to identify it.

Blank version under the cut!

[mx-metronome]

imparting wisdom

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts 2 - Space Paranoids

[crystalcanis]

For "The Getting To Know Your Character" Questions: (Fade Away) Kana - "How patient are they with themself vs. Others? Why, and how so?"

Noriel - "What would they Not want to change about themself? What parts of their self do they cling to, desperately? Even when those things would be already gone?" Wonder - "Are they able to perform something 'Quick'? Do they prefer to sacrifice time over quality, or vice versa? How do they dispense effort per task?"

Loona - "Do they think of something as "Their thing", even though other people would disagree? Why so? Are they just not as open or upfront about it as they think? Or do they have gaps in self perception?"

Kana - "How patient are they with themself vs. Others? Why, and how so?"

Love this question, this will actually get shown quite a bit in the scene after the current one in the comic. Its a little complex but in summary I would say Kana is way more patient and lenient with others than she is with herself. The reason for why, is Kana has specific beliefs when it comes to morality, what it means to be a good and bad person, and that includes high expectations for herself because she always feels like she has something to make up for. That "something" is so vague that it can be anything she comes up with in the moment and that's a problem when your mind already can come up with so many horrors as it is, logical or not.

What this leads to is a lot of unfair comparisons between herself and others, where no matter what, she has set herself up for failure and her wrongdoings have a more massive impact in her mind than other people's and thus deserving of bigger punishments. Everyone else is trying their best while she needs to try harder.

I said earlier that its a little complex because if somebody does something that makes them a "bad person" in her mind then LOL. LMAO EVEN. Things change and you're in her level now <\3

Noriel - "What would they Not want to change about themself? What parts of their self do they cling to, desperately? Even when those things would be already gone?"

I LOVE THIS QUESTION A LOT TOO. I'm going to try to not spoil too much since we just started to learn who she trully is instead of other characters' perceptions of her.

Noriel has learned through her little trauma riddled brain that the world works a specific way, how she believes it works is a spoiler for now but they have learned to survive in it through very specific coping mechanisms and beliefs that she keeps close to her chest because they have kept her alive so far. A lot of it boils down to avoidance and detachment I think. THAT is how the world works for her, not in a cynical pessimistic sense but just this is what "normal" is to her. But like obviously no it's not and now that Noriel is out of the foster home more than ever is she forced to face that reality so I think she is very protective of how she's lived her life and defensive if you question her on it at all because to her its essentially like being sent to a different world where the sky is in the ground and the ground in the sky and you have to relearn everything and she would rather Not Do That and if you believe otherwise then you are either naive, stupid or trying to trick her.

Wander - "Are they able to perform something 'Quick'? Do they prefer to sacrifice time over quality, or vice versa? How do they dispense effort per task?"

Ok so the answer to this depends. A part of Wander's character is how in the harsh enviroment that he lives in he finds a way to regain a small bit of control in his own way. And he does this by making himself and what he provides needed enough that he can do his job by his own terms. So taking as much time as he wants despite how much that might anger other people is something he really enjoys because he knows most other people can't really do anything about it. However Wander as a person is very agile and quick and he prides himself on how fast he is on his feet and words. So people seek him out for a reason! He can be quick if needed and provide quality results. But if he doesn't have to be then he won't just because he doesn't want to :3

Loona - "Do they think of something as "Their thing", even though other people would disagree? Why so? Are they just not as open or upfront about it as they think? Or do they have gaps in self perception?"

I think Loona probably sees herself as someone who is emotionally detatched and upfront. Thing is, she does tend to focus more on achieving goals she's set in mind and doesn't deal with emotional situations well so this has caused her to believe that about herself. But in reality she is a very emotional person! A lot of what she is trying to achieve is usually because she feels very strongly about something or someone! She's emotionally motivated but her approaches are logical. And anybody that knows her can see that. What exactly she's feeling is what's a mystery to everyone else. Her emotions are so intense in fact, she ends up burrying them deeply to not get overwhelmed. So most of her feelings and conclussions feel like they come out of nowhere for everyone else because she keeps it all so tight inside her brain (its that ADD man).

[pipperoni32-blog]

“I’m sorry,” Tem said suddenly.

I gazed at him. “For what?”

“I know I made things difficult,” Tem said. His face was flushed, and he didn’t meet my gaze. “When it ended between us, part of me always believed we’d have another chance. It was stupid. I always knew it would end up like this.”

