#like most of the books

[themoonstonechronicler]

would you mind telling me about your blonde oc? they seem cool :]

(no pressure tho) (def no ulterior motives)

i like how i know exactly who you're talking about despite having several blonde ocs. ok this is Ara! (really sorry if this makes no sense btw. and im really sorry this is so long)

Ok so I dunno how to explain Ara without going into depth on parts of the magic system. To put it simply, there are three magic systems: Divine, Singing, and Fairy. Ara was born of a race of divine beings, the Viltivlynli, giving her a "divine heart"(the latent ability for divine magic. it is not "awakened" tho, meaning she cant use any divine magic)

Fairy magic is embodied by fairies, who are beings that represent different natural things(ex: for every tree, there's a fairy, for every rock, there's a fairy, for every cloud, there's a fairy). Fairies that embody more prominent or large natural things are more powerful(ex: the sun, all bodies of water, all forests), and rule over the lesser fairies. Fairies can, if they want to, dissolve their essences and merge it with a child being born, creating a Swirlvein. This kills the fairy, but gives the child fairy magic proportional to how powerful the fairy was. Upon Ara's birth, the fairy of the sun underwent this process, giving Ara fairy magic.

Now Singing magic is an elemental magic system, working on the principle that there are seven entities that embody the seven elements(winter, sky, light, shadow, earth, fire, and water) in their entirety, and there are seven slightly weaker "mirror" entities to check the seven elemental ones. These fourteen entities are naturally on a different plane of existence than the "Waking"(the normal plane), and the only impact they have is the magical Singing energy they emit, allowing normal Singer mages to harnass and use it. However, the entities can, when someone is being born, attatch themselves to the child. This brings them slightly closer to the Waking, and permanantly alters the child, physically, mentally, and magically. The child is now extremely powerful and magically volatile, and can channel the power of the entity bonded to them into the Waking(but not too much, or they will "Fray" and burn up). Emotion triggers this magic. The elements also have different ideals attatched to them(ex: winter is purity, logic, and solitude, water is destruction, layers, and fear), the entities embodying the purest forms of these ideals in personality. The child they bond to is thus changed to embody these ideals as well, though to a less extreme degree than the entity. Ara was born bonded to the entity of Fire(called Lis), and Fire's ideals are caprice, whimsy, emotions, creation, and fury. This altered her psyche to match these ideals, though not to a completely extreme degree. People bonded to these elemental entities are called the Lifalrarothli.

(these beings of magic(fairies, elemental entities) generally want to find the most powerful host possible, so when one child is bonded to an entity, more will attempt to bond it. This means that there are just several extremely op people running around, and Ara is unfortunately one of them.)

ALRIGHT NOW INTO WHATS UP WITH ARA

So continuing with my theme of magic=neurodivergency from all of the energy altering how their brains work, Ara was born pretty fucked up from all of this. To make it worse, the Viltivlynli(the divine race she was born into, they rule the main continent.) had just had a pretty bad experience with the last two Lifalrarothli(Luthralani and Irsewyn, winter and sky respectively, both went batshit and caused a cataclysmic storm that messed everything up before Irsewyn died and Luthralani started a revolt and a new rebel kingdom in the north.) SO the Viltivlynli weren't too happy when Ara, a new Lifalraroth, and a volatile one at that was born.

Now, they decided that they had given Luthralani and Irsewyn too much freedom, and that isolating Ara would work until she went insane(the Viltivlynli think that around the age of 18-24, the Lifalrarothli go insane or catatonic.) So Ara was basically kept in a room and guarded by priests for most of her life, up until she was seventeen. Despite this, she had managed to make three friends. Aurtaral, a high ranking Viltivlyn who was actually bonded to her twin entity.(those are the ones meant to counter the elemental ones. the Viltivlynli think those and the people they are bonded to are stable and good, since they are less powerful and can stop the elemental ones.) He was basically sent in to chat with her occasionally, try to stop her from losing it, and they ended up becoming friends. Aurtaral's pretty serious, has a strong sense of justice, and wants to do his part to help the world. Another friend was Fesi, Aurtaral's kind of sister, who wasn't bonded to anything, but did have the latent divine magic that all Viltivlynli had. She was a kind of loose cannon, cheerful and jaded, not listening to anyone, which annoyed everyone. The next friend was Senatha, Fesi's girlfriend who was a really accomplished swordswoman. She has a big complex about needing to constantly doing whatever she can to help people, and is interesting, because she's a spy for Luthralani, the rebel Lifalraroth of winter who is in charge of the kingdom in the north defying the VIltivlynli.

