#hamlet explained badly

[cleverclove]

thanks for posting about hamlet ur the only way i actually understand that blasted book for my english class 🫵🗿🫶

OH HOLY SHIT YOU’RE WELCOME…it’s super fun once you get into it :> but uh here’s an actual rundown if you need it :] (except it’s told in incomprehensible modern day language)

King of Denmark? Dead. He’s king of DEADMARK now hehe

His ghost comes back and haunts the fuck out of Hamlet’s homies

Hamlet’s homies, seeing as said ghost looks exactly like the dead king, decide to tell their emo homie, Hamlet

Hamlet has recently returned from a weeks-long voyage from college back home to Denmark to mourn his dad (F to pay respects)

This bitch is EMO AS HELL (i mean his dad DID just pass so….)

(Btw Denmark is at risk of war with Norway but oddly enough it’s not as big a plot point as you might think???)

Except OOPS! Apparently his mom married his uncle. Wtf mom???

Said uncle is kind of a dick and Hamlet basically sticks his middle finger up at him the whole entire play

Hamlet’s homies, led by his college fuckbuddy, Horatio, come over to tell him about this ghost

King of Deadmark tells him that that motherfucking (literally) uncle of his is behind it

Hamlet swears revenge but debates whether to believe this ghost or not (bc duh, it’s a ghost. Not exactly the most trustworthy source.)

Oh he also has this ex, Ophelia

She’s a cinnamon roll (and the only one in the play)

He’s mad bc she broke off their relationship (bc her father tells her she’s not his type…..royalty back then was only allowed to marry other royalty -_-)

So there’s this whole subplot about their breakup going about as well as you’d expect a Shakespearean tragedy to go

(Or: Hamlet commits borderline domestic abuse)

Yeah he’s kind of a shitty boyfriend (ex now)

Blah blah blah blah shenanigans happen

Hamlet intends to kill Claudius the Dickhead Uncle, who he believes is behind a tapestry in mom’s room

So after a fight with his mom he stabs the tapestry with a man behind it

Except OOPS it’s his ex’s dad

Anyway at this point Dickhead Uncle is like “okay you’re done” because damn this is a PR NIGHTMARE

So he sends Hamlet off to hang out in England for a bit

(And by hang I mean get hung. As in executed <3)

Along the way he gets kidnapped by pirates (?????)

Idk either

He sees the letter condemning him to death

He crosses his name out and puts his FRIENDS who he’s traveling with to death instead

Yeah he’s kind of a shitty friend too

Back to Denmark! Ophelia, obviously unable to live without a man (this IS Shakespeare after all), goes insane at the loss of her dad and bf

She ends up swimming with the fishes (bc she drowns herself. Pure innocent cinnamon roll too good for this world fr.)

Hamlet returns and FUCK.

His ex (who he’s still in love with) killed herself because of him D:

Her brother, obviously pretty distraught at losing his sister AND dad within the span of a few days because of Hamlet, is pretty pissed off at him understandably

He challenges Hamlet to a “friendly *wink* duel”

Clown on clown violence because the poisoned sword Laertes the brother uses hits both of them

Hamlet poisons the king after his mom accidentally drinks the poisoned wine that Claudius planned to give HAMLET to kill him

So yeah. Three people are dead now, and Hamlet isn’t gonna live much longer.

His fuckbuddy from earlier, Horatio, is absolutely DEVASTATED dude

Being the loyal bff he is, he tries to kill himself too to join Hamlet in death

(Kinda gay if you ask me but whatever)

Hamlet dies in Horatio’s arms

(Again, pretty gay but what do I know :P)

Horatio lives and vows to tells Hamlet’s story as the Norwegians storm the castle and take over Denmark.

[foundtherightwords]

Fallen Empires - Chapter 4

Pairing: Geta x OFC

Summary: Having done the unthinkable to secure his throne, Emperor Geta rules with ruthlessness and paranoia. Now, after escaping an assassination attempt, a badly injured Geta is saved by Daphne, a young widow, who takes him back to her remote village without knowing his true identity. As Daphne nurses the former emperor back to health, attraction blooms between them, and Geta discovers a soft side he didn't know he possessed. But can their love survive his thirst for revenge and his desire to reclaim power?

Chapter warnings: none

Chapter word count: 2.5k

Prologue + Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3

Chapter 4

At last, Geta was deemed sufficiently recovered to leave the bedroom. His stitches came off, and though Daphne still plied him with bitter drinks and fortifying broths, she no longer put the smelly poultices on his wounds. She hadn't allowed him a full bath yet, but she had given him his privacy to wash and dress and had allowed him solid food. It was only simple fare like lentil stew and barley soup, but it tasted heavenly after a month of watery gruel. His illness must have changed his palate as well, for now he thought of the roast flamingos and lark's tongues and dormice of a Roman feast with disgust. Had he really eaten such things? This food was so much more nourishing and wholesome.

When he asked Daphne if the villagers would be suspicious that she was taking more food than usual, she only shrugged. "They always give me more than I need," she explained. "Usually I would store it and share it in the winter, but nobody will miss it."

Geta thought he would be glad to finally get back on his feet. But his month-long convalescence had left him weak and shaky, and when he looked at his reflection in the basin of water during his morning ablutions, he no longer recognized his own face. It was pale, as pale as it had been back in Rome, when he had been younger and had resorted to powder and rouge to make himself stand out. His cheeks and eyes had sunken, while his hair and beard had grown long, giving him a haggard look. Even his body had changed. When Daphne cut his stitches, he didn't dare look at himself. All the muscles, honed from hours at the gymnasium in Rome and days of marching on the road alongside his men, had vanished, leaving only protruding ribs and collarbones. It frightened him more than he cared to admit. How strange it was that when he was bedridden, all he could think of was to get better, to ride out and confront those who wanted him dead, yet now, when he was better, fear and doubt started to creep in. He could not face his enemies, whoever they were, in this frail and weakened condition.

The first thing he did, once he could walk around unassisted, was go outside to get a feel of the land. Daphne told him that the village—more like a hamlet, really—had been built by Greek shepherds hundreds of years ago, who had discovered some, if not fertile then at least peaceful, grazing land hidden amongst these formidable rocky peaks. Remembering the history lessons from his childhood, Geta guessed that it was the leftover of an old Greek settlement after Pompey remade the East, or perhaps its inhabitants were fleeing the collapse of the Seleucid Empire. Either way, it explained the strange accent and why the people here still considered themselves Greek, though they mixed and traded with the Syrians down in the Balikh Valley as well as the Kurd nomads of the plateau and the Parthians across the border. But Geta was less interested in the history of the place than in its capacity for secrecy and defense.

"Don't go too far, mind," Daphne said, as he stepped through the door.

Ignoring her, Geta stood at the door for a moment, looking around. The hut was situated on the summit of a tall, rocky hill, sheltered from the blistering sun by a sheer cliff in the back and by Daphne's namesake, a grove of laurel trees, around the sides. The front door opened into a little yard and overlooked yet more rocky hills surrounding the hut. No wonder he couldn't be found. The hills all looked the same, sandy brown crags that stood like sentinels, dotted here and there by clumps of scraggly pines. There were no signs of other inhabitants, save for the bleats of distant sheep, and no visible roads, save for a tiny footpath winding between two large boulders that led from the front door of the hut down the hill and into the valley.

Geta followed this path, stopping every minute to catch his breath. On his left, the path opened into a crevice amongst the rocks, where terraced garden rows lined the hill. Fruit trees, vegetables, and medicinal herbs grew valiantly despite the arid soil. Beehives stood between the trees, and occasionally a bee would buzz past him, bustling just like its mistress. Below the garden, a small cistern had been dug into the rocks to gather the meager rainfall.

The path continued its downward spiral around the hill. Here and there amongst the boulders, the scouring wind had driven in enough soil for shrubs and even trees to grow, and they clung to the rocks as tenaciously as the people of this place clung to their land. Through the boulders, Geta could catch glimpses of the valley below, a deep gorge with a stream of brown sludge meandering through it. Sounds of habitation drifted toward him—more sheep bleating, the rhythmic hammering of a blacksmith, a child's wail—but he saw no other soul on his descent.

Eventually, the path dwindled into little more than a crack between two rock faces, just wide enough for a man leading a donkey—not a horse—to pass through. A cleft in the rock served as a gate between the path and the valley beyond. Dangling from a hook over this cleft was the bell he'd heard, which was just a weathered piece of bronze with an iron rod next to it for sounding the alarm. Geta looked behind him. The hut was still visible, though only just, its mud-brick walls blending in with the hillside so perfectly that one couldn't even tell there was a dwelling there, unless one already knew where to look. It was the ideal hiding place.

Thus reassured, he made his way back up the slope. But he had been overconfident in his recovery, and the climb was much more difficult than the descent. He lost sight of the hut and was no longer sure if he was going the right way. Well, how hard could it be? He just had to go up, didn't he? But new boulders seemed to be shooting up in random places, blocking his way, forcing him to go left or right instead of in a straight line, and he didn't seem to be gaining ground at all. Soon he was crawling on his hands and knees, wheezing as though his lungs were about to burst. Sweat poured down his forehead and his back.

Just when he thought he would never make it back to the hut, hurried footsteps came toward him, and Daphne's capable hands helped him up. "Don't disappear like that," she chided. "You gave me such a fright. I thought you'd run away!"

"Only—wanted to—take—a walk," he tried to explain.

"You must take it easy," she said, helping him down a chair by the door of the hut. "Here. Rest. I'll bring you some wine."

She went inside. A moment later, Geta heard a small gasp and a clatter. He turned around to find Daphne scrambling to pick up a cup, which had fallen on the floor.

"Sorry, so clumsy of me," she stammered.

"Something the matter?" he asked.

"Nothing's the matter, everything is fine," she said, a little too quickly. She busied herself with the wine, mixing it with water before pouring a cup and handing it to him. It could be his imagination, but he thought her face was rather flushed, and she was avoiding his eyes. Geta's suspicion, which had been lying dormant since the night he'd witnessed Daphne save the pregnant woman, reared its head again.

"What's in this wine?" he asked, eyeing the cup.

Daphne saw his suspicious look. "Are you still on about that?" she said, rolling her eyes. "I've told you, I would not go to all this trouble only to poison you. Here"—she snatched the cup from him and took a large sip—"does that make you feel safer?"

Sheepishly, Geta took the wine back. Daphne was still glancing at him strangely from time to time, but he shrugged it off and focused on the more pressing matter, which was his recovery. "How long do you think before I'm strong enough to return to Edessa?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said. "You're strong, but you've lost a lot of blood, and your lungs are still in danger of getting inflamed. There's a town two days from here, Adala. There you may be able to get passage to Edessa, but if your fever returns while you're on the road, there's nothing I can do."

His stomach sank. He took a sip of wine and told himself to be patient. The gods had given him this second chance at life to strike down his foes, and he would not squander it.

Trying to discover his enemies got him nowhere, and so Geta turned to the one thing he knew—brute strength. Lacking a gymnasium, he exercised by walking and sparring with a stick against a tree trunk, and sometimes with the dagger as well. It was true that his resting time in between these exercises was often longer than the exercises themselves, but at least exercising had the virtue of tiring him out, so his sleep was longer and more restful, untroubled by ghosts and visions of Tartarus.

When Daphne went into the village, she still instructed him to stay in the bedroom as usual. The occasional villager would stop by to pick up a cure or leave their token of gratitude, and soon Geta learned their names and professions. There was Tatia the baker, who always wanted a cure for indigestion for her husband; Cyrus the weaver, an old man whose back was hunched from bending over the loom, who usually picked up a balm or ointment for his aching joints; Habib, who came by often for some fortifying tonics for his wife. There were also Khaleed the shepherd, Musa the shepherd, Apollonius the shepherd, Samira the shepherd's wife, and many others, as well as various children. They all had the same lean, sinewy look as Daphne's, the look of a people who had to scratch out a living on a near-barren land and conserve every drop of water they could find. Still, they looked harmless enough. It made Geta feel a little safer, though he still wore the dagger during the day and slept with it under his pillow.

If Daphne was home, he could walk around freely. She even put a bench in a corner of the hut, near the door, so he could sit down and rest whenever he wanted. Sitting there, he would amuse himself by watching the goats—a nanny goat, and her two kids—frolicking around, foraging for grass and edible leaves amongst the rocks, while the donkey stood placidly under the olive trees. He would watch Daphne as well, and now that he was getting better, her bustle and chatter no longer irritated him as they once had. If anything, he found them rather endearing, a welcoming distraction from his circuitous, muddled thoughts.

