#give me my bastardised child now

[tiny-planet-13]

thoughts and ideas I quit my degree and attempt to make exy a real sport

[featherlouise]

So what happens after Hollow attacks their father? How do their parents deal with it? How are they treated afterwards?

Also, is the whole vessel plan discarded? What does PK do about Radiance? Also, how would other people who were involved or knew about the plan (like the dreamers or five great knights) react to this turn of events?

Sorry for all the questions djdbfn I love your AU 🥺👉👈

Pls don't apologize for asking questions !!!

I love gushing about my characters/ AUs lmao

Okok so I'm gonna try my best to answer all ur qs

(also u are under no obligation to read all of this, it turned out a lot longer than I expected :D)

1. Basically, after the attack (I'm assuming u mean after Hollow stabs themself but if not I'd be happy to talk about the actual confrontation lol) there's a lot of panic regarding whether Hollow's going to survive or not, so there's not really any time to properly process the whole "holy fuck the thing I thought was a bastardisation of the corpse of my child is actually just my child," so it's only after Hollow's been stabilised that I can imagine PK and WL sitting down and coming to terms with it.

The infection REALLY does a number on u, both mind and body, so Hollow's basically just snoozing in some sort of (dreamless) healing coma while their parents have a breakdown at their bedside. I imagine PK and WL's relationship to have been pretty strained since the vessel plan was enacted, like they still love each other but they can't really seem to agree on anything anymore.

Ditching the vessel plan is the first thing they've wholly agreed on in 17 years.

2. So! Immediately after they wake up, I think there'd be a lot of overcompensation on WL's part. She was never a mother to Hollow and she feels IMMENSELY guilty about that fact, so she'd probably start trying to be super motherly to them, giving them food, being affectionate, trying to start conversations, etc, which freaks Hollow tf out bc it's a COMPLETE 180 to how she interacted with them before. Before the reveal, she was super detached, kind of like she is towards Ghost in the game, mostly in an attempt to remove herself from the entire situation?? Like if she doesn't acknowledge them she can't get lost in her grief?? Cuz I imagine she genuinely believed that the void had sucked out her child's soul and was piloting around their corpse (or something of the like) and then there's the GUILT of the whole situation, KNOWING that you had a part to play in the death of so many of your children, that you were complicit to something so cruel?? I don't think she'd be able to truly face it, so she basically just let herself ignore them. And the most she ever really saw of them was when they were sent to guard her gardens and Hornet dragged them from their post.

So. Now she's seizing the opportunity to finally get to know her child, but she's also not really taking their feelings into account on top of ignoring the very real trauma that Hollow has from being treated like a glorified roomba their entire life. Her main coping strategy seems to be to just. Ignore her problems lmao (she like me fr fr)

3. SO. Pk. Whooo boy.

At this point, I don't think he'd realise that Hollow was never hollow, bc then he'd have to face the possibility that none of the vessels were hollow, and if that's the case, how many of his children has he killed?? He knows a fair few of the vessels were stillborn, but how many hatched and died at the bottom of the abyss, cold and alone and scared??

(Yes the vessels hatched, yes this is a gijinka au where most people are born like humans. Higher beings are weird and also non human, moving on)

So PK at this point believes that at some point while growing up, Hollow had an idea instilled and,, gained consciousness?? Ig?? And he likely blames himself bc of course he does.

With PK there's a lot of guilt there, which I think would mostly lead to complete avoidance, bc "surely my child doesn't want to see me after how I've treated them, I'd better give them space,"

Meanwhile Hollow is wondering whether their fears truly have come true and their father does hate them for not being pure.

Just. A lot of miscommunication.

When they finally talk it out, there WILL be tears.

4. The Dreamers!!

With Herrah, I think she'd be a pretty big support for Hollow during their recovery. I don't think Herrah was ever truly convinced that Hollow was pure?? Like she witnessed a lot of small moments between them and her daughter while they thought nobody was looking, along with subtle mannerisms that just. Wouldn't be there if they were pure.

Like, Hornet once roped them into playing hide and seek with her, and as smart as her baby is, the Pure Vessel, were they completely hollow, would only be able to act when given orders, and there's no way a 5 year old managed to give complex enough orders for them to be able to follow. She probably just yelled at them to play with her and they did lmao (bc they can't say no to their bby sister duh)

Herrah was also on the outside, so there was no reason for her to go into denial or detach herself the way Hollow's parents did, so she'd be much more likely to notice them shifting on their feet, their ear flicking when they tune into a nearby conversation, the way they'd lean into any and all contact with other people, how reluctant they are to let Hornet down when she no longer wants to be carried by them, etc etc.

Herrah may be titled the Beast, but she's not stupid. However, at this point, she's seen them spar with the Knights, she knows that they would be able to escape unnoticed if they wanted to, they're definitely skilled enough. So that means that if they end up being sealed inside the temple, it's their decision, and she respects them for that.

She also notices how reverently they treat their little sister, so if nothing else, they can bond over their mutual adoration of her.

Herrah's a pretty abrasive woman, loud and unapologetic, so I figure she'd be a nice change to the coddling of their mother, and Herrah ends up promising them a place in deepnest if they ever feel the need to escape the palace.

Herrah's the only dreamer I've really thought about?? And since she was there when the incident happened, she's very present for pretty much the entirety of Hollow's recovery. The other 2 don't really come into it till later, so for now let's just say they're all probably pretty relieved that they don't have to sacrifice themselves anymore lmao.

5. The 5 Great Knights!!

I don't have anything super specific about these guys yet? But I imagine they'd be friendly to Hollow. Hollow looks up to them all quite a lot and they were probably the closest things they had to friends growing up?? But honestly not much really changed there except they start trying to bring them into conversations, and they're always willing to spar if Hollow ever wants to.

6. Finally, RADIANCE!!

So I imagine that after Hollow has stabilised, PK will immediately start trying to distract himself by basically preparing for war. If it wasn't personal before, it definitely is now. The Radiance discovered his child's sentience before anyone else and what's the first thing she does?? Turn them into a weapon to be used against him (slightly hypocritical of u there my guy)

There's probably a lot of feelingsy bullshit that everyone (ESPECIALLY the royal family) needs to work thru before any action can really be made against Radi, so for the most part she's just simmering in the background. Her who was probably bruised when Hollow managed to wrestle control away from her so she's probably licking her wounds in the dream realm, but after a few months, infection rates start to REALLY spike again, because she is PISSED.

I could make PK and Radi duke it out but I kinda wanna lean into Hollow’s empathy?? Like they’re hyper empathetic and I feel like after having Radi in their head for a while they’d come to understand her anger?? Like they still want her gone but they understand that she has every reason to be pissed at PK, at least from her pov. (I’ll get into Hollow’s feelings regarding Radi in a later post bc this is getting ridiculously long now lmao)

So maybe eventually they can come to an agreement with Radi?? I’m not sure on the details but I don’t think I wanna just kill her off.

WOW this was really long, sry if it’s super rambly I’m basically just word vomiting into my notes app lol

And if you’ve read this far, ty!! Glad u love my blorbos as much as I do （ ＾ν＾）

[sorcerese]

29. A memory they can’t let themselves forget

' isn't she the one lord tatarrah...? the mage you've been seeking ? '        a voice whispered behind her, she turned. no one was behind her. was she imagining it? maybe. she continues her walk down the rolling hills to meet up with her brother. every step she took felt heavy and sluggish her legs collapsed under her like a newborn fawn. she struggled to breath like she was under marsh; bogged down by the mud and murky water, amber hues lift their gaze towards the bottom of the hill where her brother's surprisingly broad back was turn to her; she choked on her own breath and stretched out towards him every vocal cord wanting to scream ' brother, help! '  but they never made a sound like a broken harp it was hollow and empty. she wheeze out a pained dream as she fell into what seemed like a deep slumber, a narrative waste of dark and gloom.

                                        ' DELTHEA !! '       she clutches her head  ... b-brother.... god, why the hell is he soooo loud this time, she already did chores what more does he want... quit yelling my name, geez!  she groans as fleshy curtains finally draw open from her forced slumber, she blinks slowly as the faces of her battle-worn brother and his newfound allies come into view. she blinks her eyes shut again, wincing in pain. her head was still pounding so loudly. she finally opened her eyes up still shaky in vision and what felt like the taste of regret a poison on the roof of her mouth. the thoughts filled her head like honey-doused poison. she began to look around and regret after seeing the field ablaze; the broken lattice of magic circles that she only known to be hers. the child nearly begins to cry. did she do that? was this her so called talent? and what for she never asked for this. she realized that she had always been an awkward combination of ' why did i say that? '  -   '  why didn't i listen to brother? ' -   'why didn’t i say something?'  -  'i'm bored.' but never said anything like ' i’m too scared to properly learn how to live.'   so this is what brother was scared of. the girl understood now after so many years. she grew so tired of hiding, of saying no to any new opportunity because they were afraid of where it will take her.

to think something like this unknown torture; to her that this so-called 'slumber' would fear set her on a road and anxiety ensured that she’d never have to experience that again. they explained the situation much to her dismay. she gritted her teeth in annoyance. she didn't want to hear it. saltwater tears stings behind her eyes, she didn't wish to remember. she rather suffer the memory loss, she couldn't stand it. she stuck out her tongue and rubbed her hands against her arms, pretending to brush off goosebumps. " ugh, EWWW ! are you serious what a creep...! " delthea says with annoyance and disgust; attempting to play it off like she wasn't too affected by it. the mage dug her nails into her palm as she spoke, taking everything in her to not break down in front of everyone. ' that would be too damn embarrassing they won't take me with them if they just think i'm a whiny child who cries at anything. i'm too scared to be on my own anymore... ' is what she thought in the moment where she saw the priest tending to the wounded. she decided to lie to herself. to lie to everyone else as well. to lie to her own brother. that was the only conclusion she had in order to have the strength to change course and since then she's following that bastardisation of true north ever since. so, she took the future king's hand with one foot forward and a smile so bright that it melted those awful thoughts. she turns to lu and grins ear to ear after bubbling up into a giggle.   "  i'm sorry i worried you, lu... good thing you had help from the deliverance, right?  thanks for helping us, so if lu is sticking with you guys, i get to come too, right? trust me, i'll give your all enemies a run for their money! " 

[myazavier]

First of all this is so wild yall this acc is a bastardisation of my deadname (based on some nickname but spelt wrong) but hi ig I'm back to rant.

I'm just so sick n tired of my parents and I just feel so bad when I see them emotionally neglecting my brother. they've just had another kid n they have just started w the barrage of "shut up idc that you're upset" and he just wants his mum to give him the attention she gave him before. but they won't. and I can't stop feeling guilty for it, as if I can fix anything. I'm still a fucking kid but I have the intense need to make sure he doesn't end up how I did. that he feels loved. they act surprised when he acts the way they raised him to. they've already started the "stop that you're not a child!" as if he isn't a 6 year old. but why is it my fault? why do I have to pick up the slack? this is one of the most important academic years of my fucking life. and I now also feel guilty for not being a pseudo parent

quite frankly I'm just sick and tired. I'm sick of my dad already thinking I've had my 18th birthday. any other birthday I'd not really care. hes never been very present, why would he know how old I am? but he didn't even remember whether his oldest child was a legal adult yet. and then I'm the issue for being upset about it. I'm sick about the fact that I can never say this ever to anyone in school despite literally treating my physics teacher as a pseudo mom figure, because I know the potential safeguarding fallout. I don't even know if I'm a safeguarding issue anymore. am I telling everyone too much? am I too much? ugh that's just my mentally ill thoughts again just I thought I was doing okay.

I really thought I was doing well. but ig nothing can ever change. I'm still fucking traumatised. because when will I ever not be. its not like they're ever going to get better. it's not like I'm not going to be unable to walk and then get told off when I agree to accepting things people offer bc I'm "selfish" for being,,, yknow,,, too disabled to put weight on my leg rn. and then given the things but in a way that still makes me feel awful. and I'm just sick and tired

and they're just fucking sick. who treats a child like this? who decides that this is how you act? I never got a fucking childhood. I didn't know how to talk to people until fucking ages 12 because noone talked to me as a child. I was a fucking cunt. and hurt people. and got hurt. and yknow what, who else can I blame it on? if I got better n treat people better, clearly I just wasn't taught how to act. and whose fault is that? the parents who did the exact same thing they're doing to my brother to me. caring for (rather than 6, 2) and then tossing me aside for the next tiny thing to come along n be loved.

I spose the one good thing about this is that I can feel again. I have the ability to *feel* the traumatic event when it happens. I have the ability to feel my parents slowly chip away at me as a person and deal w it that day. which feels like a backhanded achievement. my brain has decided I'm strong enough to see the reality of where I am. and I hate it

but hey. 1 year to freedom. 1 year til I move out to uni and I can live away from them. they can't hurt me if they can't interact with me, right? it's really the only thing keeping me holding on

[astradrifting]

GRRM really created so many parallels and foreshadow using the DoD characters that honestly we could just figure the asoiaf ending by analyzing it. My favorite is the Aegon III-D@ny parallels, the fact that one of his closest allies was a face-scarred Master of coin Lannister who ended as Hand to Bran' parallel character just make it so obvious its funny.

Oh my god I didn’t even realise Tyland Lannister was initially on the greens’ side! I’m not super fond of Tyrion ending up as Hand, but you’re right that it’s so obviously meant to reference him. There’s so many parallels that it’s a little crazy. I don’t want to say that the second Dance will end exactly as the first did, it’d be a little too neat if history repeated entirely, but you can see so many echoes of it even in the show’s bastardised ending.

“The broken, shattered realm suffered for a while yet, but the Dance of the Dragons was done. Now what awaited the realm was the False Dawn, the Hour of the Wolf, the rule of the regents, and the Broken King.”

(TWOIAF, Aegon II)

I’m not sure what the False Dawn is going to parallel to, it refers to the period of time after Aegon II’s death but before Lord Stark got to King’s Landing, when people thought that peace had finally come. It kind of brings to mind the War for the Dawn, though personally I think that the threat of the Others will be resolved before the Dance is over. The Hour of the Wolf is obviously about House Stark’s rise back to power, and the Broken King is Bran - though if he actually becomes known as Bran the Broken I might end up committing violence ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. 

The parts about Lord Corlys Velaryon are why I’m so hopeful that Jon’s book ending will be completely different from the show’s. He’s arrested for Aegon II’s death by Cregan Stark, even though Cregan had previously declared for Rhaenyra, because as TWOIAF puts it, “to kill a cruel and unjust king in lawful battle was one thing. But foul murder, and the use of poison, was a betrayal against the very gods who had anointed him.”

Corlys didn’t deny his guilt, and expressed no regret. “What I did, I did for the good of the realm. I would do the same again. The madness had to end.”

Cregan Stark declared him to be guilty of murder, regicide, and high treason, and he was sentenced to execution. But many spoke in his defence, even people who had fought against him in the Dance. Baela and Rhaena Targaryen, Corlys’ granddaughters and Aegon III’s half-sisters, convinced Aegon to issue an edict pardoning Lord Velaryon, which Alysanne Blackwood then convinced Cregan to let stand. Lord Velaryon was pardoned and even restored to his offices and honours, made one of the king’s regents and given a place on the small council.

Corlys’ words definitely could be Jon’s as well, a much more in-character declaration post-D@ny’s death than the drivel GoT tried to feed us. I was worried for a bit that this would be how Tyrion is let off scot-free, but Baela and Rhaena, who were vital to his release, are such obvious Arya and Sansa stand-ins, and they’re certainly not going to expend any effort in helping Tyrion. So Corlys’ circumstances more likely lays the groundwork for how Jon will be freed and remain in political power, while Tyland frankly inexplicably becoming Aegon III’s Hand after he was in favour of brutally killing him parallels Tyrion managing to fail up, as a way of reconciling the old regime with the new one.

