a promise etched in the stars

starlight | she/her the ascendance series & red queen ao3: firefly61257

[carthyanstar]

i’m going to be mostly inactive on tumblr starting from july 13 (i’ll be posting normally until then and i’ll be back around early august)

i have posts in the queue that i’ll activate once i go hiatus, so this blog will still be posting!! everything that’s posted through the queue will be tagged #queued

this post is replacing my pinned so you can find my intro post here :)

[piratekingimogen]

imogen & roden headcanons

-i really think these two have a lot in common. that doesn’t mean they always get along. it took imogen a while to trust roden, but once it’s clear he isn’t a threat they bond over the weirdness of being catapaulted into court life

-unlike amarinda and jaron who grew up as royalty, or tobias who was raised with an eye toward upward mobility by getting an education, roden and imogen seem to have grown up expecting very little from their future

-they’re both able and ready to work for a living

-they’re ferociously protective of their loved ones and don’t think enough of their own safety. jaron is at the venn diagram center of their ‘must protect’ circles– in the shadow throne we see them both fully willing to die for him and carthya (and nearly do, by the arrow and noose!)

-interestingly, they both also went to the pirates for him– one to kill him, one to save him. they talk sometimes about their time with the pirates.

-imogen is known for giving tongue-lashings when someone’s scared her or made her mad. tobias and amarinda are too tactful to anger her, and jaron rarely argues back. but roden, orphan, pirate, and then soldier, won’t take anything lying down. their arguments are like thunderstorms– explosive, knock-down-drag-out fights that pass soon with no hard feelings. it’s a loud but effective way for them to let off steam.

-i can easily see them as the most religious, too

-they’re the two people that think most like jaron, and if one of them notices that something’s up with him, the other probably knows why

-the two best cooks. roden is the only member of the squad that imogen trusts in the kitchen.

[piratekingimogen]

amarinda & tobias headcanons

-the king and queen of longing looks -it took a LOT of pining and then several days travel in extremely close quarters for either of them to admit their feelings -their love language is listening to each other ramble– tobias is constantly talking about new medical treatments or tricky injuries and amarinda talks politics like she’s giving a speech and there’s a scribe writing it down so she’s got to pull out every rhetorical stop -the most refined of the group. they aren’t the only ones that know which utensils to use at dinner, but they are the only ones that care enough to act on that knowledge -amarinda confessed her feelings first, while they were travelling together, and he immediately reciprocated, and then they both started crying, because they were fully sure they would never be able to be together but now they knew that the other loved them too and neither of them knew what to do with this information except cling to it like the most precious thing in the world -probably refer to each other as ‘my lord’ and ‘my lady’ -physically incapable of lying to each other -fall asleep in the library together a lot -both get really wrapped up in projects and either have to be tended by their friends, or surface to grab the other food and then realize how hungry/tired/thirsty they themselves are -when amarinda has to write a letter/treatise/proposal quickly she trades off between writing and dictating to tobias when her hand gets too tired, so a lot of her documents are half in his handwriting, which always makes her smile when she looks back at them -amarinda writes tobias the sappiest letters when she’s out of the country -tobias was educated for an orphan, but amarinda loves introducing him to new poets or favorite books or even just juicy turns of phrase -tobias regularly expresses his awe at just how lucky he’s been

[carthyanstar]

Jaron: Are you reading fan fiction? 

Tobias, reading an article about extremely rare diseases: Wh- No. 

Jaron: Oh, is it on AO3? 

Tobias: This is CNN.

[carthyanstar]

Roden: Have I ever told you that you cook well? 

Jaron: Awww, no, you haven't! 

Roden: So why do you keep cooking?

[carthyanstar]

Wilta: I think we should kiss. 

Jaron: And I think you should die but we don’t always get what we want.

[carthyanstar]

Jaron: Hey Roden? 

Roden: Yeah? 

Jaron: What's your favorite color of the alphabet? True or false? 

Roden: 

Roden: ...What.

[carthyanstar]

Conner: I assume you realize that this kind of idiocy will not be tolerated in this house.

Jaron: Is there any kind of idiocy you would be more comfortable with?