One afternoon, Geta was napping on this bench when he was awakened by annoyed bleating. Getting up, he saw Daphne just outside the door, holding one of the baby goats, the black one with a rather cheeky look, between her knees. She was struggling to wrap strips of old linen around the goat's budding horns, and the goat was having none of it. His brother, the snow-white one, was lying primly nearby, his horns already wrapped.

"What on Earth are you doing?" Geta asked.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" she said between two breaths. "I'm wrapping his horns." Taking advantage of her distraction, the goat bolted out of her lap. "Catch him!" Daphne shouted, running after the goat. It dodged between her arms and ran straight for the open door of the hut, toward the bench. Geta stuck out a leg. The goat tried to jump over him, but its own legs were still young and clumsy, and it went sprawling on the ground.

Chuckling, Geta scooped the goat up. Its fur was surprisingly soft, and it smelled, not unpleasantly, of dung, fresh grass, and warm milk. Once it realized escape was out of the question, it settled into his arms readily enough and immediately started chewing on the sleeve of his tunic, as was the wont of goats.

"Hold him like that," Daphne said.

Picking up the linen, she knelt in front of Geta and wrapped the goat's horns in quick, practiced movements. A new scent, faint but sweet, almost like orange blossoms, joined the animal smell of the goat. It took a moment for Geta to realize it was coming from Daphne. He had never noticed it before, even when she sat close to him to change his dressing, either because he had been too ill to notice anything, or because the strong vinegary smell of the dressing had overpowered it. He breathed in deeply, letting that fresh and flowery fragrance fill his tired lungs. His inhale causes Daphne to look up. Their eyes met, and Daphne's lashes—which were quite long, he'd only just noticed as well—fluttered for the briefest of moments, before she looked away.  

"Why do you wrap their horns?" Geta asked, to fill the silence.

"So they don't hurt themselves or each other."

"They don't seem to like it," he pointed out.

"Too bad." She finished tying the ends of the linen strip. Geta let the goat go, and it ran back to its mother and brother. "Be good to each other now, you hear?" Daphne called after them.

A ghost whispered at the back of Geta's mind. Be good to each other. Those were his father's last words to him and his brother. It hadn't worked. It never would've worked. His father must have known that, and yet he had clung to that hope of the Empire under two rulers, until the day he died.

"It's no use," he said to Daphne, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice. "Look, they're at each other's throat again already." Indeed, the two kids were running toward each other at full tilt, though their linen-wrapped horns glanced off harmlessly.

Daphne shrugged. "At least this way they won't get hurt," she said.

"Would you have soldiers fight with blunt swords then?" he scoffed. "Would you wrap them up in soft linen instead of armor, so they wouldn't get hurt? It's in their nature. You can't stop it."

Daphne looked at him curiously, and he realized he'd said too much. She studied him for a long time. Eventually, she replied, quietly, "I would, if I could." There was an infinite sadness in her eyes and her voice that he couldn't understand, and as he watched her go into the garden to gather vegetables for their evening meal, guilt pricked at his insides like tiny needles. He didn't know if he was feeling guilty about making her sad, or if it was simply his old guilt coming back to haunt him.

Chapter 5

I got the idea for Daphne to wrap the goats' horns from this delightful image of aggressive goats having to wear pool noodles to prevent them from injuring themselves and others. Knowing Daphne, she would no doubt come up with the Ancient Roman equivalent of that.

Septimius Severus's last words to his sons are (paraphrased) "Be good to each other, enrich the army, and scorn all the rest." Unfortunately, it seems Caracalla and Geta only paid attention to the last bit :((

This chapter is a bit shorter than usual, so the next update may come sooner. Stay tuned!

Taglist: @sheneedsrocknroll92, @justnobodynothingmore, @barcelonaloverf1life, @myotakureprieve, @flawssy-227 (if you want to be tagged, let me know!)

[rascalentertainments]

Wish Granted 🌟👩🏾🎶 (Wish Reimagined)

Chapter 6: Welcome to Rosas (Part 2)

Chapter 5

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

"Don't be shy now." Magnifico insisted.

Flazino faked a laugh badly. "Whaaaat? No, no, no. They're nobody! I mean, they're obviously somebody, but they've been here before!" he stood in front of them to block the king's view.

Magnifico raised an eyebrow. "Is that so? I don't believe I've seen them around town before." He looked over Flazino's shoulder and noticed the girl in purple looked rather familiar to him.

"Oh yeah, yeah! They're from the far side of Rosas, you don't make a lot of trips there…" Flazino blurted on, making up this story as he went along.

As the apprentice continued, Star had sensed something was off about the king. He didn't seem to have a joyful vibe despite the smile on his face. And what was up with his staff?

The starboy's thoughts halted when he felt something tighten around his arm. He looked to his right and saw Asha's expression had changed. She wasn't happy to see the King at all. She looked as if she was hiding her fear, but Star could see it in her eyes. Asha was terrified of Magnifico.

She saw Flazino use a hand signal behind his back to tell them go, quickly.

"Star, we need to go. Right now." she whispered to him.

Star wanted to keep looking around town, but the fear in her eyes made him change his mind. "All right." He responded. For the first time, he was taking this seriously. He picked up Valentino, who was slightly shaking.

They quietly backed away, careful not to make a noise to alert the king.

"…So they were just passing by. They're probably gone by now!" Flazino raised his voice slightly in hopes the two of them had finally left.

The king's eyes looked up and the two leaving, his suspicions were confirmed.

"Ah, I see. What a shame. I'll have to meet them later on." Magnifico shook his head in pretend disappointment. "I came down see how some of my loyal subjects are doing. You know, really get to know everyone. Speaking of which, I have something in mind for you."

"Um…me, sir?" Flazino asked raising an eyebrow.

"Yes, I've realized that I've neglected my duties as your teacher. Its time that you had more…advanced training." he said with a smile as green fire emitted from his hand.

"Y-you're actually going to train me? I mean, advance my training?" The boy had been waiting for this moment for years, but…the Hamlet mattered more. "Sir, I don't know how to say this, but-" he started as he rubbed his arm.

"No need to thank me, Figaro!" Magnifico exclaimed as he put an arm around the teen and laughed.

"It's Flazino…" He muttered, but the king continued on like his apprentice hadn't even spoken.

"You can thank my darling wife Amaya for that once she returns! She caught on to that and insisted I take extra care of you for our next lesson!" the king explained as they headed back to the castle.

"Uh, sure. But can we make it a short lesson? I really have other duties to take care of." Flazino said as he threw blue powder behind his shoulder while the king wasn't looking. The smoke traveled from his hand and slithered on the ground like a snake and traveled through the crowd.

•◌•◌•★•◌•◌••◌•◌•★•◌•◌••◌•◌•★•◌•◌••◌•◌•★•◌•◌••◌•◌•★•◌

We end up going all the way back to the Hamlet, with the people already out doing their morning routines.

Sabino slept a little later than normal since the incident last night and needed the extra rest. Now that he felt refreshed, he took a deep breath, and was ready for a new day.

The old man hadn't seen Asha yet, but assumed she was already out finding inspiration for sketches. So he went out by himself. Sabino greets a few of the neighbors, one of which was leading some of the livestock to the nearby river.

Sabino waves to the man with a smile and continues towards the water well, but he over hears a conversation.

"I'm telling you, one of the squirrels said 'Good morning' to me!" A man told his wife who putting out the laundry. She rolled her eyes. "Next you'll be telling me a bear when asked for a pot of honey."

"THAT HAPPENED TOO!" the husband exclaimed.

Sabino hoped the guy wasn't going senile at such a young age, not even he heard something like that. He walked over to his usual spot at the well and noticed it felt different when he got there. He felt a hint of such joy from that spot, just like he did last night.

The camera shows beneath his feet there's a very faint glow from the leftover stardust. "What in the…?" He started, but was interrupted by Sakina's call.

"Sabino! Have you seen Asha? I've been looking for her all morning, but I haven't seen her. Valentino is missing too." Her voice had a slight panic in it.

The man grabbed her hand gently. "Now, now. Don't worry, I'm sure she's around here. Perhaps she went a little further in the forest than usual. You know how she tries to find new things here."

"Actually, she left here last night." A kid's voice chimed in.

The two of them looked around for the speaker, but no-one was near. "Down here!" The voice spoke again.

Sabino and Sakina looked down and saw a small grey rabbit looking back at them. It waved its little paw at them and said "Hi there!"

"…."

"Sakina, I fear that I'm finally losing my mind." Sabino said, still in shock of the talking rabbit.

"….We might both be losing it, saba." Sakina responded, the same as Sabino.

The rabbit laughed. He hopped onto the well so they could see him better. "Last night Asha was singing to the star in the sky, and it then came down, turned into a guy, and made us all talk! Then he sang a song too and then he said he wanted to help her save the kingdom, and then he turned into a horse and they ran off to a place called Rosas. It sounds fun!"

The two of them stared at the rabbit for a few moments. Then Sakina fainted.

"Is she okay?" The rabbit asked, concerned.

"Well….I guess she took my request rather quickly." Sabino laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his neck. "Oh dear…."

Cutting back to Asha and Star, they continued in the opposite direction. Asha finally breathed after they were far away enough. "That was too close. If he knew who we were…" her voice trailed off, not wanting think about what could've happened next.

She took out her sketchbook and started flipping through pages. "Looks like talking to Flazino won't work. They might be onto us already."

"So then, what do we do now?" Star asked, slightly distracted by the passerbys.

"Luckily I wrote down a little map here based on how Flaz described this place to me. I just hope its accurate enough..." She hoped.

The three of them slowly continued, with Star and Valentino following Asha closely. The little goat kept watch in case a guard or Sabor was near. A quick shot from the rooftops showed something moving quickly across the screen.

We quickly cut to a shot at feet level where the smoke is quickly catching up to the trio, sliding between several people.

Goingg back to the trio, Asha studied her map. "First, we'll need to get to the back of the castle somehow."

Behind her, Star quickly moved out of the way of a woman pushing a wheelbarrow full of stacks of flour. "Whoops! Sorry about that, buddy! Coming through with a delivery!" she had quite a chipper voice and whistled while she worked.

"Wow, she seems happy!" Star noted.

Asha continued looking through her book. "There should be a secret entrance somewhere around here, but we'll have to go further and try to circle around so we don't alert any guards."

Someone tapped Star on the shoulder. He turned and saw a girl holding a few daffodils in her hands. She looked a bit shy as she avoided making eye contact with him. "Um, I'd like to ask for you for a favor." she spoke in a soft, whisper-like tone. "Since you were kind enough to take the last of the flowers I couldn't sell, would you mind giving these to a boy named Safi?"

Star took the flowers and gave them a sniff. "Aw, sure! By the way who-" he looked up and the girl seemed to vanish into thin air.

"No need to be bashful! I don't mind doing it!" Star yelled, hoping that wherever she was, she heard him.

Asha quickly ran back to Star. "What are you doing?! Do you want to get us caught?" she grabbed his hand and pulled him along.

Before they proceeded further, a tall lanky blonde stepped in front of them. "Hey, you guys must be new around here! How about I give you a free show? The name's Dairo, by the way." He offered as he pulled a few colored balls from his pockets. He began to juggle them effortlessly in the air.

Asha had completely ignored him. Star on other hand... "Yeah, sure!" Valentino groaned and tried to push him away from the stranger.

"All right, prepare to be amazed!" The tall teen started to increase the amount of balls from 4 to 7 and was slowly walking backwards. "How you like this?"

Star had sparkles in his eyes. "IS THIS EARTH MAGIC?! I LOVE IT!"

"Hehe! Well, I'd like to think so- Whoawhoawhoa! Yaaah-hoo-hoo-hooey!!!"

Dario had stepped on a empty glass battle on the ground and was rapidly going backwards, still juggling the balls. He eventually went so far backwards he ended up falling into a barrel of water. "I'm okay!" he assured the concerned bystanders and gave a thumbs up.

Asha sighed as she let go of Star's hand. "What a dope. I can't wait to get out of this place. No one minds their own business." she grumbled.

"You know, I get what you've told me about that guy stealing wishes. But….is it really that bad?" Star asked in sincerity.

Asha looked at Star in surprise. "What?"

"I mean aside from a few of them looking sleepy a lot, this place looks great! And you're surrounded by tons of people and try something new all the time!"

Asha scoffed. "You can't be serious! My family had to run away from this place because of him!" She slightly raised her voice. "Don't be fooled by all this. That man and his wife are pure evil, and the sooner we take them down, the better."