This makes Tyrion becoming Hand more palatable IMO. Either Jon and Tyrion both should have been punished or neither should have been punished, not the travesty where Tyrion gets everything he’s ever wanted while Jon is exiled to a Watch with no purpose and a Wall that’s already half-collapsed, so what exactly can it protect against? I suppose they were afraid of seemingly rewarding Jon for killing d@ny, especially if pol!Jon had been revealed, but most people noticed how nonsensical his ending was, and it just led to ‘Bloodraven/Bran is the real villain’ takes anyway.

(Side note: Asha/Yara basically still being loyal to D at the end annoys me so much, and made no sense. Jon did more to help save her by giving Theon that pep talk than D@ny did. Maybe it was a leftover from her taking Victarion’s role in the story, but in no reasonable world is anyone going to listen to the Ironborn who brought the Fire threat over in the first place.)

Of course Tyland Lannister isn’t actually Hand for long, given that he dies barely two years later from Winter Fever, feared and hated, alone except for a maester and King Aegon. It might be an indication that Tyrion will face a similar fate, that he’ll die after he’s seemingly won, exactly what he threatened Cersei with:

“A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you'll know the debt is paid."

(ACOK, Tyrion XII)

So that I can stop talking about Tyrion, here’s some facts about Rhaena and Baela that are obviously meant to reference Sansa and Arya, so much so that it feels a little bit like GRRM is winking and going “See what I did there? Huh? Huh? Did you see??”:

- their descriptions: “Rhaena was slender and graceful; Baela was lean and quick; Rhaena loved to dance; Baela lived to ride...” + “Baela was wild and willful”, “more boyish than ladylike”, and kept her hair cropped short as a boy’s

- Rhaena spent most of the Dance in the Vale, where she lived in relative comfort as the ward of Lady Jeyne Arryn. Baela was a dragonrider and so moved between Dragonstone and Driftmark, but was captured on Dragonstone when Aegon II descended upon it

- Rhaena was favoured to be queen after her brother, considered more qualified than her wild sister

- Baela liked to spend time with “unsuitable companions” she would bring to the Red Keep - including a comely juggler, a blacksmith’s apprentice whose muscles she admired (!!!), a legless beggar, a pair of twin girls from a brothel, an entire troupe of mummers once

- After her brother’s regents tried to marry her to a lord 40 years older than her, Baela escaped the Red Keep by climbing out of a window, trading clothes with a washerwoman, then walking right out of the front gate. She ran away to Driftmark and married her supposed cousin (though more likely he was her half-uncle), the legitimised bastard Alyn Velaryon, which might have had me worried about j0nrya if Alyn weren’t best known for being a daring sailor who went on many voyages, including sailing the Sunset Sea, until he was finally lost at sea during Aegon IV’s reign. Alyn’s mother was also called Mouse, for being “small, quick, and always underfoot.”

- another fun fact about Alyn: he’s a bad haggler, and had to agree to a high ransom and many concessions in order to get Prince Viserys returned to Westeros. This automatically disqualifies him as a Jon stand-in, because as we all know, Jon Snow can haggle like the best of fishwives.

- My absolutely favourite detail that has my jonsa heart singing - Rhaena was more dutiful than her sister and would have married a man that the king and council chose, saying that as long as he was “kind and gentle and noble, I know that I shall love him.” She was able to marry her first choice, whom the regents didn’t immediately approve of but that they ultimately accepted  - Ser Corwyn Corbray, the brother of the Lord Protector of the Realm, a second son (!) whose late father had gifted him the Valyrian steel sword Lady Forlorn (!!!)

And as a treat for @istumpysk, some similarities between Rickon and Viserys II!

- the youngest child of their family

- separated from their older brother after they were forced to flee their home, trying to get to safety while their other brothers and mother were at war

- worshipped their oldest (half-)brothers, but were closer to the brother nearest their age

- spends the war stuck on an island, populated by people closely linked to their family’s origins - Skagosi are descended mostly from the First Men, while Viserys was on Lys, where the blood of Old Valyria still runs strong

- sought by/held hostage by a powerful and wealthy family, who will treat them well but whose intentions are dubious

- will be brought back from exile by an upjumped bastard/commoner from a port town who was raised to lordship and became their monarch’s chief admiral

- after they are returned, long after the wars and crises, is happily welcomed as the heir to their older brother’s throne (shhhhh just let me have this, let the baby live)

Thanks for the ask!

[reginarubie]

Working on next chapter of «Wind of ice»

“You belonged to me,” she murmured, her voice far off as she crossed her arms over herself and looked beyond, the Riverlands verdant hills extending beyond what eye could see, her gaze northward, back home, she turned to him “you loved me once,” she told him “it can be that way again,” her gaze was unfocused, downward and void. Scaringly and achingly empty, she looked as if nothing could unfaze her. He reached out, out of use if nothing else, he had never wished her harm, nor sorrow, yet he had caused it anyway. When he had first laid with her, he had not thought much far ahead, he had always believed a northern match would be arranged for him and that she could be taken into consideration. She was beautiful, that much he could not deny, even in her sorrow, but she was unyielding iron, prone to rust and break. When his father had denied them the match he had suffered, but he once he had seen her married to a man worthy of her, a man who loved her, he had, had faith the Gods knew better and had love in store for her. He could not fathom she would cling to what they had shared years after it had been consumed. He could not even had dreamed in his wildest dreams that Avaelya would've turned out to be all he had wished for but hand't known how to put into words. He couldn't even imagine someone as Avaelya. Curt and polite, soft and yielding, but also strong and resilient. Someone who'd be able to give him soft laughter and quiet evenings spent at a candle light barely talking, just breathing each other in. He hadn't fathomed he would fall so helplessly that he was left bare and vulnerable with an armour and strong and unflinching without but with her at his side. He didn't fault Barbrey her wish to let go of the past, when he himself was unwilling to let go of the present, yet he wished she would find the strength to move forward instead than backwards. One of Barbrey's hands rose to curl over his own resting against her shoulders, and squeezed. Comfort seeping in the touch, but feeling foreign and wrong. Her hands were clammy and cold. He could recognise Avaelya's hands blindfolded, they held a warmth that was so easily identifiable, dry and soft, comforting and scorching. Branding him and exhilarating him all at once. “It was youth, not love,” he told her retracting his hand gently “you can't compare youth with the love I bear my wife,” he murmured “the mother of my children” he told her “the past should stay in the past, lingering there will only heighten your sorrow” He had never had a way with words, preferring to show with actions his meanings, so he let his hands fall to his side and then slowly rose the right to his medallion, on the back of which was depicted a dragon, reminding him of his own dragon. His wife. Barbrey followed his movement, a sneer blooming on her pretty lips. “What of my grief?” Barbrey's voice held steel and was as cold as it was heartfelt “when she came she took my man, and I was powerless to stop her, I still am,” a sob almost tore at her throat “and now,” she turned to him, her eyes were shining with tears “now a war fought in her name threatens to take both the man I love and my husband from me,” she told him “and all I can do is sit and watch as the man I love risks his life for her, and she sits prettily in her fancy chamber letting people disparage your name and your honour, letting them try and annul your marriage and bastardise your children without moving a finger” she stepped closer “if you had given me a child I would have fought to defend it,” she murmured, her gaze flickering to his lips and back to his eyes “I would've died to defend it, not sit in a tower and waited,” Her words were like a punch in his gut, he knew his wife was fighting this battle the only way she knew how. He knew she loved him. “I would not have left your side, or that of our child, had you taken me for wife,” Barbrey breathed out “I would not have stepped as far away from you as an inch”

Brandon pushed her away. Barbrey almost staggered as she blinked up at him, tears escaping her eyelashes. “I love my wife, Barbrey” gone was his gentle tone, his face had become stone “and I won't have you speak naught of her in my camp, or to my face. Think of her what you will, but you will respect her as it's her due as my wife, the lady Avaelya Stark, the lady of Winterfell” he stated “or I'll have you packed and removed from my camp, sent back home” Her eyes became ice “You cannot mean that,” she said “you would not do that” “Do not test me, Barbrey,” he said “for my wife there is no feat I would not dare do,” he told her “now, conduct yourself properly, this is my brother's wedding, an holy occasion, and you are dishonouring yourself” She fixed him with an hard stare, her jaw set and her fists clenching at her sides “One day, when you'll come back to my bed, I'll make you beg forgiveness for this” she prophesied, whipping around and stalking away, her steps thundering. Brandon let her go. If I ever do, the bedding will be the cold bedding of death, he thought, and I would be begging for a swift death. He watched the sad, weeping face of the Heart Tree, searching for an answer, searching for anything that might comfort him. The memory of his wife, sweet and warm and welcoming, her moonlight tresses fluctuating on the dark surface of the hot springs below Winterfell, her body half hidden by the steaming water, her lips red and plump from his kisses, her body aflush after he had made love to her in the darkness of the caverns below Winterfell, smiling softly at him warmed him over, his own body stirring at the memory of the softeness of her touch against his shoulders as she moved above him, over him, around him. I might be with child. A child? Aye, a child, think you can accept competition in that department? If he closed his eyes he could feel her smile atop his lips, her laughter when he had peppered her face with kisses unable to contain his joy and smugness. Then she had given him their precious children, stars, as the giants and dwarves called them. They needed their mother, he needed their mother, back in his arms, in his bed and in his life. Strengthened by the memory of Avaelya's kisses and her loveliness as she held their sons he turned around, ready to face off any army between Riverrun and Kings Landing and beyond.

[senotsuri]

Way back when, I posted an image of an OC, who fairly recently got a full name (she only had a surname back then.) So, with Eliza’s name finally figured out, I realised I hadn’t actually given my overview of the game that spawned her; Champions of Vestroia.

Time to lose my mind, I guess.

Some fore-knowledge before we get into this.

I am, by all means, a legacy bakugan fan, not a reboot fan. I’ve only seen one double episode (the become-smaller-child episode, which was cute, and Outer Demons, which has a super good premise, but the execution is. something.) By all accounts, CoV is essentially my introduction to the world of the reboot, and I’ll come to this later.

I played both the first game (Bakugan Battle Brawlers, specifically the Wii edition), and the... third game (Defenders of the Core, shortened to DOTC, also for the Wii. The second game, for anyone curious, is Battle Trainer, a DS exclusive.) This will come up later, of course, but I want to point out these two as they’re basically my control group for the quality here (not for the battles though; different battle system and all.)

I am incredibly stay-at-home. A lot of people I know irl I don’t have contact with, and most of them don’t live in my city. This is only important when it comes to the protagonist and literally no one else in the game, but I thought I’d mention it anyway.

So the game begins with the character creator. This is pretty standard stuff, honestly. My one issue with it is just-- this is probably my fashion sense speaking, but the fashion in the game is very... for lack of a better term, naff. There aren’t many options that look good, personally speaking. This is ignoring the issues where the protagonist loses their name, mid conversation, or is referred to as if I chose the male option instead of the female option. These issues are likely just oversights, by all accounts, but talk about jarring.

The first time you see your character is where 3. comes in. The protagonist, no matter what you chose (I have two save files, in case there was a difference. There isn’t), will always be a football/soccer player. Are you one of many, many people who isn’t sporty, who is trying to play as themselves? Sorry, your character is sporty, and you can’t do anything about it.

In the legacy games, this was never really a problem; your character was never seen doing anything other than brawling and interacting with other characters. Whether they played sports, or stayed indoors and wrote fanfic, the game let you decide on that for your character, by not having them do either of those things: your character only battled, or snuck around in DOTC’s case.

Once you stop playing football, you get to run to your best friends, and I guarantee you, you won’t immediately guess who they are unless you somehow already knew.

I mentioned BBB and DOTC being my control group on quality. Bringing the character creator back into this, the NPCs are laughable in quality. Any character who has the same model as you (older child. There are only two other model types: adult, and younger child) will look like a remixed version of your character. Had it not been for some characters having special eye shapes, you could practically cosplay any character in the game, because they were made the same way you made your character.

This includes your two best friends.

You could easily make the same character (minus clothes) as one of your best friend characters, without knowing it until you saw them.

While, yes, BBB and DOTC had the characters from the legacy anime in them, the fact that your best friends are nigh indistinguishable from any other character in the area, because you could easily make any of them in the character creator, isn’t... great.

Speaking of that. Characterisation is questionable, to say the least. Whatever bakugan you have in your first slot will answer to you the same as any other bakugan you have in your first slot. If you started off with Howlkor in the front of your party, and you replaced him with, say, Barbetra, Barbetra will act the exact same as Howlkor did, and it’s really something.

There’s only (?) Armoured Alliance bakugan in the game, other than Dragonoid, Pegatrix, Trox, Hydorous, Nillious, and the afforementioned Howlkor. That’s a small roster, by all accounts, so having varied dialogue depending on the bakugan would make sense.

The characterisation of the other characters is also a little funky in places. Your best friends don’t brawl, and I honestly forgot about them for a portion of the game. The tournament brawlers are practically as faceless as the villain minions, and the villains- oh the villains...

Preston. I don’t like Preston, at all. He’s a villain from the moment you see him, and the whole “try to find Preston” section in Helena Heights makes me want to punch someone. When you fight him in the Parasol HQ, his dad being the CEO, it’s fairly clear that Preston is little more than a tool for him. Sometime later, you fight Preston again, this time as the final tournament’s final battle, and he’s laughably weak compared to the other challengers. Remember, this kid fights you with Leonidas.

You’d think Leo would be good, but I’ll get into the butchering that happened to my death dragon later.

Anyhow, he fights you, assuming his dad will enjoy him defeating you. With the power of you’re the player character, you beat him, he hands all of his bakugan to you, and gives up on brawling for good. Kinda.

The next time you see him... hoo boy. In Old Town, on the way to defeat dear detestable dad, you come across Preston. He offers you help, and when player character is understandably suspicious, Preston complains that... one of his toys was taken away because you beat him, and now he wants Revenge On Dad.

I wish I was joking. His revenge, by helping you defeat his dad, isn’t because he’s obviously neglected by his dad (company taking priority over him, the CEO’s son), and then is used as a minion to try and get rid of you. It’s not out of bitter feelings because his dad doesn’t care about him, no, it’s because his dad took his ball away.

What’s worse is how player character reacts: “Oh! :) You’ve learned that bakugan aren’t just tools! :) Yes you can help me, despite the fact that you learning this sounds less than genuine and definitely not last minute! :)”

This is a level of stupidity I’ve only seen in DOTC Mira when Spectra tricks her into giving him Drago. He’s literally sulking and moping about over his ball, and then he sees the player character, immediately being manipulative so that player character can take down his dad for him. 

Leonidas also forgives him, and has the same reaction as the player character.

Speaking of Leonidas! I think everyone’s been excited for Leonidas in general - we all love a shark headed death dragon, and we wanted one in the reboot for ages.

I refuse to call reboot Leonidas Leonidas. This is like the Shun Kazami debacle, but one I’m substantially more angry about.

Leonidas, in BBB, was untrusting of everything, wanted to throw down with everything in sight, had no fear of anything because “I don’t fear weak [humans]”, and literally came from hell. He eventually grew to trust you and others, to calm down and enjoy himself at his own pace, and was willing to have help from others, showing anyone around him that his origins aren’t the be all and end all about him.

Leonidas, in CoV, is immediately trusting of the first human who showed a hint of kindness, has a weakness to all attacks in the game, comes from Vestroia (not the Doom Dimension), and forgives the human who threw him away when he didn’t win the battle against you for him.

