i do think it’s really funny that the elves treated vespera as this horrible scary secret that nobody alive knew about anymore and then at the same time luzia vacker was just chilling over here like “oh yeah she was my toxic lesbian coworker”
okay pyrokinesis ban lore (plus some other stuff that’s totally relevant trust) that is totally going to become canon in book ten shannon showed up at my doorstep just to tell me this so listen up y’all
@crescentpaws @the-lemonaide @l-art-stuff-l you all showed interest so. enjoy this ramble ig
basically the theme of this entire headcanon is propaganda. hashtag nobody knows the whole truth
let’s go back to the beginning. the original council. the first three councillors. fallon. fintan. and . . . vespera
think about it. it makes sense. there were three original councillors, but only one legendary family? so what happened to the other two? well fintan was disgraced and vespera was forgotten, leaving fallon to be the one to take all the glory. but we aren’t there yet
luzia is also extremely important. she was vespera’s best friend, fallon’s sister, and fintan’s mortal enemy (i headcanon that they have always hated each other lmfao). she was basically an honorary fourth original council member, but they decided to make a rule that only one person from a family could serve at a time, so she was officially excluded because fallon
anyway. all is well for some time. but then, luzia discovers that vespera is experimenting on humans and using her position on the council to wave everything off. even though vespera is her bff, she’s horrified, so she tells the other two councillors: fintan and fallon
i asked for pyrokinesis ban lore what is going on- shhhh. we’re getting there. it’s all connected
anyway, luzia tells them because she wants them to get vespera to knock it off but she doesn’t actually want vespera to be punished. because they’re besties
fintan is horrified and immediately demands vespera be locked up. fallon is somewhat horrified but luzia is his sister so her insistence that vespera not be punished wins out for some time
with only two councillors, fallon’s vote against punishment overrules fintan’s vote in favor of punishment
fintan threatens to walk away from the council if vespera is not locked up, so finally fallon caves and gives his vote. the council unanimously votes to throw vespera in the lumenaria dungeon. luzia fights this decision hard. it was not her intention for vespera to be punished, she just wanted her to stop the experiments, which is why she told fallon and fintan. unfortunately she is not officially a council member so it doesn’t matter
and that’s how vespera becomes the first ever forgotten secret. they get so embarrassed they wash the memory of vespera’s crime out of everyone’s heads and give the memory to fintan to safeguard, since he was the most vehement about vespera being locked up
vespera hates luzia now, because luzia is the one that got her turned in. even though luzia also pleaded on several counts with fintan and fallon to let vespera off the hook. luzia hates fintan, because he’s the one that convinced fallon to change his vote to lock vespera up, when he was originally going to let her off
anyway i wonder if luzia’s hatred for fintan will come back ohohohohohooohooho i hope not *throws foreshadowing at you like confetti*
okay now to the relevant stuff. before the ban, pyrokinesis was one of the most prestigious abilities ever. like telepathy-level prestigious. it makes sense if you think about it. fire is light, and the elves love light. pyrokinesis is also extremely rare, and rare abilities are worshipped. it was a deadly combination (pun not intended) and everyone adored the ability. kids were jealous when their friends manifested as pyrokinetics. parents begged the ability detecting people to trigger it in their kids. etcetera. not to mention a founding member of the council was a pyrokinetic
sorry shannon i do not buy into that propaganda that pyrokinesis has always been a hated and feared ability even before the ban!!!! nope!!!! wrong!!!! that’s just post-ban propaganda to justify the ban
equally as adored as pyrokinesis was fintan himself. you know that thing councillors do when they’re trying to get people to trust them where they take their circlets off? yeah fintan was the first to do that. he invented it. it made him extremely popular. every councillor that does it is copying him, whether they know it or not
fallon. on the other hand. not popular. like at all. nobody really hated him per se, it’s just that everyone liked fintan better
anyway fast forward a few centuries after the vespera incident. luzia is married now, to a pyrokinetic
this dude (he does have a name. i’m not sharing though) invents the celestial festival. that’s right . . . the celestial festival was actually a fire show. which nobody remembers because they’re too busy buying into the propaganda that pyrokinesis has always been a hated ability even before the ban . . .