An ache blossomed in my chest. “End up like what?”

Tem smiled faintly. “With you charging off on some adventure. And me staying behind. Though I never guessed it would be in the emperor’s court. You’re like the wind - you’re meant to be out there, among the mountains and the stars, fighting storms and monsters and anything else foolish enough to get in your way. And I’m… well, I’m not.”

“Tem.” I had to pause, to steady my voice. “You know I’ll always love you. Even if it isn’t-“

“I know,” he said. “You’re the most important person in the world to me, Kamzin. I-“ He broke off. “I’ll always be there for you. Whenever you need me.”

I wrapped him in a hug. Above us, the stars brightened.”

— All the Wandering Light

[hide-your-bugs-away]

been thinking about these photos of Alan and Eric backstage at the Scene Club in London non-stop for the past two weeks........

[lead-to-light]

I know it’s generally only a Unified Territories thing, but does anyone else in the Restoration celebrate Thanksgiving.”?

“We don't celebrate thanksgiving over here but we do have our own version called Stump Day,” Lanolin explained.

“And lore-masters Knuckles and Lanolin are here to explain it all to you!” Knuckles shouted, scaring the hell out of Lanolin.

“GAAH! Where did you come from?!” She shouted.

“The Master Emerald but we're not here to talk about that we're here to talk about Stump Day,” he said very matter of factly. “I'll start explaining the origins of it.”

“I clearly don't have a say in this so I'll just play along,” Lanolin chuckled tiredly.

Knuckles began, “The story is so old that there's a bunch of different versions of it and no one can really agree what's the true one so we'll just do our best to explain it all to you. A long time ago there was a village that was centered around a tremendous tree stump. It was so massive it could be used not only as a giant banquet table but also a stage. How the tree was felled in the first place is a whole separate myth that we won't be getting into. Anyway, the people of this village always near end of fall would have a great feast from the harvest atop the stump. but one day when they were all preparing the goods there was a series of catastrophes they each and every one of them suffered ruining the food they had prepared. Like one guy tripped and dropped his entire cart of tomatoes down a cliff, one guy was foiled by a bunch of ravenous flickeys that ate all his corn and there was a guy who got struck by lightning so he couldn't finish his baking. Everyone has their own versions of what each person in this village went through. Some people only list a few, some people can recount all of them but no one version is the same for every person. Some say all this misfortune was caused by nefarious spirits. Maybe they offended some deity. Or maybe it was just pure terrible coincidental bad luck. Again, it depends on who's telling the story. As they all sat down glum about their terrible luck they still brought what they could to the table unleavened bread, a handful of tomatoes, some dried fruit, again depending on who's telling the story,” Knuckles pointed at his fellow lore-master.

Now Lanolin took over with a smile, “The next part though is the part everyone can agree on. For a moment there was silence but then all at once they all started laughing. The pure terrible luck was so terrible that it circled back to being hilarious. They laughed and laughed and laughed and they began eating and celebrating. Finding joy in their misfortune but also the fortune they have to know each other. They sang and ate and with so little food on the stump they were able to dance atop it. But then something miraculous happened and you guessed it this next part depends on who you ask because there are a bunch of different versions of it. One story goes that some spirit or deity saw their joy and their misfortune and decided to give them a brand new feast. Some stories say it's Light Gaia, some say Arcadia, some say it was some spirit with too many eyes and too many hands called Wandagood which I thought for sure was just the Wandering God but then there's an old Mazuri story about something called Wandagood who sounds very different so somebody either traveled there or there was there just a loss of translation or was it the name got garbled over time and we'll never know for sure because two hundred some years ago some marauding assholes burned down half the country erasing all the records THAT WOULD'VE EXPLAINED IT!”

Knuckles looked on in concern as the sheep caught her breath, “You good?”

She sighed, “Yeah I'm fine, lemme continue. A much less supernatural rendition of the story is that a caravan of wealthy merchants were traveling by and heard the commotion. They came over and asked them why they were celebrating over so little. The villagers told them the whole story and the merchants were so moved that they sold their stocked goods to them at extremely cheap prices and decided to help make this small no name village into a great city. Depending on who you ask this either became Central City, Emerald City, Sunset City or Seaside City. Honestly every major city lays claim to the story and sometimes take it way too seriously. I somehow doubt this story more than a supernatural ones because if there's one thing I know about rich people is that they suddenly don't get a chance of heart and make their new home in the middle of nowhere. But what we know for sure is that the story traveled far and wide across mobian lands and here we are. In short, Stump Day is where we celebrate the positive attitude of making the best of a bad situation and give thanks for what we have.”