Ignoring the fact that Leonidas just doesn’t look good in CoV, I’d say he got bastardised. That’s not Leonidas, it’s just a dragon with the same name.

The main villain is the CEO of Parasol, an energy company that, assumedly, used to use solar power. Upon finding out that bakugan battles give off incredible levels of power, they turned to using bakugan, forced to battle, to generate power. These guys literally dug into someone’s house to try and get Leonidas. They’re evil.

On the topic of the battling for power generation; this has a decay effect on Vestroia, as it happens, as battling energy would usually go back into Vestroia, which would be recycled and reused.

The CEO doesn’t bend the knee to you until you break him, which is undoubtedly nice for a villain; I was honestly expecting him to give up, but he doesn’t. You beat him into a corner.

But as my introduction to the world of BP, through CoV, is lackluster at best. Obviously the game is meant for those who have seen the reboot, and don’t mind being completely disconnected from the story, because CoV is self contained, and Dan only shows up to be the tutorial giver (as a jpg, no less).

From what the game tells me about the setting; bakugan are often exploited by adults, bakugan do not like adults because of this, but can’t tell when a human child is manipulating them, unless another child removes them from that situation (the lack of agency here is somehow worse than in the legacy series, who knew).

Despite bakugan being around for 18 years in the setting, no one seems to be aware that they’re living beings, other than the main charcter, as if BP humans are equivalent to Legacy’s Vestals. I was already aware of Vestroia and Earth sharing a location in space, but the fact that drilling deep enough causes bakugan to appear on Earth seems... really weird? Schrödinger’s Bakugan Summoning Pit, but they exist on every digging site possible. Bonus points to all bakugan being able to speak, and they do speak a lot, but only to the player and whoever is around the player in a cutscene.

I’m missing a lot of things, such as battle items being the worst sometimes, I’m aware, but at this point I’m tired of rambling, so let me end off in a comparison.

CoV has, in my opinion, the same replayability levels as Pokemon Shield; I couldn’t replay either game to the end, and I wouldn’t recommend either to anyone unless they were desperate for a new game to play, and had nothing else to chose.

[potatowitch]

finding out that the star wars sequel series was written on the fly rather than actually planned out makes so much fucking sense but also pisses me off EVEN MORE because i watched the force awakens in 2016 and within a day of leaving the cinema had a fully fleshed out idea in my head of the direction the next two films would take and the plot points they would cover, all brainstormed in the shower. 16 year old me was more capable of writing a cohesive storyline than disney was. so here you are - i rewrote the sequels to be ten times better than what disney actually gave us. enjoy.

- after rey finds luke they train for a bit then he's like "gotta tell u something. u ever heard of mara jade? she's ur mum" "wait weren't u two dating for a bit" "yeah" "does that mean ur...." "...yeah"

- "why did u leave me on jakku?" "i didnt. she did. i only just learned u existed i wouldve come for u" "oh."

- "...can i call u dad or" "i would be honored if u did"

- meanwhile at the resistance base leia realises finn is force sensitive, gives him her old lightsaber she had in the comics

- because come on. rewatch the force awakens and tell me that man aint fuckin feeling the "shitloads of voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced" when starkiller goes off

- and he picks up a lightsaber and instinctively knows how to use it?

- also: two main heroes in a star wars film being a queer coded woman and a queer coded black man.

- and the whole "used to be a stormtrooper and defected, becomes a jedi" is a TOTALLY NEW storyline? not some tired old "white boy villain is a dick for three movies then suddenly turns Good TM right at the end" trope

- make rey explicitly asexual. she's beautiful and smart and got abs that make everyone who sees them MELT but she is NOT INTERESTED in anything but JUSTICE and PLATONIC HUGS

- finn and poe are also making out because come on, disney, if u wanted to show you're becoming more progressive having a loving interracial gay romance is the fucking easiest way to do it. BB8 has two dads and they share The Jacket

- turns out finn is a kenobi because u cannot tell me obi wan didnt Fuck. jedi code says "dont form attachments" but watch the clone wars - obi wan plays fast and loose w the jedi code at the best of times. now we got a skywalker and a kenobi working together being best buds again, THE WAY IT SHOULD BE.

- the destruction of starkiller has crippled the first order. don't fucking look at me like "the resistance just won a major, VERY VISIBLE victory but OOO no somehow they're still very low on numbers and infrastructure" NO. the public destruction of starkiller has earned the resistance an influx of allies. the republic has started publicly supporting them. the first order spent years building that thing and now not only is all that time, effort and MONEY gone, they lost a shitload of staff and military personnel when it blew up

- "the first order is rich" is a plot point I DO NOT UNDERSTAND because it directly contradicts what's going on in the expanded universe books. the first order was built from remnants of the empire that had been banished to the outer reaches of the galaxy to live out of broken down, shitty old star destroyers.

- it's the reason hux, who was raised in a decrepit old academy in the ass end of the universe by an abusive father, is SO anti republic. in his head, it's the reason he starved as a child. it's the reason his mother is dead. it's the reason he had to be raised by a father that beat him. his hatred for the republic is PERSONAL

- disney learn how to write a good villain challenge? hux EASILY could have been terrifying AND sympathetic

- hux and kylo now have to deal with how absolutely PISSED snoke is that both of them failed with starkiller. hux gets force choked and threatened. kylo gets snoke very painfully rooting around in his head. it is emphasised that snoke's relationship with these two is downright abusive.

- somewhere in there, they realise that the whole five years they've known each other snoke has been deliberately pitting them against each other and sneakily forcing them to undermine each other's authority

- they realise it was snoke's shitty leadership that lead to the destruction of starkiller. they realise that maybe they'd be better off on their own

- the two of them plot to murder snoke themselves. while this is happening, the resistance is happily building an army, gathering resources, and forming alliances. luke and rey have reunited with the resistance and now rey and finn are both happily training with luke.

- snoke dies. hux decides to take the mantle of emperor. kylo LETS HIM because he realises he doesn't know shit about fuck when it comes to leading anything more than his knights. has a crisis of confidence about how useful he actually is, then hux decides he wants to keep the knights of ren around as his personal "fuck up the resistance" squad.

- the two of them working together turn out to be fucking terrifying, competent villains. the films have short, five to ten minute sections where they explore their VERY SIMILAR traumas to make them sympathetic WITHOUT making them seem like "uwu they're not actually bad people" because THEY'RE STILL AWFUL GENOCIDAL MASS MURDERERS

- on the kylo trauma side: it's made obvious in the books that from about age 6 snoke has been in his head deliberately grooming him away from his family. make that obvious in the films. make its impact on kylo obvious in how unsure of himself he actually is. don't make his "redemption arc" one where he suddenly goes light side. give him a bastardisation arc where he realises his whole life he has never made a choice - and then make THE FIRST ORDER his choice. (it is the wrong choice! emphasise that! but make him MAKE THAT CHOICE)

- the resistance thinks they're doing well. they have two new jedi. they've seen very little of the first order outside of small operations that they've been squashing. they think "hm. starkiller's loss must have crippled them. we're doing well!"

- until they learn actually. they've got an emperor now. and the commander of the knights of ren is INCREDIBLY loyal to him. the first order is PISSED OFF and VENGEFUL. they're back with a force. they've started invading and subjugating planets even with their forces cut as thin as they are because hux is a military mastermind and kylo and the knights of ren are a fucking TERRIFYING unit in combat.

- also why did disney decide to present hux in the films as a weak pissbaby when he probably topped his class in all combat situations and fights dirty in close quarters. man can SNIPE. man will bite your fucking finger off if you manage to disarm him. he is a 6 foot beanpole and he will kick your ass

- kylo has a crisis about actually having to kill his mother, uncle and cousin. he still feels a bit bad about han - despite everything, he still loves them and is struggling. he actually confides in his knights about this. we get to see that the knights of ren have a found family dynamic with their commander and they comfort him.

- kylo realises it will be painful to murder the last of his bio family but it must be done, because he's come around to hux's view that the resistance and the republic are standing in the way of true peace in the galaxy. he actually believes that reinstating an empire is the best thing for the galaxy. this makes him a more effective villain because he actually believes what he's doing is right.

- more stormtroopers defect to the resistance. finn is there to welcome them and help them adjust. there's a couple of lowkey force sensitive troopers in there too. we learn more about how horrible, soul crushing and traumatic stormtrooper training is. this is a good way to keep painting the first order as an organisation that violates human rights and the geneva convention at every turn.

- the first order makes up for this loss of troops in picking up recruits from the planets they've taken over in the outer rim because they've been providing stability. again - it is SO EASY to write the first order as sympathetic villains WHO ARE STILL FASCIST ASSHOLES. this would've been such a good opportunity to show the moral argument between stability vs freedom. show the flaws in the republic because they do exist!! we see that throughout the ENTIRE expanded universe! every iteration of the republic fails in some way!

- the fight against the first order becomes increasingly more difficult, but they're actually on pretty even ground. it doesn't make sense to me that disney decided to go for the route of "the resistance should've been squished easily by the might of the first order but uwu kylo can't make up his mind and thats what saves them!" that is not a compelling storyline! they are relatively evenly matched and the resistance only JUST comes out on top!

- kylo kills luke in actual combat, not just "luke randomly dissolves for ... no good reason?". this hits the resistance HARD. rey and finn have to struggle with their desire for revenge. leia realises her son is beyond help. it nearly breaks her. she has a moment where she feels like she has lost everything. poe has to step in to remind her she still has him. it is revealed that he joined the resistance after the first order killed his family HORRIBLY when he was a teenager and he and leia sort of have a mother/son relationship.

- this is also a good way to juxtapose hux and kylo. they took their trauma and it made them awful. poe takes his trauma and it makes him kind. it makes him want to protect people from what he went through. also gets rid of the "haha we made the latino man have a drug dealer background" bullshit that disney did

- poe also has to comfort his boyfriend and best friend and remind them that they are fighting to make the galaxy a better place, NOT for revenge. then they have a discussion about "yeah, don't make revenge your main priority, but the jedi were a bit wrong in saying that you shouldn't enjoy it anyway. it's going to feel good to fucking murder kylo and that's okay". acknowledgement that the old jedi code was garbage and too restrictive for actual PEOPLE to follow it.

- kylo still can't kill leia or chewie. we get flashbacks of her singing to him, braiding his hair, comforting him after nightmares. we see baby ben riding on chewie's shoulders. seeing the conflict between kylo recognising his family loved him and still choosing to be a villain would have RUINED ME. he tells hux this, expecting hux to shoot him for it. hux understands - he had a mother, once. the republic killed her.

- (they actually didn't. she was an imperial slave and was probably left behind when an imperial settlement was being razed. the only reason hux actually survived was because he was his father's only heir. there's a whole spiel in the books about brendol going "this kid is a piece of shit bastard i dont want him" and imperial officials being like "the empire needs kids. go pick him up")

- hux decides to kill leia instead. he nearly dies doing so because woman is STILL a force to be reckoned with even at this age. remember she is actually trained to use a lightsaber AND guns. the only reason hux doesn't die? kylo steps in at the last minute and kills his own mother. he's made his choice. he mourns, and then he steels. there is nothing left to pull him to the light side anymore.

- anakin has given up trying to bring his grandson to the light from beyond the grave. him and obi wan are focusing their force ghost attention on rey and finn. now luke and leia are both there too. we get the same "all my jedi ancestors are rooting for me" moment that disney gave us, except now it's shared between rey and finn.

- the two of them plus chewie cut through the knights of ren until they get to kylo. he kicks the living shit out of them, but they manage to kill him. rey earns some gnarly, sexy scars. chewie needs a hug and goddamn does he get one.

- poe is the one to kill hux. he's not just doing it for the galaxy, he's doing it for leia. the first order already stole his first family from him. he won't lose his second family to them. bonus points if BB8 joins the fight and like ... tases hux in the leg a few times.

- we get some gratuitous "c3p0 and r2 are sneaking through an imperial base and fucking shit up but like, badly because 3p0 never stops talking" scenes

- you want to bring rose tico into it? she's head of the resistance's infiltration team. she's with the droids taking down shields, stabbing people in the back, freeing prisoners, stealing plans, sowing chaos. she's the one who finally takes down phasma.

- without their emperor and the knights of ren, the new empire crumbles pretty quickly. the resistance has taken HEAVY losses but they have won. we get a very beautiful funeral scene for luke and leia. there's a gorgeous group hug between finn, rey, poe, chewie and bb8. poe and finn smooch against the sunset.

- we see finn and rey going into crystal caves to get kyber crystals. poe, chewie, bb8, r2 and 3P0 wait outside the cave in the falcon for them to be done picking up their crystals, then we see finn and rey inside the falcon building their new lightsabers with guidance from a bunch of force ghosts. we get to see that rey has chosen to decorate the inside of the falcon with a bunch of potted plants so she can be surrounded by greenery at all time. the found family aesthetic is STRONG

- rey builds a saber pike. it comes out golden. finn builds a standard single blade saber that comes out white, like ahsoka's. gold to emphasise protection of the weak and the perfect blend of combat and scholarly pursuits. white to emphasise free will from both the jedi and the sith. it is emphasised that these two will NOT be your traditional jedi.

- we see an epilogue where poe is working to help shift the republic's focus from political squabbling to actually protecting its citizens. he leads reconstruction efforts, helps establish more of a presence in the outer rim, constantly fights for moving resources from protecting the republic's assests to providing food, shelter and safety to its citizens.

- finn is constantly by his side. we see him protecting his new husband, on the front lines destroying remnants of the empire and the first order, and using his combat prowess to absolutely murder slave owners.

- rey has taken to training new force sensitives with chewie by her side, however she recognises the jedi code has been failing force sensistives for millennia, and instead her teachings are more aligned with the grey jedi philosophy. she recognises that people feel anger, hate, grief - and that they are all valid emotions. it's what you choose to do with them that is important.

- she actively encourages personal connection, believing that loving your friends and family is righteous and the true path to the light side. her apprentices all adore her, and she is always there for them - she'll listen to their worries, from something as small as "i am 13 years old and my first crush just rejected me" to "i am a former slave coming to you after the first order murdered my family and tortured me. i am having nightmares and am afraid of the anger i feel".

- she encourages apprentices to stay in contact with their family, and she becomes that family for the ones who have lost theirs.

- you get the feeling that this time, peace in the galaxy is actually going to last. anakin, obi wan, luke and leia look on from the Force in pride at their children and grandchildren. they did good. they can finally rest.

- the sequels have made personal choice a major theme. finn chooses to defect. poe and rey choose to be kind, when they have every reason not to be. hux and kylo make the wrong choices. there's no flip flopping like a dead fish between good and evil until the very last second. the lines between kindness and freedom and hatred and subjugation are clearly drawn again and again.

- i sit in the cinema after the screen goes black and i weep. i am satisfied. this was a fitting end for a franchise i have loved for most of my life.

