#how to preserve history when you are the one who caused it

[convexicalcrow]

The Ancient Capital bore new scars, ones Pix didn’t remember causing. But he knew enough to know he’d done them. He'd covered the land with skulk and didn’t care what it did to the buildings all around him. Things he had once denounced Cub for causing he had done himself and on a much grander scale.

He knew he'd done it because he'd written it all down in excruciating detail, which made the horrors both very real, and also very dissonant. Somehow, in spite of the possession and the lack of memories, he'd written it all down. And the way he described so much of the skulk infestation made his skin crawl.

It left him feeling conflicted in so many ways. His instincts, his whole drive, was preservation. He'd come here to discover the history of this place, and preserve it for the future. He trod carefully on the earth, and did his best to make sure the past was remembered and preserved accurately. In all things, he strove to keep himself out of history, out of the story. Just be an impartial recorder, rebuilding the past as it had once been, rather than building it the way he might if it was his own base. But he was part of the story now, in spite of himself. And here he was, looking over at the vandalism his actions had caused, and feeling like he couldn't just erase the damage he'd done, even though he didn't want to be reminded of it.

What do you even do in a situation like this? How much do you preserve? What don't you preserve? Clearly the journals he'd made of this event needed to be kept, even when he looked at them, he simply wanted to burn them. He may even make a display for them in the museum once he's decided what to do with the clean-up. He definitely didn't want to keep all the skulk, but he would attempt to record the damage as accurately as possible. That only seemed fair.

Sure, he could blame Cub for getting possessed in the first place, and in his darker moments, he did. But that wasn't fair, because Cub was possessed, and so was he, and while that didn't excuse their actions, it did mean they were both responsible for cleaning up the mess.

It was still strange to think that that last - and very first - meeting with Cub was the thing he remembered most clearly about the whole debacle. He remembered Cub's voice, the acrid smell of the skulk filling his nostrils until he could smell nothing else, the way Cub's bright blue-green eyes filled his vision, and a skulk-covered hand held his head in place, and there was no pain, none at all, but fear gripped him so completely he could not move.

Was it his fault for being infested? Should he have known there was a risk involved in meeting Cub like that? Maybe. Maybe not. But then it was easy to ask these questions now, once it was all done and over with, when he knew the skulk was actually infectious, and not just Cub being weird. In the moment, when he was mostly just concerned about a few (hundred) skulk catalysts, he hadn't even thought that he would get possessed too. And yet, he can't absolve himself of the guilt.

Perhaps it's the journals. Perhaps it's being able to read his own words, in his own hand, as he did the bidding of the skulk and wrote down everything he did for posterity, as he stated many times within the entries. His own strengths were working against him here. His incessant need to document everything was his undoing. Not because no one doubted his possession but because he no longer could. Those journals held him responsible for it all. Sure, Cub did some of the initial work, but what Pix had done was so much more. He'd desecrated his own work, let the skulk spread far further than even Cub dared to go.

But of course it wasn't just the skulk spreading that he had to deal with either. It was the other things he'd written about, like attacking False, plus all the things he'd said to others, people he considered friends, as they'd tried to talk him out of his possession. And he infested False too, even though he didn't remember that. She did, though; not completely, but enough for her to have avoided him ever since Cub and Scar had cured them and taken them back to a mansion to recover. Which he didn't blame him for. He believed her, even if he didn't remember.

He admired Cub's ability to simply move on and make amends. Like being possessed was something he was used to, which perhaps it was. Pix didn't really ask too many questions about the Vex thing, if he was honest. He was mostly just glad they had cured him and False and taken them to safety. He'd attempted to talk to Cub about it, just to see if he had any advice, but he'd lost a big chunk of memory, and Pix didn't want to pry too much, not when Scar was hovering around like a protective partner.

So he was on his own, facing the repercussions of what he'd let happen, with absolutely no idea what to do next. Clean it all up? Erase what he'd done from history? Burn the notebooks so they wouldn't continue to haunt him? No, not even that would erase the callous words he'd written out of his mind. He would remember, even if no one else did.

[agoodflyting]

Why Aziraphale is completely ridiculous in the Bastille scene (and I love him so much for it)

A while ago I posted a comparison of Aziraphale and Crowley's costumes in the 1793 flashback in Good Omens and I wanted to add these little tidbits. (Because they haunt me.)

I feel like most people know this but IF YOU DON'T, Paris in 1793 is right in the middle of something called La Terreur.

HISTORY LESSON If you didn't learn this in school the French Revolution was when, after years of escalating social tension, a coalition representing the working classes of France revolted against the monarchy, violently overthrew King Louis XVI, and declared France to be a republic.

The new National Convention governing France ruled that King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette were traitors to the people of France because of how they had spent ridiculous amounts of money on luxuries for themselves while vast numbers of the lower classes were literally starving to death. (keep the bold in mind - wealth and class disparities were one of the key causes of the whole-ass revolution)

In 1793 (year of the flashback) both the King and Queen were executed by guillotine for their crimes.

This kicks of something called The Reign of Terror (La Terreur if you want to be French about it). A multi-year-long period in which the National Convention goes on a bloody witch hunt for any and every member of the middle or upper classes who could even possibly be considered a traitor by those same standards.

If you A) had money or privilege, and B) had ever used your money or privilege to treat yourself, you were getting executed. Over 25,000 people died during the Reign of Terror, half of them by guillotine. In fact, the iconic guillotine was used because it was physically impossible to keep up with the sheer number of people they were executing in Paris every single day.

Some things that could get you killed (actually and completely seriously) during the Reign of Terror:

Implying in any way you were sympathetic to the monarchy

Having a noble title

Having expensive things

Wearing expensive, luxurious clothes (*cough* AZIRAPHALE)

helping or sympathizing with anyone who did any of the above

a working-class person saying you were mean to them once

And then there's this bitch...

I AM NOBILITY PLEASE KILL ME So we have established that Paris in 1793 is in the middle of a frenzied, state-sanctioned bloodbath in which the working classes are massacring everyone even remotely nobility-adjacent. And in the middle of this frenzy, Aziraphale proceeds to roll up in Paris in this outfit:

How will this outfit get him killed? Let me count the ways...

First off- at this point everyone with even the tiniest shred of self- preservation is hiding the fact that they are in any way associated with the monarchy. The wealthy are straight-up abandoning mansions. The middle-class are plastering over decorations to make their house look 'poor'. The only people dressed remotely decent are the guys leading the National Convention and that's just because nobody can stop them. Everyone else is in 24/7 peasant cosplay or else they are covering themselves in cockades and sashes on to show they're pro-Republic.

Aziraphale is basically a giant shiny white sign saying I AM NOBILITY PLEASE KILL ME.

First off the lace jabot and lace cuffs are both associated with the old-school wealthy in the 1790's.

His coat is also decorated in gold braid and silver buttons, which are both marks of wealth and luxury.

He basically looks like he works for Louis XIV - not just rich, but old school rich.

We know it's his natural hair color, but hair powdering (with clay and starch) had been a big trend with the rich all throughout the 18th century to get that clean white venerable look . To someone who doesn't know it's natural, it would very much look like he's wearing hair powder.

He's wearing shades of cream and white, which are very hard to keep clean and clearly states that the wearer is rich and can afford the upkeep necessary to keep an outfit like that stain-free.

He's wearing white knee-breeches and stockings, also called culottes. See above about laundry and how rich you had to be to wear white, but also working-class men wore long pants like this:

A large faction involved in the Revolution were the Sans-Culottes (no-culottes aka we wear long pants LIKE GOOD OLD WORKING MEN). Culottes are specifically associated with everything the revolution hated. That's right - Aziraphale is literally wearing The Fanciest of Fancy Pants in a city where a group called The Men Against Fancy Pants are running around murdering people.

And then there are his shoes.

Oh god his shoes

I could do a whole post about Aziraphale's blessed little white satin pumps and how ridiculous they are.

Actually I might just do that because this is getting so long and I still have to talk about the brioche.

So I can't remember if it's in the script book or if it's from Neil Gaiman's tumblr, but it's apparently canon (?) that Aziraphale was going around in that outfit asking people where he could get crepes and brioche when he was arrested.

The Affair of the Brioches

So... uh... we've all heard the line attributed to Marie Antoinette- how when she was told that her people were starving because there was no bread left in Paris, she famously said...

It's morphed into 'let them eat cake', but the line is first recorded as, "Then let them eat brioches."

While it's unlikely she ever actually said it, the important thing is that... people in 1793 would have thought she said it. It was used as political smear to show how arrogant and out of touch the monarchy was. Marie Antoinette in particular was reviled by the people of France, who thought she was the main cause of their economic problems. That's why she was executed too.

Bread and brioche and the lines between poverty and privilege were a big thing in Revolutionary France. There was a lot of political connotation to what you ate. The French Revolution came about because of decades of suffering among the lower classes of France. It wasn't something that some dudes just decided to do. The people of Paris have been through years of the absolute worst, most oppressive poverty and starvation you can imagine, all while watching the rich throw money around crazy.

So let us recap.

Aziraphale is dressed so ridiculously posh that he looks like a joke parody of a nobleman... and he is bumbling around Paris during the Reign of Terror. Asking people. For brioche. How I imagine everyone looked at him:

It is so astoundingly tone deaf and tactless. He is basically cosplaying as Marie Antoinette and then going around asking the poor for cake.

I just.... Aziraphale. babygirl. no. oh no. You're lucky they even bothered to take you to prison. I am amazed Crowley ever let him live that down.

I have no conclusion other than this. Aziraphale is ridiculous and I love him so much.

YES YOU REALLY SHOULD SIR.

[pluckyredhead]

What the heck is going on in Batman/Gotham War?

I know a lot of people in fandom are confused and/or upset about what's been going on in Gotham War - why is Bruce acting like this, what is Selina doing, why are the Batkids taking sides. So I figured I would fill you all in on what's been happening in Batman and Catwoman since Chip Zdarsky took over with Batman #125, because it has been BONKERS and I have been enjoying the hell out of it.

Below, the quickest summary I can manage while still being comprehensive:

[Content warning: mental illness, abuse, suicide (...ish), LOTS of violence.]