[carthyanstar]

maven headcanons

when he was young, he tended to be blunt with his words and once said the wrong thing in a precarious situation 

elara had to cover up for him and she berated him heavily for it afterwards

even without elara’s influence, i do think maven would have been good at crafting words and language

but if he spoke his mind it would tend to be rather blunt, because even as a kid he was judgmental

which was probably influenced by elara, because whenever they were around others elara would silently pick on the people around them and tell maven which people / mistakes to avoid

when children of silver elites spent time in each other’s presence they would often tease or make playful remarks towards each other (some good-natured, some not) but they never did this with maven

it made him feel left out but he probably wouldn’t know how to react if they did tease him

he had to hide parts of himself a lot— he rarely gets to be himself fully with anyone. the only person whom he felt knew him the best was elara, only because she was literally inside his head

even thomas didn’t know all of maven’s dreams and fears during the time they were together. it wasn’t that maven felt uncomfortable being himself around thomas, it was just that they never got the chance to know each other in that depth. and most of the times they were together, they weren’t holding deep conversations about themselves

there’s just so many layers and sides to maven, and combined with elara’s tampering, sometimes even he isn’t completely sure who he is on his own, apart from his love for thomas and later mare. he’s just there as an extension of elara..

he didn’t really mind that, though. in a way, elara’s goals gave him purpose

he has good fashion sense but it clashed with both evangeline and iris’s styles when he was engaged to them (iris’s the most though)

his matched with mare’s well enough when she was mareena because the palace designed of all of mare’s outfits

there was behavioral evidence that elara tampered with maven’s mind even before the betrayal, something subtly off about his mannerisms and demeanor that signaled that he wasn’t really himself

sometimes he would look as if he was conversing with someone inside his head, or maybe tense up at random moments, and his voice would have a flow and tone that sounded taught. it would probably be unnerving if you spent too much time with him

it was different than if you took a speech class or worked on your enunciation- you could tell that his words came from elara if you knew them both well enough

mare didn’t in red queen but i think julian probably did

i don’t remember if this is canon (it’s canon to me) but he is a huge perfectionist and will get upset with himself over the smallest details

[justslightlyconfused]

That ‘comment on your a03 work’ email hits like a line of cocaine every time. unmatched dopamine increase. shoutout to everyone who leaves a comment on fics. you deserve the world

[yossyislandd]

when the characters you like get beat the fuck up

[ghostofava]

god i need something so bad. but what is it

[carthyanstar]

Roden: Crushes are the worst. Whenever I’m near mine, I start acting stupid.

Jaron: You always act stupid.

Jaron:

Jaron: Wait... 

[carthyanstar]

*Casually in the Middle of a High Stakes/Dangerous Situation* 

Jaron: How do you eat pickles? 

Roden: What do you mean? 

Jaron: I mean, there's a whole process. It's not like you can grab them from the jar with your hand, because it's cold and the juice burns if you have a cut, plus, it's pretty unsanitary. And you can't use a spoon because you'll have to scoop it out, and it'll be way too difficult to grab more than three or four without taking 10 minutes along with half the brine in the jar, even if it's one with holes. 

Roden: Yeah, that's why you use a fork. 

Jaron: Okay, sure, but what if you don't have one of the big ones clean? It's weird to use a small one. But there is always  one of those smaller sharp knives clean. 

Roden: But the straight edge doesn't really fit the cylindrical shape, and you have to make sure you don' t break it, it's too much work. 

Jaron: It makes me feel like I deserve the pickles though. Like, "Yeah, I did it. That's right. Good job me." It's empowering. But even after that, it's not like you can use a bowl. 

Roden: I get that, it's not aesthetically pleasing. 

Jaron: Exactly! And it looks weird if you don't entirely fill the bowl, but you also can't eat that many. My solution: Use a mug. 

Roden: *Nods in agreement* 

Tobias: That is all very interesting, BUT WE'RE TRYING NOT TO DIE RIGHT NOW! USE YOUR LIMITED ATTENTION SPANS AND FOCUS! 

Jaron: Jeez, okay. 

Roden: Quit yelling at us already.

[chocolatepot]

People you'd like to get to know better

Thank you, @lizluzz, for the tag!

Last song: "Blues for Dudes" by Blue Harlem. I've been very into what I call neo-swing: faithful covers of 1930s-50s songs and new songs written in that style. This is a good band.

Favourite colour: Blue, always blue. Anything from that cobalt you see in a glass nazar to something more turquoise.

Currently watching: Keeping up with IWTV (though usually a few days later than everyone else), and slowly going through Babylon 5.

Currently reading: I just started The House of the Spirits (after having watched the new adaptation) and the graphic novel Castle Waiting. Doing badly at keeping up with my fic subscriptions but I do nearly always read @not-poignant's original work as soon as I see the notifs in my inbox.

Current obsession: I don't think I really have any current obsessions. 😭 It's not good for me when I'm like this, I really enjoy being wild about something.

Currently working on: At work, putting together an exhibition on Quaker dress and figuring out how to make this dynamic and interesting to people who aren't clothing nerds. At home, my sapphic regency romance novel, A Run of Better Fortune. Oh, and reeallllly slowly spinning and knitting a sweater.

Coffee or tea: Tea only - I can't tolerate the taste of coffee at all. Milk tea with boba now that it's summer.