[visionsofelizabeth]

✖ ▒ OH, WHAT A COINCIDENCE! i was just thinking of [ ELIZABETH OF YORK ]. most swear their resemblance to [ KEIRA KNIGHTLEY ] is unmistakable, but she has been around since the [ LATE MIDDLE AGES ]. it is rumoured that the [ CIS FEMALE ] was born in [ LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM ] in the year [ 1466 ], even though they don’t look a day over [ THIRTY ]. what a shame, though: they were once famed for being [ AMBITIOUS ] and [ STEADFAST ] ; yet now, they seem more and more [ STUBBORN ] and [ INTERFERING ]. but while [ ELIZABETH ] spends their days working as [ A POLITICAL AIDE ], they are already notorious around town for [ CRAFTING PRECISELY THE RIGHT WORDS AND FITTING THEM INTO SOMEONE ELSE’S MOUTH; METICULOUS & BEAUTIFUL PENMANSHIP; “ANCESTRAL” HALLS SHORTER-LIVED THAN YOU; THE CENTURIES’ OLD GLEAM OF A CROWN; A WAY TO WIN ON EITHER SIDE OF THE BATTLE ]. when you live forever, you might as well make the most of it. ( shannon. 20. bst/gmt+1. she/her. )

MUN STUFF:

hello hi there, friends! i’m shannon, i really hate ( most of ) philippa gregory, and this is the historical love of my life, elizabeth of york. i hope i make you all love her as much as i absolutely adore her. if you’re invested in the experience, i recommend listening to ‘the tower’ by ludovico einaudi while reading about her because it really helped me get my feelings about her down onto paper.

BASICS:

FULL NAME: her majesty queen elizabeth of england.

MONIKER / NICKNAME: lizzie; the white rose of york ( nicknames. )

TITLES: queen consort of england ( 1486-1503 ), princess ( 1466-1483 officially; regarded a princess by some after this date until her coronation as queen consort in 1486. )

GENDER && PRONOUNS: cis female && she/her.

DOB && AGE: eleventh of february, fourteen sixty-six ( age five hundred and fifty-four; immortally thirty. )

PLACE OF BIRTH: westminster palace, london, england.

ZODIAC SIGN: aquarius.

ETHNICITY: white.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: bisexual

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: biromantic

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE:

FACE CLAIM: keira knightley.

HEIGHT: 5 ft 7 in (170cm)

PHYSICAL BUILD: slim, rectangular.

EYE COLOUR AND SHAPE: brown; deep-set.

HAIR COLOUR AND STYLE: brown; varies.

USUAL EXPRESSION: neutral.

ACCENT AND SPEECH STYLE: received pronunciation; measured speed.

DISTINGUISHING MARKS / CHARACTERISTICS: pierced ears & an outline of the rennes cathedral tattooed on her wrist that she got done ten years ago.

CLOTHING STYLE: varies heavily; in her job, she likes suits now.

JEWELLERY AND ACCESSORIES: she still wears her wedding ring from the 1480s, and possesses earrings in the likeness of the tudor rose, though she can so rarely wear the latter.

FAMILY:

FATHER: edward iv of england

MOTHER: elizabeth woodville

SIBLINGS, IF ANY: nine full, two half.

EXTENDED RELATIONS: cecily neville (grandmother) && richard iii of england (uncle.)

SIGNIFICANT OTHER(S): henry vii of england (husband, 1486—, legally ended upon her “death” in 1503). there has and will be no one else.

CHILDREN: seven or eight, including henry viii of england.

HOUSEHOLD PET(S): none; they die too soon. she used to keep greyhounds in her heyday.

FAVOURITES:

COLOUR: red && white; the colours of lancaster and york.

WEATHER: when it is overcast but comfortably so, and rain is on the horizon so the air is refreshing when it caresses your face. quintessentially english.

FOOD ITEM: the christmas roast. it reminds her of raucous and happy times with her family.

BEVERAGE: burgundian wine.

TIME OF DAY: just before dawn, when everything is peaceful & the world could just seem... perfectly endless, and yet, so small.

TELEVISION GENRE: drama. political & nordic noir. think borgen & the killing.

FAVOURITE ERA LIVED: 1486-1503; the years of her marriage.

PERSONALITY:

HOBBIES: gambling & music & reading & dancing & writing & watching theatre.

PET PEEVES: people who chew loudly. tardiness.

ALLERGIES: none known.

MBTI TYPE: estj-a.

ENNEAGRAM TYPE: type one, with a two wing: “the advocate.”

SLEEPING HABITS: restless. not as regular as they should be.

OLDEST BELONGING: her wedding ring from the 1480s.

HOME: chester square, belgravia.

DAUGHTER, SISTER, NIECE AND WIFE

No one else will ever be all four to kings ( Edward IV, Edward V, Richard III, Henry VII ) but that distinction — much like your life — is marred by instability, grief and strife. 

Your father became sick: whisperings of poison persist, and you must admit you are not sure of the truth. Your brother disappeared to the Tower: whisperings of murder exist, and you must admit you are not sure of the truth. But you are sure that your uncle met his end upon Bosworth field, and on the matter of your husband you are sure that you love him. 

At first you were not sure, at first it was not easy, but such is love.

Sweet Elizabeth, daughter of scandal: the fairest of her father’s children by his second marriage to Elizabeth Woodville. They call her ‘common,’ though she is beautiful; they are not audacious enough to call you half-common, because it is only descendancy from the God-chosen King that matters to them. 

There would be more daughters before Elizabeth Woodville gave unto her husband sons, and by then they are talking.

THINGS I PROBABLY DON’T NEED TO WRITE CREATIVELY BUT YOU DO NEED TO KNOW, A SAGA:

Elizabeth of York was the first-born daughter of Edward IV and his wife Elizabeth Woodville; she was widely believed to be the fairest of his children. She had two older half-siblings from her mother’s first marriage, and would have nine full-blooded siblings: Mary, Cecily, Edward (V), Margaret, Richard, Anne, George, Catherine, and Bridget. Bold denotes the two ‘Princes in the Tower’ and italics denotes siblings who died in infancy.

In childhood, she was betrothed to the future King Charles VIII of France, but the French failed to keep to their end of the agreement & it was called off. Previously, she had been betrothed to a noble’s son, but this too was repudiated after the father rebelled against Edward.

The former King Henry VI was briefly returned to the throne when Elizabeth was but four years old. Elizabeth, her siblings, and their pregnant mother lived under religious protection until Edward was restored in 1471.

In 1483, Edward IV died, and the unexpected nature of this death & the age of her brother — also named Edward — combined by the ambition for power held by her uncle the Lord Protector ( Richard, Duke of Gloucester ) threw the succession into doubt. Once again, they were forced into sancturary.

Ultimately, both Edward V and the younger Richard disappeared shortly after her uncle took the throne as Richard III, known as the Princes in the Tower, with much credence lent to the theory that they were murdered; the Titulus Regius, in declaring the late King’s controversial — as Elizabeth Woodville was a ‘common’ widower and the marriage secret — marriage invalid, bastardised their children and robbed Elizabeth of York and her siblings of status & rights to succession.

When whispers began of an effort against Richard for the throne, the strongest claim was undoubtedly Elizabeth of York’s own. But there had been no queen that ruled in her own right, and would not for some years, and so Elizabeth Woodville arranged for her to marry the Lancastrian claimant Henry Tudor, who traced his line through a legitimised bastard line. 

It was illegal for a Beaufort to take the throne, but it was agreed that they would support his efforts, perhaps due to Elizabeth’s vitriol toward Richard for the disappearance of her son. Henry vowed to marry Elizabeth in 1483.

Henry Tudor won the battle of Bosworth Field and was crowned Henry VII: he married Elizabeth in January 1486, their first child, Arthur, being born that autumn. 

The marriage initially was politics-born, but they came to love one another deeply, and there is no evidence of the king having kept a mistress. 

FROM DEATH TO “DEATH”

18 March, 1496

The eighteenth of March, fourteen ninety-six, is immortalised in your mind as the day that you died. You were thirty that day — giving birth to your fifth child, Mary — and you are thirty now, utterly untouched by the centuries. 

The death must have lasted mere moments; no one beyond your attentive husband noticed, and it was some time beyond then that the both of you began to believe it. 

It was the tallest of the tales your mother told you in her confinement at Bermondsey before her death four years ago. But when they told you she was dead ( perhaps of plague, demanding a rushed & private ceremony ) it would take a fool not to wonder whether the machinations of Elizabeth Woodville, the queen dowager, would continue from beyond the ‘grave.’

( The Reaper himself surely could not stop so ambitious a woman: and were it not for the king’s mother, perhaps you could have been more like her. You wonder whether you would want to be. )

Time passed, and yet none upon your face. Henry holds you close in anxious murmurings of what they will do to you if you are discovered; whisperings between kisses of witch-burnings. 

You know, though you wish that he was not, that he is right to be afraid.

4 April, 1502

For all the world and time, no worse news could be imagined; the existence of those without faith is one without pity or mercy & you have always tried to keep your love of God intact, but it is oh-so-difficult when the world itself is so malignant as to take your little prince away. 

Why is it, then, that you must live and yet bury your son? Why must his wife live on and yet he must die? You are not a spiteful woman. But even you, in this all-consuming grief, must be allowed your bitterness.

You remind your husband of the grace of God: it does not help you believe it. 

You remind your that you have a son and two daughters, and that Arthur is with God, and it does not help you believe it. 

You remind your husband that you are both young and have time enough yet.

It does not help you believe it.

As soon as you are gone from him, having remained strong for Henry’s sake alone, you buckle, and you wail, and you scream in defiance; it is hopeless, of course, for you to have insisted on sparing him your grief. When you need him, he will always come, until he can no longer.

10th February, 1503

Your newborn daughter Katherine stopped breathing, and something trapped the scream in your throat like a reassurance: some hand over your mouth whispering wait, until the baby girl wailed and began to move again. 

She is too young to have the burden of forever on those tiny shoulders, you think, but did any of you ever get a choice in whether or not you wanted to be Time’s Atlas? You say nothing of the occurrence to anyone bar your dearest beloved, who you trust with an implicitness thought impossible the day you married him. 

How could one of the white rose trust one of the red? 

Your blood still mars the bedsheets, too much of it, dark & damning; they thought the sanguine waterfall would never stem, skin growing paler and paler, until you were a paper ghost. Of course, you knew that you would not die. The doctors didn’t: they call you a miracle. The bells are rung for joy, but when they are gone, there is rue upon your husband’s face. Not long ago, they began to comment upon your unchanging visage, like an ever-fresh flower, and you both knew.

“It won’t be long before—” You press your finger gently to his lips, and he moves it away. “It’s time.”

“I know.”

11th February, 1503

The tower is just barely lit by the sun; you have been here many times before — a highlight of the fact the world still thinks the reality of childbirth, the suffering that comes with a miracle, to be a matter of shame — and he has always hated the separation from you, but this time, in the eyes of the nation ( he will deceive even his mother ) you will not leave it alive. 

Cast your gaze back over your shoulder, and ask the most natural question of the immortal race: how did you get here? 

To this liminal space, this balancing-act, between the past ( for this home of yours will be your past, your life with him will be your past, but your love for him will be your present, your tomorrow, and your always ) and forever? Can you process the endlessness of it — of forever — my love, where so many empires, overestimating their longevity, have failed; can you understand, darling, that you will watch the crumbling demise of so many more without him? 

( When you see his vision misted over with tears, is your husband still the most beautiful, lovable thing you have ever beheld? He is. He is, and no matter how the centuries pass — no matter how many kings, queens and vagabonds you lay eyes upon — he always will be; they will brand him a penny-pincher and a miser as loss haunts him, but you will remember him like this, in the most pain he has and will ever be in, but selfless anyway, because here’s the kicker they all forget: he loves you. )

“My Lizzie,” he murmurs to you, kisses the backs of your fingers, and it is a vow. Even in the depths of his pre-emptive sorrow, he looks up. His mother always says he was God-chosen to be king, but it has always been you who puts him on his knees. “Happy Birthday.”

You promise yourself then — ruminating on the fact you have never had an unhappier birthday than this — that you will never forget it.

LIFE AFTER “DEATH” ( POST-1503 )

As is hinted, Henry knew of Elizabeth’s immortality & assisted her in faking her “death.”

Elizabeth has had a long time to live. 

The sole large expense never recorded in the royal books by Henry was to send her away and give her a life of means: the most painful act her husband ever undertook, but which he did because he loved her so dearly. Henry never remarried: though he spoke of it ( had to, because his wife was ostensibly dead ) he staved it off with the instructions he gave to those searching for a second wife. 

Hint: they perfectly described Elizabeth.

For some time, the parted couple sent letters, before they deemed even that a risk to their wellbeing.

Elizabeth was once a pious woman. She is not, anymore: an eternity of time and of watching all die around her will rob any woman of her faith. She was renowned for gentleness and generosity, and that is not entirely lost upon her, but the same grief that forged the Winter King from Henry has touched her, too. 

She is more cynical, more bitter, but she is still trying. It was necessary for her to change: even at first, knowing she had forever to live, she had to force herself to accept the life Henry gave her & not bequeath her money to others who needed it more, as suddenly she needed it to maintain her own life throughout the centuries.

Throughout her life, though, this attitude has meant she has built up enough money to both give comfortably and be comfortable. For example, now, she is both heavily charitable but lives in Belgravia.

Many lives have passed: in just one, for example, she has been a teacher, just as she was to her son Henry. She has settled in this life on a political aide, so she can more obviously move the world. 

The years have made her more ambitious.

She just hopes she will find hope — and her husband, because she knows that if he were dead he would feel it in her heart — before she indelibly becomes the Winter Queen.

TRIVIA ( some things I love & a note on some I have elected to ignore )

Obligatory note that I would sell my soul for someone to play James McAvoy as Henry VII.

Among other things, the Queen from “Sing A Song Of Sixpence” is reportedly Elizabeth of York, and Henry is the King counting his money. 

However, Henry’s penny-pinching nature only blossomed after Elizabeth’s death ( or in this case ‘death’ ) and prior to that death he was very liberal in spending money upon his wife and family. 

Elizabeth may also have inspired the Queen of Hearts on modern-day playing cards.

She was particularly tall for Tudor women — perhaps inherited from her father — as most were much shorter than five-foot six or seven. 

History believes Elizabeth had little political influence, but that perhaps is not so true as they believe. 

It is true that Margaret Beaufort exercised a grand deal of influence and was loudly opinionated, but Elizabeth was able to influence matters through gentle whispers in her husband’s ear, and through love. She did not live for the applause: never had done. Elizabeth was known to be heavily charitable. So why would she make fanfare of her achievements in her husband’s court?

I know Henry VIII isn’t allowed, but Elizabeth would bitch slap him. She would. It has to be said.

[theangrypokemaniac]

I'll state from the beginning that the images below display the sort of sweet synchronicity to which only love can give life:

MaAndPaShipping is the best ship, and here are five reasons why:

1. It Made James

Like the boy do yer? Ever felt the slightest tingle of warmth at the mention of his name?

Well get down on yer knees and give thanks to his mother and father for gifting him to the world!

Where would we be without their remarkable commitment? Could James have grown into the dandified dream boat of your desires if deprived of the safety provided by his parents?

Had they not brought him up, he'd be dead, The Dog of Flanders fantasy made reality. If miraculously he survived, foraging in the wild is not conducive to a foppish personality.

Is that to yer fancy? No? Then let's have a little respect. The luxury Ma and Pa gave enabled his macaroni tendencies to reach such heights.

Their love created him! How can it not be celebrated?

You lot would ship Jessie's parents but you can't, because she has no dad, and I don't suppose you'll ever assent to his obvious identity of Windy Miller, although 'Jessie Miller' has a wonderful ring to it, so what can be done?

Should a Pa Jess be conjured for the purpose, he still buggered off, didn't he? Where's the allure in a faithless git?

I can't comprehend the obsession with Ma Jess. As soon as here she's stiff, and what is there to remember but coercing her daughter into eating snow?

Hey, I named her. What more do you want from me?

I'd rather have the living, visible ancestors, if you don't mind.

Yeah, says the history fanatic.

Why not make the most of the chances offered, and follow a devoted couple whose love made a difference to your existence?

2. Canon!

There are many ships which I find repulsive for involving depravity, or absurd as the subjects haven't met, or don't inhabit the same fictional universe.

Video et taceo: I see and I say nothing.