The first arc, "Failsafe," starts with Batman and Robin (Tim, in this case) in pursuit of the Penguin, who is on a killing spree. In the very first issue, Tim gets shot in the neck. Bruce has to take him to the hospital, but first he has to strip him out of his costume and put him in civilian clothes to preserve their secret identities, triggering memories of when he had to do the same to Jason's dead body. There is LITERALLY NO PURPOSE TO ANY OF THIS EXCEPT WHUMP (Tim is back in action with a fucking BAND-AID on his neck very quickly), which is how I knew this was going to be good. Beat Tim up! Make Bruce cry about Jason! I want these men to suffer! (There is also SO much to be said about Tim's own Poor Mental Health Decisions throughout the entirety of Zdarsky's run so far, but that's for a separate meta post.)

Anyway. Bruce leaves Tim in the hospital and goes to confront Penguin, who turns out to be dying of mercury poisoning. He kills himself and makes it look like Batman did it, forcing Bruce to flee. (Penguin actually faked his death and is alive elsewhere under an alias, but that's not important right now.)

In the Batcave, a massive robot called Failsafe emerges. Failsafe attacks Bruce, who usually eats killer robots for breakfast, but he can't seem to get the upper hand on this one. Duke, Cass, Steph, and Dick show up to help, but Failsafe beats them all too, while Tim gets an injured Bruce away and to the Batcave.

In the Batcave, Bruce puts on a weird purple and red Batman costume and a new personality takes over: the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh. Now, Zur has a very complicated history going back to 1958, but for the purposes of this story, all you need to know is that when he was younger, Bruce decided it would be good to hang out in a sensory deprivation chamber until his mind created a secondary personality, Zur, who is essentially Batman without Bruce. Zur is pure efficiency who does not care about anything but the mission. He created Failsafe, for one purpose: to kill Bruce if Bruce ever crossed the line and killed someone. And right now, Failsafe believes that Bruce killed Penguin.

Failsafe nearly kills Tim, which Zur is okay with writing off as an expendable soldier's death, but this causes Bruce to take control of the body back because "Tim isn't my soldier...HE'S MY SON!" (Tim Nation, why are you not ALL OVER this story? It's catnip.)

Babs calls in the JLA (SuperBat fans, you will also want to read Bruce's adoring description of Clark when he shows up), but of course Failsafe has kryptonite, which it stabs Clark with. The League dumps Clark and Bruce into the JLA jet and distracts Failsafe while Tim flies Clark and Bruce to the Fortress of Solitude. Bruce tells Tim he's a good boy and jumps out of the jet and into the ocean so that Tim and Clark will be safe from Failsafe. He's rescued by Arthur, who takes him to Atlantis to heal. THIS HAS ALL ONLY BEEN FOUR ISSUES SO FAR.

Two weeks later, Bruce wakes up to discover that Failsafe has taken over Gotham. He teleports up to the JLA Watchtower on the moon to lure Failsafe there, then blows the Watchtower up, hoping to catch a ride on one of the Javelins. But Failsafe has already destroyed them, so Bruce RIDES A BOOSTER ROCKET BACK TO EARTH, OXYGEN MASK CLAPPED OVER HIS FACE. The whole thing has some powerful Scooty-Puff Jr energy.

The only tricky part is reentry, when Bruce starts to burn up - his costume is fireproof, of course, but his chin is exposed. SO HE TAKES OFF HIS LITTLE BAT-PANTIES AND PUTS THEM OVER HIS HEAD. I swear to god this happened in a real comic book and the entire "Bruce falls off the moon and survives" sequence is utterly delectable goofy nonsense and I truly cannot recall a time I've had more fun reading a comic book.

Anyway, Bruce lands directly outside of the Fortress, BECAUSE OF COURSE HE DOES, and runs inside to find Clark and Tim. While Clark keeps Failsafe distracted, Bruce and Tim program nanobots to inject compassion into Failsafe. I SWEAR TO GOD. They zap him with the nanobots, but Failsafe pulls a high tech space gun out of the Fortress and shoots Bruce with it anyway, apparently disintegrating him. Tim falls to his knees in the snow, weeping. TIM NATION, WAKE UP, THIS RUN IS CANDY FOR YOU.

But of course Bruce isn't dead! That wasn't a killing gun, it was a "zap you into another dimension" gun!!! THAT was the compassion!

So Bruce finds himself in a dystopian alternate Gotham, and I'll be honest, I didn't love this arc ("The Bat-Man of Gotham") as much as I loved "Failsafe," but it has its moments. In this Gotham, Bruce Wayne is dead, so Regular Bruce is like "Oh boy, time to Batman this place up." Also he's plagued by hallucinations of a skeleton version of Jim Gordon who is still wearing a trench coat AND A MUSTACHE. Like I said, it has its moments.

This Gotham is controlled by Arkham, and anyone who is diagnosed as "crazy" is locked up. A new villain, Red Mask, is in charge, and Selina and a Venomed-up Harvey Dent work for him. Bruce teams up with an orphan kid (of course) named Jewel and goes after Red Mask, who turns out to be some guy named Darwin Halliday and ALSO...the Joker. Well, he's the Joker who hasn't been Jokerized yet. But one time he breathed in some chemicals that let him see into the main reality of the DCU (???) and glimpsed Regular Joker and now he wants to build an interdimensional machine to mentally connect with Regular Joker across universes which he assumes will make him insane, NATURALLY.

Bruce attacks Red Mask, who sics a Venomed-up Ghost Maker on him. Ghost Maker cuts off Bruce's right hand. Bruce cauterizes it with an electroshock machine and ties some spikes on it (SERIOUSLY) and goes after Red Mask again. Meanwhile Red Mask mentally connects with an alternate dimensional Joker...but instead of it driving Red Mask insane, he's what drives the Joker insane. Desperate to become the Joker somehow, anyhow, he jumps into the interdimensional portal, and Morally Dubious Alternate Universe Selina kicks Bruce in after him.

Meanwhile, Tim is in full "I KNOW I SAW HIM DIE BUT HE'S NOT DEAD" mode, which: bless. So he teams up with Jon Kent, which...gosh, what an astonishingly boring duo. I love Jon, I love Tim, they're perfectly nice and normal around each other, I'm falling asleep. Anyway Tim fights Toyman for a while and then makes a VERY stupid costume where the entire torso is a giant light-up R, because "I want him to see that Robin is coming to save him." GET A THERAPY, TIM.

Bruce finds himself first in the Michael Keaton Batman universe, then the Red Rain universe, BTAS, Batman Beyond (yes I know they're the same universe but I guess he goes there twice), Silver Age, Kingdom Come, Gotham by Gaslight, and more. Adam West gives him a utility belt. The Dark Knight Returns Bruce builds him a robot hand.

Finally Bruce and Red Mask reach the end of the multiverse, which is a Gotham asteroid floating in space, surrounded by giant Jokerized sharks. LUCKILY BRUCE HAS BAT-SHARK REPELLANT IN HIS ADAM WEST UTILITY BELT!!! Honestly this whole arc was worth it for that moment.

Bruce knocks Red Mask out, but now he's stuck. He has a device from Batman Beyond Bruce to get home, but it's only good for one person, and he can't leave Red Mask there to die. Of course, that's when Tim shows up in his stupid giant glowing R costume and they hug it out, thereby fulfilling but also compounding all of Tim's issues since 1989.

Anyway things are fine now, right? Sure, Bruce is hallucinating that his family is on fire, and the Zur personality is not going neatly back into the box where it's been all these years, and he still has a robot hand (Damian, hilariously, immediately announces that he wants one too), but he's FINE. He is a little bit mad at Selina, because she broke out of jail (she was in jail because she killed her fuckbuddy because he was trying to kill Bruce), and also because she didn't tell him Penguin was alive and that would have stopped Failsafe, and also because Other Selina kicked into another universe. Selina, very fairly, is like "Well I'm not responsible for Other Selinas and also maybe don't build robots to kill yourself with and not tell anyone about them???"

THEN we got Knight Terrors, the summer event in which a villain called Nightmare caused everyone to fall asleep and, uh, have nightmares. Bruce, specifically, had a nightmare that he met an eight-year-old version of himself that vomited up a man-sized bat with a gun for a head. I laughed SO HARD. Bruce also had his body borrowed by Deadman for the duration of the event, so while he endured the psychological toll of nightmares like everyone else, he also endured the physical toll of everything Deadman was doing PLUS the mental toll of being aware of what was happening in the waking world even though he couldn't control his body. As soon as the event was over, he lapsed into a coma so that his body could get some damn rest.

Okay. Now we're up to Gotham War.

(I know, I know. But for all of you who are like "How could Bruce do this???" about Gotham War...*points up* THAT'S HOW. HE IS NOT WELL.)

Bruce awakens from his coma and IMMEDIATELY decides to Fight A Crime even though Babs is like "Maybe don't?" But he can't find any crime, which is...weird. His kids confirm that Gotham's been super quiet since he's been out.

Selina hears that Bruce is awake and is like okay, time to pay the piper. She calls all of the Bats to a meeting and explains that she's the reason crime has been down. See, villains like Joker and Two-Face always have goons, right? But what if the goon supply dried up because the goons have better jobs? So Selina has trained All The Goons In Gotham to be...cat burglars. No violence, no stealing from anyone who can't afford it. More importantly, no helping Scarecrow or whoever commit mass murder.

All of the Batkids are like "Hmm...I feel uncertain about this, but it's working...I don't know what to think..." except for Jason, who thinks it's hilarious and is instantly Team Selina, and Damian, who is staunchly Team Bruce. Bruce, meanwhile, is like "No! NO! THIS IS CRIMES, AND CRIMES IS BAD!" and Selina's like "I mean, robbing from the rich is basically a victimless crime" and Bruce screams, I swear to god, "MY PARENTS WERE 'RICH'!" Inexplicable scare quotes and all. I laughed so hard.

Anyway this is the basis for Gotham War and it is endlessly hilarious to me because everyone in the Batfamily is supposed to be a genius and yet not one single character has pointed out that:

There are jobs the goons could be doing that AREN'T illegal. It's not just violent crime vs. nonviolent crime. There are in fact many other jobs! I am POSITIVE Gotham needs construction workers and hospital orderlies. (Yes, I know it's hard for people with records to get jobs. That isn't addressed.)

Being Batman is SUPER ILLEGAL.

They are all so stupid.