Alright, so at this point, Ara's really really messed up. All of the qualities given to her by her magic(emotion, caprice, etc.) have been pushed to even more extremes by her isolation. She's desperate for any kind of connection, has a lot of self loathing due to her magic(which she thinks is her fault), and is terrified of going insane. She's also intellectually disabled. She's a ticking time bomb, and when she's seventeen, the start of the story, it goes off. When she and Aurtaral are hanging out, Aurtaral makes a tiny comment about wanting the best for her, and everything shes been holding in spills out and its not pretty. She's yelling about how clearly he doesn't, since he hasn't done anything to help her, or how he hasn't used his influence to get her out of this room. And since her magic is triggered by emotion, she's setting shit on fire and growing messed up plants and causing storms. This causes a panic, Aurtaral runs, and the guards get her under control eventually and put her in a solid iron room for a few months(iron stifles magic).

In there, it's her, her elemental entity Lis(who is incoporeal and only visible to her), and a random wind fairy named Brigit who's been following her around(and definitely isn't spying for Luthralani.) Ara is distraught and hates what she did and is spiraling into a lot of self-loathing. But Lis is furious and says Ara was completely in the right and should have killed the guards. Brigit is on board with Lis, but Ara doesn't like Brigit because Brigit keeps messing with her.

Eventually she's let out, and is pretty tentative, Aurtaral's still kinda mad at her, Fesi feels bad for her, and Senatha secretly approaches her with a proposition. Senatha says that if she wants to have better living conditions, if she wants to have freedom, and if she wants to help the world, she could switch sides and join Luthralani's rebel kingdom. (Luthralani's rebel kingdom and the VIltivlynli are basically in a cold war currently.) Ara, though initially horrified, thinks it over, with Lis and Brigit both urging her to join. She eventually asks if she could meet with Luthralani, just to see what they're like before deciding, and Senatha agrees.

So Luthralani arranges for them to dream-meet up and chat about her decision, and they both show up. Ara is immediately awed by Luthralani(Luthralani has all three kinds of magic, but unlike Ara, their divine heart is awakened and can be used.) and asks what it'll be like if she joins them. Luthralani says she will be honored, since Lifalrarothli are well respected in their kingdom. They say Ara will be granted more freedom, will be taught by them personally how to control their power, and will have the opportunity to fight against the Viltivlynli who hurt her(though they don't emphacize that bit yet). Ara is basically immediately sold, both by what Luthralani is saying and by Luthralani, because the way Ara sees it, Luthralani and her are the same, and Luthralani's saying there's nothing wrong with her, and she can give good things to the world. Luthralani is validating Ara and all the things she's thought about and feels guilty about.

So Ara is now working with Luthralani, but still doesn't want to leave the VIltivlynli just yet, so she sticks around, and finds herself growing angrier at Aurtaral and the Viltivlynli, with Luthralani and Brigit's egging on. I think this is getting way too long so I'll cut it short and just say that eventually she gives herself away and she and Senatha have to run away to Luthralani's kingdom, causing collateral damage in the process, breaking the cold war and launching the continent into war. Aurtaral grows really angry and decides that Ara went insane and is being manipulated, and needs to be killed for everyone's safety, though hes sad about it. Fesi gets sad for letting her friend group fall apart, then decides she's not gonna let that happen to anyone else, and starts a secret anti-war organization that smuggles refugees into safe locations. Meanwhile Ara is really happy in Luthralani's kingdom; she's made some friends(Eskarisai and Ki'Taolu), and she's started working as part of the war effort against the VIltivlynli. This means she's zipping around and burning cities to help Luthralani, who's she's grown really dependant on for affection. She's also really clingy to her new friends, and they're all a little scared of her. She's really pissed at Aurtaral and the VIltivlynli now, as Luthralani has almost fully convinced her that they're pure evil and she should set them on fire.

ANYWAY im gonna stop there(around 1/3 of the way through the series, im really sorry if this is confusing or too long but THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ASKING I LOVE TALKING ABOUT HER IF YOU HAVE ANYMORE QUESTIONS PLEASE ASK ME

[cryptocism]

"just as I did, in 1983."

you'd never know my favourite parts of the show are the fucked up insane bits when my first instinct is to draw the cheesiest thing imaginable

[cozycryptidcorner]

I always lose a couple of followers when I take a shot at Christianity, but girl? what are you doing at the devil’s sacrament? 🤨 this is an obnoxiously loud monsterfucking blog. go to Bible study or smth damn

[pawthorn]

Shout out to Tamora Pierce specifically for making her lead female protagonist have a crush on a friend, not act on it, and eventually out-grow that crush and feel grateful that she never said anything.