Star didn't quite understand, but he went along anyway. "Sorry. I guess I was just thinking that this was better than where I was before now."

"How could this be better than being in space where you had the freedom to go where you wanted?" Asha argued.

"Because....at least I'm not alone like I was up there..." Star hesitated. His smile faltered as his eyes casted downwards. We see the glow in his hair completely faded.

Valentino looked up in concern. "Baaaah?"

Asha''s expression softened. She never thought about how Star felt up there. She just assumed he was just as happy in space as he is on Earth. But bringing it up seemed to bother him. Now she understood why he was so excited in the city. Seeing him down like this...it really bothered her.

She stepped a bit closer and reached a hand out to his face. He looked up to her, with widened eyes.

(Thanks to @ishadow246 for this little doodle, it was perfect for this! Just pretend he has a hood here, K? 😅)

"I'm sorry, I-" she started, but then a small cloud of blue smoke appeared in front of her face.

Both of them jumped and exclaimed in fear, Valentino hid behind Star's legs.

(imagine this, but blue)

"Sorry about that, Asha. Magnifico is practically breathing down my neck right now." The smoke had two cartoonish eyes and a mouth, while the voice coming out was Flazino's. "Glad I learned this communication spell last month. I guess he did teach me one useful thing." The voice sounded a bit like he was in a large room with an echo.

"Could've waited a few more minutes, but all right..." Star mumbled.

"Does this mean you can actually help us? I did draw out a map, but I'm not sure if its totally accurate." Asha said as she showed the blue cloud the pages of her book.

It took a brief look and smiled. "Actually, its pretty spot on, nice going! But it'll be a different story once you're inside. The king keeps the wishes in a room at the top of the castle."

The smoke then floated up as it took a look of the path leading to the castle. The coast looked mostly clear, with only a few guards around.

"I'll take you there, but you'll have to be quick. Mags has been acting strange since that big light last night, and he might be getting suspicious." he warned them.

Star and Asha shared a knowing glance. "You think he's talking about me?" He whispered to her.

The two of them quickly followed the blue ball down a path that led away from the town square. They could see the castle getting closer into view. The camera then cuts to a faraway shot where we see something large moving quickly across the rooftops.

"When we get inside, you'll have to be quiet, the guards doubled since last night." Flazino continued. "Once you're in his study, there's a big door that leads to the Wish Chamber, but you can't open it unless-"

The voice was cut off by a large animal that pounced onto the blue cloud. It came down so quickly, the three of them barely had time to react.

The lynx held the ball in his paw and began to squeeze it. "Sabor! No, no, no, bad kitty! Bad-" POOF!

The smoke ball disappeared and nothing but blue ash was left in his paws. The lynx slowly turned his head towards Star and Asha with devilish grin.

It flashes back to Flazino who's eyes were glowing blue until the connection was gone. "Nonono, that's not good. Not good." he started to panic as he began to look for the ingredients in the lab to make another spell.

"Is something troubling you?" Magnifico asked from behind him. His staff was beginning the glow, just like his eyes. "Perhaps you lost touch with someone?" He teased as he pointed his staff at Flazino's back.

The boy was too afraid to look back, but he knew the man had an evil grin.

Jumping right back outside, from around the corner, Amaya elegantly stepped into view. "Well, well, if it isn't the brave little girl and boy, or should I say starboy?" she let out a small chuckle.

The two of them took a step back in horror, with Valentino still hiding behind them.

"How-how did you...?" Asha couldn't even finish. They were so far ahead of her. How did she find them?!

She spread her arms as if she was inviting them in for a hug. "I see you made it quite far. But I'm afraid your journey stops here. Welcome to Rosas, my dears!" The queen's eyes glow green as she finishes.

Star could only said one thing. "Oh shtars-"

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

FINAL THOUGHTS

Wow, its been a loooong time, hasn't it? Looks like most of the fandom was on break and working on their rewrites at the same time, lol. There were times I felt like the dog that was left alone for a few hours and I just went crazy by going into all my friends AUs and then my own stuff. I think was actually shorter than planned.

But yeah, at long last we got Chapter 6! I'll admit this was a little harder to write this one. One because I haven't had a lot of time to sit down and write, and two I've had a ton of art to make on the side when I can. So now more of my characters can get some art! Now for this one, I had A LOT going on, mostly because there's so much I want to tell, and this story will probably be about 20 chapters or less. That's usually the length of my stories, even in non-fan work, so strap in.

So not only did we get the rest of teens (which will fully assemble later on) more of a focus later after Star has his first confrontation with Mags here. We also get more of Flazino, who's got his own storyline at this rate, lol. As you can see he can perform a bit if magic himself, but only small doses. (really playing into the double agent thing now, I'm really surprised how quickly he got fans)

His entire mood between chapters 5 & 6 (I'm sure he's fine…):

(George here is pretty much the base of WG!Flazino so it fits)

And I had to gave you a sprinkling of ship teasing with Asha and Star. I say sprinkle because the ship's gonna get stronger in the next chapters. Chapter 7 will be LONG, and we need a point where Asha can sleep, she's just been going nonstop and might end up like Flazino if she's not careful.

I'll give you some details on what's coming next: Dahlia and the teens will all come back in Chapter 7, and we'll see how she knows Asha. Our first magic battle between Star and Mags who finally meet, that traitor amongst us scene from the original film, Flaz needing therapy and of course SHIPPING!!

As for things outside this chapter, I'm posting a DTIYS challenge finally, so I hope you'll like to join it!

Thanks for reading!

@signed-sapphire @oh-shtars @annymation @chillwildwave

@uva124 @ishadow246 @tumblingdownthefoxden @your-ne1ghbor

@mythartist21 @gracebethartacc @emptyblog7 @spectator-zee

@lazytitans-world @emillyverse @flicklikesstuff @kenihewa

@snackara @wings-of-sapphire @natsuki208

[perdvivly]

There’s a common critique of The Kingkiller Chronicles that says the main character (Kvothe) is over powered and this makes the conflicts uninteresting to read because Kvothe will always do something exceptionally clever and resolve whatever problem he comes across by being a super genius with few to no character flaws.

Examples usually cited include his admission to the university at an exceptionally young age and receiving the first ever scholarship. Or his admission into the arcanum and the showing up of his overly arrogant teacher. The list goes on.

And this seems to me to be such a tremendously poor critique it’s absolutely mystifying that it’s been made so many times. And made by people who I think in other contexts show themselves to be astute and good faith readers. It fundamentally misunderstands the very obvious point of any of the scenes they like to cherrypick. In my mind it misunderstands the point of the entire book itself.

Rothfuss’ world-building involves two primary magic systems, one very hard magic system (sympathy) and one very soft magic system (naming). And if you’ll forgive a vibic associative sort of description here, these are supposed to roughly correspond to a type of analytic intelligence and a type of thoughtful wisdom respectively.

It is important to note that Kvothe is portrayed as exceptionally talented at the analytic type of hard-magic and not particularly talented at the more reflective soft-magic.

This is an important feature to keep in mind when you look at the sort of story Rothfuss’ is trying to tell. His writing has a sort of recursive quality. The story is a frame narrative, it’s a story within a story, and often there are stories within the stories within the stories. It seems rather obvious that Rothfuss has in mind the power of thoughtful deliberateness, the power of thoughtfully chosen words, and it seems rather obvious too that he’s showing us a failure case of this. Kvothe’s story isn’t wish-fulfilment Mary Sue fantasy. It’s a tragedy. It’s how you end up old and alone and regretting your life story. The protagonist is reckless, arrogant, and mentally agile in a way that gets him off the hook in situations that might seem short-term unpleasant to be in, but would otherwise serve as valuable learning experiences.

Kvothe is unable to see the value of things that his teachers say are difficult or impossible to fully explicate. He is insistent that his own mental prowess is sufficient to overcome any surmountable obstacle. He’s brought up short several times, he’s asked to describe love, or music, and he blusters on seemingly unaware of his own incompetence.

There’s an analogy to Hamlet to be made. Kvothe’s hamartia is the obverse face of the Danish Prince’s, he never stops to think, he just acts—and disaster follows.

The scene where Kvothe is admitted into the university at a young age and given the first ever scholarship is a good example of this actually. How did he manage to accomplish this? He cheated. He broke into the admissions hall and spied on other candidates taking the entrance exam and memorised the questions the examiners asked and their model answers. This is explained in the very next passage to him taking the exam, but I guess people making the critique found it egregious enough that they put the book down before reading on to that part.

Kvothe sacrifices long-term deep understanding of the world for short-term gain. He uses his analytic faculties to try to game the system. And we know, as he says at the very beginning of the story, that he will eventually suffer for it.

None of this is to say that Kkc is beyond reproach. There are very legitimate criticisms to be made about its representation and treatment of women. It’s just that people so often want to make a critique of it that misunderstands it so badly it makes me think they should read it. The force of the book is directed to people who would misunderstand it in this way… But it’s difficult to explain that to someone who is trapped in that sort of misapprehension.

[bugwolfsstuff]

VineOwls Christmas

Pollux's Pov

Pollux felt like he was in a fairyland. Bright blue, red, yellow, and white lights flashed around him and his twin like a kaleidoscope. Snow covered everything, like a crystal wonderland. It was just a (Probably) mortal village decorated for Christmas. But it looked so pretty.

Luke Castellan, a son of Hermes, chuckled behind them. "Haven't you ever seen Christmas lights before?".

"We have, Larry. They're just pretty." Pollux replied, though he didn't think Luke heard him over the scarf.

"Not that you'd know anything about prettiness," Pollux's twin brother, Castor, said. 

Castor always made it clear if he disliked someone by making sarcastic remarks or insults. 

And Pollux liked to be sneaky, like being passive-aggressive or tripping someone while they're carrying something with a vine.

To put it mildly, neither he nor Castor liked Luke Castellan. Sure, there was nothing wrong with the guy. He was nice enough to them. He doesn't talk badly about their dad like the other campers (at least Pollux has never heard him do). But since he came back from his quest, there was a feeling at the back of Pollux's mind, like a gut feeling, that gets stronger by the day. 

"Hey, wait up!" Annabeth called from down the street. Her blonde curls bouncing under her grey woolly hat like a halo as she ran to catch up.

Annabeth had been him and Castor's friend since —well, not since they met her. In fact, they were kinda very mean to her when they first met when they were eight. But they're ten now! They've matured now and become best friends.

He even made space on the sidewalk for her.

"The Christmas lights are so pretty," she said, walking between them, Castor on her right, Pollux on the left.

"Yeah," Pollux said.

"Can you believe what Leonard quoth to us?" Castor said, putting an annoying amount of emphasis on quoth.

Annabeth giggled. "It's Luke, Cast. And what did he quoth to you?"

Pollux sighed, "Don't encourage him, Owlbrain." 

Castor discovered Shakespeare a week ago, and he's been hyper-fixated on it ever since. And Pollux isn't sure how much longer he can take hearing about symbolism in Romeo and Juliet in the middle of the night before he starts thinking he's in a Shakespearean tragedy himself.

"O, speak to me no more. These words like daggers enter my ears." Castor annoyingly grinned as he quoted Hamlet. He turned to Annabeth, "Lenny here," He gestured to Luke, "thinks we've never seen Christmas lights before".

Luke put his hands up in defence, "Hey, I was just saying, you guys seemed so amazed by the lights; it's like you haven't seen Christmas before".

"Probably 'cause me and Cass don't celebrate Christmas," Pollux said.

"Dad has beef with Jesus," Castor explained, scooping up snow in his gloved hand.

"And Mom's relatives come over around Christmas, and Dad says they're a bunch of—" 

"Pollux," Chiron chided, rolling up behind them in his wheelchair, "Language. And Castor put that snowball down."

Castor stared at Chiron. The snowball he was about to throw at Luke dropped to the pavement. "I wasn't going to do anything!" 

"I don't celebrate Christmas either, though not because of that," Annabeth said.

"Then why?" Pollux asked, kicking a ball of snow as he walked.

Annabeth hesitated, "...Because of how it's about family and how great it is. And since I ran away from my 'family'. It's kinda a sore subject."

"Oh," is all he said.

It was all he could say; one of the only downsides to having your godly parent at camp was that you'll never understand your fellow campers.

Annabeth laughed, "Guess neither of us are getting Christmas presents this year."

Pollux giggled. "Yeah," he said.

But he was lying. He had already made up his mind.

Annabeth was getting a Christmas present.