Selina's plan doesn't even work, because one of her thieves gets killed by a rich person defending their home, and Bruce is like "See? This is why crime is bad!" and like...pretty much snaps. He's particularly fixated on Jason, even (rhetorically) threatening to kill him, which is when the other kids jump into the fray on Jason's side, all except for Damian, who like I said is firmly Team Bruce. (This makes complete sense to me, Damian has been dealing with severe trauma and isolation pretty much nonstop since 2018 and he and Bruce have finally made a tenuous peace, so I can understand why he wouldn't want to lose that.)

Also, Vandal Savage buys Wayne Manor. It's so random and SO funny.

OKAY BATMAN #138. Bruce has kidnapped Jason and injected him with a variation on fear toxin which will be triggered whenever Jason's adrenaline spikes, the idea being that Jason is no longer capable of killing - but in practice, Jason is no longer capable of even getting up off the floor, he's so terrified. I want to be really, really clear here: Bruce is like 90% Zur here, and the only reason he goes this route and doesn't kill Jason is because the remaining 10% that's still Bruce loves Jason and is trying to help him. He's just incapable of good or humane help because Zur literally can't do feelings.

Dick knows something is up and is sneaking around Bruce's Secret Other House We've Never Heard Of to figure out what it is. Damian attacks him to protect Bruce. Tim attacks Damian so that Dick can do what he needs to do, and handcuffs Damian to a parking meter:

THERE IS SO MUCH TO UNPACK HERE!!! TIM GO TO THERAPY! DAMIAN GO TO THERAPY! EVERYONE GO TO THERAPY!!!!!

Dick figures out what Bruce did to Jason (it's on the computer, for...some reason?) and absolutely loses his shit on Bruce, beating the crap out of him, which tbh is the only thing that felt off to me in this run because frankly I don't think Dick likes Jason that much. BUT WHATEVER.

Tim pulls Dick off of Bruce. Bruce leaves them both tangled in a net and flees as the cops approach. Zur's like "Good, fuck 'em" in Bruce's head, because the cops will expose Dick, Tim, and Damian's secret identities and Bruce will be free of the dead weight of a family, but the little bit of Bruce still in there throws Dick a batarang so he can free them all in time.

Then Bruce leaves. Damian is devastated.

I WILL NEVER RECOVER FROM THIS PAGE. Damian really thought he could have Bruce's love and loyalty if he turned on everyone else! Tim is going to be a therapy dog to a Wayne even if he has to settle for the one he doesn't like! That unresisting, blank hug made me SCREAM when I turned the page. Incredible. (Also the art fucking S L A P S, god bless you Jorge Jimenez.)

ALSO it turns out that Selina's second in command has been Vandal Savage's daughter Scandal Savage the whole time and they are turning Selina's cat burglar army into their own personal army WHOOPS. (This also feels very OOC for Scandal but at this point I trust Zdarsky with my life so let's see where things go.)

SO THAT'S WHAT'S GOING ON IN GOTHAM WAR. TL;DR:

Bruce is unhinged because he nearly died like 19 times in a week and it unlocked the smaller, meaner purple Batman that lives inside him.

Selina is unaware that you can get money legally.

Tim is going to have a nervous breakdown if he can't fix someone, ANYONE.

Damian needs a hug but ideally from someone he actually likes this time.

Jason is so scared.

THE END.

[luckybyler]

This was a reply to someone else, but I'm making this its own post because so many people are being so evil right now re: Noah Schnapp.

You can find other, longer explanations with history and all, but all the places I've seen more or less agree with this:

So you're all calling people to cancel Noah because he's in favor of a Jewish nation in what is today Israel. Which is a perfectly reasonable, decent and educated opinion to have, especially when you, to use a trendy term, "educate yourself" and find out why the state of Israel was created.

11000 dead Palestinians, half of them children

According to Hamas. Don't forget that, ever. They're the current, official government of Gaza, thus they're the ones who give numbers. This means that the real number could be 10, 1 million, anything in between. What I've read is that they probably give more of less accurate total numbers. What they fail to do, however, is distinguish between Hamas militants and civilians, and beteween civilians killed by IDF strikes, civilians killed by failed Hamas or Palestininan Islamic Jihad's rockets (which happens a lot), and Palestinians murdered by Hamas/PIJ (which also happens, a whole damn lot). They also don't specify how many civilians they have prevented or tried to prevent from evacuating or receiving aid.

11k dead people is a horrible number. Even 1 dead person is a horrible number. However, urban warfare in such a densely populated area is its own kind of hell, especially when the other side is fond of using civilians as human shields in every way possible. The fact that the number is 11k and not 50k, 100k, and so on, indicates that the IDF have indeed done a lot to minimize deaths. You don't genocide people by doing roof knocks, opening evacuation lines, dropping guided bombs, putting up an Iron Dome to deal with rockets while avoiding escalation, etc. simply because actual genocide, while a lot worse, is also cheaper, easier and faster than what they're doing. This is important because caling every act of war genocide dilutes the word, and there are actual genocides happening around the world. Also, there is a difference between striking military targets and causing civilian deaths as a side effect (what the IDF is doing) and planning and carrying out a massacre deliberately targeting civilians and inflicting as much pain and humilliation as possible on them. And there is a difference between doing so by breaking a ceasefire (which is what Hamas did), and defending your country because if you don't do that a terrorist group will anhilate you (which is what the IDF is doing).

Back to Noah. So far, these are the things that people have tried to cancel him for:

Traveling to Israel (a completely normal thing)

Having Israeli friends (another completely normal thing)

Condemning Hamas' horrible attack on October 7th (the decent thing to do)

Posting a statement saying he feels unsafe as a Jewish person in the US (which, given the rise of antisemitic acts in the world, including the US, including where he lives and where he studies, is a valid feeling to have)

Signing a letter, along with Shawn Levy, Brett Gelman, Ross Duffer and I think Cara Buono, asking Biden to press for the liberation of every hostage by Hamas. This especially shows the utter ignorance of the cancellers because, as it turns out, caring about every hostage implies a slowdown of IDF's actions (and, at the time, a delay of a ground invasion).

Supporting the existence and preservation of the state of Israel (once again, a completely normal thing). The fact that people are turning against him for these things says to me that the real reason you are all hating Noah is beacuse:

He's Jewish. Like, really really Jewish.

And the fact that this all comes from a place of antisemitism isn't hidden at all: I've seen y'all on here, on Twitter, Reddit, every other social media calling him slurs (such as "cunt"), censoring his name, pretending he's not part of the cast, asking the Duffers/Netflix to fire him, wishing him failure, doxxing him, calling on his classmates to physically assault him, etc. He doesn't need to educate himself: you guys are already teaching him a great lesson on why a Jewish state is necessary. If that's the treament he gets from his own "fans", what can he expect from the world at large?

[tanadrin]

so many criticisms of museums seem to me to easily turn into criticisms of, like. studying the past in general. or trying to present any kind of information about it at all to the public. like i don't think the fact that artifacts in museums are put under glass is what causes ancient history to feel flat and distant. i think it's the fact that it's ancient history, and most people, most of the time, don't care much about it!

also feels like there's a huge amount of nuance that needs to be kept in mind--not all anxieties about human remains in museum collections are equal, for instance. there's a huge difference between the remains of kids killed in the 1985 move bombings being in a museum, the remains of dead romans or egyptian pharoahs being in a museum, or the remains of paleolithic hunter-gatherers being in a museum.

It's all well and good to say "museums probably shouldn't exist," but I presume when ppl say this they don't mean "and we should chuck the entire collection of the british museum in the sea," I presume they mean "we need to rethink how we archive, catalogue, and preserve historical collections," but this ends up feeling like those police abolition ppl who are like "we should totally abolish the police, then replace them with something that functions very similarly but has better PR." museums are one of those cases where i think you really do need to accompany a critique with a substantive positive proposal, if only because thinking about what the alternatives are might help you better understand the constraints on the institutions as they currently exist.

[pianokantzart]

My Theory on Pachacamac and The Iblis Trigger

There is talk about how much they changed Pachacamac from a warmongering, power hungry tribal leader, to a goofy grandpa figure, but I think the truth of Pachacamac's nature might be somewhere between the two interpretations. Despite his friendliness, you can't forget he did lead a clan that wiped out the owls with a singleminded focus on capturing Sonic and reclaiming The Master Emerald. Pachacamac, now a ghost, has visited Knuckles to tell him he needs to expand his tribe. There are no other echidnas left, so he asks the sole survivor to take on an apprentice. "Show him our customs, teach him our traditions, and soon our tribe will grow once again."

There is no acceptance or acknowledgement of the fact that the clan's current situation is the result of a bloody feud and the destruction of an entire race besides their own. There is also, unsettlingly, no acknowledgement of Tails, Sonic, or The Wachowskis as members of Knuckles' clan.

While there are questionable elements to Pachacamac's approach, his motivations are at least understandable. Knuckles is a minority– the last of his tribe and the only surviving member of his species, so of course his old chief wants to see their traditions and culture preserved.

Things only get really weird when Pachacamac takes hold of Wade– Knuckles' apprentice and the soon-to-be new addition to their clan–and rewrites history. Rather than the tale of a lone owl that the echidnas hunted down in a quest for power, the story is instead of an entire flock of owls that were the aggressors, killing off Knuckles' tribe and burning down his village for no reason other than for the sake of the slaughter.

Similarly, Knuckles isn't described as a lost child left behind, but a fellow warrior who battled alongside his father until the bitter end.

So, knowing that Pachacamac's version of events is wrought with lies leads to one very serious question: What is the true story of Knuckles' battle with Iblis? If there's one thing we know about The Echidna Clan, it's that they are fixated on raw power. They're a warrior-focused society where the best fighter gets the highest honor and the most privileges. They were the ones who crafted The Master Emerald from the seven chaos emeralds. They were the ones who tracked down Sonic when he was a child with the intention of obtaining his power, before Long Claw wiped them out in her final struggle.

And who else do we know that was accidentally unleashed in a reckless pursuit of power?

Iblis, the raw power of the sun god Solaris. Iblis, who was sealed away within a child using the power of the chaos emeralds.

Now, there's no doubt that "The Flames of Disaster" in the SCU are very different from "The Flames of Disaster" in Sonic 06. In the movie universe the flames are merely a type of wieldable power rather than the name of an apocalyptic event. However... what better way to rewrite the fact that the echidna tribe nearly caused the end of the world and locked an immortal fire demon within an echidna child, than by pretending that The Flames of Disaster is just an inherent ability Knuckles unlocked through an epic battle?