There are so few stories that affirm choices like that, that admit that feelings don’t always last forever and that choosing not to pursue romance is actually a very valid choice. I love the Protector of the Small series for a lot of reasons, but this is a big one.

[krysmcscience]

I have some questions about karaoke night, Alex Hirsch. Very Important Questions. Which I will happily scream at a poor hapless baby triangle who can have no answers for me, and possibly also does not have object permanence yet.

Follow-up that is I guess suggestive, but let's be real here, Bill's a fucking triangle:

Dude slipped right into his birthday suit, lmao

this is so stupid :D

Anyway, I don't care what anyone says, this brilliant individual knows what's up - Bill is absolutely way more of a monsterfucker than Ford could or ever will be, full stop.

[unraveling-plot]

The Murderbot Diaries was like here's a person. The person doesn't feel like a person.

The person is starting to believe it's a person, and its pronouns are still it/its. It's uncomfortable with eye contact, it hates being touched, it doesn't like social interaction, it doesn't have great control of it's facial expressions. And the person's friends all know this and respect it, and it can show affection how and when it feels and it's ok if it isn't "normal." It isn't questioned or doubted in its care because of this.

The person processes emotions through media, and uses it to figure out what to do in social situations. It has complicated feelings about what it was meant to be and reconciling that with who it wants to be. It doesn't always feel like a person but it's starting to accept that it is one.

Also it has laser weapons in its arms.

[raptorrobot]

...like antennas to heaven

link to the full image

[freakcliff]

many things about the chronicles of Narnia made me irrevocably insane at the small age of six years old but one of the big ones was the bit in prince Caspian where caspian blows susan's horn to try and summon help and it summons the pevensie kids like. that's crazy ok. that's insane. imagine at 12 years old you're given a horn thats purpose is basically summoning divine intervention & then years later someone blows it and summons YOU . I'm crazy !

[qifreyplushie]

can i see your necklace for a second, your highness? ^__^

[chloesimaginationthings]

The REAL lore from the FNAF survival logbook,,

[littlefankingdom]

Bruce died(?) again

Jason: Well, it's my turn.

Dick: What are you talking about?

Jason: Everytime Bruce is gone, one of you starts to act just like him, pushing everyone away, acting as only you can be right, and fighting anyone that gets in your way. Dick did it, Tim did it, even Cass kind of did it. So, this time, I will do it.

Tim: Isn't that how you act all the time?

Jason: Whoa, fuck you. You are so banned from historical drama movie nights.

[egophiliac]

Final manifestations for Book 7?

I'm trying REALLY hard not to build up any solid expectations, because I wanna go in ~fresh~! they're already so far away from anything I thought would happen (not in a bad way, I'm just accepting that I'm on Miss Yana's Wild Ride at this point and we're seeing this thing through 'til the end, by gum). so it's nothing too major, but:

they've been handing new crying expressions out like candy lately, I want to see some delicious Malleus tears.

honestly I want everyone to cry buckets. their tears sustain me. the more Silver angst specifically I get the happier I am.

SILVER!!!! 👏 VANROUGE!!!! 👏

just let him have this. the poor boy's been through so much. let him have his big "I'm proud of you, son" moment with Lilia.

I'm 100% expecting Grim's arc (and probably whatever's going on with Crowley) to be its own episode, but a nice hook to leave us hanging on would be good!

a nice hook though, please, I don't think I can take another "Grim is attacking us! now wait eight months to find out what happens :)" cliffhanger...

some Meleanor? as a treat? just a little bit, a tiny quick flashback or something, please Twst I just, I just want to see her again. let her have a little ghost cameo like Dawnathan Knight got. Lilia and his kids are all having their big group hug or whatever and she can gently fade in to be all like

(turning asks off until I'm done playing, SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE Y'ALL)

[siriusdraws]

wu ming my beloved

[fictionadventurer]

Fantasy is philosophy’s more gorgeously painted cousin. You can’t just tell a child a blunt fact about the human heart and expect them to believe you. That’s not how it works. You can’t scribble on a Post-it note for a 12-year-old: your strangeness is worth keeping, or your love will matter. You need to show it. And fantasy, with its limitless scope, gives us a way of offering longhand proof for otherwise inarticulable ideas: endurance and hatred and regret, and power and passion and death.

-Katherine Rundell, "Why children's books?"

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]

[valkugo]

"You can only be jealous of someone who has something you think you ought to have yourself." Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale