#magic and especially magic that affects the body is so complicated and so easy to mess up

[rxttenfish]

Is there even any infrastructure for humans visiting merfolk underwater settlements? Or are they too deep for humans to comfortably dive/swim in? Or maybe the merfolk just say, "of course we don't have any support for you under several hundred feet of water. literally why would you even try?"

there's not any infrastructure for human (or any other sophont besides gorgons that already live there, anyhow) visitation! mostly that's because this is a bit of a first contact situation, albeit one that was born more out of political isolationism and not necessarily caring about the land-based sophonts...

basically, the current political entity overseeing all existing or known merfolk settlement is a fairly old one, that slowly grew from a smaller polity into a more all-encompassing unit by swallowing up its neighbors. it's more of a complicated shell game than this necessarily makes it seem - like i said, a lot of time has passed, and significant cultural shifts have happened within that time, as well as shifts and establishment on how its government and policies would function, so it's a little bit more of a larger conglomerate containing within it many smaller governments, who are allowed independent control of the populations within their allotted territories, just so long as they take up the job of translating the broader governmental laws and taxes down onto that population. the details are rather vague, and so long as the results are what the larger governmental body asked, the intermediary areas are allowed a lot of different ways to interpret what that means.

however, one of the things that got lost in that shuffle of politic and history was the presence of merfolk inland. historically, merfolk have actually periodically spent time inland! usually it was still very tied to the water, being more like seasonal beachcombing using temporary shelters and housing, but they utilized the land a lot more for potential resources and ways to live. the nomadic families especially used to take advantage of these opportunities, and there was much more interaction with landfolk in these contexts.

the exact way it was lost varies, in that not everyone agrees what came first or what was the reason or who did what, but most of this was probably limited and then lost due to the larger governmental body, in the process of colonization, banning merfolk from going up onto the land in order to prevent political enemies and refugees from fleeing up and onto the land, using it as a base of operations, or otherwise using it as a means to escape to other bodies of saltwater. like i said, these periods inland were mostly seasonal, and merfolk did still majorly depend on the water, so what merfolk did make settlements inland mostly ended up vanishing over time anyways - either through simply vanishing into landfolk populations, or through dying out, it wasn't particularly sustainable.

but, time still went on, and this ban remained, and somehow it slowly disseminated into popular thought that the land was just not really very interesting in the first place. sure, merfolk knew there was stuff up there, and other animals and even fairly smart animals, but that doesn't necessarily make it worth investigating. travel over land is hard for them, and it's hard for them to live on land for long periods of time, and everything that they need and depend on is in the ocean anyways. there's a lot less space to the land, there's nothing that would interest merfolk, it would be uncomfortable and painful for them to visit (a lot of myths and legends about the land and what lived there got started in this time, with a lot of focus on undead monsters that had dried out and were lit from within by the hateful light of the sun, and a lot of merfolk made a habit of coming up with scary stories about the weird things that must've lived in such an extreme environment), and there was a lot more political movements and such focused on other merfolk to begin with.

even moreso because merfolk still, technically, did go out onto land? it just wasn't very large portions of land, that is. mostly they would set up on much smaller islands and atolls, which would mostly be used for manufacturing or more technical jobs that required being done in the air. they really just needed the space, not anything specific already on the land itself, and the space was all functional, very little exploration or relaxation areas. sometimes these were used specifically to produce novelty items or experiences, but usually this didn't go much further than exploring the uniqueness of being in open air for the first time, and wasn't really pursued as much more than that.

so merfolk still knew the land was important and needed for ecological functioning - something they had learned the hard way, after an earlier period in their history pre-unifying government became known for a particular and acute ecological disaster, felt even harder by all merfolk on account of the properties of water and everyone living in the ocean. they view the land as functional in its own right - a needed recycling facility that operates itself and helps keep them alive, and one in a place that they had no interest in and could set aside for such tasks.

they also knew there was life up there, even intelligent life, but considering the period in time when merfolk ceased interacting with land-based societies, and the predominant view that what makes something sapient for them being a multiplicity and plural nature to it, on top of the complex interweave of language and meaning, they basically just viewed it as "smart animals". i've compared it before to like if we actually discovered warrior cats was real and there was a population of feral cats in a national park that had their own tiny society. it's interesting, for sure, but it wouldn't be the kind of thing that they might feel too passionately about, and can easily pass it off as a curiosity and a thought experiment all of its own.

the fact that this has changed at all, and especially in such a small time frame and with such major turnaround and abrupt interest in the outer governing body is actually really odd, and a major question and mystery in what i'm writing! the starting interest happened only just in the previous generation, and now they're making major steps towards introducing themselves to land-based civilizations in just miranda's generation, even to the point of sending her inland as an ambassador and an active participant in this shift.

most people on the land already knew that someone was in the ocean and actively preventing anyone else from crossing it or even getting particularly close, but they had no context for this any more than anyone else, and thus they might not raise as many questions about why this is happening than they should, especially since they don't know merfolk history. even most merfolk don't necessarily have all of the details of this shift, but they do know more than nothing, and certainly can note how odd it is and how weird such a change is.

likewise, neither civilization has very much to accommodate for the other, given as they barely even knew of each other by the time they were already designing how it was laid out, so the issues humans have accessing merfolk spaces is at least mutual, if nothing else. it's also something very likely to change over time, depending on how said first contact goes.

[misseviehyde]

BITCH SWITCH

"Yay, thanks so much for doing this for me Tom,” smiledJaney as she practiced her stretches with her body-swapped boyfriend.  “I know you really hate your step-sister Brooke, but by you swapping bodies with her I finally have a chance to get on the cheer team.”

Tom had no idea why his likeable girlfriend Janey was so desperate to be a cheerleader, but he would do anything to make her happy, even swap with his horrible slutty step-sis. 

He and Brooke did not get on - she was vain, spoiled and bitchy and represented everything he despised.  If he didn't love Janey so much he would never have agreed to this plan. Working himself up to say the words of the swap spell had been tough, but now he was inside Brooke's body it wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be.

“Brooke would never have sponsored you otherwise.  This way I can get you onto the team, then I’ll swap back with her. I can’t wait to get my body back once you're on the team. I’m so sick of having to hang out with Brooke's bitchy friends and act like a stuck up drama queen all the time.  I’m glad the try outs are today."

Reflecting on it, it hadn’t been an easy process at all. Brooke had been furious when they swapped, and Tom had had to threaten to shave off her sexy hair and delete all her social media accounts to keep her quiet about swapping.  She had finally gone quiet and sulky, storming off in his body and to be honest he had hardly seen her for the last few days which was a relief.  The trials were this afternoon so by tomorrow he would be able to get back to normal.

In the last few days, Tom had had to learn everything about being a hot teenage girl as well as practice with Janey constantly. Who would have thought being popular would be this complicated?

He would be glad when this was all over.  Just a few more hours and it would all be done.

"Let's get on with this."

**********

Hours later Tom and Janey were half-way through practice, when Tom turned to see his body suddenly enter dressed in a tight fitting leotard.

“What the hell are you doing?” snapped Tom as he shook his head at the ridiculous get up his sister had his body in.

“Oh didn’t I tell you Tom?  Since you stole my body and dumped me in this one, I’ve been doing some thinking.  I’ve decided I’m going to try out for the team as well.  It’s about time we had a male cheerleader again.  I’m sure all the boys at school won’t mock you too badly.”

Tom gasped as he realised she was deadly serious. “You bitch - you can’t do this.  You are NOT entering the try outs as me, forget it.”

Brooke sneered. “You started this by stealing my life. Switch our bodies back or I'll turn you into the biggest sissy bitch at school."

Tom sighed, his devious sister had him by the balls and she knew it.  There was no way he was letting her humiliate him like that.  He had no choice but to give her back her body.

“Sorry Janey, I’m going to have to swap back with her, she’s serious.”

Walking over to the sofa, Tom rummaged inside where he had his favourite hiding place and he pulled out the magic spell book he had used to swap with Brooke, flicking through to the body swap page.

“Oh no you don’t - NO WAY,” screamed Janey. “I am not letting her ruin this for me.  If you swap back with Brooke I’ll never make it onto the squad, especially now we did this to her.” 

Grabbing the book off the surprised Tom, she flicked through urgently. “There must be another spell here we can use to stop her.”

“Janey, be careful with that book, the spells inside are dangerous.”

“Aha - there’s a spell that will give Brooke your personality and memories - then she’ll be more helpful. I don’t know why we didn’t think to use it in the first place.”

Before Tom could stop her, Janey had read the spell and there was a bright flash.

“Oh no Janey, what have you done?” groaned Tom gripping his head.  “That spell doesn't just affect Brooke, you cast it on me as well.”

“What? No! How do you reverse it?” screamed Janey as she saw her boyfriend double over and grip his head in agony.

Janey’s stomach churned as she suddenly noticed there was no way to reverse the spell.  In her panic she flicked through the book looking for a solution but she couldn’t find one!

Meanwhile Tom and Brooke were both going through a new transformation, only this time mental. Their memories and personalities were being exchanged. It was like having all your memories poured out and new ones flowing in.

Tom groaned as his head filled with new thoughts and memories.  His life as Tom was fading and Brooke's slutty memories were welling up to overwhelm him. 

Wow, I never realised how hot it feels to be a slutty bitch.  My step-sister is sooooo cool, mmmmmmh, I like being her. 

The last few days have been such fun, why would I want to go back to being a dumb boy?

What am I saying?  I am Brook now.  I can keep her body and be the bitch I want to be.  I’m hot and popular and I can do whatever I like, no one can stop me.

Tom couldn't fight it. He was becoming a teenage bitch and it felt so good. Laughing he stopped resisting and grabbing his old body laughed in glee. "Yessss give it all to me bitch - I'm Brook now!"

Tom moaned as his pussy dripped with lust and he felt the last of his worthless boy memories flow out of his head.

You are no longer Tom. Now you are Brooke

Stretching her flexible perfect body, Brooke grinned as she pushed Janey back against a wall and grabbed the spell book from her. "I'll take that loser."

She giggled as she tossed her blonde hair in delight.  “You dumb bitch, you just turned me from your innocent boyfriend into your worst nightmare.”

“You should have used this spell instead - the mind control spell,” laughed Brooke as she flicked through the pages. Intoning the words, she read it and Janey and Tom groaned as their eyes went blank.

Brooke grinned. They were hers to program now.

“Tom - you will forget you were ever a girl named Brooke. You have always been Tom and you have the biggest crush on me your step sister.  You no longer want Janey and in fact you despise her.  You will believe you have been fucking me for weeks behind Janey’s back.”

“Janey - you will forget all about the magic book and the events of the last week.  Now wake up both of you.”

Janey and Tom opened their eyes as Brooke hid the book again.  Her former girlfriend was now totally clueless as to what had happened and the new bitch beckoned Tom over.

 “Tom - you look kinda hot in that outfit.  Why don’t you show your dumb girlfriend some of the new moves we have been practicing together?  I’m horny and I wanna cum."

“Are you sure?” he asked uncertainly.

“Yes, do it, show her what you really think of her. Fuck me in front of her and show her what a real man wants in a woman”

Janey gasped in horror as Tom yanked up Brooke's dress and slid his cock into her tight shaven pussy.  She moaned happily as her step-brother began to fuck her in front of Janey - long slow pumps sliding in and out of her tight cunt and making her gasp in pleasure. Sex as a girl felt amazing.

Brooke turned her head to regard her former girlfriend. "I don’t think you should bother trying out for the squad Janey, you have no chance of getting on.  Nobody likes you - not even your former boyfriend.”

“You bitch, how long has this been going on for?” sobbed Janey.

“Oh weeks," lied Brooke. "Tom is my lover now.  It feels so naughty to fuck my own step-brother.  Mom and Dad will be mad when they find out, but I don’t care.  Now Tom, I want you to cum inside my slutty pussy. In fact I have an idea.  Stay where you are bitch, you don’t want to miss this."

Janey cried as she watched Tom intensify his thrusts and with a grunt - orgasm hard into Brooke.  The evil bitch moaned in satisfaction as hot cum flooded her pussy and she commanded Tom to carry her to the sofa.

“I’ve changed my mind Janey. I’ll let you onto the squad on one condition.  Come here and lick all of Tom’s cum out of my pussy.  Show me how much you want to be a cheerleader and I’ll help you after all.”

Lying back, Brooke smirked.  Ohhhh yes, being a twisted slut felt so good.  She was so glad that this happened and she ended up as a bitch. There was no love left for her old girlfriend or life. The memory transfer had been completely successful. Now the only question was, would Janey eat her out?

Brooke smiled with satisfaction as the whimpering girl went to her knees and advanced.  Yes being a bitch really was amazing, she couldn’t wait to find out what else she could make people do now she was hot. This bitch-switch was really going to work out and Brooke loved it.

[memento-morianon]

Magic System

Ambient magic is the energy that fills the world, and it is also the energy of souls. Souls form as ambient magic enters a newly growing body, and when a creature dies that energy is returned to the world. It has also been observed that ambient magic can grant special abilities to different people species, though it's difficult to study exactly what that entails.

Most of the information on these abilities is anecdotal. It does seem to be different for each people species, and it seems to be connected to the endocrine system in some manner. Whether it only works like this for people or also for other animals is still a matter of debate. Some believe ambient magic has some level of sentience, choosing specific animals to evolve into people by giving them these special abilities. Others believe ambient magic is simply energy that happens to have a stronger effect in creatures with more complex brains.

I will make a separate post detailing the way ambient magic affects each specific people species, but I wanted to mention it in this post before I tackled the three methods of controlling magic. Within this world, there are three major forms of magic. Each of them utilize different methods to direct the flow of ambient magic in order to perform specific tasks.

Written, Spoken, and Soul magic. (detailed out under the cut)

Written magic: Through the use of runes or sigils, magic energy can be directed to perform simple repeatable or permanent effects. The most popular forms of written magic are dwarvish runes and gnomish circle writing. It works best when carved with a bone tool into a natural material such as wood, stone, or bone. Ink made from certain pigments can also be used, as long as they come from the bodies of living things. Blood, squid ink, pigments made of crushed bone, etc. The use of such natural and organic materials allows the magic to connect more effectively.

Written magic is fairly easy to learn, and symbols can be combined to achieve more complicated effects. However, the more complicated the symbol combinations are, the more likely it is to become unstable. It works in a sort of parabolic graph, with just one symbol producing a basic effect but not always working as intended (a basic heat symbol might produce a little heat or a lot of heat) and a large number of symbols producing an unstable effect (trying to use a large number of symbols to achieve a heat effect at a very specific temperature for a specific material will probably result in a meltdown) but a balanced number of symbols (somewhere between 3-10, depending on the complexity of the task) will be stable and perform as expected.

Written magic is therefore mostly applied for mundane tasks, especially in homes. If there are easier ways to replace these magic effects in a non-magical way, people will avoid the risks of unstable symbol combinations by using the non-magical methods instead. Indoor lighting and stove-top cooking are usually done with magic, using symbols written on moving parts so the effect can be turned on and off by breaking and realigning the lines of the symbols. But it's still easier to wash clothing by hand than to try writing a complicated symbol combination that may or may not get your clothes clean in an instant, and might possibly just shred your clothing to pieces. On the other hand, written magic heats water much faster, so no one has to wait for it to boil over a fire.

Edit: written magic can also be used as a conduit for more powerful magic effects, much like wires for electricity. this includes things like drawing sigils to connect a caster to their subject in order to help the magic flow better, and tattoos to help magic-powered prosthetics and mobility aids connect to the body and mind of the person using them.

Spoken magic: Possibly the most versatile form of magic, spoken, or more commonly sung, magic is harder to learn and perform than written magic. The words are typically taken from the most archaic forms of language, passed along carefully through the generations. The reason it is usually performed through singing is because of the way ambient magic reacts to the sound waves at different pitches. It is therefore very important to maintain the correct pitch while pronouncing the words accurately. This requires great concentration and strong breathing technique.

Singing spells can be used for mundane tasks, and they can perform more complicated effects without the same risk of instability as a complicated written spell. However, the level of skill in learning and performing singing spells means they're usually reserved for more difficult tasks. These effects are also not as permanent as written magic, since there is no way to keep the spell in place when it is no longer being spoken. For example, a crystal might be asked to glow through a magic song, but the glow will end once the song is complete, while a written spell to make the same crystal glow is permanent unless the symbols are broken.