What if "The Flames of Disaster" wasn't a power he obtained through a magnificent fight, but a power he survived after it was thrusted upon him by his elders? ... What if one of the many, many reasons reasons his father didn't let him join the fight was out of fear of what would happen if he cried?

[celticcrossanon]

BRF Reading - 21st of July, 2024

This is speculation only

Cards drawn on the 21st of July, 2024

Question: How is The King's health?

Interpretation: Not good :(

Card One: The Ten of Pentacles

This is a nice card to start of a reading. The 10 of Pentacles is about family and legacy, what you leave to future generations. it's about stability, traditions, what you inherit, privilege, affluence, and it is one of the cards that can be used for the BRF.

The energy of this card is of thinking things over and making some small decisions. The King if thinking of his family, his family's history, what his legacy will be, and how to preserve that history and legacy for future generations. He may be updating his will and considering what he has to leave and who he wants to pass it to (bearing in mind that AFAIK everything will go to the next monarch to avoid death duties and then it will be gifted to the intended recipients). There is an emphasis on legacy in the energy of this card - The King is having a good look at his legacy so far and a good think about what he wants as his legacy and how he can achieve that. It is an energy of planning for the future, when he will no longer be around, and also what will be said about him in history books.

The Ten of Pentacles can be a card of family, and here it indicates that The King has (most of) his family around him and supporting him, which is nice to see.

Card Two: The Page of Pentacles

This is my card for the UK. It has a similar energy to the card before it - that of planning and preparing. The King is thinking of the UK, and what he wants to do for it as King, and he is taking a few small, careful steps to make that happen.

Both this card and the one before it are Pentacles, and Pentacles is the slowest suit of the Tarot. There will be lots of thinking and discussing with others and mulling it over before The King takes any action in these areas, and when he does take action it will be slow, careful, and considered.

This is the card of the student, so The King could be studying something very carefully before he makes a decision about it. He wants to learn from what he sees as past mistakes and not repeat them.

Pages are messengers, upright is good news, and Pentacles is the suit of money/titles/status/material things, so he may be thinking over something in that area and slowly composing a message about it. If so, the message will be good news, not bad news.

Pages are children, so this could be about the hole in the next generation of working royals caused by the defection of his son.

Card Three: Death in Reverse

So far, the energy of this reading has been nice - settled, calm, preparing for the future in a slow and diligent way. This card is where that stops. The Death card has the strongest energy of all the cards of the reading and its energy is not good at all. It's sitting there on the end and the energy is tolling through the reading like a bell of doom.

Death is the card of Scorpio. Here it represents The King, who is a sun sign Scorpio. In the reverse, in answer to a question about his health, it is not a good sign. The King's health is in shadow, reversed, weakened. The best interpretation is that things are at a standstill - there is no change. The worst interpretation is that things are slowly going downhill. In either case, there is no indication that The King will be able to get back to his old level of health.

Death is a card of change and transformation. In the reverse, there is no change. It is a card of stagnation, repeated negative patterns, and decay.

The energy of this card is of someone who is not getting better. Whatever state of health The King is in now, that is it. There is no change, no progression towards more healing. This is as good as it is going to get for The King, unless something happens to move the healing forward. In the absence of that push, the energy is of a state of inertia that will change to a decline of health. If The King knows this, then this explains why he is doing so many tours and events - he knows his time is more limited than what he thought and he wants to get everything done that he can within that shortened time frame.

Underlying Energy: The Eight of Cups in Reverse

The Eight of Cups is a card of grief, mourning, and moving on, walking away from something. In the reverse, you can't walk away - you are stuck. In the reverse, it indicates stagnation, accepting less than 100%, and staying in a bad situation.

The energy of this card is of resignation. The King is stuck with his current state of health. If it doesn't improve then there is nothing he can do about it. Instead, he is accepting that he is at less than 100% health and making the most of what he can do within that situation.

The suit of this card is Cups, which is about emotions, so I think The King is quite emotional about his state of health and how it has changed his plans for the future.

The card shows Psyche descending into the underworld, leaving her worldly goods behind her. This is, of course, a metaphor for death. The good news is that with the card in reverse, this is not happening just yet (unless something very unexpected happens). Cards in the reverse can sometimes indicate a delay before the event occurs, and that is the energy I am getting from this image. The descent to the underworld will happen, it is closer than The King would like it to be, but - not yet. It is not yet the time for this to happen.

Suits: Major arcana for Scorpio, a water sign, Cups = water = emotions, and Pentacles = earth = material things. Emotions and material things. Timing wise, Pentacles is the slowest suite of the Tarot and represents years, Cups are the next slowest and represents months.

Conclusion:

The King is as well now as he will ever be. He is not at death's door, but neither is he in the pink of health He is concerned about his legacy, how he will be seen by the history books, what he is passing on to his descendants, and what he wants to do for the UK. He may be quite emotional about the state of his health and what it means for his plans for his reign.

The King is in a state of health where nothing is changing, for good or bad. He can use this time to do the things he wants to do, before his health becomes worse. His health will decline, but that decline is not here quite yet. He has this pocket of time (which could be months or years) to do the things he wants to do and to prepare for the future.

[quitealotofsodapop]

So the test wasn't able to be performed during the actual coupe, I don't think, but the Jade Emperor's surrender only serves to incite the court even more. After the coup, they DEFINITELY want that test done once its over, and they aren't going to take no for an answer no matter what their emperor says. Partially because he himself wants to know, for certain, if Azure's claim is true and also because of the sheer amount of stress the Celestial Court being in such chaos and disarray, all centered on him, was causing him. Wukong basically goes, "Alright, if it will make you happy and get you off my tail!" nd marches right into that council chamber to perform a test to his dao and compare it to some of the remaining bits of dao of Sonzi left in storage somewhere expressly for the purpose the verifying any heirs fully expecting it to be complete bullshit dreamt up by one of Azure's delusions... and it comes out as a positive match. And since Guanyin is already confirmed as Sonzi's reincarnation, that could only make Wukong a decendant.

Wukong is floored by the revelation because now he can't deny it and has to accept that he is somehow related to the Jade Emperor. His first reaction is to look up at his newly discovered grandfather and, quietly, ask (more like accuse) him if he had always known and ask why he hadn't told him.

See, what everyone except for Macaque had never known was that Wukong's lack of knowledge of his family history, not knowing his origins or his family, had always been a sore point for him. He'd always wanted to know who he was and where he came from... but was forced to accept that he would never truly know as the centuries pass. And now he if finally told that information was kept form him, perhaps to protect him, but he lacks the context to know that the person who had kept ot form him had only jsut found out themselves.

Prev.

It would be ultimately the pressure from the Celestial and Underworld courts after the coup that force the royal couple and Wukong to come forward with a Dao test. A simple but uncomfortable procedure performed by the Ten Kings taking a sample of Dao from both Wukong, Guanyin, and from a preserved item of Songzi. The test is done publically so the results can't be fudged.

The sheer indignation on Wukong's face when the Dao test comes out a match is immense. Excuse him?! How dare that be true!? Why didn't anyone tell him!?

Wukong: "This has to be a mistake!! I can be a celestial prince! I can't let Xiaotian be mixed up in all of this!!" Macaque: "Peaches, the only way this test could have a false negative is if you took a bite out of the Princess herself. And she's been gone since before the Heavenly Pillar collapsed."

Macaque was the one person Wukong told about his insecurity regarding his family (or lack-there-of). Something that Macaque himself understood and sympathised with, sharing his own origin of being found alone on the moon's surface by his sister. It was something that helped them bond in a way they couldn't with other demons who had families and known ancestors.

And of course now everyone is convinced that Wukong's induction as a Peach Orchard Attendant and his Havoc were the result of a failed coming-out party for the Emperor's grandson. Why else would some random monkey get a job so close to the Emperor's daughters? (ty @soniclozdplovesonic for the idea)

And when evidence of The Stone Matriarch/Shíhuā on Flower Fruit Mountain becomes public, along with the evidence that she pretty much gift-wrapped the Stone Palace for her child, it only convinces the Three Realms even more that Wukong's story was one of a lost heir that was cruelly rejected by his subjects.

The monkeys of FFM (The Stalwarts and those who moved to the mainland) instead argue that no matter the spiritual connection between Wukong and the Celestial Royal Family, he's still their King and rightful Heir to Shíhuā's throne, not the Jade Emperor.

Havoc in Heaven Part 2 is still ongoing with all the political unrest.

By the end of the day, Wukong just wants to cuddle his mate and his baby. Once Macaque takes a shower of course - he's been mucking the stables the last couple of weeks.

[justpostsyeet]

You know according to tolkien's legend, the accounts of middle earth came to the author via Hobbits and the manuscripts left behind.

In the eyes of Hobbits elves were is super kind dudes who gave them food and shelter but in context it was only because Bilbo was with Gandalf on a fucking journey to reclaim Erebor and the rest of hobbits were in the main plan to kill literal Satan.

And about the manuscript thing, the relics only survive when they're kept in best condition. Elves were the superior species of middle earth with advance technology so,their version of history could be best preserved.

I'm not saying that all elves where bad or something, What I'm saying is what if the middle earth history has an authorship bias. There are so many instances in which flawed deeds of elves are hidden in flowery language such as Eöl took (unwilling)Aredhel as his wife. How at many instance which you read about Galadriel, in subtext she seems like a power hungry absolutist but her causes are always shown as one of a noble lady fighting for a great cause. Only flawed elves are shown in Silmarillion.

So, what if elves were flawed like the second born and other creatures of Middle earth but they always appeared noble and great due to authorship bias.

And by authorship bias,I don't mean authorship bias by tolkien but if we go according to the myth of middle earth by tolkien,then it's the authorship bias of whoever write the said history of middle earth which tolkien later found and translated. So, it's not Tolkien fault because he's translating what he's given but the fault lies in the hands of whoever wrote the original verses.

Why I'm rambling all these? It's because we were studying about authorship bias and bending of actual events while writing the history. It made of think about the history of middle earth.

[graceshouldwrite]

How to Write Devastating Betrayals (Pt. 1)

Here are some elements + tips on satisfying betrayals that will destroy both your characters AND your readers!