the celestial festival is an instant hit. everyone loves it. it makes the vacker name explode in popularity, even more so than the fact that fallon is literally on the council
anyway this guy and luzia have orem. this is when fintan gets the inkling that everblaze is a possibility
over the next nine years, orem grows up, and fintan does research. he discovers a mechanism by which it is possible to call down “the fire of the sun on earth”. meanwhile, luzia flexes by bending the literal freaking sun for no reason because that’s something she can do apparently
luzia’s husband is super fascinated with luzia’s ability to bend the sun, so naturally, when fintan proposes the everblaze lesson, he’s extremely intrigued. orem is nine now
everblaze incident
screaming and death
luzia is furious. understandably. she’s grieving and orem is so young and is now fatherless. she also hates fintan, has hated him ever since he got vespera locked up (she doesn’t remember vespera’s crime but she does remember the surrounding context)
meanwhile, the council is trying to decide fintan’s punishment. they decide a worthy punishment would be to strip him of his title as councillor and throw him out of the nobility
but luzia is so angry that she doesn’t feel this is enough. it isn’t enough for her that fintan is being thrown off the council. she wants him disgraced and humiliated. the grief from everblaze incident combined with her grief from vespera’s loss build on one another until she thinks up the unthinkable
luzia comes up with the idea for the ban
unfortunately for her, this is an uphill battle. pyrokinesis is an incredibly revered ability, and there is no precedent for banning abilities. fintan is also a beloved figure. in fact people are mad that the council are thinking of throwing him off. people are so enamored with him that they want him to stay on the council, and want him to be punished a different, more lenient way
and there is another roadblock in luzia’s way: her son, orem. what if he gets his father’s ability? it could ruin his life. she’s not willing to do that. he’s only nine and hasn’t manifested yet. she tells herself that flashing is a far more common ability than pyrokinesis, and that he’s basically guaranteed to get it. but it’s not enough for her
meanwhile the council are still trying to decide on a punishment for fintan that won’t make the people riot. rumors also circulate that the everblaze incident is a conspiracy created by fallon to ruin fintan’s image, because he knows that everyone likes fintan more. people are so not on board with firing fintan (pun once again not intended)
fintan is extremely guilt ridden because of his role in what happened and tries to placate people. he accepts that he will have to step down, even as people beg him to stay
luzia proposes her crazy idea to fallon in secret, who tells her she’s insane and that banning an ability is disgusting and is a violation of the fundamental principles of elvin society
but luzia is insistent. she is so obsessed with revenge on fintan, especially over the vespera thing, that she doesn’t even care. she’s always hated fintan, and the everblaze incident provides a perfect opportunity to punish him. being forced out of the nobility isn’t enough for her
she does ask fallon to keep it a secret until orem manifests though. her plan is basically to walk the entire thing back if orem ends up a pyrokinetic
luzia doesn’t hate pyrokinesis, because nobody hates pyrokinesis. she just hates fintan, and she’s just way too consumed with the idea of destroying him. fintan steps down officially around this time, and bronte replaces him
orem becomes a pre teen. around this time it’s leaked somehow that the idea of banning pyrokinesis has been proposed. it’s only a rumor, but it makes people furious. also scared, because if an ability as prestigious as pyrokinesis could be banned, then all abilities are at risk
somehow luzia eventually wears fallon down. it takes some time but she somehow manages to convince him that banning pyrokinesis is in everyone’s best interest. fallon is once again a weak coward that caves to his sister’s demands. this man has never had a single original thought istg. he’s worse than luzia to me because he knows that it’s wrong and he still caves
despite everyone and their pet gremlin being mad, the council has the final say in everything. but! orem still hasn’t manifested. this ushers in a period where pyrokinesis is kind of legal and kind of not
the pyrokinetics become extremely aware that orem is their only hope. they know what fallon intends to do if he manifests as anything but a pyrokinetic. some of them try to force orem to manifest the ability through long, marathon ability-detecting sessions. but you can’t manifest an ability that’s not there . . .