Spoken magic is most commonly used in the medical field. Doctors often have a group of singers in the operating room. Having a group allows the singers to carry the spell even while one of them might need to take a short break for water or a deeper breath, as long as they coordinate to take those breaks one at a time. It is also very common to use singers in spiritual rituals or ceremonies in many cultures.

While some people prefer to craft things with their hands, spoken magic can be used on plant materials like wood or vines to give them a certain shape. This form of crafting takes years to perfect, but produces seamless and sturdy objects. It's a favored method for creating certain farm tools, furniture like chairs or stools, and custom mobility aids like canes or crutches. Elves also have a long tradition of singing their homes into the trunks of large trees, opening the wood and forming rooms and halls inside. It works well for creating the general shape, but any details and specific additions are made afterwards by hand.

Soul magic: This is by far the most limited and difficult form of magic. It's referred to as soul magic because it involves making a deeper connection to the ambient magic through one's own soul. This is incredibly difficult to do. In order to open one' s soul to the ambient magic, they must bring themself close to death. This is commonly done by self-injury with a bone tool, followed by deep meditation in a pool of water or mud, fully submersed. Before this ritual can be performed, the person preparing for it will train their mind and body to endure it. They will also wear some form of anchoring talisman to keep the ambient magic from overwhelming their soul (usually made of bone, but hide, shells, hair, sinew, and feathers also work).

Having a group of singers on hand as well as witnesses nearby can ensure one's safety, as the witnesses can pull them out of the pool while the singers can provide a sort of magic tether and heal one's injuries.

Soul magic is limited in what it can do. In most cultures, it is used for spiritual purposes. Since ambient magic is connected to souls and the endless cycle of life and death, it is possible to contact the spirits of the dead with soul magic rituals. After the initial ritual to open one's soul to the ambient magic, they can perform smaller rituals to contact the spirits. Once again entering a meditative state and requiring self-injury with a bone tool, but it will not require them to enter a pool of water or mud, and the injury can be smaller. Speaking the name of the dead, or writing their name in blood, increases the chance of connecting with the correct spirit in order to communicate with them.

There is a time limit, as spirits cannot remain in the mortal realm without slowly losing their form and becoming unstable. Unstable spirits become frantic ghosts and cause trouble for the living by such things as attempted possession, soul injury, and disrupting the flow of ambient magic. This is particularly dangerous for the person who performed the ritual, as their soul is more open to spiritual harm.

Soul magic can also be used for a few other things. Tapping into the ambient magic in one's own body may allow them to enhance the natural ability granted to their species, heal themself of great injury or illness, or provide themself with a powerful boost to their other physical skills. This is incredibly risky, as the ambient magic is likely to overwhelm the soul if they open themself too much in search of greater and greater power. Being overwhelmed by ambient magic fractures the soul and may reverse the direction of the magic energy, causing the soul to return to the ambient magic instead of being strengthened by it, leaving the body an empty and lifeless husk.

In an emergency, soul magic can also be used to heal another person by siphoning one's own life energy and giving it to the other person. This should only be done in an emergency, as it is just as likely to kill both people as it is to heal the one in need.

An older ritual that has since become forbidden, its method erased from all known records, is soul-binding. To bind two souls together is to make them share the same pool of life energy. Two people soul-bound are empathically linked. If one is injured or sick, they can be healed by the other's energy. But if one dies, so will the other. It can only be broken if one member of the bond kills the other with a bone tool and immediately buries themself and their dead bond-partner in a pool of water or mud. It has become forbidden because of the great risks it carries to both parties, including the obvious risk of abuse. It was once used as a symbol of good will when creating alliances in some cultures, but the practice had too many flaws to continue being used. It was especially troublesome when used between people of different species, with very different natural lifespans. In the current day, all knowledge of the ritual has been lost and only old stories remain to indicate that it existed at all.

[touchtranscendslanguage]

is there anyway for us to know what each of their magic is? like we know that virge has fear and lightning magic, but what about everyone elses?

you dont have to answer, i just really enjoy the story line and the writting, and i wanted to know a bit more about the characters :)

First off: Sorry it took me so long to answer this, tumblr did not notify me that I had an ask.

Second: Please excuse any typos I'm still on vacation and using my phone to type. I finished writing this right after getting back from vacation and am running on little sleep.

Third: thank you so much! I always love hearing that people like my writing especially the story line and I'm so glad you want to know more about the characters!

Fourth: I don't have all of the character's powers fully fleshed out, but let's see what I can tell you.

More below the cut because this got looong

Okay, so you've got Virgil's lightning and fear magic down.

The fear magic doesn't work on other witches who have protections up or someone whose mind has been warded somehow (not easy to do). He can sense people's fears and insert new fears into someone. The most concentrated fear he can give people is fear of himself. General and simple fears can be given from a distance. The more complex the fear, the closer he has to be until it reaches the point that he has to be touching the person. A permanent phobia also requires touch.

Using mental magic on someone also depends on whether or not they're another magic user, how strong their protections are (if they have any), how receptive they are to the magic, how often the witch has used mental magic on them in the past, and how familiar the witch is with them. For example, it gets easier for Virgil to share complex fears with Janus as the story progresses.

Virgil can also take fears away which he doesn't do often. He believes that fear is vital to a person's survival and that taking it away can have disastrous consequences. He will, however, lessen detrimental fears and phobias sometimes.

In addition, Virgil can cause anxiety and panic attacks, but he can't get rid of them. At least, not entirely. He can push them off for later. This doesn't always work for him.

Virgil's lightning magic is pretty straightforward. He can turn any cloud into a storm cloud and maybe even move clouds around to summon lightning from (I can't decide if that last part is overkill). His body is also a source of lightning with more electricity than average being generated from his body. He can shoot blots of lightning from himself and can electrocute people with touch.

Janus's magic is deception, healing, and secret-keeping.

Deception magic includes illusions, lie detection, and manipulation.

Janus's illusions can affect all five senses and can be nearly impossible to "see" through when he's at full power. At full power, they can withstand skepticism making it so that even when you know they aren't real they won't go away. Smell and taste are the easiest illusions with sound coming in third and sight and touch being the hardest.

Lie detection is complicated. It tells Janus how much of a lie something is as well as which parts are a lie. Not just lies he hears, but ones he sees, too. To an extent. Janus knows you're in disguise. He can also sense illusions.

Janus's manipulation is convincing people of things that aren't real. He specializes in comforting lies, though he can be vicious when he wants to be. It's great for getting his brothers out of trouble when they fuck up.

Janus's healing magic's speed depends on the severity of the wound. He can patch up just about anything. All it takes is touch and a bit of concentration. He insists on kissing Virgil to heal him because he's a dramatic gay.

Secret keeping magic consists of silencing and suppression magic.

Yes, silencing magic includes covering one's mouth with their own hand. What can I say, that's a classic. Janus can put a lock on certain facts, words, and concepts so that the person in question can't say them or communicate them in any other way. If they try the hand thing happens. The hand over their mouth isn't what's stopping them, it's symbolic.

I haven't worked out distances for silencing magic.

Suppression magic is exactly what it sounds like. It suppresses memories. Depending on various variables such as distance, Janus's health, protections, etc. the suppressed memories can sometimes be triggered into being remembered. He can also know what a person's suppressed memories are (if he looks for them) and can unsuppress them.

A side note on mental magic: it's amazing how easily a fae can use their witch magic on someone if they have their name. Rules get bent and sometimes broken when combining witch magic and name magic.

Both of the twins have creation magic. They can create things out of thin air, though most of the time it takes a good amount of concentration. Some things that they've created many times and are more familiar with are easier to create. Hence, Roman only creating a duplicate of his sword during his fight with Virgil.

The things the twins create have to be imagined very specifically or else they won't turn out right if they get made at all. They can't just make a house, they have to know where each brick is and what it's made of. They need to know what kind of wood the doors are made of, exactly how big the fireplace is, what glue is holding the wallpaper up, etc.

Roman specializes in creating fanciful things while Remus specializes in creating more taboo things. Hence, their monikers. It's really just personal preference, they can each make anything they can imagine.

Remus also has mind reading/telepathic magic. Mind reading can be a bit more complicated than most people think. Some people think in images. Some people can't mentally visualize things. Some people don't think much at all. However a person thinks Remus can tap into their thoughts.

Remus can also push his own thoughts into other people's minds giving them literal intrusive thoughts. He does not always use this power for good.

Like most mental magic Remus can't use this magic on people who have protections in place or are warded.

In addition to creation magic Roman has magic related to hopes, dreams, and romance.

Not only does he know people's hopes, dreams, and romantic feelings he can manipulate them, too. Roman can build hopes and dreams and destroy them just as easily. He can be cupid or make you fall out of love with just skin-to-skin contact and a bit of focus. (Honestly I think Roman's powers are the most terrifying).

Patton has empathic and unreality magic.

Patton can sense other people's emotions even through protections. Protections can, however, stop him from manipulating emotion. Long distance it's temporary, but with physical contact he can do permanent damage.

Patton's empathic magic only works for certain emotions. Basically happiness and sadness as well as most emotions related to those two. I think.

Like Virgil, Patton understands the importance of feeling emotions - even the "bad" ones (he's a fucking hypocrite but what can you do) so he doesn't tend to go around eliminating people's sadness. Just tries to reign it in a little. But like with Virgil he can only put off his own sadness for later. I haven't decided if the same thing happens when he does it to other people.

Unreality magic is quite terrifying. It's making things cease to exist. Just gone. Forever. I hate to compare it to Thanos's snap but that's basically what it is. And yes, he can do it to people, but it takes a lot out of him.

Logan's magic I've thought about the least. It definitely includes some kind of magic that allows him to learn things faster and/or easier. And he has negation magic. He can negate anyone else's magic.

Remy actually wasn't born a witch. His magic was a faerie godfather gift from Thomas. As such, he only has one type of magic. Sleep magic.

Remy controls people's ability to sleep. I haven't thought very far into the details of that.

Thomas has many kinds of magic. Dude's a magic hoarder. No, really. The magic he was born with? Magic theft. He has the ability to steal other witchs' magic. Once he takes it they don't have it anymore. If he takes all of their magic they are no longer witches and they lose everything that came with the classification including immortality.

Okay, I'm really tired right now and this has gotten ridiculously long so I'm ending it here. I have one more post to make tonight and then I'm headed to bed. Forgive me for not proofreading most of this

[guaxinimraccoon]

jesus christ why-

oh mY DEAR GOD-

FIRST OF ALL I'm SO sorry for taking so damn long to answer those, I've been really really busy and I'm very sorry, I'm doing my best to answer everybody ; o ;

BUT FINALLY let's talk about our big last Euphoria reveal (about four months ago but ok-), where I showed you guys that Alex is Brad's father and Elisa is Toby's mom.

"BUT GUAX WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK??? HOW?? WHEN??? WHERE??"

SHUSH , CALM YOUR TITS DOWN and let me explain:

Ok, so I'll be putting some links here and there because yes, Alex and Elisa's story is very, VERY connected to Brad and Toby's. 

And get ready for a veeeeeeeeeeeeery long post. You were warned.

As you all already know, Alex and Elisa had a troublesome meeting, but eventually got closer to each other, they fell in love yadda yadda yadda BUT their will to get closer to each other, in other words, their relationship brought HUGE consequences.

Yes, they did manage to build a healthy relationship, they were happy, they were fine.

But they were also adults, adults that wanted something serious and concrete, they couldn't spend the rest of their lives as forbbiden lovers.

So Elisa did something literally illegal. She did a potion that was forbidden by the Colony authorities - a shrunken potion - to get closer to Alex.

Those potions were never developed, they're rustic and really antique, so they could do more harm than good or not work at all.

But Alex didn't care, he took the risk and drank the potion to get closer to his girl, the woman that was the love of his life.

The effect of the potion is temporary, so Alex would drink them from time to time whenever he had the opportunity to visit the Colony, spend some time with Elisa and, of course, be a part of her life.

He wasn't just trying to "be like her", he was also trying to be a part of her home. He made friends with her friends, he met her family, he met new imps, new fairies, all of it under his "imp disguise". He even fought for the Colony at it's war times (that is lasting till the current story time). He EVEN presented himself with a more “impish name” - Turk - to make sure people wouldn’t suspect anything.

Of course, people eventually started to ask why didn’t he live in the Colony with Elisa, why did he only showed up from time to time. Alex and Elisa lied, obviously, they told everyone that Alex belonged to a secluded imp tribe that lived walking around the forest as nomads, which made sense since those types of imp communities do exist.

ANYWAY THE POINT IS Alex grew affectioned of those people and with their lifestyle. He started to feel like he was one of them. 

And, of course, he was now closer than he ever was to Elisa.

Since they were different species, they never worried about having kids. I’ve never said this before but Alex is a doctor, he knows about this stuff, so he always made sure to reassure Elisa that "they were their own condon" and, as sad as it may sound, they couldn't have kids.

... Or so Alex thought.

You know how tigers and lions can have offspring together? Yeah, it's the same thing.

It's very hard to happen, but they spent YEARS together if you know what I mean so yeah

That's how Alex and Elisa gave birth to their first child: Tobias, the only one of a specie that is a mix between human and imp.

His parents were really worried at first, afterall, they new NOTHING about Toby's condition. They didn't know if he was going to grow as large as a human or if he'd assume imp proportions forever. After some research with his son's blood, Alex found out that Toby was indeed half human and half imp, but he was predominantly physically an imp. That means his biological features are, mostly, imp like: he'd hardly grow as large as a human through his life's course and could live as a normal imp in the Colony. The fact that he showed talent for magic (once he was old enough to do so) and was able to do it just like any other imp in the Colony also made things easier.

Elisa and Alex chose to raise Toby in the Colony, they believed it’d be healthier and safer for him (especially after some events that I’ll be talking about in other posts), although it hurt Alex to pretend that he was an imp to his son and that he couldn’t see him everyday. 

Even if they couldn’t see each other everyday, Alex and Toby were very close. Toby loved his daddy very much and was very attached to him.

After five years after Toby was born, Elisa got pregnant again and gave birth to their second child: Bernardo (that’d eventually be nicknamed as “Brad”), one of the two only beings of the specie Alex and Elisa accidently created together.

For preucation, Alex took a bit of Brad’s blood and made some research, just like he did to Toby.

And what he found out wasn’t exactly... relieving.

Brad, just like Toby, was half human and half imp, but he had expressed mostly human features in his physical body. He was as small as a baby imp now, but it was a matter of time until he started to grow very VERY large.

Unlike Toby, Brad couldn’t live as an imp in the Colony and things got very complicated for them.

Alex wanted to leave. He told Elisa the Colony’s community would NEVER accept their youngest, they would never accept Alex and probably wouldn’t accept Toby either. They had to leave that place before they couldn’t hide the truth anymore, even if it cost revealing Toby, a five year old child, that most of his life was a lie.

But Elisa was hesitant. She didn’t want to leave her home, her parents, her friends. She knew Alex was right, they couldn’t stand that play for too long, but how to leave everything she had built behind? How to leave everything she knew as home behind? It wasn’t that easy.

Until something very bad happened.

Remember I said Alex made a few friends in the Colony? So, one of them was Stefan, a experienced fairy soldier that had known Elisa for as long as she was alive. He was pretty much her best friend (even if he was old enough to be her father) and now he was also great friends with Alex.

Stefan is important here. He has a very tragic backstory involving humans. He lost pretty much everything to them: his whole family and his wings, something that meant more than just flying to him.

So, as expected, he hates humans and truly believes that they are nothing more than monsters that try to manipulate you and to get advantage from imp’s and fairy’s magic. 

After some years, he started to get very suspicious over Alex. Some things weren’t making any sense anymore and that “nomad imp community” was starting to sound way more like an excuse than the actual truth. He simply didn’t understand what was stopping him to live with Elisa and his sons for once.

So he did some investigation. One day, he followed Alex (that he knew as Turk) out of the Colony, in one of the days he had only come to visit his family. Alex had said earlier that he had to “go back to his own society”. Yeah, right. Stefan was hiding the whole time and followed Alex till a good distane from the Colony’s limits. 

And he didn’t get exaclty happy to see his best friend growing impossibly huge out of nowhere.

Stefan now knew the truth: Alex was pretending to be an imp using shrinking potions. He didn’t belong to any nomad imp group, he was a human that lived in his own house and was coming to the Colony to play family with them.

Of course, he didn’t only felt betrayed, but pissed as fuck. Stefan didn’t waste any time: as soon as Alex came back to the Colony he confronted him. Alex tried to explain himself, but they only argued and ended up having a pretty bad fight.

