#this track in particular is a kind of treasure

[abd-illustrates]

Are you gonna make the playlists for the heartless characters public? Or has that already happened and I just missed it

AH I haven't shared my character-specific Heartless playlists as some of the songs on them were SUCH specific picks that they risk being highly spoilery lol 😅

(For funsies tho I'm gonna put some of my non-spoilery-est top tracks for each character under the cut! 🎶)

HEARTLESS: Heartbeat – The Midnight

ALCHEMY: Transform – Julianne Hough (this was the very first track on Alchemy's playlist it is SO them)

FLINT: Change Your Heart Or Die – The Midnight

EIRA: In The Cold – Vincent Lima

DOPPEL+GLASS: Call Them Brothers – Regina Spektor (And "Still Here" from Treasure Planet, but especially the Alex Ubego version)

RIVER: Machine Learning – Janani K. Jha

CREED: Hunting Witches – Kyle Stibbs

LORELEI: Siren Song – Lambia (Also: Ado’s version of Unravel 😩👌)

DIANA: Hell’s Comin’ With Me – (the Chloe Breez cover in particular)

LANCE: Blood Upon The Snow – Hozier (Most of his playlist is the kind of metal and high energy tunes you might expect for him, so this one's a fun outlier :3c )

BANDY: HARLEQUIN! – Vana

DOCK: Eye For An Eye – 8 Graves

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

One really tiny but really flavourful detail in BG3 for me is one of the steps in the "Find the Nightsong" quest. The quest in itself is a big fave of mine, not just because of its buildup and dramatic twist and the fact that it deals with my personal favourite character, but also because of the way it winds through all three acts of this immense game. Here, though, I want to highlight a small and relatively early portion of it.

Initially, when you are sent after the mysterious and much sought-after relic called the Nightsong - classic adventurer stuff, really, there's even a wizard in a tower who'll pay you for it - all you have to go on are rumours that it is hidden in an old Selûnite temple in the region you happened to crash in. And sure enough, you explore the cool temple ruins, maybe you do a little puzzle-solving to open a sealed moon-themed door leading to a passage deep below - or you get into the Underdark via one of the other routes available. In any case, once there, you find the tragically doomed underground outpost some of the temple's residents tried to establish, as well as several records of their final hours. But there are no signs of the Nightsong or anything related to it ever being there at all. At that point you have no more info to go on, and your quest journal updates to say so:

Explore the Underdark. The trail goes cold in the Underdark. Where is the Nightsong?

Except... there is something here. And that something is a book - not an ancient record, but a recent publication: This tome appears fairly new-printed; it can't be more than a decade or two old, the item description says. But above all, it is very conspicuously and prominently placed at the foot of the large statue of Selûne that dominates the remnants of the outpost (and that, as part of its defenses, shoots rather deadly magical moonlight beams until you disable it).

The book is called "In Search of the Nightsong". It is marked as a quest item and it is there purely to provide you with a lead and to bridge the gap until the next bit of insight into the Nightsong you will get (which is at this point probably quite a ways away in Act 2, other than the possible tidbit around Nere and the collapsed bridge as you approach one possible end of Act 1). You are absolutely meant to find it and read it.

Fascinating that such a seemingly valuable object has proven so difficult to track down. Indeed, treasure-hunters the realm over have travelled to the Sword Coast with one goal in mind: To find the Nightsong. Yet each by each they have failed, indicating dead ends, rebuffs, or else disappearing altogether. My latest enquiry was with a half-orc named Graly, who insisted he'd come as close as possible to the relic as one may go without forfeiting his or her life. He indicated that the object is not, as most reports indicate, in the Selûnite fort adjacent to the river Chionthar. It is, in fact, held in an old Sharran fortress somewhere in the environs of Moonrise Towers. However, Graly reported that some kind of potent shadow prevents one from approaching where this fortress might be.

In fact, your next quest journal update comes from going into your inventory and reading the book:

Find the Sharran Temple. We found a book that told of a secret Sharran temple that contains the Nightsong. It is hidden underground, somewhere near Moonrise Towers.

How did this recently-published book end up sitting there, just waiting for you to read it, in the sealed, long-abandoned outpost, beset on all sides by unfriendly crowds of goblins, drow, minotaurs, a spectator, you name it? And why is this cool to me? Well, it's a bit meta, but it turns out that Selûne, She Who Guides, goddess of, among other things, questers, seekers, navigators, and the lost finding their path, has more than earned her title. And indeed, here we see that both in gameplay and in lore, Selûne guides.

In this particular case, though you don't know that yet, she's guiding you, both the character and the player, to hopefully save her long-lost daughter.

[splatsvilles-fashionista]

So over the week I've been replaying Return of the Mammalians, because I haven't played it since the week Splatoon 3 launched and I wanted to see how I felt about it without the excitement of playing a brand new game clouding my critical judgement.

(spoilers for RotM below, just in case)

That said I didn't feel like it changed my opinion very much. RotM's biggest problem is that it feels like the developers thought of a couple of really cool ideas (The fakeout in the intro, Deep Cut being bosses, the lore in the Alterna Logs, the final fight against Mr. Grizz) and then put them all in the game without really trying to connect them all in a very tangible way, and as a result Alterna is a very nebulous space that doesn't make any sense from a narrative standpoint (if it was a human settlement why is it full machinery and tests only inklings and octolings can use? What even IS the treasure we assemble except "a tool that just happens to solve the current problem?) but only really exists for gameplay.

The story also suffers as a result of this, too. Narratively nothing really happens until the very end of the game, where we end up just kind of stumbling into Mr. Grizz's plot to fuzzify the world right as he puts it into motion. Octo Expansion got around this by using its lore snippets to give the supporting cast a story of their own that unfolded as you progressed through the game, and ultimately it's Agent 8's actions that push the story of OE forward. In RotM we just happen to be there when things happen.

But despite all of its problems RotM also just plays really well. The combination of OE-style shorter trial levels with Hero Mode-styled hub areas you have to explore for levels and secrets work really well together, and those hubs in particular are an absolute blast to dig around in for secrets and open up a little by little. Deep Cut are incredibly fun as ineffectual Team Rocket-esque villains, and the whole final fight against Mr. Grizz is really good, especially the music. I don't even think Calamari Inkantation is especially good by Splatoon standards, but 3MIX is genuinely just an astounding track.

But I think what ultimately makes me feel more positive than negative about RotM is that I think its' thematic undertones actually really work for me. Mr. Grizz's actual involvement in the story might have been mishandled but as a villain he works. I've already written about him a bunch so keep things brief Splatoon has always been about the dangers of clinging to the past, and Mr. Grizz pushes that idea to its limits, because he is the past. He is a relic of a lost age, and he is so desperate to return to the world he knows that he will burn the future and turn back time (metaphorically) to achieve it.

But there's also the Alterna Logs and the reveal that it was human dreams of seeing the sun that drove sealife onto dry land. I think there is a compelling argument to be made that they didn't need to explain any of that to begin with, but I also think the explanation works with everything the series has been setting up on a thematic level. Humanity is gone, and will never come back, but our dreams lived on in the minds of the inklings and the octolings (and the jellies, and everyone else), and while they didn't know why, they reached for the sun together, and by achieving humanity's dreams they earned the right to take our place.

TL;DR: RotM good actually

[blue-sadie]

A Youngling's Wings

Anakin Skywalker x Daughter Reader x Padmè Amidala

Summary: keeping safe and locking up is two different things but they just need to learn

Warning: none

3rd person pov

Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away, there lived a young girl named yn Skywalker. She was the beloved daughter of the great Jedi Knight, Anakin Skywalker, and the wise and caring senator, Padmé Amidala.

Yn had always been a spirited and curious child, eager to explore the vastness of the galaxy beyond her home.

However, her loving parents were incredibly protective of her. Having witnessed the darkest corners of the universe.

Anakin and Padmé sought to shield yn from any potential harm. They sheltered her within the safety of their home, rarely allowing her to venture beyond the walls that held their family.

Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months, until yn's desire to see the world grew stronger with each passing moment.

One particular day, as she peered out of her bedroom window, her eyes fixated on the village situated on the near horizon.

An overwhelming longing flooded her heart, and without a second thought, she made up her mind.

Today would be the day she took her first steps into independence. Ignoring the nagging voice in her mind, yn snuck out of her parents' home.

As yn approached the bustling village, she couldn't resist the sense of adventure that enveloped her.

It was in this village that she met a group of accepting and kind-hearted teenagers. Their laughter, spontaneity, and openness to new experiences fascinated her.

Unbeknownst to yn, her parents had discovered her absence and were growing frantic with worry.

Back at their home, Anakin and Padmé exchanged anxious glances, their parental instincts in full force.

Fearful of the dangers that lay beyond their house, they decided to take action and track down their daughter.

In the village, yn's unexpected absence sparked conversation among the locals. Rumors spread quickly, reaching Anakin and Padmé just as they arrived.

Panic seized their hearts as they searched the village in haste, their worry evident on their faces.

Finally, they caught a glimpse of their daughter, surrounded by newfound friends.

Anakin and Padmé were overjoyed to find her safe but stewing in a mixture of relief and anger. They approached yn, their emotions evident in contrasting ways.

Anakin's voice was laced with concern "yn we were worried sick! There are dangers out there that you can't possibly comprehend."

Padmé's eyes glistened with unshed tears. "You may feel ready to face the world, but we will always worry for your safety."

Yn stood her ground, her voice quivering with determination "I understand your concerns, but I'm not a child anymore. I can take care of myself."

Sensing the truth in their daughter's words, Anakin and Padmé couldn't help but feel immense pride at the strength she displayed.

Reluctantly, they embraced yn, grateful for her return but acknowledging her growing independence.

Together, they made their way back to their home, their hearts mended, and their bond stronger than ever.

From that day forward, Anakin and Padmé continued to protect their treasured daughter but with a newfound understanding. They knew that allowing yn to spread her wings was necessary for her growth and happiness.

And as yn embarked on her own adventures, her parents stood by her side, providing guidance and unconditional love, forever bathing her in the light of their protective embrace.

Tag.List

@nev20 @sweetirilly @neteyamyawne @greekgods15

[7grandmel]

Rip of the week: 11/11/2024

Radical Halation

Season 2 Featured on: Rips of Christmas Past Also on: Now That's What I Call Quality!

Ripped by wheel able, wolfman1405, David Morales Boroff

Birthday Special!

Anniversaries, anniversaries...how they come, how they go. This week in particular is a pretty special anniversary, not just for the release of hit game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but for the release of ME: My birthday!

It's surreal how vividly I still remember when I wrote Your Silent Reality for my last birthday, covering a SiIvaGunner rip that's sat with me long since I first heard it due to the emotional ties I have to the material it utilizes. I began this entire blog as a way to give me writing practice, and I'd like to think I've grown a fair bit as a writer in the time since; but nevertheless, even a year and a half since the blog's begun, my emotional attachment to Season 2 of SiIvaGunner remains as firm as ever. The channel's output has grown to be more impressive than ever before, and last year's Season 7 in particular has had me in a chokehold with rips like Beautiful Dreamer (late but- happy birthday Minindo!) and The Paragoomba and the Wiggler...and yet, I will always keep coming back to the rips of that second season, to the rips that defined my ride-or-die fixation to the channel, and to the season that more than any other gave me feelings for things I didn't even know I was capable of caring so deeply about. Indeed, in direct contrast to last year's birthday rip, Radical Halation was the kind of gift I never knew I needed, yet one I will never stop treasuring.

