#hamelin-born

[tanoraqui]

Thanks to you I am now a Nightblood fan. I might read the series just for this sword.

UNIRONICALLY YES, DO THAT.

…No, actually, do NOT do that. Stormlight Archive books average 950 pages and Nightblood is only there very rarely, and I think not until book 3.

DO go read Warbreaker, an early standalone novel set in the same universe, just for the sword. That’s where Nightblood (my best friend, the cosmere’s friendliest & most evil-coded sword) is from.

[charlottedabookworm]

Food for thought - Aerion might also remind Clive!Dunk of his brother - that is, Olivier, Annabella’s youngest, Ultima’s thrall.

ultima's thrall, ultima's puppet, ultima's illusion etc...

honestly clive!dunk knows very very little of his supposed half-brother considering he met the puppet all of once, spent most of that time (entirely justifiably) going off at his mother, and then by the time he's unprimed again dion oneshots olivier

okay sure it's sorta heavily implied that clive also sees dions memories of the throne room and it isn't just us-as-players seeing that but still that's a very short scene

he doens't know olivier enough to compare him to aerion really

but i do think that he'd look at aerion - an arrogant royal certain of his standing and the superiority of his bloodline, uncaring of the lower classes, grasping for power and uncaring who he has to step over to get it, willing to sacrifice family - well

no i don't think clive!dunk would see olivier in aerion

i think he'd see anabella

[ertrunkenerwassergeist]

For the Blinded History AU - what *would* Regis et al's reaction be to learning the Galahdian Oral Tradition re: the Black Ships?

It was widely known, especially in the academic circles that Galahd had a very extensive oral tradition. None of the academics really believe the stories. Sure, they very likely might be based on true events, but it's widely known that stories get warped the more they're told. Things get added the storyteller might find interesting or exciting, things omitted if they're thought to be boring or non-essential.

But Falconis has learned enough about the Galahkari - their language and traditions - to know that that preconception is not true. (His professor isn't here to scold him for declaring an absolute without physical evidence, but maybe that was one of the problems between the Lucians and the Galahkari.)

Falconis learned about the Black Ships through turns of phrases the Galahkari use. Once he scrounges up the courage, he asks Epistéme about it, and to his surprise she actually gives him a comprehensive answer. She doesn't tell him the whole story with all the bells and whistles, but that's not important. The important part is that he's starting to see the picture all the puzzle pieces are forming and he's about to faint from the knowledge that he'll have to scedule an audience with the King.

Regis for his part is in equal parts bemused and excited when one of the undergrads he personally sponsored for this project asks him for an audience because he gained some knowledge that would explain why the Galahkari were always Like That when it comes to the Lucians. Even before the refugee debacle.

He sits the clearly nervous and excited kid down and proceeds to get a two hour long lecture about the Galahkari along with Clarus and Cor. About their language, its relation to Sol - how most Galahkari actually can speak Sol - and how that fact alone gives at least some creedence to their oral traditions. How the Galahkari argue old histories for fun, how holding grudges nigh on a national sport for them.

It's interesting, Regis thinks, informative, and will help him with strategies concerning the Galahkari going forward. And then the young man in front of them drops the one thing that can transform international and national relations between the two people.

The Balck Ships, as the Galahkari call them. The Conquerors Fleet. It had actually reached Galahd. It had reached Galahd and the Conqueror had tried to do what he had been named for. And he had lost an eye for it along with most of his ships. The Galahkari had lost many people along with their then leader. A man named Perses Ulric.

Things are starting to make a large amount of sense and neither Regis nor Calrus nor Cor like it. The implications of what actually happened. How does one pay reparations for something that happened nigh on 2000 years ago? Does one pay reparations for something that happened so long ago?

From a Lucian position the answer is clearly no. But for the Galahkari? The Galahkari who apparently know what their ancestors a few hundred years ago had for breakfast? Who argue about what happened on that one wedding that was five generations ago and make it sound like is was five years ago? Would they want reparations? An apology? Acknowledgement?

This is something Regis will have to ponder carefully before making a decision. Though no matter what, this knowledge will inform all future decisions going forward.

[johnconstantinesdick]

Your Gilvek rants/AUs/headcanons give me LIFE. (And yes, Klaus, Tarvek is /just/ the kind of son-in-law you DESERVE. It is PUNISHMENT for all your sins come upon you!)