Neither does anyone. Forcing decent folk in to incest, bestiality etc. is quite alright.

Perverted ideas are left alone, but woe betide a Rocketshipper, because that's offensive.

It may be the only original ship left standing, with proper evidence and sanctioned by Nintendo, but no, it's fair game for undermining. People pick at your arguments, quibble constantly and NEED to register their objections NOW. You MUST be made aware of opposition. You're not to be permitted your views the way those with twisted tastes are indulged.

Why, out of tens of thousands of combinations, does making Jessie and James an item provoke hostility?

The strength of negativity actually serves as validation, for why be so concerned if it's an impossible relationship?

However sick they are, I'm not anti any ship. I can't muster sufficient interest to do it, and if I scroll on, I forget. I certainly don't attack those responsible.

Anti-Shipping is inherently nihilistic for promoting loneliness. They aren't against Rocketshipping through wanting Jessie and James to be with someone else, as an alternative is not readily available, so the outcome of it is neither finding a companion.

MaAndPaShipping attracts no sourpuss silliness, for 'tis canon beyond question. There's nothing about being 'just friends' when married with a son.

How's the state of your O.T.P.? Not looking too clever I expect, and what's your contribution: wishing, and hoping, and thinking, and praying?

Cast it off! None of that longing is necessary in these quarters, as MaAndPaShipping is a fait accompli.

Hallelujah! Wallow in that Love!

Don't you yearn for at least one ship that all of us accept by default, to the extent these aristocrats are spoken of as a single unit?

Across the internet, Ma and Pa are bracketed as 'James's parents', never 'he' and 'she', always 'they', barely counting as distinct characters. That's how undeniable the love is between them. Sheer indifference has awarded it a blessing from everyone.

MWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!

Of course, now I've drawn attention to it the moaning will start, but we all know a spoilsport when we see one.

If they had any legitimate complaints they ought to have mentioned 'em before this piece highlighted the marriage!

Except it won't have occurred to 'em previously, proving the eternal, indissoluble quality of MaAndPaShipping.

You get good value with this one.

Find a post referring to Ma and Pa as individuals and I'll have written it, for that's what you call ironic.

3. It's a Fine Rocketshipping Proxy

I was at primary school when Pokémon hit the West like the bright, bearded meteor it is, atomizing all competition for a child's attention.

I have shipped Jessie and James before I knew anyone else did it, unaware shipping was even a thing.

There are other pairs where I think: 'That seems to fit', but it's incomparable to what I feel for them.

It is part of me. I bleed it.

I have shipped it longer than most Tumblerries have dwelt upon the earth.

I used to believe, what with the hints and manga finale, that this resolution was  inevitable, and all I had to do was wait.

Well I've been patient for two decades now, thus when I look at the modern incarnation, and realise it's no nearer to that goal, and instead is further away, waiting starts to wear a bit thin.

I resent the lack of appreciation shown to the fans by the cretins in charge, how any meagre shippy inclusion is done not with an interest in deepening bonds, but with the blatant cynicism of moulding us into performing monkeys dancing to their manipulative tune.

I dislike being treated like a sea lion, expected to clap me flippers at the wave of a fish, or as a panting dog begging at top table, where, because they're desperate to maintain the status quo, every scrap flung down from above now comes with an Anti-Ship kick in the teeth, just to be sure nothing progresses. Not whilst the franchise can still be milked for all it's worth.

I have lost faith Rocketshipping will happen. What passes for Pokémon today carries not the remotest indication of any intention on the so-called writers' part to finish it that way.

Even if it did, it's not my Team Rocket, it's those skeletal, gargoyle bastardisations. My Jessie and James never got the reward they deserved.

I'm somewhat in the market for a replacement. Beneath this loathsome carapace of acid and ice beats the tender heart of a true romantic, and it must have an outlet!

Shipping Ma and Pa provides a certain spurious relief, because it's as close as you can get to Jessie and James without it being them, both biologically as his parents, but they're so similar to the duo it counts as proof in itself.

Holy Matrimony! is prime Rocketshipping territory, not merely the balloon lift, but many slight additions are as important, like the haircuts matching.

Ma and Pa are therefore Jessie and James in the past, present and future:

The past for representing Jess 'n' Jamie gone Victorian, and we've all wondered how that'd turn out.

The present as it's there right now, absent of suffering the shameless whims of morons to get what you want. 'Tis yours to savour.

The future as a glimpse of Jessie and James once married with children, and they agree:

That's how they play it given the opportunity!

What, James in blue, for his and Pa's hair, and Jessie wearing purple, like Ma's, with a red shawl for her own, and Ma Jess's orange earrings to copy the beads?

• Money!

• Bun!

• 'Tache!

• Classy pad!

• Fancy gear!

• Pampered pet!

• Identical cups of Earl Grey!

4. Original Blend

Ma and Pa have only got two fans! We care more than the entire fandom has in twenty years!

Rocketshipping art is ten a penny, so why not display a pioneering spirit, sharpen up those pencils and be inspired?

Let your mind expand and marvel at the possibilities of these unchartered territories, and I'll reblog it if it's nice.

Pay attention to the condition of it being nice. I'm not putting up with any old toss.

Real Ma and Pa is what I want too, not those Sinnoh coffin-dodgers.

It's never been done! Every drawing breaks new ground!

I don't like fan fiction, but I wouldn't say 'no' to that either. Recall the 'nice' stipulation again.

Come on, be the first amongst your friends and get ship shape!

5. It Gives Us All Hope

Suppose your favourite amour one day became canon: you imagine that's the end of the matter?

Well it ain't.

Between Ash, Misty, Brock, Jessie, James, Gary and Tracey, there are three-and-a-half out of fourteen parents (Flint doesn't count as a complete man) and one out of twenty-eight grandparents, and that's not enough!

If the series drew to a close with your beloved couple apparently walking into the happily-ever-after, there's no guarantee it'll endure. In fact, the odds are they'll split up within a few years and leave another generation to fend for themselves or starve.

That's right, so don't presume the final episode is all you need to worry about. Can you rest easy knowing it'll go pear-shaped once the camera stops rolling?

It's futile soothing one's worries with:

Oh, but they know what it's like to be alone. They'd never inflict such stress on their children.

Oh really?

Look at that poor showing of grandparents. Either Pokémon has a system reminiscent of the sci-fi film Logan's Run, where everyone over thirty is vapourized, or these disappearing maters and paters were themselves victims of abandonment.

I bet when they settled down, they thought it'd be different for their kids, they'd make sure of it, but no, off they went down that same route of feckless self-indulgence, and that's being kind assuming they intended not to repeat history.

Depressing eh? What's the good in any of us surrendering to romance, real or otherwise, if love is but a mayfly of emotion, and all dreams are doomed to die?

Then Ma and Pa arrive, and suddenly the storm clouds part for a ray of heavenly light.

It's not only that they made the effort in what was probably an arranged marriage and have stayed together from youth, it's that they've stayed together when no one else has, which augments its value.

When separation is commonplace, sticking it out becomes rarer and rarer as any belief in the sanctity of wedlock erodes with every failure.

If they didn't bother, why should I? What's the use when it won't work?

Once that idea enters your head, it's over, and your gloom-laden attitude fulfils itself.

Society is collapsing about Ma and Pa's ears, but they persevere nevertheless, refusing to buckle under the turgid malaise engulfing the arrogant and weak.

It's bloody beautiful, man!

You may suggest an environment of supreme wealth erases normality, and to their class and time period divorce is still taboo, so they don't really have much of choice but to remain wedded.

Ah, but it's not as if they simply tolerate one another for appearances, or carried on for the sake of their son (which is more than anyone else did besides), not when he walked out on them.

They've been married longer than James has lived, so at least eighteen years (don't all squeal at once), and they're still blissfully contented!

They hold hands!

They use terms of endearment like 'dear' and 'my precious'!

They were made for one another!

They work as a team!

They want the same thing for James!

It could bring a stone angel to tears it's so beautiful!

See what success can be achieved when you try? When you endeavour to love the one you're with and make yourself worth loving in return?

Better that than chucking 'em at the first sign of trouble.

Ma and Pa is such an irrevocable union even the despair of losing their only child failed to tear 'em asunder, and that'd defeat many, but not this husband and wife.

Be grateful, for it means all is not in vain.

It doesn't have to be misery and pain: love can last despite the pressure of a wretched, hollow culture bent on self-destruction. Your ship might just succeed too.

God bless 'em for keeping the magic alive!

...

Why do I have the presentiment that I'm going to regret encouraging support?

[stardustloki]

Fanfic ask game

I was tagged by the lovely @mercialachesis Thank you so much!! I really enjoyed doing this.

Side note that isn’t part of the ask game because I don’t think enough people have read their work:

My favourite stuff of theirs is a really well written civil war AU that doesn’t have nearly enough views or anything! Steve is so incredibly well written in this and everyone else is amazing as well.

I also really like the one in which kid Loki (who has his mouth sewn shut :(  ) ends up on earth and meets 1940s kid Steve because aaah that’s so well done toooo. I really feel like I’m there when I’m reading it.

At what age did you start writing fanfiction? I’ve been writing it since I was six years old, maybe earlier. The first I can remember (and have a typed record of) is my friends and I meeting the doctor, sarah jane etc. Please enjoy the absolutely gripping beginning lmao ‘There was a banging noise outside Holly’s, Chloe’s and Deborah’s door. It was a monster called the Dark Knight. It took them to a foreign planet. It took them took to a jail and locked the door. Sarah Jane, Rose and K.9. were also locked up.‘ 

6 year old me was not a literary genius by a long shot.

Who is your favorite author?

This is a hard hard hard question. I have sooooooo many. I have had a long think and I’m going to go with Snorri Sturluson. Snorri, you may be long dead and gone however I thank you greatly for writing the prose Edda so that now, hundreds upon hundreds of years down the line, we have Thor in the MCU and Mythological material to bastardise in our fanfictions. 

Edit: Does this mean fanfic author. It probably does. In which case it’s @gold-from-straw because her work = impeccable.

Favorite type of scene to write?

This probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone who has ever read my work but I thrive off angst and whump and angsty conversations/introspection.

What is your favorite fanfic?

Against the Moon by StoplightDelight. Absolutely the best Marauder’s Era fic there is out there. Every single character is handled so goddamn well. 

What tags do you avoid like the plague?

Th*rki (they are brothers!), St*rker (Peter is a child and they have a mentor mentee father son relationship goddamnit), L*ki/reader (I am one of the seemingly rare people who love Loki but are not lusting after him so just. No thank you. I’m a lesbian.) - stars added to names so people who do like reading these don’t have to see my answers when they search for content

What AU do you wish to write but feel like you won’t manage?

I am mind blanking here, sorry. Actually, I’ve just thought of one! One in which the X-men go back in time and save Erik (Magneto) and his mother etc. from before the concentration camp and maybe he grows up with kid Charles. I know I love angst but I want people to heal from it and Erik did not deserve the shit he went through.

What has been your favorite story to write so far? 

The Monster Under the Bed, easily. I just, love all the characters in it so much! (Apart from Odin, who is evil af in it - I did love writing him tho) And the story went to so many places I wasn’t expecting and it was just an utter joy to write.

Do you prefer to write one-shots or multi-chapters? Why?

Multi-chapters. I just like how you can explore multiple characters and take them on a journey get to know your reviewers/commenters a bit along the way.

What is your favorite kind of comment?

Do I have one? I love ones that are just like: well thanks I’ve stayed up basically all night reading this so I’m getting nowhere enough sleep because of you. I like people saying they liked general things (aka I like reassurance that the chapter wasn’t crap) or details. I like seeing what people felt, whether through keysmashes or more eloquent means. For the Monster Under the Bed one reviewer just said ‘LOVED IT!’ every chapter and you know what, that was magnificent because I knew they read the chapter and got to the end of it and liked it and it was very reassuring (because after someone’s left kudos for the first time, or followed, there’s actually no way to know if they like the next chapters if they don’t comment/review).

NGL sometimes I do love flames. This one time a commenter compared Thor to Hitler and I still Lose My Shit laughing every time I think about that. This other time I was presented with an 800 word essay of everything wrong with what I was writing. Once this person stopped reading because they didn’t like a chapter title.

Don’t leave flames. Flames aren’t nice. But sometimes they just illustrate how stupid people are and you have to laugh.

TLDR: I love comments. I sell my soul for comments. Give me comments please.

Why did you start writing fanfiction? Why are you still writing it?

I saw possibilities. I like writing. I want practice for becoming a professional author. The reasons haven’t changed in the last 14 or so years haha

I tag: @legolokili @gold-from-straw @readeption @lalaurelia @crissiti @enkelimagnus and legit anyone else who wants to do this as I am super aware that I have probably forgotten loads of people who write!

[noirbriar]

MDZS AU Headcanon dump: Stay (8)

(Part 1 here)  (Part 2 here)  (Part 3 here)  (Part 4 here)  (Part 5 here)  (Part 6 here)  (Part 7 here)

“Ze Wu Jun.What are you talking about-”

“Wei Wuxian, this I’m afraid would be a family matter.I would like to ask you to kindly leave.” LQR is not having any of it and JC knows his brother, quickly holds him back, eyes urging him to stand down. LWJ knelt before his elders.

“Wei Ying...Its fine.” This was coming anyway.

WWX being WWX he breaks away from JC, telling him to close the doors behind him. JC breathes heavily and rolls his eyes, he chooses to not deal with WWX’s whims now for his own sake and does as asked.

Amongst the crowd of white robed cultivators, the Grandmaster’s inky garbs stands out in stark contrast. Before he makes his way and kneels together with LWJ.

(Its almost a bastardised ceremony of acceptance but thats getting ahead of themselves.) 

”Since I’m Lan Zhan’s partner, and I’m the reason why he is to be punished then all the more I must stay no?”

”YOU-”

”Uncle, calm down please.”

”THIS-!” Some younger disciples quickly tries to calm LQR down, who is on the verge of choking on his own blood ( “Cangse Sanren you and yours-!” ) LXC taking this moment to proceed.

”Wangji.”

”...”

“Your punishment has been decided.You have a choice.”

“Seclusion within the caves in the depths of Cloud Recesses.In solitary isolation for 3 years.”

“Or we will strip part of your cultivation and be banished from the Lan Sect.”

Neither were ideal options. GusuLan has never killed unless in the worst scenarios.Like during the Sunshot Campaign.As a peace seeking clan, they seek enlightenment, and reform the mind, the body, the soul.But the caves...they are Spirit caves where they hone their cultivation. However, when one stay in the labyrinth long enough, they forget worldly desires. Their attachments.Their feelings. Themselves. As the immortals do. He knows what the caves can do...Afterall, it was where he spent as a child after his mother’s death. It is why he can barely remember her now, if not for his brother and back then he was too young to decide against the elders who no longer remained once his brother has taken leadership.

LWJ knows that they know.

They have given him an ultimatum. Have your way and lose your home, your status.Or come home, and re-cultivate yourself as a Lan. If 3 years your heart remains, they will not anything either after that.They can’t.

LWJ is ready to choose when WWX stops him. LWJ has given up much in staying beside him, he won’t let him sacrifice more for his sake. They are LWJ’s only family and WWX knows how important that is.

But you are important too.

“3 years Lan Zhan.Besides I have to deal with the Burial Mounds and the Stygian Tiger Seal during this time.By the time you are out, my obligations would also be finished.It’s not as if we’ll be apart 13 years right?” (hahahahhahahaha please dont hurt me)

“The process is dangerous, all the more I need to s-”

“Lan Zhan,trust me.”

Just as I trust you.