Way back when I covered the rip Eterna's Cocoon, I wrote about how special it is to me to know that rippers on the team will continue to champion the works which have long since faded from public consciousness. Sure, SiIvaGunner leverages then-current events for comedy a fair number of times; a previous post on the blog's covered one such example in Lagplane, and one of the channel's most revered events back on Your Best Nightmario only came about as a result of a viral meme from that same timeframe. Yet just as often - if not moreso - the channel operates within its own bubble of time, with no care in the world for relevance or target audiences, a team making rips in huge part just for their own enjoyment. Take, for instance, the 1999 SquareSoft JRPG Chrono Cross; a game that, six years before its remaster in 2022, still existed as nary but a memory to many. Nevertheless, it was a memory treasured by two rippers in particular, a duo who had already impressed me time and time again throughout the channel's first two years. Be it Sog-Gee Ambiance, voiceless, Kass' Theme, or their previous collaborative work on 28 Saves Later, wheel able's stellar touch for arrangement and wolfman1405's unbelievable talents as a jazz performer are both some of the absolute highlights across the channel's early run. When the time came for one of the most important anniversaries relevant to the SiIvaGunner channel, the two took the opportunity to also honor a forgotten classic they both cherished – and in doing so, Radical Halation ironically became one of the first times I ever engaged with Chrono Cross. With the game's anniversary also just two days away, and the rip lying so close to my heart, I see no better time than to reciprocate that passion all these years later.

The sheer quality of Radical Halation should be made evident just a few seconds into listening; this is, as Wolfman1405 in particular specializes in, a ground-up cover and performance of the original Radical Dreamers ~ Unstolen Jewel theme from Chrono Cross. The original theme already had a shockingly acoustic sound to it for its era, really plucking at the emotions just a few chords in; that emotional rawness in the track may well have been the core reason why it was chosen to celebrate this anniversary in particular. Indeed, the anniversary I alluded to beforehand as being one of the channel's most crucial is that of the very song the rip title alludes to, the song that sits at the very emotional core of SiIvaGunner's entire being: Snow Halation from Love Live. I wrote back on Waluigi Pinball (Beta Mix) that the Grand Dad meme is like the beating heart of SiIvaGunner's creative spirit, being the core that created the entire channel; by that same logic, I feel as if Snow Halation is like SiIvaGunner's *emotional* core, its "soul" for lack of a better term. Grand Dad may be the spark that sets new rippers into action even all these years later, but Snow Halation was the first thing that people got EMOTIONALLY attached to on SiIvaGunner – it was the core behind its first story arc of SiIvaGunner: Rebooted, it continues to effectively serve as the "protagonist" to the Christmas Comeback Crisis storyline – and its use throughout the channel continues to feel like a reminder of that same attachment, the one that the channel has to all of us. It's an openly sappy, almost overbearing song, yet one that represents so much about the love of remixing and rearranging that SiIvaGunner continues to focus on all these years later.

You take that emotionally-charged melody, put it in the hands of two stellar arrangers, and inject it into an arrangement of an emotional melody the soundscape of which said aforementioned rippers already appear to hold a close attachment to, and the end result is exactly what Radical Halation shows us. Throughout 2016, throughout the entirety of Season 1 of SiIvaGunner, we as the audience had gone on such an emotional rollercoaster regarding out attachment to the channel, its creatives, and its memes, with Snow Halation at the very center of it all; with the channel returned just in time for the holidays, it also happened to return just in time for Snow Halation's anniversary on December 22nd, ever so coincidentally aligned with the time upon which we were all wholly, earnestly in love with everything the song had come to represent. Many months before Season 3 and beyond would begin feeding irony into the discussion of appreciation for these melodies, right as the Christmas Comeback Crisis was just kicking into gear, and just long enough after the channel's return had occurred to make us truly accept that it was back, Radical Halation's release window struck gold in a way only truly comparable to the rips of the Season 1 finale a la Do for LOVE and THANK YOU FOR RIPPING.

I'm of course not aiming to frame Radical Halation as just being "the right thing at the right time"; beyond that emotional attachment, the simple fact of the matter still remains that its a hauntingly beautiful arrangement, even close to 8 years later. Radical Dreamers ~ Unstolen Jewel's beauty sinks in just from the acoustic guitar lead-in, and is only emphasized by the time the rip's true "twist" sets in, of its lead melody being that of a Snow Halation arrangement played on violin. The two halves form an incredible, inseperable whole; not confined by the restrictions of a mashup, the hand-made nature of this arrangement means that both the guitar and violin segments are free to fill in for one another, to emphasize the sounds of Radical Dreamers ~ Unstolen Jewel or the melody of Snow Halation to different degrees on a moment-to-moment basis. I particularly love the section after the Snow Halation melody first plays - at around 0:47, the violin seamlessly leaves the Snow Halation melody and instead takes cues from the source track, yet never stops feeling as if its all from the same arrangement, even upon returning to Snow Halation at 01:10. The rip throughout has the same feeling as the best and most carefully-constructed mashups of today a la Eazystep or Maroonbound whilst in reality being a completely new arrangement and performance.

The visuals of the rip are of course just the cherry on top of it all. Viewers are made immediately aware that the rip is going to be something special not just through its audio, but from the cold-open visuals of pitch blackness fading into a view of the ocean from underneath the surface, the logo fading in just as the melody's played its first few notes. These visuals only change once Snow Halation is first quoted in the audio, changing from the undersea depths to the view of a beachside in winter, a quite literal mash-up of Chrono Cross' dreamy seasides and the snow-covered comfort of Snow Halation. None of this visual detail is particularly "necessary", it's not here to further a punchline; rather, in the spirit of rips like i love(d) you, the visuals serve to punctuate the emotional core of the rip. Visuals in any rip are a surprise, an often-time momentous occasion, and Radical Halation combines that knowledge with its purpose of celebrating Snow Halation's first-ever anniversary celebration on the SiIvaGunner channel to create a rip that, even with no ties to Chrono Cross at the time of watching, I just KNEW would be special back in 2016 just three seconds in.

All these years later, and a rip as special, profound and heartfelt as Radical Halation still manages to feel...forgotten about, in many ways, sitting at less than 25K views as of writing. In that sense, Chrono Cross may have been a more apt game to use for this tribute than its rippers initially thought; all these years later, despite its clear emotional core, the passion that went into it and the release of its remaster, the game remains a jewel swept away by the tides of the industry. We're soon nearing nine whole years of the SiIvaGunner channel's run, and with every day I run this blog I'm made all the more aware of how many gems just like Radical Halation continue to slip by the cracks, how much joy and love the channel's team crams into so much of its output despite never having any sort of guarantee that its audience will reciprocate that love.

But, even all those years ago, Radical Halation did reach me. And even so many years before the idea of this blog was even a consideration, before I was knee-deep in thought about the channel's existence and the people involved in its upkeep...I knew that I wanted to thank its creators. I knew that it was a rip that could only have been made out of outpouring love; love for a game years old, love for a channel that was still standing shakily, love for a leitmotif and its impact on an audience...and most of all, the love of creating and performing music outright.

I held onto those thoughts, kept them stashed away in the back of my mind – yet I feel as if subconsciously, they were part of why wolfman1405's arrangement and performance of Sunday Morning, three years later, hit me as hard as it did. The song was different, the subject was different, the context was different, the "joke" was no longer there; and yet it was as if Wolfman1405's creative, emotional spirit, that I'd felt so prominently years past, had never left. Put simply, beyond its inherent qualities that I'll forever applaud wheel able and wolfman1405 for, I feel...indebted to Radical Halation: it may well just be one rip, but its one of the most core pieces I can think of for why my love for the channel continues to this very day.

[metamelonisle]

when i was a younger girl and not out yet, the only people i really knew that were also trans were my sibling and a few trans men i knew both irl and online. it was really nice having trans people around to connect with even if i was a very bashful person who wasn't too confident in my own identity yet. but something i kind of grew into for reasons i still don't really understand is that i began to feel an intense guilt for being transfem due to only knowing trans people who sought to reject femininity. i used to feel terrible for it bc i was born male and have very "masculine" physical traits (tall. broadshouldered. thick dark long plentiful body hair. a beard. ruggedly muscular and strong. you get the picture) that admittedly sometimes make me happy, but typically just feel.. wrong on me. but it felt so terrible to me. how dare i forsake what the great men around me have toiled so hard to obtain throughout their lives. i was born with a silver spoon in my mouth and i wish to give it up for something that virtually everyone around me hates? how ridiculous.

it probably won't surprise anyone to know that none of my friends knew this, or i would have had this line of thinking stopped dead in its tracks much much earlier.

but early or late, i still grew out of it. and it came from realizing that i don't blame trans men for rejecting femininity the way i blamed myself for rejecting masculinity, and it was weird to think they would blame me for that. i remembered how happy and elated i was to see my friends feeling just a little bit more at home in their bodies and express themselves as the joyous gentlemen they truly always were.

and it occurred to me that it was just a little strange for me to think that these wonderful men would not think the same thoughts of joy and elation for their sister.

i still feel a little regret, yes. but it's not about becoming more feminine. it's just that i didn't talk to anyone earlier out of fear of how they might react. make no mistake, they were all sincerely kind and approachable fellows and talking to them was absolutely the right (and logical) thing to do. i'm just in particular a bit of a strange worrywart that's afraid of everyone, and it was arguably at its worst here. i think if i had spoken to them, i might have made the connection much, much earlier.

but it made me realize that one man's trash is another woman's treasure, and one woman's trash is another man's treasure just as well.

[hotwaterandmilk]

Hi! I love your content and was wondering if you have any tips for those who might want to post their own scanned manga stuff on here?

I have some furoku, postcards, magazine clippings, etc and I enjoy scanning and cataloguing stuff, but I'm a bit shy about posting it online. I'm worried there might be some kind of etiquette regarding all of this that I'm unaware of. Like are publication dates important to disclose? should I try and find it for every scan I upload or can I just give some basic details about it? Oh and if someone else has already scanned something I own should I refrain from posting my own scans of that item? Hope these questions aren't too dumb, I just don't want to accidentally step on anyone's toes.

Hi, thank you for your kind words. I can only really share with you my opinion on sharing scans, as there are no real "rules" about doing this hobby that I'm aware of. I feel that things boil down to courtesy, like so many elements of fandom, and asking those involved when unsure.

I personally won't share something I'm aware someone else has shared before, unless I feel I can provide a better quality scan or additional context to make the effort worthwhile. For example, people have shared plenty of old Hana to Yume calendar scans in the past on sites like Minitokyo, but as they're not in 1200 dpi I feel like my effort in rescanning and sharing these images is "worth it".

If someone else is committed to scanning monthly furoku for a particular series, I won't double up by sharing scans of the same furoku - I'm wasting my own time by scanning/editing these items when someone else is doing them already, but I'm also potentially making the existing contributer uncomfortable.

However, we can't all be expected to keep track of every scanner on every website or through every fandom - sometimes there is overlap or there are multiple people passionate about a work. In that case, or in any case where unsure, I don't think it hurts to reach out to someone and ask "Hey, do you mind if I also share ____" ?

People can say no, but ultimately none of us involved in sharing scans/scanlating/fan works/etc. owns the original property and these are widely published titles. We can say "Hey I'd prefer it if you don't share ____ when I'm already sharing ____" but it is down to the other party if they wish to cease doing so.

In terms of things like publication information, that's very much a personal choice. My opinion on this is that it is respectful to include artist information wherever possible and publication details when you can so that others can find the original item for themselves. It's extra work, but it means I don't get messages asking "Where is ____ from?" as that information is already available.

The caveat to this, for me, is that sometimes we simply don't know all the details. Goodness knows I've got hundreds of postcards from 80s shoujo magazines that I've been gifted or received in bulk aucions without any information on the issue they were included with and at best I can narrow down the year they were released... right now I'm not sharing that content because I really do want to attribute that information if possible. But not everyone cares about things like that and that's OK, sometimes people just include an artist and the series and that's all.

I want to be clear that I'm not here to prescribe what you should and should not do when sharing your treasure trove. I'm just one person with a singular experience. So much of sharing scans as a hobby will boil down to what is important to you and how much time you have on your hands. And plenty comes from trial and error, along with feedback that others provide.

I feel it's important to convey that not everyone will like what you share or how you share it, while some will lift what you share wholesale to try and profit from it on other sites. I've had to develop a pretty thick skin regarding what people say about me online, despite being a nobody. I'd be lying if I said this didn't get to me sometimes, but for the moment my love of sharing has won out.

What I think is key, overall, is just that you want to share things with others and are willing to put the work into doing so. Missteps around doubling up on sharing may happen, but are more often than not resolved through communication.

I hope you can find a way of sharing the things that are important to you that best fits with your needs and schedule. ^^

[mpsansy]

The Art Of Scaring

A journal entry of the eternal youth living within the walls of Whipstaff Manor.