Shdhjsnekenshhe THANK YOU. They’re just. The perfect combination of devoted and deranged and dumb as all hell.

I think the true tragedy in Klaus and Tarvek’s awful father-in-law/son-in-law relationship is that, like. I think the two of them would get along SO WELL if they didn’t have such shitty history together. They’re really similar people and they could really mesh! They even share a lot of the same values! Not, uh. Not always good ones, but they’re shared. Unfortunately Klaus had to bully an eight year old out of school. So.

[suzukiblu]

Pedro headcanons for @hamelin-born, via some headcanons about Alma.

Obviously a man with a thing for music. OBVIOUSLY. Alma likes music, yes, but the overall family appreciation for it was largely inherited from Pedro. Not that they really know that, because Alma only talks about him so much, but absolutely it was.

Alma really does avoid talking about him. She loves him painfully and completely and lost him in a completely unfair way, and it's just too much sometimes. Most of the time. Pretty much always. There are several reasons she never moved on or remarried and they almost all stem from her unwillingness to let go of that pain, even as she strives to make sure that the rest of her family never feels it.

Other things Pedro loved that Alma was quietly devastated by her children's eventual interests in: cooking, acting, and being outside in the weather, be it rain or shine. He was easy to read, passionate and emotional, and loved things wholeheartedly and without reservation, and before he died Alma could meet him in turn on all of those things. After . . . well. After was after.

He and Alma were a lot alike from the beginning, and they bonded immediately and easily. Falling in love was perfectly natural from there. Pedro fell in love first, but they both adored each other from the start, and he didn't have to wait very long for Alma to catch up.

The portrait came from Casita. It looks exactly the way Alma remembers Pedro, if perhaps not always exactly the way he was.

[angelrider13]

On a side note - in 'A Sea of Lotus Flowers'? The youngest Jiang generation - JC's adopted kids - probably don't initially react - *well* to WWX. The man's open and gregarious with his affections, and he's probably regard JC's kids as his niblings by default and - default to how he interacts with JL. Good natured teasing and over-the-top-ness, a certain possessiveness - and the Jianglings 1) Don't react as anticipated 2) Don't really like this *presumption* from a stranger.

@hamelin-born

WWX has a long way to go to get into his niblings’ good graces.

But that’s the thing. To WWX, these are his precious niblings on the same level as JL. But to them, WWX is a stranger. They don’t know him. And they don’t really know of him either. They know how his reputation has been blown out of proportion and warped and twisted to suit the narrative the cultivation world wanted to tell. They know it’s not all true. They know it’s not all false. It doesn’t change that they don’t know him.

And yet he barges into their lives with familiar touches and teasing pet names and...it’s uncomfortable? They don’t know this man. He doesn’t know them. Why is he touching them?

See, these children chose their family. They chose Jiang Cheng. They didn’t choose Wei Wuxian.

And WWX comes along like everything has already decided. JC had hesitated. He had worried and deliberated, but in the end, he made an offer. He let the children decide. Let them choose for themselves. WWX is deciding for them. He’s acting like their decision included him when it did not.

And it might take WWX a bit before he realizes that.

[caparrucia]

@hamelin-born replied to your post “If you want to understand my personal brand of...”:

Would you perhaps be willing to share your thoughts on lawsuits that some of us find interesting/amusing but fundamentally do not really understand the nuances of?

​See, I'm torn, because I'm not a lawyer and my law background is purely academic and from an outside perspective. I'm not American and I look at the American legal system like a curiosity, because it doesn't (usually) directly impact me.

So when I read things and I turn out to be wrong, it doesn't matter. It's just a "oh, I get it" moment and I move on.

But if I speak publicly on it, I run the risk of spreading misinformation. I'm careful with the opinions I share in a public space, or at least I try to be, because the nature of social media is that once you've put it out there, it's out there, you can't take it back.

With lawsuit stuff, as much as this is personally entertainment to me, it is very real for the people existing under those laws and the precedents they set can impact them directly. So I feel it's inappropriate of me to make public comments on it.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Prompt: NHS is a twin.

The only thing Nie Huaisang and his twin sister fought over was, predictably, their da-ge’s attention.