The following days, preparations were made. The Wens will be under surveillance, moving down into Yiling now they no longer need to stay in the mountains. WWX will move to Lotus Pier so the 3 sects can work with him better ( read: control ). LWJ will follow the Lans back to Gusu with a-Yuan. They told him he was going to board with a respected sect, he can learn and become like his Zhan gege. He will change his surname from Wen to Lan only because of his unique status as a ward of the Lan clan.LXC makes a promise to let them reunite on Lunar New Year.The only kindness he can give to the Wens.

WWX and LWJ were kept busy themselves, both with their new obligations, and the only time that have alone were the nights after.( “Lan Zhan, how long do you plan to not tell me?””?””About you and Wen Qing plotting behind my back.Feeding me all those horrible, disgusting medicine and meditation with you?””....You knew?””Its my body.I told you I know what is going on with it when I started demonic cultivation.So?So?Was it long?””...””Ahhh look at you Lan Zhan.Do I have to feed you wine to get the truth out of you again?””What?””Ah.Nothing.Nothing.Ahhhh-Lan er gege Wha-Noooo! Forgive Xian Xian!I’m sorry!””Asking for it.””But honestly Lan Zhan now that I can start cultivating again...should we try double cultivating?As cultivation partners?””Shameless.””Ahhh I knew you would say that-Wait.Lan Er gege what are you doing?Why are you peeling my robes-!””Double cultivation.””I DIDN’T SAY NOW!AH!” )

The morning before the departure from the Burial Mounds, they had a ceremony for a-Yuan at their home for the last time, where he thanks his family and his grandmother for their care before he leaves for another.WWX laughs to himself, watching the tiny child struggling in the stiff new robes.Almost bittersweet as he thinks about the child’s fate and purpose. At the end, a-Yuan instead, waddles over and pulls WWX and LWJ to the seats, face in a huffy determination only a way a child could have.

”A-Yuan wants to thank Xian gege and Zhan gege too.”

A tea, and a bow.

”Thank you for your care and love for a-Yuan.”

If WWX has cried, nobody makes mention of it.Even as he held the tiny boy, the innocence he had chosen to protect against the world.

It was worth it.

As the Sects leave Yiling, WWX following the Jiangs back to Lotus Pier and LWJ to Gusu, the pair stood beside each other, steps heavy in their wake.Finally, as they could not let the couple delay their plans further, a cough here and a nudge there.Its goddamn time.

WWX makes the first step, throwing his arms around LWJ. Poise and image be damned.Let them look.They were already talking at Koi Tower anyway.LWJ thinks as he returns the embrace, hoping to remember this man before the long years they have to spend apart.He feels WWX’s warmth, his breath at his neck before the demonic cultivator leans nearer to his ear, whispering words that he never dreamed he would hear.

“This time, I’ll come find you. I’ll come to Gusu.”

And WWX reaches up, tugs his forehead ribbon off,wrapping it around his wrist, giving LWJ a smirk before sauntering off to a stoned JC and a smug Wen family.

(Somewhere behind, LXC is smiling widely before scrambling to assist LQR who is resembling one experiencing a qi deviation.JC has a jaw on the ground, thoughts escaping him.The Wens are glad and relieved, because goddman it finally.If you had to live with the 2 you would be too.)

“I’ll be taking this Hanguang Jun! You can have it back in 3 years!”

“Mn.”

As they share one last parting glance, they turn away with much difficulty, parting after a long while.

LWJ has waited this long.He can endure this.

Just 3 years.

-----

On the way to Lotus Pier-

“Why...do I feel like I’m missing something here.”

“Ahhh a single dog won’t get it.”

“I dare you say it again you ass.”

“Single dog.”

“Hahaha.Let’s go Jiang Cheng.I’m a guest of Lotus Pier now, aren’t I? Have your disciples carry my things properly now. And I want to drink Shijie’s soup.”

“You and your shamelessness.Which part of guest do you not understand?!”

(Part 9 here)

[tackleoutfood]

Ed Maitland Smith has had more nice days than you have had hot dinners. Here he plans one whole day of decadence out for you. Enjoy As penance for last week's self-absorbed lack of contribution, I, today, plan for you: an evening. One to be enjoyed not only during its imbibement, but during both its inception and construction too. Saint Francis of Assisi (with whom I am not personally acquainted) was known to be fond of saying that 'For it is indeed in giving that we receive.' Never a truer word spoken - most especially when aforementioned gifts are bestowed upon oneself.

Pork belly, with anticipation

Ingredients

For the Pork One pork belly joint One adult handful of both fennel seeds and coriander seeds For the Cabbage One red cabbage One child’s handful in total of whatever spices are to hand, think warm Red wine vinegar For the Apple One apple One adult handful of butter 5 sage leaves To drink Orange juice con bits Gin sin bits Elderflower cordial bits si tu prefieres Water con gas

Method First things first. Remove the pork from the fridge a good 12 hours before you intend to eat it. Score the skin, and I mean really score it. It ought to look like the bedroom door of a flat that I once catsat in following an evening of insisting that Fleur Kitty was not to join me in the bedroom. Return it to the fridge, uncovered to allow the skin to dry out. Open your laptop and fling yourself headlong into a day of banal correspondence. At 5.30pm turn the oven on to 200 degrees. Return to your desk for 30 minutes more punishment. Close laptop. Congratulations, your day is now over. Phase two. Cocktail shaker. 4 parts orange juice. 1 part gin. 1 splash elder. Shake. Pour over ice. Top up with soda. Stir. And, as my family members would say to workmen, window cleaners and the like: Get that down ya. (A nod to the right honourable gentlemen Sam Sifton for his recipe here, which I have, of course, bastardised, like most other things in my life.) Phrase three. Smash together fennel and coriander seeds with salt and pepper in pestle and mortar, and proceed to rub into the pork skin, with a layer underneath in a baking tray. A spicy, uncomfortable bed for the naughtiest of pigs. (Remarkable really that this family recipe never made its way into my dear grandfather’s late friend Rudyard Kipling’s collection of Just So Stories – fond as he was of rubbing things up the wrong way, I note as an aside). Oven. 30 minutes. Phase four. Meanwhile, finely slice half of the red cabbage, combine in saucepan with spices (think cumin, dry coriander, all spice, star anise, etc. etc. but absolutely no cloves – it’s not Christmas Day at the Baden Powell household – it’s your dinner and you deserve better). Red wine vinegar, and cook: low and slow. If you keep an eye on it, it ought to be ready at the same time as the pork. I love it when a plan comes together. Phase five. You’ll have finished your drink by now I imagine. Have another. Sit and enjoy it this time, but not before reducing the oven to 170 degrees. You have 90 minutes. Don’t forget about the cabbage. Phase six. After 90 minutes, and presumably 2 or 3 more little orange drinks, take the pork out, leave it, uncovered, for 15 minutes. Stir cabbage, keep warm. Meanwhile, take frying pan and, into it, insert two peeled and partially sliced apple halves with a large amount of butter (slice the apples from bottom to stem, stopping short to keep them together). Simultaneously on the other side of the pan, fry your sage leaves. They will be done before the apple and can therefore be removed and dried on some kitchen towel (I was fresh out, so innovatively used loo roll of which I have had vast quantities since the 26 March). Spoon the warm butter over the apple, moving around occasionally – pop in some excess pork fat if you like. (I have always prefered my apples with rendered pork fat but this is a personal choice). The apples will soften, the slices will splay, and you can press – presenting them jauntily on the plate. Phase seven. Warm plate. Cabbage, apple, sage, generous slice of unctuous pork belly. Glass of delicious old vine cinsault (I recommend Percheron’s offering). Cutlery and of course napkin. (You might be eating an apple but you needn’t behave entirely like a baby). Enjoy.

And that, my dear friend, is your reward for a day poorly spent. Same again tomorrow?

[sapphicsugden]

the unsubstantial shadows (robert/aaron, robert, jack, sarah, pat, katie, aaron) orpheus and eurydice au. fire, death, manslaughter mentions, child abuse, etc etc.

THE BIG BANG IS HERE. eventually. i just got back from my sister’s birthday and i am so ready to have this done lmao. it’s probably shit in parts because i lost sections of the edits and i struggled in areas, but i am so glad it has Finished. 

um. thank you to SO many people, you all know who you are, and thank you to @mmurdocks-law for the BEAUTIFUL BEAUTIFUL ART you can find it HERE and praise everything about it because it is BEAUTIFUL

so. on to the fic!!

Robert’s feet ache.

It must have been hours since he last ate, and there’s been no water except for the Styx and he’ll be damned if he gets that desperate. Literally.

The back of his neck itches, hairs standing on end. It would be so easy to turn his head, to see if Aaron’s still there, but he can’t. He’s come this far and he’s not about to give anyone the satisfaction of taking Aaron’s soul.

The hill tapers off and he sucks in a breath. It’s not that far to the top, and he’ll know how close he is, know how quickly Aaron can be within reach.

“Come on, Rob,” he mutters to himself.

As he crests the top of the hill, he drops to his knees immediately, nausea stinging his throat. The stretch of land beneath him is vast, dark and tinged orange, a broiling mess of land that looks as vast as it is daunting.

“You didn’t think it would be that easy did you?” Katie says, and Robert startles, forgot she was even there.

“It never ends.” Robert’s voice sounds far away to his own ears, Hell stretching out beneath him like a foreboding shadow. The Styx winds through the burnt and blackened ground in a bastardised version of the Thames in aerial pictures of London. It’s empty.

Empty but for nightmares of your own making, Hades had told him with a gleeful smile.

Robert’s eyes burn with the want to cry, out of anger, frustration or despair he doesn’t know. It feels heavier and more profound than it did before, when there was just the forest. Now it’s infinite, a Hell built from his own deeds and mistakes.

“You could always give up,” Katie says, crouching down beside him. There’s an expression on her face Robert can’t place. “Aaron would expect it.”

Robert’s head snaps up, angry, and he rounds on her. “What would you know about what Aaron expects of me? You don’t know him now.”

“I know you.” This time Katie’s voice is softer, and her expression shifts into something he remembers from before. “You’re not about to let him down, are you?”

“No,” Robert says, feels the word down to his bones. He looks to his right, sees Pat next to him, face turned towards the hell that awaits. She hasn’t said much, just listens to Robert talking till his voice aches. He wonders what she’s thinking. “Will you-“

“I’ll be here,” Pat says, not giving him a chance to ask the question. Her smile is soft, but sad. Everything about her is sad. “If you want to do this.”

Robert doesn’t want to do this. He allows himself a moment to feel the fear, to let it roll through him. He allows himself a fleeting second to imagine giving in and walking back the way he came, watching the spectre of Aaron disappear into nothing. Forever. Shaking his head, he sets his jaw, refuses to give in to the part of him that wants to turn back. It would be easy, and he knows easy, but he knows what that means for Aaron.

“I need to do this,” he says at last, climbing back to his feet. The floor ahead looks hot and dangerous, but Robert grits his teeth, ready for it.

This is going to hurt.

ao3 link

[gay-jesus-probably]

HEY BRAIN

WE ALREADY HAVE A LONG AND COMPLICATED KINGDOM HEARTS AU THAT HASN’T BEEN WRITTEN YET

WE DON’T NEED TO START ANOTHER ONE

WE REALLY DONT

AND YET HERE WE ARE, HERE THE FUCK WE ARE.

This was honestly supposed to be a short Axel centric story to deconstruct the fandom idolisation of him and point out that yknow he’s literally the second most manipulative character apart from Xehanort, and he backstabs literally everybody he sides with at some point. He’s not a good guy. That’s why I love him, he’s such a piece of shit.

And it’s turned into a very complicated AU with two kind-of-but-not-really OC’s because I refuse to deal with the clusterfuck that is Xion’s canon, so I’ve just made her a normal Nobody but that means I need to give her an Other, so Nio (pronounced neo) is now a character and she’s basically Xion but with a firm sense of identity and a lot less Issues, and I needed Xemnas to appear but I also wanted a nice not possessed Terra to be involved so now someones gotta get A. possessed by Xehanort B. resist it enough to make Xehanort lose his memories or some shit once in the body C. follow along with the whole Radiant Gardens destruction turn into Nobody thing and D. still look like Terranort because I like his design. So i accidentally ended up giving Terra a twin brother that gets possessed and is presumed dead with Xehanort but psyche bitches he’s still kicking. him being xehanort. the brother, Caelum, is also still there, but not doing so great. I named his Caelum because the wayfinder trio have latin as their naming theme and i figured terra’s twin should have a name opposite to earth and Caelum loosely translates to sky, so that’s good enough for me.

Xion’s other has been named Nio because Ion is just cutting off the X, no self respecting parent would name their child Oni, if I called her Oin i’d be picturing a dwarf in my head the whole time, and Ino reminds me of Naruto so that shits not gonna fly. Damn you three letters to work with. I’m not happy with Nio but it sounds cute so good enough????

I also managed to accidentally do some justice by Kairi and Namine, because in the extensive set up of the AU the wayfinder trio made it through BBS (mostly) fine, and Ven’s healing coma whatever the fuck was short, so once he recovered he was like hey theres these kids that have the keyblade we should go train them and eraqus was like lmao your problem now kids i’m retired so the trio went to destiny islands and found Sora, Riku, Kairi, and Namine, because I also refuse to deal with the fuckery of Namine’s canon so she gets to be a real person too. Sora obviously gets trained by Ven because the sunshine children should stick together and like they were heart buddies, they’re basically brothers already, you’re not talking them out of it. Riku gets trained by Aqua, because I personally headcanon Riku as being more magically inclined, and let’s be real here he’s also the only one with any chance of being the Real Adult of the group, and Aqua will both relate to that and help Riku mature into the leader thing for realsies. Kairi and Namine get trained by Terra, because while the physical abilities are important, so is the apprentices mental state, and Namine and Kairi both tend to hang back and let Sora and Riku handle everything, and just generally are more timid, plus Namine has wicked bad anxiety. So Terra teaches the girls to be these badass mighty warriors with giant ass keyblades because fuck that flowery bullshit, Riku is the mage and self appointed Team Dad, and Sora is the wonderful ray of sunshine that he is and goes for a bit of everything. Sora took the shield, Riku took the staff, Namine and Kairi took the sword. The Nio is found having taught herself how to summon a keyblade, and they’re like aw shit thats awesome which one did you choose and shes like lmao the staff why and they’re like aight sounds like Aqua’s problem, because Xion kind of needs to be good at magic considering for like a third of Days all she can do is cast magic, so she’d better be good at it.

As for how Roxas and Xion are around if this is so hardcore AU and Sora and Nio are running around.... eh, spoilers.

Look, the first part is Axel centric, and thats what counts.

so far looking at five parts, each one a ridiculously long single chapter. P1 is the initial ‘short story’ haha nevermind, P2 is the aftermath and kind of a bastardisation of Days, P3 is the aftermath of THAT and kind of the bastardisation of KH2, P4 is the ‘how the fuck did we get here’ episode, that is literally what the outline says, and is the bastardisation of BBS, and P5 is the finale, and the bastardisation of 3D.

why do i do these things to myself. whyyyyyy.

[occupyscifi]

The Guardian

The Guardian emerged from his vault into a world fallen into ruin. As he stepped out of the corroded metal airlock, freezing gas escaping in clouds around him, he gaped at the remains of all he had known. Where in his time great kilometre high towers had graced the skyline now only tumbled stumps of rubble remained. Where once there had been ordered malls and temples of commerce there stood only empty and pockmarked concrete tombs, their insides choked with weeds and overrun by great red flowered creepers. Where once there had been pleasant boulevards and bustling open plazas there were now only craters left by massive chunks of fallen masonry. Shards of superstructure that barbarian tribes had decorated with the rude faces of their primitive gods.