-

I don’t usually write in journals like this. Not that I’m afraid of my uncles getting into it, though they probably would if given the chance. And I suppose I would too. Cause what else is there to do when the house you occupy is filled with a treasure trove of books that have all been read by the residents?

I’m getting off track here.

Tonight, as opposed to having a single moment of true peace. I was dragged into learning how to make some people skin crawl. Scaring.

Ugh...

Honestly, I can’t seem to find the appeal. Not exactly anyways. I’d rather just be left alone to my own devices. And yet when I told that to them, my uncles were quick to say that fleshies could ruin that for me. And to keep that “solitude” that I like so much, I MUST know how to scare. I’d like to say they’re wrong. Absolutely wrong and stupid for thinking that way.

Unfortunately, they’re not wrong.

It alway seems like annoying people come our way and genuinely disrupt the serenity I have made for my family and I.

...

Maybe I am growing up, because I used to be so excited meeting new people. Being unapologetically friendly upon first approach. Now it’s turned to mild annoyance when I’m trying to read, draw, or listen to music. Not to mention that I feel my form changing. Not by much, but enough to notice. It's weird. Can ghosts like me really change in such a way?

Off that. The Art Of Scaring.

That’s a term my uncles like to call it. For this particular session of scaring, we took a different approach to things. An idea that I thought they wouldn’t put into practice cause I mostly said it as a sarcastic remark. But it’s all about vocals here. Not the scraggly stuffy vocals.

The kind of vocals we are doing here makes you feel like there’s an actual person in the same space with you, despite nobody being visible.

I’ll admit, this one is a little fun. Reason being is that for someone like my uncle Fatso, the voice from him can reverberate and seem even louder than it is. And I happen to mimic his tactics. If it isn’t broken, why fix it. Or upgrade it for that matter.

I don’t know why, but scaring with him is a little bit manageable. That may have something to do with him giving me more range to work with and explore different creative scenes. My other uncles are a bit…

Lacking in that regard. Using the same methods over and over again. So as far as I’m concerned, it’s usually me or him making up these elaborate scares possible and entertaining.

Don't get the wrong idea, I don't relish in the scaring. If anything, I am far more tamer in my methods as opposed to my uncles. They can be quite extreme. Deadly even. Luckily here, nothing bad happened.

In all, I actually managed to get some stuff out of it. I even scared a teen that had a music player he just abandoned. Sucks for him, but great for me because a lot of music was on it. Most of the intense rock and metal genre.

I'm cool with that. Gets my soul feeling all fuzzy. Other than that, I guess I got nothing much to add. Don't know when I'll write in this again, but hopefully I will get to to preserve all the new memories I'm making!

[tact-and-impulse]

Realized taking a particular quest can be possibly done after starting the friends with benefits dynamic, @shepherds-of-haven, and the potential messiness was too good to pass up lol. Edit: AO3 link

fair play

Gold filigree and brilliant emeralds. Chase recognized the necklace immediately; it was the one she’d worn that night. He had rummaged for the perfect jewelry, and knew it was the right choice. He remembered the glitter against her warm skin, the searing temptation to break the clasp in his eagerness. Now, the intricate links draped over a silken blouse that wasn’t her usual style. Rouge darkened her lips, pursed in thought as she read a paper scrap.

He slid his hands in his pockets, aiming for nonchalance, each casual step pointed in her direction. Carefully, he delivered a teasing greeting. Then, he tracked the flurry of emotions on her face - embarrassment, panic, a spark of desire - before her own brave mask fixed into place.

“You’re back early. What’s toward?”

“I should be asking you, with how gorgeous you look. What’s the occasion, darling?”

Her fingers played with a smaller gem. “A spare job, I suppose. An anonymous request for a party companion, a scheme of some kind.”

He couldn’t suppress the rolling twitch across his shoulders. “Interesting.”

“Yes, ironic, but it’s for the reward.”

“How much do you need?” He inquired, before thinking twice. “No-name can find another, I’ll give you the money. Even better, we could earn it together.” In a lower tone, he added. “And we’ll have fun.”

She nearly caved, a sharp inhale and shiver at the idea. But she shook her head. “Chase. I can’t say.”

Of course, it wasn’t as if they were truly lovers. He rocked onto his back foot. “Ah, understood. Good luck in getting your treasure, sunshine.” Weakly, he attempted to slither off.

He didn’t expect her to grab him, just under his collar. He pivoted, her name escaping him.

Remorse flooded her shining eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hide it. The money’s for buying you something in exchange. I want to be fair, I wouldn’t feel right otherwise. But I’m horrible, I haven’t had great luck in r…” She stopped, catching herself. “Anyway, the job isn’t worth upsetting you. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

His gaze dropped lower. He itched to steal that unspoken word from her mouth. Instead, he forced a smile. “Right. Friends. And I’m not upset…except, you shouldn’t put yourself down. In fact, I’m touched by your thoughtfulness. You’re far too kind for me.” Now, he was treading dangerously close to honesty. “I’m glad you like the necklace enough to wear it a second time.”

She flushed, her reply indicating he was an idiot. “You gave me this. Of course, I love it.”

His pulse kicked up, heat building within. “…You know, we can still have fun.”

“After I return, with your gift. Before you ask, it’s a surprise. I’m sure you can wait.” She smirked. And then, with a bold kiss on his cheek, she darted away.

It’d been a long time since he felt robbed, and he crouched, cradling the side of his face. She could try but she wasn’t fair at all.

[mercymaker]

so we had a fake wedding episode in the grand bloodstorm adventure, but get ready the new season's about to start and we're opening with some drama

astarion and mal are trying to track down a relic that's rumored to have the power of protecting a vampire from the sun. neat. they find out that its last known location is at some ancient noble house's castle, so they go there but they get caught sneaking around.

fully expecting to have to fight their way out of there, both of them are surprised when the lord of the house instead offers a warm welcome to his house, taking particular interest in mal, showering her with attention and gifts.

he also reveals that the relic has been lost to the surrounding woods after their house was attacked by outsiders, but both astarion and mal are quite suspicious of that version, so they stick around to find out more. while mal focuses on charming her way into the lord's heart so he'd tell her the truth, astarion goes out into the surrounding town to gather information.

turns out, the local legend tells that the relic is, in fact, still somewhere in the woods, as when the invading forces attacked, the lady of the house took all of their most important belongings, shoved them into a bag, strapped that to a horse that she then tried to flee the castle with, but was shot down by archers and fell to the enemy as the horse galloped deep into the woods. it's said that the horse was eaten by a giant demonic bear, but the treasure still remains somewhere. and that leads various parties to venture out into the forest to seek it.

astarion decides to join one such party, if not to find the treasure, then at the very least to get more information. he leaves maleane alone with the lord, who seems to be quite infatuated with her. mal reassures her lover that she can handle herself in case something happens. she's a sorcerer, after all.

the vampire spawn & the gang set a small camp out in the woods after traveling for most of the evening. they drink and tell stories over the fire and astarion starts sneakily peppering in questions to get the information he needs. one of the drunk men decides to go on a bit of a spooky retelling of the most horrific event he had witnessed. the great attack on their town by the most brutal monsters. it happened over three decades ago, when he was just a little boy.

they came in the night, with their intricate armors, their swords and their arrows and their daggers in the dark. some of the commoners fell to poison before any blades could lick their throats. those that didn't flee in time were either massacred or put in chains and dragged back to the underdark to be used and sold as slaves. both the lord and the lady of the house were brutally slaughtered in the ritual known as the blooding, leaving their only son an orphan.

oh, so the guy's entire family was killed by drow? and who is he currently hosting in his massive castle? hmm, yes, another drow.

but not to worry! he dressed mal in the finest of silks and set up the most elaborate dinner for just the two of them. an array of intricate pastries, wild salmon and spit-roasted steak, and, of course, a flagon of his favorite wine to wash it all down.

they talk over the dinner, maleane slowly trying to poke and prod for more information about the relic and what happened to it. the lord, eventually unravels the same story that astarion heard over the campfire, and as the puzzle pieces slowly slide into their places, mal suddenly feels lightheaded. her breathing starts to become erratic as she struggles to catch her breath. and when she rises from the table, in a frantic attempt to flee, her legs feel like they're full of lead. the same petrifying feelings spreads throughout the rest of her body, pulling her to the ground in an instant.

as she gasps for air to fill her failing lungs, the lord walks right to her, watching the paralyzed drow fight the effects of the poison, and tells her how much he hates her kind. how long he's been dreaming of this moment, to get his hands on one of the monsters that took everything from him. how they all are the same. how he's going to peel the skin off her flesh, bit by bit. he chuckles at her panic, at soft wheezing coming from her throat. he wasn't sure how much of the poison to pour in her glass. after all, drow are known to be resistant to most of them. perhaps he gave her a bit too much. but it doesn't matter. by the time it wears off she won't be able to escape.

he then drags her to his personal quarters, a little dark room with chains and cages, a large wooden table stacked with books and scrolls and sketches. everything you need to know about drow and more. he takes the beautiful soft gown off her body and shackles her wrists and ankles to a rack.

a beautiful monster, he calls her, dragging his fingers from her cheek, down to her breast. yet, soon his hand is replaced with a dagger. this is more than just revenge. it's something darker and deeper. the obsession with drow, all that hatred and rage latched on something else entirely. the want to have her, to own her, to break and hurt her again and again and again, for years and years. because that's how long he's been carrying all that venom inside. it's not going to be over soon, maleane realizes.

it's almost a relief when it's his hand touching her again instead of a blade. but she knows that the intent behind the gesture is just as sharp as the bite of a dagger. she can't utter an incantation. she can't move her body to channel her magic. it's been so long that she felt this helpless.

then she feels her mind start to slip, drifting away somewhere. the lord's unhinged ramblings turn into echoes from a distant room. the throbbing pain softens into an almost-numbness. for just a brief moment, maleane is not there.

it's the odd shift in the surroundings that drags her right back into the dark cell. a sudden, violent gurgling sound. when she looks up, all mal sees is red. the blood pouring out of the lord's mouth and throat. the shock still frozen in his eyes before his body collapses just as hers did before. and then, two red irises, framed by a set of worried brows, staring at her. astarion.

[perpetualexistence]

Noah and the Beanstalk AU

New AU hot off the press! This one's what I'd call a one-shot AU since this is the main thought without really any other ideas to go along with it. I would still love to answer any questions about it, though!

Look under the read more for an Alenoaheather g/t au! It won't be the last, though it is currently the only one that ends in a villain thruple.

Fantasy AU where giants are a known thing to exist in the clouds. Jack did his thing with the beanstalk and became famous since he's wealthy a la golden goose. This has just encouraged more humans to try to go up and steal from giants, occasionally even killing one. At this point stealing from giants is a profession in itself. An incredibly dangerous one with a very high mortality rate.

With that context out of the way, now onto Noah. He's the youngest of 9, and his life's doing pretty okay up until his mom catches an incurable illness. Being a nerd, he throws himself into research to find some kind of magic that can save her.

Good news! There's a chalice that cures the most pressing of ailments the next town over! The bad news? That town just got razed to the ground and pillaged by a pair of giants. Giants normally don't bother coming down and prefer to stay up to hoard and guard their treasures. These two are particularly greedy though because they go out of their way to come down and take things for themselves. The treasure's their priority but if anyone gets in the way of that? They're going to lose their lives trying to protect what's theirs. Giant thieves have gone up to try to reclaim the wealth and seek revenge. Though some even theorize that these two are only doing this out of desperation and can potentially be reasoned with. People from neither side of this argument have come back down.

There's also another problem in trying to go after these two. A more human one. You see, when everyone started going after giants, the earlier ones had the advantage of stealing from unsuspecting giants with no idea this was going to be an epidemic of stealing. They got power real fast, and started doing what they could to keep that power to themselves. Certain giant thieves went as far as hiring guards to stop other giant thieves from going up and getting rich without at least some hefty fee. The particular beanstalk that Noah's got to get to has royal guards.