In anger, Stefan didn’t want to hear no more explanations, so he told some of the Colony’s high authorities about Alex’s lies and that they had to do something about it. 

The Colony’s Council decided to call Elisa and solve things between imps and fairies only. But they showed her no mercy.

They basically gave her two options: or she’d prove her loyalty to the Colony and would kill her husband and her human son, or the Colony would sentence all of them to death penalty, including Toby and Brad, children that they claimed should have never been born. 

Elisa was in shatters. She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t kill the man she loved and her baby child, she just couldn’t. She was about to accept the second option, rathering die with her family than killing them, but Stefan decided to help her out.

He wasn’t expecting the Council to be so cruel and he started to regret his decisions the moment he saw how Elisa was worried about her family and how much she loved them, even if they were human. He hated Alex and Brad, but seeing Elisa in excruciating pain over them was impossible for him, so he made up a plan with her to save everybody.

It cost Elisa to trust Stefan, he had told their secrets to the worst people possible, but she had no option aside from accepting his help and following his plan.

The plan was simple: Elisa would tell the Council she’d kill Alex and Brad and would tell Alex that she had changed her mind and that they should leave the Colony as soon as possible now that Stefan knew the truth.

Alex believed her and, after Stefan’s confirmation, so the Council did. The next step was to take Alex and Brad to the Colony’s limits, pretending they were about to leave. 

Then it happened.

Elisa made, with Stefan’s help, a huge barrier on the Colony’s frontier that didn’t allowed humans to cross it. It was basically a security method that they never thought it’d be necessary.

But now it was and it wasn’t meant to protect the ones inside the Colony...

Of course, Alex didn’t understand SHIT.

He spent MONTHS returning to the Colony in his shrinking form, trying to find a way to cross the barrier and to get Toby back. 

Or to talk to Elisa.

Or to understand.

Or anything.

He just wanted his family.

Eventually, his potions ended and he was left to raise Brad on his own and to never see his wife and oldest son again.

Since then, he hates Elisa. Or at least thinks he does. He’s just deeply mad at her, he doesn’t understand why she left them. 

He did everything for her. Denyed his own race, submitted himself to the dangerous effects of a extremely nocive potion which he faces the consequences till this day, did his fucking best to be the best father and husband his family could have-

All this love, all this effort, all this sweat and blood

Wasted.

It took years for him to fully recover. Aside from the health problems the abusive use of the shrinking potions brought, he also became alcohoolic. Because he wasn’t mentally estable enough, neither to take care of himself and of his very very small son, he went to live in his parents house. His family knew about Elisa and the children they had together, his folks actually liked her a lot so it saddened them as well that she simply abandoned Alex and Brad and that they would never see Toby again.

His family didn’t had to worry about Brad’s very little size for too long though, before he was one year old he had already reached his human size.

Anyway, Alex’s family gave him a huge help until he was healthy enough to take care of Brad, the only one left from the family he built.

Back to Elisa, she didn’t told Alex her plan because she KNEW he wouldn’t want to do it. She simply knew Alex would be too stubborn. He’d have wanted to try to escape or to face the Council. Both alternatives would get them all killed.

Toby didn’t understand why his mother did what she did. He was forced to go back home with her, screaming the whole time, saying that they left his father and brother behind while Elisa was crying endelessly.

Stefan came to them eventually and calmed Toby down. His heart broke when he saw Elisa. She was... not okay.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to assist her. He immediatly went to a representent of the Council and took them to Elisa and to the Colony’s frontier to prove that she had done it and did even more than she was suppose to. Of course, not without consequences to her sanity, she had just killed her husband and baby, of course she was in pain.

Nevertheless, the Council confirmed Elisa had done her part and left to leave her alone with the child they let live.

After that, Toby spent weeks returning to that spot of the frontier to look for his dad and brother. No sucess.

As time went by, he eventually forgot about Brad, he was very young when they tore apart and Elisa and Stefan never talked about him nor Alex. All he can remember is that there was a baby in the middle of that mess, but he can’t relate to it.

He kept the memories of his father though, who was closer to him, and till this day he believes he’s alive somewhere and that he can be found. But he has no idea he’s a human and has no idea of his own true nature.

Elisa and Alex miss their respective sons deeply and think about them everyday. They also miss each other very much and the first months after the incident were terribly agonizing for the both of them.

They kept going for the child that had remained for the both of them and raised them apart from each other. Alex never told Brad what happened and so Elisa did to Toby. Like that, none of the brothers knew about the existence of each other.

Until the day Toby was sent, coincidentally, to his “little” brother’s house

And none of them has no idea of this fucking long backstory I just spent four months writing :)

enjoy

[kujakumai]

cleaned up old WIP, 2800 words, AU where Yami Bakura succeeds in switching hosts in DK and Mokuba makes friends with an evil ghost. Not going to be continued but it literally would not leave my brain alone until I finished it.

Things were not going according to plan.

The plan was to take control of a soulless puppet, an easy vessel incapable of interfering with his ends. He had the vessel, had accomplished that much, but he was not expecting the pharaoh and his little friends to succeed and convince Pegasus to give everyone their souls back. So now not only was there a second person in this body he had to keep suppressed, but now he was stuck impersonating a child, smiling through an awkward reunion and then placed onto a helicopter next to a gangly high school student who was watching him like a hawk.

The spirit-that-was-no-longer-Yami-Bakura knew that he was supposed to be Mokuba, but he did not remember the tall one's name. K-something. He had a stupid jacket and hardly took his eyes off him the entire ride, as if he thought his little brother was going to disappear in a puff of smoke when he wasn't looking. Annoying. Infuriating. Luckily it did not seem he wanted to talk, or at least accepted silence. No one expects recent kidnapping victims to say much, which was a boon. A little dazed, a little quiet, a little off, and no one really found it unusual.

They dropped off the pharaoh and his friends, and finally landed at a gaudy and ostentatious house so large it took him a second to realize it was a home at all, an absurd monument to decadence with grounds full of ugly topiaries. Wealth, then. Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad. He could work with this. The rich kid in the stupid coat quietly held his hand the entire walk up the driveway, until they entered a foyer just as gilded and obscene as the outside had been.

No, things were not going to plan, and playing grade-schooler was awkward and an insult to his dignity, and he was farther away from the other millennium items as he ever had been. He would have to grit his teeth through it until he could figure out the next step. In the meantime, perhaps, enjoy some amenities.

Richie rich sighed, relaxed his shoulders the moment they got inside. He looked at who he thought was his little brother and gave him a small, exhausted but genuine smile. He struggled with what to say next.

"Mokuba," he said, "I have to check on a few things in my office. See what kind of damage they did. Do you want to come with me?"

"No." Finally, a chance to be out of this idiot's sight.

This answer seemed to surprise him, a twitch of skepticism. "Will you be okay by yourself?"

He nodded. Keep answers short, when you're impersonating.

His face betrayed more skepticism, concern, and the tiniest hint of disappointment. As if rich kid himself was the one who was scared to be alone in his own house. He accepted the answer, though, to the spirit's relief.

Rich kid bent down and pulled him into a tight hug and ruffled his hair. "We'll get something special for dinner, okay? And ice cream."

"I do like ice cream." This was true. Ryou Bakura almost never bought ice cream, and when he did it was the stupid healthy kind that everyone knew shouldn't even really qualify as ice cream, which was another reason he was a terrible host. That and the fact that he was startlingly pale and had the upper body strength of a limp noodle and the personality of skim milk. This would be better, even if he had to deal with the abrupt drop in height.

Rich kid headed off towards the staircase with another tired but trying-to-be-reassuring smile, and it was then that the spirit of the ring felt an annoyance in the back of his brain. A presence. A scratching, biting, flailing presence, screeching mad, which he had been suppressing for a while now but finally broke through.

get out get out get out get out give it back its MINE get out

The host, awake. What a bother. More rambunctious than Bakura, then? No matter. He could handle a child.

that was MY hug and MY headpat and MY big brother and you can't have them he's been gone for ages and they're mine not yours get out get out get out

The spirit pushed back, ignored him. Shush. He had planned to hold this body alone, and he did not intend to go back to sharing. If you're good, I might let you have it back for a little while later.

shut up go away go away go away go AWAY

And then Mokuba Kaiba did something, something the spirit was not accustomed to or expecting at all, something which Ryou Bakura had never been willing or able to do. He shoved, violently, and the spirit of the ring was ripped out of control with some amount of panic.

"SETOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

Why you insolent little--

Seto Kaiba was not aware of the mental turf war happening over his little brothers body. What he did see was his brother scream his name and fall down, and the whole room echoed with a metal clatter as his briefcase fell on the floor and he ran towards him.

--

The ring had been discarded unceremoniously to a side table, and not-Bakura-and-not-Mokuba-either had no choice but to wait and observe, as a pediatrician on a sudden housecall shined lights in the boy's eyes and rich kid, who the spirit had since gleaned was named Seto Kaiba, looked on in worry.

"You said you heard a voice?" The doctor asked.

"Uh-huh. I think it lives in the necklace."

"You got that thing at Pegasus's house?" Kaiba asked, in disbelief.

"I don't remember. I was just wearing it when I woke up."

"What did the voice say?" the doctor continued, professionally ignoring any talk about magic necklaces.

"Not a lot. It was kind of mean."

"I see." She turned to Kaiba. "He's fine, physically. You might want a psychologist." and Seto Kaiba made what could politely be referred to as A Face. This was not what he wanted to hear, this was news that worried and annoyed him in equal measure, and to some degree was news he had half-expected.

"He's had a rough few months. I'll look into it." and she was dismissed, and Mokuba hopped down from the counter.

"Can we order pizza?" he asked, with big pleading eyes.

Kaiba watched him with dry amusement. "Mokuba, you can have anything you want from any restaurant in a forty mile radius."

"And I want pizza. Real pizza, from somewhere that doesn't also serve caviar."

"Cheap pizza?"

He nodded very seriously. "The grossest greasiest cheapest."

"I can do that. Anything else you want?"

Mokuba's eyes lit up, and soon he was dragging Kaiba by the hand towards somewhere else in the house. "I got to this really hard level in my game I can't get past and I wanted to see if you could beat it, and I found this really cool video I wanted to show you, and I got a really good report card you never saw, and--" and months worth of pent up requests were tumbling out rapid fire, and Kaiba was smiling with affection and some amount of relief.

Loud and clingy, then, was the normal and expected behavior. The spirit of the ring made note of this, as he lie abandoned.

--

The ring was still sitting on a side table, in Mokuba's bedroom, apparently because no one knew what to with it or thought it mattered much. This was a problem. The spirit couldn't do anything without a host, and now everyone was suspicious, these stupid rich people worried too much and paid too much attention.

He was forced to sit there all night, pondering about how he was going to get out of this mess, when at one or two in the morning he observed Mokuba wake up, and rub his eyes, and hop out of bed. He did not turn the light on, but he did check the time, and reach under his bed to retrieve what appeared to be a small backpack. He took it with him as he moved quietly towards the door, and the spirit saw his chance.

Hey, kid. He was near enough to speak into his head. Maybe this wasn't a dead end.

"You!" Mokuba stopped in his tracks and looked right at the ring.

Yes, me. This could be salvaged, he thought, concocting a plan. This was a child. Play friendly ghost and imaginary friend. Surely it would not be hard to weasel himself into the good graces of a sixth grader.

Mokuba glared at the ring with suspicion. "I don't think Seto believed me when I said you could talk, but I knew it." He picked it up delicately by the string to examine.

Where on earth are you going at this time of night?

Mokuba was the current host, technically, so there was a connection, and 11 year olds are not particularly used to or adept at hiding their own thoughts, especially inside their own heads. The answer, if not in words but in abstract concept, was provided instantly as it bubbled to mind. He was going to the kitchen, as he did once or twice a week, not their personal kitchen but the house staff kitchen, where he would move a chair to stand on the counter to reach the very back of the highest shelf of the third cupboard to the left, which was where one of the cleaning staff kept a pile of chocolate so he could cheat on his diet without his wife knowing, a fact Mokuba knew through surreptitious eavesdropping. Mokuba's end was to steal just enough of it that he wouldn't be noticed, and add it to a stash of snacks and other shiny trinkets currently hidden in the bottom of a pile of legos in his closet.

...You steal food to hide in your closet? Why would a child who lived in a three-story mansion need to steal?

Mokuba was only mildly perturbed by the fact that someone had just read his mind. He was mainly curious, now. "Our dad didn't like junk food, so I always took stuff to keep around." he explained, "I guess I don't really have to anymore, 'cuz Seto will let me have whatever I want, but--" he faltered, unable to finish or give a reason.

There wasn't a reason, and Mokuba knew that. There was no need to sneak or stash or steal anymore, but he kept doing it, irrationally, for reasons that confused him, a complicated swirl of things a child could not name or understand but were very easy for the spirit to read. Fear; compulsion; habit; the illusion of safety; the sense that your life was precarious, unstable; a need to exert control over your surroundings. It was not the food or the stealing that mattered, but of the hiding, of having something they could not take away from him.

Mokuba didn't understand any of that, because he was 11 and 11 year olds don't understand why they do anything. He just knew he liked sweets and hated people telling him what to do and that having bags of chips and other people’s lost jewelry at the bottom of an old toybox made him feel better.

Can I come with you?

"No! You tried to take control of me!"

Yes, but you kicked me out, and you'd probably be able to do it again, so I would be stupid to try. I also like chocolate, you see, and it's very boring to be stuck here on your desk.

"Can you even eat? You're a necklace."

I can when I borrow a body.

"You tried to take over me so you could eat chocolate? I'm not stupid enough to believe that."

That and other things. I can't do very much at all, while stuck in the ring. No food, no sunshine, no running around. It's no fun to be without a body, which is why I am occasionally driven to steal one. Terribly sorry about that. he added, in his most pathetic-sounding tone, Please? I don't have anyone else to talk to.

Mokuba was hesitant, but clearly found the fact of his existence too interesting to ignore. "Fine." He picked up the ring and dropped it unceremoniously into his backpack, which had a dragon on it.

Not trust yet, but tolerance and curiosity. One step at a time.

You shouldn't go barefoot, you know. Socks will be quieter if you're trying not to get caught.

"I didn't ask you."

So Mokuba descended down the stairwell, in the dead quiet and dark of the Kaiba Mansion, with no flashlight because he knew it well enough to navigate blindfolded. The place was decadent in the ugly way rich people's houses were, luxury but without taste, soft carpets and gilded banisters.

Mokuba had not quite realized yet how to think at the ring, so he spoke in a low whisper. "What are you, anyway?"

A ghost. So much more complicated than that, but simple words were suitable for children.

"How'd you end up a ghost in a necklace?"

I died, and then someone put me in a necklace.

"That's not an answer." he followed up, "Do all dead people become ghosts?"

No. Just sometimes, maybe, if the way they died was especially violent or gruesome or terrible.

Mokuba frowned. He had caught on remarkably quickly to guarding his own head, but the spirit could tell he didn't like this answer.

This was delicate, but he risked a push. Was there someone you had in mind?

Mokuba said nothing. He reached the staff kitchen on the lowest floor, and opened the door, slow and careful. He was deciding whether to say anything, as he climbed up as quietly as he could and reached far into the back of the cupboard, scrabbling.

"Our dad killed himself last year. Jumped out a window." He finally said, hopping down with his spoils. He said this the same way one might dolefully report the milk had gone bad. Unfortunate but boring.

You don't sound very sad.

"Nah, he sucked. And he never liked me." he said, "Seto was really really upset though. He was pretending not to be, but I could tell." Now there were feelings there, big and weird and sad and clinging ones. For reasons the spirit could not discern, the simple phrase ‘Seto was upset’ carried with it more weight, a thousand million times more weight, than news of a father's tragic death by defenestration. "I hope he's not a ghost. I don't wanna see him again."

Probably not.

Mokuba sat down cross-legged on the kitchen floor, unwrapped candy in silver foil. "You really can't do anything from in the necklace? Like, ghost stuff? Make things float or anything?"

No. It is a bit like being trapped in a very small box.

Mokuba mulled this over for a little while. "If you wanted to borrow a body to do fun stuff, you could have just asked."

Really?

He nodded. "Not being able to eat chocolate sounds lame. It'd be mean to just leave you like that." He put one chocolate into his mouth and dumped the rest in the backpack, where they covered the ring unceremoniously. More indignities. "Not in front of my brother, though. And you have to give it back whenever I say so."