Last internet search: "snopes lipstick hitler" - I was trying to look into a bullshit claim that American and English women wore lipstick specifically as a fuck-you to Hitler, and I needed to see the Snopes post that validated it(?!) despite there being no evidence.

Tagging some random people I like seeing on my dash: @barely-an-artist, @spiders-hth-is-an-outlier, @maculategiraffe, @my-deer-friend, @sewlastcentury

[barely-an-artist]

Hihi bunny here,

Last song: the arrival by Yan Qing, it mady me cry from the first lyric so its my favourite rn

Favourite colour: i like purple, but specifically the deep purple almost indigo

Currently watching: a youtube video on how tiktok ruined hobbies

Currently reading: i recently finished project hail mary so im not reading anything rn

Current obssessions: mdzs, project hail mary, murderbot,

Currently working on: rn im winding yarn i got from my friends that are moving away into balls

Coffee or tea: tea, no matter how much milk or sugar you put in it coffee's just bitter

Last internet search: fish names that start with n because another friend got a fish tank from the aforementioned moving away friends and we're thinking of names for the new fish in the tank

@randomfruit666 @sweetasticks @pancake-umbreon @rotp-on-ao3-goofing-blog and anyone else that wants to play

[randomfruit666]

Last song: Familiarity by Atlas Ivy. love their stuff, but I've been listening to this song in particular cuz i'm working on a little smth.

Favorite color: purple!! idk i've just always liked purple <3

Currently watching: Lord of Mysteries. pretty early in it but so far so good. honestly think i might pick up the light novels just cuz the world building is a bit complicated and i find it easier to pick up on written lore tbh.

Currently reading: A Baled of Sword and Wine. currently on vol 2. very good.

Current obsession: THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES. ask anyone i know; i Will Not shut up about these fuckers. also, phm and bloodymary

Currently working on: ArtFight, an animatic, and an AU

Coffee or tea: tea.

Last internet search: Lilith Malevolent podcast. i was just trying to pull up her wiki to check smth lol

@legionforweare-many @cedar-is-a-nerd @deaddovenobeta @sweetasticks @whattheship @queenyuritheiii @sillygoofyqueer @spaceking @pidge-the-pigeon + anyone i missed lol

[pidge-the-pigeon]

Last Song: Sunlight by Hozier

Favourite Colour: Pink (and yellow, but mostly pink rn)

Currently Watching: Nothing specifically ☹️

Currently Reading: Throne in the Dark by A.K. Caggiano

Current Obsession: Fairies

Currently Working On: My novel :)

Coffee or Tea: Coffee, but more specifically a mocha because I’m not used to strong coffee flavours

Last Internet Search: Is folklorist a real job… to be fair I genuinely didn’t know if that was real or not, but it is, so that’s cool!

Tags: @icamincon @heaven-in-a-wild-flower

[icamincon]

Ooh I love these

Last song: Bravado by Lorde

Favorite color: Dark gray which is boring I know but pair it with glittery stuff and it’s a look(can we consider glitter a color please😅)

Currently Watching: New girl

Currently Reading: Cinder by Marissa Meyer for the fifth time it always gets me out of a reading slump and idk it’s kinda perfect for summers

Current Obsession: My new midi keyboard :)))

Currently working on: Lots of song covers bc I’m finally getting back into making music yay!!!

Coffee or tea: Tea all the way!! Just got an electric tea kettle so I’m like, a professional tea drinker now(my favorite is Earl Grey)

Last internet search: where is Jacob Elordi from 😭…I’m not even a fan lol also I did not expect it to be Australia idk why

Tags: @mvsevales @carthyanstar @lilo-jacos

[carthyanstar]

thanks for the tag! <3

last song: bed of thorns - txt

favorite color: grayish purple

currently watching: none 🥲

currently reading: newblood queen by @lucy-the-cat <3

current obsession: maven calore.. also this ring and bracelet i got today (the ring looks like something iris cygnet would wear and i love it)

currently working on: the jaroden angel au and also fleshing out ideas for other fics!

coffee or tea: tea

last internet search: manon katseye (i was trying to find official news for her since i saw something that i wasn’t sure was confirmed)

tags: @starryg4rden @lucy-the-cat @nevermoresshadow @teresa-of-del @jaronxlordashcombe @mollyseventh + open tags

[mollyseventh]

honestly if u think cal doesn’t have a personality, opinion or anything like that, u read the books w ur ass, sorry not sorry

[carthyanstar]

popping in for a little bit as you might’ve noticed lol

been thinking about maven calore a lot lately and put a bunch of headcanons in my queue today <3

also been thinking about various worldbuilding and settings for writing but i have such a difficult time coming up with plots so i kind of procrastinate on actually writing because i love plots and don’t know if i can write well without one

anyways that’s the update.. i’ll be back for real next month!!