1. Relationship Between Trust and Betrayal 

The #1 Betrayal Rule:

MORE TRUST = WORSE BETRAYAL

This is because TRUST implies 2 main things:

The traitor has probably PROVEN their trustworthiness, and now has a shared history + bond with the character they’re betraying 

The traitor probably has access to a LOT OF INFORMATION about the character, whether it’s career-wise or personal. Probably at least some information the character considers STRICTLY confidential 

An act of betrayal undermines Point 1 by manipulating Point 2 to their advantage.

So, if you want your betrayal to DESTROY, have the traitor be CLOSE with the character they’re about to betray. Lets compare examples: 

you are a gang boss. You hire a new recruit who doesn’t really know anything except one insignificant operation, like “today we buy groceries at 2PM”

your recruit tells the rival gang about the grocery trip   

→ betrayal doesn’t really matter that much

you probably didn’t place much trust in a new recruit 

the implications of information leak are insignificant 

→ not much plot weight 

On the other hand:

you find out that the entire time, your RIGHT HAND MAN (also your childhood friend!) has been feeding information to the rival gang and sabotaging your operations 

→ HURTS a lot more emotionally

might ruin everything you’ve built, career-wise, for good 

→ LOTS of plot weight

From a completely SECULAR PLOT STANDPOINT (please don’t come for me, theologians), Judas’ betrayal of Jesus is a good example because:

Judas was one of Jesus’ disciples, a.k.a. the people considered closest to him, and who followed Jesus throughout all of his preaching years

Judas’ information about Jesus’ identity and whereabouts led to Jesus’ crucifixion → LOTS of plot weight (the entire Bible from a Christian standpoint foreshadows this moment, and every point after is spreading word of this moment. Talk about plot implications!)  

ONCE AGAIN, I know all the “Jesus knew and allowed it to happen” “it was the will of God” stuff but this is purely used as a good plot example!!!!

2. Reason for Betrayal

“’Cause it’s super edgy/evil/cool” is DEFINITELY not a valid option. 

All the plot points in a book build towards achieving a goal, and all the characters do things they think will get them closer to what they want. Likewise, the traitor must want a specific thing that ONLY betrayal can get them, or that betrayal can get them more efficiently. 

People generally portray typical traitors as: 

completely selfish with no personality trait aside from infinite ambition and ruthless pragmatism

a hero whose had enough

someone who sees the person they betrayed as a “worthless disposable” or something 

Traitors don’t have to be morally bankrupt, even though betrayal is typically seen as something inherently bad, or just a bad means to a good end at best. 

They can be conflicted about the betrayal (like Macbeth delaying his murder of King Duncan), remorseful about it (like Discord from MLP feeling super guilty after he hands the main protagonists over to the villain), or even do it for the “greater good.”

e.g. Brutus thought Caesar was becoming too power hungry, and would destroy the republic by becoming a dictator, so Brutus betrayed him to preserve the republic 

→ example of a betrayal that was NOT self-serving

However, building on the MLP Discord example, a traitor can also have been manipulated into it themselves. 

(For context, the villain basically promised Discord lots of power if he handed over the protagonists, but then the villain also sucked away Discord’s powers afterwards—won’t bother explaining MLP magic mechanics LOL) 

3. Foreshadow It 

A satisfying betrayal is usually a subtle, looming shadow that creeps over your plot before it makes its grand entrance during the scene when the character realizes the traitor sold them out. 

A good example is in Shakespeare’s dramatization of Brutus’ betrayal: 

Brutus’ loyalty to the REPUBLIC is made super clear throughout. When Caesar starts deviating, seeming more dictatorial, Brutus remains firm.

Their values are CLEARLY conflicting, so SOMETHING has to be done. Either:

they reconcile by both agreeing on either dictatorship or democracy

they turn on each other...and that’s what happens

Basically, planting the possibility in your reader’s mind is a great way to foreshadow a betrayal. 

Other ideas could be: 

traitor begins suddenly acting a lot warmer to the unsuspecting character, or even colder right BEFORE the betrayal

traitor is always TOO obedient and/or sycophantic 

traitor acts suspicious, e.g. caught in lies, using inconsistent body language (ex. pretending to cry when talking about something really bad), caught talking to people they shouldn’t be talking to (e.g. rival gang)

∘₊✧────── ☾☼☽ ──────✧₊∘

instagram: @ grace_should_write

stay tuned for part 2!

Hope this was helpful, and let me know if you have any questions by commenting, re-blogging, or DMing me on IG. Any and all engagement is appreciated <3333

Happy writing, and have a great day!

- grace <3

[highfantasy-soul]

Katara - NATLA Edition: Southern Watertribe Culture

Something that I LOVED that the live-action added to Katara's character was actually something they added to the entire culture of the Southern Water Tribe: they made them resistors (even the ones who stayed in Wolf Cove) rather than complete victims of the Fire Nation like the cartoon showed them.

The culture of the Southern Water tribe was attacked and the Fire Nation attempted a complete and total cultural genocide against them. They killed or captured all the waterbenders and forbid any from being trained again. All that is in line with the cartoon, but what the live action added was how the SWT actually fought back against that.

Just as with so many cultures invaders sought to destroy, they hid important artifacts, they kept alive the traditions in secret even from the younger generations, and they told the stories of the times before the colonizers brought their violent and oppressive ways.

I love that they emphasize that Gran Gran is the one who told everyone the story of the Avatar disappearing from the world - and what the Avatar had done before their disappearance. In the animated version, Katara just nebulously knows about the legends - it's not really shown how she knows and one would be forgiven for just assuming she knows because the plot demands it. In the live action, they show an elder keeping the knowledge alive.

Not only that, but they kept knowledge forbidden to them by their oppressors hidden until the time was right to teach one of their own the ancient ways. While I understand that Katara stealing back a part of her culture that was stolen by the pirates is a great story line, I think an equally great way to include the scroll is to have it be preserved by her own people in defiance of the Fire Nation attacks and threats to be handed to her when the time was right.

It shows that the SWT were not complete victims until our protagonists decided to change things, but rather they were actively keeping their culture alive and fighting back in the small ways they could, even if it wasn't direct combat. It gives the SWT agency as a people in that they were STILL fighting back, in their own small ways, and the entire history of Katara's people were ready to have her back once she needed the resources to fully stand against their oppressors.

I think there's too much emphasis on individual power in so many stories and community support is seen as 'weakness' or the character 'getting everything handed to them'. Community support - especially from a community who has suffered from oppression - is an incredibly powerful thing to see. I love how the live action Avatar adaptation really leaned into that.  It's Katara's culture embracing her and letting her know that they'd never stopped fighting, that they were here to support her and help her learn once the time was right.

This is echoed in the women of the North standing with Katara, ready to fight. It wasn't Katara alone who broke the sexist views of Pakku - it was ALL the women in the tribe who looked to have been organizing and subtly planning for this time for awhile. They just needed a catalyst and the fire nation's siege was that moment. Katara isn't the token 'feminist' among the tribes - she has the support of many within her own culture.

The live-action took a lot of time with Katara to explore what it's like to try to hold onto your culture when oppressors tried to wipe it out - the struggles people face when trying to decide how to fight back without being wiped out as a whole people.

It's not an easy decision to fight against oppressors who have no problem with killing ALL people in a culture, not JUST the ones who stand up to them. You have to weigh your actions so carefully when an entire people rests on your decisions - right or wrong as that responsibility is.

Katara's arc was about embracing her culture and healing from the trauma caused by the fire nation as they sought to destroy it - killing her mother and punishing all waterbenders in the process.

Katara had to figure out how and when to fight back so that her culture could survive - not be slaughtered because she revealed herself too soon or didn't have the resources to back up her defiance of her oppressors.

She fought against both the outward, physical manifestation of that trauma in Zuko and the fire nation fleet of ships in the North, but also the internal trauma plaguing her mind and spirit that suppressed her bending - the physical manifestation of her culture.

To me, the live action added so much depth to Katara's waterbending journey and her characterization as a whole.

Yes, she's angry - so, so angry. But she's also hurt. I think the live-action really SHOWED her hurt better than the animated show where the only time she mentioned her hurt (in Season 1) was in an effort to connect with men. The live action showed how her hurt affected every single aspect of her being and also showed her overcoming it with the help of herself, her friends, and her community.

To me, she and Zuko both embody the quote by C.S. Lewis "I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief."

[yazthebookish]

Chapter 23, 24 and 25

(Aka the "holy shit" and "lore galore" chapters)

A sarcophagus made of clear quartz lay in the center of the space. And inside it, preserved in eternal youth and beauty, lay a dark-haired female.

What in the Snow White...

That here, literally right under them, slumbering in that forgotten coffin … Here lay the evil beneath.

Oh shit.

“What have you done?” Azriel rasped, and Bryce twisted to find him on his feet, wings tucked in, Nesta leaning against him as if wounded, Ataraxia dangling from her grip. The male now held the Starsword at the ready, Truth-Teller gripped in his other hand.

He must have had some sort of Starborn blood in him, then—a distant ancestor, maybe. Or maybe his possession of the knife somehow allowed him to also bear the Starsword.

Hnnnnnnnnghhhhhh!!!!!!! Theories swirling right now!!!!!

“I am your god. I am your master. Do you not know me?”

The female’s nails gouged deep lines into the crystal, but the lid held. She searched beyond Bryce, her gaze falling upon Azriel. Her lips curled. “A foot soldier. Excellent. Kill this insolent female and free me.” She pointed to Bryce.

Azriel didn’t move. The caged female hissed, “Kneel, soldier. Make the Tithe so I may regain my strength and leave this cage.”

Oh?

“The female in the sarcophagus was an Asteri.”

Screeching.

The Asteri’s blue eyes lowered to the dagger. “You dare draw a weapon before me? Against those who crafted you, soldier, from night and pain?”

“You are no creator of mine,” Azriel said coldly. The Starsword gleamed in his other hand. If they bothered him, if they called to him, he didn’t let on. Neither hand so much as twitched.

Az is about to find out the Illyrians were the Daglan's creation!!!

The Asteri’s eyes flared with recognition at the long blade. “Did Fionn send you, then? To slay me in my sleep? Or was it that traitor Enalius? I see that you bear his dagger—as his emissary? Or his assassin?”

The words must have meant something to Azriel. The warrior let out a small noise of shock.