The Guardian tottered on still half frozen legs, the exosuit he wore providing breath for his lungs as they reacquainted themselves to breathing. As he walked the death of his civilisation became even more obvious. The skeletons of transport pods lay long dead by the roadside, surely left in some moment of disaster. Or perhaps some had simply had their batteries run down, the Guardian imagined some barbarian chieftain yelling powerful curses as his war wagon finally ran out of power.

And what of the people? What of the great city dwellers from which the Guardian had been drawn? Th scientist and the engineers and the programmers? What of the intellectual elite of the continent, those for whom the secrets of the universe were bound to open to in the end?

Well the eagle eyes of the Guardian had already spotted signs of human habitation. The stains of cooking fires and the gnawed bones of recent kills half hidden in the ruins. He spied too in the shadows of the ruined concrete buildings and high up in the long burnt out towers figures thinking themselves hidden. The Guardian made no effort to hide himself, nor to use the many advanced armaments he had concealed about his person. Instead he simply kept walking, slowly and steadily up the pockmarked marble steps that had once lead to the civic plaza. There the Guardian knew that the savage tribes that had followed the fall of civilisation would surely hold their infernal rituals. No doubt they would be some bastardised misinterpretation of the Guardian’s own time. Re enactments of familiar events made alien by time and rotted memory. There he would meet those descendants of his people, and there he would see if there was anything left of the world he knew.

As he reached the top of the stairs the plaza itself came into view. Its wide acres had been long since striped of trees and its ornamental hedges. In their places crude stakes served as a last resting place for sacrificial victims – some the Guardian could not tell whether they were animal or human, and thought perhaps they might be an unholy mix of the two.

What there also were, in their tens, were the people the Guardian sought. Dressed in simple rags or in horrible parody of the clothes the Guardian had once wore. All of them looking at him with wild, terrified eyes. Looking to him to give the light of the civilisation that had vanished from themselves. Any trace of the great civilisation that had once resided here, of the population of deep thinkers and sophisticated consumers had long gone. They were savages living in the ruins of a dead city.

“Yes!” said the Guardian, giving the sky a mini fist pump of joy “thank fuck for that! I’ve come to the right goddamn time”

 The Guardians had been created to solve a simple problem. That of immortality. But not the immortality of the individual, that was a simple one. People could be kept going indefinitely, it was a simple matter of resplicing human DNA with a much simpler organisms and then wiping out the resultant cancers every sixth or seventh year. No, what really bothered the people of the late 21st century was the inevitable death of their own society. Despite its technical proficiency, despite having solved the great questions of history these people were left with a very simple neuroses. Plain and simple they worried about the extinction of their culture, their civilisation and their way of life. The inevitable world ending apocalypse that could come from anything, be it disease, climate change or the collapse of capitalism. Blame too many zombie films, blame dystopic novels and end of the world scenarios but the simple truth was that most human being living in the start of the 22nd century were convinced that it was impossible to stop the end of the world.

But while it was known that the world would end, cities would crumble and be overrun by half starved barbaric hordes, it was also know that something would survive. Or more accurately someones, because much like the common cockroach it was assumed that short of a total extinction event there would always be human beings who would survive. Of course they would most likely be primitive, highly superstitious types fallen conveniently to a semi medieval barbarism. The sort of people that would kill and eat a scientist rather than listen to them elucidate on germ theory. However they would be precisely the sort of people who would listen to a handy messiah, especially if that messiah had been kept inside a deep sleep cryo chamber for the preceding centuries just waiting to come back and rebuild civilisation.

Thus a core of men and women were recruited to act as Guardians of civilisation, to be frozen en masse and then awoken, one each every five hundred years. If they were to find that civilisation was still there, ticking over nicely, then it was back in the deep freeze for another few centuries. When they finally awoke to a world lain low by mankind’s famous hubris then they would spring to the rescue. They would re educate the populace, rebuild the infrastructure and the learning to recreate civilisation from the ashes of its fall. Of course this new civilisation would also flourish, wither and die in time. But then there were a large number of Guardians, and no real limit on how long they could be frozen.

Tethis Mathews had been itching to be a guarding since his thirteenth year and total immersion in Fallout 7 WW4. His most fervent wish had been to explore a real zombie infested nuclear wasteland, but he would settle for a barbarous horde that could be won over by his reasoning mind. And if his reasoning mind didn’t cut it then his exosuit’s numerous in built weapons could make mincemeat out of anyone who got in his way. He had entered the Guardian programme with his eyes open, knowing full well that the age of plenty and enlightenment that had been born into was nothing but a bright point between inevitable shadows. Climate change, rampant capitalism and fearsome inequality, he knew, would soon bring about the end of civilisation. Not soon enough, however, hence his joining of the Guardian programme. This allowed him to speed up the process, and also to choose the time of his reawakening. Judging a round thousand years to be enough to have artfully scarred the land and reduced its people to a convenient level of barbarism he had happily stepped into the cryo chamber.

“I come from the past!” he called out loudly, knowing that it was likely he would not be understood and therefore his suit repeated his words in whatever the onboard AI’s best guess was for what English would degrade into after a thousand years of decline “to guide you into the future” Tethis looked around at the faces of the crowd. They were for the most part shorter than him, and much thinner – though that may have been more due to the exo suit he wore adding a good few inches to his height “I have come to bring the light of civilisation to those who have lost it, to bring knowledge where there is ignorance and hope for those who have none” he raised his left hand in a fist salute stolen from the black panthers by way of Halo 17 “I am your Guardian!”

These last words were as a shout in the air, and for a moment Tethis felt a trickle of foolishness run through him. Who was he to be telling these people what to do? He who in his life had lived only in digital fantasy and online interaction?

But then as one the crowd, with barely a whisper went down on their knees and bowed before him. Tethis regarded the supplicant mass, the hundreds of ragged and skinny peasants who were ready to be lead back to civilisation. That Tethis had hated the same civilisation when he had been in it hardly mattered.

“now this” said Tethis “is more like it” he looked at the front row bowed before him, trying to discern who was in control, which high priest or warlord he would need to have on his side to prevent it all going a bit Game of Thrones. He chose an appropriately burly looking warrior, his fine beard spotted with grey and a blade – carved seemingly from a piece of UPVC window frame – in his belt.

“stand, stand my good man” said Tethis, waiting for his onboard AI to translate. When it did and the man still failed to rise Tethis was reduced to awkwardly tapping the man on the shoulder and almost pulling him to his feet “right, umm. Okay. Tell me….” Tethis groped around for the next part of the script. He would need a specific miracle of some kind to convince the people he was a real Guardian and not some false god. Perhaps if he could get the lights on, or if there was a convenient plague that his onboard medikit could cure just in time to save some cute children “tell me what afflicts you. Some contagion? Or marauding bands of bandits? A tyrannical religion?” he scoured his mind for the post apocalyptic fiction he had loved as a child "A rogue AI? Rogue robots?” the blank look in the man’s face continued “Rogue anything?”

The man seemed to pause for a moment as if he were thinking deeply and then his eyes lit up. He said something in a tongue so barbarous that it may as well have been Klingon or Dothraki. He gestured for Tethis to follow him, pointing towards one of the many crudely built huts on the edge of the plaza. They had been clearly jerry rigged from the detritus of the city. Panels of transport pods were welded onto twisted pieces of old masonry, junk that had barely survived the centuries recycled to keep out the cold wind and rain.

“right, good. Getting somewhere” said Tethis, gearing himself up to face whatever local bogeyman needed to be defeated in order for him to begin his real work of rebuilding civilisation.

The bearded tribesman gestured to one hut in particular, its mass spread over two ungainly stories. Outside it a pair totem poles were carved into faces that Tethis did not recognise but suspected had been based on ancestral memories of children TV characters. Some ur-disney ears emerged from a carved face that resembled a Darth Vader mask. The entrance to the hut was marked by two large pieces of corroded copper sheet, their surfaces engraved with cave painting like scenes. Tethis was pleased to note that one of them looked like a child’s drawing of a Guardian, the exo suit rendered in swirling carved lines. Perhaps in some dim ancestral story they had remembered his kind, those that kept aflame the light of civilisation.

His reverie was interrupted by a series of savage syllables from the chieftain, who pulled aside one of the sheets of copper to lead Tethis into a dark and smoky interior. There a few candles and incense burned away, causing Tethis to cough slightly and reminding him of the occult stores a dreary  ex girlfriend had always dragged him to.

“and this place is?” asked Tethis, blinking into he darkness. He was a little on edge, though this hardly looked like the sort of place they would kill and eat an unwary traveller. Not least because firstly he’d not broken any obvious taboos but more importantly he had enough firepower on him to reduce what was left of the city to rubble.

“we’ve been waiting for you” came a voice from the darkness. Into the light stepped a girl, her face decorated with swirling tribal tattoos that Tethis realised were stylised renderings of tech company logos from his era “Guardian. Waiting so long for your wisdom”

“you speak…” swallowed Tethis “you speak English?”

“I have studied your people for many years” said the girl, her bright brown eyes drinking in the tall stranger. Her cheekbones had a hint of Asia, and yet she was pale as a Russian bond girl. Tethis decided that whatever else, the fall of civilisation had clearly been beneficial for some. Whichever way you cut it the girl was very beautiful “I am Jain. I learned your language from those few who still spoke it”

“yes, I can imagine there aren’t many who do” said Tethis, looking at the tribal chieftain, who bowed once to him and stealthily withdrew “these primitive people are a bit too simple to understand a language so complex and rich as 22nd century English…”

“no. no I mean that English is too simple” said Jain as she guided Tethis to where they could sit and talk “They can’t express themselves in it. People here mostly speak Olthran. Its got, like, fifteen separate words for happiness. Only idiots like me speak in English”

“oh” said Tethis “right. Well, if you’ve heard of the Guardians then you know why we’re here. To bring back….”

“to bring back civilisation, light in the darkness?”

“yes” said Tethis, sitting carefully in a chair made from the bones of old umbrellas. The girl sat down in one opposite. She reached for a glass jar of brown granules and placed it on a table. From another she drew a clear and slightly bubbling liquid. Into two primitive earthenware mugs she poured first the liquid and then dropped a quantity of the brown granules, stirring with one hand and murmuring what sounded like a prayer over them. When it was finished she handed one to Tethis and held one herself. She raised the mug to the sky, clearly intending for them both to drink at the same time

“so, what do you call this drink exactly?” he asked gingerly, sniffing at the liquid. However his sense of smell had yet to fully return. All he could smell was the ever present incense. He wondered what kind of eldritch mix it might be, and pondered whether to refuse would be to break the sort of taboo one never did when meeting a primitive tribe. He didn’t want to end up in some giant wicker cage being burned to death.

“coke” said the girl “diet, of course” she pressed the mug to Tethis’s lips “drink, it is the drink of your people. We drink it in honour of those people long dead, and in hope that their legacy might be given its due”

“right” said Tethis “of course” he took a sip, and despite its warmth he was pleased to notice it was a pleasant approximation of coke. The kind of imitation coke bought by trendy types who wanted something organic and fair trade, but close enough considering the last coke bottling plant had probably been burnt down by tribal fundamentalists aeons earlier “about that legacy” he began, after several un comfortable moments of the girl staring at him in what he could only assume was adoration “how can I…um, well how can I help?”

“What do you mean, Guardian?” said Jain innocently

“I mean, is there something I can do?” he looked about the hut, but there was little clue of what his mission should be “are there hordes of brigands that are bothering the people of this city? Rogue robots? Evil AI that people worship like a pagan god?”

“the brigands were all wiped out long since. We formed a confederacy of tribes and dealt with them when I was a little girl” she took another sip of her drink and belched delicately “and there never were any robots, rogue or otherwise. The last AI ascended to a higher plane of reality about two hundred years ago”

“oh, oh right” said Tethis, sipping the coke “but there must be something. Do you lot have any diseases at the moment? People needing medicine?”

“the wise women do well enough”

“hmm, well they may be all right with the herbs and the potions” said Tethis “but when it comes to some real magic I think I have a few tricks”

“oh, I am sure Doctor Sung will love that” said the girl, adding a little more water to her coke “she’s always studying – she has ever so many doctorates and she can cure a cancer like no one else. I’m sure she’d love to discuss it with you. Maybe you can do some surgery? There are some horrible wounds in the infirmary….”

“on second thoughts” said Tethis, for whom the sight of any blood not digitally rendered was too horrible to look at “I don’t want to step on any toes. Perhaps I can do something else useful. Any ancient data cores that need to be restarted?”

“no, no I don’t think so” said the girl

“lights that I could turn on?”

“we have candles” said the girl “they seem to work”

“christ, there must be something” said Tethis, feeling the coke in the its earthenware mug “man, if you just had a fridge I’d kill for a cold one of these”

“oh, I have one” said Jain, gesturing to the corner where an off whoite object stood, cracked by time but still well used.

Despondently Tethis went over and opened it. he was annoyed to see the light didn’t turn on, and even more annoyed to see it didn’t actually seem to be plugged in.

“yeah, where is the electric socket?” he asked, holding up the cable. The girl looked confused

“electric?” said the girl “what’s that?”

Tethis would be the first to admit he didn’t quite have the most technical mind. Asked to explain to primitive people about how nuclear fission worked, or how one could generate electricity even via wind power he would have struggled. However his onboard AI was more than capable of providing the right words, not to mention to give him a handy guide as to how he could reconnect the city to the electricity grid. It helped of course that his exosuit had already a map of the city from his own time, and had figured that the old electric plant just to outside the city was still workable.

“so that you can see at night” said Tethis as Jain translated for him. They had gathered the heads of the tribes, though instead of the grizzled old warriors in the Conan mould he had been expecting the majority was clearly female and there wasn’t a single burley bearded chieftain amongst them. When Tethis enquired about the presence of the warrior who had led him to her Jain had pointed out that the man hadn’t been a chieftain, or even a warrior.

“he’s a gardener” Jain had said “hence the blade. I don’t think he’s ever killed a man in his life. Why would he?”

Tehtis had wanted to say that in the world after civilisation it was only the strong that survived, but seeing the way people cared for children and venerated the elderly in the plaza that was clearly not true. Obviously these people had never seen Mad Max

“electricity means your homes can be warm in winter” Tethis continued to the chieftains, gathered in one of the central huts on the plaza. This one was no less primitive but it was light and airy, and was decorated in patterns that while both primitive and incomprehensible Tethis found quite soothing “so that your children will not die of the cold” he saw one chieftain raise a quizzical eyebrow and Tethis thought perhaps that in this climate the cold was not a problem “so that you may keep your food colder and for longer. So that you may live longer lives and in greater comfort” he waited for Jain to complete the translation and smiled in satisfaction at the nods that came afterwards. Then there came speeches from some of the chieftains that Jain translated, though either her skills were bad or else Tethis was not listening since they didn’t seem to make much sense, filled as they were with allusions to events that Tethis had never heard of. However that hardly mattered, if these people already knew what was good for them then they wouldn’t have been primitive savages living in hovels in the rubble of his civilisation. And after all it wasn’t like they could really refuse him, it would have been childs play to simply impose his will on them and get them to do exactly as he pleased. Which he wouldn’t do, because that wouldn’t be fair.

“two days walk from here there is a generating substation, powered by a geothermal fault in the earth’s crust” explained Tethis to a series of blank faces. He sighed "A big building that makes electric by getting hot in the ground. The heat makes the electric and then big long wires carry it to here” Tethis was glad that while he was explaining this not only was Jain translating his words but his exo suit’s holo projector was displaying a shimmering blue schematic of the landscape, complete with Star Wars style blipping lines to show what was happening. As he explained the schematic zoomed in, showing a tiny version of Tethis flicking a switch. It pulled out then to show the electricity flashing along underground cables that the AI assured Tethis were still active. Then it showed an idealised 3d graphic of the city, filled with stick figure frowny faced tribesmen. When the electricity reached the city the lights came on, turning the frowny faced tribesmen into a cheering mob, throwing down their spears in joy.