A laugh rang out, and Pollux heard Chiron say, "Don't."

He and Annabeth whipped their heads around to see what was going on.

Luke was standing behind Castor, who had lagged behind and was too distracted by a red robin nearby to see the giant ball of snow Luke had looming over his head.

Pollux scooped up some snow, and Annabeth did the same.

"Cassie, look out!" he yelled, throwing a snowball as hard as he could at Luke's chest. Unfortunately, Pollux was never much good at being a marksman, and instead of hitting the much bigger son of Hermes, he hit the much smaller Castor's left arm.

Annabeth on the other hand, was a better shot than him...unfortunately, not better by much.

Her snowball sailed over Castor's head and past Luke's chest.

Hitting him in the armpit.

Luke dropped the snowball in mild shock...directly onto Castor's head.

'Whoopsie' was all that went through Pollux's head.

Part 1 of 7

[armory11]

Confusing Shakespeare

I was talking to my friend today abt Shakespeare and she was explaining the plot to me very badly. so I said wait which play are you talking abt? she said macbeth.

so ok we're taking abt macbeth. then she frickin says

"ya know, 'to be or not to be'"

...

just no

thats hamlet!

we laughed abt it but gosh i need to teach her some things

[mask131]

Fragments of fright (9)

From Richard Cavendish’s The Great Book of the Supernatural

THE MESSENGERS OF THE AFTERLIFE

Most people do not know when they will die - but a few of them are apparently warned of their imminent demise, thanks to the appearance of a ghost. This messenger of the afterlife can be a wraith, or a mysterious animal, and many families are proud of "owning" one.

The Hohenzollern dynasty, which reigned successively over the Brandeburg, Prussia and Germany (until the abdication of the kaiser Wilhelm II at the end of WWI) was boasting the existence of a "family ghost". This specter tied to their bloodline was a White Lady - a female ghost dressed in white, with a mourning armband, usually seen before the death of a member of the family, and appearing in the royal residences of Berlin or other Germany regions. It was believed that she might be the ghost of a princess of the 15th century, who was cruelly abused by her husband, who was a Hohenzollern. The dynasty of the Hesse of Darmstadt (Germany) also had its death herald - a Black Lady this time, in a mourning outfit, her face hidden by a dark veil. This ghost was supposed to be the archduchess Maria-Anna, wife of the archduke Ferdinand.

In the Danish royal family meanwhile, disasters were believed to be announced by the apparition at Gurre, south of Helsingor (a location that inspired the setting of Shakespeare's Hamlet), of the ghost of king Valdemar IV, who ruled on the Denmark in th 14th century and died at Gure in 1375. Another strange fact of the history of the Danish crown concerns the queen Astrid, killed in 1935 by a car accident. Some times after her death, she supposedly appeared before numerous people during a spiritism séance organized at Copenhague by the medium Einar Nielsen. A picture of her "manifestation" was apparently taken - but unfortunately, these kind of pictures are very easy to falsify and thus do not make an actual, solid proof of the ghost's apparition.

The Hasburgs, who ruled over the Austro-Hungarian Empire, were traditionally warned of any upcoming tragedy by the appearance of a group of great white birds circling in the sky. They were seen in 1889, soon before the double suicide of the heir-prince Rudolf and his mistress in Mayerling. Later, the emperor Franz-Josef the First also saw them in 1898, on the eve of the murder of his beloved Elisabeth. Finally, these sinister birds were spotted in 1914, before the Sarajevo attack which killed the archduke Franz-Ferdinand and caused World War I.

The most famous of these "messengers of death" is without a doubt the Irish banshee, which makes the pride and glory of the greatest and oldest families of the island. The banshees howls and wails with a melancholic voice through the night, crying the death of a family's member soon before it actually happens. She can appear as a beautiful maiden with a red shirt, or a green dress under a gray cloak ; or she can appear as an old hag. This "dual face", the beautiful maiden and the ugly hag, were the usual manifestations and appearances of the great goddesses of the pre-Christian Celtic religion, of which the banshee seems to be a remnant. It seems that getting rid of a banshee is hard, since there are records of them still wailing near the old domains of families that left Ireland a long time ago. A few years before the publication of this book, an American that was visiting the Aran island in the Galway bay, organized a party, with lot of music and dancing. As the night was ending, the young man returned home, playing accordion. The noise he made distressed the neighborhood, and someone had to go explain to a poor frightened old man that what he heard wasn't the screams of a banshee, but the sounds of a drunk playing very badly the accordion. Reassured, the old man knew three more weeks of peace... Until he heard the ACTUAL wails of the banshee, and soon after died.

According to a very old tradition, the death of the bishops of Salisbury is announced by the arrival of mysterious white birds flyig over the plain. Other bad omens - not necessarily meaning "death" - are the black dogs, or rather the black hounds, usually of an enormous size, that supposedly haunt the British countryside. Peel's castle, on the isle of Man, is the lair of one of those monsters, the Moddy Dhu, whose mere sight causes a person's death. You will also be doomed to die if you meet the Shriker dog, which hides in the Burnley cemetery (Lancashire). Many more sinisters black hounds are believe to wander on the paths leading to cemeteries. In a lot of popular beliefs and local folklore, dogs are associated with death, probably because in the distant past hungry dogs used to dig up corpses to eat them. There could also be something related to the strong belief that dogs are able to sense entities invisible to humans. Ghosts of dogs are particularly dreaded in the East-Anglia, where strikes the formidable Black Shuck, whose only eye shines in the darkness.

During World War II, an American air-pilot and his wife lived in Walberswick, in the Suffolk, and they had there a terrifying experience. During one whole night, an enormous black dog tried to enter in their house, and they only prevented it from doing so by piling up furniture in front of the door, that the animal nearly split open. At dawn, the beast left, but without leaving any prints in the mud surrounding the house. This event happened during a storm night - which reminds one of the old beliefs claiming that storms are caused by the mad run in the countryside of a pack of infernal hounds, whose howls causes death, madness and misfortune. In some regions, these hounds are led by the "Wild Hunter". In Denmark, it is king Valdemar that leads the pack, in Normandy the Devil himself ; in northern England it is "Gabriel's hounds" led by the Angel of Death, while in the Dartmoor the dogs follow sir Francis Drake riding a hearse. All these legends inspired without a doubt Conan Doyle when he wrote one of Sherlock Holmes' most famous adventures - The Hound of the Baskervilles.

[ckgalloway]

An Unremarkable Feat

I came to work yesterday morning, absolutely buzzing. I’d just done something momentous (in my mind, at least). It would be a strange boast to many, but when I told my coworker, she congratulated me, her eyes lighting up with genuine pride. I told everyone, some people twice, whether they understood the occasion or not, riding an unbelievable high and wringing it for everything it was worth.

I’d driven my son to school.

No, it was not a particularly long or arduous drive, but it was a drive I wasn’t sure I would ever take.

To explain, I’ll need to take you back six years, shortly after we moved to Scotland. We had a tight budget, so we bought an older car, a manual Fiat 500. I hadn’t driven in a few years since we’d been living in Egypt, but I was excited to take the new car out for a spin. I loved driving. I’d worked two jobs during my first year of college to buy my first car, a beautiful blue Dodge Colt. I’d relished the freedom it gave me, often going on a drive alone, just for fun. A couple of decades later, I had a 45-minute commute to work in a manual Toyota Matrix and I once traversed the mountainous west coast of Canada in a Toyota 4Runner, pulling a trailer in the snow. By the time we moved to Scotland, I’d been driving for almost thirty years.

I got behind the wheel of the Fiat, full of confidence.

It did not go well.

Shifting gears with my left hand was surprisingly awkward and I turned on the wipers instead of the turn signal. Meanwhile, driving on the left side of the road somehow meant I constantly drifted towards the curb. Multi-laned roundabouts were foreign to me, and the winding roads did not seem nearly wide enough for two cars to pass each other. These were all obstacles I should have been able to overcome. But this time was different. I was unaware that perimenopause symptoms had begun digging their sharp claws into my brain.

I started having a recurring dream that I was driving a blue van down a hill, but it would not slow down, no matter how hard I slammed my foot on the brake pedal, forcing my to swerve around pedestrians, cars and buildings. I would wake up soaked in sweat, heart pounding.

When I had to drive, I was tense well before I even got in the car. Behind the wheel, my heart would start pounding, my breathing became shallow, and my hands sweaty. While I drove, my brain pelted me with images of everything that could go wrong until my hands shook. Drivers honked at me while I struggled to get the old car into first gear, sending me spiralling into a panic that made me fumble the gears even more or stall the car. Driving became a nightmare.

I did everything I could to avoid driving. I bought an electric bike and cycled eighteen miles to get to my job and back.

We switched to an automatic car, which was an improvement, but on the odd occasion I did drive, it often ended badly: a white-out snowstorm at night or a blown tyre on a main road. During this time, the morning news flashed images of Harry Dunn, a nineteen-year-old boy killed by an American driving on the wrong side of the road, further embedding my worst fear.

What if I killed someone?

One day, my husband injured his ankle, and I had to drive him to the hospital in Aberdeen, a 45-minute drive with three roundabouts. I was tense for the entire drive and had to pry my fingers off the steering wheel when we finally came to a stop. I should have gleaned some confidence back, but somehow, I was convinced the uneventful drive was a fluke, and I made my husband drive back with a twisted ankle.

Over time, I became comfortable enough to drive to work on back roads and made enough trips to quiet the voice in my head that was convinced something horrible would happen. But I didn’t drive beyond that unless I absolutely had to, and if I did, it was a tense experience.

We moved to a little hamlet in a valley, surrounded by countryside, with no shops and no public transportation. It seemed idyllic at the time, but without driving, I began to feel trapped. When the school called because my son was sick, I had to hire a taxi to fetch him. I remember watching a movie about a woman who was meant to be an absolute mess, her life in shambles, but when she drove herself to the airport for a flight, I envied her.

My bubble shrank and became a dark place. Brain fog had set in, and not only was I making constant mistakes at work, but the setbacks caused me to break down. I cried almost every day. I biked my daily route surrounded by beauty and filled with self-loathing. I was convinced everyone would be better off if I didn’t exist.

My husband became worried. He’d always been my rock, but I’d gone to a place he couldn’t reach. He urged me to get help, but the thought of admitting what was happening would make it real, and doctors were another source of anxiety. The self-loathing intensified. I was blessed with a loving, supportive family, yet I remained mired in gloom. I agreed to seek help if it got worse.

Finally, it was a coworker who helped me change my course. She told me about her journey, consulting a doctor about perimenopause and starting HRT, a process that seemed to give her hope. Hope was a drug I craved, and talking to someone who was experiencing some similar symptoms made me feel less alone.

Finally, I got some help.

I spoke to a doctor, my heart pounding and palms sweaty, spewing my story between shaky breaths. She ordered blood tests and ultimately prescribed me hormone replacement therapy (HRT). I discussed my situation with my female boss. She was very supportive and agreed to give me some time off and shift my duties to more office work.

Over the next few months, I slathered myself with oestrogen gel and took tablets, and I began to feel more clear-headed, less emotionally volatile and more like my old self.

I’ve spoken to several friends with perimenopause now, and while HRT is not for everyone, I think it’s safe to say it changed my life. I still have a good dose of brain fog at work, but most customers are understanding, and when they aren’t, I can handle it. The darkness has mostly lifted. There are still dark moments, but even if I can’t always see the light, I remember the glow of bright days, and I know the dark is temporary. My bubble feels bigger now, if only because the thought of driving doesn’t send me into a panic. In fact, when I get behind the wheel, I feel almost… normal. I’ve made goals for myself, small goals, like driving to the charity shop in the village, or the supermarket outside Aberdeen.

I’m thankful to live in a time where women talk to each other and be honest about our issues. This is one of the reasons I wanted to write this post. If you are going through something like this, please know that you are not alone, and there is help available. I hope you can find someone you trust to talk to.

Which leads me to my unremarkable feat.

Yesterday morning, my son missed his school bus.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll drive you.”

And I did.

[fantomette22]

PART 2!

Alright, first i remember i forgot to share some drawings about the knight & beast story 💀 (i mean i already share those a while back but they are in like a bit with what i talk earlier)

Really sad I know... It's just the beginning ;-;

Now the rest of the your questions! @heraldofcrow @fareehaandspaniards

Your thoughts on Maria defending Kos from the hunters? 