TRUTH-TELLER IS ENALIUS'S KNIFE!!! FIONN'S FRIEND!!! Oh this is delightful. What a lore feast!!! Az owns the knife of the first Illyrian!! Let's fucking go!!!

“You may call me Vesperus.” The creature’s eyes glowed with irritation.

She threw a tantrum about the other Asteri being called the Evening Star when she was one Lol.

“We pooled our power, and imbued those gifts into the Cauldron so that it would work our will. We Made the Trove from it. And then bound the very essence of the Cauldron to the soul of this world.”

Solas. “So destroy the Cauldron …”

“And you destroy this world. One cannot exist without the other.”

Behind them, Nesta sucked in a sharp breath. But Bryce said, “You gave this world a kill switch.”

“We gave many worlds … kill switches. To protect our interests.” She said it with such calm, such surety.

So basically the Cauldron is a nuclear button. The Daglan made sure Prythian's existence hinges on the Cauldron. I mean we knew as much in ACOWAR but it's always interesting when we get more history on why. The Cauldron is an entity but the higher divine being is the Mother/Urd.

Vesperus took another step, steadier now, and smiled past Bryce. At Azriel, at Truth-Teller. “You don’t know how to use it, do you?”

Azriel pointed the dagger toward the advancing Asteri. “Pretty sure this end’s the one that’ll go through your gut.”

Vesperus chuckled, her dark hair swaying with each inching step closer. “Typical of your kind. You want to play with our weapons, but have no concept of their true abilities. Your mind couldn’t hold all the possibilities at once.”

Azriel snarled softly, wings flaring, “Try me.”

Vesperus took one more step, now barely a foot from Bryce. “I can smell it—how much of what we created here went unused. Ignorant fools.”

What more can Truth-teller do...?

Vesperus backed up a half step, hissing at the gleaming weapon. “We hid pockets of our power throughout the lands, in case the vermin should cause … problems. It seems our wisdom did not fail us.”

“There are no such places,” Azriel countered coldly.

“Are there not?” Vesperus grinned broadly, showing all of her too-white teeth. “Have you looked beneath every sacred mountain? At their very roots? The magic draws all sorts of creatures. I can sense them even now, slithering about, gnawing on the magic. My magic. They’re as much vermin as the rest of you.”

YO RAMIEL IS THE ONLY UNEXPLORED ONE!! I'm kicking my feet right now!!!

“There are certain places, girl, that are better suited to hold power than others. Places where the veil between worlds is thin, and magic naturally abounds. Our light thrives in such environments, sustained by the regenerative magic of the land.” She gestured around them. “This island is a thin place—the mists around it declare it so.”

A veil between worlds. Oh, this crossover is going to have some implications on ACOTAR5.

The sacred mountains have a core of firstlight under them...

Nesta had plunged Ataraxia right through Vesperus’s chest.

NESTA 👏🏼 FUCKING 👏🏼 ARCHERON 👏🏼

[itsclydebitches]

Team RWBY's refusal to ask questions about the EA is even more frustrating when you contrast it with volume 6. Like these are the characters who were willing to violate Ozpin's privacy just because his secrets *might* have included info relevant to them (but they didn't know that for sure). But in V9, when faced with stuff that is *directly related* to the Gods and Magic, while Salem has most of the keys she needs to end the world, full worst-case scenario, NOW they're not demanding answers???

I think that difference really highlights how secrecy is what motivates the group in Volume 6, rather than self-preservation. Yang doesn't actually care about the danger carrying the Relic around may cause because, if she did, she would have been equally upset at Ruby choosing to carry it around Atlas. Rather, she's upset that Ozpin withheld that information from them. As you point out, they don't know going in whether understanding a) how the Lamp works and b) what Jinn has to say is truly relevant to their part (key words there) in the fight, but because Ozpin is, again, withholding that information, now they have to have it. Which on a purely human level I get because hell, who likes learning that they're out of the loop, particularly when it comes to apocalyptically relevant info?? But as has been pointed out extensively, that knee-jerk displeasure is undermined by considerations like how many secrets the girls have kept across the series, Ozpin's personal history/trauma, the danger that comes with more and more people having access to such information (as they just saw with Lionheart), and the maturity with which the girls want to be treated. Sometimes being an adult isn't having all the insider knowledge; sometimes it's learning the importance of accepting "No" as an answer.

In constrast, the girls are rarely shown to be intrinsically motivated in later Volumes. Volumes 1-3, and even Volume 4, are a different matter because back then they were asking basic questions (what's this White Fang group up to?) and taking action to discover things for themselves (something is going on at Mountain Glenn, let's figure out what!). Now, the girls not only demand the information that is explicitly positioned as a secret (they demand it BECAUSE it's secret), but otherwise do nothing to further their/others' understanding of important situations. Why would they politely bother to ask Ozpin anything now that everyone is getting along again (or wait until the very last second to learn something, i.e. how the Staff works)? Why would Ruby bother to have more than one conversation with Maria about her eyes? Why should Yang hear anything about their mother from Qrow? Why would they share the information with Ironwood when he's bending over backwards to be upfront with them? Why would they work to establish new allies rather than continually fighting them? Why bother to ask ANYTHING Salem related in the Ever After? Hell, I don't actually think this is a good idea because it would result in Jaune saving the day off screen, but it is wild to me that the girls not only spent all that time there, but he spent a lifetime in the EA and never took a few weeks to start hunting down Salem options on the off chance he got back...

[moonlight-prose]

pretty please may i request ❛i once imagined you loved me a little bit, if you’ll excuse the presumption.❜ from the &. 𝐟. 𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐭𝐭 𝐟𝐢𝐭𝐳𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐝 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬. prompt list with loki? clawing at the walls tysm 🌷

LOVE IS A SMOKE MADE WITH A FUME OF SIGHS

a/n: i haven't written anything this angsty is so long and it felt good to finally churn out that type of fic. i miss breaking these character's hearts. so babes i hope you know that i went so fucking pretentious with this one it actually made me pick up shakespeare just to title it. (yes it's from romeo and juliet which is ironic cause it's a love between a god and a human). but anyways i hope you enjoy! and of course the gif is crimson peak. it matched the vibe.

summary: you were never meant to be apart of their world, of his home. you were a mortal amongst gods and the time for your parting had finally come.

OR the heartbreak of losing someone who is half your soul.

word count: 2k

pairing: loki x reader

warnings: not explicit, angst, heartbreak, overly pretentious prose about love and pain, mention of death, waxing poetically about losing love, not edited because we live and die by the fucking pen.

The tragedy of love has always been steeped in irony to you. After all, there was something of hilarity bound between the emotions that connected two people so deeply they’d go to war for it. Or perhaps die for it. Maybe this belief came from never understanding it—never experiencing it for yourself. But how were you supposed to know what it looked like? What it felt like, when you had no notion of it even existing in the first place.

Maybe it was a well thought out joke that pulled people in, capturing them in the depths of something so mysterious. You understood heartbreak. Knew the depravity that came from having something ripped from you without a notion of consequence. But love…that remained as mythical to you as Lancelot and Guinevere.

You could feel his eyes on you the longer you stood there, fiddling with the drink in your hand. It wasn’t often that an Asgardian invited a human to visit their land and it was a rarity when it happened with a prince. But that’s where you wound up. Standing amidst legends and myths wanting to flee at a moment's notice. And he watched in earnest, with the hope that you would turn to catch his gaze.

“Excuse me,” you said with a smile to the man beside you who had been talking about the nonsense of science for thirty minutes.

Whether or not he actually believed the words he said became an afterthought. You couldn’t stand there and pretend any longer. You didn’t want to.

Music filled the surrounding space, drowning you in the joyous leisure of having nothing to worry about. What could possibly trouble such powerful beings? Where you were nothing but a small speck in the grand scheme of things. Something trivial that would one day pass and be extinguished just as fast as you were ignited.

You saw the way they viewed you the second you crossed the threshold of the hall. How they seemed to pity you. They would go on. They would continue to carve their names in the history of the universe and you would be but a fleeting memory in their minds. The most you could hope for was to place a smile on their face for a moment before you were gone entirely.

People danced wherever you went, others laughed and boasted about their triumphs. And you could feel the air begin to press out of your lungs. As if they were slowly stripping you of everything that made your body work. You gasped, pushing open a door that led to the courtyard in the hopes that you’d make it to a secluded area before you broke down entirely.

Flames were lit to preserve the warmth. They casted a glow along the architecture of the stone walls—trees placed perfectly along the outskirts. The temptation to hide away here lingered in your chest, but you could practically feel the seconds tick by. You only had a limited amount of time before people made their way outside to view the night sky.

Any other night this would be the most romantic setting to find yourself in. Tonight however you were plagued by a pain that refused to fade.

You wiped roughly at the tears that began to fall as footsteps echoed behind you. It seemed that your time was running out faster than you expected and you’d be caught in the open with no explanation to why you were crying. Maybe if you ran you wouldn't have to deal with the questions. But then the warm glow of the fire flickered an emerald green, sparks flying into the air and you felt the energy around you shift.

“I caught you leaving.”

The smile was prominent in his tone—light enough to presume he didn’t know why you were here. Yet no matter how much he tried to conceal his emotions…you could always read him like an open book. A fact he loathed about you.

“I needed air,” you replied, clasping your hands together.

“You will find plenty out here.” Another step echoed like a shot ringing through the air and suddenly he was pressing a hand to your shoulder. The cold sensation of his touch rippled through you. It flooded your senses with more than you could process at this time.

With a sharp gasp, you pulled away. “Don’t.”

“I’m not sure I understand—”

“Loki,” you sighed, finally giving in. With another breath, you turned to face him—the glimmer of tears now unmistakable in your eyes. “What am I doing here?”

You could see the mistake the second the words left your mouth to hang in the air between you. As if this was the final reckoning of something so delicate. The question had been building for days since he brought you with him. Something to explain that maybe…this wasn’t just a frivolous one time fling that he’d forget about soon after you returned home. But nothing ever came. It seemed he was more interested in showing you off to everyone else, rather than letting you in.

“You’re here for dinner of course.” He smiled, offered you his hand, and faltered when you didn’t take it. When you stood where you were with a somber look in your eyes.

The green color flared to life beside you again, reflecting his emotions and finally giving you an insight into his mind. But it wasn’t enough.