It was his own fault, really, for giving them so much when they were younger – no matter what lesson he was doing, what training, what important work, Nie Mingjue would drop everything for them at once, and that made it hard for them to adapt when he became sect leader.

When he didn’t have nearly as much time for painting – for shopping – for tending the garden – for building them things at the forge –

There was still time for saber practice, though.

Ugh.

“Come on,” Nie Yiyuan said, shouldering Shengyu with a grimace. “It’s a worthy sacrifice. We need to get him to go outside – it’s for da-ge’s own good.”

“I know,” Nie Huaisang said, dragging Aituan behind him. “I know. That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“Like I do!”

“I know! But you’re better at it!”

“I am not! You take that back!”

“Won’t!”

“Take it back or else!”

“Why are you fighting?” Nie Mingjue said, poking his head out of the sect leader’s study with a concerned expression. “You shouldn’t fight –”

They tackled him at the same time.

“Why do I keep falling for this?” Nie Mingjue asked the ceiling. “Every single time.”

“Because da-ge loves us,” Nie Yiyuan said. “Obviously.”

“Love makes you susceptible to trickery,” Nie Huaisang agreed. “Bad habit, da-ge.”

“Bad habit or no, I’m not going to love either of you any less,” their brother said, wrapping his arms around them – he had one arm for each of them, and Nie Huaisang had never been happier about there being only the two of them and no more. He wouldn’t want to share his da-ge with anyone but his sister. “Get used to it.”

“That’s okay,” Nie Yiyuan said. “As long as it’s just us.”

Nie Huaisang had a good sister. Their minds ran on the same track.

Most of the time.

Nie Yiyuan didn’t like Meng Yao for some reason that Nie Huaisang couldn’t quite understand, even though she never showed any surface signs of disliking him, either; if you didn’t know her as well as Nie Huaisang did, you would never know that she was wary of him.

“What’s the problem?” he asked her when Meng Yao was on a mission far away. “What did he do?”

“Nothing,” she said. “There’s just something about him that I don’t know if I like.”

“What is it?”

“He likes da-ge a lot,” she said, and held up a hand to forestall Nie Huaisang’s inevitable question of isn’t that a good thing. “It’s the way he likes him that’s the problem. He looks at him the way men look at women.”

“So what?” Nie Huaisang asked, puzzled. “It’s not like da-ge doesn’t cut his sleeve sometimes, too; a male lover would be fine –”

Nie Yiyuan hit him upside the head. “If I’d meant that he looks at him like a lover, I would have said so,” she scolded. “It’s not like that. It’s not love. It’s…I don’t know if I can describe it to you. It’s something you figure out pretty quickly when you’re a woman, but it’s hard to say.”

“Change clothing with me,” Nie Huaisang proposed. “I’ll go out and see if I can pinpoint what it is, since it’s not something I see all the time.”

They did it for a month, and at the end of the month he tried to convince her to swap over to boys’ clothing permanently just to avoid the hassle, although she just laughed at him and refused.

“Did you figure it out?” she asked.

“Yes,” Nie Huaisang said. “It’s possession, not affection. Men feel entitled to women, whether to look at them or just to feel superior to them, and they get angry when women don’t fit the mold they’re meant to.”

“Yes, that! That exactly!”

“And you think – Meng Yao? But what could he possibly expect from da-ge that da-ge doesn’t give him? Da-ge likes him, he gives him everything.”

“I think Meng Yao feels entitled to what he already has,” Nie Yiyuan said. “I think he takes da-ge for granted.”

Nie Huaisang frowned. He didn’t like the sound of that.

“It’s okay,” Nie Yiyuan said confidently. “There’s two of us – we’ll keep an eye on him. No, better, we’ll stick to him like rice; if he doesn’t have space to make trouble, he won’t.”

It gave Meng Yao a bit of the wrong idea, given that he seemed to have started to wonder if Nie Yiyuan wanted to marry him, but they were able to catch him when he seemed to be considering some sort of deal with Xue Yang – bad Meng Yao! – and hastily diverted him at the right moment before he stabbed one of the more irritating commanders during battle – worse, Meng Yao! – and in the end, perhaps, he was the happier for having his schemes beaten down.

Nie Mingjue certainly was – and wasn’t that what mattered?