Hm so that’s a bit complicated and I don't have everything totally settled yet but I supposed that when they arrived on the beach, Kos was already dead. So the recovery/save mission became a dissection + recover what you can mission 💀 

The sight really didn’t put Maria at ease… and a couple of other people too. So I imagined that Laurence/ Maria/ Gehrman/ (and maybe Caryll and  Ludwig) still try to contact Kos via dreams. Aka they put chairs half into the sea, inject themselves with some sedatives and fall asleep to get to the lake of mud/ concept art of the place here (or like om’s lake).

(Please don't ask me how I came up with such ideas. I'm not sure)

There, well Kos (spirit) is here and attacks them? Because of what they did at the hamlet? If Caryll/ Ludwig are there they get taken out fast and wake up. Maria is incapable of really doing anything. She's quite shocked by what’s going & what she see on so she got taken out quickly too. 

She wakes up and i guess the last fishmen of the hamlet try to attack them on the beach/ try to destroy Kos body too?? Maria, still a bit hurt, traumatized by the fight at the hamlet and shocked by what she just experience,  gave everything she had and began to completely lose it (like her fight in the dlc) black pthumerian eyes, blood and fire blades etc she’s very incoherent too…

When it’s « over » Caryll try to approach Maria but she hurts them and then stand in front of Kos (the « i need to protect great ones like the old keepers” gene sure is finally kicking in 💀) 

Then Laurence woke up and was like wtf is going on ?!?!

Then Gehrman finally wakes up after beating Kos : he “beat” Kos but then he got freaking surprised & rekt by nightmare orphan 💀. He has barely time to explain what happened and recover that « Gehrman we got a problem, Maria isn’t in her normal state!!! Do something! » (if you’re asking wtf Ludwig is doing?? Well he’s probably not in his normal state either thanks the sword)

So then Maria & Gehrman kinda fight? (he tried to calm her down but bro you have a siderite sword that’s no good for great ones 💀) Before she hurts him very badly they bump heads (Gehrman headbutt her) and somehow it calms her down?! And she’s just very confused and not feeling well (they will both apologize to each other about it too) .

After everyone calmed down & everything was secure, the remaining scholars arrived, they got the order to, well, cut Kos open💀 either try to save her child (if they knew about it) and see how it’s made inside. Many people (like Maria) would realize only afterwards how wrong it was to just to do that, (take her organs and not just put her back into the sea in peace). But like Laurence and especially Willem would say “can we really leave such unique opportunities to pass?” What’s happening is unique and an extremely rare occurrence… I suppose the provost deemed it a necessary “sacrifice”.

So Gehrman had the guts do smt, and he got out either a dead foetus orphan (like bro no wonder you got cursed!) or a feotus that only lived a couple of hours bc he wasn't fully formed? (still not sure) while Maria go facepalm into the sea…So he gave it to Laurence (who’s like the meme when a man have a blobfish in its arms) who himself passed it down to poor Rom who didn’t ask for anything…so he could go help Gehrman make Maria stand up (and don't drown too!) & made sure everyone else was slightly ok.

So then, they do what they need to do and recover things to send to Byrgenwerth / as well as another team arriving to help clean up i guess? And they made their way back afterwards. 

Of course many people didn’t feel well for days… and not just because they slowly realized that the “monsters” they thought weren’t just trying to deceive them by using human voices… no they really had humans mind but didn’t fully register it immediately (or understand it in the middle but too late) + i imagined that some hunters died too… and it would have been quite graphic as well (you can't tell me the big shark or the ones with big knifes wouldn't have disfigured to torn to pieces hunters...)… so big trauma for everyone :/

So they came back at Byrgenwerth, Willem / Laurence / Gehrman look more closely the remain of the orphan etc 

(the only "fun" anecdote is that some freaking idiot prepared them fish 1-2 days after they returned... everyone got sick of course 💀)

Some time passed (months/years?) clearly some people slowly developed some problems... Maria is taking a “pause” in hunting too. She had a breakdown in the middle of old Yharnam while fighting beasts. So Gehrman agreed that it was better she take a pause for some times before she put herself or others in danger… (but she knew she would probably never do it again…)

Research hall is not officially open yet but very soon!

Maria, being haunted by nightmares becoming stronger and stronger and her own mind, and realizing she needed to atone for her sins, decides to steal the last remains of the orphan & kos to go bury them at the hamlet. (I mean it’s been a long time since anyone used those remains in research but still, everyone panicked when it was missing. Of course they didn’t know at first what happened and tried to interrogate everyone who could know something to have a clue). Maria was missing of course but “it means a lot to her so maybe she’s already on the trail of whoever took it!” hm yeah sure 💀 so Laurence asked Gehrman if he knew something & he excuse himself to go find Maria. He hoped he was wrong on his idea but… he was right…

He managed to catch up and asked her if she was sure of what she was doing. She asks him to move or she won’t hesitate to fight to make her way through.  Well to her surprise he let her pass. I guess he even asked if she needed help with that?!

So they went to bury the orphan…to pray etc (last time they will go in the middle of the hamlet in the real world I think). Then Maria explains (again) to Gehrman her wish to stop hunting once and for all. But he always kinda brush it off like “wait until you feel better/ take a pause/you ‘ll see later etc” he’s more understandable now i guess but not sure how to react”

Well a bit afterwards he saw her from afar, in front of the hamlet wheel. Looking at it or staring into space. Then looking at her Rakuyo, examining it, putting her ford-heads against its blade (the flat part) before throwing her Rakuyo down the wheel so hm… then she leaves the hamlet without barely looking behind. 

Gehrman has the biggest surprise pikachu face ever. And boom that’s how the 2nd fic is suppose to end.

Then a few years & timeskip later… and you got the 3rd fic! yeah where everything is going down and some main characters start to die… ;-;

(I also had the idea that maybe she cut a part of her hair before she threw the rakuyo. and bc it fell on the ground. Gehrman picks it up and looks towards where she went and is just astonished. Then boom ends. What did he do with it? well idk : leave it here, yet down the wheel, burn it, keep it? idk myself)

Anyway I let you imagine how mad was Laurence when they return and he learn about what about happened 💀

Did she ever think about motherhood? Did it affect the events with Kos?

Ah, that's a very interesting question you are asking me here!

The event of Kos in itself wasn’t really affected by that but it had quite some effects afterwards actually! Like i explained above plus other things i’m gonna explain below.

Well I did think about this subject in depth before. To be able to create my full characterisation of Lady Maria. I don’t have everything fully clear but I guess that will be good enough for now. (Also no one be mad me please 💀)

Well I think she would be quite nuanced about it for many reasons.

From one side : Clearly she wouldn’t want her/a child to go to what she’s been through at Cainhurst with her family. She would be afraid to not be present enough or to do a bad job. (I mean girl is probably the best to actually take care of infants and small children but i think we understand the concern if something goes wrong).

Also she helped midwives as well, she knows most of the time everything goes well but sometimes it goes wrong. She first witnessed it in her own family (yes at Cainhurst too… births that went very well (baby bloody crow is the cutest thing she ever saw) but also very wrong here (like one of her cousins almost died and the baby didn’t make it…) and that really marked her…. Like no shit you’re scared smt go wrong if you were to have children 💀)

But you know most of her adult life she was more like “i will see later”. Clearly it wasn’t a good time for years. Even if some hunters had family over the years lots of things can go wrong… you wouldn’t want to leave behind your family if something happened to you or you would be very busy all the time. + she witnessed many families dying the scourge beasts. (Sometimes even saving infants! but that’s rare).

But from the other side :  I suppose, given the right conditions and after all this mess with the beasts/looking for great ones to conclude, I think she would kinda want to. To have and take care of a lil one, her own child (biological or even adopted). 

You might remember how i said here * (the freaking continuation of the asterisk finally!) That she doesn't want to use her blood to hurt/kill. For her it represents life. It gives life. To yourself and more. That’s why she went with the church, because they used blood to heal and it’s in accordance with her values. She can’t use her blood to heal (it’s pretty bad lol) and you know blood saints get hurt a bit still not great for her. But anyway, I suppose for her, to bring & create life from her own blood, would be a great achievement, an honor and it’s kind of a crazy thing? I suppose?! If that make sense.

Then there’s what happened with Kos and the orphan 💀 it more problems arrived.

If they learn Kos was in difficulty / beached but that she had a child. I imagined Maria would look so much forward to take care of it, protect it etc. But hm well it didn’t work out… she would always blame herself for that.. Taking care of a baby great one would have been the greatest honor really. Sadly she wouldn’t be able to do that (no protecting the hamlet in the nightmare is not exactly the same) But hey at least the Doll would eventually be able to realize that dream ;-; (i am not crying you’re crying!!!)

So, i think if shit didn’t happen she would have considered it for the future. But bad things happened, Yharnam became a bigger and dangerous mess (especially to raise a family cough cough), her mental health & health decreased (I did have an idea that maybe it went to the point of not having period anymore. Pretty bad sign that your health isn’t good but dunno if i will keep that).

Also I imagined she would take care of hm babies at a very early beta orphanage. The one their family has been killed/died. But also eventually newborn & babies who developed the scourge beast (like the bastard of Loran but who weren’t stillborn) poor lil ones only lived a few days probably. “But someone needs to take care of them right? To give them love in their short lives. Someone needs to do it” ;-; (MARIA WHY ARE YOU HURTING YOURSELF MORE) Also the firsts hm celestial larvae start popping around Yharnam.. not really reassuring. 

And finally, due to her nightmares with Kos & the orphan, she’s persuaded that if she was to have a child, something horrible would happen to one of them or both. So she doesn’t really want to take that kind of risk… while things don’t get better.  (Compared to like this huge idiot ! I'll let you guess who.. who actually would be willing to take such a risk = have a family when everything is uncertain and going to shit, hoping it gets better. But only if she’s willing to take that risk! ahhhhhhh *scream in pain*)

(I do have a very specific mini AU too where things are a bit different. She get to have a child but hm… well the baby passed away after a while ;-; oof. But hey there’s the happy AU where everything is fine, they all take care of baby orphan of kos and way later she have her owns (maybe 2 i guess) and everything is very fine everyone is happy :D)

I hope it answered your question!

The cute hair ornament hc with Gehrman? 

nvnvdlvllvsl 🥺♥️😭 Well I already presented it in some of my headcanons/ writing. It was of course a gift made by Gehrman for Maria. I literally wrote a one shot about it damn... (maybe I would change a few details now but mainly it's the same)

So hm he gave it after the hamlet thing hm quite a few years later but maybe a few/couple of years before she passed away.

Was supposed to be a gift to tell her that he loved her, like some kind of engagement gift i guess but things didn't went well so he passed it down as a more normal kind of gift to cheer her up. Still she’s not dumb and she figures. He didn’t expect anything in return but she got him a pocket watch (like the dial of the astral clocktower). And they told each other that when things will be over and get better, they would  envision a future together. Sadly it didn’t happen.. 

They actually talked about maybe a future together before the hamlet but didn’t re talk about it after a while.(Bro even looked at books on ornament before the hamlet too)

But you know their relationship after the hamlet either went up and down; they grew really close but sometimes far apart. Of course in canon i don’t think their relationship came to fruition (for this interpretation of their relationship) but it’s my fics i do what i want jsdjdfskbjfdj XD more seriously, trying to stay canon compliant too so i'm still trying to figure out to which point did it went… I don't think it went up to the same lvl as common normal couple but hm still they were close.

And I mean even getting far away wasn’t an option because 1) they wouldn’t want to abandon everyone behind and 2) they knew karma would eventually catch up to them. Yeah they are doomed by the narrative… love them so much.

He might have brush her hair with it too maybe ;-; at least a lil bit. She really love it like you might imagine. Even from its simplicity and that it’s not an expensive thing. Still it’s the first time someone offer her that and with all the feelings behind

Also I'm so proud of him and them. Bro it took you probably more than 5-10y to tell her /15+ they knew each other but you did it in end But it's doom now 😭

Then when she died I think, either well he kept it or he might actually have buried it with her. Then via the nightmare she re give it to him. (Literally in the game we can pass objects from reality to dreams so like… who knows).

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I know i’m supposed to have one last question for you Crow, but it might need more time to type it and it’s huge so I will make another post about the Prom night incident I promised! I mean i could make a recording of me / call to you explaining it that would probably be much faster and easier XD 

What are some Maria headcanons that you have?