...I could agree to such a compromise. Your candy haul is impressive, by the way.

"Thanks!" He grinned, emanating genuine pride. No one had ever complimented him for stealing before.

Tragic, the work of great thieves. How the very best of it can never be bragged about, the most impressive of skills gone unnoticed by nature, how the very success of a perfect crime relies on keeping your mouth shut about it. An unappreciated art, where even mastery gains you no respect.

You don't care that this poor man has to go out and buy twice as much food to make up for what you steal?

"No, he's a jerk. One time when I was six they confiscated my gameboy, so I went to steal it back and he caught me and told my dad and I got in huge trouble. So every day for a week I snuck down here and moved his keys to a different place so he couldn't find them. They were all so mad at him for losing them all the time, and he thought he was crazy."

Why was your gameboy confiscated?

"Don't remember. I think I bit someone at school." he shrugged, "They probably deserved it, though."

Mokuba Kaiba. he said, I think you and I are going to be excellent friends.

"Okay. Do ghosts watch cartoons?"

[pennylogue]

Steven is a Diamond, and that’s okay.

So, Steven’s way too caught up in the fact that he’s a Diamond right now, and therefore a hideous and overpowered monster who can’t hope to be understood by normal humans or normal gems. Let’s talk about that.

For all Steven’s enthusiasm to be a Crystal Gem and to demonstrate his powers, he’s always been weirdly ashamed of how being half-Gem affects his ability to live alongside humans. I don’t think he’s ever really decided how to feel about it. It’s only after seeing Steven growing substantially and changing his hair and getting diamond eyes, now that it’s clear that his physical form is so malleable to how he thinks of himself and what he wants to be, that it really hits me how growing up with Greg and around so many humans has affected his identity. How sort of…quietly unhealthy it was, to go around with his gem covered up all of the time, and his appearance so determinedly human. I mean, think of how upset and ashamed he was when he decided his inhuman aging would screw up his friendship with Connie.

Right now, Steven is a whirlpool of self-loathing mixed into repressed issues and trauma with the Diamonds and hatred for his mother, and because he’s feeling so disconnected from and alienated and misunderstood by both other humans and other gems, because his gem powers are being triggered by his trauma, he’s connected some dots and blamed it all on being a Diamond. 

Looking back at that quiet “No,” at the end of “Fragments”, it’s easy to identify it as one of horrified realization. And you know, this is the logical conclusion of Steven’s feelings about his mother in “Mindful Education”, of “Storm in the Room”, of “Volleyball”—but it’s also the sum of a lot of other things:

Peridot: The Diamonds are the Gem matriarchs! …We live to serve them.

The culmination of Peridot flipping to the Crystal Gems is tied directly into her rejecting the Diamonds. Diamonds are introduced as the symbol of everything wrong with Homeworld.

Garnet: “How dare you fuse with a member of my court? You will be broken for this!”

…

Garnet: Pink Diamond thought for a moment, and then laughed; a wicked, empty sound. “You wish to save these life-forms at the expense of our own? Ha! Don’t be absurd. Return to your post, and I will forget your insolence.”

Diamonds are shatterers. They hate fusion. They hate Earth and organic life. They hate Garnet. They’re the evil queens in Garnet’s fairy tale. 

Garnet: The Earth belonged to Pink Diamond. Destroying her was the only way to save the planet. For Amethyst to be herself, for Pearl to be free, for me to be together. For you to exist.

Free will and the Diamonds are utterly opposed. It might be a tragedy that Pink Diamond was killed, but she was a monster, like the other Diamonds. The  ultimate enemies of the Crystal Gems.

We got almost five seasons of the Diamonds being spoken of this way. You see how terrified every Gem is of the Diamonds, whether they worship them or despise them. 

And then we found out a) Rose Quartz was one of them. And b) that Steven is one of them. 

Hey, quick question–anyone remember what Sapphire said, right in front of Steven, after the reveal?

Sapphire: Of course she was a Diamond. What a long road she took, to torture us all like this...

…Yeah, we never really got his feelings on b, did we?

I think Steven was so overwhelmed by everything else that was going on and everyone’s reactions, and later so eager to jump on the chance that being seen as one of the Diamonds gave him to fix the corrupted gems and help everyone, that we’ve never really seen him process this realization. Steven drew a very clear line in the sand. The Diamonds are the Diamonds, and Steven is Steven. The Diamonds are wrong about everything, so they’re also wrong about him being Pink, the same way everyone else in the series who’s called him another name has been wrong. He’s not Rose Quartz. He’s not Pink Diamond. 

Except…that second part isn’t true. Sure, Steven has a human body. Sure, Steven’s not the original Pink Diamond. That doesn’t mean he’s not a Pink Diamond. 

But it was easy back then, right? Because Steven was so, so different from them. A Crystal Gem. A defender of fusion. Weak. Small. Human-colored. Harmless. And as Steven says in the finale promo:

I don’t hurt people. I help people.

Yeah, there’s no way that building an incredibly black-and-white mindset with impossibly high standards for himself to create and hold on to a sense of identity was going to backfire.

So yeah, we never really saw Steven process that he was supposed to be one of these terrifying rulers. Except now he’s hurting people. In fact, it seems that all he can do is hurt people. And since he’s only able to see the bad things he can do, the amount of horrible power he has and how isolating it is and how terrifying it is–of course he blames it on what’s always seen as the source of so many horrible things. 

No wonder he’s having an identity crisis! He’s always told himself that he’s different than the Diamonds. He’s better than them. He has to be. So if he’s doing everything wrong, if he’s a freak, if he’s a shatterer, than it’s because he’s a Diamond. He’s just like them. He’s just as bad as them. He’s just as much a monster as the Diamonds are.

It’s complicated, what’s going on. Steven’s very, very wrong. But he’s also, strangely, right on target.

The thing is, this isn’t happening because he’s a Diamond, it’s because he’s human. He’s experienced trauma while growing up and is trying to react to it in a very human way. He literally has PTSD and CPTSD, and if you’ll look up the symptoms you’ll see he’s showing all of them. He’s not a monster. He’s part-human, so his symptoms are manifesting in partially inhuman ways. And that means he just happens to have the power to do a lot more damage than other humans when he lashes out in a way that is, once more, very characteristic for humans. But you know, even the best of humans can do a lot of damage, too, especially when they never really get over trauma. After all, Greg sure did a number on Steven. 

The flip-side of this is that the hilarious irony of ancient magical rocks trying to treat themselves as perfect and inhuman alien beings has always been that, that in reality, they’re every bit as fucked up and human as humans are. That’s the whole point of the Crystal Gems and the Homeworld Gems. Remember back when Garnet seemed so perfect? Peridot seemed pretty alien and unfeeling at the beginning, right? Jasper, Topaz, Aquamarine, it goes all the way up to the Diamonds. 

The whole point of the Diamonds and why the old system was broken was that the Diamonds tried to present themselves as perfect beings without flaw, when in fact they were all just as much a disaster as every other Gem. Remember back when Rose Quartz was a flawless goddess? Yellow and Blue were terrifying when we first saw them, but then we saw them comforting each other at the Zoo. They’re literally just a screwed-up family grieving and dealing with the death of one of their own–White’s first appearance painted her as this terrifying and totally inhuman being above even Yellow and Blue, but in the end, every one of the Diamonds is a normal, flawed person…just vested with the power to do a lot more damage than most.

The thing about White, was that she was so sure she had to be perfect, that she had to make everything better, but in the end, the solution was just to…let go. Accept that she was imperfect, and live with the consequences of it. Let other people help her. Stop trying to fit into being something she’s not, and just let herself be who she is. 

Does any of this sound familiar?

All four of the original Diamonds had destructive powers. All four of the original Diamonds experienced a change and made a conscious choice to control themselves and try to stop using their powers to negatively affect others. White Diamond might be stuck being White Diamond, but as “Homeworld Bound” made clear, she’s also the only one who gets to decide what that means.

So you know what?

You can call Steven half-Gem and half-human, but that doesn’t really describe what he is. He’s a human with a Gem. A Gem with a human form. None of that’s good or bad. It is what it is. And as much as it sucks to be different from everyone else, he’s also the only one who gets to decide what being different means to him. Steven Universe isn’t Rose Quartz and he’s not his mom, but just like he’s a human, he’s also Pink Diamond, and that isn’t bad. 

And I think that’s what he needs to hear from everyone. The solution at Steven’s birthday party wasn’t to react to the situation they were in and cheer him up the same way you’d cheer up a baby. He wasn’t just a baby, he was Steven stuck in a body that he didn’t know how to control. What he actually needed was to hear from Connie that she wanted to be there for him, no matter how strange he was. 

He needs the people he loves to stop telling him he’s “better than” his trauma and his diamond powers, to stop freaking out at how much damage he can do or treat it like a problem to be fixed. To not tell him that they know he’s going through, they’ve been there, too. They haven’t, and that’s not what he needs to hear. He needs to hear that none of what he is is bad. That his loved ones will be there for him and will love him unconditionally. 

And I think that’s what will allow him to accept himself; accept that if he’s a Diamond then he’s also a human, if he’s human then he’s also Pink Diamond–and, just like the previous Pink Diamond, he’s the one who gets to decide what that means.

TL; DR I actually really hope diamond eye Steven is permanent for non angsty reasons. This kid needs to stop being ashamed of his identity.

[worldviewcast]

The Nature Of Soul’s Lore

In Worldview, souls are a gift of sentience, not life itself. It is the defining trait of humanity as a whole, thus everything that has a soul, no matter their shape or form, has been considered human since the dawn of time.

IT’S COLOR

A soul can come in any color, usually close to the ones of their parents. A soul color’s may influence the eye color and one’s magic, especially with skeleton and mechanoids who’s body heavily rely on their magic.

MAGIC AND ABILITIES

Upon birth, a human soul has been gifted with one ability unique to it’s individual which slowly manifests during childhood as the soul slowly mature, a soul is the source of magic, like any muscle it needs to be trained to gain strength and experience. One’s magic may be limited depending of their respective race:

Metazoan’s who’s body adapted to support their animalistic physiology, makes them inherently weaker compared to the other race as this their ability simply enhance their physical predisposition.

Skeleton souls are naturally powerful but their body require higher magic levels to function properly which makes any soul issues particularly dangerous for them.

Mechanoid have a similar problems as their bodies can only do so much without breaking down, thankfully they are easy to fix.

Masic is the race with the best magical aptitude, not only do they have an enormous potential, they are the most flexible, making them exceptionally talented with their gifts.

SOUL CONDITION AND ISSUES

Dual-traital soul (rare, 1/40,000 case) - Souls are normally dual-colored  - Two abilties are present - Sometimes one ability can be ‘dominant’ - In cases of in utero twins, and one twin dies before the sixth month, the surviving twin is almost guaranteed to have a dual traital soul.

Overload (excess magic) - Physical pain - Headache - Fever - Magical side effect (Mechanoid who suffer from it are at risk of damaging themselves from short circuit while Metazoan with fevers can risk hospitalization.)

Deficiency (Not enough magic) - Limited use or unable to use magical Ability - In Skeletons and Mechs, the first sign of instability is weakened eyesight - Loss of function in areas that receive less magic - General tiredness - Weak magic can almost cripple Mechs and Skeletons - Metazoans with weak magic may never be able to use their ability - Masics are least affected by this condition

Pixelation syndrome TYPE A - General infection - Cause of discoloration - Glitching - Crashing - Memory problems and other misc. complications TYPE B - Local infection - Rarely spreads - Benign tumor-like growths are common (glitchy ‘mass’) - Does not induce crashing, glitching, or other complications

EMPLOYMENT RELATED

Soul Specialist Known in the medical field for their study on souls, soul specialist learn everything they can about the nature of souls and what might cause certain illness to occurs. Some work on medication while other (with specific abilities) are able to work on the soul itself to repair damages.

Necromancer The people were born with the exceptional ability to manipulate souls. Necromancy is considered a civil service, and they can fix any mishandlings or illegal activities regarding souls. 

[wordsnstuff]

Guide to Writing Fantasy

PLEASE REBLOG | Tumblr suppresses posts with links :/

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How Much World Building?

World building is highly subjective, and at the end of the day, to each is his/her own. However, as with anything, there should be balance. Even the most dense, infamously complicated fantasy worlds are accompanied with characters and conflicts that are just as rich and thoughtful. The amount of world building should be proportional to the amount of development you provide to your characters and plot. Otherwise, you’ve just made up an imaginary kingdom and inserted some of your friends with misspelled names riding horses. 

Basing In Reality/History

Almost all fantasy has some basis or inspiration drawn from real historical periods or culture. It’s a good jumping off point, and there’s a lot of room to work with historical periods that we have few or no firsthand record of. If you’re going to take this route, it’s important that you distinguish between taking creative liberties and giving history the middle finger. If you’re basing your fantasy novel in 1300′s Scotland, there’s something to be said for taking the culture, politics, and technological advancements of that time into account. If you’re going to turn around and decide that’s not the era for your story, just base it in Scotland. Basically, the limitations on the elements of your story that is “based in” historical periods lay in your hands. However, if you market your story as “set in 12th century Scotland”, you’d better be writing 12th century Scotland. 

Approaching Constructed Language

Conlangs are a popular facet to a lot of popular Fantasy/Science Fiction media, specifically those that are adapted to film and television. Although Science Fiction work is typically more invested in constructed languages, Fantasy has a lot of conlangs in the fashion of semi-developed conlangs that are created solely for the purpose of creating diversity within worlds. Game of Thrones and Lord of The Rings are both prime examples of this, although they have, over time, developed their constructed languages into fully learnable/functional dialects in fan service. If you wish to approach this topic, it’s easy to begin by researching basic linguistics, the anatomy of a language, and drawing inspiration from the commonalities between languages of the cultures that inspire your fictional groups.  

Basic World Building Must-Haves

It’s important that when you’re building a world, either from scratch or on the foundation of an existent inspiration, you consider the following elements that make your world three-dimensional and rich:

Politics

Geography

Language

Culture

Expression

Belief Systems

Class

Resources

Values

Power

Creating Magic Systems

This is complicated and nuanced as it gets. When inserting magic into any world, it’s worthy to note how it affects individuals, groups, and large-scale structure. I’ve got more on this in several other posts, so I’ve put my more comprehensive resources here:

Tips on Creating Magic Systems

Putting Limitations On Your Fictional World

Common Struggles

~ Where do I start researching for a story inspired by another culture?... Learn about the culture in depth before taking inspiration. Unfortunately, when most artists “take inspiration” from other cultures, it results in the lazy regurgitation of stereotypes. If you’re going to take inspiration from a culture, especially one that is heavily marginalized by the culture you identify with, come at it from an educated standpoint and work from there. Do not start with a stereotypical version of that culture and then find facts to back up whatever you’ve imagined as you go. Approach it as you would any other topic, with respect and a genuine desire to provide an accurate portrayal in your story. 

~ How do I outline a story that spans multiple books?... Simple. Make the conflict more nuanced and difficult to resolve. Game of Thrones, for example, is a relatively simple concept (several families and powerful figures fighting to rule over the seven kingdoms) made complicated and high-stakes by the addition of several critical aspects, such as the relationships between said families/figures, the commentary on several societal issues such as class, the nature of power, and the human cost of the battle for power, and finally, complicating the politics and geography of the world to foster more obstacles for the key players. 

~ How do I use world building to develop characters?... All characters are a product of their environment, which includes the geographical consequences, the political climate, and the human trends that result from cultural developments over time. All of these aspects come together to form a vibrant, three-dimensional world in which they explore their conflict. Establishing these factors through revealing the consequences they’ve had for the characters is effective (i.e. Game of Thrones), as is developing the characters through exposing them to the specific experience of living in the world you’ve created (i.e. Harry Potter). 

~ How can I avoid harmful cultural appropriation?... Research thoroughly and seek the help of sensitivity readers. People who are specifically qualified to read your work in the search of harmful aspects you may miss are crucial in writing fiction and non-fiction works alike. Start with a good basis of knowledge and background on the subject(s) addressed in your writing, and then get a few outside opinions from people who well and truly know what they’re talking about. 

~ How to make fight scenes between magic users exciting and dynamic... Choreograph stage business effectively and make sure that the flashiness of your description has a purpose. People’s movements in fast-paced, high-stakes action are very telling of their personalities, motivations, and a culmination of their idiosyncrasies. Learn this language of non-verbal communication, the language of the body, and use that to send a subtextual message to your readers. These scenes should be character driven, or they’re just filler for the sake of calling your fantasy novel an action/adventure. 

Other Resources

Guide To Writing Historical Fiction | Part II

Guide To Political World Building

Resources For Worldbuilding

Where To Start With World Building

Tackling Subplots

Tips on Planning A Series

Creating Diverse Otherworld Characters

Tips on Introducing Political Backstory

World Building In Historical Fiction

Resources For Writing (Global) Period Pieces : High Middle Ages & Renaissance

Resources For Writing (Global) Period Pieces : 1600s

Resources For Writing (Global) Period Pieces : 1700s

Resources For Writing (Global) Period Pieces : 1800s

Resources For Fantasy/Mythology Writers

20 Mistakes To Avoid in Fantasy

How To Make The Journey Interesting

General Tips on Chase Scenes

Tips on Writing Fight Scenes

Tips on Writing Chase Scenes

Guide To Writing Forbidden Love

Finding And Fixing Plot Holes

Ultimate Guide To Symbolism

Tips on Balancing Development

Writing Intense Scenes

–

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[nesta-stan]

Acosf Theory: Nesta being kidnapped by the Mortal Queens will be a major plot point.

We all already know that the queens are going to play a major role from the synopsis. I think that specifically it will be the youngest Queen who will act as Nesta's main antagonist. She is the perfect character to act as a foil for Nesta.

Lets start with the younger queen herself.

"And the youngest two queens … One was perhaps a few years older than me, black-haired and black-eyed, careful cunning oozing from every pore as she surveyed us.

"The youngest queen, the dark-haired one, smiled slightly. Arrogant youth"

Here we see a few similarities between Nesta and that Queen. She is arrogant, "Cunning", proud, and about the same age as Nesta. They were both made into things they didn't want to be. To the Queen, Nesta has everything she wanted; she got the youth the power, and the money.

“The youngest one—that pinched-faced bitch—went into the Cauldron first. Practically trampled the others to get in after it saw what it did to you and your sister.”

Stone screamed beneath twin sets of talons. “But the Cauldron … Oh, it knew that something had been taken from it. Not sentient, but … it knew. It was furious. And when that young queen went in …”

The Ravens laughed. Laughed as the slope leveled out and we found ourselves at the bottom of the library.

“Oh, it gave her immortality. It made her Fae. But since something had been taken from it … the Cauldron took what she valued most. Her youth.” They sniggered again. “A young woman went in … but a withered crone came out.”

And from the catacombs of my memory, Elain’s voice sounded: I saw young hands

wither with age.

“The other queens won’t go into the Cauldron for terror of the same happening now. And the youngest one … Oh, you should hear how she talks, Nesta Archeron. The things she wants to do to you when Hybern is done …”

The Queen is angry at Nesta and Nesta is angry at the Queens. I'm going to be honest, when it comes to SJM's main villains like the king of hybern they seem to be one dimensional but this Queen's circumstances can be what forces Nesta to look further at her own. This Queen is what Nesta might have been. She might even be a deciding factor on who Nesta chooses to become.

Why this would make Nesta going to the Illyrian mountains make more sense

"She wasn’t stupid—she knew there had been unrest, both in Prythian and on the continent, since the war had ended. Knew some Fae territories were pushing their new limits on what they could get away with in terms of territory claims and how they treated humans."

These are Nesta's thoughts before going to see her sister in the sneak peak. I, and a lot of others, have never been able to wrap our heads around how the Illyrian mountains could ever be a good place for Nesta. Yes, a lot of people use the excuse "it's for her healing" but there is never any reasoning behind why illyria?

The mortal Queens know about Velaris. If Feyre and the inner circle have caught on to a plan to kidnap Nesta, than it makes sense that they would try to hide her away somewhere safe. Especially since she is basically helpless on her own. Cassian is the only character, besides Feyre, that cares about Nesta's well being and Illyria is filled with soldiers ready to fight at a moment's notice, while Velaris isn't. It is also where she can train. This threat has probably made Feyre realize how defenseless her sister is and to give her a fighting chance, she forces Nesta to train.

Now, let's talk about the "Ally" the synopsis mentioned. I think it's the Illyrians. That's how she still ends up captured. They betray Cassian and offer his mate to the mortal Queens. Though we all refer to this as Nesta's book, it's Cassian’s too. The Illyrians are closest to his heart. So it makes sense that they are included in his Arc. He has long been bad mouthed and treated as lowly for his status but he never stopped loving his people. Instead he internalized it, but what happens when the woman of his affections suffers because of that hatred? It would be the perfect tool to force Cassian to self-reflect on who he is and what he stands for. Can he choose between his people and his love?

This ties in with the snow queen theory

I actually first thought of this when reevaluating the theory that the story that will work as an inspiration for this book is the Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson. There are three versions of that story that all could potentially tie into to Acofas. The original, Frozen, and the 2002 movie remake.

Frozen because it is the tale of two sisters coming together after years of estrangement. (Feyre and Nesta obviously). 

I put the 2002 version in their because in that version of the story has "Lady's" portraying and ruling over each season. Their is a spring witch, summer princess (cresseida) , Autumn thief, and then the snow queen(Vivian?). Meaning more characters might play more roles in this story. I did see alot of wanting Nesta to travel to the other courts.

Now for the original, which probably looks like it has the most connection to Acosf. The story is short and easy to find online. In short, it's about a girl Named Gerda who goes on a quest to find Kay, her childhood friend. A magic mirror created by the devil , that I'm not going into detail much but it's basically the Ouroboros, is shattered and falls into the eyes and heart of young Kay. (Snow Queen also speculated to have a shard in her heart) This makes him cruel to his sister like friend over the next year till he is kidnapped by the snow queen.

This story ties in for multiple reasons. I think hear the mirror is replaced by the Cauldron. Both the Mortal Queen and Nesta were made and neither or happy about it. This being the "glass shard that froze their hearts." And the Mortal Queen being the Snow Queen who kidnapped Kay, or Nesta. Also, Kay is cruel to Gerda for a year before he is taken and it's been a year since the war.

Now let's look at this Quote.

“Little Kay was quite blue, yes nearly black with cold; but he did not observe it, for she had kissed away all feeling of cold from his body, and his heart was a lump of ice. He was dragging along some pointed flat pieces of ice, which he laid together in all possible ways, for he wanted to make something with them; just as we have little flat pieces of wood to make geometrical figures with, called the Chinese Puzzle. Kay made all sorts of figures, the most complicated, for it was an ice-puzzle for the understanding. In his eyes the figures were extraordinarily beautiful, and of the utmost importance; for the bit of glass which was in his eye caused this. He found whole figures which represented a written word; but he never could manage to represent just the word he wanted—that word was “eternity”; and the Snow Queen had said, “If you can discover that figure, you shall be your own master, and I will make you a present of the whole world and a pair of new skates.” But he could not find it out.”

I always interpreted that if this was going to inspire something in Acotar it would be Metaphorical. That the injuries Kay suffers would be how Nesta let herself fall apart and the puzzle that he needed to spell eternity for could be how Nesta still doesn't know what to do with her immortal life.

But what if it's literally? What if the Queen captures Nesta and tries to use her powers to fix her. The Queen was also granted immortality. What if Kay figuring out how to spell eternity is Nesta figuring out how to fix the young Queen. And the injuries are of being black and blue are from the queens torchering her?

Sjm's habits.

Sjm always has a habit of making her characters go through even deeper shit, once they finally healed. It would make sense that she would throw us another curve ball like this. She did something similar with Aelin in Koa, and she has reused some points before. Like Aedion and Lysandra taking Nessian's "till the next life".

Also, alot of people don't like Nesta and having even worse charecters be introduced to make the others look better is so in Sjm style. Just in the way that Tamlin and Eris make Rhysand look like a Saint, having the mortal Queen be the "bad" version of Nesta would help people see her in a better light.

I tried to look at this in the way of, What will make these Charecters question themselves and their motives the most. This was my conclusion.

This is just what I came up with, if you have any differing thoughts or ideas I would love to hear them. 

@heylittlemissy @sjm-things 

[malucy31]

Time is On Our Side

Pairing - Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood

Raiting - Teen and Up

Tags - Time Travel AU, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Reunion, Married Malec, Alec Misses Magnus, Happy Ending, Malec Love Each Other A Lot

6599 words - COMPLETED

Summary - Alec is stuck on a mission in India in the 18th century and he misses Magnus. One day, he wakes up somewhere that feels and smells like home.

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3 - Home, at last

There is a whole ritual every time Alec comes back from time traveling. Magnus is always there at the Institute, wearing a mix of worry and eagerness on his features.

The anchoring spell is performed quickly, just a way to make sure that no traveler’s history gets lost when the timelines merge a couple of hours from now. But Alec stays out, always. He refuses to be anchored to anyone but Magnus. They do it in the quiet and intimacy of their loft.

They don’t talk much. Even when they are in their kitchen, Magnus watches in silence as Alec eats like he hasn’t in days, which in this case is accurate. In the two days between meeting Magnus and the new moon, Alec has been so scared of having divulged too much that he hasn’t come out of his room, using nourishment runes, one after the other.

As usual, Magnus doesn’t eat a thing. It has only been a few minutes for him anyway; they had dinner before Alec left. The dinner before a time travel is always a heavy moment. It’s weird for them both. Not sharing time, knowing the next minutes of Magnus’s life could feel like weeks, a month…a decade to Alec.

A decade never happened, but the fear is always there. So, to remind each other that no matter what, Alec will always come back, they keep a third plate for Alec’s return, leaving everything on the table as it was. Alec will always come home, and their home will always be ready to welcome him back.

They don’t really have a lot of time after that. They need to prepare the protecting circle for the anchoring spell, but Alec can see that worry hasn’t left Magnus’s face. As Magnus is tracing the circle on the ground, Alec puts a reassuring hand on his shoulder, calling his name as softly as he can.

They still don’t exchange a word. Alec can’t, knowing that if he starts, he could talk for days, shower Magnus with every promise of eternal love flaring up in his lungs with each intake of breath, with every moment of longing that peppered his last month and a half.

But it will have to wait. In the meantime, fear and worry start evaporating with a soft kiss, then a second one which turns into a hungrier one. That’s all it takes. The reminder that they share time again, they never stopped sharing it in some way.

Clothes are being discarded. They don’t have to feel each other’s skin for the spell, but their hearts do.

Alec finds the ingredients Magnus needs without having to ask. His hands are full of jars, and there is an apple tree twig between his teeth. He feels Magnus’s stare on him when he re-enters the living room where a circle of candles has been set up around a mattress.

What? he asks wordlessly with raised eyebrows.

Magnus sniggers, his voice finally filling the silence. “This never gets old.” He unburdens Alec’s arms by taking the jars one by one and setting them on the nearest table. “You, finding your way through my apothecary…” Alec doesn’t move, chuckling when Magnus finally takes the twig from his mouth and kisses his lips. “On your own…” Fingers trail up along his sides, and he can’t hold back a giggle, “in your underwear.”

“Feels good to be home,” Alec whispers into their kiss.

“It does.”

*

Once the spell starts, everything goes quickly. Time adjusting itself around them is intoxicating. It feels like those life showers Magnus likes to take with him sometimes. Running from portal to portal, hand in hand, hopping from a green and sunny hill to a rainy seashore, from hard concrete ground to silky sheets. Remaining there for a few breathless kisses before disappearing into the mattress with laughter when they hear a door opening. Landing on a trampoline, then more streets, more mountains, more kisses and the sweetest of all exhaustions. Watching the first minutes of a play before falling back, trapped between something fluffy and the comforting weight of Magnus. More laughter, always more laughter…then running again. Running around the world and taking everything in as the Earth keeps on spinning.

*

A draft wakes them at the same time. Alec feels Magnus stir, his arm and head leaving his chest before returning there with a sigh.

Around the mattress and the protecting circle, it’s havoc. The windows to the balcony are wide open, curtains billowing out in the breeze, birds exploring the living room and eating crumbs the wind scattered from their forgotten dinner.

There are even a few plants here and there, growing from the ground. It happens sometimes. It’s Magnus’s magic going a little crazy when it comes to protecting what they have. They are used to it. The flowers that grow don’t even always exist outside their own little world.

Alec plants a kiss in Magnus’s hair, inhaling a scent he has been missing for the last month and a half. Already grinning with delight about what’s to come, Alec eventually speaks. “Go ahead, ask…”

It doesn’t take long for Magnus to react. It’s endearing. Magnus always waits for Alec to start this conversation, making it another ritual with its codes and rules.

“Which stranger were you this time?”

There’s joy in his voice, one that Alec usually doesn’t link with Magnus thinking about his past.

Alec doesn’t answer, already shifting to retrieve the small pouch of sandalwood blend, eager to see his husband’s face light up when he figures it out on his own. But he should know better.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Magnus asks, his body suddenly weighing more heavily above his to make his point clearer. Alec isn’t going anywhere. It makes him laugh softly.

“I have a clue, but it’s in my jacket.”

“Which one?”

“The one I had yesterday? The one you took off with so little regard…”

“Well, there were other important things that demanded my attention,” he punctuates with a kiss, not letting his lips leave Alec’s, “and it’s a black leather jacket. You have thousands of them.”

He could tease him back, maybe tickle him, hear him giggle, feel the laughter and joy spread through his body. With Magnus so close, he would feel everything. But he is overwhelmed.

“I missed you so much, Magnus.”

“I know, darling. But I’m here now, we both are…and I’ve missed you just as much. Whoever you were this time, you can be sure that even though I barely knew you, I missed you the second you were gone. That I missed us without really knowing what us meant.”

Neither of them moves, not even for a kiss. Magnus swallows thicky, and Alec is struck by the emotions on his face. Years of being together and Magnus still feels self-conscious when he confesses things like that. But it never stops him, and even after all these years, Alec still feels like the luckiest man alive.

Magnus continues, his collected tone and loving smile trying to bring Alec back to him. “Do you see it?”

“Huh?”

“Your jacket, Alexander, can you tell me where it is so I can summon it?”

“Sure, it’s…” Alec cranes his neck. Their place is a mess, but he spots his jacket on the floor, somewhere between what seems to be an orchid and a cat napping in a morning sunbeam. “There.”

They laugh as Magnus follows Alec’s pointed finger, apparently realizing for the first time the state of their living room.

He snaps his fingers, and the jacket is there. In one of its pockets, Alec finds the small pouch. It doesn’t take more than a few seconds for Magnus to recognize it.

“It’s one of mine! Where did you get this?”

“You gave it to me.”

“I gave it to you? You must have made a big impression on me.”

“I think I did,” Alec smirks, still a little worried that he told too much to that past version of Magnus. “Especially when I told you about my husband.”

He sees Magnus’s eyes widen, just like they did all those centuries ago.

“The married traveler, of course… Do you know how long I’ve been looking for you? For a long time, I was obsessed with that place in the world where it seemed possible for people like us to exist.” His voice breaks a little on those words.

Alec can’t resist the urge to hug him, take him in his arms and secure his head in the crook of his neck. “I’m sorry. It broke my heart to leave you this way.”

“Don’t. Don’t be sorry. I kept a very fond memory of that encounter. And who knows, maybe you’ll have to go back, and we’ll realize we met again in the morning.”

“Maybe we never really stopped meeting.”

“What a lovely thought…”

They bask in the silence for a little while, Magnus’s body relaxing against Alec’s.

“Can you remind me what happened? What we said?”

It’s still so fresh in Alec’s mind that he tells him every detail.

The anchoring spell protects those moments, frozen in time. They have so many memories like this one now, not really knowing if it really happened, if this is part of their story or some sort of alternate reality. It doesn’t matter. They are still here, together in the end, with dozens of memories of a life that maybe was. None of them affecting their life, only adding to it.

Somewhere during the story, Magnus rolled on his side to face Alec.

“When did we see each other after that?” Magnus asks.

It gets complicated to answer that question, Alec doesn’t time travel every day, but he has done it a few times already. It’s not always easy to keep track.

“The pirate ship!” They exclaim at the same time, laughing at the memory.

Alec reaches out, grazing Magnus’s cheekbone, outlining his jaw and diving into his eyes. They sparkle with joy, gold shining proudly in the morning light.

“It feels good,” Alec eventually utters. “Seeing you talking about your past with such lightness, laughing.”

Magnus whispers his answer into the crook of Alec’s neck. “It’s easier now that I know you could be anywhere in it.”