You wanted to know how he felt. What was he too scared to tell anyone? Perhaps he might let you in on it. But Loki had always been closed off even to those he cared about and you didn’t want to be simply another person he tried to love. You needed more than empty words and flowery promises. As you watched him come up with something to say you could see it. He knew that this wasn’t enough; that you wouldn’t be wooed by parties you had no place in with people you held no interest for.

“I think it’s time for me to go home.” You bit down on the inside of your cheek to stop the tears from starting up again.

“My darling—”

“I don’t belong here Loki,” you admitted. “Everyone in there can see that I am not one of you.”

His gaze turned sharp. “One of us?”

“You know what I mean. I’m not a god.” You stood a bit straighter as if facing the oncoming battle.

“So you think because you aren’t Asgardian that we will think less of you? That I would…” He snapped his mouth shut, eyes darker than you were used to seeing them.

“No!”

“Don’t believe for a second that I brought you here under false pretenses—”

“Then why did you bring me?” you exclaimed. “Because it certainly doesn’t feel like you actually want me here. You left me alone in there! As if I was meant to be shown off for some Asgardian amusement.”

He stepped forward, crowding into your space and like the stubborn human you were…you stood your ground. His lips quirked up slightly, admiration flaring in his eyes before that too was stolen away.

“You forget. I am not Asgardian.”

You scoffed, rising up to meet him—your nose brushing so close to his that you could feel his breath against your face. “That is not who I saw in there.”

His eyes dropped to your lips. The darkness from before returning with a vigor that stole your breath away. No matter how much you wanted to remain upset, you couldn’t deny the pull that existed between you. The longing you felt in your heart. Loki released a shuddered breath as his eyes dragged back to yours and something raw clicked into place.

Cupping your cheek, he dragged you forward until his lips met yours. Loki always kissed you as if this was his last time, as if he would never know the sweet taste of oxygen without you. You were the soothing balm against his wounds that refused to close. A piece of serenity in a place that bred nothing but chaos. He dragged you closer, no longer hesitant to lick into your mouth and drag out a moan, because what else did he have to lose?

You knew the malice that existed in him—had seen it first hand. Yet even that wasn’t enough to turn you away from this.

To make you flee from the man who viewed himself as a monster.

“Loki,” you sighed, fingers digging into the leather beneath his armor. It was as soft as his touch, the scent intoxicating you the longer you stood there.

“Don’t…” He could feel the hesitation in your kiss. The uncertainty in your touch.

You still remained unsure of what he wanted from you; what this actually meant to him. And even though he wanted to proclaim it loud enough for you to hear, he knew that you’d never truly understand the depths of his emotions. Loki had always believed he would remain alone in his life. A lost soul doomed to wander the universe for all eternity, but when he met you he hoped that for a moment…he would finally feel the warmth of the sun against his skin once more.

He hoped he would feel alive again.

“You are…” Warm tears fell against your cheeks and he wiped them away gently. “You’re the one I want to be with. The one I choose.” You cupped his hand in yours, desperate to keep his touch against your skin. “But I am not immortal.”

“We gods die too.”

You smiled. “Not in the way humans do.”

Silence washed over the both of you. A solemn understanding that began to infiltrate even his mind. And thus was the irony of love. Two souls so tragically different that even death would keep you apart until the very end of time. You almost laughed, but knew that the situation would only be ruined by it.

“I need to go home where I belong.”

“You belong—”

“I don’t belong with gods Loki. I never have. And no matter how much you want that to change it can’t.”

Within seconds you watched his walls begin to close up again, pulling back any sense of emotion he once showed. Until you were right back where you started. Alone in the middle of a world that didn’t deem you worthy to stand on it. You were the outsider looking in. A mortal who got a chance to dine with the gods of old and briefly pretend you were one of them.

“So you choose them.”

An ache sprouted in your chest, spreading down to the very tips of your fingers. Until you swore you couldn’t breathe. A necessary evil to stave off the heartbreak of what would eventually come down the road.

“My love…”

He pulled away, standing stiff and face void of any emotion. “That word doesn’t belong to me. Not anymore.” Turning slightly, he roughly wiped at his cheek to hide the tears. Meanwhile you allowed them to fall freely. “I once imagined you loved me a little bit, if you’ll excuse the presumption.”

With a final look—eyes filled with a plea to say something—he relented. He nodded his head, took in a large breath, and turned back towards the steps. Once again leaving you behind as he returned to a world you’d never fully understand. You watched him go, a sob wracking your body as he took with him a love that only came around once in a lifetime. As he took part of your soul.

The flames returned to their natural orange glow, once again emitting a warmth that should have flooded your body. But all you felt was the cold touch of a lover lost to you for good.

[blogquantumreality]

Suggested ST: TOS Episodes to Watch

If you really don't want to go through all of the original series' episodes, here are fifteen I would suggest watching to get the big picture of the major aspects of TOS that feed into TNG, DS9 and so forth:

"Where No Man Has Gone Before" - as the pilot, this is self-explanatory. It shows us many of the major characters who we'll see over and over through the series, and shows how they react to a new phenomenon that threatens the mental stability of two crew members.

"Balance of Terror" - introduces the Romulans, one of two principal antagonist powers in the TOS era and which still has a sizable rivalry with the Federation in TNG/DS9.

"The Menagerie, Pt. I/II" - along with the original pilot "The Cage", this two-parter is noteworthy for giving us a look into the Enterprise's past when it was commanded by Captain Christopher Pike. It also establishes one of the few crimes for which the Federation has imposed a death penalty.

"Space Seed" - introduces Khan Noonien Singh and establishes one of the major cataclysmic wars of Trek's 20th century, the Eugenics Wars, with Khan as one of the principal instigators.

"Errand of Mercy" - introduces the Klingon Empire as the second of two principal antagonist powers in the TOS era, and also introduces the Organians who impose an armistice between the Klingons and the Federation, promising that one day they would come to see each other as allies.

"Metamorphosis" - introduces Zefram Cochrane, the inventor of the warp drive which is the foundation upon which TOS era spacefaring rests upon.

"The City on the Edge of Forever" - for sheer feels this episode cannot be matched. We meet Edith Keeler, a woman who strikes a chord with Kirk beyond friendship, and see the potential cost of accidentally changing history.

"Mirror, Mirror" - here, we see an alternate universe in which a different set of conditions took hold, especially on Earth. In this universe, humanity's darker traits are admired and upheld, leading to the Federation morphing into an aggressively expansionist empire that brooks no opposition. Noteworthy for the way it explores the differences and similarities between mirror and canon Kirk as well as mirror and canon Spock.

"Amok Time" - this episode gives us an in-depth look at Spock, some of his life story, and the planet Vulcan and its customs.

"Journey to Babel" - introduces Spock's parents :P

"Patterns of Force" - rather topical in today's world, it is an interesting exploration of how any fascist movement inevitably drives towards extremism and only heroic efforts can usually stop one once it has taken hold.

"The Trouble with Tribbles" - tribbles. 'nuff said. :P

"The Paradise Syndrome" - introduces the Preservers, which serve as a canonically convenient way to explain the wide variety of similar biospheres on many planets as well as the tendency for human or human derived cultures to show up in places known to not be warp-capable. It can also tie into TNG's "The Chase".

"Day of the Dove" - introduces the last in the trio of Kor ("Errand"), Koloth ("Tribbles") and Kang, and gives more perspective on TOS-era Klingon perceptions of the Federation.

"Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" - somewhat anvilicious as an allegory for the arbitrariness and futility of racism.

Honorable mentions include "The Savage Curtain", which introduces (Kirk's idea of) Kahless the Unforgettable, as well as "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" and "Assignment: Earth" as a loosely connected pair of 1960s Earth centered episodes in which unintentional interference by the Enterprise could cause severe temporal issues.

[yoonavii]

𝐌𝐄𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐈𝐀

Gladiator Prince! Eustass Kid x Reader

Story description: Y/n, a skilled ice warrior from the frigid kingdom of Nosta, and Prince Eustass, a ruthless gladiator prince hailing from the enemy nation, the Modora Empire. Their two nations have a long history of conflict and animosity. However, when a dire situation calls for a political marriage to secure peace, Y/n and Eustass find themselves bound together in a union neither desires. As they navigate the treacherous path of diplomacy, they must confront their own prejudices and the weight of their peoples’ expectations. Through adversity and danger, the icy walls between them slowly begin to melt, and they discover unexpected connections and feelings, transforming their initial enmity into a deep and passionate love of the ages.

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐖𝐎

In the heart of the kingdom of Nosta, the eldest members of each Nostian family engaged in a solemn tradition. With determined hands, they delicately unearthed buried vessels of fermented food from the snowy ground. The vases, each a repository of sustenance, had been carefully preserved, offering a lifeline to the families through the harsh winter months. This year’s harvest had been a challenging ordeal for the Nostians, as relentless snowstorms had battered the region without reprieve. The inclement weather had taken its toll on the land, making it nearly impossible to cultivate and gather food. As a result, the Nostian families found themselves grappling with the specter of scarcity, a challenge that tested their resilience and unity.

Amid the adversity, a glimmer of hope emerged from an unexpected source. The royal family and the council, recognizing the dire circumstances faced by their people, made a compassionate decision. They distributed a portion of their own supply of food to each family in the kingdom. This gesture of generosity transcended mere politics or duty – it was a lifeline extended from those in positions of power to those who struggled to secure their next meal. The significance of this act rippled through the kingdom. Families that had been grappling with hunger and uncertainty now found relief, their burdens temporarily lightened by the provisions provided by their leaders. The gesture carried a profound sense of solidarity, a reminder that even in the face of hardship, the Nostians stood together as a community.

as the snowy ground gave up its hidden treasures, you paced the length of the council room. The air within was thick with the wisdom of the elders – warriors, archers, and herbalists who held the weight of generations on their shoulders. Each one bore the scars of a kingdom’s struggles etched into their very beings. Restlessness gripped you as you grappled with the enormity of the situation. Your people’s history and suffering clashed with your own desires, creating a whirlwind of conflicting emotions. The thought of uniting with someone from the empire that had caused so much harm was almost unbearable.