( @izunias-meme-hole)

Lady Maria headcanons post (part 1) :

Alright! Well I already share those a while ago : https://www.tumblr.com/fantomette22/743244500505378816/lady-maria-vs-keeper-of-the-old-lords?source=share  +couple of other around my blog

So I will try to share other things not just related to « Maria could do pyromancy from her living if she really wanted to but was actually terrified by it! Because she didn’t want to use her own blood to inflict pain and death. » also I won’t explain in detail how I hc she got her Rakuyo : by directly going to the East herself! (Yamamura’s country).

🍂But why did she name it like that? The Rakuyo? Well Rakuyo means « fallen leaves » right? Well, when she finally got her blade she needed to baptise it, to use it properly for the first time. And guess on what she uses it? A fallen leaf! (naturally falling in autumn). Cut it straight in two halves. And that’s how she knew how she was going to name it.

Enjoy the ride t's going to be long ;)

⚔️She got an Evelyn gun during her teenage years and before the Rakuyo she often train & fight with both a chikage and a reiterpallasch (she really like dual wielding 😎 or maybe with another sword like the shadow could have been a thing she fight with 🤔 but yeah I guess she was trained with all type of weapons) I wonder if she could have been a bit ambidextrous too.

⚜️Ok now concerning her family (tree) I have at least 5 different headcanons for it 💀but let’s just go with my main one aka the fic verse one (where she’s just Annalise’s cousin XD). Because if you get me started on the alternatives it’s just never gonna be over XD (those are really in very different timelines. It’s not really the same characters & events are different)

🩸I imagined she had quite a mixed relationship with her family. It’s like when you love them bc it’s your family, you like the good memories and nice moments you have, this little chill & special outings etc but there’s also some stuff you’ll never be able to forget or forgive them. You feel you need distance and be autonomous to not get hurt by them anymore, to not get frustrated and misunderstood. Just have news and share things outside.

She never really fit in with her peers. Kinda an odd one who just masks really well to fit into the mood when asked of her. I prefer to say « a (white) wolf » in a pack of hounds in context but yeah black sheep in a white flock if it’s easier to understand x) She had a lot of pressure on her shoulder as well (being the last pyromancer and not far in the line of succession)

But she really likes her close cousins which she grew up with (Annalise, Vled), a couple of other friends (Charles, Svetta, a couple of future young knights etc) as well as younger relatives and kids (Leo etc)! But she doesn’t get that much along with the others. Like she goes along better with the servants probably. 

⚜️She mainly grew up between Cainhurst and where her parents had lands and their manor (in the north, near a coast). Her parents are often not there because they are sent by the crown to places so it's complicated . When her mother is in a good mood that’s mostly fine, her dad is a bit more chill (he taught her how to play a lot of card games and poker too! She probably played 2-3 times with money at stake. She prefers amical things. She will absolutely beat your ass at it too. She’s the definition of having a poker face XD)

👑She was a lil bit raised like a future lady in waiting but more as future knight (page (of the king), squire, knight training etc really rough training too 💀 very dark shit hm like beat the shit out of people while wearing a full weight armor, swim in a ice lake and idk shot hm dead things… I swear there’s more fun things but hm yeah…)

That one really isn’t fun as well but i imagined that during her teenage years she already had to deal with mental health issues (due to well some pb with her family etc). Thankfully, she did get better after spending a summer a bit far away at a friend's home (to simplify). Still she got scared for some years afterwards that some of those dark thoughts would eventually return. Thankfully it didn't for most of her life. She got some happy times…Bad times too but not that bad until well probably more than 15-20y later where you know… she would sadly not make it out this time.

🌌She was accepted as Byrgenwerth and went to mainly study sciences, astronomy, but did learn a bit of theology as well as medicine (basic medicine stuff,  nurse & help midwife etc). She did 5y and got a master degree. She also participated in underground expeditions arranged by Byrgenwerth.

⭐️She probably know how to speak way more than 2 languages : whatever they speak in Yharnam, latin/pthumerian language, whatever the equivalent of Japanese is and probably a bit of other European languages too. Oh a north/slavic languages as well, because she had ancestors from there too).

🐴When she was very little they got some borzoi I guess but most of her life at Cainhurst she got 2 siblings crows (I have Phobos & Deimos names in my draft) as well as her own horse, named Filan. (mean little wolf in gaelic/irish apparently? Speaking of which Maria's nickname when she was little was "little wolf" maybe in another language too). She probably had a couple of plants too.

(suppose to be almost a full black horse but i’m not 100% settle because i could go full horsemen of the apocalypse aesthetic with other knights if i change the colors… but in my first draft that’s a black horse yes)

🔥When she was very little they discovered she could eventually have pyromancer blood power.It might have been a huge pride for them and honor for her but… clearly Maria didn’t want to become like the shadows of the antics pthumerian royals. A silent and hidden knight who kills without asking questions… clearly she wasn’t really found of this idea 😅 Thankfully for her she don’t know or to use such power and didn’t put much effort to try to learn it (in life she will probably accidentally use it 2-3 time…)

She highly respects a lot of traditions and culture from Cainhurst but there’s stuff like exposing the remains of animal prey that she found a bit barbaric. She doesn't mind others using blood blades and she will do it alone/ for training or even in choreography but she doesn’t wish to hurt or kill with it.*

💔So she was supposed to become a royal guard but things didn’t go like they should have…the poor young knights got into a fight with something by accident… a mortal trap they couldn’t win… only Maria made it out alive. Very hurt and slightly traumatized… She then had a huge fight with her family & relatives about what happened. She couldn’t even send news to her friends bc they forbid it to calm any rumors about what happened…Hm then Maria’s family decide to send her more north where her parents have lands etc so things calm down and she could ya know do her knight work or smt. Anyway she run away at Byrgenwerth💀

Sorry for the meme jebfekb I am not giving lot of details for now but it's highly link with my Knight & Beast of Cainhurst story.

(Why this meme too? Well due to rumours her friends legit thought she died 💀 she went to Byrgen only 1-2 months later. During the holidays. So she sent to like Ludwig & the other who weren't there letters to tell them she was ok. That's were came this meme XD)

❤️‍🩹Anyway she was partially disowned of some stuff for a bit and didn’t came back at Cainhurst for while. But after some times, her and her family wanted to both apologize and reunite, but without an occasion it would be complicated. Well, until a CERTAIN SOMEONE stole the forbidden blood to Cainhurst and tell them Maria helped 💀 (she had no idea, and he only did that bc he owns her one). So she didn’t approve but she kinda reconciled and they gave her the occasion to do a mission for them later on, in JAPAN (the Eastern land) and well you know the rest.

⚓️She had the occasion to go to « Japan » and have her dream of becoming like half in charge of a ship after getting her master degree! (she just did navigation stuff with the stars but maybe she was captain lol that’s what she wanted to do when she was little actually. But reading Evelyn diaries and not just the novels she realised how hard it was to always have such life h24)

Congratulations Lady Maria! 

After really hard years.. and trauma… and a exhausting presentation 

You win : 

a master degree in astronomy (sciences & other things)

a nice meal with your parents & family that congratulate you

a big part of your inheritance back!

a super wine bottle to share with your friends

 a trip to japan

finally your promised personalised double sword

a personalised hunting attire when you came back

to able to work with gehrman’s hunters & the healing church when you came back

So proud of you ❤️👏

✨Other lil hcs : 

Laurence made her very interested in religion. I am not joking, I sincerely believe he converted her somehow. / Made her very interest into great one religion etc

Gehrman saved her life more than once, she did the same. They went into lot of hunt training/camping trip as the beggining of being hunters.

She became great friends with Ludwig, Rom, Caryll, friends Damian too etc back at Byrgenwerth. With Micolash it was a bit more nuanced for a while. Before becoming close friends they were roasting each other often XD but respected each other too.

Her brooch either came from her mother or the late queen (aunt) so a family heirloom I guess. Ressemble a lumenflower. 

She helped the early healing church with treating people, make food, teach kids etc

She was highly respected by all the old hunters. Even if she had some tensions with dear Izzy at like the beginning they knew each other XD She earn their respect and everyone ended up very liking her being her kindness, abilities etc

When she was sent alone or with a couple of hunters to help in a secluded villages, people were of course really skeptical at first but she quickly proved them her worth.

I think sometimes she wears dresses…  but hey she never wears high heels or ballerina shoes (she hates it so hey she still has her special style! aka huge boots XD) It’s often very simple ones as well. Except at Cainhurst, it’s not very extravagant.

She loves to read tons of books (cainhurst library is there for smt XD)

With her cousins they loved to explore and wander the castle! At night too.. got them into trouble more than once.

Sometimes she wears sunglasses when it’s very sunny (poor girl has white eyelashes you see! she have an excuse)

She really loved the lumenflowers too like i explained last time.

She got some scars at the base of her neck. That’s why she almost always wear a jabot with her broach. (maybe on the hands too. that’s why she often has gloves).

She made (with a bit of help) Gherman’s red scarf while in japan.

“Of the Astral Clocktower” because she basically funded its construction with her own money. So like it’s partially hers on papers. (She did mostly astronomical studies & took care of the patients kind of like a nurse during her time at the research hall

She could play a couple of instruments (especially violin and cello). 

Of course she know many ballroom & court dance and taught other to others when they were invited to some places.

She actually can “sing” very well (but more music without real lyrics like the dream ost for exemple) ! She would probably almost never do that in public too.

Some books at the workshop are hers

Oh, did I already told she was very scared of pthumerian pyromancers before she fought the keeper of the old lords?

Ok now because I didn't know what to add to the post I asked some of my friends to help me with questions they wanted to know about! Thanks @heraldofcrow & @fareehaandspaniards there you go:

Was she comfortable with life at Cainhurst? (Before the Vileblood)

I think I answered that above ^ it’s very complex and complicated. Sometimes it goes well (especially in childhood) but sometimes it’s very complicated and not so good… (especially during teenage years and during some events where she got a lot of pressure and all. It got better after all this mess and Vilebloods mess of course (even if some distance was left compared to before). 

🩸🐦‍⬛Bloody Crow’s relation to Maria? 

In my main hc he’s the son of Maria’s cousin (Vled, the knight). So her little cousin basically. But to simplify I often say he’s like a nephew to her. I named him Voron! (I know very imaginative it means raven XD)  Still unsure if he’s born before or after the hamlet (probably after too) but in all cases Maria was around to help with the birth and to help take care of him for the first couple of days. She loved him very much. Also In the case something were to happen to his parents, well the king & queen would take care of him but if somehow they can’t/something were to happen to them too, Maria promised she would be the one to take care of him. 

Still, she died when he was very young. Probably like 3-6 years old. So he does remember a bit. But just a little and he has very good memories of her. But he also saw his family hurting from her disappearance and all and so he grew more mixed feeling but mostly it stays positive. He really looks like her in a lot of ways.

🕷️Rom and Maria friendship 🥺? 

I see you want to know more about their friendship! I think They had a wholesome friendship overall! But it didn't begins great. I am trying to write it in my fic since a few months but it's all hard and idk how to do that exactly XD

Like they were doing a group exercise and Rom was pretty bad and it (supposed to be quite easy) and Maria who got frustrated to explain it so much lash out a bit and tell her like “are you dumb or something?” 

Everyone in the class isn't very nice to Rom (and Maria) and said worst things behind her back so she thought that was, you know OK somehow and not that mean. But she quickly realized afterwards her mistake, that Rom was the Provost daughter and that she had some disability. But despite that, she was still trying hard and she must be very strong to have the lvl to be here you know! 

Maria feels very bad about it (Micolash had dark looks to give her too lmao)  but after a while (talking with other people cough cough) she decided to come to her and apologize sincerely and even try to help her on a few things.

Rom was quite surprised at first because nobody, you know approaches her like this to apologize and that's a huge thing considering Maria is from Cainhurst and a noble.

I mean she didn't even have hard feelings against Maria because everyone else is way meaner and she kinda forgot about it. She was quite surprised but also very thankful and they began to talk more. Micolash was the most surprised and he told Rom to be careful to not get walk over, to not believe lies and stuff but he quickly realized that it was genuine. And Rom had to reminded him (with Damian) that well, when he first meet Rom he was kinda of a bully at first!  Before becoming a mother hen with Damian.

So yes the two girls began to talk about a lot of things! She even got invited to Rom’s room. There’s tons of insects and underglass and stuff but generally people don't like that but Maria found it cool! She got some back home too and found it very interesting actually! So they quickly became friends with all the little gang. And also they are basically the two girls of the squad! I mean Caryll is in the girls squad too but they can also be in the boys squad so yeah anyway you know how girl besties can be x) you don’t share the same things exactly. Plus Caryll & Rom are really in the must protected squad.

 Maria even defends Rom from her family when she came back for the holiday and they asked her if she made some friends and who they were and stuff. And you know uh Mara had to told them in a very exaggerated manners that « oh I'm friend with the Provost daughter you know! » (You know because that's what they want to know, if she made strong connections with interesting people before anything else…)

But of course, you're going to have very rude comments from some relatives or something who’s going to say “oh the retarded one?” 💀  And everyone's looking at him like “can you please not say it like this?”  Poor Maria just standing there and dunno what to say because she really cares about her as a friend. She doesn't just want to have friends to show off she has important contacts. She genuinely values those friendships. Sadly, she can’t just tell her family that her friends are mostly “the weird introvert group kids! just like me!”(so she talk about Ludwig too! but don't put too much details on others…)

So yeah they stayed great friends for years. Sadly, in tough moments they didn’t really share what hurt them to the other… (after kos etc maybe a bit but not too much)

🗡️🛡️What or who inspired Maria's path of knighthood in her youth?

History books & knight novels! Her grand uncle, the other knights, king etc, Her family push her/ “let her choose” that way as well.

Lady Evelyn stories (she was like Maria grand aunt/ cousin of her grandparents, mostly an adventurer).

The bodyguard of Annalise’s mother who was at first a mercenary sent to Loran before becoming a royal knight.

🍜What were Maria's food preferences?

Hm i think if it looks/smells average and edible she’s actually not that complicated XD She made a lot of effort through the years to get used to more common and simple food.

My poor girl couldn’t really cooked anything when she arrived at Byrgenwerth besides cutting basic things, make tea, made ramen and skins animal meat (like rabbit) before Gehrman thought her other recipes 😭 (she made great soups afterwards! hunters like it, she cuts aliments well XD but yeah my boy cooks well for everyone he made her liked many simple things that if not done well many don’t like. But bro is the only one who probably likes some chard gratin or something out of everyone…)

Like most of her family, i supposed she would very much enjoy some rare/medium rare meat XD but when it’s EVERYDAY she got very tired 💀 I mean she tried to tell her family it was too much so they respected her wishes and gave her only vegetables for a couple of days… but not like normal meals no! like a whole ass not decorticate salad or full ass carrots with skins and all! 💀 She rapidly apologized like you can guess. (still she can’t stand those damn carpaccio when there’s too much!)

Besides that yeah only non meat dishes don’t bother her at all, she would even prefer most of the time. She likes both sophisticated but also very simple dishes she discovered.  Exotic food from the east. Of course my girl liked sushis, fish, sea fruit etc. I mean she used to like it way more before… you know… afterwards many hunters couldn’t just smell white fish for a few days without feeling nauseous…. for Maria she just couldn’t bring herself to eat like 95% of white sea fish anymore… (I guess salmon and thon and lobster were still ok but that’s it really).

And well of course deserts are always so nice so whatever 🤤

🌻Her relationship with Adeline?  /Who is Adeline to her in your interpretation? 

(Yeah both of you asked me this one! x) )

Well depending on the interpretations I have two main interpretations for her! (in the AU/very different timeline where Gehrman is like Maria's dad, that's her girlfriend lol) but in my main interpretation that’s not really the case. I prefer to see them as friends and very close friends I think? during her early time at the research hall. Another close friend she made who’s mainly outside of her main group. But both have quite an evolution through the years they knew each other. 

If i remember the draft in my head correctly it goes like this : 

After Maria graduated (and came back from her mission trip) she went to help the early healing church develop itself and its activities between hunts and going in the pthumerians labyrinth and that’s where she met Adeline.

I supposed Adeline is a Yharnamite? but she lost everything (her family. not sure what happened) and basically didn’t have a home anymore and clearly saw herself as worthless (poor girl had terrible self esteem issues all her life afterwards…) So the early healing church took in some people in need, gave them a place to sleep, eat and heal them if they were sick. Maria took care and helped Adeline during that time (after it was Laurence too).

And so the 2 became friends! In the end Adeline (who had nothing left) decided to dedicate her life to the healing church and helped others as well, so they saw each other with Maria afterwards! They advised each other and could have been a bit confident of each other as well. Of course Maria wasn’t very hyped when Adeline became a blood saint fully (seeing the bad things it could do to people) but she respected her choices.

During the research hall, before Adeline took part in the experiments, she helped Maria, Rom, Caryll etc around with the patients & other things. I suppose because of some dreams/ exposure to something, the decline of everyone's mental health, and maybe other people asking her... she decided to give herself fully to those experiments as well in the end… Her death was one of the last straws for Maria...

----

I know I have more questions left but I am reaching Tumblr word limit soon so I will reblog/make a 2nd post (or even a 3rd)💀 with the rest of the most interesting (and huge) questions! It's not quite written yet but for now this should be a nice distraction and a good reading I hope!

[milkweedman]

Attempting some tablet weaving for the first time. I have essentially no idea what im doing--i did watch a few videos which mostly went in one ear and out the other, as well as look for some written guides which were completely indecipherable if for no other reason than Reading Hard.

The warping was fiddly but straightforward, and the first several inches are totally botched bc i wasnt really creating a clean warp shed bc i had no idea what belonged to what half, but after i figured that out it got way neater ! I'm not really concerned about how it looks though. This first attempt will serve its purpose either way, which is to be a bag handle so that i don't have to crochet or knit one. Yes i did finally try tablet weaving just to avoid knitting or crocheting more straps.

Also wow, these cards really arent going to last very long. I pulled them out of the 5 deck hand and foot set (hence why they're all 3s, since thats the worst card to get and i figured removing a few wouldnt be missed), but if id realized they deteriorate so fast i definitely would have just used something else. Oh well though.

Also, i had a feeling this would hurt my back, and indeed it does. I lasted about 10 minutes before it was too much. Might need to use a chair next time.

[lungthief]

shakespeare characters that r lgbt AND homophobic

- bassanio merchant of venice

- caius martius

- sebastian twelfth night

- tybalt

- something compels me to say prospero. not sure why but im sticking to it

[theaceofarrows]

Bruce: Boys, care to explain these headlines that came up on my news feed?

Bruce: Like this for example? [Pulls up a pic of a headline reading "Dick Grayson, is he in fact Gotham's gift to bisexuals everywhere? According to residents of neighbor cities the answer is a resounding yes. Here is their thought process"]

Dick: What do you do want me to say Bruce? That's the God honest truth!

Bruce: Just... Fine. I'll ignore that

Bruce: And Jason? [Pulls up an article reading "Jason Todd son of billionaire Bruce Wayne, recently nominated for Pulitzer price for his bestselling novel that was inspired by a fanfiction of Shakespeare's Hamlet he wrote in his teenage years"

Jason: Are you fucking kidding me?! After all my hard work. After I pour my heart and soul into that MASTERPIECE, they have the nerve to mention YOU?!

Bruce: Wha- no. That's not what I meant at all- I mean, just when did you have time to publish a novel? And when did it become a bestseller?

Jason: What? You think I don't have a life outside this family? You surprised I'm such a gifted writer?! Gosh Bruce! [Leaves]

Bruce: [tired sigh] Never mind... Tim, I'm afraid to ask. But what's this? [Pulls up a headline reading "Is young Wayne Enterprises CEO Tim Drake, a know black coffee addict actually a pumpkin spice connoisseur? Local Starbucks employee claims to have witnessed it first hand]

Tim: That wasn't me

Bruce: This wasn't you...? [Shows a picture of a badly disguised Tim running out of a Starbucks with a Coffee cup]

Tim: [looking Bruce straight in the eyes] Nope

[rascalentertainments]

Is Sabino gonna be alive at the end?

What are the Sakina and Sabino's headcanon voice actors?

Would Magnifico break the fourth wall once he transforms into a monster or during the credits?

Do you have your own set of Villains who are ten times better than Magnifico that you take inspiration for my rewrite from him? like some of them are your most loved and hated villains?

What would be sabor’s defeat?

If Star is a prince, Does Star and and his mother shares a same familial relationship as Ariel and King Triton, Moana and Chief Tui?

Is King Magnifico planning on using WG!Star as bait to trap his mother and drain her magic or drain both of them?

Is Asha and Flazino are like cousin figures?

How did Flazino became apprentice to King Magnifico?

Hello there, @albertthewolfdog! Sorry I'm late to your ask, but here I am!

Yes! And he will perform his deleted song "A Wish Worth Making" at the end of the story to help close it out! Its actually one of the few things I'm glad the movie changed. I really like Sabino and glad they didn't kill him off.

Sabino's is still Victor Garber, I feel that was a great choice, but they didn't give him any good lines to say or have an impact on the viewer. Very underutilized. As for Sakina, I know it sounds strange, but I picked Whoopi Goldberg. WG!Sakina has a bit of sass to her (that's where Asha gets it from) but she can still be motherly and caring. She'll even have some good lines later on and in the bonus stories. I think Whoopi can make all that come through in her voice.

He will do it twice as a monster, actually! He looks at the camera and says "How's that for a climax?" when the time comes for him and Star to fight. And another when Gabo asks Amaya how did she get to the top of tower before Magnifico did. She can't explain, and neither can the King, so its a Emperor's New Groove reference!

OH YEAH!! The inspirations are Team Rocket when they're in front of a crowd, then Hades and Maleficent when they're alone together. LOVE both of those pairings, so they fit in well!

5. I haven't quite decided yet. I've been considering turning him into a regular housecat to reference Yzma's cat form, or getting injured fighting Valentino. He would begrudgingly receive care from Bazeema during his recovery.

6. Actually Star is technically a regular guy. "Wish Granted" Stars ate dubbed "star nomads", where they travel across the galaxy in the Startosphere without a permanent home. There's only one royal star, and that's the legendary wishing star that no one has actually seen in the present. Though, Star feels like a prince when he's with Asha and Asha feels like a princess when she's with Star.

As for the mother relationship question, I would say Moana and Chief Tui. Star's parents don't really understand why he wants to visit Earth so badly when he has all of space to travel in. They still love and care for him, he's just the odd kid in his family.

7. Nope, but you're close! He's using Asha's family and the Hamlet as bait so he gives her an ultimatum. Either she hands over Star and he dies, or her family dies. You are right about both he and Amaya wanting to drain Star's magic. He's going to use the staff to stab him in the chest and drain every drop out of him until he's empty. Then the two will share the celestial magic and will be able to conquer the rest of the world.

8. Yes, good eye! Its not a Disney reference, but they're similar to the Alien Force version of Ben and Gwen Tennyson. They're practically family and get along, no romance in the slightest.

9. Like the deleted scene, Flazino's wish is to study magic. For this story, its so he can help others lives be better, which is what he thought Magnifico wanted as well. He thought the job would be more glamorous or fun as he learned, but it turns out Mags doesn't actually want a successor. He plans on being in power permanently with his wife. He pretends he granted Flazi's wish and instead of studying magic, he's the errand boy, cleans the lab equipment, feeds Sabor, and is in charge of the tour guides for newcomers. Flazino just practices what he can at home and secretly takes ingredients from Amaya's potion cabinet.

He gave his wish at 18, and was surprised to hear it was getting granted so soon. Though Mags doesn't really need an apprentice, he takes Flaz on just in case something happened to him, all of his magic, power and evil will go into the apprentice. Sort of passing on his plans to him to become the next Magnifico and continue his work. That's pretty terrifying.

During the first few months of becoming the apprentice, he learned about the Hamlet through rumors in Rosas. He didn't understand why people would run away until he stumbles on seeing the king and queen crush the wishes of a couple who talked about leaving Rosas and not trusting the royals. He never saw that couple again.

He later took off one night into the forest to finds this supposed Hamlet using a tracking spell. Once he finds it, Sabino and other people tell him why they ran and what a monster the royal could be. Flazino felt so disgusted that he promised to help anyway he could. So he makes an excuse to get specialty mushroom from the Uncharted Forest once a month and brings supplies to the Hamlet ever since. (stuff like seeds to grow food, flour, medicine, toys for the kids)

And there you go! Thanks for submitting! Feel free to ask more questions whenever you like!

I'll tag you guys in case you want some extra info before my next lore drop! @oh-shtars @tumblingdownthefoxden @chillwildwave @annymation

@your-ne1ghbor @thesafireartist @ishadow246 @uva124

[littledigest]

Asteroids for the Rejected and Abandoned Lover

Please don't take this one literally and too seriously. These asteroids do NOT mean you or someone else will experience the same fate as the mythological figure.

A lot of these myths and stories end badly for the female character(s). But consider that there is a long history of writers and artists who created tragic female characters to highlight the tragic nature of their work or to explain a different phenomenon. This should not be a reflection of real life. I made this list just because I noticed a similar theme.

11, 171, 556, 209, 53, 43, 2212, 73

Parthenope 11

Named after Parthenope, a siren who drowns herself after failing to lure Odysseus

Her name means "maiden-voiced."

Hard time accepting rejection; overreacting to rejection

Ophelia 171

Named after Ophelia, the rejected lover of Hamlet from Shakespeare's Hamlet

Ophelia loses her mind when she finds that Hamlet did not love her; she drowns

Feeling a loss of innocence; what we thought was real is not real

Regret; a target for misogyny; retreating into the mind where everything is overblown

Phyllis 556

Named after Phyllis, the wife of Demophon, the King of Athens

When Demophon leaves Phyllis behind to help his father in Greece, Phyllis gives him a casket and tells him to open it when he gives up all hope of returning to her.

Some versions have Phyllis committing suicide when she realizes her husband will not come back; other versions have Demophon opening the casket and accidentally falling on his sword, killing him

Losing faith and giving up hope for a relationship; attachment issues

Dido 209

Named after Dido, the founder and first queen of Carthage (modern-day Tunisia)

In Virgil's Aeneid, Dido falls in love with Aeneas, a Trojan hero, but kills herself when he is ordered by Jupiter to leave.

Before she dies, she has a funeral pyre built to burn everything that reminds her of Aeneas and curses the Trojans, giving rise to the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage.

Becoming vengeful when hurt; overreactions that cause disasters

Also clever, wise, a leader, passionate, volatile

Kalypso 53

Named after Calypso, a nymph who wanted Odysseus to be her husband in exchange for immortality, but he refused because he wanted to be with his wife Penelope

She forces Odysseus to sleep with her and stay with her on her isolated island for seven years

Zeus, with the help of Athena and Hermes, tells Calypso to set Odysseus free

Calypso is upset but helps Odysseus with whatever he needs to leave the island

Her name means "she who conceals"

Hanging onto others for our own benefit; making something/someone fit into our plans; trying to persuade others to change their mind

Falling for someone who is already attached to someone else; being jealous

Feeling that life is unfair; getting the short end of the stick

Ariadne 43

Named after Ariadne, the Cretan princess who helped Theseus find his way out of the labyrinth after killing the Minotaur

Ariadne betrays her father and country for her love for Theseus, who was a sacrifice for the Minotaur

There are many versions, but ultimately Theseus leaves her; Ariadne then marries Dionysus

A labyrinth-like love life; love taking twists and turns; unexpected endings

Betrayal in the name of love or personal desires

Helpfulness cannot be exchanged for love

Hephaistos 2212

Named after Hephaestus, the Greek god of metalworking, woodworking, artisans, fire, and volcanoes

Hephaestus's mother, Hera, throws him off Olympus when she discovers he has a birth defect

He creates a golden throne for Hera that she could not stand up from once she sat down; the gods try to persuade him to free her; only Dionysus is successful when he gets Hephaestus drunk

Hephaestus and Aphrodite marry, but Aphrodite is consistently unfaithful to him with Ares, the god of war

He creates a chain net that falls on Aphrodite and Ares when they are in bed together to parade them in front of the other gods

Hephaestus and Aphrodite eventually divorce

Exacting revenge, big or small, against those who wrong you

Being outcasted by others; black sheep of the family/group

Talented and indispensable but looked down on or underestimated

Klytia 73

Named after Clytie, a nymph who loved Helios, the sun god

But Aphrodite makes Helios leaves her for another woman, princess Leucothoe, as revenge for Clytie revealing her affair with Ares to Hephaestus

Clytie, upset by and jealous of Helios leaving her, tells Leucothoe's father about his daughter's affair with Helios

The father buries his daughter alive, and Helios never goes back to Clytie

Can show where we are excessively jealous and vengeful

[alcinadimitrescuwu]

Snow Day (An Alcina x Reader Fanfic)

“Found you!” You jump with a start as Cassandra grabs you by the shoulder. You glare at her. “Congrats on finding me, but was the scythe at my throat really necessary?” you ask as she took the aforementioned weapon away from your throat.

Cassandra pouts. “You’re no fun, Maman!” She links your arm playfully and led you down the hall. “Now we just need to find Daniela! Nerd’s probably in the library, reading Wuthering Heights for the 50th time.”

It was a beautiful winter’s day at Castle Dimitrescu. Your wife Alcina Dimitrescu had braved the snowy weather to check on some deliveries. While she was gone, it was up to you to entertain your adopted daughters.

So naturally, you had to play Hide and Seek.

You had already found Bela hiding behind the portrait of her mother in the atelier. Now all that was left was to find Daniela.

“We should split up,” you say. “We can cover more ground that way.”

Cassandra grins manically. “Good idea! We’ll make a hunter out of you yet! I’ll go check the east wing, you go for the west!” With that, she vanished in a swirl of flies.

You head down the hall, glancing behind suits of armor and objets d’art to search for your youngest. Suddenly, you see a glimpse of red hair peeking out from behind the velour curtains. Not a very good hiding place. Surely she’d read Hamlet enough times to know that.

You sneak up behind her, intending to get back at her for the amount of times she’s scared you by jumping out at you in the hallways. As you get closer, you see her looking out over the village. A group of children are in the midst of a snowball fight, squealing as they run over the breast of the new-fallen snow to avoid the frosty missiles being pelted at them. You see from Daniela’s profile a wistful expression has clouded her features.

“Daniela?” you ask gently. She whirls from the window and begins wiping furiously at her eyes.

She turns to face you and beams, her wistful expression vanishing as if it had never been there in the first place. “Oh, there you are Maman! Sorry, I guess I just got a little distracted!” She looked back at the window, where the children’s mother was ushering the little combatants inside, probably for a cup of hot chocolate. “I guess that’s everyone! Can we go for another round, Maman? You found me last, so that means I get to count this time!”

You smile indulgently at your youngest. “Of course, love.”

*****

Later that evening, you and your wife Alcina are lying in bed together, basking in the afterglow after having made love. Your head is on her chest, your body nestled comfortably in the curve of her hip. She runs a hand through your hair. “You’re getting that faraway look in your eyes again, draga mea,” Alcina says, kissing your bare shoulder. “A lei for your thoughts?”

You turn to face her and she rests a hand on your waist. “While you were gone, the girls and I were entertaining ourselves by playing a round of hide-and-seek,” you explain. “When I found Daniela she was staring out the window...at a group of children playing in the snow.”

Alcina’s aureate eyes cloud over and a pained expression crosses her face. “Oh,” Alcina says quietly. “I see.”

She looks away quickly and when you turn her face towards yours, you find her eyes are brimming with tears.

“What is it darling?” you ask gently. “Talk to me.”

“It was the winter after I first took the girls into Castle Dimitrescu,” Alcina begins to explain. “There was a blizzard the night before and Bela and Cassandra came to me suddenly in my office and told me they couldn’t find Daniela anywhere. Daniela and I had had an argument the night before when I told her it was too dangerous to play in the snow. When the girls came to me, I immediately knew what she had done.”

Alcina takes a shuddering breath before continuing. “I bade the girls to stay inside while I searched for Daniela. It was still snowing pretty hard by the time I went outside. I could hardly see ten feet in front of me, the snow was so thick. I tripped over something and when I looked down, I saw her.” Alcina’s voice began to grow thick. “My Daniela. My baby. Lying facedown on the ground. Right next to the snowman she had built.”

You run a hand along her back, tracing your fingers over her spinal column to help calm her down. “It’s all right, my love. You don’t need to tell me any more if it’s too painful.”

“No, dearest, it’s all right,” Alcina says, smiling weakly before going on. “I picked up Daniela and rushed her inside as quickly as I could. I piled blanket after blanket on top of her and ordered the maids to make a fire. But she was so still and her body was like ice, her lips a pale blue.” Alcina sobs. “I thought I had lost her until she suddenly leapt up in my arms. And when she came back, she was so happy. She couldn’t wait to tell me all about the snowman she had made.

“I don’t think I remember being so angry. I shook her hard, telling her to never do that to me again. I wanted to make her realize how dangerous it was for her to go outside, but when she looked at me again, I saw fear in her eyes of me. For a moment, my own daughter was afraid of me.”

Alcina’s body is heaving with sobs and you take her in your arms, kissing her brow before resting your chin on top of her head. “Darling, that was so long ago. You and Daniela have long made amends since then.”

“I know,” Alcina says, as you lift her face up and gently wipe the tears from her eyes. “But every winter since then I get this pain in my chest when it starts to snow because I know how badly Daniela wants to go outside. I know Cassandra and Bela feel it too.”

You think for a minute and then suddenly an idea comes to you. You put on a dressing gown and head over to the telephone. Alcina sits up as you turn the rotary dial. “Darling, what are you doing?” she asks.

You hold up a finger to tell her to wait. The line connects and you hear a soft voice say, “Pronto?”

“Donna! Bona sera. Listen, I was wondering if you could help me with something…"

*****

“Can I open my eyes yet, Maman?’

“Not yet, dearest,” you say as you guide Daniela along down the hall, her eyes covered by a blindfold. ”Just a couple more steps and we’ll be there.”

You look behind you and your other daughters have similar blindfolds on, hanging on Alcina’s arms for support. Alcina looks up at you and gives you an encouraging smile.

“Maman, you know I hate surprises,” Cassandra complained.

“Just be patient,” you chide. You come to a stop in front of the library doors. Gently taking Daniela’s hands in yours, you have her push open the double doors. Alcina herds the rest of your children inside and the doors close behind you.

You and Alcina take the blindfolds off your daughters and you hear Daniela gasp and clap her hands together in delight.

Donna has truly outdone herself. The library has been transformed into a wintery landscape. Big fluffy snowflakes pour down from the skylight although it is closed for obvious reasons. In the middle of the dais, there is a skating rink.

You are surprised to see Moreau and Heisenberg there too along with Donna and Angie. “Well, we knew how much this would mean to the girls, so we wanted to be here to see their reaction,” Heisenberg said with a grin.

You stand to the side and lean your head against Alcina’s side as you take in the scene around you. Daniela is happily making a snowman with Moreau and the fish-man proudly sticks a fisherman’s cap on top of its head. Cassandra and Heisenberg are in the process of making some heavily ramparted snow forts. Bela takes Donna’s hand and leads her to the ice rink. Donna is nervous at first but Bela gently guides her along the ring hand in hand until she feels comfortable enough to skate on her own. Angie, in the meantime, is skillfully doing triple axles seemingly without any effort. Honestly, nothing about that doll surprises you anymore.

Alcina takes your hand in hers and kisses the back of your hand. “Thank you, my darling,” she murmurs against your knuckles.

You smile up at her. “You’re welcome, my-”

The moment is interrupted when a snowball hits Alcina on the shoulder. Alcina whirls around and you are not the least bit surprised to see Hesenberg doubled over with laughter.

Alcina’s thunderous expression softens and she simply gives Heisenberg a smirk. She then reaches down and forms a snowball of her own. Heisenberg realizes the grave error he has made when Alcina straightens and lobs the missile at him. It hits him straight in the stomach and he drops like a stone to the ground.

You glare at Alcina. “Well, he started it!” Alcina says defensively, crossing her arms over her chest.

Donna soon starts getting a headache from the effort of holding the image of the illusory snowscape and the other Lords have to leave as well. Daniela surprises the dollmaker by giving her a big hug before she leaves. By the time the door closes behind her, the library is reverted to the way it was before. You turn to your daughters and see they are happy, but tired from the snow day.

Alcina smiles at you and takes a book from one of the shelves. She settles down in her favorite wing-back armchair in front of the fire and the girls gather on the floor around her. You settle yourself in her lap and kiss her cheek as she opens the book and starts to read. “One morning Peter woke up and looked at his window. Snow had fallen during the night. It covered everything as far as he could see…”

[puns-and-musicals]

Shane Madej talking about how he likes to take showers in the dark: I like to have the water really hot pouring down on me, and then it’s even better with the lesser visual input

Me: oh, haha that’s… really weird, that’s exactly what I do and why. Huh!

Shane, shortly after: *quoting Hamlet off the top of his head, with barely any pause, far longer than most allistic ghost hunters could*

Me: oh… oh he just like me fr

Shane: *enthusiastically explaining how badly he’s always wanted to sleep in a “Harry Potter” cupboard under the stairs*

Me: okay yeah, okay. I know what you are.