The words turn into soft kisses, each of them reminding Alec why those time travels are always worth it, no matter how long they can feel. Each of them is a chance to give Magnus back what life took from him. Hope, happiness, laughter, cheerfulness…

“You really are a man of your word, aren’t you?” Magnus continues.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re taking our wedding vows further than I would ever dare ask you to, Alexander… As if your love in our present wasn’t enough, you give it to past versions of myself too, do you realize how extraordinary this is? How extraordinary you are?”

“‘m not. Loving you is easy.”

“Stop selling yourself short, my heart, and accept to be worshipped like you deserve to be.”

“Only if you accept it too.” Alec tastes the giggle on Magnus’s lips, letting it infuse in him. He doesn’t need to see him to notice the sudden stiffness in Magnus. “What is it?” he asks, his fingers rubbing soothing circles at the back of Magnus’s hair.

His answer comes in a murmur. “I know it’s selfish, but I’ll never have enough of your lifetime. Whether it’s to repay you or to love you. It will never be enough.” He sighs, his next words barely audible. But it doesn’t matter. Alec would hear those words even in a storm. “I need you for more than your lifetime.”

Magnus has never said it like this, never so directly. It makes Alec’s reply so much easier. “Then, maybe we should find a way to extend it?” Any tentativeness dies when Alec is met by two golden irises and a smile that has rarely been so big. “I never want to leave you alone. I mean, if you’re being selfish, I may just as well be too, right?”

“Yes, yes you may be, darling… You can be whatever you want.”

“I love you.” It’s impossible to stop beaming at Magnus in this moment, so he doesn’t. They will have forever, no matter how long it takes to find it. “Who you are, who you were, and who you will be. I’ll love every version of you as long as you’ll have me.”

“Oh Alexander… An eternity or two is a bare minimum.”

[queercapwriting]

Hi Cap! I've really missed your weekly Sanvers drabbles. How about something cute with them doing a secret santa and they draw each other's name? Maybe they aren't even together yet but by the end of the gift exchange, they get a great/perfect gift plus a girfriend! :D

Maggie had no idea how her name even got added to this God-forsaken drawing, but she strongly suspected M’gann.

“Was this you?” she asked, halfway through her third round of beer. M’gann paused in wiping down the camera, face the picture of mild curiosity and innocence.

Maggie was pretty sure she knew better.

She flashed her phone toward the bartender, details of the DEO’s Secret Santa exchange on it. M’gann heaved the most affected shrug Maggie had ever seen.

“Was what me?”

“Oh my God.”

“What?”

“It paired me with Danvers, M’gann. I suppose that was you, too?”

“I really have no idea what you’re talking about.” M’gann nodded at someone down on the other side of the bar. “But I did hear her sister talking about how much Danvers used to like surfing.”

Maggie most certainly did not picture Alex Danvers soaking wet in the ocean.

No, she most certainly did not.

+++

“Kara.” Alex was lying on her back in her little sister’s living room, with her feet up on the couch. An open box of pizza was sitting on her stomach. “What am I supposed to do?” 

“Maybe start with sitting up while you eat, Alex, you know what happened with that pop tart when you were a senior in high school.”

Alex scowled. “It was a defective pop tart.”

“Alex.”

“I don’t even know what kinds of things she likes.”

Kara plopped onto the couch and swiped the box of pizza off Alex’s stomach. Alex glared, but worked her way up onto the couch. She took the pizza box back.

“Sure you do, you’ve been spending all that time playing pool together at the bar. And working all those cases. You can’t possibly only talk about work, Alex.”

Alex squinted. “I mean, we pretty much can. And do. She... she’s from Nebraska. And she... likes aliens? Not like in a fetishizing way, I mean, just - it - and guns. She likes guns? Sort of? It’s complicated. But she does like scotch. And beer. And -”

“And you are not getting her an alien or a gun for Christmas, so maybe we can do more brainstorming.”

+++

“Danvers.” Maggie tried to keep her tone even the next day, working some scene or another with Alex. Normally, she’d know everything about everything about where she was and what she was doing. Today, she was coasting on prior knowledge and the ability to... well, to detect. 

Because if Alex Danvers was distracting under normal circumstances, well, knowing she’d have to give her a damn present at the end of the week was a whole new layer of brain scatteredness.

“Sawyer.” She thought maybe there was a smile in Alex’s voice - who did she get for Secret Santa? - but no, she was definitely projecting. Wishful thinking. Alex wasn’t even into girls. M’gann was being ridiculous. Sweet, but ridiculous. Because even if Alex was into girls, this was Alex damn Danvers. So far out of Maggie’s league.

“What’ve we got?”

She tried to follow Alex’s words rather than just the pitch of her voice and the way her body moved. The way she squinted her eyes almost like a glare when she was concentrating, or pushed her hair out of her face almost like she was annoyed by it when she was trying to see something closer. Or the way she licked her lips sometimes, and she’d probably taste like -

No, no, nope, absolutely not.

“So Danvers, um. Doing anything special for the holidays? You going home for Chanukah, or?”

“Pfft, no.”

Maggie tilted her head, but said nothing. She just passed Alex the dusting powder she’d been looking for, wordless, because more and more these days, they weren’t needing words.

Alex sighed. “My mom and I aren’t a great combination around the holidays. Especially since my dad’s been. Um, gone.”

“I’m sorry, Danvers.”

Alex smiled, more with her eyes than with her mouth. It made Maggie’s heart break and heal at the same time.

“We’ll get together when it’s not the holidays - less intense, less expectations. But I will miss the ocean. It’s always nice, going home to the ocean.”

Maggie watched something like regret flicker across her face. But only for a moment.

“What about you, Maggie? Going home?”

She ignored the way her stomach always flipped when Alex used her first name. When Alex just existed at all.

She made herself chuckle. “No, definitely not. Wouldn’t be welcome even if I wanted to. Home... home is wherever I happen to be at any given time, which is pretty much everywhere and nowhere all at once.”

“Sounds lonely.” Alex paused her analysis of whatever it was she was examining - Maggie had long since lost track of their scene - and met her eyes.

“Not all the time.” She said it while she held Alex’s gaze. She said it before she could think. Dammit. Now Alex was going to -

“Good. You don’t deserve to be lonely.”

Maggie wasn’t sure if she was grateful or enraged when the rookie she was training ambled up to them, asking for guidance on how to file one piece of evidence or another.

She thought Alex looked disappointed, but she was almost definitely projecting.

+++

“Merry holidays, Danvers.”

The sound of Maggie’s voice made her jump way too high to just be startled. She wished, not for the first time, that she had a much higher degree of chill around this woman.

“Sawyer.” Oh crap, did her voice squeak? Who was she, Winn? “What uh, what are you doing here?”

She glanced around the DEO like Maggie was about to be tackled by -

“Vasquez let me in.”

Ah. No tackling, then.

“Is everything okay, what -”

“Yeah, no, I just um. You’ve all got that holiday party thing tonight, and parties really aren’t my thing, so honestly, I’m gonna skip it, but I - I got put into that Secret Santa thing, and I got your name, so I just wanted to um -”

How Alex hadn’t noticed that Maggie had been holding something behind her back the whole time, she had no clue. Maybe because her hair was down, and she was fidgeting a little and it was more than a little bit cute, and -

“Happy Chanukah, Danvers. Or, Christmakuah, or whatever.”

She was pressing something into Alex’s hands, and she was smiling that little titled smile, and she was walking away, and -

“Wait, you’re not coming tonight?”

Maggie stopped but didn’t turn around, not all the way.

“They’re not really my thing, Danvers.”

“But how will you get the gift from whoever drew your name?”

“M’gann’s going. I asked her if she would -”

“I don’t want to give your present to M’gann.”

Dammit. Had she sounded desperate, or ridiculous, or -

Maggie turned fully around, now. “You drew my name, too?”

“Um. Yes. Merry Christmas?”

Maggie laughed. Alex tried not to hate how much she loved that sound.

“You’re not a party person? Fine. Take this -” Alex held out the package Maggie had pressed into her hands without looking at it. “And bring it to the bar tonight, before the party. We’ll exchange our gifts then. Okay?”

“Okay.”

+++

“You didn’t only enter my name in the damn pool, you arranged it so Alex and I would pull each other’s names?”

“Maggie, I really have no idea what you’re going on about, but I’d love it if you put some of those motorcycle mechanic skills to use on the ice machine right now,” M’gann said without looking at her, keeping her eyes on the garland she was stringing along the tops of the bar.

She thought about arguing with her only friend - well, maybe except Alex Danvers - in National City. She thought better of it, and contented herself to muttering under her breath while she fixed the ice machine and waited for Alex.

At least it gave her something to do.

“So you’re the person we all have to thank when M’gann can put ice in our drinks?”

Alex’s voice made her jump so hard she hit her head on the damn machine.

“Oh, Maggie, no, I’m sorry, come here.”

Before she could so much as say “ow,” Alex’s hands were on her, tracing the spot where Maggie had banged her forehead, so gently it was easy to forget how easily - and happily - this woman carried a gun.

Because of course - she was a doctor, too. Why wouldn’t she be a little bit of everything intoxicating?

“I’m okay, Danvers.”

“You’re okay when I say you’re okay,” Alex muttered, almost more to herself than to Maggie. But there was a small smile on her lips.

“Alright then. You think I’ll make it, doc?”

“Only time will tell. But you’re good enough for now to at least give me my present.”

Maggie hated the way it felt when Alex took her hands away from her. She would gladly conk her head and dignity on an ice machine every day if it meant Alex’s hands on her. Well. Maybe there were less painful ways... no. No no no nope. Just a gift exchange. Nothing more.

“So it’s pretty silly, really, but you said you miss the beach. So um.”

Maggie shoved the small package back into Alex’s hands and pretended not to hold her breath.

It turned out that watching Alex’s eyes mist over with the sensation of home was all Maggie wanted to do, like... ever.

“You like it?” she asked. Her voice didn’t sound like her own, but it also had never sounded more like her.

“Maggie,” Alex whispered. Maggie gulped, and smiled - because yeah, she’d actually done a pretty cool job.

It was a snow globe - sort of. Sand globe? Something. 

She’d commissioned Brian to make it - the artistry he pulled off planet tended to look like magic on Earth, and that was exactly what she’d been going for - he’d owed her more than a few favors, anyway.

The snow globe was an exact miniature of a beach, complete with seagulls and sand dunes and way too much seaweed accumulating on the shore. She hoped that maybe, it looked like home.

“If you put your hands on the glass, it should transmit -”

“How is that possible?” Alex asked. The awe in her voice told Maggie it was working. Maybe she was the one who owed Brian a favor, now.

Because if the look on Alex’s face was any indication, the sound and smells of the beach were flooding her senses through touching the glass - just like she was there.

“It’s not much, but it’s -”

“It’s perfect. Thank you. Thank you. It’s... you...” Maggie’s heart leapt. Alex cleared her throat. “You’re going to have to explain exactly how it works to me.”

“Nerd.”

“Wait!” Alex set the globe down reverently, reluctantly, it seemed, which made Maggie happier than she’d care to admit. “Your turn.”

She gingerly placed a little red bag onto the table between them, looking anywhere but Maggie’s eyes as she opened it.

“Do you like it?” Alex asked, way too soon. Because speaking was not something Maggie remembered how to do, just then.

It was a Triumph, a perfect little replica, with gears that Maggie could already tell actually worked. With a license plate that spelled home, with an earth label instead of a particular state. Maggie held it close to her face, examining it with a reverence she didn’t know how to explain.

“It works, of course. There’s a neural link, in the bag, that you can just kind of put on your temple, and you can drive it around with your thoughts, sort of. It’ll connect to your real life one, too, in case you ever need your bike to come to you. And it says home, you know, as planet earth instead of just one state because yeah, it can be really lonely to feel like nowhere is home, but I don’t want you to feel alone, or lonely, and it also means that you’re your own home, and that’s actually pretty badass, and amazing, because if you were my home, that would be amazing, and oh my God please make me stop talking now -”

“Danvers.”

“Oh, thank Rao.”

“Why did you do this for me?”

“Because you’re my Secret Santa?”

“Danvers.”

“Sawyer.”

Maggie wanted to ask if she could kiss her. She wanted to ask if she could kiss her, and not stop, and take her home, and kiss her some more. She wanted to ask if she could show her exactly how perfect she found Alex’s ridiculous rambling, how perfect she found... her.

She wanted to ask, but this was good, this was amazing, and if she asked, it would ruin everything, and -

And then Alex’s lips were on hers, because Alex Danvers was nothing if not act first, talk later. 

A whoop from across the bar sounded suspiciously both like Supergirl and Alex’s kid sister Kara. She smiled into Alex’s mouth.

“This is okay?” Alex asked, shyer than Maggie had ever heard her.

“Yes.”

“The present was good then?”

“The present isn’t why I’m kissing you, Danvers.”

Alex pulled back. “So it wasn’t good?”

“Oh my God, Alex, it’s perfect. You’re perfect.”

She leaned her forehead onto Alex’s, because as much as she needed to keep kissing her, she also needed to breathe. 

But it was the holidays, and they had motorcycles and beaches and each other, and there would be time for all of it.

“Worked better than mistletoe,” she thought she heard M’gann mutter, and honestly, she couldn’t disagree.

[ahgaseda]

wolf boys || chapter 18

⇥ synopsis : being the young alpha female over a pack of misbehaving werewolves is no easy task and is made even more complicated when the time comes to choose a mate...

⇥ warnings : this story in its entirety includes but is not limited to strong language and dialogue, recurring violence or mentions of blood, and explicit sexual content, and is intended for an adult audience only!

You sat by the window, staring through the glass and letting out a whine in the back of your throat. There was a hole in your chest, left by Jaebeom’s absence, and only he could fill it.

You needed to know he was safe, but he had passed far beyond what you could sense and feel. The territory was expansive and he had neared the outskirts before your powerful bond with him faded. Your magic could only go so far at such distance between you. Only wisps of him reached you now. He was alive. And angry as hell.

It was misery, plain and simple. To go from spending every waking moment in someone’s arms, being tangled together, to being without him.

With another sigh, you let your head rest in your hand, eyes ever dutifully on the window waiting for a glimpse of him.

Mark approached, sliding in behind you and wrapping his arms around your waist. You welcomed his warmth, soothing your loneliness, and leaned back against his chest.

“How much longer?” you asked impatiently.

“You know Jaebeom,” Mark huffed with a comforting smile. “He won’t rest until the intruder is as far away as can be.”

“The male sensed I was in heat. I’m not in heat anymore.”

Mark interjected, “Doesn’t mean he wouldn’t try to impress you with a display of violence. You’re an alpha female. Not many of you left.”

Your first instinct was to place a hand over your stomach at the mere mention of violence, but Mark tightened his arms around your waist, assuring you. The gesture never failed to make you smile. You brushed your palm over his arm in silent thanks.

Mark’s breath was hot on your neck before he placed his lips at the curve of your shoulder. You shivered, surprised at first to feel his kiss, all things considered. But you purred softly, letting him know the affection was not unwanted.

“Trying to distract me?” you asked sheepishly, tilting your head to give him more access.

Mark slowly trailed kisses up the side of your neck and rasped in your ear, “Is it working?”

“A little,” you replied, biting your lip.

Mark skimmed his teeth down the same path of his kisses across your flesh and you shuddered at how swiftly he made your pulse race.

The protective grasp of his hands around your stomach made you smile. The wolf boys would protect any baby you and Jaebeom made as if it were their own. It was a sacred law among packs.

You closed your eyes and tilted your head back, reaching to thread your fingers through his hair. Mark kissed and sucked at your neck, making you forget your misery for a moment.

The back door opened and you peered over to see Jinyoung and Jackson returning from their short rounds.

Jackson took one look at Mark’s precarious position and whined, “Oh, real slick.”

Mark pressed a chaste kiss at the base of your neck in farewell, replying coolly, “The sigma serves the alpha.”

“A serving of dick apparently,” Jackson retorted, glaring insincerely.

You would have laughed, but you were looking too intently at Jinyoung for a report.

Jinyoung met your expectant gaze and said, “I could sense him only for a second, he’s so far.”

Your shoulders slumped with disappointment.

“They’ve fought, but the other alpha isn’t conceding yet,” Jinyoung continued, not too terribly worried. “It may take a few rounds to drive him out.”

You glanced around at the boys and asked, “If I order one of you to go join him, would you listen?”

“Not this time, alpha,” Jackson replied softly, shaking his head in dissension. “Our priority is keeping you safe. Especially if you can’t phase if you’re pregnant.”