Noah's only got a timeline of a couple of months since that's how long the doctors predicted. So he uses that to the fullest extend he dares. Most giant thieves get killed because they think they can just sneak in without a plan and get what they want the first time they get up there.

Noah's plans to do this smart thing called reconnaissance. He's going to make a few trips up before he tries actually stealing the chalice. He needs to know a few things before he's even going to think about touching that treasure:

Where these two keep their treasure

How they guard it

If they know how valuable the chalice is, and subsequently

If they'll notice that the chalice goes missing

Can they track him down if they do notice

He somehow manages to get his way up the beanstalk whether it's through bribing guards or distracting them so he can sneak up. Though he does manage to catch the attention through Justin, the prince or else some kind of royal who wants to make a name for himself but is also too cowardly to try stealing from a giant. Justin can't prove anything, so he just watches and waits as Noah keeps up with his frequent trips.

Through Noah's reconnaissance, he learns a couple of things. The two giants are named Alejandro and Heather. They're both around his age, and they really do only care about the treasure so they can gloat to others about how wealthy they are. They're also clearly in the honeymoon phase of their relationship. It's just incredibly unfortunate that they define a romantic outing as stealing and killing together.

Noah also learns that they have no idea they've got a magic chalice on their hands, which is good. What's not so good is they have a giant dog that guards their treasure room when they're not around. (Is the giant dog a stand in for anyone in particular? Maybe! Part of me wants to say Tyler for some reason. Still trying to figure that out.) However, he does learn that the dog has been trained at least a bit through whistles. This leads to the start of a brilliant plan.

Rather than steal the chalice himself, he trains the dog to steal the chalice FOR him. The dog goes in and out of the treasure room so he won't set off any alarms. Noah already knows some tricks for doing so thanks to training his own dog. It takes a while to make sure the dog becomes familiar with and loves him as a person with treats rather than a person who is a treat. Even longer to go through the training of teaching him how to fetch the chalice through creating a replica so the dog knows what to look for. But eventually it pays off.

He books it with the chalice. He doesn't dare to get greedy because he knows these two will notice if too much goes missing. And he's seen enough of them to know they'll be incredibly vindictive against anyone who injures their pride by stealing. He actually plans to return the chalice after using it on his mother. He'd rather have them never realize it was gone rather than live with the ticking time bomb of waiting to see if they notice.

Before he goes too far with it, he tests it on himself first. It would be a waste to steal it only for it to be for nothing. He cuts the palm of his hand, then pours some water into the chalice and drinks. He was not prepared for the intensity. It feels like he's swallowed liquid fire and he nearly coughs it out, but he forces himself to swallow. As to be expected, his whole body feels like it's on fire. This was a horrible mistake. Fortunately for him, the pain subsides. And look, that cut has been healed! Finally, life is looking up for once!

Noah's biggest mistake was thinking this because the moment he gets off the beanstalk, Justin shows up. He reveals that he's been watching Noah and let him keep going up, which is why it's been so easy for Noah to make repeated trips. Justin rips the chalice out of Noah's hands to claim it for himself so he can have the prestige of being a giant thief without ever putting himself in any danger. Noah gets to live because Justin can't be bothered to kill him, and doesn't see him as a threat. Noah's only saving grace is Justin has no idea what the chalice can do, and Noah sure as hell isn't going to tell him.

Noah's forced to go home empty-handed. He starts trying to plan how to steal the chalice back, and if he even has enough time to do that. Infiltrating a castle with plenty of guards is much different than infiltrating a giant home with only three occupants.

He only gets about a week or two before two rather pissed off giants and their dog come crashing down to reclaim their stolen treasure. Noah's in town doing reconnaissance on the castle so he's close enough to see the dog bounding into the castle to reclaim the chalice and the person who's currently claiming he took the chalice: Justin.

Heather and Alejandro are busy trying to interrogate Justin into telling them how he stole from them. Neither of them are paying attention to their dog, who smells Noah, and comes bounding towards him with the chalice as he's been trained. Noah can't believe his luck.

Literally, he can't. Because if Heather or Alejandro catch sight of this they're going to figure out who the real thief is in an instant. But also this is his one chance of curing his mom while the two are distracted. He just has to pray he's faster than they are. At least he has a giant dog that serves as a great mode of transportation if you're willing to cling for your life and pray to anyone that'll listen to not fall off.

He does manage to make it home and cure his mother, thankfully without her looking too pained by drinking from the chalice. Bad news is this is around the time he hears two incredibly loud, incredibly frustrated screams and he knows they've realized the chalice is gone again.

He tries to order the dog to return the chalice to Alejandro and Heather. Which is pretty difficult considering this isn't a command he's taught the dog. The dog also hears itself being called back by its giant owners, so it comes up with the perfect solution. It lightly bites down onto both the chalice AND Noah and begins bounding back. Cue Noah screaming and trying to give the 'drop it'.

Which works! Partially. It gets the dog to drop the chalice. Down a hill. Rolling off a cliff. To the ocean below. Where it's immediately swept away. Never to be seen again.

His only hope is that Alejandro and Heather will make his death quick.

When he does get brought back to the two, he's immediately snatched up by Heather who demands to know who he thinks he is, and where the chalice is when she realizes it's gone. Noah tries to lie that their dog picked him up on complete accident, but they're not buying it. Alejandro does notice that their dog is acting particularly strange towards this one human, and convinces Heather to drop Noah into the dog's mouth.

Noah does land into his mouth, though out of sheer desperation gives the 'drop it' order. This saves him, but it also reveals himself as the original thief.

They're both at least slightly impressed that Noah managed to scheme his way into the chalice, but they've still got their images to maintain. Plus, he lost the chalice.

So, Alejandro crushes him under his heel. It's quick, although incredibly painful. The two walk off to see if they can recover the chalice, and that's the end of the story.

...Or it would be, if Noah wasn't screaming in confused pain and panic not even a minute after being crushed, perfectly healthy.

Remember when he drank from the chalice to test it out? Well, it only really has one setting: turbo-charged. So with his mother with a terminal illness, it worked exactly as intended. But when he drank from it with only a cut on his hand, it decided to go after a deeper, underlying issue.

This pesky little thing called mortality.

Alejandro and Heather also scream because what?? the fuck?? Heather kicks him into a tree on instinct and Noah goes flying. And not long after, his body rebuilds himself and he's back. The process of killing Noah and him reviving repeats for a few times before they all stop and try to figure out where the fuck to go from here.

Their pride won't allow Heather or Alejandro to simply let Noah live. And Noah plans to do everything in his power to not go through that whole die/revive process again. Alejandro comes up with the idea to just take Noah if they can't have the original chalice. Raze the town so they can still prove a point, and be on their way.

Noah has many problems with this plan, but neither cares about his opinion. Up until he points out that he'll always be looking for a way to escape. With his newfound immortality, he'll get there eventually. (He's completely bluffing about whether or not his lifespan will be extended to and this isn't just regeneration, but they don't have to know that.)

If they agree NOT to destroy the town he grew up in, then he'll promise never to try to escape. And he will want proof that they stick to their end. He doesn't want them to just lie about his town being fine while they destroyed it days ago.

They reluctantly agree to these terms. Justin, who the two had dumped earlier, tries to take claim when they start to head out with their new prize. Leading Noah to just share at the sheer audacity of him before speaking again.

"...You know how I said you couldn't touch a single person in this town? I don't consider Justin to be a part of this town, so you can do whatever you want with him."

"Oh thank god he was getting SO annoying."

"Want to bat him through the air like a human racquetball until one of us inevitably drops him mi cariño?"

"Yes, but you are so the one who's dropping him first."

Eventually Heather realizes they can use Noah to steal from other giants. So he becomes their own pet giant thief, and he eventually gets pampered since they do legitimately enjoy his schemes and sarcastic wit.

All of this because I basically wanted a g/t au where Alejandro and Heather are a bond villain couple with a small Noah as the little bastard cat they stroke on their lap. He 100% pokes fights with human royalty or other giants to watch Alejandro and Heather take them down. Alejandro and Heather know this, and they love this about him. Plus it just gives them more of an excuse to have fun dates involving ruining people's lives.

[etruatcaelum]

On Ozlem.

This will be less a singular headcanon than a collection; my reading of the relationship is particular and on several key points, well off the beaten track from popular fanon. I thought it would be helpful to put it all in one place for ease of reference.

Salem’s Childhood.

Salem was the second-born child of a minor lord, born into the eighth generation of mankind since the creation of the world Arziant, in a kingdom called Pastoria. Her mother Salome had been the king’s only child, but not heir to the realm; Pastorian law and custom forbade women to leave their divine appointment within the home. In practice, a woman belonged to her father until she was given to her husband.

In that time, monolatrous worship of the God of Light was nigh-ubiquitous, and tradition held that no one who lived a virtuous life would die before their hundredth year, unless slain in battle or by some violent calamity brought about by the Darkness. To fall ill was proof in itself that one had committed some offense in the eyes of God. This was not mere superstition, for although natural sickness did exist, the God of Light gave healing to those he judged pure and inflicted disease as a punishment for sin.

Death in childbirth, although not (as Salem believes, even now) wholly unknown, was quite rare and supposed to be a punishment reserved only for the truly wicked. Both of Salem’s parents were well-known for their piety, and her father Lord Ithai was scrupulously devout; for his wife to sicken and die in the course of bearing their second child was shocking, not only to Ithai himself but to all of Pastoria. While he would have held the tragedy against her in any circumstance, his personal inclination to do so fed eagerly upon advice from religious advisors who, to preserve Salome’s good name in the eyes of the people, blamed her infant child. There had been, after all, prophecies foretelling the virtue and great deeds of heroes in the past; why not portents of a dire evil?

(In truth, Salome had made an error in a ritual entreating the God of Light to grant his blessings to her unborn child, and he intended to make an example of her carelessness.)

The modern fairytale The Girl in the Tower portrays the girl’s father as a paranoid, possessive tyrant who loves the girl as a miser loves his treasures, who becomes angry and violent when she asks to be set free; this characterization, though not an inaccurate portrait of Lord Ithai himself, elides the misogynistic norms and popular religious justification for Salem’s imprisonment. Simply put, she had no hope of rescue because most of Pastoria truly believed that she was an ill-omened child who needed to be locked away for the good of all.

Salem did not grow up in complete isolation, though she was alone far more often than not: she was raised by an ever-changing parade of servants, priests, and tutors. Her father visited her on occasion; her elder brother Kalev snuck in to see her with greater frequency.

The first twenty-one years of her life, she spent in locked in a single room—little more than a cell, ten paces wide and nine across—at the top of her father’s keep. Her singular window overlooked the block where Ithai executed those whom he suspected of treating her with undue kindness; from the time she was old enough to understand, Salem was made to watch these executions (and in time it became a compulsion to do so, one that still lingers; to this day Salem keeps obsessive count of the deaths she considers to be her fault).

She was nearly always hungry. Of the one hundred forty-three people Ithai executed, in those twenty-one years, most were kitchen servants condemned on suspicion of bringing her too much food, or for lingering to speak with her while she ate; to bring the lord’s daughter a meal, it was well known among the kitchen staff, was to risk one’s life. Quite often, she went without food altogether, and seldom received more than one meal in a day. Salem grew up both hoarding food and feeling intense guilt around eating.

Ithai was, on the rare occasion of his visits, extremely abusive; Salem was so terrified of him that even now she feels on edge around men who remind her of him. (He was quite tall, broad-shouldered, with a full beard; his hair sandy-brown in his youth, half-grey by the time of Salem’s birth; a deep baritone.) She cannot handle being yelled at without shutting down. Her instinctive reaction to violence against herself—to simply take it, quietly, without resistance, and wait for it to be over—is a response she learned in childhood, and unless she is already quite angry, it’s one she finds difficult to overcome.

Escaping the Tower.

In the fairytale, at the age of sixteen, the girl asks her father for paper and pen. She uses these to write pleas for rescue, promising to marry anyone who can save her from her father, and throws them to the wind. Innumerable would-be saviors flock to answer, only to be slain by her father while the girl looks on in horror, until one day a true hero defeats her father in a duel and frees her at last.

This is not quite how it happened.