“Oh but where is it celebrated Lore-Master Lanolin,” Knuckles asked with a wink.

Smiling at his antics, she continued, “It's less popular in cities but everywhere else everyone celebrates when it comes around. Some people even have their own stump they keep.”

This was something Knuckles didn't know, “They do?”

“Yeah but it's more ceremonial. I mean there's no way everyone can keep a giant stump like they do in the story. Some people take the stump very seriously. My uncle told me a story about how one guy burnt someone else's stump and the ground swallowed them whole right then and there. He said the gods were angry at what he did so he was punished. only much later in life did I learn that the area where it happened was an area known for sinkholes so I'm not sure if I was the gods or not,” she said.

Knuckles rubbed his chin, “Weird, I heard a similar story only instead of sinking through the ground, the guy just spontaneously combusted right then and there. But yeah it's not something you wanna, you know, stress test.”

She nodded with a grimace, “For sure, especially the kind of world we live in.”

“What does your family do?” he asked.

With a far away nostalgic look, Lanolin went down memory lane, “Every year there was some sort of fight in my family about whether to serve meat or not. Everyone on my dad’s side of the family didn't want to serve meat as they believed it was offensive, sacrilegious even, to Arcadia. In their version of the story, Arcadia made a massive bounty of fruits, vegetables and mushrooms appear on the stump after seeing their joy. But my mom and only my mom thought that was silly and we should use any kind of bounty the land gives us. If that seems uneven it really wasn't it, my mom had the stubbornness of twenty people. Some years my mom would come out on top and then some years my dad's side of the family would come out on top. It really depended on who got sick of the fighting sooner,” she finished with a smile.

Knuckles held up his hands in surprise, “Woah back up I didn't know people still worshiped Arcadia?”

She nodded, “Oh yeah sure it's more of a rural thing but we even still celebrate the Spring festival. Hell, the medal you win for winning the flower contest has her face on it which again some people find sacrilegious.”

“Huh neat……so what are your plans for Stump Day? Same as usual?” Knuckles asked, unaware of the minefield he just walked into.

Suddenly looking very uncomfortable, Lanolin looked away before speaking, “Uh no not really there has been some changes in my family and the only person I can really talk to is my uncle.”

Knuckles, despite his reputation of being thick headed, was able to read through the lines and sympathy swelled within him, “You know if you want, you and everyone else can come over to my island on Stump Day. I do have a giant stump we can use. You can even bring your uncle if you want.”

Lanolin couldn't be more moved by his offer, “I……I would like that very much. Thank you Knuckles.”

He smiled and put a comforting hand on her shoulder, “It's no problem, after all the day is all about making the best of a bad situation.”

[cuteniaarts]

The weight of the world is a heavy burden

Especially for a child

(Or, in slightly less dramatic terms – I imagine that the first of her past lives that Avatar Suiren [who is the Avatar after Aang instead of Korra in my AU, and also Ghazan and Ming-Hua’s daughter] gets to talk to is Yangchen, because she is too plagued by memories not her own [including Jetsun’s death, fun fact]. And Yangchen wouldn’t want another child to go through what she did on their own)

(Or maybe someone just needed an excuse to draw @katkastrofa’s latest obsession in a context that interests them as well, just in time to maybe cheer her up a little? You can’t prove anything)

[rangers-arecool]

@menelvagor :: eomer | reply to this ::

  There had always been friendly dealings between their people before but the deepening connection between Hal and Éomer would make it firm. If they could figure out why his second in command had suddenly left without a word.

  Aragorn ran a hand through his hair with a sigh as the younger man spoke. “I was hoping that wouldn’t be the case.” Storm blue eyes narrowed a fraction, thoughts spinning through his mind. He was connecting dots and the picture forming wasn’t good.

  ”She’s gone, Éomer. And so has one of the few missions that none of my Rangers dared to do, because of the location.” He replied, before pulling a very familiar pendant and a letter from his pack. “Why would Hal return here when you rejected her courting letter?”

[marycom15]

Him

[caliburn-not-calculator]

Next house a habit is all plotted out… I just, need to write it…

And all my other WIPs

Help me