You glanced down.

“Sense anything yet?” Jinyoung asked curiously, taking the seat beside you as Mark headed for the kitchen.

“A tiny whisper,” you spoke quietly, failing to hide your sadness. “It was there and then it was gone.”

Jinyoung felt his heart aching. He wanted only to comfort you. “I know it’s easier said than done, but try to relax,” Jinyoung crooned, wrapping an arm around you and tucking you close. “It will happen.”

You buried your face against his neck, resisting tears. “I don’t know what I’ll do if it didn’t take,” you murmured, voice trembling.

They would never know what it was like. To have given so much of yourself and your magic in the hopes of creating a life.

You rose abruptly, agitated. The waiting was torture. Waiting for Jaebeom to emerge victorious and return home. Waiting for your baby to make itself known inside you.

“I’m going outside,” you barked, heading for the door in search of fresh air.

Jackson didn’t hesitate to move himself in your path, holding out a hand to block you. “I can’t let you,” he said gently, eyes sympathetic.

You rounded on him and snapped, “You can’t let me? Are you out of your mind, delta?”

At hearing his rank, Jackson lowered his head, trying to show submission and stifle your wrath.

Jinyoung called your name worriedly.

“Everyone has forgotten I am just as much alpha as he is,” you hissed, pushing past Jackson and shoving the door open.

As you trudged across the porch, Jackson breezed past you and landed on the lawn in his lupine form, ready to bar any further progress.

It hurt your pride, being treated like a helpless pup. You planted your feet and glared at his challenge, ready to put the stubborn wolf boy in his place. Then, you stopped, glancing down at your feet and then back at him.

You couldn’t phase.

A soft whimper left you. “I can’t...,” you whispered, on the verge of screaming your frustrations at the top of your lungs.

Jinyoung and Mark gathered behind you, not knowing what to do.

Tears streamed down your cheeks. “I can’t phase,” you cried, legs folding beneath you. On the stairs you sat, hiding your face in your hands.

Jackson approached tentatively before his eyes gleamed. Inching closer, the brown wolf pressed his nose to your stomach and his tail began to wag furiously.

“What are you doing?” you choked on a sob.

I smell it, he told you. Before I could only smell you, but now...

You blinked in surprise, cheeks hot with tears. He was in true form. His senses were stronger.

The wolf before you panted with excitement, stamping his paws. It’s not just you anymore, he said with glee.

Eyes wide, you turned and called, “Jinyoung?”

Jinyoung didn’t hesitate to become the grey wolf at your side and his nose twitched. He didn’t have to come any closer to say, I smell it, too. There’s another scent blended with yours.

You laughed in disbelief, rubbing away your tears with a fist. “How can you sense it before me? That’s not fair,” you quipped, trying to alleviate the tension you had caused.

The two wolves wagged their tails in unison.

Mark came forward, scooping you up in his arms and carrying you back inside. Jackson followed as the primary protector, while Jinyoung turned to the woods, let his head fall back, and howled to the winds.

Days passed.

You slept between Jackson’s furry outstretched paws. He lay himself in a crescent, shielding you with his massive body. Little pulses of magic would touch you when you least expected, and each time you would smile.

“Hi, little one,” you would whisper, knowing life had blossomed in your womb and your magic was pumping into their veins.

On the fifth day, you sat complacently in Jinyoung’s lap as he poured over yet another novel. His hands were warm and soft as they held you to him and you considered his chest to be your favorite pillow.

Then, your eyes snapped open. A scent tickled your nose.

Jinyoung grunted when you leapt off of him, watching you race to the back door. He began to call after you until he picked up on the scent too.

Smiling, you barreled outside in time to see the ebony wolf emerge from the trees. He took a single glance at you and groaned, warping in place until Jaebeom stood where the beast had been.

He was tired, that much was certain, but healing with every passing moment. You descended the stairs, eyes glistening with tears.

“Hello, alpha,” you greeted tenderly.

Jaebeom approached, scanning you from head to toe. You were a sight for sore eyes. Without warning, you took his face in your hands and kissed him deep. He was surprised at your eagerness at first, but collapsed into your embrace, relieved to be home at last.

The two of you broke away to look into each other’s eyes. Unspoken words passed between you and him. Then, you guided his hand to the soft plane of your belly.

Jaebeom froze in place.

“Do you sense it?” you asked gently.

Jaebeom had been so enraptured by you that he hadn’t yet noticed the tiny presence within you. Your scent had always been so strong, so powerful for an alpha female, but another scent was flourishing inside of yours. He pressed his broad hand to your stomach and tears pricked his eyes.

“I feel...,” he murmured, voice trembling.

You stroked your hand up and down his arm in comfort.

Jaebeom nuzzled your nose with his own, pressing his forehead to yours, and whispered, “I feel our baby.”

You smiled.

chapter 17 ⇤ chapter 18 ⇥ chapter 19

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{ copyright 2018-2020 © ahgaseda // all rights reserved }

[maulusque]

guess who just learned a whole lot about burns for a smut fic

it me.

so anyway now i have Ideas about how clone medics would treat blaster burns and they Definitely aren’t all going to make it into the fic because the blaster burn is honestly supposed to be an excuse for one character to undress the other

TW: burns, description of how severe burns affect the body (clinical, not graphic) and burn treatment

So, let’s assume that damage from a blaster bolt is basically a burn that is very small in terms of surface area, and whose depth depends on whether or not it was a direct hit, any armor you were wearing, the power of the blaster, etc. So you get 3rd and 4th degree burns that are like an inch square, which you don’t really see in the real world that often. I think any blaster bolt that comes into contact with a person is going to inflict AT LEAST a third degree burn (which means the epidermis and dermis are destroyed, basically the whole thickness of the skin), but usually would be deeper (4th degree), destroying muscle and bone and whatever else is in there. You’d only get away with a second degree burn if the blaster bolt just skimmed you and didn’t actually hit. Skin around the blaster wound would be white or black.

A skimming shot (2nd degree burn) would actually be the most painful, because once you get to 3rd and 4th degree burns, the nerve endings are destroyed so you don’t feel any pain. Which means that when you get shot with a full-power blaster bolt, you might feel a momentary flash of pain, but then nothing, and if the shot doesn’t immediately down you, you’d probably just keep going, and you might not even notice. Which. Imagine the angst potential of a clone trooper being shot 3 or 4 times and just. not knowing. Clone troopers who keep fighting despite being riddled with blaster bolts, right up until they collapse dead, never even knowing they were shot. Oof.

On the other hand, a weaker shot, say, one that hit a weak point in your armor or came from an underpowered blaster, might dissipate slightly on contact, meaning you’d still get the deep wound that wouldn’t hurt, but there’d be a small area of 3rd and 2nd degree burn around the opening, which would hurt like hell. A painful blaster wound would be a good sign, since it means it isn’t as deep.

Treating blaster burns wouldn’t be quite like real-world burn treatment, because real-world burns, especially severe 3rd and 4th degree burns, tend to cover a lot more surface area of the body than a blaster bolt would, because the things that tend to burn you that badly are not tiny and focused like a blaster bolt. Which means a blaster wound is probably less lethal than severe 4th degree burns, so yay for that i guess. Bacta patches, as well as the ability to cover the entire wound site easily without risking damage to delicate tissue, would greatly reduce the risk of infection.

Treatment involves excision (removal) of dead tissue, and usually for 3rd degree burns, skin grafts. 4th degree burns tend to need amputation- but I’m not sure if that would apply in a situation where the burn is deep but very small- instead of burning your fingers down to the bones (don’t go look at the wikipedia article for burns unless you want to see that), it’s just one small area of your body, with living tissue all around it. And since Star Wars has Magic Healing Juice, clone medics probably don’t need to go around performing amputations on everyone who gets shot in a limb. 

I think that burn treatment in the Clone Wars would be somewhat like this:

-in the field, slap a big ol’ bacta patch on it, to protect the wound and help stabilize the patient until further treatment can be performed (bacta would help the body handle the sudden physical trauma, as well as actively fight off any infectious microorganisms). Most blaster burns would probably heal okay with just a bacta patch (see: Rex on Saleucami), but really won’t heal properly without actual treatment. (Although Rex seemed to be just fine the next day, despite the nerve damage that immobilized his arm. My personal theory is that Kix used some sort of mega bacta patch, a step up from the standard. The little blinky lights on it indicate that it has electric components for some reason, so my interpretation is that somehow that bacta patch has Extra Features (tm) that allow it to regenerate nerves)

-once there is more time, the patient can be treated for reals. Removal of dead tissue could be accomplished by a medic with a scalpel, but it would also be interesting if there was a patch or ointment of some kind which was applied to a wound which would just, dissolve the dead tissue without damaging the surrounding tissue. Perhaps it involves some sort of microbe. Sort of like those tanks of tiny fish you stick your feet in and they nibble all the dead skin off your toes? Like that, but microscopic and for wound care. 

-the medic would then apply a burn patch, which is essentially a specialized bacta patch. The patch not only applies bacta to the wound, but also contains a pre-generated skin graft, so that as the wound heals, it incorporates the skin tissue from the patch into the healing wound site. The patch is not meant to be removed or replaced. Eventually, once the wound is healed, the top layer of the bacta patch is shed like dead skin flaking off a sunburn. These patches were developed specifically for the GAR, and can only be used on clones, since the skin tissue is generated from clone stem cells. The burn patches greatly speed up and improve burn treatment, since clone medics don’t have to go back in later and perform a skin graft, and subsequently monitor the healing of two wound sites, which would greatly increase the chance of infection. 

-Nerve regeneration does not always occur with the standard burn patches, and if it does, is not always complete or perfect. Many clones, therefore, have small numb patches at the sites of old blaster wounds. They may also suffer chronic cutaneous pain at those sites. Unlike in the real world, treatment for this would exist, but would not be available to clone troopers since clone trooper healthcare sucks.

-Nerve-regenerating treatments, like Rex received on Saleucami, are expensive, and are only used when the nerve damage is severe enough to be disabling (e.g. Rex’s arm). The special patches are particularly costly, and normally Kix would have waited until Rex was back in the medbay in order to apply a slightly less costly treatment for his nerve damage, but since they weren’t able to transport Rex and had to treat him in the field, and the nerve-regeneration treatments become less effective the longer treatment is delayed, Kix used the Mega-Healing Patch right away. 

-so post-engagement med-bays would have the following procedure: blaster wound patients who are well enough to move on their own (which is more of them than you might expect, since they’re not bleeding out or immobilized by pain), would line up in the med-bay, probably along a wall or in a designated area. Medical techs would go around, removing armor and blacks around wound sites and cleaning the area with water. They would then apply debriding ointment (the dead-tissue-eating stuff), and move on to the next patient while the microscopic pedicure fishes do their jobs. The patient would be checked every ten minutes or so to see if the ointment has finished removing all of the dead tissue. I think it would be cool if the ointment fizzed as it worked, due to the microorganisms releasing gasses as they metabolize dead tissue, and once the ointment stops fizzing, you know it’s done.

 Once that is done, the ointment is gently removed, and a burn patch is applied. The patient is assessed for further treatment, paperwork is filled out, painkillers given if the wound is less severe (and therefore painful), and the trooper is free to go. Troopers would probably be talking to each other and cracking jokes, singing songs, or complaining about being bored. Most of them aren’t even in pain. Medics aren’t at all reluctant to physically hogtie a trooper to prevent them from moving since it’s easy to forget that you’re wounded and start roughhousing with your brothers.

-improperly treated blaster wounds, i.e. ones that only received a bacta patch instead of a burn patch, would take much longer to heal, would leave a more noticeable scar, and would cause the skin and muscle of the healing wound to contract, which could be painful and limit mobility, depending on the location of the wound.

-which is why it is common practice to check your squad-mates for blaster wounds they may have missed after engagements, and it’s not uncommon for a medic to menacingly track you down like “I know you got shot, i saw it happen, now get your ass into my med bay before i write you up for clinical stupidity”

so ANYWAY there’s my Clone Wars Medical Headcanon of the day, happy new year. I’m going to go back to writing my smut and if anyone can guess the pairing i will be VERY impressed

MORE under the cut because i fell down a bit of a rabbit hole lol

OKAY so dehydration is a big concern with burns because the skin is what retains fluid and severe burns obviously damage your skin. Fluid leaks from the burn area, since the skin is no longer present to contain it, and this leads to loss of electrolytes and dehydration, and can be lethal. From my brief google foray, it seems that it wouldn’t be a huge concern for blaster wounds, since the surface area that is burned is very small. However, multiple blaster wounds would probably be dangerously dehydrating. Clone troopers in standard blaster wound treatment (i.e. the guys sitting around bored while the debriding ointment fizzes) are probably fine with oral rehydration, meaning that someone shoves a bottle of rehydration formula at them and makes them drink it while they wait. 

Patients with more severe blaster wounds are probably kept hydrated intravenously.

There are also potential complications during or after wound healing that are very interesting! Fluids continue to leak from damaged tissue while the wound is healing, and if the surface heals before the deep tissue, can lead to edema (basically, accumulation of fluid in body tissue) can occur. Edemas get worse with rehydration. If the wound doesn’t heal quite right, it can form a compartment, which is a closed space of muscle tissue, nerves, and blood vessels, surrounded by a fascia, which doesn’t stretch. If fluid is leaking into the compartment, the pressure can compress capillaries and nerves, which is called compartment syndrome. Troopers would be told to look out for the symptoms after they are released from medbay. Symptoms include:

-severe pain, out of proportion to the wound, which does not respond to pain medication

-paleness of skin

-weakness or, in severe cases, paralysis of limb

-prolonged capillary refill time (takes a long time for capillaries to refill with blood)

This would have to be surgically treated. 

3rd degree burns in real life can take months or years to heal. Due to Star Wars Advanced Healing Juice, and clone trooper genetic enhancements allowing them to heal faster than standard humans, this time is reduced to weeks or even days (again, see Rex on Saleucami). 

[mahixa]

why you all should read Momentum - an epic story of Remus and Sirius

Written by amazing, wonderful and talented Children of the Shadows, the story is “an epic tale of Remus and Sirius's lives, starting from the very beginning. A love that carries on through trials, tribulations, and war.”

The author portrays all of the characters (including James, Peter, Lily and others) with such incredible depth that the actual writer of HP (what’s her name... don’t remember, don’t care lol) should learn how to write characters from this fanfiction. I know there’s some of you who were not in the fandom in 2006, and maybe some of you prefer to read fics from like, 2010s, and that’s okay! Although the story was not published on ao3 (so on the page that everyone is familiar with right now, all the young and old fans) and it was finished almost 13 years ago, please don’t feel discouraged and give it a try. It’s worth it. I promise.

So here are some of my favourite things about Momentum:

everyone has personality which is complex and complicated and there’s a lot going on here. Any personal struggles, doubts, heartbreaks, hope? - it’s all there, and it’s written like.... *chef’s kiss*

the. connection. between. Remus. and. his. family. It’s so so so important to show his relation with his family members, especially with his parents, because it just adds depth to his character, so he doesn’t seem like a guy who’s only purpose is to be Sirius’s boyfriend. He has other relations, and they are explored in this fic (his friendship with Lily and James is powerful in this one).

James. James Potter. The way he is written here? Magic. Trust me. Like... trust me. You’re not gonna regret it. James is the real MVP.

characters act in a way that is logical and in character for them, and they are not like... cheesy or sappy or two-dimensional whatever reason. They have flaws and act like a human being could act. They make mistakes and have doubts and ask questions and can be problematic. But they learn. The GROWTH in this fic is so wonderful

gay issues and difficulties written accordingly to the period of time (70s). The author pays tribute to how brave the gay people were back then and shows us different aspects of being gay at that time (self-doubt, family issues, that fear of how everyone is going to react, violence, slurs, gay clubs, this impossibility to touch in public. Unfortunately, fucking unfrotunately, in so many cases it still remains to be a huge problem for many of us, but what I’m saying is that it’s important to acknowledge how it used to be as well. I’m not saying these problems are gone now, of course). Sometimes fic writers tend to forget about it and all these aspects and just write these two as being openly and loudly gay - and as much as I would LOVE for all of us, all the amazing LGBTQA+ people to always be able to be ourselves as loudly and openly as we would like to be, it was (and still is in many cases, fuck it, I hate it) not entirely possible.

the humour. This story can be really funny and there were times when I had literal tears in my eyes from laughing so hard when I read it for the first time

James and Lily being the power couple

Sirius and James being brothers BUT them being Remus’s best friends as well

the angst. the angst is really painful. but the fluff. it’s worth it, for the fluff that comes after the pain.

so beautifully written. All the descriptions, all the words, ah, it’s just... it is so easy to read and get lost in it. The dialogues are very realistic (which is, again, another problem that may appear in some fics) and are written in character for these people

the order of the phoenix stuff with the Weasleys and other characters THIS IS GREAT them all being young and brave

Sirius saying bye bitch to his racist family but this not being easy for him, which again - any normal human being would find that hard

Remus and Sirius being in love. But oh boy. This love right here? It’s a totally new definition of loving somebody.