meanwhile fallon has managed to convince the rest of the council to ban pyrokinesis in the extremely likely event that orem doesn’t manifest the ability
shortly after he turns fourteen, and five years after the everblaze incident and fintan’s retirement, orem manifests
as a flasher
not a pyrokinetic
pyrokinetic 9/11 has come. the final nail in the coffin
the next day pyrokinesis becomes fully illegal. the ban officially goes into effect. fintan supports it, thinking that it’s fallon’s idea, and he trusts fallon’s judgement (like an idiot). he’s also extremely guilt ridden so he feels he deserves it. all the pyrokinetics in the nobility are kicked out
the public is officially terrified that their ability will be next. everyone hates this ban immediately. there are several attempts to reverse it within the first few years. the council has the final say in everything, so they are all put down
fintan is extremely absent during this period. he’s still coping with the original everblaze incident and his guilt over it, so he basically stays out of the whole thing, fighting his own demons
orem grows up and learns of how his mom was responsible for the ban. this turns him against her and he hates her now, saying it was a betrayal of his father. luzia insists that he’s dead and can’t be affected by the ban, which further alienated orem. orem hates fallon too. he tries to revamp the celestial festival tradition as a way to honor his father’s memory but the pyrokinesis ban literally made the celestial festival illegal. so orem takes over, thinking he’s keeping his father’s memory alive
little does he know, this would only serve to bury his father’s memory further as more and more people come to associate him with the festival instead of his father . . .
as the ban becomes the new normal, fallon and the council work to erase all trace of the five year gap from the record. the ban happened because of the everblaze incident. the everblaze incident caused the ban. this is what everyone needs to believe. it becomes common knowledge that the council banned pyrokinesis, resulting in fintan having to resign from the council, rather than the other way around: fintan resigned because that was supposed to be his entire punishment for the everblaze incident, and the ban happened later, almost like an afterthought
several centuries later, fintan learns that luzia was the one who came up with the idea for the ban, not fallon. this makes him furious and is pretty much the catalyst for him turning against the ban and the council
around this time, fallon also steps down from the council. he is a legend by this point. all trace of the backlash he received when putting the ban in place has been wiped from history. this makes fintan only more angry
orem also tries several times to reverse the ban and is unsuccessful every time. he and luzia don’t speak. they haven’t spoken since orem found out she came up with the ban
a significant portion of fintan’s guilt also stems from the prestige pyrokinesis used to carry. he knows that if it weren’t for the ban, pyrokinetics wouldn’t just be not hated and not feared, but revered and worshipped. it was like going from being a telepath to being talentless
all this to say: the ban wasn’t even really fintan’s fault, it was fallon’s, for putting it into effect, and luzia’s, for coming up with the idea. the everblaze incident was somewhat of a convenient excuse. the ban was never supposed to happen, and certainly wasn’t supposed to be the consequence for the everblaze incident, it was essentially a fluke
I decided to draw more of the ancients when they were younger I'll definitely be drawing more specifically Elysian(I rlly want to draw her) and probably fallon
I feel so bad for Vespera rn like both her love intrests treated her i the worst way possible. One of them jailed her for millenia and the other blew her up.
realizing that what stood out to me about Fallon and Luzia being introduced is that Fitz whispered covertly to Sophie that they had different dads and Sophie was like 'omg u mean their mom got a divorce!??' when like. if someone had to WHISPER to me about their relatives being half-siblings I would NOT assume it was because of divorce.
ok technically i think the book says step-families/step-parents which means she could be thinking about a divorcee or a widow. and technically i know Fitz whispered bc that's way weirder to elves than to humans. but like. idk smtg abt THAT reaction to half-siblings stood out to me.