When Salem was sixteen, and Kalev eighteen, she put to her brother that he should find someone to marry her. She was reaching the proper age (indeed, their mother had been only a year older when the king married her to Ithai), and she could think of no other means to escape than by marriage, though the prospect filled her with dread. Kalev undertook this effort very reluctantly, fearing that anyone willing to marry a girl who’d spent her whole life locked away would undoubtedly be at least as awful as their father; but he did try, without success, for several years.

He was twenty-one, Salem nineteen, when he met Ozma: not an aristocrat but the wandering knight of a holy order who chanced to be nearby when Kalev’s retinue was set upon by the largest wyvern any of them had ever seen. Ozma leapt to Kalev’s aid and slew the grimm, and would have died of the injuries they sustained in doing so had Kalev been less skilled in healing. They talked, afterward, finding they had much in common; and before long, the conversation turned to the plight of Kalev’s sister.

Ozma had no interest in marriage—had sworn vows of chastity, in fact—but Kalev’s account of Salem’s treatment horrified them. They had heard tell of the ill-omened girl held safe within the lord’s keep, of course, but the rumors had given them the impression that she was sickly, too frail to leave her bed. Upon learning the truth, they became determined to help her. Together, the pair hatched a new plan: Ozma would pledge themself as Kalev’s vassal, ingratiate themself to Lord Ithai, and find some opportunity to free Salem in secret.

Two more years would pass before Ozma found their opportunity, for the magic Ithai had woven around her cell would not allow her to cross the threshold, even were the door torn from its hinges. During this time, Ozma stole up the tower whenever they could to visit Salem; they didn’t dare enter the room, for fear of being ensnared by the wards, but they could speak to her through the door.

Without fail, Salem would beg them not to come back; desperate though she was for escape, she did not believe this plan had any chance of working, and lived in terror of Ozma being found out and executed. Ozma, for their part, stayed resolute in their conviction that freeing her was a worthy cause to die for, which had—for as long as they could remember—been the only thing they really wanted.

In the end, what happened is this:

Lord Ithai came to Salem’s cell late one evening, on the same night Ozma risked ascending the tower to talk to her; and though they realized the danger halfway up the stairs, hearing echoes of her father’s tirade, before they turned back as they’d promised her to do if this should ever happen, they heard the unmistakable sound of a blow, a choked cry of pain, and could not find it in themself to leave.

Up they charged. Ithai had his back turned to the door, his hands around Salem’s neck, and Ozma gathered all the magic they knew to strike at him from behind; but Ithai was an experienced combatant. Though wounded, he was not bested, and he whirled around in a murderous fury to retaliate. The duel was swift and brutally decisive—within moments, Ithai shattered Ozma’s defenses and had them on disarmed on the floor.

Salem had collapsed when Ithai dropped her and remained cowering against the wall while the brief battle raged; but when her father raised his hand to strike Ozma dead, with the door open and someone who had been kind to her about to die because of her like so many others, she snapped. Her magic, never trained, and never very strong, exploded outward as she threw herself across the room.

She drove her hand into Ithai’s body as if his flesh were water and ripped his pulverized heart right out of his chest.

That was not what she meant to do, exactly. She had wanted only to make him stop, and twenty-one years of desperate fear crashed together in that moment to become a wild, boundless rage; but no sooner had his body crumpled than reality caught up with her, and then she was only a girl clutching the gory shreds of another person’s insides in her hands, whereupon she became hysterical.

Salem does not, whatsoever, remember leaving the tower, nor anything else until dawn, when she regained her senses to find Ozma coaxing her to let them clean the blood off her hands. But after realizing what had happened, Ozma scrambled up, pried the gore out of her hands, swept a few valuable-looking trinkets into a satchel—they’d wanted her to have something to her name—thrown their cloak around her shoulders, and raced the both of them out of the keep at speed.

The image Jinn presents when Ruby asks her what Ozpin is hiding, of Salem and Ozma fighting their way out together, is a representation of how Ozpin would have told this story: distilled, softened, stripped of personal feeling… but that fight did happen, for the lord’s death and Salem’s passage through his unravelling wards awoke his retinue. Ozma fought; Salem was a storm of uncontrolled violence lashing out in blind panic.

Their First Relationship.

Although Ozma had, over the course of those two years spent whispering through her door, fallen quite hopelessly in love with her, it became clear to them within hours that Salem not feel the same. The satchel of minor valuables they’d hastily gathered for her, she tried to give to them, and their polite refusal to accept caused her to lapse into hollow silence for several minutes before she asked what they wanted from her instead—and only then had they realized how scared she felt that she might be no more to them than a prize.

The first lie Ozma ever told her was that they had never thought of anything but to set right the terrible injustice her father inflicted upon her, and they resolved to take the secret of their infatuation with her to the grave.

Still: she had nowhere else to go, and neither of them dared stay in Pastoria after murdering a nobleman. Ozma offered to take her wherever she liked, and Salem ventured that she had always wanted to see the ocean. In those days, the land formed a single continent, and Pastoria lay nestled at its heart, in the verdant foothills beneath the Light’s sacred mountain.

The long journey would be Ozma’s undoing, for the sea and the edges of the great continent belonged to the God of Darkness, and the vows Ozma had made to Light forbade them to enter Dark’s own country. But they thought nothing of it at the time; their whole life, they had scrupulously abided by the stern, unyielding tenets of their faith while privately yearning for death, only for Salem to ignite within them a ferocious desire to live.

So off they went.

For more than two years, the pair traveled further and further west. Salem grew easier around them, and as her wariness ebbed, true friendship rose to take its place—not the desolate, harrowing need which had bound them both together when they fled, but the simple sense of being kindred spirits. (It was during their travels together that Ozma first decided to worry less over fitting into either manhood or womanhood, and began—just between themself and Salem—to invent an un-gendered mode of address for themself; at the time, the phrase they’re still so fond of repeating in the present, that they are only a man, not even a very good one, was not self-deprecation but a private joke they shared with her at the world’s expense.)

With other people, however, Salem struggled: her speech was stilted and afflicted by a ruinous stutter, she was awkward, she was sometimes volatile and sometimes seemingly void of any emotion at all, she was painfully shy, she could not eat with anyone else looking at her, she sometimes lost the thread of conversations and simply lapsed into silent staring… every invisible scar her childhood left upon her marked her out as strange, as unnatural, perhaps even dangerous.

By the time she and Ozma reached the ocean, Salem felt utterly exhausted and half-certain her brother and Ozma were the only good people in the entire world; she found the desolation of the coast appealed to her, the wild emptiness, the sheer scale of the endless water.

She wanted to stay, and stay they did.

They built a little house upon cliffs overlooking the sea, a day’s walk from the closest village. Planted a garden. Lived. Grimm were far more numerous around the coast than in the heartland, and though the creatures proved to be less trouble than Ozma expected, they still insisted on teaching Salem how to fight, more than the basics she’d picked up along the journey. For a year, all seemed well.

However, though Ozma had long since forgotten their vows, the God of Light did not forgive, and seeing now that his wayward servant had no intention to repent, he at last struck Ozma down.

The sickness killed them slowly; it began with mere fatigue, headaches… mild at first, though they grew ever more severe and lingering until Ozma was left nearly insensate with agony for days at a time. Over the course of nine months, they slid piece by piece into a listless haze of pain and confusion—and though Salem tried everything she could think of to help, even leaving them in village and traveling alone to the nearest city to plead for medical aid or healing from the temple, they died just short of four years after her liberation.

Salem has always, deep down, believed she killed them, somehow.

In all that time, Ozma had never breathed a word to her of how they loved her or the depth of their feeling, still afraid to ask for anything she didn’t want to give; and Salem had only just begun to realize similar feelings for them when they fell ill. The thought that they had died not knowing she loved them was almost as unbearable a torment to her as grief itself.

Salem’s Petitions to the Brothers.

The journey back to the heartland took Salem just seven months. She had pushed herself extraordinarily hard to traverse such a vast distance in so little time, scarcely sleeping or eating and using magic to whip herself onward past the brink of collapse; she was deeply unwell, and her thin hope that the God of Light might take pity was all that kept her standing.

She had always been fervently religious, in her way, although her imprisonment and the abuse she’d suffered and the estrangement she felt from the rest of mankind after her escape had all left her with idiosyncratic, at times nakedly heretical ideas about the Brothers. (For one, Salem had spent most of her life praying to the God of Darkness too, because it never made sense to her that only one of mankind’s creators should be worshipped; she believed, and still believes even today, that it was Darkness who freed her from the paralyzing terror on the night she killed her father.)

Salem had no intention of marching into the sacred domain of the Light to demand anything, nor did she truly expect him to give her what she asked; but she did feel certain there had been some mistake, because good people were not supposed to sicken and die, and she did believe, with all her heart, that the God of Light was just and kind.

When she climbed the marble steps, she imagined that she would kneel before the pool to pray, and perhaps the Light would offer her some sign of comfort, of sorrow, of understanding. For him to appear in front of her himself before she could even utter a word shocked her, and ignited a wild hope that he might actually grant her a miracle—hopes that he shattered by instead chiding her for making demands of him.

That was the first fracture in Salem’s faith. Light sent her out of his realm and left her reeling: he had not been kind. Why reveal himself to her at all, just to rebuke her prayers? It seemed—unfair, even cruel.

Of course she turned to the God of Darkness, then. If even the gods were cruel, Salem did not care to live in the world, and she had worshipped Darkness from afar all her life. Why not seek out kindness from him, or else find merciful death in the jaws of his monsters?

Perhaps, she thought, he was lonely too.

Finding his realm took some doing, for no one in living memory had dared go looking for it; in the end, Salem resorted to following the grimm until one led her to the proper place. By then she had lost all sense of time, exhausted and sick and starving as she was, but it was almost exactly a year since Ozma’s death when she stumbled wearily up the granite steps to visit the God of Darkness.

Though Ozma believes that she asked Darkness to bring them back to life, and lied to him about having gone first to his brother, this is not so. (Salem told them the truth, eons later, as well as she could: but by then she had been so long alone, and the events that had led to mankind’s destruction were so distant, that her account had been meandering and confused, difficult to follow. The answer Jinn gives Ruby is not absolute truth, only exactly what Ozpin believed to be true and chose to hide, and contains a great deal of guesswork on Ozma’s part, to make sense of it all.)

What she did do is tell Darkness of all her sorrow, vowing to revere him above his brother for the rest of her life if he ended her pain. Salem half-hoped he would unite her with Ozma in death—it seemed a fitting mercy, from the god of destruction—and half-feared he would answer by unburdening her of the capacity to feel at all. Until he did so, it never occurred to her to imagine that Darkness would grant her the favor his brother had coldly forbidden her to even want.

But he did, and during that brief moment before the God of Light appeared in all his icy wrath, Salem had every intention to uphold her end of the bargain. Light had treated her with cold disdain, but in Darkness she had found the kindness she had been taught to expect from his supposedly benevolent brother; she would never again worship the God of Light, and had Light not interfered then, she would have become a devoted, unendingly faithful disciple to the God of Darkness.

Instead, the Brothers twice incinerated Ozma in her arms and drowned her in the fountain of life to consign her to a deathless eternity alone, and that was the second fracture in her faith.

Her Rebellion.

When the Brothers cast her out of Light’s realm, they sent her home: to the cliffside by the sea where she and Ozma had lived.

The very first thing Salem did was hurl herself into the sea.

How long she spent drowning and drowning and unable to die beneath the waves, Salem did not know; by the time a (distraught) fisherman discovered her undying but horrifically broken body in his net, the little house on the cliff had fallen into ruin, and the village she remembered had grown into a large and prosperous town.

The fountain of life had poured into her soul—which left the physical pool in the Light’s domain a mere puddle of water with no magical properties at all—and remade her into the very wellspring of creation itself; the life-force humans would, much later, come to know as aura. No matter the severity of her injuries, she could not die, but healing serious injuries with aura requires training, focus.

Salem had healed imperfectly: the bones she had shattered when she plunged into the sea knitting back together at strange angles, her body bent and distorted by the uncontrolled and unchecked growth of masses that would have killed anyone mortal, her chest distended with seawater. She could barely move, let alone speak, and it was only good fortune that the fisherman who had found her overcame his panic before casting her overboard again.

He brought her to Light’s temple, in the town that had once been a village. The priests there were baffled, but they could see that she was in terrible pain, and they did what they could to help her. Mostly, this was miserable: a matter of breaking bones and carving out tumors, little by little pulling her body back into human shape.

She did not make it easy for them. The ruin of her physical body had not diminished her magical power, and as soon as Salem understood where she was she began to lash out, wanting nothing to do with the gods who had done this to her. Still, the priests felt sorry for her—and assumed that her violent reactions were motivated by pain, rather than hatred of the god they served—so they persisted.

Then the ones who had taken charge of her care began to sicken, and Salem realized two things: first, that they were not caring for her under Light’s auspices; and second, that he accounted the kindness they were trying to give her a sin deserving of punishment.

That was the third, and final, fracture in her faith. She stopped fighting her caretakers and bent every effort toward healing herself and trying to heal them; in this, she failed, and watched those who had aided her die one by one even as she was restored to perfect health.

She was outraged.

Yes, she had prayed for things she was not meant to have, and yes, she had sown discord between the Brothers by mistake, and yes, she had railed against them and called them monsters when they ripped her love away from her again. Perhaps that did make her selfish, arrogant, deserving of the torment they inflicted upon her—but these people had done nothing to deserve death.

It was an injustice.

It was worse than cruel; it was wrong.

Salem returned to Pastoria brimming with righteous fury. There, to her surprise, she found Kalev—an old man now, though she still looked not a day older than twenty-five.

The reunion was strange and bittersweet. Kalev had spent most of his life wondering what happened to her, praying to God to keep her safe and happy, and to learn that the Brothers had treated her with such brutality devastated him. From his devastation and her rage, the first spark of rebellion was struck.

When Salem set out to galvanize others to their cause, she told the truth: of the injustices and cruelty she had seen; of how the Brothers had made her immortal by throwing her into the fountain of life, and so revoked the promise of healing for the pure from the rest of the world; of the division she had seen between Light and Darkness; of her vision of a new world freed from the chains of their creators. The gory spectacle of her immortality and the fervent truth of her convictions overcame every obstacle that had always set her apart from the rest of her kind.

Though it was Salem who lit the match, the firestorm she unleashed surpassed her expectations, and when the rebellion stormed the marble steps to Light’s domain, the movement had long since grown beyond her, grown bigger than the faint hope she clung to that she might find a way to die after the Brothers were gone.

(She wouldn’t recognize it until eons later, but she had already begun, even then, to resign herself to the possibility of living forever.)

The Moonfall and the Making of Remnant.

See this post.

Upon climbing back out of the pool of grimm, Salem found that it, just as the fountain of life had done, had poured itself into her soul. The vast and infinite well over which Darkness once presided had diminished to mere scattered ponds of atrum, still capable of birthing grimm if given a spark of life yet no longer alive as the dark lake had been; and she felt that vast and infinite power churning within herself now, mixing together with the molten radiance of the fountain. She began to have an inkling, then, of what she had done.

Eons ago, the Brothers created mankind by the admixture of their two natures—so went the old stories—creation and destruction bound together in one. Salem had thought to do the same, when she bore the light into the pool, but instead… some intangible barrier had shattered, she thought, had fallen into dust and less than dust. The waters mingled: and here is fire.

She wandered away from the Dark’s onetime domain in a daze, unsure of what she would find in this new world but excited to meet it, and what she found was the first and second of Remnant’s peoples: the fauni, who were no more human than she, and the grimm, as fierce and wild as she remembered.

Humans would come later. Salem has… complicated feelings about mankind, these days, a mixture of admiration for their virtues—their strength, their wisdom, their resourcefulness, their passion, their ingenuity, their hope—and profound wariness. She has not thought of herself as human since that half-century beneath the waves, and even less since her transformation in the dark lake; she is grimm, she is the one called God of Animals, the fauni are her people, and she does not much care for the way humans treat those who are different from themselves.

The First Reunion.

Ozma knew nothing of this, when the God of Light sent them back into life. They knew only what Light told them: that Darkness had destroyed mankind for an offense he implied had something to do with Salem, that humanity would rise anew in desperate need of redemption lest they be condemned to obliteration, and that though Salem yet lived, she was no longer the woman they held dear.

When they agreed to return, Ozma did not give a damn about any of this. Salem lived. No matter how she’d changed, they felt certain beyond any doubt that they would love her still, and when the words I’ll do it left their mouth, they had every intention of finding her at once.

But nothing could have prepared them to wrench awake behind a stranger’s eyes, nor for the overwhelming flood of another’s mind shattering and bleeding into their own. Nothing could have prepared them to feel the like-minded soul die so that they could live.

Nothing prepared them for the horrors of this new world, where humans bereft of magic cowered in the shadows like rats among grimm who now seemed all but unstoppable. Nor could they fathom the scale of suffering they saw everywhere they went: the senseless ravages of disease, the brutal and desperate wars over resources that had once been abundant, the seemingly endless panoply of false gods and false creeds which served as pretext for yet more war, the almost-human creatures called faunus who—they were told—lived bestial lives in the wilderness, whom the grimm did not hunt because they had no souls, who hated humanity just as fiercely as did the grimm… who served and worshipped the malignant Witch of the Wastes.

She had to be Salem. Ozma knew it from the moment they heard the first whisper of that name, for who else in this damned and desolate world could wield power of that kind?

Fear crept over them. Doubt. They remembered what she had done to her father, the spectacular violence in her fear; Ozma had never been blind to Salem’s wrath. What had happened to her, after they died? What had she done? What if—in the end it was this thought that overcame the rest of Ozma’s worries and brought them to her doorstep, heart in their mouth—what if the God of Darkness had laid a curse upon her?

(Might she still be saved, even now?)

Some of those fears melted away when Salem opened her door and Ozma looked into her eyes at long last: they knew at once that she was still herself, and for a while that was all that mattered.

For her part, Salem had long since made peace with never seeing Ozma again; she held on to a faint hope that their soul might be reborn, now that the gates of death had cracked, but she knew—thought she knew—that they would never return as themself, and she might never find their soul again. Her grief had become a deep ache, never quite fading but possible to live with, around, through. What else was there for her to do but keep living?

(Sometimes—now and then, when the anguish rose to the surface again—her mind did conjure echoes of them. She had spent countless nights of her interminable isolation huddling miserably in their arms, half-dreaming and half-believing they were really there. It comforted her sometimes to pretend not to know these were only hallucinations; she liked to imagine their spirit lingering with her, reaching out to soothe her when she could bear the pain no longer. But even that had not happened in a very long time, when Ozma found her.)

The first thought to arise from the searing, wordless shock of finding them before her once again was wonder at the recognition aglow in their eyes, the smile dawning upon their face as if no time had passed at all; the second, an overwhelming terror that this wasn’t real.

Both were cautious, in the beginning. Salem felt acutely aware of how much she had changed, how foolish it would be to expect everything to go back to the way it was in that little house by the sea; Ozma’s fear that she had been cursed by Darkness seemed all but confirmed by her grimm appearance and the bizarre, erratic tale she told of defying the Brothers and plunging into the divine wellsprings. She could do magic no longer, for the Brothers had torn their gifts from her soul, and the wild power she held now was unlike anything Ozma had seen.

Yet… even so.

Every troubling tale they’d heard of the Witch proved to have a reasonable explanation. Of course the fauni had souls (and Ozma has never quite lost their mortification for believing otherwise), and Salem’s careful observations of the grimm led her to believe they were drawn to powerful negative emotion: hatred, anger, misery, envy, fear, all feelings roused by the rampant persecution of faunuskind at human hands. She offered protection to those fauni who sought her out, and sometimes stole into settlements late at night to set captive fauni free. In the village nestled along the edge of her woods, she was well-regarded—if still a little feared, for she seldom left the woods unless someone came to ask for her help.

Those first few weeks together in her cottage were peculiar, thick with dread and uncertainty and the awkward feeling of the eons now lying between them; there had been missteps and hurtful misunderstandings aplenty, while they learnt each other again.

She was different: she had acquired a sardonic sense of humor which delighted them, an astounding depth of knowledge on the natural forces of the world, an alarming farrago of new gods, a vicious temper that often saw her storming out of their cottage to (she admitted to them once, rather sheepishly, when they asked) lurk at the bottom of a lake for hours to calm herself…

But though they looked, Ozma could find nothing in her to fear; she was still kind, still inquisitive, still terribly shy, still—true enough that Salem was no longer the awkward, volatile, passionate girl they’d held so dear, but that girl wasn’t gone. She had only grown into herself, and each day they loved her more.

Ozma didn’t exactly intend to lie to her.

For those first few weeks, they kept what the God of Light had told them to themself, wanting to hear Salem’s side of the story before they made any judgments; and as weeks turned to months, Ozma concluded that, cursed by the Brothers though she was, nothing was wrong with Salem, and they resolved to forget their task as they had once forgotten their vows to be with her.

They found that they could not. Even as the love they shared with Salem, never quite fully realized in their previous life, put down roots and blossomed in this one, the suffering they had seen—the promise of obliteration—the twisted, still-bleeding shrapnel of the boy they had overtaken—all of it still lurked in the back of their mind, impossible to forget and growing ever harder to ignore.

In the present, when Ruby asked Jinn her question, Ozpin did almost believe that Salem had lied to Ozma, used them, led them blind and infatuated to their ruin: but that is only the lie Ozma has clung to for centuries.

The truth, far more painful, is that Salem trusted them. In spite of everything she had suffered, despite her terror of rejection, of losing them again; despite the fact that they answered her eager questions about how they’d found their way back with naught but vague nothings, Salem chose to give them her trust and her love and her unwavering faith; and so, when they cautiously ventured to lament the division they saw tearing Remnant apart, she had looked at them with hope shining in her eyes and promised to help them heal the world of its wounds.

To create a paradise—without the Brothers.

Ozma should have told her then. In that moment, they had known she would never break from her hatred of the gods who had slain the last world and tortured her for so long, would never submit to them again, and that had been the right time to tell her.

But they’d looked into her eyes, and imagined that boundless admiration curdling in betrayal and disgust, and instead they had leaned closer to kiss her and said, let’s do it.

Lux Aeterna.

Every lie that followed came easier than the last. Salem balked at too grand ambitions, and it often seemed to Ozma that she would have preferred to stay in that cottage with them forever—it was plain to see she did not much like standing before crowds, let alone leading a country, for all that she could be a dazzling orator when she had time to prepare—but they found they could persuade her to agree to almost any course of action so long as they gave it to her piecemeal.

(There were some lines she would not cross: Salem flatly refused to even consider imposing prison sentences, no matter the crime, and she afforded no patience to those humans who protested bitterly at being treated as equals to faunuskind under Aeternian law. But Ozma considered that she was often on the right side of these lines, and did not trouble themself much over her stubbornness.)

The girls were a surprise bordering on miraculous. Salem and Ozma had talked about wanting to have children, raise a family, but neither believed Salem could bear her own. (Ozma could not help but see it as a good omen, a sign that they were on the right path, and all the more so each time their daughters came out human.) Mara, the eldest; the twins, Dana and Lital; and Esther, the baby.

For a time, all seemed well. Lux Aeterna soared to prominence in the region: a small but prosperous city-state ruled by fair-minded, if frightfully powerful, rulers, a place where all were welcome regardless of appearance or culture or creed.

The troubles started small.

Ozma, plagued by terrible nightmares of the final judgment and knowing that this harmonious medley of differences was not what the God of Light truly meant by unity, grew ever more nervous about their utter failure to nudge Salem toward adopting a unified state religion.

Many of their people did worship Salem and Ozma, of course, just as planned. However…

Salem had been the one who put forward the idea of claiming divinity, but it quickly became apparent that Salem meant something quite different than what Ozma had thought: they’d envisioned a stepping stone toward acting as heralds for the true God, condemning the worship of false idols. But to her, becoming gods meant little more than fulfilling a certain societal role, one which overcame every difficulty she found in connecting with other people by simply asking them to accept her as an inhuman being who acted in accordance with inhuman rules. She cared not at all for the trappings nor the power of godhood; she just liked the rules, the contractual nature of relationships built on ritual and reciprocal favors.

Thus the worship of other gods did not trouble her whatsoever; Ozma could not even persuade her to stop adopting more of the gods invented by Remnant’s people, let alone to condemn the worship of false idols. Nor could they explain why it troubled them so without revealing their deception, and so they fretted, and their occasional arguments on the subject never came to any satisfying conclusions.

Then came the intractable problem of what Salem looked like, and the stories told about her across the region.

Grimm did not trouble Lux Aeterna, but they did prey upon her neighbors—many of them ancient human city-states wherein fauni were still enslaved and viewed with deep suspicion; many of them envious and resentful of the way Lux Aeterna flourished. Rumors began to spread of dark rituals performed by the Grimm Queen in the wilderness at night; baseless accusations of human sacrifice, of secret cannibalism, of Aeternians driving grimm into other kingdoms in order to steal more land, and similar fare.

Ozma tried desperately to lower tensions through diplomatic appeasement, ignoring Salem’s blunt insistence that it wouldn’t work. (She had seen this play out many times, in many places, and her cynicism with regard to mankind’s fear of the unknown is boundless.)

It did not work.

Rumors became threats, threats turned to actual incursions against Lux Aeterna’s borders—and one gory assassination attempt against Salem herself, which shook Ozma very badly—and when a vigorous, decisive defense of the borders failed to put an end to all the saber-rattling, Lux Aeterna took the offensive.

With the onset of war, Ozma discovered a new side of Salem that they had never yet seen: she had a strategic brilliance that spoke to deep experience, and she was utterly, dispassionately ruthless. In swift succession, one after the next, each hostile city-state crumbled and bent the knee beneath the Aeternian banner.

Salem approached this conquest with an attitude of grim necessity: there could be no peace with these wolves snarling at the door, and so the wolves must be broken and brought to heel. To Ozma, the merciless expansion of their borders felt by turns intoxicating—for how simple it was after all, to bring people together by the sword—and horrifying.

The Shattering.

One of the many things Ozma reflected upon, during their protracted withdrawal after Jinn caused them to relive all this, is whether Salem had begun to suspect the truth, near the end. Throughout the last few of the thirteen years they shared, she developed a habit of making disquietingly blunt remarks about what they were doing; about the necessity of conquest, if Ozma truly wished to unite the world behind their banner.

Salem did not have any idea what Ozma was hiding from her, but she did know that there was something they would not tell her; and as the war raged on, she grew ever more impatient with Ozma’s—as she saw it—willful blindness to the cost of their grand ambition. To bring freedom and peace to a small portion of the world, that could be done with ease: one needed only to give people something true, a common cause to strive for, and then shepherd it from one generation to the next. Lasting change did not dawn quickly.

(They were still, she often reminded herself, so young. She had been impatient once, too.)

Lux Aeterna had always seemed to her far more precarious than Ozma believed, an idealistic, fragile experiment surrounded on all sides by adversaries who would like nothing better than to tear it to shreds; years before the possibility of war even crossed Ozma’s mind, Salem had deemed it inevitable and made quiet preparations to insure that the outcome fell in their favor. (Her web of spies was vast, intricate, and wholly invisible to Ozma.)

One thing to prepare for war; another to wage it and hear her partner speak dreamily of bringing the whole world together and in the same breath recoil from the bloodshed.

It vexed her that they couldn’t seem to grasp that one implied the other. More than that, it crushed her to think that they were not satisfied with the life they had built with her, even more than it hurt when she realized they wanted more than a simple life together in her cottage. Salem had grown to like Lux Aeterna, despite her misgivings. She cared for its people; she loved her own daughters to bits; she loved Ozma. She was not… exactly… unhappy.

But she was not exactly happy, either. She felt inadequate, and taken for granted, and with ever-growing frequency in those last few years, like everything she did was wrong somehow. Whatever Ozma refused to tell her was plainly tearing them apart, and they seemed to always be further out of reach.

By the end, Salem had begun to question whether they even loved her anymore, or if all that really bound them together was inertia, or tired habit, or some misguided sense of obligation to her and their daughters.

The truth was worse, and far more horrible than Salem could ever have guessed: that the Brothers she’d thought long gone were trying to claw their way back was awful enough, that they wanted to butcher this world too a nightmare almost beyond comprehension, but the depth of Ozma’s betrayal in serving those monsters for all this time, in manipulating her into enacting their design, was beyond her ability to fathom. She could not understand it. (She still cannot understand it.)

There is a very old story faunuskind used to tell about where they came from, called The Shallow Sea: in it, the God of Animals gathers all the unhappy misfits and outcasts of the world and brings them to a certain island—a harsh new world where they can make their own home, if they choose. All they need to do is leap into the magical waters of the sea and swim ashore, shedding their old human skins to become something new.

Most choose to embrace the change, the chance for freedom given to them; but a small handful refuse, spitting accusations at the god and their chosen people, so the god sends them back home to their old lives, and for the rest of time, the ones who refused to change and all their descendants hate and fear the fauni, for reminding them of what they are not and never can be.

This is the myth Salem quoted to Ozma when she refused to go along with the divine plan for Remnant’s future, and this is what she meant: that the Brothers are of a kind with the resentful humans in the story, seething impotently that the world has outgrown them, and they deserve nothing but scorn; that humanity cannot be saved because there is nothing to redeem, and the only course is to press onward; that the world will never again be what it was.

Both she and Ozma understood her meaning perfectly. (No one else who witnessed Jinn’s answer did, a fact Ozma has not actually realized yet. When they tell Hazel that Salem is cursed to live for as long as the world turns and that she craves only death, they are—as they so often do—lying through their teeth.)

Salem does not remember anymore what she said, exactly, for she’s torn and twisted the memory so badly in desperation to make sense of it that the only thing she remembers is the emotion, and the way Ozma glared at her before they stormed out of the study.

Nearly four hours elapsed between that moment and Salem catching Ozma leaving with the girls. Most of that time, Ozma spent at war with themself, torn between their desperation to stay with Salem and their terror of what punishment the Light would inflict upon her, upon their daughters, upon the whole world if Ozma defied him. Salem, meanwhile, was sitting where Ozma had left her in a state of abject shock and horror.

Both were so on edge by the time they came face-to-face in the corridor that they broke at almost exactly the same time, and both remember seeing the other move to attack first. (In The Lost Fable, there is a very brief shot in which Ozma tightens their grip on their staff—bracing themself—and then Salem visibly startles at that movement the instant before she snaps.) Both were caught up in an overwhelming tide of desperate fury and years of pent-up resentment and distrust that had long since eroded the foundation of their relationship, and both were one hundred percent focused on trying to kill the other.

Neither of them knows exactly what happened to their daughters.

& The Rest.

Since that night, Salem and Ozma have seen each other only twice—in the apocalyptic final battle for Ruakh, and in Atlas when she captured Oscar.

Salem has largely done her best to avoid them, not caring what they did so long as she knew they didn’t have all four relics. She never wanted to see them again, after Ruakh. Ozma, meanwhile, has never stopped hating themself for sacrificing her for the sake of the divine plan… but the divine plan is all they have left, and they do not believe she could ever forgive them, so they keep stumbling through the motions of trying. Their paranoia, their tendency to see her in the shadows of every conflict and every grimm, arises from a mixture of intense guilt and twisted longing.

Salem is not aware that they do not have a choice about coming back, and nearly all her hatred in the present is founded upon her belief that they have spent the last three or four thousand years making a deliberate choice to murder an innocent person each time they return, either out of sheer zealotry or an obsessive desire to punish her. The instant she learns this is not so, her rage will rebound tenfold on the God of Light.

The girls did not, in fact, die that night. Ozma’s semblance—once they’re free, once it manifests in its fully-realized form—will reach back four thousand years to the moment the fight began and simply bring them forward. Or it has already done so, depending upon one’s perspective, and they just haven’t arrived at the right moment yet. Either way, to the children it is as if no time passes at all.

(The girls disappear from the scene right before the fight begins, and V9 gave me time travel shenanigans. I am in constant misery. Let me have this.)

[contentloadingandstuff]

On Wings of Freedom - Barbara x Male!Reader

CW: Male!Reader, Barbara is either adult or reader is around her age, not proofread, awful poetry (poetry is hard, especially in a foreign language 😭but I tried okay?).

You inspect the lyre for the seventh time. Everything seems in order, but your mind restlessly seeks faults. Anything to improve, anything to correct - do any act of final preparation. The audience claps and your fellow poet bows, humming in satisfaction. He walks off of the stage, patting you on the shoulder on his way out. 

"Break a leg, my friend. Good luck." He stops for a brief moment and smiles kindly. 

"Thanks…" It's all your throat, tight with stress, can let out. The bard leaves and you step on the stage slowly, holding your breath. The tavern goers look at you with restrained curiosity, understanding of your stage fright in their expectation. Guests on the second floor lean against the railing, their gazes fixed on you as well. You focus on the end of the hall, spotting a familiar, teal-clad musician. Venti winks at you and holds his thumb up. You smile at his cheering, and shift your attention to one particular visitor. You might be in the spotlight for the majority of Angel's Share, but for you the true star is she. Barbara sips her Jueyun Chilli brew, eyes focused on you. 

You clear your throat and take a deep breath. The string of your instrument are moved with practiced ease by your slender digits, accompanying your trained voice. 

Within the world there live a man Born from but a minor clan With a lyre in hand and a dream in mind He roamed the world, singing for his kind Onto a meadow one day he came Searching for a muse to lift his spirits A woman he found, of a beautiful name Her radiance unshown by mortal lyrics On Wings of Freedom we will soar Through all the skies of new and old Before us sun, behind a dragon’s roar  Only through song my love is told Her voice as soft as gentlest flax She held my heart dead in its tracks Her porcelain skin, so white and kind Yet the greatest treasure is her mind For a shed of her affection's grace For a brush of her gentle hand My shield will hold the deadliest mace My hands all my care to her will lend On Wings of Freedom we will soar  Hand in hand, our hearts of gold We'll power through the deadliest war Only through song their love is told So I stand here, on the shore Above the heavenly highs, below the abyss' roar With an inquiry I end this score I ask for a word - just one, and not more

The tavern fills with the sound of clapping and cheering. You bow slightly, your eyes never leaving hers. Barbara is blushing slightly, her quick claps sounding out as the loudest. 

"That was Y/N of Springvale with the song Wings of Freedom. Bravo for him!" 

The crowd is further animated, the sound of whistling and encouragement nearly deafening. You smile broadly, bowing time and time again. 

"Thank you, thank you!" 

Waving your hand, you make your way off the stage, making space for Six-Fingered José. 

"Good luck." You say, but he doesn't answer, sending you a thankful nod instead. 

The speaker starts announcing your subsequent, but you don't listen. Your attention is focused on Barbara, who stands up from her seat, leaving Lumine with only Paimon as company. She motions for you to follow and turns to leave the establishment. For her safety, you leave through the back door. As you close the door behind you, José's performance begins. 

You circle around the tavern to find Barbara next to the outside tables. She rocks up and down on her feet, her hands behind her back and a deep crimson on her face. Her eyes are glued to the floor, occasionally glancing up at the approaching you. You stop in front of her. You awkwardly smile at her, rubbing your forearm. 

"Y-yes, Y/N…" She speaks quietly, so much so that it's barely audible. Your heart speeds up. "I love you as well. I'll date you!" 

You can't resist the urge. Smiling like never before you grab a hold of her and pull her into a bone crushing embrace. She squeals in surprise and giggles as you lift her up and spin her around. 

"I love you Barbara, I love you so much! I'm so happy!" You stop. Both of you stare into each other's eyes for a solid second, before you blush and avert your eyes. You set her down, rubbing the back of your head. 

"S-sorry, Barbs. I didn't mean to-" Before you can finish, she places a peck on your cheek. 

"I would have done just the same thing if I were you, hehe!" 

You stand there in silence, either of you too excited to know what to do next. Barbara, still blushing heavily, gently put your hand in hers. 

"How about we go to Cat's Tail, hm? My treat! Your throat must be so tired after such a stunning performance, I'm sure of it! Diona will probably be happy to make something non-alcoholic for a change as well, I can tell! So what do you say?" 