“see?” said Tethis “easy. You’ll be back to a functioning capitalist society in no time” he beamed “now, I just need a few volunteers – preferably among your strongest warriors” he didn’t meet Jain’s eye, after all despite her assurances that the road to the substation was free from bandits he had watched enough post apocalyptic  films to know it had to be different. There was no way such an obviously pre industrial society could have the level of organisation to keep its transport routes free from brigands and outlaws. Had there been some kind of cod Roman Empire then he would have been assured, however a city run by women as some kind of hippie co-op didn’t inspire much confidence.

*

They saw the first of the statues half a day’s ride from the city. Tethis had requisitioned the horse even though he could have easily walked, the exo suit would keep marching on whether he moved a muscle or not. However the Planet of the Apes style incongruity of his masterchief themed exosuit on the back of a horse was not to be missed. That the horse might not recover from the excess weight did not cross his mind.

“what are these?” he asked after they had past the second. The statues were not obviously new, but neither were they from Tethis’s own time – the technical know how required to create thirty foot tall bronze figures had clearly long gone. Not only that but their placement – on concrete plinths by the roadside - was clearly very deliberate. That there had been none in the city, or even in the weed choked chaos of the old suburbs was equally so.

Tethis had seen the first as they had reached a wide plain, a river slashing through it whose bridges were rickety things made of wood lashed around the stumps of what had been concrete posts. However Tethis’s onboard AI didn’t recognise the design of the statue, and Tethis himself didn’t remember there being anything like that when he had lived in the city.

“I thought you’d know” said Jain as they past one of them. They were tall and imposing, cast in a style that took in both Roman Emperors and the tinpit celebrity dictators of the late 21st century. Indeed as they got closer Tethis could see signs of familiar technology, a tablet computer held in the left hand and a pair e-glasses caught up in the delicate copper curls on the figure’s head. Yet the details were hard to discern, for while the centuries had perhaps been kind the local people had not. The statue was badly chipped and dented, as if it had been regularly used for target practice “he was one of yours”

“one of mine?” said Tethis, not understanding. He looked at the face, dented beyond all recognition “what do you mean?”

“he was a Guardian” said Jain, her dark eyes looking from Tethis to the statue “Willis Oldfield. He woke up perhaps three hundred years ago. He said he was going to help us, but….”

“but what?”

“I’ve said too much” said Jain, performing a gestured clearly intended to ward off the evil eye “I will not speak ill of our saviours”

“saviours?” echoed Tethis, wheeling around his horse so as to stare at the statue. He hadn’t known Willis that well, the Guardian programme had many volunteers and each got to choose their wake up date. There was something of a lottery to it- wake up to early and civilisation would still be in full swing, making you look paranoid and foolish and making you fodder for social media mockery. However punch in too many years and the likelihood of your vault having been destroyed either in natural or man made disaster increased. Tethis had chosen a round thousand years, clearly Willis had chosen less. Tethis furrowed his brow, an uncomfortable thought in his mind.

“so I’m not the first Guardian to wake up then?”

“no my lord, I am afraid not” said Jain, not meeting his eyes

“but if I’m not the first then why” he gestured at the ruined city they had left behind, at the simple peasants tilling the filed using methods that were irritatingly inefficient “why is it all still like this?”

Jain looked at the entourage of armed men, their faces carefully blank – either because they couldn’t understand a word either were saying or because they didn’t want to comment. Then she looked at Tethis.

“he started well, everyone knows that. Willis did” she began “he helped rebuild parts of the city, helped heal the sick and the victims of the fluxplague. He gave us laws and security and promised that we would live as gods, as man once had. However as the years went on he, well, became a little too convinced of his mission and less and less convinced of our ability to help achieve it. Instead of just helping us he wanted to rule us -  for our own good, he said” she looked at the statue darkly “and there were many who believed it. many who were happy to join in the pogroms and the purges. Who didn’t mind the dissappearances and the loyalty parades. They probably thought it was needed, or at least that it was justified. They didn’t know, you see, didn’t understand what a dictator was. How if you feed a man’s ego, treat him like a god then he’ll behave like one” she ruefully tapped the statues foot, feeling the words carved into it. Tethis didn’t need to be able to understand the script to get the idea of what it said. Clearly Emojjis had not gone extinct with civilisation “and gods are cruel, and they want sacrifices and the more you give the more they take” she sighed “By the time that death came for him he was ruling an empire that spanned from here to the sea and even that wasn’t enough. He was planning to take more. Ever more. Every day they were executing prisoners on the plaza. So many that the blood ran like rivers”

“I can’t… I can’t believe it” said Tethis, looking at the statue “he was meant to be a Guardian. We had an oath, you see” but in his mind he could already see the temptation, for who would have joined the Guardian programme if not with an eye to playing the hero? And if one were to be the hero then it would be natural to want a reward. On top of that he doubted that it was easy to set up a system of representative democracy amongst these savages. Too easy to find oneself playing the dictator, telling yourself it was temporary, that you would step down just as soon as the people were ready to rule themselves. But would they ever be ready? Tethis could well imagine Willis getting older and madder, less willing to give up power. Watching his best efforts crumble away to nothing. He shivered. He would not let that happen to him. He must not. “you know, I could never…. I would never…”

“I am sure my lord has the best of intentions” said Jain, looking up at him “come, we can reach your sub station by nightfall, if we hurry”

They saw three more statues before they reached the substation, two of them had been cut down – either out of protest or else to be melted down for their metal content. They passed too farmers and travellers on the road. Seeing a Guardian the people bowed and went down on one knee, however Tethis was no longer so enamoured by the obsequience. There was a queisness in his stomach that told him he would no longer innocently enjoy their flattery. Not least because when they did meet his gaze it was not wonder he saw in their eyes but suspicion.

“they do not trust me, do they?” he said to Jain as they rode onwards. The sun was starting to set but Tethis had spotted already the squat bulk of the substation in the distance, could see on his onboard HUD the warm glow of geothetmal power ready and waiting to be connected back to the city.

“they are reserving their judgement” said Jain “that is all. I am sure you will be able to convince them soon that you are not like all the rest”

“all the rest?” asked Tethis, suddenly more alarmed “just how many Guardians have been woken up?”

“we are nearly there” said the girl, ignoring the question “we should hurry, your horse looks like he will not make it much longer”

They reached the substation just as the sun finally disappeared over the horizon, so Tethis was unable to make out whether the centuries had been kind to its exterior. He was hoping that it had been decorated like a temple, as if electricity was some kind of god to be feared and revered – the bringer of light and heat into darkness and cold. However all he could really tell was that the door was sealed tight.

“it has been like that since time immemorial” said Jain, translating what a handy local they had recruited was telling them “once it was a place of power, but now….”

“I can handle this” said Tethis, feeling on familiar ground again. It was very much the role of the Guardian to solve ancient mysteries, and managing to open a sealed power door was in fact quite simple. Certainly if your onboard AI had already bluetoothed with what remained of the substation’s security and assured it that he was not a terrorist. With a practised flourish Tethis raised his arms and the doors opened. He was rewarded by an appreciative gasp from one of the primitives around him.

“come, and lets see the mysteries of the ancients” he grinned and started to walk forward. He was somewhat chagrined to see that only Jain came with him.

“they are too filled with primitive fear to come in” she explained “they fear the great fire god will strike them down if they step on his holy land. Only I am brave enough to come in, since I know that you are more powerful than any god”

“right. Good” said Tethis, feeling a little unnerved by the way she looked at him. Adoration was a new emotion to consider in others, and he was not sure he liked it. he couldn’t see well enough to tell what expression the tribesmen were wearing on their faces, but trusted enough that it was awe not to mind that they didn’t follow “well, lets get this done”

The interior of the substation was dark but for the red infernal glow of emergency lighting. Due to the interference from the station itself Tethis’s onboard AI had shut down, but not before setting up a handy schematic for him to follow in order to get the station operational and get the lights of the city back on.

“right, we need to start re-connecting these cables” he said, pointing at the coiled snakes of high voltage cabling “I can open the switches but I need you to carry one” he pointed at the end “be very, very careful. Touch the end of that and you’ll fry” he struggled to think of the appropriate metaphor for her primitive mind “like the bite of a snake. Like the deadliest snake you ever knew”

The girl nodded wide eyed and Tethis turned to flick switches on the wall. The substation hummed as it prepared to cycle up and begin operations.

“so when I say, you need to plug this in” said Tethis turning around to see Jain holding the high votage cable, her hands a safe distance from the connector “on my mark you need to connect this to the socket by here” he tapped a plug in red “okay, no…” he began as Jain began to move forward. However instead of her plunging it into the socket where it belonged she threw it hard against the chest plate of Tethis’s suit. The last thing he saw before his vision exploded into sparks was Jain’s eyes. They were utterly expressionless.

Tethis came to in what felt like seconds or minutes later. Either way it didn’t matter. His suit was dead and the blade in Jain’s hand was long, cruel and clearly well used. The unwavering way she held it showed that she was no stranger to using a weapon. With his suit out of action Tethis couldn’t even move his arms, and with his face mask removed so as to better convince the savages of his good intent he was a sitting duck.

“why?” he croaked as Jain squatted beside him.

“don’t you get it?” said Jain “we don’t need your civilisation. Your light. Your progress. We don’t need what your selling”

“but the technology I can give you” said Tethis desperately. This wasn’t how things were meant to go, sure there was always a danger from primitives. But the hero was always meant to get the girl, not the girl kill the hero “Think of what you can do with that. You don’t have to live in the dark ages…”

“that’s not the problem” said Jain “the problem is you. We’ve seen your type before, remember those statues? And it wasn’t just Willis. There have been many, many before. Each time they come promising civilisation and progress and an end to suffering and you know what?” she laughed harshly “Every single one turns Emperor. Every single one thinks that he has the only answer to all our problems. At first it’s all making schools and hospitals and healing the wounds of the past, but pretty soon it’s all gold palaces and nubile slaves. Wars against infidels who dare to question the authority of the mighty Guardian” her eyes turned hard as she pressed the blade close to Tethis’s neck. For his part Tethis stayed quiet, he knew it was better to let a villain monologue themselves out. In the meantime he might just manage to reboot his suit “Thousands upon thousands of human beings dying because some jumped up little manboy can’t handle anyone criticising them. Because lets face it, you guys are not really built to be natural leaders. I mean what’s your qualification for telling us how to live our lives? Back in your time where you in disaster management? Did you have experience of developing new societies? Were you all big university professors?”

“but you’d rather live in barbarism?” said Tethis desperately, his attempts to reboot his suit failing pathetically “prefer to live in a ruined city, overgrown with weeds? You could be living in a technological paradise…”

“and who do you think ruined the city? Who do you think ended civilisation in the first place?”

“well clearly it was a combination of factors” blustered Tethis, who hadn’t bothered trying to find out why the world had died. It hardly mattered, after all. What mattered was rebooting human society “climate change and rampant inequality and….”

“those were fixed over seven hundred years ago” said Jain “our stories are pretty clear on that point. We lived in peace and prosperity, we had managed to fix our own problems, thank you very much. We’d ended war, ended poverty. Or we had until the first of you fucking Guardians turned up. Atherton, that was what he was called”

"A fine man” said Tethis, remembering a man he had met while training to be a Guardian. Someone who’d had a very clear idea of the great mission of the Guardian programme. Who knew that in their hands lay the only hope for their society’s future “in many ways the best of us, brave and committed to restoring civilisation…”

“it didn’t need restoring” said Jain flatly “it didn’t need him at all. But he didn’t like that, so instead of going back to sleep like a good boy he decided it was easier to ruin the party for everyone. He used his knowledge of weapons to create armies of terrorists who first bombed and then ruined our cities. He funded extremist groups to spout conspiracy theories, founded at least three religions whose goal was the total destruction of society. He worked for twenty years to undermine our society and when it was totally ruined he tried to ride in as our saviour”

“but I’m…I’m not like that” said Tethis, reeling with shock. Although not surprise, in the post apoc reddit crowd in which most Guardians moved a fair degree of sociopathy went with the territory. For everyone planning for the end of the world there were a fair few who were actively hoping for it, and not a few who were funding it.

“this isn’t your fantasy world” said Jain, moving closer. The weapon in her hand had not wavered, even though Tethis was incapacitated. Outside the ruined windows the green landscape rolled, interrupted here and there by the carcass of a concrete building. He was annoyed to note that it was considerably more idyllic than the world he had known, and that if given a choice he would happily have kept it as was rather than trying to recreate the city he had grown up in “this isn’t a playground for you to do what you will. We’re real people, with real lives. We’ve no time to be some space emperor god’s playthings”

“but….but I’m not like that” said Tethis “sure, maybe Atherton was a bit of an extremist libertarian type. And I admit not everyone in the Guardian programme was there for the best of reasons. But I’m not like them, I like it here. I think this society has a lot going for it. Sure it could be improved, of course. There are some very big holes in your notions of civic government. I just want to help, I don’t want to rule you. I’m not like that…..”

“only you are like that” said Jain sadly “why do you think I’ve been with you all this time? Talking to you, taking you around these places?”

“because you wanted electricity?” said Tethis plaintively “to illuminate the darkness…”

“look, if we wanted electric we would have it by now” said Jain quickly “you think we don’t know how to manufacture windmills, harness the rivers and the tides? No, I was testing you and you failed”

“but I thought….”

“you thought I was some pretty primitive maiden girl to fall in love with you?” said Jain “yeah, we know the type your kind go for. That’s why me and my kind exist” she barked a harsh laugh “I mean, you didn’t think it odd that I spoke perfect English, the only person in my civilisation to do so? You never wondered what my actual job was in the tribe? No, of course you didn’t. Your type never does. You just assume we’re here to be your Pocahontas fuck fantasy”

“how did you know about Disney movies?” said Tethis, his mind unable to pick up anything but random details.

“because I studied your stupid fucking people” said Jain “I spent my life immersed in Guardian lore, in the stupid little references to inconsequential shit. A life I could have spent doing what I actually cared about, but I sacrificed that because I knew that if one of you showed up it could spell the end for all of us. I won’t let that happen”

“so what happens now?” said Tethis pathetically. He was still unable to move anything but his eyes. But now they were used to the gloom he could see illuminated by the moonlight through a window what he had assumed just to be piles of some ancient armour. Now though he began to recognise what it was, and to see that the walls were covered with complex murals, names of things he recognised. Names and people.

“this is our temple” said Jain, following his eyes “this is where we bring you, at the end. Then when it is done we daub these walls with reminders, with whatever information you give us that we did not know before. So that we are always prepared, be it a hundred years or a thousand before another one of you walks among us” she looked him in the eye “it’s our little hedge against immortality”

“but what will you….?” Began Tethis, unable to complete the sentence

“oh come on” said Jain, proffering the blade “you must know. We’re a barbarian tribe, after all. What are barbarian tribes famous for?” she moved forward “if it helps, you can think of it as a sacrifice. You wanted to know what you could do to help us. Well this is it”

She was, at least, fast. Tethis barely had a chance to scream before he was dead. Outside the primitive tribesmen shivered. There wasn’t one of them that had ever needed to spill the blood of another man, and not one of them that ever wanted to. That was the curse of the Priestesses like Jain. Those who had to sacrifice themselves for the good of the people. For the future of everyone.