Turning to the council, you sought answers to the questions that consumed you. Your voice was a mix of determination and desperation as you posed the question that had haunted you, “Why must I go through with this marriage? How can we align ourselves with those who have brought us so much pain?” One council member, their face etched with the lines of wisdom, stepped forward to address your concerns. Their voice carried the weight of years as they explained the rationale behind the decision, “Princess, you ask a question that weighs heavily upon us all. Our land faces a dire predicament. The relentless snowstorms have stripped us of our harvest, and the specter of famine looms over us.”

With a steadying gaze, they continued, “The Modora Empire possesses the resources we lack – food that can sustain our people through the trying times ahead. We have negotiated a peace treaty, one that hinges on trade rather than conflict. In exchange for our medicinal herbs and remedies, they will provide us with the sustenance we so desperately need.” Their words resonated in the air, carrying both the wisdom of experience and the urgency of the present. The council member’s voice softened with understanding as they added, “This is not a decision taken lightly. We are bound by the duty to preserve our people and ensure their survival. The alliances we forge today lay the groundwork for a more secure tomorrow.”

As their gaze met yours, you felt the weight of their wisdom and the empathy behind their words. The complexities of leadership were clearer than ever – a delicate balance between personal convictions and the welfare of an entire kingdom. The path you tread was one that would test your strength, challenge your perceptions, and demand sacrifices that transcended individual desires.

——

In the dimly lit chambers of your quarters, you couldn't conceal your discontent. As maids attended to you, their delicate hands guiding you through the evening rituals, you grumbled softly under your breath. Tomorrow morning marked the beginning of your journey to a new life with the enemy prince, a path you had never envisioned for yourself. Amidst your private lament, one of the maids decided to break the tension. With a warm smile, she attempted to lighten your mood. "You know, Your Highness," she ventured, her voice gentle and reassuring, "that crown you received during your coming of age ceremony suits you beautifully. You'll look absolutely regal as you wear it."

Her words were infused with sincerity, an attempt to offer some solace to a princess burdened with the weight of duty and sacrifice. The crown, a symbol of your status and responsibility, held a unique kind of elegance that complemented your grace and strength. Your grumbling softened, if only slightly, as you regarded the maid's kind gesture. In this moment of uncertainty and apprehension, a glimmer of warmth and camaraderie emerged. The challenges of the road ahead remained daunting, but the bond between you and your maids offered a reminder that even in the face of adversity, there were those who would stand by your side. You offered a gracious nod to the maid, appreciating the effort to lift your spirits during this challenging time. As the conversation continued, you couldn't help but think practically about the upcoming journey. Turning to the maid, you inquired, "Will all of my belongings be taken with me on this trip?"

The maid's expression turned thoughtful, and she replied with a tone of caution, "I'm afraid not, Your Highness. For safety reasons, it's best to travel light for now. However, once you've arrived safely at the Modora Empire, arrangements will be made to have more of your belongings sent to you." The consideration for your safety was evident in the maid's response. You understood the necessity of traveling with only the essentials for the time being. The path ahead was fraught with uncertainties, and the decision to keep your possessions to a minimum was a prudent one. You knew that, in due time, your familiar belongings would follow you to the new land that awaited. One of the other maids, as she helped in preparing you for the journey, made a suggestion. “Your Highness,” she began tentatively, “perhaps you could consider taking either your axes or your bow and arrows with you for the travels.”

As the maid made her suggestion, she glanced at the collection of weapons in your room. There, hanging on a wall adorned with trophies from your archery competitions, were your finely crafted axes and your prized bow and arrows. You surveyed the weapons with a sense of nostalgia. Each had its own history, its own story of battles won and challenges overcome. The axes, with their polished blades and ornate handles, were symbols of your strength and determination. The bow, a work of art in itself, had accompanied you on countless hunting trips and had never failed you in times of need. The suggestion to choose one weapon over the other gnawed at you. They were both extensions of your identity, and you couldn’t bear to part with either. After a moment of consideration, you made your decision with unwavering resolve. “I will take both,” you declared firmly, your eyes locking with the maid’s. “Even if I have to be discreet about it.” The prospect of sneaking these cherished companions along on your journey added an element of intrigue and determination to the preparations. It was a secret pact between you and your weapons, a silent promise that no matter what challenges awaited in the Modora Empire, you would be ready to face them with the strength and skills that had defined you as the ice princess of Nosta.

—————-

In the grand corridors of the Modora Empire’s palace, Prince Eustass’s steps reverberated with frustration. His mood was as turbulent as the storm clouds that often shrouded his kingdom. He had stormed out of the council chamber, leaving behind the imposing presence of the council members and their unsettling decree. Grumbling beneath his breath, Eustass navigated the labyrinthine halls of the palace. The news that the council had arranged a political marriage for him, set to commence as early as tomorrow, gnawed at his very core. He had barely returned from his military campaign, bloodied and wearied from the battlefield, only to be thrust into a situation he vehemently opposed.

His steps echoed through the marble corridors as he brooded, his mind filled with thoughts of the impending political union and the implications it held for his future. The weight of responsibility and expectation bore down upon him, and he couldn’t help but feel a sense of resentment. As he continued to traverse the palace’s opulent halls, Eustass couldn’t shake the feeling that his life was spiraling into a direction he had not chosen for himself. The clash between duty and personal desires waged on within him, leaving him to grumble and seethe as he contemplated the uncertain path that lay ahead.

Amidst the labyrinthine halls of the palace, Prince Eustass’s sharp eyes caught a glimpse of a familiar figure. He called out to her, his voice carrying a hint of urgency, “Roxane!” But the glare that met his gaze made it clear that Roxane was in no mood for pleasantries. The General’s daughter remained a picture of resentment, her eyes hard and unyielding. The words exchanged in the council room still hung heavily in the air between them, a stark reminder of the tension that had escalated during the meeting. Eustass hurried to close the distance between them, his voice laced with a desperation to make amends. “Roxane, I promise you, I’ll find a way to override this political marriage,” he implored, his voice earnest and determined. However, Roxane’s response was anything but receptive. She maintained a cold demeanor, addressing him only with the formal title of “Your Highness.” Her words cut through the tension like a sharp blade as she declared, “I don’t care about the political marriage, or even you.”

Eustass was bewildered by her response, unable to comprehend the sudden change in her attitude. In a desperate attempt to understand, he reached out to grasp her hand, his voice softening with concern. “Roxane, what do you mean?” he asked, his gaze searching for answers. But Roxane didn’t linger. She pulled her hand away abruptly, her features frozen in a mask of resolve. Her words came out with a finality that left no room for negotiation. “We need to separate, Your Highness. Permanently. We can’t be together anymore.” With those words, she turned away and walked briskly down the corridor, leaving Eustass standing there, bewildered and hurt. The cold exterior she displayed masked the complex emotions within, and the decision she had just made had left both of them reeling, their connection severed in a heartbeat.

As Eustass stood there, his thoughts in disarray after Roxane's unexpected declaration, his loyal right-hand man, Killer, hurriedly caught up with him. Concern etched across his features, Killer asked, "Are you okay, Eustass?" But Eustass, consumed by a whirlwind of emotions, couldn't find the words to respond. Instead, he brushed off the question with a curt wave of his hand and a voice thick with frustration. "I need some time alone," he muttered, his gaze distant. "I'm going to my room, and I don't want anyone to bother me."

Killer could sense the turmoil within his prince, and he nodded in understanding, albeit with a hint of worry in his eyes. He watched as Eustass retreated down the corridor, his thoughts heavy with the weight of Roxane's cold rejection. The sudden turn of events had left Eustass reeling, and now he sought solitude to grapple with the emotional storm that raged within him.

—————-

As you entered your room, your gaze immediately searched for your journal. Among the few belongings you could take with you, this was one you couldn't bear to leave behind. While you would be living in the empire, you could at least document your experiences and thoughts in its pages. The journal, small and unassuming, held the potential to be a source of solace in the unfamiliar territory that awaited you. It was a private space where you could record your journey, your emotions, and the challenges you would face. Its pages were a repository for your innermost thoughts and a connection to the world you were leaving behind. With a sense of determination, you retrieved the journal and carefully concealed it within your chest binding wrap. It was a precious keepsake, a silent companion that would bear witness to the chapters of your life as you embarked on this unexpected journey, a small act of defiance against the constraints of fate. You offered Trafalgar Law a warm smile and gestured for him to sit, a silent invitation to a more casual conversation. He obliged, taking a seat at the end of your bed.

As he settled in, you let out a sigh, your expression turning slightly pensive. "Trafalgar," you began, your voice devoid of the formalities that usually accompanied royal conversations. "I must admit, I'm feeling a bit nervous about this journey to the Modora Empire. It's not just the political marriage, but the prospect of learning an entirely new way of life." You paused, your thoughts swirling with uncertainty. "I'll be expected to adapt to new traditions, new etiquette, and take on a role as not only the empire's new princess but as the future empress. It's a lot to take in, and I'm not sure what to expect."

As you shared your concerns with your trusted bodyguard, you couldn't help but feel a sense of vulnerability. It was rare for you to express your fears openly, but in this moment, Trafalgar's presence offered a comforting reassurance that you weren't facing this daunting journey alone.

Trafalgar Law listened attentively to your concerns, his reassuring presence a source of comfort. When you expressed your apprehensions about the journey ahead, he spoke with unwavering support. "Princess, you have my word that I'll be by your side every step of the way," he assured you, his voice filled with sincerity. "I will protect you, and if things take a turn for the worse, I'll do everything in my power to ensure your safety."

His words were a balm to your anxieties, but what he revealed next left you in a state of shock. "And there's something else," he continued, his tone grave. "I have an acquaintance, someone I knew from the Modora Empire." Your eyes widened in astonishment. You were well aware that communication with anyone from the empire, especially given the ongoing tensions, could be considered treasonous. The fact that Trafalgar had such a connection left you both surprised and curious.He went on to explain, "My acquaintance has already been sending scrolls of information about the empire via message birds. It's meant to give us a head start on what to expect, to help us navigate the complexities of the empire."

The revelation was both intriguing and unsettling. You couldn't help but wonder about the nature of this acquaintance and the valuable insights they might provide. Yet, it was a risky venture, and the stakes were high. As you processed this unexpected turn of events, you couldn't help but feel a mixture of anticipation and caution, knowing that this connection might be crucial in the days to come.

©𝐘𝐎𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐈— Any sign/evidence of plagiarism made from outside this name will be dealt with by whatever means necessary. Legal action may occur if non fanfiction works are plagiarized.