You grab her other hand and place a quick kiss on her forehead. 

"Let's go!" 

Thanks for reading!

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

Hey clan was wondering if you could do a fic or hcs about reader finding out Larry is a missingno because they used to live in Kanto?

Yesssss I honestly love that Missingno!Larry theory to the moon and back

.....

Being born and raised in Kanto, you were caught up on the many myths and legends shared around the region. You've done a lot of research on the Pokémon associated with them, believing all the tales to be true.

But while most libraries and websites displayed stories of the legendary bird trio and the feline genetic experiments...there was one particular Pokémon seldom mentioned by even the oldest Kantonians.

One that was so bizarre and otherworldly that it could hardly be described as a Pokémon at all.

That was Missingno.

It piqued your interest, although it took a good while to find people who witnessed this creature...and even longer to find anyone willing to share what it looked like, as no photos of it existed anywhere.

But the responses weren't what you expected, as they claimed to have seen different forms of it.

One person said it resembled one of the ghosts seen in the Pokémon Tower, while a few theorized it was a haunted Aerodactyl or Kabutops skeleton seeking revenge against poachers.

The only thing these accounts had in common was the alleged location of Missingno: along the eastern coastline of Cinnabar Island.

And so you set off on a quest to find it, with your Lapras assisting you in the search as it surfed along the coast.

After some time, you finally encountered Missingno's true form.

It could only be described as incomprehensible--a clump of computerlike glitches forming the shape of a backwards "L".

You didn't even know how a thing like this could exist. But it was real, and you made sure your pokedex scanned it, revealing its number was "000" and some other unusual information about it. Such as it being a Normal/Bird type.

Not flying..but bird.

At the time you were too anxious to catch it, fearing that the stories of it corrupting people and Pokémon were true, and that it could wipe out all the progress you made on the dex. Even Lapras was terrified, as it nearly threw you off its back upon seeing the creature, so you sailed back to shore with the data entry secured.

That was all the evidence you needed.

You've helped the puzzled scientists with studies of this creature a great deal with what you've gathered, although they got ambitious about capturing it themselves and enlisted your aid in tracking it down, calling it "Project: Missingno".

You initially objected to that; they never confirmed it as being a Pokémon, so trying to catch and control something they didn't quite understand yet seemed like a terrible idea...

But to satiate your own curiosity, you led their expedition team to Cinnabar weeks later, following the exact same path that took you straight to Missingno's habitat.

Yet it was nowhere to be found, much to your confusion. Nothing but sand remained.

Maybe somebody else caught it.

Regardless, Project: Missingno was terminated right there and then, and the town's interest in it died down rather quickly. Even the scientists who once obsessed over finding it suddenly dismissed your evidence as "glitches", saying your pokedex was corrupted and needed a reboot.

They were sure quick to scorn you when yesterday they praised you for making a "historic" discovery.

But you knew for a fact Missingno was real. You believed in it.

If it truly was a Pokémon..then perhaps more of its kind were out there in the wild. They might be simply hidden away.

Yet even after you visiting a few other regions, they had extremely scarce information on it..oftentimes none at all.

You began to think it was only a legend meant to stay in Kanto.

Then you took a trip to Paldea to study the Treasures of Ruin and got the most surprising lead..

..............

"Where are you taking--?! Oh...y-you just wanted to eat here, huh?"

"Zarrr!" Licking her chops, your Cyclizar smiled as she stopped short in front of a nice restaurant within Medali City. It was labeled "Treasure Eatery".

"Fancy name." You mused, stepping off her back and walking up to the menu posted outside, reading over what this place had to offer. "I guess we afford some "fine-dining", huh girl?"

Smiling, you patted her head, and in turn she grinned and licked your cheek. "Hahaha, that tickles." You snickered. "C'mon. I think this is the place that can alter your tera type with a quick meal, too."

Surprisingly enough, you've become well-acquainted with Paldea's many customs and Pokémon--among them being the Cyclizar you found. She helped you get across the vast region and out of many sticky situations with the unusually aggressive Tauros herds.

You noticed that the flying taxi cabs carried by groups of Squawkabillies was the main source of transportation, but the idea of riding a motorcycle dragon-type seemed astronomically cooler.

In a way, it reminded you of the bikes you always rode in Kanto.

Once you both entered the Treasure Eatery, you patiently waited behind who appeared to be an academy student ordering something to eat.

But after the host hollered out their order to the chef-

A battle court unexpectedly appeared in the dining section.

You and Cyclizar jumped back in shock, becoming even more confused at what the host declared:

"Congratulations! You've passed the Gym Test! Are you ready to challenge the Exceptional Everyman himself, Gym Leader Larry?"

'Huh? A gym battle...is here??' You were bewildered.

Last time you checked, the gym building was back outside: a tall, bright, and white structure with the logo plastered on the front. But then you remembered that you're not in Kanto anymore, and Paldea probably had its own gym customs.

Ordering a "secret menu item", however, did seem quite odd for a gym test...

Shrugging, you headed further in, securing a spot where the court was in perfect view. You passed by Larry who, sure enough, looked much like any ordinary business man. He was rigid in his movements, and monotone in his voice, even as you overheard him praise the challenger for passing his test.

Everything about him was plain and simple.

Regardless, you were eager to see the battle. So you ordered Cyclizar a dish of grilled fish, while you ate your own meal and watched the fight go down

Larry first sent out a Komala, who was swiftly struck down by the challenger's fighting type, before he sent Dundunsparce out next.

Although it put up more of a fight than the last Pokémon, it went down just as quickly. Yet Larry didn't seem all that concerned with losing, even as the staff and patrons tried getting him riled up, demanding something more exciting.

However, you immediately noticed something quite...off about him that made you do a double-take.

When he tossed out his final Pokémon, a Staraptor, his throw seemed unusually aggressive this time around. And it may have just been your imagination...but you swore on your life you saw a familiar pattern of glitches flickering around him, and his head becoming entirely detached from his body for a split-second.

Only then did you see his emotionless expression briefly change to one of panic, almost physically recoiling at the pain. Though it was quickly masked as he made eye contact with you, before refocusing on the match and terastalizing Staraptor.

Nobody else seemed to notice, but you knew exactly what you saw, as your Cyclizar began hissing and snarling in distress...much like what your Lapras did that fateful day.

It's obvious that she realized the same thing as you..

That Larry's physical body had become unstable, as if he were a living glitch masquerading as something else...

Just like it did.

[abiogenesiis]

oneshot piece.

"Where would we walk? Where would we run? If we could stay all day in the sun..."

a rewrite of the POYW reprise.

Lear had spent the afternoon in his secret grotto after receiving an earful from the king, his father. The entire ordeal had soured his mood, so he believed surrounding himself with his treasures from the world above might cheer him up.

It's a wonderful thing, to know that nobody else knows that this grotto exists. The prince could spend hours here, laying upon the smooth rock, staring up at the rays of sunlight filtering in from above the surface. But.. he can't stay here forever.

Lear swims out of the grotto's secret entrance, hidden by a veil of seagrass, on the way back home from his day out. However, a loud noise sounds from above, stopping the prince in his tracks. He gazes upwards, spotting a blur of bright lights past the threshold to the surface.

Lear tilts his head curiously. He scans the surrounding area, making sure nobody was around, or even following him. His father would be upset if he were to return home late again… but he was so curious about the surface, he just had to investigate.

The prince ascends, meeting with a fresh breeze when his head is above the water. More loud noises sound, his gaze drifting to the evening sky. Colorful sparks of light explode high above a ship in the distance. A ship!

Lear's eyes glitter curiously at such a marvelous sight. He excitedly swims towards the ship. It was even more large when Lear was right next to it. He places a webbed hand to the wood, hearing music and laughter floating from above. It wouldn't hurt to take a small peek… right?

The prince hoists himself up on a lower section of the ship, acting as a seat and a height boost in observing the human activity through a small rift in the ship's side.

The atmosphere here was just as colorful as the lights he's seen in the sky. A party, it seems. Humans were chatting happily amongst eachother, laughing and dancing. Such a lovely sight…

Lear takes notice of one particular human standing rather close to where he was hiding, staring out at the horizon. The sea breeze tussles softly at his dark hair.

Lear notices a solemness in this human's eyes – deep blue, like the ocean depths. Lear blinks. Why wasn't this human enjoying the festive atmosphere like everyone else on the ship? Why did he look so wistful?

The human was broken out of his daze, called over to the centre of the ship by another. He stands there awkwardly as the one who had called him begins a speech of some kind, before a grand statue of stone is revealed from beneath a velvety cloth. The human blushes, looking down shyly as the statue is depicting his form. It appears he's not too fond of the statue.

However, his demeanor slowly began to change, soon laughing as his animal companion charges towards him and licks his face. He was almost.. pretty, when he smiled.

Then, after some time passes, a very loud noise echoes. It wasn't the lights above, but a roar of thunder. Then, a clap of lightning and the sound of something igniting paired with a loud crash. Lear glances up, spotting flames searing a section of the ship. His eyes flicker back to the sailor he was watching. He springs into action, aiding his fellow humans, but Lear had caught a glimpse of fear in his deep blue eyes. His animal companion was barking, looking rather uneasy as well.

Lear dives back into the water, the ship becoming unsteady due to the rocky waves.

A storm, in full swing. Rain pelts down on the prince's face as he scans over the ship again. The sails have caught fire now, along with most of the ship. The frightened party goers were being evacuated off the burning ship via smaller boats lowering into the water, paddling to shore, most likely.

The sounds of creaking, burning wood fill the air. The ship is falling apart. Most of the humans are already sailing away from the flaming disaster in the sea.. but where's that sailor? Lear hears barking, looking up to see the dark-haired human near the edge of the ship with his animal companion in his arms, being lowered into the sea below. Everyone was safely evacuated…

But what happened next, both Lear and the sailor didn't expect. A part of the sail had broken, sending the broad log of wood swinging towards the sailor, and sending him overboard and plunging into the dark water.

Panicked, Lear dives beneath the surface, surging after the sailor, who was sinking further and further into the depths. Before sinking any deeper, Lear takes hold of the sailor's waist, and makes his way back towards the surface.

Lear emerges with the unconscious sailor in his arms, the two of them adrift within the thrashing waves.

It was going to be a long way back to shore.

As Lear paddles them along, the ship was completely breaking down, leaving only burning pieces of charred wood and other debris behind them.

–

It was just before dawn when Lear pulled the sailor onto the white sands of the beach. It was quiet – the squawking of seagulls sounding above and the soft lapping of the calm ocean waves filling the air.

Lear sat next to the unconscious, unmoving sailor, looking him over for any injuries. Oh no, was he..?

He leans closer… and sighs of relief, hearing the steady sound of breathing. The prince glances over the sailor again, pushing his damp dark hair from his face. He realizes: this is the first time he's been this close to a human.

He realizes.. just how beautiful this sailor appears to him in their moment of close proximity. Lear's gaze softens, before his eyes flutter shut and he begins to hum a quiet melody. Then, slowly vocalizing entirely.

A siren's song is their strongest weapon. Lear rarely sings, considering only the voice of a female siren can lure its prey, but now… he couldn't help but sing to this human, as if it would soothe him. Even though he probably couldn't hear him.

Then, the sailor slowly shifts, brows furrowed against the rising sunlight kissing his face. Lear glances down, soft violet eyes meeting brilliant blue ones, fluttering open very slowly.

Across the beach, shouts of men began to echo, startling Lear. It was time for him to leave. He pulls away from the sailor and dives into the sea, before he or the other men approaching could clearly see him. The prince hides himself behind a rock, lingering to watch the sailor be brought up on his feet and is led further away from the shore. Yet, those eyes of his… they glanced back towards the sea. It was almost as if he was yearning for something.. someone?

Lear ducks behind the rock, his heart skipping a beat. What is this feeling?

A strange feeling, a warm feeling… a want to be close to that sailor again. Perhaps even closer.

Lear lifts himself onto the rock, longingly gazing towards the far shore, and as a wave crashes against it, he makes a vow. A promise.

Someday, he'll become a part of his world.