REMUS. AND. SIRIUS. RAISING. HARRY.

here are some of my favourite quotes so you could see what I mean with all of this:

Whoever said Sirius Black and James Potter were the most charismatic and attractive third years in Hogwarts were either insanely blind or were yet to meet Remus Lupin. At least in Sirius's opinion.

***

After all, he [Remus] was anything but normal. There was no way of putting it subtly, the world hated people like him, and he knew for a fact that he was not going to receive any sort of affection from them. So, he craved their love and when his parents got their sudden attacks of overwhelming affection, he clung on to them and returned their embraces and small declarations of love. [...] John Lupin stared into those soft amber eyes, and he let his hand slide, caressing his son's face through the thin glass. 'Love you,' he mouthed before moving away, and Remus nodded.

***

[After Sirius’s prank had gone wrong and Remus ended up in the infirmary]:

'Don't you think the flowers and chocolates are a bit too much, Sirius?' asked James as they walked towards the infirmary.

Sirius finger combed his hair. It was getting a bit too long and he'd sort of grown to like it that way. 'It's called courtesy, James, but I wouldn't expect you to know anything about it.'

'Really? I thought you gave people flowers and chocolates on Valentines Day,' teased James, winking mischievously at Sirius.

***

'Don't be ridiculous, Sirius,' his mother snapped, looking up at him with cold hard eyes. 'Gryffindor is laden with all kinds of lowly people – half bloods, and mudbloods, and what not. I hope you aren't fraternising with any of them.'

Sirius put down his fork and looked his mother directly in the eye. 'I am; three of them in fact.'

***

Sirius caught Remus's hand just as it was about to move away and kissed the heel of his palm softly. 'How were the full moons?' he asked, his lips brushing over Remus's wrist with every word he spoke.

***

[Remus, on the phone with Sirius]

'I'm in muggle jail!' Sirius exclaimed happily and there was an ominous silence that followed.

It was broken by the strangled sounds of Remus asphyxiating. 'WHAT?'

'I know, isn't it fantastic?' Sirius asked, obviously misreading the tone of Remus's voice as excitement. It didn't help that James had fallen to the floor in hysterics and was screaming 'brilliant!' between uncontrollable laughter.

***

[The kiss] It was heat. Heat like they'd never experienced before and an overbearing pressure pushing against them, drawing their bodies closer and closer together. They were drowning in each other, suffocating, completely out of control.

[gregorygrim]

Dragon Prince Hot Takes

!!! Full Spoiler For “The Dragon Prince” Seasons 1-3!!!

So I finally got around to watching The Dragon Prince. Timely, I know, but better late than never i guess. I’m not completely caught up yet as I only got as far as S3E7 “Hearts of Cinder” in this first sitting. Considering I haven’t binged any series in almost two years, I think that’s pretty respectable. This means I won’t discuss the last few episodes here, except for a couple of things I was unfortunately spoiled for already, hence full spoilers.

These are basically my first thoughts and opinions after the binge and a good night’s sleep. It’s gonna be a lot so if you don’t care or don’t want spoilers…

TL;DR: 7½/10. Generally enjoyable, there are some aspects I’m not exactly fan of, but no dealbreakers

Firstly to everyone who told me that this was the new ATLA: you all need to rewatch Avatar stat! Like seriously. There are definitely parallels and given the cast and crew I think that’s what they were going for too (which is why I think it’s fair to compare the two), but still, no.

Secondly I love most of the worldbuilding and love that the series at least tries to give it to us in a bit of a non-linear fashion, even if it is kind of clumsy at times. I know some people are put off by expository dialogue and flashbacks, but I’m an epic fantasy nerd, I need that sweet, sweet lore to live as much as you mortals need food.

I like that there was clearly an effort made to integrate the worldbuilding in more subtle ways. For example you may initially find it kind of weird that all these different human ethnicities are existing perfectly integrated in what looks like a medieval society, until you remember from the opening monologue that the Human Kingdoms are the result of a massive diaspora following the human exodus from Xadia, so obviously people got all mixed up everywhere. It’s representation with an excellent in-world reason and that just brings me joy.

I also love the magic system(s) even though we haven’t really gone into that just yet. it really feels like there was a genuine effort made to create underlying mechanics for the magic rather than just making each spell a vaguely elemental themed ability. I really hope we’ll dive deeper into that in coming seasons.

I also like the little nods to other works of fantasy: Ezran’s ability to talk with animals is a reference to Tolkien’s world where some royal bloodlines had the ability to speak with animals, specifically birds; Primal Magic and its spells being cast with Ancient Draconic runes and words might be reminiscent of the Ancient Language from the Inheritance Cycle etc.

Thirdly the main cast is great. Callum, Ezran and Rayla are all interesting and relatable characters in their own right and as a group. I’m not going into each of them individually here, but while I think the series as a whole falls short of ATLA, as protagonist parties go I dare say this one is nearly on nearly on par with the gAang.¹

And yes, I love Bait, which I really did not expect following the first few episodes. I love his weird pug-toad-chameleon design, I love that he works like a flashbang whenever somebody says a quote from Scarface (I wish they hadn’t dropped that later on) and I love how done he is with everything and everyone at all times. I’ve only had him for 25 episodes, but if anything happened to him I would kill all of my followers and then myself.

On top of that, and speaking as someone who god knows is really not into shipping, I love Rayla and Callum’s relationship. It’s believable, it’s refreshing and it brings out the best in both characters without changing basically anything about them. Just two good friends who fell in love. A++, maybe even S tier.

Unfortunately though I can’t sing the same kind of praises about the villains. None of them are terrible (as in terribly written, most of them are pretty awful people), but with one exception they just don’t stand up to the protagonists in quality.

I could simply not take Viren seriously. Even now that is probably the single most powerful magic user in the world, he just has such strong Karen energy, every time he finishes a speech I am overcome with the urge to say “Sir, this is a Wendy’s” and it does not help the mood. I’m not even sure why. It might’ve been the voice because the guy who did Viren (Jason Simpson) also does a lot of kinda slimy characters in various anime dubs, it might be that over-the-top walking stick, idk.

What I’m saying is that as a primary antagonist he simply did not work for me. Which is doubly a shame because this kind of tarnishes the real “Big Bad” of this story by proxy. Aaravos, even as an invisible ghost, with his voice coming out of a caterpillar and next to no info on his backstory, has more style and gravity than all the human antagonists combined. It helps that he is by far the best designed character and Erik Dellums has the voice of a young god, but I’d argue even without that unfair advantage he has the potential to be a top tier villain. While he is stuck as Viren’s “little bug-pal” though he is just being dragged down.

(I’m aware that as of the final episode the caterpillar familiar is undergoing metamorphosis, probably to create a new body for Aaravos’ spirit to inhabit outside of the magic mirror, so I’m definitely hyped for more of him in the coming seasons.)

As for Soren and Claudia, I’ve got mixed feelings. This was one more aspect of the show that a lot of people compared to Avatar and while I see the parallels to Zuko & Azula, they are still very different, at least where Claudia is concerned. I’d also just like to mention that a lot of people told me that they thought the direction in which their storylines went were really surprising and I can’t disagree more. I predicted that Soren would defect to the protagonists on episode 5 right after Viren told him to kill the princes and I knew Claudia was going to stick with her father from episode 12 onward. My point is, it didn’t feel like some kind of plot twist, the way some people made it out to be, and which I don’t think was the intent.

I definitely got the sense that Soren was at least a Zuko-type character, though still not a Zuko clone, and as with Zuko I was consistently able to empathise and sympathise with him and his predicaments. I also appreciated that his dilemma is the result of his convictions and not him being kind of dense, which would’ve been all to easy and probably would’ve ruined his character for me. As it stands he is extremely milktoast, but perfectly functional for his purpose in the story and I can definitely see him evolving further and getting more interesting as we go on.

Claudia is where it gets complicated. Again, I can see the Azula parallels. But unlike that character, who is her father’s animal 110%, Claudia doesn’t strike me as a victim of Viren’s manipulation the way Soren undoubtably is. The way she talks about and uses Dark Magic, how she talks down to Soren and how even Viren finds it difficult to communicate with her, tells me as an audience member that she is an independent person. Which tells me that the cruelty and enthusiasm for causing harm she regularly displays is her own will. And that was before she straight up leads Callum on to manipulate him.

On the other hand I can absolutely relate to her devotion to her family, her big sister role (even though she is younger than Soren) and the way both the separation of her parents before the story and Soren’s injury in episode 16 must’ve affected her because of this. I know that, if my brother had become paralysed from the neck down and I knew a way to heal him, I would not have hesitated to kill that fawn either. Then again her relationship with her father is very different from parental relationships I am familiar with, so I can’t really say I see why she is so devoted to him, other than she promised her mother to stay with him years ago? ¯\(o_Ō)/¯

So basically Claudia falls into an emotional grey space for me. I can’t really tell how to feel about her either way and I’ll just have to see where she goes from here, which, while fine, isn’t necessarily great for an end of season cliffhanger imo.

Seeing as I’ve already talked about some of the show’s shortcomings, I think it’s time to dive into some of the what I would consider flaws.

Firstly this show needed at least 12 episode seasons. I have never made a secret out of my dislike for the modern short seasons and while I recognise that in the current climate in the industry giving everything full 25 episode seasons isn’t really doable, the pacing of this show, especially for the first season is just outright bad at times. It works as of the second season, but the first season alternately feels like it’s either rushing through or crawling along the whole way through.

The believability of Rayla’s and the princes’ relationship really suffers from this the most. It comes a bit out of nowhere on the boat ride and is then taken for granted way to quickly. Like Callum, seriously, this girl tried to kill you and your brother not even a day ago and you are currently cut off from all allies you have ever had until now. A little skepticism isn’t misplaced here. I also wold’ve liked if we’d just gotten a bit more of a sense of movement with the characters. I get that this is not the kind of show where we can just make an entire episode about the characters travelling and camping, intercut with plots centred around a more expansive supporting cast, but still I really would’ve preferred if Xadia didn’t feel quite so around the corner.

Another issue is with setup and payoff, which I think is partially a consequence of the pacing as well. A lot of smaller plot points are set up within the same episode as the payoff just wreak havoc on the narrative structure. A good example is the episode where they ride down the river in a boat and Bait tires to go into the water, but is saved by Ezran, who then explains the story behind Glowtoads and how they are pefect bait for large water predators. Then Bait falls into the water and is attacked by a massive water monster. This happens within five minutes of one episode and never comes up again. To me that looks like sign of rushed editing, which is probably not entirely the crew’s fault, given that they are on a schedule from Netflix, but it’s still a point of critique.

It unfortunately also manifests in the occasional line of horribly forced dialogue, often for things we can literally see happening on screen. Again, this is mostly the case in the earlier episodes, but it never completely goes away.

Finally, and this is where i get into serious issues that made me want to write this, we gotta talk about representation in this show.

First: disabled representation, meaning Amaya. Why is Amaya deaf? Because it’s good to have disabled representation.

Why is Amaya deaf and a high-ranking military officer? Because they didn’t think it through.

I know this may be a contentious opinion, but it is my belief that the purpose of representation, particularly of disabilities characters may suffer from, in fiction is to, y’know, represent people as they are in life. That includes especially the struggles they face and have to overcome, sometimes their whole life. This is not just me talking out of my ass either. A couple years ago I discussed this with several people that are disabled, specifically blind or otherwise severely visually impaired, in a different context obviously, and the general consensus was that it’s better to have representation that shows their life and their abilities as they are, rather than how they might wish they could be.

A mute or deaf person cannot be a medieval fantasy army general, no matter how good they might be in melee combat or who’s sister they are, because at the end of the day, they’re not able to give commands while they are holding a sword and shield. That such a massive logical oversight, especially in comparison to the extremely well done example of representation I mentioned above, and has so little impact on the plot that it leads me to believe, this aspect of Amaya’s character was tacked on in the last minute without being given any thought for the sole reason of the story having a disabled person in it. All this does is necessitate the existence of two otherwise entirely unnecessary characters, Gren and Kazi, both of which achieve nothing, aside from sometimes being literal set dressing.

That is where representation ends and tokenism begins.

And unfortunately this generally lacklustre attitude also extends to the LGBT+ representation on the show.

As of S3E7 “Hearts of Cinder” we have had two onscreen gay couples on the show (onscreen in the sense that both partners were onscreen and they were somehow confirmed to be in a relationship on the show). One of these, the queens of Duren, literally die in the same flashback they are introduced in, which incidentally also features them invading a foreign nation to poach a rare animal and subsequently starting the conflict at the series’ core. Not a great look.

Aside from serving as a tragic backstory for their daughter, the most impact they had on my viewing experience was that they made wonder how the fuck royal succession works in Duren. (People who know me are rolling their eyes right now because I’m bringing anarchism into this Dragon Prince review, but I’m telling you, this why fantasy monarchies aren’t compatible with LGBT+ politics in the same setting. Dynastic governments are inherently bigoted, you can’t have it both ways.)

The other couple are Runaan and Ethari, Rayla’s caretakers, although if I’m being honest you wouldn’t be able tell based on Runaan’s treatment of Rayla in the first episode. By the time we actually meet Ethari and find out about their relationship with Rayla, Runaan is suffering “a fate worse than death” (direct quote from the show) trapped in a gold coin.

I mean come on. That’s about as “technically not ‘bury your gays’” as it gets.

I think I need to reiterate here that my point is not that this show or its creators are somehow malicious. As i stated in the TL;DR: I don’t think this is a dealbreaker for liking this show. But it does demonstrate that they are prone to slipping to some potentially harmful tropes and this needs to be criticised and pointed out to them.

In conclusion, I really love this show. It’s not ATLA, it never will be, nothing else will ever be ATLA no matter how badly (and terribly) Netflix tries. But it does and should not have to be.

What it has to do though is improve. A lot of the building blocks are already there, such as Aaravos or Claudia’s development, Callum’s father, the origin of Ezran’s ability, the purpose of the “Key of Aaravos”, the true fate of King Harrow (we all know his soul is in the bird, right?) etc. Some things like the treatment of Amaya’s disability unfortunately won’t be fixable as far as I can tell, but if they at least manage to fix the gay representation I can make my peace with that.

¹ I know I said I wouldn’t go into each of the characters individually, but a) you should never trust a stranger on the internet and b) I really want to talk a bit about Callum. Specifically the “mystery” of why the hell he is connected to the Sky Primal. I write “mystery” because I think it’s fairly obvious from whence this talent came: there is only one humanoid species we know of with innate access to the Sky Arcanum and one of Callum’s parent’s is unidentified, presumed dead. 2+2=4. Callum’s father was a Skywing Elf. That’s why he recognised Nyx’s boomerang weapon. He remembered one like it either from his very early childhood (remember that he has photographic memory) or Sarai kept one and he found it at some point.

On top of that the name “Callum” or at least the pronunciation is clearly derived from Latin “caelum” meaning “sky” or “weather” and I already mentioned that Ancient Draconic is just bad Latin. It’s not very subtle. Unless they pull a complete 180 concerning the lore about Primal Magic he’s definitely going to be a half-elf, which would also just so happen to make him the perfect mediator between the Human Kingdoms and Xadia. Hmm, it’s almost as if they are planning ahead.

My question: How the fuck did that happen? Or rather: how did that fuck happen? I don’t think even Harrow knew or he probably would’ve a) paid more attention when Sarai advised against poaching the Magma Titan, because obviously she’s gotten around Xadia more than him, if y’know what i’m sayin’ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) or at least b) put it in his final letter to Callum. Unfortunately we know basically nothing about Sarai except that she was a soldier alongside Amaya and already had Callum before marrying Harrow. So does Amaya know? This is probably the most interesting plot thread in the whole story and as far as my friends told me it’s not going to be touched on anymore in the last two episodes than it already has thus far, which is basically not at all.